Ok, so a few days have passed since I touched down on American soil. Now, its kind of surreal, because things are so familiar because I grew up in this culture, in this area, but some things have been a little weird.
first what?!- Ok, so in Honduras, you don't flush toilet paper down the toilet. The sanitary waste system (where one exists) cannot handle the paper, so there is always a small trash can to collect it. Odd situation when one first arrives in Honduras, but as of now it is the norm. So, I am in the airport in Atlanta, and very confused when there is no trash can. I felt really guilty for flushing it. Still do. Its an odd situation.
Food: I am sure when I get back to Honduras I will be craving frijolitos and platino. As of now I am enjoying the food here. Eating whatever junk I can get my hands on. Lets be honest, I have a lot of fresh fruits in my town, so I can eat very healthy in Honduras. Its always good climate for growing veggies and fruits, so fresh stuff is easy to find. My parents love me, so they are indulging me and I love it.
Now, I live with a host family. I feel very comfortable with them, but its not the same. Also, I am wrapped in very soft warm clothing as I am writing this. Well, its not cold enough in Honduras to enjoy the feeling of layers.
I bet a few of you are wondering what my reaction was to the Maine weather. Before I even left Honduras I had a minor situation. I had gone hiking the weekend before, and my sneakers were really, really dirty. Well, I thought I could wash them before coming home and with two days in the sun, they should dry. It then rained for two days, so I was without shoes. Let me explain this, I only have two pairs of closed toed shoes in Honduras, my sneakers and my boots. Well, I didn't want to travel in my boots, so I went out and bought closed toed dress shoes.
These shoes ended up destroying my feet. I had to walk about a kilometer between dropping off my dog at her sitter's and getting to the bus station. My heels were literally bleeding from the effort, so the rest of the time I folded over the back of the shoe to prevent more damage (although I later got blisters too) and made a phone call home to request my winter boots being brought to the airport to pick me up. Its kind of funny though because the only time I wore my fleece in the trip home was in Tegucigapla, in the airport, and was freezing because the air conditioner was on too strong. The few places that have air conditioning only use it enough to make it less hot, not to make the place cool.
So, getting off the plane in Maine, I was trying to run up the walkway, but my feet hurt too bad to run. I was brought a coat and boots to the airport, and I was prepared in my mind for the cold, so it wasn't too bad. On the other hand, the next day I wasn't prepared for the cold, so when I went outside I really felt it. It feels so nice to sleep underneath heavy blankets, the most I have in Honduras is maybe one thin blanket.
Ok, thats all for now.
Jill
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
overdue update
Whoa, its been a long time
The workload is not just too much to update, its just very rarely going to the internet café again. Let’s see, what has been up in Jill’s world?
My friend Ryan came down to visit me. He is in my training class and is also in Water and Sanitation. We hung out a bit, I got to show off how cool my site is. We talked about work projects and did some scavenger hunt like activities in the local city. Ok, where can you find a chimney for a wood stove, and a metal worker willing to do some work for you? After that came the easy stuff, find ice cream, street food, and cigars. There was a small fair sponsored by the Catholic church, and there was a lot of food stands and we even managed to buy cigars. Now, the area I am in is kind of famous for cigars but they are hard to find because they export them and only occasionally sell them in the factories, but there is one guy trying to change all that and make cigars available to all- which roughly translates to tourists.
T has decided to leave us. We had a going away party for her/ birthday party for T and myself. If was a really relaxed affair which was nice. At one point there was some charades which was actually really fun. And, sorry M, but anyone who puts Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as a charade deserves to lose. I get my piece of paper and see that on there, I had to sit there for a second and count how many words it was. Nuts.
Puppy stories. Well, so my dog doesn’t normally set foot in the office even though she lives there because she doesn’t like the people there and if I am not in there, there is no incentive for her. I decided to work INSIDE the building the other day and so she came in with me. I brought her rope toy in for her to chew but she still somehow got her mouth on the phone line cord. Oops. Next step, build her a little fenced in area that she can be in when I am working inside so that we don’t have to worry about her eating all the cords in the building. Oh, so my little ray of sunshine decided to pee inside the office this morning. Here is how this went down: I walk into the gate and greet her, then go straight to her water bowl and see she needs water so I walk inside and start getting water. No joke as I am filling the bowl she decides to pee inside the kitchen. She was outside ALL night, and pees inside for the 3 minutes I am inside.
Baseball. We have decided to take a little break from baseball. The kids are not showing up during their summer vacation (what else do they have to do, there is no summer rec here) so we decided to have a break while we return to the US for the holidays. This way we are all excited to be there in February. The good thing about the last practice was that I found out how to exhaust my puppy. She ran with me and later was just pooped out. It looks like she will be a good running practice.
Christmas caroling: S had a friend come visit. He was very nice, and the two of them took my pup hiking which is a good thing because this was right after the phone cord incident. They invited me over when they made Christmas cookies. Well, we first tried to make gingerbread cookies, but something went wrong. They were this dull grey color and kind of cardboard like. Later peanut butter cookies worked out a lot better. We decided we should go out caroling (only to people we know). At night we stopped by several houses and sang. Now, this is not a Honduran tradition, so almost all were a little confused, but enjoyed it. One really funny point was that it took us to house 6 or 7 to finally get the words right to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Now, because I am not feeling really inspired on writing a play by play account of my activites, here is a segment on general Honduran life.
Water. In the water if you clean drinking water, you just turn on the tap. Here, not so much. Only the villages that chlorinate their water can drink the water from the tap. I do believe all cities are a no go on that. My little city is no different. To make up for this, everyone buys the water bubbler jugs. Guys come around at different points in the week. Different guys come on different days and do different parts of the city. Now, who you have is very important. There are some nice and caring souls that will come to your door and knock, and wait for you to answer to let you know they are there with the water. More common in the knock and run. A guy knocks, but the guy at the wheel keeps going. This means that by time you get to the door with your cash, they are several houses down and you have to go run to get their attention, and hope that one of the guys carries your water back for you (but good luck on actually getting that to happen). They don’t come at the same time, so its really a hit or miss on whether you will actually be home to hear the knock and dasher to begin with.
Glass bottles. You know those coca-cola glass bottles that you see in flea markets and whatnot, well, that’s what coca cola is in here. There are plastic bottles as well, but far more common is the glass. In as glass bottle is also cheaper. This is an excellent example of reusing (remember your three Rs of recycling). Its not only coca cola, but almost all brands of soda.
Tang. I will be honest, I was in high school before I learned what tang was. We were a kool-aid family. Anyways, even after high school I thought that Tang was an orange flavored sugary drink. Nope. Tang comes in many flavors, from orange to lime, to mango, to other tropical fruits. They come in add sugar and don’t add sugar varieties. I was shocked the first time I saw the variety.
ok, i am home now, with internet access so I will be putting more posts up, highlights include adjusting to the states again!
The workload is not just too much to update, its just very rarely going to the internet café again. Let’s see, what has been up in Jill’s world?
My friend Ryan came down to visit me. He is in my training class and is also in Water and Sanitation. We hung out a bit, I got to show off how cool my site is. We talked about work projects and did some scavenger hunt like activities in the local city. Ok, where can you find a chimney for a wood stove, and a metal worker willing to do some work for you? After that came the easy stuff, find ice cream, street food, and cigars. There was a small fair sponsored by the Catholic church, and there was a lot of food stands and we even managed to buy cigars. Now, the area I am in is kind of famous for cigars but they are hard to find because they export them and only occasionally sell them in the factories, but there is one guy trying to change all that and make cigars available to all- which roughly translates to tourists.
T has decided to leave us. We had a going away party for her/ birthday party for T and myself. If was a really relaxed affair which was nice. At one point there was some charades which was actually really fun. And, sorry M, but anyone who puts Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as a charade deserves to lose. I get my piece of paper and see that on there, I had to sit there for a second and count how many words it was. Nuts.
Puppy stories. Well, so my dog doesn’t normally set foot in the office even though she lives there because she doesn’t like the people there and if I am not in there, there is no incentive for her. I decided to work INSIDE the building the other day and so she came in with me. I brought her rope toy in for her to chew but she still somehow got her mouth on the phone line cord. Oops. Next step, build her a little fenced in area that she can be in when I am working inside so that we don’t have to worry about her eating all the cords in the building. Oh, so my little ray of sunshine decided to pee inside the office this morning. Here is how this went down: I walk into the gate and greet her, then go straight to her water bowl and see she needs water so I walk inside and start getting water. No joke as I am filling the bowl she decides to pee inside the kitchen. She was outside ALL night, and pees inside for the 3 minutes I am inside.
Baseball. We have decided to take a little break from baseball. The kids are not showing up during their summer vacation (what else do they have to do, there is no summer rec here) so we decided to have a break while we return to the US for the holidays. This way we are all excited to be there in February. The good thing about the last practice was that I found out how to exhaust my puppy. She ran with me and later was just pooped out. It looks like she will be a good running practice.
Christmas caroling: S had a friend come visit. He was very nice, and the two of them took my pup hiking which is a good thing because this was right after the phone cord incident. They invited me over when they made Christmas cookies. Well, we first tried to make gingerbread cookies, but something went wrong. They were this dull grey color and kind of cardboard like. Later peanut butter cookies worked out a lot better. We decided we should go out caroling (only to people we know). At night we stopped by several houses and sang. Now, this is not a Honduran tradition, so almost all were a little confused, but enjoyed it. One really funny point was that it took us to house 6 or 7 to finally get the words right to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Now, because I am not feeling really inspired on writing a play by play account of my activites, here is a segment on general Honduran life.
