My Culinary Adventures: Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea Carrot Soup

I'm not usually a big fan of soups, unless it's Lebanese lentil soup, creamy tomato soup, Burmese ohno kaukswe (coconut chicken noodle soup), or Vietnamese phở.  After seeing this recipe online, and all the interesting ingredients, I knew I had to try it.  It's a hearty soup too, which I prefer over more watery ones.  A lot of unexpected flavors came out of this, and I had to add in a lot more quantity of spices than the recipe called for, but it's a trial and error thing.  Just taste test it.  I've made it twice and both times it was a hit with my guests :)

Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea Carrot Soup (Serves 2)
Recipe adapted from Cook Bake Nibble

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3 medium carrots, chopped small
1 large clove (or 2 small) garlic
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ginger
pinch saffron (if you have it, can be omitted)
1 can chickpeas (or 2 cups cooked), rinsed
1 medium vine ripe tomato, chopped
1 tsp salt, more to taste
Black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
3 cups water
Small handful almonds, chopped
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

Dash of cayenne pepper (optional, for that extra kick)

1. Heat the oil on medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent. Add carrot and continue cooking until softened, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and stir, cook for one minute. Add all spices and “toast” for 1-2 minutes.
2. Add tomato and chickpeas, stir to mix with onion and spice mixture. Add salt, black pepper to taste and lemon juice. Stir well and pour in water.
3. Bring water to a boil, reduce heat and simmer partially covered 20-30 minutes. Season to taste. Top with a sprinkle of almond and fresh cilantro. Serve hot.

My Culinary Adventures: Asian Crunchy Broccoli Salad

I never really used to eat Asian food in the states often.  If it came down to choose between an Asian restaurant and some other option, most likely I'd choose the other option.  I think it may have been because I was living with my relatives and they cooked Asian food almost all the time and I wanted some variety.  I do enjoy certain cuisines though, such as Thai, Indian, Vietnamese (mostly just phở), and some Chinese, but not all the time.  Moving to Honduras, however, has made me realize how much I miss all things Asian, and any sort of Asian thing or Asian person I come across here just reminds me of life back in California with my family and friends, and I think that is probably why I get overly excited whenever I come across them.  Like really excited.  It's embarrassing sometimes.  My family very thoughtfully mailed me a couple boxes containing a lot of Asian food items to cook with, such as Hoisin sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes.  I decided to put a few of those items to good use :)

Asian Crunchy Broccoli Salad
Recipe adapted from Tiny Urban Kitchen

Ingredients
1 head broccoli
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
Soy sauce (to taste)
Sesame oil (to taste)
Pinch of sugar (to taste)
Red pepper flakes (to taste)

1. Remove the outer part of the broccoli skin and chop into bite-size pieces.
2. Add garlic and sprinkle with salt. Stir and let marinate for at least 20 minutes. Pour out any water that may have collected during the marination time.  
3. Add a splash of soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and red pepper flakes. Eat immediately, or for better results, let it marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

My Culinary Adventures: Banana Crumb Muffins

I bought a muffin/cupcake pan!!  Ah, joy :)  These muffins were delicious, but the crumb topping didn't really turn out very...crumbly.  It may be because I don't have proper butter here, and instead have been using the tub butter for all my baking.  It still tasted good though, and it did harden so it had a nice different consistency than the muffins.

Banana Crumb Muffins
Recipe taken from Allrecipes

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

My Culinary Adventures: Tuna Pasta in Garlic and Olive Oil

Tuna Pasta in Garlic and Olive Oil
Recipe adapted from Food.com

Ingredients
1 bag pasta
1/2 cup brown rice, cooked
2 tbs olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 (8 ounce) can tuna in vegetable oil
1 1/2 tbsp dried basil
2 tsp dried oregano
Salt

1. Cook the pasta noodles according to package directions.
2. Meanwhile while pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in pan.
3. Sauté garlic in oil until lightly brown or fragrant is release.
4. Stir in tuna including the vegetable oil. Cook this for 1 minute.
5. Stir in the cooked pasta and rice and mix. Remove from heat.
6. Season with salt. Add more salt and dried basil leaves according to your taste.
7. Note: Only start cooking the tuna when your pasta is just a few minutes from getting done. That way, the pasta is mixed with the sautéed tuna while it's still hot to incorporate the taste.

