Underwear, Peanut Butter, and Broken Teeth
August 30, 2001
Dear Family and Friends,
Good Morning!
We have such success with email this week, that we decided to write one more group letter before we leave September 2nd for Field Base Training (our month long training in the field to learn more about our respective assignments.)
Jen’s Version: I just got in from washing all my underwear by hand. Fun, huh? Don’t take those washing machines for granted! My host mom laughs at how slow I wash my clothes. I think you will find this next fact very interesting. Men in Honduras do not do laundry (ever). Ok, I know that there are men in the U.S. that don’t do laundry (ever) as well. But here is the best part…My host mom does all of our laundry (it is part of the host family contract with our training school. They are compensated for this service.) However, our host mom will not wash my underwear. In Honduras, all girls are trained from a very young age to wash their own underwear. Boys are not trained in this skill. So, contract or no contract, if I want clean underwear I am on my own. Actually it is good practice. Shawn is loving this Honduran culture!
I hope our first 2 letters didn’t give you the impression that we aren’t enjoying Honduras. I think they are simply good summaries of our culture adaptation. There are many things that we love about this country. Like the warm weather, the gorgeous mountain range that we travel through each day on our bus ride to the training school, the caring people, the friendly neighbors who invite us to birthday parties, dinners and dances, our cute host kids (even though they have their moments, they are very cute and lovable - check out our photos to see pictures of them!) And we just had my favorite breakfast today: Pancakes! Our host mom makes a killer pancake. It is a cross between an American pancake and a French crepe. They are thin and buttery and delicious. She serves them with fresh strawberry jam. MMMM!!!!
I have one more food story to tell you about, which I forgot to write about in my last letter. This one involves Peanut Butter. Yesterday, at lunch, 4 other volunteers brought a jar of peanut butter and loaf of bread to make sandwiches. They all pitched in to by the supplies for this extra special treat. After they had nearly licked the jar of peanut butter dry, Shawn commented, “Thanks for sharing with us.” They laughed and told him he could have the empty jar for any remaining scrapes of Peanut Butter. We started to salvage what we could, but were frustrated that we couldn’t get our hands into the bottom of the jar. Shawn then took out his trusty pocket knife and cut the plastic jar in half. We succeeded in finger licking the jar clean. Our friends were hysterically laughing at our complete desperation. But, it was so worth it! My friend Melissa, from DoubleTree, sent me an email yesterday describing in detail her mouthwatering breakfast of melted peanut butter on toast. Thanks, Melissa! We don’t even own a toaster!
So, Shawn may be going to Washington D.C. in a few weeks. This is the biggest news in our lives right now…I will let him tell you about it. (be prepared, he doesn’t leave out a single detail.) So, you may want to print this and go sit in a recliner while you read. Get comfy. It’s an interesting story.
Shawn's little side story-
Yes Jennifer is actually allowing Shawn-Miguel to write in her letter. Shawn-Miguel is my new Spanglish name. The Hondurans call me Miguel, unless they speak English then "Shawn" is great practice on pronouncing the "sh" sound. Some of my classmates call me "Shawn" or "Miguel" or "Shawn-Miguel". Last week when our host mom's grandmother came she called me Don-Miguel. And now to the point of my story...well it has nothing to do with my name however, it is yet another interesting food story...
