Thursday, July 31, 2008

July and other observations.

So, I don't really have any reason to post most of the time, but I do anyways, and this is no different. I would like the refer all of you to "the talanga update" especially the later half of her latest entry and to "liz the pammer". Both of those blogs located in the right-hand column under "Other people rocking Honduras" have recently posted fantastic updates that do a very good job of describing a couple of complex experiences and emotions a lot of volunteers go through.

As of late work is more confusing than difficult. Work is occasionally difficult to find, but right now I nearly have too much work. I would like to narrow down my focus and hit one thing more effectively, but every time I am trying to do this I am getting vibes like people are feeling ignored in another area. Planning is becoming more formal in my counter-part's office and I am not enthused about more reports. Mostly because my written Spanish makes me cringe. I would rather just talk about when I am doing once a week. Hopefully the practice will improve my skillz.

August marks a few wondrous occasions. The sixth is Alice and I´s third anniversary. This means we will have celebrated our marriage two times here, and only once in the States. When we go home next September of our 4 years being married, over half will have been spent here. An interesting twist on the traditional marriage. Alice's birthday is also coming up on the 19th and she is pretty excited. I will be grilling and causing trouble while she celebrates with who ever shows up this time. (I say this since no matter who we invite only half of them show up, but another 5 people show up unexpectedly. I don't know how this works, but it happens consistently. I actually met people for the first time at my own birthday party.) If you are considering sending her something I'd like to make a few recommendations:

1. Do not send more Kraft Mac and cheese. We brought some and 3 packages containing more showed up shortly after. This means we probably have at least 30 packages. We need some time to work down the supply. Also, we currently have a ton of beef jerky. Probably won't need more till Christmas. Cheddar cheese based snack crackers are welcome (gold fish crackers/cheese nips).

2. We could use some new movies. I really want to see Juno, Alice will watch anything but a horror flick.

3. Things that will entertain us are always welcome. Creativity is encouraged.

4. Completely apart from Alice, I would really like a Macintosh laptop with MS office and adobe creative suite 3. You know, if you have a spare grand or two with nothing to do. My laptop here is becoming a constant source of frustration/amusement. On second though, don't actually buy me this, but know I spend more time at apple.com salivating than is healthy. One day when I have a real job I will probably spend more money at apple than is healthy.

I don't know why as of late I have felt the need to express myself in the form of a list, but I do. Life goes on.

A few quick updates. Alice and I are teaching project citizen two days a week in high schools a ways a way. Monday we catch a taxi out to an aldea (village that is not the municipal seed) about 15 minutes away and we teach about 16 students. Why 16? Because only half the class of 32 shows up consistently on Mondays. The teacher we are supposedly working with is probably half the reason why. She has yet to show up on a Monday to actually work with us. The kids who do show up are awesome and I am excited about working with them. Since they never have a teacher, we are going to work in some leadership themes and extend the program. Not sustainable work, but I could care less. I like motivated students and I like working with this group. Tuesday we go a little further away. We catch a ride 25 minutes to the town of San Jauncito (technically a part of Teg, but generally ignored by their municipal government). After our ride we walk up a dirt road for another 15 minutes to get to one of the coolest high schools ever. We are working with about 32 students, all of which show up regularly and a teacher that seems to like the program. The high school also offers the best shop class ever. They don't learn to make birdhouses and boxes. They learn how to build bookshelves, desks and cabinets. The equivalent of home ec actually learns how to sow blankets and clothes. Then all the stuff the two classes make gets sold at fairs to raise money for the school. Alice and I plan on getting a few new furnishings from the shop class.

We are working rather extensively with the new training group and we have spent about 2 days a week help teach some different parts of municipal development to the new group of trainees. Doing this makes me realize how complicated my project really is. I only work in about 1/3 of the areas we are encouraged to work in. The municipality we live in only has about 1/4 the offices it is supposed to have. I also realized how much more I know than I thought. I can do a reasonable lecture on community organizations, municipal structure, NGOs, and all sorts of other things that never affected my life before I came.

My current brain child is to start a tourism committee but this is proving to be more work than I expected. I just don't know what functions they should have and what sort of activities I should encourage. As of now I have three goals for them (awesome another list):

1. Promote activities keeping tourists here for more time. Too many people come to my town for lunch in a quiet mountain town and leave. This means usually only 1 business benefits (the restaurant) Maybe 2 (a craft shop). If someone stays for an overnight visit, that turns into more like 4 (the people who do the activity, a hotel, 2 restaurants, plus the possible craft shops and the nearby national park).

2. Develop a website. American tourists come by Valle de Angeles all the time, especially missionaries. A website would be a good way to raise money and attention.

3. Use their collective pressure to ensure the municipality provides appropriate services to make expanded tourism possible (grading the roads more often, more dependable trash service in more areas, water in more areas ect.)

I am hoping to expand these goals to more like 10 before I push for a first meeting.

