New Post Office Box and My Birthday

It's been a while. I just wanted to let you know that I have a new post office box. I just opened it yesterday. I tried to open it last weekend, but they said, "Sorry, you can't open a post office box today. It's Saturday!"

Beth Mayberry
Apartado Postal 344
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
America Central

Also, I finally bought a camera. The first time I tried to do this (last weekend) Bank of America froze my bank account for "suspicious activity" and I was unable to buy the camera. Good thing my debit card worked for my "birthday dinner" of amazing italian food, because I definitely didn't have $20 (10 days wages) in local currency on hand (or in the Honduran bank). I was quite angry with Bank of America as I had both called them and gone to the bank in person to tell them that I would be in Honduras for 2 years, before I left. But, that was evidently not enough. I was angry because it's 4 days wages to get to and from the city of San Pedro Sula, about 2 days wages for each taxi trip and it cost me 4 days wages to buy phone calls to call Bank of America unsuccessfully. So, Bank of America (and the Honduran postal system), you cost me 14 days of wages.

But now I have a top secret 24-hour collect call ATM help number for when they freeze my account. So this San Pedro Trip went smoothly.

Everything has been very busy here (= why I haven't had time to write). Next week is winter vacation for school kids (until February), so I am helping the high school start summer enrichment programs. I am helping them start a basketball team, a volleyball team, a theatre group, english classes, latin dance classes and possibly a choir. It's all very fun and all of the students are very excited, because there is nothing for them to do during the summer (there is no such thing as a "summer job" here, as there aren't that many regular jobs!) In many parts of Honduras (Morazan, included) there is a serious lack of extracurricular activities. Sports, clubs and organizations are almost non-existent. So, Mom and Dad, all of those years of extracurricular activities are being put to good use here in Honduras.

My birthday (Friday) went well! I had a pancake (pancake? I forgot they existed)breakfast at one of the high school teacher's house and then I had lunch at my host family's house and a party at my work with cake and tajaditas (plantain chips) and Mexican salsa and then a surprise party (with cake, a banner and dancing) at my future house. My future landlord is also giving me two adorable kittens and gave me a nice warm fleece blanket as a present. What more could I ask for? Pancakes, cake (twice), tajaditas and Mexican salsa, warm blanket, dancing, 2 adorable kittens...what more could I ask for? Oh, and my parents are probably coming in January, so that's exciting! Oh, and one of the high school teachers has adorable puppies and she might give me one!

Tomorrow, I am going to La Ceiba (on the beach!) for a regional Peace Corps meeting! I'll update my blog when I get back.

Thanks for all of you who wrote me birthday notes on my Facebook!
And thanks Grandma for the birthday card!

Photo of the Day

Since my digital camera is still broken and in the only "legal" camera-fixing place in San Pedro Sula they want to fix it without a guarantee for $150 (I'm still debating this one...), my friend who is the owner of the only film developing place in town took pity on me and let me borrow one of his cameras.

At my house, there are 12 hens and roosters running around making lots of noise all day and all night. Lately, they've all been fattening up and my family has started to eat them.

This is a picture of 2 of them being proactive and trying to guard their lives by climbing to the top of our lime tree. It was a pretty funny picture, as the chickens climbed up to the very top of the tree (about 15 feet.) Poor chicken.

The photo of the day:

The Immense Capacity of the Honduran Motorcyle

Before I came to Honduras, I thought that motorcycles were basically efficient transportation for one or two people. Honduran motorcycles--you have proved me wrong. You have stretched the word efficiency to the max. You see, Honduran motorcycles can carry any quantity of people and unlimited cargo--it seems. Four people can ride on Honduran motorcycles. Two-year-old children can ride on motorcycles--just sandwich them in the middle or hold them in your lap with one hand and drive with the other.

Not only can Honduran motorcycles carry a number of passengers, but it has a broad cargo capacity. Here is just a small sampling of what I have seen motorcycles carry:

-Big Boxes. As in, boxes that might contain a TV or a microwave.
-Chairs. 3 to be exact. Just strap them down to the back and sides of the motorcycle with rope.
-Wooden table. Just balance it on your head.

I'll update you periodically on my motorcycle sightings. The moral of the story: As Americans, we are undeniably undermining the immense potential of motorcycles.

Other Mailing Address Option

So, my parents have informed me that it is very expensive to send stuff to me at my new address through UPS. So, I'm going to open up a post office box in the city of San Pedro Sula this weekend. Then you can send letters of packages by regular mail. But remember, you can always send things to me at my first address (I just might now get it for a while):

Beth Mayberry, PCV
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 3158
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
America Central

But, for those of you who want to send stuff to the expensive UPS address, you still can.

My new mailing address

WARNING: Make sure you read the blog entry above. This address might be expensive to send to and you can only use UPS. You can use my old address for packages and letters while I am trying to open up a cheaper post office box in San Pedro Sula.

I have a new mailing address! After weeks of searching for a way to get mail in my town, I finally found a way! (There is a Honducor, the National Post Office, in my town, but it is just a little house and it is not very secure. Packages can be sent through Urgente Express and Gigante Express (sort of like Honduran FedEx and UPS), but there are none in the Kansas City area).

But, if you have recently sent a package, don't worry, my address in Tegucigalpa will be open for 2 years, it's just that I might not get the package immediately because I would have to go to Tegucigalpa (6 hours away) or someone passing through would have to bring it to me.

Here is my new mailing address. Packages and letters HAVE to be sent through UPS.

Urgente Express
Morazan, Yoro
Honduras, America Central
Tel. 691-0262
Rdo. a Ana Mayberry y Gloria Paz

That's right. Ana. That is my Honduran name. Beth is too hard to pronounce for many people because of the "th" sound. And "Bet" is just not very pretty. My middle name is Ann, so I decided to make my Honduran name Ana. (I used Ana in Mexico and it worked out much better than when I used Beth in Peru). Because, if people can't pronounce your name, they usually can't remember it and if they can't remember it, they're embarrassed to talk to you because they can't use your name.

I'd like to thank Juliane Shaw for her awesome package! I love the skirt! It is so cute and great for the weather here! Thanks for the Chicken Tikka Masala (my favorite food) mix! And the Reese's, of course.

Thanks Mom and Dad for all of the cool stuff! I really needed pens and sunscreen and I can always use playing cards and anti-bacterial hand gel! Also, it's nice to have some US news! And of course, thanks for the ton of Reese's!

My picture in the National Newspapers

I'm famous. My picture is in 3 national newspapers (that I know of). Here are the links:
http://www.elpatriotahn.com/v/Cuerpo+de+Paz+en+Honduras/Pictures+058.jpg.html
http://www.latribuna.hn/news/47/ARTICLE/18411/2007-09-28.html
http://www.proceso.hn/2007/09/28/Metrópoli/Embajador.de.EE/1258.html

The funny thing is that the articles talk more about corruption in Honduras than the Peace Corps.

Why do Honduran women wear stiletto heels on eroded dirt roads and cobblestone streets?

This question has puzzled me for months. I wear tennis shoes and flats and I have to say that I’ve had my share of walking wipeouts. The other night I tripped on a rut and did a sideways-type flip. It was pretty hilarious.

Here the definition of professional attire for many women includes stilettos and the shortest skirt you can find. And I was afraid that some of my shirts and Bermuda shorts would be too risqué for Honduras! I thought wrong. I look like one of the most modestly dressed people here most of the time. I feel bad for the girls in high school. The last year they have to do an internship and the students in accounting or computation have to wear a short skirt and high heels everyday. How uncomfortable!

That’s another thing. Everyone dresses up to go shopping or to the airport in Honduras. I went to City Mall with my friend in San Pedro Sula (the mall is an American island, I swear) and everyone came in their best clothes. My sitemate Nicole said that when she was going to the airport to go back to the states for vacation she was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and flipflops and my host family was shocked that she would wear that on an airplane.

Nicole and I have tried to explain to my family that people dress more casually and comfortably in the US (especially when they know that they will be on a plane for hours). I told them how I used to wear pajamas and sweatpants in the university a lot and they just couldn’t believe it. Practicality, comfort and functionality are not valued in clothing here.

Farmer Jose and his Razor cell phone

So Morazán is a funny place. It's definitely a land of contrasts. The most obvious example of this is the ubiquitous Motorola Razor cell phone. There's nothing more out of place than this device, but I'd say that 50% of the population has one or at least a similar phone.

This is a common scene:

So I’m walking down a dirt road and I hear a ringtone like “Born in the USA” or some Daddy Yankee reggaeton song. I look around and who pulls it out of their pocket? The old farmer man in the cowboy hat, boots and dusty clothes.

Everything is very appearance-based here. A family may have a house made out of dirt, cook over a fire and eat only beans and tortillas, but they have a nice cell phone.

Technology-wise, life here is probably a lot like the US in the 50s. However, with the influx of US dollars from remittances, there are lots of anachronisms. For example, cell phones, internet, laptops, plasma TVs, cable TV, playstations, SUVs, etc… Most of the money from the US does not seem to go towards basic needs or everyday life, but towards luxury items.

