ténganme envidia

Get ready to be jealous: Yesterday night I saw a free MOLOTOV concert on the beach

I am now in Playa del Carmen, Mexico at a sweet sweet hostel which I highly recommend with awesome German and Spanish and Mexican backpacker friends plus of course Alex and Lena. Before this we were in Tulum, Mexico where we saw beachside Mayan ruins and swam in warm turquoise water.

Happy New Year, everyone!

noticias argentinas

not the soda stereo reunion (which is noteworthy however).

I officially have been placed with my teacher and university (Universidad Nacional de la Plata - in the top 1 or 2 universities in all Argentina). Flight is confirmed. Go go, gadget job!

complements of the season

hi, everyone!

a quick update i write to you from mexico:
- got into san pedro sula late at night with no bags, came back to next day and they had arrived
- visited SHHers quickly
- hit the road: spent one night in guatemala, 3 nights in belize, and now i just got into tulum, mexico (in yucatan near the beach)
- christmas in belize was sketchy as crap but very fun. straight off the boat i stumbled into a reggae jam session (all townies plus me, lena and alex) and established myself as the best guitar player in a town of 1,003 - not hard to do.
i met a hermit who looked like a crossbreed of samuel l. jackson and papa smurf and he showed me his house which is a rebuilt mayan altar with a wood roof and no power in the middle of nowhere. he had run away from the usa round about 1971 when he had a hippie freak-out that never ended.
i recorded a demo cd at a crappy little rust-ridden studio about 10 meters from the ocean - where, incidentally, i met andy palacios, belize´s most famous punta singer - he autographed something for lena, who had heard of him in germany. i need help copyrighting my song just in case a certain sketchy hotelier bootlegged it before i erased it from the computer. as far as i know i have the only master copy with me and am hoping it doesn´t break before i copy it.

i´m so glad to be in mexico right now. it´s so built-up and relatively tourist-friendly.

signing out,
mochilero chuck

PS. so far so good! at a bus stop a little old granny tried to steal 10 mex. pesos from me when i went to buy a taco from her but i caught her - she was a turd, i don´t care how little or old she was.
PPS. this confirms what i read in the lonely planet this morning (thanks ma and pa!): the little tricky trick people sometimes do in yucatan is that they´ll pretend like you didn´t pay them enough. for this all you have to do is be like OKAY, I AM PAYING YOU ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR... etc PESOS NOW. i´ll give them this though: it´s more fun than people just straight up wanting to kill you like in san pedro sula.
PPPS. no, in all seriousness, i´ve had a good 4 or 5 people in mexico just help me out with this or that without asking for anything in return. combine this with a rate of zero people calling out racist names to us on the street so far, and you have a pleasantly surprised chelito.

insomnio/emoción

no puedo dormir, que estoy demasiado emocionado... en 3 horas me voy para el aeropuerto y otra vez a américa central y méxico

alcancé verles a tod@s de mi familia, más ale, más una chica de fulbright y su roommate (buenísima gente)... a ver dónde escriba mi próxima entrada.

so ends my sneak attack on the u.s.a. i'll be back in january for a week and a half, luego en seguida a la argentina y a perú (que tengo los vuelos confirmados ya) . . . dale. acabo de descargar los nuevos album de miranda y cuarteto de nos. buena música para el camino.

una brevísima vuelta a mi muy querida yanquilandia

i write to you from the land of the frost giants - that's right, i flew back for a brief sneak attack... i flew out of honduras on dec. 11 late at night and have been visiting family around this neck of the woods.

it's different to be able to drink tap water, to feel the cold all around me, the whole u.s. experience... going through customs in dulles at 1:30 am was quite an otherworldly experience also. it must have been even more so for all the salvadoran passengers who arrived with me.

in a few more days i'll be flying back to honduras, where i'll spend all of a day and a half before going to yucatan, mexico with lenita. meanwhile i'm shuffling around baggage and packing shtuff.

With work done, I am now morphing into hippie mochilero mode. Backpacker powers activate!

veintitres - dreiundzwanzig - twenty-three

The twenty-third birthday is way better than the somewhat anti-climactic twenty-second. This time, instead of being in college and maybe bumming just a little about not turning twenty-one a second time, I celebrated in the Progreso heat with my international crew of friendles in a restaurant with terrible food. And I was given a 45 minute set to play acoustic reggae music (accompanied by Rasta Carlos on drums) two nights in a row at Klein Bohemia. During the day I celebrated with Juan Alejandro and Cristian, 2 Copprome kids with the same birthday. We played videogames in the newly constructed MegaPlaza mall. They ordered burgers and - in perfect Copprome kid style - took one bite of their respective burgers and then said "HOLD THIS FOR ME!¨ (cuáles son las palabras mágicas, chicos?? ... POR FAVOR GUARDAME ESTO!!) so that they could divide them into tiny pieces for all their friends when they get back.

