I’m completely unable to get anything done. I love working on topographic studies. It’s fun getting out into the mountains and changing up the scenery. You get to meet some pretty interesting characters up there.
For example … The last day of my most recent study the guy who was helping me with the equipment was so incredibly unusual in terms of Hondurans. He was so forward thinking compared to most people I have met. Don’t get me wrong, the guys that live in the aldeas are great, hard-working people. I generally enjoy their company more than the people here in Corquin. But, at the same time they tend to be incredibly uneducated and close minded. These interactions always lead to some interesting conversations, but this guy was really interesting. We talked about a range of subjects from religion to marriage and protecting the environment.
God a van blasting music just decided to park outside the office. REALLY? Here. In front of an office? Is that appropriate? Necessary? Hondurans are so NOT annoyed by annoying noises/high volume. Like when the generator the other day (that fed ONE computer) binged the entire time. We’re talking high pitched BIIIIINNNNG. Me and my sitemate had to leave because it was so obnoxious. Also, we wanted to watch the latest episodes of Weeds. Everyone thinks we’re really antisocial because we both work with headphones on, but really it’s just that I can’t take people screaming in the office. Like professionalism doesn’t exist here. At least if I’m going to be distracted it’s by Justin Bieber’s music and not Loud Mouth (her nickname because we talk in English but they still understand their names) screaming about wanting some coffee. And yes, the one Justin Bieber song is permanently stuck in my head!
Back to interesting campesino man … At one point in the conversation I just looked at him and said something to this effect, “This might be rude, but why are you this way?” He didn’t understand at first, but then he basically picked up on the fact that I was a little stunned by how different he was. Apparently, he’s been studying under a Catholic priest that has taught him everything. They work on conserving the forest in this area and educating people about the environment and the importance of protecting flora and fauna.
He also doesn’t eat any preservatives or processed food. He claimed because this was due to a mental imbalance, but this guy is even on the organic food movement! It was quite interesting talking with him and witness him trying to “educate” the other guy who was working back with us. The group of guys in front periodically called him out for holding us up when, after I finished a shot and we could move forward, he would be interrogating me on any given subject.
One very exciting development from that study is the fact that this community, Agua Caliente, is really interested in buying some property that is a part of their watershed. With the development world focusing a lot on water it has come to everyone’s attention that many communities are getting water, but because of problems with wasting water, many are needing new systems in 5 – 10 years (they are designed to last 20 years). With new efforts to increase the lifetime of these water systems there is a big push that communities buy land in their watersheds. With enough land they can delineate the watershed and have it declared a protected area. This protects the quantity and quality of the water simultaneously and helps the communities value their water system more.
So … Agua Caliente is really pushing to buy this land, which is above the stream that feeds five communities in the area. I have worked with all the communities and there is a new Volunteer in Agua Caliente. Between the five communities and two annoying gringas harassing these communities we’re hoping to get the each family to chip in about $55 each (yeah, sounds cheap but for most of the people in these communities it will be really hard to come up with that money).
So, needless to say I’m excited because it would be a really big step for these communities and they’re doing it on their own. My counter-part office just did a project similar to this with three communities, but it would be really impressive if they could get this stuff of the ground on their own. The whole idea of Peace Corps is sustainability and this would be one of my biggest achievements if we could actually get it working. I hope it works out!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Day Honduras Really Kicked My Butt
So Honduras gets me on a regular basis. We’re running like Honduras 123,767,454,345,987,456 to Hannah’s like … maybe 5. That’s being optimistic. So today I started a new study in Gualme. We’re improving an old study that they have because, they tell me, they’ve always had problems with their system.
So we go out and I always feel a little self-conscious on the first day. First, it’s a man’s world down here and being a woman, no matter how educated, doesn’t always get you the respect that you’d hope for. In all actuality, the men in more rural areas are much nicer, but still. Also, I’m around all these campesinos who have grown up in the woods and their romping around like it ain’t no thing. So in the end I feel like I have to prove myself.
We’re crossing all these creeks and they’ve got their high rain-boot like things on and walking straight through the water. I have my, albeit nice hiking boots on, but they do eventually let the water in and I was having a harder time crossing these creeks. My name may be Graceful One, but that I am not. Eventually I gave up and started trudging through the creeks being all like … “Whatever I won’t die of wet feet!” I was trying to be all cool and smooth, which I have never been in my life!
So it’s been raining a lot and we were in a heavily forested area so things were quite slippery. From their dam we followed the creek going up and down and all around.
Ok so here’s when Honduras got me. I had just taken a shot a couple of feet above the creek. There was barely enough space on the ledge for me and the tripod. The kid carrying my equipment (tripod with Carl Theodolite on top) was climbing up the embankment/hill and I climbed up after him. He’s climbing and I’m climbing … he’s falling and I’m falling.
He started to fall down the embankment and all I could think is, “Not the equipment!” So I kind of stood behind him hoping that my weight would stop his momentum. I don’t really know what I was thinking in the end. Anyways, my weight didn’t stop his momentum and as a result I went flying down off the embankment and about 7-8 feet below into the creek. Somehow, SOMEHOW I landed semi-on my feet and didn’t crack my head open on the massive rock in the creek bed. OH and Armando had his machete hooked through his belt which, on my way down, slashed a couple of gashes into my thumb. Nothing big, but the gashes combined with landing on that palm has made my poor left hand sore.
In all my toughness I refused to let them feel bad about me and was like, “Equipment is more important!” Silently in my head I just wanted to go home and watch more House episodes and by the end of the night be convinced that I had some freaky, rare worm growing in my cuts. I think I did impress them though because I jumped right up and got back to things. I did drop the entire notebook in the water too, which was upsetting until I realized all my numbers were still intact.
I few minutes later I tripped and landed on the same hand and now have a stigmata-like wound on the palm too. All in all … good day. Gained some tough points!
So we go out and I always feel a little self-conscious on the first day. First, it’s a man’s world down here and being a woman, no matter how educated, doesn’t always get you the respect that you’d hope for. In all actuality, the men in more rural areas are much nicer, but still. Also, I’m around all these campesinos who have grown up in the woods and their romping around like it ain’t no thing. So in the end I feel like I have to prove myself.
We’re crossing all these creeks and they’ve got their high rain-boot like things on and walking straight through the water. I have my, albeit nice hiking boots on, but they do eventually let the water in and I was having a harder time crossing these creeks. My name may be Graceful One, but that I am not. Eventually I gave up and started trudging through the creeks being all like … “Whatever I won’t die of wet feet!” I was trying to be all cool and smooth, which I have never been in my life!
So it’s been raining a lot and we were in a heavily forested area so things were quite slippery. From their dam we followed the creek going up and down and all around.
Ok so here’s when Honduras got me. I had just taken a shot a couple of feet above the creek. There was barely enough space on the ledge for me and the tripod. The kid carrying my equipment (tripod with Carl Theodolite on top) was climbing up the embankment/hill and I climbed up after him. He’s climbing and I’m climbing … he’s falling and I’m falling.
He started to fall down the embankment and all I could think is, “Not the equipment!” So I kind of stood behind him hoping that my weight would stop his momentum. I don’t really know what I was thinking in the end. Anyways, my weight didn’t stop his momentum and as a result I went flying down off the embankment and about 7-8 feet below into the creek. Somehow, SOMEHOW I landed semi-on my feet and didn’t crack my head open on the massive rock in the creek bed. OH and Armando had his machete hooked through his belt which, on my way down, slashed a couple of gashes into my thumb. Nothing big, but the gashes combined with landing on that palm has made my poor left hand sore.
In all my toughness I refused to let them feel bad about me and was like, “Equipment is more important!” Silently in my head I just wanted to go home and watch more House episodes and by the end of the night be convinced that I had some freaky, rare worm growing in my cuts. I think I did impress them though because I jumped right up and got back to things. I did drop the entire notebook in the water too, which was upsetting until I realized all my numbers were still intact.
I few minutes later I tripped and landed on the same hand and now have a stigmata-like wound on the palm too. All in all … good day. Gained some tough points!
Bouncy, Bouncy
I’ve realized in recent … months … that my personal happiness is closely related to the relative cleanliness of my house. There’s nothing worse waking up a little on the down side and seeing your disastrous looking house and thinking, “Great when I want to lie in bed all day I realize that I really should be cleaning up.” There’s nothing like ruining a good veg session with a healthy helping of guilt.
In the interest of Bourbon and mine’s personal hygiene and health I decided to get up this morning and get a really good cleaning in before my beg session. Tomorrow I start another study which usually results in considerable laziness in the evenings, which does not encourage nightly cleaning. Therefore, I bathed the dog (no use having a clean house with a dirty pup) and cleaned out my water filter. The kitchen is considerably … disgusting … but actually the bathroom is much worse (toilet gave out on me).
In tackling the kitchen I noticed that the defunct wood stove was particularly cluttered and maybe I should clean off some off the bottles and crap to make the room look more feng shui … It was there that I found a long forgotten pile of zip lock bags that I intended to clean and instead let rot on top of the stove. No, seriously. Upon viewing and removing said pile of bags (with mountains of mold) I realized that:
A) I am going to die because of how old and dirty this house is (I’ve been watching episodes of House and I just pictures mold spores flying through my nasal passages, latching onto my brain and in a few days I will be completely incapacitated – dramatic right?)
B) When people enter my house hopefully to feed Bourbon and retrieve valued items they will realize that I lived in fact, like a bachelor, and had a relatively non-existent cleaning ritual. That is embarrassing.
So here I am cleaning my house (or actually taking a break to write a blog) and I already feel the happy hormones flooding my brain. Bourbon seems happy (despite the bath) and I’ve taken a couple breaks to play with our new toys. Yes, he’s such a goof and I enjoy playing with him so much that they’ve become my toys too. On that note, if I ever hope to get this done, I should go back. More to come on the Bouncy, Bouncy part.
…. I’ve hit a new low … There’s a giant arachnid in my fridge. Ohhhh disappointment.
Well the spider had expired, but I was afraid when I flicked it out of the fridge it would thaw and become alive again. Didn’t happen. So gross. Accidentally tossed the spider stick into my clean sheets hanging on the line too. Just can’t win. How do these things happen?
In the interest of Bourbon and mine’s personal hygiene and health I decided to get up this morning and get a really good cleaning in before my beg session. Tomorrow I start another study which usually results in considerable laziness in the evenings, which does not encourage nightly cleaning. Therefore, I bathed the dog (no use having a clean house with a dirty pup) and cleaned out my water filter. The kitchen is considerably … disgusting … but actually the bathroom is much worse (toilet gave out on me).
In tackling the kitchen I noticed that the defunct wood stove was particularly cluttered and maybe I should clean off some off the bottles and crap to make the room look more feng shui … It was there that I found a long forgotten pile of zip lock bags that I intended to clean and instead let rot on top of the stove. No, seriously. Upon viewing and removing said pile of bags (with mountains of mold) I realized that:
A) I am going to die because of how old and dirty this house is (I’ve been watching episodes of House and I just pictures mold spores flying through my nasal passages, latching onto my brain and in a few days I will be completely incapacitated – dramatic right?)
B) When people enter my house hopefully to feed Bourbon and retrieve valued items they will realize that I lived in fact, like a bachelor, and had a relatively non-existent cleaning ritual. That is embarrassing.
So here I am cleaning my house (or actually taking a break to write a blog) and I already feel the happy hormones flooding my brain. Bourbon seems happy (despite the bath) and I’ve taken a couple breaks to play with our new toys. Yes, he’s such a goof and I enjoy playing with him so much that they’ve become my toys too. On that note, if I ever hope to get this done, I should go back. More to come on the Bouncy, Bouncy part.
…. I’ve hit a new low … There’s a giant arachnid in my fridge. Ohhhh disappointment.
Well the spider had expired, but I was afraid when I flicked it out of the fridge it would thaw and become alive again. Didn’t happen. So gross. Accidentally tossed the spider stick into my clean sheets hanging on the line too. Just can’t win. How do these things happen?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Imposter!
I feel moved to write about my experiences of feeling like an imposter. People often ask me, after hearing that I majored in international relations, how it was that I got placed in the water and sanitation program in Honduras. Generally, my answer is because I did for Habitat for Humanity work one summer. Whether or not that is true, I don’t know, but it’s still my answer.
These past few weeks … yes weeks … I have slowly noticed that indoor plumbing in my how was becoming increasingly nonexistent. First to go was the shower, which is the highest connection in the house, next the kitchen and bathroom sink, and eventually the toilet. It’s amazing how comfortable I am with things going wrong and it’s starting to worry me. Slowly my indoor plumbing disappears and instead of asking questions and wondering why, I just assume that it’s because the general water system in Corquin is off and the water will eventually will come back. Now, that assessment wasn’t entirely off most likely, but wouldn’t you think that after a few weeks of this and less rain (generally the cause of major water system problems) that the water would have come back?
Anyways, as the connections in my house lost water I still got water in my pila (big concrete water holding thing), which really as long as I still had water I was ok. Well, except for washing dishes and hauling water to the bathroom got annoying, but I had this unfounded belief that the water was coming back any day!
Well, I get back from El Salvador and low and behold … not a drop of water! Not a single drop! Odd. I went to the owners’ house to show them how to use their new washing machine and decided to inquire about the potential causes of my now distressing water outage.
Well, fijenseque, the house always had water, but the neighbor had been complaining that she had a stream of water running through her yard and maybe she entered my yard and turned off the water to my house via the valve in my yard. Valve in the yard! Useful piece of information.
I did not operate the valve correctly and thereby to misjudged my problem for an extra day. I will forego the details, but in the end I decided that the municipality shut off my water. Clearly, I shouldn’t be an investigator.
1) Slow progression of loss of water in my house points to pressure problems.
2) No water in the pila points to pressure problems.
3) Gradual disappearance of water in my house would not suggest that the municipality cut off the water.
4) Water running through my neighbor’s yard would suggest a major leak.
In the end I figured it out, slowly but surely, and decided there was a broken tube. The next task was to set about finding someone who could fix everything for me. There’s a certain nervousness you get from hiring someone to fix something in your house from the phonebook or something. Will they do a good job? Are they reliable? Will they charge me a reasonable amount? Try doing that in a foreign country and in a different language.
I was racked with nervousness, which is kind of funny because I’ve most certainly endured worse. This whole time the people who own my house were of no help. They didn’t even bother to recommend someone. I asked around in my office and was given a phone number.
Now, I hate talking on the phone in Spanish because it’s that much harder to understand people. I would think that speaking to someone face-to-face would be more stressful, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I get up nerve to call this guy and walk outside my office (I never make phone calls inside lest they judge me) with my phone. I dial his number, press send and proceed to shove a whole cookie in my mouth. Like, what was I thinking? The guy answered and I’m like, “Mum bum gringa bum num agua.”
He was really nice and showed up later that day to see if he could diagnose the problem. As I’m writing this blog he’s outside (the next day) fixing everything. Basically, as he’s outside fixing the problem (leak and clogged tubes) I was reflecting on how funny it is for the wat/san Volunteer to hire someone to fix problems of which I am supposedly knowledgeable. I felt like an imposter. I could have done the job. I consoled myself by saying that I didn’t have the necessary tools, i.e. big metal bar and shovel, and that otherwise I might have undertaken the project myself.
On the brighter side, my standard of living has improved 100%! I washed dishes inside and my house no longer smells of sewage because A) I have the water to flush the toilet B) toilets seem more efficient at flushing themselves than buckets of water. Apart from the toilet, there’s the general cleanliness of the house, which seemed to suffer with the water problem.
These past few weeks … yes weeks … I have slowly noticed that indoor plumbing in my how was becoming increasingly nonexistent. First to go was the shower, which is the highest connection in the house, next the kitchen and bathroom sink, and eventually the toilet. It’s amazing how comfortable I am with things going wrong and it’s starting to worry me. Slowly my indoor plumbing disappears and instead of asking questions and wondering why, I just assume that it’s because the general water system in Corquin is off and the water will eventually will come back. Now, that assessment wasn’t entirely off most likely, but wouldn’t you think that after a few weeks of this and less rain (generally the cause of major water system problems) that the water would have come back?
Anyways, as the connections in my house lost water I still got water in my pila (big concrete water holding thing), which really as long as I still had water I was ok. Well, except for washing dishes and hauling water to the bathroom got annoying, but I had this unfounded belief that the water was coming back any day!
Well, I get back from El Salvador and low and behold … not a drop of water! Not a single drop! Odd. I went to the owners’ house to show them how to use their new washing machine and decided to inquire about the potential causes of my now distressing water outage.
Well, fijenseque, the house always had water, but the neighbor had been complaining that she had a stream of water running through her yard and maybe she entered my yard and turned off the water to my house via the valve in my yard. Valve in the yard! Useful piece of information.
I did not operate the valve correctly and thereby to misjudged my problem for an extra day. I will forego the details, but in the end I decided that the municipality shut off my water. Clearly, I shouldn’t be an investigator.
1) Slow progression of loss of water in my house points to pressure problems.
2) No water in the pila points to pressure problems.
3) Gradual disappearance of water in my house would not suggest that the municipality cut off the water.
4) Water running through my neighbor’s yard would suggest a major leak.
