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.

Once again, I am blogging about my dog.

First, Alice would like everyone to note that she does her fair share in taking care of the puppy, and it is true. The only time the dog is 100% my problem is at night and recently the dog has taken to jumping on me and before I am awake nough to put her back in her hole, she is over licking Alice's face. She usually does this at 2 and then again at 4. Last week we took our dog to the vet to get her the last of her shots and get her fixed. Here is another amusing fact about dogs. It cost nearly $175 to get her fixed. In the states I know at least 3 clinics that do it for free. Now, to be honest I don't know if it is free for everyone, but I know I wouldn't have to pay cause I know the people that do the operation. With all the street dogs here I am suprised there are no groups working on this problem, no shelters, no animal control. During training we get the pre-exposure rabies shots and if we get bit by a dog the advice we get is to watch the dog and if it acts funny, get the post-exposure shots. In other words, if a street dog bites you, there is no follow up. The cops aren't going to come, there is no report to file, and there is no animal control to pick up dangerous dogs. Just, you know, keep an eye on it. The national government is currently doing a campaign to vaccinate all dogs, but the problem is, someone has to take the dog to the place where they are giving the shots, so if it is a family that doesn't care, even free shots aren't going to matter. Animals as a whole amuse me to no end in this country. We regularly are on buses that stop and wait from random livestock to cross the highway. The funny part is it is never a herd of cattle, or something you would expect to see in rural Kansas. It is always something like a single chiken, a mule, or a small child.

More later, As you can all probably tell, my website is not up yet, but there have been some delays that were not (entirely) my fault.

I ha(t/v)e Fleas

As most of you probably know, I worked far too long in a pet store before I left. It was during this time I realized that I do not really like animals. I love my dogs, and fish are nice, but I would rather eat a rat than own one. In some ways, I was really hoping to go to Ecuador where Guinea pigs are a traditional food, and people keeping them as pets are considered to be slightly off. While I was there I found one product to be a little strange: Frontline, and all the other monthly flea medications. With such strict animal control laws in the US, most dogs are not around other dogs and very rarely get fleas. I have had dogs my entire life and only twice can I recount a dog getting fleas. This lead me to believe that people who buy these monthly treatments at $200 for a year supply are somewhere between crazy and paranoid. Now, I look back and feel confused for a completely different reason.

For the very first time I have a dog that is not allowed to sleep on the bed with me, since we own a very small bed and a fairly large dog. Her proper "bed" is a couple of pillows in the corner of the room blocked in on the other sides by the bed and a piece of plywood. For months, this has been a great solution with a couple exceptions. Exception number 1. She thinks that being so close to the bed, means she really should be on the bed, and when she wakes up during the night she jumps on it. Though, to be technical, she rarely jumps on the bed. She actually jumps on me, since she sleeps on my side of the bed. This means 2 or 3 times a night, I wake up to a 35 pound dog stepping on my face, chest, or gut. Even I cannot sleep through that. Exception number 2. When the dog would fit in an oversized bucket, she would wake both parents up when she needed to go outside and potty. Now she may wake us both, but she concentrates on annoying me. That means every late night bathroom trip is my problem. (Newly discovered) Exception 3. Bugs. Dogs are loved here in Honduras, but in a very different way than I grew up with. Most people "own" a dog that they don't give food nor water and wanders through the street 100% of the time. Our neighbors are an exception. They love dogs in the "American" way and have 1 indoor dog and 2 outdoor dogs. One of their outdoor dogs was previously a street dog, that they adopted, and he likes to occasionally cruise the town. Our neighbors are also great, since they dog-sit for us anytime we have a meeting, but this means every parasite in the street eventually winds up in my house. This means when my dog came home with fleas last week I had a problem. With the dog sleeping alongside the bed, and since I didn’t have something to kill the buggers with, I learned that fleas are vacationers. They will get tired of the same old dog to chew on, hop up on the bed, give me a taste, decide that the dog really was where they belonged, and promptly return home.

So, frontline, good stuff. But what I don’t understand about frontline now is the cost. In the US a 3-month supply ran between $40 and $60, an average of $50. A similar supply here costs $18. Now, we know very well that the reason Human drugs are cheaper outside the States depends on a couple items, like Canada subsidizing their drugs, or looser regulations in Mexico. Now what confuses me is: do these things apply to dog drugs too? No normal Honduran is going to buy this stuff, so why change the price? It is only going to be people with too much money buying the product, and here, I actually need it, so why do I only pay 40% of the price here? I don’t get it, but I am happy.

Besides having fleas, I’ve kept pretty busy. While we were gone, we missed a civic education workshop, but we like the program and we are going to do it anyways. This week we finally got a schedule down so we can start that in 2 new communities. The high school we were already working with is about finished up and now we are working on scheduling the final presentations. The first experience was really good, so we are hoping for similar results in the other 2 areas. One of our schools requires a 30 minutes bus ride and a 45 minute walk, which I plan on recounting to my children one day. “When I was 24, I had to travel an hour and fifteen minutes to do a class, 45 minutes on foot, uphill both ways, and I did it because I wanted to. No one had to tell me to, I offered to do it and I loved it. So shut up and go to school.” This is why I don’t have kids.

