August 8, 2008

Trip home, work here, etc.

So here’s the promised blog with pictures. The last three months have been busy – involving lots of traveling and even quite a bit of work (thus the lack of blogging). Anyway, here’s what’s been going on…

In late June, we made it back to the States for my brother Chad’s wedding. It was a great time to go home (for the wedding plus 4th of July). The weather was great and we got to spend lots of time with family and friends. Here are some highlights of the trip:



Chad and his wife Sarah

With my brothers Chad & Josh

Luke & I on his parent´s farm

We had lots of great time with our nieces! Anica above and Aila and Lila below

The Gingerichs (and Huddles!)

Upon returning to Honduras, I immediately got back to work on a new manual that the PC Honduras Health project has been working on for 2 years. I joined the team this year and have been in charge of editing and revising the manual. The course is called “Yo Merezco…” which means “I deserve…”.

The cover of the manual

It’s a class designed for young girls, ages 10-15, and deals with topics like self-esteem, good decision making, what to look for in a spouse, domestic violence, reproductive health, sex ed and HIV prevention. The focus throughout is on sexual abstinence (delaying the first sexual encounter). PC Honduras received money from President Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) to design and implement this course. So we worked on finished up the manual to get it published in time for the national workshop that we had (July 23-26). We invited about 20 PCVs and their Honduran counterparts. We spent Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday talking about the manual, how it’s to be used, and teaching several of the chapters in small groups so that people could get a feel for it.

The tables set up for the workshop

Doing an activity with the participants

Me teaching the chapter on anatomy to the participants

On Friday, the participants (who had been split into groups) went to a school where they were to teach a chapter of the manual to a group of girls (like a practicum). Unfortunately, there was a teacher’s strike that day (and the day before as well) so there were very few girls there but we made do by calling parents and telling them to send their girls to school and by just having smaller groups than we originally planned. By Friday afternoon the workshop was over.

4 of us 5 leaders making phonecalls to parents

Doing a trust-fall activity with the girls during the practicum

Doing a peer pressure activity with my group

All in all, everything went well and we (the team of 5 of us in charge of the manual and the workshop) were just glad it was over! The next phase of the project is for PCVs around the country to implement the course in their communities. I am starting a class in a small town outside of Danlí that starts the first week of September. A young woman in the community who is very active and enjoys volunteers work (a rare concept for most Honduras) will be helping me with the course. Another phase of the project is to develop a similar course except for boys.

Soon after that was over, I came back to Danlí and started helping with the group from the Episcopalian church (same group I helped and blogged about recently). They drilled another well in a community near Danlí (same community where I will do the Yo Merezco course). While that was going on, I helped with health and hygiene classes for the members of the community (mostly women show up but this time we did have one gentlemen and several young men). We did 6 days of classes with the participants from 10 am – 4 pm (with an hour and a half lunch). The graduation ceremony was just this past Wednesday.

During class with the community

A group picture of the participants

Here’s a little update on the community we worked in last time and didn’t find water (read my blog from June 10 to get a better idea of how desperate this community is for clean water): Luckily the group (they call themselves the Water Ministry) recognized the need this community has for clean water and have made them a priority. After they finished up the well earlier this week in the community where we were doing the health and hygiene classes, they went back to San Lorenzo and started drilling again. They had problems getting permission from the land owner on the first go round to drill where they wanted to and ended up drilling in a less than desired spot only to not find water. This time, they were able to get permission to drill where they originally wanted to. I hope to hear some good news next week that they found water. Here’s a pic of a young woman from this community hauling water from a nasty lagoon which is where all the water for consumption and domestic use is gathered.

The months of August-October will be busy for us! Luke has recently been busy with several projects and starting soon, will have 11 communities that need surveys and designs done. We are lucky to start feeling like we have some meaningful work (it only took a little over a year of living in Danlí to find some!). The school year ends in November and after that (at least through January) things will slow down a little. Come February, we only have 2 months left of service. Time is starting to fly and I’m feeling like there’s a lot to be done before we’re finished here. As most of you know, our service thus far (18 months) has definitely had it’s ups and downs (generally more downs than ups) but we’re looking forward to our last 8 months and hoping we can leave Honduras feeling good about the work and service we were able to do.

We´re blogging again! Check out Luke´s recent blog below...

1 comment:

Lora said...

Don't worry about not blogging often. I enjoy reading up on what you are doing when I drop in and see something new. I'm glad to hear that you feel more useful of late.

Aunt Lora