My Culinary Adventures: Stuffed Bell Peppers

Whenever I travel to El Progreso to get some shopping done, I always seem to come back with a lot more than I had planned on getting.  My eyes were bigger than my stomach when I saw the different-colored bell peppers (we only have green here) and I bought a lot more than I could eat by myself.  I decided to try this recipe for stuffed bell peppers, since I also had bought ground beef and wanted to use that in something other than pasta sauce.  Had my site-mate over to share, and froze the leftovers in the freezer.  They still tasted great after reheating!

Stuffed Bell Peppers
Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes

I ended up with more stuffing than was needed, so I mixed the rest with pasta on a later day.  Yum!  The next time I make this, however, I think I will actually mix the ketchup/worcestershire sauce into the stuffing before baking.  It would make for a more flavorful dish.

Ingredients
4 bell peppers, any color
Salt
5 tbsp olive oil
1 medium yellow onion
3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 pound lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 cup fresh chopped tomatoes
2 tsp dried oregano
Pepper
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco sauce

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Meanwhile, cut top off peppers 1 inch from the stem end, and remove seeds. Add several generous pinches of salt to boiling water, then add peppers and boil, using a spoon to keep peppers completely submerged, until brilliant green (or red if red peppers) and their flesh slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Drain, set aside to cool.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat 4 tbsp of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring often, until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook a minute more. Remove skillet from heat, add meat, rice, tomatoes, and oregano, and season generously with salt and pepper. Mix well. (You may find it easier to put the ingredients at this point into a large bowl and mix together with your hands.)
3. Drizzle remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil inside the peppers. Arrange the cut side of the peppers up in a baking dish, then stuff peppers with filling. Combine ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, and 1/4 cup of water in a small bowl, then spoon over filling. Add 1/4 cup of water to the baking dish. Place in oven and bake for 40-50 minutes (or longer, depending on how big the peppers are that you are stuffing), until the internal temperature of the stuffed peppers is 150-160°F.

My Culinary Adventures: Curried Chickpea Salad & Tuscan Scrambled Eggs

I bought chickpeas randomly one day and really had no idea what I was going to do with them.  I was thinking maybe hummus but then I'd want an entire Middle Eastern/Mediterranean meal to go with that and I wasn't ready to take on a cooking challenge like that just yet.  I stumbled across this amazing recipe online, as well as a super easy recipe to make scrambled eggs a bit more interesting!  You wouldn't think that something as simple as onions, tomatoes and eggs would turn out so flavorful, but the way the tomatoes are cooked with the onions until all the juice has evaporated, then stirring in the eggs really makes it such a delightful dish.  It's a recipe I've turned to many times over.

Curried Chickpea Salad (Serves 2)
Recipe adapted from Kalyn's Kitchen

I like to increase the amount of spices called for in a recipe, so really it depends on how you like your dish.  The amounts I give are what is in the recipe.  I definitely added a lot more, eyeballing and taste-testing while cooking.

Ingredients
1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed well and drained
2 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 tbs chopped cilantro
1 tbs lemon juice
Salt to taste

1. Drain chickpeas into a colander placed in the sink, then rinse well with cold water until no more foam appears and let chickpeas drain while you cook the onions.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy frying pan or saute pan, add the onion, turn heat to medium-high and saute onions until they are lightly browned and starting to get crisp, about 6-8 minutes. Stir frequently while the onions cook, and don't let them get too browned or they will be bitter. 
3. When onions are lightly browned, stir in the turmeric, cumin, coriander, and cayenne pepper and cook 2-3 minutes more, until the spices are fragrant and slightly toasted.
4. Add the drained chickpeas and cook 2-3 minutes more, stirring so the spices and onions are well-distributed in the chickpeas.  Then stir in chopped cilantro and lemon juice and cook 3-4 minutes more.  Turn off heat and season to taste with salt.  
5. Let the mixture cool, then transfer to a plastic container with a snap-on lid and let salad chill in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving.  Serve cold or at room temperature, tasting and adjusting the flavor with more lemon juice and salt before serving if desired.

