Hey guys,
Above are some pictures...I wanted to put up more and put captions below each one, but it won´t work for me for some reason. Anyways, here are what the pictures are of...
First...This is our training coordinator, Luis, at a farm standing next to some weird fruit that I don´t know. Luis flew to the Dominican Republic and trained us for three weeks while being away from his family. He is an awesome trainer, really knowledgeable, and actually started the whole PAM program a few years ago.
Second...this is a picture of the soccer field right in front of my house, and with the mountains in the background. My house is the closest one on the left.
Third, fourth, and fifth...these are pictures of a stove-oven we built for a woman here in our town. Sorry that these are out of order, but I don´t know how to fix them. The fourth one is the ¨before picture¨, the last one is what it looked like while we were making it, and the third one is the final product. This is called a fagon, and is made up of bricks, a metal plancha as the stove, and a mixture of mud and horse manure that we used as cement. This type of stove is more efficinet than the common type of stove that most people have because it burns the wood more efficiently, has a chimmney for the the smoke to escape, and also has an oven.
A few stories…
Community problem assessment session
The other day, we broke up into 3 groups of 5 or 6 people in order to run a simulated community assessment. Our group’s objective was to identify the problems that the community was having with it’s water source, the next group was supposed to narrow down the problem and think of possible solutions, and then the last group was supposed to finalize the solution and plan it out. While our group presented, one of the other groups played the role of the “community” for us to assess, and the last group evaluated us. Our language teachers and other staff also pretended to be members of the community. So we had our plan organized as to how we would ask people what they thought the main problems were, but when we started we quickly found out how difficult it was to control a meeting like this. Everyone in the “community” came in talking and yelling at each other while refusing to listen to us. By the time we got everyone to sit down and start the meeting, we had more community members arrive and disrupt everything we were doing to greet every person there. Throughout the whole meeting, everyone was yelling without listening to anything else being said. They kept bringing up problems unrelated to water or out of our control (like there being less rain this year than past years). It was the most frustrating thing I’ve experienced yet in the Peace Corp because not only could we not control the crowd, but I only understood about half of what was being said since my Spanish still needs work. Speaking Spanish in front of a rowdy crowd of Honduras is way different than speaking it in a classroom with my teacher and peers listening patiently. The whole experience was a major wake-up call with regards to how difficult it will be to do an actual project when I get to my site. It also made me think about how much farther I really have to go in terms of learning Spanish.
How I spend my time
Here in Honduras, almost all of my time is taken up by training. I have language 4 hours a day, and then technical class for another 4 hours after lunch. Technical classes are really interesting and we are actually pretty active. So far in training, I have:
>Gone hiking through the mountains (in pouring rain) to find the main watershed that supplies the town with all of its water
> Built a wood-burning stove (as described above).
> Traveled to a local organic farm and learned all about different crops that grown in Honduras, using different composting techniques, and proper small animal care.
> Given an hour presentation with another volunteer to a class of 50 first graders about the water cycle.
> Shadowed a local farmer for a day and cut all the weeds around his corn with a machete.
When I get home at 5:00 after training, I immediately start working on language homework or group projects for tech classes. I do, however, get downtime on the weekends to spend with my host family. When with my family, we usually play soccer, visit grandparents and other extended family, go to church, or watch TV. The first Sunday I was here, we went to the river with a bunch of friends of the family, and then later went out to dinner with the priest, who my parents are very close with. Nobody I know drinks here in my town, and the people that do drink are considered ‘bolos’ or drunks (which is not a reputation you want to have).
Unwanted attention
Now, I’ve known for quite a while that I’m very white. What I didn’t know was how much attention I would be getting here for being such a piece of white bread. I had two girls propose to me in Dominican Republic, and one propose to me here in Honduras. The females in my group have it far worse. Anytime they are in a public area, they are at risk of being yelled at or directly approached by men. Of course, the vast majority of Honduran men and women are very polite and respectful, but the cultural difference between here and the U.S. is that it is acceptable for a man here to call at a woman walking down the street. It is also common for the women here to expect that kind of attention. A few people have told me that many Latin American women who travel to the U.S. are disappointed by the lack of attention they receive, and they actually think there is something wrong with them when they don’t receive whistles and calls.
