lazy

well, unless you consider rereading books a productive way to spend a week, i have been fairly lazy lately. I have not really done much in the way of work. i thought this week would be busy, but no. can´t really say that i am sorry about it either.

The new trainees arrived in honduras this week. That also means I just passed the one year in country mark. Its strange to think that a year ago i was just arriving, didn´t know spanish, or anything about Honduras. Things that are now everyday were strange. I can remember being at home those last days, deciding what would and would not make the suitcase. Going to my goodbye brunch in MA with friends and family, not really knowing what I was getting myself into. How weird it was, thinking about Honduras.

Now, Tegucigalpa runs off the tongue, while while I learned the name once in school, I never thought I would visit, let alone live two hours away.

I feel this would be an opportune time to say some of the lessons I have learned in the year, but one year from now I would probably laugh at them, because there is so much more to learn.

Take care,

Jill

Assumptions and Dog torturing

Well, I feel it’s time to change a few assumptions. Well, I will correct a few assumptions that I had before coming here. First, the bugs would be worse during the rainy season. WRONG! Since the rainy season ended the bugs have come out in full force. That’s right; we are back to using bug repellent as moisturizer. Seca doesn’t get out of this either, fleas and ticks are easily found in every place you look! Guns are more common in the cities. This might actually be true, but the number of rifle-toting guards for the coffee farms are rather unnerving. It doesn’t get cold in the tropics. Well, it’s just your idea changes. I am wearing a sweater writing this and it is 70F in my apartment.

Dog stories: You are not getting tired of hearing about my pup I hope, because her stories are my life since I am strapped with her. Today we went out to San Carlos where we are building a water system. We were out there to do the prep work for the dam. My dog was going nuts because it was muddy (late rains) and a very steep incline making it hard for anyone, not just those of the four legged variety, to sit down for a bit. That being said, she did make a worker’s backpack her bed for a while. Anyways, we get back home and she is SOOOO tired. Half the time, I walk her without her leash, and instead of running out in front of me and then waiting while I catch up, she was walking at a really slow pace. So, to torture her, I started running to make her walk faster. Didn’t work, she still walked slowly. She even fell asleep in the middle of the office floor with people coming in and out. She at least got to sleep out there; I was awake and freezing because I forgot my sweater.

Work: Well, we went out to supervise the prep-work for a dam, if you weren’t paying attention. Actually, it was interesting to see. They already have large piles of rocks and sand (necessary for mixing concrete) and the whole are cleaned and ready for construction. We went out and using 3” PVC tubes have the water rerouted over the dam site so that it can be dried out for the actual construction. As we were driving up to the site, I confessed to my counterpart of the day that although I understood the basics of dam design and theory of how a dam might be constructed (as in which part goes where), the actual construction part was a complete blank to me. Not for the first time I wondered if I am qualified for this job; my environmental engineering masters doesn’t mean that I have experience building dams for a 58 house community. Good thing I have a great deal of self-confidence and many years experience of BSing my way out of situations. Please note that any decisions would be run by someone else, while I may be able to hold my head up and answer questions at a worksite, I would defer to someone else before making a large decision. I want these people to have water so I would not put their system in jeopardy.

Friends: things seem to be going well with everyone I know. There are a lot of people supervising construction right now because we have just entered the dry season. Those people who work with schools are now busy because school started up again. My group of volunteers are about to celebrate our one year in Honduras mark. That means I am busy preparing for the next group to come down here. That will be interesting. Let me list the things I have on my plate:

Finish design for one colonia (means redoing part of the topo study), supervise construction of 3 water systems, participate in trainings in those site, supervise construction of 350 latrines, set-up the chemical/biological lab at my worksite, create a training on said lab so that my coworkers can run samples, get my dog to the vet to get fixed, set up training sites for the trainees, 2-4 afternoons a week for 7 weeks being spent towards their training, baseball, tennis lessons, junta de agua manual, science fair, setting up contacts for a well drilling team, improved stove project, investigate treatment for coffee wash water, learn autoCAD, and live a life that includes taking care of a too attached dog, cleaning an every dusty house due to the non-paved street, and taking some down time to relax. Good thing I am the queen procrastinator. Wouldn’t want all of those things on my plate at one time now!