Alice is continuing her literacy classes, but has added the option to participate in an education program that ends with a high school degree if people stick with the program. She works with about 3 different grades with a total of about 9 regulars and 6 irregulars.

We're doing other work as well. I still work at times with caja rurales, but another organization here has gotten some funding to expand these organizations and they have requirements that I was not interested in teaching. ( I was teaching the groups that they needed to make rules for credit and guarantees they were comfortable with, and if the rules work, go with them. The current group wants them to use some very specific requirements I think exclude people, hence is at odds to the whole idea. Also, they also are trying to get people to spend 3 or 4 weekdays in a row in training, which I cannot participate in, since I no longer have 3 or 4 weekdays in a row free until October).

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Striving

Alice said I was going to post an update soon, so here I am. As Alice mentioned, I had the fever. I think she really did cover the main details pretty well and I will only add a couple of details in list form:

1. I hate getting IVs. My viens are thin and don't like to cooperate. It took 5 tries to place 2 IVs.
2. I bruise when an IV is placed correctly.
3. I bruise a lot when an IV is not placed correctly.
4. I don't like hospitals.
5. I cannot sleep well in hospitals.
6. If I am in the hospital for a fever, and I am discovered to be sweating at 2 in the morning, I could care less that my shirt is a little wet. Let me sleep.
7. If my blood pressure is slightly low becuase you wake me up to take it, it is not going to put me in better spirits if you wake me up on an hourly basis to check it again. Especially when the time period in question is between 12am and 7am.
8. If I don't have stomach issues, I don't want shots that fix stomach issues.
9. I don't really want shots at all.
10. I have medical allergies. Even if I told the admitting doctor about them, I will probably ask you about everything you try to hook up to my viens.
11. Failure to answer these questions will get you kicked out of my hospital room until you want to answer them.
12. I am not a good patient. I am not a patient patient.
13. I like hot food. Not eating cold food does not mean I have developed stomach issues. It means I don't like cold soup.
14. If I am so sick I need to be hospitalized, do not leave me in a hallway for an hour and a half.
15. I would rather go through the pain of another IV then have an old IV restarted by forcefully injecting saline to unclog it.
16. On second thought, I would actually prefer to just have the bag changed at a regular interval.

So, that is my latest trip to the local hospital. They diagnosed my correctly the first time, which was a nice change, but I larned I don't ever want to be hospitalized again if I can avoid it. I am contemplating talking to people at the office about my experience to find out if what I experienced was normal. I am betting it was, but I'd like to know.

So a new group of municipal development is being trained, and I am spending a lot of my free time helping my project trainer out. Alice and/or I stop by once a week to run a session and answer questions. The new group seems alright and they haven't lost anyone yet, and I hope they keep that up. My group has now lost 11 people, and we are well over average for the country. It is really sad losing that many people. Hopefully the new group keeps blogs so I can add them to people rocking Honduras.

That is all for now.

The Hippie

Monday, July 21, 2008

Dengue Fever

In Central America we have a fun little virus called Dengue. Oh, it's pretty awful actually. Some symptoms include: high fever (usually lasts a couple of days)
body aches and chills, especially head and eye aches
Body exhaustion, weekened immune system
and so forth......all of which Drew was unfortunate to come down with this weekend.
It is transmitted by mosquitos, and we just started our rainy season, so it is perfect breeding time for these bugs and the disease.
I won't talk too much about the hospital experience because I know Drew is looking forward to blogging about it. I think if Drew has to do another medical test or visit a clinic again anytime soon though, he may go crazy. Lets just say, they tend to overcheck some things and under pay attention to others. Lets just say it isn't like the states.....
However, i will give our little hospital in town one thing, it has the best hospital food I've ever seen. Maybe because it's adventist, and they run a daily bakery as well. Fresh bread and fruits, overall, not too bad.
Drew is now recovering and doing better, and I am wearing bug spray around the house so I don't accidently come down with the fever as well. Unfortunately, like with malaria, there is no preventitive medicines you can take, you just gotta hope you don't get bit by an infected mosquito. But good news for you in the states, it is non-exsistant there. And, people in town have been really supportive. Our counterpart came by the night Drew had to stay in the hospital and brought movies and music to listen too. Another work buddy gave us a ride home from the hospital the next day. We only live about 2 blocks from the hospital, but that is far when you're really sick. Since we live in the adventist neighborhood so close to the adventist hospital, all our neighbors knew he was sick and have sent their well-wishes for his quick recovery. It does help that people here are so friendly when you are sick, makes it a little easier.
This is just a quick update on our crazy past few days, hope all of you are in good health and doing well!

Monday, July 7, 2008

The islands, sun burns, and crabs.

