Helado

Now Honduras is getting into its winter. Up in La Campa, you can feel the difference. Its really cold! Actually I think its probably only getting down into the 50s, if that, but its a big change from the 80s and 90s I had been used to. My co-workers at CASM keep talking about how ´exagagerado´ this cold weather is. They say its helado, which means frozen. Some mornings you can see clouds flying a hundred meters or less above La Campa. I was coming into Gracias this morning in the back of a pickup loaded with green peppers (they smelled wonderful). My campesino travel buddy commented that it was going to be cold in Gracias because there was ice in the air, signaling to a layer of fine mist that we could see over the city.

Earlier this week I went into a village on top of a mountain ridge for the building of a chicken coop. The wind was blowing crazy strong and whipping clouds over and through the house that some of us were hiding behind. In defiance of the icy winds, we build the chicken coop out of really cold mud and adobe. It was nice to be able to throw some mud around with the campesinos and get a little bit of labor in, though my hands were freezing afterwards. When we stopped for lunch, we ate some hot, fresh-ground corn tortillas with lunch. Wonderful :D

I think my body is in denial that Honduras can actually be this cold. I think one of my selfish goals for coming to Honduras was that I would be able to life for a year in hot weather. These last few days I`ve been wearing a couple of shirts, a sweater, and my one thin Goshen College sweatshirt so I can stay warm. Isn´t it ironic, don`t you think?

Innundaciones!

Honduras is flooding. The south coast has some really serious flooding going on. San Manuel, a municipality an hour away from La Campa has had some small mudslides that have damaged a lot and destroyed a few houses. This week has been pretty crazy because we´ve been running back and forth from San Manuel meeting with campesinos (as) and trying to reassure them. Currently I think the count is around 300 displaced people in San Manuel, which is a really big deal, about the size of a whole community. What needs to happen is people need to be given some land to live on and set up new lives with new cornfields and livestock and all that.

Moving like that is a really huge deal for people here. They are so connected to their communities. They don´t really know people outside of their communities and they rarely travel. Its interesting to think of the huge cultural importance that we put on travelling in the US, but how we miss out on close community life. Then again, there are plenty of American people who have never really travelled either. Anyway, for these people a move signifies massive change in their lives, even if it is only a few kilometers. It means new people, new land (which has likely been in their families for a long time) and a whole lot of uncertainty. The amount of land that I´ve heard people talking about for all of these people seems very small, definitely not enough to do more than have a house. These people rely so much on subsistence farming, I don´t know how that is going to be a realistic option for a new life.

All of this has been brought on by the now 43 tropical waves, they call them, that have brought rain into Honduras. The normal number of tropical waves was about 15 five years ago, but recently its been climbing.

This post is pretty rushed, but I´ll try to post some pictures soon!

¡Que le vayan bien!

That Ranchero Rythm

In La Campa we listen to an aweful lot of this music. It goes a lot like this.... one chord once, a second chord twice. Repeat. :) Its really fun to listen to sometimes because every song tells a new, culturally insightful story. Out of curiousity, I looked at the tape-cassette cover and the songs were listed. Seven of the 19 songs appeared to be about different caballos (horses) :) I listen to ranchero music for extended periods of time during my commutes to neighboring communities. Generally I only catch a line or two before a boulder or a pothole in the road jars my brain. It can get a little old after an hour and a half of more-or-less continuous potholes and boulders.

I brought my MP3 player into the office today to charge it and thought about how nice it would be to get some varied music mixed in with the ranchero. So once my MP3 player had charged a little, I got a pair of computer speakers and plugged them in at my desk. Its a wonderful thing. I started getting all nostalgic, listening to songs that remind me of different people, places, and events. Some merengue, bachata, and salsa music came on too and I got all excited because I could actually understand the words! I`ve had those songs for a few years and listened to them a whole lot, but it added a whole new dimention being able to understand them.

I want to teach my co-workers some songs. We have little Bible-studies on Monday mornings and we always sing. A few songs have english translations and its really interesting to look at the difference in word choice. Its that way with Bible verses too. It makes me wonder what the originally intended feeling was. Anyway I have some songs that I love that are in Swahili I think. Si-zo ham ba na ye, wo wo wo! and Hakuna wakaita sa Jesu (from SALT orientation). I figure since they`re not in English, everything should be cheque (good). I made working spanish translations so they can understand it. Then they want to learn english too, so maybe we`ll sing them in three languages.

Anyway tonight is another selection game for the World Cup in 2010. Its against Jamaica, in Kingston. I went down to the municipal building last game to watch it and I had a good time, so Í`m looking forward to doing it again.

Words can´t do it Justice

My back itches. I can hear water running in the kitchen. The lights went out a few minutes ago, and a candle casts oversized shadows of Lencan pottery on the wall. Richly spiced hot chocolate pours delicious steam into my face from a spherical hard squash gourd.

I´m at the Rinconcito Graciano which, as I have just learned, is the only restaurant in Honduras listed on National Geographic´s list of resaurants http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/extras/geotourism/honduras.html. This praise is well deserved, and not just for the quality of the food. The passionate chef and owner, Lizeth Perdomo, explains the value she places on culture, environment, and people. She cooks only with Lenca pottery, serves only local organic food, and builds relationships with local families to provide a place to sell their products.

The food comes out from the dark kitchen and even though either of us can barely see, I can tell that its extravagant arrangement on the plate is only trumped by the river of savoury, salty, and spicy flavor that each tiny bite has to offer. As I eat my food, Lizeth explains her philosophy that the best food is made with love and a real committment of time. The food that I´m eating has gotten an extra dose of time because the power outage slowed her down to one hand, the other being used to hold a candle, she tells me.

Lizeth keeps the wisdom coming by telling me that for her, she is content in her business. For her, money is a means, not an end. This couldn´t be more apparent as I am the only person in her restaurant, she has been talking to me for at least an hour, and the tab is only coming to $3, cheap even by Honduran standards. Among other things, she has told me stories of the people who bring food and goods to her to sell, the old woman who makes wine but can´t make much because she is tired and has many responsibilies and the woman who makes fresh corn tortillas and walks with them a half hour every day to sell on the streets of Gracias. She has told me of her hatred of chemical fertilizers. And she has told me of her dreams. To show her people, the villagers, how to live and farm sustainably. To attach a hotel with a few rooms onto her restaurant, so that her family can build relationships with the families who come to visit her. To show the world the wonders of the work of her people by expanding the trade of local art and products.

This woman has a genuine passion that is hard to miss. This woman has found life in its purest, rawest, truest sense.