My attempt to create an entire recreation program is moving forward with baby steps... but at least it's moving. Last night we had about 8 people at the yoga class I've been teaching Tuesday nights. English class (don't tell CIDA) also has been popular, and next week I think I'll start teaching jiu-jitsu and guitar classes as well. Not that I'm an expert at any of this stuff, but it's better than nothing.
Entertaining cross-cultural confusion: I had this great idea to make corn husk dolls with the kids, so I went off and chatted up a corn on the cob vendor to donate a big bag of husks, made a sample doll, was feeling quite pleased with myself to have found another cheap and fun activity for the kids… when Claudia, one of the volunteers, saw my doll and freaked out because apparently corn husks dolls are similar to the dolls made by brujas (witches) to stick pins into. Oops. Hello, parents, send your kids to the Ludo teca so that the gringa can teach them witchcraft… just what I´m aiming for! However, after checking with a few other volunteers (who had no idea what Claudia was talking about) and changing the doll´s arm position from cross-like (apparently that´s bad) to holding a corn husk baby (apparently moms are less likely to be witches), we steered clear of any controversy (as far as I know…). In any case, the kids had a great time making beautiful and creative corn husk people and animals.
Buses: Ever wonder what happens to those yellow school buses when they´re too sketchy to take on the roads in Canada and the US? Well, those school buses find a second life in Tegucigalpa, where they get artistically painted names like ¨Black Storm¨, ¨Dios es Amor¨, ¨Rocky¨ or ¨José y Angelina¨, plus a liberal smattering of religious and skeleton-themed decorations, orange and purple flames, and perhaps a new sound system to blast reggaeton at the passengers. As for the passengers, well… If you´re lucky you find a seat - sure, the fake leather is falling off and your knees are knocking against bare metal – but at least you´re sitting. More likely, you´ll end up standing in the center aisle with half the population of Honduras. Well, standing isn´t the right word, because actually you can barely feel the floor and you´re being held up by the pack of people squeezed against you. Since you can´t see out the windows, you better know the route pretty well by other clues like potholes, sharp turns and hills where the brakes consistently squeal. What are some of the roads like? Picture the worst road you know in Canada, the sort of road that a fairly brave person might consider driving in a four wheel drive. Now add a 45 degree angle to that road, slanty houses and deep drainage ditches along either side, a good number of sharp turns plus traffic zigzagging in all directions, and that´s sort of what the roads to the colonias are like. And we´re not talking about minor roads – these are roads that thousands of people travel on each day. The highways and streets downtown are different of course, but because the general ¨urban planning¨ approach here is for people to simply build shanties on the hills, luxuries like water, electricity and decent streets are slow to follow. Very slow… Colonia San Francisco has been here for 30 or so years, and while well-developed compared to newer colonias, I don´t know that the government will ever bother improving the roads. But back to buses… Besides a driver, each bus has one or two extra guys who jump out frequently to direct the bus around turns too tight to make in one go, stop incoming traffic when necessary, collect money (3 lempiras per bus, which is about 25 cents), pack people in more tightly, and let them out the back when necessary. Because if you´re standing towards the end of a bus, the only way to get out is to bang on the metal roof, yell ¨proxima¨ and then scramble across people to the emergency exit door, where the bus guys cavalierly offer their arms to jump down. Never a dull moment. In all honesty, underneath all the chaos and terrifying near misses, the public transit here (though mostly privately owned) is impressively orderly in its own strange way.
Hmm, what else to tell? The catcalls haven´t exactly slowed down, but at least the guys in my immediate neighbourhood are starting to feel possessive/protective of their local extrangera and tell off other guys if they bother me. I guess that´s good. And then there was that cop who almost fell down an escalator with his machine gun because he was so busy staring at me. But meh, on the whole it´s fairly entertaining. And speaking of cops, I need to try taking some pictures of the police cars here because you won´t believe me otherwise… basically, picture a rusty truck with a somewhat legible state emblem on the door and six or eight guys in grey camouflage with big guns hanging out in the back of the truck. I´m not exactly sure what they achieve by driving around the city looking fierce and checking out the female population, but I´m not about to discuss it more closely with them. I´ve only noticed one female cop in the month that I´ve been here. She must be one strong woman to put up with all the macho crap in the police force. And speaking of noticing people, other than the capoeira folks, I could count on my fingers how many foreigners I´ve seen in Teguc in the past month. It´s probably more due to where I live and work – and because this hardly is a tourist destination – but it´s still kind of interesting.
