Written July 26th
Among the many differences we face everyday here in Honduras, I have just come across the one that is my least favorite. Plumbing. This was never something I thought I would miss. I don’t mean in the sense of having pluming over a latrine or an outhouse, I mean the difference between how things are plumbed here in Honduras vs. how things are plumbed in the United States.
I have been in my new house for about five days now, and since day one, a scent was lingering in the bathroom that I couldn’t place. It was an unpleasant smell, but the first day I just ignored it. Day two however, I realized that it was not going away, so I sniffed it out. The smell was coming from the sink - the sink of all places. So, I plugged the drain, and the smell seemed to die off a little bit. The next day I went and met up with other volunteers for Leticia’s Birthday and explained my predicament. Erin said she had the same problem, and when she asked her landlord, he said there was nothing that could be done about it.
Apparently, in the United States, we use the nice, snaky pipes to plumb things, which allows air pockets to form and trap the unpleasant smells, keeping them from making their way up the pipes. However, here in Honduras, pipes are installed in the straightest, most direct route to where they need to go, which allows for all the unpleasant odors to sneak back up the pipes and linger in my bathroom!
What to do about this unfortunate predicament? The guidance given to Erin, who so generously passed it on to me, was to keep the plug in the sink. However, Erin said that if I dump bleach down the sink every so often, it helps with the smell, too. So, we’ll see how this goes. I get to live with it for two years, so hopefully I can either figure out a way to keep the smell out, or I’m just going to have to learn to deal with it, which I really don’t want to have to do.
On a different note, it is amazing what can brighten one’s mood here in Honduras. Take today for example. I went to Santa Rosa to buy a few more things for my new home (a 2-burner stovetop for example), but before that I met Slater for lunch. He took me to a place with great smoothies and baleadas, which just made my day. Then, on top of that, when I was at the grocery store before I got on the bus, I found sugar-free vanilla pudding and they had the peanut butter Special-K protein bars. Those Special-K bars are like candy. They are one of my mom’s and my addictions. The only problem with those is that we always ended up eating two instead of just one, which is worse than if we would have just had a Snickers in the first place, but they are better than Snickers!
It is ridiculous how much we all think about food in this country. We eat the same beans, eggs and tortillas so frequently that when we have the opportunity to eat other things we tend to go a little bat-shit-crazy and stuff ourselves. And, now that we are all (as in us H-18rs) slowly making that transition into our own houses/apartments and have the opportunity to cook for ourselves, we are thinking about food even more. Now we can make whatever we want, but where to even begin. I had my own stove for the first time tonight, so I made whole-wheat pasta with pesto! It was delicious! I of course followed it up by the sugar-free pudding that I found at the store today, which made for a great after-dinner treat!
I truly feel bad for the H-19rs that just arrived in Honduras. A new rule was put in place, which requires all new volunteers to live with a host family for their whole 2-year service. I know that the Peace Corps is going to work hard to find placements for volunteers where they will have full access to the kitchen, but I always felt a little awkward using my host families kitchen. I suppose if it had to stay, I would eventually get over the awkwardness and just make myself at home, which is hopefully what all the new volunteers will be able to do. I salute all the new Youth Development volunteers for being the first of the volunteers under the new rules, and for any of you that end up in the West, you will always be welcome at my home for a nice home-cooked meal!
On another note, shopping today I also bought what I need to do my laundry in my pila. I bought a little bucket and a big bucket, powder laundry soap and bleach for soaking, and the big cylinder chunk of laundry soap for the actual washing. I think I’ll attempt that tomorrow afternoon. I got spoiled when I was living with my host family - they had a washing machine. So, it has been two months now since I washed my clothes by hand - don’t worry, though, it is not something you forget how to do.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
All work and no play!
Written July 22nd,
So, it has been a heck of a long time since I posted a blog (except the one that I posted about five minutes ago about Peace Corps Goal #3). Not a lot has gone on in these past two and a half weeks, but then at the same time a lot has happened. It is hard to explain. So since July 5th, when I posted the “Homesick” blog, what has happened in my life?
I have been doing Yo Merezco and Yo Tambien Merezco every Thursday and Friday, and those are great. So far we have gone over abstinence and self esteem, and then with just the girls, we have started learning about anatomy, and the boys are working on learning about role models. The boys will be getting into anatomy about the same time the girls will be moving on to menstruation. These are two things that I am a little concerned about. Teaching the girls about there periods - I know they are going to have all sorts of questions, because they have already asked me some, and I’m just worried that I won’t know how to answer in Spanish. They ask hard questions - “when do you need to start taking precautions if you are having sex?” I mean, ya, in English I can go off for a long time about that particular question. Don’t have sex, don’t have sex, don’t have sex, but if you do have sex; ALWAYS TAKE PRECAUTIONS. “So once you start your period, there will always be a chance of getting pregnant” - well, yes, but to answer that fully in Spanish is a bit on the challenging side. We are going to be getting into how the menstruation works - the whole egg coming from the ovaries and going to the uterus and if not fertilized than that will cause the lining of the uterus to flow out the vagina. It is some hard core stuff we will be discussing in Spanish, which is why I’m a little nervous. As for the boys. Simply talking about lady parts and men parts is going to be a challenge. I have enough trouble keeping them under control when we are talking about normal things, but to put a diagram of a penis and a vagina in front of them and try to teach them the names of each part - I’m not sure how it is going to work out!! I guess I will find out in a week when we start that section. I might ask one of my near-by guy volunteers to come give me a hand - we’ll see.
