Box from the states. Even the outside was happy with all the stamps!

So, in case you don't know your fruit trees, this house has banana, orange, and mango trees behind it. This was in the town with the monton de naranjas (mountain of oranges).

Random view.

Frijoles. this is how the frijoles in the cans look before they are cleaned and processed.

Cool view across a valley. This was after the rain that made the topo study more fun than normal.

Another week, lots of stories

An incredible story:

My host family just got back from Costa Rica last night. They were there to visit family members that they just found out about. Here is the story:

In 1954, what would be my host grandfather fled Honduras, supposedly for political reasons. His family never heard from him again, only the idea that he fled to Costa Rica. Well, the years went by, and wife raised the four children alone, and the children became adults, had children, and eventually those kids became adults as well. One of these grandchildren was very interested in the story, because he could see the pain in his father’s face when he talked about his father. He then set about investigating where his grandfather was. It turns out he died 12 years ago, but left behind another family in Costa Rica. My host Mom and several members of her family went down for a few days to visit and learn about what kind of man their father was, since he left when they were so young, they didn’t know him very well. My host Mom was so happy when she returned, she was telling me about what happened, and you could see a light in her face and eyes that just made her glow. The reunion went very well, and the children of this man got along well, and are happy to know their other brothers and sisters.

Later, I went to publish the last blog and pics. I then decided to check the post office to see if anything had arrived. The second I walked in the door the lady who works there started smiling and telling me that there was a new letter and a package. The letter was for T (we share the box), but the package was mine! It was covered in Simpsons stamps, and just looked so happy! The woman there told me that I could sign for it later because she didn’t have the right book with her (we enjoy a kind of nod-smile recognition, and it is kind of like going to my neighborhood post office in the states- Hi Dan, how is it going?). I left almost dancing and with a giant smile on my face.

In the package from Mom and Dad was some M&Ms, DVDs of “Deadliest Catch” and batteries. So, I sat myself down, chowing down on candy and watching the DVDs. Later I read every piece of paper that was used to stuff the box, all parts of a package are used here, volunteers have been known to sit down and read classifieds just to keep an eye on things in the states. I read the comics, well almost all the articles, did the crossword, Sudoku, and scramble puzzles.

S and I started running again today. She seems to want to run every day, I don’t know if I am up for that. We have entered into a pact that we will talk in only Spanish except for one day a week. It was really funny, she calls, and I hear “Hey, Jill, it’s Sara. Do you want to run? Oh wait, I wanted to talk in Spanish.” Then she repeated it all in Spanish. It was weird, because it was just so fast I was like, “what is going on?” During the run we did talk all in Spanish. I am quite proud of how far I ran considering we haven’t run in almost two months now. We finished right before the downpour.

Good news: The ATM is finally in! I will be able to check the balance on my account! I could walk into the bank to do that, but just going in, standing in line, and then explaining you just want to see the balance on your account is a little odd to say the least. Now, I can just go and see, no problem. First ATM in town. Now we are right up there with every luxury available. The weird thing about this town is how fast new things just pop up. The other day I discovered two new places to eat in one day. Then a building can be taken down and another one up in what feels like two days.

Back to work:

Now, rainy seasons normally consists of a shower in the afternoon that lasts from 30 minutes to an hour. Today did not fit the mold, it rained all day long, which was interesting because I was outside trying to do a topo study.

Chickens:

I have written several times about dogs, so I decided it was time to write about chickens. In the aldeas, they have chickens everywhere. Somehow they know whose chicken is whose although the don’t have fences that keep the chickens free so they wander all over the place. During training one day I fed some chickens out of my hand. Today I accidently fed a chicken out of my plate. Chickens wandering around the porch are normal, so I was just sitting there eating, and I set my last tortilla on the edge of my plate (which was on my lap). Next thing I know, this chicken is jumping up, and I really thought for a minute that it was going to jump on my lap. So, after being scared of attacking chickens for a second, I realized it was running away, with my tortilla in its mouth. That’s right, a whole tortilla.

Directions

I know a while ago I had written a little dialog of what happened on my first topo study, well, today something similar happened, and I feel like sharing.

Guy: We are going to go down here because there are three houses.

Jill: Ok.
(we pass one house)
Guy: There are three more houses over there.

Jill’s head: wait, I thought there was three houses in total.
One minute later:

Guy: We can finish this line today right?

Jill: Yeah, there are only three houses here.

Guy: No, there are seven houses to go.

Jill: You just told me three.

Guy: No, there are seven.

Jill: Ok, we can still do seven today, no problems.

A few minutes later.

Guy: Do you want to eat now, or after we finish the houses down here.

Jill: But there are 7 houses.

Guy: No, there are three.

Jill: What happened to the seven.

Guy: NO, there are only three down here.

We do one house.

Guy: Do you want to eat now, or wait to we finish the three houses down here?

Jill: Wait, shouldn’t there only be two houses left?

Guy: No, there are three houses.

I thought you would like this. I am sad to think of a time when I don’t get royally confused every day. For your reading pleasure, this is another funny example of a typical surveying dialog.

Woman: This is the last house.

Jill: Good (it had been raining all day and I was excited to go)!

I go to the house.

Guy: This is the last house.

Jill: Good! So, we only have the a few houses to do tomorrow.

