Canine Celebrities

I guess each town has its own Gallery of Fame of Extraordinary Characters and Copán Ruinas is no exception. There’s the guy who sells corn on the cop on a corner of the central park; the legless beggar; the panhandling nasty old lady who hits you with her stick if you refuse to give her some money; that one particular drunk, amazingly still alive after years of guaro; and Doña Mena whose diner is called “El Pijazo” (The Punch) because she’s famous for hitting her customers. But in Copán Ruinas we also have celebrities of the canine variety.

For those who’ve been to Copán, Bombero hardly needs introduction. You’ll probably see him hanging around at the park, the market or even more likely, at Café Via Via. Not that Bombero doesn’t have an owner: he actually belongs to a vegetable salesman at the market and his real name is Manchas (spots), because he’s a Dalmatian and all Dalmatians in Honduras are called Manchas.

But because he likes to hang around with gringos, he got his own gringo name too, Bombero of Fireman, again because of his appearances, of course, Dalmatians being a firehouse mascot in the US.

Bombero has his routine down to a tee. In the early morning he runs along the moto-taxi that brings his official owner to the market. He flirts a bit with the neighbour who besides selling veggies and fruit also preaches over a portable sound system. Then he lies down in front of the market’s entrance to see the world go by or to wait for me to accompany me to Café Via Via for a yoga class. Bombero is great at Downward Dog, does a good Happy Baby and gladly joins you on the mat for Sabasanah.

Breakfast is daily served at the Via Via for Bombero and his friend Bambi, also a regular at this restaurant. The rest of the day Bombero likes to hang around at the Via Via, trying to sneak on the couch, getting petted by tourists or just to sit on the porch and bark at any man passing by with a hat or machete. His charm and good looks make every human melt down, except those guys with hats and machetes, maybe. In the afternoon he takes a walk through town, but is never late for dinner, again at the Via Via. Then it’s bedtime, somewhere up the hill, just to start his routine all over again the next morning.

Many dogs in Copán are in a pretty miserable state because there’s not much of a “pet culture”. But Bombero sure is one of the lucky ones…

What you want your friends NOT to do when in Honduras...

If you live in a remote village in a far away country, it is logical that friends who come through that remote village in that far away country on their vacation or business trip, pay you a visit. They also send their friends, and even friends of their friends who happen to be in the neighbourhood over to say hello. That’s all fine, nice to see some new faces and especially when they buy some of my art, no complains from my side…

Over the years I’ve had hundreds of visits of friends, family members, acquaintances and friends of friends, not to speak of the many volunteers who worked with my art organization and stayed here for weeks or sometimes even years. Some of those stays were more successful than others, but there is one that is quite outstanding and, after all these years, quite funny.

When I was fourteen or so, I was “difficult”. So “difficult” in fact, that my parents thought it a good idea to ship me off for a while to this couple of artist friends they had. It was a great idea, and it just proved I wasn’t “difficult” at all, I just happened to be bored out of my mind at home and thought everything there was “stupid”.

So I had a great time, not knowing back then that one day I would pay the price…

A couple of years ago, that same artist couple contacted me and said they had a little “problem”. The son of one of their best friends was being “difficult”, being in his late teens without knowing what to do with himself, so the solution was to ship him off to Honduras for a few months so he could straighten himself out.

Okay, no problem. I’d give him a room in my office and keep an eye on him, but with no intention of any interventions, because I know from experience what one needs when being “difficult”.

So the day this kid arrived, let’s call him Pedro, I had him picked up at the airport by a friend who would put him on the bus to Copán early the next morning.

The first bus arrived from San Pedro Sula, but no Pedro. The second one… still no Pedro. So I called my friend in the city and it turned out all was well, they were “just chilling” and Pedro would arrive with the last bus heading out.

