The Great Refrigerator Parade

I couldn’t stand it any longer. Our refrigerator, shared with our long-time arch-rivals Casa 6, was ridiculously disgusting and had been ever since I’d arrived. Given that my arrival brought to its conclusion a reign of several months during which Casa 6 should’ve had complete control over the contents of the refrigerator, it was entirely clear to me that they needed to get their act together and get what had been solely their refrigerator under control. After a brief debate as to whom was largely responsible for the current state of affairs, the situation was resolved. With great fanfare, they entered our house and pulled everything out of the fridge and freezer and filed past me on the way to the trash can.

Having now worked with Casa 6 to clean out the refrigerator, I stand as a testament to what was discovered inside. I’ve attempted to document the information as well as possible, but may very well have missed some items. For comic relief from the pain and torture of this topic, I’ve tried to give titles to most of the items. Without further adoing (or adon’ting for that matter), the refrigerator contained the following:

1.       Mystery Liquid Number 1: An ordinary-sized glass of a vaguely orange viscous liquid.

2.       Mystery Liquid Number 2: A fruit-punch-sized container containing something that looked like it might’ve been trying to pass as milk, except for the fact that it was way too watered-down. It also contained many of those chunks, particularly near the bottom, that are characteristic of less than ideal dairy products. Experimentation suggests that those chunks had a consistency roughly of nothing. They chose to disintegrate rather than push back on my finger.

3.       The Green Bag of Death: A plastic bag with a bunch of green juice in it. The Casa 6 girls seem convinced that the juice was at one point a cucumber. Brief observation seemed to confirm the hypothesis.

4.       The Four Sarita Containers (Sarita is a type of ice cream, but we use the containers afterwards like Tupperware) Containing the Following:

a.       Pieces of a cake that I tried making for Santa Teresita’s feast day (October 1^st) when all of the Finca came to our house. The first attempt wasn’t cake-like material, but still tasted decent so I saved it. It reminds me quite a bit of Nilla Wafers.

b.      Watermelon chunks cut last night by Beto.

c.       Pineapple chunks that seem to be past their prime. Not composite, of course (ha! Math joke!), but rather about 80% alcohol, 20% pineapple-like material.

d.      Something that could be taken for rice pudding or white vomit. As an aside, my opinion of rice pudding clearly isn’t that great.

5.       The In-Flight Meal: A bag that said Delta on it and contained within a Kit Kat, Mayonnaise, and a half-sandwich. I know you are thinking that that has Casa 6 written all over it, but lo and behold, Harrison (or Nils?) actually asked me if I wanted the sandwich because otherwise he was going to throw it out… a month and a half ago. I said yes, I wanted the sandwich.

6.       Random Hobby Junk: Two different packaged/bottled methods of making cheese out of milk.

7.       The Fuzzy Multicolored Papaya: A piece of papaya on a plate, uncovered. Slightly white or blue, depending on where you looked.

8.       The Fourth of An Avocado: I didn’t realize how black the inside of avocados usually are.

9.       Doing Mustard Economy-Style: A giant mustard container filled with, well, mustard. Who would ever want that?

10.   Chicken a la Manteca Flakes: A completely frozen box of something akin to soup with very clear Manteca-like substances coagulated on top. It apparently smelled vaguely of pollo (I wouldn’t know cause I can’t smell) and the educated guess offered by several members of Casa 6 was that it was the chicken broth from one of the recent Quinces. In my mind chicken broth normally isn’t dark green, but who am I to speak on such topics?

11.   Mac and Bleu Cheese: A very small container holding leftover macaroni and cheese from when Beto and I ate dinner about three weeks ago today. I don’t recall it being quite as blue or green before.

12.   The Coffee From A Saber Cuando: The missionaries (dating back to my time as a missionary in the late 2013-2014 period (shortly after the Jurassic)) used to make themselves iced coffee by making coffee and storing it in the fridge. Yeah, that´s right. It was still there.

13.   The Cookies I Was Supposed to Give to A Mr. Joseph H. Pastor: Don’t tell his sister. She specifically didn’t eat those on her birthday in order to leave them for him. What kind of silly and/or irresponsible missionary wouldn’t have remembered about those?