Guy: There is one more house down there.

Jill: But she just said it was the last house.

Guy: It is the last house, but there is a house down the road.

Jill: So, it isn’t the last house.

Guy: No, it’s the last house.

Jill’s head: I give up.



Tennis:

So, I just had my second tennis practice and I had a ball (ha, tennis, ball, ha ha ha). I am teaching some people who I know and are around my age how to play tennis. This again, was only the second practice, so we reviewed the forehand and eventually I taught them the backhand. It was so good to kind of just hang out, and then to play tennis, I was in heaven. For those people that I have played tennis with and especially those that I have taught tennis to, they know how much of a stickler I am for form, so I was yelling “two hands, follow through” but it was all in fun.

The next night we played again. This time I taught them to hit volleys, the Paula way. I put them against a concrete wall and hit balls at their heads. It was great. I am really impressed with how they did too.

First time getting mad at work

Ok, so I have successfully survived several meetings with real engineers here (read: with experience) and without warning had another meeting this morning. This guy though was full of $%^&. I had to school myself so bad to keep quiet. Later, I got in the car with a few people, and Walther started to say something, and I just lost it. I was yelling in a controlled manner that he was wrong, that I am very confident in what I did, and really was trying to get the point across that he should not talk to me about this. It turns out he agreed with me. So, tomorrow I have to spend the day with this guy and keep my mouth shut, it’s a good thing that I don’t have that large a vocab of bad words in Spanish.

Working:

So, I returned to the town I started working on yesterday. It took forever! I really thought we would be done in a few hours, nope the whole day. I didn’t eat breakfast, worked hard all day and finally ate lunch at 3:30pm. I was so tired, annoyed and hungry. It’s done though! I did use my anger to my benefit though and blasted up the mountain side thinking, “that SOB, ya da ya da ya da.”

Next day: (sorry if this gets confusing following my timeline)

I completely forgot I had plans to work, and therefore was still in bed when I got a call saying everyone was in the office waiting for me. Oops. That comment was a bit of an exaggeration though. The annoying fake engineer was there, with these two old men who have a lot of experience in doing topo studies. So, one guy flat out tells me that my method was right (ok, so I asked and he says its valid) and the other one takes my lack of chatter as I don’t speak Spanish, and have never heard of the metric system. All day he was yelling out numbers five time in a row to make sure I got it. Even Walther was like, she does speak Spanish, and can do this. So, we did a bunch of work in the hot sun on the steep mountain. Why? Don’t know, even the cool older gentleman was like, you can just write the distance to the pila, which I already did the first time around. I liked him, at the end of the day he told me I did a good job with the topography. What can I say, I am a sucker for compliments.

Later we came back to town, I did a quick bucket bath (no time for shower), ate like a crazy woman, and then left for a meeting. I didn’t do a whole lot of talking (hey, I don’t talk a lot in large groups in English, why would I do it in Spanish?) but I understood everything that was going on!

Yet later, I again ate in a hurry because tennis starts at 6pm. Not surprisingly, they didn’t arrive on time. We go to the high school, we are using the high school gym for practice, and it was locked and we couldn’t find anyone with a key to let us in, so we talked for a while until it started to rain. I got home, relaxed, and cleaned my room finally, I haven’t had a lot of time the last few days. I get up, go to work, come home, eat in a hurry and leave, and come home so tired I just want to sleep. I have reconnect next week, I will suggest to anyone who is bored at site to start sports teams, it eats up a lot of time. To conclude the day I made an amazing glass of hot chocolate. When the volunteer nearby left, I scored a box of hershey’s cocoa powder, so I have made hot chocolate a few times. It is by no means cold, I am writing this in a tank top and it is still over 80 degrees in my room at 9:30pm, but its still something nice and creamy to have at the end of a stressful week. Next week I take my first travels in Honduras, stay tuned for the tales of the road.

Friends

Just so you don’t think that it is all work and no play, I am finally making friends here. People here have been friendly from the beginning, but there is a difference between friend and friendly acquaintance. I have one friend who is really my texting buddy, I haven’t seen her in a while, but we text a lot. This is an example of a text:
A! ke bien sem imagina q para usted a d ser emosionante bisitar todos esos lugares.
There are ones that are almost all abbreviations, and I have to sit there, with my head cocked to the side thinking “what does this say?” Normally if you just pronounce everything out loud, the point becomes clearer.
Other friends include those in the tennis team, a few at work, and people who are a part of my host families. Those are on top of the PCVs in the area.

A little education

Ok, while flipping through channels, I happened upon this movie that looked like your average B rated teen movie, so I passed it by. Later I just happened upon it again because there is not a lot on tonight, and it turns out that it was a very good movie, with a significant point. It was about how HIV/AIDS is understood in high schools and what happens when someone in the school finds out they are HIV positive.

Now, because this is my blog, and I can do anything I want in it, let’s review some of the basics about it. A large part of the Peace Corps mission is to spread the message about HIV/AIDS around the world; I am making sure it gets out in the US as well. And yes, I can do this in Spanish too.

HIV/AIDS

There are 4 ways to spread the virus: semen, vaginal fluid, blood and mother’s milk. That is all. This does NOT include saliva, so you can kiss someone with the virus and not become infected.

