Daily Recreation

Barreling down a bumpy road on the back of a dirt bike driven by a fifteen year old is one way that I’ve recently tried to shorten my life expectancy. As a safety precaution I had a six-pack of canned beer in my backpack that I figured would save my spine if a pothole jarred me off the back. Not as foolproof as a seatbelt, but definitely a lot cooler. How did I get into this situation? Well, on Saturdays the volunteers here have agreed to travel to the town of San Francisco to teach English to the students there.

Children in Honduras are only required to go to school for six years, and in the area surrounding our school there isn’t enough money or teachers to provide a high school that the government has deemed optional. So once kids reach fourteen they can either pay money to take a bus to a school in a far away town, or go to the makeshift school that Luis organizes every Saturday. Luis is a well-dressed, smiley man in his early thirties who hides his great care for education behind a joking manner. He asked if the volunteers at the Leadership Center could teach his students English on Saturdays, and, unsure of what this would entail, we agreed.

San Francisco is about five miles from our school, and the only way to get there is to walk. The path winds through pine forest, over a couple streams, and up a huge hill that might as well be a mountain. If you’re lucky a pickup truck comes by and you can hop in the back, but otherwise it’s a long two-hour slog in the morning heat. During the walk I feel like the clichéd poor student who walks ten miles each day for an education, and then I have to remind myself that I am a teacher walking ten miles to teach at an impoverished school, and the cliché is very much a reality.

Once there it doesn’t get any easier, as the “school” is an empty room with chairs and a small whiteboard, the materials are one notebook and one pencil per student, and one workbook per class. The students are numerous and restless, and unwilling to embarrass themselves by speaking English. This might seem like a nightmare situation, and it’s not easy, but it is rewarding and fun. For the most part the students are well behaved and curious of these gringos who come to teach for free at their small mountain school on Saturdays.

Usually the four volunteers alternate teaching at the school each weekend. So two will go one week and the other two the next. However, one weekend my fellow teachers had all escaped to various cities for a weekend of civilization, and by civilization I mean beer and pizza and ice cream. I was left to teach all fifty of the students at once, and though it wasn’t terrible, I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.

After class I was contemplating if walking an extra mile into town to buy some beer would be worth the extra mileage on my legs when one of the students, Marcos, solved my problems for me. He asked me if I needed a ride on his dirt bike emblazoned with stickers of Jesus, and I asked him if he would drive me to the beer store first. Our answers were affirmative, and I soon found myself flying through the forest, hoping the stickers had an inkling of Jesus’ saving power, clinging to my seat, and uncontrollably grinning.

Ashley showing off her yoga skills on the log we use to cross one of the streams we have to traverse to get to Saturday school.

San Francisco. I'd say it's about as cool as the one in California.

Marcos drove me as far as his house in the hamlet of Los Valles, from which it’s an hour walk back to the school. However, on that day I had arranged to meet with Duglas, a worker at the school who had agreed to show me what the local men do for fun on Saturday afternoons. Duglas is a little man who compensates for his lack of front teeth with an equivalent lack of shame. He makes constant jokes, and then laughs wildly at his own humor, exposing his smile to the world. We hopped on his motorcycle and headed to the bigger hamlet of Las Botijas, which boasts electricity, a soccer field, and two pool halls. We stopped at one of the pool halls, but it was closed. The other one didn’t seem open, but since the owner is Duglas’ cousin we were allowed in.

After sitting around for an hour watching TV coverage of a fire in Tegucigalpa and discussing the corrupt state of everything Honduran, the owner of the pool hall uncovered the tables and we began to play. Our styles of play were quite different, as I’ve been taught to line up each shot, take my time, and ease the ball into the pocket. My opponents did just the opposite.

Without a hint of aiming or forethought, and with a cigarette dangling from their mouth and smoke drifting into their eyes, they smashed the balls into pockets in utter nonchalance. The game was every man for himself, and the object was to compile as many points as possible with the 8 ball equaling 8 points, the 15 ball equalling 15, and so on. While I’m no pool shark, I was able to hold my own against the little men who sent balls crashing into corners with alarming speed and casualness, or so I thought.