Coffee Farm
This past Saturday I woke up at 5:00 AM to go to my host dad’s farm. After a 2-hour drive with my host dad and brother through the mountains on uneven and rocky winding roads, we arrived at my family’s huge coffee plantation. We first had a breakfast of beans, fried platinos, tortillas, cheese, and amazing coffee, and then talked with a few of the workers there. My host dad is the main boss and has as many as 80 to 100 workers picking coffee for him during the harvest season, which is mainly in March, April, and May. Right now, there are only a little more than 10 workers managing the land. He also grows corn, beans, potatoes, and avocados. The reason for our visit was to pay the workers there (which he has to do every weekend) and kill a pig. Luckily, when we got there, the pig was already dead and chopped up into parts in a bucket. I’m really glad I wasn’t there to kill it because I know the workers would have made me help them. So my host brother and I waited around while my host dad cut up the pig and gave a little bit to everyone as a gift. He then cooked up some and gave it to me on a tortilla. When he asked me how it is, I said it was good, and then he said “Ok, then we’ll take the rest of this meat home and have it for dinner all this week.” Sure enough, I’ve had fried pig skin or slabs of its meat for at least one mean every day since.
Ultimate
Most of the people in our group are pretty active, and I was excited to hear a few of them talk about how much they love playing Frisbee. We’ve been playing with the kids here, and they are absolutely thrilled whenever I pull a disc out to play with. It’s tough to teach them how to throw and catch, but they love chasing it around and watching me and the other volunteers play. This past weekend, we actually got a somewhat normal sized game going (a regular game is 7 vs 7) with a mix of volunteers and Hondurans. It was the first time they got to see what the actual sport looks like, and I am pretty sure they enjoyed it since we had a fairly large audience watching us on both sidelines by the end. My host dad asked me later if I would be able to give a presentation about the sport, as well as a demonstration, to the middle school he works at. I’ll be really excited if I get the chance to do this, but since we would have to do it during school hours, I trying to convince our Peace Corps training coordinator to move our class schedule around and free up some time…but I have a feeling its going to be tough.
On another ultimate related topic…when I was on the ultimate team at UIUC, we used to like to argue about stupid stuff on trips to and from tournaments. One of these things was whether you call ice cream with chocolate and vanilla mixed in a cone a “Twist” or a “Swirl”. I brought up the topic to my fellow volunteers and they seemed to agree it is a swirl…which I strongly disagree with.
Well that’s a few of the highlights from the past two weeks. Sorry this got so long, but I hope you enjoyed reading it. And as always, feel free to comment or send me an email.
Hasta proximo,
Miles
Community problem assessment session
The other day, we broke up into 3 groups of 5 or 6 people in order to run a simulated community assessment. Our group’s objective was to identify the problems that the community was having with it’s water source, the next group was supposed to narrow down the problem and think of possible solutions, and then the last group was supposed to finalize the solution and plan it out. While our group presented, one of the other groups played the role of the “community” for us to assess, and the last group evaluated us. Our language teachers and other staff also pretended to be members of the community. So we had our plan organized as to how we would ask people what they thought the main problems were, but when we started we quickly found out how difficult it was to control a meeting like this. Everyone in the “community” came in talking and yelling at each other while refusing to listen to us. By the time we got everyone to sit down and start the meeting, we had more community members arrive and disrupt everything we were doing to greet every person there. Throughout the whole meeting, everyone was yelling without listening to anything else being said. They kept bringing up problems unrelated to water or out of our control (like there being less rain this year than past years). It was the most frustrating thing I’ve experienced yet in the Peace Corp because not only could we not control the crowd, but I only understood about half of what was being said since my Spanish still needs work. Speaking Spanish in front of a rowdy crowd of Honduras is way different than speaking it in a classroom with my teacher and peers listening patiently. The whole experience was a major wake-up call with regards to how difficult it will be to do an actual project when I get to my site. It also made me think about how much farther I really have to go in terms of learning Spanish.
How I spend my time
Here in Honduras, almost all of my time is taken up by training. I have language 4 hours a day, and then technical class for another 4 hours after lunch. Technical classes are really interesting and we are actually pretty active. So far in training, I have:
>Gone hiking through the mountains (in pouring rain) to find the main watershed that supplies the town with all of its water
> Built a wood-burning stove (as described above).