Water. In the water if you clean drinking water, you just turn on the tap. Here, not so much. Only the villages that chlorinate their water can drink the water from the tap. I do believe all cities are a no go on that. My little city is no different. To make up for this, everyone buys the water bubbler jugs. Guys come around at different points in the week. Different guys come on different days and do different parts of the city. Now, who you have is very important. There are some nice and caring souls that will come to your door and knock, and wait for you to answer to let you know they are there with the water. More common in the knock and run. A guy knocks, but the guy at the wheel keeps going. This means that by time you get to the door with your cash, they are several houses down and you have to go run to get their attention, and hope that one of the guys carries your water back for you (but good luck on actually getting that to happen). They don’t come at the same time, so its really a hit or miss on whether you will actually be home to hear the knock and dasher to begin with.
Glass bottles. You know those coca-cola glass bottles that you see in flea markets and whatnot, well, that’s what coca cola is in here. There are plastic bottles as well, but far more common is the glass. In as glass bottle is also cheaper. This is an excellent example of reusing (remember your three Rs of recycling). Its not only coca cola, but almost all brands of soda.
Tang. I will be honest, I was in high school before I learned what tang was. We were a kool-aid family. Anyways, even after high school I thought that Tang was an orange flavored sugary drink. Nope. Tang comes in many flavors, from orange to lime, to mango, to other tropical fruits. They come in add sugar and don’t add sugar varieties. I was shocked the first time I saw the variety.
ok, i am home now, with internet access so I will be putting more posts up, highlights include adjusting to the states again!
Monday, November 30, 2009
random photos
Ok, so I just got this photo, it is of a game called acid river that we did during training. I have the guy on my back, and we are trying to negotiate a 90 degree corner on 2X4s. 
An old photo from the baseball tryouts.
A rather blurry picture of my host family. My host Mom is sitting down with her 4 children behind her. By the way, my host mom is a great-great grandmother!
A newer photo of S with some of the baseball kids.
A cool photo I took recently on a topo study.
Cofffee beans in the foreground and baby plants in teh background.how's it going?
Hello folks, I have internet access today and with my own computer for nothing else! I am just sitting here wondering what to tell you.
Yesterday was the elections in Honduras. We have a president-elect. His name is Pepe Lobo. I am happy to report that nothing happened, there was a little bit of threats that something was going to go down, but nothing happened, or at least nothing was in the newspaper.
Until next time!
Yesterday was the elections in Honduras. We have a president-elect. His name is Pepe Lobo. I am happy to report that nothing happened, there was a little bit of threats that something was going to go down, but nothing happened, or at least nothing was in the newspaper.
Until next time!
Friday, November 27, 2009
what´s up Jill?
Goodness, what have I been doing in the last few weeks? Hmm, not a whole lot. Here are some updates:
The puppy is fat. I was giving her too much food, so she is on a diet (who knows how much food to give a puppy?) She is well into her biting stage, which had better be short lived. T gave her a doll which is a baby in a rat suit (it looks as weird as it sounds) and Seca loves it. She tries to tear it to pieces. I also gave her a water bottle the other day. Not as big of a hit, but she isn’t to the point she can destroy that, so its yet another toy for her.
I taught the people at my work how to do a topo study with the abney level, and we went out and did a practice one. That was a hard hike getting up there. It was 1.5 hours of what felt like straight up, it looked like a waterfall was going down my face, it was such a hot and humid day.
The next week I did a full day on how to design potable water systems. Now, Seca was good all morning, but in the afternoon decided she no longer wanted to behave. While I was talking in front of everyone she wanted to play, and was biting me. Thankfully T showed up to play with her, so I was able to shut her out. Oh, one note about my office; there is a front door and a back door. Before T showed up I tossed Seca out the door and a minute later she was back at my feet. She’s not stupid, she ran around out back!
Other things: It looks like one of the trainings for the next group of trainees will be in my site. My boss came to talk to me and then someone came to try and find host families for the newbies.
Then came THANKSGIVING, otherwise known as I am never doing this alone again. I made a whole lot of food, and it took me a full day of shopping to get everything, mostly because I kept forgetting things. I made chicken instead of turkey- easier to find. I then made corn (one thing that came in a can), baked green beans (no frunions for green bean casserole, mashed potatoes (from real potatoes), stuffing- no stovetop here, vegetable gravy, crescents, and three pies. Why three pies? I had intended two because I was cooking for 10 people minimum, and then had too many apples for two pies, so I improvised a third. That was a lot considering I made them all today, because I got too lazy last night to bake.
At one point I got a little nuts because people were like “I’m hungry!” And I wanted to tell them where… ok, almost lost my PG rating there. Anywho, I got a little annoyed. The food was really good though. I ate with my host family at 2:30pm (a little off from the 1pm time I wanted to have it done), and then reheated everything at 5pm to give it to my coworkers.
So, it’s the next day and my dog almost got me killed. We went and walked a new route and this one “perro bravo” –aggressive dog, comes out barking and charging. I get to her to stay back and as soon as I get this done I hear more barks from behind me. I look and there are three dogs barking like crazy. By the grace of God they were behind a fence. But by the time that I turn back around, two more dogs have appeared and their fangs are awfully large. They stayed a few feet away, but still scared me. Now, at this point there are several people just doing their normal everyday thing. No one stops to even look at these six vicious dogs. Eventually I call out for help and am all but crying on the street. In seconds the dogs go away when someone takes 5 seconds out of their life to make sure I don’t get mauled to death by these dogs. If you have a vicious dog, keep it off the street people!
If you think there are too many puppy stories, I will point out that I could be telling adventures of Jill´s stomach stories, which aren´t nearly as happy.
lets start with pics
There she is, my little girl, who destroyed a posterboard yesterday,
Me working, yes I do work. I was teaching other people how to design water systems. My coworkers were at the computers following along in the instructions.
Ok, not sure how I put two in one place, but here we go. The one on the left is me and Olimpia, our housekeeper. I kept thinking, don´t stand up straight, don´t stand up straight for the picture. She is a typical sized Honduran and sometimes I feel like a giant. The other pic is me and Olimpia´s son, Omar. He is 9 and was excited to help me out. He also likes to help with the puppy.
The food, minus the pies and chicken.
Ok, wine makes everything better. In the grocery store I had debated spending the extra money on wine but it was very much needed after cooking dinner.
My host Mom and I after eating a traditional thanksgiving meal.
Friday, November 20, 2009
puppy updates
Well, this week has had ups and downs withe the puppy. At first I was putting the puppy in a room in my office at night. She cried all night for a few days, than one day she didn't. It turns out she got herself out of the room, and pooped everywhere. Later I shut her in a lockable bathroom. She started to cry less and less, which was good.
For a while there, it was rough. I almost got rid of her.
She is weird, she doesn't like to leave the office. So one day i left her roaming around outside. She did well so I made the decision to let her spend the night outside (there are a lot of protected places for her outside). Then I spent the night worrying what she chew. She did fine.
The funny thing is that she stays with me all the time. So when i am working outside (there is a desk on the patio) she plays by herself, and she steps off the patio and onto the grass to go to the bathroom. But when I work inside (wind plays havoc on loose papers) she sleeps by my feet and goes to the bathroom in the corner. I got to get her better trained on that one.
She is getting good at playing with her toy. She is a puppy and eating everything, or at least trying to eat my pants while I am wearing them.
She is still really shy with people. It is funny, I take her on at least two walks per day. For a little while I did one of the walks without the leash because she really stays that close to me, but she got adventurous this morning , and almost got run over, so now she has to be on a leash. She really doesn't like to leave the office though. I have to carry her out of the door.
Other things in my life: Work is busy, I am helping a friend write a manual on how to train water boards, in every aspect, administration and environmental education, etc. I have some ideas on other projects, which should be starting soon. Life is pretty nice.
Oh, so I calculated it today. I get paid $309 a month. That wont pay rent anywhere in the states. I am considered rich here, for that much, although I think people think I am paid a normal states wage, or something more than $3700 a year. For that little, you don't even have to pay taxes. During my site visit my volunteer told me she made more money in the month of january than the rest of the year combined. I can see how that might be possible.
Take care,
Jill
Monday, November 16, 2009
What have I been up to lately
Ok, in case you haven't looked in for a few days, this is the sixth entry in three days. I have been busy. Here it goes:
The big news is that I bought a dog! I have been wanting one for a while, but had some really bad luck finding a dog, but the other night we were walking down the street, and the house next to a pulperia (corner store) had a mom dog and puppies, so I asked about them. The next morning I went over and bought Seca, my little girl.
Since then I have realized that a dog, especially a puppy, is good practice for kids. You have to clean up poop, and vomit, and listen to them cry. Seca lives in my office because my host mom does not like dogs in the house. Dogs here are not exercised, and thus very frequently take out their extra energy on household items. Anyways, since I live next door to the office I can hear her cry when I leave her. Luckily she is taking less and less time to cry.
This past weekend we all went to a nearby town for a welcome party for the new volunteers in the department. It was a good time. S and I felt bad because we got there Saturday afternoon (we had to wait until practice was over first, since the kids hadn't had practice in three weeks) while everyone else got there Friday afternoon. The new people are really nice. It was a different atmosphere than most PC get-togethers, we spent most of the night playing games.
