I Can Do This...

Written May 18^th.

Day 4 at my new home, but day 3 of actually getting down to business. Monday, I went to the Centro de Salud with Sonia at 7 a.m. I met one of the other nurses and the sort of admin-assistant. The other nurse started a 1-month vacation that same day, so I won’t get to meat her for a little while. Although, she is staying here in town for the month, so chances are, I will probably run into her before the month is up. The doctor arrived at 8 a.m., so I was able to meet her then. She is so nice. She reminds me of someone in the states, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on who, yet. The second that I met her, I felt as if 100 pounds had been lifted off my shoulders - she just put me immediately at ease. I know this will be doable with her by my side. It was a Monday at the centro, so a line had formed out the door, so we didn’t have much time for small talk, but she still made it happen. Before starting on her stack of patient files, she called the mayor and made a plan to take me to his office later to introduce me. I was very happy about that because I was really nervous to meet him by myself. La dactora and I went to the mayors office at about 9:30 when she had a small break in her line of patients. He was busy, but made time for me. The mayor seemed happy to meet me, and he told me that whatever I need or want help with, his office is there to help me in what ever way they can! That is exciting, but really, that is what he has to say. However, he also said that I could come use the internet if I want to. But, I think I would feel to weird doing that. Of course I would love to go there and have free internet access, but like I said, I would feel weird. It would be different if I was actually working at the municipality, but because I’m not, I don’t think I will take advantage of that offer. By the way - on a complete segway - In Spanish, Mayor is Alcalde. When I was younger, I watched the show Zorro with my parents, starting when we lived in South Dakota I think. And, in this show they always referred to the dreaded/hated mayor as Alcalde, so now, every time I say the word, or type the word, I think back to when I was five years old, watching Zorro with my family - I know - adorable, right?

Back to reality, when I was at the mayor’s office, he mentioned a training that was going on for the young people in the community and the surrounding communities. I didn’t really understand what he said it was for or about, but I understood that there were a bastante (a lot) or kids doing something down at one of the local swimming pool/water parks. (Ya, I know - finally a place where I might be able to go and cool off). When I got back to the Centro from the mayor’s office, the health promoter, Carlos, was there. He also mentioned the training session going on because that was were he was headed. So, this was my chance to figure out what exactly it was. Apparently, a bunch of local kids are meeting up to discuss the needs for their communities and for the youth of their communities, and they are going to be presenting the information they come up with to the mayor. I thought this sounded like a great program and wanted to be part of it. Had I have arrived earlier, it would have been a perfect opportunity to give a charla to a large group of kids, but at this point, I just wanted to go observe what they were doing and get to know some of the youth in my new community. Carlos asked if I wanted to go, but I was not ready to just jump up and go right then. It was my first day “working” and I was nervous. Obviously I should have just gone - I need to take every opportunity that presents itself, but I was to scared. I told him that I would like to go the following day, and thought that was going to be the plan, but apparently I was mistaken. Either something was lost in the language gap, or we just didn’t finalize anything.

