Adios

     43 hours from now I will be boarding a plane which will take me to Houston. 53 hours from now I will be landing in Minneapolis. The adventure I set out on nearly 10 months ago is very nearly over, and I'm confused. Over the last week I've said goodbye to my high schoolers, wished them luck, and wiped away tears. I've taken my last trip to the grocery store, handed in my last grades, ridden in my last way-overcrowded taxi. I've had my last conversations with several of the other teachers who have already left Honduras and packed up the majority of my belongings. I'm ready to go home.

     Not only am I physically ready, I'm mentally prepared to go home. I want to see my family, my friends, and sleep in my own bed. I can't wait to walk down the street without worrying about being run over by the trucks that zoom past pedestrians much too close for comfort. I'm anxious for the cooler weather. I'm excited to be able to go into a restaurant and know they'll have something for me to eat. I'm ready to go home.
     And yet, I have a pit in my stomach telling me I'm going to miss this place. All along I've known I was going to miss my students. They're the reason I stuck it out this long, they're what made this whole insane journey worth it. I've known I was going to miss the other teachers; some of the friendships I've made here will last a long time, and I cannot imagine my life here without them. Those things haven't changed. Saying goodbye to the people I've grown close to has been and will continue to be the hardest part about leaving.
     But I realized today that I am going to miss more than the people. There is something about Honduras itself that I am going to miss. I couldn't for the life of me tell you what specifically, but I know it's there, otherwise I wouldn't have been so emotional lying out in the hammock watching the clouds slowly descend over the mountains.

     I am going to miss this country. Not in the way I miss Minneapolis or Europe- the kind of missing where you know somehow you belong there and are simply waiting for the right time to go back. That's not what Honduras was for me. I don't belong here. I don't want to put roots down here. I'm going to miss Honduras in a different, but no less poignant way. Honduras challenged me like I've never been challenged before. It pushed me and nearly broke me, but I made it through. I finished something important here that I wasn't sure I could. I accomplished something that seemed impossible at times. Honduras made me into a stronger, more confident person, and you can never truly get away from a place like that.

21 Days

21 days from now, I'll be home. 21 days from now I will have finished my year in Honduras, packed up my life, and flown back to the States. 21 days from now one of the hardest, and most rewarding years of my life will be over.

When I started this job, there were times when I doubted that I would make it through. There was a period of about two weeks in October when I was just waiting for the right moment to tell someone I was done and ready to go home. I could not imagine staying for the whole ten months and the mere thought gave me a panic attack. I almost gave up.

I'm so glad I didn't. These last 9 months have challenged me more than I ever have been before. They tested my patience, my planning skills, my capacity to accept people for who they are instead of who I want them to be. These last 9 months pushed me hard, harder sometimes than I wanted to be pushed. In these last 9 months I've cried with frustration, anger, and helplessness. I've stifled enough inappropriate comments to fill a novel and if I had a dime for every time I said the words "sit down" or "be quiet" or "put the phone away", I would be a millionaire several times over. But I've also laughed. I've seen growth and maturity and empathy come from unexpected places. I've seen how rewarding it can be to have hard work pay off, and felt the pleasure of a mild, "I told you so". I've recognized the pride that comes with a job well done and known that I played even the tiniest part in that success. I've seen just how much a well-timed encouragement can do. These past 9 months have taught me what it really means to be a teacher.

This has been an incredible year in many, many ways. At one point, a thought danced across my mind: if it's been so incredible, how can you leave it behind? I can leave it behind because this was an intense year emotionally, mentally, and physically. Intensity is a wonderful thing; it can mold and shape people in ways they don't understand. But when pushed too far, intensity can break people. I don't want that to happen. After all the trials and tribulations of this year, I want to leave while I'm on top and not give this place a chance to turn on me. I need a break. I need normalcy. I need rest.

So, yes, I'm more than ready to return to a city and a life where I can walk down the street without heads turning to follow me and can maintain a healthy diet without a regimen of pills. I'm eager to reenter the lives of the people I've left behind time and again. I cannot wait for the slightly cooler weather. As happy as I am to be going home, there is a part of me that will be sad to leave this place. And it's not a small part, either.

