This has been the longest gap in blog history, but there is a reason for that. I’m married, gainfully employed (for Honduras), and living tranquila and stress free. So in other words my life is no longer remarkable; it’s quite routine. I still have fun but I’m not freewheeling all over the country, climbing mountains or active volcanoes, scuba diving, snorkeling with exotic animals, hitch-hiking, hiking all around in the wilderness with groups of strangers with machetes and dogs or dancing or karaoking in the clubs. Nope I’m teaching and sedentary.
Don’t get me wrong, I very happy there is just not much to report. I am going to start by writing about the whole teaching experience I haven’t really talked about yet. I don’t know if this happens to all first year teachers but everybody knows that you are new and you get certain passes and certain crosses to bear because of that. The students that I have are used to getting a new gringo teacher every year and them being a bumbling 1st year teacher. They way they act force the teacher to do one of two things. First, not be very serious, play as much as possible and in general not get very much done academically. If a teacher insists on getting anything done it’s an uphill battle but it’s the way I’ve chosen.
I teach 15 classes to 5 grades. I think this is extremely excessive but maybe I’m just being whinny. My 7th graders are very entertaining. They are always making up new weird games to play. For example, I came into class one day and they had taken pieces of string, tied knots in them and were whipping each other with them. Another day they the girls had drawn pictures of babies and the boys were running around trying to eat them, so I heard phrases such as, “I want to eat babies.” Besides that they are the class that I have that is most like a class in the U.S. There are 20 0f them, they are fun, they are loud, and there is a lot of variation in their skill level. One thing that is different from the States (or at least from where I went to school) is that they give me hugs and tell me they love me. I try to keep my distance but then they surprise me and sneak attack hug me. They also love to sing and they are usually 6 months behind on music so I know all the “current,” popular songs and I gain a little street cred for knowing artists and songs and we have group sing alongs.
My 8th graders are my problem class. Once I took the time to make each student their own individual worksheets to help them with their personal errors and one student was so mad that I was going to make him work that he threw them on the floor and then started crying. Speaking of crying, I’ve seen almost all the boys I teach in 7th-9th cry. They are macho here but there’s no social stigma about male crying. Two boys in that class that were horsing around and one of them got their arm broken (but oddly enough he didn’t cry about that). I’ve only had one real fight in that class but they fight a lot all day.
My 9th graders are good but they are very argumentative and sometimes they take things too far but I’m working on managing them better. One of our biggest disagreements is that I think they should put their trash in the trash can and they think that’s the maid’s job. They also just throw trash on the floor at home and their maids just clean it up which seems like complete insanity to me not to throw something in the trash two feet away from you because you think it’s too much effort. We fight about it everyday even though we are into the 4th quarter; they won´t give in. My 10th graders are fun but they couldn’t be more lazy and I don’t know how but my 11th graders are perfect. They tell me they used to be as bad or worse than the other classes but magically this year they stopped being bad. It would be nice if that tradition is passed on. There are like a million holidays and this period the 11th graders are only going to school for 5 weeks. They graduate in 11th grade here.
I´m going to Guatemala for Holy Week and that should be fun. I´ll report back on that ASAP. I´m going to move into the teacher´s apartments to save some $ but it´s a little iffy right now. I have a meeting Monday to see if it´s going to happen or not and what rules I will have to follow. I´ll put up more pictures soon and I´d like to thank everyone who still checks my site. I also went back to the one place I told you about before in my blog but this time I took pictures. If you zoom in on the picture with just the waterfall in the bottomleft hand corner is the waterfall I was jumping off of. It was just as fun the second time.

Amusings

I went to a hot spring once (not the one I got married at) and there was a sign at the side that said no peeing, no vomiting and no defecating please.

Our House

Things have been crazy busy. Moving into a house and starting a job in the same week and all. We are still working on the house, yes that is a bed you see in the living room that we are using as a couch. We have four beds in a three bedroom house so I thought we might as well use them all. I really like it and we are renting it for $150 a month water included which is good deal in Honduras. I´ll send pictures of the school and my class soon. My first day of school went really well the students were really well behaved and fun. I´m teaching english, composition, lit, philosophy and history in the High School. I have seven classes and I teach 7th-11th grade here. They have an excellerated program here so there is no 12th grade. The school is out in the country and is very beautiful (for Honduras). I don´t know if I´ve written about the Honduran school system before, but it is flawed to say the least. Students and teachers only go from 8-1 and they have many breaks in that time. There are many holidays and usually once a year the teachers go on strike because they haven´t been paid. They don´t have any books and spend the whole class copying things from the board and their homework is usually copying things many times. The teachers don´t need to have a degree to teach as long as they´re in the process of getting one. Everyone (students, teachers, and administration) is always late and attendence is not taken serious either. There are no subs so if the teacher isn´t there there is no class. So the founders of my school when faced with the reality of normal Honduran schools decided to make there own school to give their children a good education. They still have some Honduran kinks in their system but they are molding themselves based on the American model. I am happy to be at this school and it has been fun teaching in courses I feel I am well versed in.

San Juan

Week 1:My future counterpart (retrospect note: and my future husband) calls me on the phone and offers to give me a ride to San Juan, plus my stuff. Which was a relief because PC said it was up to me to transport all my stuff and I was thinking that I'd have to take all my stuff on the bus or just a little bit of a every weekend for a month, so I was pretty happy. I was also worried about the fact that even though the mayor's office promised to find me a place to live they hadn't come through yet. When I got there I had three options: an 8x9 coffin in a family's house, a beautiful apartment but in a hotel, and a room at a nasty hotel. Because the landladies weren't there at the first two and we had all my stuff in the back of an open truck and a meeting in a big city to go to I had to go with option number three. And commit to live there for a month.Bad things about living in this hotel:The cleaning ladies. They ask me to give or sell them my things all the time. When I left someone had gone into my room and stolen 3 shirts, 2 pants and a bra. They were all things they asked me for and I said no. They share a room next to me so they bother me when I'm here by asking me if I'll take them back to the United States and they ask how much everything costs there, they keep the light on all night and there is a gap in the wall so it keeps me up, they listen to loud music all night but that's ok because it drowns out the noise they are making when they have a different guy stay with them every night (prostitutes?), and at 4 in the morning the guy's cell phone alarm goes off so they can discreetly leave the hotel so no one will see them in the street and think poorly of him. The second day I was here someone came and stole everyone's clothes on the line. (I only lost a pair of pants) But the next day the cleaning ladies were cleaning my room and left the door and supposively someone (probably them) came and stole my radio. The shower is outside (it is 40 F now) and it is cold water, the community toilet is broken, and there is no electrical outlet in my room. So I'm looking forward to moving on the 18th. But back to the meeting in Gracias. It was really boring and I found out when I got there that it was going to be all week and I hadn't packed anything. But the nights were really fun. We stayed at the hot springs and got to go swimming everyday or go into town and dance. The girls that I stayed with complained to the manager that our room didn't have a television so he gave us one, but there was only one channel and it was an English movie channel soI translated. That weekend I went to the border to visit one of my friends and we went to El Salvador. We wanted to climb San Miguel, the active volcano, but we arrived too late in the day so we have plans to go back and do it another time.

Week 2: Real work. I measured a water source for a community and made plans to come back and do the study and Maryanne and I did a diagnosis of the system of San Juan. They wanted to build another tank because there isn't enough water, but at the tank there are 6in pipes, then 4in but then it changes to 2in for the last three km and besides that the pipes are 25 yrs old, rusted out, and there is a 25% in the water flow between the breaker box where the 2in pipe starts and the tank. When we looked in the tank at 6am it was only 20% filled so obviously they need to fix the pipe situation first before they build a new tank, because not enough water is arriving to fill it now. On the weekend I biked up to the Laguna and had lunch and saw swimming cows.