After ten or so games and two beers (I was the only one drinking), Duglas told the owner that I owed him eighteen lempiras, and they both laughed and the smiling owner asked if I wanted another beer. My immediate thought was, “Wait a second, what?” and my proceeding one was, "Am I getting played here?"

I asked Duglas what was going on and he explained that the loser of each game had to pay the owner three lempiras. And it dawned on me. So that’s how we pay, and that’s what Duglas had meant when he had told me the stakes of the game and I had smiled and nodded but not actually understood his rapid fire Spanish. And that’s why the Hondurans had kept on trying even when it was obvious there was already a winner, the point of the game was not to win, but to not lose. Second place was as good as first in this circumstance, an idea that just hadn’t occurred to me after years of the American rhetoric of, “If you ain’t first, you’re last."

So a poolroom filled with men of all ages smoking cigarettes and drinking sodas is just about the pinnacle of social life in these parts. One weekend Ashley had to head into civilization to do some Skype interviews and I offered to accompany her, curious to see if there was more excitement out there. We attempted to go out on Saturday night, but ended up sitting in an empty bar for an hour before we decided to go back to the hotel. I was a little disappointed as I had hoped for a night out, but I soon got over it and spent the rest of my time there drinking beer, wandering the town, and reading historical fiction. Real exciting I know, but I can’t say that I had a bad time.

Palm tree Church in Comayagua.

Palm tree Jesus in Comayagua.

Cathedral with no palm trees in Comayagua.

Some days when its hot we go swimming in the river. The girls spent about an hour trying to create this tower of people. If only they'd spend that much time studying too.

Then we have bonfires to warm up. In Honduras marshmallows are called besitos, little kisses, because they're so sweet.

This bonfire got a little out of hand. That's my director Ira trying to shirk the blame.

Am I less exciting now? Not sure. Maybe I’m getting old, or maybe I’m getting used to the ultra laid back life here, or maybe I’m finding other ways to release those precious endorphins. Like with my new favorite sport, river running. River running is exactly what it sounds like: you go down to a rocky riverbed, and then you climb and jump and run and sometimes swim upriver until you reach an impassable obstacle, preferably a waterfall. I discovered this sport on a hike Ben and Martina and I took to the pool formed by the cascades of a one hundred foot waterfall. Because the waterfall drops into a deep canyon we had to traverse a couple miles across the hills above it before we were finally able to bushwhack our way to the river’s edge. From there it was another two hours of jumping and walking amongst the tumbled rocks before we reached the pool and swam in its cold and turbid waters, an experience well worth the effort.

Action shot! The rocks around here are ideal for river running.

My action shot is markedly less actiony.

The students like to say that Ben is crazy. And they haven't even gone river running with him yet.

I'm not really sure what the students say about me, but it's probably along the lines of...Malcolm is super awesome and coordinated.

And good-looking too, especially under ice cold water.

Our El-Dorado.

Panoramic picture of the pool. Click for big and to see Ben and Martina swimming.

Ben and I are keen river runners now, and we went on another exploration of the same river above the waterfall. While we were climbing and jumping around I told him it should be a sport, and he explained that it already was and that it was called canyoning. This was a little disheartening as I had dreams of making river running an international sensation, but I cheered up when the log I was using to traverse across a stony gap buckled and almost sent me toppling. There’s nothing like a surge of adrenaline to lift the spirits.

Anyways, river running is a much cooler name than canyoning. Here, look at the pictures.

Ben considering the route at the start of our expedition.

He likes to climb up rocks.

I prefer to jump off rocks.

Hi-Ya!

A pretty flower I found.

Ben climbing rocks again, not sure how he does it.

I am learning though. Unfortunately, I fell in right after this picture.

This is the part we had to swim in. Quite surreal.

And the pool surrounded by cliffs that we found.

We had to stop here as this waterfall was impassable. We plan to go back with a rope and climb on the rocks and stuff.