When people ask, as they will, how my year was, I will never be able to fully convey my experience here or what it meant to me. But I do have a simple answer, one that will suffice for those passing inquiries: It was a good year. A very hard year, but a good one.

Semana Santa: Comayagua

     The day after our trip to Cayos we re-boarded a bus to take us back to San Pedro where we planned to catch another bus to Comayagua, a town in central Honduras about 1.5 hours from Pena. Once again Melissa and I waited at the bus station for Sam to get back from dropping Rachel off, and by the time we set off looking for a bus in the direction of Comayagua, it was around 2:45. Now, we had done our research. We knew that there wasn't going to be any public transportation on Friday, which is why we had booked our Comayagua hotel for two nights. We were prepared. Except for one thing: our research had not turned up the fact that not only was there no public transport on Friday, the buses stopped running by 3 on Thursday. In fact, at 2:45, there was only one bus company going to Tegucigalpa, with only one bus left to leave, and it was full. It looked like we were going to be stranded in the bus station in San Pedro.
 Until a Honduran man who had noticed us wandering around the bus terminal asked if we needed any help. After confirming that there were no buses left, he said he would help us negotiate a taxi fare for the 2.5 hour trip. A medical student who had also missed the buses and was going in that direction would be joining us.
     Our helper (whose name we never found out, but God bless him for taking care of us) escorted the four of us out to the taxi queue where we were immediately surrounded by pushy taxi drivers lobbying for our fare, which was obviously going to be quite large. We refused to pay more than 500 lempira each (about $25), finally got someone to agree to that price and climbed into his taxi. We drove no farther than the exit of the terminal parking lot when he stopped the car. Apparently he didn't have the proper paperwork to leave the city in which case I'm not sure why he would accept a job to Comayagua, but this is Honduras and I've learned not to question certain things. He passed us off to another taxi driver who did have the license.
     Now, this guy was one of a kind. Like all Honduran men his hair was slicked back with about 2 pounds of gel, but he also wore a bright Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, white denim jeans, and sunglasses with 'lol', 'ttyl', 'brb', and other text-speak plastered all over them. His taxi was equally flamboyant: there were four or five Prince Royce concert t-shirts draped over the seats, plastic leis hanging from the rearview mirror, seashells and a starfish resting on the dashboard, and, la piece de resistance, a medium-sized disco ball hanging between the two front seats, effectively rendering the rearview mirror obsolete.
     After forging and re-forging the dates on his permit to leave the city, we were on our way. In all honesty, it's probably a miracle we made it to Comayagua in one piece. He tore down the highway, blasting Bob Marley. In his desire to get us there as efficiently as possible, he spent most of the time in the middle lane of the three-lane highway, regardless of which direction that lane belonged to at any given time. He took the curves of the mountain roads in ways I've never experienced and that, combined with his overpowering cologne, and the loud music, gave me a raging headache.
     The three of us in the backseat kept looking askance at each other, silently asking if this was actually happening. It was one of those things that we could never have made up in our wildest dreams. If there was ever an item on any of our bucket lists like an absurd "this cannot be happening right now" moment, we definitely checked that box off. When we did finally arrive in Comayagua, we all clambered out of the car as quickly as we could, thanked and paid him, and set off to our hotel.


     Before I continue, I need to explain something. The reason we chose Comayagua as the destination for the second half of our break was their Semana Santa traditions. As the oldest colonial town in Honduras, it has quite a few of them. The first glimpse we got of these traditions was after dinner. We left the restaurant and walked right into the audience of the Last Supper reenactment going on in front of the Cathedral. There were 13 men standing around a table, miming to a pre-recorded tape of the event. This being Holy Thursday, we watched as the sacrament of communion was instituted, Jesus' prayers and frustration with his disciples in Gethsemane, his arrest, beatings, and visit to Herod. It was clearly meant to be a serious occasion, but the soundtrack they had chosen as the background was from Star Wars, which destroyed the mood for me a little bit. Nonetheless, it was very well done.