Week 3 & 4: More real work. It was suppose to be a regular study but it turned into the study from hell. It was done and over within three days, but when Maryanne and I sat down to look for height and pressure problems it had both. I went back to survey again, but there were still 7 points above the dam site (there were 29 before, and if there is a spot in the line where it is higher than the catchment then water can't travel over it). So I have to go back this week and fix it again armed with Trig to figure it out on site so I don't have to back there again, and I can tell them on site if they can have a system or if they need to look for a different source. If things go well I'll be going out with the GPS and plotting the distribution line.

The Honduran Birthday Celebration:

May 2nd. I come to the house in La Esperanza and there is yarn all over the place with drawings and fabric hanging from them like a fun house and my friends jumped out. I had blackberry cheesecake and Maryanne brought gold posts from the United States so my friend Ryder could pierce my ears. I am sporting pretty dangling earrings as we are speaking. It’s same old same old with the water systems and you’ve heard all about that so I thought I’d talk about my secondary project in San Juan, teaching English. The set up is a little different than in Concepcion; I’m teaching in a classroom setting to children ages 5-12. I was waiting for a ride to San Juan and I happened to get a ride from the priest and we started talking about potential projects and I mentioned that I could teach English. So every Saturday morning I teach in the Catholic Church to about 24 students. I’m trying to keep it fun and I’m having flashbacks to when I was a little kid taking Saturday classes in French and Spanish. This may come as a shock for people who know me but I sing songs, do arts and crafts, and play games to teach English, because even if they don’t learn that much I want them to keep coming back and to have a good time; I gave up on the lecture format. I actually look forward to Saturdays, because it is fun and teaching English is the only time where I get to be an unquestionable expert, which is a relief from being considered a “special person” when speaking Spanish. I’ve gotten a bike from PC and I’ve put 85 km on it so far and climbing. I can finally pedal uphill, and it beats walking. I’m traveling to local attractions and it is my favorite activity to do when bored now. Funny story. I’m in San Juan and a Honduran organizer drives up to me and asks me if I want to translate for a medical brigade the next day, I said that I would come in during the afternoon, because I had to work in the morning. When I showed up one of the residents asked where I was from and I said Toledo and he looked confused and said no where are you from, I said again Toledo. They were all from the new UT medical program! I spent the rest of the day catching up on Toledo and university news/gossip and signing in San Juan townspeople into their appointments (which was great because I got to meet a lot of new people). After work we all went to the hot springs in Gracias, had a couple of beers and got stung by fire ants.

Climb Every Mountain
Recently Maryanne and I decided that we should get our traveling done before the new rules take effect so we took a day and a half excursion to climb the highest mountain in Honduras. They said the trails were well marked and they were with colored flags, but they didn´t say what flags coordinated with which trail nor did they want to let us borrow their one and only map to use while we hiked. We went with the red trail (red= the hardest?). But we ended up only climbing the second highest peak in the range (still 2500m).
There was a lot of cool wildlife but the coolest thing we saw were insects that looked like there was cotton growing out of them. We also saw many lizards and butterflies.

The next picture is me at the summit, this was not meant to be a sexy pose picture I was simply too tired to turn around. We decided to take one big backpack and we took turns carrying it, this was after one of my turns before eating a rationed granola bar or fruit with water.

We spent the night in a shack they said was a little house. I didn´t believe it at first that this was what they were talking about until I saw the sign and it was confirmed. I was a little cold because we couldn´t get the fire started (it had rained before we got there) and it was just like Survivor because mice ran around all night.

To Every Season

The rainy season has started in full force. It was a month late this year and the farmers really needed it. I’m personally happy about it because Honduras turns from green-brown to a million different shades of brilliant green over night. It’s very beautiful right now even if it is a little muddy.
I'm reporting on the following story because this is one of the sad frustrating situations that I run into commonly in my work. Shoulder to Shoulder was willing to build 2 water systems for a community but under the condition that the townspeople get the rights to use the water source and do the labor. For months the owner of the water source said that she was willing to give permission, but last Friday she changed her mind and now wants to sell it. Shoulder to Shoulder has already built the tank based on her word and donors have given money for the pipes, but now it’s not going to happen. The other water system in that town that they want to build doesn’t have a sufficient water flow (.46 g/m) for the 17 houses in the community so Shoulder to Shoulder was going to build a retaining wall and then pipe the water down the mountain to a group facet. It’s not indoor plumbing but it would be easier to collect and the owner of the source was giving permission for them to use the source because he wanted people to stop trespassing on his land and trampling his crops. After I finished the study and they were getting ready to build the owner changed his mind and said they could only build the system if they gave him 100 6in PVC tubes and built him a tank at the source. The whole system was only going to be 20 tubes and if they built him a tank he’d use all the water himself, so they can’t build that one either.
On a happier note San Juan had their fair, which is a big deal and a weeklong affair. I had a friend come and she and my counterpart signed me up to compete in a singing contest and I agreed to do it because I didn’t think that that many people would come and I went to a fair in a close town that had a contest last year and all the singers were terrible. But in San Juan there were about 200 people in the auditorium, people climbing on the windows to see in, and people in the street listening. 80% of the contestants were really good, and some even wrote original songs and/or played guitar. So I was sweating big time, but I didn’t chicken out and went up there and sang Ironic to wild approval, even though I messed up the words and my voice cracked a little. I went to the Rodeo and the crowning of the queen of the fair. So if people didn’t know me before, they at least know my face now. One little girl stopped me in the street and asked me to sing for her.

Gossip Folks

I’ve gotten a request for some more gossipy tidbits. Most revolve around people that I have lived with, but having lived in small towns the chances for crazy things happening goes way up or at least me hearing about it. I’ve also tried to include things that might give you an insight into Honduran culture. I’ve rated it P-13 for sexual content; if you feel like this might offend you don’t read it.

1. The husband of my last landlady left her for another woman, but did not get a divorce. He lives down the road with his new lady and frequents the house often (more on him later), however that isn’t the hot gossip in the town. Everyone is gossiping that she has a secret lover and they are scandalized that a married woman with 8 children would cheat on her husband. When I ask them, quite outraged, well what is her husband doing they answer that that’s normal in Honduras because:

HONDURAN FACT: when a woman hits menopause she never wants to have sex again, but men have the libido of an 18 year old till they die.

When I said that I didn’t think that was true they looked at me like I was nuts. But it is a common, but not so common practice in Honduras, for men to leave their wives or long time companions for younger (usually teenaged) women after they hit menopause, supposively for this reason. And, at least in Honduras, there is nothing wrong with that.

2. The mayor of my town’s niece had just gotten married, when her husband started suspecting her of cheating with one of his co-workers. He told his wife and business that he was leaving town, but instead went to a friend/neighbor’s house down the street so he could spy. Nothing interesting was happening so he fell asleep watching, but in the morning there was a truck parked in front of his house so he went over to investigate. He found his wife in bed with his co-worker, both asleep. He took the co-worker’s clothes, wallet, and keys, etc. so he couldn’t leave and then went back to his friend’s house to borrow his gun, the friend refused and then the husband started driving around town looking for a gun he could borrow. In the mean time the sleepers were alerted to the situation and the man managed to get some clothes and the woman managed to get out of the house before the husband came home. To my town’s credit no one would give him a gun, and now they are just getting divorced.
3. There was a man and a woman I knew in the last town I lived in. Both were teachers, leaders of the evangelical youth group in town, people of outstanding moral character, and for reasons unknown conceived a child. He was married and she had pressure put on her to get out of town. She didn't have any family that could take her in and she she tried to go to the States illegally while pregnant, got caught at the border and now her whereabouts are unknown (retrospect note: she got back to Honduras safely. Mom and baby are fine.) He went through a brief difficult period, admitted he was wrong and made a mistake and now things are back to normal for him (he still has his position in the church, his job, his wife didn't leave him, etc.)