14.   …

So I actually got distracted for about a month and a half between numbers 13 and 14. I have no clue how the rest of this list was supposed to finish. You get the point. I’ll give house 6 credit for Mustard and Manteca Flakes. I could even blame them for not having dealt with the random things that had been in there for the entire time they were the sole owners of the fridge. In fact, let’s give them all of the swing-votes of those arbitrarily so-beaten-down-that-we-didn’t-really-know-what-they-were items. Sadly, it still seems quite apparent that the missionaries were more at fault than house 6. Just don’t tell them, or we’ll never live it down! Maybe they didn’t realize it at the time!

Also, just to bring up old missionary debates, in my defense, I voted against the refrigerator =)

Fear and Hope: A Gradual Conversion?

The dust kicks up on the road as the bus driver swerves to avoid another pothole. I stare out the window as the African palms fly by in their perfect rows. Those perfect rows mask an underlying conflict between the ordinary campesino and big business, a past as imperfect as the rows are straight. A man steps onto the bus, trapped in a giant basket filled with various treats. Quesadillas! Good Prices! His cheerful voice and attitude sell, but his weary eyes hint at the other 45 buses he’s boarded today and every day for the past 20 years.

It has been eight months since I was last in Honduras. That time I was here for two and a half years. I'm back for another. The first time I arrived, I was embarking on an unknown adventure, off to a Catholic orphanage to save the world. I entered a scene of perfection, of children laughing and playing, of joy and Christ-centered faith. The last time I left, I left broken. I left fully aware that some kids experience more hardship in their first eleven years than most can imagine. I left understanding that it is all too tempting to pass that hurt and pain on to others. I left willingly, gladly, hoping that a new batch of missionary recruits could continue what I no longer could.

I’m supposed to be starting a graduate degree. I’m supposed to be moving on with my life and getting a real job and setting myself up so that I can provide for a future family, if the right girl ever comes along. I'm actually on a bus, headed towards a place that holds both love and hurt in overwhelming quantities. They twist and turn together until I'm unsure of where one ends and the other begins. I loved the place dearly, but I got out of there for a reason. I burned out and headed home, grateful when my time was up, grateful for an excuse to leave, to recover.

Yet here I am, sliding over to make space in the tiny seats designed for american school children. Somehow the place is calling me back again.

Dear God,

It better not just be the place that's calling me back. Sincerely, Kevin

Amen.

P.S. But seriously, I hope this was part of Your plan.

P.P.S. Either way, can You still send some of that grace this direction?

Breakfast the first day back, by the numbers

 Breakfast

1 Bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds (w/out almonds wasn´t an option)
1 Bean and Cheese Taco from Taco Cabana (¡Two years in Honduras and I still can´t make tortillas as good as theirs!)
2 Slices of Peanut Butter Bread (creamy, cause I missed the crunchy in the cabinet)
1/2 Of the Remaining Trail Mix (I might be lying about this one... I also seem to recall eating trail mix for dinner)
1 Package of Peanut Butter Crackers (6 mini-sandwiches)
2 Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies (with Reese's)
2 Glasses of Milk (Somehow I´d forgotten how cold milk was in the fridge, so I managed to get brainfreeze while finishing the second glass)
1 Large Helping of Cheez-its (I had to remind myself that I might want to eat more later in order to avoid finishing the box)
3 Packages of Quaker Oatmeal (peach-flavored... cause we didn't have any banana, strawberry, or blueberry)

Lunch
1 Plate of Karenni Food (Courtesy of Karenni refugees, with whom my parents work), including:
 - 1 large heaping of rice
 - 1 unidentified type of meat (not because it was unidentifiable, but because I failed to inquire)
 - 1 section of potatoes (which in retrospect I think were in the same dish as the meat)
1 Bowl of Karenni Salad (which very nearly killed me... you gotta watch out for the picante-ness of some Karenni dishes (although in everyone else´s defense, about four people warned me about the salad beforehand))
1 Bottle of Water (sadly, there was no milk available)
1 Cup of Lemonade (which did more to help than the water, but not much more)




Afternoon:
1 Headache From Excessive Sugar Intake (turns out even Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds will do that to me these days... imagine what would´ve happened if there hadn´t been almonds!)