     But we weren't there for the Last Supper reenactment. We were there for the parade on Friday morning, or more accurately, the sawdust carpets that were to line the parade route. As the parade was due to start at 9 o'clock, we woke up at 7 and were out the door by 7:30 to insure we were able to see as many as the carpets as possible before they were trampled by the holy procession.
     They were absolutely incredible. Some were intricate and detailed, others were made of large geometic shapes. Some took up entire blocks, others were only a few feet square. There were images of Jesus, Mary, crosses, Stations of the Cross, and lots of other religious symbols. They must have taken hours to make, and soon they would be nothing more than a pile of multi-colored dust. The artistic skill was obvious, but my admiration went far beyond aesthetic appreciation; it takes a special kind of dedication to work so hard for something so fleeting.

     We spent almost two hours walking around, taking pictures of the carpets before finding a spot from which to watch the parade. At 9:45 we'd been waiting in one place for about an hour and nothing seemed to be happening. We asked one of the locals when the parade was supposed to start and she told us it had already had. Within 10 minutes we could see a float about a block away, but for about another 5 minutes it didn't look like it was moving at all. We were all wondering what was taking so long. Well, we were about to find out.

     The first wave of marchers was made of altar boys swinging incense followed by a high-ranking Catholic priest (bishop? I don't know enough about the Catholic church) who was in turn followed by two long lines of nuns. Our chosen spot was right next to the reenactment of Station 4 of the Stations of the Cross, and I can only imagine they repeated this process at each one of the 13 other stations. First they sang, then, as the nuns and other singers moved on, the float began to approach.
     It quickly became obvious that this was a float of the crucifixion. It was carried by probably 20 men in red and white robes with red, pointed hoods that looked eerily like Ku Klux Klan outfits. This was the first sign that we did not know nearly enough about this tradition and that we were going to be mystified by what was going on. Just as the float reached us, it stopped and the men carrying it began to sway back and forth. Suddenly, from the other direction, a second float approached, this one a representation of Jesus' words: You who are free of sin shall cast the first stone. The stone float approached Jesus, they bowed to each other, the stones turned around and returned the way they had come. This happened three more times.

     Then another float, this one with a person of indiscernible gender carrying a cup came and bowed to the Jesus float. We thought initially this was Mary, but five minutes later, a woman who was obviously the Queen of Heaven arrived and repeated the bowing process of the other two. It made absolutely no sense. After what seemed like an hour, the entire procession began to move again and we felt that we could make a retreat away from the crowds of people and find something to eat. As we walked backwards along the parade route we saw people on their hands and knees scooping the dust into bags and water bottles.

     We returned to the main square almost four hours later and the parade was only just entering the Cathedral for the crucifixion. Those poor men in those robes. They had looked tired and hot when we had seen them earlier after only an hour of carrying those figures, now they looked like they were on the brink of collapse. It was a hot day, sunny, and they were in at least three layers of clothing carrying these heavy figurines. I have never seen anyone more relieved than them once the floats had been safely deposited along the aisles of the Cathedral.
     The crucifixion service itself was not at all what I had expected. Every Good Friday service I've attended has been solemn, dark, quiet, and subdued. This was none of those things. There were people standing in the pews taking pictures of the Jesus figure on the cross. The songs sung were, if not joyful, certainly less-than mournful, and sun was streaming in through the windows. I never got the feeling of gravity that other services have given me. We left relatively quickly.

     That night, we left the restaurant where we had eaten and walked right into the middle of another parade. There was nothing about it in the guide we had picked up, but judging from the timing, maybe it was the funeral procession? I'm not sure. The first seven pieces of this parade were very young girls, probably 4-5 years old, dressed in pure white and sitting in what was clearly meant to be clouds. It wasn't until the third had passed us that I realized each girl was representing one of the things Jesus had said while on the cross. They were followed by the mysterious goblet-bearing figure from earlier, Mary, and St. Veronica with her handkerchief. Finally came Jesus on a funeral bier surrounded by plastic baby dolls and an angel standing guard. It was an overwhelming experience, especially because we had absolutely no idea what was going on.

     We spent another 30  minutes or so in the main square people watching before retiring to bed. In the morning we got a taxi to the bus stop where we caught a bus back to Pena Blanca. On Easter Sunday, for the first time in my life, I didn't go to church. Instead, we celebrated Easter by visiting the orphanage just outside of town. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful week.

