Or maybe I'll do bullet points since I don't quite remember everything that happened since my last post:
• Went to another town close to the training center to have our technical class in the morning. We each had to go out and interview 4 different people about services the municipality offers. Great opportunity to practice my Spanish and meet different types of people. I interviewed a waitress, internet cafe manager, tourist shop vendor, and some old women who lived in an old worn-down wooden room. I thought they had a pulpería in their house but now that I think about it, they may not have.... Oops =/. It was interesting to see the stark contrast even in a touristic location like that where there are really nicely built buildings there and across the street a very old shack that has only two rooms including the kitchen (that I could see) for at least 4 people.
• Not sure if I wrote about my trip to the capital yet. We had to get there on our own, and after all our safety & security sessions, I was a bit nervous at first. My friend and I got on the bus that heads to Tegucigalpa and got off at one of the main stops, then from there had to take a taxi directo to a certain bus terminal and there wait for the rest of the group. Not too bad, and it was fun haggling with the taxi driver, who initially overcharged us for being Gringas. Rest of the group arrived and we had half an hour to kill so we walked around the streets and bartered with the fruit/veggie vendors, and I bought myself some small locks for my luggage and backpack. We then headed to a market, which is very different from your typical supermarket (such as Albertson's). Within this market were several different stalls set up for produce, meat, cheese, and there were pulpería-type stands and small cafes lining the walls. Reminded me very much of how the vendors at a fair are set up, except this was inside a building. Bought a few fruits and veggies for my host family, and then we all headed to the Peace Corps office building and met up with everyone else from the training group who had traveled to Tegus that day. Got a tour of the building, and saw a map hanging in one of the corridors that had several quotes on it from PCVs and some famous people. Out of all the beautiful portraits and landscapes with PC quotes on them throughout the building, that map was the most moving of all. The quotes were amazing and some gave me goosebumps. I wish I had a copy of that poster, because it would give me the continuing motivation I need to get through this...
I'm not going to lie – I've been pretty homesick, and it hit me hard a few weeks ago, but I'm feeling a bit better now. It's just hard to think that I still have 26 more months here, 2 years and a bit. I mean, when you think of it like that, of course it's a long time. It's not that I don't enjoy this experience though. Honduras is amazing, and there's so much green everywhere that I will probably be sick of seeing green by the time I return to the states. At the same time, it is difficult not being able to see my friends and family or a familiar face other than on Skype, and even then the connection is terrible and makes video-chatting utterly useless. It has only been a month though. They say it takes 2-3 months to get settled into another country, and I do feel it's getting easier. I just can't wait to get my own place though. I've got to wait 4 more months for that though. My host families have been great, but nothing compares to having your own place, cooking for yourself, eating what and when you want to eat, privacy, and doing what you want when you want without feeling like you're neglecting your duty to speak Spanish and integrate into the family after an exhausting day. Which brings me to my next bullet point:
• The volunteer visit. We all were assigned a current PCV and had to travel to their house a couple weeks ago to see what it is they do. I rode a bus for about 3.5 – 4 hours with a couple other PCTs and we met up with our volunteers at the bus stop. Headed to lunch and watched the Holland vs. España match. The pulpo is always right! There was another group of Gringos there.. (that's what we've taken to call other white folk, it's not derogatory in any way here) but they were with a missionary group I think. After that I went to drop my stuff off at my volunteer's house, and daaamn she has it good. Granted, it's not what you would expect and it still has a pila instead of a washing machine, but her place is super nice. She has a site-mate who lives up the street and we hung out there most of the days since he has a tv and more sitting area. We made this interesting dish for dinner the first night. Bought and chopped up onions, broccoli, green beans, a green pepper (I think it was a bell pepper...) and stir-fried them, cooked noodles, and then poured this sauce made of peanut butter, orange juice, soy sauce (I think) and some other things in it. It was DELICIOUS. I'll post the recipe as soon as I receive it from the volunteer. Next morning we made banana pancakes! Had a chocobanana (frozen banana dipped in chocolate), baleadas, enchiladas (which are actually fried tortillas topped with meat and coleslaw..), and just a lot of food during that trip. I feel like I gained 5 pounds over that weekend. Aside from food though, another PCT and I went with our volunteer to meet her counterpart and see what she does in one of her working days. Her counterpart is the head of the women's organization of that town, which works against domestic violence and promoting gender equity. They are also working on setting up a space for women to sell the crafts they make. One woman makes jewelry and these incredibly durable pine needle baskets. We met the former mayor too. Later that day we headed to the colegio (kind of like high school, I'll get into the educational system in another blog) and stood in one of the classrooms while the volunteer asked the students to be prepared next session because they will be participating in an HIV/AIDS presentation. Toured an old fort later that day, glad to get *some* exercise. We headed into the larger city the next day to have lunch at Pizza Hut, and I also bought a second phone there from Digicel since it's much much cheaper to call the states with Digicel than Tigo. Rested the remainder of the day and headed back to my host family the next!
