Making Our Way to El Pital

GETTING THERE

i left chicago before the sun rose in the midst of a huge thunderstorm, and arrived on a small island, full of heat and palm trees, warm smiles and lost luggage. that´s right. my taca flight changed depature times about 5 times, and in the meantime, the luggage was switched like one of those games where there´s only one marble and three cups, switch, switch, switch! i stayed on the island of roatan for only a few hours, enough to buy a plate of frites and sip a cold coke while waiting for my flight to la ceiba, where i was going to meet rachel. it´s only a half hour but somehow, the luggage was misplaced in that last leg of the journey...the flights, flying, through a sea of clouds, always astounds me. shadows of clouds. shadows as the idea of a cloud. shadow as a memory of a cloud. shadows stacked inside the cloud. shadow as the sister of the cloud. the sky is amazing.

IN LA CEIBA

rachel met me at the airport in la ceiba and we laughed, embraced, shrugged our shoulders at the lost luggage situation, and headed out to our place for the night, an arte-gallery & bed-breakfast all in one. of course we got a lift from rae´s new friend jonathan, whom she met while hitchhiking down to greet me. jonathan is a sustainable agricultural dude from the states, and now lives here. he was the one who dropped us at the bed and breakast...! this was a lovely little place full of art work inspired by the coast and all things carribean. we were met by christina and nicolas, a sister-brother team who just so gracefully ran the family business. we stayed in a little room and lounged beneath the ceiling fan, dripping with sweat. the next morning, christina was on the phone with taca trying to work things out and in the end, we taxied back to the airport and there it was, my little red beat up suitcase. this after i realized that i really didn´t need anything in that suitcase after all! (except the art supplies, which i was happy to have back for our project.)

CEIBA STREETS

on the first night here, we walked through the damp, crumbling port town yesterday evening, marveling the infiltration of dunkin donuts, pizza hut, wendy´s, and burger king, crushed together with faulty buildings on their way up or down, we couldn´t tell, and lots of little clothing shops, tiendas, and metal'corrugated roof top kiosks selling candies, cigarettes, and plastic toys hanging like fruit on their plastic vines. the air was warm and tropical, rae and i talked intensely about development and whose mission really matters when there are people like us, artists who want to make the world a better place, and christian missionaries, who also want to make the world a better place. we are both sensing a kind of vulnerability in a city, a country so poor like honduras, but what is our response, and how do we this kind of work in the most human, and just way possible? we are both struck by the number of missionaries here who we feel take advantage of peoples´vulnerabilities. but then '-- we too have our own kind of mission, so we grapple with this idea in general -- of travel, encounter, and the desire to connect through the language of art, expression, beauty, and meaning'making. it´s a strange balance to strike. but we are so eager to be with and meet our students in the mountain town of el pital.

there are holes up and down the sidewalks, falling apart churches and signs of the past with united and standard fruit company architecture. this town was built on the banana republic and while the infrastructure is there, it´s unreliable. cars zoom with total disregard for traffic signals. palm trees and lush vegetation lines the broken roads, and all over there are men and women on bicycles and on foot, carrying their wares in bags and balancing them on their heads. goats and horses also roam the sides of the roads, grazing in grass next to auto supply and tow companies. it´s a collage of city and rural all in one here. and the breeze is beautiful, the birds, an orchestra of coast (orcoastra).

BEER & BALEADA, BEANS & RICE

there are two main kinds of beer here, imperial, and la salavida. interesting pair there. rae and i ate streetside at a baleada, a flour tortilla spot. red plastic chairs and coca cola plastic tables. a light rain, drizzle. we ran across the street to buy the local beers, only to be told by the dona that the back room is for men over 24 years of age only, and that if we wanted to buy beer we had to put it in cups and either sit in the front where she could see us or take it across the street. okay we said no problem. she apologized and said she was feeling ashamed but that was her custom and she was sticking to the establishment. the men sat with their eyes glued to the television watching futbol as if it were god and they were congregants. the dona kept looking at us. we were taking her in, her strong matronly presence, and her fierce look in her eye that told us she was not to be messed with but that she loved us endlessly. we sipped imperially, we sipped the salvation, we sipped and talked about arts education and development. we sipped and laughed and curriculum dreamed. and then we took a few cups across the street to eat.

today we woke and had a typical honduran breakfast '' beans, rice, bacon, eggs, bread, and tomatoes with cheese with cappucinos. we ran back to the airport to pick up my luggage and then went to the supermercado to prepare for the bus trip to el pital. this place is a huge mega mall, from where i write to you now. it´s kind of insane, the strip malling of central america. the stripping of culture. the stripping of dignity. of cultural memory. of collective strenght. i´m learning about the effect that poverty has on a nation´s pyche, and what a nation is willing to accept when feeling desperate. evangelical wendy´s. first baptist burger kings. i´m torn and amazed and confused.

WHY I TRAVEL

this is what i love about travel--the reminder that there is life everywhere, many lives happening all at once, emotion and experience, action and reaction. the world is full of luscious contradiction. cool air con blasting at the airport, no running water at a local bathroom. beeping taxis but few road signs. an abundance of avocados but recent rains drown all the tomatoes and mold attacked many of the other crops. the terrain here is rugged and elevated, tiered and stacked with vegetation, giant trees, and low shrubs and bushes, all surrounded by a mountain range and low hanging clouds that frame the port city of la ceiba. we had fun at the market buying more supplies for our project '' laundry lines, and such. we are going to do a poetics project that has to do with mapping hidden parts of poems. we will meet with oscar, the principal, tomorrow morning, to discuss the details. until then, we are going to the bus station to catch a ride up the mountain and when we get there, we are goign to have a taco party with rachel´s close honduran friends and host family here.

LOOKING AROUND & AHEAD

there are few caballeros here -- people are sporting western looks and enjoy blasting spanish pop songs everywhere. the energy is calm and relaxed, except when attempting to cross a street! people are helpful and reserved, at least as a first impression. we are going to work with 4th and 5th graders up by the guinka, the watershed. and we are also going to lead 2 writing workshops with high school students. we might also visit a school associated with an orphanage but that hasn´t been confirmed yet.

rachel and i are excited to be here together. i´m sinking into life here, and even though i´m here for such a short time, i´m ready to be here and present, listening in and taking notice of everything around me. rachel is my guide and light here, making quick decisions and navigating all the beauty and confusion of a language that is just slowly emerging within me. she and i are pushing each other to think about the various shapes that this work takes '-- art and social practice, art and community development, art and social change -- there are layers and nuance and few things we know to be true as absolutes. all is circumstantial and so dependent on honest, real listening. to ourselves, to the world around us.