Back in Honduras

And so I return, after a two-week vacation to the States, to the land of muddy brown boas of rivers, swollen from the monsoon rains. To the land that steams with a thickly visible humidity during these wet months, and with dust in the dry ones. I return to a Honduras that smells of the depths of mango season, and of rain pelting through the half-open bus window on my 5-hour trip from the airport back to Olanchito. And that smells sourly of dark, gritty feet unused to the confines of shoes, toes spread-eagled over the edges of plastic sandals.

The bus pulls into Olanchito after 8 pm; it’s already dark. Olanchito, with its bands of teenage boys on bicycles after sunset, and herds of gossiping teenage girls crouched on the curbs, and teenage lovers whispering in the shadows of the doorways of their parents’ houses. The town is so overrun by fifteen-year-old energy that sometimes it drives me crazy just to walk down the street alone at night and see all of them skulking, strutting, hunting.

My new neighbor, Azucena, notices my arrival and invites me into her apartment for beans, tortillas, fried egg and hard cheese. I have missed their salty, lard-rich tastes and I eat with relish. Half an hour later it all runs through me as I sit on the toilet. But that happened my first night back in the States, too, so I don’t worry about what is just part of the adjustment process.

I hadn’t been looking forward to coming back. Already I have been steadily stared at by children, young men and elderly people alike. I belong here too! I want to scream. My apartment is filled with two weeks of a sticky dust, and part of the living room floor is covered in a thin layer of mud where the rain apparently made it in under the door. When I pull back my sheets to get into bed, I see they have partially molded over, along with my pillow. But I expected all this. Every time I leave Olanchito, it gets easier to return.