I have officially finished my first week in site, and man am I exhausted! The week basically consisted of me being dragged tons of places and meeting tons of people. I've also had 2 sick days... one with a head cold, and today with food posioning, but we won't get into that.
Monday the colegio (high school) had a welcome event for us with the music class. They sang both the Honduran and US national anthems, as well as ¨that's what friends are for.¨ My sitemate and I both had to give speeches, and it ended up getting out that we were both musicians. By the end of the morning, we had joined the staff chorus, agreed to perform a duet for the Dia de Estudiante celebration, and played piano on the spot while a teacher videotaped.
The municipality informed me that my first day of work would be out in the aldeas (i.e. the middle of nowhere) administering wat/san evaluations. So I got up early on Tuesday morning and rode up to the top of a mountain. I was developing a head cold, so we stopped for ¨special tea¨ before splitting up into pairs. I trudged through the mountains with a campesino, visiting each house and filling out a questionnaire about the sanitation system and latrines. Hence, my day as a wat/san volunteer.
I was supposed to go back out Wednesday, but my cold was worse and I wasn't up for trudging through the campo for 10 hours. I slept most of the day, and just when I was getting comfortable, my sitemate and I were whisked off to the local TV station for a 30 minute live interview. One thing I've learned in Honduras is that people love to plan things for you, but they never tell you until the last minute.
This interview was quite possibly the most awkwardly entertaining and embarrassing 30 minutes of my life. The show was... modestly produced, and included us sitting at a desk in front of a camcorder, with a monitor down below. I found myself looking at the monitor a lot, which meant that on the actual camera I pretty much looked like an idiot. They interviewed us and played the video from our welcome ceremony, and then closed with the video of each of us playing the piano. Que desastre...
At first, I thought, ¨what's the harm... I bet no one saw it,¨ but just about everyone I've met since has brought it up.
Thursday, we had the health fair at the colegio, where I worked the ¨brushing your teeth¨ charla, passing out toothpaste and toothbrushes to the kids, most of whom had seen me on TV the night before and wanted to talk about it. It ended up being a lot of fun. We met a few guys from the NGO World Vision, who invited us to a training on Friday at the balneario. We got to relax and observe the training, and also swam with the kids and played games in the pouring rain. Not a bad way to end the week!
This weekend was great, pre-food-poisoning. I spent some time with the bilingual school director here and some of the American teachers. Saturday morning I walked all around town, stopped by the market, and took a bunch of pictures. Then, my sitemate and I went to Siguatepeque with her counterpart and got to see the supermercado that we'll be shopping at for the next 2 years. I was supposed to go to the lake yesterday with a group of teachers and volunteers, but alas, my stomach would not allow it. Sad.
Overall, I'd say I'm still getting settled in and trying to get a feel for what my work will be. My first project will probably be making a website for the town, which several different people have asked me about. I am also looking to start a girls soccer team at the colegio, because the girls are really interested and there's currently nothing available. We are also starting an exercise group for women... tonight! Hopefully I will feel well enough to go.
I'm also very excited to get more involved with my NGO, Plan International. They are about to start a brand new socioeconomic development project in Intibuca, so I will get to see the entire project from start to finish. Hoepfully I can spend the next month learning more about the project so I'll be ready when it kicks off in July.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Soy Voluntaria del Cuerpo de Paz!
It's offical... I am a Peace Corps volunteer! There is so much to report that I don't even know where to begin, and I am working on a very frustrating keyboard, so vamos a ver how this goes.
We had our swearing in ceremony on Friday at the US Embassy in Teguz. Everyone was all dressed up, and even though it rained, the event went really well. Our counterparts (work partners from our organizations) came to meet us in the morning, and we spent the day chatting and going through introductory activities. The vice mayor and another employee of my municipality came, and we ate lunch with my sitemate and her health counterpart. The most awkward moment was when we asked them what our site needs the most help with, and they said ¨clean water.¨ (Remember that our training group includes business, health, and water/sanitation volunteers... you can see why this was a conversation killer.)