Indeed, at 6pm or so, Pedro got off the bus, a charming, well behaved and friendly kid. Thing is, he was not alone. He had in his wake an eight or nine year old boy that followed him around like a puppy. I asked Pedro where the kid came from and he really couldn’t say, just that he had been on the bus with him from San Pedro Sula and that he called him “papi”. Oh crap! I told Pedro that under NO circumstances the kid was allowed into my office, which from now on was Pedro’s home. Pedro looked at me as if I was the cruellest bitch on earth so I had to explain him that the kid, despite being just a kid, probably already was a professional criminal and that he’s better watch out for his belongings. (I am actually not that heartless and made sure the boy had, in return for cleaning the bus of the company next door, to eat and a place to sleep, but I was right: a few weeks later there was a raid by the local FBI in the hotel next door, the kid dragged along by the agents: it turned out he was a scout for a gang in the city and responsible for a whole string of break-ins in town…)

Anyway, back to Pedro’s first night in Copán. There was a party that night in town, a goodbye party for a friend who worked as a manager in a big hotel just out of town. I figured it would be a good idea to take Pedro along and introduce him to the local crowd. It was indeed a fun night, but around midnight I was ready to go home. Pedro wanted to party on, but I told him it would be better if I dropped him off at his room since he didn’t even know the layout of the town yet and not to worry, there would be undoubtedly many more parties to come. Pedro was wise enough to agree, so I left him in his room and went to my own apartment next door to write Pedro’s dad that his son was sound and safe in bed…

Little did I know that he wasn’t… Neither did I know the next morning, because Pedro never told me, but Copán is a small place, so I found out anyway…

That night, as soon as I had turned around, Pedro sneaked out of his room and went back to the bar. When the bar closed, Pedro didn’t go to sleep, but instead joined a brand new best friend, also from out of town, to the string of cantinas and lowlifes, the one place I had told him not to go. They were standing outside a cantina, drinking a beer, when the police drove by and before they knew it, they were thrown in jail. Drinking in a public place (they were standing on the street) is against the law and although that law is never enforced when it concerns local drunks, it’s a lot more profitable to pick up strangers who break the law.

So within twelve hours of his stay in Copán, Pedro already found himself in the drunk tank, without belt or shoelaces, and getting quite anxious. It was a good thing his new best friend worked for a big international organization and was able to talk them out of jail in a matter of hours. The police insisted on driving them back home, just to make sure they were indeed who they said they were. Problem was, Pedro had no idea where his room was, so he went with his buddy to his hotel, the big one just outside of town whose manager’s goodbye we had celebrated just hours before. In the end, they had to knock on my friend the manger’s door and yes, he remembered Pedro and was so kind to drive him back to town, finally to bed… At 6am….

When I finally heard about this episode weeks later (many more Pedro adventures happened in the mean time) I also learned it hadn’t been his first encounter with Honduran police! The night he arrived in San Pedro Sula, my friend took him clubbing and unfortunately that was the night the police decided to raid the club. At the exact moment of the raid, Pedro was in a bathroom stall emptying his bowels, when the police, heavily armed, hooded and dressed in bullet proof vests stormed in. Since Pedro didn’t speak a word of Spanish, he couldn’t follow their instructions and was dragged outside. My friend came to his rescue and in the end, nothing happened, but it was quite a welcome to Honduras.

Pedro stayed for a few months and we had a great time, since he’s adorable and cute, one of those people you can’t stay angry with long. I could write many more posts on  Pedro’s Adventures in Copán, because everything always seemed to happen when he was right there. I mean, how many times do moto-taxis actually just topple over? Never, as far as I know, except when Pedro was inside one…

So, yes, it was sad to see Pedro leave. But it also a relief…

By the way, it seemed to have worked: Pedro has straightened out quite well. Although he’ll always be Pedro of course…

Maya Connections

Sorry, but this post is not about relationships with indigenous peoples. It’s about shopping. Or one shop in particular, actually.

One of the good things (as well as the bad!) of living in a small town, is that everybody knows you. Shopping, for example, is a totally different experience here than in the big city. No need to, completely embarrassed, having to put an item back in the super market just because you’re a few cents short of cash. Heck no, in Copán Ruinas I can probably go by a whole month without paying anywhere! I rather pay cash, but funnily enough, shop owners are all to keen to write up a tab. Up to a certain point. There is this one clothing store that each January puts up a huge list in the window with all the names (including surnames and nicknames) of the people who owe. With the amount of the debt, of course. One of Copán’s main sources of entertainment for the local population.

Shopping is a social event that goes well beyond the purchase of a product. More than money it’s gossip that goes over the counter and stores are a great place to run into people. That’s one of the reason I boycott the new supermarket in town. That and the fact that at Doña Berta’s I can just grab whatever I need and tell her I’ll pay tomorrow, without even the need to write it down!

