She's Baaaaccckkk!

I believe that the last blog post I wrote was over six weeks ago when I first arrived in El Nispero. In the hopes that I haven’t lost my entire readership, I am going to attempt to describe what I have been up to lately.

My first couple of weeks in El Nispero I attempted to adjust to my new schedule and daily routine. Coming from training which was so controlled and scheduled it was a chock to suddenly have some semblance of self-directed activity during the day. In those first couple of weeks I would wake up early get to the Municipality around eight and then sit and try to get the other employees to explain to me what they were working on or why they were filling out those papers or when they would be traveling next to an aldea that I could bum a ride to. My counterpart (the mayor or Alcalde) would ask me if I was making friends and if I was happy. I am not really sure I answered truthfully to either of those two questions. It was frustrating to not have anything really to do. I finally have caught on to many of the office rules and procedures though. The Alcalde is rarely in the office outside of Monday and Friday. The first time I wanted to talk to him I waited around for hours because as he is rarely in the office, when he is there is aline of people waiting to lodge a complaint or get married or share a taco with the Mayor. I have since learned not to wait in line but just to barge right in asking for a few minutes when he is free or just sitting down in his office waiting for his current meeting to finish. I have also learned not to sit around the office waiting for someone to ask for my help. I stop by the office almost daily and make meeting times with the employees to work on projects. If I arrive to work on something and they are not there, I call them and then leave if they are not working that day.

Right now we are creating a PowerPoint presentation of the pictures of the over 200 families that have received supplies to better there homes in the last six months, things like concrete for flooring or tin for roofing. It really is a project that could be completed without me but I think I was asked to help because of my typing skills. One of the best things about the project is that we are including everyone’s names. This has been the most entertaining situation. Whomever I am working with tell me the name of the person and then I attempt to type it. In the U.S. the most Hispanic names are also names in Honduras, for example Juan, Migual, Hector, Maria. However, there seem to be a whole host of names here in which I can’t figure out there origin. Names like Maximilian and Belky and Hiedi (spelled Geydi). I seem to have the hardest time with names that sound completely different in Spanish but are a name I would easily recognize in English. And then it becomes one of those awful situations where they end up yelling the name at me and I just sit there and laugh. They think the volume in which they say it will help me understand. I try to explain that it is easier if I just copy it from he list but we have continued on in this reading the name aloud and I attempting to spell it correctly from the sound. Also, I am attempting to organize the office and encourage the staff to start backing up ay important documents onto cds. This hasn’t gone especially well as it is election season and all time seems to be devoted to this activity (more on elections later)

My other main counterpart is Yoni (like Johnny) Ponce who is the President of the Board of Directors of the Reicken Library and works as an administrator at one of the High Schools (evidently he is my Mayor’s running mate and will be the new Vice Alcalde if the Mayor wins reelection next November, in which it seems my two counterparts will become one…..I am not thrilled at this prospect). The first month or so I spent most of my afternoons at the library, checking my email and hanging out with all the kids who came by to do their homework. I often helped with homework or just bothered the kids by trying to help when they would have preferred to just copy the answers from the one person who did the work. I have also been participating with and helping to lead the Zona X group on Saturdays. It’s a group of young adults between 13 and 19 years old that was developed by the Reicken Foundation to instill some characteristics and activities that are being left out in their formal education. Things like, creativity, critical thinking, group work, and community service. Right not we are preparing and studying how to do a debate. It has definitely been interesting. Last week, I had them right arguments for made up debate topics and trying to teach the form of an argument, critical thinking, listening skills, and clarity of voice stretched my Spanish skills to the limit. This week we read poetry out loud as a prep for speaking in front of a group and speaking clearly with some emotion. They really got into it and I had a great time listening to them read Spanish poetry. Also, we are working on developing a community service project. I am not really sure how big to let them go this first step. It was suggested that we could do a small multi-sport court as the Aldea of Santa Cruz doesn’t have one. I am just not sure where I would receive funding and I don’t want them to become discouraged on there first project. The library has really been one of the greatest tools I have to meet new people and feel like a part of the community, I always leave feeling like I had talked to people and found out some new information about the community.

With school ending this week (the school year runs February to November/December) and elections and in my community November and December are coffee cutting season so many of the older kids and most of the community is out on the fincas, it has been really slow. I can’t seem to really start any new projects or find anyone with really any time to do so. I do have many ideas for the coming year and am beginning to see the needs of the community. Speaking of, If anyone has any ideas on how to start some kind of special education program or a basic support system or training for teachers in a community with few resources let me know. I am starting to do some research and there is a definite need but I am not quiet sure where to start.

