Matthew?!

Sept. 24^th – 26^th, 2010

As you may or may not know, Honduras was one of the countries where Hurricane Matthew passed over. Those of us in the North Coast were consolidated to a point away from the potential danger. This meant that all PCVs of that region met up at a hotel and stayed there for a couple nights. It was nice to meet other people that I probably never would have met if it hadn't been for the storm. I made friends with my roommate, who did her service in the Dominican Republic first and then extended another year here. She turned out to be a great resource and I plan on visiting her within the next month to observe her English classes, because I also have to teach English to teachers who have volunteered their time to learn and teach students here.


During our brief "vacation" from our sites, a group of us went to a Mennonite community that specialized in dairy products. We probably walked a total of two or three hours there and back, with a short little bus ride too. We went because one PCV has been and said the ice-cream was amazing, and they sold other things cheese (they actually had cheddar!), yogurt, and banana bread. We all got ice-cream - I got chocolate/coffee, and then raspberry for the trip back, and a loaf of banana bread for my host family. The community was located on a fenced compound which housed living quarters, a school, a large common/kitchen area, and probably a church. The women inside were dressed conservatively and most were American who had learned Spanish. I spoke with one of them about what the community is exactly and she said that they are all Christian and follow the Bible literally. There are church groups organized in the states and whoever is interested in living overseas in such a community can do so for however long they wish. The adults on the compound were mostly American, but there were several Honduran children as well. I was happy to see a large trampoline out back, and the woman inside told me it gets used a lot :).

I went shopping at a large department store called Carrion (dead animal carcass anyone?) and bought a pair of genuine Havaianas flip-flops for about $8, and some nice sunglasses as well. It was super nice to be in a store like that but the enormous shoe department made me feel overwhelmed so I left that area for a minute then returned.

Yeah, I'm weird, but seriously…when you are just not used to seeing something for months, upon seeing it the mind kind of freaks out. I really wonder if it's true what a Returned PCV said about his return to the states after his service. I went to an RPCV forum at the Huntington Library/Gardens in San Marino, CA before I came here and one guy said that after he got done in Ghana, when he first stepped into an American grocery store, he felt so overwhelmed by the selection of cereal that I think he had to leave. At that moment I thought that could never happen to me, but it's only been 4 months and already I'm feeling that way!

One night while there, I thought I had lost my luggage keys at the restaurant we ate dinner at. I had locked my bag that I left at the hotel so no one would break into it, and thought I put them in my pants pocket. Brad and I walked back to the restaurant, and the guy who had been piropo'ing him earlier called out again so Brad went over to talk to him. The first time, the guy called out, "Hey Eminem, what you doing in Honduras!" and we just ignored it, but that had to be the funniest piropo I've heard. I didn't even get it at first. I was thinking M&M's >_<. That's what being away from American pop culture does to you! Turns out the guy lived in the states for a long time and is Muslim and actually speaks English fairly well. Anyway, my keys weren't at the restaurant so my roommate Janet helped me open my bag without destroying the lock or the zipper, and lo and behold my keys were inside! Silly absent-minded me. We fixed my bag up exactly as it had been and I made sure I was pendiente as to where my keys were the rest of the trip.

All in all it was a fun trip, but I was sick the entire time so I ended up going to bed earlier than I wanted and probably was made even more sick by the traveling, but oh well. Oh yeah! I ordered pancakes for breakfast and look how they came! I was very pleasantly surprised by the bananas and maple syrup instead of honey (although honey isn't too bad)!

 

What I Like About My Site

• When I take a stroll around the soccer field at night, the fireflies light it up with red, yellow, and green lights. It's magical. Sometimes they even light up my room too.
• We have two dogs that stay at the house and bark like crazy at night whenever a stranger comes by, effectively preventing any sort of break-in.
  
  
  
• It's only an hour away from a large city with a mall, movie theater, American fast food restaurants, street vendors of every imaginable item, and very large superstores that have everything a house would need, for cheap prices.
  
• It's about two hours away from the beach.
  
• There's an airport nearby so whenever anyone wants to visit, we won't have to travel too far!
  
• Right now, the weather is insanely fresco. It's actually quite strange because when I first got here, it was so hot I had to sleep with a fan on at night and would still sweat. Now my bed has a sheet AND a comforter, and I wear socks and long pajama pants and I sleep very, very well.
  
• It's near the third largest mountain in Honduras.
  
  
  
• I know I complained that we don't have paletas, but we DO have these things called topogigos (known as charramuscas in other parts). They're just plastic bags filled with some sort of liquid and frozen. Like banana and milk smoothie, nance juice, whatever.
  
• My host family has all sorts of animals – hens, roosters, chickens, chicks, ducks, ducklings, dogs, cats. Well, cat. Unfortunately this adorable little kitten died one morning all of a sudden :(. 
• I really love seeing how caring the animals are of their babies. The hen follows its chicks around all day and at night fits herself into the kitchen corner with her three babies under her wing. Whenever there's food given out, she always makes sure they eat first before she gets her share. The duck follows its ducklings around, even when they duck under the fence (duck, get it? Haha, terrible pun, I know =P) to feed elsewhere and she can't follow because she has this rope tied perpetually around one of her legs so she doesn't run away. It's sad. It's also quite amusing to see chickens and hens and roosters in trees, and even sometimes on the roof! I've got to get a picture, it really makes my day seeing that.
  
  
  
• There's a lady that sells "cocteles", or frozen fruit cocktails made with real cut up fruit. They're delicious! But at 20 Lempiras each, kind of too expensive for me to afford everyday (that's a little over $1). I've only ever tried it once and it's definitely a savory treat for a hot day.
  
• Roads around the urban center are paved, or empedrada'd. I'm not sure how to translate that – they have stones instead of pavement. But nice flat stones.
  
• The municipality building seems to be, for the most part, in order. They have computers with internet, database programs, and personnel that know how to use the programs and who actually work. This means I can do more than just teach people how to use a computer and the programs on it. Yay!
  
• Hammocks are abundant and everywhere. Very comfortable to rest in and read a book. Probably one of the reasons I've already finished almost 3 books in 3 weeks.
  
• Karate class – Hi-Ya! Ok other than me being a dork, this is awesome because now I can maybe work with the instructor in creating my own self-defense/Tae Kwon Do classes.
  
• Internet works!
  

