So I was walking around my neighborhood the other day and I noticed that the back of this guys shirt said Dog Pound and the shirt was red, so as a good BU alum and rabid Terriers hockey fan I had to walk over and see if it was a BU t-shirt. Awesomely it was, though god knows he had no idea that the BU on the front meant Boston University, thus he was pretty confused when I told him a liked his shirt and that it was from my University. As I was walking away I realized that interestingly enough this camposino field hand working for my neighbor picking coffee is actually making more money daily than me (the actual BU graduate who spent 4 years and an ungodly amount of my parents money on getting that degree). This is because at this time of year an experienced coffee picker working in the mountains of rural Honduras can bring in like 400+ Lempiras in a day (around $22), while a lowly voluntario de cuerpo de paz averages like 165 Lempiras a day (around $8.50). So what I can not help but take away from this is that maybe I should have spent less time studying and more picking coffee grains and swinging machetes (incidentally I would also be like ten times more tanned and ripped if I had followed this path).
In another BU related story I was in Nuevo Ocotepeque, the closest decent sized town to me, driving with some of my Honduran friends a few months back. We were stopped at a stop sign when I noticed a tall red headed gringa (American woman) walking in our direction. I quickly assessed that she must have been a tourist since she was not one of the other three volunteers in the area. I also realized that she was wearing BC shorts. Of course the only thing I could think to do at the time was yell F*ck em up, F*ck em up, BC Sucks! at her out of my open window. As I was opening my mouth to do this I realized that this might be a weird thing to do to a stranger in a foreign country, not to mention a bit unnecessarily hostile. While I was trying to think of a more appropriate thing to say my friend drove off, leaving the woman on the corner looking at me with a confused look. As we drove off my friends began talking about how hot she had been, and I realized why this woman must have been so confused. She had just seen a car pull up full of Honduran dudes staring at her, which to any gringo living or traveling here in Honduras would not be the slightest bit strange, but with one gringo in the car, also just eyeballing her. I feel like she must have been left wondering if I was just the palest bluest eyed Honduran guy, or if I was just super assimilated into the culture.
