This time I am not even going to try to guesstimate what day I am going to the internet café (or which day they will have electricity). Also, I have written this over several days, so it probably is going to be an interesting read trying to remember what day is which. Please note that this is really long. So, here is what I have been up to lately:

Saturday:

So, there are more pictures to go with the last blog, I went to use the wireless internet at ADEPES, and just as I was adding the last pictures I got kicked offline. I then used the autosave feature, during my call home I asked Mom to past the last saved draft. I was too annoyed with the internet to try to get back online that day.

Later in the afternoon my host sisters that live in Tegucigalpa arrived home. I had only met them for two or three hours the first day. I’m still new to them, so that was fine because they had all kinds of questions.

Sunday I went to the church with my host Mom and sister (one of the ones from Teguc- Saydi). We arrived really late though. It was the first Sunday of Semana Santa (Holy Week-Psalm Sunday?) here and the church was packed! There were people literally standing for two hours in the church and people spilling out the back door. The people from the aldeas come in to town, plus a lot of people here have their families visit for the week. There were just a ton of people everywhere. I wish I had brought my camera. We missed the procession in the morning, which worked out because we didn’t have to stand for two hours like other aspirantes.

After church I tried not to melt for a little while. In the afternoon we went to the river. My Mom, three sisters and little brother and I went to the river. Only Jorgito and I went swimming though. Though swimming in not quite the right word. We went in the water, although there are shallow parts that are warmer than some hot tubs I have been in, and the deepest it got was 4.5 feet. Plus, there was a lot of people in the river that day. Mostly it was children, and boys under the age of 19. I was incredibly happy though, I didn’t receive a single piropo. I went in with a tank top and shorts, and not a bathing suit to help get that scenario. And it worked! The water is really not the cleanest you have ever been in, but I am here to learn the culture, and swimming in dirty water is sometimes a part of that. Plus, at 105F, I can be willing to swim in water that is less that Grade B.

I got back home and my sisters started cooking dinner. A while later I walked into the kitchen and saw a ton of food on the bar area. There was a huge plate of yucca, a container of Honduran salad, and their pico de gallo like sauce. My though was that its like a buffet style dinner. WRONG! That huge plate of yucca was MINE! My sister looked at me like I had five heads when I asked for a less. She removed one small bit and was like, ok, you’re fine now. I did my best to eat it all, but only could eat half. Then, as I was leaving the table I saw another plate being put down for someone else and realized that a plate that big is normal. Let’s see if I can paint an accurate picture for all of you. Imagine you have a normal dinner plate, cover it with boiled potato chunks, and I mean cover with 1 inch deep chunks, then add a little less than an inch of salad, and then toss on some chopped tomato, onion, and green pepper. Then, you’re close. I felt like taking a picture of the other plate I was so flabbergasted.

Today was actually kind of bland. We had language classes like normal in the morning. Oh, language classes are going to change again next week, because of the new levels and we are getting another teacher here. The business group has a ton of advanced speakers, so they get projects to do instead of classes, and thus don’t need as many teachers as us. Just as soon as I get used to one teacher, classes change. Oh well, I haven’t had a bad experience with any of the teachers, so I’m sure it will fine. I have decided that I have to stop being timid to learn more. One major limitation that I am still facing is my difficulty in understanding the vast majority of Hondurans. So, when people come over to visit, for example, I need to be more outgoing and put myself in the conversation. This is not my forte though. (In Spanish, no es mi Fortaleza)

It was pretty funny earlier though. I had finally stopped sweating after dinner and washing my clothes. I am sitting on the hammock, and my brother comes up to me and asks “Do you want to jump la cuerda?” I left it like this because that’s what I understood. I had to ask what cuerda was. A few minutes later he comes back with a rope. In total it meant do you want to jump rope. It was interesting. We did that for a while, and later I was sweating like crazy again. It is really almost a constant state of being here.