Sept. 2 – Sept. 14, 2010

For our last night in our FBT site, our Honduran friends rented out the pool area for us so we could hang out as a group one last time before going back to our first training site and reuniting with the other project groups. We danced the night away, a couple people went for a swim, took many pictures, and had a lot of fun. The next morning we all met in the park with our luggage and hopped on the bus to Tegucigalpa for Immigration stuff. That took foreverrrr, but we were able to get back on the bus after our forms and fingerprints were done and the bus took us to the area in Tegus where there’s a Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, McD’s, BK, Dunkin’ Donuts, and a supermarket. I went to Wendy’s with some other people and MMMmmm, Oreo Vanilla Frosty tasted so damn good. I wasn’t able to finish it though because before going to restaurant central I had eaten a bag of platano chips (they’re sliced thin length-wise and fried like chips and salted – delicious) and drank a carton of apple juice since I didn’t know that we were going out to eat later….So I wasted my money on that snack and on Wendy’s. They should have mentioned something to us, but that’s something we all learn here, is to deal with bad planning… I guess I’m a bit bitter about some things as most of us are but moving on.. We had a couple hours to kill after lunch so walked to the supermarket La Colonia, which is actually owned by Wal*Mart, as is the case with most of the supers here, like Paiz, and some other one called Tutti Frutti or something. After that, sat down at the patio outside Dunkin’ Donuts with some other trainees, found out that wifi internet was available at all the American chain restaurants, and finally we left to go back home to our first host families for one last week.

Our last week of training was mostly administrative stuff. Only had 2 days of language classes, took our final language proficiency interviews (I moved up another level – to Intermediate-High, next one after that is Advanced-Low), some safety and security sessions, OH and this one volunteer came to talk to us and I knew I recognized him from somewhere… He has the Youtube channel of his PC experience and I had watched that before coming here and his videos actually kind of got me excited for service, plus he has a Podcast as well so he’s somewhat a celebrity amongst new people like us. So yeah he came to talk to us about mental health, and was super cute and smart and confident that it’s a shame he’s leaving soon and lives uber far from me but…… =P. Hmm what else.. We received our PC polos, received super yummy different types of bread from this one family that sells it.. I got banana and carrot.. Oh yes, Morgaine, Amanda and I went to Santa Lucia to visit a tea café that’s supposed to be really popular there. When we got there we saw that they really didn’t have a great selection of tea but the sitting area outside had a spectacular view of Tegus and they had the best guava granita. A granita is a drink, like an ice-blended smoothie but here I’m pretty sure they use the real fruit to make them, and my guava granita tasted like heaven. Also got a slice of the cheesecake there, which wasn’t bad, and we helped Morgaine practice her Spanish because her interview was the next day. That wasn’t too successful though because we spent almost the whole time laughing. Later that week we found out we went to the wrong tea café… Oops. Amanda and I and some other trainees went back to Santa Lucia after training to go to the right café and were amazed…. It was Buddhist-themed with incense, a Buddha statue, very nice relaxation/meditation music, decorative pillows and a lot of wood furniture, but the real surprise was how amazing the tea tasted! Brad ordered Jasmine tea, which just blew away the stuff they serve at Chinese restaurants, Jenifer had the cinnamon tea which was also tasty, and then the other three of us had a fusion of mint, cloves, cardamom, milk, and tea. Each one of us had a cookie to accompany our tea too. That night I made banana cookies with the family, and this time instead of trying to ground the cinnamon sticks by mashing them as we did in our FBT site, I used a knife, which worked so much better and almost made it appear as ground cinnamon. The cookies were delicious and by the end of the next day were all gone (and no, I didn’t eat them all -____-).

Friday the 10th, our counterparts from our sites came to the training center to meet us for the first time. I was afraid mine wasn’t going to show because a few of us were still waiting while the others had already gotten seated for the initial speeches, but two people finally arrived for me – the mayor of my site and the director of all the schools in the municipality. Mayor is young, probably mid-late 30s and was just elected to position at the beginning of the year. The director is an older guy and both of them seem friendly. We did a couple counterpart-volunteer activities like write up a plan for the rest of the month after moving to site, write down our expectations of each other and also what we can offer to the other (as separate groups – future volunteers, counterparts), and had a very nice catered lunch of seasoned chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and a very moist cake.. maybe tres leches? After that, we got on our own bus while the counterparts either got into another or drove their own cars to the US Embassy in Tegus. We were insanely lucky it didn’t rain that afternoon because before that day, it had rained everyday after lunch. The Swearing-In Ceremony was held outside, with seats under tents and the podium and flags on a platform/stage in front of us. The Ceremony began with a couple of speeches and we sang both national anthems. After the US Ambassador spoke, he had us all raise our right hand and recite an oath to become official Volunteers. Some of us cried after, I had to fight back my tears because I didn’t want my make-up to smear haha =P. After that, two now official volunteers gave speeches as well, in Spanish – Patrick gave his to talk about our training experience and our strong friendship within the group and also to show how far he had advanced in Spanish. His command of the language after three months really was impressive since he hadn’t even spoken a word of it before coming here, but he still does have a very strong American accent so we were impressed but had some good laughs too. I think we have all gotten comfortable with everyone’s language level and have realized that everyone makes mistakes and at times it really is laugh-til-you-cry hilarious (I have never laughed so hard nor so often as I have in my Spanish classes), but we are all learning and have all progressed a great deal, so I am really glad that he was one of us to give the speech. After him, Jessica, a native speaker, gave her speech and moved some of us almost to tears. It was beautifully orated, and the poem she wrote was inspirational. I wish I had gotten a copy of it. After the closing words, the ceremony was over and picture-taking began! I also met my mom’s friend who works at the embassy, because we had talked over the phone a few times and to finally meet her in person was nice. We then headed back on the volunteer bus, which took us to Valle de Angeles to an outdoor restaurant we had rented out to celebrate our swearing-in and as a final goodbye since that would be the last day we were all together as a group. A lot of dancing, a lot of pictures, a lot of laughing, and delicious food! I had a baleada with beans, mantequilla, eggs, chismol and avocado, and a papaya smoothie.. couldn’t even finish it all but it gave me enough energy to dance a few hours. Ended around 8:45 pm and the bus took all of us back to our houses/areas where our houses are and it was sad saying goodbye to some of my closest friends, but I know we’ll see each other again, and will definitely keep in touch.

Next morning, woke up early to get ready to leave. My counterparts came to pick me up from my house and then we started the 4-5 hour drive to site. They dropped me off at my new host family’s house and then went home. I spent the rest of the day unpacking a bit, and talking to my host family. It’s a small family, only a married couple with no children, but their house is one step away from where the wife’s parents and brother live so I go over there to use the bathroom and anything related to water or food since their house doesn’t have a toilet yet. Their house is actually pretty nice, there’s a front “porch” with tiled floor, a hammock outside, tiled floor inside, huuuge screen tv which doesn’t work, kitchen with stove that is not in use, and a huuuuuge dirt backyard with ducks, ducklings, chickens, roosters, hens, and chicks. There are also two dogs, Dusty and Rex. My host dad lived in the states for ten years before doing logging in North Carolina and Miami and just came back I think either last year or two years ago. They’re both very sweet, humble people and have had volunteers stay with them before. I taught them and their two nieces a couple card games like Uno (with regular cards), Go Fish, Spit, and then the card trick with 7 cards each in three columns. They enjoyed Go Fish the most because it’s a bit different from the way they play it and they said my version was more fun >_<. In their version, they don’t mess the cards up in the middle to make a lake, they just keep the pile stacked and draw a card from the top. Went to sleep, had a fan on the entire night because this town is HOT and HUMID like crazy!! It will take some getting used to but it’s not that bad. I’ll survive. I talked to Amanda and she said the weather is the complete opposite where she is. She was wearing pants and a long-sleeve shirt and was fine. Sigh. Well, sweating a lot is supposed to be good for skin as long as I stay hydrated right? We’ll see how that goes. And I’ll be able to get even more tan too, yay! But honestly, I really miss our FBT site. I think we were all spoiled with it. Here the houses are more spread apart, nobody plays in the park which is super sad, and there are no paletas or chocobananos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so glad I got the recipe for the tutti-frutti paleta from that pulperia lady during FBT. God. I think I would die if I couldn’t make them here.

