"But Mister, I'm Honduran": Stories from the Pila

This is a pila. It is a large deep tub that is a staple in every Honduran home. It stores water and is a place where many a Honduran woman spends a great deal of her day, scrubbing clothing, washing dishes and occasionally dunking a child for a dip. It has many purposes. Like a spork.

Our pila at school is gross. Our children wash their grubby hands in it everyday and when I have been using it to clean my beakers and testtubes for science class I have often noticed that there are some sort of unidentified crustaceous- phytoplankton like organisms swimming in it.

Last week, I was sitting next to the pila, holding post for my recess duty of ensuring that a child doesn’t do something that would overtly endanger himself or others (in reality my main job is to serve as a mediator of disputes between children over whose turn it is to use a ball or a soccer field…. Really fun stuff). So I was sitting next to the pila, when one of my 7^th grade girls came to use the pila. She is one of the stylistas of the class and is generally a sassy girly girl. While we were talking, she scouped up some of the pila water and filled her mouth with it, swished it around a bit and spit it out on the ground.

A chill went down my spine and I almost threw up a bit in the back of my mouth. My head was filled with the image of what I had seen in that water and also the image of Astrid, the 5 yr old daughter of our lunchlady who peed her pants and was dunked in the pila just one months prior. I asked Francis, are you SURE you want to clean your mouth with that water, there is some nasty stuff in there…

Francis looked at the stuck up gringo in front of her, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Mister, you don’t understand. I’m Honduran.” BOMBA! She got me. In a massive role reversal, I was left feeling like the prissy 7^th grade girl. But let's get real, I will take stomach health over pride any day. 

Radioactive Fear Grips SJBS

School Director, Miss Amarylus is known for her strong words during Monday Actos Civicos (flag salute). In a voice slightly louder than it needs to be, she imparts weekly threats upon the students for their misbehavior: threats that could send a chill down a 1st grader's spine. 

One of her go-to threats, for example is the threat that if the students continue to treat the bathroom poorly (writing mean things about students, smearing their feces on the wall etc..), then the school administration will place surveillance cameras in the bathroom. Mind you, we don't even have enough money at my school to buy fans for my room (more on that later). I don't know where we would acquire these funds for the cameras or the outcry that would come from the Honduran ACLU (if one existed). Clearly these threats are empty... a fact of which students and teachers alike are aware.

This week brought us an entirely new and tenfold more outlandish threat than the old camera in the bathrooms go-to. Whenever it rains, the students turn into banchees, splashing in puddles, sliding on their knees and creating all sorts of sheninanigans (See past post here for a description of one of such events). This week, Miss Amarylus, tapped into a current event and  preyed on the fears of these young children (and the fear that has gripped an uninformed Honduras populus at large) regarding radioactive exposure. She told our students that they must stay out of the rain, because the news in Costa Rica says that there is a radioactive cloud traveling toward Central America and if they are exposed to the rain, it could burn their skin and cause cancer.

When this new threat was posed, the Gringo teachers' jaws dropped in unison. I couldn't refrain myself from letting out an audible guffaw of disbelief. The students turned around. Oops. I don't mean to undermine the school authority but, SERIOUSLY?! A radioactive cloud?!!!!

I told all of my students in my science class that Miss Amarylus had been misinformed and they were relieved. I left from this experience feeling a bit confused, though. I am not sure if Miss Amarylus made this statement as an intense  "boogeyman" method of maintaining order, or if she actually believes that the rain is radioactive. I'm not sure which concept is more frightening.

Stay Classy Cofradia

This crowd is assembled to watch a parade. 

or a funeral. or a fight. The distinction is subtle.

Last night I heard a raucous crowd of Hondurans cheering from the park. Hondurans aren't known for their vivaciousness and it is common knowledge that only two events could elicit this volume of  Honduran emotional expression: futbol or a fight. Not really caring to find out which of the two it was, I closed the window.

This morning I asked Andrea, our administrator what was going on yesterday. Trying to give my neighbors the benefit of the doubt, I asked, "Was it a celebration of Dia del Padre?" (it was Honduran Father's Day this weekend). Andrea told me that she drove right through it and that it was a fight between two women that were goaded by 50 of my countrymen's cheers. It was weird that there were so many people in the park in the first place at 9pm on a Sunday night and I asked just that question. It turns out that they were all there for a wake. Honoring the dead.  And cheering on a fight between women. Apparently these two events are not mutually exclusive

Stay classy Cofradia...

Montuca, Marley and Middle-school Oh My

Portraits from Margarita, 9th grade... completely unrelated, but cool nonetheless.

The  SJBS middle school integrado class has been gearing up for their big debut with Honduran reggae/ska/world legends, "Montuca Sound System."Montuca Soundsystem will be playing a benefit concert at EIS (the large private school in San Pedro) and will donate all of the proceeds to BECA!

The best part of this deal though (to the middle schoolers at least...) is that they invited the middle school to sing "No Woman, No Cry" with them. Most students are pumped, a few are terrified, and a small enclave could care less (but lets be honest, some of them don't experience true forms of excitement that don't involve fire or soccer).

Here is a little  video preview into rehearsal with the 7th graders:

7th grade rehearsal


Here are the 7th graders singing "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros if you haven't seen it yet:

Home- 7th Grade