So, I have decided that for the next two years, I will be changing my name. A lot of people here have a hard time pronouncing my name. It appears that Julia, or Judy is easier. Although, I was talking to Michelle during my visit and she said that people had the problem with the J with her aunt, but in this family it is the first I. Right now I answer to any name that begins with a J.

So, I have a cell phone now. The problem is that it is way too expensive to call everyone. While the rates are cheap compared to the US, I don’t make a lot of money (about three dollars a day), and wont be calling most of you any time soon. If you would like to call me, please ask my parents for the number, or email me. I don’t really want to post it as public property on the internet. Keep in mind that I am in class all day, talk to my family at night and have a TON of homework normally as well. Weekends are normally pretty free.

By the way, if anyone has any questions on anything, feel free to leave a comment or email me. I will do my best to answer them.
Tuesday:

Ok, it is a few days later. Nothing too interesting to report on. Tomorrow is cultural day, so there will probably be a big write up about that at some point. Living in Honduras (even the HOT) parts does have some advantages: we are done with classes for the week. The regular schools don’t have any classes during Semana Santa. It’s almost a national vacation week. A lot of people go to visit family, or go to the beach. So, travelling is dangerous (there were several stories last night of people who died Sunday travelling), and there are a lot of people coming in and out of our house. I don’t think we are going to the beach. The beaches down here are just dirty. There is no throwing your trash in a garbage can you just throw it in the ocean next to you. Therefore you are swimming around a lot of trash and the water is very warm. Plus there are a ton of people around. I’m not sorry to be missing out on that experience.

I got seafood soup today. Most of you are thinking I am eating pretty well right now, but I will remind you that I don’t like seafood. I had made up my mind that I was going to try to eat everything here, but when I saw the whole fried fish the other day, I just couldn’t do it. So, my family knows I don’t like fish. But, I was going to try to eat all the other little critters that live in the sea. I mean, I can eat crab in sushi (and yes I do know that most of it is imitation meat) so I figured I could handle it. Then the bowl was sat down in front of me and there was a whole crab right on top. What do you do with that? It’s not a rhetorical question, I have no idea how to eat crab meat from the crab. My experience is limited to crab cakes and sushi. I managed to eat the shrimp like things, and I was grateful I had watched the queer eye for the straight guy episode where they made the guy prepare shrimp, so I knew how to peel the stupid things. I was served the whole shrimp in the soup, so I was trying to figure out how to get the shell and the HEAD off the @#$& thing! I ended up leaving the crab as it was, but the rest I ate.

So, we are supposed to be giving these environmental charlas next week, and there is a rumor floating around that there is going to be a teacher strike next week. Basically, the government has promised the teachers a lot of money, and from what I have heard although I may be wrong, it is awfully slow in coming. When things like this happen, there are strikes. For two years now there have been a lot of strikes. So, we get told today that instead of going into school next week if there is a strike, we have to go find kids and give the charlas to them. Problem: kids that don’t have to go to school, don’t want to listen to gringos giving charlas, and our plan for the day involves having a LOT of kids, and a small group just will not work. It’s a little stressful. Not that we have done a lot of work on the charla.

A lot of people in my group are mad because of all the projects and homeworks we have been given. I am in the lowest group (as far as Spanish learning level) therefore we get the fewest projects. So, I am not drowned in homework, and my family is really tranquilo, so I can just sit down and do my homework at any time, I am not the entertainment here 24/7, so there is a lot of downtime. I wish there was more sleep time though. I am so tired all of the time. I don’t know if it is just too hot to get decent sleep or what. My bed is comfortable, I have a fan blowing on me all night, but I am still not sleeping all that well. All I can think about all day is a nap, although it is definitely too hot for a nap.


Wednesday:

Well, we just had cultural day. It was a good time. Our presentation was thrown together at the last minute. For a week, we were going to do a basic lesson on swing dancing, then for a few days we switched it to the electric slide, but time was running out and we couldn’t get ourselves a copy of the song, so 24 hours beforehand, we switched it to teaching Cotton-Eyed Joe. It is a dance like the electric slide that was very popular at cedar crest while I was there. It is really easy to teach and demonstrate, but I even had my Spanish teacher perplexed on how to write down instructions for it. Today though we only had one Honduran learn it, others just watched. Luckily enough, the other aspirantes stepped up to learn it.