Sunday, I didn’t have any plans but the mayor called and said he was going to take me to this place from like 9:30 am to 2 pm so I was like whaaaa, que barbaridad that I have to work on Sunday! and got ready in capris, t-shirt and sneakers because it sounded like we would be visiting an aldea and there might be a lot of dirt roads and mud, but as it turned out we went to the grand-opening of the biggest food court in Honduras, called Tio Dolmo. They have a few locations all over the country, but I guess this was the biggest? There were balloon-making clowns, live music, lots of food, and the mayor was interviewed for a news station that airs worldwide. We also sat with the owner of the brand/company “Selecta” and his wife. Selecta is a company that makes corn flour and tortillas, and the owner also invented some tortilla-making machines for industrial use and smaller ones for residential use. It is also the only brand that Tio Dolmo uses for their tortillas. Apparently the guy is also very good friends with the President of Honduras himself. He kept joking to me that by the time I’m done with my two years in Honduras, I’ll have a Honduran husband and two kids, and he’d even host the wedding for me on the beach if I wanted and I was like, fine, but you have to find husbands for my sister and cousin too (because I have their picture as the background for my phone and he saw it). Part of me doesn’t know if he was joking because he would repeat it throughout lunch and I would just laugh but yeaaaaah. And then my host dad also says I’m going to find a Honduran boyfriend and that he knows some guys who are super nice and honest in my site -__________________-. Not that I have anything against Honduran guys. I have some really great Honduran guy friends, one of which said is going to visit me and then we’ll go out and do some real dancing (if you’re reading this, you better! Hahaha). It’s just that I hope they’re not super serious in trying to hook me up and that they only said it in good fun. Other than that, it’s been good. My site has a park, several soccer fields and basketball courts, several cows and bulls and oxen (I think) in the soccer fields, even a cow right across the street from this house, and now I have a trophy-looking glass for the World Cup 2010 that the mayor gave to me. I like seeing the animals everywhere, it’s just so different from what I’m used to and it makes things interesting, especially if it’s in the street and won’t budge. They’re so cute. I wish I could go up and hug a cow but it would probably head-butt me. I want to learn how to milk one too but I probably wouldn’t even be able to squeeze a drop out. One day!

First day of work - pretty boring… Mayor introduced me to everyone who works in the Alcaldia, then sat in his mayor’s office while he met with several people/groups of the community, like council members, soccer team representatives, etc. They explained their problems to him and offered suggestions while he tried to help them out and also made a few calls to get stuff done for them, so at least he did seem to be doing a genuine job. It was just super boring to sit there for a couple hours without a break because I’m a pretty restless person and I need to be moving around to have more energy but sitting on his incredibly comfortable couch in his incredibly decorated and air-conditioned office made me feel so sleepy. It was nice to see what he does on his Mondays though because the other days I guess he’s never in the Alcaldia (or so I’ve heard), most likely out doing other things in the community. I’ll get to see the rest of this week! Rather than sitting in his office the rest of the day, I went to the Catastro (Cadastre in English?) and Public Services offices to talk to the people I would be working with and to fill out some forms due in a month that Peace Corps gave us. One guy had just given me the answer to how many people receive water in their houses and then like half an hour later I went to the Public Services office to introduce myself and get more answers for the forms and asked the same guy the same question because I didn’t remember that he was the one that gave me the answer earlier >___<. He was understanding though, said that with time I’ll familiarize myself with everyone there, so that was nice…. Lunch today was a little frustrating because I couldn’t go home for lack of time, and I couldn’t manage to find a good place to eat for a while.. but I finally found a place that made baleadas and had a delicious lunch. After lunch there was supposed to be a meeting in the park and a bunch of patronatos were invited (town councils) and the Junta de Agua (water board) and some other committees and community leaders but only about 13 people showed up in total and then half of them left because the meeting still hadn’t started after like 40 minutes from when it was supposed to, and also the 3 main people who were supposed to head the meeting weren’t even there… so the remaining half started talking amongst themselves about whatever issues and it was extremely informal and then they left after an hour. I hope all the meetings aren’t like this…. Oh, and now while there aren’t paletas here (or at least the cheap kind that I love, there is regular ice-cream and popsicles), there is this woman who sells sliced up fresh fruit frozen in a large cup for 20 Lemps, or about a $1. That was pretty tasty but not something I could buy everyday like the 4 Lemp paletas. Sigh. The only exciting thing about my day was the walk home. Nevermind the intense heat, but as I was walking, I heard children shouting words in a very structured manner and thought I recognized something about that, and when I looked up to see the building I was walking past, I saw a Karate sign!!!! Karate classes were in session!! Aaaaaaah <3. So I figured I should go check it out, climbed up the stairs and introduced myself to the instructor and told him I have a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and I would love to help him out, but would have to learn some Karate first and he gave me a flyer and said whenever I want to drop by, he’s “a la orden”, which is something people say here a lot to say they’re like “at your order”. It’s a courtesy thing.

That’s one thing I’ve noticed about Spanish, is it seems like a much more courteous language than English. I mean, there are different ways to say “you” depending on who you’re saying it to – someone super close to you, children, people older than you, people with a higher status than you.. and then all the different ways to greet and say goodbye – people say “Que le vaya bien” to mean something like “that you go well” when someone is leaving to someplace else, and “cuidese” like “take care of yourself”. While in English we do say these things, usually it’s like one phrase or the other but here the people say all of them at once so it’s nice.

Also got the chance to hang out with the volunteer here whose house I plan on getting after my 2 months of required host-family lodging. It’s pretty huge for PCVs. Huge living room with dining room space, tiled floors, two bedrooms, huge bathroom, good-sized kitchen, and enormous backyard with hammock, banana tree, and avocado trees. And the shower has an electraducha or whatever it’s called! So basically I can take normal hot showers if I wanted. I’m excited. I can actually have an office or a guest room if I wanted. <3. Yaaaaaaay. But it’s not all perfect. The house has a bat in the rafters that lives there and every morning I’ll have to clean the poop out of the corner of the house. There are also termites that might make the roof collapse at some point in my service, and ants in the kitchen if I don’t keep it clean, and sometimes cockroaches. We’re going to have the landlord fumigate the house before I move in, which would rid it of its termite problem and probably kill the bat too sadly…..

