May 29, 2007

Greetings

Buen día a todos y todas,

I realize I haven’t written any significant blogs as of late, so I will try to make this one worthwhile. It is Monday evening and Annie and I just got back from a trip to see some volunteers in the south and then an unsuccessful trip to the Peace Corps office in Tegus for some business and to pick up packages (today was Memorial day I am told, and the office was not open).

Last week I made my first trip into the campo (countryside) far from the city. On Tuesday I met a guy with a pickup at the gas station in Danlí and he drove me to the aldea of Crique de Oro (gold creek) which is about a 2.5 hour drive from El Paraíso, 1.5 hours of which is in 4-wheel drive, 1 hour of that in low range. I went to this community to start surveying to see if it is feasible to install a potable water system. The organization I am currently working with, Juntas de Agua Municipal (Municipal Water Boards) has worked with a community downstream that is in the process of installing a potable water system for their community that is in danger of not functioning during the dry season do to a lack of water flow from the spring that acts as the main source. So my assignment was to find the potential water source for Crique de Oro, and determine if this source of water will provide sufficient flow to supply potable water to the community, and augment the flow to the lower community during the dry season, as well as travel house to house identifying how many people live in each house and where they are located relative to the potential location of the water tank.

The community is completely rural with most houses sitting by themselves on the side of steep mountains among intermixed coffee and banana fields. There is no electricity or phone service, and no running water (although about 1/3 of the families have run hoses to their house from nearby streams and ponds, that bring water nearer to their house). I traveled around with anywhere from 2 to 6 men who were either members of the local water board or interested citizens and we visited each house. The second day we were able to visit almost 50 houses on horseback and in my case by mule (I literally got a blister on my ass from riding for over 11 hours; I hadn’t ridden in quite a while).

I would say the trip was mildly successful. I managed to measure the flow of the source one day and visit a number of houses as well, and on the second day acquire a mule and visit quite a few houses. It was a little frustrating as I was led to believe that the trip would be short and there was not a lot of work to be done, just sort of a quick and dirty data gathering mission, but I soon found out after arriving that there was well over a weeks worth of work to be done and when I was told all of the equipment I would need was in the truck that really meant that only one hand held GPS unit was in the truck, and the wrong unit at that. So I ended up staying for 2 nights and three days doing the best I could, and I am going back this Thursday with the hope of finishing up visiting each house, and Annie is going to come along to speed things up.

I stayed with a family in the community; they had a nice little place that was really clean and pleasant with a little stream running through, a new latrine, about 8 cows (the popular Jersey-Brahma cross), and a bunch of chickens that actually had a chicken coop. It was a good place to stay. When I got back from surveying the family was working away in the little adobe shed in the barnyard and I soon realized they were making me a bed and moving stuff around in the shed so I had a place to sleep. They showed me where I was to sleep and initially I was pretty damn pleased, it was clean and private and just what I was looking for (I had already realized that I was potentially going to be staying quite of few nights here over the next couple years if this project gets funded). The little shed was partitioned by a blanket hanging from the ceiling and I had wooden bed off of the ground and a foam mat to sleep on. It gets dark pretty quick without electricity so pretty soon the guy whose family I was staying with came out and handed me a 2x4, and asked if I needed to go anywhere during the night. I said no and was sort of confused until he said good, prop this 2x4 against the door so that the dog doesn’t come in and kill you during the night. And then it was explained to me how the guard dog gets left off it’s leash during the night so no one steals the family’s calves. This is the same 120 lb. dog that was in the yard tied to a 3-foot chain that had lunged against the chain foaming at the mouth every time I moved the slightest inch and acted like it wanted nothing more than to kill me. I said that I would not be going anywhere and thanked him for the 2x4. I went in to my shed and started reading a book with the candle they had given me, thinking that things were still going pretty well (although immediately after shutting the door I had to take a piss)……Then I heard the rats…I should have thought earlier that there might be rats because they store some feed concentrate in the shed…but I hadn’t...and here I was in a 8 ft x 14 ft adobe shed with rats, and I couldn’t even open the door. I didn’t sleep very well that night, not that the rats were actually doing anything but eating and fighting and having a grand old time. I have now confirmed that I have a full blown phobia of rats. I would have slept better with a bear on the other side of the room than with the rats.