One store I’ve had a long personal relationship with is Maya Connections. It is owned by my friend Sandra and opened, if I remember correctly, in 1997, as a small internet café in one of the rooms of her mother’s hotel, Los Gemelos. This was durin the years that I was lucky enough to have a huge and heavy laptop (with a black and white screen!), but of course no modem or wifi. Not even a printer for that matter. So I used to write my emails at home or work, save it on something called a floppy disk (holding up to 1,4MB of information!!!) and bring that along to send off my emails at Maya Connections where four computers each had their own dial-up modem. No way of answering emails directly on line, that was way to expensive for 2,50 ($0,13) Lempiras per minute!

Of course the connection was interrupted frequently, so I spend a lot of time at that store, munching on chocolates (imported from the big city and nowhere else available in Copán) or drinking a soda. Sometimes beer even, if connecting to the universe took too long. It was also the place in town for photocopies, office supplies, laminating and binding. Maya Connections even had a paper guillotine, one I used very often, although there was hardly a surface available to put the thing down. 

The already limited space of Maya Connections became even more cramped when Sandra decided to start selling souvenirs too. It was a little uncomfortable to sort hundreds of photocopies between bracelets, coffee mugs, teaspoons and car stickers, but business is business, and business was blooming. Even so that Sandra commissioned me and fellow painter Edgar Zelaya to paint a mural on the outside wall, one of the best we ever did in my opinion, but unfortunately painted over my Sandra’s mom when she moved out to a bigger venue. Because with a laundry service, the sale of shuttle tickets to Guatemala and a growing demand for computers, a much bigger space was required.

So Maya Connections moved to a corner building a block south of the Central Park. Sandra asked me to do the interior design and gave me the free hand to “go nuts”, which I did. What a great time was that!

A couple of years later, in 2010, Maya Connections had grown out of its seams yet again and besides, the property it was housed in was falling apart. So when the newly restored colonial building across the street became available, Maya Connections hopped over. Again I was asked to do the interior design, and this time we decided on a different look, sort of “recycled chic” with old pallets, wooden crates from the market and huge cable spools. There was an internet café of course, but since more and more locals now had internet at home and travellers carried iPhones or smartphones, the main space was filled with souvenirs. And business was still booming. 

Design Sketch Maya Connections

Booming so much that Sandra decided to expand in 2011 by renting the space behind the store as well, and turn it into an art gallery. Yet again it was my pleasure to decorate the place, this time using a Mexican folklore theme. We painted the outside of the building too, in the same colours as Frida Kahlo’s house in Coyoacán. Providing internet was by no longer a profitable business (the price had even lowered to 30 Lempiras an hour, making it five times cheaper than in 1997!), so the focus was now on art and souvenirs. 

Alas, not every story has a happy ending, and this is one of them. This month, sixteen years after opening its doors, Maya Connections closed down. Business is too low, tourism has dropped substantially, competition has grown, so there is just no more space for Maya Connections. It’s a pity because, at least for me, Maya Connections has been part of Copán’s history. 

But then again, I wouldn’t be surprised of Maya Connections submerges again somewhere in the future…

No Mother’s Day for me this year…

Dear Mothers…

This post goes out to all the women in my life who are mothers, including my own. It’s for my closest friends who are mothers; but also for my neighbours; acquaintances; ex-students; future mothers, new mothers, old mothers, grandmothers, adoptive mothers; mothers I‘ve worked with; and all those other amazing women with children who have passed through my life at some point or another. I even dedicate this to those rare fathers here and there who are actually more of a mom than a dad most of the time…

What I want to tell you is… I’m sorry, but this year I’m not going to wish you a Happy Mother’s Day.

Thing is, it’s only the Friday before, and I’m already sick and tired of the whole thing. I could do without the noise pollution that seems to go hand-in-hand with commercial success, in this case the commerce in unnecessary and cheap products that for some reason people think are related with Mothers Day. I’m not very excited to see the stores fill up with the cheapest of the cheapest and mostly useless objects, primarily in the colour red and for that reason somehow related to Mother’s Day.

I would be happier not to find a bunch of invitations to special Mother’s Day dinners at local restaurants in my inbox; and I’m seriously considering to boycott Facebook until Monday.

I have nothing against Mother’s Day in itself. But I think that celebrating Mother’s Day once a year with a plastic rose, a cheap lunch package and a handmade gift by son or daughter (likely the same as last year) is just not enough.

