Rollin With the Changes

Things are constantly changing here at the Farm. There’s always something to keep you on your toes. For example, right now it’s 9:30 on a Saturday night. Any other night like this I’d be in the volunteer house, playing cards, laying around, shooting the breeze and sipping on a cup of coffee, or maybe, if it’s been a long week, passed out in my bed underneath a roaring fan that keeps the hot air and angry mosquitoes at bay. But tonight didn’t turn out quite that way. Tonight I’m on the House 5, the house where the oldest boys on the Farm live, typing a blog entry that’s three or four months late, and watching a 12 year old pick weeds out of the garden by the glow of a flashlight. Odd Saturday night indeed huh? The house parents of this house took a couple weeks of vacation around Christmas time, and since there isn’t anyone else around to watch the house and the kids, I got sent over. And as it turns out, one of the Farms most renowned trouble makers lives here. He’s quite infamous in fact. And quite often finds himself in a heap of trouble, soon to be followed by a consequence of manual labor. This time it’s picking weeds, and as he just couldn’t find the motivation to do it this afternoon, he’s here tonight, working by flashlight, finishing things up. And so here I am too, on the front porch, just me and the mosquitoes and the computer.

One of the funniest little squirts on the Farm.

But as it turns out this change isn’t nearly the biggest that I’ve been rolling with over the last few months. The biggest is that as I sit here on the front porch of House 5, not only have I moved out of my house, I’ve also moved out of my job. Harrison is no longer the Encargado de Mantenimiento (Head of Maintenance), he is the Encargado de PAVI (Head of PAVI). Hmm, that’s an interesting change, but wait a sec, what the hell is PAVI anyways? Well I’m glad you asked. PAVI is an acronym in Spanish which stands for Puente a la Vida Independiente, or “Bridge to the Independent Life.” A children’s home in rural Honduras, mainly run throughout its history by nuns and 20-something-year-old volunteers is an interesting thing. We have almost forty kids, we run off donations and money mostly from the states, our school is inside the property. So while this means we have a great place for the kids to grow up, it also means that they don’t go outside the fence very often. Then when they turn 18, they have to figure out how to live life on their own in the real world of Honduras. And if you’ve lived in a fenced in children’s home the vast majority of your life, that can be a pretty daunting tasked. It’s a hard thing for me to imagine, as someone who’s constantly had the support and love of a family to help me along the way wherever I went, to be thrown into a new world and have to try to make it on your own. And as it’s probably easy to infer, preparing a child for real world Honduras while we live inside a gated community very different from that, isn’t the easiest thing. So it was decided to have a volunteer devote a large percentage of their effort to this program. They hired a Honduran Head of Maintenance (also a first for the Farm), and I decided to take on the job of PAVI, and here we are en la chamba (in the work). It will definitely be a challenging and interesting task, which will require every bit of effort I’m willing to put into it I imagine, but it’s definitely something I find very important and often times invigorating. For example, I’m researching the idea of raising pigs or planting palatanos here as a project for the kids. Interesting things that the common Honduran from the countryside knows how to do. Oh, and as it turns out, I’ll also be teaching English to 5^th and 6^th grade starting this February. Quite a change from hammering nails and fixing flat tires in maintenance…

Found a boa constrictor while getting firewood.

Actually, speaking of maintenance, as I was finishing up my time there, I got a very cool surprise. Maintenance always works on Saturday mornings for a couple hours, and on my last Saturday with the crew, they asked if we could do something a little different than the normal maintenance work. One of the house dads, Edgar, had gotten up that morning before 6 and started cooking. Two chickens, rice, beans, tortillas, salad, the whole works. And they wanted to take the food down to the beach and have a little going away (even though I’m not exactly going away) party. So all of us went down there, with a few other friends, and nine liters of coke, and sat by the beach and ate and drank and had a good time. I have to say it put a smile on my face thinking that these guys and planned the whole thing, bought all the food, and woken up early to cook it, just to wish me goodbye. Hell of a crew those guys are. As we were finishing up the meal, someone stated talking about some of the old heads of maintenance and how they used to wish them off before they left, and next thing I know, Marcos and Will have me by the arms and legs and are dragging me towards the ocean. Turns out they decided to carry on the tradition this year and give me a nice dunk in the beautiful Honduran ocean as a final goodbye. Good stuff…  

