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Hand washing

 


Waiting outside the surgery center

 

Moms




Pulse



She didn't like my cooking, but she had a really awesome kitchen



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Before living in Honduras, I did not know that there is a garbage dump for the washed up, overplayed and often never played music from the United States. It is where the one-hit wonders, the obscure music of musicians trying to make a come-back and the songs we never want to hear again, go to die. It is called the Honduran bus system.  I especially encountered this “musical residue” phenomenon last week, when I was coming back to the ranch from Tegucigalpa late on a Saturday afternoon- a terrible idea. Saturday’s are everyone’s day to venture in to the cesspool that is Tegucigalpa to cash checks, go grocery shopping, buy black market DVDs, overeat baleadas, etc -this is what I go for anyways.

 Catching the bus out of Tegucigalpa back to the local towns and villages is not for the weak. Most buses are standing room only, if they are not already too full to stop at all. I have seen little old bitties sprint with surprising agility, tortilla baskets slung over their gnarled leathered appendages, covered in floral print skirts, to the front of the bus line. Then they calmly take a seat and pretend that they were not just elbowing the other passengers. While I was waiting, two buses had already passed us and I was in full on ninja mode: I would not miss another one without a fight. Yeah, I totally had my Buck knife in my bag- thanks dad- Christmas present will really come in handy taking out old Honduran village ladies on public transportation.

After I completed a 100-meter dash to the front of the bus line (picture crazy flying freckled grinka with backpack and grocery bags rushing through an impatient crowd of Hondurans), I was braided into the bowels of the sweaty, heavy old school bus. Pushing, grunting, squishing, yelling, held up only by the tired destroyed bus seats and the shoulders of my fellow passengers, three butts pressed into me from all sides, knowing that my new loaf of bread was a limp grain patty under the elbow of that angry obese woman next me..and I would not be able to move for an hour. For about half of that ride, I was pushed forward into standing at a forty five degree angle. I am sure that lucky woman who did have a seat didn’t mind that my chest was in her face. Letting a passenger off from the back of the bus was like a communal passing of a human kidney stone.

While travelling on this bus,which is so uncomfortably full that it absolutely could not fit one person more person, I hear this at perfect comical timing and high decibel: “what if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?”.  HA- the horrible 90’s song that everyone knows the words to, but no one really likes. I thought we pushed that song to the Delilah radio station when I was in 6^th grade. Apparently we condemned Hondurans to listening to it as well. Next on the bumpin’ playlist: “Video killed the radio star”, “Hey Mickey”, “YMCA” and a random Doobie Brothers song… I can only imagine the insanity that my Nana would feel on this bus ride, while her Honduran grammy counterparts seem perfectly contented with the dance club-level volume.

Almost three months in to my Honduran adventure, this sweaty, chaotic bus ride seems “normal”. So does watching the girls in my hogar capture enormous beetles and shake them like toys to make them croak. So does watching the girls drop all their unwanted food, drink, spit, on the kitchen floor as if they were camping, because they know the stray dogs will come in to feast and one of the chores is to mop the floors every night anyways. So does eating soup with five pieces of potato, rice and two bones. So does the fact that I am well in to my third bag of powerdered milk. “Normal” has become so many things that I never expected. Like not caring when I find a cockroach and its defecation in my coffee pot.

At this point, I finally feel settled in to working at and living on the Ranch. I absolutely love my job! The best part about it is that it’s dynamic: every day I can choose to do something different, and with my camera I can pretty much go anywhere (classrooms, clinics, events, hogares, etc). Two weeks ago during a visiting surgical brigade, I was able to spend half the day at the surgery center, talked to patients, scrubbed in on surgeries and took some awesome orthopedic surgery pictures. Yesterday I travelled to nearby village with our NPH clinic to photograph their medical and dental consultations. Another volunteer and I went to a local woman’s home to make lunch for the group- I have never been so aware of my meager cooking skills. She openly laughed at me for my soft, pale hands- palms of which I burnt red grabbing every single tortilla hot off the fire. Her house was a tribute to the Honduran culture: it is not what you have (or do not have), it is how clean you keep it. A well respected Honduran woman has superb mopping skills (oh yes, there is an art to wringing out a mop). She also always keeps her hair perfectly gelled and combed into place. Obviously I would fail miserably as a Honduran woman.

My most vivid job experience so far: taking a single family photo of a father and his two young daughters, Jayme and Kelin. The very night that I took the photo, the father died of asthma complications. When I heard the news, I flipped my camera on and found the picture I had taken of them that day at the ranch Father’s Day celebration.  I felt sick staring at the faces of the family. During the picture, the dad had been telling me how proud he was of his beautiful girls. The girls, some of my favorites on the Ranch, were so proud of him that they even had me take a picture of their “Bapi” by himself.  I thought back to the night before that, when 8-year old Kelin and I ran for twenty minutes hand in hand, on the girls’ hogares “work out” night. She was blissfully innocent in her purple pajama set, running in the dark and laughing. Two days later, the printed photos were propped up next to his coffin at the funeral. The family clutched them to their chests, as they sobbed next to the grave. When I gave them copies of the pictures, two of his family members gave me a big purple, flowery headband as a thank you.  It was humbling to have taken the only family photo that the girls would ever have with their dad. I know how important family photos are- at funerals of my family members I was blessed to have slideshows of photos of their lives. I can’t imagine having just one photo.

Every day is a reminder of why I love to take photos. Pictures are sacred here.

For anyone interested…here are the links to some of my articles for NPH….

About the surgical brigade:
http://www.nph.org/ws/page.php?path=news/archive/2011/honduras/seventhsurgicalbrigade.php&lang=en

About cooking family dinners:
http://www.nph.org/ws/page.php?path=news/archive/2011/honduras/Proyectofamiliar.php&lang=en

About a community outreach project:
http://www.nph.org/ws/page.php?path=news/archive/2011/honduras/ComedorInfantile.php&lang=en

About a kid on the ranch:
http://www.nph.org/ws/page.php?lang=en&path=homes/honduras/children/rodolfo.php