Olga's House

Hello,

So I have been hanging out with Olga's family and am anxious to share the experience with all of you. I have written close to five pages about it, and will attempt to condense them in this email and just give you the highlights. But first, I have some news and business.

News: COCAL GRACIAS IS IN THE SAN DIEGO FILM FESTIVAL! I hope you all heard that, and I hope you all come. The screenings are September 29 and 30 at 2:30 pm at Pacific Theaters downtown San Diego. Please tell all your friends and family about it and come see the show. I will personally be at the screening on the 30 and Joel will be there both days.

Business: I went with pastor Alex to a small business over in the stadium to investigate putting an AIDS orphanage in Puerto Cortes. This is one of the many projects Pastor is thinking of doing. The business in the stadium is run by the mother or the head nurse for public health in Cortes. They have a list of all children orphaned by AIDS. While talking with her, we found out that her business is one of two in Cortes that is willing to give work to infected people. What do they do? They make t-shirts! So, killing two birds with one stone, We are now selling t-shirts for Cocal Gracias and hope to have them in time for the Festival. The money for the shirts with help employ several AIDS victims and the rest will go toward the school project. We are hoping to sell 50 to start if not more, but we want pre-orders, so If you would like one, please email me and let me know how many and what size. The sizes run a little small here, so if you are unsure, order the larger size. We will be selling them for $10. I hope you all buy ten and we can start building the first classrooms. Please let me know by September 2 what you would like.

And now back to Olga….

Before:

Olga has only had all the children for a little over a year. After her daughter, who was living in Guatemala , was robbed and killed, the kids were taken up by the police. After investigating their last name, which was not common in Guatemala, they researched the name banks in Honduras and found Olga. They showed up one day explaining what happened and that being the only family that they had, she needed to take them in. Overnight, she suddenly had five children instead of one. Olga had never met any them before the day that they came to live with her.

I had visited them a few times to say hi and thought, "What sweet kids. They just want to sit in your lap and share stickers with you." Man was I wrong. I don't care what anyone says. All kids are wild and misbehaved and wear you down to the point of contemplating murder! Ok, maybe not murder, but you are certainly glad that they are not your responsibility. In Olga's case, there are too many kids and only one of her. My first morning that I spent with them started off normal, sweet, like the times before. But after being in the house for a few hours, the kids got used to me. I was no longer the stranger who came by every other week, I suddenly became the Jungle Gym! And the target for flying fruit! And the person to poke, hit, tickle, and bite (yes, I have teeth marks); and it all happened so fast!

I visited with the intention of helping them clean the house and maybe organize a thing or two. But after looking around for two hours, I still could not figure out where to start. The sofa looked like trash, but still being used. I was worried that the scraps of t-shirts, the old broken shoes, and the boxes of long-ago eaten cereal that littered the floor were somehow being utilized also. I started folding clothes. The drying lines that cris-cross the small room were full of clothes. I was told they were all clean, though I saw all sorts of garments from the floor being hung up there. I folded one box and then went to put it in the other side of the house where the beds were.

Two beds is all this family of seven use. Olga and two children sleep on the large queen that has no sheets and looks like a muddy truck ran over it. With a two foot gap in the middle of the room and dirty things piled up in it, it is not easy to access the second bed, if you can call it one. The metal frame reminds me of an army cot I saw in a forties WWII movie. The mattress—well there is no mattress. It is foam stuffing from another old sofa, carelessly draped over a plywood bottom. Three children sleep there. I put the box of clothes up on the only shelf that exists in the small shack.

Back in the living room/ kitchen/work room/ the kids were running wild and throwing trash on the floor. I scolded several, getting them to pick it up and throw it away in a small plastic trash bag, which I thought would also probably end up on the floor later. Henry climbed all over the sofa with his shoes and then jumped out the window. He came back later to throw Nanci berries at me that I imagine are still on the floor rotting somewhere. While trying to get him to stop throwing fruit in the house, I ran into the door lock impaling myself in the stomach. I am going to have a scar.

