"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.