Volunteer Visit / Projects / Life

Now the theme of this post is going to appear to be beer, but beer, or the lack thereof, consumes my life right now and thus overshadows my true message, which I hope I will still make clear.

Drinking isn’t really done in Honduras because there is such a problem here with bolos (drunks). Honduras is a really conservative country, and therefore people don’t really drink because you can get a bad reputation. Also, they have bolos. I have yet to encounter a bolo, but I hear they’re pretty ridiculous. These men drink to the point that they pass out EVERY NIGHT on the street. They eat, sleep, defecate, and most importantly drink in the same vicinity all the time. This level of alcoholism is unheard of in the U.S.

Anyways, considering the stigma alcohol has and the crime situation, Peace Corps most certainly discourages drinking, especially in large amounts. Women especially are not encouraged to ever drink in public because our communities will then consider us to be “loose women.” Women don’t drink in public and they don’t go to bars. When I leave my site, I can drink, but then I have to be conscious of the reputation of the person I would be visiting. Bummer.

So, most of us being in our twenties and still in the alcohol consumption stage in life, are going NUTS. I think all we talk about is beer. We had a field trip last Friday to the local water system in Valle de Angeles and all we talked about on the car ride back was what beers we would love to be drinking that moment. One of the guys, Juan, moans and says, simply, “Guinness and fish and chips,” before someone smacked him in the back of the head; he’d hit too close to home with that one. Heh.

So, basically the only time I can consume an alcoholic beverage without making my community hate me is by being in a restaurant outside of my immediate community. Therefore, last Saturday, after Matt and I used the internet, we met up with the rest of the crew and got a couple of beers. I had Imperial, which isn’t a bad beer, and definitely was satisfying, but is basically the Stella of Latin America. Light. Basic.

Now here’s what I should really be talking about: Sunday I have the joy of navigating myself four hours West to visit a Wat/San Volunteer to shadow until Wednesday morning. Volunteer Visits are the beginning step to helping us decide what we want to do in our projects. Our Volunteers are picked according to our similar backgrounds. They’re supposed to be really fun. They used to happen on the weekends, but people just screwed around, so now we go during the working week to make sure we actually learn stuff. It seems as though Peace Corps has gotten wise to many opportunities in which Volunteers/Trainees chose to have fun rather than completely focus on work, and they seemed to have changed these opportunities with our training group. That’s fine with me.

Anyways, we’d heard that there was an ex-pat in Honduras that started a pizzeria/micro-brewery. Now, take a wild guess who is going to be close to said brewery…
ME! I win the Volunteer Visit lottery!! Pshaw to all those people bragging about being close to the beach! I have beer. I think about 5 people are approached me asking me to bring back some good ‘ole dark beer for them.

That ends my beer rant. The Volunteer Visit will be interesting considering last week Juan Carlos just scared us about buses getting robbed and the bandits taking women. Also, my Spanish isn’t quite at the level of me feeling comfortable venturing out on my own, but it will be a great experience.


Projects

Our Wat/San group has 18 trainees. Half are engineers with degrees, the other half are currently feeling like Peace Corps made a big mistake putting us in Wat/San. Wat/San Volunteers are in almost every department in Honduras. We are clustered, which means one engineer “supports” the technicians in the department.

Now being one of those unfortunate people without an engineering degree, I can most certainly train to become an engineer if I’m interested. Thing is, we did basic math (basic being trig) last week and I just about died. I hate math. I’m kind of freaking out, thinking that I won’t finding my niche in the Wat/San life. At least I have about nine other people just as frustrated with finding the cosine of some darn triangle. I mean, the stuff we’re doing right now were entry level classes for the engineers…

Wednesday was fun though because we got to play and construct a hand pump. Each group had about three people and we got just a diagram and had to improvise and construct these pumps with the materials Carlos (project manager) gave us. He’s so funny, being a Honduran man, was amazed when my group of all females successfully hammered a nail through PVC. Every time we have an activity he comes up to me and says, “Hannah, esta bien? Do you like this, what do you think?” Did I inadvertently tell them I hated water and sanitation during my technical interview? I don’t understand why he seems to think I’m a fish out of water. I mean, I think I’m a fish out of water, but I thought I was hiding it really well. Hah.

Today each of the programs in Honduras presented on how the sectors overlap. Honduras has: business, health, youth development, protected areas management (PAMers), and the best WAT/SAN! So we basically heard how Volunteers in Wat/San collaborate with health Volunteers on projects; sharing expertise to optimize the impact on the community. I should have been a health Volunteer. Nah, I mean I’m not regretting my decision, but I doubt I will go the engineer route and I’m going to have to get more comfortable. It’s intimidating working with people who have worked for several years as civil engineers or have their master’s degree in engineering.

But, the Volunteer Visits are meant to help us find out place in our projects. Andrea, my Volunteer, supposedly has a similar background and talking to her will help direct me.

Here’s to not getting stuck in a roadblock and to finding a micro-brewery!

Chequeleque (ok, got it.)

Cheque.