We also had to prepare a Honduran food with our families and share the recipe with everybody. My family and I made arroz con leche. Its really good and easy to make (and easy to explain!). Basically, you add cinnamon bark to your water and heat it up on the stove. While the water is heating up, rinse your rice until the water is clear. When water is hot, add the rice. Now, I am assuming you all know how to cook rice, and how much water you need. When the rice has absorbed all the water, add a bunch of sugar (the don’t skimp on sugar here in Honduras), a little bit of salt, and a whole bunch of milk. This is going to come out looking like a rice soup, there is a lot of milk over the rice. Then, at the end, add a little bit of condensed milk. Then heat for about 10 minutes more and enjoy. Ok, after rereading that, it sounds a little sarcastic, I that I assume business is for those of you playing the online game.

The other activities were: the Bomba song and dance, april fool’s jokes and an explanation about American football. We heard a Honduran song, the song of Pespire, and these dancers did a few traditional folk dances. I got dragged up twice (I didn’t hide far enough in the back after the first time) which was a blast because although I do like to dance, I kind of just do a freestyle solo dance, I don’t understand this whole partner dance thing. It was a good time though. Afterwards while we were cleaning up I even did some swing dancing with Kevin, although because he understand English, I could just tell him to shove me where I needed to go for the dance.

I forgot my camera, so I will be swiping other people’s pictures later. When we got home, I broke out the girl scout cookies and shared with my mom and sister that went with me and said that they are a very important part of American culture.

Afterwards, I took a nap. But, I don’t sleep well in this heat, so I wasn’t refreshed at all. When I woke up (I was sleeping in the hammock in the garage), I looked up and there are five people talking and pretty much waiting for me to get up on the other side of the garage. Afterwards we went straight to the river again. A few cousins are over and they are really patient with me and talked a lot with me.

After supper, my sister Kimberly brought out some photo albums. So, we were talking for a little bit, and I went and broke out my photo album that I brought, and trying to explain my ASB trips was a little interesting. I obviously had to simplify them a lot. Then, I said “In the future if you want to see more photos of the US, I have a lot on my computer.” In spanish, obviously. But, she was like, bring it out now. Well, it was late but I got it up and going. I had a problem on deciding how many to show and which ones to show because I have so many on my computer. I ended up doing Fall Break 2005, Niagara, the great American adventure staring glacier and Yellowstone national parks, and the pics that I have taken so far here. Then it was finally late enough that we split up and I can write a little here before going to bed. Later I am sleeping until I can’t take the heat anymore.

So, just in case you were thinking that life is all easy-breezy here, I would like to tell you a little about some of my recent oops’s here. Now, so understanding Hondurans is something that I am barely starting to be able to do. So, there have been a lot of times where I have mistaken the meaning of the sentence and thus given a very odd answer. Here is one example. I was outside talking to my little brother, my sister Saydi and her novio (remind me to explain this at a later date, but for now, it’s a boyfriend). Well, we were talking about the topo study we did (somehow I can manage this topic in spanish) when I heard “How is it getting there?” Well, I assumed he meant water because we were talking about the water system, so I go into how we are designing the system in the next two weeks, and when he repeats the questions, I’m like, the water is arriving in pipes, we are designing a water system. Well, at this point someone reiterates the question a little more clearly. “How did you get there?” Big difference. Answer now is the Peace Corps mobiles. Oops. My little brother cracked up when I said we got there in pipes.

