Honduras: Returns From The Fields (cont.)

He chomps into it, tears a piece off with his teeth, and chews. He gnaws and sucks until he has gotten all the juice out and then spits the refuse to the side.  He tells us that we will be required to peel our own before we can partake.

This is ample motivation for me because I am very hungry. The meal plan at the farm consists of three meals a day consisting almost exclusively of beans and tortillas. The prospect of something else to chew on excites me, so I volunteer to take first crack at the sugar cane.

My efforts to operate a machete are embarrassing. The first few swings don’t look like an effort to peel the sugar cane so much as an idiot banging a machete and sugar cane together for fun. Eventually I graduate to making deep but ineffective cuts deep into the center, and finally I figure out how strip away the exterior, but still I am not able to produce the long beautiful strips that the Rollington had. I chip the stalk away. Progress is slow. The boys have stopped working altogether and give me the same undivided attention they gave Rollington when he performed. Only now they are laughing; I have been introduced as a comedy act.

When I finally get the sugar cane peeled, I bite into it. It’s sweet and fibrous. Besides being chewed in the fields or being used as sweetener in coffee, sugar cane is often cut up into sticks and sold in plastic bags at markets as a children’s treat. I can see why. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but it's delicious.

Brian is up next and much to the delight of the boys he can’t even cut into the sugar cane with the machete. I felt a little better about my performance until Paula enthusiastically jumps up for her turn. She’s able to nearly reproduce the strips that Rollington made, humbling Brian, and me. She attributes this success to her Columbian background. It’s in her blood, she says.

Shortly afterwards one of the school's teachers enters the field. He’s dressed just like the boys with slicked back hair streaked with grey, and he has/keeps a neat mustache. He appears stoic as he surveys our work, until we start asking him questions. He has a wealth of information about the crops we are working amongst. The crop we’re currently surrounded by is called malanga. It is a versatile crop. They grind up the large green leaves and put them in the feed to keep the animals healthy. They put it in soup. You can even eat the root straight with salt and pepper. He disappears for a moment and returns with a small flower pinched between his thumb and forefinger. I didn’t get its name, but it is gorgeous. The petals are purple with white tendrils capped in yellow points bent outward from the center. As we marvel over the thing, he cracks a smile.

He explains the agricultural school has two affiliated schools: a school for younger children, and a technical school. The technical school provides most of furniture for the agricultural school, including the beds we sleep on. The agricultural school grows most of the food to feed all three schools. The farming is essentially left to the boys, the teachers’ only role besides leading class is to go around and ensure that nothing is going catastrophically wrong. Other than that the kids are left alone. Then it dawns on me. If these kids screw up, people go hungry. This is a huge responsibility for such young kids.  It is more responsibility than I carry as an adult, yet they seemingly carry the burden with ease.

After the teacher leaves, we continue working while discussing our favorite movies with the kids. It turns out we share a propensity for kung fu flicks. I’m the only American who knows what’s going on when one boy mentions Ong Bak is his favorite movie and momentarily strikes a fighting stance.

There is more than one element to volunteering. We all tend to focus on what we can give to the people we are trying to help. But as we walk back to the volunteer quarters to prepare for another lunch of beans and tortillas, I begin to think for the first time of volunteerism in other terms; as an opportunity to be accepted into a community in a way that is unavailable for most tourists.  We gain so much from the cultural exchanges and interactions with the people living there. It's not just about what you can give, but also about what you can bring back home for yourself.

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