Everyone laughs at my cell phone because it is very bottom-of-the-line. They call it my ladrillo (rock). They say that if someone stole it they would give it back to me. But hey, that’s fine with me, as cell phone theft is extremely common in this country.

I was voted most likely to...

So I forgot to mention it before, but at the end of our Peace Corps training, all of the volunteers filled out surveys voting on which trainee was most likely to do what. I was voted "Most likely to live in Honduras forever" and "Most likely to contract the most tropical diseases." At least I wasn't voted "Most likely to have a donkey accident".

I'm from Mitsubishi

So the other night some of my host family´s friends were over at my house. They asked me where I was from in the states and my host mom answered, "She´s from Mitsubishi." She meant to say Missouri. It was really cute and everyone laughed. It's now a running joke that I am from Mitsubishi.

Soon I will change my mailing address

Sometime soon, I'm going to get a post office box in El Progreso (a city an hour away), as Morazan does not have a post office. My other box will still be open during the 2 years, but I will only be able to pick it up when I go to Teguz. But if you've already sent a package, don't worry. My program manager and trainer are coming to visit me in the middle of October, so they'll be able to bring my packages with them. Also, I will be in Teguz on November 26 for vaccines and I'll be able to pick up packages then.

I just wanted to thank everyone for the packages and letters they send me!

Thanks Loretta for all the awesome stuff you sent me! I am getting out of fried breakfasts here by telling my family that I need to eat the Smart Start (my favorite cereal) that you sent me before it ruins. My family loved the gifts that you sent me. My friends and I have devoured the Reese's peanut butter cups and skittles you sent me and I am going to have the Macaroni for dinner one of these nights. The frisbee was a bit hit with the grandchildren here.

Thanks Mom and Dad for all of the cool stuff that you send me! The card games all get used and the sidewalk chalk too. I've eaten all the food. It was yummy. The newsweeks have been nice. I think that I got your last package with pens and stuff, but it is in Teguz and I'll probably get it in mid-October.

Thanks Beckers for the nice card! It was so nice for you to think of me! Tell Matt hi! It sounds like everything is going well for him at TCU!

Just in case anyone wants to send something, but doesn't know what to send, here are some ideas:

-Recipes (you can email these)
-Spices (black pepper (doesn't exist here), italian spices, indian recipes
-Crayons
-Markers
-Card games or board games
-Children's books in Spanish or bilingual
-Teaching English as a Foreign Language materials
-Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
-Seeds that I could plant in a garden (ex: green beans, broccoli, sweet corn, basil, anything really. I'm not a big lettuce or green pepper fan.)

My first day at the Colegio = Riding the Mechanical Bull

So on my first day at the colegio (middle school/high school) there was a big fiesta because it was the 33rd anniversary of the school. The party lasted all day and included a mechanical bull. (The first time that a mechanical bull had come to Morazan.) So what else could I do but ride it? So I borrowed a cowboy hat and rode the bull. And what other song would they put besides La Chica Sexy (The Sexy Girl). The songs goes (in spanish): The girl moves sexy. The girl moves sexy. The girl moves rico. The girl moves rico... Etc... So, it was awkward/ridiculous/hilarious all at the same time. I didn't have my camera, but Nicole, the other volunteer took a picture of me on my disposable camera. So whenever I get the photos developed and find a scanner in Morazan (should be interesting task...) I'll put those up. But it definitely made an impression because now all the colegio kids say, "Hola Ana!" (my name in Honduras)in the street.

Things I take for granted in the US

Air-Conditioning - My room averages between 87 and 89 degrees. I know this from my alarm clock with thermometer. My family recently put a fan in there. Then I turn the fan on, it is a cool 84-85 degrees. (And this is the colder season! I've been warned about May, June and July.) I'm becoming a little bit accustomed to the heat. For example, when I first arrived I laid on my bed dying of head. Now at night, I have to turn off the fan and cover up. I've seen my room get down to 79 degrees on cooler nights. That's really cold for me. Then I have to put on pants and a long-sleeved shirt and use a heavier blanket.

Warm/Lukewarm Water- I take a freezing shower here. Most of the time from a bucket. In Santa Lucia, I had semi-warm running electric-shower water. In Cantarranas, I had a lukewarm bucket shower (because my host mom would add a bit of boiled water to the bucket). But here, I have a bucket of very cold water (sometimes I have cold running (better described as dripping)water). I'm starting to get used to it, but it's definitely not something I look forward to.

Not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes - So there is one window in my room without a screen. Why? I have no idea. I asked my host family if I could put a screen in it. We'll see... Also, some of the other screens have holes in them. So here is what I do every night. So I'm in my bed reading and about to go to bed when they come... Bzzzz...Bzzzz...Bzzz... Just a mosquito, right? No we're talking about a mosquito herd. There are always between 5 and 15 mosquitoes in my room at night. So I spend about an hour a night mosquito hunting. I used to chase them with my bugzooka, but that's just too hard and inefficient as there are always so many. So I've resorted to using my Peace Corps folder to smash them against and wall or floor. The thing that sucks is that my ceiling is very high and they hang out there where I can't reach them. So I wait sneakily and sometimes I throw stuff at them to make them scatter so I can't reach them better. When they're high on my wall, I have to stand on my bed and jump to hit them. I'm sure this must be humorous-looking. Then when I think that I've killed them all I lay down to go to sleep. Then, Bzzz... there's one that I didn't get. So I turn on the light and start hunting again. Hopefully this weekend I can put up my mosquito net up. The problem is that with such a high ceiling, putting the net up is logistically complicated.

Privacy- What's that? There is no lock on my bedroom door, so people just come and go as they like. The grandchildren are always in my room and that's probably why I haven't had a chance to write blogs. My windows do not shut, so if I am talking on my phone everyone listens in. I spend all day with other people. Good thing I like people, because in Honduras, there is honestly no way to avoid people or get a small bit of privacy. Everyone wants to know exactly what you are doing at all times. Gossiping is huge here. If you are walking down the street with someone on one side of town, within 24 hours everyone on the other side of town will know.

Silence- That doesn't exist here. Here are just a few sounds in the 5 am -9 am range. Roosters going crazy, chickens pio-pioing, pigs whining in a high-pitched voice, dogs barking, children screaming, people welding and sawing in the metal workshop, the neighbors reggaeton music on full blast, guy chopping firewood in our backyard. Lady singing while she's cooking, car honking, doors slamming, TV blasting, people eating breakfast and talking loudly on the back patio (right outside my open window that doesn't close. So let's just say that sleeping in on Saturdays is not an option. I might invest in some earplugs.

Fruits and Vegetables - They are just not really eaten here. The food is good but very bad for you and very fried and greasy. The only fruit that I've had in the last 2 weeks: grapes and apples that my friemd Luis gave me because he felt bad for me. Here is what I have almost EVERY meal, minus 1 or 2. Tortillas, beans, rice, hard stinky cheese, fried or scrambled eggs, avocado, mantequilla (that sour cream and butter mixture) and fried plantains. Everything is also fried in manteca (lard). So the avocado is the highlight of my meal, as it is the only thing that hasn't been fried. However, when I live in my own house or apartment, I will be able to cook. They do have broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green beans, tomatoes, apples, grapes, pineapple, bananas and watermelon here.

My work in Morazan

In Morazan I have been assigned to work with 3 organizations:

Vision Mundial Regional (World Vision Regional)

Here, I will be helping develop the HIV/AIDs Education Program. I will be giving training of training workshops on a variety of HIV/AIDs related topics to teachers, community extensionists and students and helping start up microbusinesses for people with HIV/AIDs. The office is really excited to have me here. Everyone is very nice at the office. There is actually air conditioning at the office (What?!) My counterpart is very nice.

Vision Mundial PDA Morazan(Programa del Desarrollo de la Area)= World Vision Area Development Program Morazan

Here, I will be helping out with the Jovenes Emprendadores- Youth Entrepreneur Program. I will be helping youth start and manage microbusinesses. I will teach them how to do market studies, set prices and market their products. Right now there are 2 food and 1 smoothie microbusiness. I am helping a group of 10 youth ages 10-14 start a food microbusiness in an aldea. I will probably also work in some of the other programs. And in the aldeas (villages) where they work I will try to start programs for youth.

and

Instituto Polivalente Francisco Morazan = Francisco Morazan Vocational Middle School/High School

Here, I will give charlas/workshops and trainings on a variety of subjects. I also would like to start up a sports program, as there is not one now. I'd like to start soccer, basketball and volleyball programs (and maybe baseball as Peace Corps may be able to help us get equipment for that). Also, I'd like to start a Latin Dance club, as everyone here wants to know how to dance salsa, merengue, bachata and cumbia. I will also probably be teaching economics and business-type classes from time to time.
My counterpart, the school counselor is very nice. I go to her apartment a lot and drink cuban coffee. Her husband is from Cuba and she wants me to teach her salsa.

BUT, I don't have to work just with these organizations. I can work with anyone I want. I'd like to work with the kinder and primary schools. There is no English program in the primary schools and I have a Peace Corps program that I could get funds to implement there. Also, there is a library that I could get Rieken Foundation sponsorship for so that they could get new books and internet. Also, there are other organizations in the community that I could work with such as a women's microfinance business and a Pico Pijol tourism development business.

