Ahhh sorry for the lack of updates! I’ve caught a case of teh laziness, especially after moving into my house. I have close to 2 months to update on! Where oh where do I start…. Alrighty then - October 15th was Global Handwashing Day, or Dia Mundial de Lavado de Manos. My site-mate Brent and I visited several elementary schools with people from an organization called Agua Para La Gente, and were put in charge of selecting the three best drawings done by the students, based on what they showed about water and being clean. One of the larger schools had a singing contest as well and we helped choose the winner of that. There was one kid who seemed really shy and messed up a bit but he was soooo adorable. The winning students received new backpacks filled with a bottle of Johnson & Johnson soap.
That weekend was the despedida, or goodbye party for Andrea, my former site-mate. She extended her service in another site but wanted to say goodbye to all her friends. It was a private party at the club here in town. It’s actually a pretty nice venue, and I got to know the owner who is super nice and gave me a couple free drinks J. He’s dug out space and is going to put a pool in too. I’ve heard on event nights at the club, it’s packed with people and has laser lights and everything. I still have yet to go to one, but one day for sure.
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| El Club - usually full on an event night |
A couple days after that I headed to San Pedro Sula again with my host family and got a lot of shopping done. We walked amongst the street vendors and headed to a Ropa Americana store so my host mom could buy 2 fardos of clothing to sell from her house. Down here, Ropa Americana is like second-hand clothing sent over from the states and sold here for super cheap. I’ve already bought some clothes, like excellent quality reversible Nike shorts for less than $2, a nice Aeropostale polo for about the same price.. and other shorts and shirts. Fardos are like huge plastic bags packed full of Ropa Americana, and sorted out by category. There are clothes for adults, for children, and then there are bed sheets, shoes, and probably some other home goods like drapes and towels. I also picked up a connector cable for my computer to external CD drive for about a dollar. Later they took me to Diunsa and Lady Lee, two of the biggest home stores in the area. It was like being in the states again! Of course though, that meant things were also a bit expensive and I had to really look around and price-compare to find the deals. Bought a couple starter items for the house and then we headed back home, along the way puncturing one of the truck tires so had to fix that.. then ran into some old friends of my host dad. These were young guys, all probably in their 20s and one of them was extremely malcreado and unfortunately for me, he lives in my site. I’m glad I haven’t run into him so much though.
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| The fardos |
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| My host mom's set up for the clothes |
Sometime in there I visited the Hammock Bridge with Brent and his brother, who was visiting from the states. It’s this rickety-looking bridge that several people cross daily to get to work from the other mountain. It looked incredible.
One day President Lobo landed his helicopter in the soccer field right next to my host family’s house and was giving a talk in the park and handing out bonuses to single mothers who in return had to send their children to school and put them in health and nutrition programs.
The following weekend I went back to San Pedro to hang out with my friend Daniel who works a couple hours away. It was insanely refreshing to see a familiar face. Before heading to SPS, we stopped by this small community on the very border of El Progreso, where the people live in small shacks made of wooden boards and metal sheets. It was astonishing to see the stark differences between that community when right across the street was El Progreso, which is I believe the fifth largest city in Honduras. Just earlier this year or last year that area was flooded. The leaders of the community have already found another location to move these people out of hazard’s way, so will begin that process soon hopefully.
We had lunch at Subway at the food court and walked around inside a couple malls, which made me extremely nostalgic but it was a great time. Watched Resident Evil 4 on IMAX 3D. It was my first time seeing a Resident Evil movie and I admit, I don’t think I will ever see another one again. We went bowling afterward while wearing Santa hats and for the rest of my week my arm was killing me! It had been a while since I bowled and I could just feel that ball getting heavier and heavier >_<. Went back shopping at Lady Lee and found out that they deliver! That totally made my day because it meant my stuff wouldn’t have been stuck in the pouring rain we encountered.
Helped my host mom make a mural, or presentation board (?) for World Vision, the organization she works for. That was actually pretty fun even though it was a lot of tedious work and measurements I had to do. It displayed the 5 projects that Vision Mundial does, and had some extra space which they later filled with the Vision Mundial logo as I suggested. It was looking a bit sparse.