In the end I figured it out, slowly but surely, and decided there was a broken tube. The next task was to set about finding someone who could fix everything for me. There’s a certain nervousness you get from hiring someone to fix something in your house from the phonebook or something. Will they do a good job? Are they reliable? Will they charge me a reasonable amount? Try doing that in a foreign country and in a different language.
I was racked with nervousness, which is kind of funny because I’ve most certainly endured worse. This whole time the people who own my house were of no help. They didn’t even bother to recommend someone. I asked around in my office and was given a phone number.
Now, I hate talking on the phone in Spanish because it’s that much harder to understand people. I would think that speaking to someone face-to-face would be more stressful, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I get up nerve to call this guy and walk outside my office (I never make phone calls inside lest they judge me) with my phone. I dial his number, press send and proceed to shove a whole cookie in my mouth. Like, what was I thinking? The guy answered and I’m like, “Mum bum gringa bum num agua.”
He was really nice and showed up later that day to see if he could diagnose the problem. As I’m writing this blog he’s outside (the next day) fixing everything. Basically, as he’s outside fixing the problem (leak and clogged tubes) I was reflecting on how funny it is for the wat/san Volunteer to hire someone to fix problems of which I am supposedly knowledgeable. I felt like an imposter. I could have done the job. I consoled myself by saying that I didn’t have the necessary tools, i.e. big metal bar and shovel, and that otherwise I might have undertaken the project myself.
On the brighter side, my standard of living has improved 100%! I washed dishes inside and my house no longer smells of sewage because A) I have the water to flush the toilet B) toilets seem more efficient at flushing themselves than buckets of water. Apart from the toilet, there’s the general cleanliness of the house, which seemed to suffer with the water problem.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Insects Attack!
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY SWEARING IN THIS BLOG! :)
Is it possible to be bitten/stung by 6 different insects in one day? Why yes! Just come to Honduras and traipse around the jungle for the day.
Hannah and I, once again, took to the forest to complete a topographic study for a potential agua potable project. After getting fijese qued on Monday, we headed for the hills early on Tuesday. It went as a typical study would go, campesinos frolicking up near vertical mountain sides in mere seconds, while 2 gringas hold on to roots and branches for dear life, trying not to twist our ankles. And of course, many of the branches had thorns. Ouch. The topo study started in the depths of jungle, everything green and bright, teeming with insects. It is terrifying to know that the jungles of Central America have n times more species of plants and insects than the US, and I bet there are still many species yet to be identified. Our first encounter happened to be mosquitoes and those damn moscos (see previous blog entry). Unfortunatel , moscos are unaffected by DEET, so my arms and hands were swollen by 10 am. As if that wasn’t enough, I had an epic battled with a large bee when I was precariously balanced on a rotten tree trunk, needless to say, the bee won.
After lunch, biting ants SOMEHOW managed to crawl into my pants and bite me on my inner thighs (I know what you all are thinking, ants in my pants. ha.ha.). Severe burning near my crotchal region is never a good thing. The campesinos laughed and laughed and laughed when I started jumping up and down, smacking my legs, swearing.
“We are learning English!” they exclaimed.
“No, just maldiciónes, “ Hannah corrected.
At the end of the day, I found several ticks on me, which were about the size of a pin-head. They look like specs of dirt. Luckily for me, there is no lyme disease down here. And courtesy of Hannah’s oh-so-cute hound, Bourbon, I got a few flea bites that night, too.
So there is your 6. Oh, but wait, there is more! As if my insect troubles weren’t bad enough. Before bed that night, I went to fill up my water bottle from Hannah’s 5 gallon water jug. To my surprise, a large cockroach-type insect was floating around inside. A true anomaly because the cap only had 2 holes poked in it the size of button. How the hell does that big of a bug get into a hole that small? We decided to take the cap off, and let it free. As soon as it crawled out, that damn bug flew directly into my face and crawled up in my hair. The next thing I knew, I was shirtless running through her kitchen screaming and flailing my arms.
(Hannah Note: Meanwhile, I'm standing there laughing so hard, with my legs crossed to ensure that I don't pee my pants! I had a good 2.5 gallons left of that water and being poor and stingy I decided to disinfect the water so that we could continue to drink it. Now, in a liter of water you're supposed to add 5 drops of of bleach to chlorinate the water to disinfect it, but still be drinkable ... I put a whole cap-ful in ... like a gazillion droplets. Needless to say the water tasted like bleach and we couldn't drink it! Over zealous S.O.B. .... hahahaha )
In the end, I think karma has finally come full circle. In response to my ongoing war in my apartment on sugar ants, the insect gods unleashed their unmerciful vengeance that day in the wild. Point taken.
That was from Kathryn's Blog: http://kathryn422.wordpress.com/
Is it possible to be bitten/stung by 6 different insects in one day? Why yes! Just come to Honduras and traipse around the jungle for the day.
Hannah and I, once again, took to the forest to complete a topographic study for a potential agua potable project. After getting fijese qued on Monday, we headed for the hills early on Tuesday. It went as a typical study would go, campesinos frolicking up near vertical mountain sides in mere seconds, while 2 gringas hold on to roots and branches for dear life, trying not to twist our ankles. And of course, many of the branches had thorns. Ouch. The topo study started in the depths of jungle, everything green and bright, teeming with insects. It is terrifying to know that the jungles of Central America have n times more species of plants and insects than the US, and I bet there are still many species yet to be identified. Our first encounter happened to be mosquitoes and those damn moscos (see previous blog entry). Unfortunatel , moscos are unaffected by DEET, so my arms and hands were swollen by 10 am. As if that wasn’t enough, I had an epic battled with a large bee when I was precariously balanced on a rotten tree trunk, needless to say, the bee won.
After lunch, biting ants SOMEHOW managed to crawl into my pants and bite me on my inner thighs (I know what you all are thinking, ants in my pants. ha.ha.). Severe burning near my crotchal region is never a good thing. The campesinos laughed and laughed and laughed when I started jumping up and down, smacking my legs, swearing.
“We are learning English!” they exclaimed.
“No, just maldiciónes, “ Hannah corrected.
At the end of the day, I found several ticks on me, which were about the size of a pin-head. They look like specs of dirt. Luckily for me, there is no lyme disease down here. And courtesy of Hannah’s oh-so-cute hound, Bourbon, I got a few flea bites that night, too.
So there is your 6. Oh, but wait, there is more! As if my insect troubles weren’t bad enough. Before bed that night, I went to fill up my water bottle from Hannah’s 5 gallon water jug. To my surprise, a large cockroach-type insect was floating around inside. A true anomaly because the cap only had 2 holes poked in it the size of button. How the hell does that big of a bug get into a hole that small? We decided to take the cap off, and let it free. As soon as it crawled out, that damn bug flew directly into my face and crawled up in my hair. The next thing I knew, I was shirtless running through her kitchen screaming and flailing my arms.
(Hannah Note: Meanwhile, I'm standing there laughing so hard, with my legs crossed to ensure that I don't pee my pants! I had a good 2.5 gallons left of that water and being poor and stingy I decided to disinfect the water so that we could continue to drink it. Now, in a liter of water you're supposed to add 5 drops of of bleach to chlorinate the water to disinfect it, but still be drinkable ... I put a whole cap-ful in ... like a gazillion droplets. Needless to say the water tasted like bleach and we couldn't drink it! Over zealous S.O.B. .... hahahaha )
In the end, I think karma has finally come full circle. In response to my ongoing war in my apartment on sugar ants, the insect gods unleashed their unmerciful vengeance that day in the wild. Point taken.
That was from Kathryn's Blog: http://kathryn422.wordpress.com/
Cheese and Ramblings
I just discovered that Bourbon ate the remainders of a block of cheese that I had bought. He’s lucky it wasn’t American cheddar or mozzarella, because I most certainly would have disowned him. You don’t eat a woman’s cheese when the best cheese she can get in mozzarella. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on mozzarella, but what I wouldn’t give for a cheese as interesting as the little piece of stinky cheese Chris and I encountered in Belgium … well, let’s not go there.
Now, I want to explain to you why I had such a block of cheese in my possession because it’s an interesting story. Being me and not trusting my abilities to chop things with a machete, the grass around my house has gotten increasingly taller. Bourbon started getting lost, which says a lot because he isn’t a small dog. Anyways, I was notified that the municipality was going around fining people for high grass in their yards. Now I find this HILARIOUS! They can’t people to pay their electric, water and cable bills, but by God you better believe they’ll fine you for that high grass. Now, I understand that there have been increasing cases of hemorrhagic dengue and high grass tends to breed mosquitoes, but … seems unfair.
Anyways, went the house of the family that owns my house to translate the knobs on their washing machine and mentioned that I needed help finding someone to chop the high grass. The Dona offered up her grandson, but hinted that there would have to be some sort of compensation for his time. Immediately his aunts jump on the opportunity to embarrass him and suggest that a kiss for me would be sufficient. Not wanting to go too far down that road, I offered to make him a pizza. The very small circles I run in, people have been slowly realizing that I make pizza. Generally this comes into play when they ask if I can cook and I offer up that yes, indeed I can, and I like to make pizza.
Well, I kid jumps on the idea of pizza (ham and cheese) and I breathe a sigh of relief that I won’t have to shell out 100 Lemps for his time. So, I went and bought a big block of cheese to make said pizza (and just eat slivers … all the time). Now, how did Bourbon get it? Well, I made lunch and left the cheese on the counter and being the bigger dog that he is it was within easy reach. It was devastating really because I was going to make another pizza for my host family.
Still on the subject of cheese … My friend Jackie, who is an open-minded Honduran, loves cooking and food. I told her when she visits the States I’m going to go to Whole Foods cheese section and show her what good cheese really is. I’m sure she won’t like the cheeses, but I will and as long as someone in the world appreciates it then we aren’t all doomed.
So I’m still doing my English classes at night. Now, I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t think about quitting like every day. The kids aren’t learning because they refuse to allow themselves to even believe that they possibly could begin to understand a different language. The one girl in my classes who seems to have a gift with languages is intent on leaving Corquin because she broke up with her boyfriend and the world has come to an end. Teenagers.
I consulted a bunch of people on whether they thought I should quit and most said yes, because I generally don’t have time and it seems like a waste, but when I went back that one night and had so much fun with my kids. I’ve been teaching there for a year now. Can you believe it? I have developed a good relationship with a few of the girls and often find myself giving them boy advice. They never like to hear what I have to say, though. I’m too practical and encourage them to enjoy their youth, while all they want to do is have babies and get married (in that order as well).
There are several more boys in my class now and I have always been partial towards boys. One insists that he is going to marry me and also claims he is 9 years older than he is (to make him 24 years old too). I just find it so hard to grasp the concept of openly hitting on your teacher. In middle school and high school kids always had crushes on teachers, but can you imagine what would happen to them if they openly voiced their feelings? It’s always funny to think how different things are here. If I complained to the guy who runs the program he would probably slap the kid on the back and join the kid in hitting on me.
Nonetheless, the boys are funny and provide a lot of entertainment. I’ve become especially fond one of the kids, Carlos. He did something the other night that reminded me of Will, which just melted my heart. His older sister is in the class as well and one night we were leaving the classroom and I walked part way with them. He was so sweet and held the umbrella for his sister. Of course, when I pointed it out he stopped and called her stupid, but there was a sweet moment there.
Point is they’re just funny and fun to hang out with. Granted, they piss me off too, but I never thought I would enjoy interacting with kids and definitely not teaching them. I mean, come on, most people who know me will readily acknowledge that I’m even more awkward with kids and most certainly babies.
Do you realize how hard it is for me to operate here not really liking children? The easy way to win people’s hearts is through their children. Any meeting, any encounter with new people in this country and I generally find it easier to hang with the children to win their trust. I do this in a different language. Kids don’t go easy on you: they don’t speak slower, they still use slang and they will call you out when you make mistakes. It’s brutal. I will leave you to reflect on this thought and laugh at the imagined awkwardness.
Anyways, so I tried to quit my classes and couldn’t because I like the relationship I have with my kids. The other woman who taught for almost 5 months (she lasted the longest) recently quit and there are two new girls helping. I kind got a smug satisfaction when I got back from Teguz and a bunch of the girls ran up to me, yelling my name and gave me big hugs. I’ll admit it, I was like, “Yeah, they’ll never like you like they like me!” Hahah.
So it’s been raining here a lot. My kitchen floor is permanently wet because of leaks in my roof and my ceiling tiles have grown record amounts of mold. My motivation of keeping my house clean was quickly dashed by the numerous puppy foot prints everywhere. The gross factor of my house has been elevated by the humidity.
In my life of housekeeping it’s all or nothing. Either everything is cleaned and kept “nice” or nothing is. So if the floors can’t be clean then there’s really no point in cleaning the dishes in a timely manner. Problem with that is that with the constant rain mold starts growing exponentially faster and I don’t have the patience to deal with moldy food. So gross. Kathryn came over once and told me I live like a bachelor. People think I won’t let anyone come into my house because I don’t want them to see all my grand possessions, but it’s really that I’m embarrassed by the appearance of my house. I don’t mind it, but Hondurans are so meticulous about cleaning and they would be appalled.
I’ll tell you another thing about my living situation … If I have one more person question me about my living alone I might punch them in the face. Generally, this is how a conversation goes:
“So where do you live?”
“In a house near the plazita … below the stairs of the Church of San Isidro.”
“Ahhh ya. Who do you live with?”
“I live alone.” If Bourbon is with me, “Just me and my dog.” At this comment I get a sympathetic look like I’m a cat woman or something.
Then I am asked if I eat out every meal (all Hondurans are convinced that Americans cannot cook our own meals and we eat at McDonalds morning, noon and night).
Now, I always seem to be having this conversation with women only. I guess men don’t find it appropriate to ask or don’t really care about my living situation.
“Aren’t you scared that someone is going to come to your house and attack you at night?”
Well … I hadn’t been before, but now that you all mention it … YOU’RE STARTING TO FREAK ME OUT!
Single Honduran women would never dream of living alone until they were married. Jackie lives alone too and she gets SO much crap from her friends. Find a man, marry him and then you won’t be alone; doesn’t matter who, just get it over with. They seem so concerned for our well being, but not in the nice way, but like they pity us. Like, I don’t have any other options but to live with my dog. Then, they look at Bourbon and say, “Well at least you have him to take care of you …” The conversation is just dripping with pity and I want to smack everyone.
Oh, this is also generally accompanied with an inquiry into my marital status. When they find out I’m not and never have been married, do not have children, do not have a boyfriend and live alone … well they basically give me look like, “Wow you fail at life. How can you possibly be happy?”
With all this rain the lights have been going out a lot and I spend a lot of nights in complete darkness. Such conversations always come back to haunt me, but luckily instead of feeling sorry for myself I just get angry. God help anyone who did ever break into my house because I would have been going over these comments in my head long enough to turn into Hulk if anyone tried to mess with me.
Just a little ramble on Honduran life. I’ve been meaning to clean my house all day, but I’m ready the Time Traveler’s Wife and absolutely cannot put it down. Plus, I’ll admit, I just don’t want to clean my house.
Now, I want to explain to you why I had such a block of cheese in my possession because it’s an interesting story. Being me and not trusting my abilities to chop things with a machete, the grass around my house has gotten increasingly taller. Bourbon started getting lost, which says a lot because he isn’t a small dog. Anyways, I was notified that the municipality was going around fining people for high grass in their yards. Now I find this HILARIOUS! They can’t people to pay their electric, water and cable bills, but by God you better believe they’ll fine you for that high grass. Now, I understand that there have been increasing cases of hemorrhagic dengue and high grass tends to breed mosquitoes, but … seems unfair.
Anyways, went the house of the family that owns my house to translate the knobs on their washing machine and mentioned that I needed help finding someone to chop the high grass. The Dona offered up her grandson, but hinted that there would have to be some sort of compensation for his time. Immediately his aunts jump on the opportunity to embarrass him and suggest that a kiss for me would be sufficient. Not wanting to go too far down that road, I offered to make him a pizza. The very small circles I run in, people have been slowly realizing that I make pizza. Generally this comes into play when they ask if I can cook and I offer up that yes, indeed I can, and I like to make pizza.
Well, I kid jumps on the idea of pizza (ham and cheese) and I breathe a sigh of relief that I won’t have to shell out 100 Lemps for his time. So, I went and bought a big block of cheese to make said pizza (and just eat slivers … all the time). Now, how did Bourbon get it? Well, I made lunch and left the cheese on the counter and being the bigger dog that he is it was within easy reach. It was devastating really because I was going to make another pizza for my host family.
Still on the subject of cheese … My friend Jackie, who is an open-minded Honduran, loves cooking and food. I told her when she visits the States I’m going to go to Whole Foods cheese section and show her what good cheese really is. I’m sure she won’t like the cheeses, but I will and as long as someone in the world appreciates it then we aren’t all doomed.
So I’m still doing my English classes at night. Now, I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t think about quitting like every day. The kids aren’t learning because they refuse to allow themselves to even believe that they possibly could begin to understand a different language. The one girl in my classes who seems to have a gift with languages is intent on leaving Corquin because she broke up with her boyfriend and the world has come to an end. Teenagers.