Pretending not to be hurt, and thinking that I need to get out and recuperate, I started making plans to go. But Gisena was trying to manage her siblings, and clean the kitchen to cook. It was then that I noticed that every pot, plate, and cup was dirty from the day before. After scrubbing pots and pans full of uneaten who knows what, we finally started cooking the lunch for the family, Spaghetti with watered down sauce. They wanted me to stay and eat with them, but with such little food, I declined and took my exit promising to return later in the week. I walked the 40 minutes back to the center of town, in the heat of the day, took the 30 minute bus home, showered and changed my clothes and died on my bed. I have never been so exhausted in my life and to think they live that everyday. I slept from 2 in the afternoon till 7 the next day. I did not go back until the following day, after I recuperated. I am never having kids…

After:

I don't know if I can explain this idea well, but it's the strangest thing to clean the house of someone who doesn't even know it is dirty. On my dirtiest day, my house was never anywhere near the disorder and filth of Olga's. You would think that cleanliness was something that we would inherently know, like a bird knows or other creatures of the animal kingdom, but it is not. Humans are filthy. It is only when we learn this, that we clean ourselves up. It does no good to clean the house of a person who already thinks they are clean. It means nothing to them but a lot of fuss. To make the difference, you must show them they are not clean and that there is another way to live. When they finally realize they are dirty, they will then clean themselves to be presentable and clean. But they must know what clean is and strive for that. To be clean is something you either don't know or you were taught. This family saw nothing wrong with living the way they did. They have no concept of the diseases they bring, the danger they are in, the rottenness of the place. They know nothing else, no better way, so they maintain the filth because it is what they know. But they must be taught what is presentable, sanitary and normal or they will never work toward it.

Their situation is sad to see. I learned so much in the two days of cleaning. I thought the children were misbehaved and they are, but only because children do as they are taught. Misbehaving comes from the top down, starting at Grandma. Olga, never learned how to live properly. She is worse than the kids because while they are 4,8,9,11, and 14, she is 70 and acts out worse than them. It does no good to correct the children if Olga is behaving the same when you are not there. They will learn more from watching her that can ever be told to them.

It is amazing that we can allow ourselves to get so filthy that we don't even make the effort to change anymore.

I saw a fourteen year old back hand a 4 year old to tell her to shut up. I saw an eleven year old punch a 9 year old to get him to change the channel on the TV. I saw a seventy year old smack a 14 year old in the face with a rubber hose because she wouldn't give her portion of the food to the tantrum, younger child who had already eaten hers.

To think that I was in a house of six to help clean and organize things and only one helped me. Only one of them noticed the difference a clean house made and wanted to keep it. It was not the seventy year old lady. She did not care what I was doing as long as I didn't throw away the garbage she had been collecting, which I did when she left. She blames the kids for the mess and then throws her dirty clothes on the floor. I am betting she has never cleaned that house and for this reason the children do not clean it either. They do as she does, nothing. I was told that the children were well behaved and clean when they first came there, but a year and a half of un-learning all they were taught by their mother has left them destroyed.

I learned that what I think is trash, is not to someone else. What looked to me like abandoned buttons, nails, wire, foam, and dirt on top of the dressers and shelves, where it had probably been for two years, all of a sudden had value when I was about to throw them away. The buttons, the nails, the old hair tie, the wire that they never knew was there, they saved because it was good and could be used for something. I've noticed that we as humans do let go very well. We save junk, because it makes us feel better, because we think we may need it someday, because we have always had it. We are clutterers. It is the same with our lives, we put in junk and save it thinking that it makes us better, and it really just makes us messy. We need to learn to let go to the objects, the situations, the emotions that really do not matter, that only make us dirty.

There is an economy of trash in every society. In the US and in Honduras , there are people that live off of the waste of the city, that collect garbage as gold. Where is it that we went wrong, that some of us mistake garbage for gold? I guess even gold can be garbage though, if it serves no purpose. If no one wanted gold, no one would value it. If selling old fish tanks is what feeds you, that is what you should sell. I guess if that is all you can get a hold of to sell, then that is what you sell also.