Tuscan Scrambled Eggs (Serves 2)

Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes
Ingredients
1 1/2 tbs olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped
2 roma tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat olive oil on medium heat in a nonstick skillet. Add the onions and cook until translucent, just starting to turn golden in color, about 6 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook over low heat until the liquid evaporates, about 40 minutes.
2. Whisk the eggs in a bowl until well blended. Season with a little salt and pepper. Add the eggs to the tomato and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, and scraping from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat as soon as the eggs begin to set, but are still moist, about 3 minutes. Turn out onto a serving plate. Serve immediately.

My Culinary Adventures: Paletas (Popsicles)

As the season changed from rainy to hot and humid here in El Negrito, I started craving cold treats.  During training in Cantarranas, a number of people would sell paletas from their pulperia or straight out of the house.  There was a wide variety of flavors, such as coconut, peanut, banana, chocolate, chocolate covered in a hard chocolate shell, ronpopo (kind of like eggnog), and tutti frutti (my favorite, a mix of cut up fruits in fruit juice).  Usually at least one of us while in class would be eating one while making a delicious mess.  Unfortunately, nobody in my site sells paletas like that, but they're easy enough to make, and I had bought 5 small metal cups made especially for paletas, as well as the popsicle sticks.  The cold dessert they do sell here though is basically the same thing, except in a small plastic baggie.  They're called charramuscas in the south of Honduras, and topogigos (toe-po-he-os) in the North.  You bite the corner off the bag and suck out the contents as they melt.  The most common flavors of those here are nance (it's a small round yellow fruit that to me, tastes like rotten fruit), banana, milk, tamarind, and kool-aid.

Paletas
Ingredients
Frozen bananas
Skim milk

Frozen watermelon
Strawberry juice (I used the Livean brand no-calorie Strawberry-flavored powder in water)
Frozen orange pieces
Frozen papaya
Ice

1. In a blender, combine bananas and milk and blend until smooth.  Pour into paleta cups and insert popsicle sticks in center.
2. Rinse blender, combine ice, watermelon, strawberry juice, orange, and papaya and blend until smooth. Pour into paleta cups and insert popsicle sticks in center.

My Culinary Adventures: Roasted Roma Tomatoes and Garlic

I absolutely love cooking with fresh basil, but unfortunately with all the heat these past few months, my basil plant is dying :(.

Roasted Roma Tomatoes and Garlic
Recipe adapted from: Allrecipes

Ingredients
4 Roma tomatoes, halved
6 Cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 Onion, sliced
2 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs chopped fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400F or 200C
2. Place the tomato halves in a shallow baking dish in which they can all fit in snugly side by side.  Insert the whole cloves of garlic in between the tomatoes.  Place sliced onion rings on top of tomatoes.  Brush olive oil over the top and sprinkle with basil.  Season with salt and pepper.
3. Bake uncovered for 35-45 minutes, until tomatoes have softened are are sizzling int he pan with the edges slightly charred.  Serve while hot.

Random Musings: A More Introspective Look into My PC Experience

I used to be a regular blogger.  I'd write at least once a day or a few times a week on the LiveJournal I had since high school.  It used to be an outlet for me.  I stopped since graduating college though.  These days blogging is more like a chore, and I can't type fluidly like I used to.  It came so easy to me before, kind of like stream-of-consciousness thinking.  Although, I can probably attribute that to writing the majority of my entries in the wee hours of the night where my mind was tired and when I wrote, I tended to ramble.  I would even start entries not knowing what to write about but they ended up completing themselves.  Much like this one I suppose.  Maybe I should get back into that habit.  Find a good outlet for me.  God knows I need one - I'm living in another country alone for 27 months of my life!

How many people actually read this though?  It feels kind of useless to write if nobody reads.  I can always escape into my own thoughts without necessarily writing stuff down, or rant to my closest friends instead of blogging.  Plus, this blog is supposed to be for Peace Corps, and I feel confined with what I can write about.  People expect me to write about my experience here, but honestly, I don't really have anything substantial to say about it.

Don't get me wrong, I am pretty much okay and enjoying my life here but I find myself questioning, almost constantly, my being here.  How does this fit into my life?  How is my being here contributing to the well-being or development of the Honduran people?