Then, today, a mere 14 hours after that big miss, we left to go to the river. Now, last time I went in with my host brother. This time he was no where to be seen. My sister kept asking me if I was going to swim, and since none of my sisters went last time I figured I’d be the only one swimming and so I said I didn’t think I would go in. Well, we were walking with two cousins that are visiting. They kept asking me too. We get there, and once they enter, I realized that they were inviting me to swim with them the whole time (although they never said that they were going in). So, I felt like a jerk, again, but went in with them and talked for quite a long time with them. My host sister never went in, so I don’t think my assumption was too off-based. There doesn’t seem to be any repercussions from my little mistakes, which is good. They understand that I don’t speak well and that I make a lot of errors.

So, something that has come to mind now is that I can’t spell in English anymore. Well, some things are becoming natural, and I will say them with ease, and apparently I am doing better at thinking in Spanish than I though because there have been a couple of times tonight where my first instinct was to spell a word the Spanish way. For example, photo came out foto the first time. We were talking about fotos in Spanish for two or more hours, so that came to mind first. There is hope that one day Spanish will be somewhat natural. Its funny though, right before I left I was trying to figure out indirect pronouns and I had no idea what they meant. My first lesson here that I learned them, I immediately got it, and while I don’t use them every time I am supposed to, I think that I use them a lot. So, it’s odd the way the language thing is working out.

Also, Mom has gone through and corrected some of my grammar in the last two blogs. I will restate my thoughts on my grammar. I am writing these entries at odd hours, and usually late at night, like tonight. I am just trying to get as much as possible typed in a small amount of time so that I can finally go to bed. While I want to send a great thanks out to Mom, if there are errors in the blogs, it’s because I am trying to write fast, and am paying a lot more attention to Spanish grammar these days than English grammar. So, please forgive me if I make some funky sentences.

Thursday.

This Semana Santa is really confusing me, I’ve been thinking that it has been Friday for while now. Thursday was interesting. The morning started pretty slow, I apparently took too long crawling out of my room this morning because my cousins came in and got me out. They are really good for me though because they are not going to let me be quiet. A few days ago I was thinking that I need to be outgoing or talk with someone who is really pushy and now I have two cousins that are doing that job. At some point someone told me their names, but I don’t remember them, so later I have to try to be suave about having to be reminded. No one here has said their names though, so I can’t just learn that way.

One funny thing that happened yesterday: I was asked if I wanted to go to San Lorenzo. It is a port town not too far away. I said yes, because I want to see as much as possible. Then a little while later I realized I was going with my sister Saydi, her novio, and the cousins. Problem: I can’t travel outside of Pespire without a parent. Yes it is a very embarrassing situation for a 24 year old to find herself in. So, I try to casually ask my mother if she was going. She knows this rule. She just gets so excited that I am asking her if she is going. She goes on and on about how I am a great daughter because I wont go anywhere without my mother, and how I should be an example to my younger sisters. I am then trying to explain to everyone else in the room that while I am an aspirante (trainee) I can’t travel without a parent. They all looked at me like “That Sucks,” so my Mom came with us. We only went to the supermarket there. I think they had planned to drive by the beach so I could see it, but they had the road closed. The thing here is that it is common to go to the beach during Semana Santa, and since the southern coasts are closer to Teguc than the northern coasts, a lot of people come to the south, and one of the nicer places is San Lorenzo, so there are a lot of people, so they close the road closest to the beach so that people aren’t trying to outcompete each other for the non-existent parking spaces there. Its actually pretty orderly, and not too different then in the states.

Afterwards, after lunch, I was really tired. I was asked if I wanted to go to San Juan Bosque. Well, I declined and said I wanted to rest because I was tired. So I take an hour nap in the hammock. When I woke up my Dad just happened to be passing and he asked me if I wanted to go. Well, now I was awake and said yes. So, I piled into the back seat of the truck with Paola and my two cousins. The road there is like the worst logging road you have ever seen multiplied by a very large number. Driving on these roads is not for the faint of heart. At one point I asked if there was another road into the town and was told that we were on the calle principal or main road.

