Lesson #5: Honduran Homes Do Not Allow for Privacy

Since moving to Honduras, I've experienced a decrease in personal boundaries and space. Walking home at night, I can easily peer into families' homes and witness them watching television on the couch, eating dinner, or doing whatever manner of evening activities inside their houses. There is an obvious lack of curtains covering people's windows...including mine. Thankfully, I have a curtain to cover my bedroom window, but that is the only curtain in my house. Because I live on the top story of our housing complex, thankfully people can not easily look into our house...unless they are trying. On more than one occassion I've experienced people peering into my kitchen window. That seems to be the more common thing to do instead of knocking on the door, which is right beside the kitchen window. Actually, several of the teachers have children who peer into their windows and watch them every day as they go about their business...it usually seems to be the kitchen windows that get all the onlookers.
The way that I've noticeably experienced a decrease in personal boundaries is due to the fact that the houses here in Honduras are also all made of cement. Cement houses have no insulation...from weather or sound. Sounds carry like crazy here...and I hear sounds all the time! Sounds that probably happen all the time in normal life in the United States...but I'm normally never aware that they are happening outside or in other people's homes. I hear various sounds regularly throughout the course of my day:
I wake up at 4:15 to the sounds of roosters making crazy crowing noises...not regular rooster crows...chickens make weird sounds here.
As I sit and read in my sitting room in the morning, I here the people below my house next door waking up and getting ready for the morning. I hear them conversing; but then I also hear a man every morning hocking up loogies. The first few times that I heard this, Tiffany and I both thought he was throwing up. But, when these noises continued every morning, we realized that the problem was just congestion. Next, I hear the water running and I assume the people are washing...something. Interestingly, I can even hear the men next door using the bathroom...whatever kind of facility it may be.
Throughout the course of the day (if I'm home), I can hear children walking by and whistling through their hands. It took me a long time to figure out what was making this sound...it sounds like an extremely annoying and persistent recorder.
At school, sounds carry into my classroom all day. Our classrooms are also made of cement, and have giant windows with only screens covering them. During the day, sounds of children running and sceaming as they play ball in the feild outside of my classroom and sounds of the teachers teaching throughout the building and even the building next door carry into my classroom.
At home in the evenings, the church next door begins blasting their church music every night and then broadcast some type of sermon. The sound drowns out all others (inside and outside the house). I've begun closing all my windows and doors to get some sort of quiet.
I also am never able to have a personal conversation here...no matter where I am, my conversations can be heard from within and without...even if I'm in my own room. I feel as though I can't say anything unless I want everybody to hear it and know it.(Although it helps that if I am speaking in English most of the people in the neighborhood can't understand me.)
When I finally lay down in my bed to sleep, I often hear the dogs fighting outside. The barking begins with the sound of only a few dogs, then it sounds as though every other dog in the entire neighborhood joins in on the howling and barking and growling. The sound is incredible. As the night goes on, I can hear the sound of random gunshot and/or firecrackers going off somewhere in the distance...I have no idea why.
Living here, I feel as though every thing here is so much more open...not as private. Sounds and sights are public...not personal or private. This openness seems to both influence and be influenced by the culture. The people here are so open and have a much less defined sense of personal space. Hondurans sit closely together on public busses and they greet each other with hugs and kisses on the cheeks. It's such a different way to live... unrestricted by boundaries.