I did bring my puppy, because I didn't want her locked up all weekend long. She did really well on the buses, she just slept. That night I slept on a thin mattress on the floor, and Seca wanted to play all night long. Most puppies have a lot of energy, or so it seems, maybe its just that she is so young she still needs to sleep all the time. She is two months old by the way, and a german shepard mix.
Until next time my loyal readers!
what have i been up to lately- in pictures
The waterfall (or one of them) at the welcome party.
Me underneath the waterfall, man was that water cold. You can tell that I never wear shorts here, look at those white legs!
My puppy! Her name is Seca. She is adorable if a little bit of a pain in the butt.
Another look at that puppy face. I love it. I definitely did not realize how much work a puppy was though. If a puppy is that much work, how do people have kids?
more pictures
Group at the ruins.
Birds eye view of the ruins
This is a main stair case, each block has a symbol, and it is one of the most wel studied pieces of writing most studied by archeologists.
THis is actually kind of cool, the strip of grass is a sport field, but the "ball" had to stay on the diagonal slabs. There were even dressing rooms for the games.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
more pictures
sitemates do copan ruinas
sitemates do halloween (quailman- from the nickelodeon cartoon Doug, firecracker, zebra)
Kalin and I checking out day of the dead festivitesabbreviated vacation
What a trip. It’s a bit of an adventure, so buckle up and get ready!
Well, I got up at 3:55am to catch a bus to Teguc and get ready. T, S and I were travelling together, and we got ourselves up and out in order to take the 5am bus. We ended up taking a bus that left at 4:30am, it was driving around town looking for passengers, so we took that instead of walking all the way to the bus terminal. The buses got in at about the right time. Now, here is the thing, T and S needed to go get money, but the ATM at the bus terminal in Teguc was not working, so Sara went in search of one. There is a grocery store next to the bus stop, so she went off, and disappeared. She didn’t bring her phone, and T and I are thinking where did she go? Well, that ATM didn’t work as well, so she kept walking, and the bank was not open! There she kept walking. Finally she reached a ATM that worked and came back.
Now, the thing about Tegucigalpa is that there is no one bus terminal. Every bus has its own terminal, which means you have to travel around the city to find the terminal you want. We ended up finding a cheap bus to take to San Pedro Sula (largest City in Honduras as well as its industrial center). While waiting in the terminal (bus didn’t leave for an hour and a half), two more volunteers showed up. We talked to them a bit. Catch this, one of them is from Wayne, Maine, which is not too far from the parents.
Anways, this is where the disaster begins. I get nauseas, and try to sleep to ignore it for a while, but my stomach would not be ignored. I will spare you the details, but those were not the finest 5 hours of my life.
The bus pulls into the station in San Pedro (which is a very convenient one station has it- buses, all type of place). Now, I get off the bus happy to be not moving anymore. I get off with the other volunteers, and once I see that my sitemates have gotten off the bus, I start walking with the guys. Now, this was so hard to walk. I was so out of it, in pain and nauseas and not wanting to walk. At the clear other end of the terminal I feel my purse vibrating. It’s S, and I walked off without getting my bag from the bus. Yep, I walked off without my bag. Good going Jill! Luckily T and S took care of this for me, because I am not sure I could have walked back there. We could have gotten right on another bus, but everyone was nice enough to wait an hour with me in the station before getting on the next bus. This was a disaster. I just wanted to sleep and not be sick. T carried my bag and her bag all the time because it was all I could do just to walk, never mind carry a bag packed for a week and a half.
The hour did me no good. It felt as though someone was wringing my intestines out like squeezing all of the water out of a soaking we shirt. Not cool. I get on the bus and immediately, oh I said you didn’t need to hear all the details. So, that was another awful 4 hour drive. After what felt like a million stops, we get to town. With luck the hotel owner was at the bus station to give us a ride the few blocks to the hotel. We get there and one of the first things we notice is that there is no hot water. Well, T and S really wanted to go out and party, so they took cold showers and left. I stumbled my way downstairs to tell the owners that there was no hot water. Well, I got permission to use another shower. Eventually I fall asleep for the night. The bar everyone at was across the street so I did get to hear most of the music for the night. Oh, so we also discovered the tv didn’t work, as well as the AC, and the fan was the most broke-#$%^ thing you have ever seen.
The next morning things seemed to be better, I could keep water down (always a good thing). We left to get breakfast, and nearly fainted over the prices. In my town I can get lunch for L15, but it was L70 for breakfast. We met up with a bunch of other volunteers and made plans to visit the Mayan Ruins, for which the town is famous.
The Ruins are awesome, I took every chance possible to sit and rest since I was weak and still a little dizzy from not eating (or at least digesting) anything the day before. We were with a group, so we paid for a guide which could explain everything to us. I have a lot of cool pictures, which I will eventually put up. We learned a lot about the Mayans. For instance, the complex we saw had a rain water drainage system. There were human sacrifices and the rich lived separately from the poor.
Later that afternoon I just chilled out getting my bearings again. This was the night of the fabled Halloween party. Now, I had been looking forward to this since before I left for Honduras (which should have been warning enough, since nothing lives up to its reputation here). I had made my own costume; I was going as a firecracker. I went out to dinner with a bunch of friends, a group of whom were dressed as the teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Now, I feel the need to explain one thing here before the rest of the night can make sense. I hate Honduran men. Not all of them, but the vast majority, yes. We have this thing here, which we call piropos. They are essentially catcalls, and are the most annorying thing. Seriously, if I don’t finish my two years here, it will be because I couldn’t take all of the piropos. You have to ignore every sound on the street. You can walk right past your friend, but if it is a male, you just ignore every sound coming out of his mouth and don’t hear him because he is a male. Now, every female volunteer says it will be hard not to ignore all men on the street when they return to the states. They are loud, obnoxious and sometimes very vulgar. They are also every day, many, many times a day. You shouldn’t have to feel ashamed of being a woman, but you get so much crap, you do.
Anyways, Honduran men literally lined the road to the bar to piropo all the gringas. Then what I thought was going to be a Peace Corps party was invaded by Hondurans (see note later). They are just #$%^&*ing annoying. They don’t understand you would rather chop off your damn ears than listen to their #$%^. As you may be able to tell, I am having a problem with the piropos right now. I have reached the limit of what I can take. So, when my fun party was overtaken by teenagers (there were teenagers plus Hondurans tend to look younger than they are) trying to deliberately ruin my night, and since I had been sick, I was not drinking, well, I had an awful night. The second place we went two had awful music, a bad band topped with awful speakers, and then creepy Honduran men lining the walls of the dance floors. Finally at 2am, we left.
The third day I again had health problems, so I stayed in the room while my roommates went horseback riding. I don’t think sitting on top of a horse for three hours would have improved my dizziness. I was jealous. Most people had left this day, and the town was a lot quieter. We switched hotels to one that had less problems.
The next morning I was still dizzy and nauseas, so I went to the doctors (it was finally Monday, so I could do this). She told that it was better to rest than to go to Guatemala (my original plan was to take off for Guatemala afterwards). Well, after getting a shot in my behind, and a few pills, I felt fine and had no health problems during the ride. The ride itself though was interesting.
The first bus was empty until five minutes before we left, at which time it got packed with people. Seriously, each bus has what you call an ayudante, or helper which collects money and helps people on and off. This guy was making people squeeze together, putting five people where there are clearly only four seats. We get a little down the road enter a small town where most people get off. The bus then goes off the main road to go down the town and get more people. We don’t start up again until we are again jammed packed. From there it was relatively quiet until we reach the point where we need to change buses. The ayudante asked us where we were going, and thus we told him we needed a bus to the next town down a fork in the road. As the bus pulls out, he yells out, “THE GRINGAS ARE GOING TO SANTA ROSA.” This was so crazy. About a dozen guys come running up yelling, “Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa.” Then as they lower our bags (T and I are travelling together) the bags start going in different directions. Now, one of the things our safety and security guy always told us in training is that you need to follow your bag in these situations. So, T and I are trying to get our bags and make a decision on which mode of transportation we are going to take.
She needed to use the restroom, so we needed one that wasn’t leaving right away. And dang did we pick the wrong one. We ended up in a busito, which picture a van that has been stripped and a few benches put in it. It was packed with people. The guys behind us were talking about us not realizing we are fluent in Spanish (not that they would have cared, them thinking we didn’t speak Spanish only meant they didn’t try to start a conversation), the thing is literally falling apart, has far too many people in it, and I wasn’t convinced the driver was sober. It was a very scary situation to be in. The driver was nice in a way though, when we hit the desvio (fork in the road) where we needed to take another bus, we asked if we needed to get off there, he told us that he would bring us to the bus terminal to take a bus, but since the bus was passing, he flagged the bus and they pulled over to let us switch rides. The last leg was thankfully uneventful in a bus that appeared to be fully working and well within its capacity levels.
Then we get to town, and since I had been there, we went straight to our friend’s house and she was near the bus terminal waiting for us. Once we met up, we went to walk around the town, and then went to the cemetery actually. It was day of the dead. Well, here there are two days of the dead. The first of November is for children, the second is for adults. Basically from what I have heard and seen they are days to remember loved ones who have died. A lot of people will go to the cemetery to clean up graves, maybe do a little maintenance. It’s a family affair, and not at all sad. The amount of effort that people put in to make the graves look nice is touching. They really care about their loved ones. Kind of picture a New Orleans cemetery though, not just headstones.
