On Friday, after Dia Del Nino, I left with a group of teachers on a bus to Tegucigalpa, the capital city, to see a group of guys that we have befriended who are part of a band called “Montuca Sound System.” This group of guys is very special. They are very politically minded and worldly and really fun to be around. Their frontrunner, Carlos, looks like a young Francis Ford Coppola is one of the most generous, and easygoing guys I know. Carlos has brought music to the school and has started a drumming class after school on Fridays. The kids are enthralled with him. They think he is a god. Wait a second, he might just be.
SIDENOTE: I had no idea Carlos’s band, “Montuca” was such a big deal until we went to see “El Origen” (Inception), at the movie theater and there was an ad for “Claro”, the biggest cell phone company in Honduras with Montuca Soundsystem playing in it).
I digress…. So anyway, we packed our bags, excited to get out of the heat and dust… and crime for a weekend. We stood in line to put our bags under the bus, when we noticed that the guy in front of us was checking a silver 45 mm handgun! And then another man, separate from the first, checked a black 45mm. In these situations one is not sure whether to be relieved that the weapons are being checked, or terrified that two of the men on our bus are strapped in the first place.
Six hours later, I had long forgotten the ordeal with the guns and we arrived in Tegucigalpa. “Teguce”, as the locals call it, is in the mountains where the air is much crisper (well, as crisp as the air of a city that houses 4 million people), and the temperature is cooler. The streets are serpentine. They rise and fall, and made me ache for San Francisco. The city has a great deal of history as well and it shows in the architecture varies from the standard cinder-block structures that we have been used to seeing.
On Saturday, we went to the free outdoor concert for the Festival Orgullo Catracho (Honduran Pride Festival) in central park and enjoyed some sunshine. We spent the afternoon in the oldest bar in Teguce where the back porch may just be your neighbor’s garage, had a clothesline with old ragss drying on it and a tree growing through the middle of its ribbed metal roof. Their signature drink is an unidentified pink beverage called “el calambre,” which roughly translates to “the leg cramp.” Two “calambres” later and the origin of its namesake was clear.
That night ate one of the best meals of my life at a little restaurant called, “Habia Una Vez” (There Was a Time). It was a real restaurant and I felt like I was in Manhattan. The restaurant also serves as a gallery for local artists and had incredible paintings and drawings. One of the owners is Peruvian and one is French and they feature a contemporary international cuisine that blew our minds after having spent months eating refried beans and baleadas. Highlights included: smoke salmon wrapped around cream cheese and a slice of peach, a spicy ceviche, and bacon wrapped shrimp with apple sauce. Delish.
The weekend was a much-needed break from Cofradia and left me feeling really recharged. Plus, we got to stay in a hotel with, just wait, HOT WATER! Taking my first hot shower in months made me feel reborn….like, in the way that the Christians talk about it. Plus, I got my money’s worth from that hotel. I took 5 showers in a period of 2 days. Wasting water…. maybe. Feeling of entitlement… for sure. I do believe, however, that I have paid back the universe enough in free labor for the benefit of Honduran children. Ya, I deserve five showers.
