Honduran homestay

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Well it has been a month since I last updated this and a lot has happened in that time. As you know I was in Honduras out in a small rural town in the area of Santa Barbara. My town was actually much bigger than I was expecting and I think was one of the bigger ones of the group. It was called San Miguel and about 1500 people live there. It is an agriculturally based economy for the most part and people grow a lot of corn, beans, yucca, bananas, papayas and some other stuff. Many people also have cows that they can either sell or use for milk and meat. My family was not an average family and was probably the most well-off in town. Their house was certainly the nicest. This was a big surprise for me since I was really expecting a much more basic living situation without many comforts. I was thinking maybe two rooms, dirt or cement floors, no electricity or running water... instead I got a two-story brick house with my own room, electricity, running-water, full indoor bathroom with a shower and toilet, a kitchen with gas oven and stove, and cable tv that was on almost continuously. Although this was all very nice and life was much more comfortable than I expected, I was pretty disappointed in a way because I'd spent a lot of time preparing for a much more difficult situation and that was what the experience was supposed to be all about. I felt like I was going to be living in comfort while everyone else wasn't and that I was not going to get nearly as much out of it as everyone else. I have since found out that most of the group had electricity, running water etc. and they weren't as remote as I thought they'd be either.
My host father didn't have the normal agricultural work either. He had lived five years in New York and I think that's where he got all the money to build his beautiful house. Now he sells various products that he gets from his cousins in the US to people in our town and in the bigger towns around us. The stuff he gets is pretty random: shoes, purses, perfumes, makeup, and sometimes other things such as drill or tools. He basically asks them to send anything he sees a demand or need for. He doesn't have a store or anything but just walks around town with some stuff in his bag and talks to his friends and after a while might ask them if they want to buy some tennis shoes or something. He also gets money by bringing the students from San Miguel into the bigger town nearby in the back of his pickup truck. I would go with him many days and then we would just sit in the park or walk around and sell stuff or collect money that people owed him. This meant I had quite a few very boring days of just sitting in the park or wandering the streets waiting for something to happen.
Fortunately I was able to find some other places to go during the month so I didn't have to do this everyday. I worked for 5-6 days on the water project that has been going on for 3 years to install pipes to bring in water from a more consistent and clean source. We had to dig the ditches and then installed pvc tubing from a tank up on a hill nearby where it could get pressure from the gravity pulling it downhill. Another day I went to a banana/papaya planation and helped pick papayas for the day. This was fun but I didn't hear about it until my last week or else I would have gone more days. One day I went on a fishing trip up in the stream nearby. We fished for small fish, about 5 inches or less, and crabs. Rather than using a hook or line, we would just reach under the rocks in the pools and grab them with our hands! This was one of the funnest days. Another day I went to a political rally of a group lobbying to get ex-president Mel Zelaya to be allowed back into the country and his brother was there which got a lot of attention from all the people. Something else I did almost everyday was playing soccer. This was great because it gave me something to do everyday and I love soccer. On the weekdays we'd just play with all the locals but on Sundays teams from other towns would come to play against us.
Overall it was a pretty good month but one thing that I learned is the slowness of life here compared with the busy lives we are used to. I couldn't get used to just sitting around for hours and waiting for people to come by to talk to and so I was very bored a lot of the time. It did make me realize though the importance that we place on doing and getting things done all the time and being productive. While I think this is good, I also think it is good to learn from Hondurans who are much more relaxed and easy-going and take lots of time to talk with friends and neighbors and don't worry as much about getting stuff done all the time. I will be glad to get back into a busier life though and am looking forward to these next few months with more activities and stuff to do.

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Photos

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Me and Andres

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La casa

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La familia

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Me and my two host brothers Pedro and Andres

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Working on the water project.

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Grabbing fish

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The soccer team

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All the amigos.

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The park where I sat almost every day.

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Picking papayas

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Eating dinner

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Lunch on fishing trip

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Cows passing by outside my house

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View of the countryside

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The bench outside the house where I did all my homework