I'm excited!

Pictures of Morazan

Since my camera is still broken, here are some pictures of Morazan that I found on the internet. The first picture is of the National Park Pico Pijol from Morazan. The next is a picture of Pico Pijol. The next is of la Piratas, the nearby waterfall which I will use as a swimming hole. The last one is a map of Honduras, with the departamento (sort of like a state) of Yoro highlighted. I live in the Northwest part of Yoro.

So, Morazan is really pretty. It's in this super hot valley, but is surrounded by beautiful mountains. It is basically what they would call a rural town. Although there are over 10,000 people living in the actual town, they are mostly from the country side, so it has a small town feel to it. There is only one paved street (the Calle Principal) and the rest are dirt roads which are eroding away like crazy. The roads are really bad here. There are some that you can't even drive down. The only way to get down the "paved" road that leads to Morazan is by zig-zagging.

There's a lot of business in Morazan. There are a million pulperias (small grocery stores), a small daily market, a million stalls selling everything from belts to ripped-off CDs to Coconuts. There are 3 gas stations. The shell has yogurt (not at all common here, which is probably why it costs 30 lempiras-like $1.50) and peanut butter (unheard of!) There are like 3 or 4 internet cafes. There a billion places that sell "Ropa Americana" = secondhand clothes from the states. So when you donate your clothing, there is a likelihood that they may end up in Morazan in "Ropa Americana Brenda."

I live in a pretty posh house. The poshest host family house that I have ever lived in. It could pretty much be a US house, until you go to the backyard and see the chickens running around.

My room is big, but mosquito-filled. I have a queen-sized bed. There is a washing machine (what?!) Sometimes, like twice a week, there is running water (ice cold). There is an electric shower, but no one uses it. I would be afraid to use it as the electric socket is about 1 foot from the shower head (safe...) So looks like cold bucket showers for me.

My family is really cool. My host mom, Doña Gloria,and host dad, Don Manuel, are really more like a host grandparents. They are in their 60s. My host mom has a little restaurant, but instead of going to the restaurant, most people end up eating at her, instead. My host dad is funny. He always wears a cowboy hat that says "Rodeo USA" and boots. Two of their grown children are in the states in North Carolina (it seems everyone I talk to here has relatives there or in Atlanta.) They have a grown son named Rey who owns a metalwork workshop behind our house. One of their other daughters, Amanda, spends most of the day at our house. She has two children, Amandita (3) and Franklin (6). Amandita is very cute, but quite a handful. Franklin is more calm and likes to play UNO and use Paint on my computer. My host parents have another daughter, who I don't know very well. She has 2 children Daniela (3) and Alan (14). There is another daughter that I don't really know and she has a son named Cristian (12). All of the grandchildren are always at my house. I also have a sister named Claudia (21) who actually lives in my house. She's very nice. She's in high school.

My Camera Broke :(

So my camera broke. Very sad. The last day I was in Cantarranas, my host mom was looking at pictures on my camera. Then she handed it to me, but somehow there was a disconnect, because before I grabbed it, it crashed to the ground, right on its lens. Now it says "Lens error" when I turn it on. I'm sure that it's fixable, but it might be a while before I fix it because I have to go to a big city to do that. I can't take it to Teguz because it is about 6 hours from Morazan. I'm going to have to take it to San Pedro Sula after I get to my site. It's only like 2 hours from my site.

Let's hope I can fix it, because if not, I'm going to have to buy a super expensive camera here, because all electronics are like twice as expensive here (unless you go to a sketchy market, it which case, they are stolen.)

Leaving Cantarranas

So, I finally had to leave Cantarranas and go to my site. It was really sad to leave, because I really loved it there and I really felt like part of the community. I was okay packing and everything on Thursday, but everything hit me on the way to classes on Friday. When I was walking to classes a lot of the people in the community came out of their houses to talk to me. They said things like, “All of the volunteers are leaving tomorrow, but you’re staying, right?” It just broke my heart. I had to explain to everyone that I would love to stay, but I that I couldn’t because the Peace Corps was sending me somewhere else. Everyone looked disappointed when I said that, but asked with a little hope, “Then who’s staying here?” It broke my heart to tell them that no one was staying there. The Peace Corps was not going to have a volunteer there this cycle, (although they could definitely use one). I told them that the Peace Corps was sending me to Morazan, Yoro and they gave me a look of disbelief and a comment about how far away it was. Then they would ask me when I would come back to Cantarranas. I would say maybe for Christmas and I would assure them that I would definitely come back sometime in the next year. And that’s when the tears would start coming and I’d get all choked up.

Then, when a couple families gave me names and numbers of family members in Morazan, I almost cried because they were just so nice. One guy even called his sister, who is a teacher in Morazan, to tell her that I was coming. This conversation continued from house to house.

So basically, since I had to stop and stay goodbye to ½ of the community on my way to Spanish class, I was ½ an hour late. But I definitely didn’t care. They shouldn’t have had Spanish classes that morning anyway, as we were leaving the town right after lunch. That lunch hour is definitely not enough time to eat and say goodbye to people.

Honestly, I don’t like Spanish classes, anyway. They take away from time I could be spending with community members. It doesn’t help that the rest of my Spanish class (including my teacher) hate Cantarranas and roll their eyes or at least act annoyed whenever I talk about how much I love it. It’s like I can’t say anything in class without sounding like I’m bragging or appearing to diminish their situation of all around suckiness.

So,after the teacher gave me an impossible assignment of writing my resume in Spanish for my Honduran counterparts in my site in 1 1/2 hours or less when I didn´t have access to my resume in English and I spent about 10 minutes and realized that that was just impossible (it took me a week to write the thing in English and there was really no reason for me to write a bad resume now when I could look at my English resume later and translate it.) After all, the only reason my teacher wanted it was so that she could correct it. So I got up and said, "This is my last day in Cantarranas. I'm not going to see my host family for at least 3 months. If you wanted me to turn in my resume today, you should have told me at least yesterday, if not a week ago. I'd rather turn in a resume with grammatical errors in it, than turn in a resume that is missing 1/2 of the stuff that it should contain and is badly written." And then I left and went home and spent time with my host family. On my last interview, I got a Spanish level of "Advanced-Medium Plus" which is only 2 levels down from "Superior" which means your a native speaker. So it's not like they can kick my out.

So I spent the last day playing with my sisters and brother, cousins, neighbors and pets. My host mom made me pupusas (really good El Salvadorean thick tortillas filled with cheese) and chismol (pico de gallo)to take with me on my trip. And then of course we all cried. My host mom and a group of 12 children went to the park with me to wait for the bus. We played games until they made me get on the bus.

And my site is...

MORAZAN, YORO! I will be working with World Vision Regional: World Vision Area Development Project and the Instituto Polivalente Francisco Morazán (the technical/vocational middle school/high school). According to the little info book that they gave me about my site, Morazán has a population of 10,433 people in the city limits and over 26,000 people living in the surrounding villages. Morazán is a “semi urban center with rapid growth.” Its economy is based on agriculture and cattle and it is located in the Valley of Cataguana (Cat-ta-WA-na), one of the most productive valleys in Honduras. It is located at 240 meters above sea level. The climate is “hot and very humid and there is rainfall throughout the year.” February, September and October are the rainiest times of the year. The average temperature is 86 degrees. Malaria and Leishmaniasis are present all year long. I am advised to use my mosquito net, insect repellent, Malaria Prophylaxis and sunblock. Chinche picuda, the insect that causes Chagas disease, is common in the rural and marginal urban parts of Morazán.

“The Morazán area is poor. Morazán has a lower Human Development Index than the department of Yoro and all of Honduras. One-third of households in Morazán live in extreme poverty.

Morazán has “running water,” but it is “hard to give an opinion on the quality of the water locally.”

Morazán has electricity, cell phone service and internet. There are 3 banks, several pulperias (small grocery stores) and pharmacies, 2 elementary schools, 2 high schools AND a “daily public market in midtown.”

Morazán is located in the North Cost Region of Honduras. It’s in the Northwestern part of the Department of Yoro. It is located 2 hours from the beach in Tela!!! It’s sort of in the north/central part of the country, but a little bit to the west. Also it is located right next to a national park called Pico Pijol.


I looked Morazán up in my Moon Travel Book. It is considered a “dusty cowboy town” and a “gateway to the little-explored cloud-forest reserve Pico Pijol”. There is a triple waterfall with an “excellent swimming spot surrounded by forest.” Sweet. Don’t worry, I’ll send pictures.

“Housing options are scarce in Yoro.” So we'll see how that works out. I have to live with a family for at least the first 2 months.

Save the Children

So, my family is normal and actually takes care of their children. However, this is a snapshot of the children that live on my street.

In one house, there is a 4-year-old and a 11-year-old. Their parents abandoned them and went to live in Olancho, on the other side of Honduras. They live with an older brother and sister who look like they are about 14 and 16. No one has heard from the parents and the younger children are not really taken care of. They don’t go to school, either.