Tonight I make my farewell to Copprome (it will most likely not be the last, but it will be musical). Cosmo and I are going to play and sing for them.

I am dedicating the day to tying up loose ends and getting last minute kitsch to give to people. The project is in good hands, the droves of North American college students begin coming on Thursday, and all is good in the hood.

--charly--
your man on the street
reporting from progreso


Oh, Honduras, ¿cómo te quiero?
..Oh, Honduras, ¡cómo te quiero!

i am saint nikolaus

this morning i dressed up as german santa claus and visited the mapache kinder to give out candies. nobody cried so i think it was a success. i have a bit of a cold so my voice was nice and deep. FELIZ NAVIDAD, JO JO JOOOO!!!

my work is just about done here. soon i will be off for a quick visit north (not quite the north pole) and then a long journey to the south of the south.

today the high school girls are in ashonplafa (asociación honduraña para planeamento familiar or something) talking about self esteem and teenage issues. i´m over at their computer kiosk to the side trying to stay out of the way. it{s like being the parent of a teenager. i don{t want to embarrass them too much.

anyhoo, this weekend holds a few goodbyes and celebrations and goodbye celebrations before next week when i fly away with my mary poppins umbrella.

saludos de la población chela de progreso,

carlos abbop,
el sabor gringacho,
matador de dragones,
extranjero en todos países

diciembre ha llegado

well estimados and estimadas,

it´s december! where does the time go?

got to go, compy class about to start.

and so it goes

Copprome: Computer classes are going swimmingly. I'm mostly on to administrative (long-term) stuff there, like making sure that I have records made to chart all of my students' progress in the English class, student evaluations of activities/classes, scheduling activities for them now that they're on vacation, etc. It's unexpectedly relaxing.

Recent journeys: Over the weekend, somehow managed to go to Comayagua one day and Tela the next day. And learn to dance bachata with Lena. For the record, I still think bachata music stinks like rotten vegetables and burning plastic (that is to say, a bus ride - my context for bachata).

I also have a load of funny stories about being a minority to tell you when I get a chance. Just ask. For now I'll leave you with two moments of zen, which always works for me: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zs_rXxi0zhM

More photos are up on my Picasa. I reckon.

PS - Cheer up -> http://youtube.com/watch?v=-Zzh79J2fC0

El Lago Yojoa

Weekend adventure
Over the weekend, Lena and I went with our friend Alex to El Lago Yojoa to have adventures. These included jumping off small cliffs into water, climbing into a cave behind a waterfall with the water going in front of us. So schöen.
We stayed Saturday night at D and D brewery, a hostal/brewery run by a cool American guy who looks like the dad from Orange County Choppers. He was a brewmeister, an amateur archaeologist (found lots of Lenca artifacts while digging for pools and septic tanks), and a slide guitar player.
On Sunday we found a nice older gentleman in town who rented us a rowboat for the day and we went out on the Lago de Yojoa and then hiked through the Parque Ecológico. It was amazingly beautiful. I will revisit this place in my dreams for years. And only in my dreams, since I ran out of batteries and was only able to take mental photos. We hadn´t brought much money, and there were no banks out there, so we ended up stretching it out and being tacaño and arriving back in San Pedro with just enough money to arrive home with about 10 lempiras left between the 2 of us (Alex had run out of money on Saturday and we lended her money to get back to SPS).

Copprome Update
This week we´re starting up the computer classes with Patty and Luis from Diginet as the main instructors. I´m working on a pending ¨wish list¨ for donations for school supplies for Copprome. Those interested in donating school supplies or computer equipment, contact me or SHH.
Our administrative work is ongoing as we continue to get things ready for January. The high school girls are getting together their talent show acts and have requested a fairly specific remix for their dance routine. DJ Cosmo will make it on her compy.
And now that classes and exams are over, and recuperations are nearly over, Christmas preparations are beginning (there are Christmas lights up in some houses already, what with there being no Thanksgiving buffer zone for decorations).

I am to teach the kids a Christmas song in English. Any suggestions? They already know Jingle Bells. And no one here knows or cares what Chanukah is.