Tests: There is now a 20 minute rapid test. This is not 100%, but it is fast. To be really sure, go get a blood test, which takes a few days. You can go to a lot of places to get a free anonymous test, just google the nearest clinic. The test will not show a positive results for the virus for the first three months after infection.

Prevention: The only 100% safe way is to abstain from sex. That being said, there are ways to reduce your risk if you do choose to have sex. Use a condom. If the guy says that it feels better without one, tell him that a baby and AIDS feel like crap. My personal advice is not to trust people who say they are being monogamous. Also, if you get tattoo sit your tattoo artist down, and ask them to review their safety practices with you. Used needles can have blood in them, and you guessed it, if that needle has HIV positive blood in it, you can get infected. Same goes for doing drugs and using needles, but I know none of my loyal listeners do that, right?!

What is the difference between HIV and AIDS? I’ll be honest, I didn’t really understand the difference until we did our HIV charla. HIV is the virus. The virus without treatment will slowly wear down on your immune system. During this time frame, you look and can feel completely healthy. Eventually the virus wears you down to the point where you get really sick. This is AIDS, where you finally feel the effects of the virus, that is to say something like pneumonia can kill you because your body has no defenses left. It is not the virus that kills, it’s the subsequent infections you cannot fight off.

Now for a few HIV/AIDS myths:

You can tell someone has the virus by looking at them. False, you can look and feel normal for years.
Peeing after having sex prevents HIV and pregnancy. NOT!! Wrong system for women, and still wrong for men.
Pulling out early prevents the spread of the disease. False! Now, pulling out assumes that the guy will want to when the big moment comes, but he will have still released pre-seminal fluid, which can have semen (pregnancy risk) and thus can spread HIV.
Mosquitoes can spread the virus. They only inject their own saliva, there is no sharing of blood.
A mother will always pass on HIV to her child. Not so, there has been a lot of research into this, and while there is a strong risk, you can prevent passing HIV onto the next generation.
Anal sex is safer than vaginal sex. Whoa baby are you wrong. The anal cavity is not as used to stretching as the vagina, and thus can rip easier.
HIV/AIDS is a gay thing. NOT SO. The lack of education on this topic has made it a fast growing virus through the population, and the teenage and young adult percentage is growing. The CDC proposes that 300,000 people in the country have the virus but don’t know it. Therefore, always ask to see their negative test, and then still use a condom.

Ok, so, there is my health rant. What can I say, that movie made me cry. I am adult enough to admit that I didn’t know a lot about HIV for a long time. To me it was something in the past, or something I didn’t need to worry about. I was young and dumb. Luckily I never got in trouble. If you are wondering, yes I have been tested. The stats during the credits of the movie said that the CDC suggests regular screening of people over the age of 13. It is far past time that we get over the stigmas of HIV and start thinking about getting healthy. HIV is not like cancer, it can be prevented, and with enough education and dedication, we should be able to get rid of it.

If there is something else you would like me to spread to my masses, let me know, sin pena (without shame or embarrassment) and I will get the word out.

Always yours and making sure you are healthy,

Jill

pícs

I{m not sure if this made it already into the blog, but I really liked the picture, so when I went through my pics the other day, I decided it deserved another go.

This is a part of my town, normally it is not so hazy out. I live two doors down on the left side of the street on the right.

THis is another cool pic of a flower.

I liked this pic. It is a very steep canyon area that is planted with coffee and in the foreground there is a barbed wire fence with a vine growing around it. I do not know, something about the hardness of the barbed wire with the life and energy of the plant, made me like the pic.

This is the church in the city nex door.

Plaza outside the church.

quick update

A busy day:

Saturday was busy from start to almost end.

I got up, and reorganized the things for baseball and tennis practice. I made breakfast (first time in about two weeks) and called for a ride to the high school. We went to the school, but he forgot his keys to get in, so I talked to my friends and gave them the rules for tennis that I had written up for them. Later I tried to teach them how to play tennis. It was interesting. I had looked up all the verbs in advance, but most of them slipped out of my brain by time we practiced. We didn’t have much time before I went outside for practice. Baseball practice was so HOT! I lost my patience by the end of it. We were trying to teach the kids how to field, and another group was learning the correct way to bat. It went fairly well. We are hoping to have our first scrimmage match next week, if enough kids come. It will be interesting. We haven’t taught the kids how to pitch yet, so one of us might need to be the continual pitcher and catcher for this round.

Later, after a nap and shower to refresh my spirits, I left to go to the city not too far from here for the afternoon. I have a weeklong reconnect next week, and there is a ropa Americana party there. Ropa Americana is thrift clothes stores that are sold here, and you can find some interesting items for cheap. More details to come on the awesome outfit I have gotten.

I also got to say good bye to my friend there who is leaving this week, she has finished her two years and found an awesome job back home. It’s weird how fast it seems that people come and go.

Domingo (Sunday):

Weird, Domingo came first, so I started typing it, then realized it was Spanish.

The morning was just spent being lazy. The afternoon was spent sewing my costume for the party, which was all hand sewn. Crazy, but I didn’t have the patience to wait a few days to use a sewing machine. I finally finished late last night. It is great! Pics to come.

Pics

This is how drinks come when you get food delivered. You can see the soda in bags, in cups, in a bag.
The India Bonita competition.
India Bonita danza folklorica. The pics looked a lot better on my computre than they are showing up now, hopefully you can see them alright.

