love/hate relationship

On the outside, poverty is such a romantic, beautiful thing. It makes for the best pictures and playing with the kids can bring you a joy that is only experienced with their true, innocent laughter. Life in poverty is simple. There are far fewer choices and an overall sense of peace that comes with not having. This is what I wanted, the simple life. I had romanticized poverty and the pure joy of living in it, mainly, I believe, due to my one semester I lived in Costa Rica. Four months was enough time to fall in love with the third world without having to deal with the harsh realties of it.

The honeymoon is over and poverty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, I am here to serve and live with the poor, but the things that I love about it are currently being overshadowed by the people and the life I live here. Coming back from my visit to the U.S. has been far more challenging than I first thought it was going to be. I have realized how utterly miserable life can be here sometimes and how bored and sad it makes me.

How many men do I have to see peeing on the side of the road/street/side of my house before it starts to irk me? Seriously, I passed a bus going down from my community a couple of weeks ago. There were about 12 men that had gotten off the bus and they were all peeing in unison. Where in the world am I?

How many times can you watch people throw their trash out the bus window before you want to scream? Honestly, I can’t say much though.... even though I save my trash to throw away at home, I have to burn my trash. That’s right, burn it. All of it. What's better? The side of the road or burnt to ashes?

I am constantly harassed or stared at by Honduran men here. It’s pretty disgusting and makes me hate being here. Unless you see it and experience it on your own, I can’t describe to you what it feels like to be not only a woman in this country, but also a redheaded, blue-eyed gringa. Sometimes I am scared. Is that what I came here for?

The things that used to seem so beautiful are annoying. The simplicity is driving me nuts because of the ignorance and absolute lack of education that comes with the simple life. I can’t talk to anyone here that doesn’t think silly things like the sky is falling or that giving my dog actual dog food will make him want to kill the chickens because it gives him the desires to eat real meat because of the flavor of the dog food.... Or also, that I can’t shower after exercising or some equivalent myth.

PC has these goals for grassroots development, but I don’t know how to even begin to carry those out sometimes. Especially, when the place where I am makes me so sad, lonely, and angry. How do you try and teach some teachers English when their overall level of education is so low? There are so many holes in the system, especially in the gobierno here, it makes it nearly impossible to achieve any tangible results of development.

It’s a love/hate relationship. I love the beauty of this country, but sometimes I hate it so badly, I could scream.