In another house, there is a woman who has one son in 6th grade and a daughter who is a little older than me. The daughter has a 5-year-old son who is about the most obnoxious and clingy kid you’ve ever met. He enjoys throwing Chiquitin and kicking Lassie. There’s also a 2-year-old girl and an 8-year-old girl who live there. Their parents, who are somehow related to the women, are in Spain. They send them money, which usually gets used, not for food and clothes for the girls, but for designer clothes for the woman’s biological son. Also, there is a 10-year-old boy that lives with him. When he was a toddler, his dad killed his mom. His dad was in jail for a while, but has evidently been released. He is the sweetest kid, but he is not taken care of well. He has slept on a small mattress in the living room floor for most of his life and only wears hand-me-down clothes. He rarely gets new clothes. The woman sends him on errands and makes him work and doesn’t even pay him. My mom sends him on errands, but pays him so that at least he’ll have some money of his own.

This is just what takes place on my street. Who knows what happens in the rest of Honduras. Maybe this isn´t typical.

Chiquitìn

Chiquitin is my “adopted” kitten. One of my four-year-old neighbors found a kitten in the cemetery and brought it home. However, at their house there is not enough food for the children, let alone a cat. So it was really skinny and running all around the neighborhood looking for food. Every day at lunch he would run in and try to attack our table. But he was so adorable. Our family always gave him food. I gave him a bath yesterday, and now he no longer has fleas.

My host mom jokes that her house is an animal shelter because their cat Mimi was a stray. Lassie, the next door neighbor’s dog always hangs out at our house and eats here because no one loves her or feeds her there. Her sister and her 2 puppies also hang out here sometimes. And now, Chiquitin… I wish I could adopt Chiquitin, but I don’t know if I can have a pet for the first few months in my site because I will be living with a host family. Also, I kind of want a dog for protection. So right now I’m trying to find a family for Chiquitin before I leave. He sleeps in my room because sometimes him and Mimi don’t get along.

I don’t understand why everyone has animals here, if they don’t plan to take care of them. It seems that my family is one of the only families in town that actually takes care of their animals. Most of the dogs and cats here have visible ribs and roam the streets all day where people mostly just yell at them to go away or hit and kick them. I guess it’s because neutering and spaying are non-existent here. Also, since many adults hit and kick animals, many children here think that that’s what you’re supposed to do with animals. They don’t seem to understand that animals obviously have feelings and when you pick up a cat by its neck or a dog by its tail, it hurts them. They just kind of see animals as toys.

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Check out this algebra problem that Chiquitin just typed as he walked across my keyboard. I’m just so proud of my Chiquitin. I´ll send a picture soon.

Me vs. Honduran Laundry = I lose

So, every week, I spend at least 3 hours washing clothes on a washboard. Here’s the process: I put some powder laundry detergent in a bucket (the same bucket I use for the bucket shower). Then I add water and all of my dirty clothes. I mix them up and then I let them sit for 10-15 minutes. Then, one piece of clothing at a time I wash them by hand on the washboard. I put some crazy strong blue stick soap all over the inside and outside of my clothes, pour some water over them and scrub like crazy. It’s really hard to get out all of the soap while at the same time not using too much water. When the soap finally comes out and/or I’m tired of scrubbing the piece of clothing, I deem it clean and hang it on a clothesline outside. My host mom takes pity on me and often she just takes over my laundry because I’m so slow/bad at doing it. I guess she figures that I keep the kids busy playing cards and doing crafts every afternoon, so she doesn´t have to worry about keeping them occupied. It´s sort of an exchange program. She rests while I play with the kids and I rest while she does laundry. Gracias Mama Mechey!

I love Cantarranas!

I absolutely LOVE Cantarranas! I wish I could sum up how much I love it in a blog entry. But I don’t think that it would be possible. I hope I have a site like it. The people are so nice and it is so pretty here that I don’t even care that there is no internet and few locally-available fruits and vegetables. If I lived in a site like this, I would be happy to eat only beans, rice and tortillas. I’ve really integrated into my neighborhood. The other trainees call me Mother Goose because I always have 10-15 children following my around. It’s always a good time minus the 8 hours of class everyday.

What I´ve been doing

So, I just realized that I haven’t been writing much about what I’ve been doing here in Honduras. So you may think that I only get bitten by bugs, play UNO and tag and perhaps, sit around on the beach all day eating mangoes and drinking out of coconuts. Not true.

I actually have over 8 hours of classes everyday. After my panqueques and my bucket shower, I start classes at 7:30. I have 4 hours of Spanish classes and 4 hours of “tech” classes. I’m in the Advanced Spanish class, so we have 3 days of actual classes every week and 2 days to go do projects in the community. “Tech” classes are to learn more about the types of projects that we can do in our sites (the communities where we will live for 2 years). We learn about a program, project or topic that we could do in our communities and then the next day we have a practice run in a community or village.

So, so far these are the projects that I have done:

-My friend Anne and I go to the mountain aldea (village) of Trujillito once a week to do recreational and art projects and to teach environmental education and a parenting class. Trujillito has a one-room school with grades 1-6 and only one teacher! There are about 35 students who are mostly relatives. We do crafts with recycled materials, plant trees and play outside games like Ultimate Frisbee, duck duck goose, jump rope, tag, etc. We also do self-esteem building activities. Monday will be our last day there. It also happens to be Day of the Child a HUGE holiday here in Honduras. Evidently, the parents and teachers get together and make a big meal for all of the kids and organize a big fiesta with games, dances and, of course, piñatas.

-Gave self-esteem charla (talk/presentation) to 9th graders in Valle de Angeles

-Taught Business Skills (a Jr. Achievement Program) to 5th and 6th graders in Nueva Esperanza

-Supervised 2nd grade English teacher and organized supplemental English teaching games and activities in Villa de San Francisco

-Gave HIV/AIDs workshop to 9th grade class at high school in Cantarranas. This was a 4-hour workshop. It was actually really fun. We played lots of games and taught the kids about how HIV/AIDs is transmitted and how it is not. There is a huge stigma against people with HIV/AIDs in Honduras. For example, many people won’t rent or sell houses to people with HIV/AIDs or employ them. The problem is that people think that it is highly contagious and is passed by touching people. Also, Honduras is very homophobic and everyone believes that AIDs is a “gay disease” although like 86% of cases in Honduras are from heterosexual to heterosexual contact.

The last part of the workshop was a condom demonstration with plantains. As I had the highest level of Spanish in my group, I got to lead this. In the US, I would probably have been mortified to do something like this, but here in Honduras, which has 60% of the HIV/AIDs cases in Central America, things like this are so important. So you have to act very normal doing it or the kids will sense that you are not comfortable and they will therefore think that they should also not be comfortable doing it.

I felt like we really made a difference in the kids lives. In the middle of the workshop we gave everyone a piece of paper to ask anonymous questions. We received multiple questions about how to use a condom and we received one note that said, “HIV/AIDs is a very important subject. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us about it.” In Honduras sex-ed is very taboo. Birth control pills are extremely rare due to religious reasons and their restrictive cost. Condoms are also rarely used. There are many myths about how to avoid pregnancy and relative ignorance about STIs. I will definitely use this workshop in my site.

-I also do a story hour once a week for children in Cantarranas. In the US, we are so accustomed to the presence of books in our schools, libraries and homes that we don’t even think about what a big privilege it is so have them. In Honduras, books are expensive, so no one reads. Why read a book that costs more than your electric bill when you could watch TV all day long for almost nothing? There is little emphasis on reading materials outside of textbooks in Honduras schools. In Honduras there are libraries, but you cannot check out their books. You can only read the books within the library. Bummer. Most of the books are really old or outdated. The reason that the library doesn’t check out books is because 1. “people might steal them” and 2. “the kids will ruin them.” The kids absolutely LOVE books. No one ever reads them book because no one ever has books to read.

One day, the librarian let me check out books (outside the library!) because I was a gringa and she assumed that I probably wouldn’t steal or ruin the books. That night I read a bunch of books to my brother and sisters and then they started reading them. They were so excited and asked my questions like, “I can touch it, really?” Then we did lots of drawings and stuff.

That’s another thing. Creativity is not valued in Honduras. The Honduran education is based on dictation. The teacher writes something and then the kids copy it off the board. The kids read a reading passage and then they copy answers to questions straight out of the book. Critical thinking and problem-solving are not emphasized. Perfection takes priority over originality. Kids are not supposed to freehand draw because their drawings would be “ugly”. When I first try to get kids to draw they ALL tell me, “I can’t draw. Please draw me something.” Also, if they do draw anything at all, they trace it. Teachers rarely put their students’ artwork on the classroom walls here as they think that it is “ugly.” Often all of the drawings and other decorations around the classrooms are made by the teachers. Also, Hondurans use rulers to draw everything. They would never attempt to draw a line without one. It might be “drawn wrong”. Everything is very black and white and right and wrong here.

-I also do a variety of art projects with neighborhood children such as puppet-making, collages, origami, sidewalk chalk (thanks Mom and Dad!) and drawing. It's really fun! The kids don`t ever get to art projects because they don´t have any arts supplies because they are expensive. The locally available variety are not only expensive, but they are of the worst quality.