So, to finish off my first official day of working in my new home, Sonia, her daughter and I walked to a nearby aldea to buy mangos. They were yet a different kind of mango than any I have seen so far, and I have seen a lot so far. These ones are called Mango Piña. Before this one, I think I had tried 7 other types of mangos. I can’t keep track. They all taste amazing to me and I can’t really tell the difference - except between the little ones and the big ones. There are small ones that a lot of people just eat like an apple - peel and all. I can’t do that because it would probably be dangerous - I don’t want a parasite. So, I peel them no matter what. Sometimes it is basically impossible because the mango is just too ripe and I end up getting juice all over me and cutting practically all the meet off with the peel, so I tend to steer clear of the little ones. But, the Mango Piña, which are apparently only available from this one tree in the nearby aldea are great. The aldea was a 25 minutes walk away, but going their to buy these mangos was definitely worth it. Thankfully at about 5 p.m. it starts cooling down to a bearable temperature, but walking 25 minutes to another community still makes you pick up quite the sweat. I liked the walk, and decided I was going to make that my run in the mornings. When we got to the house of the women with the mangos - each with our backpack, she let us fill them up, and told us she didn’t want our money! That is insane! Sonia gave her 100 lempira for them anyway, and it was hard enough to make her take that. It seems like people are always like that with Sonia. We had gotten mangos from a different lady (a different kind of mango) the day before and she didn’t want Sonia to pay for them either. Everyone loves Sonia. She has one of those personalities that you just can’t help but love and get along with. Even seeing her work at the Centro. She is so good with all the people. With the little kids, even though she is stabbing them with a needle or making them take an iky vitamin A pill, she has a way of comforting them and making them not hate her! She also has a way of making me comfortable, which in new situations is not the easiest thing for me. That first day at the centro, after she got the majority of the people signed in and had a handle on the chaos, she went out into the waiting area and had me come too, so she could introduce me to everyone that was there - without warning to me. But, I survived and felt comfortable out there because she just has that aura about her.

Day 2 of actual work, still did not consist of any actual work - I have a feeling this is going to be the case for a while. I have to wait until I feel comfortable and have all my materials prepared. Cuerpo de Paz talked about these first two months in site being all about getting integrated and getting to know people, and that is fully what I intend on doing. And, in those two months, I hope my Spanish reaches an all-time high, so I feel comfortable starting to work. This second day of work was a little scary for me, because Sonia had to go out of town for training, so I had to go to the Centro by myself. I thought I would be meeting Carlos there to go the training for the youth, but when I got there one of the other ladies told me that Carlos had stopped by the previous afternoon to say that he would take me out to were the kids are the following day. Of course! So, I hung out at the Centro for two hours, just watching. There were nowhere near as many people in the centro Tuesday as there were Monday. But, there were an insane amount of people outside the centro. I asked one of the ladies, Janet, what it was all about, but I didn’t really understand her response. I just smiled and nodded like I understood. I really need to stop doing that. When I don’t understand something, I need to ask them to keep explaining in different ways until I can figure it out, but I get embarrassed! So, when the doctor arrived at 8 a.m., I asked her. She talks nice and slowly for me and can usually tell by the look on my face whether I understand of not, so it was a lot easier. Apparently all the people were waiting for there monthly money from the government. Once a month, someone from the government comes with money for all the “needy” families and gives them about 800 lempira (or that is what I think the doctor said). Later I asked Janet how they decide who gets money and who doesn’t. She said she didn’t know, but that it was based off of need - I don’t know how they calculate that need: maybe family size, maybe they know who in each family is working, but that doesn’t seem likely. But, however they decided, those families deemed needy - receive money from the government every month. So, all the people who receive this money from the nearby aldeas come to Las Flores once a month and stand in line all day until there name is finally called. And, of course, because there are people that will have money, there are people that set up stands for selling anything and everything. I actually bought an umbrella (for my own personal shade - a parasall (spelling) I guess you would call it. There were also people selling food, shirts, shoes, giant pots for making tamales, laundry baskets, boot-legged movies, nail polish, cheese graters - like I said, a little bit of everything.

At 10 a.m., I walked to the colegio (high school) to introduce myself to the director (and the sub-director on the off chance he was there too. The day before some kids told me that he is only there in the afternoons.) However, when I got to the colegio, which is at the top of a pretty big hill, and in this heat all that does is make me sweat like a fricken pig. But, just my luck, neither the director nor the sub-director where there; the guard at the LOCKED gate told me they would both be there after noon. So, I planned to return after I went to the bank.

