Last week we built a fogon for a family. It's a stove made out of adobe, brick, mud, and cement. One day was spent practicing making a fogon out of only mud at the university, and the second day we actually constructed one for a family in need, using mostly cement. We started around 9 am and finished around 4 pm. We had several emaciated dogs and a couple chickens/hens/roosters and their chicks come into the room now and again and a few left their footprints in the cement when we were finished. Super cute. But that was my first time working with cement and I loved it! Loved getting my hands dirty too. I didn't have any skin problems following the use of cement, but a few other people got dry skin and their hands started burning up a bit... =/.
Saturday we went to the pool because some of the other trainees from the other site were visiting. Had music, food, and lots of good people. The weather unfortunately wasn't as hot as usual so the pool wasn't as refreshing as it should have been... just cold. It was fun though.
That night, as with all Saturday nights at this site, there was a dance in the Alcaldia. They had a big screen playing music videos, lots of good dancing music, lights, and lots of people. I learned Merengue, Pachata, and probably a couple other dances too. They were all kind of easy since you just let the guy lead, and most of the guys I danced with were excellent dancers. Danced with several people in our group, declined several requests from strangers to dance with me, sweated a lot, took a couple breaks, got confused as to who I should speak Spanish to and who I should speak English to... overall an amazing night and I can't wait for the next one!
Sunday I went back to visit my first host family because it was the birthday of my host brother, who turned 1 year old! Their relatives came over, there was cake, snacks, soda, “Happy 1st Birthday” banner in English, lots of pictures, lots of jokes. My host sister had gotten a medium-sized turtle from someone the other day but lost him in their huge backyard =(.
On Monday my group gave a little charla to some 10 year olds about Exercise and Nutrition. It went pretty well, we had a good sized class of probably less than 20 students. It was a bit difficult to keep them focused throughout the presentation but by using several dinámicas (like ice-breaker games), we kept them interested. We had an activity where we divided them into groups and had them write down as many exercises as they could think of in two minutes and then present them to us, just to see what kind of idea they had about what exercise is. They did well - listed fútbol, running, push-ups, sit-ups, etc. We talked to them about stretching and flexibility, diabetes, high blood pressure, vitamins, junk food, caffeine, water, and played Jeopardy to review. Had some extra time in the end so we took them outside and had several races consisting of running forward, running backward, running sideways, running karaoke style, and hopping on one foot. They seemed to love that the most. I think any game in which they're very actively participating garners their interest.
Three PCVs from the Health program visited us on Tuesday to talk to us about HIV/AIDS for 4 hours. I thought it was going to be another very long lecture, but it turned out to be really fun. We did several dinámicas and a couple condom demonstrations, like each of us putting a condom on a banana, and then being shown how oil will break a condom. One of the volunteers blew up a condom into a balloon and rubbed baby oil on it gently, and it burst. I knew latex only works with water-based fluids, but I had never seen a demonstration like that before so that was interesting. We played a game where we had to spell our names with our hips, and another where we stood in two lines (two teams) and had a pen in our mouths and had to pass a ring down the line transferring it from pen to pen. A couple people including me ended up getting pen on their face from the other person. Super fun. The latter half of the day we were separated into groups and all had time to prepare our charlas for Wednesday, which were to replicate the exact charla that the volunteers gave to us! Yayyyy.
So, Wednesday. Woke up bright and early at 5 am to get ready for our HIV/AIDS charla. We headed about 30 minutes away to another site to visit an Adventist high school. Each group got their own class to give the 4 hour charla to. We each got to say our parts and I think we all had a lot of fun. The students participated and didn't misbehave, other than laughing at some of the sexual words and sometimes not paying attention. At the end of the charla they gave us a huge round of applause and screamed for probably 2 minutes straight.... I think all the classes did that because they like to scream! Fun fun fun.
As for the rain, good lord. Everyday, and it's getting worse and worse. Just Wednesday night I was watching on the news and it said there were 5 hurricanes occurring and affecting Tegucigalpa. We've already had the kitchen and living room floors of our house flooded twice. Luckily none of the water seeped into my room, but things will probably get worse. They say another big hurricane like Mitch is coming...
A few of us played Texas Hold 'Em using little crumpled bits of paper to bet with. No money! It was fun, definitely should have more poker nights.
Friday we gave another charla to a class of 9-13 year olds about business fundamentals. We read a story about a woman who tried to start her own business but failed at the beginning because she didn't consider several things like competition, skills necessary to sell her product, etc, but who later with help from her friends, succeeded. We then talked about saving and how important a practice it is, at any age especially. We put it in terms of what they know, like how many snacks they spend their money on a day, and then see what would happen if they had just saved their money for a week or a month, they could afford to buy some shoes or clothes or something. Most of the students said they wanted to start their own business after we were done with our charla. We had probably an hour of extra time left so played a couple of learning games, sang, played telephone, took pictures...