Aside: You are upset with me about the "Lunch" category. Just admit it. I included breakfast in the title and therefore led you to believe I was only going to be talking about breakfast. My sincerest apologies. My sister said it was worth mentioning, given that lunch happened approximately 20 minutes after breakfast. This, of course, begs the question, "Why didn't you merely change the title of the blog post?"
I do not have a satisfactory answer for you.

Catracho Beisbol

Unlike in Nicaragua and Cuba, baseball isn´t generally a well accepted pastime in Honduras. It turns out that not taking that revelation seriously can get dangerous.

We, the missionaries, knowing that soccer is the be-all end-all of our kids' sporting experience, put some effort into getting the kids to try out a bit of a different game a few weeks ago. We settled on softball. We started off with all of the right steps. We pulled a whole bunch of donated gloves out of the dusty back corner of some bodega, gathered up a group of finca kids, convinced them, after some arguing and checking for scorpions, to correctly place gloves on their left hands, and re-explained the basic rules of softball to them.

Basic rules:

Somebody will throw the softball to the person with the bat. The person has to hit the ball with the bat, and then run to first base. If they get there with plenty of time to spare, they can go to second base, después third, and después home. The other team is trying to prevent them from advancing by throwing the ball and/or tagging the runner out.

At this point you are almost certainly thinking, “Wow, you probably should’ve given them a bit more detail on some of those rules and added a few others.”

You are correct.

The end result of my instructions can probably be summed up in the following at-bats*:

Belkis, our resident female soccer star, steps up to the glove (home plate) as Nelsy takes on the role of pitcher. From about eight feet out, Nelsy tosses the first pitch, high and outside, and I quickly realize my first error. The person has to hit the ball with the bat while holding the bat with both hands. Belkis drops one of her hands from the bat, swings with the force of her whole body, and the entire baseball field falls silent for a moment as Nelsy’s life flashes before her eyes. Thank the good Lord Belkis missed. A short explanation later, in comes the second pitch which Belkis connects on, and the race is on. The players behind the batter duck as the bat goes flying. Nelsy picks up the ball and employs the tactic she’s familiar with from the last time she played baseball with a tennis ball and slightly different rules. Error number two. The other team is trying to prevent them from advancing by throwing the ball to (NOT at!) another player on their own team and/or tagging the runner out. She chucks the ball at Belkis with as much force as she can, the ball misses, and because there are only about three people on each team by this point¹, there is nobody on Nelsy’s team anywhere near first base any more. Belkis rounds first to head to second, third, and eventually home, as the other team scrambles in vain to recover the ball on time. 1-0.

In comes Jenny, another of the house two girls, and our chances of are looking pretty good. We’re already up one-zero and looking to extend our lead. The first pitch sails high over Jenny’s head, and although she complains, she swings and misses. The second pitch is on track to hit her until she hops out of the way. Finally the third comes in and Jenny hits the ball about seven feet into the air, nearly straight up. She ducks to avoid the ball but it falls right back down and hits her in the back anyway. The ball rolls outside of the baseline, and Jenny takes off for first. I’m going to be honest, in my defense I don't think this was really a situation in which I failed to pass on necessary instructions. I simply have no idea what would really happen there. Either way the play continues and Jenny makes it to second safely.

I step up to the plate. I jump out of the way a few times as I have to catch the ball on its way towards my body, and I have to put up with quite a bit of complaining about how I should be swinging at balls that bounce a yard in front of me and are somehow still supposed to be hittable. [Possible error number three: I could have explained strikes and balls] Finally a hittable pitch comes in and I make some contact, sending the ball skipping across the ground towards the shortstop position.