Oh man, a mosquito just bit me on the forehead and I can´t see it but it feels like a golfball.

fotos

están puestas.

check them here -
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/chuckabbo/CharlyHonduras

Most excellent!

Things are going excellently!"!

We´re interviewing people to come to the job in January - so far we´ve found one American volunteer to teach English come January (possibly more, we have pending Skype interviews) and we are in the process of interviewing to hire a qualified Honduran educator. More on this later.

Also, Shin and Cosmo now have a car. It´s amazing how things have come together over the past few weeks -- In a few more weeks, once I´ve finished everything, I´ll be ready to fly away with my umbrella like Mary Poppins.

Oh, and it´s official. Fulbright is placing me in La Plata, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. More on this later also. For now, I have to close the COPPROME compy lab.

Piratas del caribe parte dos - 3 countries in 2 days!

Hello friends!

I write to you on an uncharacteristically rainy and cold Progreso day after returning triumphantly from our epic journey to Belize with Shin and Cosmo to renew our 3-month visas and not be "illegal aliens" (outlawed extraterrestrials?) in Honduras.

Way early on Friday morning we hopped in a typical converted schoolbus with a giant Jesus slogan on the front (JEHOVAH ES MI REY with a sticker of Calvin peeing on an Olimpia soccer logo under it in this case). On the ride I met a really nice guy the same age as me who by now may or may not have made it across Mexico and into the US without documents to try to make money to support his parents and siblings by doing backbreaking work - thinking about the inequality of this situation is not a new thought process to me, but now I have another face, a face just like mine, to add to it.

We crossed over into Guatemala the same day and stopped in Puerto Barrios, where we actually didn't do work (weird for us) but rather walked around and ate the best frozen chocolate covered bananas I've tried yet. Also I saw an awesome family who had two pet monkeys named Panchita and Panchito who lived in their tree in a giant birdhouse like contraption - the monkeys came close enough to high five or throw poop at me but they didn't do either of the two. We took pictures.

The next day we took a boat to Belize and spent a total of about an hour and a half in country, where we at Garifuna food, marvelled at the novelty of people speaking beautiful Caribbean English in addition to Spanish, Garifuna and Quiche, and I shared the book "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs with the nice guy in customs. He liked it a lot, as may you.

We took a boat back to Livingston, Honduras, a community founded by Garifunas (people of African descent who were marooned centuries ago on Saint Vincent, where they killed off/mixed with the Arawaks, then moved to the coastlines of central America - their language comes from English, French, African languages, and Arawak). It was a sweet coastal town with a cool collection of people. Mayans wearing colorful tejidos, a few people of Indian (i.e. from India, descent, including our awesome boat captain and soul guide, Jorge), loads of Garifuna people, and a healthy ebb of off-season tourists, including an awesome group of Slovakian guys who accompanied us when we went to jump off a waterfall like Tarzan at Siete Altares. We also toured the Rio Dulce in a boat - I asked if the river had carved out the amazing canyons on either side of us, and Eleo, our bilingual (quiche, Spanish) captain, told me that people there believe that it was made in a moment by the word of God. It was poetic - and, I think, consistent with my initial interpretation. It was carved with an artist's flair, with thick trees and vines growing horizontally out of the sheer 20 meter high rock face.

The next day we went to a beach and drank giant coconuts and saw a scarab beatle bigger than my hand. Then we took a long series of boats and buses to get back to work in Progreso.

I don't think I've had a more amazing week in my life.

Sweet home El Progreso,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Chelito

PS - Pictures pending, promise!

cómo vuela el tiempo, pero cómo vuela

I think the last time I wrote was from Copán. Here´s a month in review.

The conference was awesome and I made lots of new and awesome service-minded friends, among them some awesome Swiss and German friends from San Pedro. We´ve gone on some trips together since then, one weekend to an international (read as Honduras plus Guatemala) eating festival in Santa Bárbara where we, filling our duty as the only non-Hondurans, danced punta for everyone there. The week before last I spent a few long days translating for a medical brigade coming from the States. It was easier than I thought because basically everyone had diabetes, high blood pressure and rotten teeth. All I had to translate really was ¨The doctor recommends you don´t drink so much pepsi or eat so much fried chicken, ok?¨.