About 2 weeks ago I was eating a baleada, a flour tortilla with crushed beans. As I took a bite of this soft tortilla, I bit down on something hard. It felt like a rock, tasted like a bean, and looked like a rock. Two out of three isn't bad... the conclusion: it was a rock. I didn't think anything of it at the time and discarded it as an opportunity to learn about being more careful when eating anything with beans in it. Apparently it is not all that uncommon and people find rocks in their bean foods all the time here. A week later, on a Friday, the tooth finally gave way and the fissure that was started with a “baleada” ended with a circus peanut my mother had sent in a care package. The soft, tasty, foamy candy (Jen’s favorite candy by the way) was all it took to dislodge my tooth to the point of noticing. I had a root canal done on the tooth in late 2000, and apparently cracked the tooth due to the weakened structure from the root canal. I called the nurse's cell phone at Peace Corps and left a message. No one called back and I had to wait till Monday to get the problem remedied. Luckily, I had a root canal and was feeling no pain. On Monday, I visited the nurse at the training center who set up a dentist appointment in Tegucigalpa for the next day. I left at 8:00 AM Tuesday with a driver from the training center to go to Teguz. I arrived at 8:30, filled out the forms and waiting until 11:00 for my 11:30 appointment. The spare time was well spent getting the website back up and running after a technical error on the server shut it down for a week, and reading a John Grisham book I started last week. I had spoken with a few of the volunteers who were in the office and they were curious why a lowly trainee would be in the office on a school day. I relayed my problem and from the three people I talked to, I was told "Go to Dr. Allie, he has a nice clean office and is really good. If you go to the guy down the street be careful about what he does in your mouth, I don't know anyone who has had a good experience with him." One guy told me it took him 5 minutes to do a cleaning for him. A remarkably fast time. When I finally spoke with the nurse at Peace Corps, who told me where I would be going, fear struck my heart as she told me the directions for getting to the dentist office. I was assigned to go the guy everyone had warned me about. I don't get anxious or nervous about many things in this world, but I don't like going to the dentist. I know nothing really bad is going to happen, but I find it really uncomfortable to have someone’s hands in my mouth. So, I walked to Dr. Kevorkian’s office of dental delinquency. At first I had trouble finding the entrance and the building. The gate going to the main office door was locked when I initially went by, and nothing is marked so you can read it from the street. I walked in the office and found that the office was just an old building with a couple of doors in it. Some lawn furniture adorned the "waiting room" and the sound of someone cutting metal with a saw was heard in the background. There were 2-3 people moving from what looked like a janitor’s closet to another janitor’s closet, none of whom looked like they worked in the dental field. I then noticed a door with the dentist's name on it and thought maybe I had to go in there to get service. I walked in on the dentist working on someone else, oops! I guess I'll wait out in the lobby. A half hour later he came out. I went in and we talked about what was ailing me. He poked around in my mouth with instruments I am sure were older than me and said he didn't see any problems. I described it again and pointed out the tooth. The look of horror in his eyes when he found it was indescribable, and the comments like "wow, this is really really bad" and "Oh no, this is not good" and "I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before" and "this is very very odd" did not instill confidence in me. He took an x-ray, without the use of any lead shield to protect me or him (I hope I can still have kids) and then spent the next 20 minutes of our half hour visit explaining how he would like to pull the tooth out and give me a bridge. I didn't believe that was the only option and asked about it. He told me I could get an implant, but he didn't do those and they were very risky. He equated it to getting a heart transplant and was convinced that it was really dangerous and my body would probably reject the titanium screw they used to anchor implants. I left and went to the Peace Corps office, waiting another hour for the nurses to get back from their lunch, then another hour and a half for the nurse to tell me that I would have to wait until next week to get the verdict. The file is on its way to Washington, DC, where it will be reviewed by a Peace Corps dentist who will advise on a course of action. There is a possibility I will be flown back to DC for a week to get the work done, since it may involve oral surgery. "Vamos a ver" we'll see. In the mean time, pray I can go without infection or additional damage to the tooth. All they told me is it would be reviewed and not to chew on that side of my mouth. My project manager told me I should try to hold out till after training so as not to miss out on anything important. Only in Honduras!
Jen speaking again:
And thus ends our adventure (for today). I haven’t been told yet if I get to accompany Shawn to D.C. It is highly unlikely due to the cost on the behalf of the Peace Corps. However, I do think they should let me go for spouse support!!! (anything for a trip to D.C.!)
Have a great week. We love all the email you are sending back. It is so fun to hear your stories and keeps us connected to our “other life”.
Until next time,
Shawn Miguel and Jennifer
P.S. Jennifer can be reached at: jennifer@globalsilveras.com