Site Visit Continued!!!

Written April 9th

Site visits were a success all around, from what I have heard. Everyone had he opportunity to ask all the questions they had been wanting answered, and we were all pleased to have them answered openly and honestly. I liked visiting Marcala. Like I think mentioned previously, it is a pretty big town - a city if you will - with a grocery store and a pretty large market. Kristin - the volunteer I went to visit - had a lot going on. Like I said, we were able to help with a charla about nutrition, and I really enjoyed it. I liked finally seeing one of the charlas that we have had given to us - in action. The women at the nutrition charla had legitimate questions and concerns, but also had a lot of fun with the charla. I was able to see the women in that small aldea open up and not be afraid to ask questions or voice their concerns. I know that is a challenge I will face when I get to my site, but I am prepared to keep meeting with women groups until they feel comfortable enough with me that they feel they are able to ask me anything and bring up any topic.

The second day of the site visit, we went to Kristin’s other counterpart, which is the Office for Women (Oficina de la Mujer). This office focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention with women in the community, as well as working to stop domestic violence. Apparently Kristin is working on trying to organize a support group for women with HIV/AIDS, but has been running into a few walls. It is hard to gain the confionza with people that you need in order for them to join a group to talk about having HIV/AIDS. People in Honduras - I’m sure in most countries- do not want to learn they have HIV, let alone go around and tell people they have it. The stigma of having HIV/AIDS is very negative, and for this reason, it is hard to convince people to join a support group, or come to a charla about it. During our site visit, Kristin’s boss took us to different locations around Marcala to get an idea of some of the places they go and some of the work they help with. We went to the centro de salud (health center), a home for pregnant women - sort of a safe house of sorts when they don’t have any money and are soon going to be giving birth - and we went to a house for recovering alcoholics. When we were at the Centro de Salud, we were able to see the nurse completing and HIV test with a small blood sample. She said that every pregnant women has to be tested for HIV/AIDS when they come in. Since the nurse had began working at the center in September, she had seen two positive HIV tests (two in five months is not that bad, but there is a fairly large population of people with HIV/AIDS in the area). When a pregnant women is positive for HIV, they can’t give birth naturally because the body fluids could be passed to the baby in the birth canal, for this reason, they need to get a cesarean.

The home for recovering alcoholics was started by a single man in Marcala. He opened his home up to recovering alcoholics to come and live there. They have a daily schedule posted on the wall, which included meetings basically all day long. They are a support group to keep each other from returning to the street and drinking - and in some cases to work on other drug issues as well. This program is not strictly for men, women do participate as well, but not as frequently. Kristin’s boss wants to get involved with this group to give charlas about HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. Even though they work for the Oficina da la Mujer, Kristin and her boss still want to show support for the men at Casa Hogar (house home). And, through supporting these men at Casa Hogar and teaching them about HIV/AIDS prevention, women will also be helped in the long run!

These site visits are supposed to be a time for trainees to get a look at an actual volunteer working in their site, to get an idea of what really goes on once you become a volunteer. It is also an opportunity for trainees to decide what kind of site they think they may want to end up living in for two years. Yesterday, Friday the 8th, we were given a site placement questionnaire that we have to fill our and turn in next week. Our APCD and PTO (the two people in charge of the health group) will look at the questionnaires and take what we say about our preferences into consideration, but they can not guarantee anything. I can definitely see myself in a site like Marcala. I would love it. It was a bigger site with a grocery store, which is a total plus, but what I really loved about it was all the aldeas that are around Marcala. There are so many opportunities when you are surrounded by small pueblos. I love to keep busy and being in a site like that would give me the opportunity to really work as much as I want to and to help more people. I would be fine in a smaller site too. There are benefits to either. At a large site with surrounding aldeas, I can help a wider variety of people and work on a lot more projects, but if I were to end up in a smaller site, I would form more relationships and probably would be able to help the community on deeper levels. So, I am right in the middle on that particular question: do I want a small site or a large site? I simply wrote on the questionnaire that I want to be able to keep busy and that I need to be with in an hour or two of a grocery store, so I can be sure and have access to fruits and vegetables once a week (at most once every two weeks.)

The questionnaire also asked about how close you want to be to other volunteers - as in do you feel the need for a site mate. I don’t need a site mate. I feel like if there was someone in my site that spoke English, I would be a lot more likely to always spend time with that person rather than integrating into my community and mastering my Spanish skills. I would however like another volunteer to be within an hour from me, so I feel like I have someone close by incase I start feeling the need for a break and some human interaction with another English-speaking person.

The only other thing I mentioned was that I would physically not be able to handle a site any hotter than where we are doing our FBT right now. The Villa is really hot. In the middle of the afternoon it is pushing 100, and I know there are plenty of locations in Honduras that can get even hotter than it does here. I would physically not be able to function in any hotter weather - I have enough trouble here in Villa. I would of course love a site a little cooler than it is here, but I at least I know I can function in the temperatures we have here, even if I am pretty miserable during the hottest part of the day.

The questionnaire did ask about what I saw my role as once I get to my site. That question is hard. At this point, we still have not learned about all the initiatives the health program has. But, at this point what I see myself doing is working with a women’s group and with pregnant women, teaching them about nutrition and doing weekly cooking classes. I know with this particular type of project a home garden element is usually involved, but that is not something I have much interest in. I am not the type of person that can start a garden from scratch and keep it going. To be honest, I have never tried, but it is not something I can see myself doing. To be honest, I guess it is just something I don‘t want to do. Who knows, maybe that will change over the next two years, but I doubt it. I would have no problem helping women who already have gardens started - to try and improve them, but starting from ground zero is not something I can see myself doing.

A couple of the other health initiatives caught my attention in training and they were teen pregnancy prevention which is focused on high school aged teens. The others are the boy and girl initiatives for ages 9-11. These two initiatives teach about safe sex, HIV/AIDS prevention, pregnancy prevention, abstinence, self esteem, role models, and much more. The program for the younger kids is a fuller package that gets the kids thinking about their life and how getting pregnant would cause their life to go down a totally different path than they may want, but then also teaches them about self confidence and picking good role models. Where as the teen pregnancy prevention focus on the teenagers who are most likely already having sex. This is to promote safe sex and the use of birth control and condoms and to teach about STIs and HIV/AIDS. This initiative also incorporates the idea of picking good characteristics in a partner and self esteem.

So all in all - I have a good idea about what I want to do and what kind of site I want to end up in. But at the same time, I’m really not that picky. I’m sure I will find good things about where ever I end up. There will inevitably be bad things too, but nothing I won’t be able to handle!

Countdown tell site announcements: 24 days!