Met my other site-mate on Tuesday. He seems like a pretty chill guy. I was at the Alcaldia doing nothing except looking up vocab words because se fue la luz (electricity went out) so nobody was really doing anything, and he showed up and he showed me around town a bit then showed me his house which isn’t too bad either. If the porch floor was filled in with concrete that would be pretty sweet because then he could hang up his hammock. He’s got a tamarind tree, an orange tree and mango trees. I’m glad I have a site-mate, it’ll be nice to collaborate on projects and have someone to chill with.

Saturday – Aug. 21, 2010
Went to a soccer game at the largest sugarcane factory in Honduras. Our friend was on one of the teams so a few of us joined to see what a Honduran soccer match is like. The players all seemed to have nicknames, like “Gringo”, “Chino”, among others. During half-time we kicked a soccer ball around in a group circle, I even hit it with my head which didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.. Lots of girls like to play soccer here and they’re actually pretty damn good. I think there’s a women’s team or a couple in this country..

Monday – Aug. 23, 2010
Planted trees! Well, more like created a plot, made a mix of dirt and sand, created baggies filled with this mixture out of old paper cartons, black plastic bags and platano leaves, and planted the seeds in these baggies and placed them in the plot. It was raining a bit the entire time we were doing this and I was already a bit sick but that made it even worse…. Ugh. Good experience though.

Thursday – Aug. 26, 2010
Cultural Day! After lunch we got together with our host families at their homes, or in my case in her café and learned how to create a traditional Honduran food dish. We brought all the food, enough for 40 people, to the Alcaldia and met up with all our host families and some other members of the community. The event included dancing, each of us reciting in Spanish the dishes we learned how to cook, and each Spanish class taught an activity of something American. My class taught swing-dancing. After we demonstrated how to swing-dance with each other, we asked for volunteers but nobody came up :( A few seconds later though, we had little children standing in front of us so we danced with them, and they had a great time.

Friday – Aug. 27, 2010
Day was normal until about lunch time when we saw that the Alcaldia was insanely crowded with people. When we went to check it out, there happened to be another volunteer group there called Global Brigade. They were giving free aid to the people of the town like checking their blood pressure, temperature, medical issues, giving them meds, dental check-ups… A few of us offered to help during our lunch break and it was extremely fun. I got to meet some new people, and was WAY too happy to see Asian people there…. I almost asked to take a picture with them all but decided it was probably better not to... And a couple of them had British accents so I was giddily happy being around Asians and British accents. We helped them by using our Spanish skills to get information from the people concerning their medical needs since our Spanish was a bit more advanced than theirs, but they had a couple of people who spoke it almost fluently.
After training I hosted a Tae Kwon Do/Self-Defense class in the large open area in the Alcaldia. Some other trainees joined and then some of the middle-school aged girls who were hanging around there decided to join too. Everyone enjoyed themselves and were asking when the next class would be, so hopefully some time later this week before we leave on Saturday for good! I was surprised at how much I remembered, and realized that I could potentially have these classes in my site because they would totally help with self-esteem (especially for girls) and help them protect themselves in case of an attack. I’ll have to look online and get more resources to jog my mind even more and set up a more structured plan but it’s definitely something I’d be interested in doing. I already assisted in teaching TKD to elementary and middle school students when I was in high school so have some sort of idea of how to begin.

Saturday – Aug. 28, 2010
Another dance in the Alcaldia. This one wasn’t as fun as the other because there wasn’t as many people, music wasn’t as good, lights weren’t as good… But we all had a good time. I am slowly getting better at dancing and letting the guy lead (which is super fun if he knows how to dance!) especially since my Honduran friends are such good dance partners. I’ve grown quite fond of being twirled around and dipped =P.

Sunday – Aug. 29, 2010
Morgaine, Amanda and I made banana cookies for our families using a toaster oven. They turned out extremely well, considering the minor modifications we had to make. We had no ground cinnamon so bought bits of cinnamon bark instead and mashed them up a bit. The dough was too thick and dry so added milk which was a bit chunky because it was VERY fresh milk.. used this weird thick creamy oil instead of vegetable oil… and the toaster oven only went up to 250°F and we needed it to be 375°, so we just baked them a little longer. I’m going to have to make these cookies when I get to my 2-year site… and I’m going to find out my location on Wednesday!!

Monday – Aug. 30, 2010
Gave a charla about Disaster Mitigation and Global Warming to a patronato and the junta de agua in an aldea. A patronato is a community council made up of representatives of all types of members of the community like men, women, old, not too old, religious background, political affiliation, etc. It went fairly well. There were a few women breast-feeding their babies pretty openly which didn’t bother me and actually made me think it’s a good thing they’re not letting something like their kids prevent them from coming out to the charla.
The rest of the day after training was spent bonding with another trainee. We probably talked for 3 hours and lost track of time…

Tuesday – Aug. 31, 2010
This morning during Spanish class we did an activity in which each of us had to step outside individually while the rest of the class (there’s only 5 of us plus the teacher) came up with a story for a future day in our lives. I was the first victim and when I came back, I had to guess what day everyone had chosen for me and then describe it in detail. I first guessed birthday, but realized that was too boring, so then said wedding and I was right! Most of what I had guessed and narrated was correct – that it was on the beach, my sister was the Maid-of-Honor, all my family and close friends were there, reception afterward, honeymoon after that… but according to their story, the music was live and it was trance music >_<. They know me too well.. but I don’t know how that would work. I think they decided the music would be live before they had decided on trance. Whoops! I would have preferred classical though, or hip-hop or oldies or something fun for everyone. For the other trainees we had stories about giving birth to a first child, winning the lottery, first day back in the states after Peace Corps, and being awarded a medal for Best Volunteer in the World by Obama, and our teacher became President of Honduras and led the educational system reform for her country. All in all, a fun exercise.
Today was also the day of our last charla, thank god!!! It was about Transparency/Corruption and Municipal Structure. My parts were pretty short and I just read what was in the informational packet because it was a lot of specific examples of what public/personal information is and there was no way to memorize that.. the language facilitator who watched us gave us feedback and said to everyone what they need to work on in terms of speaking Spanish and when he got to me he said I talk to fast with no regard to commas and periods and punctuation in general >_<. Yeah yeah yeah…. I will remember for next time – commas mean I need to pause. Ha. =P
After training, a bunch of us hung out at my house to learn how to make taquitos de pollo, chismol, and pupusas con quesillo/frijoles/chicharron. Super fun, the kitchen was pretty crowded but we made a montón de food. Everyone left full and happy.