Last weekend we went to Tegucigalpa to hang with our friends from OYE and see some successful projects and also meet with an international group of totally courageous, totally knowledgeable non-profit lawyers who work with land rights and are going to help us, pro bono, with Siete de Abril. Tegucigalpa is an awesome city that goes all the way up the mountains. Shin says it reminds him of Rio in Brazil, favelas and all. We were able to stay with the ever-awesome Ahern family, of CARE International fame, and hang out with a cadre of knowledgable people who work with Honduran youth. Our area of work is a big deal - over half of Honduras´s population is under 18, many live without family, education, food, or shelter ... I was particularly awe-struck with the Mikah Project in Teguc, who like us work with land reform, housing, and transition homes for at-risk youth. They have a great model and they´re very effective. Some of the boys from their home formed a Christian-themed Reggaeton band that really rocks and has been featured on radio stations here alongside the usual misogynistic booty shakin music.

We had a defining moment at the end of last week when SHH bought a plot of land to relocate the community of Siete de Abril, after consulting with the town´s padrinato and with the board in the States. Construction will begin in December when the college groups arrive, with over 120 students in total coming between December and January.

At Copprome, work has become less overwhelming (downgraded to ¨whelming¨), and we´re in the process of interviewing people to replace me come December. We already have found a few different wonderful SHH colleagues who will begin working in May also. Seguimos dando pasitos para adelante. The internet is now completely up and running in COPPROME and the computing classes will begin soon. We have formalized the computer lab rules. The kids´ final exams start next week.

I´m in the process of pushing back my flight out by a few weeks in order to have time to finish everything before I go.

Last night we celebrated Halloween in COPPROME, haunted house and all. The kids loved it - I dressed up as a mad doctor and made them touch eyeballs (lichas inside of koolaid), fingers (sausages with ketchup) and Frankenstein brains (spaghetti). A few of the little kids were seriously scared until they ate the fingers and brains and eyeballs. The eyeballs were particularly popular. It was an amazing group collaboration between OYE, SHH, and our nutty friends. Always fun sharing our satanic (read as, frowned upon by la Iglesia but permitted nonetheless) North American traditions with the kiddos.

Today we´re off to Belize to step over the border and back before Cosmo´s 3 month visa runs out. After this I´ll be good to go until I leave.

Until next time,
Chelito

An update from Copan

Greg flew back to Hawai'i early on Monday morning. His help to my educational planning was incomparable and I have absolutely no idea where I'd be without him right now. Tela was indeed awesome, we drank coconut milk, Greg braided his hair, we got stung by jellyfish, we saw monkeys in the jungle, we saw the place where Captain Morgan used to hide his pirate ship, we snorkeled, we ate awesome food, we stayed in some cabañas in San Juan, a sweet garífuna community... It was perfect in every way. The stomach bug passed through Shin and Cosmo (Shin was actually hospitalized overnight on Saturday and couldn't make it to Tela). By now everyone's tummy is back to normal.

This week I continued hustling as an educational program director, mediated some workplace issues, had a breakthrough with the class for the colegialas, slept very little...

And now I find myself here in Copan, a Southern city near some breathtaking Mesoamerican ruins. We are here for the Project Honduras conference (look it up, cool stuff). We are hustling and networking with all kinds of eccentric and excellent people who working from all different angles to try to help Honduras. More on this later.

the great gatsby

Background . . . I had interviewed all the high school girls when I first arrived here to see what their dreams are, what their long-term goals are, so that we can take the steps to get them from here to there. When I asked them what they´d like to personally accomplish, they mentioned different careers or universities they´d like to see in their future, but the majority of them also expressed that they´ve never danced, choreographed, acted, sung, etc. on stage. So Pati and I have been trying to get together a sort of variety show for them where they can showcase their talents and get a chance to shine on like the crazy diamonds they are.

Yesterday we got a lot of stuff done at the office but we were kind of hitting a wall trying to find a space for the talent show. No one was returning our calls. Here comes a Honduras moment.

This artist-pharmacist-socialite named Mahchi comes into the office and starts talking to OYE and I say hi, like you do. He comes over and, in so many words, asks me why a gringo kid would speak Spanish like an Argentine and he tells me about an American friend of his wants help with her Spanish so that she can pass an exam to become a certified legal interpreter.

He invites me to his house, which is actually on the same street as ours but is sorrounded by a giant leafy yellow wall, to meet her that evening at a soirée. I briefly wonder if I should wear shoes that don´t have holes in them, but then I show up last night. Turns out his American friend is an actress in residence at La Fragua (pretty much the best performance space in the region) and she can introduce me to the director. Also, she has acted alongside John Malkovich on stage. Mahchi comes from the Mahchi family, a Palestinean family that Also in attendance at the party are an Argentine businessman from Buenos Aires who has lived here for the past five years, the son of the former first lady of Honduras, the personal assistant to the guy who may be the next president of Honduras, oh, and me and Ana. It was like being transported to another planet. You know, you read development text books that talk about the economic elite, but to be sitting with them is another thing, old sport.

