June 24, 2007

This past week went by fast. On Monday I practiced for my first charlas to give on Tuesday. Then Tuesday morning I went to the school and found that another group of young “gringos” from a church were doing some sort of program with the kids. I decided I didn’t want to have to give my charla after the kids were all wound up so I decided to go back on Wednesday. I went Wednesday and a Japanese volunteer who also works at the hospital (in nutrition) accompanied me just to see what type of work I’m doing. I gave the charla to a fifth and a sixth grade class of 36 and 40 students, respectively. The first charla was a basic introduction to the course. We went over all the different topics we’d be addressing throughout the series of 15 or so charlas, talked about good communication, did some fun activities (what they call “dinámicas”), and the students came up with rules for the course. Even with the large amount of students, it went really well although I’d almost lost my voice after giving the two charlas. It’s hard to understand how the kids can learn anything in the schools here due to the structure of the buildings. Because of the hot climate, most schools are built in a square or U shape with an open center courtyard. The classrooms have windows that face the courtyard as well on the opposite wall to let the air pass through. Sometimes there is glass in the courtyard windows but usually they just have the metal bars for security. So it is incredibly difficult to hear anything because something is always going on…some kids are on break, others are doing a loud activity in a classroom nearby, etc. You really do have to practically yell while you’re in your classroom so that all students can hear. This coming week I’m planning to do the same introduction charla at two other schools.

On Thursday and Friday we went to Zamorano, a private agricultural university between Danlí and Tegus for a meeting with some PC staff and all the volunteers from the department of El Paraíso. We stayed over night Thursday night, had breakfast, and then came back to Danlí on Friday late morning. It’s a neat university with a huge campus. Students come from all over Central and South America to study there.

On Monday-Tuesday we’re hoping to accompany two employees of Vecinos Mundiales (NGO) on a visit to a few communities they’re working in. The last excursion we went out with this NGO put us in contact with these fellow employees who are working in another aldea near Danlí. We’re going this time just to get to know the communities and see if there are any work possibilities.

A couple of food/drink tidbits...I’m now addicted to the unripe mangos that sort of taste like an unripe apple. You can buy them off the street from usually older ladies who peel the skin off the green mango then cut thin slices of the fruit. They sell a bag of the slices for 5 lemps (25 cents) and put salt (mixed with dry chilies spices) and hot sauce over the slices. It’s a salty/spicy treat! Luke definitely is not a fan but I love them…it fulfills my need for salty snacks. We found a great juice place near the centro. The owner has yummy pastries as well as lots of fresh juices called “frescos naturales”. She usually has about 7 different kinds to choose from. This morning (Sunday) Luke and I went on a walk and stopped there afterward. Luke got guayaba and I got maracujá (passion fruit). They are so good!

June 20, 2007

Hello

¿Cómo les va? Things are going alright here.

I am not sure what to blog about…it seems like quite a bit has happened since the last time I blogged. One thing I had wanted to blog about was an addition to Annie’s blog about Honduras and the “slower pace of life” here. I wanted to write a little something to demonstrate that while things here are slow there are still plenty of people working very hard.

The first example of this I saw in a community JAM is working with, a couple hours drive from El Paraíso. I went with one of the técnicos to visit the caja toma (small damn) that the community had constructed in the mountains to check and make sure everything was done according to plan. We walked uphill for about 2 hours from the last passable road to get to the caja toma, and it was a well built concrete structure. About 3 yards of concrete went into the whole thing, all of the materials for which were carried along the same route we had taken to get there. It’s not an easy hike even when you’re just carrying water, let alone a 80 lb sack of cement. Anyhow, after we got back to the community about 8 guys were unloading bricks to build the water tank, and there was a guy there helping that everyone was joking with and having a good time. He was one of the roughest looking fellows I have ever seen, unloading bricks with no shoes on, he maybe had half his teeth, and on a good day weighed 115 lbs. He looked as if he had spent the majority of his life drunk, and probably had. My first thought was that someone grabbed him and told him they would give him a cigarette if he helped unload bricks. But after awhile one of the guys started telling me the story of how this guy who had maybe never owned a pair of shoes, lived in the community, was a pretty friendly guy, and was helping construct the system voluntarily (no one gets paid, all of the community members do their part to construct the entire system). And when they had started the caja toma, up on the mountain, this guy had grabbed the first bag of cement and walked uphill without stopping to rest the entire way to the construction site. It had taken me 2 hours to walk that far and I stopped to rest twice… this guy did it carrying nearly his weight in cement on his shoulders.