I found out about Peace Corps in high school from one of my best friends at the time.  Before then I had no idea what it was.  I was living in Egypt and attended a private American school called Cairo American College.  It was composed of a number Egyptians from wealthy families, and children of diplomats and expats from all over the world.  It only seemed natural that the Peace Corps would come up in discussion.  In college I did my research about the organization and it seemed like something I was interested in.  I had spent the majority of my life moving and traveling around from country to country, being surrounded by an infinite diversity of cultures, and had grown accustomed to that Third-Culture Kid way of life.  The Peace Corps would serve as another way to continue with the life I had grown up with, although it would give me my freedom to do so on my own.  I had heard that it had one of the best language training programs in the world, and that employers regarded RPCVs in high esteem when looking for job candidates.

I applied in April 2008, got an interview within 2 weeks after that, and received my nomination the same day to go to Eastern Europe and work with Youth/Community Development in March 2009.  Everything happened so fast, and I started to prepare all the medical, dental, and legal forms.  Unfortunately later in the year 2008, my grandpa, who had long been diagnosed with MDS, was given only 3-6 months to live, and I didn't want to take off for the Peace Corps while my family stayed behind taking care of him.  I postponed the service and was told that I could reactivate the application within a year if I wanted to.  My grandpa died February 2009 and the next couple months were spent taking care of his effects, the wake, cremation, burial, and having a service at the Buddhist monastery in his memory.  It just wasn't a good time for my family and we all were there to support each other, which I feel got us all through it together.

Later in October 2009 I reactivated the application and had to submit an updated motivation statement, updated resume, obtain a letter of recommendation from my current job supervisor, and re-do many of the medical and dental exams.  I then received a call from PC Headquarters in DC in April 2010 about a Municipal Development program in Central/South America.  He made it sound interesting, and it was also one of the programs that was leaving the earliest (June 2010).  I asked about Eastern Europe and he told me that there was a program but it was leaving September 2010 and it would be in some other program, like Youth Development.  At the time I thought Muni D would tie in better to grad school and pursuing an MBA than YD would, so I said I was interested in the program and soon after the phone call, received my invitation which stated I was to be going to Honduras.

Honestly, I cried when I got the invitation because seeing the actual name of the country made everything so extremely REAL.  It finally hit me that I would be leaving my family, leaving my uncle, aunt, cousin and grandma with whom I had been living for nearly 2 years after college to save on rent (since we all knew I would be heading off to the PC).  I'd be leaving my friends, leaving California, the one place I had become comfortable calling "home" after not having a place to call home for my whole life.  I wouldn't be able to see my two little cousins growing up, and kids at such a young age (they are 7, one of them will be 8 soon) grow up fast.  I wouldn't be able to take my sister to Vegas for her 21st birthday like we planned.  And for what?  Is missing out on family stuff worth it all?  To some, family is first priority.  To others focusing on their career is at the top.  My entire family agreed that PC would be good for me, and I figured it would too, so with their push, I decided to go.  I told myself I could do it and I also made a commitment to myself that if I agreed to choose PC, I would see it through to the end.  And I will.  But I can't help but wonder if it's worth it.

Obviously, my motivations to come here were not all selfless.  Yeah I was part of a co-ed community service based fraternity (Alpha Phi Omega) in college and still am, and figured I could do my part in another country, while also learning about the culture and learning another language.  But I also joined because of the reputation attributed to RPCVs.  Let's just be honest here.  I think every volunteer has some ulterior motive for coming here.  We think, ok, we'll just serve our time and be done with it and have a great spiel for our next job/grad school application.

What we don't realize at the beginning is that the service is much more than that.  It changes us.  And it changes us in unexpected ways.  We come in, bright-eyed and eager to learn, paranoid about diseases and bugs, cold bucket showers, and the range of food-borne illnesses that send an explosiveness to our bowels we've never experienced before.  Then we go through training.  We experience all of these things I've just mentioned and survive, coming out of battle like pallid, sweaty, weak fragments of a human, armed with a stronger stomach ready to take on anything Honduras can throw at us.  We adapt.  And this, combined with other factors, gives us a newfound resolve to push forward and make it through the next two years of service.

