Participants Blog

Beautifully tragic or tragically beautiful ?

When I first arrived in Tegucigalpa, my initial reaction was “what an interesting city!”  The mountainous landscape, the chaotic traffic scene, the random juggler performing for you as you stop at a traffic light, and mango trees planted in the backyard of every house were all very fascinating to me.  The one thing that I disliked though was the crowdedness of the city.  I couldn’t walk for more than 5 steps without being stopped by either a car, a dog, or another person.  I had started to feel a little claustrophobic.  That’s why when I arrived at my permanent placement in Comayagua, a city approximately 60 km from the capital, a sigh of relief was released.  From the first view, Comayagua looked much less populous than Tegucigalpa.  The land was flatter, the cars moved a little slower, the streets were emptier, and the city just seemed a little nicer.  As one of the capitals in Honduras during the Spanish colonization, much of the artifacts, churches, and buildings left behind from that era can be found here in Comayagua.  Unfortunately, Comayagua looks nothing like a museum city.  Much of the artifacts have not been properly preserved, and the city looks more like a historical ruin with broken down buildings, and unpaved roads.  I’m not quite sure what to make of it.  Comayagua definitely does not look ugly, but there’s a certain tragic beauty to it that quenches my heart as I admire the colonial history.