The next example came when Annie and I were talking with a group of guys in a community a ways north of Danlí about the possibility of working towards another system in their area. I was explaining that it would be possible to start the process, but I emphasized that the community needed to really be ready for a lot of work because they would have to provide all of the labor, and there would be plenty. They sort of chuckled and looked at each other and told me that when they had done the system for the first community they trenched and buried 30 kilometers of pipe a meter underground, by hand.

June 19, 2007

Going on 5 months of host family living…

Our goal the last month and a half here in Danlí has been to find a house. I’ve been keeping a list of how many people we’ve asked, contacts we’ve made, and potential rentals we’ve heard about but so far nothing has worked out. We were about to get an apartment a week ago last Monday but the owner tried to raise the price on us last minute. We told him we’d talk to Peace Corps and get back to him. It’s been a week now and we’ve tried to call him several times to no avail. Apparently he doesn’t want to rent it at the price we’ve offered.

Renting in Honduras isn’t renting like in the States. There isn’t a section in the newspaper with rental listings and no websites to check. You basically have to walk around asking people if they know of a house in the area that is for rent and follow leads. We’ve gotten a lot of ¨so-and-so is a good person to ask¨or “in such-and-such neighborhood I heard there was a house for rent” then we go and either the house has been rented or there wasn’t a house to begin with. The other main difference in renting here is there really are no rental standards. Contracts are made and signed only occasionally. Getting information from the landlord about things like trash pick-up, electric and water bills, what happens if you need something fixed, etc. is difficult. You either take the place or you don’t. Why would you need to investigate everything thoroughly before moving in??

Anyway, if you can’t tell already, house hunting has been really frustrating (especially after the lastest miss last Saturday). The woman who runs the internet place we go to has been really nice to Luke and I and has been asking around trying to help us find a house. When we went last Friday night, she told us that she’d heard that a house in a nice barrio was for rent and gave us directions. Saturday morning we went to the neighborhood, asked around to find where the landlord lives and come to find out, the house had been rented the previous afternoon. The owner proceeded to tell us that it was too bad because the house is super pretty with a nice yard, etc. and a very reasonable price for a house (cheaper than the apartment we almost rented). Who knows, maybe something will come up and we’ll be happy we waited for it (at least that’s what I’m going to continue telling myself). Until then...host family living it is!

June 17, 2007

Weekly happenings

On Wednesday I was at a meeting all day at the Casa de la Juventud (youth house) in Danlí. It’s basically a hangout out for youth that’s open 7 days a week. The purpose is to provide activities and learning opportunities to keep adolescents out of otherwise risky behavior. The house has been there for awhile but in the last few years, there hasn’t been much going on. The meeting was to motivate volunteers (foreign and nationals) to bring life back to the place.

On Thursday I accompanied Luke on a trip to an aldea about 1 ½ hours on a dirt road into the mountains from El Paraíso. We went with the other PC engineer (about to end her PC service but plans to stay on with the organization as an employee), the Catholic Relief Service’s engineer who is working with JAM, and a técnico. We went to look at an aldea that has a water system that needs improved due to damages caused by landslides. We were about a 20 minute hike (along a steep mountainside – see pic below) from the car looking at the mountain where the pipes have been damaged when some dark clouds appeared and it began to rain.

The trail alongside the mountain

A house tucked away in the mountains (view from the trail)

We thought we’d wait it out a bit. Neither Luke nor I had our jackets with us but I did have my tiny travel umbrella. The rain didn’t let up so we decided to hike it out of there but we were already soaked to the bone. We go to the truck, drove back down to the aldea, had some sweet break and coffee and started to head home. We didn’t get more than a few minutes from the aldea when we saw that the small stream that we’d crossed over on the way in had turned into a raging amount of water resembling more of a river. We got out of the truck to check out the situation. Luke put a stick at the edge of the water and within a few minutes the water had grown 20 centimeters past the stick. We knew it would be awhile before the water would start to go down and slow down so we decided we’d go back to the aldea and find somewhere to stay the night. Just as we were about to turn around to head back, a smaller truck came from the opposite direction, paused for only a few seconds at the crossing, and then drove through the raging water with two kids and an old woman in the cab. We all just laughed about how hard we’d analyzed the situation and then this guy, obviously from the area, didn’t even give it a moments notice. So we put the truck in 4-wheel drive and crossed the water (Luke is really sad he isn’t allowed to drive). We made it back to Danlí by about 4.
The ¨river¨ we crossed to make it home