I don’t have kids and am very happy about it. It’s not that I don’t like kids, actually I do, a lot, I just don’t like them all the time!!! Not being a mother has been a conscious decision, one that I’ve never regretted. But that doesn’t mean I tremendously admire women who are mothers, especially the ones that have managed not to kill their offspring!!! Seriously, how do you do it??? I can barely manage a job and a household, so how to deal with a partner and a bunch of kids on top???? I find it truly amazing how women manage to deal with it all, especially the women in Honduras, who do not have the same resources and opportunities as women have in my home country. I’ve seen incredible women single-handedly raise a dozen or so while making the world go round. What I’m talking about here is women cultivating their own land, hauling water at the creek, grinding corn every day and still manage to send her kids to school. Amazing and admirable.

So, no Happy Mother’s Day from me, this Sunday. But instead, I promise to honour, respect and admire you every single day for the rest of the year and the years to come. For every day you get up; for every night you go to bed exhausted; for every day you feed and educate your children; for every day you give them love, even though you’re not always loved the way back as you should be. For every day you worry and wish them well… I respect and honour you for doing what needs to be done, and doing it so well, even if you didn’t ask for it. Mothers of the world, but especially those from Honduras: you’re truly amazing. Always. 365 Days a year!

PS: For my gals who happen not to be mothers, wanna go out and get drunk on Sunday??? J

Plastic Terror

Doña Berta's shopping bag

I know, it’s a world wide problem. But as with a lot of things, in Honduras it seems to be worse. It might be a nuisance in other places, but here it’s epidemic. It’s everywhere. It haunts me. There is no escape.

I’m talking about The Plastic Bag.

It’s not just the fact that with each and every purchase you get a plastic bag. You often get multiple bags! And there is no way refusing them! Apparently there’s this unwritten but sacred etiquette to the use of plastic bags. It must be something like this:

            -Any business shall hand out as many plastic bags to the customer as possible. Be stingy with anything, but with plastic bags.

-The customer shall receive as many plastic bags as he or she can, and preferably ask for more.

-If the purchased products are several, in stead of using one bag, try to put the different products in as many separate bags as possible.

-Do not ever put cleaning materials (albeit already wrapped in plastic) in the same bag with edible products (often also packed in plastic) in the unlikely case the food might take on the smell of the cleaning products on the short trip home.

-Do not pack food products meant for humans in the same back with product for animals. (Imagine a can of dog Chow and a can of condensed milk in the same bag! Gross!)

-At the market, even if the customer brings her own shopping bag, put every single vegetable or fruit in a separate bag before depositing it in the shopping bag.

-In case the customer needs immediate use of his/her purchase, the plastic back is immediately discarded outside the store. (And not in the garbage can, of course).

-Since plastic bags are so common and so abundant, there is no reason for reuse whatsoever.

-Plastic bags make great flying objects on the streets and therefore need not to be recycled.

-Plastic bags also add a nice fragrance to home-burned garbage, yet another reason not to be recycled.

I started my War against the Plastic Bag many years ago, and am still fighting it. It’s a lost, case, I know, but I won’t give up. While I was the director of an NGO, we had this rule that no plastic bags were allowed into the office. We had big shopping bags for everybody’s use and accepting a plastic bag was punished with a 5 Lempira fine. The first months after implying this rule there was quite bit of money in the kitty, but my colleagues eventually got used to the No Plastic Bag Policy. So it is possible…

Doña Berta, the owner of one of my favourite stores in the world (see a previous post on her store here) liked our policy too and it inspired her to have canvas shopping bags made for her regular customers. After all, as a shop owner, she’s sick and tired of having to pay for all those plastic bags!

It’s an honour to be an inspiration, so I carry Doña Berta’s bag proudly. It has more value to me than a Louis Vuitton bag, and probably holds more too.  Unfortunately, I’m the only one. I don’t know what it is, but people in town rather die than be seen with a shopping bag on the street…

The Plastic Bag Situation is bad enough as it is, but it is even worse if they are imposed on you. Even without accepting any plastic bags, I admit I have hundreds of them, with no clear clue of how they got into my possession! Really, there is no escape of the Plastic Bag… Not even here in the small town of Copán Ruinas, where everybody knows me. True, in a lot of stores the bag boy gets hissed at before he can trap my purchases: Stop! She doesn’t want a bag!!! But all too often I have to literally beg not to give me a bag.

Instead of asking whether you want a bag, the cashier starts shoving your stuff in a bag anyway. I usually say:

“I don’t want a bag.”

Nothing happens.

“I don’t want a bag!”

The bagging continues.

“I don’t want a bag!!!”

