At times, because I am spending so much time speaking Spanish, I completely lose my ability to speak English. There is a rule that exists when learning a new language, that when in doubt you don’t know the word in one language, you use the other. Therefore, I might slip some Spanish words into my blogs or just totally write like a fourth grader because I can’t remember how to form more complex sentences. Entonces (see! meaning then/therefore) FYI. Lo siento.
Wat/San-ers work a lot with health themes, because our work very much incorporates health problems. We work with latrines and water systems, and how, when you’re giving a community a charla (talk/instruction) on their new water system, can you not also go into proper use of water and the health risks if you don’t maintain a clean water system? So, one of the big pushes from Martin (the HEAD of the Wat/San program) is to get Wat/San-ers to work more in charlas, because we tend to resist giving them. That’s what happens when you get a whole bunch of engineers/awkward people together into one program!
So, yesterday a few of the health Volunteers came and gave us a multi-hour charla on HIV/AIDS (VIH/SIDA en Honduras) so that we could then give the same charla today (I have to write the blog while I’m still suffering the after-shock). Great.
Now, this was all planned for us, all we had to was actually give the lesson, but that’s like saying, “Well you have a parachute, now all you have to do is jump out of the plane!” Not only were we doing this in Spanish, but to colegio students (high school freshman). Plus, they’re not like American kids, where they see sex in the culture and all over the t.v. These kids are more sheltered because they live in a conservative country and are really only taught abstinence. Entonces, this was probably the first time they had ever heard in depth about VIH/SIDA and how to put a condom on an erect penis. Yes, yes I had to do that with 26 15 year-olds. ME! :Pause for reaction:
Now, it continues to amaze me that the Spanish language doesn’t have a single word that is the equivalent of AWKWARD. As a person that would probably choose awkward to describe their life as a whole, I am often without words to describe how my day has been. For instance, my host mom asked me when I walked in the door, “Como le fue (how did it go)?” and I wanted to shout “AWKWARD!” but alas there isn’t an equivalent and I always forget the various phrases, so I usually don’t really say anything. Awkward. Peace Corps has made me more convinced that I haven’t the slightest clue how to navigate social situations. So, to compensate for this grand lack of expression in my life, I am going to make up for it in this blog.
Now I was the kind of kid who just didn’t talk to people I didn’t know. I wasn’t quite on the par of my sister, who had to be bribed with a guinea pig to talk to family friends, but I was quite quiet. I still remember when my Dad would sit me down and say, “Hannah you’re just going to have to talk to people some time. At some point in your life, talking to other people is going to be necessary.” At first, I didn’t believe him, but eventually I figured out what he was talking about. I mean, I’m still less than proficient at making conversation, but at least I will speak to people when it becomes absolutely necessary; I still don’t always enjoy it. Entonces, imagine being such a person, learning a foreign language, talking about sexual relations in front of a whole bunch of adolescents.
“Que es homosexual, heterosexual y bi-sexual? Alguien sabe?”
(What is … …. … , Anyone know?”
CRICKETS. Well great! Let me just go ahead and explain that to you in my DAZZLING Spanish.
My response more or less was equivalent to this complexity … “Men sleep with men. Women sleep with women…” and on.
AKWARD.
I such a topic would be difficult in English, but forget about spending FOUR HOURS teaching Hondurans about HIV/AIDS. I literally thought I was going to vomit this morning. Literally. So, there’s no way around it, obviously it had to happen.
The kids were pretty diplomatic, as always and only really laughed at the awkwardness of having to write “street slang,” for such sensitive words as penis, vagina, homosexual, etc. Not only that, but imagine pulling a young boy up to the front of the class and having him read the synonyms for “menstruation,” to get everyone comfortable with the topic. Now, I don’t know about you guys, but that does NOT make me comfortable. That makes in UN-comfortable. That makes me want to crawl into a hole and DIE. He lived, though.
God, I wish you guys could see a video of this, although most people wouldn’t understand, but I’m sure the facial expressions are priceless.
My favorite part? Oh yes, how could I forget… teaching pairs of adolescents how to use … CONDOMS! God, how could we make this even more uncomfortable!
So, Kalin is walking through the steps and I’m the penis. Yes, I am holding the green banana to which she needs to apply a condom. Now, the kids thought this was oh, so very funny when they didn’t think they had to do it, but then!, I walked around and gave each pair a banana, man they were not happy. I thought a couple of girls were going to flat out refuse, but everyone played along, if only grudgingly. So they laughed, and one boy was making highly inappropriate comments to the girl he was paired with. I don’t actually know what he said, but she kept hitting him so I just assumed it was inappropriate!
What can I say, it was great practice and we did have fun, but I think I ruined my shirt from sweating so damn much out of panic/heat. It’s one of those things, where you do it and while you’re doing it you think to yourself, “this isn’t so bad,” but then when you’re done the adrenaline is used you and you think, “dear God what did I just do?”
I really think they learned stuff. For instance, most people here don’t know that mosquitoes don’t transmit HIV/AIDS. Or, anal sex can transmit HIV/AIDS as well as vaginal intercourse. So, obviously these charlas are BIEN IMPORTANTE (very important), but nonetheless doesn’t stop me from wanting to faint from fear each morning we have to do them. This one was the longest, FOUR HOURS, and was definitely exhausting.
GOOD NEWS: After I wrote this blog we went back to ADEPES to process the charla and then speak to a person who is living with HIV in Honduras. Part of the processing of the charla involves the Spanish professors who sat in our classroom pulling us aside and “constructively critique” -ing our participation in the charla. Now, I have kind of waged war with the Spanish language to prove that I’m not entirely stupid in navigating this language and don’t constantly have verbal diarrhea each time I open my mouth. So I was EXTREMELY excited when, Monze (the director of Wat/San Spanish stuff and specifically my teacher at the moment) said I did a great job!! YAY. In charlas past I haven’t participated as much as some of the other aspirantes, and tend to take more passive roles in the charlas, but I get yelled at for that, so I picked more complicated roles this time. Well, she said that she expected me to sit back again, but I surprised her because I was very active, spoke loud enough, and interacted well with the students! I starting jumping up and down when she said this, because this was the best time to prove I wasn’t retarded. She sincerely seemed stunned. That said, not a bad day!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
This Past Week
This past week was a good week. We focused on the environmental aspect of Water/Sanitation. We hiked up to a watershed and talked about ways to protect a water system/water source. We also built more efficient stoves, and then started a tree nursery with the organization that’s hosting us in Pespire (ADEPES).
On Tuesday, which was, what we thought at the time, the hottest day we’ve experienced yet in Pespire, we hiked up to a watershed to learn about how to protect our water sources. Now, obviously, water originates higher up in mountains, and we were taking GPS points to learn how to load them on our computers, so we weren’t taking the normal trail. We divided into two groups, each taking one side of the watershed, and walking up the ridges to meet in the middle. Now, in order to figure out where a watershed, if you were a raindrop and were going to find the closest stream, where would you go? Downhill? But we had to go around the watershed, so we were scrambling up sides of pretty steep hills, etc. Our path was reminiscent of scrambling up hills on my Volunteer Visit in Santa Barbara, only not as pretty. And it only took 1.5 hours. So, we met the other group in the dry river/stream bed, and then hiked back down. It’s amazing how goofy and ridiculous people can get when they’re hiking in 104 degree weather in jeans. We had a lot of fun.
A funny story: We eat TONS of tortillas. Little, saucer-sized corn tortillas. Do you already have a monton (mountain) of carbs/starches on your plate? Oh well! Eat a tortilla! They’re nice with some meals, but we’re kind of pushed to eat a lot of them because they’re so central to Honduran food. As a result, I don’t really have a huge appreciation for tortillas. Anyways, my friend Jill, who is hilarious in a very dry, sarcastic manner, is the lowest Spanish level in our group. Her teacher, who is also dry, but not in the fun way, asked Jill how far away her house was from her Spanish class. Jill, trying to lighten the mood, measured the distance in tortillas; “Well, I’d say it’s about 3,000 tortillas from here.” Apparently, her teacher didn’t much appreciate the joke, but we thought it was hilarious. Therefore, this entire hike we measured everything in tortillas.
“When was our last GPS point?”
“Oh, I’d say about 1,000 tortillas back.” Guess you had to be there.
Also, “that’s-what-she-said” jokes have been taken to a whole new level in Honduras. When you struggle to entertain yourself with the same 16 people in sweltering heat, the most retarded jokes become epic. For those of the older generations, that’s-what-she-said involves comments that could be twisted to be sexual. Example not included.
So, we’re sitting in our AC back at ADEPES, learning how to load GPS coordinates on our laptops, and we’re all just enjoying the cold air. Nick, the Volunteer who hiked with the other group, had turned his shirt an entirely different color with sweat. We were all so incredibly foul, that I couldn’t imagine what people would have thought had they walked into the room. We had kicked of our hiking boots, and were just sitting in chairs, trying not to move. We get so sweaty in our outdoor training, that I can literally catch a whiff of someone’s body odor and tell who it’s coming from! I could identify people by there BO in a blind smell-test. How gross!
So we’re sitting there, trying not to fall asleep during Nick’s boring presentation, when Carlos walks in and tells us to look at the window in the room that leads to the office of the boss of this non-governmental organization (NGO). Naturally, we all look, and the door opens behind us and in walks the BUSINESS TRAINEES!
Now I don’t know if you guys remember, but our training group is separated now into our three sectors. I haven’t seen anyone from business of health in over a month, and I’m getting pretty darn tired of these Wat/San people! Just kidding. But anyways, they were on their way back from a camping trip on an island (don’t get me started on that!), and they were driving through Pespire and were allowed to stop and say hello! They all walked in, and started trying to hug us before they realized that, even after having been in AC for over an hour, we were still drenched in sweat. After a while, they would just pat us on the back. They said, when they opened the door and first walked in, they had never smelled something so foul before in their lives than 16 Wat/San aspirantes after a hike.
So we got to catch up with them for a few minutes before they were all wisked off again. They were happy that we had to sit through boring power-point presentations too, but we were quick to say that this wasn’t the norm. Our activities outside are one of our biggest bragging points. So after everyone was so excited to see the business people, the door shuts behind them and we all settle back into our chairs and Nick (who wasn’t thrilled about having to do this in the first place) says, “So I’m going to save the text file…” and just heads his head in shame, and we all start laughing.
It’s so great that 15 minute visits from your friends can make your week so much better!
And then, after that training class we went to Carlos’ house to play soccer for a while. It was “whoever-scores-the-next-goal-wins” time, and Carlos had Nick jammed up against the wall, trying to get ball, and Nick falls. Now, Nick is probably about 6 foot 5 inches (he’s really tall) and he fell, but his left arm got dragged down the wall by the other 250 pounds of him. His dislocated his shoulder. This was right after, at the beginning of the game, not to tell the PCMOs (Peace Corps Medical Officers), that he had been hiking or that he was playing soccer, because he had already been injured and was forbidden to do more than walking. Whoops. He’s fine, although they had to drive him sweaty and dirty two hours to Teguz because there wasn’t anyone in Pespire who could fix his arm. Well, there’s a Cuban national who apparently does all the locals, but Peace Corps wouldn’t let him go there.
Stoves
The next two days we built stoves around Pespire for different poorer families. There will be a picture of the finished product with the pictures!
So, we basically mixed soil and cow crap to make the “mortar,” and then used bricks to construct the structure before we covered it in more “poop.” We were working in a really small space, so small that only two people could work on the stove at a time (we had four people in our group). Now, for all of you who have made fun of short people in your lifetime, you can take it back! I was the only person in my group able to stand-up straight in our workspace without smacking their head on one of the “roof beams!” Take that! Becky and Darren, who are both probably over 6 feet, kept smacking their heads on the roof, which was covered in soot from the previous stove that didn’t have a chimney. Kathryn and I would be outside mixing more poop, and hear :BANG: … “GOD DAMMITT!!!!”
