Lesson in Humility

Lesson part 1: I´ve always thought of myself as kind of a tough guy, able to weather the elements etc., although I would never publicly admit it. So when I brought a jacket to Honduras I never really excepted to wear it unless I was sick or something. But as you can guess, yes I have brought it out. I guess I have adapted more than I thought, I don´t know the actual temp as there are no thermometers in my site, but it can´t be less than 60. I´d still be wearing shorts in the states at 60, how will I survive the winters when I get back? In my defense the wind has been howling at my site and has only recently let up. My room faces the direction of the aproaching wind and every morning I wake up to find leaves covering my mosquito net that blow in under the tejas (roof tiles). Makes cleaning the room a pain.

Lesson part 2: I need practice. I joined the second soccer team (roughly like JV) for my site as the first team is quite good. We scrimmage a few times a week and generally play other towns on Sundays. I did alright in the first game, but in the second I got eaten alive. I was still thinking I could play like I did in highschool, but that was 5 years ago, practicing often, and with out the weight loss from a diet of rice and beans (I´m not wasting away for those of you who are prone to worrying, just hard to maintain muscle on this diet). Can´t hit as hard as I used to and I was on the recieving end of most of the blows. The old Rob would never have even shied from a blow let alone be felled by one, but I still have pains and bruises from the game last Sunday. One partically rough blow from behind left me in the dirt and wanting to come up swinging (the old Rob would have just stepped it up a notch and sent the guy a strong, but legal, message on the next exchange). It was the first time I felt truely alone, the crowd jeering at the defeated gringo, and wondering if anyone would have had my back if I had actually decided to retaliate. I might have been living with these guys for 2 months but I´m still the foreigner and the two towns have been neighbors (if rivals) for years. Not quite the same as being on a close knit, sweat and bleed together team in the states.

Lesson part 3: Get over cold water. I must admit that I have slacked off a bit. It´s not really apetizing to pour buckets of cold water over yourself when the ambient temperature is less than warm, and lets be honest, I´m not really sweating, or really getting dirty wearing long sleeves. No need to torture myself every day unecessarily right? So the day I decided to wear my sombrero instead of my gorra (ball cap) because it had a tighter fit and would be less likely to get blown off in the strong wind and also happend to decide to stand next to a pond (seriouse lapse of judgement on my part) when the wind took it beneath the surface I gave it up for lost. It was something out of a comedy; me flailing to the water´s edge just in time to see the sombrero sink under the water some 20 feet from shore. With the chill from the wind there was no way I was going in after it. After standing there looking at the wind ripples on the surface for a while some guy I´m fairly certain I hadn´t met before (at least not formally introduced) showed up, stripped down to boxers, and dove right in like it was a heated swimming pool. He retrieved it never expecting anyting in return as far as I could tell. I have a lot to learn.


Project status update: stalemate. No news on the property for the represa, just rumors that it won´t go through. There is a lot of dissent in the town over the water project and others. Some people still managed to not darse cuenta (realize) when the water and sanitation volunteer came back a third time to extend the study, so some people are still angry at not being included. Others say the water source all but dries up in march, which is probably exagerrated but with some truth, and that the the electrification project is more important. I did manage to get a water committee elected during a town council meeting so I have something to go with. The catch is the fact that many of the town members who had showed up left early angry at not being included in the previous laterine project (although there is an extension awaiting approval by the mayor, who probably won´t do anything in his last year if he is not relected in the primaries on the 30th), or in the water or electrification studies because they didn´t fulfill their obligations (like contribution of funds to the community treasury and days of labor to help out). So they will now likely complain about how the committee was elected. It has been harder than I thought to work with the ¨there´s always tomorrow¨ attitude and the fact that equal opportunity is sometimes distorted to come out like something for nothing. Some do not get that the projects are equally available to all who fulfill their obligations; those who do not do not have the same right as those who do, and that after a certain extent it really has to be time waits for no man or things never get off the ground. I am also trying to look into other things to do in the community and to think of something I could possibly do for my master´s international research that is both remotely feasible and related to geology.