Point is, I got the Fragua for the show. Don´t worry, I still like fiestas de alta suciedad more than fiestas de alta sociedad.

¿a dónde se fue la semana?

My whereabouts for the past week...

Greg flew in Saturday morning (having left for the airport straight from his school in Hawaii and spent 16 hours flying) and we took him right onto the road. We took a long bus ride out to Santa Bárbara to do a concurso with the kids from Copprome and the boys from Amigos de Jesús, the hogar where the boys go when they get old enough. There were piñatas and little kids dancing. Then we came back to Progreso and had an awesome despedida for Nema, an awesome guy from OYE. Sunday was uncharacteristically rainy so we hung around in the house and Greg caught up on rest.
Monday I took Grego to COPPROME and he vamped up my lesson plans with some Teach For America methodological muscle (asterisk).
On Monday night the projectile vomiting and diarrhea started and then I spent all of Tuesday drinking Gatorade and tossing and turning in bed. Greg and Mary covered for my classes on Tuesday but then Greg and Shin got sick with variations on the same symptoms by mid-day.
Wednesday I still felt sick but I rallied and went to the public clínica. At the clinic the doctor said that I had a stomach bug and gave me intestinal antibiotics. In his office, like a guidance counselor or something, there were these little postcard dealies with beautiful orchids on them with the caption below, in Spanish, reading Orchids are parasites! Cheque.
I returned to teaching at Copprome on Wednesday afternoon and yesterday. When I first got back the kids said ¨Carlos, you look green, are you okay?¨ ¨Carlos, you shouldn´t eat street food, drink juice, etc.¨ I think I´m going to adopt kosher eating practices here - Shin and Greg and I talked about it and we suspect some undercooked pork chuletas.

This morning was the first morning I woke up feeling well since Monday, so YAY!

Today I´m going to arrange some staff meeting stuff, put together some finalized policies and schedules and such, and nail down some of the programación with Pati. Tomorrow, we´re taking Greg (who up until now we have been working like a dog) to the Caribbean coastal town of Tela, where all the food is made with coconut and the water is like clear bath water. Purportedly, for 30 dollars we can go to Punta Sal and see monkeys in the jungle. I think for me that could be a good buy.

Hasta,
Chele

Otra semana movidita

Things continue to move along.

I told Cosmo the other day, I think that the key to appreciating Honduras is to embrace uncertainty. I make lists and lesson plans and I leave myself time, but some days life just has other ideas for you.

--This is for my mom - I have begun my own Super Scoops for the elementary school class -- I call it the PARTY JAR. Right now the kids have earned about 3 percent of the dry beans they need to fill the jar and win an English Party. Good stuff. -- Another idea I´ve implemented, upon noticing that the kids often only get attention when they act out in a bad way, is that I´ve created a Super Wall to put up the artwork, tests, and accomplishments of the kids. All of them really need positive reinforcement in their lives, something which the previous tutoring staff at Copprome has been kind of sort of okay about.

I have a general format worked out for the classes - For the elementary school kids, I put on a song in English for about 2 minutes as they kids are rustling and shuffling and fighting and by the time the song stops they are ready. Then I do a review, a bonus question for the kids who are ahead of the curve (which they can work on when they finish early), a lesson, a dialogue, some hands on activity (bingo was a big hit), then a review.

For the high school kids, I enlist one of them to find the other ones and get them all in the same place (about 15 minutes). Then I write a quote (example: ¨Dialogue cannot exist without humility.¨ - Paulo Freire). Then they translate it. Then I do a grammar lesson, a dialogue, and a fill in the blanks. Then I put on a song in English using the grammatical structure we just studied and have them copy down the applicable part of the song (example: the other day we did contractions and listened to Jorge Drexler sing ¨Don´t leave me high, Don´t leave me dry...¨)

The kindergarten kids are fun - I love working with pre-literate kids because they trust their ears a lot more. There´s a lot of Gouin series work here, a la Professor Arries, and a lot of art projects. I´m trying to get the Copprome staff to read them books more, because they are an amazingly rapt audience when a story is being read.

The English class for the staff is coming along, but they´re always busy busy busy. It´ll be a cool way to build a working relationship with them, though.