These past two and a half weeks were a little stressful for me on the housing front. Moving out of my host family’s house and having a place of my own was the one thing I told my APCD and PTS that I wanted to be able to do in my site. I didn’t have many preferences as to what part of the country or anything like that, but I wanted to be able to have my own home. But, as the time went by, I was getting a little worried that there wasn’t anywhere for me to rent in my site. The house that the volunteers in the past had rented was already occupied, as were the two other rentable houses. I did find a couple “apartments,” but there was no kitchen in either, which was not ok with me - that was the reason I wanted my own place. I wanted to be able to cook for myself. Ok, having a HOME that I could come and go from with out having to let somebody know, and where I could feel perfectly comfortable and not have any awkwardness are also important, but the kitchen was top priority! I had had my eye on one house that I ran by everyday. I figured out who the owner was, but could never track him down. Finally, two weeks ago, my friend got me in contact with him. They were just adding on a bathroom and a pila, but other than that it was almost ready to rent. I guess they were adding the bathroom and the pila because word had gotten around that I wanted to rent the place. It turned out that the house they were adding the bathroom and pila onto was not the same house that I had been ogling over, but it was a house all the same. It is small with two small bedrooms, a living room, a newly-constructed bathroom, and what you could call a kitchen. The kitchen is just an L-shaped counter made out of wood, but I decided it was better than nothing. I can buy a two-burner stove top and they gave me a microwave, so I am in business. I need a refrigerator and an oven, but I can probably find a toaster-oven-type-thing that works as an oven, too.
Last night was my first night in my new house. The move was a bit interesting. I wasn’t sure how I was going to move all my stuff to the house because it is up one heck of a hill. A hill so tall that I was not about to attempt to haul any of my stuff up by hand. I am usually not one to stray away from exercise and physical activity, but if I would have tried to haul a suitcase up this hill, I’m pretty sure I would have had a heat stroke. It is just so hot and the hill is killer, so that wasn’t going to happen. I packed up all my stuff at my host families house and then called the one guy who speaks English here in town. I asked if he knew anyone with a truck that would be able to help me, and ten minutes later he called me back and was outside my house with a truck. Talk about service. He and I loaded the back of the truck and drove it up the monstrous hill where we unloaded it all into my new living room. I somehow accumulated quite a bit of stuff, but I had been buying things for when I got my own place for a couple weeks already. I bought a set of dishes that were on sale, a shower curtain, frying pan, silverware, cutting board, knife, can opener, soap, sponge, toilet paper, cups, etc. -just different things here and there that I knew I would eventually need. Then. on top of all that, all of my Peace Corps stuff. All the books and training material, plus everything I had to buy to prepare my charlas for the school: chala paper, markers, construction paper, contact paper, plain white paper, scissors, stapler, tape, etc. So ya, I had quite a bit of stuff. I started by unpacking everything for the kitchen. My new landlord came over and sat in the living room while I was unpacking. I felt like it was a bit awkward, but she didn’t seem to care in the least.
Night one was good. My bed, which I bought in Gracias, is a little on the hard side, but it is better than the floor. Getting that bed was a story all in itself. I heard there was a sale going on at a store in Gracias and beds were only 1,600 lempira. Considering that 3,000 is usually a pretty good deal (for a full-sized), I jumped on that rumor. I text a volunteer living in Gracias and asked her to go scope it out for me. She got back to me later that afternoon and confirmed that the rumor was in fact true. So, the next day, I bussed to gracias to see about purchasing the bed. Unfortunately when I got there, the man I needed to speak to about possibly delivering it to my site was on lunch break - OF COURSE. So, I walked around for an hour and a half purchasing things for other people. Erin wanted a Dutch oven and Craig wanted a fancy electric grill/frying pan - I also bought a few things for myself. When I went back to the store to ask about the bed, the man was a complete dick. I asked if he would be able to take it to my site (which is about a half an hour away) he said no, he could only take it to the bus station. I wasn’t about to try and deal with hauling a bed on the bus. Even after asking the guy how much he would want to take the bed all the way to my site, all he would say was - “only to the bus station.” He wasn’t even looking me in the eyes; he was playing with a marker. I was getting so frustrated. So, I said thank you anyway and left. After telling a friend of mine the story when I got home, he got a hold of his uncle (the owner of my new house), and they said if I went and paid for the bed, they could go pick it up for me - AMAZING. The following morning, I got up, prepared my materials for my Yo Merezco class, went to gracias, paid for the bed, then went and waited for the bus to get back to site before my Yo Merezko class started. When there was still no bus at 10:15, I was getting a little nervous. My class starts between 11:30 and 11:45, and I still needed to copy some materials before going to the school. The bus finally arrived, but then for some reason the driver decided to drive about 10 miles an hour the whole way. Usually Honduran bus drivers drive like maniacs. I’m not even joking - there are so many bus accidents around here. I mean, a bus passing a car going 50+ KPH on a corner; that is just asking for trouble. But, nope, just my luck, I got the precautious driver that day. I got to my site a little after 11, ran home, grabbed all my stuff, ran to the copy center, got my copies made, and then ran to the school. I got there right as the bell rang for class to start. I worked with the boys for an hour and then ran home, dropped off my stuff, and ran for the bus because I was meeting Amanda and Ashley in Santa Rosa for lunch and to buy stuff for our soon to be new homes. After some hard core shopping, I got back to my site at about 5pm. That was one of the longest, most stressful days I have had in Honduras so far. But, I accomplished so much. I am know sitting in my new house and loving my purchases, so it was all worth it.
So back to the new house - This is currently night two. I was laying on my couch working on this blog post and my landlord came over and invited me to dinner. But, I had the window right over me open, and because I was concentrating on writing, I didn’t realize she was standing right outside the window until she said something. She scared the crap out of me, and then thought that was hilarious. She is a cute, old Honduran woman who is somewhere between 60 and 70 years old - I can not tell ages in this country; people either look really old or really young. I had actually already eaten what I was going to consider my dinner - ham and cheese on crackers, followed by peanut butter and jelly on crackers, but I couldn’t say no. It was so nice of her to come over and invite me to have dinner with them. I told her that I had already eaten, but she stood there waiting like that was not a response. So I told her I would love to come over, but that I could only eat a tini bit. The tini bit she gave me, was more of a huge plateful. I didn’t want to be rude and not eat it, so I forced it in, but I couldn’t do the tortillas. I hardly ever eat tortillas anyway. She even asked me at one point if I wanted more tortillas - three is plenty, but I could only eat one of them. I didn’t want to eat and run, so I hung out for 45+ minutes and watched the soap operas with them. However, they are in Spanish, so my attention span is really short. I walked back to the outside kitchen to say goodnight and when we were walking back inside, I fell down the three stairs. It was raining, and I was wearing my flip-flops, not the greatest combination. I hopped right up, and it really didn’t hurt, but apparently they were really worried about me because I just got a call from my friend asking if I was ok. They called him to have him call and check up on me, which is adorable, but not necessary!! I might be a little sore in the morning, but I’m fine.