Another change that has come about has been my name, as I’ve gotten quite a few new ones over the last several months. The first one was nothing new: Harry Potter. Never heard that one before kids… The next was Harrisona La Pelona which translates to “Harrison the bald girl.” Turns our I’m neither bald, or a girl, but I guess if it rhymes, the kids thinks it’s hilaaaarious. Jorge, a 47 year old maintenance guy here called me Chico Tejano for a while, but I think that was mostly because Harrison is a hard name to pronounce in Spanish. Or he just forgot my name. The rest of the nicknames I have gotten have all stemmed from another stint I had with a beard. This one I let grow for a solid six months or so, which is significantly longer than any I’ve had before, and though I’ve had some pretty nasty, gnarly beards in my day, this one was the nastiest and gnarliest of them all. One of the girls here calls me Oso Peresozo, or Lazy Bear. Maybe because the beard made my face furry, and yet again, it rhymes. Chavelo, a 13 year old boy, made up one of the best I’ve heard: Barba de Cabra. Beard of a Female Goat. As far as I know being called a goat isn’t a culturally insulting thing, but these boys just like to call you a girl in any way they can, and “cabra” almost rhymes with barba I suppose. Nice one Chavelo. His other friend Jairo also caught on to it and has been yelling it all over the Farm whenever I walk by his house, so of course I had to come up with some sort of a comeback. I decided on Bigote de Pisote. This translates to Mustache of a Pisote, which is a furry woodland creature here somewhat resembling a raccoon, but fatter and colored slightly different. And I would also like to add that bigote and pisote actually rhyme, where as barba and cabra don’t. Take that, I win Jairo. However the best thing I’ve been called yet came from the neighbors who live in the surrounding communities. They come twice a week to the Farm to play soccer on the soccer field, and every once in a while I’ll play with them. As my beard grew and grew, they thought it was pretty funny, and before long Johnny is calling me Osama Bin Laden. Historical, internationally recognized, and doesn’t somehow call me a girl. Congratulations Johnny, you win the prize. Best nickname yet.

Welp, as a couple hours have now past, my little friend just finished his work. As much as I enjoyed battling the mosquitoes and watching him pull weeds, I think it’s about time for both of us to hit the sack. So goodnight, merry Christmas, happy new years, and keep on rollin with the changes.

Boy Scouts milking a cow. Much tastier than the powdered stuff we normally get.

More Finca Stories...

Despite what most of you probably think by now, I actually am still alive. It’s been a bit since I’ve gotten around to putting up a blog post, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything worthwhile to report. So let me start off with some good news: I seem to be winning the war with the ants. After the first month or so, it seemed that either I had become better at dodging the little buggers as I walked across the Finca in my sandals, or my feet have become less tasty and the ants have moved on to something better. Whichever one it is, it’s fine by me, as long as I’m not constantly itching and scratching my feet every five minutes. They do make their presence known every now and then, but for the most part my feet are much happier.

The war on the bees.