I consulted a bunch of people on whether they thought I should quit and most said yes, because I generally don’t have time and it seems like a waste, but when I went back that one night and had so much fun with my kids. I’ve been teaching there for a year now. Can you believe it? I have developed a good relationship with a few of the girls and often find myself giving them boy advice. They never like to hear what I have to say, though. I’m too practical and encourage them to enjoy their youth, while all they want to do is have babies and get married (in that order as well).
There are several more boys in my class now and I have always been partial towards boys. One insists that he is going to marry me and also claims he is 9 years older than he is (to make him 24 years old too). I just find it so hard to grasp the concept of openly hitting on your teacher. In middle school and high school kids always had crushes on teachers, but can you imagine what would happen to them if they openly voiced their feelings? It’s always funny to think how different things are here. If I complained to the guy who runs the program he would probably slap the kid on the back and join the kid in hitting on me.
Nonetheless, the boys are funny and provide a lot of entertainment. I’ve become especially fond one of the kids, Carlos. He did something the other night that reminded me of Will, which just melted my heart. His older sister is in the class as well and one night we were leaving the classroom and I walked part way with them. He was so sweet and held the umbrella for his sister. Of course, when I pointed it out he stopped and called her stupid, but there was a sweet moment there.
Point is they’re just funny and fun to hang out with. Granted, they piss me off too, but I never thought I would enjoy interacting with kids and definitely not teaching them. I mean, come on, most people who know me will readily acknowledge that I’m even more awkward with kids and most certainly babies.
Do you realize how hard it is for me to operate here not really liking children? The easy way to win people’s hearts is through their children. Any meeting, any encounter with new people in this country and I generally find it easier to hang with the children to win their trust. I do this in a different language. Kids don’t go easy on you: they don’t speak slower, they still use slang and they will call you out when you make mistakes. It’s brutal. I will leave you to reflect on this thought and laugh at the imagined awkwardness.
Anyways, so I tried to quit my classes and couldn’t because I like the relationship I have with my kids. The other woman who taught for almost 5 months (she lasted the longest) recently quit and there are two new girls helping. I kind got a smug satisfaction when I got back from Teguz and a bunch of the girls ran up to me, yelling my name and gave me big hugs. I’ll admit it, I was like, “Yeah, they’ll never like you like they like me!” Hahah.
So it’s been raining here a lot. My kitchen floor is permanently wet because of leaks in my roof and my ceiling tiles have grown record amounts of mold. My motivation of keeping my house clean was quickly dashed by the numerous puppy foot prints everywhere. The gross factor of my house has been elevated by the humidity.
In my life of housekeeping it’s all or nothing. Either everything is cleaned and kept “nice” or nothing is. So if the floors can’t be clean then there’s really no point in cleaning the dishes in a timely manner. Problem with that is that with the constant rain mold starts growing exponentially faster and I don’t have the patience to deal with moldy food. So gross. Kathryn came over once and told me I live like a bachelor. People think I won’t let anyone come into my house because I don’t want them to see all my grand possessions, but it’s really that I’m embarrassed by the appearance of my house. I don’t mind it, but Hondurans are so meticulous about cleaning and they would be appalled.
I’ll tell you another thing about my living situation … If I have one more person question me about my living alone I might punch them in the face. Generally, this is how a conversation goes:
“So where do you live?”
“In a house near the plazita … below the stairs of the Church of San Isidro.”
“Ahhh ya. Who do you live with?”
“I live alone.” If Bourbon is with me, “Just me and my dog.” At this comment I get a sympathetic look like I’m a cat woman or something.
Then I am asked if I eat out every meal (all Hondurans are convinced that Americans cannot cook our own meals and we eat at McDonalds morning, noon and night).
Now, I always seem to be having this conversation with women only. I guess men don’t find it appropriate to ask or don’t really care about my living situation.
“Aren’t you scared that someone is going to come to your house and attack you at night?”
Well … I hadn’t been before, but now that you all mention it … YOU’RE STARTING TO FREAK ME OUT!
Single Honduran women would never dream of living alone until they were married. Jackie lives alone too and she gets SO much crap from her friends. Find a man, marry him and then you won’t be alone; doesn’t matter who, just get it over with. They seem so concerned for our well being, but not in the nice way, but like they pity us. Like, I don’t have any other options but to live with my dog. Then, they look at Bourbon and say, “Well at least you have him to take care of you …” The conversation is just dripping with pity and I want to smack everyone.
Oh, this is also generally accompanied with an inquiry into my marital status. When they find out I’m not and never have been married, do not have children, do not have a boyfriend and live alone … well they basically give me look like, “Wow you fail at life. How can you possibly be happy?”
With all this rain the lights have been going out a lot and I spend a lot of nights in complete darkness. Such conversations always come back to haunt me, but luckily instead of feeling sorry for myself I just get angry. God help anyone who did ever break into my house because I would have been going over these comments in my head long enough to turn into Hulk if anyone tried to mess with me.
Just a little ramble on Honduran life. I’ve been meaning to clean my house all day, but I’m ready the Time Traveler’s Wife and absolutely cannot put it down. Plus, I’ll admit, I just don’t want to clean my house.
Crazy Few Months
Well it’s been a while since I wrote, huh? I have this thing that I won’t write a blog unless I feel like it’s full of emotion. Generally I shoot for funny, but some depressing blogs have slipped in too. Of late it seems like every blog I ever started was very monotone. I’ll try to fill you in on more-or-less what has been going on in the past few months.
March – Had some work getting a couple of different communities started on some water projects. I started to work with my local mayor’s office to figure out what was going on with the water system here. Apart from that I spent a lot of time avoiding my office and sitting in my house watching movies. It’s interesting how you don’t realize you’re depressed until you start to feel normal again.
Now I do want to clarify that I’m not depressed because I don’t like my life here or something like that. It’s just life in harder some times and you just don’t feel like dealing. There are days and weeks when you don’t want to interact with people and sit and dream about what you’re missing in the States, which generally brings down your mood a bit. When you have work sporadically it makes it hard too because you don’t always have something to make you feel productive and important.
April – Beginning of the month I had some more sporadic work and then it all came to an end. Waiting on communities to get stuff together, etc. killed my motivation. I pretended to be working on the Junta de Agua guide, but that was generally a big farce. Much of April was spent doing nothing, and when I generally don’t have anything real to do I avoid the office, which means the internet as well.
Also, another factor encouraging me to avoid the office … a bundle of puppies! My friend gave me the keys to her house and almost immediately her dog gave birth to my dog’s puppies. Woops. They are just about the cutest things ever and so I spent much of my time playing with them and sitting in Jackie’s house watching History Channel. I know, terrible.
May – May has flown by. I started the month with a study that I finished in a couple of days; went directly into another study with Kathryn that took about a week. After that we had mid-term medicals. We have been living in our sites for a year now! Can you believe it?? At that point in our service we all have to go to Tegucigalpa for a couple of days to get all these tests done to make sure Honduras isn’t slowly killing us with weird diseases.
I will tell you it’s quite interesting having to do all this doctor stuff in Spanish. By interesting I mean stressful.
So we check into our hotel rooms and our poop sample cups are immediately distributed to us. Joy! The meaning of “regular bowel movements” has become a foreign concept to all of us and in order to ensure that we can fulfill our duties the next morning my group headed off to the mall to eat as much lovely fast food as possible. I had Wendy’s and then went to some cool yogurt stand and got yogurt with chocolate and strawberries mixed in. I love the Multiplaza Mall! It’s our haven whenever we are in Teguz. Any moment we don’t spend in the Peace Corps office we automatically jet off to the mall to wander around and look at all the things we can no longer afford. They have Cinnabon!! It’s like we’re teenagers again.
Anyways, had my first poop-in-a-cup experience … It’s hard man! Not as in the aiming sense, but it’s a lot of pressure having to deliver a sample that early in the morning! Ok, I’ll stop there. But, I am glad to report that the Ferguson stomach has fared me well and I have no parasites. I was kind of worried because on my first water study that month I chugged a 3-liter bottle of unknown origin Honduran water because I was so thirsty. I still have not managed to gather the courage to pee on a study either and suffered the rest of the day for it! But, at least it didn’t give me parasites.
Next stop was the dentist’s office. She was very nice and has a nicer office than my dentist in the States. Also, I got my teeth cleaned and everything by the dentist herself. I must admit, I missed the dental hygienist from home who would always ask questions that would require more than a grunt response whenever she had all her tools and crap shoved in your mouth. Again, good news! No cavities! As always I have to floss more and I have receding gums from putting too much pressure on my canines. I clamp my jaws shut now because of stress and therefore I have an awkward receding gums.
Met with the Peace Corps doctor and nothing new there; they’re amazed that I’m never in Teguz with health problems. My appointment was fairly easy, but then they decided to send the asthmatics to the lung doctor. Apparently, this is new Peace Corps policy to keep an eye on those of us with lung complications. Kind of makes me angry considering all the importance they put on it before I joined Peace Corps when it turns out they didn’t really care about it at all!
So, get there with my friend and the doctor is supposed to get there at 4 pm. Her hours are 4 pm – 7 pm. Odd. The doctor is almost an hour late! AN HOUR! I mean in the States if a doctor is late they will notify you or at least apologize. I went to check in for my appointment and the secretary looks me square in the face and says, “She’s not here yet.” Ok, I understand punctuality in this country is nonexistent, but when you get towards the hour mark and the doctor doesn’t to be interested in showing up for her appointments … well then maybe you should say something to the patients not so patiently waiting? I looked at the secretary lady at 45 minutes and she shot me this look like, “Yes? What do you want from me?” That’s when you forget about countries you once knew that functioned somewhat properly and you and you hunker down to watch yet another episode of some house design show dubbed in Spanish.
The doctor finally shows up and beckons me into the office. I’m sweating so bad just for the anticipated awkwardness of explaining my condition in Spanish. The equivalent in English would probably go something like, “No breath when run. Cough always now. Lots of dust.” The Peace Corps doctors wrote up a little explanation of my perpetual sinus congestion and productive cough. So the doctor has me do a peak flow test, which I have always hated. I’m standing there and she has me blow … Right. Then she does some other test with a machine to measure the functionality of my smaller lung parts or something. Turns out I have a sinus infection. Right. Then she tells me I don’t have asthma. Did I get that wrong because of the language difference? Kind of hard to though because “no” and “asthma” as more or less the same in bother languages … I don’t have asthma. I didn’t point out to her that I have sports induced asthma and she made me do the tests with me standing in a doctor’s office. I didn’t point out that she didn’t have me do any stress exercises before the peak flow test. She kind of scared me so I took my drugs and left. Don’t have asthma. Silly.
That night we went to get … SUSHI! I have never been more content in my life. I had miso soup and sushi. So amazingly wonderful that I can’t even describe it. I think I almost cried when I took my first sip of soup and first bite of a California role. Sushi is one of the foods that we don’t even have a hope of recreating in our homes. I mean my friends are amazing cooks, but they can’t make Sushi the way the Japanese do and therefore it was heavenly.
Instead of taking advantage of the night life in Teguz or the many places that sell decent beer the whole lot of us returned to the hotel to take advantage of the … cable. Most of us don’t have T.V.s and we definitely don’t get Teguz quality cable in our sites. You become oddly intolerable of any program in Spanish. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked, “Why isn’t there anything in English??” Only to get the response, “Hannah it’s because we’re in a Spanish speaking country!” Right.
Sounds lame, but that’s reality of it. We have one rule always: no watching any program in Spanish. It could be the best movie/program in the world, but we will refuse to watch it if it’s dubbed. No go. Not allowed. Inevitably in our search for an acceptable program we will pass Family Guy or The Simpsons on at least one channel. This will prompt someone in the room to fly into a rage about why they even bother showing these programs because the humor, even if it isn’t lost in translation, is completely lost on people here. There’s an inevitable sequence of events when we watch T.V. together:
1) Insistence on a remote
2) Reminder that we cannot watch anything in Spanish
3) Rant of Family Guy/The Simpsons
4) Criticize music videos in Spanish
5) Find a good program and watch if for a few minutes before we realize it’s not in English, but we just didn’t realize it and are forced to change the channel again …
6) Squeal when we inevitably find something worth watching.
Hey, it’s the little things that count!
I’m walking around at the moment (still) looking like a heroin addict because the PCMOs (Peace Corps doctors) made me get blood drawn. I’ve always had problem with getting blood drawn and IVs. My arms just don’t seem to have very good, accessible veins. I understand this and generally warn people that my veins always put up a fight. It never fails that the nurses don’t believe me, thinking that I don’t have confidence in their skills; the problem is that they have too much confidence.
So I walk in there and they sit me down and the nurse pokes and prods me for a while before she isolates a vein that satisfies her. Deep breath, she slides the needle in … nothing. She gives me a look like, “Give it up!” She slides the needle a little bit to the right, to the left. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there trying not to notice the needle in my arm moving every which way with still no blood coming out. Then she calls over another guy and he saddles up like, “I got this!”
He chooses to torture the same vein and gets a little bit of blood into the vile. I look at the tiniest trickle of blood and ask, “And how many of these do you need??” Three. Poop. Then, I liked this part, they have the nerve to blame it on me! I’m not relaxed and the blood won’t flow. Excuse me?? You want me to relax when you’ve practically severed my arm at my elbow by jabbing that darn needle everywhere? Would you be relaxed? I’m trying with ever nerve in my body to maintain consciousness because the last thing I want to be is the white girl that fainted in the office, but you’re making it awfully hard right now and I’ve never come close to fainting before in my life!
Now, I’m not a doctor and maybe my state of high stress at the time (most of the time) was causing my blood to flow slower, but a little lesson in patient-doctor relating skills: don’t blame it on the patient! That generally does not encourage them to relax!
He finally gave my poor arm a rest after he had successfully bludgeoned my vein to death. He still hadn’t gotten the blood he wanted/needed and moved his torturous practices to the other arm. Instead of using some needle that just lets the blood flow naturally into the vile he chose to use a syringe to DRAW the blood out. He locates the vein, tells me to relax in response to which I shot him a death glare, and he shoves this massive needle into my arm and a couple of times pulls out the little stopper guy before he draws out blood. He practically fills the syringe and I’m just about out when he finally guesses he has enough. NEVER AGAIN. If they want blood from me again in Honduras they’re going to have to evacuate me to D.C. where people have some good doctoring skills and don’t stab my arm to death.
On the bright side though, when people in town have asked me where I’ve been and I say in Teguz for doctor’s appointments (people don’t understand why we don’t stay local) and they give me a skeptical look … I shove my right arm in their face as proof that I indeed saw doctors and they tortured me as well!
That’s about all for now. I will right more in a bit. Kathryn wrote a funny story about our day of bugs and I’ll copy that into my blog too.
March – Had some work getting a couple of different communities started on some water projects. I started to work with my local mayor’s office to figure out what was going on with the water system here. Apart from that I spent a lot of time avoiding my office and sitting in my house watching movies. It’s interesting how you don’t realize you’re depressed until you start to feel normal again.
Now I do want to clarify that I’m not depressed because I don’t like my life here or something like that. It’s just life in harder some times and you just don’t feel like dealing. There are days and weeks when you don’t want to interact with people and sit and dream about what you’re missing in the States, which generally brings down your mood a bit. When you have work sporadically it makes it hard too because you don’t always have something to make you feel productive and important.
April – Beginning of the month I had some more sporadic work and then it all came to an end. Waiting on communities to get stuff together, etc. killed my motivation. I pretended to be working on the Junta de Agua guide, but that was generally a big farce. Much of April was spent doing nothing, and when I generally don’t have anything real to do I avoid the office, which means the internet as well.
Also, another factor encouraging me to avoid the office … a bundle of puppies! My friend gave me the keys to her house and almost immediately her dog gave birth to my dog’s puppies. Woops. They are just about the cutest things ever and so I spent much of my time playing with them and sitting in Jackie’s house watching History Channel. I know, terrible.
May – May has flown by. I started the month with a study that I finished in a couple of days; went directly into another study with Kathryn that took about a week. After that we had mid-term medicals. We have been living in our sites for a year now! Can you believe it?? At that point in our service we all have to go to Tegucigalpa for a couple of days to get all these tests done to make sure Honduras isn’t slowly killing us with weird diseases.
I will tell you it’s quite interesting having to do all this doctor stuff in Spanish. By interesting I mean stressful.
So we check into our hotel rooms and our poop sample cups are immediately distributed to us. Joy! The meaning of “regular bowel movements” has become a foreign concept to all of us and in order to ensure that we can fulfill our duties the next morning my group headed off to the mall to eat as much lovely fast food as possible. I had Wendy’s and then went to some cool yogurt stand and got yogurt with chocolate and strawberries mixed in. I love the Multiplaza Mall! It’s our haven whenever we are in Teguz. Any moment we don’t spend in the Peace Corps office we automatically jet off to the mall to wander around and look at all the things we can no longer afford. They have Cinnabon!! It’s like we’re teenagers again.
Anyways, had my first poop-in-a-cup experience … It’s hard man! Not as in the aiming sense, but it’s a lot of pressure having to deliver a sample that early in the morning! Ok, I’ll stop there. But, I am glad to report that the Ferguson stomach has fared me well and I have no parasites. I was kind of worried because on my first water study that month I chugged a 3-liter bottle of unknown origin Honduran water because I was so thirsty. I still have not managed to gather the courage to pee on a study either and suffered the rest of the day for it! But, at least it didn’t give me parasites.
