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.