Instead of coming up with a more professional name for our mixture, we just said “poop” or “shit”.
“How do you think this looks?”
“Oh, you’re going to need a lot more shit in that corner…”
Again, funny when it’s hot and you’ve hit your head several times.
We fixed the stove for an 89 year-old woman and her family, and she was pretty excited to see the stove finished. We paid for all the materials, and they got a stove with a chimney, and insulation so that it would burn less wood.
You know, over the course of college I forgot that I was the kind of girl who wouldn’t have a problem using crap to stucco the outside of a stove. I just dug right in. It’s cool to realize stuff like that again.
Charlas
Tuesday and Wednesday we also gave “talks” to fifth and sixth grade students in the escuela. We went to two different classes and talked to them about trash in the streets of Pespire and why it was bad. We had them draw posters to hang around town, asking people to throw their trash in trash cans. It was fun, despite the stress of speaking Spanish in front of 45 adolescents. They were cool though.
On Friday, we organized a trash clean-up morning with all the kid we gave charlas to. We met at 8 am and headed into the streets to pick up trash with them. Two aspirantes got about 30 kids, and went to a specific neighborhood. Now, imagine sending thirty sixth-graders, into the streets of a small town, with two twenty-something kids who don’t speak the same language. To pick up trash…without gloves. Naturally, it was a little chaotic, because kids just took off, but it was ok in the end. I was pretty upset about the lack of gloves, because that’s just irresponsible. But, the kids were enthusiastic and seemed to enjoy the fact that they were picking up trash in 90 degree weather.
Now, between the three classes I worked with, I can’t walk down the street without a kid calling my name. It’s pretty cool that they seemed to enjoy us that much.
That’s pretty much it for this week. Well, to add to a good week, I got a package in the mail! Mom sent me coloring books in the mail, which I knew were coming, but was oh so pleasantly surprised by the Mini Eggs in the box! Of course, I opened the box in front of the whole group, and clutched the Mini Eggs to my chest when I saw them. Well, at that point there’s no hiding the fact that I got candy in the mail. I was happy to share (some of them), because I’m pretty sure that single-handedly improved everyone’s day. We had been frustrated by the activities on Friday and it was just so perfect to get deliciousness like Mini Eggs in the mail. THANKS MOM!
On Tuesday, which was, what we thought at the time, the hottest day we’ve experienced yet in Pespire, we hiked up to a watershed to learn about how to protect our water sources. Now, obviously, water originates higher up in mountains, and we were taking GPS points to learn how to load them on our computers, so we weren’t taking the normal trail. We divided into two groups, each taking one side of the watershed, and walking up the ridges to meet in the middle. Now, in order to figure out where a watershed, if you were a raindrop and were going to find the closest stream, where would you go? Downhill? But we had to go around the watershed, so we were scrambling up sides of pretty steep hills, etc. Our path was reminiscent of scrambling up hills on my Volunteer Visit in Santa Barbara, only not as pretty. And it only took 1.5 hours. So, we met the other group in the dry river/stream bed, and then hiked back down. It’s amazing how goofy and ridiculous people can get when they’re hiking in 104 degree weather in jeans. We had a lot of fun.
A funny story: We eat TONS of tortillas. Little, saucer-sized corn tortillas. Do you already have a monton (mountain) of carbs/starches on your plate? Oh well! Eat a tortilla! They’re nice with some meals, but we’re kind of pushed to eat a lot of them because they’re so central to Honduran food. As a result, I don’t really have a huge appreciation for tortillas. Anyways, my friend Jill, who is hilarious in a very dry, sarcastic manner, is the lowest Spanish level in our group. Her teacher, who is also dry, but not in the fun way, asked Jill how far away her house was from her Spanish class. Jill, trying to lighten the mood, measured the distance in tortillas; “Well, I’d say it’s about 3,000 tortillas from here.” Apparently, her teacher didn’t much appreciate the joke, but we thought it was hilarious. Therefore, this entire hike we measured everything in tortillas.
“When was our last GPS point?”
“Oh, I’d say about 1,000 tortillas back.” Guess you had to be there.
Also, “that’s-what-she-said” jokes have been taken to a whole new level in Honduras. When you struggle to entertain yourself with the same 16 people in sweltering heat, the most retarded jokes become epic. For those of the older generations, that’s-what-she-said involves comments that could be twisted to be sexual. Example not included.
So, we’re sitting in our AC back at ADEPES, learning how to load GPS coordinates on our laptops, and we’re all just enjoying the cold air. Nick, the Volunteer who hiked with the other group, had turned his shirt an entirely different color with sweat. We were all so incredibly foul, that I couldn’t imagine what people would have thought had they walked into the room. We had kicked of our hiking boots, and were just sitting in chairs, trying not to move. We get so sweaty in our outdoor training, that I can literally catch a whiff of someone’s body odor and tell who it’s coming from! I could identify people by there BO in a blind smell-test. How gross!
So we’re sitting there, trying not to fall asleep during Nick’s boring presentation, when Carlos walks in and tells us to look at the window in the room that leads to the office of the boss of this non-governmental organization (NGO). Naturally, we all look, and the door opens behind us and in walks the BUSINESS TRAINEES!
Now I don’t know if you guys remember, but our training group is separated now into our three sectors. I haven’t seen anyone from business of health in over a month, and I’m getting pretty darn tired of these Wat/San people! Just kidding. But anyways, they were on their way back from a camping trip on an island (don’t get me started on that!), and they were driving through Pespire and were allowed to stop and say hello! They all walked in, and started trying to hug us before they realized that, even after having been in AC for over an hour, we were still drenched in sweat. After a while, they would just pat us on the back. They said, when they opened the door and first walked in, they had never smelled something so foul before in their lives than 16 Wat/San aspirantes after a hike.
So we got to catch up with them for a few minutes before they were all wisked off again. They were happy that we had to sit through boring power-point presentations too, but we were quick to say that this wasn’t the norm. Our activities outside are one of our biggest bragging points. So after everyone was so excited to see the business people, the door shuts behind them and we all settle back into our chairs and Nick (who wasn’t thrilled about having to do this in the first place) says, “So I’m going to save the text file…” and just heads his head in shame, and we all start laughing.
It’s so great that 15 minute visits from your friends can make your week so much better!
And then, after that training class we went to Carlos’ house to play soccer for a while. It was “whoever-scores-the-next-goal-wins” time, and Carlos had Nick jammed up against the wall, trying to get ball, and Nick falls. Now, Nick is probably about 6 foot 5 inches (he’s really tall) and he fell, but his left arm got dragged down the wall by the other 250 pounds of him. His dislocated his shoulder. This was right after, at the beginning of the game, not to tell the PCMOs (Peace Corps Medical Officers), that he had been hiking or that he was playing soccer, because he had already been injured and was forbidden to do more than walking. Whoops. He’s fine, although they had to drive him sweaty and dirty two hours to Teguz because there wasn’t anyone in Pespire who could fix his arm. Well, there’s a Cuban national who apparently does all the locals, but Peace Corps wouldn’t let him go there.
Stoves
The next two days we built stoves around Pespire for different poorer families. There will be a picture of the finished product with the pictures!
So, we basically mixed soil and cow crap to make the “mortar,” and then used bricks to construct the structure before we covered it in more “poop.” We were working in a really small space, so small that only two people could work on the stove at a time (we had four people in our group). Now, for all of you who have made fun of short people in your lifetime, you can take it back! I was the only person in my group able to stand-up straight in our workspace without smacking their head on one of the “roof beams!” Take that! Becky and Darren, who are both probably over 6 feet, kept smacking their heads on the roof, which was covered in soot from the previous stove that didn’t have a chimney. Kathryn and I would be outside mixing more poop, and hear :BANG: … “GOD DAMMITT!!!!”
Instead of coming up with a more professional name for our mixture, we just said “poop” or “shit”.
“How do you think this looks?”
“Oh, you’re going to need a lot more shit in that corner…”
Again, funny when it’s hot and you’ve hit your head several times.
We fixed the stove for an 89 year-old woman and her family, and she was pretty excited to see the stove finished. We paid for all the materials, and they got a stove with a chimney, and insulation so that it would burn less wood.
You know, over the course of college I forgot that I was the kind of girl who wouldn’t have a problem using crap to stucco the outside of a stove. I just dug right in. It’s cool to realize stuff like that again.
Charlas
Tuesday and Wednesday we also gave “talks” to fifth and sixth grade students in the escuela. We went to two different classes and talked to them about trash in the streets of Pespire and why it was bad. We had them draw posters to hang around town, asking people to throw their trash in trash cans. It was fun, despite the stress of speaking Spanish in front of 45 adolescents. They were cool though.
On Friday, we organized a trash clean-up morning with all the kid we gave charlas to. We met at 8 am and headed into the streets to pick up trash with them. Two aspirantes got about 30 kids, and went to a specific neighborhood. Now, imagine sending thirty sixth-graders, into the streets of a small town, with two twenty-something kids who don’t speak the same language. To pick up trash…without gloves. Naturally, it was a little chaotic, because kids just took off, but it was ok in the end. I was pretty upset about the lack of gloves, because that’s just irresponsible. But, the kids were enthusiastic and seemed to enjoy the fact that they were picking up trash in 90 degree weather.
Now, between the three classes I worked with, I can’t walk down the street without a kid calling my name. It’s pretty cool that they seemed to enjoy us that much.
That’s pretty much it for this week. Well, to add to a good week, I got a package in the mail! Mom sent me coloring books in the mail, which I knew were coming, but was oh so pleasantly surprised by the Mini Eggs in the box! Of course, I opened the box in front of the whole group, and clutched the Mini Eggs to my chest when I saw them. Well, at that point there’s no hiding the fact that I got candy in the mail. I was happy to share (some of them), because I’m pretty sure that single-handedly improved everyone’s day. We had been frustrated by the activities on Friday and it was just so perfect to get deliciousness like Mini Eggs in the mail. THANKS MOM!
Tales of Semana Santa
Semana Santa both lived up to its expectations, and at the same time did not. I think I pictured the week to be much more religious than it turned out to be, but still there are stories impart.
Cultural Day
On Wednesday we did a “cross-cultural” exchange with our host families. The advanced Spanish classes had to organize the entire day from needing to find a place to host the event, a sound system, decorations, and people to be masters of the ceremony. All this had to be free too. It worked out well. Each Spanish class did a presentation for the families, and were as follows
1) La Bamba (my group) – Sing and dance combination
2) American Football – An explanation
3) Cotton Eyed Joe – Dance explanation
4) April’s Fools Day Jokes – Examples
So we all presented little five minute diddies on the above subjects. Our song/dance was definitely the most fun, and our families really enjoyed it. During the guitar solo we got families to come up and dance with us, and my host sister was very dismayed when I made a bee-line straight to her. She had to expect it though after she came to our rehearsal the night before and critiqued us up and down! Hah, no she was quite diplomatic and made some good suggestions.
We also had to make food with our host moms to bring to everyone to eat at Cultural Day. My recipe was pretty easy, thank god. We put little fruits, called jocotes, into a vat of sugar and let it sit there for three days. End of recipe. But seriously, the jocotes are kind of like hard plums. If you get them green, they are a bit tart, but the red ones are nice and sweet. We boiled the green ones and then let them sit in sugar. Other recipes were carne asada, fried chicken (native dish, eh?), pollo tostadas, etc. Kathryn got to go to her host grand-parents house to milk cows and make cujada, which is kind of like mozzarella, only not as good.
