Wednesday, April 22, 2010

So I was surprisingly pleased at how the lesson went yesterday in La Hacienda. We talked about the female and male reproductive systems, and I haven’t seen them this animated about anything yet. It may have to do with the fact that it is an easier theme to grasp (than abstinence and self-esteem, themes Americans are familiar with but are totally new to these girls), or that they are just more comfortable with me and the class now. It was funny because a new girl came in class yesterday and when I asked her name, she was super shy and didn’t want to talk, like all of them had been originally, but the other girls were like, just tell her your name! They are finally coming around. All of them wanted to volunteer to help me with the little tasks, like labeling the parts on the drawings, and actually answered questions. I couldn’t believe it. I gave them each little diaries and a folder to keep all their information in, and they were just so thrilled and I have to take them up at the beginning of each class because they keep decorating them more. They were disappointed when I didn’t have homework for them this class, so I had to invent something last minute. I think they just want homework for the cool stickers I give when I check homework, but whatever it takes!

I was fairly impressed with my artistic skills, to be honest. I had to draw huge images of the male and female reproductive systems, going off a small image in the manual. Ideally you could just have the image blown up but that is surely surpassing the capabilities of my town. The power went out Tuesday night too, so I got a bit worried, not excited about drawing huge testicles and a penis by candlelight, but eventually it came back on. We’ve had lots of rain in the afternoons so it frequently goes out now, super. Anyways, I drew both images without labeling them, and then during class I had little pieces of paper with the names and we labeled them with those, so we could practice several times. (Check out Facebook to see pics of what I drew, prepare to be amazed! haha just kidding) They practiced in groups, and I also used the 5^th/6^th grade teacher’s big book of images from like the 70s (luckily it all looks the same still, haha) which had surprisingly great information. I explained it first using those images, giving the name and purpose of each part of the system, and then I used the images I had drawn to practice with them. They said they had never seen images like that before, so it was funny when I first brought it out and they kinda gasped, but they didn’t laugh too much and were surprisingly mature about it. I am actually going to extend this one lesson until the next class too, so they can review, and I am going to make copies of the terms and images and let them make little booklets to remember it all. Its not like they have libraries or internet here where they could look it up later.

Another interesting tidbit is that I gave them anonymous surveys to fill out. These surveys asked if they had ever had sex, drank alcohol or tried drugs, been abused or have abuse in their family, been pregnant, etc. The goal of the survey is to better address the needs of the girls. So I can’t guarantee they were all honest, but out of 20 girls, 2 had violence in their families, one had been pregnant, and another claims she had been pregnant but then also circled “no” on the question about having had sex before. So that will certainly be something we talk about in class, how one becomes pregnant, haha. But yeah, even though I KNOW that these girls are sexually active before the normal US age, and that’s a main reason I’m doing the project, it still shocks me that one of the girls has been pregnant already, and abortion isn’t very common here, so I imagine she has the baby. And the domestic abuse results were upsetting too, although I knew that this community in particular has a high rate of abuse. There is a section in the manual on that but I may add another class, using additional materials, and I’d also be interested in doing some talks on abuse for the women in the community.

Anyways, today I’m helping with the English class again, and then tomorrow I plan on hanging out with Andy since it’s his last day in Camasca, and then Saturday we go to La Esperanza for a goodbye party for him and Chris. I have mixed feelings on it all. Obviously it makes me really sad because these were the first real volunteer friends I had, and they have really taught me so much about how to live as a volunteer and just about life in general. But I know that it is the natural progression, that volunteers come and go, and that more volunteers will come to our region, and I’ll be fine. Peace Corps is so interesting, never thought that one of my biggest worries is losing the older group of volunteers, instead of things like power outages and large bugs.

Monday, April 19^th

So I won’t give a day by day account because I don’t have a lot of time. I started Yo Merezco 2 weeks ago in La Hacienda Santa Lucia, a poor community of Camasca. The program deals with self-esteem, abstinence, making good decisions, etc. The program aims to give the girls the information they need to make their own decisions. In no way am I cramming abstinence down their throats, we just teach them about the realities of teen pregnancy and also about the changes of puberty that they are now experiencing. And of course it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be abstinent at least until you reach colegio, right? I have two groups of girls in fifth and sixth grades, ranging from 9-12 years old. So far I’ve been twice and we’ve done an introduction lesson and a lesson on what abstinence means. It’s been crazy how little they know about sexual relations and what it means to be a virgin, etc. Will give more details on my observations once I have more time. Tomorrow I return to do a lesson on self-esteem, and on Wednesday I’ll talk about the male and female reproductive systems. Should be interesting!

