Well, lately I have been thinking about how you know you have been in Honduras too long. Here is what I have:
You stick everything in your bra. It’s an anti-robbing technique meant to separate your money from your bag. However, when you put a chip bag there because there is no trash can, it may have been kept too far.
You stand six inches or less away from doors. In Honduras, if you want to go into someplace next, there is no polite space allowance, stick your face on the door to signal you are next.
Espagetti is acceptable food. This is spaghetti, but with cream mixed into the sauce. I have not reached this phase, but friends have.
You love fried food. Well, I used to eat healthily.
You prefer soda over water to refresh yourself. I never bought soda for my house, now I down large quantities on nearly a daily basis.
You throw everything on the ground.
You now speak Spanglish and not English.
Ants in your food no longer upset you.
You have been sick on a bus a few times.
You call out “chitch, chitch, chitch,” to get someone’s attention. In the past that was only used on dogs.
You see a cute little kid on the bus and think, “Que linda la negrita.” In the states, that would be extremely offensive; it means what a cute little black girl.
You can tell rich Hondurans based only by skin tone. The richer they are, the less time they have ever spent in the sun, and thus the whiter their skin. My friend was recently quoted saying, “He’s light skinned, but not rich white.”
Yeah, that’s all I have for now. Every book/ article on going back to the states says that getting readjusted to the US is more difficult than getting used to the foreign culture. There are many theories on why, but I believe that our concept of “normal” has changed. Also, how do you put the extreme poverty that we sometimes see against people spending outrageous amounts of money. The fact that all Americans are not rich and in fact can be quite poor although they make a lot by Honduran standards has been a common topic of conversation lately.
