Merry Christmas

I am in Utila, a Caribean island off Honduras and Christmas time has come and gone both eventfully and uneventfully. I wondered the span of my luck as, upon a self-guided running tour of the island I was gifted a show of a baking soda bubbling waves dashing against and over five meter high dried coral reef mixed in with various land vegetation. There were some waves that reminded me of a physics experiment I did in high school, where one person had a string and had to quick create a ripple that traveled along the string all the way to their partner. It was much better though, watching physics in actiopn without human manipulation, as the wave sensation was what we were trying to arrive at in the experiment after all.

As my muddy tour continued, I was greeted by whatever bright colored you can think of butterflies, and black with a tinge of purple birds in a canopy of viny and tropical trees. I was met by the salty air whose scent seemed to tell me that it was perfectly OK and actually preferable to slow down for awhile.

With all such vivid stimulation, backpacking foreigners and familiar styles of stores and restaraunts, I almost began to forget I was in Honduras, almost began to forget the slum neighborhood that me and my traveling companions had just come from. Until a friend from the neighborhood popped in my mind. Then I began to realize that though Nueva Suyapa contains its own flavor of beauty, it is surrounded by the crime, poverty and desperation they have begun to call home for so many years. Necessity doing its job in blinding them, as it would me if I had such things to consistently worry about, to the beauty of the view of the sun setting behind the far mountain and over the whole of Tegucigalpa from the soccer court in Onesimo or the sun rising behind the mountanita that friends and I run up. Sometimes we looki down instead of up I guess, when muddy bumpy roads and wind seeping through fagile walls surround us. I have also been blessed with the outside perspective of that neighborhood, as I am blessed now with a traveler´s insight and curiousity in Utila.

I did spend Christmas Eve and day in Nueva Suyapa, and I was very glad I did. I mixed my activities, spending some time with friends and come time with the family I was staying with. It was quite an international Christmas Eve, as the Danish volunteers here put on a Danish Christmas lunch which involved roasted duck and a wonderful sauce, gift giving games and some playing legos with children. I guess that wasn´t much unlike my usual Christmas celebrations where I often at some point find myself playing with children.

There was a lot of food involved, as everywhere I visited insisted I eat. The tradition in Honduras is to eat larger tamales stuffed with pork, rice and potatoes; delicious chicken sandwiches made in some well stewed sauce; torejas, a doughy doughnutty treat drenched in honey and of course...oil; squash also drenched in honey and chicken stuffed with, you guessed it, more meat. I must say it was a good thing, for my and hospitality´s sake that I had long given up the conscience driven desire to be a vegetarian. We´ll work on that when I get back.

In Honduras, everyone eats in shifts, guests first, ¨man of the house¨ second (my favorite tradition....) children next and cook last. Usually, all eating in the living room in front of an always on TV. I thought Christmas was different, big feast oriented like in the States. It wasn´t, I ate a chicken sandwich in the morning, then the danish duck, tamales in the evening and, a toreja at my friend´s house after church and, if you can imagine, the double meat meal, served alone with tortillas on Christmas morning.

I did attend church, the slacker way, after all the preaching was done. I was in time though to watch all of the ¨especiales¨, the highlight of which was the mid primary school children dressed in paper and cloth angel costumes with glitter spray painted paper wings. They sang a few songs, and there is a kid in the choir that loves to sing, and sing loud. He is not too of key, just aways a little low and booming. Because he sticks to it, they always seem to put the microphone near him, which I think, is unneeded, and it often ends up that only he is heard.

I was kind of disapointed with Christmas day at my house, as it was a ¨watch Chrsitmas cartoons all day¨day. At my house in Chicago, we sometimes had the tradition of watching Christmas movies, so that was OK, but the all day thing got to me. We did not exchange gifts as there was no pisto, and my family never really carried on that tadition. It was a unique and I think good for me experience to have a giftless centered Christmas. The focus in Nueva Suyapa seems more on people since things are hard to come by. However, on my trip to the mall Christmas day (can you believe it) to follow my personal tradition of last minute gift creating, I realized that materialism has seeped its way into, in a big way, Honduras´s Christmas, only it was those in the upper classes that indulged in it. There was a 100 ft. line of people of all classes to get the new Digicel cheap deal cell phone. Now it was starting to feel like home, memories of tickle me Elmo and Teddy Rubble flashing through my mind.

I was not giftless though, as my workplace did an ¨amigos secretos¨ that everyone went all out for, interestingly enough. I was surprised when, thinking my gift was good, I was outdone by people buying this very same cell phone for one another. It seemed that this work celebration was probably the biggest celebration that most of my co-workers would experience this Christmas, making the actual day anticlimatic. We sang Karoake and had a time to say what we thanked God for, which did remind me of my own family celebrations, and helped me get to know each of my coworkers better.

To finish off Christmas celebrating in style, I danced the night away with my Honduran family, quickly and awkwardly trying to learn Honduran dances like the punta, a typical dance from the Honduran Afro Carribean group the Garifuna.

I hope to pick up where I left of with my lack of dancing ability in the once was home of this very group, the Bay Islands.

Just so you know, I have a plethera of pictures available on my picasa website, that I just uploaded at: http://picasaweb.google.com/home.

A la Ruta a Copan

It is 12:00pm on a Sunday afternoon, I am on the road to Copan, not unlike that first Sunday I arrived and traveled in Honduras. I think about the things I was thinking about then and how much they stuck. How the defeats and triumphs, messes and well-architectured creations followed me, as they often always do, to the new distant place I was choosing to reside.

On my trip back to where I started, it all seems to come full circle.

A child yells “Adios” to passersby, to gift a greater recognition of his and the bus’s presence. It is nearing Christmas time in Honduras and the ones on the empty billfold side seem little to notice or to mind. Presents and abundant food less missed when the lack of is not brought to light by T.V shows and advertisements all too commonly watched in my parts. Allowing immediate escapes to trump long term investments is a tendency too often turned to here. However, having similar natural instincts, to a degree, I understand.

A vendor or three jump on to sell icecream, chips and other frozen treats. Each a different product for a prospective different person. I make small talk with a child sitting on a stool next to me. He is admirably confident and knowledgable of the area and my guessed destination. The once heavily laborious execution of the language flies effortlessly off my tongue now.

I was on my way to dreaming about flying over the mountains we were speeding around when the anticipated but undesired necessity of giving up my seat came. A water logged single mother with a four month old baby, an also swimming four year old and six year old child mount the bus. She said they all walked two hours from her parent’s house up in the mountains. Baby still beautifully wrapped and intact, cooing and giggling at any attempt at interaction.

The driver attacks the curve and aces it every time. Bags flying and children crying are its battle wounds. One with a fuller billfold or a larger loan holds her bag of perfectly bowed presents.

The winding doesn’t bother me like it used to, but I notice our new busmates are having a bit of a tougher time. The four year old and six year old take turns throwing up as me and my friends take turns comforting them and searching for solutions to motion sickness.

Me and a friend get pushed to the back by the possiblility of more passengers. We are the ones sitting on stools now. During Christmas there seem to be higher volumes of travelers forcing higher regulations on the bus drivers, hence our need to appear somehow and somewhat seated, regardless how safe.

My mind doesn’t stick anymore like it did before, now maybe just a calm gentle swirl of past stuck items. I am more than grateful. Messages breeze past me in unattached clumps; aware now and once again that something greater than myself is at work amidst and around me. I am appreciative for such a conflicting yet conscience altaring bundle.

The gifts of one with fall on the ground. I am reminded I can help as well as watch.