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!
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