Wednesday – Sept. 1, 2010
Found out our sites!!
It´s a relatively large site compared to the others. Climate is hot and very humid and rainfall throughout the year. My work will consist of implementing a training plan for the patronatos and CBOs (community-based organizations for example school boards, womens groups etc) and the elaboration of project profiles. Catastro office needs to be improved too (they work in zoning and infrastructure stuff) so I will be using GPS/GIS. I will also be doing topographic studies, designing budgets and plans
Giving training in health topics to rural communities like in schools and to parents of families for better community development, and training the patronatos in the topics of project profiling, environment, risk management. My other work is with a high school that needs help on grant writing, acquiring more books for the library, and construction of a gym. It´s close to one of the main tourist beaches and a main airport so I´m super lucky! Plus there are a couple of volunteers living in site so I´ll have people to talk to. I´m very happy.

Frase del día: “A otro perro con ese hueso.” - means go test your tricks on someone else. For example, if a man approaches a sexy woman standing on the street and tries to sweet talk her into going out with him, she can say this phrase.

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”

Hello hello.

Here's something new: Phrase of the day! Or rather, blog, since I don't think I'll be updating daily... =] These will be cultural phrases, so I don´t know if they´re used in other Spanish-speaking countries.

“El mal anda, mal acaba” - essentially means “What goes around comes around”

Things have been pretty boring around here. It might be because I have absolutely no energy to be going out after training and on the weekends. The days here are long and hot and all I want to do is stay in and not sweat, not get bitten, and just watch my tv shows and movies on my computer. I love this netbook by the way. It's a Toshiba NB305-N410, blue. I upgraded the RAM to the maximum 2 GB before I left the states and it runs pretty good. Has Windows 7 Starter, which is not bad, just can't change my desktop background, but I can live with that.

Anyway, the paletas here are delicious! The tutti-frutti is my favorite. It's basically like real mixed fruit juice poured into an empty yogurt cup with chopped up bananas, mangoes, apples, watermelon, and some sugar, with a popsicle stick in it too, frozen, and then eaten. Delicious! Only 4 Lemps, or about 20 cents.

We had a guest speaker come talk to us about climate change, global warming, and the greenhouse gas effect, and in her talk, she briefly mentioned that one of the peoples of Honduras called the Miskitos are excellent tree climbers and climb up trees to harvest the batana (sp?) plant, which is used in Ojon brand products. It was so strange to hear because Ojon sells their products in Sephora, and I've actually used their shampoo and conditioner before (they're insanely expensive and I'm not too fond of the smell, but it does wonders for your hair), but I hadn't realized that the ingredients come from the Miskito people of Honduras! Small world...

One thing I've found I really miss here is Asian people. I'm the only Asian in my Muni D group!! And I'm not even full Asian! Well there is one other guy but he's being mysterious about his ethnicity so I'm not counting him until I know what he is. But yes. I miss Asian people. I got so used to it over the past 6 years being at UC Irvine for college (which is like almost 50% Asian), working at a lab where almost everyone was Asian, living with my relatives who are Burmese, and all my friends were Asian too... Le sigh. I feel like a big chunk of my life is missing without a single Asian person here. There are two other girls in the overall training group but they're in different project so I never really see them. Anyway, just thought I should share that v^_^v.

I miss the piano too. I have a terrible habit of always needing to do something with my hands and can never sit still, almost like I have a beat in my head at all times, and I would really like some instrument to play to get it out. I play the guitar, piano and flute, but I lost my flute my fourth year of college, and didn't bring a guitar here, and definitely don't have a piano... Just afraid of losing whatever skills I had over these two years. Maybe once I get my own place I'll be able to track down an inexpensive keyboard somewhere.... Ha, yeah right.

Tomorrow my friend and I have to give a mini-charla (presentation) on recycling to some students and we have no idea how recycling in Honduras works because we haven't had a talk about it yet. We asked around and it seems like there is no solid recycling program other than in the larger cities, so the best way to make use of recyclable items is to reuse them. For instance, with plastic bottles, people have been painting them or filling them with sand to create benches and even walls and houses with other materials as well. I'm not really sure what else we can do with the other things but I'm going to do a bit of research online today to see what Honduras does...

The park this past week has been celebrating like cultural stuff, so they had karaoke and dance contests between the high school kids, and a food festival with so many different things.. Best food I've had here in Honduras so far were the Tacos Mexicanos at that festival. I also love that fresh passion fruit juice is widely available here, as well as coconuts and some other exotic fruits that I never heard of until I got here. There's one fruit called Nance (pronounced pretty much like my name) and it's the ONLY fruit that I hate with a passion. They taste like rotten fruit and smell terrible too, and cause body pains in some people, so I don't understand why anyone would ever eat them.





Hmm what else... had a little theft issue with some of my small items like chapstick, face stuff, candy.. that's very resolved though. Very, very resolved...

Guess that's all for now!

I think I'm already getting lazy. I haven't updated this in a while, but it doesn't mean I haven't been writing. There are a few people I'm writing incredibly long e-mails to regularly, and by the time I'm done with those, I don't have the energy to write anymore.. but I think taking a break and writing when I have the urge to write is better because at least then it's not forced..

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.

Week 1

Week 1 [June 27, 2010 – July 2, 2010]
Ah, I finally got to sleep in! I thought I was going to sleep in until 12 pm because I stayed up late watching “Dear John” but I woke up at 9 am -______-. That gave me time to clean my room, take a bucket shower, and eat breakfast. I had scrambled eggs, turkey ham, and cheese. I fashioned a tortilla sandwich out of them and it was deeelicious. Hot chocolate was served as well. Hung out with the fam for a while then headed out again to do some internet stuff. I was able to practice my Spanish a lot. I spoke with one guy at the bus stop and another at the internet cafe. The first guy's name was Josue and the second guy was Alejandro. I am running into so many Alejandro's!! It's a bit humorous to me because a friend and I were joking that I'm going to meet an Alejandro because of Lady Gaga's song.. and here I am, meeting Alejandros.. =P. He seemed really nice, he sells roses of all different colors, and travels from Teguz to these hilly towns to sell his flowers. At the internet cafe I was trying to order chilaquiles but they came and served me french fries with ketchup and cheese instead :(. Ok, my Spanish isn't THAT bad! Haha.. well there obviously was some miscommunication and I'm pretty sure it happened when I tried to ask exactly if the chilaquiles were made of tortilla chips and I accidentally said papa because I was thinking potato chips... whoops!

Came back home and met the relatives of the fam, and sat in the living room reading through all the booklets the PC gave us. I later joined host dad and babysitter to go buy some groceries. Dinner was baleadas!! Soooo freaking good. Well, I had the ones they make at the training center cafeteria but those are nothing compared to my host mom's. Tortillas de arina (flour, they're larger than the tortillas de maíz) with frijoles (beans) and mantequilla (almost like sour cream) inside. Yum yum yum, reminded me of a soft taco sort of. “I Am Legend” was playing on the TV so I was watching some of that in Spanish but then realized it was getting late and retired to mi dormitorio.