HONDURAN FACT: In Honduras a man is not held responsible for getting a woman pregnant because she is the one who let him touch her. This is actually a quote (or pretty close it, it’s from memory) from a book a Honduran woman wrote on growing up Honduran and her efforts to organize peasant groups.

4. In Spanish I have a horrible special gift of asking people I’ve just met a seemingly innocent question that turns out to unlock some buried grief ex.: I asked a barren couple if they had any kids and the wife started crying. I asked my first landlady how many children she had. She said that she had given birth to 12, but only 6 had survived. Then, while crying told me about the deaths. 4 of the boys died drinking and mouthing off type of situations, one committed suicide because the brothers of a girl he impregnated were coming to kill him and he wanted his death to be quick and painless, the last death is very odd. Their son was 13 and was on the soccer field playing with his friends when (there are different versions to the story) an El Salvadoran guerilla fighter threw a grenade at him/he picked up a grenade not knowing what it was and it detonated/he picked up a grenade and pulled the pin, not thinking it was real. Either way he exploded and his parents had come pick him up in pieces. Honduras was at war with El Salvador and in my old site that was close to the border, there was an old military post and airstrip.

5. In the last house that I lived in there were a set of twins; a boy and a girl. In my first meeting with them they told me that their father was in the States and their mother was a missionary that went on evangelical trips and left them in the house of their grandmother. Their grandmother didn’t care for them calling them ¨the trash in her castle,¨and didn’t feed them the same food as her immediate family. In retrospect this was just a shameless ploy to get food since they are both pathological liars, but I believed them, especially one time when they wanted to call their mom and I let them use my phone and she hung up on them. I asked one of the women in the house why if their mother lives only a few houses away that they don’t live with her and her answer, without explanation, was her husband lives in the United States. Many women have husbands in the United States but their children still live with them so I asked a friend what was up. He said that the father of the children discovered that she had slept with his cousin around the time of conception and that now that the kids are older they look like the cousin. He doesn’t want them to live in the house, because they are not his and that’s why they stay at the grandmother’s house. The mother is also supposively cheating on the father with another man now too, and maybe still with the cousin.

HONDURAN FACT: When a man leaves his family and goes to the United States it is 100% acceptable to cheat or even start another family. It is a bit scandalous, but acceptable. However, a woman is never allowed to cheat on her husband for any reason, and it wasn’t illegal before to kill your wife for infidelity.

6. In the last place I lived in San Juan (I’ve moved). I was hanging out in my room when the kids asked me if I wanted to see something. I said ok, and then they called their grandfather over and he started unbuttoning the lower buttons on his shirt and then pulls out a 2 ½ ft long snake (yes he was walking around with a snake in his shirt, he’d actually just come from the bathroom) and puts it on my floor. He tames snakes and this one was playing dead, when his grandson (the same one that tried to kill a former PCV's dog) started poking it. The snake looked agitated and started slithering around. I asked them all to please leave my room and added that to the list of reasons why I should move.

7. So I’ve moved. When I first came to San Juan I didn’t know anyone but my counterparts. They said that they’d help me find a place to live, but ended up just placing me in a hotel. When I was looking for another place to live a drunk guy came up to me and asked me what I was doing in his town. I told him and asked him if he knew any families that were renting. That’s how I found my first place. My new place I picked myself and I already knew the family. They are really nice and everything is going great. (retrospect note: this was the best place I ever lived at during my service, it was abfab)

Tell Me Something Good

I said that I would write you about how my Sociology class went quite some time ago, but at least now I can give you a complete recap. First, the students came in not knowing much and they had come from institutions where they were just paying for their degrees. I was charged with whipping them into shape. They could write eloquently about things that they knew, but I had to explain basic things to them like there is more than one religion in the World besides Christianity and homosexual relationships involve more than just kissing a member of the same sex (they are ages 18-45). I wanted to have a lively discussion about the relationship between the loss of culture and modernization, but they tried to tell me that they have been modernizing without losing any cultural aspects. When I showed them a video of culture in the area 40 years ago they did admit that a lot had changed, but they only lost their backward customs they still had their dress and food. I was sad but let it be (One student said that he felt that the Lencas had lost their closeness/spirituality with nature and that was good enough for me). Another time in class I was tired of them bashing their government and when I heard a student say that Honduras is the most corrupt, dangerous country in the world I started giving them examples of more corrupt regimes in the world now and that have existed. I didn’t expect them to know any leaders in Africa or the Middle East, but they knew nothing of Hitler and the Holocaust or that they had a secret police that would execute dissenters in their own country in recent history.
I remember when I was in middle school and one of my teachers said that we shouldn’t try any shenanigans because from where a teacher stands they can see everything. I was reminded of this as I yelled at people for staring at each other’s papers during tests and whispering to each other. I felt a little bad for them having me as a teacher because I still don’t speak perfect Spanish so I tried to talk as little as possible and have many group learning activities. I tried not to be annoyed the 10th time someone ask me what a concept was when we just read it in the book and it was on the page right in front of them or when I’d ask on a test what is a characteristic of a developing country and they wrote it is developing. I tried to help them out in tests. I let them use their books for 5 minutes during the first test, I let them use a cheat sheet during the second test but only half the class made them and when they tried to pass them between themselves I promptly grabbed them up, and the last test was almost all true/false but I still had 5 people fail. The written papers were hit and miss. I told them to write about the social problem they thought was most pressing in Honduras, keeping in mind it was for a Sociology class. I was glad I made them check their topics with me first because one student was going to write his paper on how to grow potatoes. Some of them were excellent and the most common topics were alcoholism, violence and the disintegration of the family. Others were terrible and one person literally just printed out pages from the internet with the web addresses and page numbers still on them and handed it in. Another student wrote: Dear esteemed teacher, please don’t fail me I did the best I could. Then only included the 5 interviews I asked them to do and didn’t write a paper. I failed her. The director said that the most important thing was that they learned to write good papers so they all got a chance to revise. I told one of the students they had points taken off because she didn’t have a bibliography and she said she didn’t know what a bibliography was, when we had the discussion in class, quite comically actually. I asked the class if any of them knew what a bibliography was and a girl raised her hand and said she did and I said that was great would she please tell the class and she said that a bibliography was a story in the bible. I think that the class was worthwhile and the students took away something. I loved it because I got to hear candid opinions about governmental corruption, the future of Honduras, and emigration. Note on emigration: Almost all the Hondurans I know go to the United States for 2-5 year stints to get enough money to start businesses here. In Surveys done Honduras gets slammed for not spending enough money that get sent from the States on investment; that they spend it on material items. But the money the people bring back is for investment and money sent back is at least in part spent on sending kids to better schools or to maintain educational fees. People that have been to the States liked it but feel that Honduras is their home.
My last ditch effort to have a good class discussion was giving them the question, ¨Why is Honduras a poor country?¨ They really couldn’t give me an answer other than poverty is a mental state of mind that is hard to break and blank stares. I think the correct response to this question for Honduras and Latin America or even the whole third world to some extent would be this: After WWII the United States and the former USSR fought their Cold War in part by trying to maintain and expand their influence in the Third World. The United States had an obvious geographical advantage and geographical interest in Latin America (they had been involved in the economy and politics of Latin America for almost 100 yrs prior at this point). That interest was not just philosophical (combating the spread of communism); the US government and private US enterprise had extensive business interests in L.A. Naturally, one wants to protect their interests and the United States did that by supporting/bribing corrupt leaders or in some cases implant puppet leaders (arming and training hostile forces to overthrow leaders the US felt could be a threat, rigging ¨democratic elections¨ in the aftermath to make sure they got a leader that they could work with) that would protect their business interests. I say corrupt because these leaders were pocketing most of the money the US was giving them and not using it to make improvements in their country, which was what the money was officially for, and if citizens of the country complained about it they were tortured and killed, but as long as business didn’t suffer the US stayed out of it. When country leaders did do things to interfere with business the US used their corruption record and human rights infractions to invade their country and put another person in power. The leader of the country also naturally want to protect his interest as well. His MO is he should take as much money as possible and keep it, distribute it to friends, or bribe people who could make his life difficult. People who are dissenters need to be killed or silenced in some other way to be made an example of. Not to anger the US too much but make sure that you keep getting your cut of cash by letting them know how valuable your support is and you could always change sides. Be generous to the people sometimes or they could revolt and the US would question your ability to control the population and replace you with someone who can. The people in some the countries got fed up with their governments and attempted socialist overthrows, but the US did not want anymore communist counties because communism means privatization of businesses and loss of assets so they would protect corrupt governments from ¨insurgents¨ by sending US troops or training mercenaries and supplying weapons. After USSR dissolved the US´s interest in Latin America dropped as did the amount of foreign aid. Potential leaders didn’t have any concept that they needed to be accountable to the people and continued stealing money. The US and other countries stopped giving money and started giving loans. Since the governments weren’t using the money to invest they couldn’t make their payments and to get back on track they had to devalue their currency. Most people in these countries work very hard for little money, THEY ARE NOT POOR BECAUSE THEY ARE LAZY. Their governments did not invest money in infrastructure or business so most people are substance level farmers or proprietors of small local businesses. Their currency is not worth much so they want to travel to other countries and make a decent wage for their labor. They have learned long ago it is no use to fight against the government. Other countries have gotten reliable leaders that are looking out for them and if their country is rich in natural resources they, for the most part are on their way to bringing up their country. Honduras is not rich in natural resources, has only a small percentage of good land (that is mostly owned by foreigners), and has no technology and very little industry development going on. I could go on but I’ll stop there. I tried to tease this answer out of my students but no avail.