I believe this is the ¨traditional¨wear.
I can´t get away from them!
How Honduran´s do a picnic!

And, you may be asking yourself, how do you keep yourself entertained while waiting for pics to load on a slow connection? Answer: you clean out your cell´s inbox and outbox for text messages. It actually worked rather well to cast away the time.

Take care,

Jill

A few more weeks.

Sorry about the recent drop in blog writing.

Monday:

Another day off, how great is that! That was until I had messed up dates for my site visit again. I seriously must have confused it four or five times. I call my counterpart to let him know that my boss would be coming and needed to talk to him for a little bit, and he tells me that there might be a meeting that he needs to attend, and if not, the meeting wouldn’t happen due to threats of roadblocks. Ahh, I’m ready for the political mess to end. I finally cooked something decent that night. I have been eating really bad, and finally put the energy into making something different for a change.

Tuesday:

Site visit day. I had decided I would get up early, do some things before Carlos got here, and then the morning came, and that got nixed fast. Then, I remember that I forgot to tell me Mom that Carlos was coming, so I do that and she is worrying because he would be here in the house in an hour and she was still in her pajamas, and then the housekeeper was dealing with family business out of town, so the house wasn’t as clean as normal. It was cute.

I go to the office and he shows up within minutes. We go over some really basic stuff. How are you doing? How is integrating into your sites? Any safety and security concerns? How goes the Spanish? Nothing too exciting. Then we talked with Walter. I tried telling Carlos he would say I was perfect (except for not drinking coffee) and Walter’s answers were all positive. Then on to the family’s house, where the comments were even more glowing (go host Mom!). Next: lunch. Well, we don’t have anything too great here in town, just your normal stuff, but in the city 10 minutes away, I had heard rumors of a good place to eat meat. I have had a definite lack of meat, so that is where I wanted to go. I forgot how good meat can be. Best meat I have had in Honduras without doubt. It’s expensive so I wont be returning too soon.

The rest of the day was chilling out, enjoying that happy feeling in my stomach. I didn’t want to make dinner because I knew it couldn’t compare to lunch. That night my family had a birthday party here in the house. Now, my Mom has a group of ladies come over ever Tuesday for a church group, so I thought it was that, until I went to the kitchen and saw all of the stuff they had out. I did get some cake and ice cream!

Wednesday:

Back to Gold Creek. It’s a beautiful place, with good people, and monkeys in the jungle, but it is a long way away. Up and at’ hem very early. We go, have to go back to the dam site for some strange reason (still don’t understand why) and the theodolite we are borrowing for right now is different than mine, so I had to sit there and stare and think for a while to figure out how to use it. I think I figured something out. Then walking to do a re-route of the distribution network. Then doing even odder things at the tank site (after we decided which spot it would be at). This is where I saw my first live snake here in Honduras (I have been lucky). This is how the situation goes:

Stage: We are on a hill covered with brush, I am a few feet away from Walter who is leveling the theodolite.

Jill: Ahhhh!

Walter: Que paso? (What happened, literally what passed?)

Jill: Un serpiente paso! (A snake passed, I just like the way I could use paso in a different way and make it sound so snazzy, it might not translate right). For those of you wondering, the grammatically correct answer would have been Un serpiente me paso.

I moved really fast and then was constantly searching the ground for some of its friends that might still be slithering about.

We returned to town kind of late, but it was just as the Honduras vs Costa Rica World Cup elimination match started. Ok, I just started the computer back up again to mention this game. It was not what I expected. In the past Honduras has had a problem finishing games, allowing games in the last minutes. Not today! Two goals in extra time of the second period. For those of you who don’t watch soccer, extra time is that little bit of time that is added onto the halves to account for time lost during penalties, players faking injuries, etc. This is normally 3 minutes or so. Honduras scored twice during this. The second time, I was just like, there is no way that just happened. They beat Costa Rica, which if I remember right, had beaten every other team in our group (group includes the USA). Crazy. I am going to get a paper tomorrow to see if they are going to South Africa (site of tournament) or not. The announcer said that they were closer to going, but someone today told me that they had to win, and the US as well, for them to get through, but the US lost. I didn’t see that game, but it upsets me that they lost to Mexico.

Thursday I went to the office a little bit, and listened to a lesson on how to calculate volumes for about 10 minutes. Then they were going to move into a smaller room, and I decided I’d rather go home and study Spanish, than listen to that in a tiny room packed with people.

Friday was weird because I was supposed to go out to do more of the water survey, but when I showed up, no one was there. I was five minutes late, but that’s normally considered early in Honduras. In the afternoon S and I planned the baseball practice. We work well as a team, and her teacher’s knowledge of ways to get kids to do things is a great resource. T is on vacation, which is why she didn’t help plan.

Wow, we just had visitors. I found out that the grandmother in this house is actually a great-great-grandmother. Crazy, huh! She is 90 years old.