The trash project is also coming along, with the new name of Camasca Verde 2015, which means Green Camasca. I think its fairly catchy. We cranked out a work plan for the project a couple weeks ago, myself with the help of the environmental rep for the municipality and some of the colegio kids (who are so great to work with, by the way). Also started helping with the English classes given to the teachers of Camasca, once a week at the colegio. I guess it could be beneficial but its obvious that most of them don’t want to be there so sometimes they’re a bit chatty.

All last week I was in a hotel near Tegus for a Peace Corps conference, and I brought my counterpart Iris. We were trained in the Project Citizen methodology, a big project for my municipal development program. Basically, colegio kids work together to identify problems in their community, choose one to investigate, research existing laws that deal with the issue and look for strengths and weaknesses of the law, then propose their own public policy and plan to deal with the issue. It is a great exercise to teach them to be active participants in their communities, make them more comfortable with the law system, and forces them to think critically and speak in front of others. During the week we were split into groups and had to do a quick version of the project, and my group won! Surprise since both my counterpart and another Honduran in our team had presented Proj Citizen before, and they were all super intense and wanted to work all night on the project. Really? It’s just an exercise, but of course they took it too seriously. Our prize? Applause. I would like a few hours of sleep back from that night, thanks. Most of our group stayed Friday in Tegus. I did errands all day in the center of town, and then that night we went to a place called La Casa Mexicana, that had fun music and at one point passed out balloons so people could make their own balloon animals. Strange but fun! Our group also got on stage and danced which was fun since we had at least 20 folks!

This week I am working on Yo Merezco, will do another English class, and am trying to hang out with my sitemate because it is his last week. And in less than 2 weeks I’ll be in the USA—SO EXCITED!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

I apologize to all of my loyal readers out there, I’ve been quite busy and haven’t updated this like I like to do. So here we go. It’s a whopper entry, FYI.

MEDICAL BRIGADE IN EL SAL

El Salvador was AWESOME. I loved every moment of the trip. Ok, I gotta back up and talk about the day before I started the journey. I spent the Friday before I left in La Esperanza because I wanted to see a women’s group led by a volunteer there. Robynn is a third year extension health volunteer and basically wrote a manual for women’s groups on the topic of health. The week I attended they were talking about the importance of pap smears and talked about the threat of cervical cancer. I learned that it is the number one cancer that affects women in developing countries! I also learned about the symptoms, and I was used as the example as Robynn was the doctor and I was the patient receiving the pap smear. Yes, I did have to spread my legs, but she just pointed to where my different female parts would be located, but it was a good demonstration so that they don’t have to be scared to get pap smears. They did some review of past lessons and formed teams to illustrate the male and female reproductive systems with craft supplies. It was pretty hilarious to see testicles depicted with glittery purple cotton balls. It sounds silly, but its so important for these women to be more comfortable with these taboo themes so that they can make better choices for their health and future. I don’t know if I’d do a women’s group like that in the future, but I definitely have an interest in something like that.

So that took up most of the day, Robynn and I went to the nice supermarket on that part of town and got supplies to make rice krispie treats for Angus’ goodbye party (hadn’t had those in forever!), and we also got awesome baleadas at the best place in town, Dona Maria’s, where they are huge and delicious and she is so small, cute, and Lencan. That night we ended up going out to the Fogon, because there were some engineers in town working with Chris, another volunteer, and they had just finished a water system project in a week so they wanted to celebrate. Supposedly it was a really intense week, but imagine, now over 600 people have access to water, amazing. It was a really fun night because we just drank and danced and did our own thing. I love Fogon because you can wear whatever and the guys don’t usually bother us too much (but then that can be a negative too if you actually want a guy dance partner). There was a girl singer for a while but eventually I think they realized people didn’t want to hear her sing ranchera, and so they put on dance music. Got home late-ish but not too bad.

