Teupasenti and Other Ruminations….

Hello all, So this was quite the interesting week. From this past Sunday until Wednesday morning, I was visiting a volunteer in a town called Teupasenti, or Teupa as they call it here for short. It’s an interesting town that supposedly has about 38,000 people in it. This is in fact, a big fat lie. I would estimate that there were closer to maybe 8,000 maximum. But what the volunteer explained to me is that they count all of the people in the aldeas (villages) that surround Teupa. So, maybe it has 38,000 people, maybe not.

Anyway, so here is how this adventure went.

Sunday morning at the obscene hour of 4:45am I dragged myself out of bed so that I could catch the 5:30am bus to the capital (Tegucigalpa). My host mom makes this trip every Sunday because she is studying to be a nurse in Teguc, so thankfully she was up and made me some breakfast. (Now I know what you are thinking, why don’t you make your own damn breakfast. You must understand that this is rather unacceptable here as a house guest.) Then I walked sleepily up my monstrous hill (btw I live at the bottom of a hill that makes me go asthmatic every morning) and hopped on the Rapidito, which is a nicer and supposedly quicker city bus. There were two married volunteers with me at this point.

So we all arive at the San Felipe hospital which is where our stop is. We disembark and then the real fun begins.

So at this point in the ass crack of dawn, there is a whopping 1 taxi around. And of course, the married couple grabbed it. So I was standing there probably NOT doing a very good job of “fitting in and looking like you know what you are doing so you don’t get robbed.” But thankfully a taxi driver bearing an elderly couple pulls over and picks me up. So I totally jump in, which is in stark contrast to the advice of our security advisor, but not too bad because they were all elderly people (FYI – 15-45 year olds will rob you. The little kids will pick your pockets. The elderly will only scam you. This is according to our hyper-protective security advisor).

So they got dropped off and the cabbie started chatting it up. And like a stupid gringa I totally was chatting back like I forgot all of my security lessons. “So what’s your name?” “Rebecca. (DOH!)” “You visiting?” “No, I live in Valle de Angeles (DOH!)” But, he was totally nice and didn’t try to rob me (after all, he was elderly) and I got to the next bus station just fine. So then I hop the bus to Teupa. BTW, did I ever tell you guys that the busses here are old US School busses? It cracks me up inside.

So I have never experienced a bus ride like this. Before we left it was like informercial-bus-hour, with people coming on and off trying to sell you shit from T-shirts, to snacks, to vitamin-cure-alls (not kidding). I was really hoping for a Sham-Wow but it never materialized. And to make things more interesting at one point of the trip we pulled over to pick up a guy who was selling plantain chips and he basically chilled on the bus selling plantains until the next stop O_o

When we got about an 45 min outside of the capital I noticed half the road had fallen off of a cliff. This was not comforting.

About another 30 min later the paved road suddenly ended and became a dirt road for the next hour. This road wound around a lot. So when we got close to Teupa I asked where the “Cooperativa” was and all of the bus realized I was going to go visit the Gringa in town. So at my stop I had 40 Hondurans pointing out the window and ushering me off of the bus. And of course, there was the gringa towering above the Hondurans with blonde hair and a sunburn. This was Amanda.

 So Amanda’s house is owned by former Peace Corps volunteers and they happened to be visiting. So there were 4 people in the house and I got to hear cool stories about Hondu in the olden days of 2000. That night Amanda and I went to a Honduran-Chinese restaurant where we got Honduran-Chinese fried rice. There is no possible way to explain this food. And a bolo (drunk guy) decided to join us. He was SLOSHED and made no sense. But he was with a friend. So we tried to get him to go back to his friend, and instead he ushered his friend over to us. Riiiiight. This was my first bolo experience. It was not too harrowing. I could have pushed them down.

 So we managed to get away. Next day we went to her work which was every-which-way of boring. This is because she has no work. But she still meets her counterpart every morning and sits and chats until noon. There are many reasons for this none of which are her fault. That day we went to get copies of a letter that they had to send out (because they did, in fact, have work coming on Thursday) and we ran into a dude from the municipality who needed the chairs from their building. So he was going to get a truck so we could get the chairs for him (I have no idea why). So he gets the truck, but PC volunteers are not allowed to drive and the counterpart doesn’t know how to drive. So we wait for a driver. But the driver never shows (welcome to Honduras). But during that time we somehow got an invitation to have dinner with the mayor and a bunch of visiting medical students. So that was a sweet score.

So that night I had an awkward meal with complete strangers who had no idea why we were there. But it was fun.

Next day we went to work again and actually did some stuff. We made lecture notes on paper like in the olden days before PowerPoint. Then we went to the river and drank beers clandestinely.

Then that evening we had a fun event that I cannot write about so I will have to tell you in person. I have had to omit much of my trip. Sorry all you avid readers out there. PC monitors our blogs.

Thursday and Friday were typical PC days. We had lots of language training, some health training on STI’s (Sexually Transmitted Infections – new politically correct term) and on rape. Those were screamingly fun sessions.

We also learned about gender in development (which I helped create a class on at UF), and how to be a good facilitator. This was a fun exercise. We brainstormed ideas of facilitating and then had to do a 3 min presentation on it. So my group did their presentation on making spaghetti and we basically

1) Made them sing “On top of Spaghetti”

2) From the song listed the ingredients

3) Made them act out how to make spaghetti – but this is the kicker. we made 5 people hold hands in a circle to be the pot, and then people to be fire and water, and people to be sketti, and etc. It was hy-freekin-sterical. Right.

So this was pretty much my week. But you know, of course, that at least one horrifyingly embarassing thing had to happen. And you, my friends, get to be rewarded with your diligence in reading all the way throught this blog….

So riddle me this, Batman. What do you do when your Honduran toilet is flushing but won’t flush anything? You keep flushing it over and over while crying inside. Because in the states what would be a 2-flusher is a 20-flusher in Honduras. And what am I supposed to do? It’s not MY fault all of their food is high in fiber and saturated fat! And that I’m physically larger and therefore have larger….movements! This is an issue for me because I am still waiting for the toilet to please-dear-god take care of this horrible situation. I think I am the only one who uses that bathroom. I hope for the sake of this lovely family that I am the only one. To add insult to injury, the toilets here take forever to fill back up with water. Well, let’s be clear… the water never wholly goes away because of the lack of water pressure. And herein lies the problem. So you have to flush and wait 30 seconds to flush again. Now this is entirely suspicious behavior AND rather monotonous to do. So I will leave and come back often times for the residual flushes. But this morning I had to catch the bus so I left hoping that everything would magically disappear. I’m sorry to say, that it did not. And now it is worse because…. well… time has passed and it’s just worse. And I’m pretty sure that every time I flush I’m just swirling it all around and nothing is happening of note. So I keep hoping that the toilet-fairy will come and take it all away while I sleep tonight and maybe will leave me some Lysol in it’s place. I miss the good-ole-days of diarrhea and waiting for time #4 so I could call the doctor for Cipro. Because that truly only takes like 5 flushes. This nonsense is just mocking me.

Update: The toilet fairy has let me down. This makes me wonder if there truly is a Santa Claus….