The ceremony itself included speeches from our country director, the ambassador, and volunteers. I conducted the US national anthem, which we had to sing acapella - and we did a pretty good job if I do say so myself! We took lots of pictures and then stayed for a nice dinner in Teguz before returning to our host families to pack.
Yesterday, my counterparts picked me up in their car (thank goodness they brought a car! some volunteers had to take the bus), and we drove in to my site. It took about 3 hours, and I was exhausted. We immediately went over to the municipality, where I met just about everyone in the world, including the mayor. I'm going over there bright and early tomorrow to meet with them and develop a work plan, and we're also getting some sort of formal welcome from the escuela.
My first impression of my site has been a really good one. My host family is absolutely WONDERFUL... they have been taking me all over the town, and today we went to one of the nearby balnearios (basically a bunch of pools), where I actually got in the water and went down a surprisingly scary water slide. I also went to church with them this morning and spent 2 hours helping an old woman find and read verses in her Bible. (You know you're in Peace Corps when...)
Yesterday they gave me a walking tour of town, and I went back out again today with my sitemate, so I'm starting to feel better oriented. The city itself is large, but not very developed, with only the central roads being paved. The colegio where I'll be working is closeby, and they have a track where I can go running. They are hosting a health fair this Thursday, so we will be hitting the ground running! (no pun intended) We have also learned that the municipality has a band, so I am eager to help out with that.
There are 2 bilingual schools here and a lot of medical brigades and church missions that come through, so the town is really receptive and helpful to foreigners. It's a nice vibe because tourists don't really come through here, so people tend to respect the foreigners that live here without staring at us like we're aliens. We've already met several American and Canadian teachers from the bilingual schools, and there is a volunteer here from the Japanese equivalent of Peace Corps. My first impression is that the presence of other gringos will be an asset, but of course it will be a challenge to balance that time and not spend too much time hanging out and speaking English!
Of course, these are all my impressions after only 2 days here. I'm sure things will change as time goes on. Other good things about my site so far: There are 3 fairly nice parks as well as a supermercado. Also, Intibuca is the only department in Honduras that can grow strawberries, and my host family and I just ate strawberry ice cream with bananas for dinner. Yum!
In other news, the Honduran soccer championship game just ended, and people are screaming and parading through the streets. I also keep getting ¨viva Motagua¨ texts from random numbers. It sort of reminds me of SF when the Giants won the World Series. They do love their soccer around here...
We had our swearing in ceremony on Friday at the US Embassy in Teguz. Everyone was all dressed up, and even though it rained, the event went really well. Our counterparts (work partners from our organizations) came to meet us in the morning, and we spent the day chatting and going through introductory activities. The vice mayor and another employee of my municipality came, and we ate lunch with my sitemate and her health counterpart. The most awkward moment was when we asked them what our site needs the most help with, and they said ¨clean water.¨ (Remember that our training group includes business, health, and water/sanitation volunteers... you can see why this was a conversation killer.)
The ceremony itself included speeches from our country director, the ambassador, and volunteers. I conducted the US national anthem, which we had to sing acapella - and we did a pretty good job if I do say so myself! We took lots of pictures and then stayed for a nice dinner in Teguz before returning to our host families to pack.
Yesterday, my counterparts picked me up in their car (thank goodness they brought a car! some volunteers had to take the bus), and we drove in to my site. It took about 3 hours, and I was exhausted. We immediately went over to the municipality, where I met just about everyone in the world, including the mayor. I'm going over there bright and early tomorrow to meet with them and develop a work plan, and we're also getting some sort of formal welcome from the escuela.
My first impression of my site has been a really good one. My host family is absolutely WONDERFUL... they have been taking me all over the town, and today we went to one of the nearby balnearios (basically a bunch of pools), where I actually got in the water and went down a surprisingly scary water slide. I also went to church with them this morning and spent 2 hours helping an old woman find and read verses in her Bible. (You know you're in Peace Corps when...)