Next stop was the dentist’s office. She was very nice and has a nicer office than my dentist in the States. Also, I got my teeth cleaned and everything by the dentist herself. I must admit, I missed the dental hygienist from home who would always ask questions that would require more than a grunt response whenever she had all her tools and crap shoved in your mouth. Again, good news! No cavities! As always I have to floss more and I have receding gums from putting too much pressure on my canines. I clamp my jaws shut now because of stress and therefore I have an awkward receding gums.
Met with the Peace Corps doctor and nothing new there; they’re amazed that I’m never in Teguz with health problems. My appointment was fairly easy, but then they decided to send the asthmatics to the lung doctor. Apparently, this is new Peace Corps policy to keep an eye on those of us with lung complications. Kind of makes me angry considering all the importance they put on it before I joined Peace Corps when it turns out they didn’t really care about it at all!
So, get there with my friend and the doctor is supposed to get there at 4 pm. Her hours are 4 pm – 7 pm. Odd. The doctor is almost an hour late! AN HOUR! I mean in the States if a doctor is late they will notify you or at least apologize. I went to check in for my appointment and the secretary looks me square in the face and says, “She’s not here yet.” Ok, I understand punctuality in this country is nonexistent, but when you get towards the hour mark and the doctor doesn’t to be interested in showing up for her appointments … well then maybe you should say something to the patients not so patiently waiting? I looked at the secretary lady at 45 minutes and she shot me this look like, “Yes? What do you want from me?” That’s when you forget about countries you once knew that functioned somewhat properly and you and you hunker down to watch yet another episode of some house design show dubbed in Spanish.
The doctor finally shows up and beckons me into the office. I’m sweating so bad just for the anticipated awkwardness of explaining my condition in Spanish. The equivalent in English would probably go something like, “No breath when run. Cough always now. Lots of dust.” The Peace Corps doctors wrote up a little explanation of my perpetual sinus congestion and productive cough. So the doctor has me do a peak flow test, which I have always hated. I’m standing there and she has me blow … Right. Then she does some other test with a machine to measure the functionality of my smaller lung parts or something. Turns out I have a sinus infection. Right. Then she tells me I don’t have asthma. Did I get that wrong because of the language difference? Kind of hard to though because “no” and “asthma” as more or less the same in bother languages … I don’t have asthma. I didn’t point out to her that I have sports induced asthma and she made me do the tests with me standing in a doctor’s office. I didn’t point out that she didn’t have me do any stress exercises before the peak flow test. She kind of scared me so I took my drugs and left. Don’t have asthma. Silly.
That night we went to get … SUSHI! I have never been more content in my life. I had miso soup and sushi. So amazingly wonderful that I can’t even describe it. I think I almost cried when I took my first sip of soup and first bite of a California role. Sushi is one of the foods that we don’t even have a hope of recreating in our homes. I mean my friends are amazing cooks, but they can’t make Sushi the way the Japanese do and therefore it was heavenly.
Instead of taking advantage of the night life in Teguz or the many places that sell decent beer the whole lot of us returned to the hotel to take advantage of the … cable. Most of us don’t have T.V.s and we definitely don’t get Teguz quality cable in our sites. You become oddly intolerable of any program in Spanish. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked, “Why isn’t there anything in English??” Only to get the response, “Hannah it’s because we’re in a Spanish speaking country!” Right.
Sounds lame, but that’s reality of it. We have one rule always: no watching any program in Spanish. It could be the best movie/program in the world, but we will refuse to watch it if it’s dubbed. No go. Not allowed. Inevitably in our search for an acceptable program we will pass Family Guy or The Simpsons on at least one channel. This will prompt someone in the room to fly into a rage about why they even bother showing these programs because the humor, even if it isn’t lost in translation, is completely lost on people here. There’s an inevitable sequence of events when we watch T.V. together:
1) Insistence on a remote
2) Reminder that we cannot watch anything in Spanish
3) Rant of Family Guy/The Simpsons
4) Criticize music videos in Spanish
5) Find a good program and watch if for a few minutes before we realize it’s not in English, but we just didn’t realize it and are forced to change the channel again …
6) Squeal when we inevitably find something worth watching.
Hey, it’s the little things that count!
I’m walking around at the moment (still) looking like a heroin addict because the PCMOs (Peace Corps doctors) made me get blood drawn. I’ve always had problem with getting blood drawn and IVs. My arms just don’t seem to have very good, accessible veins. I understand this and generally warn people that my veins always put up a fight. It never fails that the nurses don’t believe me, thinking that I don’t have confidence in their skills; the problem is that they have too much confidence.
So I walk in there and they sit me down and the nurse pokes and prods me for a while before she isolates a vein that satisfies her. Deep breath, she slides the needle in … nothing. She gives me a look like, “Give it up!” She slides the needle a little bit to the right, to the left. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there trying not to notice the needle in my arm moving every which way with still no blood coming out. Then she calls over another guy and he saddles up like, “I got this!”
He chooses to torture the same vein and gets a little bit of blood into the vile. I look at the tiniest trickle of blood and ask, “And how many of these do you need??” Three. Poop. Then, I liked this part, they have the nerve to blame it on me! I’m not relaxed and the blood won’t flow. Excuse me?? You want me to relax when you’ve practically severed my arm at my elbow by jabbing that darn needle everywhere? Would you be relaxed? I’m trying with ever nerve in my body to maintain consciousness because the last thing I want to be is the white girl that fainted in the office, but you’re making it awfully hard right now and I’ve never come close to fainting before in my life!
Now, I’m not a doctor and maybe my state of high stress at the time (most of the time) was causing my blood to flow slower, but a little lesson in patient-doctor relating skills: don’t blame it on the patient! That generally does not encourage them to relax!
He finally gave my poor arm a rest after he had successfully bludgeoned my vein to death. He still hadn’t gotten the blood he wanted/needed and moved his torturous practices to the other arm. Instead of using some needle that just lets the blood flow naturally into the vile he chose to use a syringe to DRAW the blood out. He locates the vein, tells me to relax in response to which I shot him a death glare, and he shoves this massive needle into my arm and a couple of times pulls out the little stopper guy before he draws out blood. He practically fills the syringe and I’m just about out when he finally guesses he has enough. NEVER AGAIN. If they want blood from me again in Honduras they’re going to have to evacuate me to D.C. where people have some good doctoring skills and don’t stab my arm to death.
On the bright side though, when people in town have asked me where I’ve been and I say in Teguz for doctor’s appointments (people don’t understand why we don’t stay local) and they give me a skeptical look … I shove my right arm in their face as proof that I indeed saw doctors and they tortured me as well!
That’s about all for now. I will right more in a bit. Kathryn wrote a funny story about our day of bugs and I’ll copy that into my blog too.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Day My Personal Space Was Violated
I don’t feel like giving all this back story so … I have a Honduran friend Jackie who was graduating with her teaching degree, which is a really big deal and I was the only one (including family) who went to watch her graduate. It was awesome and stressful.
We got to the university around 7:30 am, where I promptly located the exotic food … the Dunkin Donuts! stand and proceeded to try to eat them out of every donut they shipped in; I saw them in their packaging, but that didn’t discourage me. From there everything pretty much dissolved into chaos. I tried to hold onto my donut high, but then people invaded my personal space and I went nuts. Heh.
So they were supposed to get there early to organize themselves, which makes sense. The day before they had done a run through and, foolishly, I thought that things were going to go smoothly. I mean, I don’t think you can argue with me when I saw the U.S. is much more organized than Honduras in all aspects of life. I’m not hating on Honduras, just stating the truth. So when I walked onto the campus that morning I should have been prepared, but foolishly was unaware of the mayhem that would ensue.
Now, no one wants to go to a graduation. I didn’t want to go to my college graduation. It’s boring and you sit there, and let’s be honest, the only moment you really care about is getting your diploma and maybe seeing a couple of friends get theirs. After that, you just want to get out of those itchy, hot gowns and go eat some good food and get some presents! I mean, if you were ever to catch your parents and grandparents in a very honest conversation I’m sure they would admit that they dreaded every graduation. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if parents based the number of children they wanted to have on the number of graduations they would have to attend. I mean, I feel sorry for my grandparents because they will have attended record number of graduations between children and grandchildren. We all know they’re boring!
Occasionally, during my life here in Honduras, I realize major differences between the U.S. and this country. Sometimes these realizations are e subtle and other times they will have to in a deep depression for several weeks. Other times, like in Jackie’s graduation, they will have you on the verge of punching someone in the face …
For instance, if you are in a big crowd of people in the U.S. people (most) will do their best to move for you if you are unfortunate enough to have to push your way through the crowd.
“Excuse me, excuse me. Sorry …” and generally you will at least see them make an effort, even if it’s only a millimeter. Well, in Honduras it’s like they immediately sprout roots into the concrete the moment their feet get planted. There’s over 1,000 people graduating in the entire country at the same time and they’re all standing around the same entrance trying to get through the one open door at the same time!! I was in the unfortunate position to be fighting my way OUT. You know how you feel when you get pushed under a really strong wave in the ocean? You’re fighting for breath and trying to get to the surface, but the wave breaks on you and keeps you tumbling around under water until you get so desperate for air that you think you’re going to drown? Yeah? That’s how I felt fighting through those people.
No one would move! I was trying to be as polite as possible, but at one point I came across a woman who would not budge and gave me the most evil look and I just stared at her and growled, “Really?” I love being able to speak in English like that, because even though she probably got the jist of what the comment was, I still feel sneaky and cunning because I can be a smart ass without detection.
Well, after the terrible ocean drowning flashbacks, I emerged from the sea of graduates and though, “Now what. I have an hour to sit here?” So I called Chris to complain about my terrible experience with pushy Hondurans. Didn’t find much comfort there as he immediately says, “That will suck! I didn’t even go to my graduation!” I KNOW RIGHT!
Now, don’t get me wrong, because I am very honored that Jackie invited me and I am even more honored that I was there to see her accomplish such a huge thing in her life.
Jackie calls me from inside and says that family and friends are started to pick seats and she wanted me to be close to the front so I could take pictures. I stand up, take a deep breath and plunge back into the chaos. Now, why on Earth would you have one door open when a gagillion people are trying to get into one single building? Especially, when said building has like six available doors? Come on now people.
Now most of you are probably giggling at the thought of me struggling with all these people trying to get through this door. I think I defied nature in legitimately blowing steam from my ears. Hondurans are INCREDIBLY pushy people I realized in that moment and if I tried to fight it I was bound to lose my mind on the spot. Instead, I took to muttering, “This is so stupid. Why is one door open? Please God help me get through this. Oh man. Take a deep breath … NO NO. Don’t yell. Calm. Tranquila.”
I finally got in and picked my seat based on the fact that it was A) close to the front and Jackie approved B) there was no one remotely close to me. I get settled and get both cameras ready. There was quite a bit of time until the ceremony started so I pulled out my book and settled in for a short reading session.
At this moment there was sooo much space on the bleachers. I mean, you could have you pick of any row and this family chose to sit RIGHT next to me. And when I say next I pretty much mean right on top of me. Literally. The man sat down on my thigh. I drop my book into my lap and say to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” And then I decided to wage war. I had more space on my other side so I scooted over a bit, but he immediately conquered that extra space. At that moment I realized that I could not give him more room, because over of the course of the ceremony he would take over all my carefully preserved personal bubble. I’d have to take back my own lost territory. It was on!
Now after you read this blog post you might be finally convinced of my insanity and I cannot argue with you on that point. I was paying attention to the ceremony when all the Corquin people graduated and beyond that my mind was consumed by this serious affront to my personal space bubble (which is, in fact, the size of a football field).
At this point, I will share with you some of my thoughts during this very stressful time in my life. I was so stressed out I ripped pages out of my book and started to write about it, because it served to calm me down for a millisecond.
- Hondurans are quite possibly one of the more rude populations in the world. The couple next to me: I just witnessed the wife make her husband spread his legs so that they had more space on the bleachers. We officially are making contact from our knees all the way up our torsos.
- “Latino culture is the worst place for a personal space “nut’ to live. I’m sitting, looking through the crowd at other single women who have plenty of space and …
SIDEBAR: He just put on his glasses to see what I was writing! The nerve!
… envying the abundance of space they have maintained. I’m sitting here next to this man (by no means tall) who has managed to expand to the size of HULK! I’ve become resentful and angry and I have decided to wage a campaign to re-conquer my lost space. I’ve gently nudged back and started to expand myself to show that I’m not backing down without a fight! … Unfortunately, he hasn’t noticed.”
I’m not kidding. I wrote that while I was waiting. I’m a child. But, in my defense, I was really distressed. I sent Kathryn this text, “In NO WAY should a perfect stranger have this much bodily contact with me!! If this guy moves one more inch I might just lost it.” She told me to just breathe.
Finally the ceremony started and I was distracted a bit, although when we had to stand for the national anthem and it was time for my final strike! When the anthem ended I sat down so fast you would think we were playing musical chairs to win $1 million. I reclaimed a significant amount of space and in a very childish manner (in my head) exclaimed, “HAH! I WIN!”
Eventually, the family did leave and I was left alone to recover my sanity. I really can’t help but laugh at myself because it’s so ridiculous, but I honestly was having a slight panic attack. Now I will talk seriously of the graduation …
The entire country graduated at the same time. Now, I didn’t quite understand this, but they are all graduating with various levels of teach degrees. You can graduate as a tecnico, which I honestly don’t know what that means, or you can graduate with your licienciatura, which is what Jackie got. This is like your bachelor’s degree from what I understand. So in all there were over 1,000 people. The ceremony was very simple with only the director of the department speaking before they started calling names. After all the names were called, there were very short closing remarks and then everyone left. I was disappointed that they didn’t throw the hats up in the air. Actually, I felt like no one seemed to be very excited. They didn’t even really cheer or clap for themselves!
Now the following was just about the most unfortunate series of events that I could ever imagine happening after a graduation. In the weeks before the ceremony, I remember Jackie talking about all the paperwork they had to do to actually graduate. They headed to Tegucigalpa a few days beforehand to do all the administrative stuff. Now, I don’t remember that end of the deal when I graduated, probably because it was all online and incredibly easy. Honduras should consider that method for the following years.
After graduation, instead of the congratulatory hugs and (in my case) the exchange of gorgeous George’s Flowers bouquets, Jackie runs up, grabs my arm and we run to get in line. Now, in following of the George’s Flowers tradition, I did get Jackie flowers. I know she loves flowers; I love flowers and who wouldn’t want to receive flowers as an in-the-moment congratulations? Admittedly, I only got her two flowers because bouquets were wickedly expensive, but it’s quality and no quantity, eh?
I didn’t even have time to give Jackie her flowers and the handmade card I made her! So the ceremony ends at 12:30 and we immediately get in line to wait there until 4:00 p.m. I’ll let that sink in!!
Imagine accomplishing something that momentous and having to do more paperwork immediately afterwards? Maybe to make it more striking, because a lot of people get their bachelor’s degrees now, it would be like getting your PhD or something and not being able to celebrate something so huge! Turns out they paid 600 lempiras to rent their gowns and had to wait to get the deposit back along with the other 1,000 people!
No one had any idea that it would take this long. Naturally, it was incredibly disorganized, and no one had any idea if they were in the right line, etc. I occupied myself with reading and texting a friend for cool restaurant suggestions for the celebratory lunch, but around hour three I was getting a little impatient. Finally, Jackie finished, but she was so tired and frustrated she didn’t want to go out to eat. Her aunt and cousins were throwing a celebratory dinner later that evening and it didn’t make sense to eat a fancy meal only a few hours beforehand. So where did we have Jackie’s celebratory graduation lunch? Subway. Now, I was pretty excited, secretly, because anything remotely American style fast food gets me all worked up for the novelty, but I was also extremely disappointed.
Easily my favorite part of my graduation was having my family and grandparents there. I spend weeks picking out a restaurant that everyone would like. Grandpa doesn’t like to get too exotic and Pap-Pap once said that his favorite country he ever visited was Greece. Did this factor into my restaurant decision? You betcha! I lived in D.C. and loved trying new foreign foods. I harassed my Mom about her opinion on various ethnic restaurants until she exploded, “Hannah just pick one!” I remember Grandma (both in fact, maybe) ordered a dish similar to the one in Ratoutillle, which provoked a little mental chuckle for me. Yes, I’m being nostalgic, but that was my favorite part! All of the most important people in my life (well, most at least) sharing a really good meal. Plus, we had mimosas!
So, you would imagine my disappointment when Jackie’s big meal, which I had obviously worked up in my head, was in a food court eating Subway sandwiches. Also, I just feel bad for the graduates in general. Instead of being able to leave and celebrate their accomplishments, they had to wait in line for hours until the point they were too exhausted and frustrated to even feel happy for themselves. Jackie and I were going to take a little weekend vacation, but the rest of the Corquin graduates immediately jumped on their bus to start the 10 hour drive back to Copan. Just really unfortunate!
Jumping a few hours ahead … Jackie’s aunt lives in Tegucigalpa with her five daughters and various grandchildren. Jackie lived with her aunt while she was studying and has a very close bond with this side of her family. All five daughters are educated with one engineer, one doctor and three teachers with their bachelor’s degrees. It’s a pretty big accomplishment as I understand that she was a single mother as well and it’s just not that normal for young women to be so educated. I realized I really liked these women immediately. They’re smart and open-minded ; they were discussing homosexuality and all agreed that it’s a sexual preference and not a mental disease, etc., which is a huge departure from most people’s opinions in Honduras.
