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Listen to Yuridia, the singer my grams listed at her first concert!

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HEY GRAMS! I MADE IT. (I KNOW YOU ARE READING THIS)

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One last post

This semester-long project came to an end. It was way much more fun than I expected, from talking to my grams to editing the blog appearance.

Grams was super excited about this school project, she said college students should do more things like this so they don’t forget about their grandmothers. “Please thank you professor for being so creative,” said grams.

From this project I learned so much things about the media, myself and my grams. 

The media: it has grown so much, modernized, everything is cheaper and easier to find.

Myself: I take a lot of the things I have access to for granted and I’ve been lucky enough to be born in this era when information is super easy to find and super high quality.

My grams: she’s a modern woman, she hasn’t stayed behind with older forms of media and is not scared to keep learning, she was hard working (she bought herself a TV!), she tries really hard to take good selfies.

Thanks Dr. Price for helping miss my grandma a little less, having these extensive conversations were very nice and gave me a break from other things in school.

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie 

Spring 2019

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Date #5

The very last one. I’ve enjoyed this semester-long project as much as grams has. It makes me miss her less. This time we were both having dinner at the same time while we talked. It was a kind of celebration the project was almost done. The remaining topic was print media.

My first questions was one I already knew the answer to: “Grams do you read books?” She answered: “You know well enough it was daddy the one who had a passion for books, next question please.” She said she hated reading books as a kid, whoever she blames her parents for not teaching her the culture of reading and they thought my grandpa. “My mom used to play cards, and sew. My dad would fish and that’s what we learned from them,” said grams.

I knew the next thing was something she can’t live without: the newspaper. Grams said whenever she was younger, subscriptions were not a thing. They would have to go to the market were they had “newspaper trucks” or to buy it from a kid in the streets. Grams said neighbors would take turns buying the newspaper and they would share it amongst the houses. “El Diario Comercial” was the name of the newspaper she read in Tela when she was younger. Today the newspaper is the only print subscription she still pays for, the newspaper she reads in the city is called La Prensa.

Regarding magazines, her favorite magazines were Paquines some type of cartoon/comic book magazines. She also remembers Pancho y Ramona another kids magazine with stories in it. Around 3 years ago she used to still pay for a subscription of a magazine called Estilo, this magazine is mainly about social life and events in Honduras as well as entertainment. She also used to pay for ¡Hola! An international magazine also about social lifestyles about artists. However, she thinks these have gotten too expensive now and she can still read about all this gossip on social media platforms. She did recognize magazines have improved their layouts and paper type making the lectures more attractive. My grams still expects her daughters to bring the magazines they have subscriptions for so she can read them after.

Paquines were my grams favorite childhood magazines, they contained comics and entertainment.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/420242208963569583/?lp=true

¡Hola! Magazine, my grams actual favorite magazine. It contains the social life of famous people and entertainment topics.

https://us.hola.com/realeza/casa_espanola/2015040877940/leonor-revista-hola/

Now my grams uses her Ipad to search for magazines online, reportages on the artists she likes to know about and social media platforms to stay in tune with Honduras elite. She’ll never prefer online news over the newspaper but does enjoy searching for videos on YouTube that summarize what is going on in the world.

I know this blog is about my grams but I would like to add my grandpa was a big reader and my grams still has a huge bookshelf with all the books, encyclopedias and magazines my grandpa had. He was a big fan of Time magazine and National Geographic and he kept all the issues he got. My grandma also kept a lot of old issues of Estilo and Hola, a few of these have disappeared because I used them for a school project. In conclusion print media was very bing in their house while my grandpa was still alive.

I asked my grams to take a picture of the bookshelf:

Grams bookshelf with all her and my grandpa’s books an magazines.

Photo © by Egna. Used by permission 

Some of these books are more than 50 years old.

Photo © by Egna. Used by permission 

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie

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Date #4

We are getting closer to the end and grams was right, without a doubt I could see of all the media we’ve talked about the ones she enjoyed and still enjoys the most are recordings. She loves music. This week’s topic was advertising/pr and bridesmaid wedding dresses.

I am the maid of honor of the bride in the wedding. My grams wanted me to help her and the bride find dresses for the rest of the bridesmaids. I told her whenever I felt like procrastinating my homework I would go online and look for those.

This conversation was clearly shorter, grams didn’t pay as much attention to advertisements in the past. However, I just found out she does more nowadays. When I asked her about billboards she said she remembers King Bee cigarettes, Hercules bicycles, El Barrilito Aguardiente (a type of strong alcohol), and Coca-Cola being the biggest advertisers.

King Bee cigarettes, one of the biggest companies in Honduras that would pay for billboards on the roads.

http://www.tttt.ru/countries_tools/countries/honduras/show_K.htm

Grams was never big on posters, she didn’t have any in her room, her parents would allow it but she didn’t really care about having them or cared about the ones around the town. On the other hand, catalogs were more of her thing. She remembered looking at Sears catalogs but never being able to order anything because they wouldn’t ship it back home. Grams said store windows in Tela weren’t actually decorated, everything was just there not even organized but she still enjoyed looking at the shoes whenever she walked by.

