Como Matar un Pajaro:

Warning: I don’t know how true the following story is about the Honduran culture in general or if the other volunteers and I even understood properly what was being said to us, but the following story is, to my knowledge, truthful in its entirety.

Our story begins as most do: a bird shat on Melissa. It was messy, it was kind of gross, and needless to say, we couldn’t help from laughing. We had been eating in the house of a family in Corralitos, and for a pet they had a small green bird which sat on a peg in the kitchen (which had been poorly placed over the seat in which Melissa had been sitting). Being obliging hosts, they did all they could to clean the shirt. Later in the day, the kids had gotten access to my camera and busied themselves for the next hour or so by taking a picture of any and everything they came across (with most pictures composed largely of their own hands holding the camera). As it came closer to time to leave, I realized that I needed a picture of the perpetrating bird (who could pass on such a rare opportunity to obtain a visual memento of such a memorable occasion). I moved in to get a close picture of the bird and raised my camera to focus in. De repente (suddenly), the entire family jumped from their seats and began yelling at me in unison. Fearing I had done something wrong, I explained that I was only going to take a picture of the bird. Turns out, that is exactly what they had been yelling about. They explained that, if I were to take a picture of the bird, that it would die (looking back, I wish I had enquired more into why they thought this, but at the time all of my focus went into holding back the puzzled look and/or laughter that was waiting to burst free from my being). If anything, hearing this just made me want to take a picture of the bird all the more (to test this theory properly), but respecting their beliefs I abstained from further photography. The next time you take a picture of a bird, just remember that it may be the last thing that bird ever sees.