Alice came back just in time for our “environmental fair” and the whole thing turned out pretty good. The day started and seemed very focused on the environment, with art made from recycled products everywhere and one young lady showing off her dress made from empty bags of chips. We definitely drew attention to ourselves. Next year I hope we talk a little more about the environment, but this year’s success made next year likely. The afternoon was entertaining. I don’t know how it relates to the environment, but we had a fair number of dancers come and show off, which got a huge crowd. I’ve got pictures of the art, but not the dancing. I liked the art better anyhow.

Sooner than later I am going to put up the website for a group I work with a lot. The next 2 days people have agreed to help me get everything straight. Once the Spanish version is up, I am going to do an English version. Then I am going to focus on a website for an artist.

My next major project I am hoping to do is form a tourism comittee, but I need support from some key people. If they agree to work together, I am going to do a website for them. If they don't agree, I'm gonna do something else.

It was an interesting two weeks that ended with me back in Honduras, and poor Alice awaiting medical clearance to travel. A little infection is all, but she couldn't get approved for travel. We're hoping to be reunited this Thursday so we can get back to work, and so I don't depend on the neighbor as a doggy sitter.

Our visit to the States was fantastic, made so mostly by lots of love and support from our friends. It was also really weird. Entire days felt like a dream, not a wonderful dream, just a portion of your life that seems imaginary. I realized that right now, I have no real home, and won't for a while. Honduras is where I live and work, but I will always be a foreigner here in some ways. Life in the United States moves on very fast, and some people had visibly left me behind. I get this feeling I will struggle with these issues my entire life, I love new things, and I can’t see this being my last experience abroad. The friends I still have in Tulsa showed a great deal of support, dealt with me being flakey and indecisive, and did so cheerfully. My old roommate didn’t mind at all I had parties at his house or that I never knocked before letting myself in. Luckily, neither did his new roommate. People showed up when they could, and one of my friends managed to go with me to OKC within the two weeks, even though we had planned to go but never went in 6 months before I left. Sadly, I found that I was less than dependable, due to my limited time and having become accustomed to a different culture, but I did my best. If someone feels left out, I am truely sorry.

I’ve never been hit by culture shock as bad as other people, but I did learn one very important lesson. When reentering a culture, try to surround yourself with people who at least claim to be normal. Places not to go should include the renaissance fair. I like the ren fair, but from here on, I know better than to go my first day back. At one point, I was fairly certain I had gone insane.

Joel’s wedding was wonderful. Seeing Alice’s family was nice as well. My Dad came down from Iowa to hang out for a few days, and my Mom was there the whole time. Our Families are dependable, and lucky for us, they are all a little crazy too, so we fit in just as well as ever. For a change I have picture, so here are a few.

This is the waterfall we visitied with Shawn. It was wonderful. Sorry it took so long to get this picture up. I am just a bit lazy some days.

So this picture is from a slightly different angle, and Shawn helps with the scale. As you can see, it is big.

This picture shows my wife very confused. She seems to have fallen aslep and mistaken our dog for a hat.

Thats my dad and me. He is still slightly taller than me, but he has been sliding into his feet for a few years now, so hopefully I will be taller before too long.

This picture is proof I did something right, as I am obviously married to the most beautiful woman in the world. And thats what I look like in a skirt.

It seems wrong to go to a wedding and not include a picture of the bride and groom, so here is is. Alice's brother and his new wife.

So, I tried to solve the office internet problem with a router a bought, and nearly caused a repeat of the office printer problem, but I got it worked out. Now only one person is without internet, and I can fix this quickly with the right cable, or USB wireless modem. Either way, I did my part.

Now I have to go eat lunch. I am certain you will all hear fom me again soon. I am getting good at this blog thing I think.

Coming home and coming back

Drew and I are coming home to visit in about 4 days.

The week before my trip home has helped me remember how different living here really is from the states.

For example, the last two weeks, our water has been unreliable. I have taken a real shower twice in the last two weeks, the rest of the days I showered with a bucket and cold water. I have found, you just don’t get as clean…..all I could think about was a warm, two knob (one for hot and cold, not just one generic one), pressurized showerhead that I will use at least once a day every day I am home in the states for two weeks. And, washing dishes with warm water, being able to flush any hour of the day…ahh such luxuries. It was okay when we just had water during the day and not the night, but when the water stopped working as much during the day, things get a little rougher. Our pila(cement water tank) to store water for times when we don’t have it, is one of the smallest ones I have ever seen in Honduras. So, it doesn’t help out as much as it should….when we say water is life (agua is vida) it means more to me now than it did in the past.
This last week, (Drew) and I have been trying to catch up on laundry. As I was getting a bucket ready with bleach and detergent, I took a good look at our white socks. Well, I first noticed that they just aren’t that white anymore. They look a bit worn. (sarcasm) And some of the dirt stains won’t bleach out. Thank God they will soon be replaced by bags of new fluffy white cotton ones from some store in the states. Drew and I favorite jeans are past that “cool” worn in look and will go in the trash once they are replaced, or used in some recycling project. Drew’s clothes all hang off of him since his “Honduras weight loss program” and my shoes have been tested by mountainy dirt and cobblestone roads.

