The After Party

1 am smiles: Manfredo Suzanne Willito Leah Jaleni Modesto.

A friend recently posted on her blog her response to the question, “Now that you are ten years down the road, what advice would you give to your former self?” Though I liked her answer, I think the question is fundamentally flawed because it implies self-blame for the past, the complexities of which are readily understood with months or years of retrospect but really are much more difficult to distinguish in the moments in which it was happening to us. But even so, my thoughts were provoked and this is my answer:

Don’t sweat the first year and a half.

As I am discovering, that seems to be the amount of time it takes for me to adjust after entering a new environment. Adjusting to college and afterwards to San Francisco took much less time because of my immediate comfort with their social networks. But I virulently hated living in New Mexico for my first year and a half there, and I would say that my first year and a half in Honduras has been nearly as difficult (mainly made easier by the fact that I survived New Mexico). It would be far from the truth to say that every single moment of that time has been bad, because there have been many good times and I have learned so much. It is more a lingering sense of unease that leaves me constantly anxious and more or less depressed.

But I can name the exact moment in New Mexico at which I realized that I was happy there. And I think that moment for Honduras happened to me this morning. Just like the New Mexico moment, I was cleaning up my house after a party the night before. After-party-cleaning is the perfect opportunity to remember all the sweet/strange things that happened the night before, which I was doing this morning. It had been a simple party, just a dozen people that had been thrown together at two hours notice to celebrate the 21st birthday of Sandra’s cousin Alba. In fact, Sandra couldn’t stay for more than an hour because she was sick. But the rest of us played the only card game I have, Uno (which by the way confuses Hondurans because the way to say “one card” is actually una, not uno), took photos of each other with my digital camera, and danced to my somewhat deficient dance music collection. A year ago I would have allowed myself to be bored with how many times we replayed the same songs so we could dance to them again and with the million poses for the camera that mostly turn out ugly and have to be erased anyway. At one point in the night I looked over at the new volunteer here, Leah, who was sitting in a corner by herself, and I imagined myself a year ago doing the same thing: pretending to have a good time for awhile and then just giving in to boredom. But for me, last night was just fun.

As I was cleaning, I began to think about how I have been feeling pretty good here lately. I am happy with work I started this month with the Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge, traveling up to La Ceiba for two or three days a week to help them with a watershed management grant proposal that has to be in English. Then I began to think of other things that have recently and suddenly become clear to me in the past month. I went down the list with myself:

Interesting, productive, necessary work: check. New friendships with people I have a lot in common with in Olanchito and La Ceiba: check. Threatened long-term friendships in Olanchito rescued by staying away from former love interest: check. Evil ex-boyfriend returns to have a secret affair, is given a talking to and finally shoved out of the picture forever: check.

In my mind, the list began to expand to more general developments of the past year and a half:

Knowing exactly how to buy groceries at the dark, poorly run, hole-in-the-wall corner stores that used to intimidate me: check. Looking at the sky and knowing how many more hours until it starts raining: check. Feeling affection for my bed when I make it every morning: check.

My social lives in both Olanchito and La Ceiba are crystallizing. I am relaxing into the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants latino culture. And I have finally found a place for myself professionally. Nine and half more months to enjoy it.