Well, I think that is enough for now. Although elections will be covered further as I have some amazing pictures and stories from attending rallies. I hope everyone is well and that you have a safe, and fun Thanksgiving! Watch the Macy’s Parade and think of me (maybe I will be able to catch some of it on Univision, you never know)!

Much love.

What´s the longest you´ve ever Jaloned?

A current Volunteer and I were recently discussing another Volunteer of little words. It was said that this volunteer of little words once asked the most profound statement What’s the longest you’ve ever Jaloned? To Jalon (pronounced ha – lon), is more commonly know in English as hitchhiking. The art of which I will probably be exploring throughout my service so I just wanted to explain the import term now. Obviously, being female my choice of Jalon will be limited and consist mostly of jalons in my site or with groups. Once coming back from Santa Barbara, in the pouring rain with a group of people from my town, about twelve people piled into the back of our truck to Jalon back to El Nispero. Did I mention it is pouring rain? So, this one woman hands us off her baby. A baby, baby. Maybe less than a year old. She just hands him to us three girls sitting in the back of the truck while she rides in the back. I saw her on the bus yesterday, and her baby still seems to be doing well regardless of the mother’s handing her off to strangers. But by far the most interesting story of a jalon actually occurred during my site visit three weeks ago in Santa Barbara. I can into Santa Barbara to travel back to Tegucigalpa to finish training with a group from my town. We arrived early and ahead of Jessica (who I would be traveling back with) and so after showing me where the bus was already parked, we went into a café for a breakfast baleada. Jessica called me about twenty minutes later and told me that she was now walking towards the bus. As I came out of the cafe, I said my departing words to my compatriots and turned the corner to the bus. Amazingly, bus not there! I am wearing my huge backpack and decide just t walk towards where the bus WAS sitting and investigate. I make it about a half a blok when a truck pulls up and a guy yells out the window to me, “Tegucigapla?” After some discussion I found out the bus had moved to avoid parade traffic and that the guy was in fact offering me a jalon to the bus and not all the way to Tegucigalpa (I could just imagine Juan Carlos our head of security’s face if I jaloned in the back of a truck of three hours on the major freeway). So I am in the back of this truck and the adrenaline is pumping, as I am praying we make it to the bus before it leaves. Additionally, I call Jessica, “So, I am in the back of a truck, seems the bus has moved from where it normally leaves from, save me a seat.” I would love to say that this will probably be the last time such a thing will happen but it seems that in Honduras you just need to roll with things as they come. It’s the Peace Corps’s favorite buzz word, FLEXIBILITY.

El Nispero! (Part 2)

El Nispero, Santa Barbara

Hello All!

I have finally arrived to my site in El Nispero, Santa Barbara. I can’t believe that training and swear-in have all passed so quickly. During the time, training seemed to drag on and on and on….but it’s over! Yay! Now the real work begins.

Training ended last Friday with our swear-in ceremony. We all arrived early Friday morning to the Peace Corps Office in Tegucigalpa wearing our Sunday best. It was great to see everyone dressed up but it also had the feeling of 8th grade graduation or a High School awards ceremony as we all loaded into the school bus for one final time. After a tour of the Peace Corps Office and some minor housekeeping issues, we traveled to the U.S. Embassy Honduras in Tegucigalpa. The ceremony it self was nice and short and was presided over by our Host Country Director and a representative from the State Department. The newly sworn-in Ambassador to Honduras was in Washington and couldn’t be in attendance. The best parts of the whole thing was probably the amazing number of pictures we took of ourselves during the day (in front of the Honduran flag, now in front of the Peace Corps flag, ok…now with the Santa Rita crowd…) and the amazing taco bar. After our brief ceremony, we were once again loaded up into the bus and were off to the Ambassador’s house where we could use the pool, tennis courts, and sand volleyball court. And wouldn’t you know within five minutes of being there it began to rain. One of those crazy Honduran rains where it just pours and pours. It lasted all of half and hour and then everyone kinda split up to roam around. It only took about ten minutes after that for Ryan to break his nose diving into the leg of Emily out in the sand volleyball court. So our babysitter, one of the Peace Corps Technical Staff, had to haul him off to the hospital. Around five o’clock we load back on for the last time as a group of 49(48 minus Ryan) of Hondu-13. The majority of us went on to a local bar in Zarabanda owned by an ex-pat for some burgers and pizza. All in all in was a really great day!