For dinner I had some good alfredo chicken pasta. Now, Hondurans normally cook Honduran food well, but that doesn’t translate to other types of food. I was nervous, I’m not going to lie, but it turned out well. Not even well for Honduras, but well for a Mom and Pop restaurant in the states.
The next day (I have no idea what day of the week it was), T and I went to a local village that is famous for its red Lencan pottery. We started walking there hoping to catch a ride in the back of a pick-up. Eventually we did get one, but got to ride in the cab since there was a backseat. This is how most people get around in the aldeas, and is considered a safe form of transportation in most of Honduras.
The village was not what I had expected. There wasn’t a whole lot to do or see in town if you didn’t have someone who knew the place to show you the good stuff. It was pretty. We walked around for a bit, talked to one lady who does a lot of pottery, ate lunch and visited the museum there. One the way back we got another ride in the back of a pick up truck, I got a few videos of how pretty it was, so maybe one day if I get fast enough internet, I can post it.
That night was the first night I have spent alone in Honduras. It was kind of overwhelming and freeing at the same time. I am always here with somebody since I have a host family. To have a place all to myself was like, whoa. I have a lot of advantages because I live with a family, but I realized how much I liked living alone too.
Following morning I was out the door a little after 5am. I wanted to catch the first bus out. The bus ride was uneventful, I couldn’t even attempt to sleep. I literally got in as the bus to Teguc was leaving. No time to stop and eat. The ride to Teguc has two portions, to the main highway and then to Teguc. They are reconstructing the main highway and what was once a 2 hour drive is now 3. I had to flag down a bus in teguc and I realized that my attitude about taxis had changed.
When I first arrived, I was like “There are driving laws!” as we rolled down the road. This time, there was a long line of cars and buses waiting to merge onto another road, and my taxi driver went around them all. That is when I knew I got a good taxi. Rules and traffic laws are now second to how fast I can get from point A to point B.
I get to my bus terminal, and it was 12:30pm, so I was excited, since the buses normally leave on the hour, I could go get me some Burger King before we left. No such luck. The bus leaves when full. We left in 10 minutes. No Burger King for me.
Arriving back in town I just wanted to relax. So, I ate the leftover Halloween candy I had for dinner. Eventually I did wander over to the grocery store. That day I got a piropo that really just made me want to leave. My vacation was supposed to recharge me, but it ended kind of a disaster, so I was more high strung than when I arrived. Enough time has elapsed that I think I am better now. I am still bummed my vacation didn’t quite go as planned, but oh well, things happen. I think I am going to go to the doctor’s a week before my next vacation and be like “check everything out, I want no problems this time.”
Well, I got up at 3:55am to catch a bus to Teguc and get ready. T, S and I were travelling together, and we got ourselves up and out in order to take the 5am bus. We ended up taking a bus that left at 4:30am, it was driving around town looking for passengers, so we took that instead of walking all the way to the bus terminal. The buses got in at about the right time. Now, here is the thing, T and S needed to go get money, but the ATM at the bus terminal in Teguc was not working, so Sara went in search of one. There is a grocery store next to the bus stop, so she went off, and disappeared. She didn’t bring her phone, and T and I are thinking where did she go? Well, that ATM didn’t work as well, so she kept walking, and the bank was not open! There she kept walking. Finally she reached a ATM that worked and came back.
Now, the thing about Tegucigalpa is that there is no one bus terminal. Every bus has its own terminal, which means you have to travel around the city to find the terminal you want. We ended up finding a cheap bus to take to San Pedro Sula (largest City in Honduras as well as its industrial center). While waiting in the terminal (bus didn’t leave for an hour and a half), two more volunteers showed up. We talked to them a bit. Catch this, one of them is from Wayne, Maine, which is not too far from the parents.
Anways, this is where the disaster begins. I get nauseas, and try to sleep to ignore it for a while, but my stomach would not be ignored. I will spare you the details, but those were not the finest 5 hours of my life.
The bus pulls into the station in San Pedro (which is a very convenient one station has it- buses, all type of place). Now, I get off the bus happy to be not moving anymore. I get off with the other volunteers, and once I see that my sitemates have gotten off the bus, I start walking with the guys. Now, this was so hard to walk. I was so out of it, in pain and nauseas and not wanting to walk. At the clear other end of the terminal I feel my purse vibrating. It’s S, and I walked off without getting my bag from the bus. Yep, I walked off without my bag. Good going Jill! Luckily T and S took care of this for me, because I am not sure I could have walked back there. We could have gotten right on another bus, but everyone was nice enough to wait an hour with me in the station before getting on the next bus. This was a disaster. I just wanted to sleep and not be sick. T carried my bag and her bag all the time because it was all I could do just to walk, never mind carry a bag packed for a week and a half.
The hour did me no good. It felt as though someone was wringing my intestines out like squeezing all of the water out of a soaking we shirt. Not cool. I get on the bus and immediately, oh I said you didn’t need to hear all the details. So, that was another awful 4 hour drive. After what felt like a million stops, we get to town. With luck the hotel owner was at the bus station to give us a ride the few blocks to the hotel. We get there and one of the first things we notice is that there is no hot water. Well, T and S really wanted to go out and party, so they took cold showers and left. I stumbled my way downstairs to tell the owners that there was no hot water. Well, I got permission to use another shower. Eventually I fall asleep for the night. The bar everyone at was across the street so I did get to hear most of the music for the night. Oh, so we also discovered the tv didn’t work, as well as the AC, and the fan was the most broke-#$%^ thing you have ever seen.
The next morning things seemed to be better, I could keep water down (always a good thing). We left to get breakfast, and nearly fainted over the prices. In my town I can get lunch for L15, but it was L70 for breakfast. We met up with a bunch of other volunteers and made plans to visit the Mayan Ruins, for which the town is famous.
The Ruins are awesome, I took every chance possible to sit and rest since I was weak and still a little dizzy from not eating (or at least digesting) anything the day before. We were with a group, so we paid for a guide which could explain everything to us. I have a lot of cool pictures, which I will eventually put up. We learned a lot about the Mayans. For instance, the complex we saw had a rain water drainage system. There were human sacrifices and the rich lived separately from the poor.
Later that afternoon I just chilled out getting my bearings again. This was the night of the fabled Halloween party. Now, I had been looking forward to this since before I left for Honduras (which should have been warning enough, since nothing lives up to its reputation here). I had made my own costume; I was going as a firecracker. I went out to dinner with a bunch of friends, a group of whom were dressed as the teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Now, I feel the need to explain one thing here before the rest of the night can make sense. I hate Honduran men. Not all of them, but the vast majority, yes. We have this thing here, which we call piropos. They are essentially catcalls, and are the most annorying thing. Seriously, if I don’t finish my two years here, it will be because I couldn’t take all of the piropos. You have to ignore every sound on the street. You can walk right past your friend, but if it is a male, you just ignore every sound coming out of his mouth and don’t hear him because he is a male. Now, every female volunteer says it will be hard not to ignore all men on the street when they return to the states. They are loud, obnoxious and sometimes very vulgar. They are also every day, many, many times a day. You shouldn’t have to feel ashamed of being a woman, but you get so much crap, you do.
Anyways, Honduran men literally lined the road to the bar to piropo all the gringas. Then what I thought was going to be a Peace Corps party was invaded by Hondurans (see note later). They are just #$%^&*ing annoying. They don’t understand you would rather chop off your damn ears than listen to their #$%^. As you may be able to tell, I am having a problem with the piropos right now. I have reached the limit of what I can take. So, when my fun party was overtaken by teenagers (there were teenagers plus Hondurans tend to look younger than they are) trying to deliberately ruin my night, and since I had been sick, I was not drinking, well, I had an awful night. The second place we went two had awful music, a bad band topped with awful speakers, and then creepy Honduran men lining the walls of the dance floors. Finally at 2am, we left.
The third day I again had health problems, so I stayed in the room while my roommates went horseback riding. I don’t think sitting on top of a horse for three hours would have improved my dizziness. I was jealous. Most people had left this day, and the town was a lot quieter. We switched hotels to one that had less problems.
The next morning I was still dizzy and nauseas, so I went to the doctors (it was finally Monday, so I could do this). She told that it was better to rest than to go to Guatemala (my original plan was to take off for Guatemala afterwards). Well, after getting a shot in my behind, and a few pills, I felt fine and had no health problems during the ride. The ride itself though was interesting.
The first bus was empty until five minutes before we left, at which time it got packed with people. Seriously, each bus has what you call an ayudante, or helper which collects money and helps people on and off. This guy was making people squeeze together, putting five people where there are clearly only four seats. We get a little down the road enter a small town where most people get off. The bus then goes off the main road to go down the town and get more people. We don’t start up again until we are again jammed packed. From there it was relatively quiet until we reach the point where we need to change buses. The ayudante asked us where we were going, and thus we told him we needed a bus to the next town down a fork in the road. As the bus pulls out, he yells out, “THE GRINGAS ARE GOING TO SANTA ROSA.” This was so crazy. About a dozen guys come running up yelling, “Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa.” Then as they lower our bags (T and I are travelling together) the bags start going in different directions. Now, one of the things our safety and security guy always told us in training is that you need to follow your bag in these situations. So, T and I are trying to get our bags and make a decision on which mode of transportation we are going to take.