During Spanish class that day too, we made brownies and banana cookies (which were delicious by the way!). We also unfortunately had a death that occurred while we were making them. Spanish classes are usually held in a host family's house, and one of the dogs of the family had accidentally eaten rat poison (people here use poisoned pellets or something to kill rats instead of traps, so it's common for dogs and animals to die from consuming these....I would think traps would be easy to manufacture and sell too, and then this problem wouldn't exist). He puked some of it up and the family tried to make him throw-up by putting lime and milk down his throat (does curdling cause the gagging reflex?) but he wouldn't throw-up anymore... it was super sad... it looked like he suffered a lot and they even took him to the vet but by that time it was too late. This was one of the families that actually treated their dogs well and had them in the family for a long time.
Later that day we walked to a smaller aldea to visit the families of some of the houses that were affected by the landslides caused by the torrential rains the past few days. One house was completely demolished, others had holes in their walls, and others were at risk of being destroyed. We're going to see what we can do. This will be an interesting project for me since I really have no idea how to even go about helping these people but one trainee suggested digging trenches and getting food donations, so I guess we'll begin with that.
A couple of us have also started a math club but haven't had too many classes due to the electricity going out nearly everyday and heavy rain about the time we want to hold the classes. Going to try to get the older kids here motivated to continue to help the other children who might need tutoring in math so that it lasts long after we leave.
Other things... I've been using the same plastic shower cap I got from the hotel in Houston back in June. I'm surprised it hasn't torn yet. I have a back-up shower cap that's much stronger if it breaks, but I'll try to make this one last. I use it almost everyday and only wash my hair like every 4 days. Yeah yeah, gross, I know but it takes me forever to wash my hair using a bucket. Usually I just wear it up in a ponytail or something, and when I do let it down, since it's so rare, everyone always thinks I cut my hair or did something different >_<.
The electricity has been going out EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. I honestly don't mind it, and actually kind of like it sometimes because it means I can go to sleep earlier. It usually happens when it's raining, sometimes when it's not, and it stays out for a few hours or longer. I think the longest we've had it out was maybe a day. It's a great chance to sit and talk with my host family by candlelight in the living room. Here in Honduras it's tradition to tell ghost stories whenever the lights go off. None of my host families have been very traditional or conservative so I unfortunately haven't been told any stories yet by them, but I'm sure if I ask, they'll tell. Or I can visit the grandma that lives a few houses down. She always has a lot to say :).
Funny things – in Spanish class, we're learning the Subjunctive and we had to come up with examples of things we expect of the people in our sites when we go there, and my friend said, “Espero que mi familia me introduzca a toda la gente en mi sitio”, thinking that the verb 'introducir' (where the introduzca comes from) meant 'to introduce'. Our teacher cracked up and showed us what 'introducir' really meant by sticking her pen into the big potato sack against the wall, and that's when we realized 'introducir' meant to put an object into something else. We laughed for probably 10 minutes after that, and I just had to mention that it's a good thing that my friend is a girl because if she was a guy, it'd be so much worse >_<, to which our teacher said, “¡Nancy, que gráfico!” and we all laughed until our stomachs hurt. Good fun, and I'm sure we will never forget what 'introducir' means after that. Then during one of our other charlas, one guy was presenting his activity to our class of high school kids and they were talking too much. He heard someone say “Callate” so he repeated it, not really knowing what it meant, saying “¡Callate por favor!” and I told him later that he just told the class to “Shut-up please”. Another silly story – my friend and I were practicing our Spanish at my house, and I was talking about what I did my last weekend before I came to Honduras. I mentioned that I went to the cemetery with the family for Father's Day to visit my grandfather, and that “aunque no soy religiosa, mi familia es Budista entonces oriné con ellos” (“although I'm not religious, my family is Buddhist so I peed with them”).... when I meant to say “oré con ellos”, which means “I prayed with them” -_______________________-. Ah, the joys of learning a new language! I totally knew “orar” was the verb for “to pray” because I just used it a few sentences before that but “orinar” is always in my head for some reason. Maybe because I always need to go to the bathroom when it's inconvenient and there's either no light, no time, or no bathroom available. Anyway.
There's a trainee here who contracted both Dengue and Malaria at the same time. That trainee is totally fine right now but was in the hospital for a couple weeks. Scary...
Good song, one of my favorites here: Camila - “Mientes”
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