So today is our one-year anniversary of arriving in Honduras and we usually write these things together, but I thought I would write my own today as I reflect on my year in Honduras.
I have had so many experiences that I could never have fathomed before coming such as learning to share my house (although not happily) with so many bugs and even spiders; not freaking out every time I see a spider (only if it is really big); washing my dishes and my body in dirty water after a rain and thinking that it is better than not having any water; getting used to the electricity and water disappearing, sometimes for days at a time; washing all of my clothes by hand; cooking; walking everywhere in the heat and humidity; getting harassed by EVERY man I walk past; eating my body weight in beans and realizing that I really like them (rice, however, I could do without); seeing children running around half-dressed, half-fed, and usually sans shoes and not thinking anything of it; talking about bowl movements all the time including at dinner; becoming accustomed to the smell of burning trash; liking beets; and eating whole fish with the fins and eyeballs (I didn't eat those parts but they were there looking at me).
I have also learned a lot of things in my year here. I now no longer take so many things for granted... good food (cheese), friends and family, being able to go places at night, being able to run alone, safety, having a decent/non-corrupt government, freedom of expression, all of the material things that we think are so important in the U.S. (washing machines, furniture, air conditioners, etc), and people who tell the truth to name a few.
I have also learned to get satisfaction in the small things in life: children yelling, "Hola Profe" and hugging me when I come to a school, an e-mail from home is great, a letter/postcard awesome, and a package the highlight of the month, home-cooked flour tortillas and beans made by a friend who knows that I love them, someone making me beans because they know that I don't eat meat, teaching a child something new, newly bathed cats meeting me at the door after a long day, the construction worker in my back yard who yelled at another construction worker for catcalling me, the freshness of newly mopped floors, spending time in the campo away from all the madness of the city, visiting other volunteers and catching up, and most importantly a phone call home.
Top 10 things I have learned here:
1. Do not judge a book by it's cover. There are so many people that I have met here that I never thought I would be friends with simply by the way they dressed or something that they said, who have turned out to be some of my best friends...now if only I can remember this when I get back to the U.S.
2. Speaking Spanish is exhausting and much harder than I had thought it would be!
3. Mantequilla (aka crema in the rest of the Spanish speaking world) is always bad no matter how many times I try it.
4. Washing clothes by had really isn't that bad...
5. No matter how much people complain about schools in the U.S., they could be much worse...
6. Putting birth control in the water may not be that bad of an idea...
7. Putting "fijase que" at the beginning of an excuse works every time! Also by saying "si Dios quiere" you can get out of any future situation. I mean, what if Dios didn't want me to go to that meeting?
8. I now understand why people of the same race/that speak the same language tend to hang out together. It's just so much easier to spend time with people with whom you can easily communicate without problems and share the same basic values.
9. Dinámicas (icebreakers) really make everything better.
10. ANY television program in English is usually better than one in Spanish.
It's so hard to believe that a year has passed. Overall that experience so far has been great, I have learned so many things and continue to learn new things everyday! So many of my expectations were wrong (I never thought that we would live in a city twice as big as Reedley, have electricity, let alone cable and internet in our house!) but I have learned to be a bit more flexible. We still have one year, two months, and fifteen days left (not that I'm counting down or anything) and these, too, will hopefully fly by and before you know it we'll be home! I'm sure I'll learn a lot more in our remaining time, hopefully improve my Spanish a lot, and have many more experiences that I will carry with me forever!
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