The Breeze of Liberty

Today was our third day of conducting surveys in the town of Las Brisas de la Libertad (The Breeze of Liberty). As our fearless leader, El Boludo, likes to explain: " Estamos conduciendo encuestas." This translates to "we are driving surveys."

The first two days were pretty rough, partly because we were still experimenting with the format of the surveys, but mostly due my inability to hide my dry personality and awkwardness for the whole situation. It's not easy to walk in to a wooden shack and ask a work-hardened, middle-aged woman about her children's education, her financial status, and how familiar she is with computers. The humility and melancholy in the villager's eyes can be contagious. By the end of the day, my shame and frustration at being so ignorant to these people's situation was clearly evident and was begging to sink into a depressive mood.

Today, I knew I had to take a different approach or I wasn't going to make it through another day. Our group's goal became less going from 1 to question 2 but rather engaging the people in conversation. And it seemed to work: we were more friendly, we cracked jokes, we talked to the children and the people replied by being more open and sharing more of their personal lives. We actually got a couple of pretty cool stories.

One man was a US citizen on vacation staying with his wife. He is a metal worker in Baltimore and he explained to us the history behind the word "gringo." According to him, around the time of Cold War, the communist states bred distrust in Honduras of Americans out of fear of US control of Central America. Thus, when the Americans came down and handed the impoverished Hondurans dollars as a sign of charity the people disliked the green currency and said: "green, go!" From here rose the word "gringo."

Another woman asked us to examine a sheet of paper that she had been keeping since her retirement from one of the local sweatshops. It was in english, so she had no idea what it was but she knew it was important. After looking over it, Rob and I realized that it was a stock title for 2 shares of the Gildan Athletic Wear company, which we later found to have a value of about $34. In very simple terms, I tried to explain to the woman what she had in her hand (mostly because even I didn't know how talk about stocks in Spanish). As the newly appointed stock brokers for this community, we promised her that we would return with the price of that mysterious piece of paper.

As we continued our interviews, we began to be amazed by the number people still suffering from the effects of Hurrican Mitch in the late '90s. One group of 9 adults and 4 children were sharing a property consisting of mud and stick house with wood oven outside. One old man complained about how the flooding had forced them to sell everything and move to this infertile higher ground. "You find work where you can," he said, "it's too hard to farm here." Yet even in these words I found a hidden enthusiasm that encouraged me to keep going and find out more about the interesting stories behind the lives of these people.

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.

Rabbit, King of the Murcielagos

We've settled into a nice habit of sipping gin and tonics in the poolside courtyard garden next to the ice machine, Rodrigo and I.

Day Two in Copan, the Mayan ruins three hours away on the Guatemalan border, and its lovely little town with its cobblestone streets, three-wheeled taxis, and more hippie-gringos with Macbooks than I would have thought possible in Honduras after my experience in grittier Progreso. Unfortunately we missed Secretary of State Clinton on the chicken bus, she was whisked in and out by helicopter yesterday. Copan is the most intact example of an old Mayan city-state, once called the Bat-City/Ciudad de los Murcielagos (A second compelling reason, Dennis and Tim, to visit). The king who built the massive stone temple and ball courts was named Rabbit, further convincing me that I am his reincarnation. Turns out to be a more epic nickname than Joe Jablonski might have expected, I'm pleased to discover. Except for the part about the king having to pierce his tongue and genitals in front of the people as part of a religious ceremony.

Maybe worse, imagine what kind of hell it was carrying stones on one's back to make these altars of human sacrifice in the middle of a jungle. Appropriately, our guide was one Virgilio. He was pot-bellied with an outie as enormous as his smile. The city of the mucielagos was eventually brought down by a rebellion of the lower class in the 800s, for those who would claim that Honduras is the only Central American republic without a major leftist revolution. When the Spanish arrived, they found only ruins; archaeologists like Virgilio have been trying to put it together for about a century. Except for the Americans who stole Eighteen Rabbit's stone (all the kings have hieroglyphs that run up the huge staircase of the pyramid-temple) and brought it to the Peabody in Boston. Where he is living without a visa, a smiling Virgilio added.

We took some good pictures climbing around the temples (and you will spot more than the occasional macaw) that I will share as soon as I find a way to upload them.

