2/8/11
Why I miss the states #2348
In the States we have somewhat reliable public transportation (at least in New York). City Buses and subway comes regularly so it is more or less easy to plan out transportation. In Honduras the buses the Peace Corps volunteer rely on is more akin to Greyhound buses as the Peace Corps strongly urge us to take taxis when traveling in the cities (buses are major targets for armed robberies). Greyhounds, at least in my experience, usually left on time. And even at that, if you missed one, you could usually catch the next one.
Here in Honduras the buses are notorious for never leaving on time. The bus drivers try to wait until the bus is packed before leaving. With no higher power/corporate office to report to, they pretty much control the situation. Many times have passengers yelled "Vamanos! Vamanos!" to the driver when he waits around too long (and this is considering that Hondurans have a defeatest mentality and will endure just about anything silently). The luxurious lines are a bit better with keeping time tables, but pales with anything compared to the states.
I, on the other hand, have been unfortunate enough to land with the one bus that does the opposite - it leaves EARLY at times! I'm not talking about 5/10/15 minutes, but 30/45 minutes early. This only occurs on the bus back to my site. What makes it frustrating is that it occurs once in a blue moon and there never is any notice. So what usually happens is that I'll come to the bus terminal around 40 minutes early to find that the bus has already left. With that in itself it would not be too bad - I should just wait for the next bus right? However, that is the only bus that goes back to my site! This definitely is not an optimal situation for me as I would have to find a place to stay one night, waste another day in Santa Rosa (the big city) until it is time for the next bus and then take that one home. Considering that I go to Santa Rosa once every week or two, I've been fortunate enough that this problem has affected me only 5 times. Once I stayed with a volunteer that lives in Santa Rosa, once I had to stay at a hotel (the volunteers that live in Santa Rosa were all away), and twice I have gone to another site where a friend lives to stay with him (last night as of this writing). One time I was able to take a bus to Dulce Nombre (a small town between my town and the big city) to catch a ride with my host dad as he was on his way back home.
The only thing to do now is to handle taking the bus as I would on taking a plane in the states - to try and get there an hour and a half or two hours earlier to make sure I get on the bus. And 95% of the time I will be just wasting my sitting around on the bus and shortening my time in the city to run errands. And what makes it more maddening is that I usually try to get to the bus station around 50 minuts early, but all the times I haven't been able to get there that early the bus leaves before I get there (and I'm not talking about 15/20 minutes earlier). All the other times when I get there early? Bus always leaves at 3.
Journal 2/13/11 - Happy Valentines Day
It seems that no matter where you go, people are always reluctant to be the first ones on the dance floor. For Valentine's day (or the Saturday before) a dance was held by the municipality at the salon. Tickets were about 100 lempiras each (about five dollars).
**Side note - it appears that if you are a foreigner in Honduras, you are treated as VIP. When the President of Honduras was in the capital of Olancho (think of it as a state), security was very heavy: military, riot police, undercover cops - the whole works. Everyone was patted down to enter the building that President Pepe Lobo would enter except for us gringos. When we walked by, the security officers had a confused look on their faces, looked at each other, then just waved us through. I don't really think it was due to a lack of work ethic on their part. I like to think that they did not know if we were foreign dignetary and did not want to offend us by subjecting us to a 'pat down.' On the same note, on the night of the dance, I was told at the ticket booth by the muni workers that I did not need to pay. As I walked in, the ticket guy (not a muni worker) waved me through even before the muni worker got to him to let him know to wave me through. Everyone was also frisked by the cops but I was waved through as well. Good times.
A dj and crew were brought in with large stereo equipment to blast bacheta, punta, merengue, ranchera and reggaeton (look it up). Unfortunately it appeared that the dj only had a seven or eight songs - lots of them were on repeat. I arrived an hour after the party started to find that everyone was a wallflower, standing around on the sides. Everyone was looking forward to this dance, goading me that I would have to dance yet no one was dancing! I put my jacket down, grabbed a drink and then tried to enlist the vice-mayor to round up some people (or at least get a partner with me) so we could break the ice. He bashfully refused so I ended up grabbing a municipal coworker and we started dancing in the middle (reminds me of clubbing in college - when my friends and I would start the party in the dance floor... good times, but I'm getting kinda old for this). I was glad when soon after a handful of guys came up next to us and started dancing with their partners.... until I saw how they danced. I am not saying that I am 'Dancing with the Stars' material, but wow.... Imagine if a guy was holding/hugging (bear hugging?) a girl that didn't have the capability of standing on her own. Then imagine them stepping/swaying violenlty around in a big circle with no regard to the people around them. That was how the majority of them danced. I still do not know if the girls were enjoying it or not... but at least some of them were smiling...
Over all it was a good night. I believe the party went on until 2am. I ended up heading home around midnight after dancing with some of my municipal friends - 3 hours nonstop is pretty tiring. Overall it was a good night but there were about three guys to every one girl. The girls made out well, especially since there was no alcohol (I believe that would have loosened up the guys some more, but also may have prevented too much drama since no one was drunk).