The next day Jessica and I loaded up on a bus for Santa Barbara, S.B. Santa Barbara is the capital city of my district and only about an hour bus ride from my site. It’s where I will go for groceries, including fresh fruits and vegetables, and other necessities I can’t get in my site. Jess and I met up there yesterday and her site-mate, Eli showed up this really great fried-chicken restaurant and a vegetarian restaurant ran by a group of 7th Day Adventist. The food was amazingly fresh and I ate a Veggie Burger for lunch. I know, a veggie burger in the middle of Honduras?? It was crazy. The only down sided is that the last bus comes back around 2pm so I need to get all my shopping done early in the day.

So, I am currently sitting on the couch in the home of my host family. I am living with a single woman who has grown children living San Pedro Sula. I heard they often come to visit but who knows what that means. The house is actually way above what I thought I would be living in. It has tile flooring, my own bathroom, and cable tv. Before you get to excited remember that this is Honduras and the cable consists of about 12 channels most of which are playing the local news in Spanish most of the time. My host mom has been gone since I arrived this week and I really have no idea when she is coming back. But I hope she does so soon because I am probably becoming to comfortable in her house. So far this week, I still really have no idea what I am going to be doing as a Peace Corps volunteer in this community. I have two counterparts one is the Alcalde (the mayor) and the other is the Reicken Library. The Reicken Library is this amazing library in a close Aldea named Santa Cruz built last December by the Reicken Foundation. The library has books, meeting space, and computers with FREE internet. Score! I will probably be working with them to teach computer classes as well as working with a youth group for teenagers that is supposed to inspire creativity and leadership skills. I really have no idea what I will be working on with the municipality but there definitely seems to be a lot of need here, especially in the Aldeas (rural areas that are within the boundaries of the municipality, a municipality is somewhat like a county). I was surprised to learn this morning that my Muni doesn’t have an office representing woman (OMM). This maybe something I can work on as the Office is required by the federal government under the laws pertaining to municipalities.

Well so far so good! I am looking forward to my time here and I can only hope that I will be successful and happy. Two pretty large orders, I know.

El Nispero!

Hello my wonderful friends and family (who I am not sure actually read this thing):

So, majoy changes in my life in the last few weeks. And I am not quiet sure where to begin. About two weeks ago we had our grand site announcement party with my Field Based Training group (municipal development). It really was a great time because unlike the other two groups, most of us really had no idea where we were going to end up. I was convinced I was going to the South as my Training boss, Jorge had hinted at that a few weeks earlier but turns out there were some last minute changes and I will be heading to....EL NISPERO! El Nispero is a Municipality in the western side of Honduras in a Department called Santa Barbara. It´s very green and I have heard it is nice and cool around December and January. There are about 2,000 people living in teh city center (Casco Urbano) where the Muni office is and there are seven aldeas surrounding. So directly after the site announcement part we left to return to Zarabanda, met our counterparts and were off to our sights all within two days. It was a little crazy.
All in all my site visit was a little awful. I am hoping it is one of those things like, Bad dress rehearsal makes for great performance. After arriving in EL Nispero in the dark, I was dropped off at my new host family and all most immediatly went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night sick. It was awful, I was totally worthless. I got up the next morning and had to call my counterpart (The Alcalde Mayor of the town) and tell him I was sick and wouldnt be able to come in that morning. Knowing I needed water to rehidrate but not knowign what to do I just layed in bed. About an hour later a doctor show up at my house, my first house call ever. SHe fixed me right up and with her help adn some rehydration salts I was feeling better by the afternoon. I saw much of the Aldeas and the beautiful Reicken Library where I will eb doing some work over the next few days. Unfortunatly, my Alcalde went out of town and I didn`t really get a chance to meet with him and really have no idea what he would like me to accomplish for the next two years.
One of the things I have learned about myself in this whole process is that it takes me longer than I would have thought to deal with change and new things. I was pretty much freaked out when I returned from my site visit. But I think I was just emotional and homesick. I have soem new perspective and all though my service still seems daunting, I have a fresh perspective and some new motivation. Additionally, I recieved one amazing package from home this week and it really made me feel great!
In additional news, Stephanie leaves for Mozambique, Africa mere days after I swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. It´s quite a ride and I really hope she has an amazing time. This is my last week of training and I will have my final language interviews and then swearing in with the new Ambassador of Honduras.
I really will be better at this whole blog thing after getting to my sight when I have amazing amounts of time on my hands so if this wasn´t riveting and you were looking for pictures and more description of my new site, hold your horses.