Concepcion

Breakaway

A lot of my time in my office right now is wasted doing paperwork. However I've chosen to break free and I've taken two excursions into real and meaningful work. The first thing I've done was to assist in a Medical Brigade. I translated for doctors in patient consultations, which really pushed my Spanish, but was fun. One patient had swollen tendons in his feet and his problem stemmed from over use and wearing wore out boots with no support. He said it would be impossible to rest his feet and he didn't have money to buy good shoes. So I explained for the nurse and demonstrated stretches he could do to manage his problem and she prescribed pain killers. Another lady came in and she had scabies, but also wanted to know if there was medicine to remove the mask of pregnancy, which took me some time to understand and even more fun to translate what it was. There was a boy who came in with a sixth finger that was black and stubby that they amputated. There were a lot of people who complained of dizziness and fatigue, but after asking questions the nurse and I discovered that they only eat rice, beans, and tortillas, and she told them that they were suffering from nutritional deficiencies and prescribed vitamins. They also aren’t getting enough water because there is not a big enough source in the area, and when they work like they do it’s only natural to get weak. The people in the community can only occasionally get fruits, vegetables, and meat (big iron deficiencies here) so one of the objectives of the brigade was to try to convince them to grow other things to diversify their diets. There were a huge number of parasite cases too. I worked in the pharmacy filling prescriptions and explaining medication directions. I learned a lot about different kinds of medications but it was difficult too because this was the first time that doctors charged patients for medications and some of them didn't have enough money or any money to pay. There was a woman who was pregnant that had to decide between getting vitamins for her herself, her unborn baby, or vitamins for her other kids and another women had to decide whether or not to get medicine for her scabies or her parasites. Luckily there was a person to step up and pay for them those two times in the crowd. The nurses I worked with thought that most of the women were lying and really did have the money and just didn't want to pay, but if they or I was emotionally moved, the price could be reduced or they could be put on the IOU list. No one went away without getting really important medication but vitamins, pain medication or cough suppressant was chopped off their prescription if there wasn't sufficient money to pay for it. I also worked in the dentist office. The people the dentist saw in general ended up losing a lot of teeth, but the teeth they lost had huge cavities or were infected. They weren't upset at all if they had to loose a tooth or teeth and they didn't cry, yell, or show any emotion of pain when they were getting their teeth taken out, not even the kids. One woman lost all her teeth but two and was happy afterwards that she wasn’t in pain anymore and a little boy got permanent teeth taken out and the next day, besides having a swollen cheek, was totally fine, happy, and playing. The dentist wanted all the mothers to stand by their children when they were getting their teeth pulled and hold their hands, so I would have to go find them and explain what he wanted and they thought it was odd and would have preferred to stay in their group and continue to talk. It just isn't done here, the people are very stoic when it comes to pain . I also did my very first survey. Before you can build a water system you have to survey the land so you can make the design. I used an abney level, which takes a while because you can only do 30 m shots and the line is 6 km long. I had a lot of fun working with the community members. On the first day they came into my room and 5:30 and asked if I was ready to start. They carried all my things for me during the survey and were amused by the tools I had (I caught them playing with and studying my compass and they asked me if they could look at the abney during lunch one day). On the first day I had 8 helpers, but by day three I had 12 men, 4 kids, and 3 dogs following me around off and on during the day. They chopped down brush and little trees so I could have a clear view, made stakes to stake the line, and held the tape and sticks when we measured. The women there feed me, washed my clothes, and boiled water for me so I could drink it. So I was feeling pretty pampered for being in Honduras. The community has small sources of water now, but they diminish during the dry season and then they have to collect rain water. The system that they have now is a bunch of unburied plastic loose tubes and if water is there it flows over and spills on the ground after the bucket fills up and if it’s not flowing then they have to go and get it somewhere. They didn’t have enough water to bathe with while I was there so I was pretty stinky after working 6-6 everyday (walking time figured in). They didn’t have electricity either, so I had to do my work by candlelight, which I actually enjoyed. I´m working on the design now and will feel great when I can give it to them and hopefully they can find funding to get it built.

Taking care of business

I´ve been doing bastante studies, but more interesting is that I´ve been running into problems and getting to solve them. My first job was checking out a system who´s pipes have busted twice near their pump and at their tank site. I went out to the site with a PCV engineer and the plans in hand and discovered immediately that the problem was that they were using a 5 HP pump instead of following the plan that said that they shouldn´t use more than a 1.5 HP pump (based on the flow rate). The engineer working on the project politely listened, and admitted he never looked at the government survey and recommendations, but wanted to go ahead with his plans to replace the first three lances of pipe with iron pipe and switching to a diameter of 1in. He thought this would fix the problem. We did a test run and this time the pump wasn´t able to push the water up to the tank site. The PCV engineer said it was because they designed the system to work in the dry season, but now that there was more water going through the pump it wasn´t sufficient. She said that they should buy a smaller pump and block the intake so the water flow will be constant with the dry season flow and so the pump will be compatible. The WV engineer wants to buy a bigger pump. Another problem I had was in a community that had a study done 2 years ago but the WV office here lost it and without a study you can´t apply for funds. They have asked repeatedly if they can have another one done, but to no avail. I asked the PCV engineer in the main office to look for it she was able to find it right away. I have to add 8 more houses to the system but besides that it´s ready to go. I told them they would have to apply to places around here for funds but that I´d write proposals for them to organizations in the US. I got to lead an official water board meeting and explain the design and they made suggestion to modify it. I also sat in on the meeting in WV when they applied for funds and they've agreed to fund it in the next term. I´ve also ran into my first political problem. There is a community here that is fairly big, 200 houses, that is divided into 5 neighborhoods. They all have their own water systems except one, but some houses in the neighborhoods that do have water don´t have water service all the time and some of the systems are wore out. There is a big project to untie all of them except that there is an elevation problem that could keep it from being actualized and no one has bother to check it out for sure, they just keep talking about. So, I volunteered to survey the big line, but I was told to be careful because it is a very sensitive situation. I guess I´ll find more about it later. However in the meantime the neighborhood without water wanted me to do a survey. They have a very small source and I told them it was doubtful that they would get funds and they should wait for the big project. Later I had a representative come to my house and ask again. She said that they just wanted to opportunity to look, and that they had waited a long time for the big project to happen and they had lost faith that it ever will. I told them then that I would do it and gave them my dates for availability. I jokingly said that I´d be available the next day, and they said they have a truck in front of my house at 7. They worked very hard with me and we finished the survey all in one day.I found this job very rewarding because the people just want water and they have suffered so much and they are so happy that they have a hope of getting it, even if it is small.