Nothing. So after I’ve paid and receiving several plastic bags, I start to unpack it all. That’s when the cashier finally wakes up from his or her preconditioned state of oblivion and looks at me like I’m the craziest person on earth.

Maybe I am.

But I still don't want that plastic bag.

The King: No Opinion

Living at the other side of the planet from where I was born and raised will always keep my heart in two places. As much as I love Honduras, as long as I’ve been here and as adapted as I have become, I’ll always be “from Amsterdam”.

It is doable, but hard when I can’t be with family or friends when tragedy strikes or when there is something to celebrate.

Today Willem Alexander is crowned as the new king of the Netherlands. And I am not there. And I can’t decide whether I care or not.

For those who do not know, the 30^th of April is Queens Day in Holland and by far the best celebrated holiday of the year. Not because the Dutch are overly fond of the royal family (I think the soccer team throws higher marks), but it is a great celebration nonetheless, starting in the wee hours of the night before. Children set up the stalls to sell whatever they have been hoarding for months. People sell pies, sandwiches, hotdogs, drinks, all preferably orange. Bars set up outside their properties with dance parties until the wee hours of the morning after. The Vondel Park is dedicated to children and is probably one of the best places to be. You can have your face painted, throw eggs, walk on a rope or whatever crazy creative act or game people come up with each year. Queens Day is not organized by the government or municipality, but by the people themselves. You can expect the unexpected, everything goes.

But today is extra special, because it is Queens Day no longer. For the first time in over a hundred years we now have a king. And from what I read in the online newspaper and see on CNN, it has been quite an event.

This is the second crowning I miss. The last one, when Willem’s mother Beatrix took over the crown, was on April 30^th, 1980. I was ten and excited about Queens Day (couldn’t care too much about the change of royal power) but was extremely disappointed and resentful when my parents decided that my mother, brother and me were going to spend the day at my grandparents on the country side. The reason was that riots were expected and my dad was for his work involved in the security preparations. There were riots indeed, but hardly anything that would have stopped a stubborn ten-year old from celebrating her Queens Day.

Thirty-three years later I’m missing the crowning again, and as I said, I’m not sure what to think about that. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know whether I’m happy or not about having a new king. I know there’re pros and cons, but I simply can’t come up with something sensible to say.

Oh my God! I have NO opinion!

That is weird, because I’m Dutch and the Dutch always have an opinion about everything. Annoyingly so! The Hondurans however are usually much less opinionated. Up to a point that when you want to know someone’s thought, you’ll just get a shrug of the shoulders.

What do you think about World Peace?

Shrug.

What do you think of President Pepe Lobo?

Shrug.

Do you like your food?

Shrug.

Carin, what do you think of Holland’s new king?

Shrug.

Oh my… I’ve become Honduran after all…

Living in the Most Dangerous Country in the World

Every day I wake up, shivering with fear, hoping I’ll make it to see the light of another day here in Honduras. I live behind doors enforced with triple bolt locks and I barely dare to go out on the street. I trust no one, I never go out at night, instead I lock myself up, turning up the volume of my TV to drown out the sound of gunshots.

If that’s what you want to hear, there you have it.

But the truth is quite different.

I don’t deny there is a serious problem with violence in Honduras. A huge problem. A problem so big, it is hard to imagine there is a solution to it, and even if the situation would better, it will take generations to get over the trauma of it.

The problem with the violence in Honduras, as in many other countries, is that there is not just one cause for it. Violence is deeply rooted in Honduran society, caused by corruption, lawlessness, lack of justice, lack of education for that matter, poverty, narco traffic, gangs, hopelessness, all of which lead to a vicious circle of more resentfulness, hate, vengeance, frustration and loss of morals. And the fact that Honduras is constantly in the news as being the most violent country in the world doesn’t help at all. Quite the contrary.

I live in Copán Ruinas, a quiet town in the west of Honduras that heavily depends on tourism. Since a year or so, we’ve all seen a gigantic drop in the number of visitors and when you ask tour operators or tourists, the answer is that Honduras is considered too dangerous to visit. The fact that nearby Antigua Guatemala and even neighbouring countries as Nicaragua and El Salvador are doing blooming business, proves it. But is Honduras really that dangerous for tourists?

I say it’s not.