Earlier last week we’d made a contact with Heifer International which I’m sure many of you have hear of. A fellow PC volunteer is working with them in the west and has been really impressed with their work. When we called the office in Tegus we were directed to Heifer’s counterpart NGO in the department of Paraíso which is Vecinos Mundiales (World Neighbors). We contacted them and made plans to meet with the employee who was passing through Danlí on Friday. On Friday morning we met up with him at a restaurant here in town and he gave us the lowdown on the several projects in the area. He invited to us to go with him to an aldea to check out where they’ve been working to see if we thought it might be somewhere we could work. The aldea is about one and a half hours from Danli, about an hour of which is on a dirt road that hugs the side of a mountain with really only enough room for one car to pass. The drive to this aldea was beautiful. The first 30 minutes or so of the drive is through an area that is practically uninhabited so there is very little deforestation. When we got to the aldea, we were served lunch and introduced to 6 men who are the leaders in the 12 small communities on that mountain. They had lots of questions for us about how we could help, what our experience was, etc. It’s hard to explain to them that the support we offer in through trainings and technical support but no financial support (although we can always help them look for it by presenting projects to NGOs, etc.). They’re looking for help with several things, the first one being with water systems. 4 of the 10 communities have functioning water systems, 2 communities have old ones that need replaced and 6 communities have no water system at all. They also have some agriculture projects going (apiculture and coffee) and according to them they need lots of health training in nutrition, basic hygiene, latrine use, and family planning. It was great to see a community where our services could be offered! The community leaders were going to do some investigating to see how interested the communities without water are in putting in a system. The community really has to be united in the fact that they want a system because the community members themselves will be the ones carrying the cement up to the source, digging to lay the tubs, etc. The leaders said they would give us a call when they knew more about where the communities stand but they were sure that they would be interested….we’ll see. A few downsides to working with this community…we’d be on our own (without a counterpart agency or NGO) because Vecinos Mundiales’ funding for these communities was cut recently cut off and because of transportation…2 buses leave in the morning from the mountain for Danlí and return in the afternoon. If we were going there to work, we’d have to take the afternoon bus from Danlí and spend the night, returning several days later in the morning (to have an entire day to do work). Seems to both of us it would’ve made more sense to send us to live and work in an area like this. Anyway, we’re hoping it works out to get something done in these communities. It would provide an opportunity for us to do some work together, to see some projects through from start to finish, and to get out of the city for days/weeks at a time to do the work.

On Saturday morning we went and saw the remains of an aqueduct system just outside of Danlí that was constructed in late 1700s by a Catholic priest that brought water from the top of a mountain outside of Danli to the city itself. The street our host family lives on is called the Calle del Canal (Canal Street) because the canal used to bring the water into the city along that street. See pics below.



This week I plan to start working with the schools. On Tuesday I’ll go to one school and on Wednesday another. On Thursday through Friday we have a retreat type thing with all the volunteers from the Department of Paraíso at the Central American Agricultural University (between Danlí and Tegus).

June 14, 2007

Slower pace of life

I would say that most Hondurans enjoy (or I guess you could simply say “live”) a slower pace of life. Something that for Luke and I (while don’t get me wrong, we love our leisure time) is difficult for us to get used to. Our Monday – Fridays in the US were filled with projects, coffee, deadlines, schedules, meetings, lunch dates, errands, planning, did I mention coffee?, etc. There’s just enough time at the end of the day to eat dinner, chat a bit about your day, walk the dog, read a magazine or newspaper for a few minutes and catch John Stewart or The Colbert Report before calling it a night. (Ok, I’m not going to lie…that life I used to lead sounds extremely enticing to me right now although I complained about it when I was living it!). Living life takes longer here and it’s taking us a long time to feel like it’s “normal”.