Also, some of the host families performed some songs and folk dances. I would just suggest looking at the pictures, because there really isn’t much I can say about it all without everyone having been there.
I will say, however, that snot-rocket teacher played a bird in a song about a bird that dies. I didn’t understand the entire song, obviously. But, she was having the kids practice this song in class when I was sitting in a couple of weeks ago and so ridiculously got whistled at (no, I am not over that yet). So this song comes on and I have flashbacks to that subtle whistle, but then I realize that she was the bird! I had seen her in the audience, much to my dismay, but didn’t know what was going to happen. She basically flitted back-and-forth on the stage before she fell over and died. That’s my story about snot-rocket/dead bird song. I hope I don’t get in trouble for this blog, but I’d call her by her real name (maybe) if she had introduced herself.
Our maestros also did a song. It’s called “Habla Espanol,” and it’s basically all lyrics of Hondurenismos (special Honduran adaptations to the Spanish language). So basically, this guy is poor, a drunk, and getting bit by dogs (this is a loose translation). And he decides to go “wet-back” to the U.S., and when he’s there he is told to go back to where he came from by a U.S. policeman. The end of the song is him yelling, “F*** you bich, I speak espanol! Yo soy catracho, pero hablo espanol!” He’s saying I’m Honduran (catracho), but I speak Spanish. It’s pretty funny, when you teacher is swaggering across the stage with a Grey Goose bottle, while your female teachers have stuffed their shirts with balloons and their butts with newspaper and shake it across the stage. The director of the Spanish program for us in Pespire, Monze, is a really quiet, all business type and her balloons in her shirt had these HUGE nipples drawn on them, and it was surprising. Guess you had to be there.
So, in order to show our gratitude for our host families’ hospitality, we served them first, before getting food ourselves. Now, at this time there are 16 Wat/San aspirantes and then some of our teachers made food with their families, so you can imagine there’s a lot of eat. Plus, Hondurans don’t seem to have picked up on portion control. So, it has become tradition at almost every meal for me and Nolvia to laugh over the amount of food that she puts on my plate. We have conversations about health and eating, and yet I continue to get HUGE portion sizes. So … I decided to exact revenge. Everything that was available, I piled onto her plate! She screamed when I walked over with the food, but she recognized that I was making a statement. I still get the same portion sizes.
After Cultural Day, we went to the hotel to get a couple of beers. Afterwards, we went to Hammock Land, to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. Hammock Land is our name for Carlos’ house. He lives in a compound that is owned by Randy’s host family, and we meet there sometimes and have a Spanish class there. Anyways, there are a bunch of hammocks that we like to hang out in, and we were just chilling out in Hammock Land before we all had to head home for dinner. That’s also where we have our soccer games.
So, Cultural Day was fun and I enjoyed interacting with the families. It didn’t seem like it was going to be fun, so it was an unexpected, pleasant surprise.
The River
So a river runs through Pespire and is constantly full during Semana Santa. Semana Santa is a holy week (obviously), and Easter is a big holiday here. So, on Friday – Sunday there was a “dry law,” where people couldn’t buy beer in the normal places, etc. Supposedly. Well, anyways, we were up in the Parque Central waiting for a procession out of the Catholic Church (apparently happened two hours beforehand), and were watching at cases upon cases of beer were carried down to the river. These little makeshift stands popped up along the river were people just sold food and drinks for all the river-goers.
Well, Juan’s family, had been trying to get us to go with them to the river for a couple of days. Most people go to the beach, but we usually don’t get permission from Peace Corps because the beaches are really crowded and just far enough to make it a chaotic security hazard. Therefore, most of our families couldn’t go, so they settled with the river instead. We went up river, which was apparently cleaner and had less people. Now, I’m going to put pictures along with this blog, but try to explain the situation here as well. I live in a developing country. There’s no way to argue otherwise.
A couple of times each week we run across the bridge into the aldeas (small towns around Pespire) to change up the routine. Every morning we pass the cattle drive taking the cows to drink in the river. On the Pespire side of the bridge is where a lot of people dump/burn their trash. It’s not clean by any means.
The day before this jaunt to the upper part of the river, we went to the bridge with Juan’s family. There’s apparently a dam upstream, and it was closed, so the underneath the bridge was dry and we could sit and watch the kids swim. My host mom bought me and Juan’s host mom a beer, which was exciting because I didn’t think she was ok with that. Anyways, people would go to these make-shift stands and buy packets of chips, and then just toss their bags into the river. Also, there are a lot of people drinking and hanging out all day. We all know what happens when people hang out, drinking liquids, near a body of water. We’ve all done it!
So, we head upstream about 15 minutes (driving, woot!), and walk across the river and set-up camp on a rock near the river. There was a deep part there where you could jump off a big rock without breaking your neck the bottom. Across the ondo (deep part), was a truck, with speakers and beer. Up a little ways there were selling snacks too. Because it’s the dry season, people just drive their cars across the riverbed and park right next to the water. Before they leave, they enjoy cleaning their cars/trucks in the water where other people continue to swim. Yum!
Now, I couldn’t ignore the scum floating near the shores, and all the trash on the riverbanks. I just hung back as everyone else waded in, and decided to guard my camera. Juan, another aspirante, was wading in and turned back and said, “Swimming is not an option Hannah, they’re going to make you get in.” And, within one minute of that comment, Juan’s host mom yelled for me to come in. My name is Hannah, and I swam in a dirty, dirty river in Honduras. I must add, my head went under because I slipped and fell into the deep part. After that, there was no denying the water any longer, so I decided to embrace the idea of a parasite and just have fun.
Now, people in Honduras generally don’t learn how to swim. People in Pespire may have learned, because they live close to the river, but most people just never learned. You know how in the States people just assume that you know how to swim, and if you were to say you didn’t, they are stunned? Well, it’s the opposite in Honduras. They were surprised that Juan and I knew how to swim. Nolvia and Marjory both know how to swim. Anyways, I saw THREE PEOPLE get carried away by the Red Cross because they were drowning. Now, that day no one died, but the day before a man died because he was wasted and hit his head and drowned in the water. Apparently, people just go to the river, drink like fish, and then past out in shallow water and drown. That’s what happened to these people. The funny thing is, the Red Cross was stationed about 100 yards out on the bank, so it took them a good 5 minutes to tread over the rocks in the dry riverbed to get to the people; the people who had been drowning for a couple of minutes already because no one had bothered to take notice. Ridiculous! It was a fun day though, and I don’t think I have a parasite. Good times.
This is boring.
Other than that, not much happened. They made a beautiful fombra out of wood-shavings in front of the Iglesia. A few teenagers spent all night working on this, and it was preserved until Friday morning. SEE PICTURES.
Que mas? I saw Jesus get led through the streets on Thursday night. Ate a lot of dried fish because Friday – Sunday you can’t eat meat. Honduran tradition I suppose. I was pretty distressed when I smelled the dry fish in my house Friday morning, but the soup wasn’t too bad.
Sunday we didn’t even go to church. No one did. Apparently, the Catholics go to Mass for hours the week leading up to Easter, and then when the big day comes they’re too tired of Mass to go on the most important day. I expected my host grandma to come get me, and it don’t even know if she went, but I didn’t go to church on Easter. Now it’s off my chest.
All in all, Semana Santa included some cultural experiences. Included some fiestas. Mostly people just swam in the river and hung out. Not so much holy.
Cultural Day
On Wednesday we did a “cross-cultural” exchange with our host families. The advanced Spanish classes had to organize the entire day from needing to find a place to host the event, a sound system, decorations, and people to be masters of the ceremony. All this had to be free too. It worked out well. Each Spanish class did a presentation for the families, and were as follows
1) La Bamba (my group) – Sing and dance combination
2) American Football – An explanation
3) Cotton Eyed Joe – Dance explanation
4) April’s Fools Day Jokes – Examples
So we all presented little five minute diddies on the above subjects. Our song/dance was definitely the most fun, and our families really enjoyed it. During the guitar solo we got families to come up and dance with us, and my host sister was very dismayed when I made a bee-line straight to her. She had to expect it though after she came to our rehearsal the night before and critiqued us up and down! Hah, no she was quite diplomatic and made some good suggestions.
We also had to make food with our host moms to bring to everyone to eat at Cultural Day. My recipe was pretty easy, thank god. We put little fruits, called jocotes, into a vat of sugar and let it sit there for three days. End of recipe. But seriously, the jocotes are kind of like hard plums. If you get them green, they are a bit tart, but the red ones are nice and sweet. We boiled the green ones and then let them sit in sugar. Other recipes were carne asada, fried chicken (native dish, eh?), pollo tostadas, etc. Kathryn got to go to her host grand-parents house to milk cows and make cujada, which is kind of like mozzarella, only not as good.
Also, some of the host families performed some songs and folk dances. I would just suggest looking at the pictures, because there really isn’t much I can say about it all without everyone having been there.
I will say, however, that snot-rocket teacher played a bird in a song about a bird that dies. I didn’t understand the entire song, obviously. But, she was having the kids practice this song in class when I was sitting in a couple of weeks ago and so ridiculously got whistled at (no, I am not over that yet). So this song comes on and I have flashbacks to that subtle whistle, but then I realize that she was the bird! I had seen her in the audience, much to my dismay, but didn’t know what was going to happen. She basically flitted back-and-forth on the stage before she fell over and died. That’s my story about snot-rocket/dead bird song. I hope I don’t get in trouble for this blog, but I’d call her by her real name (maybe) if she had introduced herself.
Our maestros also did a song. It’s called “Habla Espanol,” and it’s basically all lyrics of Hondurenismos (special Honduran adaptations to the Spanish language). So basically, this guy is poor, a drunk, and getting bit by dogs (this is a loose translation). And he decides to go “wet-back” to the U.S., and when he’s there he is told to go back to where he came from by a U.S. policeman. The end of the song is him yelling, “F*** you bich, I speak espanol! Yo soy catracho, pero hablo espanol!” He’s saying I’m Honduran (catracho), but I speak Spanish. It’s pretty funny, when you teacher is swaggering across the stage with a Grey Goose bottle, while your female teachers have stuffed their shirts with balloons and their butts with newspaper and shake it across the stage. The director of the Spanish program for us in Pespire, Monze, is a really quiet, all business type and her balloons in her shirt had these HUGE nipples drawn on them, and it was surprising. Guess you had to be there.
So, in order to show our gratitude for our host families’ hospitality, we served them first, before getting food ourselves. Now, at this time there are 16 Wat/San aspirantes and then some of our teachers made food with their families, so you can imagine there’s a lot of eat. Plus, Hondurans don’t seem to have picked up on portion control. So, it has become tradition at almost every meal for me and Nolvia to laugh over the amount of food that she puts on my plate. We have conversations about health and eating, and yet I continue to get HUGE portion sizes. So … I decided to exact revenge. Everything that was available, I piled onto her plate! She screamed when I walked over with the food, but she recognized that I was making a statement. I still get the same portion sizes.
After Cultural Day, we went to the hotel to get a couple of beers. Afterwards, we went to Hammock Land, to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. Hammock Land is our name for Carlos’ house. He lives in a compound that is owned by Randy’s host family, and we meet there sometimes and have a Spanish class there. Anyways, there are a bunch of hammocks that we like to hang out in, and we were just chilling out in Hammock Land before we all had to head home for dinner. That’s also where we have our soccer games.
So, Cultural Day was fun and I enjoyed interacting with the families. It didn’t seem like it was going to be fun, so it was an unexpected, pleasant surprise.