I told Annie when I got back to Danlí that it was a combination of the best and worst experience I have had yet in Honduras. We’ll try and get some pictures this week when Annie goes with me.

Hasta luego,
Luke

Be sure to check out Annie´s blog and pics from the weekend below.

Hello from Annie

My week wasn’t nearly as interesting as Luke’s but I’ll update everyone on it anyway. On Monday Luke and I went to the Environmental Health office of the Department of Paraíso (part of the hospital where my counterpart works) and asked what kind of projects they do, if they need any volunteer help with health topics or engineering work. The employees are really nice and seemed very open to us working with them…they even offered us a desk in their office. We made plans to go to a community the next week (tomorrow – Tuesday the 29th) that has no potable water and is having lots of health problems due to no clean water. We’ll see what comes out of this or even if we make it to the community tomorrow. There always seems to be things getting in the way of plans.

On Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I went to my counterpart’s office in the morning where I usually sit at the desk they have for me there and look through my manuals. I’ve started putting together a class for 5th and 6th graders that includes topics like self-esteem, good communication, values, sex ed, HIV/AIDS prevention, etc. I have a lot of materials dealing with these topics so I’ve been taking the best of each topic and putting it together to develop a class (really it’s just something to keep me busy when I’m at the office).

On Wednesday, while Luke was working in the mountains, I went to El Paraíso to visit the other health volunteer in the area and talk to her about what type of work she’s doing. I also accompanied her to an aldea about 20 minutes from El Paraíso on a dirt road to give a charla to 6th graders. I still need to blog sometime about the educational system here…it’s definitely something that needs some major improvement. The kids do a lot of copying from the board and very little critical thinking, group work, problem-solving, etc. For example, while we were giving our charla, we asked them to read a story in groups about a teenage girl who got pregnant with her boyfriend that she thought was in love with her. We then asked them to discuss as a group 3 questions that we put on the board. After giving them these instructions, they immediately started to copy down the discussion questions we had put on the board. Meanwhile one person in the group read aloud (very quietly) the story. None of the group members were listening because they were so concerned with writing everything down. A few of them even asked us if they needed to copy the story itself in their notebooks. I kept saying, you don’t need to write ANYTHING for this activity, I just want you to understand the story and talk about it. That was a concept they couldn’t quite understand.

On Thursday afternoon, my counterpart picked me up (with a driver) in a State of Honduras vehicle from the hospital and we drove out to an aldea about 25 minutes from Danlí (towards Paraíso then off a dirt road to the east). We went to talk to the director of the school to asked if I could come and give my charlas to the 5th and 6th graders. They seemed happy to have me start coming. I’m probably going to start going there once or twice a week starting in a week. The problem is the transportation…there are only a few buses that go to and from the aldea. So, like everything in Honduras, one hour of work actually takes twice, three, even four times as long due to things like transportation, chit-chatting, starting late, people not showing up, etc. So if I get there, give the 1-hour charla, and get back to Danlí safe and sound, I can call it a good day’s work. After we finished talking to the teachers, we stopped at a midwife’s house in the aldea, talked to her for a bit, had coffee and sweet bread, and then headed back to Danlí.
Saturday morning we took off for Tegus then onto San Lorenzo then onto Coyolito where we then took a lancha (small boat) to the island of Amapala in the Pacific. We had a great time hanging out with other volunteers, lounging on the beach, swimming in the ocean and eating seafood. Sunday morning a group got up early to hike up to the volcano on the island but Luke and I didn’t bring boots and didn’t feel like getting up at 5:30. The next time we visit the island, we’ll definitely hike it. The top of the volcano is usually covered in clouds and is about a 3-hour hike to the top. It felt very tropical on the island – humid and hot. The beaches are definitely not Caribbean beaches with the white sand and blue water but still, a beach is a beach. We left the island around 2 on Sunday afternoon. Luke and I stayed with a volunteer in San Lorenzo on Sunday night. San Lorenzo is an interesting little town on the coast with mangroves all around. Lots of seafood restaurants and a heat that is almost suffocating. We had breakfast this morning with the two volunteers there then headed to Tegus then back to Danlí. Check out the pics of the weekend below.

On the ¨lancha¨on the way to Amapala (you can see the volcano and island in the background).