Ok, I'm not going to keep track of days anymore because I can't possibly do that for 27 months, but I thought it was appropriate for the first week.

We received our training schedules. It really does seem intense and I really hope that I'll be able to accomplish everything set out for us to do.

And I just realized that I was taking the malaria pills everyday.... it's supposed to be once a week >_<. Well I only did it for 3 days so hopefully that's okay...

I found out that I'm ranked Intermediate-Low in Spanish! That's great news, because the level we all have to be at to become PCVs is Intermediate-Mid, which is only one level higher than Int-Low. And technically at the end of PST, we should all advance 2 or 3 levels.. so hopefully I'll be Advanced-Low at least, by the time I finish.

We learned how to thoroughly wash our fruits and vegetables, and it was a very hands-on training session because in the end we made a veggie salad and a fruit salad! The veggies and fruits here are soo flavorful.

I got about a million picadas, or bug bites. I'm not sure where they're from because my host family doesn't have any, but we were thinking it's from the fleas in the grass since I have to walk to and from training everyday. Le sigh. We washed my bedsheets and I'm going to wash all my clothes pretty soon. The nurse said I may also have had an allergic reaction to a couple bites, which spurred even more to come up sort of like hives I guess? Now I have to take anti-histamine medication and use anti-bacterial ointment to prevent infection. Yaaaaaay -_________-.

Anyway. First week of training went okay. I think everyone is a bit tired and overwhelmed because we're learning a lot of material in our Spanish classes, but I can already tell I'm getting better. I'm not really sure what else to write here anymore... Just taking one day at a time. I've learned that I can eat questionable things if I don't know what they are (sometimes), and that I can sleep in a bed with a small cockroach and silverfish in it and not freak out that they were in my bed the whole night. Oh, and that I can bear cold bucket showers. Maybe not big deals to most people, but if I was back in the states, I'd probably be complaining about each and every one of these things because they're totally avoidable... but I realized I ain't in Kansas anymore and I just gotta get used to this since I'll be here for 2 years!

I washed my clothes for the first time without a washing machine. It's actually really easy but it's time-consuming and I can tell that by the time I'm done here, my arms are going to be ripped ;).

Oh, and I'm getting a minor tan =]. I will probably be uber dark by the time I'm done. w00t!

First Week with the Peace Corps!

Day 0 – 6/21/10, Monday
My mom and I stayed up pretty late packing all my stuff.. I only got 2 hours of sleep before I had to wake up to go to the airport. My parents, sister and I headed off to Ontario airport at about 7:15 am to catch my flight to Phoenix, AZ, where I had a layover before flying to Houston, TX. Arrived in Houston, had to wait around at the airport for about an hour before getting a shuttle to the hotel. Stayed at the Hilton Houston Southwest. Another girl who was with the Peace Corps happened to be on the same shuttle with me, and we ended up having our rooms right next to each other. Got dinner at the hotel, we played a game of pool, and amusingly watched as an older man sat himself down at the piano in the lobby and played a few tunes. He played beautifully, but then... he started to sing. And that was dreadful. Played around on the computer about, made a few phone calls, then went to sleep.

Day 1 – 6/22/10, Tuesday
Staging registration began around noon, and I was one of the first people inside so we ended up sitting at the table talking for about an hour, getting to know each other. Then we realized that the actual orientation wasn't going to start until 2 pm... so I went back to the room to get some food. We did a bunch of team-based activities, including drawing our anxieties and aspirations. I drew a shrimp to represent my seafood phobia. I actually encountered several other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) who had almost the same fear as I do. Very nice to know :).

After Staging, we walked over to the nearest ATM to withdraw all our cash given to us on a credit card, which happened to be at a closed Wells Fargo bank that had drive-through ATMs. Two cars came and it must have looked pretty weird to them, seeing two different big groups of people surrounding the ATMs... We then split and some of us walked to the plaza that had a lot of Indian shops and restaurants and decided to try the Himalayan restaurant, since none of us had tried Himalayan food before. We split again into two tables, and we were all super super hungry. It took a hour to get our food, and during the wait, whenever the waiter would bring out food, other customers could probably notice the two tables of PCTs eying the food like they were ready to pounce. When our food finally arrived... and even though the wait was long, it was totally worth it. Completely DELICIOUS! But.. that may have been because I ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala =P. It's my absolute favorite Indian dish. Came with Naan, and we also ordered beef kebabs, and two other chicken and beef curries, made with ginger, onion, cilantro, hot peppers and some other spices. All the food was shared, and I ended up taking the ton of leftovers back to the room because I hate to see such good food wasted, but didn't end up eating it at all =(. Went online for a bit, and only got about 2 and a half hours of sleep.

Day 2 – 6/23/10, Wednesday
We checked out of hotel at 3:30 am, and even though I got such little sleep, I seemed to be okay the rest of the day. We rode bus to the airport, and when I was checking in, one of my suitcases was 53 pounds and the other was 36 pounds... I have no idea how that happened but I had to repack! That's why my parents packed for me in the first place =P. Once I got to Houston and unpacked a few of my things then repacked them to leave, baggage weight problems happen. Le sigh. We had a couple of hours to kill at the airport so I took advantage of the wifi to send off some last minute e-mails and a long overdue resume for a friend.. (you better sell my car!!! ;]). Got on the plane to Tegucigalpa, fell asleep for a few minutes, and when I woke up to look out the window, the landscape was just so green and beautiful! I had heard that there were thunderstorms the entire week in Teguz, but I guess we got lucky :) The weather is BEAUTIFUL like California, and I saw lots of American chain restaurants like Domino's, BK, Baskin Robbins, Church's, Friday's, Dunkin' Donuts etc. I'm much more interested n trying the food here, especially since the common dishes don't include seafood >_<.

Arrived at the training center, about half an hour from the capital. It's up the mountain a bit, in a very forested area with small houses and dirt roads. It's such a beautiful location. I just kept looking around and couldn't believe that I would wake up every morning to this. We watched the presenters and had the chance to try the Honduran coffee offered to us. Coffee here is AMAZING. Very strong, very flavorful. Also tried some galletas (I think that means cookies, but they're like.. plain cookies perhaps used for coffee?). We received our our host family descriptions that listed the number of children they had, their expectations, what their house is like, etc.

At the end of this first day in Honduras, our familias anfitrionas came to pick us up and take us back home. Some PCTs had to take the bus to their locations because they were too far to walk, but my host family came and took me back in their car. They made it clear in a nice way that even though they did speak some English, we could only speak in Spanish so that I could become more fluent. And oh my goodness, I'm so surprised I can still communicate in Spanish and crack jokes after not practicing it since high school 6 years ago! I still have A LOT to work on of course but at least they understand what I'm saying and are insanely supportive and hospitable.