Tomorrow, is Leticia’s birthday party, so a bunch of us are going to meet up at the hot springs and then spend the night in Eric’s site because Sunday is the Feria in his town. He is having a USA booth with hamburgers, chili and apple pie. I am in charge of the apple pie. I’m kind of nervous; it is going to be my first pie in Honduras and pies are always a little tricky in the first place, are they gong to set up or not set up; so hopefully they will turn out ok.
Speaking of Ferias, I went to Gracias for the feria on Wednesday. Here in Lempira, July 20th is a BIG deal. Lempira was an Indian that died fighting against the Spaniards back in the day, so July 20th in Gracias, Lempira, they have a huge parade and a reenactment of the killing of Lempira. The celebration actually goes on throughout the whole month of July, but July 20th, is the most spectacular. It was a hot day, and with thousands of extra people there for the festivities, it was almost intolerable. I am glad that I went and experienced it, but I almost had a heat stroke in the process. The parade was amazing. It was two hours long with kids dressed up as Indians, girls dressed in the old typical clothing, girls in dresses that were made for the “India Bonita” competition, which I would equate to the Miss America pageant. The girls make the dresses out of plane white fabric and then decorate it out of natural materials: corn, corn husks, bark, moss - it is amazing what some people came up with!
That about sums up the last couple weeks of my life, and what I will be doing this weekend. Oh, I also took a trip to go visit Damarise because last weekend marked my second month in site, which means I can now travel throughout Honduras. It took about 7 hours to get there, but I was a beautiful trip. That part of Honduras is beautiful; it is so green. But, it is also a lot hotter than it is here, which is hard to imagine. Then to imagine that the south is even hotter than there - I don’t think I want to go down south. Although Brian’s birthday is soon and I really should go. We’ll see what happens.
OH, and tomorrow marks the fifth month that I have been in Honduras. I can’t believe it. These five months have gone by so fast. I can understand now when people say that the two years of service really fly by, because if time keeps speeding by like it has been, I’m pretty much going to blink my eyes and my service will already be over. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish a lot of amazing things before that time comes, though!
So, it has been a heck of a long time since I posted a blog (except the one that I posted about five minutes ago about Peace Corps Goal #3). Not a lot has gone on in these past two and a half weeks, but then at the same time a lot has happened. It is hard to explain. So since July 5th, when I posted the “Homesick” blog, what has happened in my life?
I have been doing Yo Merezco and Yo Tambien Merezco every Thursday and Friday, and those are great. So far we have gone over abstinence and self esteem, and then with just the girls, we have started learning about anatomy, and the boys are working on learning about role models. The boys will be getting into anatomy about the same time the girls will be moving on to menstruation. These are two things that I am a little concerned about. Teaching the girls about there periods - I know they are going to have all sorts of questions, because they have already asked me some, and I’m just worried that I won’t know how to answer in Spanish. They ask hard questions - “when do you need to start taking precautions if you are having sex?” I mean, ya, in English I can go off for a long time about that particular question. Don’t have sex, don’t have sex, don’t have sex, but if you do have sex; ALWAYS TAKE PRECAUTIONS. “So once you start your period, there will always be a chance of getting pregnant” - well, yes, but to answer that fully in Spanish is a bit on the challenging side. We are going to be getting into how the menstruation works - the whole egg coming from the ovaries and going to the uterus and if not fertilized than that will cause the lining of the uterus to flow out the vagina. It is some hard core stuff we will be discussing in Spanish, which is why I’m a little nervous. As for the boys. Simply talking about lady parts and men parts is going to be a challenge. I have enough trouble keeping them under control when we are talking about normal things, but to put a diagram of a penis and a vagina in front of them and try to teach them the names of each part - I’m not sure how it is going to work out!! I guess I will find out in a week when we start that section. I might ask one of my near-by guy volunteers to come give me a hand - we’ll see.
These past two and a half weeks were a little stressful for me on the housing front. Moving out of my host family’s house and having a place of my own was the one thing I told my APCD and PTS that I wanted to be able to do in my site. I didn’t have many preferences as to what part of the country or anything like that, but I wanted to be able to have my own home. But, as the time went by, I was getting a little worried that there wasn’t anywhere for me to rent in my site. The house that the volunteers in the past had rented was already occupied, as were the two other rentable houses. I did find a couple “apartments,” but there was no kitchen in either, which was not ok with me - that was the reason I wanted my own place. I wanted to be able to cook for myself. Ok, having a HOME that I could come and go from with out having to let somebody know, and where I could feel perfectly comfortable and not have any awkwardness are also important, but the kitchen was top priority! I had had my eye on one house that I ran by everyday. I figured out who the owner was, but could never track him down. Finally, two weeks ago, my friend got me in contact with him. They were just adding on a bathroom and a pila, but other than that it was almost ready to rent. I guess they were adding the bathroom and the pila because word had gotten around that I wanted to rent the place. It turned out that the house they were adding the bathroom and pila onto was not the same house that I had been ogling over, but it was a house all the same. It is small with two small bedrooms, a living room, a newly-constructed bathroom, and what you could call a kitchen. The kitchen is just an L-shaped counter made out of wood, but I decided it was better than nothing. I can buy a two-burner stove top and they gave me a microwave, so I am in business. I need a refrigerator and an oven, but I can probably find a toaster-oven-type-thing that works as an oven, too.