I take off, and as I round first, I quickly realize I should easily have time to make it to second, because the ball has made it into the outfield and Emily is still a decent distance away from it. Nelsy and Sigri, both on defense, quickly realize the same and take what they deem appropriate steps to mitigate the danger their team is in. Error number four: The other team is trying to prevent them from advancing by throwing the ball to another player on their own team and/or tagging the runner out while holding the ball.  Both of the girls run from their respective locations of the pitcher’s mound and the short-stop location towards second base, and attempt to prevent me from arriving at second by throwing themselves between me and the base. I successfully dodge Sigri but slam into Nelsy, just scrambling away from her grasp in time to re-orient myself and figure out where second base is now located. I touch second, the throw comes in from the outfield and flies past Nelsy towards home plate, and I head to third. My RBI stats and Nelsy’s ERA head opposite directions as Jenny easily scores. 2-0. Because it looks like I might have time if I really sprint, as I round third I make the decision to head home. Nelsy gets to said ball much quicker than I’ve expected, and naturally chooses to employ the same tactic we’ve been trying to break her of all game. I have to leap to my left and into the air as from about 6 feet away Nelsy aims directly at the center of my chest and fires off a rocket. Thank goodness nobody in Honduras normally plays any sports that involve throwing things. Her miss grants me about a second to realize that the fact that she has failed to hit me and the ball is on its way to third does not, in her eyes, mean that I’m home free. As I land from my jump and try to re-route myself towards the home-plate glove I’ve managed to lose sight of (the grass has recently turned yellow here), Nelsy seemingly forgets that she’s playing baseball and not football americano, and re-directs her movements to reflect mine. About 3 feet from the bag, Nelsy hits me full on in tackle mode, and I’m completely taken down to the ground about a foot from the home plate glove. Belkis picks up home plate and hits me in the foot with it a couple of times. 3-0.

*Disclaimer: Several of the following events are based on a true story but may have been slightly fictionalized in the sense that I’m both unsure of all of the details of who was batting when and trying to condense this down into a manageable size and therefore may be (and probably am) combining different occurrences from different at-bats into one. The last play involving me actually happened as stated. ¿Except for maybe the Jenny starting that play on second base part?

¹Two of our house five boys have already said, “This game is too boring” and walked off in the middle of being on third base and at bat, respectively. You were on third base, man. You were a runner in scoring position. Come on.

As a result of recent experiences, some of which appear above, I’ve updated the old "basic rules" to reflect some clarifications that may allow for a slightly safer and more-enjoyable baseball-like experience to be had by all. I’ve created three slightly different options, in order from least to most acceptable to the Honduran population:

Option 1: Somebody who isn’t afraid of getting hit in the face will throw the wiffle softball towards the person with the bat, not at them. The person has to hit the ball only once in any given play with the bat, and then, after carefully putting the bat down, run within the baseline to first base without complaining about the fact that their hit was ‘feo’ and therefore shouldn’t count. If they get there with plenty of time to spare and nobody between them and the next base is currently holding the baseball, they can go to second base, después third, and después home. Wherever they decide to stop, they should stay on that base until the next batter has hit the ball, and should not at any point say, “This game is dumb and boring. I’m leaving.” and walk off of the base headed for their house. The other team is trying to prevent them from advancing by throwing the ball to (NOT at!) another player on their own team and/or gently tagging the runner out while holding the ball. Moving the base towards any player on your team is not valid, nor is taking a base and turning it into your glove.

Option 2: Somebody who isn’t afraid of getting hit in the face will roll (or kick?) the kickball towards the person with the bat at the plate. The person has to hit kick the ball only once in any given play with the bat, and then run within the baseline to first base without complaining about the fact that their hit kick was ‘feo’ and therefore shouldn’t count. If they get there with plenty of time to spare and nobody between them and the next base is currently holding the baseball, they can go to second base, después third, and después home. Wherever they decide to stop, they should stay on that base until the next batter has hit  kicked the ball, and should not at any point say, “This game is dumb and boring. I’m leaving.” and walk off of the base, kick the ball in the opposite direction, and head for their house. The other team is trying to prevent them from advancing by throwing (or kicking?) the ball to (NOT at!) another player on their own team and/or gently tagging the runner out while holding the ball, and/or hitting the runner below the waist with the ball. Moving the base towards any player on your team is not valid, nor is taking a base and turning it into your glove (which you honestly shouldn’t be wearing anyway because you’re playing kickball).

Option 3: There’s one ball and two teams. Both teams have a goal marked out by those big piles of baseball gloves on opposite sides of the field. Nobody can use their hands. Go.