Then comes the actual service, moving to site, and starting over, yet again.  Staying with a third host family, getting to know the layout of the town, making friends with the locals, speaking Spanish 24/7, and the hardest part - developing meaningful projects on your own.  Since cultural assimilation is necessary to be a successful volunteer, we have to put ourselves out there and make it known to our communities that we are here, and are not going anywhere anytime soon.  We get involved at first in small projects, even if they consist of administration type work, just to build the confianza, or trust between us and the community.  Eventually we make friends, they invite us to outings, and we make connections with people in other organizations that we could potentially work with.  Things start to come together, slowly but surely.  The deeper the involvement and participation in community projects and events, the more satisfied we feel with our presence, and the more we feel like we do indeed have a purpose for being in this country.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that, yes, we all left our lives in the states behind.  We left our families, friends, loved ones, everyday conveniences we took for granted, and anxiously shuffled off to a new, challenging life for 27 months.  Most volunteers haven’t lived in another country for more than a few months before, and there are still others who have never even traveled outside of the states.  For some, it wasn’t an easy decision to come, and for others, it’s what they've always dreamed of.  When it comes down to it, we are all here, together.  We’re experiencing the same issues of homesickness, dealing with integrating into a completely different culture, and discovering why we are here.  We've been taken out of our comfort zones and thrust into a strange, unknown land and forced to survive.  And you know what?  We do.  Being here has already changed each and every one of us, even if we haven’t realized it yet.  Our contribution to Honduras might be small, but it will impact the people we meet, and seeing that firsthand is what truly changes us.  Whatever “sacrifices” we had to make for coming here are all made worthwhile when we see the reactions of the people whose lives we have touched, and that feeling of giving back is something that will stay with us long after our two years of service end.

“.”

Projects

You all must think I don't get any work done around here!  Just cook and bake all day :).  Well, I wish I could spend more time in the kitchen honestly but I do have some projects I'm working on.  Quite a few actually.  They're all in the works though.  This is the slow part.  Once I get everything ready, then will come the unending work days!  Here is what I'm currently working on:

Projects in Progress

Website Creation

I've been going around town taking pictures of what El Negrito has to offer in terms of services, public spaces, recreation, events, and culture and am in the process of creating a website using these photos.  I'm using Weebly because it's free and also has a lot of great design tools.  The only thing I don't like is that the official site name, once published, will have ".weebly" in the address.  A lot has already been done on the site, such as history of El Negrito, information about some organizations here, events, and numerous other pages, but it's going to take a while to finalize everything.  I'm first writing it in Spanish, but will have a link to the English version.  I want it to be as comprehensive as possible before publishing.

Park/Playground Design

The mayor has enlisted my help with the design of a new park in one of the barrios (neighborhoods) closer to the main highway, where the main road turns off to El Negrito.  Since we already have a centrally-located park in the casco urbano, or urban area of my town, this new one is located further away and more accessible to the people who live in that area.  It will be smaller than the parque central but at least it's another public space where people can relax and enjoy the scenery.  Since I have no formal training in planning or design, I brought on two other PCVs to the project, one of whom is an Urban Planner and the other a Landscape Architect.  My mayor has expressed that he'd like benches, lamps, and an illuminated fountain (although that seems like a grandiose move to me).  We already visited the site and took measurements, photos, and I found the location/GPS coordinates on Google Earth but the images are outdated.  We should be able to move forward with this project in March once the designs are submitted.

Stove Construction

There are two projects within this:

1.  I went out to one of the barrios here with a coworker from UMA (Unidad de Medio Ambiente, Environmental Office), one of the offices in the Alcaldia, and we split up and collectively went around to 20 different houses to get information about the families in each house, such as name, age, education completed, relationship within the family, phone number, job, if their houses were rented or owned, if they had access to potable water, and to take a picture of the woman of the house with their stove.  The National Congress alongside the municipality has decided to donate 20 improved stoves for these families.  We had to go out in the field and collect the information for submittal.  I really enjoyed talking to all the families but was disheartened to see that nobody had been able to complete their education past elementary school, either because there was no school in their area they could go to, or they didn't have the means to attend school.  Their children did seem to be continuing their studies, however.  Some were already working on their technical training in high school, so hopefully will finish and graduate.  Most of the families had at least 6 people living under one small roof, and some women were single mothers raising like 5 children on their own, most without sufficient clothing, shoes, or water.  

2.  The second project is mostly on the part of the municipality.  100 families in 4 aldeas will be receiving help with housing, roofs, floors, and stoves.  The muni is taking care of the housing, roofs and floors, and I am helping with the stoves.  I've been in contact with several organizations to obtain funding, design and material information from them to compare and see what is the best option for us to use.  I created 5 project profiles already, each with a different style of stove to present to the mayor, alongside other information from the respective organizations.  He hasn't had a chance to look at anything yet but I'm hoping he will soon so that I can get in touch with whoever we choose to work with.