Woke up the next morning and waited at the jalon spot near Robynn’s house at 7:30. So let me explain. There is no good way to get to La Palma, El Sal. It isn’t that far, just that there aren’t a lot of roads, so the route isn’t direct, and the roads that exist aren’t great. I had planned on going from my site to La Esperanza, to San Pedro Sula, and then to Ocotopeque to cross the border into El Sal. If you look at a map you’ll see that it is in no way direct, going north and then west instead of just northwest, but I figured that the buses were more reliable and I’d only have to take 3 buses total. I actually had someone tell me I was crazy for going that way, but I realized that doing the trip in a car is completely different than in bus. I called a friend, a male volunteer, but he told me that I should go the La Esperanza-Gracias-Santa Rosa-Ocotopeque way, which is more direct, but the buses have no schedule, and I later found out that the buses between La Esperanza and Gracias run at 5am, and then again at 10am and on.  Supposedly there was a direct La Esperanza to Santa Rosa bus, which would be great, but it didn’t leave until 11am and I heard it didn’t run every day. So if it didn’t come or was full or something, there would be no way I could get to Ocotopeque (Honduran side of the border) in one day.

So in conclusion, I tried the more direct but more buses route. From the jalon spot (where people wait for rides out of town), I caught a bus to a town in between La Esperanza and Gracias. I then waited at that town for about 30 minutes, and got a ride to San Juan, an hour from Gracias. I then waited for about 30 more minutes, thinking I could get a ride easily, sweating profusely, but then eventually got the San Juan to Gracias bus. Once in Gracias, I met Angus for lunch (and let him have it for sending me that route!) at a place with a beautiful view of the town. He walked me to the bus station and I got a bus to Santa Rosa. Once there, I got dropped off at the terminal but couldn’t find the bus to my friend’s town. Turns out that there was some type of tour going on that day so all but one of the normal buses were not running the route. Waited an hour and got a bus going towards Nueva Ocotopeque, where I got off at the road for his town. From there, I luckily ran into some other volunteers who were going to Luke’s house too, so we caught the little bus to his site and then walked to his house. It was a nice night, I got to see a lot of volunteers from the western part of the country, which I learned is VERY FAR from me. They stayed up a while but I was exhausted by about 9pm so just crashed on a air mattress and missed most of the party.

The next morning I woke up at 6am, thinking I could get a ride to the main highway with some of the other volunteers there, but that didn’t happen so I rode the little mini bus. I got a bit worried that the big bus was going to pass, in order to take me into the city of Nueva Ocotopeque because of the tours going on (Semana Santa approaching, people travel a lot), but about 30 minutes later a crappy-ish bus came by and took me there. I met a teacher while I was waiting for the bus and he showed me where to go to get a taxi into El Poy once we arrived in Nueva Ocotopeque. The taxi took me fairly close to the border, and then one of the other passengers was crossing the border too, so he walked me across. I ate a baleada (realizing that I probably wouldn’t get another baleada all week, as they are Honduran, and Salvadoreans eat more pupusas), and then realized I was in El Salvador and hadn’t even realized it. Supposedly they stop you and you must show ID, but no one said anything to me as I had walked by. I walked a bit further, maybe 5 minutes or so, arrived at the bus station, where 2 drivers fought to get me to ride with them, but I just left in the first bus for La Palma that departed shortly after. These buses were HUGE, like as big as the ones between the larger cities of Honduras. I guess I had expected a small busito. This bus could have taken me all the way to San Salvador, the capital, actually, which is good to know.

Anyways, about 30 minutes later we were in La Palma, and the driver dropped me off where he thought the church was located. I basically just asked several people and they pointed me there. La Palma is touristy but small, so luckily it wasn’t hard to find. I had told my friend Lisa from home, the one who invited me, that I’d meet them there for the church service. I arrived just at 10am when the service was to start, but actually it had started at 9am instead, miscommunication. (when have I ever been late for anything in Latin America??). Of course it caused a lot of commotion when I came in. I quickly saw Lisa and then met her parents, and the others in the group/ I’d say that around 25 or so Americans were there to help with the trip. Not everyone helped with the medical brigade, some helped with the school that the church sponsors and the Biblical institute (for preachers) there too. Anyways, I was exhausted and so didn’t get a lot out of the lesson. We had lunch afterwards at a chain fast-food restaurant and I immediately started my role as translator. A woman in the group wanted to take a church family out to lunch, and I was invited as the translator.