There is a mother and father, with a 7 year old hija y un hijo that's only 10 months old, and a babysitter/housekeeper who is 15 and hasn't celebrated her quinceañera :(. He is the most adorable thing, always smiling :). They are all so wonderful and sweet, and I feel completely comfortable around them even just for my first day. The father has una panadería behind the house with a concrete domed oven, and the mother works at a Hospital School. He's always smiling! No pets, and my room is much bigger than I expected. I have a full-size bed with a closet, a table, a chair, and a shared bathroom. They have a small heater that you plug into the wall (voltage is 110V in general, but 220V for stoves) and stick into the large water bucket for a little bit to get hot water. To shower, the bucket is used. The water from the sink is quite dirty. I tried to get my washcloth wet and wondered why it was getting so dirty when I hadn't even used it yet, then realized it was the water. Meh. Not a problem. I also saw how to wash clothes using one of those ridged boards and water from a pila (storage tank for water made of cement), but they do have an electric washer and dryer if I need to do a lot. I'm going to take my shot at using the board when the time comes though.

They served me dinner and I helped cut the green beans which were used for my lunch the next day. Dinner consisted first of some sort of beef broth soup with spices in it to settle my stomach before eating the food, and it was delicious, albeit a bit salty. Next was a plate of plantains, half an avocado, egg omelet with onion, and a hard salty cheese. The plantains were prepared by cutting them into quarters or thirds, and then boiling them in some water until they are somewhat cooked. They didn't taste like bananas, but more like some very starchy food, almost like cooked potato. I ate all of it with some OJ, and it was good, but very rich. The family is very open because they've hosted 5 PCTs before so know what to expect. They told me right off the bat that if I didn't like something I should tell them because if I don't eat it and they end up throwing it away, it would be a waste of food, which is true. I did end up telling them about my seafood phobia, and they told me that in this region of Honduras, seafood is very expensive and extremely rare, which is good for me! They also said it was fine that I felt that way because they would feel the same if they traveled to say China where they eat dog.... I asked them what the typical fare in Honduras is, and the host dad said they eat rats >_<. Joking of course! They're a good family :) We watched some Toy Story 3 and Journey to the Center of the Earth on TV, as well as some game shows, all the while having Spanish conversation. Eventually I called it a night and unpacked my stuff and got ready for bed. That's when it began to rain. Not very loud, but I guess the thunderstorms occur in the evening. Oh, and there's a gecko in the house that likes to make noises sometimes :). Cuuuuute.

Day 3 – 6/24/10, Thursday
This morning I had cornflakes with raisins and milk, and on the side was sugar. The host father was wondering if I put sugar in my cereal, and I said not usually unless the flavor is pretty plain to be polite (I don't usually add sugar to cereal), but I tried it anyway and it wasn't so bad :). After breakfast, my host dad and I walked up the hill towards the training site and ran into some other PCTs. I was sweating so much after walking only 5 minutes! It is all mostly uphill, plus while the weather isn't extremely hot and humid, it is still warm and I was wearing slacks. Plus I tend to sweat a lot >_<. Luckily, we arrived at the turn-off into the training center just as the bus carrying the other PCTs arrived and hopped on.

My day consisted of going over policies in the Trainee Handbook, which has been updated throughout the years based on trainee actions and other things (I think we're the 17th group of PCTs to come to Honduras), went over the dress code, and how our Language Proficiency Interviews (LPI) will go. During the dress code lecture, our trainer was going over how we shouldn't wear spaghetti straps, but accidentally said “G-String” >_<. He is a really funny guy and knows how to make things interesting. He realizes that we get restless after a while so tries to throw in jokes to keep us awake. I'm actually very impressed with the training because it is so thorough and they really do take care of their PCTs/PCVs. The trainers are all Hondurans who have worked with the PC for several years and so have a great deal of experience and knowledge about what to do. Although this is just the first week and I'm very tired because training can be long and intense, I'm looking forward to when the real training begins next week. That will be much more language intensive since we'll all have completed our initial LPIs that determine what language level we'll be in. It's to better place us into smaller, more appropriate language classes so those of us with the same proficiency level can excel even faster.

We then headed off to learn “Survival Spanish”... it was uneventful. I am learning so much vocabulary though and really need to study!!

For lunch I had yellow rice mixed with green beans (the ones I helped cut), onions, and I think beef but I'm not too sure, and also not too sure what part. It was shredded but there were some other things on the meat that I couldn't identify... I'm terrible at telling what's what in meat. In another box were sliced tomatoes, and then an apple. We then had someone take individual photos of us to make our PC ID, then had more Spanish language classes, and finally a few more training lectures, but this time they performed skits for us, and they were the most hilarious things ever. They basically showed us what to do and what not to do in certain situations. For example, you should NEVER toss something to someone, even if it's a snack, a prize, anything. It's extremely offensive. I can understand that too, because as they mentioned in the skit, they are not dogs. The correct thing to do is hand the item to the person. Also, sarcasm isn't taken very well here. I can be a pretty sarcastic person so I'll have to watch myself!

After training was done for the day, a group of us walked back but took a shortcut trail back to the entrance of the training facility. It didn't really shave off too much time from the walk, but the view was really nice. It started to drizzle a bit but I made it home in time to miss the downpour. I spoke with the family about our days, and we had a dinner of these sort of tortilla sandwiches. The tortillas are made from corn, from scratch, and are much smaller than those in the U.S. They're about the size of a small pancake/silver dollar. The tortillas were fried and in between was melted quesillo (cheese), and on the top tortilla was ketchup (salsa) and sprinkled cheese. Also had chopped tomatoes on the side with Coke to drink. Very delicious. I showed them pictures of my family and friends, and because host dad asked what kind of music I liked, I let him listen to one of the songs... “Waiting (First State Remix)” by Dash Berlin and Emma Hewitt. Hahaha... oh trance. He put on my ginormous headphones and was bobbing his head to the beat like dancing. It was awesome. Apparently they listen to a lot of Reggaeton here since the tv channels have that kind of music.. I think. Anyway, they also showed me their photo albums of when their children were born. Very cute :). All the while, their daughter was trying to work a yo-yo but couldn't manage to, so I took a look at it and it was broken! Fixed it for her and then showed her how to do it, but she was afraid it was going to fall on the floor and make a loud noise. She tried it on the couch but there wasn't enough space for it to fall so she could bring it back up. Oh well, another day! Oh, host mom was very impressed at how much my Spanish improved after one day =].

Day 4 – 6/25/10, Friday
Today was very, very busy! We went over banking, the mail, medical stuff, and safety/security issues, in addition to our Survival Spanish. We have to take 2 malaria prophylaxis pills every week for our entire service and they taste sooo disgusting. But if it will lessen the effects of malaria then so be it. I am a bit worried about the diseases here, but it doesn't seem that PCVs have gotten very sick other than Dengue or diarrhea, etc. We also went over what vaccinations we will need, and I need a typhoid booster, and rabies shots, which will be given in early July.