Last night was my first night in my new house. The move was a bit interesting. I wasn’t sure how I was going to move all my stuff to the house because it is up one heck of a hill. A hill so tall that I was not about to attempt to haul any of my stuff up by hand. I am usually not one to stray away from exercise and physical activity, but if I would have tried to haul a suitcase up this hill, I’m pretty sure I would have had a heat stroke. It is just so hot and the hill is killer, so that wasn’t going to happen. I packed up all my stuff at my host families house and then called the one guy who speaks English here in town. I asked if he knew anyone with a truck that would be able to help me, and ten minutes later he called me back and was outside my house with a truck. Talk about service. He and I loaded the back of the truck and drove it up the monstrous hill where we unloaded it all into my new living room. I somehow accumulated quite a bit of stuff, but I had been buying things for when I got my own place for a couple weeks already. I bought a set of dishes that were on sale, a shower curtain, frying pan, silverware, cutting board, knife, can opener, soap, sponge, toilet paper, cups, etc. -just different things here and there that I knew I would eventually need. Then. on top of all that, all of my Peace Corps stuff. All the books and training material, plus everything I had to buy to prepare my charlas for the school: chala paper, markers, construction paper, contact paper, plain white paper, scissors, stapler, tape, etc. So ya, I had quite a bit of stuff. I started by unpacking everything for the kitchen. My new landlord came over and sat in the living room while I was unpacking. I felt like it was a bit awkward, but she didn’t seem to care in the least.
Night one was good. My bed, which I bought in Gracias, is a little on the hard side, but it is better than the floor. Getting that bed was a story all in itself. I heard there was a sale going on at a store in Gracias and beds were only 1,600 lempira. Considering that 3,000 is usually a pretty good deal (for a full-sized), I jumped on that rumor. I text a volunteer living in Gracias and asked her to go scope it out for me. She got back to me later that afternoon and confirmed that the rumor was in fact true. So, the next day, I bussed to gracias to see about purchasing the bed. Unfortunately when I got there, the man I needed to speak to about possibly delivering it to my site was on lunch break - OF COURSE. So, I walked around for an hour and a half purchasing things for other people. Erin wanted a Dutch oven and Craig wanted a fancy electric grill/frying pan - I also bought a few things for myself. When I went back to the store to ask about the bed, the man was a complete dick. I asked if he would be able to take it to my site (which is about a half an hour away) he said no, he could only take it to the bus station. I wasn’t about to try and deal with hauling a bed on the bus. Even after asking the guy how much he would want to take the bed all the way to my site, all he would say was - “only to the bus station.” He wasn’t even looking me in the eyes; he was playing with a marker. I was getting so frustrated. So, I said thank you anyway and left. After telling a friend of mine the story when I got home, he got a hold of his uncle (the owner of my new house), and they said if I went and paid for the bed, they could go pick it up for me - AMAZING. The following morning, I got up, prepared my materials for my Yo Merezco class, went to gracias, paid for the bed, then went and waited for the bus to get back to site before my Yo Merezko class started. When there was still no bus at 10:15, I was getting a little nervous. My class starts between 11:30 and 11:45, and I still needed to copy some materials before going to the school. The bus finally arrived, but then for some reason the driver decided to drive about 10 miles an hour the whole way. Usually Honduran bus drivers drive like maniacs. I’m not even joking - there are so many bus accidents around here. I mean, a bus passing a car going 50+ KPH on a corner; that is just asking for trouble. But, nope, just my luck, I got the precautious driver that day. I got to my site a little after 11, ran home, grabbed all my stuff, ran to the copy center, got my copies made, and then ran to the school. I got there right as the bell rang for class to start. I worked with the boys for an hour and then ran home, dropped off my stuff, and ran for the bus because I was meeting Amanda and Ashley in Santa Rosa for lunch and to buy stuff for our soon to be new homes. After some hard core shopping, I got back to my site at about 5pm. That was one of the longest, most stressful days I have had in Honduras so far. But, I accomplished so much. I am know sitting in my new house and loving my purchases, so it was all worth it.
So back to the new house - This is currently night two. I was laying on my couch working on this blog post and my landlord came over and invited me to dinner. But, I had the window right over me open, and because I was concentrating on writing, I didn’t realize she was standing right outside the window until she said something. She scared the crap out of me, and then thought that was hilarious. She is a cute, old Honduran woman who is somewhere between 60 and 70 years old - I can not tell ages in this country; people either look really old or really young. I had actually already eaten what I was going to consider my dinner - ham and cheese on crackers, followed by peanut butter and jelly on crackers, but I couldn’t say no. It was so nice of her to come over and invite me to have dinner with them. I told her that I had already eaten, but she stood there waiting like that was not a response. So I told her I would love to come over, but that I could only eat a tini bit. The tini bit she gave me, was more of a huge plateful. I didn’t want to be rude and not eat it, so I forced it in, but I couldn’t do the tortillas. I hardly ever eat tortillas anyway. She even asked me at one point if I wanted more tortillas - three is plenty, but I could only eat one of them. I didn’t want to eat and run, so I hung out for 45+ minutes and watched the soap operas with them. However, they are in Spanish, so my attention span is really short. I walked back to the outside kitchen to say goodnight and when we were walking back inside, I fell down the three stairs. It was raining, and I was wearing my flip-flops, not the greatest combination. I hopped right up, and it really didn’t hurt, but apparently they were really worried about me because I just got a call from my friend asking if I was ok. They called him to have him call and check up on me, which is adorable, but not necessary!! I might be a little sore in the morning, but I’m fine.
Tomorrow, is Leticia’s birthday party, so a bunch of us are going to meet up at the hot springs and then spend the night in Eric’s site because Sunday is the Feria in his town. He is having a USA booth with hamburgers, chili and apple pie. I am in charge of the apple pie. I’m kind of nervous; it is going to be my first pie in Honduras and pies are always a little tricky in the first place, are they gong to set up or not set up; so hopefully they will turn out ok.