My grams would enjoy looking at these Sears catalogs, she wasn’t able to order from them because they didn’t ship to Honduras but she would get inspiration on the designs and sew a dress for herself.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/279504720593978540/?lp=true

I asked grams what she thought was the greatest difference between ads then and now and she said “the colors, the more attractive fonts, and the pictures.” She said before, ads would only be letters and no pictures and wouldn’t encourage her to anything. At the end of the conversation I was cracking up with her comment of how ads have an impact on her today:

“Sometimes I open the newspaper, and find a flyer with a lot of pictures of things on sale at La Colonia and off I go to buy my groceries. Also I get pizza coupons in the mailbox and there is no better excuse to ordering pizza just so I get to use the new coupons before they expire!”

La Colonia supermarket ad found in newspapers. These encourage my grams to go shopping.

http://local.elheraldo.hn/tegucigalpa-fm/compras/tiendas-por-departamentos/supermercados-la-colonia/2018-05-25-8575517-2-desayuney-hatiolet-13-cereal-colado-gerber-desguento-1139-regular-l-14-dot-95-cafe-oro-bolsa-regular-l-51-dot-95-1-slash-2-libra-regular-l-24-dot-95-oro-10-1-lot-dena-leche-nido-hot-cake-gold-nido-modal-original-450-g-bolsa-360-g-regul

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie

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Date #3

The way this blogs come to life is I talk to grams, I take notes on everything she says, then I translate my notes from Spanish to English and then I write the post. Since I was talking notes, i could see where this was going to. Grams childhood crushes! You are never a kid if you don’t have a crush on your favorite actor.

“We are talking about movies today,” I told grams. “Shoot, ask me everything you want to know.” she said. I love this, grams was so willing to talk about everything and we both enjoyed it. She started by telling me there were two movie theaters in Tela: “El Dorado y El Hispano.” Concessions were not super big, according to grams she can’t remember when did they start selling popcorn at movie theaters. In Tela, they would sells bags with peanuts and small Coca-Cola glass bottles. She loved the peanuts.

El Hispano movie theater in Teal, Honduras. One of the movie theaters my grams would go to.

http://local.elheraldo.hn/tegucigalpa-fm/compras/tiendas-por-departamentos/supermercados-la-colonia/2018-05-25-8575517-2-desayuney-hatiolet-13-cereal-colado-gerber-desguento-1139-regular-l-14-dot-95-cafe-oro-bolsa-regular-l-51-dot-95-1-slash-2-libra-regular-l-24-dot-95-oro-10-1-lot-dena-leche-nido-hot-cake-gold-nido-modal-original-450-g-bolsa-360-g-regul

During the week most movies were usually at night and on Sundays they had matinees for kids. She said they were never prohibited any movie. “Back then the worst thing in movies would be women who were riding horses would get kidnapped,” said grams.

I was very eager to ask about drive-in movie theaters because I’ve never been to one and I was not sure if they existed in Honduras. She said she had been to one once, it didn’t sound very convincing to me. I had a feeling there was a story behind drive-ins. Before I asked where she sat she said “Oh, couples took advantage to heavily makeout in the back whenever they went there.” She didn’t disclose any details about the one time she went to the drive-in she did say she was single!

When I asked grams about her favorite movies I could see her eyes light up and a big smile. She was very confident her favorite movies were Cantinflas’ movies, some sort of mexican comedy. “Rock Hudson, how handsome that $%!@ was, I loved his movies!” said grams. The list went on: John Wayne, Kirk Douglas…

Cantiflas, the main actor in my grams favorite movies. They were Mexican comedies.

She says most of the movies that would screen in the movie theater would be Mexican movies. She thinks modern movies are a little boring and cliche but does enjoy a romantic movie every now and then on Netflix. Now, she doesn’t goes to the movies as much because she falls asleep in the middle of the movie. “I really enjoyed watching the Hannah Montana movie in the theater ” said grams. That was 10 years ago!

El Dorado movie theater in Teal, Honduras. Another movie theater my grams used to go to when she was younger.

http://fotosantiguashonduras.blogspot.com/2009/03/la-ceiba.html

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie

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Date #2

I called grams this week and this time she said she was ready to talk about the next topic without any distractions. Even before she ended her sentence she started talking about her friend which is not doing very well, but it’s fine, I like listening to my grams. This week we talked about television and cable and also this time around I even had snacks considering the length of our last conversation.