First of all, let’s look at the numbers. It is now common knowledge that Honduras has the highest murder rate per capita in the world. But, just as in Mexico, that number is closely connected to gang activity, drug trafficking and mostly takes place in certain areas in the big cities. Places that tourists never visit. If you’d discount the number of deaths in certain neighbourhoods, the national average would be much lower.

I won’t deny that there haven’t been incidents in the past, but overall, the violence is not directed to tourists and the main tourist destinations are considered to be pretty quiet and safe. I can’t find any data on it, but if I hear from tourists that they were assaulted in their hotel or on the street, pick-pocketed or molested, it usually happened in Guatemala.

I can’t guarantee a tourist a risk free trip through Honduras, but I think that the dangers are highly overrated. You know a dangerous city for tourists??? Amsterdam! I recently visited my hometown, and talk out dangers! Not so much violent assaults, but deathly incidents nonetheless. Every year an astounding number of tourists die because they ride a bicycle (often for the first time in their lives) in the centre of town without understanding the unwritten rules of survival. They take the silent but oh so big and hard trams for granted while crossing the street without looking left or right. Each year, about thirty people drown in the famous canals, many of them (drunken) tourists who fall in when urinating, unable to climb back up the steep walls. And not to mention the number of people (I think it was three last year) of tourists who underestimate the power of Dutch marihuana and think they can fly out of a window, just like that. But those victims never show up in lists with numbers that show how dangerous Amsterdam can be.

The “Honduras = dangerous” slogan has become a bit of a hype and is being repeated time after time for no apparent reason, and without any effort on behalf of the Honduran ministry of tourism to prove the opposite. And that’s a pity, because Honduras is a country of an incredible natural beauty with great archaeological sites and terrific tropical islands, just to name a few attractions. Yes, Honduras has its problems, but so do other countries in Central America, as well as the rest of the world. The world we live in is not becoming a safer place, and Honduras is no exception.

To wrap things up, what I mean to say is that numbers are relative and that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear. My roommate is from Chicago and says she hears more gun shots outside her apartment there, than in Copán. I can tell you from personal experience that Copán is a great place to live or to visit and, relatively safe. Relatively, because a lot depends on your own behaviour.

And just to speak for this beloved town I’m luckily enough to live in: please come and visit Copán Ruinas! And not just because we need you! The archaeological site is breathtaking, the town itself is charming and fun and there’s tons to do: hiking, horseback riding, visiting the bird park or coffee farms. And yes, I do feel completely safe here. I go out at night, I hike through the mountains, I do whatever I like. Heck, with this heat I even sleep with my windows and doors wide open. But that’s something I maybe shouldn’t share on the internet.

Bottom line, come and visit Honduras. It’s worth it!

Why I hate weddings

Oh, that dreadful moment when someone knocks on your door and stands there with the biggest smile, handing you an envelop with on it your misspelled name in golden letters…
“You’re coming, right?”
I sigh inwardly, grind my teeth and force a smile.
“I’ll try.”

I hate weddings. I’m not a big fan of formal parties anyway, but weddings, Honduran weddings in particular, are not my thing. But since it appears to be socially desirable to have at least one gringo or gringa at the event, I get, to my regret, my share of invitations.

I’ve nothing against two people in love vowing eternal fidelity (and I’m not even going into the Honduran (male) interpretation of the word “eternal” or “fidelity”), it’s just that I find attending weddings a waste of time, energy and money.

For starters, there’s the wedding present. I gave up long ago trying to buy something that I think is beautiful or useful, because tastes differ. Tremendously. My most successful presents were those that I found most horrendous, so now I go to the store and pick the most hideous and expensive thing I can find, the more frills the better. If I manage to avoid attending the event, I buy an even more expensive gift, to ease my guilt and to stay on good terms with the happy couple. That’s socially acceptable and I suspect in some cases even desirable.

The second torture is what to wear. Oblivious to the latest fashion in town, I find it hard enough to find something in my wardrobe that has no paint splatters on it or that looks remotely feminine and elegant. I always end up feeling underdressed and slightly uncomfortable, especially when wearing heals instead of my beloved All Stars.

Then there’s the event itself. Incapable by my Dutch origins to arrive late, I spend sometimes hours by myself at the “random table” (the one for people that don’t fit in any category) politely smiling at the guests that arrive long after the hour mentioned in the invitation. Those hours would be more endurable if there would be a big bottle of some kind of hard liquor in front of me, but usually there’s only a homemade table decoration to look at.