Semana Santa: La Ceiba

Last week was Semana Santa (Holy Week), which in Honduras is basically a nation-wide spring break. The country shuts down and heads to the beach, and we were no exception. Three of us made plans together: four days at the coastal city of La Ceiba, then down to Comayagua a town in central Honduras known for its Semana Santa traditions. As there is more than enough for one blog post in each half of our trip, I will be splitting it into two to make it manageable for myself and to avoid overloading you with information.

     Sam, Melissa, and I left Pena Blanca early Sunday morning for San Pedro where we would be meeting one of Sam's friends from home who would be joining us for our time in La Ceiba. Because of a delay at the airport and a bus ride that took much longer than it should have for reasons which never became clear to us (although the simple fact that we were in Honduras could be reason enough), we didn't get to Ceiba until long after dark by which time we were so tired, hungry, and cranky that we weren't up for anything more than bed.
     With the combination of the ages-long bus ride the night before and the weather on Monday, our week of vacation got off to a slow start. For the first time in months we had rain during the day, which put a bit of a damper on our plans to relax on the beach. Instead, we went to the mall and tried to kill time, hoping that it would eventually be nice enough to spend time outside. Talking to our driver confirmed what we had already suspected: that while there is a lot to do in La Ceiba, it all depends on good weather, which is something we didn't have.

After a morning at the mall and the early afternoon spent in our hotel room, the rain finally stopped and the sun made attempts to break through the clouds. So we went for a walk along the ocean. The stretch of water in front of our hotel was bordered by gross beaches lined with trash but also the beginnings of an attempt at rehabilitation. A boardwalk was under construction and while it was not much further along than the beginning stages, it looked like it could be very nice. A pier stuck out from the boardwalk, creating a clear divide between the relatively wealthy part of town and the run-down shacks just across the street. This contrast between the well-off and desperately poor is one that is prevalent in Honduras no matter where you go. Rich and poor are pressed up right against each other, only heightening the contrast between the two ways of life.

     Tuesday was also fairly uneventful, but better because the sun finally came out. We walked about 10 minutes to a pool club where we swam and had lunch 20 feet from the crashing waves of the Caribbean. It had taken a while but it finally felt like spring break. After spending several hours there we moved back out to the actual beach. We lounged outside one of the most luxurious hotels I've ever seen and pretended it was ours. The waves were huge and the bottom quite rocky so we didn't do much actual swimming, but we frolicked in the sand and soaked up the sun before heading back to our hotel.


     On Wednesday we got up early for the main event of our time in La Ceiba: a trip to Cayos Cochinos. Cayos Cochinos is a group of protected islands just off the coast of Honduras known for its diversity of animal life and excellent coral reefs. It started off looking like it was going to be just as dismal a day as it had been on Monday, which fortunately turned out not to be true. Lined up on the beach were about ten 16 passenger motor boats and just about enough people to fill all of them. The trip out was rough with high waves that bounced the boat like a rock being skipped across the surface of the water, which was uncomfortable but better than the alternative of rolling back and forth.
     We first disboarded at Cayo Menor, the smaller of the two main islands, for an informational talk about the importance of maintaining the islands exactly as we found them. There was also something about turtles, their eggs, and Viagra, but my Spanish is not advanced enough to have understood that portion of the talk. I presume it had to do with leaving the eggs where they were and not consuming them as alternative medication.
     They then took us to a beach with the clearest water I've ever seen. Set back from the sand were two or three houses and some children from those houses came to greet us, one of them holding a snake which he offered to people for photos. Imagine living in this island paradise with boatloads (literally!) of tourists arriving every day to gawk at the scenery that is nothing more than your backyard. This is one of the things that strikes me the most when I'm travelling; that the places I'm visiting actually do belong to people, or people belong to them, and what is spectacular or exciting or interesting to me is just their life and doesn't hold nearly the same fascination.
     The next stop was the snorkling. I'd gone snorkling for the first time in Utila at the end of October and enjoyed it, but that was nothing next to this. The reef was teeming with life, colorful fish darting in and out of hidden crevasses, purple fans waving in the tide. As I took it all in I couldn't help but think that this was the most surreal thing I'd ever done. Not necessarily the most interesting or exciting thing, but the most otherworldly. There we were, floating along, buoyed by the salt water, looking down at an alien world that we couldn't enter. You're totally isolated from people despite being so close to them that they would occasionally brush against you in an arm stroke or a kick. The only sound you can hear is your own Darth Vader breath through the tube connecting you to the outside and every so often, the echo of a splash. It was utterly fascinating, but exhausting.
     The last stop was at a island that was barely more than a sand bar sticking out of the sea but was crowded by wooden huts of a Garifuna village. The Garifuna are a group of people descended from the West Africans who intermarried with the natives of Central America and now live all the way down the Caribbean coast from Belize to Nicaragua. They fed us lunch before we reboarded the boats for the trip back to the mainland. The trip back was no better than the trip out, but I was so exhausted that I could barely tell. In fact, I almost nodded off to sleep several times and jerked awake with a particularly abrupt movement from the boat. I was afraid I was going to topple off the bench seat and into the laps of the people behind me. Luckily, that didn't happen.

