The Day Honduras Really Kicked My Butt

So Honduras gets me on a regular basis. We’re running like Honduras 123,767,454,345,987,456 to Hannah’s like … maybe 5. That’s being optimistic. So today I started a new study in Gualme. We’re improving an old study that they have because, they tell me, they’ve always had problems with their system.
So we go out and I always feel a little self-conscious on the first day. First, it’s a man’s world down here and being a woman, no matter how educated, doesn’t always get you the respect that you’d hope for. In all actuality, the men in more rural areas are much nicer, but still. Also, I’m around all these campesinos who have grown up in the woods and their romping around like it ain’t no thing. So in the end I feel like I have to prove myself.
We’re crossing all these creeks and they’ve got their high rain-boot like things on and walking straight through the water. I have my, albeit nice hiking boots on, but they do eventually let the water in and I was having a harder time crossing these creeks. My name may be Graceful One, but that I am not. Eventually I gave up and started trudging through the creeks being all like … “Whatever I won’t die of wet feet!” I was trying to be all cool and smooth, which I have never been in my life!
So it’s been raining a lot and we were in a heavily forested area so things were quite slippery. From their dam we followed the creek going up and down and all around.
Ok so here’s when Honduras got me. I had just taken a shot a couple of feet above the creek. There was barely enough space on the ledge for me and the tripod. The kid carrying my equipment (tripod with Carl Theodolite on top) was climbing up the embankment/hill and I climbed up after him. He’s climbing and I’m climbing … he’s falling and I’m falling.
He started to fall down the embankment and all I could think is, “Not the equipment!” So I kind of stood behind him hoping that my weight would stop his momentum. I don’t really know what I was thinking in the end. Anyways, my weight didn’t stop his momentum and as a result I went flying down off the embankment and about 7-8 feet below into the creek. Somehow, SOMEHOW I landed semi-on my feet and didn’t crack my head open on the massive rock in the creek bed. OH and Armando had his machete hooked through his belt which, on my way down, slashed a couple of gashes into my thumb. Nothing big, but the gashes combined with landing on that palm has made my poor left hand sore.
In all my toughness I refused to let them feel bad about me and was like, “Equipment is more important!” Silently in my head I just wanted to go home and watch more House episodes and by the end of the night be convinced that I had some freaky, rare worm growing in my cuts. I think I did impress them though because I jumped right up and got back to things. I did drop the entire notebook in the water too, which was upsetting until I realized all my numbers were still intact.
I few minutes later I tripped and landed on the same hand and now have a stigmata-like wound on the palm too. All in all … good day. Gained some tough points!