I really feel like I am going to have a lot of downtime as a PCV and it's a bit discouraging because I don't want to feel as if my two years are going to be wasted doing small projects and working a couple days out of the week. I know that it really depends on the site and the volunteer, and some people do really want to work but the opportunities just aren't there. I'll definitely be proactive and get to know as many people in my site as I can, but I don't feel like I am as well-prepared with the skills and knowledge that other people in my program have. I have no experience with NGOs, governments, municipalities, GIS, urban planning, politics, and other things along those lines like the other MD PCTs. It's probably nothing to get down about, and I actually got excited when one volunteer came to talk about a cultural museum she was working with and how they participate in festivals with these elaborate costumes and all that goes into planning them. Another volunteer has worked on eco-tourism and reserves. As an MD PCV, I'll be able to really work on anything I want since the municipal structure includes all the different departments like womens, environmental, youth, etc, so I guess I got that to look forward to. Back to bullets:
• Moved from our initial training site to another site about an hour and a half away from Tegus for Field-Based Training (FBT). All the different groups split and went to different locations so I'll be spending the next 7 weeks with only Municipal Development trainees. It's very different here. The houses are much closer together and the weather is insanely hot. It didn't rain much at all the first week, which is surprising because it stormed everyday at the first site. It did start to rain over the weekend of the first week and into the next though. My new host family is very nice. I'm living with a mother and her three children – two daughters and a son. Her daughters are 12 and 10 and her son is 9. Her husband is living and working in the states. She has her own cafe here where she sells snack-type items and also cooks meals. She's known for her pupusas and tacos, but her baleadas and everything else she cooks are super good too. Training is a bit different here. We switched teachers for our language classes and the classes are being held in a host family's house. We get an hour and a half for lunch, and I just walk up to my host mom's cafe and she gives me lunch... I had the most delicious pupusas con queso the other day, with a sort of coleslaw without mayo on the side, as well as chopped up onions and carrots and hot peppers. Very delicious. The meals here are pretty heavy, but my host mom is really open and I can be honest with her... so I mentioned that I prefer something light in the morning and not too hungry at night too, so I was able to eat just a banana with some peanut butter and milk for breakfast one day! Yeah doesn't sound too exciting but when you've been eating heavy oily carbs and fat for a while, fruit is a welcome change, which is why I can't wait to get my own place... I'll be having fruit and veggies for almost every meal and probably cereal and that's it. I tried something new for dinner too.. it was like a warm corn pudding. Good for the first few bites but slowly grows tiresome. After training today, I went to visit some other trainees and their families. One girl lives literally like 5 steps in front of my house and the others just down the block. I taught everyone including some host family members how to play “Uno” with regular playing cards and it was quite fun. We weren't sure what the name for “Spades” was in Spanish and one girl said “tiene spad?” and then we started calling them “espades” and then “corazones negros” for black hearts. Dictionary told me the correct word is “espadas”. Heh, at least I was close. Apparently the word for “Ace” is pronounced “Ahs” so we had fun with that.. Later we went back to our homes and then another trainee from down the street came over to get a couple of us to go to his house to play real Uno with his family. LONGEST. GAME. EVER. We only played one game and it took about an hour. Le sigh.
• Learned how to dance the Punta! After playing several games of a variation of the card game “Spoons” (we didn't have spoons so we stuck out our tongues instead), my host mom put on some Punta music and two of the other PCTs came over to learn how to dance. We soon had an audience of 13 people! The neighbor's children came over and stood outside the open front door to watch. It was really tiring and I was completely sweaty by the end of it, but it was a ton of fun, and now I know how to Punta!
• Visited the Rio Grande. There's a smaller river near here and a much larger one that takes some walking to get to, but it's HUGE. Probably could go canoeing or tubing in it, although I wouldn't even go swimming in it since it's filthy and carries all sorts of diseases. We do plan on having a picnic out there one day. It's very tranquil over there.
• My neighborhood here and host family in the first location all thought I contracted Classic Dengue over the weekend. Turns out it was some weird viral infection, NOT Dengue. Friday night my entire body started hurting, and then I had this intense headache and fever, no energy to even sit up or open my eyes, and in the middle of the night had chills but then the fever broke and I was sweating heavily for a very long time. Diarrhea began (and not the normal kind), fever came back, still no energy, headache didn't go away, body aches even worse and now pain behind the ears, no appetite and everything I did try to eat just went through me, sweat, etc etc...Fever kept coming and going but I did get better on Sunday, lower back was still in a lot of pain and still had a minor headache and diarrhea and couldn't eat but got my energy back. Went to the hospital on Monday for some laboratory testing of blood and other things and only medication I was given was probiotics (?), antibiotics, and oral rehydration salts. Mmmmm....
• There's a fruit here called “Nance” (nahn-say, I think, not too sure of spelling either). It is probably the only fruit I've ever tried that I don't like. Nancy doesn't like Nance. How ironic.
• Advanced one level to Intermediate-Mid! That's the level required to pass training, so hopefully I'll have advanced even more within the next 5 weeks. We'll see! :)
• We went to La Tigra yesterday. It's one of the national parks here and it's absolutely stunning. Had to walk uphill for about 2 hours to reach the entrance, and from the entrance about 4 kilometers or 1 and a half hours to the large waterfall. We encountered several small waterfalls along the way, and experienced changes in altitude and ecosystems (or at least that's what it felt like). Pictures below!
I guess that's all for now. More when more interesting things happen.