Finally I have started cooking something that is not the same hot dogs or spaghetti. Like when I lived out in Washington, I was really dull in my cooking for a while, and now and starting to branch out. My attempt at papusas the other day was actually kind of a disaster. I know my family had a non-stick pan, but it has disappeared. Therefore, it stuck a lot. I was trying to find the balance between lots of oil (not good) and sticking. Maybe I could bake them, now there’s an idea. A little grease on the bottom of the pan, flipping half way through, that might just work. I still have to learn to make the salads that go on top. The first is an onion salad with jalapenos but in brine, which is great. The second is a cabbage dry cole slaw type thing. The thing with cabbage is that you are playing Russian roulette with your health. It is known here for carrying a lot of bacteria, like the type that gives you diarrhea. Therefore, it has to be cleaned really well, and if not, you probably will get sick. They kept trying to tell me during training not to eat the salad (what would be the point in that) which I chose to ignore, instead just frequenting places that have a lot of other people eating them, figuring people wouldn’t return if they got sick from the food. I haven’t tried buying it and cleaning it myself. I don’t think my family washes the fruits and veggies here, so really, I am lucky I am not really sick anyways. I just figure I am hardening my stomach and other digestion organs, so that I will be able to eat almost anything without repercussions.

Saturday

Getting up Saturday morning for baseball practice is not one of my favorite things. It did go pretty well though. We did running and stretching, then a catching throwing drill. It is still hard for the kids to put the glove with the pocket up to catch. Later we created a puzzle, and each piece had a rule or idea about baseball, and the kids each had to read one, and then put the piece together, that way the kids learned all the rules. Because I didn’t think all the kids had listened, I used the picture on the puzzle (a baseball field) to reinforce the concepts. After that was a game of extreme rock, paper, scissors which is like a mix of the normal game and rover red rover. It was fun and the kids really enjoyed it.

Later S and I planned the next practice. We tried to look up baseball practice tips, but they were all too advanced for our kids. Then after thinking about how we could build a tee to teach the them to bat, we looked for tee-ball tips which worked a lot better since they were all about teaching the basics of baseball.

Later I tried something that may sound good to a few of you, liquid captain crunch. Not what it is actually called, but that is what it tasted like. This is the beginning of corn season, with the corn festival in a few weeks. There are a lot of interesting foods made of corn right now.

That night S and I went to an India Bonita competition which is a little difficult to describe. It is kind of like a beauty pageant for the kindergarten kids, but so much more. For the dances, the kids that could memorize the steps (move like this for a part of the song, then change a little) were in the front and the others copied them from behind. There was a “questions” portion which consisted of name, dad’s name, school name, teacher’s name. Then came the real impressive parts, the kids’ Mom’s had to create these “indigenous” costumes. There really was not much reality involved. It was cute, even though it lasted 2 hours through dinner time.

Sunday

I woke up, but stayed in bed today, my only day to do so. My Mom came to my door to see if I was up, which is unusual, so I got up and dressed to see what was up. We were invited to eat carne asada at her son’s house, then to go to his finca (farm) for corn and corn tortillas. They by the way, have a mini schnauzer. So, we ate, then went to the farm, where they strung up hammocks (I think I will bring about 10 home with me so that I can have my guests all lay in hammocks) and we ate corn and corn tortillas. Now, there are corn tortillas and then there are corn tortillas. These are not made of corn flour, but of mashed up corn kernels. My host Mom was so happy that I voluntarily put mantequilla on my tortillas. It’s easy to make her happy.

Monday:

4 hours of meeting! Not exactly what I call a lot of fun. The good news is that I understood almost all this time, but I still couldn’t keep my mind from wandering off track. The mail finally came! For some reason it never got delivered to town last week. I got a letter from Megg with pics of her new house, and surprise, surprise, pics of Daisy, who will always be my first nephew, no matter how many dogs or kids come later.

Tuesday:

So, people here have an ingrained excuse for being late, it is called Hora Hondurena. Today I got myself out of bed to get to the office, only to actually leave an hour and a half later. After 20 minutes of waiting I went back home, and ate breakfast and talked to my house family. I was not about to sit around forever. So, Megg, my host Mom says that you cat looks like a dog. Never had she seen a cat so big and fat before, it must be a dog in her mind, especially with the pics of Erik walking the thing in your yard.

We finally went to a town, called the Hardship. Well, it’s the closest translation. It was kind of a disaster. No one wanted to work. It didn’t need to take a lot of time, but it did. On the way back it down-poured and the high school students riding in the back of the pick-up got soaked. At that time I wasn’t so impressed with them, and thus thought it was funny. To be nice and make up for it a little bit, they got to go home early to dry off.

I got my first, “take me to the States” request today. It was kind of weird. She was calm about it, and understood that I couldn’t. I have heard that a lot of people try to pass their kids onto volunteers, thinking they will number one get the kids out of their hair, and number two take the kids to the states with them. Luckily, this has not happened to me yet. Relax, no kid adopting for me.

Ahh, I am so tired of writing (and at this point of a very non-connected update, you are probably sick of reading) because I fell really behind on my journal; I had not written for a little over a week, and had to check back here to remember what happened which day. Also, I have started writing the drills and activities we have done in baseball, this way we can give the book to whoever replaces us as coaches for the baseball team. The best thing would be that a Honduran takes over, but it might be whoever replaces us after we leave. I was also writing another copy for a friend who is starting her team soon, and then got tired of that and said she can copy from the book. I think it will be a good resource, because it has ideas on how to teach the concepts of baseball, and other activities to keep the kids busy. We have to get creative to make up for a lack of equipment, this isn’t like the states where every kid comes with their own glove, we have to get 15 kids through a practice with 7 gloves.