One more story about Seca. We return from San Carlos and she is TIRED, and she got to sleep! About half the time that I walk her I let her run off leash, and when I do this she just runs around, or runs around ahead of me and waits for me to catch up. Well, the poor thing was so tired that she wasn’t in front of me and within one block I was well ahead of her. Then, being the great person I am, I start running to torture the poor thing since I know she wont let herself get too far behind!

And because I am really desperate for letters (HINT HINT HINT) here is my address so that you have no excuses!

Jillian Churchill
Apartado Postal 34
El Paraiso, El Paraiso
Honduras
Central America

Ok, I will take the address next time I have internet, so save it and WRITE TO ME!!!!!!

Guests!

Guests!

Ok, so they are not my guests, they are my sitemate’s parents. They are down for a little over a week. On Monday they came into Teguc and down here. Sara stopped by with them to make the introductions, and then while walking I suggested we are my coworkers if someone would be able to take us out in the truck to the aldeas for two hours just so that they could see how gorgeous it is out there.

The ride ended up being great. We went out with Nelson, and he knew where to stop to get good pictures, kept everyone up to date on what type of plant was what, and narrated a little history of the area. We stopped and they saw how coffee is cut and dried. Later we saw lufas (the sponge-body scrub stuff) being cleaned and dried. I didn’t know where they came from, but there is a plant here that you clear out the ooze and you have a perfect bathroom tool. We talked to a bunch of people, and just had a nice visit. My coworkers were so nice about it, they didn’t think twice about driving us around and later were like, “Had we known they were coming we would have planned something better,” but Sara’s parents were really happy with what they got.

Later that night, Sara’s host family had a bbq for us all. I got invited! It was good, there managed to be a flow of conversation through Sara translating back and forth. All in all, I think thus far (less than 48 hours) they have had a good trip. Tomorrow they head out to the lake, but they got to see where Sara lives and works.

What nice people to visit a volunteer! I wonder who else would like to see Honduras. Any takers?!

Work: Now, apparently me life is about to get really crazy. I had a meeting today and all of the things that I should do in the next few months came up. It didn’t come up in the planning meeting I had two weeks ago, but in front of the mayor it came up. Go figure.

And a few notable mentions are: finish two water system designs, take a design and create a materials list of things they need- this is top priority because they want to start building NEXT WEEK!, supervise latrine construction, give a charla on how to build a water system (because I have so much construction experience), supervise construction of the water system (I got full authorization to piss people off by telling them they are doing something wrong!), make and give a presentation on how to take water samples and how to how to perform chemical, physical and bacteriological tests on them, finish two lessons on how to use the theodolite and use a computer program to design water systems, and help my friend with one of her projects. On top of that add baseball, a science fair, and did I mention a stove project that I have to do, and if this work load lasts long enough, I need to balance it with the demands of the new training group that is coming.

All of that goes on top of making visits so that I don’t upset people, taking care of my crazy dog (includes getting her to the vet to get fixed!), washing clothes by hand, mopping every day because my floor is a pain, and trying to stay sane. So, how do I handle all of this- I go on vacation for a week! Actually I will be attending a meeting and helping a friend with a project. Hey, I am a world class procrastinator!


I will try to upload some more pics the next time I find a fast internet source.

Whoa crazy travel for workness!

Whoa crazy travel for workness!

Ok, so this past week I traveled quite a bit, and it was for work. Now, ahead of time I was told that the trip was three days (or at least I think someone told me this, maybe I assumed), and would be in one town. It turns out we are there for five days and travelling all over the place for this training. Here is the story:

We leave town late (who would guess that?) and then proceed to head around Tegucigalpa about five times. Why? I don’t know. Then we head up to this one town, getting there as the sun sets. One thing I should mention, a common theme for this trip was me being tired. We get there, and instead of going out to eat, they went and bought food to cook. Normally this is good, except for when you send out two Honduran men and then come back with beef and frozen chicken. Well, I didn’t see the bag with the other stuff, so I was like, “really, only meat for dinner?!” They did forget a bunch of stuff, and yep, it was meat for dinner. I was so tired that by time they got it cooked, I was sleeping on the sofa.

I travelled with a group of 8 people. Six men, and two women. The other woman and I had the option of where to stay, and we chose the place with beds, which was another person’s house, so I got woken up to go there. Very comfy bed by the way. The next day was the first day of the training, which is not actually in that town, but a town 40 minutes away. Beautiful drive though, so I am not complaining, and keep track of times and places here. This place is called Jesus de Otoro. It is incredibly hot for being in the mountains.