The River
So a river runs through Pespire and is constantly full during Semana Santa. Semana Santa is a holy week (obviously), and Easter is a big holiday here. So, on Friday – Sunday there was a “dry law,” where people couldn’t buy beer in the normal places, etc. Supposedly. Well, anyways, we were up in the Parque Central waiting for a procession out of the Catholic Church (apparently happened two hours beforehand), and were watching at cases upon cases of beer were carried down to the river. These little makeshift stands popped up along the river were people just sold food and drinks for all the river-goers.
Well, Juan’s family, had been trying to get us to go with them to the river for a couple of days. Most people go to the beach, but we usually don’t get permission from Peace Corps because the beaches are really crowded and just far enough to make it a chaotic security hazard. Therefore, most of our families couldn’t go, so they settled with the river instead. We went up river, which was apparently cleaner and had less people. Now, I’m going to put pictures along with this blog, but try to explain the situation here as well. I live in a developing country. There’s no way to argue otherwise.
A couple of times each week we run across the bridge into the aldeas (small towns around Pespire) to change up the routine. Every morning we pass the cattle drive taking the cows to drink in the river. On the Pespire side of the bridge is where a lot of people dump/burn their trash. It’s not clean by any means.
The day before this jaunt to the upper part of the river, we went to the bridge with Juan’s family. There’s apparently a dam upstream, and it was closed, so the underneath the bridge was dry and we could sit and watch the kids swim. My host mom bought me and Juan’s host mom a beer, which was exciting because I didn’t think she was ok with that. Anyways, people would go to these make-shift stands and buy packets of chips, and then just toss their bags into the river. Also, there are a lot of people drinking and hanging out all day. We all know what happens when people hang out, drinking liquids, near a body of water. We’ve all done it!
So, we head upstream about 15 minutes (driving, woot!), and walk across the river and set-up camp on a rock near the river. There was a deep part there where you could jump off a big rock without breaking your neck the bottom. Across the ondo (deep part), was a truck, with speakers and beer. Up a little ways there were selling snacks too. Because it’s the dry season, people just drive their cars across the riverbed and park right next to the water. Before they leave, they enjoy cleaning their cars/trucks in the water where other people continue to swim. Yum!
Now, I couldn’t ignore the scum floating near the shores, and all the trash on the riverbanks. I just hung back as everyone else waded in, and decided to guard my camera. Juan, another aspirante, was wading in and turned back and said, “Swimming is not an option Hannah, they’re going to make you get in.” And, within one minute of that comment, Juan’s host mom yelled for me to come in. My name is Hannah, and I swam in a dirty, dirty river in Honduras. I must add, my head went under because I slipped and fell into the deep part. After that, there was no denying the water any longer, so I decided to embrace the idea of a parasite and just have fun.
Now, people in Honduras generally don’t learn how to swim. People in Pespire may have learned, because they live close to the river, but most people just never learned. You know how in the States people just assume that you know how to swim, and if you were to say you didn’t, they are stunned? Well, it’s the opposite in Honduras. They were surprised that Juan and I knew how to swim. Nolvia and Marjory both know how to swim. Anyways, I saw THREE PEOPLE get carried away by the Red Cross because they were drowning. Now, that day no one died, but the day before a man died because he was wasted and hit his head and drowned in the water. Apparently, people just go to the river, drink like fish, and then past out in shallow water and drown. That’s what happened to these people. The funny thing is, the Red Cross was stationed about 100 yards out on the bank, so it took them a good 5 minutes to tread over the rocks in the dry riverbed to get to the people; the people who had been drowning for a couple of minutes already because no one had bothered to take notice. Ridiculous! It was a fun day though, and I don’t think I have a parasite. Good times.
This is boring.
Other than that, not much happened. They made a beautiful fombra out of wood-shavings in front of the Iglesia. A few teenagers spent all night working on this, and it was preserved until Friday morning. SEE PICTURES.
Que mas? I saw Jesus get led through the streets on Thursday night. Ate a lot of dried fish because Friday – Sunday you can’t eat meat. Honduran tradition I suppose. I was pretty distressed when I smelled the dry fish in my house Friday morning, but the soup wasn’t too bad.
Sunday we didn’t even go to church. No one did. Apparently, the Catholics go to Mass for hours the week leading up to Easter, and then when the big day comes they’re too tired of Mass to go on the most important day. I expected my host grandma to come get me, and it don’t even know if she went, but I didn’t go to church on Easter. Now it’s off my chest.
All in all, Semana Santa included some cultural experiences. Included some fiestas. Mostly people just swam in the river and hung out. Not so much holy.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Church in Honduras
There are a lot of “taboo” topics to beware of in conversations with your host family. Highest among them are: sexuality, marriage/relationships, drinking, and religion. Of course, you should be wary of others, but these are the topics that we encounter most often, and are most likely to create an awkward situation with ones host family. Most everyone has had the awkward conversation with their host families about religion, but I have been lucky enough to have two host families that haven’t questioned my personal beliefs. That is, until the Holy Week started, and then I blindsided by the question, “Are you Catholic or Evangelical?” Now, you can tell from the phrasing of the question that there aren’t many options to work with, and there’s most definitely only one right answer for the person asking the question. It’s rather interesting because I am probably the most “religious” person in the group and would have an easier time explaining my religious beliefs than those who are agnostic or, God forbid, atheist. So, here is my first encounter with taboo subjects in Honduras, kind of…
Now, first I should give a little lesson on religion in Honduras. As I have mentioned before, this is a very traditional, conservative country and a lot of that is because of the status of religion here. Catholicism is the most prevalent religion, but Evangelicals runs a close second it seems. They also have Mormons here, which I think is hilarious. In our first site we actually had one aspirante in a Mormon household. Of course, he was the only one who smoked in the group and wasn’t religious whatsoever. Anyways, as in the States, you have a range of devotion from people attending a couple times a week to those you only attend on major holidays. To be noted, there are only really two religions in Honduras (for most people): Catholicism and Evangelical.
Men, for the most part, don’t attend religious ceremonies, and if they do they are stationed outside. In Honduras, you can be a devout Catholic/Evangelical and still have a wife, mistress, and several girlfriends without breaking any of the Commandments. People pick and choose the religious norms that they wish to abide by, but such is life.
So Saturday, I’m just sitting there minding my own business, watching T.V. with my host sister, trying to follow the plot of the telenovela, and my host grandmother plops down beside me. Now, my host grandmother and I have yet to develop a relationship. She’s a quiet, reserved women and doesn’t really talk much to anyone, let alone the gringa. It doesn’t help that I can’t understand a single word she says. If I remember correctly, her asking me about my religion didn’t have anything to do with what we were watching, so you can imagine how hard it was for me to discern what she was saying. I knew it was a questions, but I also knew it wasn’t of the smile and nod persuasion. Therefore, after asking if she could repeat herself, I pinpointed the key words, “…Catolica…Evangelica?” Crap. Well I smiled and said, “Well, technically I’m neither.”
Blank stare. Clearly that wasn’t going to work. I stammer, “I need to go get my dictionary.” I run to my room, praying to God that Protestant is in the dictionary, and come back smiling, happy to be able to say “I’m Protestant.” She looks at me, and walks away. Guess that was the wrong answer. I was pretty bummed that that was the end of our interaction.
So, later, don’t remember how this came up, but she says something else to me. Now, conversations in Honduras can be very dangerous when you blindly answer “yes” to unintelligible conversations. For example, on the first day we were in our new homes here, my friend Becky was asked a question about drinking. Now, when you don’t know your family’s stance on drinking, best to just blatantly lie and say you don’t. It’s always better to go back on what you said than to make a terrible first impression. In any case, she answers very strongly with, “Yes! I drink a lot!” Now, don’t know what she thought the question was, but it turns out her family is chill with drinking; they just laughed at her, because the answer was still ridiculous. Dodged a bullet on that one.
So anyways, I start sweating because I don’t want to mess this up, but regardless of knowing better I just nod my head. I try to get a clearer idea of the conversation, and ask if she is going to church. She looks at me like I’m retarded (I get that look a lot), and says yes, yes she is. End of conversation and I’m still clueless about what’s going on.
So, me and a couple of other aspirantes head up to the Parque Central because apparently Palm Sunday is a big spectacle in Honduras. It was almost like a fair with people setting up food stands in front of the church and people trying to sell their wares, such as hammocks. There were soo many people walking around selling fancy little crosses made of palms. So we’re watching the Honduran women walking into the church with their halter tops and low cut shirts, while their husbands stand outside, ogling the other women walking in behind their wives and girlfriends. We were talking about the whole experience and who was going to church that night, and I said, “I think I might have agreed to go to church, but I’m not entirely sure exactly what the conversation was. I know something is happening at 6.” Funny thing is, no one questions that anymore because there is always someone in the group who has agreed to do something / eat something and they have no idea how it happened.
Well, I tried to make a break for the internet without eating lunch, and was caught by grandma and made to eat HOT SOUP in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY before I walked 15 minutes in jeans (I don’t own shorts) with my 10 pound computer on my back. Needless to say, I was a grump by the time I got to the internet, which luckily was working, because had it not worked after all that effort, I would have done my angry dance right on the street. Who’s a crazy gringa now?? SIDE NOTE: Here, instead of being known as the girl with the angry dance, I’m known as the girl who kicks a brick wall (after the backpack incident).
“Are you mad Hannah? Need to go kick a brick wall??”
Anyways, so as I’m walking out the door, and I clearly! catch grandma say, “Don’t forget we’re going to church at six!” HALLELUJAH I understood the woman! Confirmation at last!
So I get back, pass out on the hammock, and wake up just in time to start preparing myself for church. Now, mind you I never found out what religion Dona Empera is, so I just prepared for whatever and washed my face and put on my nicest clothes. I even ironed and then I went and got approval for how I looked. Well, it’s about 5:50 and I’ve noticed that my host mom and host sister are most definitely not in church appropriate clothes. CRAP. Trying to mask the fear in my voice, I walk up to Nolvia and ask, “Are you going to church?” She looks at me and says, “No, but I hear you are.” Segundo crap. Well, I decide to brave the unknown and still go because it’s a good cultural experience.
We leave at around 6:45 (that’s six o’clock for Hondurans) and I’m glad to see that my host sister is grudgingly tagging along. I can’t really understand her either, but it’s a buffer between me and whatever other disasters might happen over the course of the next hour. Oh yes, be sure that I checked how long the service would run. I’ve heard of the other trainees getting stuck in multi-hour long services and I was NOT about to do that; I still had homework left!
Oh, and I also checked what church I was going to. Iglesia Bautista Christo Viene (Baptist Church, Chris Comes). Ok, not so bad. So, naturally we’re late, and walk into the middle of the sermon. The church is very simple, folding chairs in rows in an all peach room. They really went overboard with the peach. Marjory and I sit in front of Dona Empera and I notice that everyone has their Bibles and a piece of paper. I have neither and start to sweat a bit, not knowing what the papers were for. People didn’t seem too interested in me, so that made me chill a bit.
There was one aspirante who went to an Evangelical service with his host family one of the first weeks we were in the country. They sat in the back, and he was relieved, thinking that this will help him go unnoticed. WRONG. As a gringo, you never go unnoticed. By the end of the service, they had him up front, introducing himself (he didn’t speak a word of Spanish), and getting the devil cast out of him. He had people speaking in tongues around him and splashing him with water of unknown origins. This was probably right after the Peace Corps doctors told us not to so much as look at water that didn’t come from an un-opened bottle for fear of parasites. He was scarred for a while.
