July 18th, 2011
Someone asked me what are some culture shocks that I have experienced here and after thinking about it I have some answers as to what are the cultural differences between Honduras and the United States. Please keep in mind that I am not saying that the way that we do things in the states are better or that the way we do things in Honduras is backwards, they are just different. So one of the big differences is here we flush the toilet using a bucket of water that we have to strategically aim at the hole in the toilet. As I write this I feel like I may have already wrote about it but I am too busy to go back and look. In any case I want to add on that the toilet paper does not go in the toilet, instead it goes in a garbage can close to the toilet, different yes. You would think it would smell more but surprisingly it does not. Another interesting thing here is that you can get drink you want in a bag. If you want water in a bag you can get it, if you want coke in a bag you can get it, I have milk with my cereal in the morning from a bag. You can get these drinks and other assorted snacks at a pulperia which are little snack shops that are seriously all over Honduras. There are probably 8 within a 5 minute walking distance for me. You can also get some local household supplies there so it is nice if you need anything I just have to walk across the street. I have already talked about the sound here in Honduras and I guess that was a little bit of a culture shock but probably no different than living in any big city. Some other cultural differences are when talking about height for a person you do not put you hand horizontal and move it up and down, that motion is reserved only for animals. Instead to show height for persons you put your hand vertical and then move it up and down. Little change but hard to get used to. Another simple change but very hard to get used to is that people here in Honduras do not point with their fingers, instead they use their lips. It is very strange from the American perspective but just the way that things are done here. Another cultural difference that all of us volunteers noticed right away was the amount of dogs running wild here and how people may not treat the dogs as nicely as we do in the states (not everyone treats there dogs bad but some people do). When we asked about this we were given a very logical response, the only reason that people have pets here in Honduras is they have dogs for protection and they have cats to eat the rats. As for why dogs are not always treated very well it is again a logical reason in that most wild dogs and even some dogs that are pets can be dangerous and can have rabies, therefore it is very dangerous to have these dogs around. It has been my experience so far though that these wild dogs are actually very tame around people and are not at all interested in us, they just go about their business. They get vicious though when they see another dog and a barking match starts that can literally go on for an hour. That seems to be the only cultural differences that I can think of at this point I will be sure to write more if I think of them or when I encounter them. Again please add any comments or questions that you may have so I can have a sort of mailbag (copyright Bill Simmons for those of you who read him) as my next post. O I just thought of one other cultural difference and it seems to be a good ending to my blog. Whenever you say goodbye to a Honduran if you say something like “hasta manana” (see you tomorrow) or anything where there is a little bit of chance they will always respond with “Si Dios Quiere” which means “if God wants.” SO, I will post soon, Si Dios Quiere.