Speaking of Ferias, I went to Gracias for the feria on Wednesday. Here in Lempira, July 20th is a BIG deal. Lempira was an Indian that died fighting against the Spaniards back in the day, so July 20th in Gracias, Lempira, they have a huge parade and a reenactment of the killing of Lempira. The celebration actually goes on throughout the whole month of July, but July 20th, is the most spectacular. It was a hot day, and with thousands of extra people there for the festivities, it was almost intolerable. I am glad that I went and experienced it, but I almost had a heat stroke in the process. The parade was amazing. It was two hours long with kids dressed up as Indians, girls dressed in the old typical clothing, girls in dresses that were made for the “India Bonita” competition, which I would equate to the Miss America pageant. The girls make the dresses out of plane white fabric and then decorate it out of natural materials: corn, corn husks, bark, moss - it is amazing what some people came up with!
That about sums up the last couple weeks of my life, and what I will be doing this weekend. Oh, I also took a trip to go visit Damarise because last weekend marked my second month in site, which means I can now travel throughout Honduras. It took about 7 hours to get there, but I was a beautiful trip. That part of Honduras is beautiful; it is so green. But, it is also a lot hotter than it is here, which is hard to imagine. Then to imagine that the south is even hotter than there - I don’t think I want to go down south. Although Brian’s birthday is soon and I really should go. We’ll see what happens.
OH, and tomorrow marks the fifth month that I have been in Honduras. I can’t believe it. These five months have gone by so fast. I can understand now when people say that the two years of service really fly by, because if time keeps speeding by like it has been, I’m pretty much going to blink my eyes and my service will already be over. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish a lot of amazing things before that time comes, though!
Peace Corps Goal #3
Written July 10th
As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am supposed to explore the differences between the culture here in Honduras and in the United States, while sharing US culture with Hondurans and learning about Honduran culture and sharing it with people in the States. That is one of the reasons Peace Corps likes its volunteers to keep blogs - it is a very good way to inform the people back home what is going on here in Honduras, so they can learn about our experiences with cultural differences.
In my blogs thus far, I have talked a little about differences between here and in the States, but not really. So, I am going to try an take time each week to talk about some differences.
I am going to start today off with something that I have already touched on a little bit.
Nutrition in Honduras:
Let me start off by saying, when I was in a meeting last week, I saw a woman dipping a cookie into an orange soda and feeding it to what looked like a 6-8 month-old baby. It is hard to watch - I have seen one and two year olds drinking coffee and soda, and babies (as in under one year old) eating candy and chips. What this all actually boils down to, though, is a problem with education - it is simply the fact that these people do not know what is healthy and unhealthy to eat for themselves, let alone for a child. Everyday here in Honduras it is: tortillas, beans, cheese, fried eggs, fried plantains, coke, coffee with a pound of sugar in it, chips, ect. Nobody ever drinks water. If a study were to be done about the amount of corn tortillas consumed daily in Honduras, I think the numbers would be through the roof. Here in Western Honduras, where I am located, the corn tortillas are about three-times as think as what we were eating during training, but everyone still eats about three of them with their meals - so, they are really eating about 9 tortillas each meal! People can’t believe it when I turn down tortillas. They don’t understand that I can eat potatoes, plantains and beans without adding another starchy carbohydrate on top of that.
The hardest part for me to watch, though, is the kids. Take today for example. I was in the health center with the rest of the staff, and our favorite little girl came to visit - Lexi Maria. She is 14 months old - her grandma is one of the nurses I work with - Lexi. I went to grab something from another room and when I went back into the room with Lexi Maria and the rest of the staff, she was eating a bag of chips - basically puff Cheetos, then one of the women grabed her, puts her on their lap and starts feeding her Coke. She is only 14 months old. Her teeth are going to rot out before they even have a chance to finish growing in. The teeth situation here in Honduras s a whole different topic.
Nutrition is one of the main reasons I am here. Yes, my main focus should be on education about HIV and pregnancy prevention, but Nutrition has been where my interest was from the start. I really want to start teaching people about nutrition. When I go with the AIN-C monitor, we teach how to make the green tortillas that I have mentioned, as well as soy milk, as ways to get more nutrients to the children. But, with this, they do not tell the parents what NOT to feed their children. It says in the vaccination card that every child has, starting the day they are born, what not to feed them through the age of one, but nobody reads that. I am working on my courage to teach people about nutrition, but it is hard. After living your life one way, it is a challenge to be convinced of something else. Take today for example. When everyone was drinking Coke - including little Lexi Maria - I said that I didn’t want any because I don’t like it. Lexi, the nurse, has only been back from vacation for a week, so she didn’t know yet that I don’t like to drink soda or anything really that is packed full of sugar. So, after politely declining, Lexi tried to convince me to just have a little bit. She couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like it. She told me that it was not bad for me and that I should just have some (remember, she is a nurse). I told her that I just didn’t like it, and that I didn’t like to drink it because I don’t want to gain weight. At this, she said that it doesn’t make you gain weight, and that she has been drinking it her whole life and is skinny. I didn’t get into the whole, you will gain weight if you intake more calories than you burn because that would have just gone right over her head - especially with my Spanish-speaking abilities. We somehow then started talking about little kids drinking Coke. I told her that it was bad for little kids to drink it because there is so much sugar and there is caffeine, but she said - oh no, that it is great for little kids because it gives them so much energy. I honestly didn’t have anything to say to that. How can you teach a culture of people about proper nutrition when all they are going to do is contradict what you are trying to explain to them. They have done certain things their whole life and are in no way going to change because of what I try and teach them. It is depressing to think about. All I can do is try, though. If I can even get through to one or two people every time I give a charla about nutrition, that could make a difference. So, I need to just suck it up, and start preparing nutrition charlas. Once they are ready, than I will not have any excuse not to start giving them!
As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am supposed to explore the differences between the culture here in Honduras and in the United States, while sharing US culture with Hondurans and learning about Honduran culture and sharing it with people in the States. That is one of the reasons Peace Corps likes its volunteers to keep blogs - it is a very good way to inform the people back home what is going on here in Honduras, so they can learn about our experiences with cultural differences.
In my blogs thus far, I have talked a little about differences between here and in the States, but not really. So, I am going to try an take time each week to talk about some differences.
I am going to start today off with something that I have already touched on a little bit.