So this story is running through my head as I try to figure out if the pastor is saying ridiculous stuff. After a few minutes I relaxed. Most everyone seemed chill and I realized the papers were a little test for people to fill out as they listened along to the sermon. We were there for like 40 minutes before I started to get nervous again. They were singing and women started to head to the front, just standing up there. For a minute it seemed like everyone was going, and I thought, “Great! I missed the part where he said, ‘Now lets save the gringa!’” Marjory, my plan B in case anything went wrong, clearly has no idea what’s going on, and I’m up shits creek without a paddle. Then Dona Empera went up, and I thought that I was done for. I decided, not matter what, I wasn’t moving from my seat. Well, apparently in the Bautista church you just go up front if you feel moved by the music.
More chilling, watching the kids running around screaming, when there’s more movement in the congregation. Movement is bad. Communion. Crap, I don’t know what the rules are and Marjory doesn’t know what the rules are, now what? Well, they offered, so I took it, immediately afterwards wishing I hadn’t, but no one gave me a nasty look. God, at that point I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die. That was just about enough for me and I didn’t know what else was in store. More singing. Service seems to be coming to an end.
Well, snot-rocket-fourth-grade-teacher comes up to me, and makes as if she’s going to talk to me, and I just about spontaneously combust. Nothing bad happened, but you are so constantly on the edge, stressing about your actions and what might happen to you, that the smallest incident puts you over the edge. Turns out it’s kind of like when people in DPC say, “Christ be with you,” and then everyone leaves. I was saved, and it didn’t involve casting out of devils and water. I’m lucky. Although, I did say, to save myself because I thought Dona Empera might have been mad at me for taking communion, that I liked the service very much. I think I committed to attending for the next five weeks. Tercero crap.
Now, first I should give a little lesson on religion in Honduras. As I have mentioned before, this is a very traditional, conservative country and a lot of that is because of the status of religion here. Catholicism is the most prevalent religion, but Evangelicals runs a close second it seems. They also have Mormons here, which I think is hilarious. In our first site we actually had one aspirante in a Mormon household. Of course, he was the only one who smoked in the group and wasn’t religious whatsoever. Anyways, as in the States, you have a range of devotion from people attending a couple times a week to those you only attend on major holidays. To be noted, there are only really two religions in Honduras (for most people): Catholicism and Evangelical.
Men, for the most part, don’t attend religious ceremonies, and if they do they are stationed outside. In Honduras, you can be a devout Catholic/Evangelical and still have a wife, mistress, and several girlfriends without breaking any of the Commandments. People pick and choose the religious norms that they wish to abide by, but such is life.
So Saturday, I’m just sitting there minding my own business, watching T.V. with my host sister, trying to follow the plot of the telenovela, and my host grandmother plops down beside me. Now, my host grandmother and I have yet to develop a relationship. She’s a quiet, reserved women and doesn’t really talk much to anyone, let alone the gringa. It doesn’t help that I can’t understand a single word she says. If I remember correctly, her asking me about my religion didn’t have anything to do with what we were watching, so you can imagine how hard it was for me to discern what she was saying. I knew it was a questions, but I also knew it wasn’t of the smile and nod persuasion. Therefore, after asking if she could repeat herself, I pinpointed the key words, “…Catolica…Evangelica?” Crap. Well I smiled and said, “Well, technically I’m neither.”
Blank stare. Clearly that wasn’t going to work. I stammer, “I need to go get my dictionary.” I run to my room, praying to God that Protestant is in the dictionary, and come back smiling, happy to be able to say “I’m Protestant.” She looks at me, and walks away. Guess that was the wrong answer. I was pretty bummed that that was the end of our interaction.
So, later, don’t remember how this came up, but she says something else to me. Now, conversations in Honduras can be very dangerous when you blindly answer “yes” to unintelligible conversations. For example, on the first day we were in our new homes here, my friend Becky was asked a question about drinking. Now, when you don’t know your family’s stance on drinking, best to just blatantly lie and say you don’t. It’s always better to go back on what you said than to make a terrible first impression. In any case, she answers very strongly with, “Yes! I drink a lot!” Now, don’t know what she thought the question was, but it turns out her family is chill with drinking; they just laughed at her, because the answer was still ridiculous. Dodged a bullet on that one.
So anyways, I start sweating because I don’t want to mess this up, but regardless of knowing better I just nod my head. I try to get a clearer idea of the conversation, and ask if she is going to church. She looks at me like I’m retarded (I get that look a lot), and says yes, yes she is. End of conversation and I’m still clueless about what’s going on.
So, me and a couple of other aspirantes head up to the Parque Central because apparently Palm Sunday is a big spectacle in Honduras. It was almost like a fair with people setting up food stands in front of the church and people trying to sell their wares, such as hammocks. There were soo many people walking around selling fancy little crosses made of palms. So we’re watching the Honduran women walking into the church with their halter tops and low cut shirts, while their husbands stand outside, ogling the other women walking in behind their wives and girlfriends. We were talking about the whole experience and who was going to church that night, and I said, “I think I might have agreed to go to church, but I’m not entirely sure exactly what the conversation was. I know something is happening at 6.” Funny thing is, no one questions that anymore because there is always someone in the group who has agreed to do something / eat something and they have no idea how it happened.
Well, I tried to make a break for the internet without eating lunch, and was caught by grandma and made to eat HOT SOUP in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY before I walked 15 minutes in jeans (I don’t own shorts) with my 10 pound computer on my back. Needless to say, I was a grump by the time I got to the internet, which luckily was working, because had it not worked after all that effort, I would have done my angry dance right on the street. Who’s a crazy gringa now?? SIDE NOTE: Here, instead of being known as the girl with the angry dance, I’m known as the girl who kicks a brick wall (after the backpack incident).
“Are you mad Hannah? Need to go kick a brick wall??”
Anyways, so as I’m walking out the door, and I clearly! catch grandma say, “Don’t forget we’re going to church at six!” HALLELUJAH I understood the woman! Confirmation at last!
So I get back, pass out on the hammock, and wake up just in time to start preparing myself for church. Now, mind you I never found out what religion Dona Empera is, so I just prepared for whatever and washed my face and put on my nicest clothes. I even ironed and then I went and got approval for how I looked. Well, it’s about 5:50 and I’ve noticed that my host mom and host sister are most definitely not in church appropriate clothes. CRAP. Trying to mask the fear in my voice, I walk up to Nolvia and ask, “Are you going to church?” She looks at me and says, “No, but I hear you are.” Segundo crap. Well, I decide to brave the unknown and still go because it’s a good cultural experience.
We leave at around 6:45 (that’s six o’clock for Hondurans) and I’m glad to see that my host sister is grudgingly tagging along. I can’t really understand her either, but it’s a buffer between me and whatever other disasters might happen over the course of the next hour. Oh yes, be sure that I checked how long the service would run. I’ve heard of the other trainees getting stuck in multi-hour long services and I was NOT about to do that; I still had homework left!
Oh, and I also checked what church I was going to. Iglesia Bautista Christo Viene (Baptist Church, Chris Comes). Ok, not so bad. So, naturally we’re late, and walk into the middle of the sermon. The church is very simple, folding chairs in rows in an all peach room. They really went overboard with the peach. Marjory and I sit in front of Dona Empera and I notice that everyone has their Bibles and a piece of paper. I have neither and start to sweat a bit, not knowing what the papers were for. People didn’t seem too interested in me, so that made me chill a bit.
There was one aspirante who went to an Evangelical service with his host family one of the first weeks we were in the country. They sat in the back, and he was relieved, thinking that this will help him go unnoticed. WRONG. As a gringo, you never go unnoticed. By the end of the service, they had him up front, introducing himself (he didn’t speak a word of Spanish), and getting the devil cast out of him. He had people speaking in tongues around him and splashing him with water of unknown origins. This was probably right after the Peace Corps doctors told us not to so much as look at water that didn’t come from an un-opened bottle for fear of parasites. He was scarred for a while.
So this story is running through my head as I try to figure out if the pastor is saying ridiculous stuff. After a few minutes I relaxed. Most everyone seemed chill and I realized the papers were a little test for people to fill out as they listened along to the sermon. We were there for like 40 minutes before I started to get nervous again. They were singing and women started to head to the front, just standing up there. For a minute it seemed like everyone was going, and I thought, “Great! I missed the part where he said, ‘Now lets save the gringa!’” Marjory, my plan B in case anything went wrong, clearly has no idea what’s going on, and I’m up shits creek without a paddle. Then Dona Empera went up, and I thought that I was done for. I decided, not matter what, I wasn’t moving from my seat. Well, apparently in the Bautista church you just go up front if you feel moved by the music.
More chilling, watching the kids running around screaming, when there’s more movement in the congregation. Movement is bad. Communion. Crap, I don’t know what the rules are and Marjory doesn’t know what the rules are, now what? Well, they offered, so I took it, immediately afterwards wishing I hadn’t, but no one gave me a nasty look. God, at that point I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die. That was just about enough for me and I didn’t know what else was in store. More singing. Service seems to be coming to an end.
Well, snot-rocket-fourth-grade-teacher comes up to me, and makes as if she’s going to talk to me, and I just about spontaneously combust. Nothing bad happened, but you are so constantly on the edge, stressing about your actions and what might happen to you, that the smallest incident puts you over the edge. Turns out it’s kind of like when people in DPC say, “Christ be with you,” and then everyone leaves. I was saved, and it didn’t involve casting out of devils and water. I’m lucky. Although, I did say, to save myself because I thought Dona Empera might have been mad at me for taking communion, that I liked the service very much. I think I committed to attending for the next five weeks. Tercero crap.
Sugar Ketchup Hot-Dog Spaghetti Sauce
So, the Hondurans really only eat two kinds of “foreign food”: chopped suey and sugar ketchup spaghetti.
We’ve been here for over a month now and have all had the unfortunate encounter with sugar ketchup hot-dog spaghetti sauce. Now, in order to understand exactly how foul this combination is, I encourage you all to go to your kitchen and grab ketchup and sugar. Now mix them, almost equal parts, but with a bit more sugar. Then spread it over warm spaghetti. Now eat it. Now you know how I feel!
The Honduran women seem to think that tomato sauce is actually just ketchup and sugar. It’s disgusting. Then, to add to the magic of this meal, they add little pieces of hot-dog. I would gladly pick Chef Boyardee over this stuff any day!
Now, whenever one of us gets this glorious concoction for lunch we come back to the group and say, “Guess what I had for lunch!” Of course we all know the answer, and we just start laughing hysterically. There’s no way for you to know how hard it is to eat this stuff. What I wouldn’t give for some Prego sauce right now!
Another marvelous fact about Honduran food is that they love to eat soup in the middle of the day! I sweat 24/7 here and to add to the disgusting-ness of this situation, I get scalding hot soup for lunch and just sweat profusely. I don’t understand why they don’t eat more salads here. Light food, PLEASE!
Other than that though, I’ve had a good run with the food here. Luckily, because I get portions 2x the size of anyone else, I have host moms who are really good cooks. It seems that all the guys have gotten parasites, because they are constantly hungry. It’s convenient actually, because when you’re offered a sandwich and fruit (for a snack) right after you’ve eaten like 6 pancakes, you always have a male somewhere who is still hungry and will eat whatever you have. Meanwhile, watching everything I eat getting cooked in a cup of oil, I’m terrified that I’m going to gain ten pounds overnight!
We’ve been here for over a month now and have all had the unfortunate encounter with sugar ketchup hot-dog spaghetti sauce. Now, in order to understand exactly how foul this combination is, I encourage you all to go to your kitchen and grab ketchup and sugar. Now mix them, almost equal parts, but with a bit more sugar. Then spread it over warm spaghetti. Now eat it. Now you know how I feel!
The Honduran women seem to think that tomato sauce is actually just ketchup and sugar. It’s disgusting. Then, to add to the magic of this meal, they add little pieces of hot-dog. I would gladly pick Chef Boyardee over this stuff any day!
