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.