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.