I was shocked to find a decent sized community there. I was expecting like ten houses, but there is a nice little town there. You would expect it to be very poor, being all out in the middle of nowhere Honduras and all, but everyone was fashionably dressed. I have a ton of family there. My grandmother (88 years old) and her sons live there (8 sons). Then there is a TON of cousins. In total I have like 70ish cousins, but I don’t know any names. It was a good time, I got a few pics, I even got to talk to one uncle for a few minutes about the water system in La Palma.


Friday:


Today has been an interesting day so far. This morning I went into town with my sister Kimberly and two cousins. We chilled out for a while in the park, then we saw the procession. They replicate the hanging of Christ on the cross. Good times. There was a lot of actors in the procession, Christ, a few people being hung with him, the roman guards, a few other random people, and then mourners who followed Christ. The men all had beards painted on their faces, because men don’t grow beards here. They even tie the guys up on crosses and let them hang there for a while. My camera batteries died just before they lifted the cross up. Also, another tradition here is that the people make these big rugs in front of the churches with sand, I have pictures. Pespire is still a town and not a city, so the rug is small and less complicated then in the cities.


That night we went to go visit relatives in an aldea nearby. It was interesting, for a while it was the normal no one talks to Jill, but then my Aunt made the mistake of asking me a question so I moved right next to her and pretty much made her talk to me. The family we visited was the Uncle who visited about a week ago and talked a lot with me, so when he emerged I talked for quite a while.


Saturday:

So, I was told last night that we were going to the beach really early today. I didn’t really believe this because my family is late for everything, but we were actually out the door by 7am. The beach we went to was really pretty. Most of the beaches in the south are really packed during Semana Santa, but this one I guess is a relatively unknown place, and most of the beach is submerged at high tide, so there isn’t a lot of room for people. I had a good time. We played soccer on the beach for a while in the morning with this hard plastic soccer ball and now I have a small welt from blocking the thing.

Around noon the rest of the family came with some friends from Teguc. I had a nice little spanglish conversation going with one of the guys because he knows a little English, and I can only speak a little Spanish. After lunch, there was a little game of beach soccer. I was a little nervous to begin with because it seems like everyone here has soccer in their blood, and yeah, before I got here I hadn’t played soccer in around ten years. It worked out fine though. I made a few good blocks. It was really funny thing though, the ocean was rising, and slowly taking over the soccer field, so when the ball went to one side, people were playing in the surf, and there was a lot of falling bodies, and the ball does not act the same way in the ocean as on land. When the water level was too high, we adjourned to go swimming.

Pretty quickly we started playing a game of keep away guys vs girls. Too soon it became a game of attack the person with the ball, which was a problem for my 11 year old brother. The funny thing was, it was his mother that was going after him! I had good time at the beach. I found out that my family only goes to the beach one day during semana santa. So, I was surprised at how well they could swim, although they weren’t too comfortable, they had the basic motions. At one point the ball went really far out, and I was expecting the guy who was closest to go get it, but no one moved, and that’s when I realized, no one was to comfortable in the deep, so I went for it. My host Mom later told me that she was really worried the whole time I was swimming for it. It only took like four minutes if that to swim out to it and return. I tried teaching people how to swim, but didn’t do a very good job. I got one person floating though.


So, you may be thinking that Jill just improved three levels in her Spanish, why is she having problems with Spanish. Well, part of it is that I am just not comfortable with speaking in front of most people I get embarassed because I know that I speak with a lot of errors. I don’t really have this problem in my Spanish classes. I have a certain level of “confianza” with my teachers, so I feel free to goof off with them. That was one reason I didn’t like changing classes last time, I didn’t know the new teacher, so I wasn’t very comfortable with him. Well, then I found out that he is really a goofball too, so then I enjoyed my class. I have a new teacher again Monday, I don’t think I will have a problem with her because I have had a tutoring session with her and she seems really cool.

Speaking of Spanish, you may have noticed a bunch of Spanish words floating around here. Part of the Peace Corps goals is to share cultures, so as well as stories, you are getting a little intro into Spanish. Make no mistake about it though, being able to read in Spanish does not mean you can understand the language or even speak it, which is the problem I am running into.
The internet is way too slow to post pictures today.