Candy? How About Alligator Eggs, Kid.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. If any of you out there have experienced an Oak St Halloween, you can understand why. If you haven’t experienced it, close your eyes for a moment and imagine a world (oh wait, you have your eyes closed…. These two tasks are mutually exclusive). Okay, open your eyes, soften your focus and imagine a world where an entire street is closed down due to the sheer number of babies in winnie the poo costumes hobbling down the streets. Imagine a warm house where families, friends an neighbours (spelled the British way because it is magical) all come together in ridiculous getups, a night in which we are all actors, and we eat chicken tortilla soup (a Corinne specialty), drink spiced cider and mulled wine, and all of the action is over by 9pm.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to experience that marvel this year. Halloween here is seen by most members of Cofradian society as a celebration of the devil, and our kids did not come to school in costume, and no candy was flowing. In fact, I just heard today from one of our students that they don’t trick or treat because there is an old woman in town who somehow implants alligator eggs in the stomachs of kids who go trick-or-treating and rumor has it you can be fine for years and years, without knowledge of any danger, until one day the eggs hatch and alligators claw their way out of your stomach! I guess for the kids, the candy doesn’t really justify all of that hassle. I had a bout of malaria (another story for another day), and multiple experiences with “#4”, the other pottie term (like the term we use with little kids when they have to go to the bathroom and we ask “#1 or #2?” ). Having weathered these trying experiences, I can say that I understand why these students would want to avoid the trick-or-treating.

Once again, I digress. Back to Halloween… We knew that there would be no Halloween celebration in town, but the thought of letting Halloween just pass on by seemed depressing to us teachers and for the past couple of weeks we were trying to figure out how we could honor this American holiday. Finally we figured it out. There is a very nice private American school in San Pedro Sula (the big city about 45 min from us) called EIS. They have 50 international teachers and we have a good relationship with their school because one of our program directors used to be a teacher there. One of their teachers called one of our teachers and invited us to come out and play ultimate Frisbee on Saturday, and then stick around for their Halloween bash.

We jump at any opportunity to leave Cofradia, and excited about our new plans we whipped up some great costumes in a few hours. We took a bus into San Pedro and then a taxi up to their school, which was tucked away in this beautiful mountainous region of San Pedro with a massive wall that surrounded the school like a presidential palace. The armed guard flagged us in and the massive school stood in front of us, with beautifully kept grounds  and new buildings (with windows!.... something we don’t have at our school). This place is the nicest set of buildings I have seen in Honduras and it looked more like a private university than a K-12 Honduran school.

We played Ultimate Frisbee all afternoon on their beautifully trimmed field (I had to take frequent breaks because my lungs aren’t quite up to snuff from the malaria recovery). Afterward, we went back to an apartment complex where 25 of the teachers live. This complex had a 20 foot wall around it, an armed guard, and an electric fence. The apartments were immaculate and had A/C marble countertops, cable and internet and showers with hot water… and it is all paid for by their school! The cofradian volunteers walked into this other world that felt like Disneyland and  wide-eyed like pauper children, we eyed their nice refrigerators and microwaves with a mixture of envy for what we didn’t have and gratitude that we could call these teachers our new friends.. Then we all took nice long hot showers and put on our costumes.

Magical

We had some great costumes. 6 ft 6 Profe Matt found this really incredible unicorn costume that was about 7 sizes too small, but accentuated his nipple ring nicely… a piece of jewelry that all of us have yet to become comfortable with. We also had a nice group of ninja turtles, a Chiquita Banana,  a group of Chilean miners, and I was “Hurricane Mitch,” the hurricane that devastated Honduras 11 years ago. My costume was mildly offensive, but the Hondurans there seemed to enjoy it and nobody punched me in the face. We partied with a group of Gringos and Catrachos (Hondurans) on the patio of this apartment complex to the wee hours and got to pretend for a day that we were not in Honduras.

The teachers that we hung out from the other school were very welcoming and fun people. It was amazing to meet other teachers living in Honduras with such drastically different experiences. They all have cars, live in this beautiful modern place and they complain about their students and their families being spoiled rich and stuck up. We don’t have that. Any of that. And I don’t judge them for it. They are just two really unique experiences. It  did make me start to think about teaching at a nice international school next year. The money is great, you can teach without a credential, you still get to be living in another country, and the life is pretty cushy. This has been a great unique experience for me, but its financially unfeasible to volunteer for more than one year.

Hurricane Mitch

Ok, last blog I wrote about the other side of the river and how I was moved to action. I just want to write a disclaimer that I haven’t forgotten about that experience. But I do think that there is a middle ground that one can meet, making a difference and still acquiring a level of comfort. My godparents, Steve and Lisa are educators in a really nice international school the Democratic Republic of the Congo and just last week they told me of an opening at their school and I am starting to look into it for next year.

So, all in all I had a pretty great Halloween. No babies in costumes, no chicken tortilla soup, no jack-lanterns, but a fun night nonetheless. Luckily, the alligators haven’t started crawling out of my stomach. Yet. But I’ll keep you posted.

Is that a unicorn with a nipple ring over there?