Now I would like to clarify that I can speak Spanish fairly well, but there are certain topics that were not covered in my UNC classes nor Peace Corps training. Fast food vocab, for example, sometimes alludes me. I really don’t know how to explain the difference in chicken nuggets and chicken strips, and chicken thighs just had me pointing to my own legs to explain what we wanted to the cashier. I soon found out during the week that medical vocab was difficult too. I had never learned words for kidney, rashes, and much less, vocab words for the female reproduction system that are super vague, used by really embarrassed aldea/village women. My favorite example of this is when I was translating for a nurse and the “patient” got about 3 inches from my face and said she had some itching in “la parte” which translates to “the part,” and so I’m like, “which part” and she got red and was like, the lower part, and then it clicked. I also learned slang words for back, legs, etc, but not after feeling completely confused each time.

Ok, so back to the details on the brigade week. Sunday afternoon a small group visited a community in the mountains but they didn’t need extra translators so I stayed in town. It was great, I was exhausted from all the traveling, so I got to walk around with Lisa to the souvenir shops (the artesania there is amazing), central park, etc. I met the 2 Peace Corps volunteers there, and we ate pupusas and enchiladas. I went to a small store with Lisa to buy snacks for the week and found COKE ZERO. I mean, that is quite the find in La Esperanza, 3 hours from my site, so I couldn’t believe that it was for sale just across the street from the hotel. And the hotel? Beautiful. It had the typical art style on the walls, with hammocks everywhere, a pool, a beautiful view, and we had our meals there which were good too. I was in a room with 3 other women and a shared bathroom, rarely hot water though L The weather was chilly a few days so I actually really would have enjoyed that.

We began each day fairly early, leaving the hotel around 7:30am. The first 2 days, Monday and Tuesday, we were in San Jose, and the next 2 days in San Ignacio, both nearby municipalities to La Palma. From what I could see, the poverty definately didn’t touch what I’ve seen in Camasca, but we were also in the town centers which tend to be a bit more wealthy. The flow of the brigade was this—a long line of people waiting to register their basic info, then they’d wait a while before coming to triage, where I was. We had 4 nurses/medical folks doing basical medical histories and an overview of what was going on, and sometimes we could treat them with basic meds and we’d send them directly to the “pharmacy.” If it was more serious, we had a Salvadorean dentist (2 on one of the days), Salvadorean doctor, American doctor, and an American nurse practitioner in gynecology.  I would say 80% or more of the consults were basic allergy symptoms, body pains from lots of physical work, growing pains, and urinary tract infections. I had to tell 2 women they were pregnant which I really did not like doing. One girl was 15 and the other maybe 20, but I don’t think either was married or prepared to take care of a baby.

We’d work from about 8:30 until 3 or 4pm without any real breaks. We could take short breaks to snack and go to the bathroom, but we didn’t have real lunch, which I wasn’t a fan of, I need fuel to translate! I was so so exhausted at the end of each day. I speak Spanish all day long in my site but I’m not constantly translating between English and Spanish which is another thing, and this is the kind of thing you want to get translated correctly. We’d be finished with dinner by 7ish and then we were free to do whatever. Sometimes I went to bed right after. One night we walked to the park and hung out. Another night we went to a church member’s house across town and had delicious pupusas (cornmeal-ish stuff with cheese, sometimes beans, other stuff inside, delicious). Thursday night, the last night I was there, we went to one of the guys’ family’s house and had a traditional meal which was awesome, and then visited another church member and then hung outside the hotel for a while. Nothing wild, but it was nice to see a new place and meet new people. I enjoyed talking to the girl who used to be a Peace Corps volunteer 4 years ago there, did a couple years teaching at the American School in San Sal, and is now in the USA but came back to help and visit her old town. Also met a guy from El Sal who went to Harding University, a school affiliated with my home church, and knew some of my friends from Charlotte. Small world! I left Friday morning, luckily getting a ride from the preacher in Nueva Ocotopeque.

