home again home again, jiggedy jig.
i cried on the flight home, not out of sadness, but anger. after the days that i'd spent and after being with the people with whom i'd spent it, i flew home i could not take these two assholes behind me and the one beside me. we were on a puddle jumper, and originally, i was seated by myself in the back with no one around, and i was happy for some solitude because i'd been with other people for literally 24 hours straight every moment since the morning i left, even sleeping with others the entire time.
then my friend said, hey, sarah, sarah, sarah, there are two empty seats come on! so i moved.
beside me was an executive from tyco and behind me were two execs from furniture companies, who've moved with their companies to crack that whip, yes whip it, and whip it good down in honduras, they actually laughed when they talked about people from north carolina who used to make 20 dollars an hour who'd lost their jobs and how the company only had to pay hondurans 20 a week to do the same stuff. and the things they said about honduran women . . . everything was incredibly unbearable. . . there was nothing i experienced in honduras, not the bugs in the bed i slept in nor the smell of pig shit, that disgusted me as much as they did . the tyco guy kept telling me about losing his passport and i could not help trying to help him -- i have no idea why except for that my stupid parents drilled certain stupid principles into my head. then he touched my arm and was like thanks for your concern, i felt my skin crawl!
the men behind me were so much worse! every word out of their mouths made me angrier and it was all i could do to sit quietly and i looked at my friend and then i started crying and she knew why and held my hand and eventually we landed and were home.
honderus
and now i am sick.
so i got lucky in honduras, really, that i did not get sick there, sick in the mountain village or in the hydro electric company's compound is very not good. there the bathroom facilities alone are enough to make you sick, i mean outhouses, and they do not have enough septic tank storage or whatever it takes to flush paper in the indoor facilities, so sick there is complicated by the problems of 90 to 100 degree weather, bugs, actually making it to the outhouse, managing to hide your privates behind the one strategically located board in the center, and the smell of sickness . . . sick here is relatively easy: take some medicine, go to bed in your cool sheets, drink plenty of clean water and wake up a few hours later better.
okay, one incredibly beautiful thing i saw in honduras, maria carmen, roll the "rrrrrrrrrr" in carmen. this little girl is amazing, in fact all of the children are. they are very polite and reserved, she though probably the most, but as you read to them or sit with them they get a little more relaxed, they'll put their finger on your hand, and then lean in, and a few minutes later they are pretty much trying to sit in your lap. maria carrrrrrmen is beautiful.
another little girl from the hydro electric company is learning english, she speaks it very well, and probably the most moving bit of art i've ever seen in my life was done by her. she asked me one day how many of us were there, and i told her, the next day she brought me fourteen pictures of a smiling heart with butterfly wings , i'm looking at mine now, it says: "I happy for you!"
another beautiful girl, the school teacher i met in one of the escuela clinics, they shut the schools down for the day that the team is there and make a make-shift clinic, i worked in the parasite clinic which is usually outside, but this school actually had three rooms and an unstaffed clinic building across the street, so i got to work in the school and met the beautiful teacher who stayed to help make sure everything went smoothly for her students. she's tiny and absolutely beautiful, chuck a former marine who now lives in honduras and works with about four or five different organizations including the one i was with, asked her to marry him, i think he was half-way serious, anyway, she's twenty-one and has been teaching the kids at the school since she was sixteen. i told her, my students are going to be jealous, they'll wish they had you for a teacher.
there was also an incredibly beautiful waterfall that we went to where a lot of local hondurans hang out and swim.
and there was of course the lake and the mountain.
i was happy to hear that the government is now taking some measures to stop slash and burn farming in the moutains; hopefully they will eventually grow something like bamboo so that mahogany isn't cut from the forests for furniture.
also melvin, the honduran who runs the clinic that we worked with, gave us some good reports on the number of kids in the mountains who are malnourished, and the doctors who've been going since hurricane mitch said that everything was so much better now . . . which leaves one to ask how horrible was it before?
also pixie, if you're reading, i met the photographer, this is the brother of the kid who organized the love fest last year to protest the religious fanatics who didn't want to allow the gay and lesbian student union on the local college's campus, he was an eastern religions major, raised methodist, we talked a lot about the analogy of the cave, then he was like you've read plato and aristotle? i was like, um, no i read the analogy of the cave, that's it, i wouldn't pretend to know what you do, anyway we talked a lot about the new testament and the idea of jesus as a human and humanist thinking on what exactly does "i am the way, the truth, and the life" mean, we agreed it means i'm human, i'm alive, and that's the truth and the way to be alive . . . he was fed and housed by the organization as a photojournalist, a really fascinating guy . . . one night while we were talking about movies, i asked him what he'd done there for five months without them, and he said, a lot of the internet and then he "om-ed" -- he's also in a punk rock band, likes spanish guitar, but plays the rolling stones, is twenty-five, very cute and thinking of giving professional skateboarding a go. . . he recently got dumped, i thought man if pixie were single and living in my town . . . but, so he was an interesting kid, who is not so much a kid anymore.
so i got lucky in honduras, really, that i did not get sick there, sick in the mountain village or in the hydro electric company's compound is very not good. there the bathroom facilities alone are enough to make you sick, i mean outhouses, and they do not have enough septic tank storage or whatever it takes to flush paper in the indoor facilities, so sick there is complicated by the problems of 90 to 100 degree weather, bugs, actually making it to the outhouse, managing to hide your privates behind the one strategically located board in the center, and the smell of sickness . . . sick here is relatively easy: take some medicine, go to bed in your cool sheets, drink plenty of clean water and wake up a few hours later better.