When the ceremony finally starts, I’m usually so zoomed out already, it’s hard to concentrated on the wedding vows. When lucky, there’s a civil ceremony only, but more likely there’s a priest with a sermon, followed by a religious pledging too. I find it baffling how people can actually sign two different documents that contain completely contradictory pledges: during one of the last weddings I attended, the couple was first married legally, promising fidelity and such, as well as respecting the equal rights between man and woman. Not ten minutes later they signed the religious document, the woman promising to be subordinate to her man. Personally I think that irregularity should be reason to nullify both wedding certificates, but no one else seemed to notice, much less care.

Weddings with a mass before the actual wedding ceremony are even more of an agony to me. Last year I was invited to a wedding of a very dear friend, mass included, so I tried, even though I’m not much of a church going person. I found a seat in the very back of the church which was a good thing because twice I had to walk out and take a very deep breath. The first time was when the priest said that the only union between man and woman that has any value was matrimony for the Catholic Church (I already knew that, it wasn’t my first catholic wedding), that the only purpose of matrimony is reproduction and that he was aghast when he met a man the other day who happened to have more dogs than children!!! (I happen to have more dogs than children.)

The second time I sneaked out (and actually went to the bar to have a quick drink) was when the priest compared Honduras with Japan: Both countries are similar in size, but the difference is that Japan is much more developed and has a much bigger population. Hence, the solution to become a more developed country is to REPRODUCE! Not only did I utterly disagree with his reasoning, it was totally out of place during a wedding ceremony.

Back to the wedding reception, the moment of relief when food is finally served. Traditionally a huge chunk of chicken with (because of the special occasion) an abundance of starch: spaghetti, bread, potato salad and, of course, tortillas. And when it’s time for dessert, the event is suddenly over… A lot of guests don’t even stay to eat their dessert, but take it home, covered with a paper napkin. No lingering, no guests getting drunk, no dancing or flirting between bridesmaids and best men. Instead, kids start running around grabbing the decorations of the table, pulling down balloons and anything else that can be taken away. Without exception, the beautifully decorated wedding location looks like a battlefield twenty minutes after dessert is served.

Mission accomplished.

Time to go to bar…

Brief Encounters of the Human Kind IV: Stripped

I wished I had a camera with me, because it was such a cute sight: two red moto-taxis standing side by side on a small sandy island in the middle of the Copán River. What we didn’t see until we came closer (and when I forgot about the camera altogether) were the two young taxi drivers getting undressed behind their vehicles while sipping from cans of beer. When they were completely undressed they started fooling around, unaware that me and my friend were about to pass by. When they finally noticed us gals, they let out a startled “Oops!!” and they both dove in the river, beer cans still in their hands and thus totally ruining their drinks.

My friend and I tried to ignore the two guys, to avoid any form of embarrassment for either party, but that didn’t work because one of the guys started calling out my name. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they both started apologizing for being naked.

“We’re sorry!” one of the guys yelled, “But we worked all the way through Easter and we haven’t had time to go for a swim yet!”

“Yes, Carin!” cried the other, “Please forgive us!

My friend and I gave them a polite sort of wave in acknowledgements while we walked on, trying very hard not to pee ourselves laughing.

The taxi drivers kept on calling out apologies until we couldn’t hear them anymore. Afterwards I could hit myself on the head fort not remembering to look at the taxis’ numbers. The drivers might have recognized me, I certainly did not recognize them, in their state “au natural”. I bet it will take months before I’ll stop wondering if the driver is one of “them” every time I take a taxi.

World Famous in Copán Ruinas

Self Portrait 2013

I’m a world famous artist in Copán Ruinas. That’s the lame joke I use whenever people say they see my work everywhere around town. It’s true, but it’s also true that Copán Ruinas is a pretty small town (in a remote corner of Honduras!) and considering the fact that I’ve been painting here for sixteen years now, then well, it’s hardly a feat to have saturated this place with my signs, murals, paintings, posters, furniture and souvenirs.

I must say, it’s convenient and fun to be “La Carin que pinta”, the one everyone interested in art automatically comes looking for when in Copán. Had I stayed in Amsterdam, I would never have reached that status. And that makes me wonder: is it because I am a foreigner living in Honduras? Or because I’m an artist living in a small town?  Because I’m a woman maybe? Or is it because I’m a female foreign artist living in a small town in Honduras? Or maybe it is just my work speaking for itself?