Now, whenever one of us gets this glorious concoction for lunch we come back to the group and say, “Guess what I had for lunch!” Of course we all know the answer, and we just start laughing hysterically. There’s no way for you to know how hard it is to eat this stuff. What I wouldn’t give for some Prego sauce right now!
Another marvelous fact about Honduran food is that they love to eat soup in the middle of the day! I sweat 24/7 here and to add to the disgusting-ness of this situation, I get scalding hot soup for lunch and just sweat profusely. I don’t understand why they don’t eat more salads here. Light food, PLEASE!
Other than that though, I’ve had a good run with the food here. Luckily, because I get portions 2x the size of anyone else, I have host moms who are really good cooks. It seems that all the guys have gotten parasites, because they are constantly hungry. It’s convenient actually, because when you’re offered a sandwich and fruit (for a snack) right after you’ve eaten like 6 pancakes, you always have a male somewhere who is still hungry and will eat whatever you have. Meanwhile, watching everything I eat getting cooked in a cup of oil, I’m terrified that I’m going to gain ten pounds overnight!
Friday, April 3, 2009
March 28th
So yesterday was an eventful Saturday. My first Saturday here in Pespire I went to San Lorenzo and Choluteca with my host mom and sister. Marjory needed shoes for school. Her dad lives/works in the States and gave her money to buy shoes when he was visiting. Oddly enough, his family lives next door to us. They have a Trainee too, and I can hear everything that Ryan is saying. Weird. Also, because it’s so incredibly hot here, I bought a couple of skirts, because the thought of wearing pants for the next 6 weeks is unbearable.
First we went to San Lorenzo, which is a port town about a half-hour south of us. It’s just a little bit bigger than Pespire, but it didn’t have much in the way of skirts and shoes, so we continued on to Choluteca. Choluteca is the biggest city in this area. It’s probably about an hour away. We really didn’t get to stroll around that much. We went to a mall on the outskirts of the city, where I bought a couple of skirts. Then we took a cab into the city to look at Payless and some other stores. The cities here are pretty uneventful. They aren’t really constructed to attract tourists and such, as one might expect in the States. Cities here exist purely for commercial purposes. People come in, buy what they can’t get in their little towns, and then leave. They aren’t pretty, they’re actually rather dirty and over-whelming.
Having moved from D.C., which I consider to be a lovely little city, I had thought that I would want to be in a city in Honduras. They would have a few more creature comforts than a small town, but you loose the personal feel of a small town. Perspire is quite attractive. There’s a big Iglesia in the center of town, which looks pretty colonial. The Iglesia sits right off the central park, which has several big mango trees. The shops on the main streets are brightly painted, and people actually throw their trash in trash cans here. Choluteca, there’s dirt and trash everywhere. So, I have decided that I probably will want to end up in a smaller town, hopefully outside of a major city, for my permanent site.
My point was, I didn’t see much in Choluteca, just went specifically to buy stuff, but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. Marjory didn’t end up buying any shoes because none of them were really to her specifications. So, we headed back to San Lorenzo, where we got sopa marinara (seafood soup). It was really good. That’s the first time I’ve actually eaten in a restaurant in Honduras. There was like a whole fish tail in my sopa, which I could deal with, but if I had seen so much as a head pop out of that broth, I would have been done with soup in Honduras. Because everyone in our town is Catholic, a lot of people came back from lunch pretty disappointed because they had fish head soup. YUCK.
Last week we had our first technical sessions outside. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we went up into the nearby mountain to do a topographic study after lunch. In the heat of the day, after huge lunches, we went into the blaring sun to struggle with tape measures and abney levels. Actually, it was pretty fun because I liked my group and we chismed (gossiped) all they way down the mountain. After the first day (the coolest actually) we all thought we were dying and went into the pulperia to look for something to cool us down. Charamuscas (spelling?) are little plastic bags of frozen fruit juice. They just blend up a watermelon or a pineapple and freeze it into this little bag. GLORIOUS! Well, after we discovered these little things we eat them about 3 times a day. Anyways, my host mom discovered that I liked them and we bought a whole bunch of fruit to make charamuscas for the technical session tomorrow.
So, after the ridiculously hot day of shopping, I came home and chilled for a second before I headed off to the hotel to watch Honduras play Trinidad and Tobago for the 2010 World Cup qualifying game. The hotel had set up a big screen TV on this veranda upstairs, and some of the townspeople showed up to watch the game and drink some beers. Me, Becky, and Ryan were the first to show-up to the game. Becky and I had jerseys one and got a lot of stares on the street. Eventually, more of the gringos showed up and we didn’t feel so conspicuous. A few of the host families attended too, which was fun because we had met them the night before at the party (gotta write about that). The first half was pretty boring, there wasn’t a score. Honduras just wasn’t putting any effort into the game. Second half though, that got fun. When we finally scored, the Hondurans went CRAZY! It’s always so much fun to watch a soccer game in a country that’s actually passionate about it. People were jumping up and down and banging on the tables. If I remember correctly, Honduras scored two and then Trinidad came back and got two to tie the game. It’s ok though, because Honduras still advanced. We play Mexico later.
After the game most people vacated the hotel pretty quickly, so a few of us went to Parque Central to hang out for a bit. A crazy man came shook his stump at Kathryn, after which she decided she was just going to go home! Awfully weird encounter.
The U.S. played El Salvador later that night. I only caught the last 20 minutes or so, but it was a much faster game than Honduras’ game. El Salvador was winning 2-0 before the U.S. scored two in the last few minutes of the game. The salvadorenos lost like three people to injury in the time I was watching. It was absurd! They were dropping like flies. I wish I could poke fun at Juan for it because I’m sure he was watching the game. It always takes something away from the game when people fake injuries to pull a foul. Oh well.
Overall a fun filled day of extensive sweating and cultural experiences.
First we went to San Lorenzo, which is a port town about a half-hour south of us. It’s just a little bit bigger than Pespire, but it didn’t have much in the way of skirts and shoes, so we continued on to Choluteca. Choluteca is the biggest city in this area. It’s probably about an hour away. We really didn’t get to stroll around that much. We went to a mall on the outskirts of the city, where I bought a couple of skirts. Then we took a cab into the city to look at Payless and some other stores. The cities here are pretty uneventful. They aren’t really constructed to attract tourists and such, as one might expect in the States. Cities here exist purely for commercial purposes. People come in, buy what they can’t get in their little towns, and then leave. They aren’t pretty, they’re actually rather dirty and over-whelming.
Having moved from D.C., which I consider to be a lovely little city, I had thought that I would want to be in a city in Honduras. They would have a few more creature comforts than a small town, but you loose the personal feel of a small town. Perspire is quite attractive. There’s a big Iglesia in the center of town, which looks pretty colonial. The Iglesia sits right off the central park, which has several big mango trees. The shops on the main streets are brightly painted, and people actually throw their trash in trash cans here. Choluteca, there’s dirt and trash everywhere. So, I have decided that I probably will want to end up in a smaller town, hopefully outside of a major city, for my permanent site.
My point was, I didn’t see much in Choluteca, just went specifically to buy stuff, but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. Marjory didn’t end up buying any shoes because none of them were really to her specifications. So, we headed back to San Lorenzo, where we got sopa marinara (seafood soup). It was really good. That’s the first time I’ve actually eaten in a restaurant in Honduras. There was like a whole fish tail in my sopa, which I could deal with, but if I had seen so much as a head pop out of that broth, I would have been done with soup in Honduras. Because everyone in our town is Catholic, a lot of people came back from lunch pretty disappointed because they had fish head soup. YUCK.
Last week we had our first technical sessions outside. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we went up into the nearby mountain to do a topographic study after lunch. In the heat of the day, after huge lunches, we went into the blaring sun to struggle with tape measures and abney levels. Actually, it was pretty fun because I liked my group and we chismed (gossiped) all they way down the mountain. After the first day (the coolest actually) we all thought we were dying and went into the pulperia to look for something to cool us down. Charamuscas (spelling?) are little plastic bags of frozen fruit juice. They just blend up a watermelon or a pineapple and freeze it into this little bag. GLORIOUS! Well, after we discovered these little things we eat them about 3 times a day. Anyways, my host mom discovered that I liked them and we bought a whole bunch of fruit to make charamuscas for the technical session tomorrow.
So, after the ridiculously hot day of shopping, I came home and chilled for a second before I headed off to the hotel to watch Honduras play Trinidad and Tobago for the 2010 World Cup qualifying game. The hotel had set up a big screen TV on this veranda upstairs, and some of the townspeople showed up to watch the game and drink some beers. Me, Becky, and Ryan were the first to show-up to the game. Becky and I had jerseys one and got a lot of stares on the street. Eventually, more of the gringos showed up and we didn’t feel so conspicuous. A few of the host families attended too, which was fun because we had met them the night before at the party (gotta write about that). The first half was pretty boring, there wasn’t a score. Honduras just wasn’t putting any effort into the game. Second half though, that got fun. When we finally scored, the Hondurans went CRAZY! It’s always so much fun to watch a soccer game in a country that’s actually passionate about it. People were jumping up and down and banging on the tables. If I remember correctly, Honduras scored two and then Trinidad came back and got two to tie the game. It’s ok though, because Honduras still advanced. We play Mexico later.
After the game most people vacated the hotel pretty quickly, so a few of us went to Parque Central to hang out for a bit. A crazy man came shook his stump at Kathryn, after which she decided she was just going to go home! Awfully weird encounter.
The U.S. played El Salvador later that night. I only caught the last 20 minutes or so, but it was a much faster game than Honduras’ game. El Salvador was winning 2-0 before the U.S. scored two in the last few minutes of the game. The salvadorenos lost like three people to injury in the time I was watching. It was absurd! They were dropping like flies. I wish I could poke fun at Juan for it because I’m sure he was watching the game. It always takes something away from the game when people fake injuries to pull a foul. Oh well.
Overall a fun filled day of extensive sweating and cultural experiences.
How Life has Changed Since I Moved to Honduras
(in no particular order)
I now get up to run at 5 am every day.
I flush the toilet with a bucket and take a shower with a bucket (different ones)
I have now mastered ZERO languages: I’m losing my English and Spanish I have yet to even come close to mastering.
I haven’t eaten chocolate in 3 weeks. Just doesn’t taste the same here.
I don’t drink anymore (not a conscious choice, but culturally sensitive.)
I can walk outside and pick a mango off a tree to eat.
I can’t walk around at night (Pespire has a rule that people have to be off the streets at 10 pm. Most people don’t follow the rule, but as a gringa, that would create a lot of trouble for Peace Corps.)
People seem to think that it is acceptable to whistle and cat-call whenever I walk by them.
I eat a gagillion carbohydrates a day (that’s not too different actually)
I feel like I’m back in middle school.
I now get up to run at 5 am every day.
I flush the toilet with a bucket and take a shower with a bucket (different ones)
I have now mastered ZERO languages: I’m losing my English and Spanish I have yet to even come close to mastering.
I haven’t eaten chocolate in 3 weeks. Just doesn’t taste the same here.
I don’t drink anymore (not a conscious choice, but culturally sensitive.)
I can walk outside and pick a mango off a tree to eat.
I can’t walk around at night (Pespire has a rule that people have to be off the streets at 10 pm. Most people don’t follow the rule, but as a gringa, that would create a lot of trouble for Peace Corps.)
People seem to think that it is acceptable to whistle and cat-call whenever I walk by them.
I eat a gagillion carbohydrates a day (that’s not too different actually)
I feel like I’m back in middle school.
Changes !