Shake It Up

I´m so textbook. We had our reconnect and it said that at this point in your service the excitement of living in a new culture is wearing off and the things that you found annoying before are going to start to drive you crazy. Yup, that´s me right now. I get see red now when people call me gringita and stare at me, I have no patience for people who can´t understand me or with myself when I can´t think of the words to effectively communicate, I´m tired of the chisme (gossip; another volunteer came to visit me in site but I wasn´t there, however he had a backpack, which implies he was going to stay the night, which means I´m a slutty gringa or that I walk to La Esperanza every weekend (that´s three hours by bus)) and the daily routine has become wearing while in site. I go to the office there is no work for me so I chill till two when I start teaching classes. I went to visit my family in Santa Cruz and it is what I´ve been needing. They can understand my Spanish and I get hugs and support. I´m starting to make good friends at my site but this is already comfortable and easy and I love that I can have three hour conversations in Spanish and laugh and it´s just nice. I miss talking to people who can talk about political and cultural issues and share my liberal/compassionate outlook on things. In other words it was awesome. Emotional and intellectual void filled; I got the human contact/connection that I´ve been missing in my life. They asked me if I wanted to start visiting regularly and I´m going back two weeks from now. I also just went to Siguat for my group reconnect. We shared high and low lights, attended refresher courses, and of course lots of drinking and dancing. I went shopping and got some cool warm weather orientated clothes. Ate lots of sandwiches and cheeseburgers and fries (que rico and there aren´t any at my site). So, Siguat took the edge off a little. I´m going back to work in San Miguelito with the police escort week after next. We´re doing a survey there and the police drive us everyday to work in the cop truck because they don´t have anything else to do in town. One time there was a huge gun on the backseat and I was debating on whether or not to move it and the officer said to go ahead because it wasn´t loaded, good to know. The source gives 2,000 gallons of water every minute and this source is going to give water to over 600 (very conservative estimate) houses and the network and distribution network is huge! So I´ll work there off and on for the next month. Que mas? I´m single now and I´m under pressure to get a living dictionary here. People ask me all the time if I have a boyfriend and now when I say no, they ask why not, don´t you like Honduran men? I´m tempted to list inflamatory stats about the general conduct of Honduran men but I control my boca. Besides that I´ve been rocking out to Spanish music that got gifted to me. And my Spanish is still terrible, but recently it has improved and I´ve been getting compliments on it.

The Work, The Fun, and the Community Integration

A group of American missionaries came from Cincinnati to little ol' Conce and I got to translate to the Honduran workers and help install solar panels for a week. Many of the communities around us don't have electricity so giving light to the schools, medical centers, or churches is a big deal. It was fun hanging out with Americans for a week, but I was giggling to myself when they had a hard time getting up the hills, were cautious about eating the food, or concerned because all the men here carry machetes. I got to attend the India Bonita contest with them. All the communities in the surrounding areas pick the prettiest girl and then pool their money to make her a good Indian costume. Some were very elaborate with male attendants and she would carry a corn stalks or some other prop. A lot of them were made from natural fibers and I couldn't help but think about Season One Project Runway, Episode 1 (retrospective note: a year later I was a judge for one of these contests). For a small country Honduras has many indigenous/ethnic groups not just the ones from my area, the Lenca. They have a British African population in the north, Garifunos, Moskitos, Mayan in the West by Guatemala, and there are more but I'm blanking out right now.

Everyday from 2 to 7 I teach English in my community. I'll tell you a little bit about each family so you get a feel for my community and the people I spend time with:

I teach a family of teachers here and they go to Santa Barbara on the weekends and work on their bachelor’s degrees. In Honduras the teachers start teaching and then start working towards earning their degree. They do other little jobs to make extra money too. He is a carpenter and she is a botany illustrator for textbooks. They have a little girl that plays with her dolls on the floor, or gets into her mom's make-up or starts drawing picture. I have juice and crackers while I do the lesson, and then we practice by having a conversation. They already know a little English, and it's more fun that way because you can talk a little and not just teach and they usually have a lot of questions. He really likes The Doors and the volunteer before for me translated all the songs into Spanish for him so he can play them on his guitar. The wife teaches English along with other subjects and I think she knows a lot but she's really quite and only asks questions sometimes, but listens very carefully.

Family 2: The father is super high strung. He is always worrying about money, and sometimes I think that he just takes English classes from me because they are free. He used to work in the United States illegally, but now he works 3 jobs here. He has a lot to say about politics and economics, and it might driving other people crazy because he's always complaining, but I like it here when people talk a lot, because with me, or outsiders in general, the people here are quiet and shy. The wife is very calm. She takes the time to talk to me and practice Spanish with me and is also teaching me how to cook. We've made tortillas and tamales. The daughter is pretty quiet, but I'm looking forward to getting to know her better.

Family 3: The father is one of the teachers at the elementary school, and I like teaching at his house because all of his kids want to learn English too. They catch on faster to the pronunciation, repeat the word with ease and say "es facil papi" all the time, when he can't do it. He tape records my voice and listens to it for practice and he is the only person that wants to practice everyday.

Family 4: I hang out at night with the only guy and girl in town that speak fairly good English and we were suppose to teach each other our respective languages, but we always end up chatting in English. It is refreshing after a day of struggling and stumbling in Spanish that I get to go back to being an adult and have real conversations. The daughter is the only decent English teacher in town. Her worksheets have no error and when students ask her for what things are in English she doesn't make things up. Example, one of the teachers told his students that the word for table was mes (mesa in Sp) and spring was vera (primavera in Sp). The son lived in the United States for 3 years and has practically perfect English. He was making good money there but came back because he missed his country and now wants to finish his engineering degree and move to La Esperanza. The other son is one of the kids there that doesn't know any English, but he wants to learn and I was teasing the others because they hadn't taught him, and they said they really have a lot to do, because everyone there who wants to learn English is always bothering them, so me being there has taken some weight off their shoulders.

My own host family: I principally teach the daughter, and she has been my saving grace here in Conce, I don't know what I would have done without her. Tangent: On my second day of work, my boss gives me the task to go around to 50 houses around my area and collect signatures for home improvement projects by myself with no map or anything, just names. She walked me around all day and showed me where everyone lived and I tried to give her money or buy her something for helping me out but she wouldn't take anything. For awhile in my house she was the only one who could understand my Spanish and she would translate for me between family members, and when I needed to find a place in town or have a question about something she always answers it and helps me out. I teach everyone else who might be there too (people pass in and out of our house all the time and including me 9 people live here regularly), but she is the most dedicated.

