Honduras

The town is called Yoro, the city of falling fish. There is one paved road, leading out of the city to San Pedro Sula (one of the two large metropolises). One stoplight (which, funny enough, is set to blink yellow for the main street and red, the other). My hostmom is named Vilma (pronounced Bilma). She owns a very nice ice cream shop, which my roommate and I frequented. Our host family's house was about a mile from the center where we worked. We went back to our hostfamilies' houses for lunch, so we probably walked about 5 or 6 miles each day. Walking, I learned, is great- except for midday with the sun burning through my hair and sunscreen. I also came to appreciate bicycles that much more. I was tempted to buy one (the most decent one down there would only be $80) just for the month I was there. Alex (my roommate) and I are both very quiet individuals, so the free time spent at our house was not very boisterous, to say the least. I decided not to bring any unnecessary technology with me (a decision which added to the stagnancy of the free time), such as an alarm clock, so Alex would usually wake me up around 7:30 to eat breakfast. Breakfast food ranged from wonderful pancakes (although the syrup was not exactly maple) to awful ham/cheese/ketchup/mustard sandwiches (my third worst meal- and we had it several times) to eggs, ham, beans, and tortillas (also the ingredients for the standard dinner meal, interestingly enough). I am now a huge fan of beans and tortillas. I have attempted to replicate here- not to be attempted again until I can take the time and energy to make it from scratch.

After breakfast, we went to the center, arriving around 8:30. Our first day, we all walked in, and the kids were just looking at us. And we were kind of just looking at them. We tried to interact with them, but with our nervousness and their inexperience with gringos showering attention upon them, it took a little while for us to become friends. But only a little while. That first day, I first went to a baby sitting on the floor. He was a fat baby named Luis Alonso (or Big Al). I kind of just sat in front of him and let him play with my hands, letting him get used to me while I got used to him. A lot of the kids were healthier than I expected, actually. Not that I really had any clear idea in my mind of what to expect. The average age was about 3. The majority could walk around. A handful were potty trained and could talk, at least to each other. Profe and the other spanish scholars could only understand a little of their spanish every once in a while.

One of these, who was potty trained and could talk, was named Lita. My Lita. She was 4 years old (now 5), but from her body size, she looks like she is 3 (obviously, with under- and malnourished children, growth is stunted). I quickly became attached to her. Or she quickly became attached to me. Either way, we were friends right away (she was the second child, after Big Al, that I spent time with on that first day). Afterwards, she would always run to greet me when I first arrived. I would pick her up, hug her, ask her what she wanted to do. She was a little bossy, sometimes demanding that I go outside or into the back room, getting upset when I didn't comply. But most of the time, it was hard not to comply, seeing her beautiful brown eyes filled with urgency for some unknown (to me) reason. If I didn't give in to her will every time, it was because I was tired and just wanted to sit down. Or lay down. Our work wasn't exactly demanding, physically, but just walking two miles at lunchtime could drain you for the rest of the afternoon. And the morning after a late night out resulted in some lethargy. With the kids generally being of a young age, we often took the opportunity to find kids that needed naps, and take one along with them. Lita was not much of a napper, unfortunately. I would try to sit down with her on the floor, or in the wooden lawn chairs (which were inside). Some of the strongest memories I have are of a child's body leaning into me. Lita would do this with me sitting on the floor and her standing, but she would still be looking around, her mouth hanging open so that when she moved her head from being cheek to cheek with me (oh, how smooth her cheeks were), I would get a very wet quasi-kiss. But she didn't stay in my arms for long. Rather, she would get bored with me after a while and go off to play with the other 4ish year olds, leaving me open to fall in love with the next girl, Angelica.

Angelica was only 6 months old (the youngest child Profe has seen at the center), and not even 7 pounds. Profe made sure that Angelica (pronounced Anhelica, by the way) did not spend any time alone in her crib or carriage- not while we were there. That first day, he held her most of the time. And again the second morning. But since Profe had yet to return when I got back from lunch, I decided to pick up where he left off. Angelica was not very active. Her eyes were constantly going, taking everything in, but she was not one to get bored and leave you behind. If you picked her up, you would probably have her for the next few hours, or the whole afternoon. Such was the case for me for the next few days. After a few days, I started to feel claustrophobic or imprisoned- sentenced to spend every minute of the rest of my time in Honduras, holding a baby that just looked at you. So I slowly let Profe have her back for a while. But she was improving rather rapidly. She was sick, having a lot of congestion in her chest. But that was slowly getting better. Then, on January 12, 10:31 am, Angelica smiled. It was glorious to see. She got to the point that whenever I picked her up, she would smile. Those four days that I was constantly holding Angelica in the beginning resulted, I believe, in the sores that developed on my arms (right where her head would rest). But even the threat of some infectous skin condition did not keep me away from her, now with the opportunity to see her face light up. Overall, I would estimate that I spent 60% of my time with Angelica. Sure it got a little boring sometimes. But looking back now, it was the ordinary hours spent just holding a child that made the experience so extraordinary.