Ok, so after about a month in Valle de Angeles, each sector splits up and goes to their own Field Based Training (FBT). Health went to La Paz, north of Tegucigalpa, while business and wat/san went South. Sad day. So, since business and wat/san were going the same direction, we were going to be on the same bus, and health had their own bus. Now, when they’re telling us the schedule the day before, they talked about us putting our luggage underneath the bus, which would make one assume that we would have Greyhound type transportation. WRONG!
So, if you remember, we have about a 15 minute walk up to the bus stop, and this did not change when we had to move to a new site with all our worldly possessions. Don’t worry, Theresa’s host dad was nice enough to drive us and our luggage up to the bus stop. Before this, when I was saying good-bye to Suyapa and the kids, Suyapa started crying, and so I started crying. She’s a great woman. We go back to our original host families for a week before we swear-in, which I am looking forward to. Back to the story…
So, we’re standing there, 9 gringos with all their gringo crap, and this yellow school bus pulls up. Now, these chicken buses are common transportation in the campo to move people to Teguz, therefore we waved him on, thinking this can’t be our bus. Well, he opens the door and says “Ojojuna and Pespire!” Yep, those are the FBT sites for business and wat/san. Great. Now, imagine this, 32 Trainees and all their crap piled on a school bus. We had people sitting on top of seats, on top of luggage, and the married couples had to double up. It was fun, until we got farther South, and we were all packed in like sardines when the temperature got to 90 degrees. So, at each stop health people would climb on our bus and we would all say good-bye. Some people even started crying. Apparently, according to other training groups, our group is obnoxiously close like Hondu 12, and we’re Kumbaya 2.
So, as the health group passes us on the highway, we see them, comfortably spaced out around the bus, feet on the seats, as we struggle to fit all the luggage on the bus. Because business was getting off first, they were in the front so we didn’t confuse the luggage. BUSINESS in the front PARTY in the back! We called it the mullet bus. Wat/San is always the BEST!
Peace Corps loves to coddle us, and throw us to the wolves all at the same time. We get to Pespire, a small little town in southern Honduras, and they just let us off. We have directions written by our host family wrote on where to go, but Hondurans wrote them, and they are notoriously bad with directions! We stopped to ask an old man where to go, and he started to tell us the completely wrong direction until a woman shoo-ed him away and helped us.
New host family:
-Nolvia – middle-aged host mom, kindergarten teacher
-Dona Emperatriz – Mother of Nolvia, seems to be the house servant
-Marjory (Negra) – Daughter of Nolvia
-Vanessa – adopted sister of Nolvia (21)
-Darwin – Husband of Jessica (18)
-Dalin – 8 month old baby of Jessica and Darwin
The house here is bigger and much quieter. I have my own room again right next to the kitchen. The house seems very old, and there roof is made of tiles, so when it’s windy, dust and crap falls into the house. While my ceiling may be lacking a bit, I do have a skylight! Ok, so it’s just plastic instead of tile, but I think it’s pretty cool. I live in the main house with Dona Emperatriz, Nolvia and Marjory, while Jessica and Darwin live in a room out back.
Nolvia has never hosted a Peace Corps person before, and that puts a lot of pressure on both of us. I have to make a good impression so she wants to have another Trainee/doesn’t hate Americans. She feels the need to wait on me hand-and-foot, which is also awkward for me. My abuela went into my room today and took all my laundry to wash while I was at school. Embarrassing as hell! Then, when I was in my room this evening, Nolvia helped me fold it! It’s crazy.
I am quite proud of myself that I nipped portion control in the butt immediately. I told Nolvia that I was always fed too much in my other house and that I would appreciate portions similar to what she would give herself. I still get the bigger portions and bigger glasses, but at least I actually get hungry during the day here.
We’ve also made strides in communication. Nolvia has started to speak slower and seems to have patience with me. She’s a kindergarten teacher, so she’s used to correcting people when they say something wrong. Suyapa knew to talk slow, and was really good as understanding gringa Spanish, and Nolvia is figuring it out really quickly.
Side note: I have a furry friend in my room. I’ll be ordinary and name him Gus. Gus the mouse from Pespire, hiding under my suitcase. He desperately wants to get to the kitchen, but there are a lot of people out there.
So, Nolvia and I are doing the awkward host family/Trainee dance. And you thought I was awkward before! This afternoon, while we were eating lunch (we go home for lunch now), I asked what the baby’s parents did for work. Darwin and Jessica. Well, Nolvia thought I was talking about HER daughter, and proceeded to comment that Marjory doesn’t have a dad… @#$)$()*%)#$(#(@(!. Awkward. Sensitive topic in most places, but much more sensitive in conservative Honduras. Crap. I tried to sort myself out, but when you’re feeling like an ass and trying to dig yourself out of a hole in a different language, you just end up creating a worse situation. She didn’t seem to mind, because there was clearly a confusion,
So more on FBT, we basically are here to do more sector specific work. We build latrines, do topographic studies, and generally get to play in the heat. More on that later.
Hope all is well!
Cheque.
So, if you remember, we have about a 15 minute walk up to the bus stop, and this did not change when we had to move to a new site with all our worldly possessions. Don’t worry, Theresa’s host dad was nice enough to drive us and our luggage up to the bus stop. Before this, when I was saying good-bye to Suyapa and the kids, Suyapa started crying, and so I started crying. She’s a great woman. We go back to our original host families for a week before we swear-in, which I am looking forward to. Back to the story…
So, we’re standing there, 9 gringos with all their gringo crap, and this yellow school bus pulls up. Now, these chicken buses are common transportation in the campo to move people to Teguz, therefore we waved him on, thinking this can’t be our bus. Well, he opens the door and says “Ojojuna and Pespire!” Yep, those are the FBT sites for business and wat/san. Great. Now, imagine this, 32 Trainees and all their crap piled on a school bus. We had people sitting on top of seats, on top of luggage, and the married couples had to double up. It was fun, until we got farther South, and we were all packed in like sardines when the temperature got to 90 degrees. So, at each stop health people would climb on our bus and we would all say good-bye. Some people even started crying. Apparently, according to other training groups, our group is obnoxiously close like Hondu 12, and we’re Kumbaya 2.
So, as the health group passes us on the highway, we see them, comfortably spaced out around the bus, feet on the seats, as we struggle to fit all the luggage on the bus. Because business was getting off first, they were in the front so we didn’t confuse the luggage. BUSINESS in the front PARTY in the back! We called it the mullet bus. Wat/San is always the BEST!
Peace Corps loves to coddle us, and throw us to the wolves all at the same time. We get to Pespire, a small little town in southern Honduras, and they just let us off. We have directions written by our host family wrote on where to go, but Hondurans wrote them, and they are notoriously bad with directions! We stopped to ask an old man where to go, and he started to tell us the completely wrong direction until a woman shoo-ed him away and helped us.
New host family:
-Nolvia – middle-aged host mom, kindergarten teacher
-Dona Emperatriz – Mother of Nolvia, seems to be the house servant
-Marjory (Negra) – Daughter of Nolvia
-Vanessa – adopted sister of Nolvia (21)
-Darwin – Husband of Jessica (18)
-Dalin – 8 month old baby of Jessica and Darwin
The house here is bigger and much quieter. I have my own room again right next to the kitchen. The house seems very old, and there roof is made of tiles, so when it’s windy, dust and crap falls into the house. While my ceiling may be lacking a bit, I do have a skylight! Ok, so it’s just plastic instead of tile, but I think it’s pretty cool. I live in the main house with Dona Emperatriz, Nolvia and Marjory, while Jessica and Darwin live in a room out back.
Nolvia has never hosted a Peace Corps person before, and that puts a lot of pressure on both of us. I have to make a good impression so she wants to have another Trainee/doesn’t hate Americans. She feels the need to wait on me hand-and-foot, which is also awkward for me. My abuela went into my room today and took all my laundry to wash while I was at school. Embarrassing as hell! Then, when I was in my room this evening, Nolvia helped me fold it! It’s crazy.
I am quite proud of myself that I nipped portion control in the butt immediately. I told Nolvia that I was always fed too much in my other house and that I would appreciate portions similar to what she would give herself. I still get the bigger portions and bigger glasses, but at least I actually get hungry during the day here.
We’ve also made strides in communication. Nolvia has started to speak slower and seems to have patience with me. She’s a kindergarten teacher, so she’s used to correcting people when they say something wrong. Suyapa knew to talk slow, and was really good as understanding gringa Spanish, and Nolvia is figuring it out really quickly.
Side note: I have a furry friend in my room. I’ll be ordinary and name him Gus. Gus the mouse from Pespire, hiding under my suitcase. He desperately wants to get to the kitchen, but there are a lot of people out there.
So, Nolvia and I are doing the awkward host family/Trainee dance. And you thought I was awkward before! This afternoon, while we were eating lunch (we go home for lunch now), I asked what the baby’s parents did for work. Darwin and Jessica. Well, Nolvia thought I was talking about HER daughter, and proceeded to comment that Marjory doesn’t have a dad… @#$)$()*%)#$(#(@(!. Awkward. Sensitive topic in most places, but much more sensitive in conservative Honduras. Crap. I tried to sort myself out, but when you’re feeling like an ass and trying to dig yourself out of a hole in a different language, you just end up creating a worse situation. She didn’t seem to mind, because there was clearly a confusion,
So more on FBT, we basically are here to do more sector specific work. We build latrines, do topographic studies, and generally get to play in the heat. More on that later.
Hope all is well!
Cheque.
Reflection of Volunteer Visit
So the last time I wrote, I was about to leave for Volunteer Visit. It was an interesting experience to say the least.
I was lucky enough to take the bus with five other people heading to the same department and more-or-less the same area. Darren and I lived in the same neighborhood and caught a moto-taxi at 5 am to meet three other people on the main road to catch the bus to Tegucigalpa. We were only a few hundred yards from the main road when we came upon a parked pick-up, sitting in the middle of the road. Kind of odd because it’s 5 am, but people here get up early for long trips to work. Anyways, we kind of got nervous because all our safety and security trainings are organized to make us nervous, but decided we were just being ridiculous. Well, our driver, as we were coming up on the truck, flicks his lights, which we automatically assume is a sign “here are the gringos we are going to rob.” P.S. we had to call the night before to arrange this ride because they don’t normally run this early on a Sunday morning. Totally plausible. Well our driver stopped to talk to the guy, and as we were stopped I was just sure we were going to get screwed. At that point I had about 1,1130 Lempiras on me because I was traveling and Peace Corps gave us money for food. Getting robbed would have ruined the trip and I would have turned around and gone right back to my house; forget Volunteer visit. Well nothing happened; anti-climatic right? Definitely woke us up though.
So we got to the bus station wicked early and just sat there for about 1.5 hours. Finally, we got on the bus and were off. The bus ride was about 4.5 hours and we got a 15 minute break half way there. Oh, and we weren’t riding a chicken bus, which is one of those old U.S. yellow school buses, but a Greyhound type bus, which was fairly comfortable. So my visit site was about 30 minutes outside Santa Barbara, therefore I was getting off by myself. A nice guy told me when the stop was and I got off, all by my lonesome, on the side of a massive highway in Honduras. The bus pulls away with all my friends leaning out the window, waving with looks on their faces like, “Whoa man that girl is SCREWED!” Great! Concepcion del Sur is on the backside of the mountain off said highway, and consequently I had to wait for another moto-taxi. Turns out my Volunteer, Andrea, had called a moto-taxi for me, so he putted down the hill in his little moto contraption and shuttled me right to the door of my Volunteer.
This is boring. Long and short of the rest of Sunday, we picked up her dog because she had been away for a couple of days, and sat down to eat while I picked her brain. I asked A LOT of questions.