However, the forces of nature haven’t completely given up their fight against man… For a while now we’ve had a couple bee hives in one of the school buildings, hidden somewhere inside the roof, and every few weeks or so a kid would get stung by a rogue bee. I talked to the maintenance guys about trying to get rid of it, but they weren’t exactly thrilled about climbing up a ladder and waging a war against the bees. We tried shooting an entire can of Raid through a gap in the wall where we thought the hive was, but it didn’t have much effect. We tried getting to it from the attic, but it turned out we weren’t able to reach the section of the roof where the hive was. So with no creative ideas remaining, it seemed like the only option with a hope of success was removing a section of the roof and attacking the hive head on.  And while this option was no doubt a little dangerous, the thought of it did get the adrenaline flowin a bit. So one afternoon, we gathered all the maintenance guys together, and I suited up in jeans, shoes, a sweatshirt, and gloves. To protect my face, I taped a bunch of mesh to a hat and created a makeshift faceguard that I prayed would work sufficiently. So without further adieu, I climbed up a ladder, with one can of Raid in my hand and an extra in my pocket, ripped off the side panel of the roof with a hammer, and started blinding shooting at the cloud of swarming bees. The bees covered my gloves and arms, but it appeared that the thick clothing would be enough to protect me. After expending most of the Raid, I stuck my hands into the roof and started ripping out the hive piece by piece, and eventually the entire watermelon-sized hive was lying on the ground with a mountain of dead bees surrounding it. One hive down, one to go… We moved the ladder to the second hive, and I tried the same approach: climb ladder, rip off roof panel, and douse with Raid. Unfortunately, this hive was a bit larger, and these bees were a bit more pissed off. They were so ferocious in fact, I could feel a few stinging me through the thick sweatshirt. The buzzing became louder and louder as they swarmed around my head, seemingly unphased by the Raid, until eventually I had to jump off the ladder and make a run for it. But I wasn’t the only one feeling their wrath. As I was full speed sprinting away, I heard a few of the workers let out a few choice words, start swatting at their arms and head, and make a run for it themselves. Even a few of the kids who were working in the library had to head for the hills. However, without any other choices, and with a hive full of bees laughing at me, I was forced to reclimb the ladder, this time with a fresh can of Raid, and continue the war. And eventually the poison and my determination proved too much for them. Soon enough their hive was lying on the ground in pieces as weel So with the feeling of victory filling our hearts, we loaded up the truck with the ladder and equipment and returned to the workshop victorious. Almost… Within a few hours my right hand had swelled up to the size of a balloon, proving that even my thick gloves were no match for a swarm of angry bees. My left arm was a little swollen as well. The kids thought it was hiliarious though, and made me show them my gigantic hand every time I walked passed their house for the next few days. Every war comes with casualties I suppose.

But despite all of the exciting bouts with nature, life at the Finca can be a struggle sometimes as well. Being the head of maintenance, as it turns out, can be quite a lot of responsibility. Organizing the workers, getting the supplies for the projects, managing a tight budget, keeping the houses in good working condition so house mothers are happy , organizing work for the kids so they can learn a work ethic and also skills, and doing it all in an unfamiliar language, culture, and place, can be quite stressful. Some days the workers and I don’t share the same opinions, and some days the kids would rather cuss you out than rake the leaves. So it’s days like this that I’m thankful for the spirituality of the Finca, and the great community of volunteers we have, because it is then more than ever that I rely on God to get me through and rely on my community members to help me keep my head up.

Soccer goal made with some of the boys.

But mixed in with the hard moments, are moments of real beauty too. Moments where I really feel like I’m here for a reason and really have something to give. A lot of times it’s hard to connect with the kids. Sure the littler ones jump all over you and wanna play all the time and yell your name when you walk by their house, but the teenagers here are like teenagers anywhere else. They can be moody, standoffish, and with an attitude. But every once in a while they surprise you too. One weekend I spent in La Ceiba, a large city three hours away from the farm where our high school program is. There are two boys and three girls who attend a Catholic high school in this town, and two of our volunteers live there in an apartment with them. I do a lot of driving for the Finca when there are trips to La Ceiba, since maintenance has a more flexible schedule than other jobs, and I happened to be there that weekend for one of these trips. I was standing on the balcony that night, about 11 o’clock, about to turn in to bed, when one of the boys came out and started chatting with me. I always joke around with this kid (like I do with every kid), but we’ve never really had any deep conversations. But for one reason or another, he was in the mood to talk that night. He opened up to me about how his parents had passed away when he was young, how his cousin was running from gang members, where his other family members lived in Honduras. He told me what he thought he might do when he graduates from the Finca this next year, what his different thoughts and plans are. And he told me about his dream to travel Central America and see every all the different countries and cultures. The conversation caught me off guard, because it’s not always easy to connect with the kids in a really meaningful way. We come from different backgrounds, different cultures, speak different languages, and with volunteers cycling in and out of their lives all the time, it’s easy for them to put up walls and not open up, because after all, we’re gonna go back to the States in a couple years anyways. But there are also times that we can connect with them in a deep way, because they lack a family that really loves and cares for them, and even though us volunteers may not be here for their entire upbringing, we do really love them and care about them. So I think that conversation really meant a lot to both of us, and I was definitely honored that he shared all of that with me.