NUEVA OCOTOPEQUE

This city gets a bad rap from all the guide books but I really like it. It’s super far from my site, to be clear, but it’s right near the borders of El Sal and Guatemala, and the town is fairly large. I stayed with the volunteer who is Sinuapa, the town right beside there, and she showed me around, we ate pupusas (by this point I didn’t want any more pupusas!) and hung out at her house. That night we met a friend of her’s who used to be a PC volunteer but was back visiting her cute Honduran bf. We had baleadas at the park, which was really nice, and then we got convinced to go to the local karaoke bar. It was so fun though! We didn’t stay long enough to do karaoke (supposedly one of our guy friends did a drunken rendition of Proud Mary, sorry we missed that), but we just talked and the music was great. Plus one of their friends was feeling generous and bought rounds of drinks for everyone, which was nice, although I had to get up early the next morning so couldn’t enjoy it too much. We got back around 12pm, and then I had to get up super early to get the bus back to San Pedro. It’s funny because Meredith told me that I should wait by the police stop and they’d tell me what I needed to know about the buses and that they were friendly. She didn’t exaggerate–they were SO friendly! I had a long convo with one of them, he offered me coffee, and then gave me a huge bag of cojotes, these little fruits that I actually don’t like but are in season now. When I got on the bus, it was completely full, which was bad because it was a 5 hour trip and I was so tired and didn’t think I could stand the whole time. I started asking around me and turns out one guy was getting off pretty soon, so he said I could have his seat afterwards, and I gave him the bag of cojotes, which he seemed fairly pleased about. Changed buses in San Pedro (thought I would die at this point, so tired and tired of buses), got some Pizza Hut, and hopped on a bus to La Esperanza.

April 11, 2010

GOODBYE PARTY-LA ESPERANZA

It was one of the first of many despedidas in La Esperanza. I arrived in La Esperanza that Saturday late afternoon, and had to get a taxi to the center in order to finish some errands. I then went to Robynn’s house, the volunteer there, and made Rice Krispie treats, showered, and relaxed a bit. Everyone else was around town but came over so we could eat some cupcakes and rice krispies (not an everyday thing in Honduras!), and then we got dinner at Fogon. It was originally a party for Angus, a friend who is heading back in about a week to the USA, but then we added on another volunteer too, so it was a double despedida. It was kind of a strange night. It was fun, dancing and all, mainly with the girls, and my friend Ana and another friend from Camasca came too, but then the guys left without telling us, and then my shoe broke, so I had to dance barefoot (so lucky my feet came out fine!) and then walk back super slow to account for the broken shoe. The next morning a group of us went to the best baleada place ever, across town, and then we said our goodbyes. It was sad! I know I’ll see Angus again because he’s from Chapel Hill but it is still sad to say goodbye to volunteers who welcomed you in.

THE MOVE

So I mentioned before that I had to move out of my houses. I thought I had found a place right across the street but I didn’t feel safe with a shared bathroom with random people that come through (she uses the other rooms like a hotel). So then I thought I had found  a different place near the basketball court, great location, I got the approval from PC so I had a bit more money to use, and it’d be mainly private. Well I went to move in the day I got back from the goodbye party and it was infested with bats, and I was trying to get the bat crap off the walls and couldn’t, and I had a breakdown. I just started sobbing right there! I just couldn’t imagine myself living there. Plus the pila hadn’t been cleaned for me so that was a huge effort, scrubbing the mold and other nastiness. (Imagine a large water basin full of water, just sitting for months). I called Robynn and she talked to me until I calmed down. She gave me great advice, to move in with my host mom Yolanda until I figured it all out. I called my counterpart and she was great too. I went over to her place for lunch and then she went house shopping with me. I found a great place near her house that had 2 bedrooms, a living area, and an actual kitchen, and for my price range too. The big catch was that it was super far from the town, like a 20 minute walk. My town is small so that’s a hike! I really like being around people too, and its more isolated, and I also like walking around town later in the evening sometimes. Supposedly it is really safe to walk there at night but I’d always feel nervous. We checked out a few other places but didn’t have any success. I’ve determined it is SUPER difficult to find housing in my town, especially because lots of students rent rooms and the school year has already started. Its crazy to me that my friend Sarah, in the closest town over, pays about what I can pay, and has a huge house. Or that in my friend Angus’ site, similar, he pays half of what I can pay and has a house. I know that I don’t need to compare, every site is different, and Camasca just isn’t that developed, but it is still frustrating.

