Apology for a Third-World Affair

Bless me, America, for I have sinned. It has been 11 months since I’ve last watched Jersey Shore.

Or feigned interest in listening to white men talk football stats.

Or stuffed my face at Golden Corral.

In fact, my many issues with you as a country is the main reason why I moved to Honduras in the first place – to escape the rat race and to experience the real world, NOT the Real World. I jetted to a third world country to live in poverty and oh, it was wonderful. My dirty feet were charming, taking bucket showers was refreshing, and my Honduran city was culturally awakening.

I was in love, America. Head-over-heels, hot-faced, stupidly-speechless in love with your antithesis. I hitch-hiked down speed-limitless roads, I shared a bathroom with a rooster, I ate every meal with my fingers, and I never watched reality TV. A proverbial Brad Pitt, I broke your clean, wholesome Jennifer Aniston heart and let myself be seduced by the wild mystery of Central America’s Angelina Jolie.

It was a wild ride. But then something happened to me. I began to get a little twitch in my eyebrows around about the fifteenth time I was cut in line at the bank. I found my face getting hot as the computers at work shut off right in the middle of making a test, which of course had not been saved yet. I actually stomped angrily out of a store – the seventh store I had been to that day to try to add more minutes on my phone – when I was told for the seventh time that “today there are no minutes in all of the country. Come back tomorrow.”

It was on that day, America, as I tripped over the uneven sidewalks and dodged careless taxis just to arrive back at my house that had been without electricity for days that I came to the realization that I am American. Through tears of frustration and a fit of self realization I admitted out loud that I am an American pretending to be non-American, and oh, sweet Jesus, it felt so good.

I am a punctual, organized, efficient, pecan-pie eating, law-abiding, police-protection expecting, HBO-watching, Relay for Live-supporting American citizen who doesn’t understand why she has to pay to use a bathroom, or why said bathroom never has toilet paper, or why it takes 30 minutes to add up a check at the end of the meal, or why babies ride on speeding motorcycles or WHY GOD, WHY CAN’T I JUST GET SOME MUSTARD WITH MY FRIES INSTEAD OF MAYONNAISE.

Anyways. What I will say proudly about you, America, is that you do understand the concept of the condiment like no one else. But more importantly you understand efficiency, and expectations from the public and its officials, and the value of an education, and social services.

Sure, you may be in danger of being run by some incompetent, God-fearing crazies, and you may have a serious obesity problem, and you may have a military base on every country on earth, but Honduras could never give me that 401K like you do, or protect my civil liberties. And when I’m lying awake at night, you’re the one who gives me Netflix and Hulu pleasure.

Look, before this goes any farther, I want you to know that I regret nothing and Honduras will always have a piece of my heart. It taught me the true candid nature of the world, and gave me endless "firsts." America, I guess what I'm trying to say is, well, I'll be coming home on July 23, if you'd only let me. You're the one that I want. For you, I'd eat a Big Mac. I'd drink tap water only. I'd outsource the hell out of some cotton shirts. I'd even vote for the next American Idol for once in my life!

So whatdya say?

Night, a Profile

Night here is haunting, it is alive. Its creatures do not sleep. The street dogs run in their packs challenging others until the winners are distinguished through merciful squeals. Roosters strut and howl at the moon, longing for their time to come again. Women work into the night testing every piece of kitchenware they have in tiny metal-on-metal symphonies. The men, not to be outdone, bark orders at their children - who are up three hours past their bed time and scream back with tiny, tired voices.

The stars are a myriad and distinguished in Honduras's black, sticky sky. Their light seems to cluster in a cottony film right out of human touch, but does not reach my feet. Night here is haunting and thick and snuffs out the moon and the stars with velvety ease.

This velvet cloth sweeps aside to make room for the streetlights veiled heavily with orange and rusted plastic coverings, spilling light-goo through the alleys and into doorways, but never reaching "those places you must not go," as if legally contracted.

The night walkers are not the good kind - the sensible creatures have turned in. The sensible creatures know what the expect if they don't. Or they learn quickly, as we have...

Tía Chica, a Profile

Tía Chica, tall and thin like the ivy plant that slinked around her sister's white-block clay house. Holy eyes big and white like the hen's eggs, and a thick brown tongue that perched on the edge of her caramel gums. Her skin nearly as brown as her quick, slug tongue, but stands better compared to the deep brown of the coffee beans she always kept tucked in her bosom and close to her heart.

At the bottom of her long patchwork jumper sat a thick pair of colorful patent leather Nike tennis shoes, dusty from her walk from her walk from her house, north-west from her sister's white-block home - across two mountain passes and tucked in the Honduran selva. At her highest point lay thick, straw-like woven hair, a mossy grey-green color that complimented her undershirt.

