“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”

Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey

November 23, 2001

Today I (Jennifer) made the best hamburgers ever!  I diced fresh onion, garlic and green pepper into hamburger, seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and topped the burgers with a slice of Kraft cheese as they came out of the fry pan.  I served the burgers with “chismol”, a traditional Honduran salsa similar to the Mexican salsa known as “Pico de Gallo”.  Shawn was so excited to have Tex Mex Burgers after a week of beans and rice.  He was also pleased to see that I could cook.  In the states, we were both very busy with our jobs and we didn’t spend much time cooking.  If we did cook, we rarely had time to make something as tedious as a homemade salsa, at least not for ourselves.  Those special dishes were reserved for company!  Shawn usually did most of the cooking out of pure necessity to eat!  He is actually a very good chef.  But, usually it was easier to “eat on the run to our next meeting”, “pick-up something quick on the way home from work” or “make something fast” because we were both too tired to put much energy into the meal, let alone wait for it to get done.   (Shawn’s commentary: “Ahh the American Dream….”) 

I think sometimes the life that was consuming me was entirely way too fast.  During car-pool rides home from work, my dad and I often talked about how busy our schedules were.  We both wished for one quiet day at the office to accomplish the seemingly never-ending assignments on our desks.  Not to mention the buried projects in our minds that we knew would make life so much easier if we could only get to them.  I am thankful for this new found time in Latin America .  Today it took me two hours to prepare our lunch.  There are no restaurants here, no major grocery stores, and no fast-food chains to save me if I am in a hurry.  So without choice, I give in to the slower pace, which is different from the accelerated mode I am accustomed to, and I take a couple hours to make hamburgers that taste better than McDonalds.   I am learning there is nothing fast about Honduras . 

There is also nothing wasted.  The peelings from the vegetables I used to make the burgers were thrown out to our neighbor’s pig as an afternoon snack.  I am learning to prepare food in smaller portions so that they don’t spoil in our fridge.  How many times would Shawn and I throw away food that had molded in our comfy U.S. lifestyle of abundance?  Sometimes I would question him about how much money we were throwing away in grocery bills each month for the overly ripened fruits we couldn’t consume fast enough, forgot we had purchased, or were replaced by the quick junk food snacks because they were more appealing than a piece of fruit.  Then we would slap our wrists and promise not to buy so many peaches the next time we were in Cub Foods.  There is no hunger in abundance.  Here it is culturally inappropriate to waste food when there are many people who go to bed hungry every night, extra food is always shared.  Therefore, food is prepared sparingly and with conscientious intent.   There is no abundance in hunger.

I have been reading a book called “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver.  It is a story about a missionary family that travels to Africa to live for a year.  When one of the daughters returns to the United States years later, she visits a grocery store with her nephew who was raised in Africa .  In the store the wide-eyed little boy points through all the aisles asking his Aunt:

[Selections in brackets are mine]

“’What is that…and that…and that?’ [They pass] a pink jar of cream for removing hair, a can of fragrance to spray on the carpet, stacks of lidded containers the same size as the jars we throw away each day.  [The aunt responds,] ‘They’re things a person doesn’t really need.’ [Innocently the boy asks,] ‘But, Aunt Adah, how can there be so many kinds of things a person doesn’t really need?’  [Without saying anything the Aunt reflects to herself]; I can think of no honorable answer.  Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste, while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining?  There is nothing about the United States I can really explain to this child of another world.”

When I read about the jars being thrown away, I could relate.  I have not witnessed one jar, one bottle or one container thrown away since we arrived in Honduras .  There is always another practical use for these items.  In fact, we use our jelly jars and mayonnaise jars (when they are empty, of course) for drinking mugs.  The mix–n-match of beverage glasses may not appear stylish at first, nothing you would see in the most recent Crate n’ Barrel magazine, but they definitely suit their purpose.  Actually, I kind of like the 1950’s fashion glassware and will probably use this trend when we get back to Minnesota .   I even noticed that some of the jelly jars in the super market here are designed to function as juice glasses.  I remember when I emptied a jar of jam in my host family’s house during training.  I went to throw it away and my host mom was only steps behind me rinsing it out and showing me how she now had four glasses instead of three!

Since I was a little girl I have had a deep appreciation for the richness of traditions, and since we have arrived in Honduras , Shawn and I have been adjusting to new traditions and new routines.  This morning, as I took my bucket bath, I realized I have new rituals in my daily life.  I will try to explain: 

Each morning Shawn and I boil water religiously in a large kettle to kill any parasites, bacteria, or amebas that would double us over in pain if ingested.  We then add chlorine bleach (2 drops per liter) and put the water in the refrigerator so we have freshwater for the day.  The process is tiresome, but necessary.  We obtain the water from our “pila” where the water runs until about 1 PM each day.  We make sure to get enough water to last the entire day not only for drinking, but for cooking as well.  It takes about an hour for the water to come to a rapid boil.  After it has boiled for 5 minutes we begin the “cooling process”.  We take a tub of cold water from the “pila” and emerge the scorching hot kettle into the tub.  Nearly immediately, the water inside the tub becomes hot and needs to be changed.  I switch the kettle to a different tub of cold water, trying to decrease the heat.  Using the original tub of water, I go to the shower for my bucket bath ritual.  Even in the heat, the harsh cold showers shock my system without sympathy.  I mix the hot tub water with cold “pila” water for a refreshing lukewarm temperature, making the water “just right”.  Just like Goldilocks and Her Three Bears, it is not too hot and it is not too cold.  I find God wonderfully amusing to start new traditions that will become a natural part of my life here.  I guess He wants me to feel at home.

So this is where God has placed us…not because of what we would have, but because of what we would not have.  My first week here I cried for 48 hours straight ([Shawn speaking] the truth is she cried on and off for the next two weeks).  I couldn’t believe I was in a place so remote and so far removed from everything my body has known since it was a baby.  I mean, yes, I had chosen to come to this country of my own free will…but, I made assumptions that, with Shawn’s computer skills and my business background, we would be placed in a larger city.  Although a larger city would still be considered different by U.S. standards, we would have adapted with some sort of ease.  The changes would be a novelty, not an entirely different way of life.  But, a small village?  What in the world would they use computers for and what type of business could they possibly justify?  These were my thoughts when we first arrived.

I can not foretell the future and I can not predict our fate, but I do believe God has placed us here for a purpose.  Slowly, I am starting to like our new town and what it “doesn’t” have to offer.  With the slower pace and less clutter I am finding a new appreciation for the gift of life.  In fact, having less makes me realize how our life, no matter where we were born, was not made for material possessions, excessive comfort, or personal gain.  I am not saying that the comforts of our developed nation are bad in and of themselves.  In fact, as I said in our last letter, I am actually looking forward to having a couch again someday, and when I return to my “comfort items”, I hope I will remember that they are a blessing and not an entitlement.  There is a higher calling…as real as the wind that touches my face in the morning, as clear as the river that bends around the end our road and as vast as the mountain range that encompasses my new world.  We are here to help others and amazingly they are already helping me.    

Shawn-Miguel and Jennifer Silvera

Peace Corps Honduras

"It is not the easy or convenient life for which I search...but life lived to the edge of all my possibility."

Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey                

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