-I also spend a lot of my free time at the kindergarten. Whenever we get out of class early or it´s cancelled because of the weather, I go to the kindergarten and help out the teacher. The teacher is really cool, but he has about 40 students between the ages 3 and 6, which makes it a pretty tough job. My job is to help get the kids excited about the activities and to teach them games and songs. And of course give hugs.

-Also I have learned how to organize girl empowerment programs, healthy living programs, sports leagues, etc.

So, yeah, I actually do stuff besides get bitten by enormous bugs and get my cards confiscated by the local police.

I´m fine. The Hurricane Didn´t Hit Me.

I am fine. Hurricane Felix went from a Class 5 to a Tropical Storm in Honduras. The eye of the storm was supposed to go through Teguz, so I did pack an emergency evacuation backpack. Luckily I didn´t have to use it. It just rained a little bit here and the kids didn´t have school for two days just in case. I guess Nicaragua wasn´t so lucky. Also, where I live is really safe because it isn´t near the river or close to the mudslides.

Photos of Cantarranas

The first photo is of Cantarranas near my house.

The second photo is of my sister Kensy, my cousins Angie and Victor and my sister Scarleth.

The third photo is of my brother Olvin catching ants with the bugzooka. I'll put up more later...

Cards are Evil and Illegal

So the other day I had a storytelling hour in the library with a group of kids. I read a book to them and then we drew scenes from the story on big pieces of paper. (Kids don't get to draw or do very many creative things here, partly because of a lack of resources and partly because creativity is not encouraged). Also, you are not allowed to check books out at the library. You are only allowed to read them inside the library. The reason why: the kids with ruin the books or steal them.

So anyway, after story hour, I went to the park with a group of 15 kids to play soccer, jump rope and cards (UNO and Go Fish). I was playing UNO with one group of kids, but the other group of kids wanted to play Go Fish so I gave them the cards. They were playing Go Fish (with normal cards, as I don´t have special Go Fish cards) and then about 5 minutes later I heard someone yelling loudly, "Whose cards are these!" I turned around and all of the children were running away in fear.

The person yelling was a policeman. I told him that they were my cards. I thought that he had thought that the kids stole them from me or something. But what he told me surprised me. "It is prohibited for minors to play cards!" What? I was quite confused. The young arrogant policeman told me that cards are addictive and children steal money in order to play cards. That sounded quite stupid and nonsensical to me. I told him that we were not playing with money and that we were playing children´s games. I explained that UNO helped children learn numbers and colors and that Go Fish helped with memory. He approved of UNO because it is a game of "cartas", but did not approve of Go Fish, which is a game of "naipes" (the difference between cartas and naipes is that naipes have kings, queens, jacks, etc.). He gave me back my cards and didn't take me to jail.

How ridiculous? The police is concerned about kids playing cards (as there are few toys or games here, this is one of the only sources of entertainment for kids) but they are evidently not concerned with the million bolos walking down the street. And he made this scene in front of like 50 people. Then he went to teach a group of children how to march for the independence day parade. They all had fake rifles and he was using his real glock or whatever huge bazooka gun he had to show the moves. How tacky! So cards are definitely more dangerous than guns... I was angry. He said that people would criticize me because I was playing cards. Good thing everyone plays cards in their houses here, hate the police and like me.

Super Bolo Sundays

In Honduras, drunks have a name: Bolo. In Honduras there is no such thing as drinking socially or drinking in moderation. No, there is only not drinking and getting wasted. If you are drinking at all, you are drinking to get completely plastered. Although some Hondurans may get drunk at parties or at bars, bolos are a special breed of drinkers as they are completely plastered all the time. They walk the street in a drunken daze at all hours of the night and day. Every once in a while, they pass out on the sidewalk in some distorted position and wet themselves. Some of them carry machetes, although the majority of them are probably harmless. However, you don’t want to meet a bolo in the street, if you can avoid it. Whenever I see one in the street I get the same feeling as when I meet a vicious dog in the street. Bolos sort of remind me of zombies. They are not your happy drunks. If you look at their eyes they are both empty and piercing at the same time. They stumble down the street, but no one’s home.

In Honduras, kids have no need for a boogeyman. They already have real boogeymen-- bolos. So, when my family wants my 2-year-old cousins to come inside and she refuses to do it, they say, “Here comes a bolo!” and after a terrified look around the street, she sprints inside.

In Cantarranas there is a relatively large bolo population. In Santa Lucia there were a few bolos, but they fit the happy drunk character more than the boogeyman zombie character. I never saw one passed out in the street and the 3 bolos that I did see would just sit there and yell out bits of nonsense. One day these 2 bolos were sitting on a wall on my street and one yelled out in a slurred sing song voice in Spanglish, “Hello! In your country they call you gringo!” It was a pretty hilarious sight, as the bolos were laughing so hard afterwards that they nearly fell off the wall.

However, I would say that I have seen probably 15 bolos in Cantarranas. Fortunately, they don’t live in my neighborhood. Every once in a while we’ll get a stray bolo who has inadvertently wandered away from bolo territory. My family lives in the Parte Abajo (the part of the town down the hill) and the bolos generally hang out in the Parte Arriba (the part of town up the hill). The unofficial border that sets off bolo territory is the central park. Below the park, the town is mostly residential with dirt roads. This is where I live. There are just a few stray bolos here. Above the park, the town is more commercialized and there is a pool hall, which hosts some bolos until they wander out of the pool hall or get kicked out. There is one street which I call Bolo Alley, as there are always at least 3 bolos passed out in the street and a host of other bolos who are somehow still standing, but probably on the verge of passing out.

One day, I was walking down Bolo Alley with my host mom, aunt and 2-year-old cousin, Dulce Maria. As we passed bolos, she made comments in a very frank voice. “He fell down,” she said as we passed a bolo passed out on the sidewalk face down. “He is sleeping,” she said as we passed another sprawled out in a distorted position. “He peed his pants,” she said as we passed the third bolo in a one block distance, this one with a puddle of urine beneath him.

I am very fortunate to live in non-bolo territory. I live in pot-smoker territory, but they generally just sit on the steps to the cemetery and keep to themselves. One of my friends lives in bolo territory and one morning he opened the front door and there was a passed out bolo on his doorstep.

Lately, we have had some stray bolos. Yesterday morning at 5 am I heard a knock on my window. I woke up and looked outside. There was a bolo with a cowboy hat on our porch staring at me. At first, I didn’t realize it was a bolo and thought that there might be some type of emergency. The bolo asked if Mechey, my host mom, was home. I thought it was an emergency, so I woke her up. She didn’t know the guy and chewed him out with some choice words for knocking on my window at 5 am. It was pretty funny. Don’t worry. My windows are covered by iron bars and our doors double lock.

On a completely unrelated, or perhaps related note, the neighbors down the street told us that they had seen some bolos on our porch and the porch of one of our other neighbors in the middle of the night. This freaked out my host mom and aunt. Our bathroom is not connected to our house and you have to go outside in our backyard to reach it. My host mom said that she didn’t want anyone to leave the house unaccompanied at night, so she said that everyone had to use a bedpan. So I have a bedpan. Thankfully, I didn’t have to use it last night. She also posted the police number on the wall in case any of us saw something suspicious.

There are bolos everywhere in Honduras, but some cities just happen to have more than others. For example, La Esperanza, a city in the mountains in the province of Intibuca, is full of bolos, especially on weekends and especially on Sundays. The Peace Corps Volunteers there call Sundays “Super Bolo Sundays” because there is such a large bolo population.

(Note: I wrote this last week. The stray bolo situation is now under control. No more bedpans.)

Lip Pointing

So, no one uses their hands to point here. They point with their lips. It takes some getting used to. I haven’t quite mastered it yet, but after 2 years and 3 months here, I am sure that I will come back to the states with a lip pointing habit. If you’re not accustomed to lip pointing, it is pretty humorous to watch.

Honduran Hygiene and Sickness Beliefs

One thing that I’ve noticed in Honduras is that many people do not use soap. I am not sure why, yet. Perhaps it is too expensive or maybe it’s because they have different beliefs about what causes illnesses. For example, in the US we believe that bacteria and viruses cause illness. However, in Honduras bacteria and viruses are not common knowledge and the general belief is that sudden changes in temperature are what make you sick. For example, you are urged to drink cold drinks with caution, as they are prime illness agents. When you are hot and sweaty, you should under no circumstances drink a cold drink or take a cold shower. The greatest evil is drinking cold drinks while you are sick. That’s just asking for trouble. No one will take any pity on you for doing this.

Also, if you are cold (ex: just came back from swimming and are soaking wet and shivering) you should, under no circumstances, take a warm shower. This will also make you sick. Warm drinks (ex: coffee) should be enjoyed on hot days, because warm drinks release the heat from your body. This is also true of soup. What better time to have a steaming bowl of soup than on a 90 degree day? Perhaps Americans are completely wrong on this note. If anyone finds some research on the subject, let me know.

It broke my heart the other day when I went to the kindergarten and the kids were washing their hands with just pila water. I guess this is better than not washing their hands at all. Also, little kids are not taught to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. They will literally just cough all over someone else’s food at the table and not think anything of it. In the kindergarten class, it was sad because about 1/3 of the class was absent for being sick and of the remaining 35 students about ½ were sick. It made me just want to go into a power Charla (what we call presentations/workshops or literally “chat”) about the importance of washing hands with soap and covering your mouth when you cough.