Nutrition in Honduras:
Let me start off by saying, when I was in a meeting last week, I saw a woman dipping a cookie into an orange soda and feeding it to what looked like a 6-8 month-old baby. It is hard to watch - I have seen one and two year olds drinking coffee and soda, and babies (as in under one year old) eating candy and chips. What this all actually boils down to, though, is a problem with education - it is simply the fact that these people do not know what is healthy and unhealthy to eat for themselves, let alone for a child. Everyday here in Honduras it is: tortillas, beans, cheese, fried eggs, fried plantains, coke, coffee with a pound of sugar in it, chips, ect. Nobody ever drinks water. If a study were to be done about the amount of corn tortillas consumed daily in Honduras, I think the numbers would be through the roof. Here in Western Honduras, where I am located, the corn tortillas are about three-times as think as what we were eating during training, but everyone still eats about three of them with their meals - so, they are really eating about 9 tortillas each meal! People can’t believe it when I turn down tortillas. They don’t understand that I can eat potatoes, plantains and beans without adding another starchy carbohydrate on top of that.
The hardest part for me to watch, though, is the kids. Take today for example. I was in the health center with the rest of the staff, and our favorite little girl came to visit - Lexi Maria. She is 14 months old - her grandma is one of the nurses I work with - Lexi. I went to grab something from another room and when I went back into the room with Lexi Maria and the rest of the staff, she was eating a bag of chips - basically puff Cheetos, then one of the women grabed her, puts her on their lap and starts feeding her Coke. She is only 14 months old. Her teeth are going to rot out before they even have a chance to finish growing in. The teeth situation here in Honduras s a whole different topic.
Nutrition is one of the main reasons I am here. Yes, my main focus should be on education about HIV and pregnancy prevention, but Nutrition has been where my interest was from the start. I really want to start teaching people about nutrition. When I go with the AIN-C monitor, we teach how to make the green tortillas that I have mentioned, as well as soy milk, as ways to get more nutrients to the children. But, with this, they do not tell the parents what NOT to feed their children. It says in the vaccination card that every child has, starting the day they are born, what not to feed them through the age of one, but nobody reads that. I am working on my courage to teach people about nutrition, but it is hard. After living your life one way, it is a challenge to be convinced of something else. Take today for example. When everyone was drinking Coke - including little Lexi Maria - I said that I didn’t want any because I don’t like it. Lexi, the nurse, has only been back from vacation for a week, so she didn’t know yet that I don’t like to drink soda or anything really that is packed full of sugar. So, after politely declining, Lexi tried to convince me to just have a little bit. She couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like it. She told me that it was not bad for me and that I should just have some (remember, she is a nurse). I told her that I just didn’t like it, and that I didn’t like to drink it because I don’t want to gain weight. At this, she said that it doesn’t make you gain weight, and that she has been drinking it her whole life and is skinny. I didn’t get into the whole, you will gain weight if you intake more calories than you burn because that would have just gone right over her head - especially with my Spanish-speaking abilities. We somehow then started talking about little kids drinking Coke. I told her that it was bad for little kids to drink it because there is so much sugar and there is caffeine, but she said - oh no, that it is great for little kids because it gives them so much energy. I honestly didn’t have anything to say to that. How can you teach a culture of people about proper nutrition when all they are going to do is contradict what you are trying to explain to them. They have done certain things their whole life and are in no way going to change because of what I try and teach them. It is depressing to think about. All I can do is try, though. If I can even get through to one or two people every time I give a charla about nutrition, that could make a difference. So, I need to just suck it up, and start preparing nutrition charlas. Once they are ready, than I will not have any excuse not to start giving them!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Homesick
Started July 2nd -Finished July 5th
The weirdest things have had nostalgic effects on me here in Honduras. The other day at about 4:30 a.m., I was woken up by a big diesel truck starting down the street. I’ve been in Honduras for more than four months now, but when I heard the truck start up, I was in Port Alexander, sleeping in my bunk on the boat, and my dad was starting her up to head out for another day of fishing. It only took a few minutes for reality to set it. The smell of diesel, the Pacific, and fish slime were not in the air; there was no rocking on the water; there was no static coming from the VHF; and I was not rapped up in a think sleeping bag. Nope, the reality of it all was that I was sleeping in a strange bed; roosters were singing up a storm; and I was half underneath a thin sheet and still sweating.
It is strange when the homesickness decides to kick in. Four thirty on a Tuesday morning to the starting of a big rig; one in the afternoon when I see pictures of my friends out camping on Facebook; and sometimes when I look at the clock at 6:30 p.m. and know my parents would be sitting down to watch Wheel of Fortune.
There are quite a few things here in Honduras that when I see them, I long for the States:
1) I just can’t seem to get over ants in the fridge. I don’t like ants in general, and the little buggers that bite my feet all day are bad enough, but then to open the refrigerator only to see the big ants running around, is enough to make someone long for the “cleanliness” of the States.
2) Every so often, I see a little kid, usually between the ages of one month to two years old, with weird bumps all over their body. It kind of looks like scabies, but the bumps are a little bigger and all over the body. It is not an attractive thing to see, and I get grossed out when I have to pick the kid up for some reason because I think that I’m going to catch whatever they have. That is enough to send me screaming for a shower and long for the States.
3) When a host family makes spaghetti for dinner I definitely long for the States. Picture white noodles, not cooked all the way, with a sauce made of tomato paste and butter. It is not good. And, to make sure you have enough carbs and calories on your plate, you are then given a stack of tortillas to eat your spaghetti with. Every time I see spaghetti in this country it makes me miss the food back home, and the gym!
4) Cockroaches. Thankfully I have not seen many of them, but when I do, I definitely cringe. Last night for example, a cockroach was having some trouble outside the kitchen door. I think I might have injured it unknowingly when I opened the door. So, I stepped on it, and thought all would be over - that my host mom would sweep it up in the morning, and I wouldn’t have to see it again. But no, I was mistaken. The little bugger somehow managed to crawl (on its back) into my room because when I woke up this morning, instead of being in the garbage where my host mom would have put it after sweeping, it was in front of my closet. So, I kicked it out of my room and back into the hallway, hoping my host mom would see it and deal with it. I just didn’t want to touch the little bugger. However, my host mom was in the garden all morning, so when I came home for lunch, the cockroach was in the middle of the hallway, still on its back, kicking its feet all around and being attacked by a flock (family, herd?), of ants! One of the grossest things I have seen yet here in Honduras.