Before I start into part of this blog that actually motivated me to write the blog, I would like to start by saying: no more excuses. The website is up! Right now I only have the Spanish version up and 2 sections still need some work (activities and photos), but think of it like a rough draft. The english version is scheduled to luanch by Friday, asuming my life is not consumed with other work, as I am concerned it might be.


http://www.consejodecuenca.org/


The Beach! That is why I am writing and that is why you are reading! Honduras is home to multiple locations that make it world famous. The Mayan ruins, the untouched forest in the East, the oven-like conditions of the South, the mountains in the center, but if an American says they have been to Honduras, they probably went to Roatan (or were on a churh mission, or maybe a hippie). The bay island of Roatan is the largest in a chain of islands off the coast of Honduras and is a regular stop on Carnival Cruise ships.

I remember when I joined the Peace Corps I told one of my co-workers at the time I was going to Honduras. The conversation went like this:

Her: I've been to Honduras.
Me: Really? Why?
Her: Vacation. Did you know they spoke English in Honduras?
Me: I don't think you went to Honduras. They speak Spanish. Maybe it was Belize?
Her: No, it was Honduas, and everyone spoke English
Me: Where did you go?
Her: Honduras
Me: Yes we've established that, where in Honduras?
Her: Oh! the islands!
Me: So wait, you never went on the mainland? and we're basing the language habits of the entire nation on an island smaller than downtown Tulsa?
Her: Look, all I know is that the people on the cruise ship told us everyone would speak English and on our tour they did.
Me: I don't suppose you're going to make me tell you why that was not even close to the actual lives of Hondurans?
Her: I don't understand what you mean.
Me: You have a customer in aquatics.
Her: Where?
Me: Just get out of the office.

So that is how I learned that Honduras had Bay Islands, and that I should go there if i wanted to potentially meet Americans completely clueless about Honduras.

My brother announced his visit some months ago, around February or March. I decided that I should take advantage of my brothers employment and go to the Islands. People with jobs can afford that sort of thing. He also wanted to see Copan, so we went thier first. Copan is cheap by american standards. 3 people can eat, have an appetizer and share a round of drinks for less than $25 at one of the nicer places. Sadly, I only had a half day in copan planned. We took an early morning bus to the ruins that arrived around lunch. After a good meal we headed to the ruins, stopped by the bus terminal for tickets, ate dinner and went to sleep. No party in Copan, but mostly because our bus left at 5:15 in the morning. The ruins are nice, but this was my second (and Alice's third) visit. The next day we traveled 12 hours. 2 Buses, a taxi, a ferry, another taxi and we finally arrived in time for dinner. We decided to go first to the restaurant Arco Iris. This place comes highly recomended by everyone, and it is good, but it should come with a warning.

Warning: all 3 of you just ordered an entree, any one of those entrees could feed all 3 of you.

We also established that the islands are NOT cheap. Dinner cost us nearly $70. This was the second best dinner I ate on the Islands, and it is worth it, but should be saved for the last night. On the way back to the hotel we saw a crab. I have never seen a wild crab. The odd thing to me was that no one was hunting it, and further, no restaurant served crab. That may be the only place a crab can live safely.

The next morning we set off and had no idea what to do. We figured we would head over to the famous beach. Beaches Rule. On our way there my brother discovered something that had previously not existed in my head. He found: A wild hermit crab. In my experience, hermit crabs are like genetically modified crops. They look normal, but you know it took some crazy person in a lab to come up with the idea. Now I still must assume it was instead a crazy person (like the pet rock guy) who decided to keep such a boring death-prone animal as a pet, since now I know they really do exist outside pet stores and plastic boxes in kids' rooms.

We did what all Peace Corps volunteers do when they don't know what they should be doing. We went for a walk guessing it would lead us toward excitement. It did. We ended up in West Bay on the beach. A glorious beach, full of wonderfully clear water and white sand with trees and hotels lining the frontier to the island. It was amazing. Now I will ruin your imagination with pictures.

When we got to the beach, it looked like the above picture. Every chair was taken for 400 meters of beautiful beach. It was wonderful, but crowded. Then we asked one of the people with the carnival towels what time they would have to be back on the boat. He told us at noon. After 11:30, it was a ghost town (beach). We had it all to ourselves.

Like this. It was wonderful. We got drinks from the beach bar, and did nothing productive all day. Just sat on the beach and got sun burnt.

This is how the other end of the beach looked. Beutiful no matter where you're looking.

After we got done on the beach we got some dinner and went back to the hotel. At about 10 at night we decided we needed to go for a swim. The hotel had a dock so we found the ladder coming off the side and climbed in. After swimming around a while I decided it was deep enough to begin jumping in. I know that this was a bad idea, but I did it anyways. I never did get hurt like I deserved, but I did get a great picture.

I call this picture midnight cannonball, despite the fact it happened at about 10:30. I was soundly asleep by 11:00.

The second day on the beach we decided to snorkel, and that was fun until I felt like I could smell the skin on my back burning. So after 2 hours we all decided a little shade could do us good, and we retired to the hotel for the day. The rest of the trip was traveling back to catch a plane, but it was worth all the travel. We all had a good time.