Entertaining cross-cultural confusion: I had this great idea to make corn husk dolls with the kids, so I went off and chatted up a corn on the cob vendor to donate a big bag of husks, made a sample doll, was feeling quite pleased with myself to have found another cheap and fun activity for the kids… when Claudia, one of the volunteers, saw my doll and freaked out because apparently corn husks dolls are similar to the dolls made by brujas (witches) to stick pins into. Oops. Hello, parents, send your kids to the Ludo teca so that the gringa can teach them witchcraft… just what I´m aiming for! However, after checking with a few other volunteers (who had no idea what Claudia was talking about) and changing the doll´s arm position from cross-like (apparently that´s bad) to holding a corn husk baby (apparently moms are less likely to be witches), we steered clear of any controversy (as far as I know…). In any case, the kids had a great time making beautiful and creative corn husk people and animals.
Buses: Ever wonder what happens to those yellow school buses when they´re too sketchy to take on the roads in Canada and the US? Well, those school buses find a second life in Tegucigalpa, where they get artistically painted names like ¨Black Storm¨, ¨Dios es Amor¨, ¨Rocky¨ or ¨José y Angelina¨, plus a liberal smattering of religious and skeleton-themed decorations, orange and purple flames, and perhaps a new sound system to blast reggaeton at the passengers. As for the passengers, well… If you´re lucky you find a seat - sure, the fake leather is falling off and your knees are knocking against bare metal – but at least you´re sitting. More likely, you´ll end up standing in the center aisle with half the population of Honduras. Well, standing isn´t the right word, because actually you can barely feel the floor and you´re being held up by the pack of people squeezed against you. Since you can´t see out the windows, you better know the route pretty well by other clues like potholes, sharp turns and hills where the brakes consistently squeal. What are some of the roads like? Picture the worst road you know in Canada, the sort of road that a fairly brave person might consider driving in a four wheel drive. Now add a 45 degree angle to that road, slanty houses and deep drainage ditches along either side, a good number of sharp turns plus traffic zigzagging in all directions, and that´s sort of what the roads to the colonias are like. And we´re not talking about minor roads – these are roads that thousands of people travel on each day. The highways and streets downtown are different of course, but because the general ¨urban planning¨ approach here is for people to simply build shanties on the hills, luxuries like water, electricity and decent streets are slow to follow. Very slow… Colonia San Francisco has been here for 30 or so years, and while well-developed compared to newer colonias, I don´t know that the government will ever bother improving the roads. But back to buses… Besides a driver, each bus has one or two extra guys who jump out frequently to direct the bus around turns too tight to make in one go, stop incoming traffic when necessary, collect money (3 lempiras per bus, which is about 25 cents), pack people in more tightly, and let them out the back when necessary. Because if you´re standing towards the end of a bus, the only way to get out is to bang on the metal roof, yell ¨proxima¨ and then scramble across people to the emergency exit door, where the bus guys cavalierly offer their arms to jump down. Never a dull moment. In all honesty, underneath all the chaos and terrifying near misses, the public transit here (though mostly privately owned) is impressively orderly in its own strange way.
Hmm, what else to tell? The catcalls haven´t exactly slowed down, but at least the guys in my immediate neighbourhood are starting to feel possessive/protective of their local extrangera and tell off other guys if they bother me. I guess that´s good. And then there was that cop who almost fell down an escalator with his machine gun because he was so busy staring at me. But meh, on the whole it´s fairly entertaining. And speaking of cops, I need to try taking some pictures of the police cars here because you won´t believe me otherwise… basically, picture a rusty truck with a somewhat legible state emblem on the door and six or eight guys in grey camouflage with big guns hanging out in the back of the truck. I´m not exactly sure what they achieve by driving around the city looking fierce and checking out the female population, but I´m not about to discuss it more closely with them. I´ve only noticed one female cop in the month that I´ve been here. She must be one strong woman to put up with all the macho crap in the police force. And speaking of noticing people, other than the capoeira folks, I could count on my fingers how many foreigners I´ve seen in Teguc in the past month. It´s probably more due to where I live and work – and because this hardly is a tourist destination – but it´s still kind of interesting.