She needed to use the restroom, so we needed one that wasn’t leaving right away. And dang did we pick the wrong one. We ended up in a busito, which picture a van that has been stripped and a few benches put in it. It was packed with people. The guys behind us were talking about us not realizing we are fluent in Spanish (not that they would have cared, them thinking we didn’t speak Spanish only meant they didn’t try to start a conversation), the thing is literally falling apart, has far too many people in it, and I wasn’t convinced the driver was sober. It was a very scary situation to be in. The driver was nice in a way though, when we hit the desvio (fork in the road) where we needed to take another bus, we asked if we needed to get off there, he told us that he would bring us to the bus terminal to take a bus, but since the bus was passing, he flagged the bus and they pulled over to let us switch rides. The last leg was thankfully uneventful in a bus that appeared to be fully working and well within its capacity levels.
Then we get to town, and since I had been there, we went straight to our friend’s house and she was near the bus terminal waiting for us. Once we met up, we went to walk around the town, and then went to the cemetery actually. It was day of the dead. Well, here there are two days of the dead. The first of November is for children, the second is for adults. Basically from what I have heard and seen they are days to remember loved ones who have died. A lot of people will go to the cemetery to clean up graves, maybe do a little maintenance. It’s a family affair, and not at all sad. The amount of effort that people put in to make the graves look nice is touching. They really care about their loved ones. Kind of picture a New Orleans cemetery though, not just headstones.
For dinner I had some good alfredo chicken pasta. Now, Hondurans normally cook Honduran food well, but that doesn’t translate to other types of food. I was nervous, I’m not going to lie, but it turned out well. Not even well for Honduras, but well for a Mom and Pop restaurant in the states.
The next day (I have no idea what day of the week it was), T and I went to a local village that is famous for its red Lencan pottery. We started walking there hoping to catch a ride in the back of a pick-up. Eventually we did get one, but got to ride in the cab since there was a backseat. This is how most people get around in the aldeas, and is considered a safe form of transportation in most of Honduras.
The village was not what I had expected. There wasn’t a whole lot to do or see in town if you didn’t have someone who knew the place to show you the good stuff. It was pretty. We walked around for a bit, talked to one lady who does a lot of pottery, ate lunch and visited the museum there. One the way back we got another ride in the back of a pick up truck, I got a few videos of how pretty it was, so maybe one day if I get fast enough internet, I can post it.
That night was the first night I have spent alone in Honduras. It was kind of overwhelming and freeing at the same time. I am always here with somebody since I have a host family. To have a place all to myself was like, whoa. I have a lot of advantages because I live with a family, but I realized how much I liked living alone too.
Following morning I was out the door a little after 5am. I wanted to catch the first bus out. The bus ride was uneventful, I couldn’t even attempt to sleep. I literally got in as the bus to Teguc was leaving. No time to stop and eat. The ride to Teguc has two portions, to the main highway and then to Teguc. They are reconstructing the main highway and what was once a 2 hour drive is now 3. I had to flag down a bus in teguc and I realized that my attitude about taxis had changed.
When I first arrived, I was like “There are driving laws!” as we rolled down the road. This time, there was a long line of cars and buses waiting to merge onto another road, and my taxi driver went around them all. That is when I knew I got a good taxi. Rules and traffic laws are now second to how fast I can get from point A to point B.
I get to my bus terminal, and it was 12:30pm, so I was excited, since the buses normally leave on the hour, I could go get me some Burger King before we left. No such luck. The bus leaves when full. We left in 10 minutes. No Burger King for me.
Arriving back in town I just wanted to relax. So, I ate the leftover Halloween candy I had for dinner. Eventually I did wander over to the grocery store. That day I got a piropo that really just made me want to leave. My vacation was supposed to recharge me, but it ended kind of a disaster, so I was more high strung than when I arrived. Enough time has elapsed that I think I am better now. I am still bummed my vacation didn’t quite go as planned, but oh well, things happen. I think I am going to go to the doctor’s a week before my next vacation and be like “check everything out, I want no problems this time.”
long overdue update
Visiting Tegucigalpa
Now, I tend to try and stay out of the capitol, I am a country girl, not a city person. I occasionally have to go in or pass through though, which usually does not make me happy. Yesterday was one such day. Now, through some kind of luck, I found out a missionary friend in the next town was going to Teguc (short for Tegucigalpa) and about at the same time I wanted to leave (T had to go in as well). So, although my town has a ton of buses coming in and out, the buses leaving aren’t really on a schedule, its just about every 20 minutes, but you can never know when one will pass by, just that if you wait, another one will pass. So, although the next town is 18km away, I got to the bus station at 6:15am to make sure I was in the next town by 7am. Well, bus didn’t show up until 6:30am. Problem: The buses make a lot of stops. Even at that early hour there were people going to work and to school. I called the woman to let her know we would be a touch late. Now, with a Honduran, I wouldn’t have done so, which is not to be rude, but the Honduran would have left 30 to 60 minutes late anyhow. It was fine with her though, she understands how the buses work. The ride to Teguc was relaxed, with a bunch of talking in the car.
We get a ride to near where we are going, and get out and get a cab. Now, in this area there are a lot of streets blocked off because it is near the Brazilian Embassy and that is where the ex-President is still hanging out, so we didn’t know if it would be a problem getting around this area or not. Turns out it was fine.
I do what I need to in the office. The fun comes when it is time to leave. I left rather early because I didn’t have anything to do in the office. I got my med appointment done (routine stuff, no health problems) and then talked and cruised the internet. Now, a year ago I could spend an hour online, no problem, but I have accustomed myself to getting on and off fast to pay less (NOTE: this is not said to exclude emails, I don’t mind spending a tiny bit of money to read emails- if its long, I can save it and read later at home). I go outside and catch a cab to my bus. Now, I explained to the guy when negotiating a price (cabs are not paid by the distance or time here, it’s a negotiation process before you actually get in the cab) and tell him the market where most of the buses are. Well, once I agreed on the price, I got in, and then explain I actually want to get out on the other side of the street, because that is where my bus is. He is like the market (where most of the buses leave) and I say the other side of the street: that is where my bus leaves from. Well, we are cruising along, and pass my bus. At this point I figure I am getting dropped off on the side where the market is, and I guess right. The guy was like here: and I answered no, the other side. Then he told me I didn’t tell him that. Apparently he wasn’t listening the three times I said across the street from the market. Then I have to cross this major street filled with crazy Honduran drivers (think Boston drivers on a particularly aggressive day). A ton of cabs slow down thinking me standing on the side of the road means I need a cab. Traffic was just not dying down or creating a small hole for me to run to the median. There was another woman in the median trying to get to my side of the street. Then, these two women just go for it, and I quickly join them thinking that was probably my only chance to cross. Drivers were not so happy to see the three of us jumping into the road while they were trying to speed by.
Well, I go in and buy my ticket from the nice ladies at the bus ticket place. I have a habit of just forking over my ID when asked for my name; it’s just easier that way. My mother clearly didn’t get a good psychic reading saying I needed a latina name before I was born! I try to get on the bus (think very large van more than bus- I travel first class- chicken buses take WAY too long) and these women are just blocking the stairs. Clearly I am trying to get on the bus, but they don’t move their oversized bottoms to get out of my way. Then, once they move out of my way (more because they want to go off and buy something than are being courteous) another woman in their party refuses to let me pass her in the aisle. She told me the seats by her were saved and pointed to a seat with one guy already there. I then pointed out there were empty rows behind her and I preferred those. That got her to move.
Anyways, I ended up getting the shaft on the seat anyways. I wanted a row that had only one seat, and the only one of those left was one that had the wheel hump. Well, I thought, that is not too bad I can just stick my feet in the aisle. NOT. But for some reason a kid (15-20 year old male) decides that instead of taking the remaining seat in the back, he will put down the middle seat in my row which folds down over the aisle, meaning my legs get cramped up on the wheel hump. I therefore start a battle over the arm rest (battle is only in my head). I am now cramped because this kid made a bad decision, so I at least get the arm rest. Eventually I accidently move my arm away from the rest and the kid has fallen asleep with his arm on the rest! At first I am like, whatever. Then he starts sliding in his sleep and his elbow is now an inch or two over the rest. Imagine my long legs up to my chin because of the wheel hump, my bag which has several books in it also taking up what little precious space I have, and now this kid has his elbow in my space. Now, I really did try to be nice. I knew he had just fallen asleep, there were no cruel intentions. But I take up more than 2 cubic feet! I start my battle for the arm rest. After a little shove, the kids elbow moves and he readjusts and I quickly move in to recover the stolen prize. We only had 25 minutes left, and after 5 he moved to a seat that had become available because someone had gotten off. I really did try to be nice.
And, it turns out that my family had papusas (food of the Gods) while I was away. They knew I was going to be away, and had told me the day before that they would instead make them for dinner since I would be gone during the day. They lied. I had to reheat two, which A is not enough, and B is not even close to the goodness of fresh papusas.
That was my day. This is why traveling to the capitol just isn’t a pleasant experience. And I got a ride on the way there which eliminated half of the battle.
Now, I tend to try and stay out of the capitol, I am a country girl, not a city person. I occasionally have to go in or pass through though, which usually does not make me happy. Yesterday was one such day. Now, through some kind of luck, I found out a missionary friend in the next town was going to Teguc (short for Tegucigalpa) and about at the same time I wanted to leave (T had to go in as well). So, although my town has a ton of buses coming in and out, the buses leaving aren’t really on a schedule, its just about every 20 minutes, but you can never know when one will pass by, just that if you wait, another one will pass. So, although the next town is 18km away, I got to the bus station at 6:15am to make sure I was in the next town by 7am. Well, bus didn’t show up until 6:30am. Problem: The buses make a lot of stops. Even at that early hour there were people going to work and to school. I called the woman to let her know we would be a touch late. Now, with a Honduran, I wouldn’t have done so, which is not to be rude, but the Honduran would have left 30 to 60 minutes late anyhow. It was fine with her though, she understands how the buses work. The ride to Teguc was relaxed, with a bunch of talking in the car.