Hanging out at the house we rented on the beach.Sunset over the Pacific.

The beach we stayed at. Only a few abandoned shacks, a restuarant and our house.

May 20, 2007

Mango Festival in Yuscaran

Yesterday (Saturday) Luke and I took a quick trip to Yuscaran (about halfway between Tegus and Danli then south about 10 miles) for their annual mango festival. We also met the lone PCV there and hung out with a few other PCVs that came for the festival too. We came back today (Sunday) but had a nice time getting out of our ¨room¨ in our host family´s house and hanging out with some fellow volunteers.


A pictue of Yuscaran from the ¨mirador¨(lookout). You can see the fires burning in the background. In this case, it was due to local farmers clearning the land and not a forest fire.


A big Ceiba tree at the lookout followed by Luke with other volunteers by the tree and me standing in front of it.

May 18, 2007

Cotton swab dilemma solved!

After you´re done with this blog, check out the short one below it with pics of mangos.

I sent an email a few weeks back to family members while Luke and I were in Tegus (apparently it´s spelled with an ¨s¨instead of ¨c¨which it´s shortened from Tegucigalpa of which I was unaware until this week) because of his dengue/bacterial infection. Anyway, I mentioned that I had used a Honduran cotton swab (commonly referred to in English as ¨Q-tips¨ but that´s actually a brand and believe me, this was no ¨Q-tip¨) and when I pulled the swab from my right ear, I realized that the cotton was no longer on the end. In situations like this, as my husband will attest, I usually overreact completely and panic...and this is what I did when I couldn´t see the cotton in my ear or on the floor anywhere. My ear felt a little funny but nothing painful and it wasn´t affecting my hearing so I decided I would wait until Monday (this happened Friday night) when Luke had an appointment to see if a PC doc could look in my ear.

Monday rolls around, the PC doc looks in my ear and tells me she sees nothing! Yeah! I´m in the clear (so I thought). We came to Danli the next day and a week later (just this past Monday night) I was showering and water got into my ears. Usually not a big deal but my right ear didn´t clear up after shaking it a bit. I kind of freaked out (my usual reaction). I couldn´t hear a thing out of that ear and it felt really heavy and plugged. I slept on that side all night hoping it would clear up but in the morning there hadn´t been any change.

I knew I´d have to go to the Honduran docotor here in Danli (PC docs won´t see you until you´ve seen the doctor in your site or unless it´s an emergency). So I went, told him the situation and mentioned the mysterious disapperance of the cotton swab that the PC doctor didn´t see. He looked in my ear for awhile then walked over to his desk drawer where he rummaged around for a good few minutes. He found what he was looking for and walked back over to me with a 5-inch long metal utensil. He made me lie on my good ear and told me not to move. I was sure I was going to loose my hearing in that ear! I laid there a few seconds, it hurt a little bit, and then he showed me what he´d fished out of my ear. Yes, the end of the cotton swab, completely intact. I wanted to give the man a hug (more for not damaging my ear drum in the process than taking out the cotton but whatever).

Mystery solved. Lesson learned: Honduran cotton swabs are definitely NOT to be used for inner-ear cleaning.

May 17, 2007

Mangos!

Oh, I love mangos! I bought a mango once in the States but I didn´t know how to cut it up (the seed is tricky) so I ended up butchering it and throwing it away because I´d made such a mess. Now I can´t get enough of them. The season ends towards the end of this month so I´m taking full advantage of the bounty. Yesterday I went to go buy mangos from this lady in town who I´ve gone to a couple times before and I asked her (after buying 6) if I could take a picture to show my friends and family back home all the mangos. She didn´t mind. I told her that a mango this size in the US would cost around 27 lempira ($1.50) and I had just bought 6 mangos for 20 lemps ($1)! She thought that was hilarious and as I was leaving, I could hear her turn to her friend and say, ¨Guess what a mango in the US costs?¨. Anyway, below is the picture of the mangos and the truck she sells them out of.

The ones I buy are the bigger ones towards the cab of the truck that are more green and red.

May 14, 2007

Luke´s update/new mailing address

Hey folks. Thanks for checking the blog. I think Annie (scroll down to read her entry) updated most everyone on the goings on here. The big challenge now is looking for a place to live, there isn’t such a thing as a renters market here, but I think we will be able to find something as a few houses are empty around town.