Jackie’s family reminded me very much of my own. Everyone was always talking at the same time and inevitably someone was making fun of/harassing one sibling or another at any given moment. Kids were running all over the place and there was even an aunt who specialized in making the boys feel uncomfortable by catching them and demanding kisses! It was complete loving chaos.
We ate good food and I enjoyed every moment. They made me feel very much at home. I still would have given anything to be at a family gathering with my own family, but it was a good substitution.
We got to the university around 7:30 am, where I promptly located the exotic food … the Dunkin Donuts! stand and proceeded to try to eat them out of every donut they shipped in; I saw them in their packaging, but that didn’t discourage me. From there everything pretty much dissolved into chaos. I tried to hold onto my donut high, but then people invaded my personal space and I went nuts. Heh.
So they were supposed to get there early to organize themselves, which makes sense. The day before they had done a run through and, foolishly, I thought that things were going to go smoothly. I mean, I don’t think you can argue with me when I saw the U.S. is much more organized than Honduras in all aspects of life. I’m not hating on Honduras, just stating the truth. So when I walked onto the campus that morning I should have been prepared, but foolishly was unaware of the mayhem that would ensue.
Now, no one wants to go to a graduation. I didn’t want to go to my college graduation. It’s boring and you sit there, and let’s be honest, the only moment you really care about is getting your diploma and maybe seeing a couple of friends get theirs. After that, you just want to get out of those itchy, hot gowns and go eat some good food and get some presents! I mean, if you were ever to catch your parents and grandparents in a very honest conversation I’m sure they would admit that they dreaded every graduation. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if parents based the number of children they wanted to have on the number of graduations they would have to attend. I mean, I feel sorry for my grandparents because they will have attended record number of graduations between children and grandchildren. We all know they’re boring!
Occasionally, during my life here in Honduras, I realize major differences between the U.S. and this country. Sometimes these realizations are e subtle and other times they will have to in a deep depression for several weeks. Other times, like in Jackie’s graduation, they will have you on the verge of punching someone in the face …
For instance, if you are in a big crowd of people in the U.S. people (most) will do their best to move for you if you are unfortunate enough to have to push your way through the crowd.
“Excuse me, excuse me. Sorry …” and generally you will at least see them make an effort, even if it’s only a millimeter. Well, in Honduras it’s like they immediately sprout roots into the concrete the moment their feet get planted. There’s over 1,000 people graduating in the entire country at the same time and they’re all standing around the same entrance trying to get through the one open door at the same time!! I was in the unfortunate position to be fighting my way OUT. You know how you feel when you get pushed under a really strong wave in the ocean? You’re fighting for breath and trying to get to the surface, but the wave breaks on you and keeps you tumbling around under water until you get so desperate for air that you think you’re going to drown? Yeah? That’s how I felt fighting through those people.
No one would move! I was trying to be as polite as possible, but at one point I came across a woman who would not budge and gave me the most evil look and I just stared at her and growled, “Really?” I love being able to speak in English like that, because even though she probably got the jist of what the comment was, I still feel sneaky and cunning because I can be a smart ass without detection.
Well, after the terrible ocean drowning flashbacks, I emerged from the sea of graduates and though, “Now what. I have an hour to sit here?” So I called Chris to complain about my terrible experience with pushy Hondurans. Didn’t find much comfort there as he immediately says, “That will suck! I didn’t even go to my graduation!” I KNOW RIGHT!
Now, don’t get me wrong, because I am very honored that Jackie invited me and I am even more honored that I was there to see her accomplish such a huge thing in her life.
Jackie calls me from inside and says that family and friends are started to pick seats and she wanted me to be close to the front so I could take pictures. I stand up, take a deep breath and plunge back into the chaos. Now, why on Earth would you have one door open when a gagillion people are trying to get into one single building? Especially, when said building has like six available doors? Come on now people.
Now most of you are probably giggling at the thought of me struggling with all these people trying to get through this door. I think I defied nature in legitimately blowing steam from my ears. Hondurans are INCREDIBLY pushy people I realized in that moment and if I tried to fight it I was bound to lose my mind on the spot. Instead, I took to muttering, “This is so stupid. Why is one door open? Please God help me get through this. Oh man. Take a deep breath … NO NO. Don’t yell. Calm. Tranquila.”
I finally got in and picked my seat based on the fact that it was A) close to the front and Jackie approved B) there was no one remotely close to me. I get settled and get both cameras ready. There was quite a bit of time until the ceremony started so I pulled out my book and settled in for a short reading session.
At this moment there was sooo much space on the bleachers. I mean, you could have you pick of any row and this family chose to sit RIGHT next to me. And when I say next I pretty much mean right on top of me. Literally. The man sat down on my thigh. I drop my book into my lap and say to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” And then I decided to wage war. I had more space on my other side so I scooted over a bit, but he immediately conquered that extra space. At that moment I realized that I could not give him more room, because over of the course of the ceremony he would take over all my carefully preserved personal bubble. I’d have to take back my own lost territory. It was on!
Now after you read this blog post you might be finally convinced of my insanity and I cannot argue with you on that point. I was paying attention to the ceremony when all the Corquin people graduated and beyond that my mind was consumed by this serious affront to my personal space bubble (which is, in fact, the size of a football field).
At this point, I will share with you some of my thoughts during this very stressful time in my life. I was so stressed out I ripped pages out of my book and started to write about it, because it served to calm me down for a millisecond.
- Hondurans are quite possibly one of the more rude populations in the world. The couple next to me: I just witnessed the wife make her husband spread his legs so that they had more space on the bleachers. We officially are making contact from our knees all the way up our torsos.
- “Latino culture is the worst place for a personal space “nut’ to live. I’m sitting, looking through the crowd at other single women who have plenty of space and …
SIDEBAR: He just put on his glasses to see what I was writing! The nerve!
… envying the abundance of space they have maintained. I’m sitting here next to this man (by no means tall) who has managed to expand to the size of HULK! I’ve become resentful and angry and I have decided to wage a campaign to re-conquer my lost space. I’ve gently nudged back and started to expand myself to show that I’m not backing down without a fight! … Unfortunately, he hasn’t noticed.”
I’m not kidding. I wrote that while I was waiting. I’m a child. But, in my defense, I was really distressed. I sent Kathryn this text, “In NO WAY should a perfect stranger have this much bodily contact with me!! If this guy moves one more inch I might just lost it.” She told me to just breathe.
Finally the ceremony started and I was distracted a bit, although when we had to stand for the national anthem and it was time for my final strike! When the anthem ended I sat down so fast you would think we were playing musical chairs to win $1 million. I reclaimed a significant amount of space and in a very childish manner (in my head) exclaimed, “HAH! I WIN!”
Eventually, the family did leave and I was left alone to recover my sanity. I really can’t help but laugh at myself because it’s so ridiculous, but I honestly was having a slight panic attack. Now I will talk seriously of the graduation …
The entire country graduated at the same time. Now, I didn’t quite understand this, but they are all graduating with various levels of teach degrees. You can graduate as a tecnico, which I honestly don’t know what that means, or you can graduate with your licienciatura, which is what Jackie got. This is like your bachelor’s degree from what I understand. So in all there were over 1,000 people. The ceremony was very simple with only the director of the department speaking before they started calling names. After all the names were called, there were very short closing remarks and then everyone left. I was disappointed that they didn’t throw the hats up in the air. Actually, I felt like no one seemed to be very excited. They didn’t even really cheer or clap for themselves!
Now the following was just about the most unfortunate series of events that I could ever imagine happening after a graduation. In the weeks before the ceremony, I remember Jackie talking about all the paperwork they had to do to actually graduate. They headed to Tegucigalpa a few days beforehand to do all the administrative stuff. Now, I don’t remember that end of the deal when I graduated, probably because it was all online and incredibly easy. Honduras should consider that method for the following years.
After graduation, instead of the congratulatory hugs and (in my case) the exchange of gorgeous George’s Flowers bouquets, Jackie runs up, grabs my arm and we run to get in line. Now, in following of the George’s Flowers tradition, I did get Jackie flowers. I know she loves flowers; I love flowers and who wouldn’t want to receive flowers as an in-the-moment congratulations? Admittedly, I only got her two flowers because bouquets were wickedly expensive, but it’s quality and no quantity, eh?
I didn’t even have time to give Jackie her flowers and the handmade card I made her! So the ceremony ends at 12:30 and we immediately get in line to wait there until 4:00 p.m. I’ll let that sink in!!
Imagine accomplishing something that momentous and having to do more paperwork immediately afterwards? Maybe to make it more striking, because a lot of people get their bachelor’s degrees now, it would be like getting your PhD or something and not being able to celebrate something so huge! Turns out they paid 600 lempiras to rent their gowns and had to wait to get the deposit back along with the other 1,000 people!
No one had any idea that it would take this long. Naturally, it was incredibly disorganized, and no one had any idea if they were in the right line, etc. I occupied myself with reading and texting a friend for cool restaurant suggestions for the celebratory lunch, but around hour three I was getting a little impatient. Finally, Jackie finished, but she was so tired and frustrated she didn’t want to go out to eat. Her aunt and cousins were throwing a celebratory dinner later that evening and it didn’t make sense to eat a fancy meal only a few hours beforehand. So where did we have Jackie’s celebratory graduation lunch? Subway. Now, I was pretty excited, secretly, because anything remotely American style fast food gets me all worked up for the novelty, but I was also extremely disappointed.
Easily my favorite part of my graduation was having my family and grandparents there. I spend weeks picking out a restaurant that everyone would like. Grandpa doesn’t like to get too exotic and Pap-Pap once said that his favorite country he ever visited was Greece. Did this factor into my restaurant decision? You betcha! I lived in D.C. and loved trying new foreign foods. I harassed my Mom about her opinion on various ethnic restaurants until she exploded, “Hannah just pick one!” I remember Grandma (both in fact, maybe) ordered a dish similar to the one in Ratoutillle, which provoked a little mental chuckle for me. Yes, I’m being nostalgic, but that was my favorite part! All of the most important people in my life (well, most at least) sharing a really good meal. Plus, we had mimosas!
So, you would imagine my disappointment when Jackie’s big meal, which I had obviously worked up in my head, was in a food court eating Subway sandwiches. Also, I just feel bad for the graduates in general. Instead of being able to leave and celebrate their accomplishments, they had to wait in line for hours until the point they were too exhausted and frustrated to even feel happy for themselves. Jackie and I were going to take a little weekend vacation, but the rest of the Corquin graduates immediately jumped on their bus to start the 10 hour drive back to Copan. Just really unfortunate!
Jumping a few hours ahead … Jackie’s aunt lives in Tegucigalpa with her five daughters and various grandchildren. Jackie lived with her aunt while she was studying and has a very close bond with this side of her family. All five daughters are educated with one engineer, one doctor and three teachers with their bachelor’s degrees. It’s a pretty big accomplishment as I understand that she was a single mother as well and it’s just not that normal for young women to be so educated. I realized I really liked these women immediately. They’re smart and open-minded ; they were discussing homosexuality and all agreed that it’s a sexual preference and not a mental disease, etc., which is a huge departure from most people’s opinions in Honduras.
Jackie’s family reminded me very much of my own. Everyone was always talking at the same time and inevitably someone was making fun of/harassing one sibling or another at any given moment. Kids were running all over the place and there was even an aunt who specialized in making the boys feel uncomfortable by catching them and demanding kisses! It was complete loving chaos.
We ate good food and I enjoyed every moment. They made me feel very much at home. I still would have given anything to be at a family gathering with my own family, but it was a good substitution.
It was fun, scary and all a waste of time …
Several stories play into this blog entry and none of them really have anything to do with the title, but my friend said that on the phone and I liked the sentiment.
Nothing all that interesting has been happening as I don’t have reliable work at the moment. Not having reliable work encourages me not to leave my house, which means that the potential for awkward, funny stories is significantly lower.
I am going to relay a story that a friend told me via text message the other day:
Low of the day: Plunging the toilet because of the massive turd my husband left for me today and spraying poop water all over myself and the bathroom.
High of the day: A lot of things, but they were all ruined by that one experience.
---
My dog has mange (at least that is the conclusion I have come to), of which I was relating to my friend the other day and she said … “You know people can get mange?” This was right after I had my face buried in my dog’s fur because I was being affectionate considering he doesn’t feel well and is mad at me for spraying purple spray all over him (antibiotic stuff).
“WHAT?! Are you serious?” and instead of going and scrubbing my face and hands, like maybe I should have, I respond, “Dude if I got mange I would officially win the award for getting the weirdest, nastiest disease in Honduras! Forget scabies, forget dengue and all the amoebas … I WIN!”
---
One of the days that I actually kind of had work to do I was heading to the office and as I was walking past as house I noticed a whole bunch of people struggling with what looked like a rolled up carpet. I then noticed that there were feet dangling out of said rolled up carpet … It was like the Sopranos, but Honduran campesino style, because Hondurans just lack subtly in general. There was a woman on the phone talking about how they were going to the hospital in Santa Rosa and it was that moment that I noticed the feet were slightly moving as they put the man in the BACK OF THE TRUCK. Instead of calling the ambulance or putting him in the cab of the truck, they put the old man (which I noticed at this time) in the carpet in the back of the truck! I was watching all of this, totally forgetting that in my culture it’s rude to stare. Meanwhile I was passing other staring Hondurans, hoping that someone would validate my emotions of how MESSED UP THIS WAS! Didn’t happen. I wanted to cry or even laugh because of how absurd the situation was. The truck took off and I immediately called everyone I knew to tell them the story. Some people did laugh and others were like, “Wow that’s really sad …”
After that encounter I went to the office to pick up my sitemate, whom I had convinced to come up into the campo with me because I needed to take more GPS points for the study I’m doing. Well, my sitemate doesn’t really spend much time in the campo and after stumbling through the first coffee finca (plantation) I told her she could wait on the “road” for me while I went and found the stakes that I needed to figure out where I was, which was interesting because most of them had disappeared. I got my silly self lost while wandering around muttering to myself about why people would remove stakes in the ground that had numbers on them!
Well, I was gone for a while and when I came back she wasn’t where I had left her. Immediately I start thinking that somebody had grabbed her and carried her away. Great. How do I explain that one? Well, thanks for technology, I could just call her and she informed me that she had kind of fallen asleep in a clearing. She woke up when a group of coffee pickers walked by, naturally staring at her, because she’s obviously a foreigner sleeping in the middle of nowhere! Who does that?? She scares me sometimes.
---
It’s been getting really hot here recently. We’re leaving the period of rain and cool weather for one of scorching summer heat and I’m not handling it very well. I’m trying to get myself used to the idea that I will permanently have pit stains and just be generally grumping because if the heat. Increased sweating means increased laundry, which wouldn’t be so bad if I owned more acceptable clothing. Therefore, I decided to brave the “department store” again in search of another bra, because yet another has fallen victim to thrashing puppy teeth. I walk into the first floor and there, in all its glory, is a massive pool display! It can’t be! Yes, yes it’s no mirage … kiddy pools are 50% off!
I yelled, “CASEY! COME HERE NOW!” and walked over to the display, grabbed the box, and started bouncing up and down like a little kid with a big grin on my face. WHEEEEE!
What is more perfect for these hot days than a kiddy pool?! I just stood there and stared in awe of my luck for several moments. The Hondurans in the store must have thought I was crazy. What 20-something gringa has ever entered their store and gotten that excited about a kiddy pool? I think I even squealed a couple of times.
When I got back to Kathryn’s apartment I think my look said everything; she goes, “What did you get??” I make a big deal of the reveal, whip off the bag and expose my new pool!
“KIDDY POOL!” I squeal.
“OH MAN! We’re going back to your site tomorrow and we’re going to fill it up and drink beers for our one year in country anniversary! So amazing!”
Next morning we wake up and it’s cloudy. Then a Honduran tells us that another cold front is coming through. Kathryn, in her disappoint, “Dammit! Leave it to Honduras to ruin the kiddy pool for us! Cold front! I knew it! I knew that we wouldn’t get to swim in it this week!”
Well a few hours later we’re pulling into Corquin and it’s kind of raining and getting quite cold. We walk into my house and I immediately whip out the pool and sit down in it in my house (pictures will be posted). Kathryn is taking pictures and she stops, “You know … that water heater … hot tub?”
I was right there with her, but we decided that the electricity combination is dangerous enough, but putting it in a flimsy plastic pool might be taunting fate too much.
---
Next story? Well Kathryn and I were walking up to my house that day and per usual there is a Honduran male peeing outside my house. I always have this huge fear that, even though I slow down when I see them outside, that me walking really slow will still get me to my door before they’ve finished their business. I really have no desire to see random body parts … like ever and I just feel like it would be incredibly awkward for all parties involved.