Wednesday

Well, not your normal day. I got to see cow testicles being removed, then eaten. Yes, they have Rocky Mountain Oysters here too. No, I did not try them.

We were gone all day and I worked for 1 hour. Actually, it was nice because the other times I was in the hammock and eating. I have finally come to terms with mantequilla and can eat it. Next, coffee.

Thurday:

Day off! Yeah, actually I am spending it planning baseball and tennis practices.

I had a nice blog written to go up today, but I left my USB on my bed, good place for it.

Well, I was very happy that Monday when I got back from posting the last blog, ¨7 Brides for / Brothers¨was on TCM. If you don´t know this movie, than you have obviously never lived with me. Its one of my favorites of all time. You shouldNetflix it.

Hmm, I think I will go and just put up a longer blog later this week. To come: site visit from boss, out to Gold Creek again, and what was he thinking?

Stayed tuned.

Jill

Pics- since the blog was short, here are some pics to keep you entertained

Not sure if I posted this pic before. I couldn´t stand on the ledge because it was slippery and steep, so I used this freshly made stump to keep myself upright. This is called aldea ingenuity.

T and S talking to the baseball team. The second week we had more kids come. There is a lot to explain about baseball and the team, so each practice ends in a meeting to go over business.

I just really liked this picture, the fern is about 20 feet tall, to give you a reference.

My trip to the jungle. It´s amazing the difference in environment here. Some places are dry almost desert-like, others are pine forests which remind me of western US and there are varying degrees of jungle-like areas.

Ok, so if you look to where the two large trees make an X mroe or less in the center, under that there is a large black spot, and it is a monkey. What can I say, I don´t have a national geographic quality camera, which is good because i can drop mine and it doesn´t break.

Not too far from the pic above is this. One of the two barbed wire fences is the border to Nicaragua. I think it is the far one. That is how close we were. I guess this aldea had once planned their water system to pass through nicaragua, because the route was easier, that is how close they live to the border. I was talking to them and they said they cross the border without problems, that the small stores close by accept both currencies. He actually told me it was cheaper for him to go to buy things in nicaragua because its cheaper to get a jalon (hitch-hike) in Nic than in Honduras.

The reception tree. So, most of Honduras has cell phone coverage and signal. This area was a kind of hit or miss place, but this tree had signal. No joke, five feet from the tree you lost the signal.

Que Rico

Last Friday I was able to sleep in really late, and it was so nice. I finally climbed out of bed around 11am. How nice is that? That day was spent preparing for a going away party for a volunteer and baseball practice the next day.

Saturday

Baseball practice was more interesting. We had prepared activities for the kids, team builders, skill learning, and a talk for the kids who didn’t go to the first practice. It actually worked out rather well. The limiting factor is the lack of equipment. Everyone can’t catch and throw at the same time because we don’t have enough gloves or balls. We first had a few activities to get to know the kids and get them warmed up. Then we did the human knot, which was completely new to them. I ended up being in the knot to have an even number of people. Next time the kids have to do it themselves that way them are in charge of unintangling themselves.

The game we thought of was actually quite impressive, so I am going to share the details. There were two lines of kids. Each kid had their chance at the beginning of the line and they had to hit the target on a piece of board (which T and S so bravely held up), once they hit it, they switched with the kid to the side who was in charge of catching the balls that went behind the board (first time throwing after a demonstration on proper technique), and then later switched to the back where they had to collect the balls and then throw it to the kid at the side. I had to remind the kids to watch their technique more than try to throw hard, and don’t you know that worked every time. Later I mentioned that in games, getting the ball to your player is the most important thing, so technique and smart plays is better than showing how crazy but hard you can throw the ball.

Later I went to the city nearby for the going away party for a friend. She is finishing up her two years, so we gathered around to have fun. We had tried to plan a good party, but it ended up being like a normal get-together. We then went out, which we could do since the curfew is no longer hanging over our heads like a dark cloud (ok, that was too extreme a description, but sometimes it felt that way).

Sunday

The next day was interesting because people were leaving, having a hard morning, and splitting up almost all of her things (the good thing about people leaving is that they can only bring 2 suitcases home, which leaves a lot of stuff for us). I ended up staying a while after everyone to help her finish packing and clean a little bit.

A few more days in the life of your favorite PCV

A good day.

Tuesday morning I had to get up really early to be at the office by 6am. I was very lifeless you might say, and sleeping in a car on awful dirt roads is not a skill that I have mastered (yet, give me time). We were going to an aldea called Gold Creek. I was excited to go because last time Walter went, he saw monkeys, although part of me thought he was pulling my leg, I was still excited at the possibility. A bunch of us went, and several people were riding in the back of the truck for the two hour ride out there. While I was there to help a topo study piece, they were there to do the water survey in the community.