But I don’t wanna end with a sappy story. I’m not trying to be a writer for Guidepost magazine here. So let’s talk about something cool. Beards. Anyone who knows me, knows I have a real love for beards. Really it’s a Hanvey family tradition. Though Papa Hanvey has a smooth face now, he’s been known to rock a nice thick beard every once in a while, Isaac’s has something akin to a red fox hanging off his jowls right now, and ever since arriving in Honduras, I haven’t taken the clippers to mine. It’s been over four months now, so it’s getting pretty grisly too. The kids have started calling me Barbudo, which means “Huge Beard” in Spanish, and the neighbors I play soccer with on Friday afternoons started calling me Osama last week. Classic… Not sure how long I’ll keep it, but rainy season will be here in a month or so, and the temperatures start dropping then (down to a freezing 65 degrees), so maybe I’ll need it to keep my face warm. We’ll see what happens. 

Livin on the beach is pretty rough sometimes...

Gettin Settled In

So there we were, just another typical day at the Finca, cutting down some overgrown trees that were endangering one of the buildings, when all of a sudden, blood comes squirting out of the tree along the blade of the running chainsaw! Ahhh!!! Blood!!!!!!! Okay, well maybe the 40 year old Honduran beast-men maintenance workers didn’t scream bloody murder, but they did have a pretty funny look of surprise on their faces. We cut a little more and soon realized the source of the blood and guts: a Garrobo living inside the tree. Or at least he used he used to be living, and as we were cutting through the tree trunk we cut right through his house and cleanly through his neck. Actually cut his head clean off. So now we had two halves of a freshly dead garobbo. But before I continue, let me give you a little back story…

The delicious garrobo right before he went to the frying pan.

For the last few weeks at the farm I’d been fascinated by these iguana like creatures the locals call garrobos. Basically the exact same as an iguana, just colored a little different, and much more in abundance. They live in the trees (as well as a few that live in the clinic, the middle school building, and under our house) and are seen frequently scampering around the farm grounds. The main reason for my interest was that the workers told me they were tasty little creatures, even better as chicken, so as I saw them running through the trees I always thought how nice it’d be to put one over the fire and have a little afternoon snack of garrobo and frijoles. In fact the previous Sunday, I spent half an hour chasing one that had gotten into the chapel and couldn’t find his way out. I ended up catching him in a cardboard box and carried him back to our house, but as I was swinging the machete to lay the deadly blow, he scampered up the side of the box and escaped. I was devastated. So close to success, but alas, he escaped. So when the workers happened to behead a quite large one with our chainsaw, I was pumped. It was a gift from above.

One of the workers and house dad’s, Edgar, took me and the garrobo back to House 5, where the oldest boys on the farm live, and prepared him for a lunch feast. We put him in the fire to char his skin so that it’d be easy to pull off, washed him in the juice from an orange to add a little kick to his flavor, cut him into pieces, sprinkled him in a mix of spices, rolled the pieces in flour, fried that baby up, and after a few minutes in the boiling grease, we got to taste the sweet, sweet goodness of a freshly cooked garrobo. And it wasn’t disappointing at all. Just like the maintenance guys had told me, the meat was soft, flavorful, and better than chicken. It was the taste of success.

Two volunteers (in the middle) with a bunch of our kids.

