This morning I woke up for breakfast at the homestay, having elected to go nowhere as a strategy for rest and recovery. I then left the house for the internet café, and ended up clandestinely following an old man for most of the distance. Hunched over and well-dressed, the short-statured man walked briskly and deliberately toward his destination not far from mine, navigating a variety of obstacles without incident. Most interestingly, since Olanchito is a small town (approximately 20,000 people with 80,000 people in the area) he was frequently met by people who knew him. The uniqueness of my perspective was to see his actions and reactions during these encounters—a window into the heart and soul of the cities inhabitants. Those who greeted him were generally younger and seemed to respect him, but he apparently saw them all so often that he found no need to spend any more than five seconds talking before moving on toward wherever he needed to go.
I spent almost the entire day on the internet—probably just about enough time to make up for my “deprivation” Monday through Friday. Our situation is work from 8:00-3:00 at the hospital, dinner at 5:00 or 6:00, and then little opportunity to reach and use the distant internet café which closes at 8:00. No internet gaming for me (or using the bathroom or eating lunch), just social interaction, research, and moving information from place to place for various purposes (For instance, in the course of my time at the café, it became necessary for me to email the NSA).
While walking home for dinner shortly after a rainstorm, a car drove unnecessarily fast through a deep puddle of water as it passed me, completely drenching me from near the waste down. I was appalled by the lack of consideration, but just before I could project these frustrations on all Hondurans, I was assaulted by kindness from every other person I met on my way back to the house. First, a farmer with a two-foot-long machete greeted me cordially saying, “Buena” as he passed by from the opposite way. Then, an impoverished man saw me and said in English, “God bless you, too, man!”
By dinner time, I was ravenously hungry, a comforting sign of good health that makes meals, as well as life in general, more satisfying (I’m even beginning to look forward to Monday, as well as our research tasks for EWH).
Later in the night while I sat barefoot in my room showing Roger some pictures from my trips to London, Japan, Italy, and Costa Rica, a millipede swiftly scurried past on the floor. Roger immediately rose from his seat to grind the creature to smithereens after pausing briefly to ensure that his flip-flop was positioned so as to fully protect—to whatever extent a flip-flop could ever protect anything—his foot from millipede exposure. I’m used to the relatively harmless centipedes from where I live, but millipedes are poisonous.
Roger had a portable internet modem, and since he loaned it to me for the night, I was able to have even more internet on this Sabbath from travel or work.
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