Some of the people who live in absolute horrendous filth here in Honduras and maybe in the states, are the same people who have the jobs cleaning the banks, the stores, and houses of others. Do they think that to clean does not apply to where they live? They do not look and say I want to keep my house in order like that person does. They instead say, may house is not in order because I have no money. They think that it is the wealth that makes the house nicer, cleaner. They do not realize that a rich house still spoils without maintenance. They do not realize that they can never have more unless they learn to take care of the little they do have.

No one really wants to take responsibility. When confronted, most often people want to blame someone else. No one wants to keep the house clean because the next person doesn't. If their shoes are on the floor it is because Tommy's shoes were in the way. There is always an excuse and we as humans are full of them.
Responsibility is the sign of maturity. Not many want to take responsibility, especially when things are bad, and the ones that do, they are the people we respect, because they are as rare as gold.

We like taking credit, even if it isn't ours.

I think many times I am Olga. I got this messy house, messy life, and I am just going along thinking nothing of it. Then somebody helps me; I get all cleaned out, and I am good with everything going right for a day, until I screw it all up again. Before I know it, I am back to the failing Brian and making mistakes all over again. How many times do I get helped, does someone show me the right way to do things, and I go back to my bad habits and what is comfortable?

It is humbling to clean the filth of a family that doesn't even know it is dirty. To know that in a day, your work will all be erased, to know that your difference lasted as long as it took the kids to get home, to change clothes, and eat.

PHOTO TIME

This is Olga in the Living room.

The House.

The Kitchen/Living room. All the stuff on the shelves is trash we threw out later. All the dishes are dirty in the sink. They had rat poinson in with their food saying it kills rats, not humans...

This is the only table in the house, used for sewing, cooking, homework and storage and to put trash on. It is always a mess.

The sofa always has a pile of dirty and clean clothes on it.

The bed that the three children sleep on. Again, the clothes on it are dirty, the clothes in the box are clean, and under the bed is nothing but rotting trash and cocroaches.

Here is the queen bed Olga sleeps on.

Under the sink.

Gisenia helping clean. Notice the clean shelves behind her too!

Cleeeen Beds!

The new livingroom. Gladys (naked) and Lupe enjoying it.

I cannot figure out how to rotate this one, but it is Gisenia in the clean kitchen. Notice under the sink. Just tilt your head...

Clean Gladys after her bath...

The Family: Olga, Gisenia, Tommy... Lupe, Gladys, and Henry

Henry takes our picture...

Bella Vista Photos

Well, here is the worksite. We built the walls for three classrooms, and poured sidewalks for the church.

JUAN CARLOS: EL JEFE

He was our foreman on the Job

Pastor Antony! His first time in Honduras and he´s already learned Spanish.

Some of the girls on the trip.

Julie, Jenna, Marie, and Joanne

JOCELYN and Me.

Mom working and kids playing

José, the first man I took a picture of in Honduras.

Denise Taking Photos. I have taught her well...

Me and the girls

The Famous Ivania eating a lolly pop

Church service with the kids. The misbehaving kid in back.

Thanks to Mom, Tim, and James who let me borrow these photos to put up.

Bella Vista Indeed!

PART 1: The San Diego Church team comes to build classrooms in Bella Vista.

(I know almost everyone on the team and was with them the two weeks they were here)

Bella Vista is in Danli, a small town three hours South East of Tegucigalpa, close to the Nicaraguan border. Building the pastoral house at the Nazarene church in Bella Vista seven years ago was my first experience in Honduras. The house is still there, but instead of Pastor Ramiro living in it, it hosts 250 children four times a week feeding them with funds from Compassion International. Without this help, many of the children in the area would be starving.

Bella Vista is the place I made my first Honduran friends, one of which is Isabella. Seven years ago, I was green to Central America and to Spanish for that matter, but Isabella, at 12 years old, did not seem to mind waiting for my two years of high school Spanish to form sentences like, ‘What name is you?’ and ‘I to be Brian and I am 19 old years”. She was very patient and even helped compose the sentences I was trying to form. She would tell me what I wanted to say to her and then answer her own question. It was in this manner that we became friends over the two weeks we worked there.

