Cheerful in our tropical depression

Our reactions were mixed when we learned early last week that we were in the midst of a tropical depression. At first we just resigned ourselves to being drenched for an indeterminate amount of time from the persistent rains. Then, during one of the many afternoons we spent holed up inside Emily suggested that “tropical depression” need not only be a weather phenomenon that limited our mobility. Why, it could be the name of our very own tasty tropical beverage – meet the tropical depression! We`ll let you know how it tastes when it debuts. For now, we´re just stuck inside dreaming of tropical depressions, the tasty variety that is.

In all fairness, “stuck inside” isn´t an entirely fair characterization of what we´re up to these days. We`re still traveling and attending meetings with our counterparts, albeit on a limited basis due to the many floods plaguing the country. Emily is currently engaged in a few health initiatives ranging from HIV/AIDS support to self esteem development, and I´m principally a laborer, helping transport a few thousand trees a few times a week to support a reforestation initiative in our park. There´s nothing like carrying plants and pushing a wheelbarrow for hours on end to remind me I´m in good, but not great shape. Ultimately, as is the experience of most volunteers early in their service, we´re busiest getting acquainted with our community, the language, and what we may be doing in the future rather than actually “working” much in any traditional sense, although I think we´re contributing a bit. Let that be the context for this anecdote. A successful day may look something like this: a fellow volunteer who is helping form a cooperative of female hammock makers sent us an email with an enticing offer to have a hammock made in the colors of our alma mater (go Ducks!) for an affordable price, and in time for the holidays at that. Finding a hammock is, in and of itself, enough to polish the day.

We´re still living with our host family and enjoying their company. Game nights are especially fun as we get to watch the Honduras national team (La Selección) play against other teams for a spot in the world cup. Our mom is a consummate good hostess and makes sure we have soda and popcorn for each game – tasty! As is the case with many sporting events the world over, it´s encouraging to watch the entire country unite behind the national team, in spite of the many conflicts that may be barriers to communication on other days. More than a few times we´ve heard that wearing the jersey of La Selección on game day is virtually a free pass to travel anywhere in the country without incident, including areas that are traditionally dangerous even for Hondurans. Of course we´d not be interested to test this theory, but the unifying element of fútbol here in Honduras cannot be easily overstated.

As a fun way to wrap this up we´ll share a few recent experiences that have already become normal to us, but that would have been anything but when we first arrived to Honduras a few months ago. Two weeks ago we were sitting in some makeshift bleachers at the local cancha de fútbol when a horse entered the field from an adjacent dirt road, crossed the field at full gallop (we clearly heard the pounding of its hooves from 100 meters away), jumped a ditch, and continued down a road on the other side of the field, still at full gallop. Oh well, we thought, these things happen. Just the other morning when we were on our way to work in our botas de goma (knee high gum/rain boots), sombreros, and raincoats – our normal garb these days – Emily interrupted me in mid story to point out a potential perro bravo that was suspiciously eying all passersby. ¿What did we do, you ask? Well, of course we walked through the foot deep puddles in the ditch on the other side of the road to evade a sticky situation. If it comes down to it I´ve discovered I myself have a pretty intimidating bark, and we´re both capable of tossing a few rocks, although we`re definitely honing our sixth sense for problematic dogs to avoid having to exercise our own animal instincts. Last but not least, we´ve discovered that cold showers are downright intimidating when the weather´s rainy and chilly, but one must bathe. While we grow braver with each shower, I think we´ll always have a soft spot for hot water heaters and that precious commodity they produce! If you have hot water, enjoy a nice shower for us, would ya =)

As always, we hope you´re doing well. Please drop us a line when you get the chance.

-Em and Dan