We get a ride to near where we are going, and get out and get a cab. Now, in this area there are a lot of streets blocked off because it is near the Brazilian Embassy and that is where the ex-President is still hanging out, so we didn’t know if it would be a problem getting around this area or not. Turns out it was fine.
I do what I need to in the office. The fun comes when it is time to leave. I left rather early because I didn’t have anything to do in the office. I got my med appointment done (routine stuff, no health problems) and then talked and cruised the internet. Now, a year ago I could spend an hour online, no problem, but I have accustomed myself to getting on and off fast to pay less (NOTE: this is not said to exclude emails, I don’t mind spending a tiny bit of money to read emails- if its long, I can save it and read later at home). I go outside and catch a cab to my bus. Now, I explained to the guy when negotiating a price (cabs are not paid by the distance or time here, it’s a negotiation process before you actually get in the cab) and tell him the market where most of the buses are. Well, once I agreed on the price, I got in, and then explain I actually want to get out on the other side of the street, because that is where my bus is. He is like the market (where most of the buses leave) and I say the other side of the street: that is where my bus leaves from. Well, we are cruising along, and pass my bus. At this point I figure I am getting dropped off on the side where the market is, and I guess right. The guy was like here: and I answered no, the other side. Then he told me I didn’t tell him that. Apparently he wasn’t listening the three times I said across the street from the market. Then I have to cross this major street filled with crazy Honduran drivers (think Boston drivers on a particularly aggressive day). A ton of cabs slow down thinking me standing on the side of the road means I need a cab. Traffic was just not dying down or creating a small hole for me to run to the median. There was another woman in the median trying to get to my side of the street. Then, these two women just go for it, and I quickly join them thinking that was probably my only chance to cross. Drivers were not so happy to see the three of us jumping into the road while they were trying to speed by.
Well, I go in and buy my ticket from the nice ladies at the bus ticket place. I have a habit of just forking over my ID when asked for my name; it’s just easier that way. My mother clearly didn’t get a good psychic reading saying I needed a latina name before I was born! I try to get on the bus (think very large van more than bus- I travel first class- chicken buses take WAY too long) and these women are just blocking the stairs. Clearly I am trying to get on the bus, but they don’t move their oversized bottoms to get out of my way. Then, once they move out of my way (more because they want to go off and buy something than are being courteous) another woman in their party refuses to let me pass her in the aisle. She told me the seats by her were saved and pointed to a seat with one guy already there. I then pointed out there were empty rows behind her and I preferred those. That got her to move.
Anyways, I ended up getting the shaft on the seat anyways. I wanted a row that had only one seat, and the only one of those left was one that had the wheel hump. Well, I thought, that is not too bad I can just stick my feet in the aisle. NOT. But for some reason a kid (15-20 year old male) decides that instead of taking the remaining seat in the back, he will put down the middle seat in my row which folds down over the aisle, meaning my legs get cramped up on the wheel hump. I therefore start a battle over the arm rest (battle is only in my head). I am now cramped because this kid made a bad decision, so I at least get the arm rest. Eventually I accidently move my arm away from the rest and the kid has fallen asleep with his arm on the rest! At first I am like, whatever. Then he starts sliding in his sleep and his elbow is now an inch or two over the rest. Imagine my long legs up to my chin because of the wheel hump, my bag which has several books in it also taking up what little precious space I have, and now this kid has his elbow in my space. Now, I really did try to be nice. I knew he had just fallen asleep, there were no cruel intentions. But I take up more than 2 cubic feet! I start my battle for the arm rest. After a little shove, the kids elbow moves and he readjusts and I quickly move in to recover the stolen prize. We only had 25 minutes left, and after 5 he moved to a seat that had become available because someone had gotten off. I really did try to be nice.
And, it turns out that my family had papusas (food of the Gods) while I was away. They knew I was going to be away, and had told me the day before that they would instead make them for dinner since I would be gone during the day. They lied. I had to reheat two, which A is not enough, and B is not even close to the goodness of fresh papusas.
That was my day. This is why traveling to the capitol just isn’t a pleasant experience. And I got a ride on the way there which eliminated half of the battle.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
a little update
Traveling Salesmen:
Here is a little something to think about. Traveling salesmen here are real traveling salesmen. Why? Because they sell on the buses, and thus are traveling while selling.
Puppies:
So, I was going to go get my dog today, and I went three weeks ago to talk to the woman who owns the dog and asked about getting the dog. Well, we show up and there was the puppy, so very, very cute but his owner wouldn’t sell him. They gave their other puppies away, but wouldn’t sell me this one that I had talked to them about. The husband told me they promised him to someone else. Needless to say that ruined my day.
In the aldeas:
I brought T with me for the first time to the aldeaas. We ended up doing a ton of walking, but I think she enjoyed her time there. We ate a ton of oranges and mandarins. They are in season (well, they have lots of types of oranges and one of them is now in season) so we pigged out on them. That also means that we didn’t quite have a lot of water with us, so we were drinking the liquids out of them.
Care packages:
Last week I got two care packages, on one day! It was like Christmas! The first one was from Aunt Maureen with candy and books, lot of them. The other was from Megg, and she gets major points for planning and execution of this care package. She must have planned this part long in advance. During Brittany’s baby shower, she handed out Halloween cards to everyone there and then sent them to me with other items. I have a bunch of cool Halloween trinkets. Toys are now on the top of the list for items in care packages.
Here is a little something to think about. Traveling salesmen here are real traveling salesmen. Why? Because they sell on the buses, and thus are traveling while selling.
Puppies:
So, I was going to go get my dog today, and I went three weeks ago to talk to the woman who owns the dog and asked about getting the dog. Well, we show up and there was the puppy, so very, very cute but his owner wouldn’t sell him. They gave their other puppies away, but wouldn’t sell me this one that I had talked to them about. The husband told me they promised him to someone else. Needless to say that ruined my day.
In the aldeas:
I brought T with me for the first time to the aldeaas. We ended up doing a ton of walking, but I think she enjoyed her time there. We ate a ton of oranges and mandarins. They are in season (well, they have lots of types of oranges and one of them is now in season) so we pigged out on them. That also means that we didn’t quite have a lot of water with us, so we were drinking the liquids out of them.
Care packages:
Last week I got two care packages, on one day! It was like Christmas! The first one was from Aunt Maureen with candy and books, lot of them. The other was from Megg, and she gets major points for planning and execution of this care package. She must have planned this part long in advance. During Brittany’s baby shower, she handed out Halloween cards to everyone there and then sent them to me with other items. I have a bunch of cool Halloween trinkets. Toys are now on the top of the list for items in care packages.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
T mowing down on cana, which is a stick of pure sugar.
Cat chillin out below a wood stove on a stack of corn cobs
People looking ata chlorinator, without chlorine. No big surprise there.
Beginning and end of coffee. This is ripe coffee beans in my hand and then small coffee plants almost ready to be planted in the background.I had more internet access, so I figured I could put up more pics.
pictures
Odd new fruit!
The puppy that was not.
The barney pinata.I know the best part about a blog is the pics, so here you go, enjoy
(I haven't figured out how to put writing before the pics)short update (its been two days)
Traveling Salesmen:
Here is a little something to think about. Traveling salesmen here are real traveling salesmen. Why? Because they sell on the buses, and thus are traveling while selling.
Puppies:
So, I was going to go get my dog today, and I went three weeks ago to talk to the woman who owns the dog and asked about getting the dog. Well, we show up and there was the puppy, so very, very cute but his owner wouldn’t sell him. They gave their other puppies away, but wouldn’t sell me this one that I had talked to them about. The husband told me they promised him to someone else. Needless to say that ruined my day.
In the aldeas:
I brought T with me for the first time to the aldeaas. We ended up doing a ton of walking, but I think she enjoyed her time there. We ate a ton of oranges and mandarins. They are in season (well, they have lots of types of oranges and one of them is now in season) so we pigged out on them. That also means that we didn’t quite have a lot of water with us, so we were drinking the liquids out of them.
Take care until the next time,
Jill
Here is a little something to think about. Traveling salesmen here are real traveling salesmen. Why? Because they sell on the buses, and thus are traveling while selling.
Puppies:
So, I was going to go get my dog today, and I went three weeks ago to talk to the woman who owns the dog and asked about getting the dog. Well, we show up and there was the puppy, so very, very cute but his owner wouldn’t sell him. They gave their other puppies away, but wouldn’t sell me this one that I had talked to them about. The husband told me they promised him to someone else. Needless to say that ruined my day.
In the aldeas:
I brought T with me for the first time to the aldeaas. We ended up doing a ton of walking, but I think she enjoyed her time there. We ate a ton of oranges and mandarins. They are in season (well, they have lots of types of oranges and one of them is now in season) so we pigged out on them. That also means that we didn’t quite have a lot of water with us, so we were drinking the liquids out of them.