It was all bliss and good times until one evening my broken Spanish failed me. On the way to her house to meet her grandmother, the person with whom she lived, I told her that the next time we meet, she be when she would visit me in the United States. She smiled and swung my hand that she was holding and nodded in approval. We got to the house and she spat out a presentation of her new gringo attachment to the family. Not knowing what anyone was saying, but responding to the warmth of her grandmother’s toothy grin, I hugged the old woman and took my seat on the cardboard stiff sofa. I passed an excruciating 20 minutes on that sofa, trying my best to catch what they were asking me, and doing a lot of head-shaking and nodding. I nodded as my eyes wandered, taking in the room. I noticed the mint green walls (that I thought were an odd color choice then and now know are a popular choice in Honduras. My house is mint green now); I noticed the cut out magazine ads for Pepsi and Coke that hung like portraits on the wall and from the ceiling. With enough one-way conversation, they finally allowed me to depart as the group’s red vans started to roll away without me in them (a habit that has now formed over the years—this year I was left behind; Thanks Bob).

It wasn’t until the next night, our final night there, that my communication mistake came to light. Isabella appeared to say goodbye to us, but was a little stand-offish. I walked over to her to greet her, but she stayed a bit rigid and said something as I arrived. I could tell it was a question by the inflection in her voice, but I had not the faintest idea what she was inquiring, but it seemed important so I asked her to repeat it. After she ceaselessly repeated it in different fashions, tempos, inflections, and speeds, I decided I needed help. Shelley wouldn’t help me translate, so I found Joyce. To Joyce, she repeated the question. Joyce understood, being fluent in Spanish, but looked perplexed or surprised.
“What? What did she say?” I asked.
“She says you told her that she can come with us to the States and she wants to know if it is true.” Joyce translated.
“What! No, no no no no! I never said that. How could I say that?” I was shocked and a bit nervous. I couldn’t go around telling little girls they are going to the States with me.
Joyce translated that there was a mistake and I never said that and there was no way we could take her. Deflated as a popped balloon, Isabella lowered her eyes and walked home without much more. Suddenly I remembered my broken Spanish saying she should visit. I was sure I had said it right, having practiced it over in my head, and suddenly I realized her family probably thought I was taking her and that was why they were so smiley. I felt awful but with nothing left to do and no vocabulary to explain, I let her go and we left. Over the years, I have visited Isabella and her family. I still go to the living room and cardboard sofa to speak awkwardly with grandma, only now I actually understand what we are talking about and don’t make many more grave mistakes by inviting people places. Isabella is now married with a son and lives in the hill above town and we are still friends.

My second time in Bella Vista, I went walking down the hill from the church looking for photo opportunities and came across a little six year old girl hanging on a black iron gate that was attached to the front of what I thought was the door to the inside of her house. My Spanish being a little better than it was with Isabella three years before, I asked her if I could take her photo. She did not object, nor move. After capturing her beautifully on film, I asked her for her name, Jocelyn, and what she was doing that day. She had no plans. With an invitation to go to the church with me for the kid activities we had planned for the day, she ran off immediately to get her shoes. She ran around the building and up into what looked like a muddy dirt hill out back. I watched her go until she became small and disappeared over a crest. Her house must be just right there, I thought.

Twenty minutes later, she reappeared wearing a pair of cracked, dry leather sandals that looked like they belonged to someone older and bigger than she was. With big grins produced by our newly formed companionship, we grasped hands and we walked the hill back to the church. She spent all day playing with the group and ended up coming back every day that week.

I also met her rambunctious best friend, Ivania, who never seemed to leave Joel or me alone. She was always around my neck every time I stood up. She was on my back every time I turned around. She was everywhere! A real monkey. When it came time for us to say goodbye at the end of the week of work, Ivania started the little girls in a game of “Kiss the White Boys”. Joel, Rick and I spent a good ten minutes dodging little lips as they came flying at us and placing the kisses on our cheeks. When we got in the van, it was discovered that out of 20 or so little girls in on the farewell game, only one had successfully kissed all three of us on the lips, Ivania. Because of that kiss, I never forgot her name.

