Be Yourself

Dear readers,

A very quick poem. Enjoy.

Be Yourself

It’s important not to be someone you’re not,

Losing sight of yourself and forgetting your self-worth,

Not fulfilling the life God gave you,

All those years ago at birth.

If anyone were to ask you,

“Who would you like to be?”

You’ll have to ask yourself more profound questions,

If the answer you have isn’t “me”.

Lizzie’s Legends Fundraising Page

Dear readers,

I promised my sister a week or so to put this fundraiser on my blog. Wedding planning has been taking up my time. My darling sister, Elizabeth Rogers, has been in contact with an old school friend, Elizabeth Corser, who set up a fundraising page to raise money for a small charity, Pancreatic Cancer Action. For Elizabeth Corser, who I shall now refer to as Lizzie, it is an important charity, in that her father, David, is battling against the illness. He diagnosed with the advanced pancreatic cancer in July 2014 and given a year to live, but he has been receiving treatment and is fighting hard.

I am not going to go into too much detail as I will only be repeating what is already written on Lizzie’s website, but it is great to see her being proactive. With help from her friends (one of them of course is my sister) they are running 10k at the end of May. I’m a little unsure where, however.

Amazingly, they have already reached the 1500 pound target (sorry for not using the pound sterling symbol. It doesn’t appear on Honduran keyboards). I do ask if you keep donating, however, as it is going to an important and well worthy cause. Here is a link. http://m.virginmoneygiving.com/mt/uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=lizzielegends&isTeam=true&un_jtt_redirect=un_jtt_iosV&hc_location=ufi

From a personal point of view, I wish David all the best in his fight against the illness. I also send my love to Lizzie. You’re doing a great thing!

My Blood

Dear readers,

It’s the season for them. I hate them. I killed one the other day which left a small drop of my blood on my bedsheets. Unfortunately the damage had already been done. There were about four volcano like lumps on my arm, with a little crater of blood in the middle. I had no guilt of killing it. I hope it’s not a mortal sin.

Here’s a poem about them. Mosquitos.

My Blood

I feel your caressing touch

In the sultry dead calm of the devil’s hour.

Dehydrated, you lie next to me,

Rather than in the meadows full of fat cows and lush flowers.

I hear your deathly buzzing whisper

Hovering intimately above my ear,

Not for a second am I enticed by your wicked, wicked charm,

Though the effects of your bite fills me with fear.

I cover myself up of my nakedness

As I despise being touched by you,

Though you keep me up in a feverish angst,

What you carry I haven’t got a clue.

I barely feel your caressing palms,

There’s not a sound as you pierce my skin,

You leave without saying goodbye,

As faintly as a drop of a pin.

You leave me with a swelling pain,

Like a snap slap upon my skin,

And you’ve taken what you want from me,

Heartless, like a man made of tin.

When I get up in the morning,

I feel I have been lusted for but received no joy,

Tonight I will not forget to apply suffocating repellent,

That lube you will not enjoy.

Theory of Literature

Dear readers,

I am hereby breaking the rules of haiku poems. I couldn’t remember the structure last night while I was having pupusas and gringas for tea. I thought it was an 8-7-8 syllable poem. Why, I don’t know. I kept playing with it and now I have no idea how many syllables it has. It turns out it should be 5-7-5.

Literature

A theory of literature;

Imprints of a soul and heart,

And their experiences carved in ink.

I am

Dear readers,

I was given the idea to write this poem by a colleague. She teaches two high school students a couple of afternoons a week who struggle a little bit with their English. I taught the students a couple weeks ago while the teacher was away and I did a couple of Desert Island Disc activities (which is a great way of practising past tense; while also giving the students practice at expressing themselves). I also did a sensory poem about the sea, which I think the students enjoyed less, but it spurred the teacher to do some poetry writing on her return. She showed them a poem structure of the “I am” poem, another great way to express yourself.

Here is the pattern.

So I thought I would challenge myself to write it myself. Here it is. Me laid bare!

I am

I am an impassioned yet delicate man.

I wonder up adventurous yet perversely absurd thoughts.

I hear words that mix my emotions in a havocking peace.