Take care until the next time,
Jill
Monday, October 19, 2009
updates
Ok, I am writing on Thursday October 15, 2009, which is the day after one of the greatest days in Honduran history. Last night,
This morning people are still celebrating, and there is a large crowd to welcome the team back to
Food:
It’s been a while since I have written a food update. Now, I know I have talked a lot about mantequilla (sour cream and mayo mix). Now, I had accepted it as part of my life, but yesterday I had some really sour stuff which makes me rethink it.
On the subject of beans (very much a part of my life), you can tell microwaved beans from fresh. I went to a comedor (small restaurant) yesterday and got served microwaved beans. I mean it makes sense, so they make a giant batch of beans in the morning and then reheat them later, but it just doesn’t taste the same.
Pickiness. I was called out the other day for being a picky eater. All I could think was you don’t even know the half of it. Really, all she could say was that I didn’t like seafood, and that I used to not drink coffee. Well, for those of you who know me, there are a
Host family:
A little something on the host family was requested. I will say that we still have our awkward moments, but most of the awkwardness has gone, we have gotten used to each other. They were really cool with us having S’s birthday party here (see below). I now have a better understanding of our new housekeeper as well. At first it was weird, because I thought she was trying not to talk to me, and she just didn’t get anything I tried to say, so she would send her son (7 years old) to talk to me. Now, I think she just didn’t know what to do with a gringo. She started after Kiey left (the Japanese volunteer) and so didn’t have that experience of having a foreigner in the house. Now it is a lot better. We still don’t talk, but I think we understand each other better now.
Speaking of host families, I talked to both my old host families today. I was bored, and had bough a TON of minutes for my phone to make arrangements for the
Odd situation
So, yesterday I was leaving my house, and there was a woman walking down the street. Well, I smiled and said “good afternoon,” with the intention of continuing on my way. This did not work out like that though. She stopped, and started telling me that she is very poor and needed money for food and medicines. I didn’t know what to do. This could be true, or not. I was literally trapped by my door. So, once she started talking about not having food I lied and said I didn’t live there, that I was visiting a friend and that I couldn’t give away their food. Then she went straight back to money (and keep I in mind I am carrying a purse, and why would I have a purse without money right?). At one point she suggested I go get money out of the bank to give to her. That was my too much money, especially because this is after I had tried to leave and walk away but she stayed with me. I lied again, told her I didn’t have money and was late for a meeting, and wouldn’t be returning to that house the next day. I don’t know, part of it sounds weird, but as a white person here, a lot of people walk up to you to beg for food or money or for your water bottle (that has happened a lot).
Weekend fun-
two weekends ago, but I didn’t bring the most updated entry for the blog last time I went to the internet cafe:
This past weekend was S’s birthday. Friday, T and I went to the city nearby to do some shopping, for ourselves and for the party. We got a ride in which was very nice. The town has an import store with stuff from the
After a few more errands we went back to town, where T and I bought the food for the birthday party, and the candy for the piñata. I found that they sell boneless skinless chicken breasts like in the states which will motivate me to cook more. At this point T and I are tired from working and then party planning for Saturday, and it was time to go to S’s house because her family was cooking a big dinner for her. Her family cooks so well, that it’s always a pleasure to be invited over.
Saturday comes and I got up extra early to have tennis practice before baseball. We walk all the way down there and the gym is occupied, so we sat around for a while and just talked. Later, when the other people showed up we tried to have practice on the basketball court. Problem being there was no fence, so they ran a lot to get the ball. A new person has joined our group and had one practice with the other people (I didn’t go because I had other plans) and I tried to be like “show me how you hit the ball,” meaning show me your stroke. He just didn’t get it. So, my friend Alex is used to this by now because every time I show them a new stroke they have to do swing without the ball for me to make sure they are using the right form. I had them playing tiny tennis for a while, then it was time for me to leave, so I gave them a drill they could do without me. I also told Alex to make sure this new guy (whose name is ridiculous to pronounce, he is getting a nickname from me) knew how to hit an imaginary ball and show me the correct for of how to hit the ball. Who knows if that happened.
So, I walk across the high school campus to the field where we have baseball, and get there at the same time S and T arrive and we are blown away that almost all the kids were there on time. One arrived late. That was amazing. Normally about half or a quarter of the kids don’t show up. We had a good practice; we finally started to teach the kids how to field the ball. All that time spent teaching them how to throw and once they get to playing, they start throwing all kinds of crazy. Finally after a long time (or maybe it just seemed like a long time) they started to get it. I think I will have to kids to it again next week to get a little better at it. We just kept saying if the ball does not get to the baseman, than the runner can just keep running, and that is how you can quickly lose a game. During practice our friends showed up for Sara’s birthday. I think they liked out practice. We ended practice with a card that all the kids had signed for Sara and singing happy birthday.
Well, here they have scheduled power outages. Say they have to fix a line or something, they announce that there wont be power on a given day, normally a Saturday. This just happened to be a no power day. We therefore had to try and figure out how we were going to eat lunch. We found restaurant with a fogon (wood stove), which is a Honduran woodstove that was serving tacos. We all went there and got tacos. Afterwards we walked around the market, getting some fruits and veggies and went to my house to relax and play games. That afternoon we had another surprise for Sara, which is the announcement we are getting a puppy! Technically the puppy will be mine, but T and S have promised to take some of the walking, feeding and dog-sitting responsibilities. It was great though, she screamed and was bouncing around at the news, and we passed around my camera which had a picture of the little guy.
For dinner we made some amazing chicken and veggie skewers. We marinated the chicken in teriyaki sauce overnight, and marinated the veggies a little bit too. We also had a nice fruit salad to go with it. I bought some star fruit and we had those in the fruit salad which turned out really well. We borrowed T’s host family’s grill to do all this, and the food was amazing.
After dinner we brought out the last surprise for Sara which was Barney. Let me tell you, doing the piñata a little tipsy was a lot of fun. That might just be the new thing to do in my region.
We finally left to go out for a bit. We went “bar hopping” which just meant going to the nice places in town and drinking a little, before we went to the club in town. Well, let me just say they must not have been checking IDs at the door because there were a lot of young kids there. I mean 15 and up. It was ridiculous. They were trying so hard to dance with us, but I don’t dance with little kids. We had some friends of Sara’s from the community there who are a little over 40, and the kids were dancing with them too. Yuck. Persistent little buggers they were. Now, we can say we have been there, but I will stick to the club in the next town because it is a LOT nicer and not full of high school kids.
So, we arrive to Sunday, and we had a welcome party for the new volunteer, L, in the next town over. Thanks to all the political situations we have gone through in the last few months, they have been put through a lot during training, and have finally been sworn in as volunteers. I know my group was just happy to finally leave training, they must be really, really happy to get out. She is really nice. A friend of ours in the town threw her a lunch with a bunch of good people to know. The party was a very nice event, a lot of talking, and getting to know each other.
Overall, it was a very nice weekend.
Fast forward to now (a few days later)
T and I have finally figured out how to live the Peace Corps life. We started cooking good food for ourselves and we had a movie night the other night. Not any movie night though, we had borrowed a projector because T is doing a presentation today, and we hooked a laptop up to it and had giant screen movie. Very legal, it was a private home showing. We finally took advantage of all the cheap fruits and veggies to make a salad and cooked chicken. I forgot how easy it is to cook.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
pics
So, for a friend{s birthday we borrowed a grill and made cabobs. Well, taking advantage of the frill, T and I made hot dogs. This feast, is for two.
Ok, this is the type of latrine we are building in my site. The are pretty simple, but can be maintained to a very sanitary level.
a little over due
Hello folks, lately I have not been in a writing mood, hence the tiny blogs for such a long period of time. Hopefully I can change this.
Yesterday was a very productive day (for this month).
I got up at 8:30am and was up and running by 9am. This is like light speed compared to the week (or two) before this. I went to the plaza to buy a newspaper, came home and read it all, and did the sudoko puzzle. After a lunch break, I started working on a project for work, and did that for an hour and a half (it was hard work, I needed a break). I went to S’s house to use the internet there, and got a lot of things done online. I returned home and continued working on the program until it was time to leave for tennis. As it turns out, we couldn’t have tennis, so after a dinner break, I continued working until my energy ran out. Overall, very productive. Oh, I also went to the grocery store at one point, which is not working, but it is necessary and something I had been putting off for a few days.
Baseball:
Baseball continues to go well. Two weekends ago we gave the kids the gloves to take home for the first time because we didn’t have a practice last weekend, and that way they could practice on their own. This Saturday they did very well, you could tell most had practiced. Unfortunately, a few had gotten hit with the baseball and now were scared of the ball, which is a little hard to deal with as a coach. We did a running game, which I thought the kids would hate, because they don’t like to run, but they loved it! They did basically a giant relay race around the bases where everyone had to run through and we timed them. They did it once, and challenged them to do it 20 seconds faster and they did it 30 seconds faster.
Work:
I am finally working again. My counterpart has a huge grant from an agency and part of it was to construct latrines. We have been going to watch the construction and give people a little push into getting the latrines done. We just started to visit the sites with the people from the funding agency. It’s been interesting. Considering during my time not working I wasn’t speaking Spanish, I have been having a few problems trying to get sentences out of my mouth. Oh well.