So other than trying the delectable meats of Honduras, I’ve had plenty to keep my hands full here at the farm. The day starts at 5:40 when my alarm goes off for morning prayer, and things are pretty busy until we wrap up the evening activities at 8:00 or 8:30. But as the days pass I’m becoming more comfortable here. A few weeks ago I took over as the sole head of maintenance, with Jacob, the old boss man, passing me the torch. And while there are definitely struggles, as is to be expected, I’m slowly coming into my own. We’ve got a lot of great projects going on: we’re planting orange, plantain, and mango orchards, each consisting of about 50 trees  complete with a rudimentary irrigation system, rebuilding or refinishing all of the washing basins (called pilas) in each of the children’s homes, as well as making a big push to clean up the grounds of the farm. And since that constitutes 22 acres of trees, bushes, and grass, it’s quite a task.

It is a little bit of a strange sight though: a 24 year old gringo, who can barely speak the language, being the boss of 5 Honduran maintenance men, several of which have worked at the farm for double digit years. However I’ve been blessed with a team that’s incredibly humble, and that’s really the reason it works so well. I think if I was a middle aged man with years of experience, and some foreigner came in, knowing nothing about my country and barely speaking my language, and told me how to do my job, I’d have some issues with that. But these men are humble, and used to this structure, so it actually works pretty well. I think the combination of my planning and organizational skills, and their knowledge and know-how of maintenance tasks here, has the ability to produce beautiful results. Here’s what I mean: I’m a person who plans, organizes things, and visualizes how projects will affect the farm in the future. I think about which projects are most important, how to divvy up the budget, and where we should focus our work. But Honduran culture is not one that looks into the future; they live very much day to day. Not a single one of the workers has a bank account, they don’t save their money, but just spend it as they get it. If something big comes up like repairs to their motorcycles or house, they borrow some cash, or wait til their next paycheck comes to get it fixed. When something breaks here, usually their first instinct is to do a quick fix on it, instead of looking for something more permanent. In an area where excess and luxury doesn’t really exist, people are just focused on getting by day to day. My favorite example of this is every day at 4:30 when I’m saying bye to the workers and thanking them for their help, they always say “Hasta manaña,” or “Nos vemos,” (“See you tomorrow,” or “See you when I see you”) and follow it up with “Si Dios quiere,” which translates to “If God wills it.” Basically, “I’ll see you tomorrow, but only if God allows.” They know that nothing is promised to us, tomorrow is not a guarantee, and ultimately all of our efforts are dependent on the will of God. What a beautiful and accurate view of life, something most Americans could take a lesson from.

So like I said, it actually comes together quite well. Both of our backgrounds and mindsets coming together to make the farm a better place. Maybe over the next two years they can learn a little from me about planning and organization, and hopefully I’ll learn a lot from them about living in the moment, and depending completely on God’s providence.

So little by little I’m learning more about this place, my new home, my new friends, and the children. I’m not settled in, I’m very much still learning, finding how to divide my time up, when to spend it with the kids, when to spend it on myself, and how to interact with people from a very different culture. I’m still learning the basics of the language, how to roll my r’s and how to conjugate the verbs. But surely enough, I’m figuring it out, making it through the weeks, and have to say I’m definitely very blessed to have the opportunity to learn so much. 

The neighbor boys playing a game of soccer on our field as the sun sets behind the chapel.

I've Finally Made It!

Everyone, I have an announcement to make: I am now at war. And I don’t mean with poverty in Central America, or corrupt political leaders, or the unjustness of society and the gap between the rich and the poor. It’s none of these things. And it’s not something religious either like the devil or sin or anything like that. What I’m facing is much more serious, much more heinous, and much more devastating. And that thing is… ants. The ants that rule the 22 acres of this orphanage have wrecked havoc on my feet for the last three weeks, and I can take it no more. No longer will I put up with these itchy red bumps all over my feet that won’t go away and constantly seem to reproduce. It will be a lifetime of work I’m sure, but there’s nothing I want more than to smash every ant I can find, and make them pay for all my discomfort. And the mosquitoes too for that matter. And maybe the flies, cause they can get pretty annoying. In fact, we can just get rid of every bug in the place for all I care…