Oldies!

Woah.

The feeling of separation that hits you when the oldies leaves hurts more the second year.

I imagine it's probably because I only spent about two months with the other oldies, and I spent a year and two months with these guys.

The first day that the oldies weren't around, the house felt absurdly empty. During a bit of free time that day and during Holy Hour, I wrote down some things. Reading over them again, those things are not particularly positive. I think it reflects how overwhelmed I felt in the moment, both imagining what it would look like for the eleven people who stayed here to suddenly be doing all of the work when nine people got into the car and left, and imagining what it would be like to not have those people around for the times when you have questions about how to manage your new job, when you want to be able to turn to another person and say, "I'm not being crazy, right? That's a weird thing that our community does!", when you want somebody else to agree to participate in an event you'd like to organize, when you want enough people at holy hour to hold a tune together, when you need to know how to say a word in Spanish, when you want to play a game of american football, when you want to watch a good movie on [once every two weeks] movie night and everyone else is voting for something silly, when you want to try and steal a chicken from one of the kids on his or her way back from the bodega, or when you want to throw oranges at house two and/or its inhabitants.
Those are times I'm going to miss.

I think those are the moments you carry with you in your head until they fade with time and/or are replaced by the experiences you have with those still around you. Some of those new experiences have already happened, but there are more yet to come. You've just gotta figure out how to pick yourself up back off the ground and keep on keeping on till the memory of those oldies is simply fond, not sad!

We cleaned the house Thursday, and again yesterday, and somebody made the intelligent observation: "We may not be able to help whether or not the oldies left, but we are able to help what our house looks like!" Oddly enough, cleaning the house, for me, fit into that category of new experiences to ease the pain.

Okay, I gotta run, but I'm actually doing fine guys, even if it doesn't sound like it!

Fake Blog Posts

So I suppose first I'd like to thank you all for coming to this meeting. I think we're all in agreement that at this point it makes sense that, instead of actually producing any feasible blog post, we've dropped down to the level of simply making a list of the potential blog posts that could have been written in the past several months, had time been more readily available.

Having said that, please let me present you with the options:

1. The rat killing competition.

The rat problem in our house grew out of control right around the time that the newbies got here. They, less accustomed to living in such squalor, got our act together for us, since we didn't seem like we were going to, and organized a two-week-long competition to see which group of missionaries could trap and kill the most rats. I, as one of those omega males who can't stand the sight of killing things and has at least at one point in my life been a vegetarian, struggled with this competition. My team proved reasonably capable both at trapping rats through ingenious construction of awesome traps and at remaining humble, but we struggled in the actually-disposing-of-said-trapped-rats department. In the end we managed to lose 50L (lempira), or about $2.50 to the team of Kevin (Kuehl, not me) and Harrison, aided by the fact that the latter of the two seemed to have no semblance of a moral quandary regarding doing away with the rats.

This blog post, were it to be written by someone who was actually good at doing the whole blog production thing, would've come complete with photos of all of the different types of traps constructed over the course of the weeks, from the "Look! Here's some food floating on an island in the middle of water too deep for you to stand up in! You should probably come get it!" traps to the "I don't know... let's just put a giant bag over the hole where they come in and hope for the best?". Thorough readers could be left pondering both the best way to capture rats too intelligent for normal traps and what it is about the soap in the mens' bathroom that the rats find attractive (besides its disuse).

2. Graduation of 9th grade

The 9th grade class this year consisted of six kids who will be heading off into the world next year, having completed the first stage of their academic career. The hope is that all of them will continue on into higher education, but the nature of the Honduras education system and the opportunities available to these kids don't necessarily dictate that as the next step. Perusers (people who peruse?) might actually get a chance to see one of those elusive photos of the writer and his 9th grade math students, or at least those of them who still liked him enough to be willing to be seen in a photo with him, and would be provided with the opportunity to ponder the relationship between education and opportunity in the third world.

