Perdida

It's hard to believe I've been in Honduras over 6 months!  Time has really been flying, especially recently.

I just got back to site after a longer-than-planned vacation out west.  I went for the weekend, but ended up getting another bout of amoebas and had to stay longer (trust me, you do NOT want to take a bus down a bumpy dirt road when you have a stomach parasite!).  I was in touch with my host family, but I didn't communicate at all with my work partners and missed a whole week of work.  I was surprised (and perhaps a little offended) that no one called me to check in, but when I got back to work on Monday I had the following conversation with nearly every one of my coworkers.

Counterpart: ANDREA!!!  YOU ARE HERE!  YOU ARE ALIVE!

Me: Yes, I am here!  Sorry I haven't been in touch, I got sick with amoebas again.

Counterpart: SICK!  We thought we had lost you!

Me: Lost?  That's ridiculous.  I'm right here.

Counterpart: What a relief!  I was sure you were gone.  I searched and searched for you, went all over Honduras, and asked the police.  And when I didn't find you I figured you had gone back to the states!

Me: Why didn't you call me to check in?

Counterpart: I was supposed to call you?

It's funny, I talked to several PC volunteers before I left and they all mentioned how hard it is to convey experiences to people back in the states.  And it's true.  This above conversation, while completely normal for volunteers, probably sounds ridiculous to someone outside of Peace Corps.  The reality is that whenever we leave town, people assume we've gone off to travel (pasear) and that we might not come back.  Yet no one calls us to check in, which would easily solve the confusion.

It's hard to describe some of my experiences on this blog because I have to include so much context, and I worry that it will be confusing for someone outside of Honduras to interpret.  For example, if I were to complain on here about how my counterparts never call me to tell me about meetings (or to check in when I don't show up to work for a week), you might think they are just bad counterparts or that they don't like me.  But that isn't the case.  I have amazing counterparts... the communication problems are just a cultural obstacle that all volunteers face.

Another example is that it's normal in Honduras to go to meetings an hour or more late.  If the meeting starts at 9, get there around 10 and you'll be on time.  One day I arrived at 8:45 for an 8:00 meeting and my counterpart said to me, ¨you need to get used to Honduran time, but I guess we can start early.¨  (For those of you that read that and think, ¨how perfect for Andrea, Queen of Lateness,¨ I assure you that even my normal tardiness pales in comparison to the cultural norm here.)  It's also common to cancel or reschedule meetings or events without notifying anyone.

What this more generally means is that we have to put in a lot of effort to integrate into our work environments, and while our work is appreciated, we often don't get the same level of communication and accountability from our Honduran counterparts.  There is a lot of initiative required to be a successful volunteer.  Volunteers that don't take that initiative tend to have less work, and may eventually become viewed by their communities as ¨Cuerpo de Paseo¨ (a pun on Cuerpo de Paz that basically equates us with tourists).

So if you disappear for a week like I did, your coworkers will assume you have lost interest or are off traveling until you take the initiative to get back in touch with them.  And when you do, they are surprised.  I am glad to report now that I am no longer ¨perdida¨ (lost), and that everyone in my community knows that I am alive. 

I'll close with a few new pictures.

My first complete homemade plato tipico: beans, egg, cheese, fried plantains, avocado, and tortillas.  Yum! 

Our first General Assembly meeting for CAMACO....



... I was seated at the mesa principal with the president (speaking) and mayor...

... and at the end received a diploma for my work (diplomas are big here).

Last night Tricia and I made penang curry with tofu and brown rice, and it was amazing!

La Banda

As most of you know, I am working with my municipality's band in hopeful preparation for our Independence Day parade on September 15.  This has been a process.  Here are my observations thus far.

Andrea's 10 Laws of Honduran Marching Bands:

1) The instrumentation of the band depends on the instruments available.  The number of students in the band also depends on the number of instruments available.

2) The instruments shall never be tuned.

3) If it is remotely long and slender and made of wood, metal, or plastic, it is an acceptable drumstick.

4) If you don't know how to play the instrument, just play random notes as loudly as possible.

5) Do not... I repeat, do NOT... give the big tall dopey-looking kid a low brass instrument (see law 4).

6) Don't play the trombone.  The slide will stick.  Hondurans fry everything in a vat of oil, but there's not a drop of slide oil to be found.

7) Any drum can be made into a marching drum by simply attaching a belt to it.

8) It is impossible to expain anything band-related in a 2nd language (for example, how to get a sound out of a clarinet).

9) Even if you can explain it in Spanish, don't bother trying to teach kids the clarinet.  If they manage to produce a sound, it will be inaudible in the cacophony (see law 5).

10) Have fun.  Wear earplugs.

Lo bueno

I've been informed that my last post seemed a little dark, so I want to assure everyone that things are great here, just wanted to switch things up a bit with some sarcasm.  It has been pouring here for about 3 days (welcome to rainy season in Honduras), so I'm a tad bored and eager to be able to go outside again without risk of a wipeout on the muddy road.

Plenty of exciting things have happened lately.  For example, my network of cajas (CAMACO) was just given a new office and computer, and my counterpart has been completely through the roof ever since.  He has been so giddy that he and some of the guys at the municipality are talking about taking me on a trip to see ¨all the nice parts of Honduras.¨  Not sure what that means.

Yesterday a couple of coworkers took me and Tricia to a town in Comayagua to pick up furniture from a departing volunteer.  We'll be moving into our apartments soon, so we're trying to get as much stuff as possible from other volunteers (table, chairs, pots/pans, appliances, etc).  We ended up taking back the volunteer's guitar, and had a singalong in the car on the way back - with the two songs that we had learned for the colegio chorus.  Too funny...

My town is building a new mall, and the two stores in front are the two major phone companies here, Tigo and Claro.  They've been in a marketing war for about a week now, blasting reggaeton, passing out promotional ads, and using large ballons and windsocks to attract people.  It's been entertaining.

The ex-president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, also paraded through town a couple weekends ago, which caused quite a buzz.  Google him if you want the backstory.

I started working with an NGO called FIPAH last week - they are the ones that collaborate with the UNC/Nourish volunteers.  They took me to a small town to meet with a group of girls that just started a coffee cooperative.  I'm going to be giving them some business trainings, and we also played soccer for about an hour before it started to rain and I crapped out (everyone else kept playing).  Very authentic PC experience.

I'm also going to be collaborating with a new USAID project called ACCESO that is being implemented in the western part of Honduras.  Basically I'm going to be facilitating communication between all of the local governments and aid organizations that work with small businesses (mostly in agriculture), and help them enroll in this program.  I'll also probably help schedule and give trainings.  Have a look if you'd like!  http://www.usaid-acceso.org/