That I stick out, there’s no doubt about it and I have no trouble with that. Actually, I quite like it. I’m in the delightful position of being triple crazy: for being a foreigner, an artist as well as a female artist. (And for just being a little crazy, too...) Although I understand the necessity to adapt, I don’t necessarily want to blend in. I like being the odd one out. 
I’m the one who gets along with everyone and away with everything.

WhenI paint, I usually don’t think about why I paint or what I paint. I don’t consider myself a Dutch painter, nor a Honduran one. Not even a female one, for that matter. I just paint what I like, what comes to mind (and what is commissioned). Of course there’s the influence of the blazing sun, the lush greens, the temperament of the people and the vibrant colours of tropical plants. Maya culture, oh yes, have I used you… Or should I say “reinvented”? “Inspired by”?

When I paint I just paint and I’ll let the interpretation to the rest of the world. I’m happy though, to have been able to make my picturesque contributions to this town.

The only problem is that despite being world famous in Copán Ruinas, I’m still, as usual, bloody broke. I don’t want to become rich. And I’m not the sort of artist looking for fame after death. Why, I’m already World Famous in Copán Ruinas! But being World Famous in Copán Ruinas and less broke, now, that would be great…

So… to buy any number of my World Famous Copaneco art work, visit:

www.carinsteen.com

Or at least “like” my page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/carin.steen.artist

Pet Paradise

Dog (owner) meeting place in the Vondel Park, Amsterdam

Last week I wrote about how children born in Honduras are (in some ways) less privileged than those from Holland, but that’s absolutely NOTHING compared to the way pets are treated like royal family in my home country. The contrast between how animals are cared for here and there couldn’t be bigger. If you ever consider reincarnating as an animal, making sure you don’t do it in Honduras!

Pets in Holland are considered part of the family, if not completely taking over the place of (non-existing) children. I thought my dog and three cats back home in Honduras are well off with plenty of food, daily walks along the river and a place on the couch (and yes, I admit, the bed too), but I’m glad my dog isn’t here to see everything she’s missing out on. First, my Luca doesn’t have a designer outfit for every occasion. Neither do my pets have a whole closet or crate full of toys. (Actually, a friend brought a toy mouse for my cats the other day. They were not interested. And why would they, there’re plenty of real ones outside!). I also like to think of my apartment as my apartment, so it isn’t littered with an array of different cat baskets, dog mattresses or pet beds. No toys either, except for the occasional dead lizard, bat or rat. And I thought I was feeding them exceptionally well with their daily doses of dry food and leftovers, compared to the tortillas their fellow Honduran pets usually survive on. But apparently dry food is really bad and you should give them canned food at least once a day (Sheba, for example, with a tuff of parsley on top), and of course special food for older cats or dogs, puppies and kittens, middle-aged pets, pets with liver problems, pets without liver problems, pets that are too skinny and pets that are overweight. Of course there are food supplements in the form of cat candy or artificial bones. A bowl with water is not enough; a real fountain with continuously running is the thing. For cats that lack exercise there’s a special, ball you can put dry food in that falls out if being played with, so the cat actually has to work for its food. Not to mention the enormous amount of money my friends spend at the vets and the entire warehouses that sell everything from tiny stairways to help your dog getting on the bed (I’m considering buying one to get my dog off the bed) to diamond studded leashes.

In Holland we have a political party for the animals and instead of Children’s Day we celebrate Animals’ Day. If a person gets assaulted in the park, well, bad luck. But if you hit your dog in public, you likely end up in jail.

Now, Honduras. A whole different story and definitely not a better one. There’s this habit in the town I live in to kick just any animal that walks past. Why? I have no idea. I guess just because you can. Pets are generally not well taken care of, being fed with occasional leftovers and they are hardly ever trained, let alone vaccinated or neutered. That last one is a sensitive issue in Honduras, a country where nobody cares if you let your dog starve, beat it to dead or let it roam the streets. But in Macholandia you cannot touch his balls! So what if your dog stalks a bitch in the heat and comes back home with all kinds of venereal diseases, if he hasn’t been run over in the mean time?

 Being a cat or dog in Honduras is not a lot of fun for most, I guess. But then again, I think that cats named after philosophers that have their own personalized diet, caretaker and classical music to listen to, is the other extreme.

I think my cats and dog could consider themselves lucky. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind more treats and more fluffy blankets, but they’re doing fine just without it. And I’m lucky too, because at least in Honduras I don’t have to walk after my dog with plastic poop bags to pick up whatever she drops.