Oh, the most important thing I almost left out! I finally moved into my own house on Nov. 11th! It’s my first time living completely on my own so that was exciting. It really was a real piece of work to clean up though. 2 PCVs previously lived here before I did so it made sense to move in, and it’s a wonderful house.. now that it’s clean and fixed >_<. I had a cockroach infestation in the kitchen so had to spray RAID everywhere and after doing that, I swept up all the dead roaches and roach cases (inside each case were spots for about 20 eggs… GROSS!) and there were probably 100 at least that I could see. They escaped from the RAID through the cabinet cracks and scattered about the kitchen floor before flopping over and dying. It was quite a site. I also have a termite infestation in my room, kitchen and bathroom, as well as bats that come in during the day and leave at night, but they don’t bother me since they stay in the space between the metal roof and the false ceiling. Also have your common ant and geckos and some spiders but those don’t bother me too much. I spoke to the landlady a few weeks back after discovering all the problems with the house and she’s been great in having people come and fix things! They’ve already painted the entire inside and outside walls, so now the house is one color instead of white, blue, and a hideous shade of yellow in the bathroom. They also cemented my pila, which is this big concrete open water storage tank that I use to wash my clothes in, because the water was leaking out on the sides. My sink was leveled with cement and it looks great now.. they may even put tile on it. My toilet was fixed so the tube would stop leaking and so it would flush properly, my shower can drain water now, and my kitchen cabinets all have handles and the doors aren’t broken and everything was varnished again.. if that’s a word. I even helped with that :). They did fumigate the house but not very well. Only put poison in some places. That didn’t get rid of the termites, but I think made it worse…. So I said it’d be better if they fumigated with gas so that it reaches everywhere and I think they’re going to do that. There are a couple other things that were fixed too but in all… I absolutely love this house! I feel so lucky to live here and I know some other people have it a bit worse off and are probably experiencing “real” Peace Corps, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Honestly I probably wouldn’t be able to survive in some of the living conditions they are in, so good for them!!! They’re tough people =].
I went back to Yorito one day to say goodbye to my friend Janet, who’s service was coming to a close and she was leaving that weekend. She gave away a lot of her stuff and I ended up taking 10 large items back with me on the bus to my house, including a toaster oven, 2 huge potted plants, 3 bar stools, a suitcase, my backpack, a collapsible chair, and a large basket that was also carrying stuff inside. That was pretty insane traveling alone but my host family came to help me pick everything up at the bus stop and take it back to my house.
I quickly stocked up my kitchen and have been cooking a lot for myself, and it’s been a lot of fun. I am really into cooking and baking and now that I’ve got my own kitchen I feel like I have more freedom to do so. Hmm.. oh yeah, I also have some plants in the backyard from Janet – coffee, basil, oregano, lemongrass, ginger, and cherry tomato, but I think almost all of them are dying except the coffee and basil =(. Can’t wait to make some awesome pesto sauce!
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| Cabildo Abierto in La Majada |
As for work – still slow, but I went to two cabildo abiertos, or town hall meetings up in the mountains near my site. Those were fun.. they were held outside both times, and my mayor counterpart spoke about issues facing these areas and what the priorities were while at the same time representatives from different groups and communities had their opportunity to speak as well.
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| Cabildo Abierto in San Jose |
In San Jose, a new Catastro office will be opening this month so that people can go there to pay taxes instead of going all the way down to the center of town to pay. I’m working on creating brochures for the offices to raise public awareness about their taxes, the fines and interest they accrue if not paid on time, and the deadlines for paying, in addition to some other transparency things. Most of the people don’t have any idea about any of this so are unknowingly accumulating a massive amount of debt to pay to the muni. On another note, in February I’ll start giving computer and English classes to students. I still have to meet with my School Director counterpart to discuss specifics, but it’s definitely a plan.
I’ve had the chance to go visit a balneario, or swimming area near site that’s really only accessible by vehicle unless you want to walk a super long way. There were about 4 different pools of different depths, and even one that looked like a lap pool! I wish it was a lot closer because I would definitely be swimming some laps there.
We had our annual E-Zone meeting too and that was fun. All the PCVs from the North Coast stayed at a hotel and some of us were able to arrive a day before the meeting, and all of us could leave the day after. I watched “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows” my first night there and it was AMAZING! …except for the weird semi-naked scene and a couple other awkward parts. Can’t wait for the next movie to come out =]. Mostly we hung out at the Applebee’s bar, and for some reason, Applebee’s is considered a super nice restaurant here. People propose and even get married there. What the heck! But anyway, we had our meeting.. then that night some of us headed to a lame bar which was empty.. so we left and went to this nice club that had some other people in it and played awesome music (ie, American club music). There was a Honduran guy who worked at the hotel we stayed at as a translator (I think?) and we danced and the whole time he was hitting on me and saying that if he kissed me he’d fall in love to which I said NO THANK YOU, but then he replied that one day he’ll be my boyfriend and I’m like, keep dreaming!! Not all Honduran men are that way of course, but for the most part from what I’ve experienced and my friends have experienced… most of them seem to be =/. I suppose that in some people’s eyes, it could be a very flattering thing to have men always fawning over you and complimenting and it can be hard to resist if you’re not used to it or if you like the attention. Just have to be careful I guess.
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