This year I wondered if I would see my old friends. I wondered if Isabella would show up. My last time in Bella Vista, when I met Jocelyn and Ivania, I had made a trek from one end of the colony to the other asking in every house where she lived. I followed all the directions people gave me for an hour until I arrived at a shack way up on the hill and found no one in it. I was assured it was where she lived but I never saw her. Thinking of this and thinking of Jocelyn, I hoped they would come.

We stumbled out of the vans on the first day, the rest of the San Diego team and me, to take a gander at the project that lay before us for the next two weeks, to build classrooms for the Compassion International Center. While admiring the worksite and then the waning sun—that threw the colors of dusk into the sea-blue sky over the community—I was accosted from behind. I felt two tiny arms firmly wrap my waist from behind. I spun to see which kid had already found the gringos and looked into the big brown eyes of my Jocelyn. Ecstatically I stooped to hug her, as well as you can hug a three foot person, and saw the recognition in her eyes that she had been waiting for me. I felt such a relief that this six year old, now nine, had remembered me and found me. I didn’t have to go look for her. Soon to follow, I found Ivania (who kissed me again) and even found Grandma Isabella and her sofa.

I had a fantastic time hanging out with the girls, playing games, chatting—now that I can speak to them—and walking the town. It was on our last day that I realized how much I meant to them and how much the group meant to the community. Jocelyn, who had said goodbye the day before, did not show up on our last day. Rumor has it that she locked herself in her bathroom instead of going to school or coming to see us again. Ivania clung to me for the whole hour before we left and freely let a steady stream of tears mixed with snot soak into my shoulder. I clung to her and told her that I would be back soon to see them and that I would never forget them. How could anyone ever forget such precious children? I think about them every day…

Being with the San Diego group was fantastic. I had no idea how much I wanted to see old friends and be able to hang out with them. I was so lucky to room with Pastor Antony, possibly the greatest man in the world. I didn’t realize it, but it was really comfortable and relaxing being with friends and cousins, and both sets of parents again (Mom and Tim and the McGinty’s). I really enjoyed having so many things in common and being able to talk about subjects important to me with someone else who equally cared about them, such as books, movies, and walks of life. Believe it or not, I think it was harder to see them go and leave me behind than it was to say goodbye to them in Lindberg field when I came here last October.

I was getting used to having so many friends around and a roommate to talk to all the time, that this last week has been very lonely for me. Suddenly my small apartment feels very empty and quiet. I of course have friends here, but I am not with them very much because most work 10 hours a day. I don’t wish that I had returned with them (although the thought did cross my mind more than once), but I wish I had that companionship here all the time. You would think that you could grow accustomed to loneliness, but you cannot. You only learn to make it hurt less, like ignoring hunger, which you never do when you are lonely. You always end up eating. I wonder what is in my fridge…



(Breathe) (Stretch) (Eat) (Pee)

PART 2

The San Diego group took me to the island of Roatan for the last four days of their trip. Roatan is just off the coast of Honduras and the major tourist spot in the country. We stayed in a nice little resort located on the beach called Bananarama. It boasted a beach bar and kitchen, a dive shop, big rooms with fridges, microwaves, big beds, and air conditioning. It was fantastic. The island has grown up a lot since the last time we were there. All of West Bay, the town where we stayed, used to be empty beach and now is covered with major hotels and resorts. Oh yeah, our resort had hot showers too. The only drawback to vacation was that the power company for the island cannot produce enough power for the island and has rolling blackouts throughout the week. We got hit by it twice. It inconvenienced many tourists, some in our group, as they did not have air conditioning and could not run their laptop computers. The resorts at least are equipped with generators that they ran so we could at least have running water and showers during these times. I remember thinking that it wasn’t too bad, and that I kind of liked the island life. I spent most of my time swimming, snorkeling, and eating in the nicest restaurants I have ever seen in Honduras.