As I have confianza (meaning something like “trust” but stronger) with my family, I have began educating them about bacteria, viruses, hand washing with soap and covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze. In the almost 3 weeks that I have been here 4 out of 6 of my immediate family members have had a cold (including me).

Another widely-held health belief exists here in Honduras. People get sick at their stomach from eating fruit and especially vegetables. In many families, vegetables are rarely eaten, and if they are eaten, they are cooked until they have negligible nutritional value and covered with mantequilla (this is not butter in Honduras, but rather a whitish liquidy mixture of butter/margarine with sour cream). The problem is that people attribute fruits and vegetables as food that makes them sick and don’t realize that these foods only make them sick because they do not wash them properly. In Honduras, it is necessary to soak fruits and vegetables in water with a few drops of chlorine. If this is not done, you can become very sick at your stomach.

I am thankful that my family understands the importance of fruits and vegetables and washes them properly. Most of the other Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) rarely get fruit and vegetables. My host mom tells me that many of her friends think that she is crazy for giving her kids so much fruit, but it is healthy and that’s what her kids want to eat. She has obviously attended and understood Peace Corps nutrition charlas for host families. Yesterday she made me the best meal ever: tamales filled with beef, potatoes, rice and tomatoes and cooked broccoli, carrots and squash. She made comments like, “I don’t cook the vegetables for too long, because if you cook them for too long they no longer have vitamins.”

Bucket Showers are Bomb

So here in Cantarranas I take bucket showers. That’s right. There is no running water here. So every morning I fill a bucket with water from the pila. The pila is basically a big cement washbasin. I stand in the shower and pour water from the bucket over my head with a small bowl called a paila. The fun part is that my family is awesome and they believe in the concept of lukewarm showers (not so of many other host families). So in the morning I heat up a pot of hot water to add to the icy pila water. I have to say that I prefer bucket showers to the Electroducha (shower that heats water up in the showerhead that I had in Santa Lucia). I never wanted to stay in the Electroducha for very long, because I felt that I was wasting water. But the great thing about bucket showers is that I don’t have to worry about wasting water (but I still don’t stay in for too long, because lukewarm turns to ice cold in a matter of minutes). Bucket showers save so much water. When I get back to the states, I might just continue my bucket showers.

Field-Based Training

So, we left Santa Lucia and our full group of 44 people and now we’re in Field-Based Training or FBT, as we like to call it. The Protected Area Management trainees went to Moraceli, Municipal Development went to El Paraiso and us Youth Development volunteers are in Cantarranas. I have to say that I was ecstatic to leave Santa Lucia. I had a great family, but the last week I was crazy sick at my stomach and had to go to the Peace Corps Medical Center. (Highlight of the trip = Free Internet at the Peace Corps Headquarters). To make it more fun, I picked up a random cold w/ fever and to top it all off, I had over 80 flea bites. No, that was not a typo. 80! So let’s just say I didn’t shed a tear. Lots of people in my group were really sad and some cried. (They evidently didn’t have flea bites or tarantula threats).

We left Santa Lucia early in the morning and after 45 minutes and one of the scariest bus rides of my life, we arrived intact but wishing we would have brought the Dramamine. We arrived on the day of a funeral and people crowded the streets as funerals are a very big deal in Honduras. They last 9 days. So rude bus driver guy evidently didn’t know that a funeral was going on and started obnoxiously honking to try to clear the street for our arrival. And then we were dropped off in the park with obscure directions to our new host families’ houses and all of our luggage that we were suddenly regretting we had brought in the first place. Thoughts rushed to my head. Why did I bring sweaters, a jacket and a hoodie? It’s a million degrees here! And Why did I bring so many toiletries? I should have just bought some local stuff. But, nothing I can do about that now. Just suck it up.

My Almost Mullet

So Field-Based Training (FBT) for my Youth Development group is going to be in Cantarranas, which is supposedly very hot with water problems. The thought of washing all the shampoo out of my long hair via a bucket shower did not sound like a lot of fun. Also, having long hair in 80-90 degree heat was considerably less appealing. So on a whim, I decided to cut my hair today, the day before we leave for Cantarranas. My hair was about to the middle of my back, but I wanted to cut it to a little bit past my shoulders. Armed with photos I cut out of magazines of women with a little longer than shoulder-length and slightly layered hair, I ran up the street to Ashley’s Beauty Salon (the only beauty salon in town). I’m not sure why it’s called Ashley’s Beauty Salon. There’s no Ashley there and the girl who cuts hair looks younger than me, although she must be older because she has two kids.

I showed “Ashley” the photos and explained in my limited Spanish haircutting vocabulary what I wanted. Hair words like “layered” and “bangs” just do not usually come up in everyday conversations. She said “Cheque” (that means OK here). Then she began to cut my hair. I’m not sure why, but suddenly “Ashley” cut the front of my hair really crazy short. Perhaps she wasn’t wearing her glasses and couldn’t see the photos. Maybe she was talking on the phone at the time. Maybe she didn’t have very much haircutting experience. Or maybe she just didn’t like the haircuts I had picked out and decided to do her own. Perhaps it was a combination of all of the above.

It was definitely too late. A large chunk of hair fell to the ground. I tried not to freak out. I just smiled and braced myself for the worst. And the worst was what I got. After a torturous 20 minutes hair chopping session with my occasional non-offensive suggestions for next steps, I had a mullet.

And I mean a mullet in all senses of the word. I was a female Billy Ray Cyrus. My hair was about 3 inches long in the front and past my shoulders in the back with feather-like layers cascading down. I was mortified. I had two choices. Live with the Mullet. Or cut my hair really really short. I began to try to think of ways to fix a Mullet until my hair grew back out and nothing really came to mind. So I cut my hair very short.

“Ashley” seemed to be confused, as she had thought that a mullet was exactly what I wanted. (Evidently, it is rather stylish here in Honduras.) I’m usually not ultra-picky about my hair, but I felt like I had to do something in this situation. I felt bad because I kept telling her to cut my hair shorter and shorter in the back. 2 hours later, I must say that it looked cute. And it is certainly convenient when it comes to taking bucket showers. “Ashley,” wherever you are and whatever your real name is, I’d like to thank you.

Mysterious Bite & ER Fun

I just wanted to let you know that I am fine. Yesterday, I officially became a Honduran resident. Shortly before becoming a resident, I noticed that my left foot was very swollen. I called the medical office and they just told me to take Benadryl. So I took it and went along my business. After hours of waiting at the immigration office, we took a surprise trip to the best mall in Teguz where I ate Pizza Hut (but didn't get sick!) and Baskin Robbins and bought Nature's Valley Oats and Honey granola bars, antibacterial hand gel and wet wipes (they make an excellent shower alternative for those times when there is no water). I guess only Honduran malls have a grocery store inside.

However, as we were leaving the mall I noticed that my left foot was about twice the size of my right foot. It also hurt and burned and was red. The day before I was in Nueva Esperanza teaching small business skills to 5th and 6th graders and visiting a women's recycled paper microbusiness. While we were waiting to go into the recycled paper factory something stung or bit me. I didn't see it, but it really hurt and left a mark.

So yesterday when in swelled up, I called the Peace Corps medical officers again and they told me to go to the emergency room. So on our land rover's way to Cantarranas, the small town where we have our field based training they dropped me off at the ER in Teguz.

They gave me a cocktail of 3 anti-inflammatory IVs and lots of medicine. The IVs took over 2 hours to administer and sat in bed watching Legally Blonde in Spanish as it was the only thing on. The swelling went down a little, but by the time someone from PC picked me up from the ER it was 8:30pm and evidently there is a PC rule that no one is allowed to travel after dark, so I had to stay in a hotel in Teguz. It was very clean, but filled with mosquitos. There was also a big bug with pinchers in the shower. And I was without the Bugzooka. So I killed at least 10 mosquitos with my bare hands. How tough am I?

So right now I'm in the PC medical office waiting to get clearance to go back to Cantarranas. I'm fine though. I guess I'm better off than my friend Wesley. He has dengue.

But no one really knows what happened to me. Some suggested scenarios from medical personnel and a Peace Corps volunteer who studied insects.

-I was stung by a bee and had an allergic reaction.
-I was stung by a scorpion.
-I was bitten by a "water bug" (they are apparently very vicious).
-I was bitten by a chinche (the Chaga disease bug that bites you and then the disease goes into remission for 10-20 years and then 1% of cases go into heart failure. But don't worry. It is completely curable as long as it is treated within 2 years and they will test me for it.)
-I was bitten by some other kind of insect and then got a bacterial infection.

They are all about equally pleasant. I just wish this kind of thing would happen to me during the week, so I could miss all those classes. I feel like I'm missing my weekend. I had really hoped that I could play Uno and tag with the neighbor kids.

My friend Wesley and I ordered a Pizza Hut pizza today and Cini-stix so we're super-excited! We rarely get a chance to eat anything that does not consist of rice, beans, corn and potatoes. And lots of very sweet ketchup.