Huge ceiba (silk cotton) trees grow out of the temples and their gigantic roots (think Tarzan-scale) crumble the ruins. For the Mayans, they were a symbol of life, stretching down into the underworld and up into the heavens. Rodrigo commented that its a great image of nature outlasting and overpowering passing human civilization. But you can also see it as a dramatic symbol of the great life of this civilization. So I enjoyed the vibrant two-hour Mass, the only white person in the Church of San Jose, conspicuously standing two heads taller than everyone else and fumbling with the Spanish. The Mayans still do human sacrifice right.

Tomorrow we start our surveys. God bless.

Horseback Diaries

It turns out that Rob and I skipped the night club last night for no reason. We got up at 4:30 AM to catch the 7 AM bus at San Pedro Sula only to find out that it didn't leave until 11 AM. Disappointed, we made ourselves comfortable at the bus station; 7 hours later we were standing on the cobblestone streets of the City of Copan, home to the most famous Mayan Ruins in Honduras. It is picaresque city surrounded by a sprawling mountain range, this country's version of an old European mountaintop village. The air is crisp, the people friendly, and, contrary to most of Honduras, the streets are safe at night. Our late arrival made it impossible to visit the ruins, so we left it for Monday. Instead, a couple of SHH folks and I decided to take some horses to the top of a local mountain.

I can't quite describe how epic this was. The journey began with a pleasant walk through the city streets as we struggled to steer our horses around the incoming moto-taxis that zip about Copan. We continued over the Copan river and through the local farms, in which our horses normally toil. Being my usual self, I tried to turn our expedition into a race and repeatedly attempted to urge my trusty mare Princesa into a gallop, but she refused to go beyond a quick trot.

Once at the top of the mountain we dismounted to take in our destination, the Hacienda San Lucas. I could not help but be entranced by the breathtaking serenity of this place. On one side, a curtained gazebo covered in cushions overlooked the postcard-worthy view of the Copan valley. A Hippie couple followed us in as we immersed ourselves in the Zen-like atmosphere amid the aroma of cocoa, coffee, and banana. Following in the tradition of the place, we performed a Yoga sun salutation as the Honduran sun began to sink behind the mountains. We then proceeded to quietly sip wine while observing the fantastic view once more.

As moving as this was, I don't think anything got close to my conversation with our humble but very knowledgeable guide Ruben, a local campesino struggling to find work farming corn and beans. He explained how many of the rich families were usurping the fertile lands and refusing to use them for cultivation. As I looked at this earnest, hard-working man fitting so well into this landscape, I couldn't help but picture this as a black and white flashback from the Motorcyle Diaries.

On the ride back down, I was estatic with joy at the fact that I succeeded in urging Princesa into a canter for a total of five seconds. Just for the record, I also won the race.

The night culminated in the "Lun Club", a local gringo bar with a ping pong table that I soon took over. As the night drew to close, our group was approached by and gang of Honduran machos and their girls looking to avenge their soccer loss the US. Their starting man was struggling, so he handed the paddle over the Honduran National Table Tennis Champion. After Bobby was narrowly dispatched, it was my turn to carry the American/Argentinian torch. Despite severe disadvantages, including a heavily Honduran crowd, severe inebriation, and a 5.6 earthquake, I mounted a valiant comeback to win the match 23-21.

Epic day, if you ask me.

Buena suerte la proxima vez, Honduras

As if driving through Honduran traffic wasn't dangerous enough, we decided to put our lives at risk once again by going to watch the Honduras U.S. World Cup qualifying match at the movie theater in the nearby mall. Any doubts we had about how important this game was to the country were quickly dispelled by the entire shopping center packed with Hondurans wearing the national team jerseys. Our fearless leader, El Boludo, caved in to the enormous pressure and actually decided to support the local team by wearing one of these jerseys, for which he received severe ridiculing from Rob and me.

As we walked into the theater, we were greeted by obvious glares from the locals, perhaps a little confused as to why we would try to walk into a standing-room-only theater full of screaming Hondurans. After sitting through an hour and a half of painful soccer the Americans came out on top 2-1 after which our group quickly made our way to the exit. I tried to keep a low profile while Rob and Bobby (a good friend from SHH) wasted no time in talking trash to a couple of ten-year-old Honduran kids in broken Spanish. We were invited to the local club "504" by a couple of very pretty catrachas but decided this would be pushing our luck a little too much. Plus, we have to be up tomorrow at 5 AM to leave for the Mayan ruins of Copan; I think "504" can wait for next weekend (or monday, every day is a party here).