> Traveled to a local organic farm and learned all about different crops that grown in Honduras, using different composting techniques, and proper small animal care.
> Given an hour presentation with another volunteer to a class of 50 first graders about the water cycle.
> Shadowed a local farmer for a day and cut all the weeds around his corn with a machete.
When I get home at 5:00 after training, I immediately start working on language homework or group projects for tech classes. I do, however, get downtime on the weekends to spend with my host family. When with my family, we usually play soccer, visit grandparents and other extended family, go to church, or watch TV. The first Sunday I was here, we went to the river with a bunch of friends of the family, and then later went out to dinner with the priest, who my parents are very close with. Nobody I know drinks here in my town, and the people that do drink are considered ‘bolos’ or drunks (which is not a reputation you want to have).
Unwanted attention
Now, I’ve known for quite a while that I’m very white. What I didn’t know was how much attention I would be getting here for being such a piece of white bread. I had two girls propose to me in Dominican Republic, and one propose to me here in Honduras. The females in my group have it far worse. Anytime they are in a public area, they are at risk of being yelled at or directly approached by men. Of course, the vast majority of Honduran men and women are very polite and respectful, but the cultural difference between here and the U.S. is that it is acceptable for a man here to call at a woman walking down the street. It is also common for the women here to expect that kind of attention. A few people have told me that many Latin American women who travel to the U.S. are disappointed by the lack of attention they receive, and they actually think there is something wrong with them when they don’t receive whistles and calls.
Coffee Farm
This past Saturday I woke up at 5:00 AM to go to my host dad’s farm. After a 2-hour drive with my host dad and brother through the mountains on uneven and rocky winding roads, we arrived at my family’s huge coffee plantation. We first had a breakfast of beans, fried platinos, tortillas, cheese, and amazing coffee, and then talked with a few of the workers there. My host dad is the main boss and has as many as 80 to 100 workers picking coffee for him during the harvest season, which is mainly in March, April, and May. Right now, there are only a little more than 10 workers managing the land. He also grows corn, beans, potatoes, and avocados. The reason for our visit was to pay the workers there (which he has to do every weekend) and kill a pig. Luckily, when we got there, the pig was already dead and chopped up into parts in a bucket. I’m really glad I wasn’t there to kill it because I know the workers would have made me help them. So my host brother and I waited around while my host dad cut up the pig and gave a little bit to everyone as a gift. He then cooked up some and gave it to me on a tortilla. When he asked me how it is, I said it was good, and then he said “Ok, then we’ll take the rest of this meat home and have it for dinner all this week.” Sure enough, I’ve had fried pig skin or slabs of its meat for at least one mean every day since.
Ultimate
Most of the people in our group are pretty active, and I was excited to hear a few of them talk about how much they love playing Frisbee. We’ve been playing with the kids here, and they are absolutely thrilled whenever I pull a disc out to play with. It’s tough to teach them how to throw and catch, but they love chasing it around and watching me and the other volunteers play. This past weekend, we actually got a somewhat normal sized game going (a regular game is 7 vs 7) with a mix of volunteers and Hondurans. It was the first time they got to see what the actual sport looks like, and I am pretty sure they enjoyed it since we had a fairly large audience watching us on both sidelines by the end. My host dad asked me later if I would be able to give a presentation about the sport, as well as a demonstration, to the middle school he works at. I’ll be really excited if I get the chance to do this, but since we would have to do it during school hours, I trying to convince our Peace Corps training coordinator to move our class schedule around and free up some time…but I have a feeling its going to be tough.
On another ultimate related topic…when I was on the ultimate team at UIUC, we used to like to argue about stupid stuff on trips to and from tournaments. One of these things was whether you call ice cream with chocolate and vanilla mixed in a cone a “Twist” or a “Swirl”. I brought up the topic to my fellow volunteers and they seemed to agree it is a swirl…which I strongly disagree with.
Well that’s a few of the highlights from the past two weeks. Sorry this got so long, but I hope you enjoyed reading it. And as always, feel free to comment or send me an email.
Hasta proximo,
Miles