We don’t have a car (even if we wanted one Peace Corps doesn’t permit it…or a motorcycle for that matter). This is definitely less of a problem here in Honduras that it would be in the States because Honduras has a pretty good public bus transportation system (by pretty good I mean you can get virtually anywhere you want in the country by bus(es), albeit a super long trip on an old yellow school bus imported from the US with standing room only). Here in Danlí we get around by walking or taking a taxi (which costs a set fee of 12 lemps per person – about 60 cents). On an average day in the States I would drive my car to numerous places…to my office, to the preschool where I taught then back to the office, to meet someone for lunch, to run errands (stop at the grocery store for a few things, get gas, grab a coffee, stop by a friend’s, pick up dinner, etc). All this adds up to a complete dependency on my car, sad as it may be. Here in Danlí, and most other mid-size cities in Honduras, there’s no such thing as one-stop shopping – no Super Target, Super Wal-Mart, or mall to be found. The benefit of this is lots of little smaller shops owned by locals. The disadvantage is having to walk around to multiple stores trying to find exactly what you’re looking for. For example, when I buy food to make dinner, first I go to the market to buy fruits and veggies. Then I go to the smaller grocery store to get more “specialty” items like a baguette, olive oil, or spices. Then because of the price difference, I’ll go to the cheaper grocery store to get staples like rice, beans, oil, etc. As far as buying things other than food, one has to shop around. I bought backpacks for Luke and I a few weeks ago for our trip to Amapala. Our big backpacks scream tourists so we wanted some smaller day packs. There are many, many stores in Danlí selling different types of bags and no one is selling them at a fixed price. So if you’re looking for a deal, you walk around and bargain with the vendors until you’re satisfied with the price. The point I’m making is that getting food for dinner or buying something like a backpack can seriously take a whole afternoon.

Many PC volunteers have difficulty returning to the Sates after 2 years here because it takes some time to readjust to the fast pace of life. Everyone in the US seems to be constantly on the move. Hondurans can easily spend an evening sitting on their front stoop or porch with family members and friends chatting and people-watching. No rush to be anywhere at a certain time because most things start at least half an hour late anyway. The concept of “wasting” time waiting for a meeting to start, for the bus, or for something to do simply doesn’t exist (or a least doesn’t exist as much as we’re used to). For me, it’s really hard to sit and wait for everything so I combat the boredom/annoyance by carrying a book with me. But I wonder if by doing so I’m missing something that the Hondurans enjoy…just the simplicity of living in the moment, not always waiting for what’s to come. I´ll work on that.


Footnote: I got the idea for this blog from a blog written by our friends Kate and Sean, another Hondu 10 married couple. (Thanks guys!)

June 8, 2007

How to cut a mango

I realize this is a strange blog but several people have asked me how to cut a mango and the only way to explain it is with pics. I learned how to cut a mango like this from another volunteer who spent time in the Philippines. I´ve actually never seen a Honduran cut a mango like this so it´s not very ¨cultural¨ but oh well. Hondurans usually just peel them and suck the fruit off the seed or slice off chunks.

Position the mango so that you can cut two identical slices off of each side. (If you don´t cut it this way, you´ll run into the seed and won´t end up with two big chunks of the fruit.)
Slice off two chunks from both sides.
The section you have left in the middle contains the large flat seed.
Make criss-cross sections with a knife in the two sections of the mango that you cut off the sides.
Turn that piece inside out so the sections of mango pop out. Bite them off the skin and enjoy! To eat the middle part of the mango that contains the seed...peel of the skin and bite off what fruit remains.

June 3, 2007

Hello all

Be sure to scroll down and read my latest blog on the Honduran educational system. Also, check out our book list (books we have read thus far while here) in the right column (last two things in that column).

Here goes the weekly update…

I spent a lot of time working on the course I’ll be implementing hopefully this week with 5th graders in a school in an aldea about 25 minutes from Danlí. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that not this week but the next is “student’s week” so there is no school for the whole week. I may wait to try and start after that.

I spent all day Thursday at a meeting with young Honduran volunteers and young Nicaraguan volunteers working in HIV/AIDS prevention. Country AIDS statistics were shared along with activities they use in their prevention presentations. It’s nice to see young people volunteering for their own countries but at the same time makes me wonder if a foreign volunteer is really needed here in Danlí?? I’ll find my place I’m sure but it’s still hard. I don’t think many people/organizations are working with 5th and 6th graders in HIV/AIDS prevention so my niche may be there.

On Friday I went to the office and hung out all morning and at 11 am we got a driver to take us out to an aldea to visit a Centro de Salud (health center) and drop off medicine. Because my counterpart works for the Honduran health department (public hospital), they have vehicles that they’re allowed to use. Someone always has to drive us around though. Anyway, we spent about an hour at the first aldea. My counterpart knows an older woman in the aldea who used to work as a midwife so we stopped there first to see if she was home and to tell (not ask) her to have lunch ready for us on our way back out of town.

Really, it’s the most interesting thing…you can show up in any aldea and someone will feed you. You don’t need to call ahead or ask if they have time or enough food. You just stop by and let them know you want to eat. Luke has experienced this in the aldeas he’s worked in too. If it’s not lunch or dinnertime when you stop by, they’ll for sure give you coffee and some “rosquillas” (hard corn cookies) or sweet bread.