Yesterday they gave me a walking tour of town, and I went back out again today with my sitemate, so I'm starting to feel better oriented. The city itself is large, but not very developed, with only the central roads being paved. The colegio where I'll be working is closeby, and they have a track where I can go running. They are hosting a health fair this Thursday, so we will be hitting the ground running! (no pun intended) We have also learned that the municipality has a band, so I am eager to help out with that.
There are 2 bilingual schools here and a lot of medical brigades and church missions that come through, so the town is really receptive and helpful to foreigners. It's a nice vibe because tourists don't really come through here, so people tend to respect the foreigners that live here without staring at us like we're aliens. We've already met several American and Canadian teachers from the bilingual schools, and there is a volunteer here from the Japanese equivalent of Peace Corps. My first impression is that the presence of other gringos will be an asset, but of course it will be a challenge to balance that time and not spend too much time hanging out and speaking English!
Of course, these are all my impressions after only 2 days here. I'm sure things will change as time goes on. Other good things about my site so far: There are 3 fairly nice parks as well as a supermercado. Also, Intibuca is the only department in Honduras that can grow strawberries, and my host family and I just ate strawberry ice cream with bananas for dinner. Yum!
In other news, the Honduran soccer championship game just ended, and people are screaming and parading through the streets. I also keep getting ¨viva Motagua¨ texts from random numbers. It sort of reminds me of SF when the Giants won the World Series. They do love their soccer around here...
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Lapiz con Flor
Hola! It's amazing how fast time has passed. We got back from FBT yesterday and are gearing up for the last week of training. It was hard to leave Yuscaran in some ways, but I was so excited to see my old host family and my neighbors. Fiona (the puppy) is twice as big now, and it's wonderful to be back in a place where there is internet and it doesn't take 20 minutes to load espn.com.
However, I do not have spell check, so please forgive any errors in this, as I am rushing and do not have time to edit!
Now that we're back from business training, I'll try to give more details on the last few weeks as well as the town we were in. The advanced Spanish speakers got to design a community project for the 6 weeks, to work on while the rest of us had language classes. They interviewed businesses and community members throughout the town and made a tourism website: http://sites.google.com/site/puebloyuscaran/. Please visit to increase the site traffic! It's translated in both English and Spanish, and also a cool way to read a little more about where we were living.
For Semana Santa, there were religous processions every day, and we got to witness the making of an alfombra, which is a giant sawdust carpet. Alfombras are a big tradition in Honduras during Semana Santa. I will post pictures when I get the chance. I also went with my family to Teguz that Saturday-Sunday, and we stayed at the house where their 3 daughters live. It was a fun trip -- great to have a break from the daily grind. They gave me tours of a couple malls and drove me around the city. On Easter, we went to their evangelical church and then out for a fancy lunch at KFC. Nothing says Happy Easter like 5 hours of church and a bucket of fried chicken and biscuits!
During the long weekend, we had several gatherings and really bonded as a business group - as boring as we thought the town was at times, we really got into a social routine, and I will miss having everyone so closeby. Our group has a lot of strong personalites, which had the potential for distaster, but wound up being a whole lot of fun. There was never a dull moment.
Last week, we did a really fun and exhausting project called a business simulation at the local escuela. We split into teams and worked with four different classes of 6th graders for five days. The first day we gave them charlas on business topics, and then we had them design a business and a product to sell. We spent the rest of the week buying materials, working on production, and promoting and selling the product. It was a ton of work, but the kids loved it, and I had a lot of fun as well. My group sold lapiz con flor -- flower pens. We bought boxes of pens, ribbon, and bouquets of fake flowers, and taped them all together. The product was very impressive, if I do say so myself! In the end, we finshed 2nd, but we made over 700 lempiras in two days, and I was so proud of the kids!!