     We spent that evening people-watching (and being people-watched) on the pier. A man brought his daughter up to speak to us in English and then, through her, told us he thought we were beautiful. A woman brought her teenaged son over, spoke to us in broken English, and then urged the boy to talk to us. He shyly said, "I don't know what to ask", and we reassured him that that was perfectly all right. For better or worse, I don't think I will ever feel like as much of a celebrity as I do here in Honduras, where people stare at us no matter where we go or what we do.
    The next morning we left La Ceiba for San Pedro to drop Rachel off at her hotel before we headed to Comayagua for Good Friday. That was an adventure all its own...stay tuned!

Science Fair

I have to apologize deeply for my absence from the blogosphere recently. It's been a very intense several months and writing about it for public viewing was the last thing on my mind. Now that Spring Break is upon us, I think I'm ready to get back into an outwardly focused mindset.

     Today was the science fair, an annual event at Lake Yojoa. It involves the entire school, from preschool up through high school. Each class is divided into groups of 4 or 5 and told to choose a project, venture a hypothesis, test/build, gather results and then create a presentation to be given in both English and Spanish. Each division (Preschool/Kindergarten, Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary, and High School) is awarded a first, second, and third prize for group projects and two individual awards for best speaker. This is a very big deal.
     It is such a big deal in fact, that the students have been focused on very little else for the last week, if not longer. I got a regular day of class in on Monday, but starting on Tuesday, the pressure against having class and instead being given time to work became almost irresistible. And honestly, it's been such a long two months, two months without a day off school, two months of heat, emotional turmoil, and frustration, that I didn't put up much of a fight.

     However, even those most strongly in favor of having work time were rarely using the time to actually work. Another recent development in the high school is an obsession with chess- I didn't think anything could occupy their attention as thoroughly as a football game could, but these chess matches seem to have come close. So when given instructions to get some part of their assignment done, more often than not a select few would actually work but the rest would settle into seats, heads propped on their hands, eyes focused on the miniature battleground in front of them. Those who have not succumbed to the strategic beauty of the game kicked a soccer ball around. Apart from two or three dedicated groups, very little work got done in these class periods.
     As the week went on and my lessons became increasingly hard to teach and the day of the science fair loomed closer, I got more and more frustrated with their behavior. On Wednesday, I came back after my lunch break to supervise and found several of my students throwing a large cake knife at a makeshift target they had set up with a chair and the seats of two desks that had long since been dismantled. The now-ever-ubiquitous chess matches were going on, and one group was lounging on the porch like they had nothing left to do when in fact they didn't even have a project yet.
     I left school that day so incredibly frustrated I could barely see straight. They had made me so angry and disappointed me so strongly that I dreaded coming into school the next day. I had had enough of their attitude, their utter disregard for authority, and their complete lack of motivation.
     Thursday was a little better; I helped with some translations into English and learned more scientific Spanish than I ever thought I would. I felt like I, and many of the students, had accomplished something, which is more than I could say for any of the previous days and I was ready to face the science fair without tearing my hair out.