Well the midwife wasn’t home so my counterpart told the neighbor girl that if Doña M came home, she was supposed to have cooked eggs ready for us when we passed back through. While one of the employees from the hospital went to the Centro de Salud, my counterpart, another employee and I walked to the house of Doña M’s brother and his wife. We sat on their porch and of course, they had to “regalar” us something (regalar literally means “to gift”). So we got loads of mínimos (small bananas), and sacks of beans, both things from their farm. We thanked them, ate a mínimo, and then took off for another aldea higher in the mountains. We had to walk about 10 minutes from where we parked the old 1980-something Toyota Land Cruiser to find a woman who is living with HIV/AIDS and is pregnant with her fourth child. Her husband wasn’t around (she told us he was out planting in the fields) and I’m not sure how often he really is. She’s got 3 little girls all under the age of 5 and is 8 months pregnant. I’m not sure how long she’s had HIV. We found her to tell her she needs to come to the hospital on Monday to start taking medicine to prevent the baby from getting HIV and to give all the little girls an HIV/AIDS test. The little girls were running around without shoes and pretty dirty and the woman herself didn’t look healthy but she seemed very kind. The house has a dirt floor and although it looked tidy, it was pretty open to the elements. A sad afternoon but we were happy we found the woman because more than likely, she wouldn’t have come in to start taking those meds.

On the way back out of town, we stopped at Doña M’s and sure enough, she had come home and there was hot rice and beans, tortillas, and cheese waiting for us. It was 2 pm by then so we were ravenous and I couldn’t have asked for a better meal.

Honduran educational system

I’ve been meaning to blog about the educational system here in Honduras for quite some time so I’m finally getting to it. I had to do a little research on this topic for my Spanish class when we were still in Santa Lucia so that’s why I have some percentages and other data.

Apparently, Honduras’ educational system is the worst one in Central America. There are many problems including lack of resources and schools, lots of teacher strikes, poor teacher training and really no system of teacher accountability. By that I mean the teachers can do whatever they want in their classroom…they can chat with peers and drink coffee all day if they want and there is really no one who will tell them they can’t do that. I’m not saying all teachers in Honduras spend their days drinking coffee and chatting...of course, there are some very good teachers but there are some pretty bad ones too. A lot of teachers are teachers only because it was a good financial decision for them (steady pay, lots of time off, etc). According to one source, Honduras’ rate of illiteracy is 18.3% of the total population, 80% in the rural areas. Many Honduras never finish elementary school and much fewer finish high school.

Schools are divided up into a “ciclo básico” which consists of grades 1-6, a “ciclo común” which consists of 7-9 and then “bachillerato” which is like our high school but with a vocational focus and is from 2 to 3 years. People we’ve talked with have said somewhere around 65% graduate from the “ciclo báico” (through 6th grade) but official statistics are more around 85%. I’ve heard that teachers pass students onto the next grade even if they completely failed so their “numbers” don’t look bad. There will be kids in the 4th grade, for example, that still can’t read but keep getting passed to the next grade.

Schools in the aldeas (village) often times have even more issues to deal with. Teachers of these schools usually don’t live in the aldea and show up only Tuesday-Thursday to teach so they don’t have to travel during the weekend. Some schools only have one teacher for all the grades (think one-room school house back in the days in the US). Due to the remoteness of some of these schools, the teacher(s)/school receive basically no supervision.

Teacher strikes are problems for every school here. The government pays the salaries of teachers, defines their benefits, etc. so when the teachers aren’t getting what they need, they strike, often times for weeks or months at a time. In 2006, students were in school for only 140 days instead of the required 200. The other problem is that school only lasts for about 5 hours. You either go in the morning or afternoon. So it’s common to see kids running around at any hour of the day and impossible to tell if that kid goes to school or not. Very different from US schools where kids are in school from 8ish to 3 or 3:30 and where it’s odd to see any child over the age of 6 running around between those hours.

There has been a big surge in private education in the last several decades. However, there is a lot of disagreement over whether private education is actually better quality than public or not.

Teachers here, for the most part, do not use much creativity in their teaching methodologies. Students are taught by copying what is written on the board into a notebook. Not much work is done to develop creativity, self-esteem, team-work, critical thinking, etc.

Again, please remember that these observations are my own, made from talking with other volunteers that have worked in schools and from our training sessions. Needless to say, there’s a lot of work to be done!