"Gatito!" I called to the house kitty, who made its home in everyone's lap. And at this she chucked, or cackled, or keeckled, really. A KEEKEE-KEEKEE that rattled every bone in her body, but not her hair.

"Gatito! Gatito!" she keeked through her gums.

My eyes returned to the cat and back up to the old woman's hard-worn face, but she had taken off in a half gallop, half waddle that looked as if she were tripping her way to the field aside the house. Over the sticks she crept, like a toddler test-driving its new baby-calf legs, until only the top of her mossy head was visible bobbing down the hill and out of my sight from the time-eaten porch swing.

Cultural Differences I Cannot Get Over: The Stare

Do you ever get the feeling you are being watched? Me too. Every. Second. Of. My. Life.

In the States, we are used to some casual voyeurism - the nosy neighbor without a job, the skinny greasy cubical mate, your best friend's dad - but these voyeurists usually act with caution, and keep their distance accordingly.

Hondurans know no such boundaries and thus this is what I, and the other gringos, are subjected to each day




But really, this is what it feels like...



Oh yes, I know. We are white and different and everyone always looks at what they think is different, but what gets me is the longevity of the eye contact. I mean, these people must have the wettest eyes, because their lids are not blinking.

The other day while Emily and I were getting coffee, this man who was 6 inches away from me (seriously, I need to write another blog about personal space) was staring at me so hard from the side I could feel the hole being bore into the side of my head. I turned to look and make eye contact thinking that he would shy away (LIKE MOST PEOPLE DO) but he just held my eyes with his in the most intense non-sexual staring game of my life. We're talking a solid 9 seconds. The Staring Game should have its spot in the Olympics and Hondurans would kick ass.

Do you remember Will Ferrell's Robert Goulet skit where he has a staring contest with the plastic ram and the ram wins (he always does)? No. A Honduran would beat that ram. Every time.

Now, I've been talking about the "Honduran" stare, but as it turns out, some of us gringos have caught on to quite a bit of the skill. Take for example Chris Valdes



Look at that form! Now, while judging this I initially gave him a 7.5 because I thought at first that he was smirking a little, but upon further examination, this is just staring gold. Intense, deep, unwavering, terrifying. 9.9. Bravo.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling a Chris v. Ram showdown. Winner plays the Honduran coffee-line patron.

Americans being Non-Americans

I obviously delight in learning and being immersed in new cultures. If I had a choice for a career, it would be a travel writer of a sort (call me National Geographic!), but if there is one thing I have learned from living in a foreign country it is this: You can take the girl out of America, but you can't take the America out of the girl.

As an American living abroad (Honduras, in fact, the third poorest country in Latin America), I can finally and guilt-free say that I miss luxury sometimes. I ADMIT IT I HAVE BEEN PAMPERED FOR FAR TOO LONG and now there is no going back. This has been an incredible 7 months in Honduras, but I am American and as such, I can now laugh about this charade that I and millions of other Americans living abroad are participating in. Any American living in an impoverished third world country that says they much prefer that lifestyle and would live there forever is lying or has the last name Kaczynski and in that case is probably crouching in a hut writing a manifesto and planning the sending of inconspicuous bombs to various unsuspecting recipients.

To sum it up, if I lived in Honduras for the rest of my life I would not stand for having my toilet be but a hole in the ground. In fact, I would probably have a bidet installed along with my porcelain toilet. In my front yard. So all my neighbors could see.

Thus begins my new blog segment: Americans being Non-Americans.

First, defining the American.

If you have sat through the Grammys, the VMAs, the Oscars, and any other award show in its entirety, you are an American.

If you own one of these
or one of these...You're an AmericanIf you have ever watched Sports Center for more than 3 hours straight, you're an American.

If you have ever made a game out of binge eating, like my friends in Hampton Roads, you're an American. This particular game is titled "Nugget Contest" and is particularly American since it combines binge eating for fun with McDonald's


If you have ever drunkenly sang "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey in a circle with all of your friends, you are an American (or just attended college between the years of 1981-The End of Time)

The list of "How to Identify as an American" goes on and on and includes Crocs, the Celtics vs. the Lakers, Frostys and Jersey Shore, but that is for another time. Now we are all fully aware that we are Americans, we can start to admit to cultural differences that scare the sh*t out of us...or at least miss the comfort of being able to visit Taco Bell at 3 am for some cheesy potatoes.

Stay tuned for the first installment of "Cultural Differences I will Never Get Over: The Honduran Stare."