El Pital
I have been here a few months now. I find I get more and more used to how things are here and get less and less struck by how different it is to home. This probably means that I often forget to mention some of the things that happen that you might find very different. I have been thinking for some time that it might be a good idea to start writing about these things, so here we have it, a little guide on some of the differences between home and life here in the valley. I should probably set the disclaimer here that this is no way representative of Hondurans parse, but rather the Hondurans that live here in the same valley as me, who we shall refer to hereon out as ‘Cuencans.’
Reading
Apart from their school notebooks, which they are obliged to carry, you will almost never see a Cuencan reading. They would never have a book in their hand unless they were about to wedge something open or hit their dog with it (see ‘Perros’). Cuencans don’t genrallt tend to read for pleasure. They laugh a lot at us Gringos, who choose to pass the time swinging in a hammock reading a book. When it comes to reading, they have a list of other things they would much rather be doing. In fact I think they would rather be bored than read. The funny knock on effect of this is that most of my students have absolutely no concept of punctuation or spelling. If I ask them to write a story it will almost never have a comma or a full stop in it, it will just be a page long sentence. They often don’t even put spaces between the words, sosometimesitsjustapagelongword.
V’s and B’s
Over here, as in the majority of the Spanish speaking world, there is little differentiation between how you pronounce a B and a V. Consequently you end up with Bs where you need V’s and vice Versa; sometimes with hilarious results. For example on the way down a valley there is a sign originally designed to ask people to not throw rubbish out of their cars. It should read ‘No Botar Basura,’ botar being the very ‘to throw.’ What it actually reads, in lovely hand painted type, is ‘No Votar Basura’ which means don’t vote rubbish. Good advice, I guess, but I am not sure this particular sign was intended to be a political statement.
Meat
Meat is meat here, whatever it is and however it died. And they cook the lot. This is perfectly illustrated by the fact that when Jonathan’s dog caught a possum in the yard last week Doña Maria, the Honduran lady who lives with them had it bubbling in a pot before you could say “Christ that’s ugly.” Except they wouldn’t say Christ. They’re missionaries. Apparently Jonathan lifted up the lid to see what was cooking and found a little furry face staring back at him. Nice.
Frescos
I guess it’s different for different people, but in England I almost never buy Pepsi or Coca Cola. There about a million other things I would prefer to drink over this penny cleaning, gut stripping, unethical black goo. In England, I would also have so many other more healthy, cheaper and attractive options; the purified water that comes straight out my tap being one. Here of course they don’t have purified water coming out of their taps, some of them don’t even have taps. What they do have however is either Pepsi or Coca Cola. Every village will inevitably have a pulperia, which is the equivalent of a local store tacked onto the side of someone’s house. The only thing in addition to the most basic items that you are guaranteed to find at every pulperia in Honduras is Pepsi or Coke. This is because every pulperia in the country has a deal with either Pepsi or Coca Cola. Most days, round about dinner time you will see a child walk past on the way back from the pulperia with a bag of flour (for the evenings tortillas) and a 3 litre bottle of Pepsi (for the evenings refreshments). I can guarantee that the 3litre bottle of Pepsi cost more than the ingredients for their entire meal. Am I the only one that thinks that it’s totally hideous that a gross sugary branded drink is more readily available than clean safe water? To me it seems like development skipped a couple of chapters. Every day I am reminded that when I go home, I am going to slap the first person that complains about water ‘out of the tap.’ Probably with a 3 litre bottle of Coke.
Getting around
Transport is definitely different here. It’s funny how much time you can spend cursing the driver of an empty truck, who left you standing in the rain before you remember that they’re not actually obliged to pick you up. Despite the downsides and the illegality of the whole arrangement it goes on because it appears to keep the whole of this part of the north Coast of Honduras going. The biggest difference I had to overcome moving here was that the whole system requires you to adopt a much more relaxed stance to your plans. I have never been so absolutely dependent on others to get anywhere. The trick when planning anything is not just to leave two or three hours to get there, it’s also to plan that you might not arrive at all.
Pets
Dogs are not pets, I repeat dogs are not pets. Meaning that you’re not obliged to feed them, clean them or indeed be nice to them. They are simply there to bark at passers by in the night, by day they can take care of themselves. While I can’t deny that some Cuencans have emotional attachments to their dogs they certainly don’t dote on them in the same sycophantic way we do in Europe. Lot’s of people have Dogs here, in fact too many if you ask me, but to Cuencans dogs are always animals. One of the other volunteers, Simon, has a Labrador called Zoe and for the life of them no one can understand why we play with her, walk her, why she has a collar or why she does what she is told. The most incredible thing for them is why she is allowed in the house. It’s simply beyond the scope of the remit they believe a dog fulfills. To visitors it can seem completely cold, but then it’s also completely sensible. For them a dog guards the property, no more no less. The villages are full of skinny, tick ridden dogs, not a recognizable breed amongst them, who spend their days hunting around in bins for food and their nights barking at anyone walking through the village. Under no circumstances would you want to touch a Cuencan dog. They’re not dangerous, they’re just gross. They’re forever having babies, most of which get drowned. Few of them know how to play as their usual experience of being physical with a human being involves being beaten. The really terrible but quite funny thing is the trick that we all learn pretty quick. If you want to get rid of a Cuencan dog, say it’s barking at you or chasing you as they sometimes do, all you have to do is look at it then scoop down as if you were picking up a rock. They immediately scarper. They automatically assume you’re going to throw a rock at them. I am assured that this works in every country in Latin America. Practical…but really bloody sad if you think about it.
Honesty
A lot of cynical gringos who have been here far too long will tell you that Cuencans are dishonest. This simply is not true. In fact, as a culture they are often too frighteningly honest. This is best emphasized through their use of vocabulary, which can be hillariously binary. If it’s not beautiful, it’s ugly, if it’s not skinny, it’s fat. But more than that, everything is situational and it’s almost always comparative. If you are unlucky enough to be the largest person in the room, you are the fatty. To coin an English idiom, the Hondurans tend to call a spade a spade, but only if it’s stood next to a rake.