Last August when I first arrived to Honduras, I purchased a fan. This fan was most likely my best investment I have made all year. In the beginning of the school year I was so thankful for this fan because it was smoldering hot; without my fan I felt like I couldn’t breathe! Now that it is a bit cooler, I am still ever so thankful for this little black fan. Every night when I crawl into bed (after checking for bugs of course), I lay there and hear all the dogs barking, church bells ringing, herds of cows running past, roosters crowing, etc. But all these noises are drowned out by one little switch on my fan. It’s almost a guarantee that a good night’s sleep is possible as long as I have my fan…almost.
Monday night I was having a bad night of sleep; I had decided to save all my thoughts for the middle of the night. My sisters upcoming wedding, plans for next year, my parent’s and Megan’s visit to Honduras, all of these things racing through my mind. At least I had my fan to drone out all the noise from outside. Well at 2:00AM that all changed…the power went out. When the power goes out at night two things happen: everything becomes pitch black, and everything becomes eerily silent (minus the dogs and roosters of course). You have got to be kidding me I was thinking. I sighed with relief when 10 minutes later my fan came alive and started circulating air again. But that was short lived; the power went out for good two minutes later.
The rest of the night I spent tossing and turning, willing my ears to shut all the outside noises off. But that was no use. I heard at least 8 different dog fights, probably over 100 different roosters crowing (at all hours mind you..what happened to roosters only crowing when the sun comes up?), and buses driving past my window at the wee hours of the morning. I never realized how precious my little black fan was until Tuesday morning rolled around and I felt more tired than the night before. Don’t worry about it, it’s only one night, the power will come on this morning, I reassured myself.
There was no electricity for our standard breakfast of eggs on toast, so granola, honey, and peanut butter it was. We ate breakfast with the front door wide open to let some light in; our house doesn’t let much natural light in, and it’s impossible to see without electricity. Gayle and I packed our lunches for the day; chicken noodle soup…the power would be on by noon to heat it up in the school microwave.
When there is no electricity time seems to escape itself; everyone is running behind, and school never seems to start on time. My students get hyped up when the power goes out, it’s something new and exciting. Our school’s bell system is down when the power goes out; Yessi, our school secretary, walks up and down the hallways ringing the old fashioned, hand-held bell to inform us when each class period is over.
By 10:00 I was getting nervous, we still had no power and Gayle and I only brought our chicken soup for lunch. The worst part about not having power is never knowing when it could come on. At any second your classroom lights could flicker the rest of your day can go back to normal. I was waiting for that moment to happen, wishing it would happen before lunch…but it didn’t. I reaallllly didn’t want to have cold chicken soup! Gayle braved it and ate a whole bowl-full; I thought I was going to be sick just watching her choke it down. I opted for delicious packaged cookies. Nothing like having well balanced meal of vanilla chocolate crème cookies for lunch!
The rest of the school day went great, but the power never turned on. It is amazing how much school work you can get done without any power. I had so much grading and planning to do, and I easily got it all done on Tuesday! I had no internet to distract me. In a way it is kind of nice because I don’t need to worry about responding to people’s e-mails, uploading a new blog, researching lesson plans, etc. I have a pretty legitimate excuse for being unresponsive.
After school I slid on my rain boots and prepared myself for the walk home. It had been drizzling all day long; the streets were sloshed in mud, all of my clothes felt damp, and the cool mist seemed to creep its way deep into my body…I was chilled to the bone. After too many close calls of face-planting into the knee-deep mud, we had made it home. All I wanted to do was take a nice hot shower…but that of course was not going to be on my agenda; there was still no power. We discussed what we were going to do for dinner. There was nothing in our house that didn’t need to be cooked. No packaged meals that don’t require heating on the stove. But I was not about to have a bowl of cold chicken soup. We decided to ask our neighbors if we could use their kamal (an outside wood-burning stove) to make some tortillas and heat up our chicken soup.
Gayle forced me to ask the grandma to use it since I need to practice my Spanish. I get so nervous speaking Spanish to the grandma…especially when Gayle is around! First of all, even if I DO know what to say to the grandma, by the time I have the sentence out of my mouth I’m so proud of myself that I just spoke a successful sentence that I’m not prepared to hear what she is saying in response to me. Second of all, the grandma speaks a kind of Spanish I have never even heard before; she slurs and blends all of her words together, making it very difficult for me to pick up more than 3 words every sentence. Gayle even struggled understanding her at the beginning of the year (and that’s saying something). THIRD of all, I hate speaking Spanish in front of Gayle. If you KNEW the kind of expert Gayle is at speaking Spanish…everyone, I mean everyone, is always impressed at how fluent she is. I’m not kidding this girl knows everything! So imagine how ridiculous I sound when I can’t even put a full sentence together, and here standing next to me Gayle can not only say the sentence perfectly, she can put an intelligent spin on it. I get so shy and embarrassed around her. EVEN though she always tells me, “I’m not going to judge you!” I can FEEL her mind working whenever I start speaking in Spanish, her mind correcting every grammatical error. So much pressure!!!! I also think the family finds it humorous whenever I try speaking to them in Spanish; they quizzically look at me and then turn to Gayle and answer MY question.