okay, one incredibly beautiful thing i saw in honduras, maria carmen, roll the "rrrrrrrrrr" in carmen. this little girl is amazing, in fact all of the children are. they are very polite and reserved, she though probably the most, but as you read to them or sit with them they get a little more relaxed, they'll put their finger on your hand, and then lean in, and a few minutes later they are pretty much trying to sit in your lap. maria carrrrrrmen is beautiful.
another little girl from the hydro electric company is learning english, she speaks it very well, and probably the most moving bit of art i've ever seen in my life was done by her. she asked me one day how many of us were there, and i told her, the next day she brought me fourteen pictures of a smiling heart with butterfly wings , i'm looking at mine now, it says: "I happy for you!"
another beautiful girl, the school teacher i met in one of the escuela clinics, they shut the schools down for the day that the team is there and make a make-shift clinic, i worked in the parasite clinic which is usually outside, but this school actually had three rooms and an unstaffed clinic building across the street, so i got to work in the school and met the beautiful teacher who stayed to help make sure everything went smoothly for her students. she's tiny and absolutely beautiful, chuck a former marine who now lives in honduras and works with about four or five different organizations including the one i was with, asked her to marry him, i think he was half-way serious, anyway, she's twenty-one and has been teaching the kids at the school since she was sixteen. i told her, my students are going to be jealous, they'll wish they had you for a teacher.
there was also an incredibly beautiful waterfall that we went to where a lot of local hondurans hang out and swim.
and there was of course the lake and the mountain.
i was happy to hear that the government is now taking some measures to stop slash and burn farming in the moutains; hopefully they will eventually grow something like bamboo so that mahogany isn't cut from the forests for furniture.
also melvin, the honduran who runs the clinic that we worked with, gave us some good reports on the number of kids in the mountains who are malnourished, and the doctors who've been going since hurricane mitch said that everything was so much better now . . . which leaves one to ask how horrible was it before?
also pixie, if you're reading, i met the photographer, this is the brother of the kid who organized the love fest last year to protest the religious fanatics who didn't want to allow the gay and lesbian student union on the local college's campus, he was an eastern religions major, raised methodist, we talked a lot about the analogy of the cave, then he was like you've read plato and aristotle? i was like, um, no i read the analogy of the cave, that's it, i wouldn't pretend to know what you do, anyway we talked a lot about the new testament and the idea of jesus as a human and humanist thinking on what exactly does "i am the way, the truth, and the life" mean, we agreed it means i'm human, i'm alive, and that's the truth and the way to be alive . . . he was fed and housed by the organization as a photojournalist, a really fascinating guy . . . one night while we were talking about movies, i asked him what he'd done there for five months without them, and he said, a lot of the internet and then he "om-ed" -- he's also in a punk rock band, likes spanish guitar, but plays the rolling stones, is twenty-five, very cute and thinking of giving professional skateboarding a go. . . he recently got dumped, i thought man if pixie were single and living in my town . . . but, so he was an interesting kid, who is not so much a kid anymore.
the kid's cd doesn't open. this sucks because i didn't take a camera. i knew that somebody would take a butt load of pictures and give them to me, which they did, but the pictures don't appear to be on the cd. this sucks.
i'm well. my friend told me i had a worm and named it tom, so i told her if she ever told me the story of tom the worm agan i'd kill her. and then i got better. power of suggestion.
i'm now on spring break!!!! woo-hoo, i'm going to the beach, and i'd really like to know -- how hard is it to give a free trip to the beach away? the hubby can't go with me, he's working, so i called my best friend from college and he's like my nephew's birthday is saturday. i'm like you've got to be kidding me, my parents rented this place, it's beautiful, and they won't be there -- it's free, come on! so he is.
my boss told me i shouldn't have spring break but should have to stay at school and work. i said i was at school for a week, just not the one i get paid to go to, i got home after midnight, slept for close to five hours and then i came to the school that pays me with tom the worm and worked . . . i've earned my spring break god damn it!
i'm well. my friend told me i had a worm and named it tom, so i told her if she ever told me the story of tom the worm agan i'd kill her. and then i got better. power of suggestion.
i'm now on spring break!!!! woo-hoo, i'm going to the beach, and i'd really like to know -- how hard is it to give a free trip to the beach away? the hubby can't go with me, he's working, so i called my best friend from college and he's like my nephew's birthday is saturday. i'm like you've got to be kidding me, my parents rented this place, it's beautiful, and they won't be there -- it's free, come on! so he is.
my boss told me i shouldn't have spring break but should have to stay at school and work. i said i was at school for a week, just not the one i get paid to go to, i got home after midnight, slept for close to five hours and then i came to the school that pays me with tom the worm and worked . . . i've earned my spring break god damn it!
looking back at the old post is funny. it is really funny b/c i wasn't sick, i was pregnant.
the pictures that i couldn't open of adams are now going to be on exhibit at this old remodeled theatre in town. it's tonight -- he's giving the money to the theatre and the foundation that supports the honduras trips. i think i'm going to buy one since i can't open the cd and it was the baby's first trip.
i've only seen most of the folks i went with once or twice since then and it'll be nice to see them. i look forward to it.
the pictures that i couldn't open of adams are now going to be on exhibit at this old remodeled theatre in town. it's tonight -- he's giving the money to the theatre and the foundation that supports the honduras trips. i think i'm going to buy one since i can't open the cd and it was the baby's first trip.
i've only seen most of the folks i went with once or twice since then and it'll be nice to see them. i look forward to it.