The Comedians reborn

This is a post I started in Honduras, but didn't have the internet connectivity to finish:

The Comedians, Graham Greene (1966)


The moment I walked in I was transported to another time and place, another life all together. I had walked out of a land of poverty, desperation, and chaos. I world of a different culture and language.

The restaurant was dim and candlelit, with a couple raucous Americans who, in my judgment, were a little too old to be drinking as much as they were. They had worn faces, deep smiles, and rosey noses. I felt a tension - unspoken but palpable, like someone is going to burst out with it at any moment - between the bar and the door to the outside...

Two worlds: the dirty, dusty, poor reality of present-day Honduras just beyond the threshold. Inside, an overly friendly college girl from the South - her dad owns the big house across the valley ... the only one you can see from here - and her dad's friend who's job is to look after her. He's a writer of novels, a thirsty one at that, but seems to find talking about his latest work to be less interesting than the lady next to him. His charge is overly interested in what we're doing in Honduras and whatever my friend is talking to her at the present.

There is not much more to the story beyond setting the scene. It is more of a portrait than a storyline. But it still strikes me how hard the place was trying to be American, and yet how out of place I felt when I was there.

News from the Mayan Ruins

Day 14: I hacked my way through dense forest to barter beads and bits of string with the savages in return for high-speed internet access. Four young boys ride stationary bicycles to power my laptop and accompanying wireless router.

Okay, its not like that at all. In fact, I am way too spoiled right now. To review the last few weeks: I first arrived June 17th, and during the following week I worked with a group of ~20 of Katie's church friends. We built three small homes for widows and especially needy families in a village about an hour away from where we are staying. For those of you following along with google world, it is nearby Lake Yojoa, the largest lake in Honduras.

The compound where we stay is quite rural. The nearest internet or telephone is at least 30 minutes away by car. Since our group is transported to and from the compound by cattle truck (its everything you imagine), for group members connection to the United States is nonexistent. The Honduran staff generally live in San Isidro (the nearest town, with internet) and have cell phones, so the disconnection is more of an intentional thing...like summer camp. That being said, it is a good thing.

So the first week was building houses, getting to know the Heart to Honduras staff, and trying to get my project off the ground - I got three interviews done, which is fantastic! At the end of the first week, the team returned to Ohio and left the Group of Four: my Katie, two other 20-somethings, and me. The four of us will be in Honduras for the rest of the summer, and our first order of business was to improve our Spanish - we left for language school in Copan Ruinas last Sunday.

this is where I get to the "spoiled" I live with one of the more upper class families in the town, and attend language school for four hours a day. While internet used to cost about $1/hour at the nearby internet cafe, I found out two days ago that my host family actually has a wireless router, which the father gladly hooked up (I don't speak enough spanish to understand why it wasn't hooke dup to begin with) leaving me with constant access to high speed internet...I am like a binging heroin addict fresh out of a week of rehab. I know I only have my drug for five more days before I have to go back underground for about 4 weeks. Just one more email before I quit...