I’m going to spare you on the details of the meeting and continue with travel. After the meeting we go back to the first place, Siguatepeque, and instead of sleeping in the comfy bed, I go sleep in the first place. Have I mentioned that place was a funeral parlor? My counterpart’s friend owns the place, and it was free to stay there. I slept on what is essentially a sleeping mat.

The next day we return to Jesus de Otoro, and learn we are doing a practice lesson to a group of people who live 1.5 hours in the opposite direction of Siguatepeque. So, naturally we decide to go one our in that direction to sleep; at another funeral parlor. There were never any dead people around, so it was fine. This town, is one of the coldest places in Honduras. I slept on an even thinner mat, and was just generally uncomfortable all night.

We go do the lesson in a town that is actually 40 minutes further west of La Esperanza, the town with the second funeral parlor. While there, we realize we are only 40 minutes away from a really cool town. My counterparts are like, lets go, why not? This is why I like these people, they are my kind of people. We don’t ask why you should do something, we ask why not? We hit up the hot springs there before heading back to La Esperanza.

The next day we are heading home and someone points out we are a half hour from the lake. Well, most Hondurans, especially those in the economic range of the people I was travelling with, don’t travel. So, we go to the lake to eat brunch (it was too early to call it lunch). Then we hit major traffic so the half hour becomes more like an hour.

We are heading home and I realize the time, so I get dropped off in the city nearby to spend the night. We had a superbowl party, and I didn’t have time to go home, drop off my stuff, then head back. More on this later. That was my trip though, I finally made it home the following day.

So, the thing about the hot springs was that no one even imagined we would be going there, so no one had anything to swim in. We didn’t even decide on this the night before, so we couldn’t just bring clothes we packed with us. Therefore, we hit up a person selling Salvation Army clothes on the side of the road. It worked though, we all had a good time.

An interesting thing on the ride back to my area. Hondurans are very used to riding in the back of a pick-up, and our guys made an effort to make it comfortable. We were bringing back a thin mattress that needed to be returned to its owner, so using bags to make a base, they folded the mattress in an “L” shape and had a couch to sit on for the ride back. I can’t say as I blamed them, including the stop for lunch, they were back there for 11 hours.

Pranks. I do like pranks, they are a lot of fun. The second night in La Esperanza, the other woman and I were alone in the funeral parlor preparing to go to bed. The guys had left in two groups, which left us alone. So, we were talking about how we could be more comfortable in the night, and I got a great idea. What about pulling a prank on the guys? She loved the idea. The question was, what prank? We were kind of at a loss because we didn’t want something to make them mad and figured it would be obvious for the to figure out who did it since only the two of us were there. In the end we decided to take an item (or two in some cases) and just place it in a different bag. We were trying to go for something they wouldn’t see until morning, but with small bags, that was difficult.

The guys noticed right away that there was stuff missing and extra stuff that didn’t belong to them. They decide to blame the owner of the house. This guy was 1.5 hours away! We met up with the owner the next day and they were like, “it was you, right?” The poor guy was so confused he just switched the subject and they all took it as a sign of guilt. No one was mad, they realized it was a small prank. To this day they do not know who pulled the prank on them. Makes me want to try my hand at another prank!

Next subject: sayings and idioms. This was odd. So, the last night on the road, well the last night on the road with my coworkers, I woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache. For those of you who don’t know, I normally sleep like the dead, so for something to wake me up, it’s got to be big. I did go back to bed but woke up with a stomach ache still. While driving home, someone asked me: “Did you touch a cab driver?” That’s right people, touching a cab driver will make you sick. I thought it was an interesting saying.

One good thing about this trip was all the talking I did. Everyone knows I am not the biggest talker, but this trip I had a lot of really good conversations. I had several debates and talked girl talk with the other woman. I came back with a much better feeling for my Spanish. Side note: true fluency comes after years, so yes, I am still working on my Spanish.

Superbowl: GO SAINTS! I can’t say I paid all that much attention to the game, but there was a superbowl party. We somehow managed to have 4 types of dips. My goodness I do love dip! We had homemade salsa, guacamole, a jalapeno cheese dip, and hummus. Then, to vary things a little, we ordered pizza. The end of the game was very dramatic and I was very happy with the winners.

That’s all for now, I am headed to a bbq, but more on that for the next update!

PS- How is your Jill inspired New Year’s Resolution going?