Now that I've rambled for a while, I will say that we received our site assignments today! They waited until the end of the day to tell us, and it was a very stressful hour of speculation when they were revealing everything. If you're wondering why I waited until the end of the post to mention this, you know exactly how we all felt when we were sitting through policy and technical sessions this morning and afternoon.
I will be in the department of Intibuca, which is in the mountains more toward the western part of the country. My site is meduim-large sized, about 10,000 people in the city center and 20,000 total. The work there sounds like a great fit for me - there is a large technical high schoool that is looking for help revising its business and finance curriculum, a network of caja rurales (small microfinance banks) operated by the municipal government, and a large NGO that works on economic development through food security. I will have a sitemate from the health group, which is not common (larger sites have multiple volunteers, but it's rare to have 2 from the same training group). Either way, it will be nice to have another American around.
My site has internet cafes and modem coverage, so hopefully I will get better at updating. It has been a very eventful day, and I am so excited to enjoy this last week and get to my site!
However, I do not have spell check, so please forgive any errors in this, as I am rushing and do not have time to edit!
Now that we're back from business training, I'll try to give more details on the last few weeks as well as the town we were in. The advanced Spanish speakers got to design a community project for the 6 weeks, to work on while the rest of us had language classes. They interviewed businesses and community members throughout the town and made a tourism website: http://sites.google.com/site/puebloyuscaran/. Please visit to increase the site traffic! It's translated in both English and Spanish, and also a cool way to read a little more about where we were living.
For Semana Santa, there were religous processions every day, and we got to witness the making of an alfombra, which is a giant sawdust carpet. Alfombras are a big tradition in Honduras during Semana Santa. I will post pictures when I get the chance. I also went with my family to Teguz that Saturday-Sunday, and we stayed at the house where their 3 daughters live. It was a fun trip -- great to have a break from the daily grind. They gave me tours of a couple malls and drove me around the city. On Easter, we went to their evangelical church and then out for a fancy lunch at KFC. Nothing says Happy Easter like 5 hours of church and a bucket of fried chicken and biscuits!
During the long weekend, we had several gatherings and really bonded as a business group - as boring as we thought the town was at times, we really got into a social routine, and I will miss having everyone so closeby. Our group has a lot of strong personalites, which had the potential for distaster, but wound up being a whole lot of fun. There was never a dull moment.
Last week, we did a really fun and exhausting project called a business simulation at the local escuela. We split into teams and worked with four different classes of 6th graders for five days. The first day we gave them charlas on business topics, and then we had them design a business and a product to sell. We spent the rest of the week buying materials, working on production, and promoting and selling the product. It was a ton of work, but the kids loved it, and I had a lot of fun as well. My group sold lapiz con flor -- flower pens. We bought boxes of pens, ribbon, and bouquets of fake flowers, and taped them all together. The product was very impressive, if I do say so myself! In the end, we finshed 2nd, but we made over 700 lempiras in two days, and I was so proud of the kids!!
Now that I've rambled for a while, I will say that we received our site assignments today! They waited until the end of the day to tell us, and it was a very stressful hour of speculation when they were revealing everything. If you're wondering why I waited until the end of the post to mention this, you know exactly how we all felt when we were sitting through policy and technical sessions this morning and afternoon.
I will be in the department of Intibuca, which is in the mountains more toward the western part of the country. My site is meduim-large sized, about 10,000 people in the city center and 20,000 total. The work there sounds like a great fit for me - there is a large technical high schoool that is looking for help revising its business and finance curriculum, a network of caja rurales (small microfinance banks) operated by the municipal government, and a large NGO that works on economic development through food security. I will have a sitemate from the health group, which is not common (larger sites have multiple volunteers, but it's rare to have 2 from the same training group). Either way, it will be nice to have another American around.
My site has internet cafes and modem coverage, so hopefully I will get better at updating. It has been a very eventful day, and I am so excited to enjoy this last week and get to my site!
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