We went to the post office here in town and opened a PO Box so from now on, you can send any mail to us (packages included) to the following address. To those of you who sent us pacakges that we still have not recieved, we´ve haven´t given up yet. None of the volunteers we´ve talked to have had problems receiving packages so we´re hoping we´re not the first. (We also put the mailing address in the bottom left hand corner on the blog so you can also scroll down to find it there.)

OUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS:

LUKE Y ANNIE GINGERICH
APARTADO POSTAL 69
DANLÍ, EL PARAÍSO, HONDURAS
AMÉRICA CENTRAL


The first week was pretty slow. Hopefully things will speed up and my Spanish will get better, the language is still a big challenge for me. As far as work goes there really isn’t a whole lot going on yet, and most likely won’t be for awhile. I went to the “strategic planning” meeting for one group of people I am going to work with. It was a 2-day meeting and I went for the first half a day, but couldn’t stay for the rest without going completely nuts. It was the slowest meeting I have ever been involved with. So I politely told them I was leaving and to call me when there was work to be done. It´s hard because I don´t speak the language well enough yet and the generally inefficiency of organizations in Honduras is difficult to get used to. I went to try and get some information from the Danlí office of the Honduran agency in charge of water and sanitation (SANAA), but I was unsuccessful in getting any good info so I will go back tomorrow. I got a name of an engineer to talk to at SANAA, so hopefully I can get passed the secretary this time.
Annie and I are also going to talk with the Salud Ambiental (Environmental Health) people in Danlí tomorrow who have suggested that they might have some work for me. And a volunteer I talked to who lives nearby works in a community with no water, so options are definitely opening up for work, poco a poco.

One of the biggest challenges as an engineer is going to be transportation. Most of the communities I am supposed to work with are quite a ways from Danlí in rural areas, and Peace Corps does not allow us to drive or ride on motorcycles (or drive a car or pickup), but everyone here rides motorcycles to these rural areas, a motorcycle just makes sense, a horse is too slow (and I don’t have anywhere to put one) and you would just ruin a car on the roads here. I can’t help but think my 4Runner would have been perfect for my current job, but I am sure it has found a good home in a scrap heap somewhere. The transportation is really kind of aggravating. It is like Peace Corps gives us training to help bring water to the rural poor of Honduras, but then makes it as hard as possible to actually do the job.

Vaya pues, I better get going, the championship of professional Honduran soccer is on the TV and I feel like I have a cross-cultural responsibility to watch it.

Hasta luego,
Luke

Update

Well we’ve almost spent a week in our site. It’s feeling a little more like home each day. It’s been hot here lately and we’re looking forward to the rainy season when things cool off a bit and green up. The rainy season is supposed to begin sometime in June.

As some of you know, we actually didn’t get to site until last Wednesday (should’ve been the Friday before) but Luke was sick with dengue and a bacterial infection so we had to stay in Teguc close to the doctors.

We are living with another host family (the last one!). The family consists of the married couple (a retired vet and teacher), two maids (one for cleaning, the other for cooking), a teenage granddaughter, a non-family member who’s studying at the University and renting a room like Luke & I, and two Honduran doctors from Teguc who are during a year of work in Danlí (also renting rooms). There are family members and friends in and out of the house constantly. We pretty much hang out on the patio or in our room. We have a tv that sort of works and a private bathroom so its not so bad but we can’t wait until we finally get our own house….which leads me to another topic but first some pics of our host family´s home.
The patio where we like to sit and read (but constantly get bit up by mosquitos).

living room


When we got to Danlí we heard from the other three volunteers who are here right now about a furnished two-bedroom house that is really nice and that two volunteers rented last year. We went to look at it on Saturday and it’s definitely a really nice house and completely furnished with everything from beds to a blender. The only downside is that it’s not really centrally located, there’s not a lot of yard, and it’s in a complex with two other houses of the family (to get to this house you have to go in the same front entrance of the yard that they use to get to theirs). I think we’re looking for an extremely private home just because we’re so tired of living with families and having absolutely no privacy. Hopefully there will be some other options. We went to look at another house today that a volunteer had looked at when she was trying to find something but unfortunately it was already occupied.