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. My Field-based Training (FBT) site does not have training and I can really only get internet on weekends. I have about 20 blog entries saved on my flashdrive, but unfortunately, my flashdrive was in my backpack in the back of a land rover that left the mall early. I also have a ton of pictures! So I'll post all that next weekend!

I absolutely have the best host family! I have two sisters named Escarleth (age 7) and Kensy (age 9). I also have a brother named Olvin (age 6). I live with a host mom named Mercedes and a host aunt named Santos who is about to have a baby. I have a calico cat named Maiyumi who is about to have kittens. I also have lots of cousins next door, including the most adorable 2 year old named Dulce Maria (Sweet Mary). She calls me "mom". I spend most of my time here playing tag, Uno, Go Fish and Jump Rope, when I'm not in classes. I also have started to teach latin dance classes at my house to children in my neighborhood. It's a good time here! I absolutely love it! I'll have to tell you about my almost mullet (fyi my hair is now shorter than chin-length = bucket showers are easier)next week.

My Cell Phone

Yay! I have a cell phone. I had to wait in line 4 hours to get it. So I'm superexcited to finally have it. Good News: You can send me text messages that are free for both of us on the website www.tigo.com.hn . I can't always respond immediately, but I'll try. It's only 10 cents for me to send a text message to the US. My cell phone number is 9765-3909. To call or message me from the US, dial 011-504-9765-3909, I think. I look forward to hearing from you. I can receive calls for completely free (for me, at least...)

Right now, I'm in La Libertad visiting a youth development volunteer and I´ll be back in Santa Lucia on Saturday.

Tarantulas are not my friends

So I almost died last night—of shock. I was just sitting on my bed writing a paper for Spanish class, when out of nowhere, 2 feet away, a spider pops out from under my door. And by spider, I mean the biggest spider I had I ever seen in my life! A 4-inch in diameter tarantula! I know that you probably don’t believe me. I would have taken a picture, had it not immediately crawled under my bed. I don’t know about you, but I can’t go to sleep knowing that there is a tarantula under my bed that could end up on my face in the morning. I gather that you probably couldn’t either, even if you didn’t have a serious spider phobia. But, as you probably already know, I am one of those severe arachnophobia nut cases.

I was basically wide-eyed and trembling on the opposite side of the room crouched down with my headlamp shining on the tarantula in an effort to not lose track of it. After all, the only thing worse than having a tarantula in your room, is having a tarantula in your room and not knowing where it is. I crouched there in fear for 5 or 10 minutes, as the tarantula had a hey day under my bed. What to with a tarantula... (Thanks to Juliane, and the Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide that she gave me, I know how to get one off of me if one ever gets on me. I hope that never happens. But the book doesn’t elaborate on tarantula removal). Let’s just say that my Bugzooka was not designed for tarantula removal. (I’d need a BugCannon for that job). The idea of chasing it with a shoe was about as appealing as just ignoring it and going to sleep. Another thought was that I could go to the living room, sleep on the couch, and worry about the tarantula in the morning when my family could help me out. I might have done this, but unfortunately the door to the living room was locked. And I sure wasn’t going to sleep in a chair in the courtyard and die a slow cockroach-induced death.

Compared to the tarantula, cockroaches suddenly seemed rather cute and cuddly to me. The freak out ratio for me is now about 10 cockroaches: 1 tarantula. If I had had a big heavy bowl and the tarantula was in a more easy to reach location (aka not under my bed) I would have chosen the trapping strategy. But, alas, I had not bowl and wasn’t about to crawl under my bed. Another option might have been to spray the tarantula to death with an insecticide. However, I didn’t have that and even if I did, I would be very nervous about chasing a tarantula armed only with raid. (Also, I read a Honduras PCV blog where this girl tried this method and it just made the tarantula more aggressive and it started running right at her. No gracias.) So my remaining options were 1. Stand there like an idiot all night. 2. Be a fool and wake up one of my host brothers at 1 am to kill it. I chose the latter.

My brother Marcio was really cool about it. He came in with a broom handle that seemed to be designed just for the killing of large tarantulas. My brother trapped it in the corner under my bed and did the dirty work. He even removed the carcass from my room. What a good brother. However, if you can image, tarantulas leave quite a gooey mess. Unfortunately, he didn’t clean that up. And here in Honduras, if you don’t clean something like that up, you end up with a platoon of arts. That was about the last thing that I wanted to wake up to. After all, I had definitely had enough creepy crawlie fun for at least the next 24 hours. So that meant that I had to wet wipe up the mess. Wet wipes = one of the best things I brought. I welcome wet wipe care packages. (I definitely procrastinated on cleaning up this mess. My Spanish paper began to get rather very long and rambly…) But I had spoken to soon on the bug thing. A furry spider appeared from the doorframe. At least it could be Bugzookaed.

So since the incident, I have crammed my plethora of Spanish grammar books under all three of the doors that lead to me room. (All of those books did come in handy for something…) However, I’m not sure about the effectiveness of this, as my walls are covered with cracks and crevices that give bugs easy entrance. Also, some of the walls don’t quite meet. Maybe at least I’ll keep the tarantulas out. I wish I had a caulking gun or some spackling. I’d at least like to duct tape a few places (such as the holes over the head of my bed.) All I know is that when I get to my site and have my own house, I’m going to duct tape it mercilessly.

I had almost gotten to sleep, but the creatures in my ceiling/on my roof were having a late night fiesta. By the sound of them, they are too big to be cockroaches, tarantulas or mice. I’d say that there’s a 90% chance that they are rats. They are really chewing things up up there. The dust from a hole flies down sometimes. I hope they don’t chew through the ceiling. Now, that would be charming. My host mom swears that they are cats on the roof. If only...

Photos of Santa Lucia

Honduran Food

Honduran food is yummy. My host mom is a good cook. In Honduras, everything is fried. Tortillas, cheese, eggs, beans, meat, plantains, bananas… It’s all delicious, BUT it’s all fried. Nothing seems to escape the 2 inches of deep frying oil (at least they use vegetable oil). Ok, so the oatmeal and pancakes escape this fate. I’m not complaining. My host mom cooks these great fried tortillas with melted quesillo (this really good stretchy, salty cheese similar to Mexican Oaxaca cheese) in the middle and Pico de Gallo on top. She makes great enchiladas (Honduran enchiladas are fried tortillas with everything on top of it (with great guacamole). She makes this great dish with fried plantains, pico de gallo, hamburger meat and barbeque sauce. And her Baleadas are amazing! Baleadas are thick pancakey tortillas filled with eggs, beans, cheese and sometimes pico de gallo or meat or avocado. They are delicious!

The Plato tipico contains: red beans, rice, queso fresco, huevo and usually a little avocado. And tortillas on the side. However, they don’t make tacos with their food, like in Mexico. Instead they roll them up and put them in their left hand and occasionally eat take a bite of them while they eat. (Personally, I prefer the Mexican way. It’s just easier to stomach corn tortillas when they are filled with stuff.)

So today I went to Teguz with my host mom and my uncle. We went to this big market with lots of fruit and vegetables. Thankfully, my mom likes to give me fruit and vegetables for lunch! We also stopped at a supermarket where I bought 3 jars of peanut butter (2 for my PC friends and one for my host family). My family likes peanut butter, but it is too hard to find and expensive for them to buy. It costs like $4/jar! Everything Americanesque is more expensive in the Supermarket. For example, my favorite cereal, Smart Start costs almost $6/box here (I didn’t buy it.) I also bought some brownie mix, chocolate chips and Dove dark chocolate bars.

Today, my host mom and I made brownies. It was like the second time that they had ever used their oven! It’s just that in Honduras, no one knows how to use ovens. My family really liked the brownies, so maybe I can start cooking with them a lot and show them how to use the oven more. However, they thought it was strange that I would drink milk plain (ie: not in coffee or oatmeal). I told them that milk went well with chocolate. Maybe this is just an American culture thing. They just laughed and drank Pepsi or banana soda with their brownies. I brought a Velveeta shells macaroni and cheese box. So that’s next on my cooking agenda. I gave my mom a Betty Crocker cookbook when I first arrived in Honduras. She’s super excited about it. So maybe I can cook some of the recipes with her and show her how to use the oven.

ETing

To the surprise of everyone, 4 people in our group of 48 trainees have ETed or Early Terminated their Peace Corps service. Some did this for health reasons or missing fiancés or boyfriends or a variety of reasons. It makes me wonder how many people are going to finish the whole 27 months. It has only been 2 weeks and we’ve lost 1/12 of our group. I wish the best for everyone who’s ETed.

Retro Night at the Disco

The the Disco Movil had a retro night with American music from the 80s. It was quite an experience…Hondurans dancing and singing to music from the 80s. It was a good time. Definitely hilarious. I wish you all could have seen it. I went with my host brothers and sisters and taught some locals how to dance to 80s music (as if I knew how…I was born in 1984). Just working on Peace Corps goal #3: To give people of other cultures a greater understanding of American culture. It was definitely a good time. There were only 3 of us gringas there. I think the funniest part was watching the random 80s music video clips which usually clashed in a hilarious way with whatever song was playing. My siblings and I stayed out until the late late hour of 1 am.