My girls basketball coaching disastre

Sometimes I think my Spanish is really good and I start getting cocky, but then there are moments when I'm brought down back down to earth. This is one of those times. Marta asked me (I thought) if I would coach a girls basketball team, and she said that all the other volunteers had done it, so why hadn't I? I agreed and told her to set something up or I could go to the school and do it myself. She set a practice that the girls didn't show up for and then we planned another for Tuesday (so I thought). I show up at 9 the correct time, and find out that it has been moved to 10. No prob. When we get there it isn't little girls playing basketball it's women aged 18-24. I think oh my God, what can I teach women that have been playing basketball everyday since they could walk? So one of the other girls, (I assume the other coach) comes out and asks me if I want to shoot, so we're shooting and then I ask her why aren't the other girls practicing too (I am totally confused at this point)? What was happening was that they wanted me to be a ringer on their basketball team and they were trying me out to see if I could play. I was surprised, but couldn't say no so I took a jersey and sat down. Now for the people reading this and wondering "I didn't know Crystal could play basketball," or the people who've seen me play and know I can't, I am taller than 95% of the men here and I am significantly taller than all of the women, so picture me as Shaq if you will down here. So the game starts, and I think that I'm doing a pretty good job, because I've been getting the ball a lot (I'll be honest I was dominating) and passing it on (shooting has never been my strong point), but I only played for 5 minutes before I was pulled for the rest of the tournament, my team was getting heckled pretty hard and I was attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Like: Look, look, a gringa, look at her and then another group was saying I love Crystal, I love you baby, and another group was bitching about how it wasn't fair that I got to play. However after I was benched everytime one of our players did poorly my "fans" would say, send Crystal in, but of course they didn't.
We took home 2nd, and hopefully I can just play in the square informally from now on.

The medical brigade. Lordy, lordy it was worth staying for.

Day 1:Got to see a bot fly removed from a man's abdomen, but the most bizarre thing that happened had to be the girl in chains. Now I had heard about the girl in chains before, but thought it was a myth: crazy girl that the parents keep naked outside in chains. But the truth is when this girl was 13 she had a baby and then it died. Up until that point she had been normal, but after that she went "crazy" and took to running off and wandering in the woods for days until the community could find her. Her parents took her to get professional help and the doctors in Teguc said there was nothing that they could do for her, so her parents tied barb wire around one of her ankles and attached the other end to the house so she could never leave. She is 27 now. The doctors who went up to see her said that she was in a stupor, but when they talked to her she snapped out of it and seemed to be of low intelligence but could talk back and they had a relatively normal conversation with her. She spends her day cracking sunflower seeds. The mother ran ahead of the brigade people before they could get there so it was possible that she is kept naked, she was clothed when they got there, but very dirty and missing all her teeth.

Day 2:I helped settle an adoption. There is a girl in town that is very poor. All the kids at school make fun of her because of the condition of her clothes and house; she asked the male volunteer that was here before me to come to her school because she thought that if the other kids thought that he would protect her than they would stop bothering her. She lives in a one room shack with her two older brothers (that deal drugs), her sister (who is 18, in the same grade as she's in in school, and just had a baby), and her mother (that got her a job working on an all man road repairing crew, even though she's only 12). Her dad committed suicide and the only income the family has is from the mother washing clothes (100 L a month; $5), the eggs from the chickens, and Marta (the girl) doing random jobs (the brothers don't usually contribute). The family wants Marta to quit school (she just finished 6th grade) and work fulltime. She wants to continue school but with no one to pay for school supplies and uniforms this wasn't going to be possible. Marta makes straight As and even though she doesn't have electricity in her house stays up and studies by the streetlight. Her teachers wanted her to continue her education too, so they asked the brigade if there was anything that they could do for her. The president of the NGO said that if the employee for the brigade here was willing to adopt her and give her a good home life, then he would personally pay for her to finish her education. I helped translate when they went to talk to her mother and she agreed to let Marta move. They wanted to take a picture but Marta didn't want to because she said she was dirty, so I said I'd send the picture to Marcus, the volunteer that helps her out when he comes to visit, and she went in the house washed up, and put on the outfit he gave her last time he came. She's going to start school in February. Shoulder to Shoulder is also going to help 10 other girls go to high school.

Day 3:I stayed in Conce to help organize a sale for local artisans, hoping that the people from the brigade would buy a lot of stuff. We sold half of it and made a whopping $31, not what they were expecting, but it was still good. The people on the brigade were disappointed that the women only painted on the fabric and didn't embroider it and that hurt sales, but they did buy the clay and coconut painted handicrafts. I told them before that Americans would worry about washing the paint off, but since they use the cloth to transport tortillas, I think they didn't comprehend.

Day 4:The funniest thing that happen was on one of the sign in cards it said, "Complains of constant diarrhea, I saw her eating dirt in line." I know this isn't funny and is a disease, but I laughed for about a minute. I ran out of work for the brigade because most everyone had gotten over their traveler’s sickness and can work now, so I stuck to finding things around my town for the doctors (superglue, diet pop, smoothies, sunglasses) and I washed dishes out of boredom. Oh, one of the doctors had to tell a woman, that has only ever been with her husband, that she has VD and then explain what it was and how it is transmitted and that her husband has been unfaithful to her. Was glad I wasn't there to translate for that one. But she said that she was going to leave him after this.

Day 5:Back translating for the brigade. Just routine complaints of aches and pains, scabies, requests for vitamins, and yeast infections/STDs. There is a male doctor in the town that we were in, and many of the women didn't want to go to him for a gyno check up (because they were embarrassed) so female clinic was very busy. The people in this town were better in tuned with their health so there weren't many serious problems. In the other towns there were a lot of infections run amuck because there is no access to antibiotic like worms/parasites, lice, pink eye, and malnutrition (one woman even had a goiter).

Day 6 & 7:Being a tourist in Conce. I did all the things that I wanted to do before I left. Swimming in the waterfall and going on my favorite walk. The rest of my time I spent going to say goodbye and giving little presents to people, but I'm happy to be leaving.

I visited the new site of a friend of mine and besides visiting a waterfall, I stayed that night and went to the town dance. Her town is known as being a center for the preservation and practice of the Lenca culture and they put on one of their traditional plays. I also watched a beauty pageant, one of the many I´ve seen and they skip wedding march style down the aisle in dresses that Tim would say were not very modern, and thrift store finds with trim poorly applied. Afterwards it ended in a dance where the record skipped on the song that was supposed to be the royal dance so they had play another one and it was clear that they out of step because they had only learned to dance to the first song. When the real dance started no one danced, but of few of the kids who had went to school in the city started things up and Robin and I danced with the kids, each other, and her landlord, till we finally got partners. We met some missionaries there and things got ugly when a drunk man ran into one of their wives while she was dancing and the husband ran after the guy trying to start a fight or intimidate him, but the police with their giant guns ran in and broke it up.

Omoa was great. I love swimming in the ocean, even if it´s next to 4 giant propane tanks on the bank that are said to be unsafe (there was a cartoon in the national paper of a sign that said Omoa and a big mushroom cloud with the town exploding on top of it) or afterward your skin is sticky (I don´t know what that is). But it couldn´t of been too unsafe (environmental wise perhaps) because when we went out in the boat there were schools of jellyfish. Oh and I went the Rolls Royce of restaurants, Pizza Hut, while I was there. Truth be told it was the fanciest, cleanest Pizza Hut I´ve ever been to. It´s in Puerto Cortes, which is one of the biggest ports in LA and there is a wreckage of a drug boat that they´ve left on the beach, I´m told as a warning.