Last week was definitely a “first week on the job” sort of week. I went to the hospital where my counterpart works on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday until about noon each day. My morning usually starts out with sitting at my desk for a few hours and reading manuals that PC gave us that I haven’t had time to read yet. On Thursday I went with my counterpart and a group of young people who do HIV/AIDS prevention work to Las Manos, a town on the border between Honduras and Nicaragua. There are a ton of semi truck drivers parked at the border, waiting for up to 2 days sometimes to get clearance to cross the border. Apparently in the evenings, it’s a hot spot for commercial sex workers so we went to hand out condoms and info on HIV/AIDS. On Friday I attended a meeting for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). It was very interesting because Hondurans were the ones giving the charla (presentation) and I’ve heard that most Hondurans don’t know how to give dynamic charlas and don’t do much to keep the audience interested. From what I saw, this seems to be the case. The topic itself was very interesting and informative (adherence to medication) but it was delivered in a lecture-type way.

Thursday night we meet up with a 3 other volunteers, one from Danlí and two from aldeas (small towns) around Danlí. It’s good to talk with other volunteers, especially asking them about their first few months in site and what they did. We hear about volunteers that have so much work they can’t do it all and it’s hard to imagine that right now when we’re at the point of making connections, figuring out the community, meeting people, etc. We both know it’s a long process to get work (thus the point of being here for 2 years) but it’s hard waiting it out. We’ve been napping and reading quite a bit. It’s so hard for me to sit still but I’m doing my best.

On Saturday afternoon we went with two other volunteers (the ones from Danlí) to a swimming pool about 20 minutes from Danlí. It’s in the country and has a restaurant and tilapia farm as well. We hung out and swam for several hours then came back to Danlí and had sopa de jaiba (crab soup) for dinner. Very tasty. They put an entire crab into your soup.

Today (Sunday) we strolled around for awhile, ate the traditional fried chicken Sunday lunch, and watched a movie on tv. Sundays are generally pretty slow days. There aren’t a lot of people on the streets and most stores are closed except for some restaurants and the bigger stores.

Not sure what this week has in store…ahhh…the life of a volunteer!

May 4, 2007

Dengue Fever

Hey everyone. Thanks for checking the blog. We had some time today in the PC office in Teguc so there are 2 more new blogs below this one including pictures from swearing in and from Danli.
I officially have Dengue Fever which is a virus that is transmitted by mosquitos. I think I contracted it about 8 days ago before we left for Siguatepeque from Sabanagrande. I started feeling pretty shitty and tired in Siguatepeque, and while we were in Danli I was waking up in the middle of the night completely soaked in sweat, it pretty much felt like I had a high fever all the time and there was a lot of body aching and my eyeballs hurt really bad and I had a headache. I started feeling better Sunday and so i decided I was getting over whatever i had, but on Monday all of the symptoms came back and i felt terrible again. I got tested for dengue yesterday and that is what I have got so annie and i are staying in Teguc tonight as i had some more tests today and maybe more tommorow if things don't start to look like they are healing. I do feel substanitially better today than I have for the last week. I got a rash yesterday that is supposed to be a sign of the end to the fever.....wahoo. Somehow I also ended up with a bacterial infection in my intestines as well, so everything i have eaten since monday has just exited the system as fast as possible.

Ok i better get going.
make sure to scroll down and see the other 2 blogs from today.

It's official! We're volunteers!...and Luke has Dengue fever

Yesterday we spent the day in Tegucigalpa for our swearing-in ceremony at the US Embassy. The PC country director and the US abassador spoke. Afterwards, we ate lunch there and then went to the ambassador's residence to swim/play tennis/play basketball. It was a fun day. We were supposed to go back to Danli today but Luke's sick (he's getting over dengue fever and also has a bacterial infection) so the PC docs want us to stay overnight so they can monitor him. Hopefully we'll be off to Danli tomorrow to move in with our host family and start work on Monday!
Below are some pics from the swearing-in ceremony. Be sure to scroll down and check out some pics from Danli that I just posted after you look at these.
Lunch after swearing-in at US Embassy
Luke and I are now officially PC volunteers!
Our entire Hondu 10 training group
The four married couples

Pics of Danli

Here are a few pictures from Danli. Hope to take more soon.
The town hall
Colonial church in main plaza

Central parkChurch lit-up at night