BUT I successfully asked the grandma to cook over at their house! She brought Gayle and I behind their house to the outside stove. Gayle had previously learned how to make tortillas, but I hadn’t. Sanovia prepared the flour and water and began giving me my lesson.
1. Make sure your hands are wet
2. Grab a small amount of dough and roll it into a ball
3. Start patting the dough into a tortilla shape
4. With your fingertips on both hands, start pushing out the dough to extend the tortilla WHILE
turning the tortilla in a circle (by far the hardest part)
5. Stick the tortilla on the kamal….and vuala you have a tortilla!
While Sanovia gave me a lesson the grandma, another aunt, and Gayle watched. They told me my tortillas were ok but a little bit disfigured. I’ll take that! The aunt was watching me in absolute disbelief. Finally she asked Gayle, “So… you don’t make homemade tortillas in the United States?” Gayle laughed and said “No, we definitely don’t do that.” She looked confused for a minute and then said, “Then how do you get tortillas? You never eat them?” At this point Sanovia steps in and says, “Oh no, in the United States tortillas come in bags. They are pre-made and then put into bags, and that is how they sell them.” The aunt looked so amazed, she had never heard of such a thing! While Gayle and I sat there feeling like complete idiots…yes we are insufficient, we don’t even know how to hand-make tortillas!
After the tortillas were successfully made (mostly by Sanovia) and the soup was nice and HOT, we were ready to eat dinner. I was pretty happy the power didn’t stop us from making a great meal! But now if only the power would come back on….especially before bed so we could a) shower, and b) sleep with the fan on. Well that wish didn’t’ come true. I HATE going to bed if there is no light on in my room; it terrifies me to think of all the bugs crawling around that I can’t see. Some people say ‘out of sight out of mind’—that is so not true. Come live in La Union for a week, and then you will definitely KNOW that you need to check your bed before crawling in it. If a tarantula is out of sight, well that is pretty unfortunate when the power goes out; there is a good chance I could put my hand on it, or step on it, and then it would bite me and I would die (yes, that seriously goes through my mind).
I checked as best as I could for bugs with my iPod, but there was only 20% battery left on my iPod and I needed to save that just in case I needed a light in the middle of the night. My computer and my phone were dead, so I couldn’t use those to shine any light. I slept equally horrible on Tuesday night, the dogs and roosters drove me awake once again. By morning I felt like a crazy person; I now had 2 horrible nights of sleep, my iPod was now dead as well, and I hadn’t taken a shower since Sunday evening. BUT there was nothing I could do about it; everyone was in the same situation as me…no need for a pity party!
My students were psyched the power still hadn’t come on. They were supposed to have a science test, but I had to keep postponing it since there was no power to make copies. I told them on Wednesday if there was still no power at the end of the day we wouldn’t have the test on Thursday. Mr. Perdomo had heard that the power wasn’t going to be on until sometime on Thursday. A WHOLE OTHER DAY WITHOUT POWER, I was for sure going to have to shower in the freezing cold!
With only an hour left of the school day, my lights flickered on. THERE WAS POWER!!!!! I was screaming for joy!! My students on the other hand REALLY didn’t want their science test. Fabiola quickly ran over to the lights, shut them off, and said to me, “Miss, there is no power again!” J
I was finally able to charge all of my electronics, check e-mails, and go home and take a nice, steaming hot shower! I never felt so clean. Gayle and I couldn’t have been happier to cook a meal on our own stove. And I finally knew I would get a great night of sleep with my precious fan.
It is just funny to think about how when I was a child and the electricity went off I was SO excited! No power?? This is awesome!! Now I see things a little bit differently. Power is a privilege. We are so blessed in the United States. We never worry about having electricity, we don’t need a wood-burning stove outside for back-up, we wouldn’t even THINK about taking a cold shower. We have everything we need and more! It is amazing what God has given us, the abundance of gifts he’s showered upon us. Living here has made me appreciate everything and made me realize how good I have it in the U.S.
So today, if you have washed your dishes not only in warm water, but in a dishwasher, give thanks to God. If you have made your eggs on the stove, your toast in the toaster, and gotten your milk from the cold refrigerator, give thanks to God. If you have brushed your teeth with water you know you won’t get bacteria from, give thanks to God. If you have made yourself a cup of coffee with a flip of a switch, give thanks to God. He has blessed us with so many things that we should never take for granted.
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