With these improved stoves, a number of severe problems can be averted.  For one, the smoke from the fire will exit through the chimneys, rather than contaminating the air the families, namely mothers and children, breathe in.  The smoke accounts for several respiratory illnesses prevalent throughout villages that have poorly constructed stoves.  Another issue is the inefficient use of firewood.  The new stoves will aid in the reduction of firewood use and make cooking more efficient so that children and families will not have to travel as often by foot to collect the wood.

Water for People FLOW Training

This entire week, Water for People has been giving a training on their FLOW program.  Municipal office workers as well as the school director and some other city workers attended.  FLOW, or Field-Level Operations Watch, is a monitoring system that runs off of Android phones and allows water systems already in place to live update their statuses and functionality to an online database.  The program asks a variety of questions pertaining to water and sanitation, allows us to take a photo of the water system, and to edit our responses if need be.  We got the chance to practice with the phones in pairs and to put them to real practice out in the field.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to participate in the field exercises because I haven't been feeling well this week, but the technology is super easy to use and I'm sure I can replicate whatever needs to be done when the time comes.

English Classes

I initially spoke with some people at the Alcaldia (mayor's office) about English classes and while they mentioned that would be great to teach teachers, they kept putting the idea on the back burner.  I then went to the School District Director, my other counterpart and he said he thinks I should tutor 6th graders in English.  That also got pushed aside, not because of him, but because I don't think it would be productive to tutor 6th graders in English as it's not sustainable, and also because a lot of the schools here are bilingual schools.  What I've decided to do is teach English to my coworkers at the Alcaldia and at Visión Mundial since I think that would be more helpful in their interactions with foreign clients.  Those at Visión Mundial also provide several workshops, and if their English reaches an advanced level, I'm sure they will also be able to train others in the language as well.  The classes I give will be held at the Visión Mundial center, for an hour and a half twice a week after normal work hours.  Fortunately for me, I visited Janet in Yorito (she left already though) to get materials from her and to observe how she taught.  The trip gave me a number of creative ideas and I look forward to starting these classes soon!

Small Business Training

I was at the muni the other day working on the website and a married couple who is related to my landlady dropped in and we chatted a bit and threw around an idea of microempresa training.  The wife works at the cooperative and can help with the microfinancing of small businesses.  Unemployment is a large problem in Honduras and if I train a sizable group of people to be entrepreneurs, it could help at least a little bit.  After the training and helping the people draw up their business plans and make products, if there are any who are in the business of craft-making, I want to have a monthly artisan fair where they can get together in the center of town to sell their products.  I spoke also with the manager of Visión Mundial to see what kind of support I can receive from them and they also have some knowledge of this type of training.  I went to one of the training events actually, where a VM staff member gave a presentation to a group of interested teens, but to me the lesson could have been elaborated on even more and I felt like a lot more could have been done with the time allotted.  

Mini-Supermarket Product Labeling

I do a lot of my non-fruit and vegetable shopping at the mini-super in town and have come to be friends with the manager and a couple of the girls that work there.  He told me that when foreigners are in town they always ask for certain products, but because they don't speak Spanish and he doesn't speak English, a lot of things are lost in translation.  I figured I could make it a small fun side-project to help him learn the English names of all his products.  I was supposed to go last Saturday but the manager said that this Saturday would work better and they'll have everything prepared this week.

Completed Projects:

ArcGIS Database Input with Catastro Office

This was basically busy work for a while.  Late last year the high school students had their technical training and some were at the muni helping out the Catastro office, as was I.  We had to calculate the new taxes every person was going to pay for 2010, work through several land value and house value calculations, and transfer the new information to a table, then from the table onto the ArcGIS database which already had all the areas mapped out.  8 hours a day of inputting information onto the computer.... not fun!!!  I did much prefer that over the calculations though because those were tedious and time-consuming.  Computer input is much faster and I really also helped to gain back whatever confianza I had lost from not being around a lot due to PC meetings, house improvements, and the temporary personal issues I just couldn't deal with in public...  Things are great now though, and they really appreciated my help!

Making a Mural for Visión Mundial

Read linked blog post for info.

Global-Handwashing Day

Read linked blog post for info.

Sigh.  I really also have to buckle down and study for the GMAT!!!!