Host family and house #2, quite different from #1. 'Mom' is a 60 year old former mayor of the town who currently runs a hardware store and restaurant out of the house. 'Dad' is a 63 year old bricklayer. They have 5 children and 12 grandchildren, most of whom live in the very same compound, which ends up being fortuitous for us volunteers. The second I put my bags down, the youngest of the children, Jimmy at age 31, helped me nail my mosquito net to the ceiling, so I knew they had my best intentions in mind. I took a tour of the house and quickly realized two things: I've got to walk through the kitchen and half of the restaurant to get to and from the shower (which is right next to the Men's and Women's bathrooms) and the lone window in my room opens up directly onto one of the tables in the restaurant. Hmmm, could be a long 6 weeks.
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| Tipicos Monserrat - half restaurant, half home |
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| Home #2, for 6 weeks |
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| My room, the shelves came in handy big time |
As previously mentioned, Leticia Osorio was mayor of Yuscaran from 1994-1998. And she hasn't lost one bit of her politician personality! She is the loudest Honduran I have met. It doesn't matter what she's talking about, whether it's today's weather forecast or last night's beans and rice, she'll startle you into paying attention. Santos, her husband, is the exact opposite. In 6 weeks, outside of 'Buen provecho' (Spanish for bon appetit) and 'Buenas' (hello), I might have heard a total of 25 words from him. Four of their five children, along with many grandkids, live in the same compound, making it a bunch of Osorios and one gringo in one large living area. As it's much easier to talk to and relate to children when one has the Spanish-speaking ability of a kindergartner, I quickly became friends with some of the kids, namely Jimmy Jr (8) and Leti (4). Leticia also had three empleados helping in the restaurant and around the house, two of whom are women in their early 20s. They were nice enough, but piropo'd (cat-called) me tirelessly, making my house feel more like a confusing, backwards construction site than anything. I bring this up for a reason, to be expanded upon further in a later post...
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'Mom' in blue, with the youngest son Jimmy and his family
after a trip to the hot springs in nearby Oropoli |
The advantage of living in a restaurant surrounded on all sides by immediate family was that we volunteers had a place to kick back and relax, without feeling the weight of the town's gaze on us. The fishbowl effect is immense being a gringo in a Latin American country, especially in a small town like Yuscaran. Multiply that by 18 and you can understand why we needed a safe-haven to escape to from time to time. Chisme (gossip) is huge and spreads like wild fire so we really had to be careful with what we did, particularly late at night, which is a major reason why people were at my house/restaurant 6 nights a week. When all was said and done, we ended up spending around $1,000 on beer at my family's restaurant. They must have thought the golden ticket had fallen out of the sky. To be fair, if you break it down, $1,000 split between 18 folks over 6 weeks really isn't as bad as it sounds. But we did take advantage of the setup and the quickly-dawning reality that we would all be on our own in a few short weeks.
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