On the administrative side of things, we´ve installed the computer lab and we will have internet access there today. I worked together with the staff to create rules for the computer lab, so that we can be fair and consistent and hopefully these computers won´t be destroyed by this time next week.

I´ve been very tired this week. I need to get better at delegating. I´m going to meet with Pati and Mary and the other staff in a few minutes to try to better define their tasks so that they can just roll with it and don´t have to check in with me. It´s amazing what people are capable of doing when they are given agency over a project outcome.

Grego´s flying in tomorrow in the morning (which with TACA airlines means some time before Sunday). I´ve got loads of work ready for him with the Sp. Ed kids... mwahaha.

Qué Golazo

Last night was the first actual factual soccer game that I´ve played since... oh, seventh grade, give or take. I joined into a game in the canchita that backs up to our backyard. I have no foot action and it´ll still take a few games for me to be able to read the field, but I scored 2 or 3 goals. I like playing futbolito because it´s kind of like AND-1 soccer.
By the end of the game it was lloviendo harto and there was standing water on the field so we ended up all taking off our shoes and splashing around like ducks. I´m going to try to hone this skill and get Shinaldo to take me into his tutelage.
Fútbol is the world´s game.
I´d also like to get into basketball here because I´m the tallest mofo in this country. I have to duck when I walk into doors, under umbrellas, into buses, etc. I could be the Larry Byrd of Honduras.

Empezando la segunda semana de clases

COPPROME update.
I now have Pati Zaldivar working with me as the co directora of the Centro Educativo. She´s great! She grew up in COPPROME herself and is studying psychology at the uni, and is taking the semester off right now. She and I have been working together to crank out a program budget. She works wonders, especially with the high school girls, and she´s in charge of special programación. We´re planning a talent show for the high school girls, since in their individual interviews a lot of them said they are interested in dancing-singing-acting-etc on stage. On Friday we finished charting out their grades and making files for them. We got the cotización done over the weekend and the tutoring schedule is now established. Soon we´ll be putting up job descriptions for volunteers to replace us in time. For now, we´ve got a couple of international volunteers who for some reason or another are at COPPROME. More on them later.

The vision for this new centro educativo is going to be a sea change for COPPROME´s educational offerings and so far this change is causing less tremors than I had anticipated. Up until now, the only ¨profe¨the kids had was someone who barely held a high school degree, who had been reported on a few occasions for being too physically or verbally rough with the kids, which I see partly as a problem of lack of training and understaffing.

I´m working to try to make the area more accessible to the kids and to get more support for the staff and the center. The computer lab will soon be set up, which will require a good deal of oversight.

Conociendo Honduras.
Over the weekend I went out to San Pedro Sula and saw an awesome rock show at a club called Klein Bohemia. The owner, Chele, is pretty much the dude. The first band was an otherwise so-so punk band whose singer had an awesome heavy metal shriek. The second band was a funk rock band with a certifiably good bass player and a 15 year old drummer who could out rock just about any drummer in Honduras or otherwise. He did a 10 minute drum solo. Saturday we were back in El Progreso, where the Carnaval came to town. Por casualidad, it seems I´ve arrived during a season of feriados - pretty much all month there´s some kind of holiday or something.

OK I´ve got to go to COPPROME soon, but les dejo con esto-

How to speak Honduran
maciso - lindo
de pinta - very niiice
de miedo - the bomb diggity
sipotes - chavales, cabros chicos, muchachos
nombe - no way, man
¿va? - used like the Canadians say eh, eh?
cheque - kind of a space filler
common nicknames - chinito, peludo
vaya pues (baya pueh) - said at the end of conversations or kind of like ¨demás¨ in Chile

Hasta la victoria siempre,
Charly

An update after the first week

Bueno, para ponerles al dia...

This week we've had a load of meetings. We found out that the town council and the mayor and vice mayor of El Progreso have signed a "Punto de Acto" and it's on the books that the terreno for Siete de Abril will be provided to SHH in order to start construction on the new houses SHH will build for 72 families. Yesterday Shin and Cosmo went to Tegucigalpa with Super Marcio and a lawyer to meet with national legislators - Marcio as always was amazing and charmed everyone into helping us right away.

I've been setting up the Education Center in Copprome for the past few days. There is a LOT to do here, so we're going to do it paso tras paso...I'm getting what in the States would be called IEPs for all the kids with special needs so I can get them translated and filed... etc. Also I found out at the beginning of the week that most of the high schoolers hadn't even read Cien Anios de Soledad or anything by Isabel Allende, or Honduran poetry, so I've been finding them some novels when I can - they devour books. They are all wicked smart.