     I had planned on spending the day wandering around, chatting with students, and watching some presentations. However, one of the 1st-3rd grade judges didn't show up so I was recruited to serve as a judge, my students being old enough not to need my presence at their own judging. This, by the way, resulted in a disappointing lack of photos; I wanted many more than the couple general shots I got. So I spent the day more productively than I had anticipated, although I missed out on most of what I had wanted to see: the 'hard' work of my students.
     As judging came to a close and I was able to talk to my kids and ask how their presentations went, I was impressed by what they were able to tell me. Talking to the English teacher who judged them was even more encouraging, he said they had done very well by and large and that I should be proud.
     And I was. Unlike the other teachers, I knew that some of my kids were going to win. I teach all of high school and they were in a category of their own so it was really just a matter of which groups would take home the prizes. Even so, my chest was absolutely bursting with pride as they called my kids up onto the stage. I wasn't even surprised because I had seen the judge's results sheet. And when an underdog group won it all, seeing the complete shock and delight on their faces made me grin so hard.

This past week has been an encapsulation of my time here. I've struggled with my kids, I've nagged at them, gotten frustrated, and never wanted to see their faces again. But I also laughed with them, encouraged them, pushed them, and helped them. And in the end, I wouldn't have it any other way (maybe that's not completely true; I wouldn't mind a little bit more cooperation). Because all the nonsense they put me through makes days like today so much more special. I told each and every one of them that I was proud of the work they had done, and I meant every word.

That feeling is what I'm going to miss most about teaching, whenever my teaching career ends.

Home for the Holidays

     One of my new year's resolutions is to be better at keeping up with this blog. Not only does it allow me to update those of you who are willing to put up with my ramblings, but writing for an audience (however limited it may be) helps me to process things in a way that very little else does.

     As most of you know, I went home over our two week Christmas break. I needed to go not only for practical reasons like medications, but also to reset my brain. My first four months in Honduras were such a roller coaster it was hard to separate myself from that experience. Going home allowed me to get away from everything related to life here: the kids, the climate, the cat-calls, the other teachers, the diet, the firecrackers local kids set off right in front of our house because they think our startled shrieks are funny. As much as I've grown to appreciate most aspects of life here (cat-calls and firecrackers being the notable exceptions) I needed some distance if I was going to continue living here.
     It worked like a charm. Two weeks at home, with my parents, sisters, best friends, real food, and snow was exactly what I needed. It was comfortable. I've been many things in Honduras, but really 100% comfortable was rarely one of them. I loved knowing where I was, where I belonged, and realizing that none of that was ever going to change. In some sense, my life in Minneapolis will always be there for me. Businesses may come and go, friends may move away, but Minneapolis will stay the same. As I've said before, I will always consider Minnesota home. I have roots there that go too deep for anywhere else to hold that distinction.

 However, I don't belong at home. For those two weeks, yes. Any longer than that? No. As much as I love the communities and groups of people that make Minnesota home, they're not what I need right now. I don't need comfort; I need challenges. I need to push myself forward, to move beyond the 18-year-old I was when I did belong in Minneapolis. The woman I've grown into needs more adventure, more uncertainty, more spontaneity.
     Having recently turned 25, people have been teasing me about having a quarter life crisis. 25 seems like such a significant number, placing me firmly in the adult world. 25 is when you're supposed to have your life figured out, to have a job you plan to continue for many years, to have a car, maybe even have a significant other with whom you're beginning to think about the rest of your lives. I don't have any of that. And that's ok. My 18-year-old self who got anxious at the mere thought of any of her plans falling apart and not knowing which direction she was headed would not have been able to say the same thing.

     So even though I don't know where I'll be a year from now, or even 7 months from now, doesn't really bother me. I'm not worried about a quarter-life crisis, because the life I've chosen to live is constant chaos: moving around the world, meeting new people, building new relationships. Crisis mode never ends; it's just a very different kind of crisis. Not everyone could live this life. Not everyone wants this kind of life. I get that. But as much as I sometimes wish otherwise, this is the life that I want. I want to find things out as I go, to take one step at a time and not worry too much about what is coming next. When I find something that makes me want to stop living this life, I will consider building another home for myself, and putting down roots somewhere new. I just haven't felt that yet and I don't think I'm ready for it.
    Maybe that's why, as the plane took off and the lights of Minneapolis disappeared behind me, my face broke into an irresistible grin and I nearly laughed out loud.