Bien bien! I think it’s been over two weeks now since my first blog post oops but here we are after a busy week in Honduras. In Honduras, the 10th of September is Dia del niño (Day of the child) which is pretty much just an excuse to cancel classes all day and eat as many sweets as you possibly can – what’s not to love?! No but seriously, why wasn’t this a day in Scotland? Pretty sure on every Mother and Father’s Day somebody would say it wasn’t fair that there was no day for children. I completely agree and that is why Honduras is doing it right. Iona pointed out to my students that I’m only 17 and therefore technically still a child, however unfortunately I still didn’t receive a goody bag. The day started out with every pupil in the school carrying their desks outside, which I found hilarious, especially the first graders who would take a step at a time and had to take a break yet refuse to accept any help. We watched the teachers sing a song which was a bit uncomfortable, and by the faces of other students, I wasn’t alone. Iona and I were told to prepare an activity for the day so us Scots decided we’d teach a ceilidh dance. We put a lot of practice into this, practicing the night before just the two of us in our bedroom. The teachers unfortunately didn’t understand that this was our plan and invited us up in front of the whole school and told us to sing for them, we were extremely confused due to our non-existent Spanish and swiftly sat back down. Instead we watched all the grades perform a dance, or in the eight grade boys case, stunts. Best part of the day was piñatas, there was one for each grade and I sat on the rockery watching Honduras’ lack of safety in action.
Iona and I have started going on walks. We’ve found this hill that’s a bit of a steep climb but some of our students have to do this a few times a day so I won’t complain. At first we tried to go a bit further each day since sometimes the heat was just a bit too much to continue. Now we’re having a lot of thunderstorms almost as soon as we come home from school that last into the night so unfortunately we’ve not been able to go out as much however I quite like the rain, it’s homely. In fact I’m currently sitting outside writing this while it’s chucking it down around me, very relaxing. On these walks I’ve realized how high up in the mountains we live. I love our little Belen and it’s crazy that this beautiful village is just perched in the Honduran mountains.
One day we were told that we would be going to take part in an election for the queen. Now i would like to point out that my Spanish was not wrong, that is definitely what they said. So then there’s the question of what queen? Since when did Honduras have a queen? -confused.com – is this the whole of Honduras that’s voting for this queen yet she’s coming to little Belen? Yes it doesn’t make any sense I know. After sitting in this mini stadium for 20 minutes Iona realises that it’s a beauty pageant! We were going to vote for the Queen of Belen (winner of the beauty pageant). Personally I thought candidate two was the best and she works in the cafe so I know and like her but I’m pretty sure if I didn’t vote for candidate 3 like our host family asked us to then my host Mum genuinely would’ve kicked us out of the house. Anyways I voted 3, 3 won and I still have a bed to sleep in.
Dia del independencia – this is huuugeee in Honduras. I wore my 20 lempira dress, feeling very faancyyy. We watched our whole school in the parade as well as the band that we’d been hearing for the past week straight. I was impressed at first, just a bit sick of it now tbh, like please find a new tune. It was cute seeing all our students who had missed classes all week since they had been practicing hard for this, finally show of their outfits, marches, dances and singing. After watching the parade, we then seen the whole thing again, just this time on the stage, a little unnecessary. Then the thing I was looking forward to most- the Honduran dances. I love it so much, especially the dresses; my aim for the year is to wear one of them and dance the traditional dances. I mentioned it to Neyzer but it’s still not happened, need to up my hinting game. Other things that happened included lots of photos, being asked for my number, reenactment of someone dying, mucho hugs and a great t-shirt tan. We also seen a horse (yes a real life one omggg) and the friends we were with had a ride on it (mainly for the photos, because yes, Hondurans care about the gram as well) however Iona and I didn’t get a go which was unfortunate as I was wearing Neyzer’s hat which was very traditional and I would’ve looked supaa cool.
Then last weekend we headed off to Gracias to meet up with all the other volunteers in the Lempira district (I think there was 14 of us). This was such a great opportunity to hear about everyone else’s project and to also destress and spend some very much needed time sleeping and chilling all day. I took full advantage of this although out of choice as unfortunately I spent all weekend extremely ill. I lay in bed pretty much all day everyday and leaving bed for meals was a bit of a struggle. And as frustrating as this sounds (and was) I was very happy to have a hot shower (something that I miss dearly) , great wifi to binge watch netflix – while everyone else was out shopping or trekking to waterfalls – and of course, great friends. Luckily, despite my illness I still managed to drag myself out of bed and go out for pizza and cocktails (although I only allowed myself half a tequila sunrise) which is a huge luxury and now I’m craving pizza. After a great meal some people headed back to the hotel while seven of us made our way to a club we heard about. After one tequila shot (I’m in Honduras, I just had to) we were up on the dance floor salsa-ing the night away. Honestly it’s surreal, everyone grabs a partner and it’s salsa all night long, I loved it. Flossy and Iona can’t salsa so instead chose to make fun of me because they’re bitter. Flossy has decided that I have ‘a strictly face’, compliment or not, I’m glad about 8 years of Jackie screaming at us to use our faces paid off. More stuff happened that night but don’t think that all stories should be shared here soo we’ll move on, but we all made it home safely and had a great night.
Miss you Esther!!
After a mostly great weekend we’re now back in Belen for a week (almost) of teaching and resting before our holiday to El Salvador this weekend. I’m loving it here so far, for the most part, obviously there’s days more difficult than others, especially when you’re ill or something bad happens, it’s hard, but you push through it to get to these good days and it’s all worth it. The first day we came back from Gracias and I had to get up early and have a cold shower before teaching was a tough one, but having a great day today, so you see how things work. Listening about everyone else’s projects was exciting but it’s also very easy to compare your situation to others. Hearing about how integrated everyone was or how many things they’re getting up to makes it easy to think my project is bad since we’re not getting taken to as many places. But I realized I need to stop comparing and be grateful for what our project does have that others don’t, for example, we have an ensuite, we’re only 25 minutes from Gracias (making it very cheap and easy for weekend trips) , we live in a lovely house and get given great food and the people here are really lovely (for the most part) and we have Anderson who makes things easier. Oh and most importantly we don’t have rats!
Okay so I think that’s me for now. Sorry if this was boring and a bit of a mess but I also know that only my family reads this soo I’m not too sorry.
Hasta luego!!
Mucho amor, chacha xx
Side note – didn’t manage to post this before my holibobs so i’m back now. oops i’m really not good at this.
Erin In Honduras 