I had been trying to go to the bank agent here in my community for three days. That morning, she had finally been open, but again, with my luck, their was no server connection for the debit machine, so I could not get them money I needed to give Sonia for rent. But, the gal told me to come back at 2 p.m. and that it should be working. So, I went home for lunch at noon - after going to every pulparia in town to see who had what. I bought jam, apple flavored, and makers for when it comes time to make my charla papers. My plan for lunch was to make a version of French toast - hence the apple jelly. I got home and tried my luck at Honduran French toast. I used corn tortillas that Sonia made - she makes her extra think and out of purely ground corn. I dipped two of these in egg and pup them one in a time in a small pot (I couldn’t find a frying pan that wasn’t being used to store something else - rice, beans, spaghetti, etc.) The stove tops here in Honduras are like the Kalvenator that me and my roommates had my senior year of collage. The burners are cast iron, which means they take forever to heat up, and then for ever to cool down. So, when my “French toast” was finally done, I slathered them in peanut butter and jelly, and enjoyed them to their fullest. Maybe I just really wanted to like it, but I thought they were delicious and would have now qualms about making it for someone else!

After lunch, I waited until 2 p.m., which was just about perfect. Between noon and 2 p.m., it is insanely hot outside, so being in the safety of my home watching How I Met Your Mother was probably a very good way to spend those blisteringly hot two hours. I need to acclimate to the weather slowly - I don’t want to end up with a heat stroke or dehydration.

At two I made my way to the bank and then back to the colegio to meet my other counter part - Jamie, the sub-director - under the protection of my new blue and white polka-dot umbrella. The umbrella did not protect me against the heat, though - just the burning sun. So, I arrived at the school dripping with sweat. The first person I walked up to and asked where I could find Jamie, was actually Jamie - that was easy. He took me into his office and pointed his fan right at where I was sitting - like I said, I was dripping with sweat. I took that moment to explain that I’m from Alaska and that I just can’t help but being hot all the time here. He almost had a worried look on his face. I must have been bright red and really dripping with sweat. But, we moved on. We talked about what I want to do at the high school, and I showed him the manual I have for our initiative for teens to teach HIV/ STI prevention. He explained the set up of most of the school sin Honduras. There is a morning session and an afternoon session with different students and different teachers. The director came in about that time, so Jamie introduced me to him as well. He seems complete impartial to anything. He said he was happy to meet me, but had nothing to say. I expected some sort of welcome speech I guess, but nope. Don’t get me wrong. He is a very nice man, but just not the one who I’m going to be working with - that will be Jamie. Jamie then took me around the school and introduced me to some of the teacher and some of the students when we ended up interrupting a classroom. The home-ec. teacher wants me to give English classes, which I can totally do. I told her we would have to do a mix - I could teach English in exchange for being taught Spanish! She seemed very excited for it, so I will most likely end up doing that! It will be good practice for me, but I don’t even know were to begin to teach English!

I left the high school with an agreement with Jamie to return in a couple weeks with a plan of attack. I told him I need to prepare my materials and practice my charlas to figure out how I could break them up into different sections, so that I can go back to the high school and talk to the teachers about how we can fit my sessions into their calendars. He seemed very happy with this and told me to take my time.

Jamie is really nice, but I must say that I am very glad that Sonia is my other counterpart. If I ended up with two counterparts that were like Jamie, I would end up doing nothing. Jamie doesn’t seem to be a “go-getter.” He is laid back and wants me to just do what I want to do, when I want to do it, which is great. But, having Sonia as my other counterpart is good because she is a “go-getter,” which will keep me motivated and will keeping me working on things.

The first day here, I was having my doubts. I had just arrived and was scared and nervous and thinking that maybe I had made a bad decision joining Cuerpo de Paz. How could I live in a country for two years when I hardly know the language and can’t bare the heat? But, after my first two days I have done an about face. I have been meeting the people in the community and have been told by many that my Spanish is great - they must be kidding - but all of it is very encouraging. I am now ready to just jump in and get things going. The next few weeks I will still just be meeting people and slowly gather materials, but I know that I can do it, and that I have the support of a lot of people behind me.!