I see mountains that I’m still yet to climb.

I want to shred my mind from deviance.

I am an impassioned yet delicate man.

I pretend that I’m a rock star.

I feel that I’m a lazy tiger.

I touch my dreams yet I do everything to live them.

I worry for my parents faraway,

I cry when I think of people I’m going to miss.

I am an impassioned yet delicate man.

I know that the world probably started with God.

I say that science tells many truths, too.

I dream I’ll be a happy, millionaire writer.

I try to be popular yet not in the spotlight.

I hope for peace, no matter how much a cliche it may be.

I am an impassioned yet delicate man.

Chiki and Lipstickfables

Dear readers,

This morning while going to work, Alan, who gives me a ride to work, pointed out Chiki, who’s name was pointed out on a newspaper advertisement alongside Messi. I had no idea who Chiki was, but Alan told me that she has become something of an internet sensation here by posting videos of herself doing humorous, or saying humorous things about her culture. She is a bit like a mocking video blogger, speaking from a “humble” perspective, saying that she has to straighten her hair with an iron because she’s poor and can’t afford a hair straightner.

She has been mentioned on television programmes and has been picked up in the mass media. I’ll be quite honest, she speaks quite fast, so I cannot understand everything she says. I have spoken to a couple more people about her, some find her a bit naff, while others like her.

Here is a copy of one of her videos nonetheless.

Another video blogger who has been around for some time is Lipstickfables, a Catracha living in the USA. Maybe a bit more sophisticated than Chiki, she has done many posts about “Hondureñismos” (typically Honduran sayings), many of which are jokey and humorous, while others are about her culture in a slightly more profound tone.

Enjoy!

Eduardo Galeano

Dear readers,

At the end of yesterday’s update, I told you of Eduardo Galeano’s passing. Fans of famous people often do really bad drawings of their idols and then send their portraits to their idols. At the Noel Gallagher gig I went to in 2012, there was a man with a Gallagher brother tattoo on each of his shoulder blades. While being a fan of Oasis, I can hereby say to the world that I will NOT be copying this man’s actions.

For Eduardo Galeano, however, an important author in Latin American, writer of Open Veins Of Latin America, I did this bulletin board at work. Something of an obituary. I hope he’s looking down at me with pride. If you’re wondering what QDEP means, it roughly translates as RIP.

Time

Dear readers,

It’s been an age since I last wrote. Semana Santa saw me being baptised by the Cardinal of Tegucigalpa. Family and friends from the UK probably never thought that they would see that day. But time does funny things to people, and people stroll down avenues based on what life teaches them. Despite the criticism the Catholic Church gets, some of it fair, some of it isn’t, it’s a route I’ve chosen. Sins and confessing them will take some getting used to. But I feel it’s helping me kill some bad habits which I’ve had for years. But it’s not a time to look to regret the past. It’s a constructive way to embrace the future.

I was looking at some books at the library and see the dates that they had been rented by different kids. In some of the kids books there are names of students who I know and are now in 11th grade or have left, who rented books in 2009. To the kids, this is a huge chunk of time in their lives. It is in all of ours. But I charted my life back to 2009 and remembered that I was working in Refugee Council without a clue that I would be coming to Honduras, let alone marrying and living here. Time does funny things to people. I am going to include a photo of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I am currently reading 100 Years of Solitude; many people on Facebook could not believe I hadn’t read it when I wrote it in my status). It has a nice quote, which I have dedicated to a colleagues because it is her birthday today, and I have also based a little poem on it.

Time

Time, like patience, is precious.

Retain it and use it wisely,

Look back to the past with a fond eye,

And the future will come more kindly.

Dates and ages; just life in numbers,

Thank that nobody can rate your own memories.

Experience and wisdom is what we live for,

Good or bad, they’re the stepping stones to our dreams and destinies.

End

Just a sad note. I heard that Eduardo Galeano died today. He wrote arguably one of the most important non-fiction books about Latin America, a book that I have been reading on and off for some time; Open Veins of Latin America. I recommend it. Hypocritcal to my poem above saying that age is just a number, he died at the grand age of 74. Let him rest in peace.