January 27, 2011
I’ll continue telling you every detail about my daily life in Honduras, because I know it is oh-so-interesting…
I received some bad news that a friend of mine in Peace Corps had an assault in her town this week, which has been hard for me to deal with. I think sometimes as volunteers we forget that there is a real risk present in our lives here. This was a good friend of mine, so it makes me very angry and sad for her at the same time. I guess all we can do is try to be safe and keep working in our communities.
This week I’ve continued to work on the latrines and floors project in San Juan de Dios. We had a meeting on Monday to talk about how we are going to manage the funds once they arrive. When we wrote the proposal, we had assumed that the carpenters from the town would be in charge, but then we realized that we really need someone to supervise. I had planned on being in the community for the week of construction but I need someone with me who knows about carpentry, and also it would be preferable to have someone from Camasca that they will listen to. For instance, sometimes beneficiaries of projects will want to use the leftover cement for other projects in their homes, and not that this is so bad, but the money is for floors, so we’d like to use any leftover cement for floors in other homes. I’m not sure I would be able to notice that people are using it for other projects, and if I did, it would be hard for me to confront them. So anyways, I talked to the mayor and I think that the mayor’s office is going to pay for the same carpenter who has been monitoring the project so far (the floors and latrines that were built with money from COSUDE and the mayor’s office) to stay on for 2 more weeks to help me. What a relief. I’m going back to the community this afternoon with the carpenter to meet with the beneficiaries to organize them into groups to work. Supposedly it is a lot faster to work that way than individually, and they are a bit behind schedule. If the money comes in two weeks as promised, I’d guess that we’d have the floors done by the end of March!
Tuesday was Dia de la Mujer in Honduras. Not sure if it extended to other parts of Latin America, but at least here it was celebrated nationally. I didn’t even know about it until the day before when someone randomly mentioned it to me. It’s kind of interesting since I’ve been trying to work with the Women’s Office for a while, and have offered my help with whatever, and I didn’t even know about this event…? Oh well. Of course I sneak in the back and hope to also sneak out early, once I realize it will be an all-morning event, but no, they spot me and I am called to the Mesa Principal in the front. No hope for escape. There was a musical group from another town, mainly playing ranchera music, and they weren’t bad. We started two hours late so I had an hour to enjoy them (I’m assimilating culturally and now arrive an hour late to all events, which still makes me one of the first to arrive). The mayor then was asked to give a few words, which means he spoke for about 45 minutes. He is a good speaker so I don’t mind too much, I just sometimes amazed at the tangents, such as how we shouldn’t let political parties divide us…aren’t we talking about Women’s Day? Then the Women’s Office coordinator spoke for just a few minutes about how women’s rights have changed in Honduras, which was a plus. Then there was a raffle and they gave out a huge container of groceries (which that poor woman will now have to carry to her community an hour away), and then we had tamales, coffee, and more music.
Oh, how could I forget? There was a skit halfway through the ceremony, and these masked teenagers came out to perform something. As soon as I saw them, I excused myself to the bathroom, because I know enough to predict that they will be really awkward and everyone will die laughing and I’ll be confused (I’ve been to a lot of cultural events in Camasca and these guys pop up a lot). So I come back at least 10 minutes later and the coast is clear, and I take my seat in the “Table of Honor” again. The musicians start up again, and oh no, I see one of these masked guys dancing his way up front, and I know he is going to get me. Yep, the next thing I know, he has grabbed my arm and will not listen to me say no, and he is dancing with me…in front of everyone, probably 200 people from my town. No, no one else is dancing, just the creepy masked teenager and the gringa. That’s the thing, if everyone was dancing, I wouldn’t mind, because I’d just be taking part in a community event, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, ever. I always am the first to be singled out, and then it’s just me dancing in front of everyone. Good thing I am an expert ranchera dancer now.
What else? I went to a community yesterday to observe them building stoves. The funds are from an NGO that works in our area, and the beneficiaries are members of a women’s group. The house they did the example stove at was quite poor, and I walked around back to see the stove they had been using before. Well, there wasn’t a stove really. They had a fire going right above the ground and a flat piece of metal to put pots and tortillas on. The smoke coming from it was unbearable, my nose was burning from just being there a minute or two. I can’t imagine standing in front of that almost all day long. The new stoves are built up with bricks and cement and have a chimney that directs the smoke out of the house. For families like this, it will make a HUGE difference. I was feeling positive and motivated and then my ride left me on the way back and I had to walk, which was annoying but luckily it was only about 30 minutes and mostly downhill. The path to Camasca from that community ends at Iris’ house, so I spent the afternoon with her. I always feel better about life after spending time with her. She gave me lunch and coffee and bread and then I fell asleep on her sofa for an hour. She always offers me a bed to rest on, and the day before I had taken her up on the offer, but today I thought I’d just watch TV for a bit (wrong! I was asleep in 5 minutes). Really, I know I sound like lazy and ridiculous, but between the hours of 12 and 3, I can physically not handle the sun and the heat. When I try to do any work at that time, I feel dizzy and am basically useless. So why not be curled up on the couch talking to my counterpart…or sleeping?
Also I have been working with Iris to organize used clothes for poor families in our church and aldeas. We were going to give bags of clothes to 3 different aldeas but we realized we don’t have enough clothing, so I think we’ll just do families in the church and then families in San Juan, since I’m working there.
That’s all, until next time.
Later on January 27, 2011
Just ate dinner, and earlier today I was in San Juan for the meeting. We are trying to implement a group model to the construction so that the work is done more quickly and that everyone has an equal opportunity to have the work done. It isn’t that the work is complex, just that it is difficult physical labor for someone who is older or not in good health. There is one old lady in the group who is most feisty little viejita ever. Her name is Petrona and she always has something to say. Today she said that she really was behind the group method because when she had a latrine put in (part of the same project), she had to pay people to do the work, and she had to drink her coffee without sugar and went without eating beans that week to pay for it. The daily fee for a worker is only 150 lempiras (like 7 dollars) a day but when you are poor, that’s a lot! She said her daughter said that she is old and about to die and why does she need a new floor, considering what she’d have to pay for someone to do the work. But she said that just because she was old didn’t mean she didn’t deserve a nice floor to die on instead of the dirt. I think she is my new favorite person.
Also, today we received the news that COSUDE is going to pay for 31 more houses to get cement floors! What great news, that almost covers the entire community.
PS—other lesson learned today: always check the toilet for mosquitos before you sit down…
