water is life

Teetering slightly, the old vieja gripped both handles of the large clay pot brimming with water and heaved it upward onto her head. The pot itself was a festive sight, the clay gleaming with a coat of rich coffee glaze, the bright blue sash wrapped around the mouth of the basin rippling in the slight wind and across her toothy laughing smile. Children and adults alike crowded around her cheering as she momentarily balanced the water on her head. onto the ground. Then, with the strength in her small frame, she heaved the pot onto the ground. Clay and water shattered everywhere, splashing the onlookers and causing everyone to burst out in applause and whistles. It was the traditional breaking of the "cántaro." Smashing the pot symbolizes the communities freedom from collecting water in pots from the river, because a new water system was now connected to every home.

The blue and white ribbon was cut, the llave turned on, and everyone wanted their taste of the water. Old men stuck their head under the facet, a refreshing way to cool off after the heat of the day. Children stuck their mouths right under the tap. Thirsty myself, I filled up my water bottle when I could sneak it in, and took a long, satisfying drink. Water clean enough to drink. So simple, so basic, and so necessary.

Water is everything, and we--the privileged--take so much advantage of it. We waste money on bottled water when free water is provided, we take hour long showers at gallons a minute, we leave sprinklers running so that our lawns can be slightly greener, and we don't blink an eye. Sorry for the small soapbox. But witnessing a whole community celebrating the advent of water...its so much easier to see the hypocrisies in my own life and in the society of my home country. I digress.

We were at the Water Inauguration in El Canton, Honduras, celebrating the completion of a water system that has taken over a year to complete in this rural coffee-producing puebla. It is a place that is dear to my heart, as it is where Public Health is currently working and I am close with many of the families that live here. Staff was invited to celebrate alongside the community. Songs, skits, fireworks, speeches, pinatas, food, drinks and all. The whole experience was amazing, but the moment that really stuck out to me was the old woman smashing the pot. Water for everyone, water that won't sicken them with parasites and will quench thirsts and clean hands and be the life-giving force that it is meant to be. Now they have it. 

buggin'

Cockroaches that sneak-attack you in the bathroom and scurrying in the dish cabinets, beetles crawling through my sheets, ants sneaking in through the walls, terminates gnawing through the walls. Yes, I live in Honduras, and yes, insects and bugs and all things creepy-crawly are a way of life, but do they need to be spooning with me in my bed?! A couple nights a week one of us will wake up the others with screaming and flailing, flicking bugs of our faces and out of our beds, unable to go back to sleep because of the ghostly ants running up and down our legs. I have become the Nazi of our balcony door, barking at anyone who leaves it even a smidgen ajar, as any insect will waste no time in finding refuge in our humble abode.

Welcome to the rainy season in Santa Lucia. Viene la lluvia. The mountains turn greener and the bugs get bolder. Oh mom, it would make you cringe.

 

Zurzular

I know that I don't talk much about my job on this blog--I'm trying to keep it less about a daily documentation about my life and more about stories and experiences.

BUT.

The Public Health Program recently completed work in the community of Zurzular, Honduras. We have been sending brigades since December of last year, and since then nearly 650 students built all four infrastructure projects in 87 homes. Fittingly, the last day of construction coincided with Dia de Los Niños, so the whole town was out, celebrating youth, life and community! It's bittersweet, as Zurzular is a community the Public Health program has called our second home for ten months, but also fosters feelings of accomplishment and gratitude.

santa lucia

It’s always rainy here. Mist gets caught between the pines, the dampness sits on our skin, a different kind of sweat. Not the city sweat anymore. Cold humidity causes hair to curl at the nape, paint to slowly peel, and breeds the life that gave our new home its nickname—the moldy mansion.

We (American staff) moved, out from the city into a town in the mountains, Santa Lucia. Primarily for safety reasons, we are told, but mainly to get us to stop going out at night. As the office still remains in Tegucigalpa (in fact, in the same building as our old apartment), to the city we go every day for work. Local transportation isn’t an option, laden with laptops and blackberry’s and kindles, so we have a private bus pick us up every morning and take us home every night. One by one, we filter out in the morning, backpack packs, lunches made, coffee mugged, ducks in a row. Sitting ducks, it sometimes feels, because even though we are out in the country, groups of 22 gringos tend to stick out. Especially those on a routine schedule. But, this is the situation, and so we go.

It has been an adjustment. Our new place is a mansion by Honduran standards—by anyone standards, really. Ironic that the biggest house I’ve ever lived it comes at the same time I’m building latrines and stoves for rural families who live on dirt floors. I guess it has to be to comfortably house twenty-plus bodies. But at the same time, it feels concentrated, crowded, and overwhelming. Once we are home from work, there is nowhere to go. Walking is unsafe on the unlit mountain roads, buses stop running at sundown, taxis are non-existent; friends with cars live in the city. I’ve read three books since the move two weeks ago. Solace is the balcony connected to my room, where I can escape. Climbing over the side to the roof, I can lie back on the shingled incline, out of everyone’s view, under the sky, for hours.

Not without its perks, there have been some upsides to the move. I can be in one area of the house and not be an active part of a conversation happening four rooms away. Mountain air is crisp and biting, I can snuggle down in my comforter and finally can wear my alpalca wool socks and woven poncho. Smoke wafts from roadside elote stands, grilled corn quickly becoming my favorite snack. We pick fat yellow lemons off the trees the size of softballs, a fruit I haven't seen since I moved to Honduras. I don’t fall asleep to gunshots in a country with 20 homicides a day. And the beauty of the area is staggering. Green oozes of the trees, the photosynthesis nearly visible, the color tangible. My favorite byproduct of the rainy season. It’s just isolated, a compound cleverly disguised with master bedrooms and marble countertops.

