Advertisement
Published: January 29th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Packing Heat
Ramon with his nine. The first thing I asked myself, when I walked into school this morning, was "Why does David have a gun?" My second question was "Why do Josue, Cris, Kevin and Ramon have guns too?"
It turns out that this week we are celebrating El Alba's 24th anniversary. So it only makes sense that the students should bring guns to school. I must say that, after I made the connection, I felt a little embarrassed. I mean, why shouldn't students be allowed to bring guns to school? It made me think back on my first big date with Karina, a year after we met... perhaps I should have brought my nine. Or maybe just a boot knife would have sufficed, I don't know because this custom is all new to me. I am from a crazy backwards country where guns are prohibited in schools.
But here in Honduras, in a small bilingual school guns are allowed and encouraged on days like today. Today being "Dia tipico." or "The day of stuff that is normal for us to do." Early in the morning all the students were scampering around getting ready, while the older boys played with their pellet guns near
Josue and Oscar
"Dis is how yoo hold eet." the swings. Each grade had a tent representing each department of Honduras. I was in charge of the eleventh graders and we had the department of Paraiso, no surprises there. We made baleadas and sold "Elotes Loco" or "Crazy Corn," which is corn on the cob with sour cream and some other spicy things. I didn't eat it, because I don't like Honduran corn. It turns out that growing up next to Thorp's farm raises your sweet corn standards to an unmeetable excellence.
Some of the other grades were selling nachos, gringas, tostatos, tomales, and a whole lot of other things that end with the letter S. The gringas are flour tortillas with melted cheese and some form of meat. The 8th graders had Mr.Ramen, who is also a pastor, and they had hired a chef to make the gringas. There was a big sound system with a grill and deep fryer crammed between the speakers. The tostadas were made by the 6th graders. Tostadas are deep fried platanos maduro (hard, green, and flavorless plantains) with meat and salsa piled on top. The 9th graders sold the same thing, but they used corn chips instead of platanos. The 10th
Gringas
Mmmmm... graders were the ones to make the tomales. Tomales are corn mush that has been wrapped inside of banana leafs and steamed by the side of the road by an old woman with hair in places God never intended. Sometimes you find bones inside a tomale, it's like a Central American crackerjack box.
The guns were for a shooting contest. Juan, our schools copy guy, places two small plastic Indians on a tree in the playground and the students competed to see who could shoot them off. Everyone crouded around, forming a horseshoe, and watched as the guys blasted away at the brave little gueritos. They don't have "The Christmas Story" here and so I guess there is no word for "ricochet" in Spanish. Luckily no one shot their eye out.
The school also put on a "Fotbalito" tournament, which was cut short due to Hidemi and Christian cussing out the ref. Hidemi and Christian are two of our most diabolically gifted trouble makers and bad things happen when they are involved in anything other than sleeping. I am proud to say that, for the majority of the day, everyone played very well. We have some really talented
Lenin
Lenin choppin coconuts. soccer players at our school and they are all good friends. I was proud of the way they acted in front of the ref.
With all this going on, I don't think I need to tell you that we had no classes. The majority of this week will be spent celebrating. I love teaching, but I love hanging out with the kids too. It's nice to talk with them about other things, sometimes the classroom gets real stuffy. Overall it was a very very good day.
In fact, as I am writing this, my landlord knocked on my door and asked me if I was having problems with my water pressure. After I told him everything was fine, I explained that I have no electricity in the bathroom or kitchen. He hopped up on my window, flipped a few breakers and now I have hot water in my shower. Showering with ice cold water for five months and fifteen days, and all I needed to do was flip a switch. I will admit, that from time to time, I considered flipping that same breaker. The problem is that there are a lot of breaker boxes hooked to a lot of wires and none of them are labeled. I was sure that I would reset my neighbor's alarm clock, so I only messed with the breaker box inside my place.
Funny world.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0346s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Clint Holmes
Sunrisa
Photos
I will be adding links to the Flickr page later tonight or tomorrow. I took about 200 photos of "Dia Tipico"