This black and white TV model is very similar to the one my grams owned. “It looked like a toaster oven,” said grams.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/18718154672389163/?lp=true

 After I let grams know what the topic was, and before I started asking questions “Ben Casey in black and white!” she said. Grams said the very first time she saw TV was at her neighbors, she would go with her siblings to different houses and they would stay for a while and watch. However, when she was 18, she and a couple of her brothers got a loan and bought their own TV for the house. “This time it was the neighbors coming to us because we had the latest model.”

She said at first without cable TV, they only had 3 channels! One for cartoons, one for Ben Casey, the serie she mentioned before, and one for instrumental music. There were no news or weather channels. The most common brands who would pay for ads were Rayovac, Sherwin Williams, Alka Seltzer and Nervo Forza (some type of vitamin brand).

Ben Casey, my grams favorite series whenever she was younger. It was a drama series of a young resident surgeon.

 “When do you remember watching TV in color for the first time?” I asked grams. “Well if your dad is 50 years old and daddy bought a color TV home whenever he was 2, around 48 years ago.” Wow! I was so impressed by this answer, I thought it was so recent.

Today grams couldn’t live without cable TV, she does watch Netflix on weekends usually. In her opinion there are no good TV shows on the weekends. She watches a lot of talk shows that only air during the week. Her favorite shows include different soap operas, Despierta America, La Voz and El Gordo y La Flaca. She watches Univision a lot.

A GIF of the cooking section of Despierta America, a morning show on Univision. My grams watches it everyday.

This time around it was a shorter talk with grams, she stayed on topic.

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie

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My dates with grams

My grams and I have have been inseparable since my birth. For these past two years we’ve been 1,768 miles away. It hasn’t been the easiest, but thanks to technology it has been bearable. Whenever I’m home, my grams and I usually go to lunch or coffee together at least once a week. Due to the circumstances we decided to have Facetime dates! I grab a cup of coffee, she does too and we would both sit in our kitchens imagining we were at the same table.

My grams has always been a very talkative person, I have no doubt she will be enjoying this semester long project. Her name is Egna, I call her grandma, she calls my grandpa (who may rest in God’s peace) daddy, and for the purpose of this project I’m shortening it up to grams. Grams was born in Tela, Honduras, a small town close to the cost, in 1943.

As I said before, my grams is a very talkative person, our first conversation went on for 30 minutes before we could start the actual interview. She’s preparing for her youngest son’s wedding and wouldn’t stop talking about dresses.

When we finally got to talk about the project we decided we would be talking about radio and recordings. “Oh that’s my favorite topic” said grams. Even without knowing what the future topics would be about. Grams had 11 siblings, 10 of them are still alive. She started telling me how whenever she was 13 years old all of her siblings would gather around in the living room to listen to their recorder play. They could listen to any kind of music they wanted to. “Romantic music was the one we enjoyed listening the most” said grams. They had a record player and a console which she explained was a record player in a big wooden box. Grams attended her first concert in her late 30s early 40s! It was at El Estadio Morazan and Yuridia was singing. “She entered the stage in a motorcycle!” screamed grams.

This is what the console my grams described looked like. She had one of these in the living room and would listen to romantic songs with her siblings.

https://www.clasf.mx/consola-tocadiscos-en-guadalajara-7419874/

Estadio Morazan, San Pedro Sula, Honduras. This is the stadium where my grams went to her first concert. It was Yuridia singing.

https://www.diariomas.hn/2017/01/31/fotogaleria-esta-condiciones-estadio-morazan-la-eliminatoria/

Radio was never big for her. She remembers listening to La Habana, Cuba radio stations. She said she could listen to radio novelas (radio soap-operas) and “musica gringa,” a gringo/a is considered a foreigner from the perspective of a Latin American, usually from an English speaking country. Same as the recorder, grams and her siblings would listen to their novelas in the living room. They were not allowed to take any of these things to their bedrooms. Grams said the radios had tubes and little light bulbs in them, and whenever these broke it was time to buy another radio because there was no one who could fix it in the small town she lived in. Ads were not very common on radio as they are now according to grams. “Come to Burger King, get a whopper and a sandwich for half the price! Party next weekend with Bomba Estereo live” said grams trying to imitate the ads on the radio nowadays.

“Daddy would never loosen up that radio, everywhere he went he would take it with him!” Grams said she clearly never listens to radio anymore unless the lights go out (which is very common in Honduras). “What do you listen to now grams?” I asked. She went on rambling about how she loves Bad Bunny, Maluma and J Balvin. These are three spanish-singing trap artist. It is normally what young people would listen to back home, the lyrics to their songs included a lot of cursing and sexual implications. She said she enjoys watching them perform on TV and looking up videos on YouTube of their concerts. YouTube on her Ipad was the most common way to listen to music now.

Bad Bunny. Regaetton singer, my grams loves looking at his looks and trying to figure out what are the hidden meanings in his songs even though they are more catered towards the younger population.

That was the conversation I managed to have with grams before she started talking about the wedding food menu! I can’t wait to talk with her about the next topic.

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie