Sigamos!

I remember back in training, where one of our fellow volunteers mentioned that her mother is a professional psychic. Not only did her mother predict accurately that her daughter would be coming to Honduras, but she also had another bold, disturbing prediction: that we would all be leaving here after six months. I initially decided to ignore the prediction. I’ve always been a little bit of the cynical “believe-it-when-I-see-it” type, so I went ahead and assumed that it wouldn’t come true.

But here we are, exactly six months later, and we’re getting ready to leave. But what of it? I’m glad I didn’t believe the prediction at first. I would have lived the past six months very differently had I truly thought I was going to leave. The thing is, I wouldn’t change how I did things. I worked hard to pave the way for work that was to come. I built relationships with the hope that they would continue throughout life, past my two-year stay. Each day had new excitement that brought optimism for what was yet to come. I can easily say that it has been one of the most fun and fulfilling times of my life.

So why do I bring this up? Simple. I have two weeks left, and I want to enjoy them, and I choose not to sit and ruminate if this is really the end, or what might have been. I’d rather think about how great things have been, and how new adventures are still to come in the future. In the spirit of that optimism, I have a post that I wrote on the morning of the day I found out that we were leaving, the day that all hell broke loose. After coming to terms with things, I’ve decided I still want to share the details of a fun experience I had recently.

Field Trip!

Two weeks ago I spent some time helping out with a university-level class for teachers in my site. One of my counterparts was teaching the class, and he invited me to help out and present something to the young group. He didn’t really give me any direction about what to share. At first he said I should talk about Erikson, Piaget, or Vygotsky, which not only was vague but also sounded a little boring. He then suggested that I do a presentation on the differences between Honduras and the United States in the public school system. This ended up being pretty fun, and after spending a morning preparing a PowerPoint I came into class for a quick 30-minute presentation. It sparked some good discussions, and I ended up doing a Q&A session for another half hour or so.

After my presentation, I was invited to accompany the entire group of 30 teachers on a trip to Teguz later in the week. I wasn’t really sure what the trip was about, but it sounded like fun. We were going to a place called ‘Chiminike’, and they simply explained it as a place where they teach kids. I have a tendency to not ask too many questions and just trust people when I’m invited to go somewhere, as I don’t want to be the annoying Gringo that needs everything explained a thousand times. I started imagining some sort of private new-age school, where they as new teachers could go and observe lessons and activities. I later found out that this wasn’t exactly the case.

Our group got on the bus bright and early at 6:30 in the morning and we headed out. We arrived at Chiminike at about 9:00, and filed our way in. It was definitely a very well-funded complex, as both the interior and exterior were very modern. After buying our tickets, the tour guides made all of us do some silly chants and dances before entering. I was a little too tired for this, so I pretended like I didn’t understand what was going on and just took pictures of everyone acting strangely.

As they marched us to the first exhibit, I quickly realized what kind of place Chiminike was. It was a children’s museum, almost exactly like some that I have been to in the United States. The target age group would range from about 4-9 years. We came with a group of 35 adults (most of them about 18 or 19 years old) and maybe five children that fit into the proper age range.

Essentially we went from exhibit to exhibit, with all of the teachers not being afraid to act a lot younger than they actually are. Hondurans in general never seem to want to miss out on being somewhat uninhibited and having a good time, and they did not hesitate to do so today. Acting like a kid developed as being a theme for the day.

While I was definitely having fun, I couldn’t help but wonder why the heck we were here. I guess as a professional I just wanted to know what the goals and objectives were. When I asked my counterpart (who planned the trip), he simply said that we were there to ‘conocerlo’, or familiarize ourselves with the place. He said that teachers have taken groups of kids there in the past during the school year, though it wasn’t something that was done frequently. Overall I think it was mostly a trip for fun to celebrate the end of their course, but even so I thought we could have gone somewhere more adult-oriented. Again, I didn’t try to question too much and just tried to enjoy myself, which wasn’t hard to do with that group. Later on, I continued my questioning with some of the other teachers. They admitted that they didn’t really understand why we were their either, and that the trip was mostly my counterpart’s idea. When we saw groups of pre-schoolers on a field trip walk by us, we would jokingly point out how they were in fact the kind of group the place was meant for.

Either way, it was fun and I took some good pictures. At the end we got lunch at a comedor across the street, which I can assure you was not designed to serve a group of 35 people all at one time. We essentially mobbed the ordering counter, shouting out what we wanted to eat without any sort of line or sense of order. I am not proud to admit that I may have rushed to get food before some of the pregnant ladies in our group, but in my defense I didn’t really see them as they were lost in the madness. I guess that’s not really a great excuse, but we all survived and got fed (eventually). No harm, no foul, right?

Picacho

After lunch we got back on the bus and headed out. Being the uninformed Gringo, I assumed we were heading home already. I soon realized we were definitely not heading towards the highway, so I asked what was up. Apparently we were going to one more stop, a local park, Picacho, located on the top of a mountain that overlooks the entire city of Tegucigalpa. When we first arrived we originally planned to go visit a zoo that is in the park, only to find out that it was closed to the public (though I can’t remember why).

Luckily, however, the entire place is had cool gardens and walkways with lots of great photo opportunities. The big draw is the statue of Christ that overlooks the entire city. I had of course seen it before from the downtown area in the valley of Teguz, so it felt pretty cool to be able to explore it up close. Also, right next to the statue are some cliffs from which you can see the entire sprawl of the city. It was awesome to just take a minute with everyone and enjoy the view.

We spent most of the time meandering, chatting, and taking photos, and then we stopped by a small playground to take a break for a little while. The theme of the day continued, and none of us missed out on the opportunity to act like a child. Monkey bars, slides, see-saws; you name it, we were playing on it. It reminded me of a time a few months ago during training where my fellow volunteers and I took a similar opportunity to enjoy ourselves at a children’s playground. I may have silently gotten a little nostalgic about those earlier times for a moment, but the feeling passed. I may never get to spend as much time with our entire group of 15 volunteers from training again, but of course there are many other great experiences with other amazing people to look forward to.