My last month in Toledo; Get Ready Cause Here I Come

Finally after months and months of waiting I have been informed that my departure date will be 1/30/2006. I will be working on hydroengineering project in Latin America. I will learn more about my project and destination in the next few days and will post with more information- but since I'm prone to speculation I've crossed listed countries that have environmental/agriculture programs with countries whose official language is Spanish (my placement officer said, "If I were you I'd brush up on my Spanish." when I asked if I should be concerned about having to learn an indigenous language)
So under probabilities are: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, or Panama.
Unlikelies but there is a shot (Spanish is official, but indigenous languages are used equally as much if not more): Bolivia, Ecuador, or Paraguay.

"Honduras is one of the finest countries to serve in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. There is a good staff, a number of resources, and lots of work to be done."
It's Honduras. I will be a Water and Sanitation Extensionist and will be doing a side project as well in AIDS education, computer education, construction of small infrastructures, cooking and food preserving classes, improving wood burning stoves, or gardening.
I am overjoyed. This has been a long time in the making. My expectation is that I will have an amazing time. As you read from above, one of the great aspects of Honduras is that there is much to do. At this point in my life I want to devote my energy solely to helping others and I want to be busy and productive all the time. I am excited that not only will I be meeting new people and learning about a new culture, but I will also be trained in a new skill. I will enjoy the physical work that is involved with rehabilitation and construction of water and sanitation systems but I am glad that it will be balanced with the social work of community education and secondary projects. I want to work hard and have what I've done improve the lives of others.

Before I leave for Honduras there are a bunch of Toledo/Winter things I want to do. I want to go to Zoo Lights and Frozentoesen. I want to go sledding and build a snowman. I want to go to the Art Museum one more time. And I want a “last meal” of course (I’m thinking Asian). Last weekend I went to a lot of Christmas parties and it was the first time I started to feel a little sad about leaving because this would be the last time I will see most of these people for two years. But I am excited about and committed to going to Honduras and I’ve just received an update:

I will be doing my two day orientation in Washington D.C. before I leave for Honduras. 48 other Peace Corps volunteers will be training with me who are also going to Honduras to serve. (Retrospective note, only 32 made it all the way through). I will have 11 weeks of training in language, culture, technical skills, and health. After training you are evaluated to see if you are qualified to serve, and if you are deemed fit you start your two years of service.

Mike's mother-in-law agreed to let me ask her questions about her experiences in Honduras and here is what she had to say:I asked about Honduras do's and don’ts and cultural taboos and she said that men and women led segregated lives. Not to say that they don't have meaningful relationships, but that during the day men work and talk to men and the women work and talk to just women. Women shouldn't make eye contact with men on the street and when you greet another woman you touch elbows; you don't shake hands. If you are a woman you should not go out by yourself and even if you are in group you should have at least one male with you at all times. The women wear dresses or skirts but it is acceptable to wear pants. I was reading what a current Peace Corps volunteer was writing about and she said not to wear shorts above the knee unless you want a lot of unwanted attention and Wendi's mom says that shorts are the working wear of prostitutes. Also, when in the home of a Honduran you don't sit on the floor because the floor is for the dogs. At first I thought the rules were a tad repressive for women but, after letting it all sink in, I think that if prostitution is popular the rules may exist to distinguish "good girls" from "bad girls."Peace Corps included letters from current or former volunteers, and the say things like, "Honduras is a beautiful country, and after a few months of working hard in your site, just remember that you can always head north to the beautiful white sand beaches of the Caribbean, south to the volcanic islands of the Pacific, west to the cool green mountains and Mayan ruins, east to the virgin rainforest of La Mosquitia, or central Honduras to the peaceful Lago de Yojoa." But I probably will spend most of my working time in the country where she said that Honduras is poverty stricken and nothing will prepare for what I will see there.Unfortunately for the time being I don't know where in Honduras I will be going. This presents a packing challenge considering I might be in a mountainous region or a tropical one. But I'm going to try to just stick to essential things so I don't end up with 300 pounds of stuff I can't take.

Training

Greetings from Honduras

My host family is great. I live with my host mom and dad and I have two "sisters" who are 9 and 11. My sisters and I draw pictures, play Twister, and watch TV in Spanish. They have cable and a ton of channels (for example I've seen Project Runway and American Chopper). They include me in their daily activities and we always talk about how our days went. My host mom's brother and mom come down from Teguc on Sundays and we go to church, eat mondongo (the soup everyone has on Sunday) and go to whatever is the big to do in Santa Lucia that weekend(concert in the park, visiting the cemetery, going to the market etc.) My room is bigger than at home and I have my own bathroom with hot water. My family and I understand each other for the most part, but there are times when we have difficulties. We've become experts at charades, reading body language, and if all else fails I bust out the dictionary. As far as school goes in the mornings I have Spanish and in the afternoons I have technical or culture classes. I go from 730-430 and 430-530 is Spanish tutorial. On Saturdays I work too, but we go on fieldtrips around Honduras to different sites and observe to help make the decision on what we want to do in water and sanitation. Every Thursday I have game night at my house (my mom was asking me to have people over so she could meet them so I thought a game night would be a good idea) and every Friday everyone goes out to the restaurant/bar in town.

Best Weekend Ever

This weekend was awesome! For my optional Saturday we went to a national park and fish hatchery. At the national park I got to hike in a river, in/behind a waterfall and I got to jump off a 20 foot rock all for a dollar. The next day it was more hiking and waterfalls then during a hatchery seminar we got to go around in boats in Lake Yojoa and see all the different sites of operation. The company was trying to stress that they were doing good things for the lake and that they have struck a balance between making a profit, helping the community, and conserving the environment. Then we had a complementary fish lunch and it was the best meal I´ve had since I´ve been in Honduras. I have been doing work too-I´ve helped construct pilas, stoves, and latrines in rural areas and I´ve moved up a level in Spanish. I had the knack for building fogones (stoves), but pilas (water storage tanks) were a little more difficult until I mastered the technique for slapping cement on, and with latrines I have room for improvement. Today and tomorrow we are looking at different water systems in the area and are learning from their mistakes and triumphs. My new family in Santa Cruz is great as well. I have a 15 year old sister and I help her with her English and Chemistry homework in Spanish. My best friend in PC´s sister loves to sing and we are always singing English songs and we try to translate them into Spanish. Last Friday we went out to a karaoke bar and we sung Ace of Base songs.

Latina Style and Drum Roll Please my Site is:

For the past five weeks I've been in Santa Cruz as you know and I had two sisters and a mom who were concerned about my appearance. On many occasions I was told, "Crystal you don't dress sexy." At first I thought this was very funny and would explain that I only brought clothes for work and that I didn't think I was going to be in situations where I would be going out con frequencia. After that, when I was getting ready to leave in the evenings or on the weekend they would inspect my outfit and present me with a different pair of shoes or a top they thought would be more fitting on me and they even did my makeup once. They took me shopping in San Pedro Sula and gave me advice on what I should wear and they bought me a tank top. I've seen so many pairs of bedazzled jeans that I'm starting to like them oh and big belts too. Another fun skill not related to my job that I've picked up is dancing. When I first arrived in Santa Lucia my mom could not believe that I didn't know how to dance and my parents there promised to take me to a discotec in Teguc when I get back and teach me, but in the mean time in Santa Cruz my sisters have been instructing me. There was a town dance and I told them I would go but I don't know how to dance. Later that afternoon we drew the curtains put on the reggeaton and my lessons began. Anyway I go to the dance with my sisters and ended up dancing with guys aged 14-18. It was pretty funny because I didn't realize it was more for kids, but the next weekend I went dancing with the PCVs and got to dance with people my own age. Dancing is really underrated in the United States. It is part of their culture here and people learn as soon as they can walk and most people here are pretty good. I'm looking forward to learning more of the technical dances before I go.

So onto another topic-my site. I'm going to be in Concepcion, it is close to the border of El Salvador. I'm 1.5 hours away from the closest PCV and I can walk around my town completely in 15 minutes. I'm going to be working with World Vision and I believe they want me to design water systems and write proposals, but I will learn more when I start on the 21st.