Monday, now that was a day of fun! The local engineer in Santa Barbara, Katie, is closing her service (COS) in a couple of weeks, and is transferring one of her projects to Andrea. Apparently, this little town of Buena Vista has been told for years that they can never access water because the nearest fuente (water source) is too low to pump the water up to the town. Well Katie is the type of engineer who didn’t accept this answer, and decided this wicked complicated 6 km water system. Peace Corps record, I heard, is 12 km. So, the whole point to Monday was for Katie to walk the tube line with Andrea so she understood the general placement of the system before Katie left.
So we drive (with a Rotary International rep because Peace Corps Volunteers aren’t allowed to drive) for three hours up a few mountains on REALLY bumpy roads. We were driving like 15 mph. When we get to the top, we through on some bug spray and follow the road up to the fuente. Conveniently enough, the ticks here really like to bite you along your waistband, and they’re so small you can’t really see them. We’ve been told you won’t get Lyme’s disease, just really nasty scars. It was a steep climb, but easy because we were on the road. Yeah, well that didn’t last long. Yeah, fuente, it’s a water source, cool. We moved on.
Santa Barbara is a big coffee growing area and after we left the fuente we started crawling, literally crawling, through coffee plants. Keep in mind we were following the line of the tubes, which makes the most sense for water gravity, but not the most sense for eight people trying to walk the line. Hence, me stumbling for FIVE hours, up and down the mountains of Honduras. I cannot accurately convey how difficult this hike was. There were a couple ascents of mountainsides where, if I wasn’t holding onto some sort of plant, I was sliding down a steep mountainside, where I would inevitably get severely hurt if not dead. FUN TIMES!
The local guide, wearing a polo shirt and unlaced loafers, was walking in front of me at one point down a pretty steep slope. Me, in my state-of-the art hiking boots, take a mis-step and my feet go FLYING up into the air, I land on my butt and start sliding down the hill straight towards Umberto. I hit him full force right at the knees and we go sliding a good 20 ft through coffee trees before one finally stops us. Oh, and Umberto was carrying a machete when I hit him. Throughout all of this all I could say was “Lo siento!! Lo siento!!” Needless to say, he stayed away from me after that. After that fall I realized it was a lot less strenuous going downhill when you just slide on your @$$. Therefore, Bert (another trainee) and I took to flying downhill on our backsides with one leg out lick you’re going to tackle someone. Lots of fun until you land on a rock.
Monday was EXHAUSTING, but extremely fun because I had so much energy. Thing is, it’s hard to exercise here. I would get home at 5:30 pm and Suyapa would have dinner ready and because I ate so much it was hard to exercise afterwards. Plus, I always had homework and stuff. Also, a woman walking in the dark in Honduras is basically a really stupid idea. Hence, a lot of pent-up energy because I never did anything; so ridiculous hiking was a great release of energy.
Tuesday we didn’t do anything until later, when we met up in the city of Santa Barbara for a party with other Volunteers. I will reserve my judgments of this party for an offline forum.
Now, the trip back was eventful! Well, another anti-climatic story, but for me it was a big deal! So we left Santa Barbara at 7 am because we had to be back at training by 2 pm. The six of us got back on the bus, but this time, the driver wouldn’t let me keep my bag with me on the bus because it was too big. Well I didn’t feel like arguing with him because the trip out seemed so safe, so I stuck my bag underneath. During all of our safety and security trainings, they tell us to keep our bags with us at all times, and if we can’t, to watch them from the bus so people don’t walk off with them. The buses make several stops randomly on the highway, so it’s easy to people to swipe a bag especially a nice Osprey bag that screams “Good stuff in here!” Well each time we stopped I jumped up to try to see if anyone was going to take my bag. Naturally I couldn’t see anything. Eventually I just decided to leave it to the powers that be, and just relaxed.
Well we all get off the bus, and wait in line to pick up our bags. The ayudante crawls under the bus and starts throwing crap out. Everyone has their bag now, and mine is nowhere to be seen. Now, I wasn’t upset about losing the stuff in the bag because it really wouldn’t be hard to replace, but the bag itself is worth more than everything in it! Well, I start asking the bus attendant, “Where is the red bag?? Where is the red bag??” (in Spanish of course), and he doesn’t seem to care AT ALL that my bag appears to be gone. After more pleading, each time increasing an octave, I finally turn around and start KICKING the brick wall. It was a long day and he didn’t seem to realize I wasn’t joking around when I asked for my bag. After the gringa went ape-$%^# on the wall, he seemed to get a little motivation, and opened the next compartment. There, squished among what appears to be bus parts, is my bag! Gracias a Dios! Well at this point I start to feel really bad for yelling at him and freaking out on the wall, and apologize (a little) before I run away to join the rest of the group. It was a long day of bus traveling after being up late the night before and… wait, no excuses, I was frustrated with Honduras and just lost control. End of story.
Cheque.
I was lucky enough to take the bus with five other people heading to the same department and more-or-less the same area. Darren and I lived in the same neighborhood and caught a moto-taxi at 5 am to meet three other people on the main road to catch the bus to Tegucigalpa. We were only a few hundred yards from the main road when we came upon a parked pick-up, sitting in the middle of the road. Kind of odd because it’s 5 am, but people here get up early for long trips to work. Anyways, we kind of got nervous because all our safety and security trainings are organized to make us nervous, but decided we were just being ridiculous. Well, our driver, as we were coming up on the truck, flicks his lights, which we automatically assume is a sign “here are the gringos we are going to rob.” P.S. we had to call the night before to arrange this ride because they don’t normally run this early on a Sunday morning. Totally plausible. Well our driver stopped to talk to the guy, and as we were stopped I was just sure we were going to get screwed. At that point I had about 1,1130 Lempiras on me because I was traveling and Peace Corps gave us money for food. Getting robbed would have ruined the trip and I would have turned around and gone right back to my house; forget Volunteer visit. Well nothing happened; anti-climatic right? Definitely woke us up though.
So we got to the bus station wicked early and just sat there for about 1.5 hours. Finally, we got on the bus and were off. The bus ride was about 4.5 hours and we got a 15 minute break half way there. Oh, and we weren’t riding a chicken bus, which is one of those old U.S. yellow school buses, but a Greyhound type bus, which was fairly comfortable. So my visit site was about 30 minutes outside Santa Barbara, therefore I was getting off by myself. A nice guy told me when the stop was and I got off, all by my lonesome, on the side of a massive highway in Honduras. The bus pulls away with all my friends leaning out the window, waving with looks on their faces like, “Whoa man that girl is SCREWED!” Great! Concepcion del Sur is on the backside of the mountain off said highway, and consequently I had to wait for another moto-taxi. Turns out my Volunteer, Andrea, had called a moto-taxi for me, so he putted down the hill in his little moto contraption and shuttled me right to the door of my Volunteer.
This is boring. Long and short of the rest of Sunday, we picked up her dog because she had been away for a couple of days, and sat down to eat while I picked her brain. I asked A LOT of questions.
Monday, now that was a day of fun! The local engineer in Santa Barbara, Katie, is closing her service (COS) in a couple of weeks, and is transferring one of her projects to Andrea. Apparently, this little town of Buena Vista has been told for years that they can never access water because the nearest fuente (water source) is too low to pump the water up to the town. Well Katie is the type of engineer who didn’t accept this answer, and decided this wicked complicated 6 km water system. Peace Corps record, I heard, is 12 km. So, the whole point to Monday was for Katie to walk the tube line with Andrea so she understood the general placement of the system before Katie left.
So we drive (with a Rotary International rep because Peace Corps Volunteers aren’t allowed to drive) for three hours up a few mountains on REALLY bumpy roads. We were driving like 15 mph. When we get to the top, we through on some bug spray and follow the road up to the fuente. Conveniently enough, the ticks here really like to bite you along your waistband, and they’re so small you can’t really see them. We’ve been told you won’t get Lyme’s disease, just really nasty scars. It was a steep climb, but easy because we were on the road. Yeah, well that didn’t last long. Yeah, fuente, it’s a water source, cool. We moved on.
Santa Barbara is a big coffee growing area and after we left the fuente we started crawling, literally crawling, through coffee plants. Keep in mind we were following the line of the tubes, which makes the most sense for water gravity, but not the most sense for eight people trying to walk the line. Hence, me stumbling for FIVE hours, up and down the mountains of Honduras. I cannot accurately convey how difficult this hike was. There were a couple ascents of mountainsides where, if I wasn’t holding onto some sort of plant, I was sliding down a steep mountainside, where I would inevitably get severely hurt if not dead. FUN TIMES!
The local guide, wearing a polo shirt and unlaced loafers, was walking in front of me at one point down a pretty steep slope. Me, in my state-of-the art hiking boots, take a mis-step and my feet go FLYING up into the air, I land on my butt and start sliding down the hill straight towards Umberto. I hit him full force right at the knees and we go sliding a good 20 ft through coffee trees before one finally stops us. Oh, and Umberto was carrying a machete when I hit him. Throughout all of this all I could say was “Lo siento!! Lo siento!!” Needless to say, he stayed away from me after that. After that fall I realized it was a lot less strenuous going downhill when you just slide on your @$$. Therefore, Bert (another trainee) and I took to flying downhill on our backsides with one leg out lick you’re going to tackle someone. Lots of fun until you land on a rock.
Monday was EXHAUSTING, but extremely fun because I had so much energy. Thing is, it’s hard to exercise here. I would get home at 5:30 pm and Suyapa would have dinner ready and because I ate so much it was hard to exercise afterwards. Plus, I always had homework and stuff. Also, a woman walking in the dark in Honduras is basically a really stupid idea. Hence, a lot of pent-up energy because I never did anything; so ridiculous hiking was a great release of energy.
Tuesday we didn’t do anything until later, when we met up in the city of Santa Barbara for a party with other Volunteers. I will reserve my judgments of this party for an offline forum.
Now, the trip back was eventful! Well, another anti-climatic story, but for me it was a big deal! So we left Santa Barbara at 7 am because we had to be back at training by 2 pm. The six of us got back on the bus, but this time, the driver wouldn’t let me keep my bag with me on the bus because it was too big. Well I didn’t feel like arguing with him because the trip out seemed so safe, so I stuck my bag underneath. During all of our safety and security trainings, they tell us to keep our bags with us at all times, and if we can’t, to watch them from the bus so people don’t walk off with them. The buses make several stops randomly on the highway, so it’s easy to people to swipe a bag especially a nice Osprey bag that screams “Good stuff in here!” Well each time we stopped I jumped up to try to see if anyone was going to take my bag. Naturally I couldn’t see anything. Eventually I just decided to leave it to the powers that be, and just relaxed.
Well we all get off the bus, and wait in line to pick up our bags. The ayudante crawls under the bus and starts throwing crap out. Everyone has their bag now, and mine is nowhere to be seen. Now, I wasn’t upset about losing the stuff in the bag because it really wouldn’t be hard to replace, but the bag itself is worth more than everything in it! Well, I start asking the bus attendant, “Where is the red bag?? Where is the red bag??” (in Spanish of course), and he doesn’t seem to care AT ALL that my bag appears to be gone. After more pleading, each time increasing an octave, I finally turn around and start KICKING the brick wall. It was a long day and he didn’t seem to realize I wasn’t joking around when I asked for my bag. After the gringa went ape-$%^# on the wall, he seemed to get a little motivation, and opened the next compartment. There, squished among what appears to be bus parts, is my bag! Gracias a Dios! Well at this point I start to feel really bad for yelling at him and freaking out on the wall, and apologize (a little) before I run away to join the rest of the group. It was a long day of bus traveling after being up late the night before and… wait, no excuses, I was frustrated with Honduras and just lost control. End of story.
Cheque.
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