Well Kathryn and I successfully avoid seeing Honduran … parts … and get to the house. Now, Bourbon is even more sick than he usually is and we were waiting for a coworker of mine to arrive to “diagnose” him and give him antibiotics if necessary. My yard looks very white trashy. Actually, my whole house. Kathryn, last time she visited me, told me I live like a bachelor. A gross mealy apple someone gave me sat on my window sill for weeks before I tossed it, and I only tossed it because Kathryn, upon leaving the last time, told me that if it was still there on her next visit that she would throw it at my head … I believed her. Therefore, when we walked in the door I discreetly chucked it out the window while she put her stuff down.
Well, I have a puppy that has an oral fixation quite unlike I’ve ever seen in other animals or humans. It doesn’t help that that my yard is filled with trash that people have been burying there over the years.
Trash in the yard + curious, chewing puppy + my lack of motivation = lots of bits of trash all over my front yard.
Apparently this bothers Kathryn and she got to picking up the trash while we waited for Humberto. You can’t watch a friend clean up your yard while you sit there, so naturally I get up to help. Well, we make our way to the fence and I grab a black, plastic bag. The immediate sensation of wetness drips down my hand and my brain wastes no time …
“CAMPESINO PEE! OH MY GOD THERE’S CAMPESINO PEE ALL OVER MY HAND!!!!!! AHHHHHIIIIYYYYYYYHHHHHHEEEWWWWWWWWW”
I take off around the house at lightning speed with the sound of Kathryn’s laughing hysterically behind me. I get to my pila and start scrubbing down both arms like I’m preparing for major surgery. The entire time I’m mumbling, “Oh man. Too gross. So not cool. CAMPESINO PEE! Oh no. Oh no.”
Several minutes later, when I feel like I’ve sufficiently disinfected myself I immerge from the house to Kathryn still doubled up outside my house laughing.
“That’s the most hilarious thing I could have ever seen.”
“Actually, no it’s not hilarious KATHRYN! It’s gross. So gross.” Again, like a little kid, I plop myself down on the porch with my arms folded and watch her pick up the rest of the trash.
For the next two days, whether it made sense or not, she often replied with, “Well you did touch campesino pee…”
---
February 25th, 2010 was the official one year in country for my group! Kathryn and I were quite excited that we had work to do (which would limit the potential for depressive wallowing) and were heading up to a new community to talk to them about doing a potential study. We wake up, late after deciding not to run because it was “too cold,” and I lounge in bed a little longer than Kathryn.
“Toilet’s not running, which means there still isn’t any water. Way to go Honduras …”
I hear bustling in the kitchen and marvel at how Kathryn can read my mind and is already preparing the coffee. Love that girl! Then there’s a piercing yell!
“There’s no luz!!!! We can’t make coffee because there isn’t any electricity! KILL ME!”
That's a bit dramatic, but still ...
Now I’m really not getting out of bed. I yell from my covers, “You know what this means? This means today is going to be the worst day ever. This means that everything is going to go wrong because there already isn’t any water or luz. Now, because this is an important day for us and things already suck that means we won’t end up going out to the community. Now, we’re going to spend the entire day in my house, cold, without electricity or work. We’ll only be able to watch one movie and then spend the rest of the day wallowing in depression! I can’t handle this today!!” This was delivered in the hysterical, breathy voice that I’m sure you all can now recall fondly (hahaha!)
“Ok, calm down. That might not happen.”
In retaliation we decided to show up to the mayor’s office a half hour late as we were quite put off and Hondurans are never on time. Well, around 8:05 am the woman we were coordinating with called us. The minute Kathryn spoke in Spanish I knew it was Norma and I got unbelievably angry that they had the audacity of confronting us on our tardiness. Well, there was more. FIJENSEQUE the municipality thought that we were going to find a ride (which we’ve never done EVER in the times we’ve worked with them before!) and the muni can’t take us because their only car is in Teguz. Lovely.
“I KNEW IT!” I screech in the middle of the street as I perform the angry dance to show my distress. Kathryn shooed me away, which didn’t help matters. We were supposed to continue up to the muni to talk to her about the specifics of the project and try to find a time when we could go a different week. The entire walk up the hill (about 15 – 20 minutes) I launched into an extensive breakdown of why Honduras is doomed and all the potential ways we were going to get screwed that day. Luckily, Kathryn tried to be positive, which was better than us both losing it!
At the muni we also encountered the fontaneros (plumbers) for the water system in Corquin whom we have been working with on an improvement project for Corquin. They have been avoiding me like the plague and had more excuses that because the line was messed up at the moment it would be better for us to wait for it to get “normal” before we could continue with our work. Well that sent me off too.
“I’m hanging by a thread here man! I need work! We need to advance in something for once!! I can’t sit around anymore!!!!!!”
We talked with Norma, which didn’t really reveal much information other than she’s leaving the job and we’ll be dealing with a new guy now. We leave, broken down again by Honduras.
“What now?”
“I need coffee … Or a gun. Pick one.”
“What if someone from ODECO is going up to Joconales and could take us? I can’t sit around today. There’s no point without luz.”
“He doesn’t have a car. Maybe you should go with him and I’ll just go take a nap …” Kathryn’s glare tells me that that is an unacceptable suggestion.
“Let’s go to Casa Grande and get coffee and then we’ll figure out something to do …”
My co-worker calls and … well we got up to the aldea in maybe the most unsafe method of transportation and I can’t really publish those details here. Everyone that we passed stared to the point that they might have broken their necks.
The nice thing is that we got to do some work and the community seems very proactive. We talked to a few guys and they seem very eager to work and we made some considerable progress. I returned to Corquin with a new attitude and wasn’t breaking down into hysterical cursing every few minutes.
Satisfied with our half day or work, we crawled back into bed to watch 1.5 movies before my computer died. Usually the power comes back on around 5 p.m., but that day it came back at 3! I screeched when I noticed the lights go on. “LUZ!! We have LUZ! We can eat now! God I’m so hungry!” Why did I ever buy an electric stove?? Good things come to those who wait.
So, the day didn’t end up being too bad. Kathryn and I had a bottle of champagne to celebrate our one year in country. She wanted to open it all calm like, but I insisted that we have some sort of explosion, which seemed to suit our relationship with Honduras a little better. Now, I’ve never opened champagne before. I can’t even handle open a bottle of wine. The other week I was trying to open a bottle of wine with the little corkscrew on my Swiss army knife and promptly snapped it off (sorry Pap-Pap). This left me to come up with creative ways to get the rest of the cork out without causing major damage to myself or the bottle. It got interesting.
I did get the cork off and it went about one foot, but without the showy explosion of champagne that you see in the movies and stuff. Still, it was more exciting than slowly working it off. So, Kathryn and I spent the night with the champagne and soup while reading several month old Cosmopolitans and listening to trash rap (IE: “Apologize” Timbaland; “Got Your Money” Ol Dirty Bastard; “Crank that Spider Man” Soldier Boy”) Random, you say? Yes, but also great fun.
This morning … Well, some background information. I am a Wat/San Volunteer and I have a toilet that runs and a leaky faucet on my pila, which are the two biggest problems when we talk about wasting water in Honduras. I know, I know. I feel guilty, but not enough to overcome the procrastination to fix the faucet.
When we weren’t really getting water I loosened up the faucet so that it would let out more than the usual drip. That morning my pila was full and I decided I should reduce it down to a drip again, and as I had down the time before to tighten the faucet, I grab my hammer and start knocking the faucet around. Ok, knocking isn’t right … tapping. Well the first knock sent water spraying out from the band sealing up the connection, which got all over me. Crap. So I tapped it again. More spraying. HRMMMM. Knock a different part of it? (now I was really knocking it around). More spraying. I try a different angle and the whole faucet breaks off and I just have a huge stream of water coming out of the tube and flowing all over my back patio. Oh God. Now what?
“Oh man. Not good. Oh … I’m in trouble …” At this point Kathryn emerges from the house and is like, “What the heck did you you?!”
Then, Dimitri, who was coming over, rounds the corner and goes, “Geez! What did you do?!”
There’s me, sprayed with water, with the hammer in my hand looking like a guilty little kid. Dimitri, being my resident handyman, goes and borrows an adjustable wrench, buys a new faucet and fixes my pila. Now I’m a good Wat/San Volunteer with only a runny toilet!
We sat down to breakfast a little later and during a pause in the conversation Dimitri says, “Now in what world did hitting that thing with a hammer make any sense to you … ??”
Nothing all that interesting has been happening as I don’t have reliable work at the moment. Not having reliable work encourages me not to leave my house, which means that the potential for awkward, funny stories is significantly lower.
I am going to relay a story that a friend told me via text message the other day:
Low of the day: Plunging the toilet because of the massive turd my husband left for me today and spraying poop water all over myself and the bathroom.
High of the day: A lot of things, but they were all ruined by that one experience.
---
My dog has mange (at least that is the conclusion I have come to), of which I was relating to my friend the other day and she said … “You know people can get mange?” This was right after I had my face buried in my dog’s fur because I was being affectionate considering he doesn’t feel well and is mad at me for spraying purple spray all over him (antibiotic stuff).
“WHAT?! Are you serious?” and instead of going and scrubbing my face and hands, like maybe I should have, I respond, “Dude if I got mange I would officially win the award for getting the weirdest, nastiest disease in Honduras! Forget scabies, forget dengue and all the amoebas … I WIN!”
---
One of the days that I actually kind of had work to do I was heading to the office and as I was walking past as house I noticed a whole bunch of people struggling with what looked like a rolled up carpet. I then noticed that there were feet dangling out of said rolled up carpet … It was like the Sopranos, but Honduran campesino style, because Hondurans just lack subtly in general. There was a woman on the phone talking about how they were going to the hospital in Santa Rosa and it was that moment that I noticed the feet were slightly moving as they put the man in the BACK OF THE TRUCK. Instead of calling the ambulance or putting him in the cab of the truck, they put the old man (which I noticed at this time) in the carpet in the back of the truck! I was watching all of this, totally forgetting that in my culture it’s rude to stare. Meanwhile I was passing other staring Hondurans, hoping that someone would validate my emotions of how MESSED UP THIS WAS! Didn’t happen. I wanted to cry or even laugh because of how absurd the situation was. The truck took off and I immediately called everyone I knew to tell them the story. Some people did laugh and others were like, “Wow that’s really sad …”
After that encounter I went to the office to pick up my sitemate, whom I had convinced to come up into the campo with me because I needed to take more GPS points for the study I’m doing. Well, my sitemate doesn’t really spend much time in the campo and after stumbling through the first coffee finca (plantation) I told her she could wait on the “road” for me while I went and found the stakes that I needed to figure out where I was, which was interesting because most of them had disappeared. I got my silly self lost while wandering around muttering to myself about why people would remove stakes in the ground that had numbers on them!
Well, I was gone for a while and when I came back she wasn’t where I had left her. Immediately I start thinking that somebody had grabbed her and carried her away. Great. How do I explain that one? Well, thanks for technology, I could just call her and she informed me that she had kind of fallen asleep in a clearing. She woke up when a group of coffee pickers walked by, naturally staring at her, because she’s obviously a foreigner sleeping in the middle of nowhere! Who does that?? She scares me sometimes.
---
It’s been getting really hot here recently. We’re leaving the period of rain and cool weather for one of scorching summer heat and I’m not handling it very well. I’m trying to get myself used to the idea that I will permanently have pit stains and just be generally grumping because if the heat. Increased sweating means increased laundry, which wouldn’t be so bad if I owned more acceptable clothing. Therefore, I decided to brave the “department store” again in search of another bra, because yet another has fallen victim to thrashing puppy teeth. I walk into the first floor and there, in all its glory, is a massive pool display! It can’t be! Yes, yes it’s no mirage … kiddy pools are 50% off!
I yelled, “CASEY! COME HERE NOW!” and walked over to the display, grabbed the box, and started bouncing up and down like a little kid with a big grin on my face. WHEEEEE!
What is more perfect for these hot days than a kiddy pool?! I just stood there and stared in awe of my luck for several moments. The Hondurans in the store must have thought I was crazy. What 20-something gringa has ever entered their store and gotten that excited about a kiddy pool? I think I even squealed a couple of times.
When I got back to Kathryn’s apartment I think my look said everything; she goes, “What did you get??” I make a big deal of the reveal, whip off the bag and expose my new pool!
“KIDDY POOL!” I squeal.
“OH MAN! We’re going back to your site tomorrow and we’re going to fill it up and drink beers for our one year in country anniversary! So amazing!”
Next morning we wake up and it’s cloudy. Then a Honduran tells us that another cold front is coming through. Kathryn, in her disappoint, “Dammit! Leave it to Honduras to ruin the kiddy pool for us! Cold front! I knew it! I knew that we wouldn’t get to swim in it this week!”
Well a few hours later we’re pulling into Corquin and it’s kind of raining and getting quite cold. We walk into my house and I immediately whip out the pool and sit down in it in my house (pictures will be posted). Kathryn is taking pictures and she stops, “You know … that water heater … hot tub?”
I was right there with her, but we decided that the electricity combination is dangerous enough, but putting it in a flimsy plastic pool might be taunting fate too much.
---
Next story? Well Kathryn and I were walking up to my house that day and per usual there is a Honduran male peeing outside my house. I always have this huge fear that, even though I slow down when I see them outside, that me walking really slow will still get me to my door before they’ve finished their business. I really have no desire to see random body parts … like ever and I just feel like it would be incredibly awkward for all parties involved.
Well Kathryn and I successfully avoid seeing Honduran … parts … and get to the house. Now, Bourbon is even more sick than he usually is and we were waiting for a coworker of mine to arrive to “diagnose” him and give him antibiotics if necessary. My yard looks very white trashy. Actually, my whole house. Kathryn, last time she visited me, told me I live like a bachelor. A gross mealy apple someone gave me sat on my window sill for weeks before I tossed it, and I only tossed it because Kathryn, upon leaving the last time, told me that if it was still there on her next visit that she would throw it at my head … I believed her. Therefore, when we walked in the door I discreetly chucked it out the window while she put her stuff down.
Well, I have a puppy that has an oral fixation quite unlike I’ve ever seen in other animals or humans. It doesn’t help that that my yard is filled with trash that people have been burying there over the years.
Trash in the yard + curious, chewing puppy + my lack of motivation = lots of bits of trash all over my front yard.
Apparently this bothers Kathryn and she got to picking up the trash while we waited for Humberto. You can’t watch a friend clean up your yard while you sit there, so naturally I get up to help. Well, we make our way to the fence and I grab a black, plastic bag. The immediate sensation of wetness drips down my hand and my brain wastes no time …
“CAMPESINO PEE! OH MY GOD THERE’S CAMPESINO PEE ALL OVER MY HAND!!!!!! AHHHHHIIIIYYYYYYYHHHHHHEEEWWWWWWWWW”
I take off around the house at lightning speed with the sound of Kathryn’s laughing hysterically behind me. I get to my pila and start scrubbing down both arms like I’m preparing for major surgery. The entire time I’m mumbling, “Oh man. Too gross. So not cool. CAMPESINO PEE! Oh no. Oh no.”
Several minutes later, when I feel like I’ve sufficiently disinfected myself I immerge from the house to Kathryn still doubled up outside my house laughing.
“That’s the most hilarious thing I could have ever seen.”
“Actually, no it’s not hilarious KATHRYN! It’s gross. So gross.” Again, like a little kid, I plop myself down on the porch with my arms folded and watch her pick up the rest of the trash.
For the next two days, whether it made sense or not, she often replied with, “Well you did touch campesino pee…”
---
February 25th, 2010 was the official one year in country for my group! Kathryn and I were quite excited that we had work to do (which would limit the potential for depressive wallowing) and were heading up to a new community to talk to them about doing a potential study. We wake up, late after deciding not to run because it was “too cold,” and I lounge in bed a little longer than Kathryn.
“Toilet’s not running, which means there still isn’t any water. Way to go Honduras …”
I hear bustling in the kitchen and marvel at how Kathryn can read my mind and is already preparing the coffee. Love that girl! Then there’s a piercing yell!
“There’s no luz!!!! We can’t make coffee because there isn’t any electricity! KILL ME!”
That's a bit dramatic, but still ...
Now I’m really not getting out of bed. I yell from my covers, “You know what this means? This means today is going to be the worst day ever. This means that everything is going to go wrong because there already isn’t any water or luz. Now, because this is an important day for us and things already suck that means we won’t end up going out to the community. Now, we’re going to spend the entire day in my house, cold, without electricity or work. We’ll only be able to watch one movie and then spend the rest of the day wallowing in depression! I can’t handle this today!!” This was delivered in the hysterical, breathy voice that I’m sure you all can now recall fondly (hahaha!)
“Ok, calm down. That might not happen.”
In retaliation we decided to show up to the mayor’s office a half hour late as we were quite put off and Hondurans are never on time. Well, around 8:05 am the woman we were coordinating with called us. The minute Kathryn spoke in Spanish I knew it was Norma and I got unbelievably angry that they had the audacity of confronting us on our tardiness. Well, there was more. FIJENSEQUE the municipality thought that we were going to find a ride (which we’ve never done EVER in the times we’ve worked with them before!) and the muni can’t take us because their only car is in Teguz. Lovely.
“I KNEW IT!” I screech in the middle of the street as I perform the angry dance to show my distress. Kathryn shooed me away, which didn’t help matters. We were supposed to continue up to the muni to talk to her about the specifics of the project and try to find a time when we could go a different week. The entire walk up the hill (about 15 – 20 minutes) I launched into an extensive breakdown of why Honduras is doomed and all the potential ways we were going to get screwed that day. Luckily, Kathryn tried to be positive, which was better than us both losing it!
