This week I´ve been blessed with busyness. On Monday I was informed that I would be needed as a translator for a group of Americans. They brought 5,000 pairs of glasses to give away to people in this area. They say that almost everyone here has something called Ptridyum growing across their eyes because of high quantities of sun, dust, and smoke that they come into contact with. We´ve given away several hundred pairs of glasses in this area and I´m proud to say that I´ve diagnosed and given a few more away out the back door. Translator in this case means that I´m also a cultural liason, which has been tiring as well.
The rest of what made this week tiring was that from Tuesday night to Thursday morning, I was travelling with a bunch of campesinos. We were going on a tour almost to Tegucigalpa (long trip!) to see a cane sugar production plant. It was amazing to see their quick, superefficient processing techniques and to discuss them with the campesinos. The men I travelled with have their own sugarcane processing that they do, but it is not nearly as advanced and they don´t come out with brown sugar at the end. Even though 100 lbs of the stuff was only selling for about $26 with half going to expenses, ten men producing ten 100 lb bags of sugar a day is very lucrative.
Travelling with the campesinos, I got to share in their excitement at seeing another part of their country. I was surprised when a few of them told me that they had already travelled as far as Comayagua. Travel is not common here. We had stayed in Gracias the night before at a hotel, a foreign concept as well. Most had stayed up well beyond their normal bedtime (until 10 PM!) to kick off their boots and watch some TV. I shared a room with two campesinos from nearby San Manuel who were fascinated by watching Man vrs. Wild on the Discovery Channel. Actually, they probably related more with that man than with anyone else on TV since they both know their way around the wilderness. The anticipation was thick in the air just after 3:30 AM when we started getting ready to go.
During the travel, they pointed out plants that they recognized and asked each other about the things they didn´t recognize. On the way back, we stopped at Lago Yojoa to eat lunch. When we got off of the bus, I heard one man declare that this must be the ocean. I let them know that it was actually a big lake and they all went out and gazed at it while I answered a few more questions. Then we each got a very special big fish for lunch.
Though we spent many hours travelling that day and we didn´t actually go that far, we passed through many worlds. People rarely travel and because of that, you see plenty of regional variation. The people from one town do things that others don´t. They have thin tortillas instead of thick ones. They have paved roads with lines. They live on flat ground. They have a view of a huge valley. All of these things brought waves of excitement to the bus that are no doubt being relived and splashing new waves in the houses and villages of my travelling campesino friends.
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