Not to get all sentimental

but it was great to have my dad and brother come with me back to my site in Honduras after my week in the states. My logic held that it would have been more difficult to come back if I had stayed longer but the week flew by too rapidly. I had hyped up the visit to myself too much and although the reason I went back was for my sister´s wedding (which was great by the way), I had a laundry list of other things to get done but accomplished few of them. Except for the weekend (which the wedding pretty much occupied) everyone was working and I spent most of my time running around shopping for stuff I thought I needed and for requests that friends in Honduras made. So when all of a sudden the week was up and I had to get back I was pretty bummed. I also forgot to take into account that I am "between worlds" and that is probably a significant reason why home didn´t quite feel like home. Having my dad and brother come along eased the transition substantially, and being responsible for the two of them (as neither of them has a substantial spanish vocabulary) made sure that I didn´t sink into a post trip funk. They also helped remind me that although I may not have accomplished a lot on paper, I´ve experienced and learned a lot. Example: my dad was really interested that my host brother traded a cow and calf for a motorcycle where as I never thought twice about it. I´ve learned that here cows function almost like a savings account with a bank.

I learned that translation is a power I´m almost reluctant to wield. Don´t get me wrong; it is an amazing gift to be able to link people who would otherwise never be able to share thoughts and experiences, but the relationship between these people who could otherwise only smile and nod rests on your shoulders. Not only can it be exhausting but one inadvertent slip could really affect things for those who communicate solely through you and depend on you to correctly convey their words.

My dad was great. At first I was mildly annoyed when he kept talking to everyone in English while they stared at me dumbfounded but I soon realized that it made the conversation so much more natural. Rather than him only talking to me and me in turn to them, he was talking to them and all that was left to me was to catch them up to speed. He also put on an amazing English class for the students at the school (I was pleasantly suprised that they were able to recite the ABC´s I had taught them) which I will be hard pressed to top. We were able to get the school´s solar panel working again (I must admit I was very reluctant to mess with someone elses expensive stuff, it´s another thing to tinker with your own) but maybe the best result is that it motivated my oldest host brother (29) to get involved (He even helped show an educational DVD for the students on the day I left to drop my dad and brother off at the airport). My dad left the tools with him so hopefully this will help inspire him to continue his self·learning. The outstanding question is why did 2 of the 6 panels in the array quit working when panels here are often guaranteed for 20 years, and why did the group who came from Canada (or the States, story changes depending on who you talk to) did not leave a manual with a reliable member of the community (supposedly one was left but no one knows what happened to it) or train someone on mantenance, or at least leave directions on where to look for help when the system fails?

I was really impressed by my brother. While we were messing with the solar panel my youngest host brother (10) showed up to ask if my (real) brother (12) wanted to swim. As I could see my brother was quite bored, I sent him along ... and he didn´t come back. Despite not speaking more than 10 words of Spanish he hung out with the neighborhood chiguines (kids) for the rest of the day and took many opportunities to disappear with them to swim and play some futbol (soccer) during the week. I would have been terrified to have been on my own not speaking the language at that age.

Of all the stuff we brought back to Honduras, for me the most gratifying were the books in Spanish. In the community people almost never read, partially because it´s just not common but mostly, I think, because the only real books available are usually locked up in the school. When I brought out the books it was cool to see everyone around flipping pages and neighbor kids stopping by to scan a few lines. Even my host father complained to me the next day of a headache from reading too much. My dad also brought with several donated laptops, some of which I´ve "leant" out to interested youth in the community. I hope to pass on the litte bit of knowledge I have to them and the students in the school. The problem is that the laptops have XP in English, there is only one of me, and there is a very, very limited number of options to keep computer batteries charged (and let´s not talk about the options if a laptop should break).


A little bit about what has been going on:

Due to popular consensus, the school garden was put on hold to wait for the second half of the rainy season so the kids would not have to water. The more or less month long dry spell, known as the "canicula", is almost over so hopefully we can get started soon. Now we will be limited to planting vegetables that will produce in around 2 months as school lets out in November, and mayber earlier as this is an election year, although who knows what will happen with the current golpe de estado situation.

I finally got a chance to ride a caballo (horse) again after many months. The catch: I was on my own taking food to my host dad who was with the cows on the other end of the spread out community. I went embarrassingly slow to avoid breaking my leg right before going to the states but I eventually made it. Thankfully the horse was tranquilo (calm/easygoing) and quite intelligent. There are about 5 swing gates to cross the various fences that cut across the camino (road/path) and the horse knew exactly where to stand for each of them so I could awkwardly swing them open and pass looking only slightly idiotic rather than being completely incompetent and having to dismount for each one. Thankfully only a few people were around to watch. I might yet make the rank of cowboy; keep on dreaming, right?

I went with my host dad to his milpa (corn field) and talked him into going a little higher to the ridge know as "El Cielo" (the sky or heavens) for some great views of the community and surrounding areas (those of you on facebook should check out the photos I posted, I appolgize to those of you who are not). I learned that on the cornstalks that have more than one ear developing they pick of the smaller ones (but leave 2 if they are the same size) so the larger one develops more. They then use the smaller ears like baby corn in soup. I found it interesting that when picking off the smaller ears they split the outer leaves of the husk and only crack off the ear and a few inner leaves so as not to leave a weak point in the stalk which the wind could fold over.

Breaking news is that yesterday my counterpart and I went to Forcuencas to see if there was any possibility of last chance funding opportunities for the water project (he must have been inspired by my dad and brother´s visit last week). We had met with the Alcalde (mayor) earlier in the day to see where the electricity project stands and the Alcalde basically told us that funding has dried up from all sources due to the current situation. Luck was with us though that Forecuencas has some funds left over from other projects that have not been frozen so if we "pongamos a las pilas" (get it in gear) and submit everything ASAP we may have a chance at funding. We have the documents for the presa (dam) and distribution tank properties, and property crossing permissions but we have to find a abogado (lawyer) to legalize them and then write up the proposal. Hopefully I can keep my counterpart motivated to work with me so we don´t miss this opportunity but even if we don´t get funded it will be great for the community to have a proposal to hand to other organizations when the golpe de estado situation improves.

I´m still readjusting to my life ¨between worlds". It is almost like my head is in limbo; I was forgetting English words in the States and while my brother and dad were here, and now I find myself inadvertently tossing English words into my conversations in Spanish with community members. Have to stop that.

Peace