Those little buildings are the school where I live and teach. Not the worst location.

In Honduras

Burning books is not as easy as you’d think. Sure they’re made of paper, but as any good boy scout knows, you can’t maintain a fire with just paper. Also, as I learned, a closed book doesn’t burst into flames as the pages deep inside are protected by their loyal, airtight companions. So I came up with some suggestions to help those hardy souls who find that the destruction of books is needed.

First, it’s best to already have a hearty blaze of wood going so that the continued burning of books is not dependent on the fickle flammability of previously burned books. Then, you should weaken the deep-rooted bonds of fealty that fasten one page to another by tearing the pages out of the book in clumps and spreading them throughout the fire. Even then, you’ll still need a long stick to push the papers apart and ensure that each individual page alights. Finally, as much smoke is created by book burning, and it has been proven that the elements in the printed word are dangerous if inhaled, some sort of filter is recommended. A gas mask would be best, but a bandanna fastened tightly above the nose will do. I bet if you had a big enough bonfire and lots of help my advice could be ignored, and it would be quite easy to turn bunches of books into ashes and dust. Which explains why totalitarian regimes are so efficient at it. Alas, I am but one man in the mountains of Honduras, ten miles from the nearest town, tasked with reducing 50 books to nothingness.

But, since I can remember, I’ve loved books, and fire too, yet I have never in my wildest dreams considered combining the two. Let alone enjoying it. Isolated living in third world mountains can do strange things to a man. How did I get here again?

Relatively recently I was living at home enjoying the comforts of suburban living. A fridge stocked with food and drink to consume, a room of my own in a spacious house to lounge in, a couple big TVs to shut my mind off in front of, a nice Hispanic lady to do my laundry and dishes for me, a car to drive me around the sprawl, expensive bars and restaurants full of safe white people to talk to, and a decent paying job where everyone talked about each other behind one another’s backs.

After a couple months I decided those things weren’t for me, and I started to look for opportunities to escape South of the Border. I chanced upon an organization, Art for Humanity, which ran a small university for girls in the remote mountains of Central Honduras. I applied and after a phone conversation was offered a position as a volunteer teacher at the school. I accepted, and after dealing with the misgivings of my parents who weren’t thrilled with me going to a country judged to be one of the most dangerous in this hemisphere, found myself bouncing on a bucket in the back of a crowded bus next to a hefty old lady whose toothless smile wasn’t exactly reassuring.

The director of the school, Ira, and I disembarked from the bus in a sleepy little town of one story brick houses which had one paved road, the highway, running through it. We then drove around completing errands that could only be achieved in this bastion of civilization. This included buying massive amounts of vegetables, filling up the truck with gas and taking it to a mechanic who fixed the steering for the reasonable price of 50 lempiras (about $2.50), and picking up two more volunteers, Martina and Ben. The two of them recently got married in England and for their honeymoon decided to quit their jobs and travel around Latin America for an indefinite amount of time (until they’re broke). Not the worst idea in my opinion. Being English, they do, in fact, talk funny, like tea, love cheese, and hate Bush. They also assert that in England there are more types of food than crumpets and fish and chips, but there aren’t any cheerleaders or policemen with guns or Thanksgiving. What a shame.

With our errands completed we proceeded on the final leg of the journey to the school. This involved driving for an hour down a bumpy dirt road, over hills covered in pine trees, and through three streams that are almost impassable in the rainy season. After an hour, we made it to the school and met the students and final volunteer, Ashley. As it is so remote, the population and campus are appropriately small. There are eleven students, four volunteers, Ira and his wife Sara, and their two little girls living here permanently. In addition, a cook and farm workers from the local community come and go as needed. So for the next couple of months most of my human interaction will be with about twenty other people who were complete strangers several weeks ago. I hope we continue to get along. If we don’t, there are some chickens and cows and dogs and horses I can talk to.