Our language classes today were much more interactive than yesterday. We played several games, one called “Punk” (poonk) so that we could practice numbers and penalize the people who made mistakes. We made one guy to a chicken dance, and another roll on the floor, and I had to yell “Cockle-Doodle-Doo” very, very loud so the entire training site could hear me ='(. Le sigh. It was only because I forgot what number we were on >_<. We weren't the only class playing games though, others were running around the training center like they were on a scavenger hunt and only had a limited time to find everything. We also played something like Taboo and Musical Chairs. Pretty fun stuff.

We later had our Safety and Security Officer come give us an overview of the crime in Honduras, and the statistics were extremely sobering. Honduras has the highest crime and murder rate in the entire world, with 66.8 murders/100,000 people. The world has 8.8 and the US as 5.4. Latin America itself has 18. And the number of homicides have been increasing significantly over the years. It jumped from 2416 victims in 2005 to 5265 in 2009. He also explained that when people get robbed, the thieves usually have guns, and sometimes knives. They won't necessarily hold people at gunpoint, but may show that they have a gun under their shirt or are carrying a knife. Fortunately for me, the Municipal Development PCVs have a significantly smaller amount of victimization than the PCVs in other programs. w00t!

After training, we walked back towards our houses and decided to stop at the small cafe down the road to practice our Spanish with each other. We ordered some Coke, which came in the glass bottles, and it was less than a dollar.. I'm not really sure how much Coke costs in the states since I rarely drink soda, but that seemed pretty cheap to me. Went home later, and attempted to put up the mosquito net we all had to take with us. I couldn't reach the hook on the ceiling even by standing on the bed so I fashioned some sort of device made of a broomstick and a long hangar tied to it with string in order to hook the mosquito net loop onto the hook. And it worked! Host sister and babysitter were watching the entire time and we were all laughing and were so happy when I finally got it to work. It must have taken 20 minutes to figure it out. But.... then the net didn't cover my entire bed and I discovered 3 more loops on it :(. Host dad came home and helped do it for me. The problem was the ceiling was too high so he figured out how to use the string so the loops could attach to it lower than before.. Then he hammered nails into the curtain valance so that the two other net loops could go around them and it worked :). As the PC keeps reminding us, think of our small successes! And this was a very entertaining and fun small success for me.

Dinner included fried egg omelet style but nothing in it, the hard sour small blocks of cheese, fried plantains, chorizo, and tortillas. Very good :). The cheese will take some getting used to, however, but I mix it with some other item on my plate and it tastes pretty good.

One of the other PCTs visited to talk about plans for tomorrow after training, since we finish early and a bunch of us are going to a city nearby to visit the shops and coffee houses and internet cafes. We could only speak in Spanish of course, but it's definitely getting easier. I guess one group is going earlier to watch the US soccer game on the big screen tv, and another group of us is going a bit later.
I'm excited!

I have my LPI on Saturday, wish me luck!!

Day 5 - Saturday, June 26th, 2010
Ah, half day of training and then the weekend! I had my LPI first thing in the morning and was 10 minutes late :(. Well, technically I was at the training center early, but I wasn't aware that we were supposed to go directly to our LPIs once we got there... The lot of us was just hanging around outside waiting... Oh well. It went much better than I thought it would. I answered all the questions asked and was able to communicate and ask my interviewer questions effectively. I really hope I'm placed at a level close to what we have to achieve by the end of this training period. Maybe I'll even score at that level, who knows.

We played 4 team-building games today. First we split into 2 groups, and went with our respective facilitator. We formed a circle and had to toss a tennis ball to someone in the group and had to say their name until everyone was thrown the ball, just because there are so many of us and none of us knows everyone's names yet. Then we had to go in the same order and go faster and faster! Aiiii, that was a disaster..but we did pretty good and it was fun. The second game involved a thin rope. We all had to hold it with both hands in a circle, and close our eyes and form a square. The idea of this game was to build trust in what others were saying and was also about communication of course. For our next game, there was a square on the ground about 2 feet each side, and we all had to fit in there somehow, but couldn't touch the ground with anything other than our feet, and we had to hold whatever pose we formed for 30 seconds! If any part of our body was outside the square, we'd be dead. And there were 14 of us >_<. Our first few attempts failed, and we even had the idea of some of us girls piggy-backing on the guys' backs, but I don't think that would have worked. In the end, we did manage to do it. One guy went in the center and I went in as the second layer, and basically everyone else hung on to him and lifted their outside foot up in the air, and every time I felt the group tilting to one side, I'd try to balance it out.. I was pretty much doing the squats in there. My legs are freaking killing me now! Really fun activity though. Our last game included 3 long thick but thin widthwooden boards/planks, and we had to all make it across the “acid river” using only those boards and placing them on the platforms on the grass. If a board fell on the grass/in the acid river, we had to bring that board back to the beginning and start over with it. We ended up making it in 22 minutes! I thought balancing on those would be difficult but it wasn't so bad.. Overall, a fun day =].

After, I walked home, got my stuff ready, and headed to the bus stop a minute away to wait for the bus for the other city; it was going to be about a 15 minute trip. Another PCT joined me and we waited together. Bus finally came and we got on, just standing in the aisle as it proceeded to its next stops. Arrived at the final destination and joined the other PCTs at an outdoor restaurant. The soccer game of USA vs Ghana was on the TV so they were watching that and eating. I ordered pupusas mixtas, which is basically like a flat bread filled with quesillo (cheese) and frijoles (beans), like a quesadilla but the bread is different. Also ordered a banana smoothie made with milk (they have a water option) and it was sooo good. Fresh fruit of course, and all this was about $3.50. Prices are jacked up in Valle because a lot of tourists frequent it, but it's still pretty cheap. After lunch, some of us went to look for internet cafes. They all seemed to be full, but we managed to find one that had some computers available, and was much cheaper than the other one. I spent nearly an hour on it and it cost less than a dollar! It was a bit slow at first but picked up speed later on. They also have wifi, so I may visit on the weekends with my netbook. There are a lot of coffeehouses and pulperias there, and a really cute bakery. It's a nice little town. It started raining there and I unfortunately forgot my umbrella because I thought I had put it in my bag, but I put it in the other bag, and I didn't really have a raincoat.. but I did have a hood so that was good. Safe to say I was bit wet when I got home, but I changed into my pjs and hung out in the living room for a bit practicing my Spanish a bit more. We watched Toy Story 3 again, but of course I didn't understand much of it... =/. I can really tell that my ability to speak Spanish significantly decreases as the day grows longer and in the night time. Anyway, host mom and I are going to try to make cheesecake and fried rice tomorrow I think.. or cheesecake at some point but fried rice for sure tomorrow. She asked if I knew how to cook and I said that was like the only thing.. We'll see how that goes!