A lot of what I just described- the naps, the avoiding Angelica for a little while- comes off as kind of selfish to me. But I'm portraying what went on. One of the things I had to learn, or let go of was my perfectionism. For the first few days, I was straining myself, wearing a fixed smile, trying to force myself to take in everything and experience as much as possible. But that was a barrier I was setting up, keeping me from any genuine experience. As soon as I let that down, allowing myself to be imperfect, to even tend to my own needs, I actually had something to give the kids. By halfway through, I had let down my guards and had become thoroughly attatched to all of the kids. The kids didn't care if we tried to use them to sleep. And if I wasn't holding Angelica, someone else was, most of the time. All that mattered was that the kids were still being loved, and I was actually enjoying the experience.

Well, I enjoyed it when I wasn't sick. And I did get sick- several times. The week before I left for Honduras, I had a rather substantial nosebleed. I had ridden my bike that morning, in the cold, so I thought maybe my nasal membranes were just dried out. But I don't think that, with Honduras' climate, dry membranes would be the cause of the two nosebleeds I had while I was there. The first one came on the sixth day (fifth morning) I was in Honduras. I woke up with a fever, and shortly thereafter, my nose began to bleed (and continued for 15 minutes). I didn't go to the center that day; hardly ate anything either (a tortilla at breakfast and a glass of juice that night). I stayed home the next morning as well, with a small bout of diarrhea. But I went to the center that afternoon, to escape my acute case of boredom (I had resorted to read my spanish/english dictionary and compute math problems(!) to distract myself and pass the time). The great thing about kids is that if you sit down, they will come. (apologies to the writers of Field of Dreams) I did not feel like picking up a kid. But I didn't need to. One climbed up in my lap all by herself (Lita, of course). I miss that. I was sitting under a tree yesterday after school, and I realized that no one was going to sit on my lap, join me, or even bother me. (I had slowed down enough after school to actually revert back to my Honduran mindset) The relationship I had with the kids was a very physical one. I cared for their bodily needs. They slept on me, walked on me, hugged me, hit me. They reached out and grabbed my physical body, paralleling the way they reached out and touched my heart. (sorry. I'll try to keep the cliched language to a minimum) But I digress. My second nosebleed was January 13, the day after Angelica smiled (my favority day). It happened at Jeff, the peace corps guy's house after we had finished our game of basketball. Again, I believe I got overheated, causing the nosebleed. This one lasted for at least a half hour, so Profe came and took me to a doctor. I got a vitamin K shot in my left arm. Also having a throat infection (which I had been complaining of for a while as a sore throat), I got amoxicillin and ibuprofen to take for 3 days (obviously not a full cycle that would actually make me all better, but it was free of charge, so I got more than what I paid for). I also got tested for Dengue fever the next morning (with a blood sample taken out of my left arm), which was negative. (Dengue is like the flu, except it lasts for a month.) The pills would have been no problem, except that I still can't swallow them. Luckily I had brought a huge jar of peanut butter from home with which to choke down the pills. After that, I made it home without any more trouble (except a stomach ache on the last morning), promptly getting sick for a week upon arrival. Four days of school missed is not a good way to start a new semester. I don't advise it. But I again digress.

The other kids' names, of whom I have yet to talk, are Enyer, Sonia, Wendy, Julia, Fabricio, Josue, Oscar, Efran, Dunia, Kenia, Santos, Javier, Maydi, and Carlos. The only other kid I'll talk about right now is Efran.

Efran was a bitter, bitter kid. He was very sick- lots of congestion, a sore on his ear, a constantly running nose. Sean (one of the other 5 classmates who made the trip with me) worked with him a lot, and when Sean wasn't around, I did too. Efran was such that when you held him after a while, he would just start to cry for no apparent reason, but when you set him down, he cried even more. Basically, he was uncomfortable. He certainly looked uncomfortable (his shirt never fit over his big bloated belly), and his actions were consistant with being uncomfortable. He was very high-maintainence. But even so, he did show a lot of improvement. Partly due to the medicine we gave him, the nebulizer mask we hooked him up to, and partly to how much we loved him. He, too, reached the point where he smiled and laughed, even crawling over to be picked up (as opposed to his usual state of sitting in the same place on the floor for hours at a time, looking miserable). And he got comfortable enough that he was even able to take a few naps with me, laying on my chest. Oh, how my chest aches now at the absence of a napping child.

The center may be going through some big changes for the better, as reported by Profe. After we left, a doctor has been coming on a regular basis. Jeff, the the Peace Corps guy, and Azita, the Worldvision nutritionist, are now very active in the center. And the board of directors may even hand over the reigns to the Church, which would greatly increase the involvement of the community with the center. So there is hope for the future.

And while the sting of returning home, being torn away from my friends, has eased, it is still difficult to continue on, almost being forced to forget about what happened most of the time in order to focus on school. If the classes I am taking this semester weren't so good, I don't think I could bear to think about how the kids are spending their time now, largely alone, and how I could be spending my time differently, back there with the kids, holding them and sleeping. It was an amazing month, and I am so grateful for it. I'm sure there'll be more I want to say later, but this is a good start.