We head out to do the topo study, and walk towards the water source, which is a stream well above the community, and above all agricultural areas. The source is in a steep canyon type place, and walking around was a lot of fun! I was slipping and sliding all over the place, all the while moving things out of your way (vines and whatnot). One problem with their current survey is that the dam site isn’t high enough to create enough pressure for the water to climb over one hill, so we were going to pick a site further up. We get to the base of a waterfall, and were trying to think, is the base high enough or are we going to have to pretty much ruin this (dam would take most of the water from the stream). We went with safety, going above the waterfall to make sure we had the height we needed. Walter goes and then puts my theodolite in the stream. At that point I had to ask the people helping us if they could move some rocks (first one I saw was too big for me to move) for me to stand on (I was wearing tennis shoes and not boots which didn’t help the situation). At the second or third point we saw the monkeys! Not joking, a small family of four. They crosses the canopy over the stream, and then ten minutes later crossed back over. We were really far down, but at one point I got a really good view of one, but alas the camera was not ready and I wouldn’t have been fast enough to catch it anyways.

Later we went to go investigate another situation in the community where the design could be bettered. I got within 150 yards of Nicaragua! The aldea is literally on the border, and one time an engineer with a GPS came and it told him he was actually in Nicaragua when he was standing where I was.

Ok, so side story: I am watching TruTV right now, and it is showing the police after Katrina, what they had to deal with. They pull one woman over, and she was drunk, and was trying to scream police brutality that they were being rough to a 90 pound woman, and the police officer very straightly says “you are not 90 pounds.” It was great! I think all police should be that blunt with people. For those of you who wondering about the situation in New Orleans after Katrina, the woman couldn’t be charged with DUI because they didn’t have a real breathalyzer (only the big ones in the police stations are credible in the court of law) and the greyhound station was converted into the jail because they jail was destroyed, and they had to use those plastic cuffs because all of their cuffs were submerged in water, then proceeded to rust shut.

The next day I survived another meeting with an engineer from Teguc. It turns out we just do something a little different. I will find out Monday if my topo study works and the community will have a water system.

Yet the following day we did the two + hour drive to Gold Creek. We get there, and climb quite the hill in the heat only to find out that the theodolite has finally given out. Somehow, over two nights, locked in a protective case, it has ceased to work. So, down the hill we go. And then drive back. What a day!

I lied.

I lied, I am not done. If any of you do have extra old baseball equipment (gloves) that you were thinking about sending down, and then got scared off at the thought of postage, I have a solution for you. A friend is returning to the states for a wedding in a few weeks, and you can send her the stuff to her US address, and she will bring it in a suitcase.

Let me know if you are interested in this idea, I don´t wnat to publish her address on the internet.

Jill

upsy daisy, twisty turvy

Wednesday:

There wasn’t really a whole lot of energy today. I was told that someone was coming at 7:30am, but really expected 8am, so I was surprised when they arrived on time. Almost immediately I was really tired. We went out to do a topo study in a community not too far from here. This time I heard the talk that the community members got, which was treat her like you would treat us (or else was implied). Or else in this case wouldn’t mean violence, it would mean you don’t get any help or funds.

I went with the same girl from the survey. It kind of started off slowly, but it always does; once people learn their roles, it goes more smoothly. It is odd though, one of the hardest things I have problems with is getting them to pull the tape measure tight, so that it isn’t lying on the ground. Every time I try to pull it to get a more accurate measurement, they think I am telling them to walk towards me, which completely ruins what I am trying to do. Eventually we got this though, although I turned to the girl with me (Mabel) and was like, do you understand what I am trying to get them to do, and if so, help me explain. Everything worked out in that regard in the end.

It turns out Mabel and I were both really tired. So, we are talking a lot and both saying weird stuff because we are so tired, and both making mistakes with the numbers, so there was a lot of laughing. By the way, I think someone always caught the mistake, so there shouldn’t be a problem with the design. Even though I was so tired, and doing everything possible to keep my mind on the project, the Spanish was rockin’. The only thing was that I kept saying negative and not negativo. I decided this was a small English lesson to Mabel. Other than that, I was able to do the work and joke around with her in Spanish.

I return home really tired and finally get some laundry done. Later I called S to see if she wanted to go out to dinner (T is out of town), so we went for pupusas (= food of the gods). The thing in my house is that I pretty much make all my own food. I make my own breakfast (=normal) but my family doesn’t eat dinner, so I make food. Well, for the last month I have pretty much eaten two things over and over again, so I wanted to get out of the house. I have to get more adventurous with my cooking here.

Thursday:

Ahh, I shouldn’t be working at 7am, there is something just unnatural about it. Maybe one day I’ll get used to it. We went to two communities to do more of the surveys. This time I did more by myself, and no one had problem understanding me, and I felt comfortable talking to everyone. The great part about the surveys is that it provides a topic to talk about, so there can be side conversations about how the grey water is dealt with in the town and a little gossip as well.

We returned to town to find a police and military blockage of a road. Fun times. Really, we drove right by it (not through, thankfully we didn’t go in the other direction that morning) and while there were a few protesters, there was music playing and it seemed most people just were chilling out. We then got the news that we had a national curfew at 6pm. I didn’t go out that night.

Friday:

Now, I should be getting used to getting up early and going to work, but I am not. It wasn’t any easier today. This time we went to a community where I have gone a few times with a large group of people. Mabel and I took one edge of the community and the other people fanned out across it. We started at the house of someone I “know” who is a member of my organization and I have talked to in previous visits. While doing the survey I started talking to her a little bit about the one time we came, Walter was calling her by the wrong name all day, and then we went on a 4 hour hike in the heat (she didn’t, I did, she was too smart for that). I think she had a little bit of a hard time understanding me at first, but then we got to talking. She sent one of her daughters with us to be our guide because the houses are dispersed and hiding. We went around, one time Mabel ended up doing my survey for me (we were splitting I would do one, she would do one) because the guy was just not understanding me. One thing you have to face is that people see you, and just think you can’t speak Spanish, and that they won’t understand you. So, take in this lesson yourselves, sometimes you just need a little patience to understand someone that has English as a second language.