3. House 3 and banana plantation injustice.

As part of their afternoon activities schedule, Kit decided to work with house 3 to create a business selling topogigos, a fancy delicacy here in Honduras also known as frozen koolaid in a baggie. Since taking Zuko or Tang (the two Honduran Koolaid companies) packets (4L or 20 cents each), mixing them with water (free), and pouring them into a baggie (no idea) is a relatively cheap process, topogigos tend to sell for quite cheap, on the order of 1L (5 cents). House 3 and Kit, because they're brilliant, decided to try selling them for 2L each instead. That worked.

Anyway, so think of a lemonade stand where they give you koolaid in baggies instead of lemonade in cups, but where the liquid is actually frozen solid if you get there early enough and mostly liquid if you don't. Then think of the most obnoxious group of kids you've ever seen trying to sell something to adults... I'm thinking of some girl scouts in front of a Walmart I used to know. First sad, then pushy, then even angry, all a series of emotions carefully designed to weigh on the potential consumer until he or she realizes that for the sake of these young children's well-being, he or she must not, at all costs, ever purchase anything from them when they're acting like that. Then envision that you discover that these kids want you to purchase their products, but really what they want you to do is to purchase their products for them. Aka Sample House 3 Boy wants me to pay 2L to his store in order to allow Same Sample House 3 Boy to eat/drink Sample House 3 Boy's product. Here's the other thing... I wasn't present during any success they may've had with this strategy, but I have no doubt that it worked. Through these actions they also clearly demonstrated their business savvy by showing that they were disciplined enough to not eat all of their profits, or atleast without making other people pay for it.

Kit realized that, as our kids aren't allowed to have cash, she needed to come up with another way for them to use the 85L received during their sale. I use "85L received" because this can and should be distinguished from profits, an astute observation made by Kit, who promptly reminded the kids that the supplies for their business cost 40L. I'm pretty sure she actually just took those supplies from our house, and while they very well may've cost 40L, I don't think anybody noticed their absence nor has any interest in recuperating that loss. That leaves 45L divided amongst six house 3 boys. At the end of the sale, Kit offered the kids the opportunity to eat their profits. I believe the way in which this was communicated was "You can, if you'd like, spend your part of the money on buying topogigos of your own from the leftovers." Another astute reader will, at this point, clearly point out the flaw that casa 3 failed to see in this logic. If supplies for all of the topogigos that they made cost 40L, and there are 30 extra topogigos left over, the members of house 3 have actually made a profit of 7.5L and 5 topogigos each. Unfortunately house 3 fell into the logical trap placed before them and, in their eagerness to participate in the consumption of said topogigos, allowed themselves to purchase them, presumably from Kit, using their own profits, until their financial resources, so recently acquired, were thoroughly exhausted. At the end of the day Kit went home with 85L in her pocket, the kids went home happy, and the rest of the people who purchased topogigos went home, some with topogigos, and all slightly less beat-up than they would've otherwise been had they not purchased topogigos.

"So where, in all this, does banana plantation exploitation come into play?" As a good blog reader, you will have remembered that the title did make such an allusion. Depending on how much attention was paid to the previous paragraph, one might have already identified the connection. If not, the blog post would here lay out the situation of the lowly plantation worker and the existence of the company store, the only place in the surrounding area where workers could purchase supplies, supplies consistently set at unreasonable prices. Such a setup allowed all of the money distributed for labor done to consistently flow back into the company. This was also common in the West during gold rushes and many mining operations.

In an effort to avoid continuing the cycle of exploitation of the workers, bloggers might also request knowledge of the whereabouts and whatsitgonnabeusedfors of the 85L in question in Kit's topogigo pyramid scheme. She (and I) would like to ensure everyone that she's using the 85L for arts and crafts activities with house 3.

Greetings Finca Follower!

Hello!

I'm doing well. Please don't think my lack of posts means otherwise! I do care about you, the reader, even if my relatively weak list of authored works up to this point in my Finca career might indicate otherwise. Rest assured that such an indication is far from my intention.

The main reason for my silence is, well, I haven't been to the internet for a while. That's perhaps the first level of reasoning. Perhaps the second might be that I've been very busy recently and haven't had much time to make it to the internet, but that seems to be asking you to ask me a question. So go ahead, if you'd like, and ask me why I'm so busy!

I'll just wait here.