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.