So right now I live with Yolanda. I have part of an upstairs room, no real door but curtains and a partition. It’s actually fine, and she said I could live here as long as I need to. Since I lived here before, the bathrooms and pila have been moved upstairs which is nice and better for the middle of the night runs. The roof is like the house I almost moved in, with the big clay tiles, but it is lined, and as far as I know, they’ve never had bats here. (no bat crap on the walls, at least, haha). I talked to my landlord today and he wants to the kitchen stuff out of the upstairs common area, which is ridiculous because people have cooked there for years, and now he wants the space to put furniture. I understand he wants to get moved in and settled, but Andy is still paying to live there another month. It was also going to be convenient for me to keep my kitchen stuff there for a month while I figure out where to move, and I could cook there too. Yolanda says I can cook here but its just awkward. We’ll see how it goes, its temporary, gotta remember that.

SEMANA SANTA

Well not too much to report here. In case you don’t know, Semana Santa is the Holy Week leading up to Easter. Most businesses, schools, etc are closed all week, and lots of people go to the beach or the river to swim. The last days of the week, Thurs and Fri, often include religious processions. I had planned on going to Comayagua on Thursday to see the traditional processions and colored dust carpets they make, but the whole moving out situation took over most of the week. I was going to store some big things at the church that didn’t fit in Yolanda’s house, but the preacher was gone the whole day I was going to do it, so didn’t do that until Thursday, the day I was supposed to leave. I was having to rely on people with trucks to help me, so when they took forever to get ready, stopped to talk, etc, it made us finish way later. Plus I didn’t want to just dump all my stuff at Yolanda’s, I know she likes things orderly.

So what did I do during Semana Santa? I packed and unpacked, went to the river on Wednesday with a few families in town, moved in more, hung out a lot with visiting family members, went to an all-night vigil, a 2 year old bday party, nd went to Colomoncagua to visit my friend Sarah. Wednesday afternoon I got invited by some neighbors (where I used to live) to go to the river, which was really fun. The river is in an aldea about 20 minutes away, connected to Camasca by an awful, rough, road. But the river is nice, and we swam in a part that is more still and quite rocky. They brought food, drinks, and we just messed around in the river all afternoon. It was fairly hot though, so I didn’t swim as much as I wanted to because I was hiding in the shade. My counterpart and the mayor came later so it was nice to see them. You’ll have to check out facebook to see pics of the river and also the bridge we went on that is super high and connects my department with the next department over. It’s made of wooden slats, the kind of unsteady bridge you could fall through with one wrong step. Making you nervous? I WAS nervous but had to go to prove myself

One thing that was nice about being in town for the vacation was that a lot of family members were home from Tegus, San Pedro, etc. A lot of college kids were home, and the family members I had met over Christmas break came too, so that was a lot of fun. One night there was a small party and I got to hang out with some of the younger people who are from Camasca but no longer live here. Thursday afternoon I went to a vigil at my church, which started around 7pm and ended around 12:30. I couldn’t take it, I was so sleepy, so I left a little bit early. They had singing, Bible reading, etc, but I don’t remember it being very Easter-related. Friday morning I waited for 2 hours to get a ride to Sarah’s town, Colomoncagua, about 45 minutes by car from my site and super close to the border with El Salvador (but La Palma is on the other side of the country where El Sal and Honduras meet again, so not close at all). FINALLY a car passed and took me to Colo, where they have one of the strangest traditions ever….The Running of the Jews.

One of the strangest parts about this tradition is that no one seems to know what’s really going on. The procession looks normal from the back, different groups of people holding Jesus or Mary images and surrounded by church members walking, with people on the sides watching and taking pictures. The Colo band plays at the back of the procession. But then you hear screams and see that at the front of the procession line, there are maybe 40 or so people dressed up ridiculously, fighting each other with machetes. These are the “Jews,” and in the first performance they are fighting each other, but then at the afternoon performance it seemed as if they were fighting against a Pope-like figure. (and where is this in the Bible?). So I don’t know if the worst part is how unbiblical the whole thing is. It’s not as if they are even fighting Jesus, which would maybe make more sense, but they fight each other..with machetes that say “God is love.” Or maybe the worst part is that the Jews are so ridiculously dressed—skanky crossdressers, people in police or school uniforms, etc, but all with masks, some of them really scary (once again, must look at facebook pics, and eventually I’ll upload video). I mean, I can’t imagine anything like this EVER taking place in the USA, its so offensive to Jews and even Christians, like myself. I doubt any of them have ever met a Jew in their lives so wonder if they actually believe Jews dress or look like that. I’ve learned to not give people a lot of credit at first here, because sometimes the lack of education is astounding.

