Nice things

once again -

" there are nice things in the world---and I mean nice things, we're all such morons to get so sidetracked." (Salinger, Franny and Zooey p.152)

I know I can often get caught up in the analysis, and sometimes, allow things to appear like they are worse than they really are. But really, there are some really nice things going on here that I notice, so I thought to honor a good line from a good book, I would have a blog on nice things that I notice in Honduras. It will be a random list that I will update as the situations arise. And, those in Honduras, feel free to add anything you notice, love, can think of or are enjoying at the moment, in the comments, or send me an email and I'll add them to the list - with your name attached, si quiere.


Primero:

Dia de los ninos - I might have a blog entry about this, but I may not have time, so for now, a nice things entry will do. They have a day for children like mothers day or fathers day; many Americans say every day is children's day, but I don't know, I think I beg to differ, and maybe the day of the children here is just giving kids more of what they don't need -- kitchy toys and candy and pop, but it also allows for a time for everyone to stop and celebrate, and enjoy having fun and being silly, and I think, well, maybe in the US we just need a sill day, but I can understand calling it a children's day because us serious adults would not admit to needing a silly day; I think I do, often. I was talking to a coworker, that we call Carlito who compared it to Halloween, a similar idea, that makes sense to me; because I guess on Halloween we do all get dressed up pretty silly and crazy and have fun taking on other personas. Anyway, where I work, well its basically a community organization that does micro-finance but many other things too, I should, write a blog explaining that. Anyway, part of the project is a low income Christian primary and high school that has been around for around 14 years. Well, our office is inside the school grounds, and right outside our window is their recess/play and assembly area. So, yesterday for children's day, they had a program with a couple of plays. It is always fun to see teachers making fools out of themselves to make children laugh, and this group of people seemed to not be very self conscience about it at all. There is a T.V program called "Del Chavo del Ocho." a very funny one that many people/kids like, and these teachers and some people from my work seemed to mimic this program very well; possibly catering it to the school, but that I would not understand. I may post the video of it here. But that I liked. Celebrations seem to be over the top here, and ya, kids get pretty spoiled on this day, and the day becomes commercialized like so many holidays in the US, but hey, I like the idea.

Other nice things:

The drive from Gracias Lempira to Tegucigalpa, the road was bastante fea..more than that really, but a nice thing, is Amanda, who is "connecting me" with her husband Andrew to my SALT job; gunning it in the truck at the right moment, and using just the right amount of force in the right places to get us out of a sticky situation in the mud in the road, and keep us from spinning. We were all very proud of her. But the fea'ness of the ride allowed for a lot of laughter, because when things are just a little crazy and bizarre, well there's not much less to do than laugh. Other things that happened on that trip: a crane almost missed its destination, and came very close to dropping that pile of dirt on our car; there were few signs and the signs that existed pointed in the wrong direction on worse roads through little towns, while on one such bad direction, a group of men and boys working outside greeted us, one man saw it necessary to salute us, and on the way back, when we realized we were going the wrong way, he insisted on saluting us again. In the end Amanda just kind of picked roads, and somehow, we ended up at the town where we were to meet up with an actually paved road - in La Esperanza.

La Esperanza is another nice thing, and I especially like the town square with a fountain; where kids played and many talked, and there were no ants on the grass when I laid in it.

But yes, the drive it self was beautiful, going from one spectacular mountain range to another, different feels, like driving West in the U.S. I tried to take pictures with Andrews camera, but we were driving around mountains after all.

Futbol --Right now are the preliminary games for the World Cup, maybe you are watching them at your house for the US team, but I can assure you it will not be like here; last night the whole town was alive, I will write about this one "creatively" because it was awesome; with every goal that Honduras scored, and they scored 2 you could hear cheers from all over the hill, and firecrackers as well; after a while I went to bed because I figured I did not need to watch to know what was happening, use my other senses for this one.

Trumpos - Tops, in Copan a lot of the kids had plastic tops that they spun from a string that they were very good at making spin, and then putting on their hand to spin some more --- this all took technique which I did not have, the kid who was showing me grew impatient.