On Sunday I said goodbye to the San Diego group and went with my friend Karen to her aunt and uncle’s house, the plan being that she and I would be traveling together back to Puerto Cortes the following morning. The whole of Karen’s family came in a borrowed Toyota pick-up truck to pick me up at the hotel. They drove me around the island giving me a grand tour of all the vistas and towns before we went back to Coxen Hole where they lived. West Bay and West End are where the tourists usually stay, it is also where all the American and European foreigners live on the island. Coxen Hole is where the Hondurans who work for the American Hotels and the islanders live. From the main street it looks nice, lots of shops and restaurants, places to go and see, a coastal view, but we turned off that street and headed away from the ocean. We drove only two blocks inland and the houses turned to wood, the streets turned to mud and it was here that Karen’s family lived along with a thousand other Hondurans trying for a better life in the island economy. We returned the friend’s car and headed down a makeshift alley with an open sewage canal beside it. We crossed the yards of two houses and then came to their apartment. It was up a flight of broken wooden stairs and had a suitcase padlock on the door to secure the contents inside. When they opened it, I saw a sparse area that served as the kitchen and living room. The kitchen part had a sink, a gas burner, some dirty dishes, and nothing else, no fridge, no microwave, one light bulb. The other side of the space, the living room, had an old plastic table and a bench seat from a van with a sheet draped over it that served as the sofa. Two bedrooms sat in back, one on each side of a hall. The parent’s room had a queen bed, some clothes stacked on the floor, and an electric keyboard mounted atop the amplifier, the family’s most prized possession. The second room also had a queen bed and the usual clothes, and a mirror. One fan, without a faceguard, was shared by all.

With eight people in the house, where to sleep seemed to be an issue. It finally got resolved when David, the oldest son, slept on the floorboards of his parent’s room, his parents in the bed with the six year old daughter, and I, Karen, Yameli, and Nicole all slept in the other bed, sideways so we could all fit. My legs hung over the edge of the mattress and quickly lost blood and then feeling. We had two pillows among us. It was hot.

I found out the next morning that the whole town had not had water in three days and there was no tank with a generator attached to the house to provide them water until the city fixed the problem. Water went out at least once a week. The electricity also went off for the whole town twice as often as for the resorts. I knew West Bay was more ritzy than most living in Honduras, but it was then I realized how isolated it was. In the small of an island there existed such a disparity of wealth. I realized how isolated many of the hotel owners were, the ones who never visited where their employees lived. It was sad to me to see so many people living in such poverty and so close to modernism and money. It was shocking because it was not rich Mexicans like in Tijuana, it wasn’t rich Honduran’s like in Tegucigalpa, it was Americans who came to a foreign country and lived far, far above the native population.

I am not saying that there should not be hotels or progress. The other side is that the Americans and hotels provide much needed jobs to many Hondurans who otherwise would not have work. You would think though that on an island where everyone lives so close to each other that things like accessible water for all could be taken care of.

Karen and I arrived at the Ferry boat terminal at six a.m. to take the seven o’clock ferry and were met by a mob of travelers all cramming into the ticket area to buy passage. Other passengers guarded luggage on the sidewalk. It was a zoo. A Spaniard kept hoping and hollering about the injustice of the lines, and how he had been there yesterday and no one told him he could purchase a ticket in advance. It was impossible to move around and we missed the seven o’clock boat as soon as we squeezed in the doors and into a line. Three long line-waiting hours later, we bought our tickets for the two O’clock ferry and left to eat before returning later.

From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. we sat on the upper deck of a hydroplane craft on its way to La Ceiba. From 4:05 p.m. to 7, we sat in broken seats on the direct bus to San Pedro Sula. From 7:10 to 8:30 p.m., we sat in the stopping bus to Puerto Cortes Dippsa Station, the last bus of the night. From 8:30 to 9, we waited for the next bus we needed to take us home. We arrived home at 9:30 p.m. where I immediately guzzled what felt like two gallons of water, and went to bed. It’s good to be home.


I have a new comfort food since tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches are hard to come by in Honduras and it would be too blasted hot to eat it anyway…. Oreo cookies and milk, Mmmmm!
Thank God for Chocolate…