Life, no matter how strange, becomes normal. The colors that at first were vivid cease to attract the eyes, and new routes between school and home don't grab the imagination. I've seen quite a bit, so how different could a new path be? Of course, we work ourselves out of normalcy and find new adventures. We try to keep life exciting and new. If life never settles out, though, how can it ever be exciting?
Siguatepeque feels so normal now. It isn't too odd to be the extranjero, to use new words for fruits at the market, to be a teacher.
Getting comfortable here is not necessarily blending in, but accepting how slow my adaptation will actually be. I knew that my Spanish wasn't especially great coming here, but now I understand that I didn't know the language at all- I could only translate English words into their nearest equivalent. Spanish and English are not the same language with different vocabularies. Phrases that feel so natural and obvious to people here make little sense back in the States, and (of course) the other way around.
My point: I'm beginning to learn Spanish as a language in its own right. It is a slow change from stiff and grammatical phrasing to something sorta colloquial.
I used to think that I could go anywhere in the world and call it my home. I could resolve any cultural differences and survive happily. I'm not so flexible. I have been shaped quite obviously by the world I lived in for 20+ years. Hondurans, and their country, present some interesting and frustrating differences. They have a sturdy simplicity about them. They grow up fast, much faster than I did. I've heard that where there is more technology, children mature at a slower rate, and that seems very accurate right now. Sometimes when I teach, I imagine I'm teaching middle-aged men and women in clumsy little bodies.
They know things, just as simple as that. I don't know if I know anything, and here I see people that know everything that they need to know or possibly will ever know by their high school graduation. It's not ignorance or stupidity; they know who they are, and will grow old on the same sturdy feet planted on the same sturdy soil. In the States, there is a cloud of anxiety that hangs over our heads... insecure side-stepping, constant grabbing for a new image or a new cool. But here people search through different means. They are inundated with the knowledge and identity of their country. It's amazing, school's go all out for the independence parades. Kids have to memorize anthems and dates and symbols and a national heroes.
They precede their knowledge, written or simply understood, with bullet points.
An example: one of the teachers, Mr. Rodrigo, loves Honduran coffee. He pontificates on the health benefits, the rich flavor. But the coffee is stale and burnt to ash here. Mr. Rodrigo will always think the coffee, among many other things from Honduras, is "siempre rico," because it stirs more than the tastebuds. It stirs his patriotism.My point: I'm beginning to learn Spanish as a language in its own right. It is a slow change from stiff and grammatical phrasing to something sorta colloquial.
I used to think that I could go anywhere in the world and call it my home. I could resolve any cultural differences and survive happily. I'm not so flexible. I have been shaped quite obviously by the world I lived in for 20+ years. Hondurans, and their country, present some interesting and frustrating differences. They have a sturdy simplicity about them. They grow up fast, much faster than I did. I've heard that where there is more technology, children mature at a slower rate, and that seems very accurate right now. Sometimes when I teach, I imagine I'm teaching middle-aged men and women in clumsy little bodies.
They know things, just as simple as that. I don't know if I know anything, and here I see people that know everything that they need to know or possibly will ever know by their high school graduation. It's not ignorance or stupidity; they know who they are, and will grow old on the same sturdy feet planted on the same sturdy soil. In the States, there is a cloud of anxiety that hangs over our heads... insecure side-stepping, constant grabbing for a new image or a new cool. But here people search through different means. They are inundated with the knowledge and identity of their country. It's amazing, school's go all out for the independence parades. Kids have to memorize anthems and dates and symbols and a national heroes.
They precede their knowledge, written or simply understood, with bullet points.
- Cana de Azucar
- Arroz y Frijol
- ...
- and that's all: sugarcane rice beans
- as if there is no need for further explanation.
- Honduras is
- what it is, unexplained and unexplainable.
- It's not bad, it's just different.
Check out a few more pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110028&l=eb769&id=29705820
1 comment:
thanks for writing.
Post a Comment