5) Bugs in my bed are too much to handle. However, I have become amazingly accustomed to them. At first, I cringed and wanted to cry every time there was a bug in my room, let alone in my bed, but now, I just kill it and brush it off the bed. However, even though I may have gotten used to having to deal with bugs in my bed, it still makes me want my nice clean bed at home! There is nothing more terrifying and gross than waking up to the feeling of something scampering up your arm! I’m just grateful it isn’t spiders.
On that note, luckily, I have not had many run-ins with spiders. I was trying to prepare myself for spider incidents before I came here, but I don’t think I can really do anything to prepare myself for when I finally do see a giant spider. I get scared enough be the itty bitty ones. During training, I had to deal with the medium sized spider, well I guess for here it was probably more on the small side, that taunted me every night and caused me to put my mosquito net up. I didn’t want to wake up with that big, black, ugly thing in my bed with me. Also, one day during technical training, there was a huge spider in the corner of the room. I didn’t see it until after a bunch of other people had already seen it, but most of them were keeping their cool pretty well. Not me, when I saw it I gave a little screech, grabbed my chair and pulled my feet up off the ground. The guy who was giving the presentation that day looked at me like I was pretty strange. I said that I was sorry but that I had just seen the giant spider in the corner. Our training director then grabbed a broom and tried to get it out of the classroom, but it was in such an awkward spot in the corner of the room that all he could try to do was kill it. However, it scampered out the door before he was able to accomplish that task. I was a good twenty feet away from that spider, but still my hands were sweating and I was breathing heard. I don’t have any idea what I’m going to do when I come face to face with one - possibly faint!
The weirdest things have had nostalgic effects on me here in Honduras. The other day at about 4:30 a.m., I was woken up by a big diesel truck starting down the street. I’ve been in Honduras for more than four months now, but when I heard the truck start up, I was in Port Alexander, sleeping in my bunk on the boat, and my dad was starting her up to head out for another day of fishing. It only took a few minutes for reality to set it. The smell of diesel, the Pacific, and fish slime were not in the air; there was no rocking on the water; there was no static coming from the VHF; and I was not rapped up in a think sleeping bag. Nope, the reality of it all was that I was sleeping in a strange bed; roosters were singing up a storm; and I was half underneath a thin sheet and still sweating.
It is strange when the homesickness decides to kick in. Four thirty on a Tuesday morning to the starting of a big rig; one in the afternoon when I see pictures of my friends out camping on Facebook; and sometimes when I look at the clock at 6:30 p.m. and know my parents would be sitting down to watch Wheel of Fortune.
There are quite a few things here in Honduras that when I see them, I long for the States:
1) I just can’t seem to get over ants in the fridge. I don’t like ants in general, and the little buggers that bite my feet all day are bad enough, but then to open the refrigerator only to see the big ants running around, is enough to make someone long for the “cleanliness” of the States.
2) Every so often, I see a little kid, usually between the ages of one month to two years old, with weird bumps all over their body. It kind of looks like scabies, but the bumps are a little bigger and all over the body. It is not an attractive thing to see, and I get grossed out when I have to pick the kid up for some reason because I think that I’m going to catch whatever they have. That is enough to send me screaming for a shower and long for the States.
3) When a host family makes spaghetti for dinner I definitely long for the States. Picture white noodles, not cooked all the way, with a sauce made of tomato paste and butter. It is not good. And, to make sure you have enough carbs and calories on your plate, you are then given a stack of tortillas to eat your spaghetti with. Every time I see spaghetti in this country it makes me miss the food back home, and the gym!
4) Cockroaches. Thankfully I have not seen many of them, but when I do, I definitely cringe. Last night for example, a cockroach was having some trouble outside the kitchen door. I think I might have injured it unknowingly when I opened the door. So, I stepped on it, and thought all would be over - that my host mom would sweep it up in the morning, and I wouldn’t have to see it again. But no, I was mistaken. The little bugger somehow managed to crawl (on its back) into my room because when I woke up this morning, instead of being in the garbage where my host mom would have put it after sweeping, it was in front of my closet. So, I kicked it out of my room and back into the hallway, hoping my host mom would see it and deal with it. I just didn’t want to touch the little bugger. However, my host mom was in the garden all morning, so when I came home for lunch, the cockroach was in the middle of the hallway, still on its back, kicking its feet all around and being attacked by a flock (family, herd?), of ants! One of the grossest things I have seen yet here in Honduras.
5) Bugs in my bed are too much to handle. However, I have become amazingly accustomed to them. At first, I cringed and wanted to cry every time there was a bug in my room, let alone in my bed, but now, I just kill it and brush it off the bed. However, even though I may have gotten used to having to deal with bugs in my bed, it still makes me want my nice clean bed at home! There is nothing more terrifying and gross than waking up to the feeling of something scampering up your arm! I’m just grateful it isn’t spiders.
On that note, luckily, I have not had many run-ins with spiders. I was trying to prepare myself for spider incidents before I came here, but I don’t think I can really do anything to prepare myself for when I finally do see a giant spider. I get scared enough be the itty bitty ones. During training, I had to deal with the medium sized spider, well I guess for here it was probably more on the small side, that taunted me every night and caused me to put my mosquito net up. I didn’t want to wake up with that big, black, ugly thing in my bed with me. Also, one day during technical training, there was a huge spider in the corner of the room. I didn’t see it until after a bunch of other people had already seen it, but most of them were keeping their cool pretty well. Not me, when I saw it I gave a little screech, grabbed my chair and pulled my feet up off the ground. The guy who was giving the presentation that day looked at me like I was pretty strange. I said that I was sorry but that I had just seen the giant spider in the corner. Our training director then grabbed a broom and tried to get it out of the classroom, but it was in such an awkward spot in the corner of the room that all he could try to do was kill it. However, it scampered out the door before he was able to accomplish that task. I was a good twenty feet away from that spider, but still my hands were sweating and I was breathing heard. I don’t have any idea what I’m going to do when I come face to face with one - possibly faint!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Se Fue La Luz
Written June 27th
This has come to be a very common term here in Honduras. When we were told to pack a headlamp, they were not kidding around. It was on the optional list of things to pack, but the testimonies from past volunteers spoke very highly of them. Last week when the power went out, I finally dug out the head lamp that my dad gave me before I left Alaska. I had just been using my flashlight before that, but to cook, two hands are better than one, and I didn’t really want to allow someone else to put my flashlight in their mouth - that is only for me to do.
