Jamil is from La Esperanza, Honduras, Below he talks about his childhood in Honduras.
La Esperanza, Honduras
My Childhood in Honduras
One of the earliest memories is when I went to the bus stop with my grandmother to pick up my mom as she was coming from work. There were a couple of years when I was a little kid in which my mom had to work out of town and she spent 5 days a week away, so I had to stay with my grandma. So every Friday afternoon was the happiest time of my life since I got to see my mom again after a long week. That’s my earliest and happiest memory as a child.
Fried plantains, beans, scrambled eggs and cream. Even though I didn’t grow up in the cost, where I was born, My family is from the Northern coast and all our traditions including breakfast were much more closely attached to the Northern Coast, than to Western Honduras which was where I grew up.
My mom gave me small toy cars as a treat that had “Coca Cola” written on them. I had a collection of those small cars.
Three people, my mom, my step-father and me.
I spoke two languages since I was a little kid. I went to a bilingual American school and I started learning English at the age of 4, by the time I was 7 I could speak fluent English.
I wanted to be an architect.
I was very afraid of crossing bridges and afraid of darkness of course.
Since I was a kid, I played football. In my country, Football is almost a religion; it is very close attached to our culture so everybody plays football in here. Also, I was very competitive as a kid, so I spent most of my time playing football. I also liked to play hide and seek, riding my bicycle and playing Mario Kart either on my computer or Nintendo.
Scooby Doo, Pokémon, and a Mexican TV show called “La Familia Peluche.” I also liked TV shows related to Paranormal activities.
Every book I had was related to geography, I loved spending my free time looking at atlases and encyclopedias.
I went to bed early, around 8:30pm ‘because I had to get up to go to school very early the next morning. Of course it changed, now it doesn’t matter at what time I get up the next morning, I usually go to bed around 11 or 12am.
It depends on the matter actually, but I have been asking myself that very question for a while now. I had the opportunity to study abroad for 4 years, and I was constantly asking myself if I was a true representation of my country. Honduras is a country in constant struggle, so most people have not had the chance to receive proper education or have not had the opportunity to show off their capacities, people here are conservative, sometimes narrow-minded, and centre their lives on religion. Based on this, I don’t consider myself an average Honduran, even though I am very proud of my country, my roots and my people, I have hope that people’s minds are changed through education and we can all build a progressive, forward-thinking society.
My friends and I loved to ride bicycles, played football and watch movies together. When high school started, we used to have pool parties every Friday with chips and soda, however as we were growing up, we started liking beer and going to bars to have fun and dance with girls even though we were not 18 yet. However the most “prohibited” thing we tried was beer, nothing ever got out of control and we never tried something else. We were all very well-behaved kids.
I really wanted to visit Spain, and finally when I was 12, I had the chance to visit and spent there 3 months. I also wanted to visit Russia, and I still do. I had an uncle who lived in Russia for a while and talked to me about the white nights in Saint Petersburg, and since I was a kid a dreamed about visiting there and experiencing that event. Italy and Greece and Lebanon were also on my bucket list.
Yeah, the first country I went to was Guatemala, and I visited there really often. I also traveled to Spain, Portugal, France, Costa Rica and El Salvador and the USA.