Love and Kisses,

Brenna Joy

Site Announcements Coming!

10 Days until I find out where my site will be for the next two years! I am pretty sure that I am going south which means hot and dry. Something new, right? Check back here a week from Tuesday for info!

Telenovelas: Favorite Names

Fuego en La Sangre (Fire in the Blood)

Al Diablo con Los Guapos (To the Devil with the Beautiful Ones)

Bucket Baths

The shower in the home of my host family has a showerhead and a nozzle in which to turn on water but I have never actually used it and instead, take bucket baths which are heated with water from a tea kettle to a temperature just above glacier. This morning while dumping such a bucket of water over my head, I realized that the nozzle for the shower has a little red dot on it. This red dot screams, “I am used for hot water!” It’s ironic that this dot for so long had such significance in my life and now such symbols are absolute and have lost all meaning because I know that if I indeed did turn that knob (and we happened to have water at that moment) the water would freezing and that sticking to my slightly warmer bucket bath is the way to go.

Field Based Training

I am unsure of whether I have written a blog entry since we began Field Based Training just less than three weeks ago. I think I have finally adjusted to schedule and sleeping and food and all the other incidental things that had made my life a little more difficult since arriving. One of the major components of training with Peace Corps in Honduras is Field Based Training in which we have been divided into projects to complete more intensive technical training. During these five weeks we have the opportunity to work in our communities on individual and group projects that may be similar to work we will actually be completing in our sites. I am living in Cantarranas, a small city outside of Tegucigalpa and working in a nearby aldea, San Juansito. Cantarranas is pretty small but amazingly clean and everyone has been really nice and welcoming. The site doesn’t have internet but we often travel Valle de Angeles or Talanga on Saturdays to accomplish this.

I am living with a small family of all women. I have a host grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. It’s definitely a family whose lives have been somewhat defined by the pull to leave Honduras for work outside. Liliana, my host mother’s daughter, is probably in her mid forties with three grown up boys and her husband has been living in the states for the last eighteen years. My host sister, Danielle, is eight years old and her mother works as a nanny in Spain while her father lives in a nearby Aldea with her brother. The family runs a small comedor, a two to three table restaurant, out of their home and Chabe has been serving food here for more that 35 years. These ladies work so hard, it’s amazing. The home is fun of animals. There are chickens, two dogs, a cat and occasionally I see frogs hopping around out back. One of my favorite things about living here is that every morning I wake up and Chabe is in the living room with candles lit in the corners of the room sitting in front of makeshift alters with pictures of Mary and Jesus and the Saints and she stands and says the rosary. What makes this whole scene truly unique is that throughout this whole process she has the radio blaring the local radio news station. I used to think that there was someone in the next house who was playing the radio so loudly but then I realized that it is coming from the next room!
I am working in San Juancito with one of my fellow volunteers, Eric, and we are attempting to help a group of the local leaders form a development plan for their community. It is either going to be a really great process and be really successful or no one will show up and it will be entire train wreck. I’m not yet sure which.

Major accomplishments for the week include: being really sick for the first time and getting through it alone and without having to go to the hospital for a nasty IV, getting more sleep and feeling more positive!, not killing my host sister when her cry baby doll started crying in the middle of the night and she didn’t notice for twenty minutes (I know those last two don’t really correlate well!), conducting an entire conversation with the woman at the local bank branch about how I lost my PIN number and what I need to get a new one.

Much LOVE

Remittance

Yesterday during training, we had a session facilitated by a representative from the US State Department in Honduras regarding the economic situation in Honduras. It was the first time since arriving that I felt like I had concrete information regarding Honduras not regarding culture, food, or climate. The speaker was amazing; his information was straight to the point and his dry humor was very much appreciated by the group as a whole. So in thinking about the statistics we were given, for example the fact the 20% of Honduras’ GDP is made up of remittance money from the United States, I wanted to reflect on what I have seen here and how I have seen some of this statistical data in its real world setting during my first weeks here.