So I came back this morning early and slept in my new room, organized some more, and tried to prepare for next week’s tasks. I need to get some things done but rainy season has started, I suppose, so its pouring right now. Will likely go to the Catholic service tonight, although I doubt I can make it all night for this one either. Tomorrow we have church in the morning, but today is really the last day of the festivities. It’s just like I remember it in Spain, that Easter Sunday wasn’t a big deal. And as I always said before, the crucifixion is of course important, but isn’t the resurrection at the end the triumphant part of the story, that gives us hope and reminds us that our God defeated sin and death?

Ok so I’m maybe helping with some English classes next week, will now try to venture out in the rain to meet with the teacher in charge (of course I got several calls last week asking about the course, which I had no idea about, and I was supposedly giving the class last week. Not sure if they realize this or not, but I like to be asked about these things, and with more than an hour notice).

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Packing for my trip to El Salvador! Leaving tomorrow early morning for La Esperanza because I want to see a women’s group led by a volunteer there. Saturday morning I’m leaving and getting myself all the way to Ocotopeque, the most western part of Honduras. My route: La Esperanza to San Juan, San Juan to Gracias, Gracias to Santa Rosa de Copan, Santa Rosa to Sinuapa, Sinuapa to El Poy (El Salvador), El Poy to La Palma. In all, Camasca to La Palma= 7 buses. Bring it.

So the big news of the past 2 weeks is that I am moving. I love where I live, but my landlord told me last Thursday that I had until the end of March to find a place, because he needs my room. His mother is really sick and they live in a tiny house, so the family (landlord, wife, 2 kids) are all moving into the room I lived in, and his relatives are going to have more space to take care of his mom in his old house. I got a little teary today packing because I really like my neighborhood here, there is always something going on and I love just chatting with my neighbors. Also the amenities are great. No other place in Camasca has running water and a tank so there is always water, and the floors and walls are great. Anyways, I’ve been super stressed because I didn’t know where to look and really didn’t have time to do it, since I’m leaving for El Salvador for a week. Also, I couldn’t find anything for my price limit, 1500 lempiras. I called my boss and she said that she could process my request quickly and it seemed likely I’d get the increase. I’d always heard this process was difficult so I’m super thankful I got approved quickly.

I really liked a place across the street from me because it had tile floors, glass windows, a nice kitchen space, etc. But she was going to charge me 2000 lempiras and I had to share a bathroom with random people that would stay for the night, as a hotel. I talked to the guy who lived there before me and he said that had bothered him, and especially as a female, I might dislike it a lot. I remember a few nights random people stayed at my house where I’m at now, and I hated having to use it after them, since they’d leave it dirty. My neighbor told me that this lady had another bathroom outside that maybe she’d let me use exclusively, but it turned out to be a latrine, and even though my neighbors acted like I was snobby to say this, I don’t want to squat on a latrine for the next year and a half if there are other options, sorry. I can deal without running water, outside bathrooms, bucket baths, etc, but one thing I like is a comfy toilet seat! And most people in Camasca (in the actual town, not the aldeas) have toilets, not latrines, so it wasn’t outrageous that I wanted a real toilet. Anyways, I thought about it more and more and realized I really did want my own bathroom, or at least to share it with people I know, like my housing situation now.

