Wrapping up a Year
My life has been incredibly crazy and eventful the last few months, leaving me once again with an amazing excuse for why I haven’t updated my blog.
October was a month of great accomplishments and many amazing travels. After the first year in Peace Corps, volunteers travel to their home base to receive what is called Midterm Meds. As Honduras has one of the largest numbers of volunteers, the group is divided even smaller into projects for these appointments. That means that, I am a Hondu13 Municipal Development Volunteer and I had my meds in October (just over a year in country) in the third week (following both the PAM and Youth Volunteers). In out infinite wisdom, we decided to take advantage of the fact that Peace Corps would be paying for some of our travel costs and planned a trip for the weekend before MuniD meds and after Youth. Amanpala is an island off the western coast of Honduras, snuggled between Nicaragua and El Salvador. We had just about twenty people in a comfortable hotel/home right on the beach and spent an amazing couple days in the sunshine and water, eating fish(I ate something else), and enjoying the platica(chatting).
So all of us MuniDers ended up in Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) a few days later to be poked and prodded. It all started with an early morning check-in with the Peace Corps Medical Officers (PCMOs) to discuss any current problems or concerns and then a full day of riding around to different appointments. I personally saw the PCMO, the Dentist, the Orthopedists, and got fitted to have lenses replaced in my glasses. You can only imagine how tiring this all was. But on the upside, we ended up hitting the Honduras Maya (big fancy hotel) for Happy Hour and then a local restaurant for some amazing food. I had an Eggplant sandwich with mozzarella cheese. We all felt very fancy indeed sitting around with our cocktails.
The next few weeks were just as hectic. I had my regional security meeting where our Security Officer and Country Director (the big cheese) meet with all the volunteers in a region to discuss current security concerns and to remind us not to be lax in our own safety and security precautions. Overall not very fun but always nice to spend a night with a few other volunteers and eat food paid for by PC.
Halloween is the only event held in Honduras and planned by Volunteers in which all volunteers are invited to attend. Every year, Volunteers flock to Copan Ruinas one of the largest tourist sites in Honduras for a few nights of revelry and costumed fun. I decided to skip seeing the Mayan Ruins that attract so many tourists for a later date when I could really take the time to enjoy and instead spent a day at the Bird Park which was a really incredible experience. The birds were all very beautiful and the setting very scenic and relaxing. The most memorable part of the weekend had to be Halloween night itself. You would never believe the creativity that can be shown when there are not Halloween stores or Hobby Lobbies to present you with an easy Halloween costume. Many people either made their own or paid a member of their community to sew them a costume from scratch. There were pirates (me, not creative but I was tired from all my adventures sue me), a bar maid, a Pulperia (the local type of store which sells everything from eggs to chips), a nun (the pulperia’s husband), two ears of corn, a Mayan virgin sacrifice, a Balloon Boy (which none of us got because we don’t watch CNN), packman and two ghosts, Violet and Willy Wonka, Selena and her Backup guitarist, the devil, and many many more. I just walked around saying, WOW. Or, “that is sooo amazing.”
There is this strange phenomenon being the Gringa in Honduras, and really being an obvious foreigner in a country. It’s what is called the “fish bowl” effect. Any obvious example is someone just staring at you because you are obviously different looking for everyone else or because you are doing something different than what everyone else does. One example is when I am sitting on my couch in the front of my house (much like I am right now) and someone walks up to my screen door and because they can’t see me watching them, presses their face up to the screen, cupping their hands around their eyes to block out the light. Now when I catch an adult doing this they usually run away embarrassed but when it’s a kid, sometimes they will just sit there and watch me. I will usually let this go on until the minute that my very feeling of discomfort overwhelms my cultural sensitivity, and I say, “Que Quiere?” (what do you want?) which is then usually followed by, “Nada” (nothing). And I respond with, “pues, no soy animal en una zoologica, vayase” (well, I am not an animal in a zoo, get out of here). Not very nice but effective. I have gone off on this tangent to explain “fish bowl” sensation in order that you can understand one of the strange things that happens at Halloween. The Halloween costume celebration takes place at a bar in Cupan Ruinas as many as (seriously, someone just pressed their face to my door….) 150 volunteers attend. And as the party goes on Honduras load their families up into cars and drive past the bar to view the Mayhem. I definitely understand their interest if hundreds of gringos came to my town to celebrate some holiday that was completely foreign to me, I might drive by and we were all in costume! It doesn’t change the fact that part of me felt uncomfortable, part of my wished for the anonymity of home where dressing up in costume on the 31st of October is not only normal but somewhat encouraged. Overall, the fun outweighed any awkwardness.
All in all, October was an amazing month. I had some great adventures but also finished up some great projects. I have been teaching English to teachers since last April and we finally wrapped up the first week of October with all my teachers receiving passing grades sufficient to receive a Peace Corps Diploma and an official certificate from the Ministerio de Educacion de Honduras. We will be having a small graduation ceremony this week and I hope it will be a celebration to all their hard work. I am also looking forward to continuing with the same class next year for the second tier of the course and starting back at level one with some new interested teachers.
As always, pictures are on facebook or my Picasa account. The ones from Amanpala are amazing!
B
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