So, I brought out my headlamp, and it turns out my host family had never seen one. They got a real kick out of it, and didn’t use it. They have their ways and we have ours. My host mom lit a candle, dripped some wax on the top of the Gerber baby food jar that has the salt in it, and then stuck the candle to the top of the Gerber jar. I was headed to take a shower with my LED light that has a little hanger on it, so I declined the use of another candle. I figured while getting in or out of the shower or drying off, I would probably blow it out, and then I would be stuck in the dark all wet.
The electricity here has a mind of its own. I asked my host mom about the reasoning behind the occasional power outages. They don’t seem to have any rime or reason behind them. I understand when it is poring down rain with thunder and lightning, but when it isn’t storming out, I don’t quite understand why we loose power. My host mom told me that it is actually turned off by the government. How she explained it, and from what I understood from how she explained it, was that only the home owners actually pay for electricity - the businesses don’t. So, a lot of power is consumed, and to balance out the usage, they turn the power out for a little while almost every afternoon/evening. This, however, really inconveniences the home owners who actually pay for electricity! The power usually goes out somewhere between 5 and 7 p.m., which, of course, is when everyone is trying to make dinner. These days, a good portion of the population have stoves, or at least a stove top that is electric, so when the power goes out, their dinner-making abilities are put on hold. However, even if people have an electric stove or burner, they also still have their fagon, a wood-burning cook stove. So, when the power goes out during dinner time, they have to take a break, get fire wood, light the fagon, and wait for it to get hot enough to cook on.
I like the fagons, but I wouldn’t want to cook on them. I have done my fair share of camping with camp-fire cooking, or cooking on top of a wood stove, and I’m not a huge fan. It just seems to take longer and it is a lot hotter. In Hondurras, it is already hot enough for my liking, so cooking next to a really hot fire-burning stove is not on my list of things I want to experience while living here. I wouldn’t mind if I was in a nice cool place and the fire actually warmed me up, but when my core temperature is already close to 100 degrees, I do not need any assistance by a stove to keep warm.
Cooking on fagons is really an art here, though. I see women do it, and I’m pretty impressed. They make their tortillas right on the cook surface. They make them so fast and just flip them with their hands. Twenty five tortillas only takes these Honduran women about five minutes. And cooking their eggs, beans and rice - they make it look so easy. The way they shuffle around the different pots and pans over the hot part of the cook-top - it is an art! It is just second nature to them, though. They learned from their moms when they were young, who learned from their mothers before them.
This has come to be a very common term here in Honduras. When we were told to pack a headlamp, they were not kidding around. It was on the optional list of things to pack, but the testimonies from past volunteers spoke very highly of them. Last week when the power went out, I finally dug out the head lamp that my dad gave me before I left Alaska. I had just been using my flashlight before that, but to cook, two hands are better than one, and I didn’t really want to allow someone else to put my flashlight in their mouth - that is only for me to do.
So, I brought out my headlamp, and it turns out my host family had never seen one. They got a real kick out of it, and didn’t use it. They have their ways and we have ours. My host mom lit a candle, dripped some wax on the top of the Gerber baby food jar that has the salt in it, and then stuck the candle to the top of the Gerber jar. I was headed to take a shower with my LED light that has a little hanger on it, so I declined the use of another candle. I figured while getting in or out of the shower or drying off, I would probably blow it out, and then I would be stuck in the dark all wet.
The electricity here has a mind of its own. I asked my host mom about the reasoning behind the occasional power outages. They don’t seem to have any rime or reason behind them. I understand when it is poring down rain with thunder and lightning, but when it isn’t storming out, I don’t quite understand why we loose power. My host mom told me that it is actually turned off by the government. How she explained it, and from what I understood from how she explained it, was that only the home owners actually pay for electricity - the businesses don’t. So, a lot of power is consumed, and to balance out the usage, they turn the power out for a little while almost every afternoon/evening. This, however, really inconveniences the home owners who actually pay for electricity! The power usually goes out somewhere between 5 and 7 p.m., which, of course, is when everyone is trying to make dinner. These days, a good portion of the population have stoves, or at least a stove top that is electric, so when the power goes out, their dinner-making abilities are put on hold. However, even if people have an electric stove or burner, they also still have their fagon, a wood-burning cook stove. So, when the power goes out during dinner time, they have to take a break, get fire wood, light the fagon, and wait for it to get hot enough to cook on.
I like the fagons, but I wouldn’t want to cook on them. I have done my fair share of camping with camp-fire cooking, or cooking on top of a wood stove, and I’m not a huge fan. It just seems to take longer and it is a lot hotter. In Hondurras, it is already hot enough for my liking, so cooking next to a really hot fire-burning stove is not on my list of things I want to experience while living here. I wouldn’t mind if I was in a nice cool place and the fire actually warmed me up, but when my core temperature is already close to 100 degrees, I do not need any assistance by a stove to keep warm.
Cooking on fagons is really an art here, though. I see women do it, and I’m pretty impressed. They make their tortillas right on the cook surface. They make them so fast and just flip them with their hands. Twenty five tortillas only takes these Honduran women about five minutes. And cooking their eggs, beans and rice - they make it look so easy. The way they shuffle around the different pots and pans over the hot part of the cook-top - it is an art! It is just second nature to them, though. They learned from their moms when they were young, who learned from their mothers before them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)