This morning I searched on Amazon and found some dress pants I could have shipped to my Mom's house. They were only $25 each. But who knows if they'd fit? My best bet for office clothes is used clothing stores in Honduras.
Honduras has a lot of used clothing stores. They bring tons and tons (literally) of used clothing from the US and sell it here. I've found lots of good stuff in my time here. I always go to the same two stores. One has cheap prices. The other has a girl who knows my taste. We have a little routine. I pick out a couple of things to try on and tell her what I'm looking for. Then I stay in the dressing room while she hands me more and more clothes until I find what I like. It's like having a personal shopper. I don't mind paying a dollar more for the convenience.
Let me give you a mental image of her store. It is a small room, wide enough for clothes to hang on the left and right walls, with one rack down the middle. There is a thin aisle to walk on each side of the middle rack. On the tiny back wall there is a mirror and a red curtain. Today there was a little girl sleeping on the tile floor, beneath the mirror. Behind the red curtain is a bathroom which serves as a dressing room, The water doesn't work in the toilet or the tiny sink, which is good because you can pile all of your clothes in the sink and not worry about them getting wet. There is also a pila.
So this pila is inside of the dressing room. As I try on my clothes behind a curtain I am thinking that most North Americans would not like to buy clothes here. I am thinking that I have really gotten accustomed to life in Honduras because these crazy dressing rooms, with kids asleep on the floor outside, don't even faze me any more.
When I find something I like, I step over the sleeping girl and look in the mirror outside. The girl who works there "Ooooohs" and "Ahhhhhhhs" and tells me how pretty I look. Even if I don't. Today I tried on a shade of green that made my skin look deathly pale. She insisted I looked great, and very white. That part was true. I did look very, very white. Most of my Honduran friends talk about wishing their skin were lighter, so maybe the half dead look was a positive thing to her.
While trying on clothes I put on a blouse, pull back the curtain and left up my leg to step over a cement thing in the floor but before I get out of the room I am stopped in my tracks. Three men are standing there, with huge guns strapped across their chest, dressed in military uniforms. They are big. It feels like they take up the whole store. And they are staring at me. I inhale sharply and throw out my arm like a policeman trying to stop traffic. I don't know what that was supposed to do. But that's what I did.
They all look at me. As I write this I realize that I must have been a strange sight to them, too. It's not every day a "gringa" pops out of the dressing room, throws her arm out at them, and freezes with one leg in the air.
Finally I realize that my leg is in the air and my hand is trying to stop bullets. Probably my eyes are bulging out of my head and my mouth is wide open too. I pull myself together, take a quick look in the mirror, then disappear into the dressing room feeling their eyes heavy on me the whole time. I'm grateful the curtain falls completely shut behind me.
There is no threat. I feel so foolish for the way I acted when they surprised me! They are taking a break from work and doing a little shopping. The head guy wants to leave. But one of the other men tells him, "No, you have to take your time and look through everything. That's the best way to shop."
I tried on the next blouse as slowly as possible. When I couldn't hide in the bathroom any longer I walked out with all eyes on me again. I looked in the mirror as if nobody else was there. And then ducked back behind the curtain. When I came out next they were gone.
I told the girl, "They scared me! I am not used to seeing men with big guns like that. I thought I was getting used to it, but I am not!"
She laughed and said, "Don't worry. They scared me too. I was standing here, sorting through the rack of pants and I looked up at them and gasped like you did."
We both laugh. I feel a lot better. As always, she gives me a good deal. I bought 3 pairs of dress pants and 5 blouses for $35. Even better than shopping at Ross! And much more exciting.