Anyone who wants to volunteer as a math tutor, computer lab instructor, special ed teacher, english tutor, etc. contact me. We'll soon have a program description up for the different positions. Copprome is getting the internet in a few weeks. The cable guys came and put in a tower for wireless access there. We should be getting more computers installed soon too. Shin knows a guy. Hopefully we can network them within the next week or two and install Rosetta Stone and other educational software on them asap.

Tomorrow is independence today, so today and tomorrow in El Progreso (actually a few blocks from our SHH office here) there are marching bands and desfiles (parades) going by with kids in their school uniforms. Tomorrow the streets will be packed and we'll just hang out Progreso-style.

Yesterday I found the one actual book store in town, an awesome izquierdista place that's also an internet cafe - they sell all the great latin american novels and loads of books by Honduran authors. They show independent movies for free every Thursday night. Also, I found the Palacio de Fajas (the Belt palace), an awesome store that looks like it sounds - they're special ordering me a big ole Honduran flag belt buckle.

I'm loving El Progreso - everybody here treats me like the BFG (Big Friendly Gringo) and just walking to the office I meet like 5 new people each day - i'm always meeting people's cousins, moms, friends, etc. I love what a close-knit community it is here. I also like the Honduran sense of time - there's a sort of generally accepted flexibility of about a half hour in most situations, which goes well with me.

oh, and I have a cell phone here now, so if you need it send me an email y te lo mando.

Hasta la victoria siempre,
C.

Nuestro humilde narrador llega a Honduras

I've arrived in Honduras!

Friday night I set out to try my luck on TACA airlines- they were the cheapest tickets I could get ahead of time and they were really nice about switching my flight what with the hurricane. My flight transfer got delayed (read as: I spent 6 hours in the airport in San Salvador walking around and getting to know my fellow demorados pretty well - one lady named Irma talked to me for about 4 and a half of those hours and showed me pictures of her grandkids - 4 people asked me if she was my mom, which is funny because we didn't look alike at all) but it was overall a good airline experience.

In the airport I reunited with Shin and Cosmo and don Marcio (aka SuperMarcio aka the Coolest Guy in Honduras) and we moved into the house together. It's much bigger than I through and it's right in the centro in El Progreso within walking distance of our office.

I met up with the COPPROME kids last night and it was AMAZING! Olvin and Ivancito have gotten so much bigger! All the high school girls played a fun (not fun) game called "do you remember what my name is" - I passed though. Phew! We're setting up a tutoring schedule soon.

On the way in from San Pedro Sula, marcio showed us where the water level had risen when the then-tropical depression came through: it had flooded to river to about 15 feet above its normal level, almost to the top of the arch under the big bridge that the Japanese built as a gift to Honduras. A lot of the houses I saw near the river were on stilts already, but some of them were flooded nonetheless. There were displaced people livinb in the middle of the highway divider with tarps for roofs and walls, being guarded by policemen with automatic weapons (apparently there were a few murders so they're trying to keep them safe). It was fortunate that the rain didn't cause more than the somewhat isolated lowland flooding we saw, but it was also a quick reminder of how there's always something more to do.

It's amazing to be back in Honduras, to smell the smells, to see deep green leaves and dusty roads and giant banano groves and mango trees and bodegas with open store fronts, the KFCs and Pizza Huts mixed in with fruit stands and BALEADORAS!!!... to feel the thud of a reggaeton backbeat coming out of a pickup truck, to see people stop on their way and shake hands with their cousin's friend's little brother and ask how they're doing... I don't know quite how to explain the full sensory experience - it takes me back but, more than that, it takes me forward to all the things to accomplish and things to come. Tonight we're going to take it relatively easy: visit the kids at Copprome, set up a schedule for the coming week, and plan what we're doing tomorrow to celebrate the national holiday Día del Niño - we're going to put together something for the kids in Siete de Abril and of course the Copprome kids.

"Mata ne" y hasta la próxima,
Carlos
(porque parece que he vuelto a ser conocido como Carlos)

from hurricane to tropical depression

So the hurricane is down to a class 1 hurricane (low wind speeds) now that it's on land but there's still a lot of rain, or so I hear. It's passing over most of Honduras tonight and early tomorrow.