My Last Two Weeks of Training and My First Two Weeks of My New Job

My last two weeks of training focused on waste management. I learned how to make recycled paper, compost, do house level garbage management, and made purses out of chip bags. In Honduras there is a completely different attitude towards littering than in the United States. Even if a trash can is a foot away from a person they will still just throw their trash on the ground. They pay people here to rake it up, but the amount of it everywhere is unbelievable. One of the problems is that they don't have trash collection here in most of the areas in the country and so they have to burn their waste including heavy amounts of plastic. They don't have a recycling system either but people have found ways to be pretty resourceful with their trash. For example, they will sometimes use plastic bottles as water jugs, flower vases, candle holders, flower and trees planters, they will turn them upside down and paint them and use them as garden borders and more things I'm sure but that's all I've seen so far. So poco a poco there are organizations here trying work on litter control, but I still find it odd when I encounter someone who is passionate about controlling logging and reforestation programs and while we are talking about it they will throw their trash on the ground from the food they are eating. The facilitators here say it is just a different mindset; that people are used to having biodegradable trash and they don't realized the effect that it has on the environment. I wasn't alive in the 70s, but people tell me that the United States had the same problem then before public education on the effects of littering. Anyway, on a lighter note, during Easter everyone in Honduras takes the whole week off and goes on vacation. I went to Teguc to pick up some necessities for country living, Valle de Angles-a touristy place with a lot of artisan shops, and during the week all the places I visited put out designed religious themed "carpets" made from sawdust in the streets. I also visited caves with petroglyphs in El Sauce. They are in the middle of nowhere and we had to get a local kid to show us the way. There was graffiti there but it is very well preserved for having no one guard it. Ok, so as some of you may have heard my first week here left much to be desired and I will just leave it at that because this is a blog that focuses on the positive. But my second week went much better. I spent the first 3 days doing surveys and survey related activities. World Vision gives people building supplies for home improvements and it is up to them to build a kitchen, put in a cement floor as opposed to a dirt one, fix their roofs, or plaster the outside of their homes but you have to come by later and do a survey to check their progress and see if they need help or more materials. I went out to the campo for 2 out of the 3 days but the other day I worked in Conce and I got to meet more of the people in my town. The best thing about doing surveys, besides getting to talk to the people and seeing what they have accomplished, is that you get great things to drink at all the houses. I know this sound superficial and trite but think of getting ice cold smoothies and Kool-Aid everywhere you go in the 90 degree heat while you walk around for 3-4 hours. I also did progress reports on children in the area who are internationally sponsored. As for wat/san related activities I´ve supervised the rehabilitation of a current water system. The pipes that they were bought for their system were defective and a year later they have to dig everything up and replace their system from scratch. I worked on the proposal to get them funds for new piping accessories and I enjoyed going out and meeting the people I was helping. I´m going back when they continue their work after they finish planting their crops and they are going to have a gathering for me so I can meet the whole town (there are only 32 houses there). This was the first time I did a project solo without someone from World Vision was there, so I was proud that I made it through day with no major mishaps.Working where I do is also hard because there is a lack of transportation and there are times when I have to walk to sites (up to 3 hours). But the country side is really beautiful and, besides having to wake up at 4 to start walking, it is great.I also celebrated my 23rd Birthday. Two other volunteers were down from La Esperanza and we went out to dinner at a comidor and I had an apple with a candle in it for my substitute birthday cake. It was very funny and my co-workers who were there sang Happy Birthday to me in Spanish. Definitely a birthday I won't forget. I´m having a good time and starting to adjust to life at a slower pace. Believe it or not that has been hard for me but it´s been two weeks and I´m able to see the results I´ve made personally and professionally.

Best of Amusings:

On the bus going to my site (it's a dry zone between La Esperanza and San Juan) practically all the men were drunk. They get liquored up legally and then more or less sober up by the time they get home, but they were passing around the last bottle of guaro trying to empty it discreetly before their stops. One of the drunk men had drunken all his money and they had to force him off the bus because he couldn't pay. Another man kept threatening to cut off the hand anyone who touched his plant that he had bought in La Esperanza with a machete. It was pretty entertaining.

I was talking to a lady for 20 minutes then all the sudden she asked me if I could speak Spanish. I said that we were speaking Spanish right now, I'm speaking Spanish. She said "Oh," I was confused. Other times when I speaking Spanish pretty badly, people will ask me, "But you speak English well, right?"Another time I was talking to a little girl and she didn't understand me and she kept saying, "I don't understand English," and I would say, "I'm not speaking in English, I'm speaking in Spanish." And she would say, "No you're not."

Whenever I'm reading a book someone will always come up next to me and look over my shoulder and in about 5 minutes they'll ask me if the book is in English or Spanish, and when I say English they say, "Oh that's why I couldn't understand it."

Another volunteer was in her site and during a house visit noticed a boy with pink eye. She informed the mother about the type of treatment he should receive and she said that they had a different way of dealing with it. She wasn´t lactating herself, so she called over her neighbor and her neighbor squirted breast milk in the boy´s eye. I haven´t heard if it worked yet. I got bit (just a little) by a dog here and the owner said the dog had got his rabies shot so not to worry but I should still wash it out then squeeze lemon juice in the wound, my coworker put a stop to the lemon juice part as she was cutting the lemon in the kitchen.

It´s customary in Honduras to give you incredible amounts of food, to the point where I tell people beforehand there is no way I could possibly eat all that, it´s good but I have no space in my stomach, and please next time give me less, followed by a long talk praising their food as so not to offend. However people in my group would line their pockets with plastic, pretend to be sick, or feed the food to the dog when their family wasn´t looking. (I use this approach when honesty doesn´t work). But this one guy for made a conscious effort to always eat everything. Hondurans are surprised when you finish your plate so I think this is a compliment, put other times if I don´t eat it I´ve had people take a fork pick it off my plate and give it to someone else or other times they are offended if you don't finish so I don't know what's correct. Anyway his lady would invite people over to see him eat all the food and she kept giving him more and he said he didn´t want to disappoint her in front of her friends so he would keep eating.

They were having a fair and they would stop about three times a day and have little games for the kids. For one game the kids had a minute to find an ant and if they did they would get one lempira (.19).

We were doing a study in a dry town and the sheriff of the town asked us in front of the mayor and other citizens if we wanted to go drinking with him that night.

A drunk guy asked me if I would give him money to buy more guaro (really cheap booze) and I said no and he came back later and asked me if I wanted to stay in a hotel with him, but not to worry because he would pay.

When people are sick here they will walk around with towels on over their clothes on the part that is bothering them, because they think health is related to your body temperature, they are also afraid of bathing or drinking hot or cold water depending on the temp outside.

If you go to TGIFs or Pizza Hut you are really stepping out (the first is the fanciest/most glamorous restaurant here and the second is the most popular and the best ¨treat¨restaurant). Also when you go to Pizza Hut here you have to get iced tea, don´t ask me why, but that´s the thing to do.

They constructed a new bank here and (it is the Latin branch of Chase Manhattan) it is so nice that people go out to hang out in front of it and be seen.

When people get fake teeth here it is ¨grill¨ style. One to four gold teeth in the front with gold stars embossed on them or a tooth with a gold outline and a little sparkle in the middle.

To the people in my town it´s not a big deal if we lose electricity for a couple of days except for the fact that you can´t have cold pop, that is the real travesty.

When filling out a request for another volunteer a Honduran wrote under the type of religion present in your town both: Catholicism and Evangelism. Also people never ask you if you are religious just if you are a Catholic or an Evangelical, it is assumed you are one or the other.

I was in a grocery store and they had a sign that said please do not try the deodorants.