I Know It's Not Precisely "Irony"

I realize that five sweaty Americans riding around in the back of a pickup in Honduras isn't exactly called "irony", but you would know what I meant. That's what we spend a lot of our time doing. Last night we went ape back there with a case of the cerveza nacional on the way to the El Salvador-Honduras qualifying match in San Pedro Sula. The atmosphere of a Central American grudge match (keep in mind a major war was fought over this exact match forty years ago) is pretty memorable. First you have a 20ft trench running around the field, the inner wall of which rises into a 15ft fence inclined towards the stand, barbed wire running along its length. Should the mob break through, you have the cordon of riot police and soldiers around the entire circumference of the field. They also had to add a second line of riot police on either side of the Salvadorian section, after a major fight broke out. Lest you think the law has the upper hand anywhere in Honduras, the stadium packs 50,000 and beers are 75 cents. And we couldn't resist buying a round every time the guy in the Virginia Cavaliers shirt passed by selling his.

Honduras won the match 1-0, which means free drinks tonight at all the bars. We survived the human tide squeezing itself through the little gates back into the (chaotic) parking lot after the game. You can actually feel the crowd surging back and forth, as if the entire mass of people wants to get through the two-person-wide gate all at once. Dan and I also survived the irresistible turtle eggs one of the vendors was peddling. It just tastes like washing something of a strange consistency down your throat with hot sauce.

We have begun surveying one village, Las Brisas, to determine what kind of media access and education levels exist there. For such an awkward scenario, they have been going pretty well. The villagers, although politely confused, are for the most part enthusiastic to participate. Their children (curious and out of school because the teachers have gone unpaid) trail us through the streets so that by the end of the day we have a massive following of shirtless kids parading behind us. Our clipboards and American accents grant us some legitimacy, even if I walk around all afternoon with a tired toddler on my shoulders explaining in rambling four-year-old Spanish how best to be a burro. It's cute.

The sum of all the little things here push it beyond reality. Dan shimmies up a palm tree to get a coconut when we're thirsty. No flushing the toilet paper. The giant wad of L.500 you shell out for two soccer tickets, a relatively enormous expense, is actually $25. The shower shocks you because live wires run to the electric showerhead water-heater. A young girl shows Dan and Rodrigo proper machete technique. A tethered monkey climbs on the roof next door. And there are still no traffic laws.

I know its not exactly irony, but nothing here really syncs with any reality I am familiar with.