Other houses were better, there were some problems, but most people were really patient, if they didn’t understand me, I would repeat myself, or try to rephrase the question. If that didn’t work, then they would turn to Mabel. It was good to have a lot of one on one time with Mabel between houses because we were talking a lot. This time I wasn’t trying in inject English in the conversation.

Several times during the day I got calls from our Director of Security of Peace Corps Honduras because he knew there was an increased military presence in my town, and that things may heat up, so I talked to him a bit too. Also, it turns out 12 police officers arrived to the community I was in to check IDs, and they stopped a few of the people I was with. I was in a really distant part of the town, so I never saw them. Mabel was freaking out when she heard this because she didn’t have her ID on her. We never saw them.

Then, after we had done our 9 houses, I called to try and figure out where everyone else was (we had a guide so we weren’t lost, its just I didn’t know where we were in relation to them) and found out that they were starting the curfew at noon. It was 11:45am and I was more than 30 minutes away from my town. It turns out my ride was in town, and he had to haul #$%^& to get to us (all 14) and get us back to town. I don’t know what you’re thinking reading this, but it was never a dangerous situation. There was definitely a sense of urgency, but not danger. There was once police check point on the road but Walter spoke to them on the way out of town and explained he would be coming back with all of us, so everyone got dropped off in by their house. It was odd going through the town, because normally it is so active with a lot of people around. Even sadder was seeing all the people who live in the surrounding villages trying to get out of town, most of the trucks leaving town were packed with people, and if some were walking out of town. It turns out Mel walked into Honduras, and then walked back out. I don’t know to write more on the situation, if you have watched the news, then you have a little bit of information. I have been in contact with the Director of Security and the Country Director. My host family and counterparts have been a source of information to me, and are all looking out for me as well.

Saturday and Sunday:

All day curfew, not joking. A lot of time watching tv, getting caught up on writing, and reading. The curfew is not being highly enforced, so there are people out and around, but I am staying on the cautious side. This continued Sunday when all the businesses in town were open.

Other news:

A few weeks ago I wrote that I wasn’t really eating a lot of tortillas. This has changed. Warm, freshly made tortillas can be eaten plain. The other day I was out doing the topo study, and I had 10 tortillas in my container (community provides food), and I ate 7 of them. On that note, a lot of times you aren’t given a fork, so you scoop the food with the tortillas, which of course means you eat a lot. Just two minutes ago, I went into the kitchen and ate a tortilla with cheese. I also learned how to make pupusas (food of the gods). Maria and I were having a good time learning the hard way how to make them. S told me the general strategy the other day, so we tried, and they are so delicious. Once we get over this curfew I will go out and buy more quesillo so I can make them a lot. They are so delicious it is ridiculous. By time I come back for a visit, I will be a papusa making expert.

Monday:

More of the same. The town has been operating about normally, and that was even more so on Monday. In the afternoon I was going to go for a run with T and S, but it was hot, and we haven’t run in a long time, so we ended up walking around town for a bit, then we went on a search for paletas, which are like popsicles but you freeze them in small cups. Good, but messy, and they were really good on a hot day.

Later we went and hiked up to a cross on a hill not too far from my house. You can see almost all the town from there. We then went to dinner and found a hidden Mexican food place with good food. Oh, today I discovered a place that sells the best coffee in my town, which supposedly has the best coffee in the country. I also found a place that sells coffee wine, and other coffee items. That’s where I am doing my Christmas shopping!

Tuesday:

Life is pretty much like normal here. Due to a small stomach problem, I didn’t go to work, but the town is running like normal, and so are the buses.

I am having fewer and fewer blunders in Spanish, but there was a good one this morning, but I think you will understand why. I was asked “Le llamo a Karen?” Well, this has two meanings. 1: Did you call Karen? This is the one I thought it was, but I was wrong because 2: Did Karen call you? Well, once I realized my blunder, no Karen did not call me. Oops. There was no previous conversation to guide me through which option it was. In the end it was a small blunder and now I know to watch out for similar situations.

The next day, I went to the office but no one was there. I was confused. I get home, and like a half hour later my host Mom comes into my room and was like ¨why are you up¨and when I told her I had already went to the office, she told me that it was dangerous to leave, apparently we had visitors in town which caused a slight uprising (peaceful uprising). Thats how fast the situation changes here.

We (sitemates and I) decided we had enough of being couped up in town and went to visit a friend in the next town over for a few days. It was so nice to get away.

Today we had our first baseball practice. Can you believe it? It was hard to for me to grasp that it was actually happening as well. We talked to them a bit and then played kickball because we figured it was a good way to introduce the rules and terminology of baseball. It is definitely interesting starting a new team on a sport they have barely heard of. Only 10 of the 25 kids showed up in the end, so we will probably be changing people on the team next week if they don´t show up again.

Thats it for now,

Take care

Jill