Barenas en Tela

Alternatively to be titled "Best Day Ever".

We went to a village near Tela del Mar called Triunfo del Cruz with three of the SHH folks (Bobby, Samantha, and Christian) where for about $10 you can drink beers on the most beautiful white sand beach you've ever seen and float naked in the clear water of a totally deserted beach. (No fish took the worm, gracias a Dios.) That also included a great fish I had, which had been caught that day and fried up (Fiesta Cove-style) with the head still on him. These are the first photos I'll send back when I can, though I doubt it will reassure UVA that its funds are being well-spent.

Rodrigo observed that you could hold the bottle of Barena (Honduras's Corona) up against any background in sight, and it would look like a commercial for the most fun anyone was having in the world. A few of the local black children brought over their bongos and convinced our fearless leader, El Boludo, to dance La Rumba. By all accounts he failed to shake his hindquarters adequately, and the negritos were not at all impressed. Therefore he had to pay them 5 lempiras.

The road to Tela is one of the most notorious sites for kidnapping in Honduras. (Which in the second most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere is pretty badass.) This sort of sordid business happens when you have to stop to cross a temporary one-lane steel bridge over a beautiful gorge. We made sure to do both in daylight, and everything went smoothly except for a red pickup truck with a yellow tarp (presumably whose melons were filled with cocaine) that got pulled over at the heavily-armed police checkpoint.

More dangerous was the traffic. The major highways in the country are two-lane roads where you pass over the yellow. Ideally when there is no oncoming traffic, although most Honduran drivers are oblivious to the possible health risks of a head-on collision. We saw approximately six close calls and the remains of a police truck that had no miraculously narrow escape.

Tonight we declined to go out to the club (although Saturday night is where it's at, apparently...) after the Honduran-U.S. soccer game which we watched in a crowded theater (the entire megaplex was sold out and showing only the game). Even though Rodrigo wanted to grind on this orphan. Mostly because tomorrow we'll wake up at 4:30 to catch the bus out to the Mayan ruins at Copan.

Headlocked in the (Sweaty) Armpit of Honduras

"En Progreso?" Hondurans are generally astonished to find Americans working in their country's fourth-largest city, a backwater provincial town on the road between San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba, popularly considered the armpit of the country. A poetic way of explaining why I am always drenched in sweat.

It lacks a functioning postal system. One of the men with one of the nicer homes along the main highway explained to me that his mailbox was mostly decorative; he only received a few bills (for which his address was a lengthy description of his home and location, there are no street names). So while Dan was good enough to pick me up some postcards, I may not be able to send them.

The craziest thing in this dusty city are the walled pockets of wealth, a megamall and new university, built with money from Hondurans living in the States. Another American export is the Baptist mission trip. 20 North Carolinians came through and gave us the temporary relief from being the most obliviously stereotypical Americans in the region. They were on a dental mission to a rural village eight hours away, probably because half the colonias around here, with their "Iglesia Evangelica" signs, are already "saved". (By which I suppose I mean lured away from the salvific power of the sacraments for a bag of vitamins.)

We, by which I mean Rodrigo, gave a presentation on our project at UTH to recruit some collaborators on our project that know the country, the language, and most importantly have cars or trucks. Our surveys, which will compile data both for our project and SHH more generally, have been written and translated. As Rodrigo and I translated them (80%/20%) over at SHH headquarters, Dan, Tian, and Brandon managed to get locked in the hotel room by the maid. They called about a half-hour later, before we had the crisis of conscience to go rescue them, to say that they had been let out and the doorlock had been broken.

Last night we also started making plans for a trip down to Nicaragua the second week of July, which Bobby, one of the SHH volunteers, is possible to make cheaply. The plan would be to take a chicken bus (because they "stop at every piece of chickenshit") first to San Pedro, then down to the capital, and finally go by yet another bus to Managua. Though I don't know if Val (or anyone) would be willing to host whatever we look and smell like after a month here. The trick, we've been told, is to look as much like scruffy penniless backpackers as possible. Dennis and Tim, mark down this stretch of the continent for an excursion (like Eustace Conway), we would be in our element.

So the plan is to break out of Progreso for a few days for a little excursion or two, to the beach at Tela del Mar and the Mayan ruins at Copan, on the chicken bus.