Shin and I are moving our flights forward a few days to make sure we're in the clear. All other things equal, I'll be arriving in Honduras on Saturday after Felix has passed through. I got all my vaccinations done today and got my last supplies (including some stuff to teach myself Japanese).

A brief rest will be good. So far, everyone down there seems to be all right. Just keep on keepin' on... I just heard that within the next 24 hours Felix will be downgraded to a 'tropical depression'. Buena onda.

--C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNpSrosp_pI <--I learned to say 'Sore wa nan desu ka?' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlkd45W4TWU&feature=dir <--Yeah, I just like this.

En el ojo del huracán

So, some of you may have heard that Hurricane Felix just went through Nicaragua and is currently going through Honduras. This is true. So far my flight isn't cancelled, so I'm still packing up. Yesterday I sold my car (hooray!) and then went to visit Shinaldo to pick up the air conditioner we are going to love so much while in Honduras. I asked him what's up with the hurricane and, in typically awesome Fujiyama style, he said that our job description might include hurricane relief efforts depending on where the storm goes today.

It's a fast-moving and compact storm, and it peaked at 160 mph winds yesterday. I heard it's type 4 (out of 5). By tonight or tomorrow it should have passed through Honduras. So it goes.

For now, seguiré empacando mis cosillas and getting my vacunas. Rock.

Nos estaremos viendo,
C.


"We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them." - Epictetus

Shin was interviewed for DC's Fox 5 yesterday:
http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?contentId=4250479

Hurricane Felix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Felix_(2007)

Stories my family told me

Over the weekend I visited my parents in Boston. I got to visit an area where my ancestors had lived for years and years, pretty much since a bunch of buckle-shoed Brits decided to get up and go live with the Dutch (which didn't work out). They then decided to go to New York but they were blown off course and landed in Massachusetts, where they mostly stayed until about a generation or two ago.

If you know me (and you do if you're reading this), then you probably know about how I've lived a number of places during my life and how I can't give a good, short answer when people ask me where I'm from. ("Well, I was born in Florida, moved to Pennsylvania, moved to Colorado, a buffalo soldier, singing wayayay wayayayayay wayayayayayayayay...")

I think the last time I had been to Massachusetts (save for staying one night last year to play a rock show), I was about 2 or 3 years old. This time I got to soak up the sights, sounds. Everybody really does live and communicate just like Grego told me the first week of college: "A liquor store a packie, a hoagie a grinder, and you go to the Olympics and yell 'Yankees suck.' "

A quick rundown of the places I visited: Commonwealth Ave, the "Freedom Walk" (through the places where people got drunk and started a revolution, in that order), North End (I saw the St. Anthony's parade through the super-Italian Italian part of town), Harvard University (I went in to use the bathroom), Quincy Market (I saw a street performer stand on a ball while his sister stood on his head), Boston Gardens, The Prude(ntial building, Boston's empire state bldg), Rockland, Plymouth Rock (asterisk-name of a Puritan band), Duxbury, Cape Cod (home to the ugliest plaid pants outside of the South), etc. I also took the opportunity to jump into, and then out of, the icy ocean water of my forebears.

It was a surreal experience to look at places where people with my last name, who contributed bits and pieces to my humble double-helix, had lived 30 years ago, and 100 years ago, and to think deep thoughts to myself such as: "Who was the first person who thought to eat a lobster? Somebody must have been hard-up for food. It's like a nautical cockroach. A delicious nautical cockroach..."

...but I digress.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with

the first step.

"Cheshire Puss" began Alice, "tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where," said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
" - so long as I get somewhere" Alice added as explanation.
"Oh you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if only you walk long enough."

With only 8 work days left until the next adventure begins, I've been getting together provisions, medicines, vaccinations, jubilation, donations, vacations, etc etc in preparation for the first leg of the coming adventures.

Primer paso: HONDURAS. I'll be going back to Honduras to once again work with Students Helping Honduras, this time for a three-month stay. During this time I'll hopefully be able to lay the foundations for an SHH internship program, offer tutoring to the kids at Copprome, help to finish the computer lab, continue to work in SHH community development initiatives in Siete de Abril... Much more to come soon.

(And after Honduras, on to Japan in December and then eventually Argentina some time before March when the Fulbright begins, with a number of stopovers in between...)

Testing 1 2 3

i'm trying out this blog thing in preparation for my upcoming adventures...

not long until the gira mundial starts up, so stay tuned. so far the itinerary includes:
-honduras
-japan (+other parts of east asia tba)
-sudamérica

ending up in argentina sometime before march when the fulbright gets going.