Today is My Last Day in Olanchito

The last two years have been an unimaginable experience. It is impossible to know ahead of time how a place will change you while at the same time reveal to you the most enduring, stubborn parts of yourself.

Before she left Olanchito on Tuesday, my German apartment-mate of the past three months, Fabiana, helped me make a list of the things that we have learned, and haven’t learned, during our time here in Honduras.

Learned To:
• Wait
• Make tortillas (Fabiana)
• Eat greasy, salty food daily and not worry about it
• Do nothing, and not feel guilty
• Still think logically while working outside in 100-degree heat
• Take 2-3 cold showers a day as the only way to cool down
• Only take cold showers, no matter what the weather
• Sleep soundly despite crowing roosters, barking dogs, screaming neighbors and loud music at all hours of the night
• Scratch mosquito/tick/scabies/sandfly bites until they bleed
• Handwash a week’s worth of laundry in under an hour
• Value the multifunctionality of a good pair of plastic flip-flops
• Survive for weeks without chocolate
• Navigate Olanchito by bicycle and navigate the country by public bus
• Spend time at friends’ houses as the major form of entertainment
• Look forward to a siesta after lunch
• Appreciate a plastic rosary as a valid fashion accessory
• Need to slick my hair back flat against my head in order to feel presentable before going out
• Constantly regañar (speak in a tone of mock horror and disapproval about the actions of) friends to show affection
• Play Honduran card games
• Speak Honduran slang
• Not be bothered by PDA in clubs and VPL everywhere
• Dance (and sing along) to reggaeton
• Party like a Latina! (stay out until dawn and still have energy to do it again for the rest of the week)
• Start the day at 5am (not after the party nights)
• Resign myself to untimely and unexplained power, water, Internet, and cell phone network outages
• Wear skirts and tight clothes and like it
• Assert myself as a professional woman in a machista culture
• Be a jealous girlfriend
• Accept mens’ chivalry
• Not need material gifts as expressions of friendship


Never Learned To:
• Ride double on a single-seated bike
• Make tortillas (Suzanne)
• Like Honduran beer
• Not feel embarrassed about eating carne asada with the etiquette of a dog
• Not be annoyed by the daily running commentary made by men on the street about the passing women (i.e. me)
• Do the Honduran campo yell that carries for a kilometer
• Participate in the multiple-times-daily campo coffee-drinking ritual
• Stick my face directly in a stream to take a drink of water without using my hands
• Fix a car, or do anything else useful, with a machete
• Date a Honduran man

The “learned to” list is longer than the “never learned to” one, so I would have to say I’m satisfied. Even if most of my newfound skills have dubious applicability back home, at least I will look back one day and remember that once I was Honduran.