So life has been a bit different lately. Don’t worry, true to form, I have already found a couple promising bits of social life—albeit a ten minute drive away. On the weekends, we can hop on buses to Valle de Angeles or walk to downtown Santa Lucia. I plan to flag down a passing chicken bus one day, just to board it and see where it takes me. We are planning a huge Halloween party, and I’m hoping I can find dry ice for our indoor waterfall (yes, that is right). Pitbull and Prince Royce, some of reggaeton’s finest, are in concert, and the night has potential to get crazier than when Daddy Yankee was in town. And a visa run to my favorite city in Nicaragua is on the schedule for the first week in November.

Things are good! Just a change of scenery. A breath of fresh air. With just a touch of mold.

don't tell mom

This is the third time this week I've fallen asleep to multiple rounds of gunshots. Thanks for reminding me of where I live, Tegucigalpa.

glimpse

If you have a few minutes, check out this video by Oscar Valenica, a Medical Brigade coordinator for GB Panama who was visiting for the week.



Just a small glimpse into a couple of our programs, communities and the work Global Brigades is doing in different parts of rural Honduras.

la catarata escondida

Is it bad that I secretly love it, that I get an adrenaline rush, that I feel slightly bad ass, when the thought, "maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the best idea," crosses my mind?

As such, that was precisely what I was thinking whilst clinging to the jutted rock face underneath a gushing waterfall in the midst of a downpour somewhere in the middle of the Honduran jungle. Maybe, just maybe, trekking to the hidden waterfalls, las cataratas escondidas, during the height of the rainy season wasn't the best idea.

Getting there wasn't without it's share of mishaps. A couple mix-ups with cab drivers between Comayagua (the bus we wanted) and Comayagüela (dubbed the most dangerous area of Tegus-which is really saying something), Dstrong assuring us that "he would know where we were going when we got there," which inevitably resulted in all six of us gringos getting off the bus only to realize we were one stop too soon and had to turn around and re-board, oh, and the steady storm of rain. Typical.

Dstrong and Frank had done this same hike a couple of weeks ago, albeit with the sun shining. Hence, without the slick rocks and mudslides, conditions that were only slightly exacerbated by the precipitation.

The initial hike to the top of the waterfall was short, a quick ten minutes through a muddy but well-worn path, the meditative sound of forest rain replaced by the gradual thunder of the falls. Amid the dense canopy of green, misty fog was suspended low in the valleys, wispy fingers stretched through the cloud forest. Standing at the mouth of a 300-meter waterfall cascading into pools below, it felt like we had stumbled across a place hidden and Jurassic--despite evidence of previous visitors in the form of a homemade rope-swing dangling from a hanging branch over the small pool before the falls. In true Honduran fashion, the swing was made from thick black electrical wires. Why wire? That's violating the first rule of living in Honduras without getting frustrated by what could be perceived to be a complete lack of logic and reason-don't ask why.

I got as close as I could to the edge, peering down the drop below. That's where we were headed.

The descent down wasn't easy. Our hands swung from tree branch to exposed root, our feet sought firm footing on the mossy rock, taking calculated steps when we found them and testing the roots strength when we couldn't. A couple times I just resorted to the good ol' ass slide. The rain was steady and strong, but I didn't mind it-it actually added to the whole ambiance. At the river bed, I quickly hopscotched and weaved between the rocks up to the main pool, a successful descent instilling confidence in my rock-balancing skills. Murky green, colored from the churning water, the pool looked frigid and less than inviting, but according to Frank, the only way was through the pool, up the rocks and onward to the falls.

Stripping down to suits, in we went, one by one, the shock of the freezing water momentarily taking my breath away. Never have I been so cold in Honduras. Treading, partly to keep warm and partly to ward off any underwater creatures, we swam to the base of the first falls. The boys, naturally, made the climb look easily, channeling their inner Spider-man skills. The other two girls gave up, headed back to land. I figured we had come this far. I started the climb, Dstrong and Tony dictating where I should grab as I pulled myself from rock to rock. Only once did they point out a grip only for that rock to break off in my hand. Thanks, guys. The water was rushing over me, my contacts sliding all over my eyeballs. Reason #523423 why I need Lasik--so I can ninja-climb my way through waterfalls. Sometimes I would have to pull myself up to the next hand hold without knowing where my feet were going, legs desperately slipping against the wet granite, relying on muscle and trust in my own body. Ok, so it wasn't the biggest climb, but getting to the top I was shaking with adrenaline. And probably hypothermia.

Onward, inching on tiny rock ledges, we finally made it to the base of the main falls. The sound was thunderous, the power palpable. Mist mixed with the rain, creating a hazy fog so that the falling water all but disappeared. The current was so strong that getting underneath the actual falls was nearly impossible. One of those moments when you are that close to something so strong, so natural, so ancient, you realize you are a very small part in a very big world, you feel both humbled and empowered, but overall, grateful to experience nature in one of its purest form.

Roadside coconuts while waiting for the bus topped it all off. With speed and dexterity (I never know how a finger isn't lost), the coconut top was sliced off, straw inserted, delicious coconut water to be had. The man waited for me for me to finish the juice, then macheted the shell so I could eat the meat as well. We were planning on celebration cervezas, but a coconut will always be a sufficient replacement.

Bad idea? Totally worth it.