In Honduras, everyone knows someone who is either in the U.S. working or has been deported from the U.S. or who is planning on spending the 7,000 US dollars it takes to pay a coyote to take you there. When you walk around even some of the poorest and toughest rural neighborhoods there are often a few houses that are a little bit bigger and have most of the modern conveniences, grand tile, televisions, glass windows, etc. Most of these homes are owned by either people who have family in the U.S. or people who have returned to Honduras from the U.S. The importance of remittance money as a hindrance to extreme poverty is astounding. The effect of 1 in 7 Hondurans living the US is affecting not only the economic structure of Honduras but also the social structure of families and communities. There are really too many affects for me to enumerated but just walking around some communities the lack of working age men is evident. It’s hard to judge someone for leaving their homes and trying to survive by finding something better in the U.S. There are a lot of arguments about what would happen if people either invested the funds sent from the U.S. or took the 7,000 dollars and instead of leaving Honduras invested it in something here. In all to me, it seems to be a mess that needs some serious attention and I am becoming more convinced that if you are willing to take 7,000 US dollars( 140,000 Limpira) to get to there, a wall might not stop you.

Okay that officially ends my rant and rave for the day. In the future, I want to continue to think about how all the information from yesterday’s presentation really can be seen while I am here in Honduras. Issues of education, remittance funds, charity and aid are really only a few. But I might save that for the journal!

Top Five!

Top 5 Issues Discussed By Peace Corps Trainees, Hondu-13:

(To be amended throughout Training)

5. Chisme(Gossip)

Was our Country director really married to Chuck Norris?

4. Fairness and Validity of the Self-Created Point System

Is it worth more points to almost throw up on a crowded bus or to be thrown up on?

3. What your host mom made you for breakfast/lunch?

Trading and sharing is an often occurance.

2. Mud/Rain

How to walk through the mud without falling down, getting stuck, or getting the jeans you just washed dirty. Is it going to rain? Do you think that the clothes you spent an hour washing in the pilla will ever dry?

1. Diarrhea and Hospital Visits

Whose sick, who went to the hospital, who has a horrifying IV story from the hospital, involving needles, swelling, and blood.

Cell Phone

If you would like to text me or call me, please just email me for the number! You can also text me for free at: tigo.com.hn

First Weeks

So I have been in Honduras less then two weeks and it definitly feels like I have been here for much much longer. After arrving in San Pedro Sula we took a 5 hour bus ride to Zarabanda where we are having al of our training activities. The days are pretty much the same for these first three weeks. Five hours of language classes in the morning followed by lunch followed by either CORE activities and classes which consist of safety, health and culture or classes within your specific proyecto. There are fifty volunteers in all, workign in three different areas: youth development, project areas management, and municipal development. I am really excited about the municipal work it seems like I will be doing and look forward to those classes the most. My spanish isn´t terrible but it is so frustrating to not be able to communicate accurately what I wish to say with my host family. I am living with a host family that is probably considered a middle class honduran family. THey have electricity and water and an oven and a tv with cable but they use a pilla)look it up) for washing and I take a bucket bath everymorning. There are hours of discussions amoungst peace corp trainees regarding two topics, the temp of your bucket water and the food your mom gave you for breakfast. Food has actually been a pleasant suprise. I don´t mind the rice and beans and tortillas adn I have had some other really great things. Today I had a juice made out of star fruit. My host family has been really great. I live with a young married couple and their daughter who is two. Ana, mi mama anfritona, is only 24. Our relationship is improving as my spanish improves. The nice thing is that they are really laidback and lowkey when I get back from school and I can just hangout and play with my hermanita. I lve in a community of about 20 homes called Santa Rita. There are eleven voluntarios living there so there definitly i smoe gossip that gets around the mamas about who eats what adn whose a vegetatian and who didn´t attend the welcome fiesta. MAJOR Drama. It is raining almost everyday adn yesterday the bus which takes us to school got stuck in the mud and we all had to try to push it out and felt very peacecorpy. We have developed amoungst ourselves a system of points where you acrue them for duing something which would be a hardcore or pc type of activity. So, pushing bus out of mud 2pcp, but watching hbo spanish -2pcp.
Okay! Soon I hope to post more things on my blog with pictures and crazy other tidbits about my specific training and food and culture and new friends. I also, -2pcp, have a cell phone which I will be using for my job and for the pc to get a hold of me ice. SO, you can call me anytime on the weekends or during the evenings free for me!