Some of My Favorite Peace Corps Quotes, So far…

“Peace Corps is not about your job—it’s about your life.” –Luis, our Training Director. He is the coolest.

“You are professionals. You are not kids. The only things that make you look like kids are the thermoses and the yellow bus.” --Luis, talking about professionalism

(We really do carry big thermoses to school everyday for lunch and, yes, most public transportation here is on yellow school buses.)

After a frightening charla (chat/presentation) on Safety and Security:

Trudy (PC Country Director): So, what’s your first impression of Honduras?
Wesley (fellow PC trainee): Good chance of getting shot…

“Don’t be a hero; make heroes out of other people.” -Luis

Die rooster scum…Die…

So, there are these crazy and very confused roosters that live in a house down the hill from me. They do their little cockadoodledooing all night long. It could be 11 pm, or 2 am or 4 am. No les importa. (They don’t care). This is not the cute storybook version of cockadoodledoo. No this sounds more like the roosters are drowning or are at least gargling. It is FAR from cute. I’m usually a pretty sound sleeper, but sometimes they are just too loud for even the soundest of sleepers. Every once in a while I meet them in the street. I usually have my words with them. I tell them in Spanish to shut up and threaten to kill them. They just give me a menacing look and then run away in fear that I might carry out my threats.

What lives in my ceiling?

So, I’m pretty sure that some creatures live in my ceiling or perhaps on my roof. Every night before I go to sleep I hear an intermittent pitta padda pitta padda pitta padda above my head. The first few nights I heard this I freaked out. The headlamp was definitely one of the best things I brought. I hang it on my bedpost and whenever I hear a strange sound or need to go to the bathroom at night, I wear it. I guess the creatures in the ceiling can’t hurt me, so I will ignore them for now. I like to think that they are cute little geckos or pigeons perhaps. I try not to think about the fact that they might be rats or cochroaches.

My new roommates

So after about 2 weeks here I’ve come to the conclusion that Honduran bugs are nocturnal. Unlike their American counterparts who practically throw themselves at lightbulbs and lanterns, the Honduran bugs walk in the shadows and make appearances in the middle of the night. Thankfully, I own a headlamp. Headlamp=most useful thing I brought, besides the quickdry towel. (Future PCVs, I recommend the PETZL brand.) My headlamp lights up my whole room, so I can see the bugs, but it’s still just dark enough that they still believe that they can roam freely.

Little do they know that I’m the bug cazador (hunter). With my bugzooka, I have a bug-catching range of nearly 3 feet. I’m getting quite skilled at using the bugzooka.

Phoop. I caught a probably malaria or dengue-carrying mosquito. Phoop. I caught a big red ant. Phoop. I just caught a 2-inch long cockroach.

I’ve had it with the cockroaches. Just to clarify, there are not cockroaches in my host family’s house because it is not clean. On the contrary, my house is extremely clean. However, in Honduras it stays warm enough year-round, that cockroaches can live outside, unlike most of their American domestic counterparts. The fact that my room opens up to an open-air courtyard does not help...

The cockroaches essentially live in my door frame. When I turn the light off, they sneak out of the door frame crevices and pitter-patter around the door and the wall. They are by far the hardest bug to catch with my bugzooka. They are really fast little buggers and seem to have this 6th sense when the bugzooka gets too close to them. They are also so big that I can’t help but doubt that they will fit into the bugzooka opening.

If you don’t suck them up just right, they don’t go into the zooka and merely loose their balance and fall to the floor where they potentially disappear under my bed or desk. This happened to me the other night. I totally freaked out, but luckily the cockroach had a change of heart, removed itself from under my bed and escaped under my door and out into the courtyard. But the night before, I caught a big fat one. Take that, sucker! Tonight, I’m sitting in my room on my bed with the lights off and my headlamp on with bugzooka in hand. Yeah, you laugh, but wouldn’t you do the same. Tonight’s cucaracha (cockroach) seems to be bigger the previous few and makes a sickening pitter patter as it runs along the door frame and sniffles its long antennas around. It’s already escaped me twice. But I’m not about to let it escape me again. I’m going to get you cucaracha scum!

For those of you who know me well, you know that my biggest fear has always been my spider phobia. However, you’ll be surprised to know that this is the creepy crawly that I hunt the least. There is definitely an abundance of spiders here, but I feel that the spiders and I have come to a kind of mutual understanding. We’re still enemies, but we have come to form a sort of alliance against the zancudos (mosquitoes), cucarachas and biting ants. This is not to say that I don’t Bugzooka them from time to time. I am definitely not allied with the big furry, creepy-crawly type that could end up on my face in the morning. I bugzooka those immediately. However, I’m cool with spiders provided that they do not violate my personal space and/or are not hanging from the ceiling over my head or roaming around my bed or closet. The daddy long leg ones make me a little squeamish, but as long as they are the sedentary-I-make-a-web-in-the-corner-and-stay-there type, we’re cool.

So, if the extensive Medical Clearance forms had had a question regarding bug phobias, perhaps I wouldn’t have received my clearance; or if I had received it, it is assured that I would have been sent to a permafrost land devoid of bugs.

Bugzooka, the best invention ever!

Yeah, you may laugh, or rather, you will laugh. Because I have a Bugzooka. What’s that, you ask? Well I happen to have a bug phobia. I looked into getting a bug vacuum when I found out I was going to Honduras, but I didn’t buy one because they were all at least $40 and required electricity (which I may not have) and batteries. About a week and a half before I left for Honduras, I found it. The Bugzooka. Look it up: www.bugzooka.com . Basically, it is this gun thing that sucks up bugs. It uses a bellow system, so it does not require batteries or electricity. It also has 10 times the suction of normal bug vacuums. My problem is that I’m afraid of bugs, but at the same time, I can’t kill them. I guess I have a certain sense of compassion for them. So the bugzooka lets me catch bugs from a distance of up to 3 feet away at the press of a button and then release them outside. Greatest invention ever! Other PC trainees were laughing when I mentioned this at training in the “weirdest thing I brought” conversation, but now they are all asking to borrow it. Best $19.99 I’ve ever spent. 78 cents/month is a cheap price to pay for my sanity. You too can buy it on Amazon.

Just Say No

Women in Honduras (except in cities and bigger towns) generally do not drink in public, if they are of an “upstanding reputation.” In fact, most women won’t even drink a coke if it is not directly from a bottle, lest someone think that they were tomando alcohol. This is a product of extreme machismo, a strong religious influence and for general safety reasons.

In Honduras, unlike the US, there is generally no such thing as drinking in moderation. Therefore, if you are drinking, it is assumed that you are drinking to get drunk. There is no such thing as having a beer or two after work. There is a huge alcohol problem here in Honduras. There are a large number of bolos (drunks). Generally, the bolos sit around on the sidewalk and are good humored and harmless. They may yell out things like “Hey baby, where are you going?” or “Yu hav boyfrin?” in broken English. The best policy is to ignore them, pretend you don’t understand them or give them a “Buenos dias” and walk away. However, machetes are commonplace, and the bolos with machetes, although also generally harmless, can be intimidating.

It is still a little unnerving every time I meet someone carrying a machete in the street. There is no such thing as a safety cover, in this country. But I’m getting more accustomed to it every day. After all, for many people, it is how they make their living.

Disco Movil

One advantage of having siblings around my age is that I can go out dancing with them on Saturdays. There is one disco in town, Disco Movil, which is about 2 blocks uphill (and I mean uphill) from my house. For 35 lempiras (about $2) you can dance to punta (a Honduran dance from the coast), reggaeton, meringue, cumbia and salsa (if you’re lucky). The disco opens at 9, but no one really goes out until at least 10. Disco Movil boasts a video screen (which plays random music video/movie clips) and light shows (lots of strobe lights and fog machines). It’s supposed to be the best disco outside of Teguz.

Last weekend my brothers and sisters and I went to one of their friend’s birthday parties. It was in the basement of this old restaurant. The party basically consisted of a dance floor, a DJ and a makeshift bar. There were about 5 of us PC gringas there. It was kind of funny because when we first showed up, people either 1. already had novias (girlfriends) and therefore couldn’t dance with us (everyone seems to be novios here) or 2. were very intimidated by us. But after an hour or so, the locals (besides are host brothers and sisters) started to dance with us. In Mexico, at the more sophisticated discos, techno music was the staple and sometimes that was all they played. However, in Honduras the staple is reggaeton. For those of you who don’t know, reggaeton is sort of like Latin Rap which has a distorted reggae beat to it. Generally, the lyrics are too dirty to mention, yet still som
ehow widely accepted in the conservative country of Honduras, where everything seems to be taboo. Two of the most popular artists are Daddy Yankee and Don Omar. Did you ever hear the song “Gasolina”? I think they used to play it on the radio in the US. Anyway, it’s music like that. Almost every song is reggaeton and when they run out of reggaeton songs to play, they just play the same ones over again. They never get tired of them. At the party everything was reggaeton except 3 or 4 punta songs and maybe 2 merengue songs.

Generally, my family’s curfew is 9:00, but on Saturdays we can “ask permission” and stay out until the late hour of 12.