At the muni we also encountered the fontaneros (plumbers) for the water system in Corquin whom we have been working with on an improvement project for Corquin. They have been avoiding me like the plague and had more excuses that because the line was messed up at the moment it would be better for us to wait for it to get “normal” before we could continue with our work. Well that sent me off too.
“I’m hanging by a thread here man! I need work! We need to advance in something for once!! I can’t sit around anymore!!!!!!”
We talked with Norma, which didn’t really reveal much information other than she’s leaving the job and we’ll be dealing with a new guy now. We leave, broken down again by Honduras.
“What now?”
“I need coffee … Or a gun. Pick one.”
“What if someone from ODECO is going up to Joconales and could take us? I can’t sit around today. There’s no point without luz.”
“He doesn’t have a car. Maybe you should go with him and I’ll just go take a nap …” Kathryn’s glare tells me that that is an unacceptable suggestion.
“Let’s go to Casa Grande and get coffee and then we’ll figure out something to do …”
My co-worker calls and … well we got up to the aldea in maybe the most unsafe method of transportation and I can’t really publish those details here. Everyone that we passed stared to the point that they might have broken their necks.
The nice thing is that we got to do some work and the community seems very proactive. We talked to a few guys and they seem very eager to work and we made some considerable progress. I returned to Corquin with a new attitude and wasn’t breaking down into hysterical cursing every few minutes.
Satisfied with our half day or work, we crawled back into bed to watch 1.5 movies before my computer died. Usually the power comes back on around 5 p.m., but that day it came back at 3! I screeched when I noticed the lights go on. “LUZ!! We have LUZ! We can eat now! God I’m so hungry!” Why did I ever buy an electric stove?? Good things come to those who wait.
So, the day didn’t end up being too bad. Kathryn and I had a bottle of champagne to celebrate our one year in country. She wanted to open it all calm like, but I insisted that we have some sort of explosion, which seemed to suit our relationship with Honduras a little better. Now, I’ve never opened champagne before. I can’t even handle open a bottle of wine. The other week I was trying to open a bottle of wine with the little corkscrew on my Swiss army knife and promptly snapped it off (sorry Pap-Pap). This left me to come up with creative ways to get the rest of the cork out without causing major damage to myself or the bottle. It got interesting.
I did get the cork off and it went about one foot, but without the showy explosion of champagne that you see in the movies and stuff. Still, it was more exciting than slowly working it off. So, Kathryn and I spent the night with the champagne and soup while reading several month old Cosmopolitans and listening to trash rap (IE: “Apologize” Timbaland; “Got Your Money” Ol Dirty Bastard; “Crank that Spider Man” Soldier Boy”) Random, you say? Yes, but also great fun.
This morning … Well, some background information. I am a Wat/San Volunteer and I have a toilet that runs and a leaky faucet on my pila, which are the two biggest problems when we talk about wasting water in Honduras. I know, I know. I feel guilty, but not enough to overcome the procrastination to fix the faucet.
When we weren’t really getting water I loosened up the faucet so that it would let out more than the usual drip. That morning my pila was full and I decided I should reduce it down to a drip again, and as I had down the time before to tighten the faucet, I grab my hammer and start knocking the faucet around. Ok, knocking isn’t right … tapping. Well the first knock sent water spraying out from the band sealing up the connection, which got all over me. Crap. So I tapped it again. More spraying. HRMMMM. Knock a different part of it? (now I was really knocking it around). More spraying. I try a different angle and the whole faucet breaks off and I just have a huge stream of water coming out of the tube and flowing all over my back patio. Oh God. Now what?
“Oh man. Not good. Oh … I’m in trouble …” At this point Kathryn emerges from the house and is like, “What the heck did you you?!”
Then, Dimitri, who was coming over, rounds the corner and goes, “Geez! What did you do?!”
There’s me, sprayed with water, with the hammer in my hand looking like a guilty little kid. Dimitri, being my resident handyman, goes and borrows an adjustable wrench, buys a new faucet and fixes my pila. Now I’m a good Wat/San Volunteer with only a runny toilet!
We sat down to breakfast a little later and during a pause in the conversation Dimitri says, “Now in what world did hitting that thing with a hammer make any sense to you … ??”
Monday, February 1, 2010
General Update
The holidays have come and gone and I thank God for that. It was great to see family, but the emotional disturbances caused by such holidays just really don’t seem worth it at times.
Christmas – I was in Santa Rosa with a crew of friends who mostly live around me, hence we have developed a good bond because we see each other more often. We had a lot of fun and ate amazing food, once again prepared by the brilliant chefs KatP and Raquel. We had a “white Christmas” gift exchange, which resulted in the destruction of a baby doll and the playing of kazoos for like … hours. No joke. It was fun and I am really glad that we had the opportunity to spend that time together. It helped, but it still didn’t feel like Christmas without family and the normal traditions.
After Christmas I left for Belize, where I joined my family at a beautiful beach in the southern part of the country. It was quite a trip (in both meanings).
Honestly, going through the airport in El Salvador almost made me cry. The Honduras airports have nothing: no people, no shops, no food, just like 2 planes a day. I get to El Salvador and I was immediately overwhelmed by people trying to sell me things, rows of shiny objects and people in their valor jumpsuits and Louis Vuitton handbags. I forgot what commercialism is really like! How many options you have for perfume, liquor and the like in duty free shops! My God!
So everyone is all happy with their families on the day after Christmas, heading to their luxurious vacations … blah blah blah. Here comes sad little Hannah with her pit stained shirt with a hole in the side (nicest one I had at the time) with my jeans stained by banana plants and soap from them being “washed” in the pila.
Now, I live in a world where I get excited about avocados in my local market and the most luxurious item I can buy in my site are Dorito chips. The most I see of white people are fellow Volunteers, but I don’t consider them strange because they’re going through the same experiences as me. Any other white person I encounter in Honduras I automatically wonder who they are and what they’re doing in MY country. Peace Corps Volunteers have a reputation of being snobby, but HEY we put in the time man!
So, I get to the San Salvador airport and there are real displays with real customer service. There are so many white people speaking English that I just wanted to cry. I was there, looking crappy and sitting alone. All I wanted was to go back to my house in Honduras and forget the emotional, physical turmoil. I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I didn’t belong amongst these upper middle class families anymore because of the way I looked and the way I felt. I kept thinking back to Honduras and they people that I knew there and I felt like I was betraying them. How could I ever expect to gain their respect and trust if I can still run off to my exotic destination vacation and forget about the life that I lead in Honduras? I felt like a fake in both cultures and lives.
To make matters worse I get on the plane, double check my seat number and look up and realize I’m in first class … Now, before Peace Corps I probably would have done a jig and promptly begun taking advantage of all that they had to offer. Not anymore. I stood in the aisle, looking around. There has to be some mistake! There’s NO WAY I, ME am supposed to be in First Class. After what seemed like hours, I finally realize that that is my seat and I sit down and probably looked really uncomfortable. While everyone boarded I just kept waiting for the flight attendants to accuse me of sitting in the wrong seat and not being where I belonged. I was meek and just miserable.
I get in Belize about three hours before the fam, which was torture. I just wanted to see everyone and know that I belonged somewhere. That I had a family and they were coming for me … I belonged where I was. Plus, I didn’t have any money! HAH
Belize wasn’t any better. I hadn’t slept the night before, which resulted in me sleeping on a picnic table in the outside waiting area. I would wake up periodically to people staring at me. I was probably paranoid, but to me, their stares said, “Poor thing looks lost.”
Met up with the family and it was amazing. I can’t begin to describe it so … I won’t. It was an amazing vacation. I got a massage, swam a bit, ate amazing food and most importantly … took hot showers and watched T.V.!
Got back to Corquin with Chris, where we had a nice little visit. I realize now how important it is for people to visit. You see my pictures and hear my stories, but no one will ever begin to understand unless they visit. I hope people visit, because if not, that’s two years of my life that will be lost to my friends and family and will be, up to this point, the most important two years of my life.
That was despressing, but it’s an unfortunate fact of Peace Corps. You wake up one morning after having spent the entire week in your house, avoiding Honduran life, and you think, “Gosh! I think I’m depressed!” And then!, you get depressed because you are depressed! And you think, “What am I going to do?! If Honduras makes me sad … then I’m screwed!” Then you call your friends and you just get over it, hopefully. That’s where I was at a couple of weeks ago.
Turns out, avoiding getting back into work was a bad thing! I’m back on track and slowly getting into the groove again. Right now myself and KatP are working on a big project, which will probably result in us being committed to an insane asylum! We’re working on the conduction line of my casco urbano. So, the water that comes from the source and then goes to the various tanks is in the conduction line. After the tanks it’s called the distribution line, because it distributes the water. Funny how that makes sense?
So, last week we went to meet up with the mayor in Corquin about the water project for the new community they’re building at the moment for 40 families who lost everything in a landslide last year. We were under the impression that we would be designing that water system, but fijeseque (you see, unfortunately, blah blah blah) they already did a design. Hmm … HOW DID EVERYONE FORGET TO MENTION THAT TO US?!
Well, that project may be done, but they want us to do this improvement for the main line of Corquin! Fun, interesting, do tell me more … ! We agree and tell the mayor that we want the various designs and we also was to walk the line just to see how bad they’ve changed it and butchered the pipes. Now, you might say, “Hannah, that’s unfair to assume that they’ve messed things up!” No, no it’s not because Hondurans have a wonderful “fix it” mentality, that I honestly appreciate, except for the fact that it ruins numerous water systems. Then again, if they didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have a job.
So, we go back the next week on Wednesday and walk up to the municipality and … they’re closed. Why? Nobody knows, but they’re closed. WOOT! Free day! Ok, well next day we get ourselves up to the office and the mayor isn’t there and no one bothered to look for the designs. Professional much? Ok, we’ll come back after lunch. Go back after lunch and fijeseque the mayor still isn’t there and they don’t think they have the designs. They. Don’t. Have. The. Designs.
Now, on U.S. standards, maybe a town of 8,000 people isn’t too big, but here in Honduras it’s big. These people should be able to keep track of the designs of the water system. The system in this town that brings life to the people. This is how they shower. This is how they wash their clothes. Their houses. Their COFFEE! I mean … IS THIS NOT IMPORTANT TO ANYONE?! We wanted to scream. How? How can you lose something of such importance?? CUENTAME!
Well, after a couple more visits they finally find the plans, which don’t help us at all. We’re going to walk the 9 mile conduction line over the next couple of days to see if we can figure it out. Going to be so fun! I love when the Honduran countryside kicks my butt. Literally. I swear tree roots and rocks go out of their way to trip me. Oh well. Builds character.
Christmas – I was in Santa Rosa with a crew of friends who mostly live around me, hence we have developed a good bond because we see each other more often. We had a lot of fun and ate amazing food, once again prepared by the brilliant chefs KatP and Raquel. We had a “white Christmas” gift exchange, which resulted in the destruction of a baby doll and the playing of kazoos for like … hours. No joke. It was fun and I am really glad that we had the opportunity to spend that time together. It helped, but it still didn’t feel like Christmas without family and the normal traditions.
After Christmas I left for Belize, where I joined my family at a beautiful beach in the southern part of the country. It was quite a trip (in both meanings).
Honestly, going through the airport in El Salvador almost made me cry. The Honduras airports have nothing: no people, no shops, no food, just like 2 planes a day. I get to El Salvador and I was immediately overwhelmed by people trying to sell me things, rows of shiny objects and people in their valor jumpsuits and Louis Vuitton handbags. I forgot what commercialism is really like! How many options you have for perfume, liquor and the like in duty free shops! My God!
So everyone is all happy with their families on the day after Christmas, heading to their luxurious vacations … blah blah blah. Here comes sad little Hannah with her pit stained shirt with a hole in the side (nicest one I had at the time) with my jeans stained by banana plants and soap from them being “washed” in the pila.
Now, I live in a world where I get excited about avocados in my local market and the most luxurious item I can buy in my site are Dorito chips. The most I see of white people are fellow Volunteers, but I don’t consider them strange because they’re going through the same experiences as me. Any other white person I encounter in Honduras I automatically wonder who they are and what they’re doing in MY country. Peace Corps Volunteers have a reputation of being snobby, but HEY we put in the time man!
So, I get to the San Salvador airport and there are real displays with real customer service. There are so many white people speaking English that I just wanted to cry. I was there, looking crappy and sitting alone. All I wanted was to go back to my house in Honduras and forget the emotional, physical turmoil. I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I didn’t belong amongst these upper middle class families anymore because of the way I looked and the way I felt. I kept thinking back to Honduras and they people that I knew there and I felt like I was betraying them. How could I ever expect to gain their respect and trust if I can still run off to my exotic destination vacation and forget about the life that I lead in Honduras? I felt like a fake in both cultures and lives.
To make matters worse I get on the plane, double check my seat number and look up and realize I’m in first class … Now, before Peace Corps I probably would have done a jig and promptly begun taking advantage of all that they had to offer. Not anymore. I stood in the aisle, looking around. There has to be some mistake! There’s NO WAY I, ME am supposed to be in First Class. After what seemed like hours, I finally realize that that is my seat and I sit down and probably looked really uncomfortable. While everyone boarded I just kept waiting for the flight attendants to accuse me of sitting in the wrong seat and not being where I belonged. I was meek and just miserable.
I get in Belize about three hours before the fam, which was torture. I just wanted to see everyone and know that I belonged somewhere. That I had a family and they were coming for me … I belonged where I was. Plus, I didn’t have any money! HAH
Belize wasn’t any better. I hadn’t slept the night before, which resulted in me sleeping on a picnic table in the outside waiting area. I would wake up periodically to people staring at me. I was probably paranoid, but to me, their stares said, “Poor thing looks lost.”
Met up with the family and it was amazing. I can’t begin to describe it so … I won’t. It was an amazing vacation. I got a massage, swam a bit, ate amazing food and most importantly … took hot showers and watched T.V.!
Got back to Corquin with Chris, where we had a nice little visit. I realize now how important it is for people to visit. You see my pictures and hear my stories, but no one will ever begin to understand unless they visit. I hope people visit, because if not, that’s two years of my life that will be lost to my friends and family and will be, up to this point, the most important two years of my life.
That was despressing, but it’s an unfortunate fact of Peace Corps. You wake up one morning after having spent the entire week in your house, avoiding Honduran life, and you think, “Gosh! I think I’m depressed!” And then!, you get depressed because you are depressed! And you think, “What am I going to do?! If Honduras makes me sad … then I’m screwed!” Then you call your friends and you just get over it, hopefully. That’s where I was at a couple of weeks ago.
Turns out, avoiding getting back into work was a bad thing! I’m back on track and slowly getting into the groove again. Right now myself and KatP are working on a big project, which will probably result in us being committed to an insane asylum! We’re working on the conduction line of my casco urbano. So, the water that comes from the source and then goes to the various tanks is in the conduction line. After the tanks it’s called the distribution line, because it distributes the water. Funny how that makes sense?
So, last week we went to meet up with the mayor in Corquin about the water project for the new community they’re building at the moment for 40 families who lost everything in a landslide last year. We were under the impression that we would be designing that water system, but fijeseque (you see, unfortunately, blah blah blah) they already did a design. Hmm … HOW DID EVERYONE FORGET TO MENTION THAT TO US?!
Well, that project may be done, but they want us to do this improvement for the main line of Corquin! Fun, interesting, do tell me more … ! We agree and tell the mayor that we want the various designs and we also was to walk the line just to see how bad they’ve changed it and butchered the pipes. Now, you might say, “Hannah, that’s unfair to assume that they’ve messed things up!” No, no it’s not because Hondurans have a wonderful “fix it” mentality, that I honestly appreciate, except for the fact that it ruins numerous water systems. Then again, if they didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have a job.
So, we go back the next week on Wednesday and walk up to the municipality and … they’re closed. Why? Nobody knows, but they’re closed. WOOT! Free day! Ok, well next day we get ourselves up to the office and the mayor isn’t there and no one bothered to look for the designs. Professional much? Ok, we’ll come back after lunch. Go back after lunch and fijeseque the mayor still isn’t there and they don’t think they have the designs. They. Don’t. Have. The. Designs.
Now, on U.S. standards, maybe a town of 8,000 people isn’t too big, but here in Honduras it’s big. These people should be able to keep track of the designs of the water system. The system in this town that brings life to the people. This is how they shower. This is how they wash their clothes. Their houses. Their COFFEE! I mean … IS THIS NOT IMPORTANT TO ANYONE?! We wanted to scream. How? How can you lose something of such importance?? CUENTAME!
Well, after a couple more visits they finally find the plans, which don’t help us at all. We’re going to walk the 9 mile conduction line over the next couple of days to see if we can figure it out. Going to be so fun! I love when the Honduran countryside kicks my butt. Literally. I swear tree roots and rocks go out of their way to trip me. Oh well. Builds character.