Okay though, but other than my war with the ants, life is going pretty well down here. I arrived at the orphanage about three weeks ago, and since that time I’ve been getting to know the people, beginning to work with the maintenance team, and generally just adjusting to the rhythm of life down here. I can definitely say things are a little bit different than the college life of TCU and the boat life of a merchant mariner. When I was at TCU, I normally rolled out of bed at 9:45am, just in time to thrown on a pair of pants and walk into class a couple minutes late. Now I roll out of bed significantly earlier, to the tune of 5:45, just in time to brush my teeth and walk over to the chapel for morning prayer. At TCU I spent hours everyday on the internet checking my email and reading articles on espn.com. Now I’m lucky to get to check my email once a week, and normally it’s more infrequent than that. In the TCU cafeteria, my regular diet was cheeseburgers, sandwiches, french fries, fruit, pizza, and maybe a couple vegetables here and there. Now I eat beans and rice at virtually every meal, and sometimes only those two things. Life is a little more simple here.

And speaking of the simple life, I’m learning how they do maintenance south of the border as well. On the ships I worked on, we had 4 or 5 welding machines, thousands of wrenches, ten drills and five sawzaws, and basically every tool you could dream of. Things are a little different here. We do have a welding machine, but I’m pretty sure it’s from the sixties and you have to prop up the on/off switch with a stick to make it work. You can’t just walk down to the lumber store whenever you’re short a2x4 for your wood project. In fact, most of the lumber we use here, is home made. The workers cut down huge straight trees out of the nearby forests, carefully cut them into squares using a chainsaw, and then run then through a table saw to make them the size they need. It’s really quite fascinating and pretty amazing. The things they can do here with very few tools and not many resources is unreal. I’ve really enjoyed working with the maintenance guys so far. We have a team of five workers, ranging in age from 26 to 47, and even though their Spanish is fast and slurred and pretty difficult for me to understand, we’ve been working pretty well together. We have a long list of projects and maintenance things that need to be taken care, and little by little we’re knocking them out. Right now we’re repairing and refinishing the “pilas,” which are large washing basins about the size of a standalone freezer, in all six of the children’s houses. And today one of the workers even started teaching me how to throw wet concrete on the walls of the pilas. Who knows, maybe after two years of this work I’ll be able to start a masonry company back in the states… 

The first few weeks have definitely been a little bit overwhelming as I’ve been trying to get into the groove of life down here. Trying to get to know all the kids, all the other volunteers, figure out my job and other responsibilities, and still getting better with my Spanish little by little. As far as the job goes, I’ll have a very significant budget I’ll be in charge of, five workers to keep occupied, work for the kids in the afternoon to be in charge of, an agriculture class to coordinate for all the kids in the school, as well as random other tasks to keep up with like taking the trash to the dump and finding firewood and getting it chopped for all of the houses (they all use wood burning stoves). It will definitely be a challenge and a big responsibility, but I’m looking forward to the task and I think it will be very rewarding once I get into the groove of things. 

As for right now though, I’m just taking things little by little, and soaking up the beautiful way of life down here. Sitting in the chapel in the evening praying and listening to the children laughing and playing outside their houses. Watching the sunset over the ocean just fifty feet out the front door of our house. Seeing the clouds roll through the mountaintops as I walk to morning prayer every day. Going on a hiking trip with a group of the adolescent girls. Hanging out in the living room of our house with the other volunteers cracking jokes and talking about life. Playing soccer with the locals, and running out of breath in the first ten minutes. Watching a hen walk across the field with a handful of chicks following her. Sharing a coke with the maintenance guys during the 10:00 break, and talking about the weekend’s soccer match. 

So all in all, I think it will be a big challenge and one hell of an incredible ride all at the same time. Three weeks down, two years to go.