So I continued to look, asking random people, and I remembered visiting a house of a teacher a few weeks ago by the basketball court. I dropped by again and got the landlord’s info, as the teacher was moving out since he had just built a new house, and the landlord met Andy and I there a few days ago. Ok, so here’s the ending to the story, I picked this house. It is a gray concrete house with a porch with black bars, and I think I’ll put a hammock out front. The inside is just one big room, but Im going to try to split it up with curtains. The floor is like clay tiles or cobblestones, a bit strange, with adobe walls, and a clay tile roof. And bats. Gotta get rid of those somehow. The owner said I could paint, too, so maybe I’ll paint the inside a cool green or blue, and the bathrooms as well. So the bathroom is outside—one structure that has the toilet on one side and a basically empty room on the other for showers. The water comes once a day, in the afternoon, so if I catch it at the right time I can take a shower, otherwise, it will be bucket baths, which I’m used to taking now. You have to put water in the toilet to flush it, which is the norm for Camasca. In the backyard there is also a pila, I’ll put some clotheslines up, and then 3 other rooms  accessible by the back yard that I don’t think he’ll rent, hoping not. (they would come in from a gate out back, not passing through my room) The owner lives in an aldea and comes in town about once a week, and uses one of the rooms, and has his horse in the backyard which is cool. I’m excited about having a place to put plants and maybe herbs in the back, and maybe I can figure out some pretty potted plants to have on the porch. My landlord is quite Honduran, he takes forever to get out the important info and is late and all, but super friendly and I think he’ll be a good landlord. Plus the preacher and the church is next door, and he is always willing to help me with things, and is a handy man, which is great since I’ll be alone and I really can’t fix things well. I’m also closer to the colegio, which I’ve been visiting more frequently, as well as the PESA office and the alcaldia. My town is basically one line, in this order:

Iris’ house-colegio-soccer field–new house-bball court-church-PESA-alcaldia-host fam house-town diner-old house

I had seriously considered one other house which is between my host familys house and the town diner/restaurant. It was really cool and would be a neat Peace Corps house. It had five small rooms/compartments, but they were so strangely shaped. Like super narrow and it was hard to imagine what to do with each space. There was also not much lighting and I was afraid I’d get depressed. It is a lot closer to my old house and neighborhood, which was appealing. It is a bit tricky to get to because it is rocky and I worried about slipping during rainy season, and moving in itself would have been hard. It did have its own bathroom and pila though, so I wouldn’t be sharing with anyone. It was a tough choice and I think I could have been happy in either house.

So the plan is to move my stuff the first days of Semana Santa, and then I think I’m going to Comayagua with Sarah, the closest volunteer to my site, to see a traditional procession they do there.

What else? Getting the funding for the abstinence program has been a nightmare. We need to open a bank account in the community in order to have the funds deposited, and it has to be in the name of a Honduran and myself, and the Honduran has to be present with me. Well, we spent a good bit of time yesterday at the cooperative bank in town, before realizing eventually that we couldn’t do it there because they don’t accept funds from the USA. So today we went to the bank in town and it was closed because we were out of power all day, and they also said we couldn’t do it there. So now I’m stuck because how will I organize myself and my counterpart to get to La Esperanza at the same time, if that’s where we need to go? Really difficult, and I want to get started right after Semana Santa. I will likely start without the funds and then just be reimbursed, which isn’t ideal but can work.

I helped with a medical brigade last week in La Esperanza. It was fine but they didn’t really need all of us to translate, which was frustrating because they had made it sound like they really needed help, and I could have better used my time at another brigade in another town. But it was nice to see other Americans, some were returned Peace Corps volunteers, and to see other communities. I also visited the school in the community I’ll be working at, called La Hacienda Santa Lucia. I arrived with the school director in his car, and I met with him and the teacher to explain the project, and he seemed very interested. Haven’t decided about my teacher partner yet, she is hard to read, but at least friendly. I will be teaching 2 groups of 5^th and 6^th grade girls starting after Semana Santa, for 7 weeks (2 classes/week). It is one of the poorest communities and I am excited to get started. Getting back was annoying because the kindergarten teacher who was going to give me a ride didn’t come that day, and I didn’t want to wait until afternoon with the other teachers, so I walked to the main road (5 minute walk according to one guy, a teacher told me 45 minutes., it was actually about 10) and then waited an HOUR until a car came by that took me to Camasca. Hope I don’t have to repeat that! One funny thing that happened was when the director told me one group of kids didn’t have the teacher yet because she was running errands somewhere, and could I please attend to them? I thought it’d be a simple supervision process, them working quietly, but it didn’t go that way. The director looked at me and said, cant you do a charla (short talk on certain issues) or something, and walked away. So somehow I ended up teaching the alphabet, and the teacher didn’t even come that day.

Ok I’m sleepy, off to bed.