Fijeseque, Fijeseque
I hope that everyone had a good New Year and are getting back into the groove of work and school after vacations! On my part, it was a little hard to get back into the rhythm after having “rested” for so long. Early this week I realized that I’ve been in a low recently. It amazes me that it takes so long to identify why you don’t want to leave your house; you avoid work and tend to sleep/watch a lot of movies. Then, once you realize what’s going on, you fall into a BIGGER slump because it’s sad and so hard to get out of. Doesn’t help that most of the Volunteers are in the same slump, which means when you call someone to talk, they only validate your feelings, which isn’t exactly helpful.
Anyways, I made myself get into the office and that has helped except everything that is wrong with Honduran working culture slapped me in the face this week. How people here manage to get anything done just, it amazes me.
This is … exaggerated, a little.
1. I’m in the office, working on these God awful designs (not my favorite part of the job, for sure!), and I get a TEXT from a co-worker. Shouldn’t this be done over the phone? So, fijeseque (this is the point where every gringo realizes they are about to get INCREDIBLY angry and frustrated) we need you to come measure a plot of land we bought for the families that lost their houses in the landslide last year … now.
- Hannah … holding her breath so as not to yell in the office, texts back, “GPS or theodolite? I don’t have the tripod so I can’t do it with the equipo. Kathryn is coming Thursday so we can do it Friday … sorry man.”
- “No … it has to be done today or Wednesday…”
Imagine me yelling like Lewis Black … THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THIS LIKE … LAST WEEK!?!
I MEAN … WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ONE HOUR NOTICE??? WHO DOES THAT?!
Then, I call Kathryn to tell her what’s going on and she asks all these questions and I realize they didn’t give me any details!
- Bueno, “What is all this for? Doesn’t the mancommunidad have the measurements?”
- “Nope. Nobody has measurements … Figure it out.”
Ok, so he didn’t say “figure it out,” but he kind of implied that, which sent me into a fit and I called Kathryn again.
- “THIS IS RIDICULOUS! WHO DOES THIS CRAP?!”
So, I have developed a test to how serious Hondurans are about projects and things they consider to be “emergencies.” I ignore them. If they really care, they will seek you out and then you know that they were serious. Fool proof.
2. Well, I go back to the office after lunch to get a ride to talk to the president of the coffee cooperative about the water study I’m working on for them. I want to go back and take some GPS points, so we needed to plan when we would do that, etc. Now, Rafa kind of scares me, because he’s really quiet with me and I think he hates me. So I explained what I wanted to do and we set a date. And then, he calmly drops a bomb on my head …
- “Well, how long do you think the rest of the study will take?”
- Me, on the defensive, because I’ve been procrastinating, “Well, it’s essentially two designs and that’s why it’s taking longer … “
- “Ok, because we have a guy writing a grant for the water project and we need it to finish, because it’s the base of the grant …”
Sorry Mom, but WTF?! I mean, at any point was someone going to mention this to me?? I mean, where I come from that is the FIRST bit of information you mention! Not the last, not at the last moment. Hey we want a water study, because we’re going to put it in a grant and it will be the base of the request … just so you know. GAAAHHHH! My jaw just dropped to the ground. This is too much for one day …
3. I get back to the office and my counter-part jumps on me. “We need you guys to get out there and measure that plot of land! Call Kathryn and ask her if she can come for Wednesday.” I called Kathryn, who is never thrilled with the unorganized nature of the Honduran working culture, basically told them to “piss off.” Is that cursing?? What she said was much worse!
- “Carlos, she can’t come because she has a GPS training …” And that’s it! He says nothing!
I wanted to go with them on Wednesday just to check out what was going on, because no one was offering me details, and if we ended up going on Friday I would need a better idea of exactly what was expected of us. Be there early and pack a lunch. Right got it.
4. Wednesday. Now, they always tell me to get to the office exactly at 8 am, because the cars leaving at exactly 8 am. When I first started working I got there at like 7:45 and ended up waiting around for hours. Every time they tell me this I want to laugh in their faces, because they still can’t admit that they will never do anything on time!
Despite all this, I still get there at like 8:10, because I’m afraid that the one day I get there later they will actually leave without me. We didn’t leave until after 9 am. Figures. Everyone is sitting around and I impatiently ask, “Why aren’t we leaving??”
- “We don’t have a car.”
- “Well who has the car? Where is the car?”
- Calmly responds, “Nobody knows.”
A car is missing. A car is missing and no one knows where it went. Everyone is in the office and all three cars are gone. Who has the cars? How do three cars disappear without anyone seeming to realize who is DRIVING THEM? I don’t even validate that comment with a response and just go back to playing games on my GPS. DID YOU KNOW THE GPS HAS GAMES?! I didn’t! This is an amazing discovery. One of the guys sits down next to me and asks what I’m doing. Like a little kid I respond, shoving the GPS in his face, “IT HAS GAMES!!” He promptly grabs it and starts playing and I sulk like a little kid, bored again.
Here’s where the second “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me” thing comes in. So we’re all standing around and they call me over to look at something. Low and behold, they do have measurements. They did do a drawing of the property. They do know exactly what measurements they need to divide the property into 12 lots. They have exactly what they wanted me to do; only they did it with GPS instead of the theodolite …
- “Umm… guys? What’s this?”
- My counter-part says, “We just wanted you to double check and make sure everything was right…”
That would have been an extra day of work in the field plus whatever work on the computer. Plus, it wouldn’t have been sustainable because I would have done it all myself, and it’s better for a local to do, which apparently was possible anyways! Who, what, where is the reasoning behind that one? Someone please explain to me?!
So the car comes back and guys jump out who I’ve never seen before. No one bats an eye and we leave …
So we went, split up the lots in one day, and everything is done now instead of in a week. Efficient much?
While we were sitting and waiting for the other group to do their 2 lots (as opposed to our NINE), I started to feel really itchy. Crap. Itching in Honduras means weird things are crawling all over your body. I pull up my pant leg and I’m covered in little red dots with black spots in the middle … ticks. EVERYWHERE! They were the size of pin heads. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! My pant line itches too and I find another tick community now staking claim on my skin. Great. I point this out to Abran and he just starts hysterically laughing. That’s, that’s not the reaction I was looking for … exactly. Thanks.
I went home and scrubbed my entire body for several minutes. I had to personally remove each and every tick, which I should have counted. Luckily, I have the steroid cream from my other rash, which I’ve put all over myself, because I had ticks all over my body. Everywhere. One I was like, “Oh no you DI-DN!” Hah. Too personal man. I can’t stop itching this morning. Ridiculous little buggers, but at least there isn’t Lyme’s disease here.
5. This morning I was dealt my last blow (hopefully because it’s Thursday and I’m planning on ignoring the office tomorrow) … Kathryn and I have been waiting since before the holidays to go with her office and my mayor’s office to look at a potential water source intended for the new community of houses that were built for the people who lost their homes in the landslide last year. Several times the trip has been postponed and finally it seemed like today we were going to get out there. Kathryn and I both are aching to get back into the field and were pretty excited to be included on this project.
Last night Kathryn sends me a text saying that they haven’t tested the quantity or quality of the water, but people seem to think it will be sufficient for the 40 families. Ok. Cool. Well, this morning I get another text saying that SANAA (the water authority) already has designed the water system, but no one seemed to know about this prior. For instance, the mayor’s office hadn’t the slightest idea … That would be like people living on a Superfund site and the EPA never bothered to tell them! Ok, maybe not quite, but more like a local government gearing up to start a sewer project and the state government mentions, “Oh yeah, hey guys, we did that like 20 years ago, but ya know, didn’t tell ya!”
WHO DOES THAT?! How did that never get mentioned to ANYONE?! How do these various agencies lack so much in communication that they haven’t communicated something that big and important. A water system. Running water. The essence of life and no one saw fit to mention it to anyone else?
It’s not just a matter of communication, but of money as well.
A) SANAA isn’t free and we are
B) Also, all the materials for the lots, materials for the houses, latrines and pilas were paid for already by Habitat for Humanity, ODECO, the mayor’s office and various other development organizations working in the area. Now, from what I understood, the water system didn’t have funding yet, which I thought was funny, because I think it’s pretty important. Not to mention, what good is it having pour flush latrines (need water) and pilas when you don’t have a water connection … ? That’s like having indoor plumbing, but fijeseque you don’t have a water connection. I’ve seen where the community is. They would have had to walk very far to reach the river and that water isn’t worth walking a couple of miles to get.
So a water design exists and I will get over my disappointment on that one, but if no one knew about this design then I would imagine that they haven’t been looking for funding. If no one was looking for funding, then they’re incredibly behind on that and the whole situation is just silly.
Silly is how I’m describing my week. Silly Hondurans and their silly communication problems. I was starting to call Kathryn too much to update/complain the utter lack about organization in my office at the moment, so I started calling Becky. When I started calling Becky I stopped freaking out and just started laughing. Becky says, “Ahhh, yes, you’ve reached the part where all you can do is laugh at the situation. Sorry man, must have been a bad week.” If you get to the point where it doesn’t make you angry then, well, you’ve lost, because Honduras has thoroughly kicked your butt.
Anyways, I made myself get into the office and that has helped except everything that is wrong with Honduran working culture slapped me in the face this week. How people here manage to get anything done just, it amazes me.
This is … exaggerated, a little.
1. I’m in the office, working on these God awful designs (not my favorite part of the job, for sure!), and I get a TEXT from a co-worker. Shouldn’t this be done over the phone? So, fijeseque (this is the point where every gringo realizes they are about to get INCREDIBLY angry and frustrated) we need you to come measure a plot of land we bought for the families that lost their houses in the landslide last year … now.
- Hannah … holding her breath so as not to yell in the office, texts back, “GPS or theodolite? I don’t have the tripod so I can’t do it with the equipo. Kathryn is coming Thursday so we can do it Friday … sorry man.”
- “No … it has to be done today or Wednesday…”
Imagine me yelling like Lewis Black … THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THIS LIKE … LAST WEEK!?!
I MEAN … WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ONE HOUR NOTICE??? WHO DOES THAT?!
Then, I call Kathryn to tell her what’s going on and she asks all these questions and I realize they didn’t give me any details!
- Bueno, “What is all this for? Doesn’t the mancommunidad have the measurements?”
- “Nope. Nobody has measurements … Figure it out.”
Ok, so he didn’t say “figure it out,” but he kind of implied that, which sent me into a fit and I called Kathryn again.
- “THIS IS RIDICULOUS! WHO DOES THIS CRAP?!”
So, I have developed a test to how serious Hondurans are about projects and things they consider to be “emergencies.” I ignore them. If they really care, they will seek you out and then you know that they were serious. Fool proof.
2. Well, I go back to the office after lunch to get a ride to talk to the president of the coffee cooperative about the water study I’m working on for them. I want to go back and take some GPS points, so we needed to plan when we would do that, etc. Now, Rafa kind of scares me, because he’s really quiet with me and I think he hates me. So I explained what I wanted to do and we set a date. And then, he calmly drops a bomb on my head …
- “Well, how long do you think the rest of the study will take?”
- Me, on the defensive, because I’ve been procrastinating, “Well, it’s essentially two designs and that’s why it’s taking longer … “
- “Ok, because we have a guy writing a grant for the water project and we need it to finish, because it’s the base of the grant …”
Sorry Mom, but WTF?! I mean, at any point was someone going to mention this to me?? I mean, where I come from that is the FIRST bit of information you mention! Not the last, not at the last moment. Hey we want a water study, because we’re going to put it in a grant and it will be the base of the request … just so you know. GAAAHHHH! My jaw just dropped to the ground. This is too much for one day …
3. I get back to the office and my counter-part jumps on me. “We need you guys to get out there and measure that plot of land! Call Kathryn and ask her if she can come for Wednesday.” I called Kathryn, who is never thrilled with the unorganized nature of the Honduran working culture, basically told them to “piss off.” Is that cursing?? What she said was much worse!
- “Carlos, she can’t come because she has a GPS training …” And that’s it! He says nothing!
I wanted to go with them on Wednesday just to check out what was going on, because no one was offering me details, and if we ended up going on Friday I would need a better idea of exactly what was expected of us. Be there early and pack a lunch. Right got it.
4. Wednesday. Now, they always tell me to get to the office exactly at 8 am, because the cars leaving at exactly 8 am. When I first started working I got there at like 7:45 and ended up waiting around for hours. Every time they tell me this I want to laugh in their faces, because they still can’t admit that they will never do anything on time!
Despite all this, I still get there at like 8:10, because I’m afraid that the one day I get there later they will actually leave without me. We didn’t leave until after 9 am. Figures. Everyone is sitting around and I impatiently ask, “Why aren’t we leaving??”
- “We don’t have a car.”
- “Well who has the car? Where is the car?”
- Calmly responds, “Nobody knows.”
A car is missing. A car is missing and no one knows where it went. Everyone is in the office and all three cars are gone. Who has the cars? How do three cars disappear without anyone seeming to realize who is DRIVING THEM? I don’t even validate that comment with a response and just go back to playing games on my GPS. DID YOU KNOW THE GPS HAS GAMES?! I didn’t! This is an amazing discovery. One of the guys sits down next to me and asks what I’m doing. Like a little kid I respond, shoving the GPS in his face, “IT HAS GAMES!!” He promptly grabs it and starts playing and I sulk like a little kid, bored again.
Here’s where the second “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me” thing comes in. So we’re all standing around and they call me over to look at something. Low and behold, they do have measurements. They did do a drawing of the property. They do know exactly what measurements they need to divide the property into 12 lots. They have exactly what they wanted me to do; only they did it with GPS instead of the theodolite …
- “Umm… guys? What’s this?”
- My counter-part says, “We just wanted you to double check and make sure everything was right…”
That would have been an extra day of work in the field plus whatever work on the computer. Plus, it wouldn’t have been sustainable because I would have done it all myself, and it’s better for a local to do, which apparently was possible anyways! Who, what, where is the reasoning behind that one? Someone please explain to me?!
So the car comes back and guys jump out who I’ve never seen before. No one bats an eye and we leave …
So we went, split up the lots in one day, and everything is done now instead of in a week. Efficient much?
While we were sitting and waiting for the other group to do their 2 lots (as opposed to our NINE), I started to feel really itchy. Crap. Itching in Honduras means weird things are crawling all over your body. I pull up my pant leg and I’m covered in little red dots with black spots in the middle … ticks. EVERYWHERE! They were the size of pin heads. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! My pant line itches too and I find another tick community now staking claim on my skin. Great. I point this out to Abran and he just starts hysterically laughing. That’s, that’s not the reaction I was looking for … exactly. Thanks.
I went home and scrubbed my entire body for several minutes. I had to personally remove each and every tick, which I should have counted. Luckily, I have the steroid cream from my other rash, which I’ve put all over myself, because I had ticks all over my body. Everywhere. One I was like, “Oh no you DI-DN!” Hah. Too personal man. I can’t stop itching this morning. Ridiculous little buggers, but at least there isn’t Lyme’s disease here.
5. This morning I was dealt my last blow (hopefully because it’s Thursday and I’m planning on ignoring the office tomorrow) … Kathryn and I have been waiting since before the holidays to go with her office and my mayor’s office to look at a potential water source intended for the new community of houses that were built for the people who lost their homes in the landslide last year. Several times the trip has been postponed and finally it seemed like today we were going to get out there. Kathryn and I both are aching to get back into the field and were pretty excited to be included on this project.
Last night Kathryn sends me a text saying that they haven’t tested the quantity or quality of the water, but people seem to think it will be sufficient for the 40 families. Ok. Cool. Well, this morning I get another text saying that SANAA (the water authority) already has designed the water system, but no one seemed to know about this prior. For instance, the mayor’s office hadn’t the slightest idea … That would be like people living on a Superfund site and the EPA never bothered to tell them! Ok, maybe not quite, but more like a local government gearing up to start a sewer project and the state government mentions, “Oh yeah, hey guys, we did that like 20 years ago, but ya know, didn’t tell ya!”
WHO DOES THAT?! How did that never get mentioned to ANYONE?! How do these various agencies lack so much in communication that they haven’t communicated something that big and important. A water system. Running water. The essence of life and no one saw fit to mention it to anyone else?
It’s not just a matter of communication, but of money as well.
A) SANAA isn’t free and we are
B) Also, all the materials for the lots, materials for the houses, latrines and pilas were paid for already by Habitat for Humanity, ODECO, the mayor’s office and various other development organizations working in the area. Now, from what I understood, the water system didn’t have funding yet, which I thought was funny, because I think it’s pretty important. Not to mention, what good is it having pour flush latrines (need water) and pilas when you don’t have a water connection … ? That’s like having indoor plumbing, but fijeseque you don’t have a water connection. I’ve seen where the community is. They would have had to walk very far to reach the river and that water isn’t worth walking a couple of miles to get.
So a water design exists and I will get over my disappointment on that one, but if no one knew about this design then I would imagine that they haven’t been looking for funding. If no one was looking for funding, then they’re incredibly behind on that and the whole situation is just silly.
Silly is how I’m describing my week. Silly Hondurans and their silly communication problems. I was starting to call Kathryn too much to update/complain the utter lack about organization in my office at the moment, so I started calling Becky. When I started calling Becky I stopped freaking out and just started laughing. Becky says, “Ahhh, yes, you’ve reached the part where all you can do is laugh at the situation. Sorry man, must have been a bad week.” If you get to the point where it doesn’t make you angry then, well, you’ve lost, because Honduras has thoroughly kicked your butt.
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