Poco a poco

¡Hola!  Things are still going well, and I feel like I’ve been here a lot longer than a week.

All the trainees (aspirantes) are dispersed in villages in and around our training site, and there are 7 of us in my barrio.  It’s a really nice setup because the houses are all close together, and pretty much everyone is related, so we do a lot of things together.  Several of us like to run, so we went Monday after training… the problem is that we live on the side of a mountain, and the road goes straight up.  I think we made it about 50 yards, no exaggeration.  We “hiked” the rest of the way up, with some great views of the villages and of Tegucigalpa.  But I never really caught my breath, and when I got back to the house, my stomach was not having it.

My host mom kindly pointed out that it was silly of me to run up a mountain when I’d already been sick from the altitude, and I have to agree.  Still, I want to push  myself because I’m probably going to be in the mountains for my entire time here.   The good thing is I’ve felt fine ever since, and I walked up the mountain again yesterday with no problem.

On another note, I am completely spoiled by my host family.  Not in the obvious sense, although they do have a TV and electroducha (warm shower), but most importantly because they run the neighborhood purified water business.  From my limited experience in the developing world, I would say having access to drinkable water is the top priority… moreso than a flush toilet or shower.  Having a water cooler here takes a huge stress out of the experience, and I’ll surely be spoiled in a few weeks when we move to our business training site.

Speaking of the TV, it’s been really fun to watch shows and attempt to discuss them with my family.  I watch cartoons with Andrea Pequeña, and chick flicks or novelas  (soap operas) with my host mom.  If you’re not familiar with novellas, they’re crazy: in about 30 minutes, two new couples hooked up, a mom on her deathbed told her son who his real father was, and a woman was reborn after being cryogenically frozen.  I’ve also been watching the Spanish version of Around the Horn on ESPN and found some college b-ball, so I’m hopeful that UNC-Duke will be on here on Sunday.

Training has been going well.  We started meeting with the business team this week, and it sounds like all the business volunteers here have multiple projects that include working with small businesses or NGOs, giving trainings to adults in accounting and basic computer skills, and reaching out to youth at local schools.  This makes me really happy because I think I’ll be more successful if I get involved in lots of different things (i..e when one project is slow/frustrating, maybe another will be going well, so I won’t get as discouraged).  We also have a lot of input into our projects and site placement – I think much more than most PC volunteers.

My Spanish is better than I gave myself credit for, but I still feel really hindered by the language barrier.  A lot of times there are things that I want to say but I don’t know the vocabulary or sentence structure.  Also, for those familiar with Spanish, they don’t really use “tu” here, only “usted” and the ever-frustrating “vos.”  So it’s one of those “take everything you’ve learned and throw it out the window” situations.  Also, Hondurans have their own words for a lot of things; for example, a pen is a lapiz, and there’s another word for beer.  But I can definitely function, and we just started formal language classes, so it’s only uphill from here.  (Uphill in a good sense, as opposed to my “run”, which was uphill in a bad sense.)

¡Cheque!