Tennis:
Finally! We had tennis again. We have had nightly curfew for a while and therefore no tennis. I went with two people to play. Now, they told me on the walk down there that they played the night before and were bored just hitting around, they said “there was no one yelling or telling us what to do.” Well, I love to yell and be bossy, so that made me happy. Well, they wanted to run. I told them two laps around the gym and we ran three. Then after normal warm-ups, we went back over how to hit fore-hands and back-hands. Then I gave them the option of what they wanted to work on, and they said more forehands and backhands. I made them run. It was a good time. I was just standing there hitting them the balls and dodge the balls coming back. At one point I had them doing backhands and if I didn’t know their level, I would have sworn they were trying to see who could nail me with the ball. Later one of them left (realize that there were only two) to buy water (just outside there was a place to do this). That’s when I told them that if they wanted a break, they needed to tell me because I was just standing and not running. Well, they still wanted to run, so I put them in the middle of the court, and hit balls to the sides and they had to run after them. We only had four balls, so it’s not like Paula’s old Death game where you run until you can’t and then still go after two more.
Later I tried to teach them how to serve. Well, this didn’t go so well. I need to think about this more and then learn the VOCAB to do so. They were starting to get it when we left. It was good though to play and joke around, and then talk in Spanish a lot. You would be surprised how little Spanish you can speak and live here. Part of that is having 2 sitemates and we speak in English to each other.
Random:
So, I finally started drinking coffee. I don’t do it regularly, but I can get through a cup of coffee. Now, it has been the big joke in my office that I don’t drink coffee and just about every day I went into the office for the last 5 months, I was offered coffee. Well, the other day I shocked them by saying yes, I wanted coffee. It was a big moment; people were saying it was a miracle. Walther took a picture of the big event. Later that day though I was working with someone who apparently was not inside to see the miracle and he was joking with me about how I don’t drink coffee, and I was like, “I just had coffee in the office this morning!” But he didn’t believe me. Later that day, he started this coffee joke up again, but this time Walther was there to show him the proof. Now though I am expected to drink coffee ALL THE TIME. That just is not going to happen.
What else has been going on? Well, I didn{t bring the most updated version of my blog entry today, so I will post this and put the other stuff on lately. I have almost completely broken my internet addiction. I am working on a project now and have been getting some information from my boss through the internet, which is the only reason I have been on lately. As you can tell, I haven{t been that big into writing lately. This includes the journal I was so good at keeping for six months, which I haven{t written in for three weeks.
Ahh, what is going on? I am trying to plan my first real vacation here. Now, in the states I pretty much just went on vacation, taking care of the details as I went along. Not so here, I have to plan everything out, and international phone calls are expensive.
Political situation seems stable right now, even the newspapers aren{t writing much about it.
There is a big soccer game for Honduras coming up Saturday. It is against the US. If Honduras wins or ties then they progress to South Africa nad the world cup games. My coworkers and I have been joking about this for a while now.
I had an interesting morning. I had woken up early, but hadn{t actually gotten out of bed yet when I got a call from T. She brought the wrong passport and was leaving for Costa Rica that morning. The was calling me from the bus station in the next town over, and she had to convince them to let her on the bus (they check for valid passports beforehand so they have no trouble getting everyone through the borders) and that I could bring her other passport down to the main road and give it to her there. So, I got dressed really quickly, ran to her apartment, starting going through her stuff, I couldn’t find the thing, and I didn{t have minutes on my prepay phone, so I went next door and had to try to explain that I needed to call Theresa with their phone for a second and that I could give them money for it. I finally find the passport and hail a cab to the highway. It all worked out at the end, but I doubt she ended up sleeping for the ride which was her original plan{ its tough to sleep with that much adrenaline running through your system.
Ok, if you are wondering why I have odd symbols in here, Spanish keyboards are a little different. Now, this keyboard wont let me type some symbols including apostrophes. This also includes the at symbol which I need to log onto blogger and therefore I had to open up Word, find the symbol (stupid vista making things hard to find) and then copy and paste to add in the sign and get onto this blog.
Yesterday was a very productive day (for this month).
I got up at 8:30am and was up and running by 9am. This is like light speed compared to the week (or two) before this. I went to the plaza to buy a newspaper, came home and read it all, and did the sudoko puzzle. After a lunch break, I started working on a project for work, and did that for an hour and a half (it was hard work, I needed a break). I went to S’s house to use the internet there, and got a lot of things done online. I returned home and continued working on the program until it was time to leave for tennis. As it turns out, we couldn’t have tennis, so after a dinner break, I continued working until my energy ran out. Overall, very productive. Oh, I also went to the grocery store at one point, which is not working, but it is necessary and something I had been putting off for a few days.
Baseball:
Baseball continues to go well. Two weekends ago we gave the kids the gloves to take home for the first time because we didn’t have a practice last weekend, and that way they could practice on their own. This Saturday they did very well, you could tell most had practiced. Unfortunately, a few had gotten hit with the baseball and now were scared of the ball, which is a little hard to deal with as a coach. We did a running game, which I thought the kids would hate, because they don’t like to run, but they loved it! They did basically a giant relay race around the bases where everyone had to run through and we timed them. They did it once, and challenged them to do it 20 seconds faster and they did it 30 seconds faster.
Work:
I am finally working again. My counterpart has a huge grant from an agency and part of it was to construct latrines. We have been going to watch the construction and give people a little push into getting the latrines done. We just started to visit the sites with the people from the funding agency. It’s been interesting. Considering during my time not working I wasn’t speaking Spanish, I have been having a few problems trying to get sentences out of my mouth. Oh well.
Tennis:
Finally! We had tennis again. We have had nightly curfew for a while and therefore no tennis. I went with two people to play. Now, they told me on the walk down there that they played the night before and were bored just hitting around, they said “there was no one yelling or telling us what to do.” Well, I love to yell and be bossy, so that made me happy. Well, they wanted to run. I told them two laps around the gym and we ran three. Then after normal warm-ups, we went back over how to hit fore-hands and back-hands. Then I gave them the option of what they wanted to work on, and they said more forehands and backhands. I made them run. It was a good time. I was just standing there hitting them the balls and dodge the balls coming back. At one point I had them doing backhands and if I didn’t know their level, I would have sworn they were trying to see who could nail me with the ball. Later one of them left (realize that there were only two) to buy water (just outside there was a place to do this). That’s when I told them that if they wanted a break, they needed to tell me because I was just standing and not running. Well, they still wanted to run, so I put them in the middle of the court, and hit balls to the sides and they had to run after them. We only had four balls, so it’s not like Paula’s old Death game where you run until you can’t and then still go after two more.
Later I tried to teach them how to serve. Well, this didn’t go so well. I need to think about this more and then learn the VOCAB to do so. They were starting to get it when we left. It was good though to play and joke around, and then talk in Spanish a lot. You would be surprised how little Spanish you can speak and live here. Part of that is having 2 sitemates and we speak in English to each other.
Random:
So, I finally started drinking coffee. I don’t do it regularly, but I can get through a cup of coffee. Now, it has been the big joke in my office that I don’t drink coffee and just about every day I went into the office for the last 5 months, I was offered coffee. Well, the other day I shocked them by saying yes, I wanted coffee. It was a big moment; people were saying it was a miracle. Walther took a picture of the big event. Later that day though I was working with someone who apparently was not inside to see the miracle and he was joking with me about how I don’t drink coffee, and I was like, “I just had coffee in the office this morning!” But he didn’t believe me. Later that day, he started this coffee joke up again, but this time Walther was there to show him the proof. Now though I am expected to drink coffee ALL THE TIME. That just is not going to happen.
What else has been going on? Well, I didn{t bring the most updated version of my blog entry today, so I will post this and put the other stuff on lately. I have almost completely broken my internet addiction. I am working on a project now and have been getting some information from my boss through the internet, which is the only reason I have been on lately. As you can tell, I haven{t been that big into writing lately. This includes the journal I was so good at keeping for six months, which I haven{t written in for three weeks.
Ahh, what is going on? I am trying to plan my first real vacation here. Now, in the states I pretty much just went on vacation, taking care of the details as I went along. Not so here, I have to plan everything out, and international phone calls are expensive.
Political situation seems stable right now, even the newspapers aren{t writing much about it.
There is a big soccer game for Honduras coming up Saturday. It is against the US. If Honduras wins or ties then they progress to South Africa nad the world cup games. My coworkers and I have been joking about this for a while now.
I had an interesting morning. I had woken up early, but hadn{t actually gotten out of bed yet when I got a call from T. She brought the wrong passport and was leaving for Costa Rica that morning. The was calling me from the bus station in the next town over, and she had to convince them to let her on the bus (they check for valid passports beforehand so they have no trouble getting everyone through the borders) and that I could bring her other passport down to the main road and give it to her there. So, I got dressed really quickly, ran to her apartment, starting going through her stuff, I couldn’t find the thing, and I didn{t have minutes on my prepay phone, so I went next door and had to try to explain that I needed to call Theresa with their phone for a second and that I could give them money for it. I finally find the passport and hail a cab to the highway. It all worked out at the end, but I doubt she ended up sleeping for the ride which was her original plan{ its tough to sleep with that much adrenaline running through your system.
Ok, if you are wondering why I have odd symbols in here, Spanish keyboards are a little different. Now, this keyboard wont let me type some symbols including apostrophes. This also includes the at symbol which I need to log onto blogger and therefore I had to open up Word, find the symbol (stupid vista making things hard to find) and then copy and paste to add in the sign and get onto this blog.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
PICS TOO!!!!!!!
My first turranchula (sp)!
Latrine building!
Center for reconnect
Forest in Celaque.
Outlook from the mountain
View from the foreigners hotel in Gracias
This is the mountain I climbed, behind the clouds.
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