PEOPLE I KNOW IN HONDURAS

The sweepers: I live between two ladies ladies, one across the street—that wears too short shorts for her over 50 years, and believes that her huge boobs can be held up by the 'built-in-bra' of a tank top—and one next door—that is quite the opposite with fiercely creased polyester pants and button up shirts with darts sewn in and her hair pulled tightly back in a half pony-tail and then aqua net-ed. They sweep their porch, sidewalk and street each and every morning at 6am and every night at 5:30pm, and meanwhile, watch and listen to everyone else's business and pass it on to one another.

The Slow Walker: The old man with steps as tiny as a toddler learning to walk drags his shoes down the dirt road passes my house walking towards downtown at 6:30am when I get up and who I see 4 blocks closer to downtown at 7:40 when I ride to the theatre. He is never, ever looking at his feet, but always straight ahead towards his invisible goal.

The Pulperia Family: Neli, the young beautiful woman who is in the corner store open to close. She always seems happy and helpful but tired and lonely at the same time. She also always helps me with my cooking questions about which oil to use or what cheese would be best for a certain tortilla. Her husband, always calls me by name and talks to me about the US and lets me buy things when they are closed for lunch and lets me store my meat there when I clean out the fridge or when the power goes out in our house. Then there are her teenage helpers who know I always want a bag even if my purchase is not large, and that when I buy milk it is 1 liter and not half and when I buy mantequilla cream it is from the hacienda not the store brand. One of them I think has a crush on me, because he keeps asking me about how my boyfriend is and if we are going to be staying together very long.

The Internet Family: The two sons and a daughter who own and run the internet/phone place where I call home. They wait for me every Sunday to spend between 100 and 200 lempiras when I make my call and then give me discounts because I spend so much money there. They let me dial on my own, and retry numbers because they know I'm always getting disconnected. Their mom also waits for me at their window of their house where they sell water and coke and she lets me change my large bills there and tells me all about how lazy Honduran men can be. She has a young helper too, who told me once that he always goes around happy even if he's not because he likes how people look at him when he's happy.

The Foodies: Julia and her daughter who started a food stand on the corner in about February and who have quickly become my main dinner source for baleadas, tajadas, chuleta, carne, and pastelitos. She with her Mexican husband, Pablo, her sister, also named Lorena and her kids and nieces Joselyn, Jonathan, Stephanie, Kensi have become my neighborhood family where I can go to chill, vent, ask questions about Spanish or weirdly large bugs, or gossip and of course eat without too much of a Gringo judgment. And if it's a special night they will let me try the special Mexican food they make only for themselves—sweets, sandwiches, and tortillas alike.

The Pharmacist: The woman who runs the farmacia, who sells me everything from gum, to lotion, to vitamin E, to random natural herbs and talks to me about traveling Honduras, men, Joel and diarrhea and never makes me feel embarrassed about health questions. Her daughter also makes me cheery because she's always smiling and says I'm the most talkative gringa she's ever met…surprise, surprise.

These people have quickly become my neighborhood family. Unfortunately, I will be leaving them soon, as I have decided to move houses. Joel's brother has just finished building a 6 unit apartment complex across the street from Joel's house. So, I've decided to move into one of the one-bedrooms. I'll eat and hang out with Joel's family and get to have my place when I want alone time. Plus it has a sink in the bathroom and a window in the bedroom, which I don't have where I live now. And it's about 2 blocks from the theatre, so it will be handy as well.

A HONDURAN HAIRCUT

I needed a haircut; since I hadn't cut my hair since last August and since even the straight guys at the theatre had told me my hair looked scraggly…leave it to the Latinos to tell you something so straightforward. So one of the guys, this one not so straight, suggested a salon for me, and at 4 pm one Saturday I walked in and asked for a haircut. The woman told me I'd have to wait, as there were 2 other women in front of me. So, I sat down and took a look around: I could have sworn I was in any beauty shop in the US. The walls were painted yellow with hand painted splatterings decorating giant mirrors with black swirly chairs and counters covered with hair dryers, combs, scissors, and millions of hair products. The table next to the comfy, overstuffed waiting chairs was full of magazines, wrinkled and torn from use since their publishing date of 1990. The posters on the wall of hairstyles of blond women with too much eye makeup, dark haired men with too square of jaw lines and children with too pinchable of cheeks dated back to roughly the same year. Definitely all resembling a US beauty salon the owner probably saw while she was in the States working.

Another woman showed up to work with me and we went back to wet my hair down. Everything was as it should be: spritzing bottle and comb at the ready; backwards cape to supposedly keep the hair off me, even though it never does; women dashing around searching drawers, countertops and aprons to find their borrowed tools. The only thing wrong was that my black swirly chair was missing a foot, so it rocked back and forth each time the lady ran a comb through my hair. I tried to use my swimmer thighs to keep the chair sturdy so this rocking would not influence the length of my layers, but I gave up when she asked me why I seemed so tense to get a haircut. Then, instead of this woman cutting my hair (apparently, she was just the prep lady), another woman came in, seemingly the owner and briefly asked me what I wanted done. I showed her two pictures I found combing the internet for the perfect style. She held them in her hand while she chatted with the first woman, and then folded them up and tossed them to the other end of the counter. So, you could say I was a little nervous…and she began chopping away. It calmed me a little bit when she complimented me on the color of my hair (everyone here wants lighter hair and all I want is darker hair) and she commented that it had never been dyed without me ever saying anything. So at least I felt a little more like I knew what she was doing. So in about 20 minutes my hair was cut. I couldn't believe it. She just whacked away sections, holding up different parts and cutting, and then flipping to the other side, seemingly without any method. It felt lighter, but she had left the length alone as I had asked, so I felt great.

Then she asked if I wanted it dried. I was going to Joel's house for dinner and decided I wanted to look nice, so I disregarded that it more than doubled the price of the cut, and just said yes. I thought she would take a quick hair dryer to it, just so it wouldn't frizz. What was I thinking? Have I not been living with Latinas for the last 12 months? Latinas NEVER "just quickly" do anything with their appearance. Two hours of prep time is considered normal. It began with a drying and straightening process, although the tilting of the chair forced the lady to pull my hair twice as quickly and hard to get any force behind the brush. But then I knew I was in for it when she started to roll entire round hair brushes into my hair—the kind that you have to do carefully so that when you take your hair out you don't get it tangled so tightly you eventually have to cut it out. Yes, the entire brush she put in my hair instead of small rollers. After nearly an hour of drying and curl prepping, she finished putting all 15 brushes into my hair to get a flipped out effect, and the handles of each brush stuck out at all angles from my head, making me look like an electrocuted Medusa. Then I had to sit there for another 30 minutes waiting for the curls. Finally, the woman took them out, struggling with those stupid round brushes that stick to your hair. When they were all out, I think she was startled to see that I looked like a brunette orphan Annie. I knew she had no idea that gringa hair might take to the curls with all that humidity instead of fall straight like so many thick-haired Latinas. But not to scare me, she kept her cool and finger-combed my hair with wet hands and some hair oil. Soon, I had the flipped-out style that 3 women that walked out before me had, but my hair was dry, and styled, and I was pretty happy with the cut at least. So finally, at 6:45 I walked out of the salon...and into a Honduran rainy season downpour.