One month down

June 16th, 2009 by Ryan Baldini

One month, exactly, today. Wow. That means I´m half way done. I´ve really settled in well now, which means I don´t really miss any of you anymore. Just kidding. I suppose I should say something particularly grand today to commemorate my one month abroad. Well then, here it is: ¡Vaya pues! That´s the uniquely Honduran way of saying ¨okey dokey¨ or ¨alrighty then¨ or ¨yeah whatever¨ or whatever you feel like it should mean at the time. If you listen closely you´ll here it spoken many times in just about every conversation. Vaya pues.

Last weekend we went to the biggest cultural attraction in Honduras, and probably the biggest tourist draw on the mainland: Copan! Actually, that was our final destination. We (13 volunteers in La Esperanza) actually toured through a few small towns in Western Honduras via mini-tourbus on our way there. Western Honduras is the mountainous land of the Lenca, which I believe is a post-Mayan people. Most of the rolling countryside outside of the larger cities is sparsely populated by Lencan farmers, including the land where we are currently building. So the scenery from La Esperanza to Copan is just beautiful stuff.

We stopped first in La Campa, a small colonial town with about 400 residents tucked into the hills around Celaque National Park. (highest peak in Honduras found there). The place is so small and so quiet that it´s easy to forget that people have inhabited this town, living more or less in the same way, for hundreds of years. The picturesque church in the center is about twice as old as the United States, to put it all in perspective. We ate lunch in what seemed to be someone´s back yard, checked out Lencan pottery scene, and went on our way to Gracias.

Gracias is another old colonial city that was once of political significance in Central America for some reason I can´t remember. There´s a beautiful fort up in the nearby hills (lots of pics), and two or three catholic churches in downtown. It´s the nearest city to Celaque, and has some great hotsprings nearby (very fun!). The history and the attractions make Gracias a relatively ¨wealthy¨ city in comparison to, say, La Esperanza. Pretty much all the streets are paved in cobblestone, there´s a good deal less trash lying about, fewer stray dogs, etc. A nice town. We slept for about 10 bucks per night at a pretty nice hotel – cool indoor plaza, a nice pool, restaurant. I do believe that a few of the more adventurous volunteers and I will be returning next weekend to tackle Cerro de las Minas, which is the highest peak in the country. Wish me luck.

The next day was a straight shot to Copan Ruinas, which our volunteer coordinator called the jewel of mainland Honduras. The city is right next to the actual ruins of Copan, which of course bring in a good deal of money. So all of the nice things I said about Gracias apply even more so to Copan. A very nice town. I´d move there if it wasn´t for all of the gringo tourists wandering about…

The first day had us gringo tourists wandering about town for souvenirs, food, etc. In the afternoon we went horseback riding through the surrounding countryside! Wasn´t expecting that. It was cool though. We went up the hills to a small town called La Pintada, where little girls swarm tourists to sell flowers and dolls made colored corn husks. The views were spectacular of course (many pics), and our return had us fording our way through a few river (or stream) crossings. Pretty sweet.

The next day was for the ruins. The reason we were all here. It was some sort of cosmic irony, then, that more than half of our entire group got sick the night before and could hardly enjoy them. I had already payed my dues to Montezuma, so I was all good. Copan is considered the most artistically accomplished of all the Mayan kingdoms – the estelas, alters, and sculptures are particularly intricate and beautiful. It´s called the Athens, or the Paris, of the Maya. I had seen some of the stuff before (Anthropology 114 Mayan Archaeology, A-), but really there is no preparing for it. The first time you catch a glimpse of a pyramid through the tropical jungle surroundings… well I´m just not good enough with words to describe it, I guess. I took a lot of photos, but it´s nothing like being there. The area is big! Bigger than I expected, for some reason. It´s so hard to fathom, sometimes, that this was a city of some 30,000 people. A center of politics, art, engineering, astronomy, etc. On the other hand, it´s so easy to exotify (word?) this seemingly alien society that collapsed long before Europeans ever found the place. But people must have lived much like they do in any city today – wondered what the weather would be like tomorrow, fell in love, cried when their dog (or parrot) died, and hated to pay taxes. What a shame that more of their history could not be preserved. Massive book burnings by European missionaries didn´t help.

Well now I´m back in La Esperanza, where the streets are dirt (or mud – it´s raining like crazy this week!) and the dogs fight the chickens over the scraps thrown out with the garbage. Ahh, home. Always nice to be back! Oh yeah, we´re building a house too. The walls are now overhead (for most of the Hondurans, anyway), which means we´ve begun building a makeshift scaffolding out of branches from the forest down the hillside. It´s a welcome change in labor – I felt pretty cool today wandering the forest with a machete in hand, raindrops falling from the canopy above, having pretty much no idea what I was doing except for what I could understand from 17-year old Nelson, who knows exactly where the best branches are.

Life is good. Don´t forget it.

-Ryan