Now a little about the school. The Leadership University was founded one year ago by the non-profit Art for Humanity in order to to provide a free education to young Honduran women. The education system in Honduras is shit. Students graduating high school are on an equivalent level to students graduating from middle school in the USA. So college education here is high school education in the states, which is why the teachers here can be young volunteers like me who aren’t super qualified. Art for Humanity’s mission is to help Hondurans help themselves, it doesn’t just hand out money or food to the poor of the country but instead participates in building small businesses and valuable skills within the population of impoverished.

The school reflects that in its curriculum which focuses on English, leadership, and Business. As we are within the first year the students are still learning English, as well as basic math, history, health, leadership, literature, and art. As their English improves they will advance to more intensive subjects such as sociology, psychology, algebra, and more leadership. Finally, in the third year they will focus mostly on business, and with their strong base in English and leadership will graduate as innovative community leaders ready to make a difference in their home country. That’s the idea at least.

As I said, the education provided is free to the girls here. In return, they work on the organic coffee farm six mornings a week, and take turns cooking for everyone else. I myself am teaching grammar, vocab, music and history. Being a history major I am really enjoying teaching it especially since they have almost no base and I can teach them whatever I please, like the military tactics of Alexander the Great. However, I’m not sure they all share my enthusiasm for the subject, so if anyone has any ideas on how to make history more appealing to 19-year-old Honduran girls, let me know.

Many times, but not always, remoteness and beauty go together. In my case they do. The school where I live sits at the base of a slope littered with pine trees, right before it drops off into a deep ravine of stone and water. Hills and greenery proliferate, and the river provides both waterfalls and calm pools ideal for swimming as it slips through its rock-strewn path. Here is a collection of pictures to help the visually inclined.

My house for the next couple months.

View from my front porch, that's the girls' dorm.

Panoramic view of the mountains, this is what it looks like in all directions.

About a mile from the campus the river drops into the second biggest waterfall in Honduras, its pretty.

Sunset from the school.

Me in the mountains.

As you can see, it’s a beautiful place, but its not paradise. While the sun shines I don’t lack for things to do, but at night it’s another story. The term social life doesn’t even apply here. Granted, I knew that coming in, but it has still been a shock. In the four weeks since I’ve been here I have read six books and halfway finished two more. I’ve also watched several movies, played a dozen games of chess, and started to teach myself the guitar because we have two, and I am not lacking for time.

On the other hand, I have only spent eleven dollars in that time, and if you know me at all, you’ll know what I spent it on. Though the life here is not thrilling, I can’t say my former one in the suburbs was either, and if I had free time there the allure of passing it in front of a TV or computer screen was often too great. Here, with finicky Internet and no TVs I have to find other more productive ways to entertain myself. Not gonna lie though, I do miss bars and live music and dancing and staying up past eleven.

If you’ve read up to here I thank and commend you. I didn’t realize how much I had to say until I got to this point. Of course, there’s more too, mostly about what I’ve done in the daytime, but I’ll save that for the next post. To end, I’ll try to rationalize my egregious sin of book burning. Here at the Leadership University almost all of our textbooks and learning materials are donated, and all of our trash has to be burned as the trash collectors refuse to come all the way out here to clean up for us. The bastards.

Anyways some well-meaning but misunderstanding soul sent us fifty copies of The Confident Consumer, a textbook dedicated to teaching people how to buy stuff well. It covers the whole glut of ways to spend your money ranging from how to buy fruit properly (“avoid soft, shriveled, leaky grapes”…no way!) to how to decorate your home (“color and style preferences play an important role in any decorating plan”…ya don’t say). The book assumes its audience, American high schoolers I believe, lack any form of common sense. Its almost like it was commissioned by the Bush administration at the same time we were told to spend spend spend to boost the economy. We all know how that turned out.

Burning some books. I feel bad for the teachers who have to teach this book.

Since our students know what a ripe banana looks like, and can’t afford school let alone a house, Ira judged the books superfluous and ordered them cast into the purging flames of the pit of refuse. I volunteered to guide them through their immolation and spent the next couple hours battling flames and smoke and stubborn books who did not go easy into the oblivion. Well, it wasn’t that dramatic, but you get the picture.