I was walking to work today and passed about 4 street dogs, a horse randomly tied up near the side of the road, a guy on a horse with a big bag of rice headed up the mountain, and kids playing in the park because the Honduras teachers are again on strike and classes are cancelled for today. The park though was in bloom as always, as if it is always constantly Spring in Valle de Angeles. Only here does that seem normal. In a few days, I will be taking highways to get everywhere, see more stoplights than there are in the whole country of Honduras, and have convenience on every corner. No one lets their dogs roam free and I only see horses when you get way out in the country. They aren’t used as a form of transportation. All the cars will be about 5-10 years newer and the people at least 20-50 pounds bigger. I have to tell you, I love both countries. I look forward to being home, I look forward to sharing what I have learned here, and look forward to telling people about the states when I get back to Honduras. After all, two of our three goals in Peace Corps are to teach Honduras about American culture and to teach Americans about what life is like in another country. And in both places, life is good, life is different, life is interesting. And after the locura of a two week see-everyone-you-can-eat-tons-of-food-buy-clothes-do-familiy-stuff-etc I am sure I will be ready to come back to Honduras, which in a strangley comforting way has become my home.

Tech Support: Honduran style.

One of the things we focus on here in Honduras is sustainable development. In other words, the projects we start are supposed to outlive our time here in the big H. Usually, I do my best to train and explain rather than fix, but there is one problem with this: computers. First of all, computers require an entirely different Spanish. I don't know of anything else you update besides a computer and no other activity requires the use of the word "download". My attempt to explain that the internet uses cookies sounded like a mix between a "cookie monster" scene and a very confused 6-year-old. So, I can't depend on my usual ability to refrence other uses of a word when I am talking about a computer. When I gave a computer class some months ago I learned the basic basics like mouse and keyboard, but I have alot to learn. The good news is most things that pertain to a computer are in Spanglish, so router is still router, but it doesn't apply in all cases. I still get looked at funny when I say server-o or domain-o. Second, about 9 times out of 10 a computer stops working, there is no reasonable explanation that I know, and the only reason I an fix it is because I grew up with them. Computers reward abstract thinking coupled with experience, and that is not something I can teach.

For the most part, I avoid advanced computer topics by just fixing whatever the problem is and saying it shouldn't come back. Recently, I've started doing web programming and for the most part, I don't explain anything to anyone and life is easy. When someone asks a question I work my way through it with "I don't know how to explain this, but it works, do we have any coffee?" Hondurans and I both love coffee.

Today, one of the people Alice works with brought his laptop to the office ( I don't think this was preplanned, but if it was: I owe him) and said his anti-virus doesn't work.

"Why not?" I reply with a smile.
"The license is expired" He explains.
"Was this a free when you bought it?"
"For 90 days"
"It costs money now, okay? do you want to put free one or live without?"
"It is better to have one right?"
"Better? No, more safe? Yes. Sometimes the free ones are not good, but we can put one until you decide if you want to buy. I'll look to see how much money."

He reluctantly gave me his computer, and looking back on things I should have told him he just had to pay for one. When I turned on the computer I see he has 2 antiviruses already installed, one that costs $40 a year, and the other doesn't look like the publisher still supports it. I tell him he can pay $40 and he looks at me like, "are you an idiot? you said I could have one for free." So I am stuck. I have to help this guy. He doesn't work at our office, but he has to visit a few communities and he'll be back within an hour or so.

I get online and start to install antivir, the program my counterpart swears by. The best part: its in spanish, so once it is there, I don't have to provide constant support. I download it, which takes a short eternity, but I get it on there. I go to update the virus definitions and it gives me an error that the license is expired. How can the license be expired? I still haven't figured this out since the program is free, but I search online for a fix for and finally find one an hour later. It doesn't work either. Frustrated I uninstall and reinstall, apply the fix and try again. Turns out the fix (provided by the publisher) doesn't work, they are replacing the file with the exact same file, and niether one works. So I keep looking. and find the right file. and get it installed, and start the update of the virus definitions.

For a few moments I think I've won, and I am so happy I could dance. Then I notice the download has finished and I hit another error. One I don't understand, so I can figure out how to fix it. Something about an engine. I'm feeling pretty stupid cause I thought these stupid things ran on electricity.

So I uninstall it again, and restart, since restarting fixes everthing. What I hadn't noticed while I was doing everything else is the windows update was running, and had installed 45 updates.

At the very moment I am curseing at the fact it is installing 45 updates the man returns for his computer.

"When connected this computer to internet last time?"
"(something that sounds like 1 week)"
"1 week, very odd, many updates, needs lots of of time"
"no, not 1 week, never. It has never been connected to the internet."
"huh" (this isn't a word in Spanish, but I still use it)
"I can come back again, I have another visit"
"well, unless you want to wait 30 minutes, you should do that."

So he said he'd be back.

Another short eternity passes and I get to see the computer restart. Finally. And I do everything exactly like I did before, thinking that af I do it again, something will be magically different. Nothing turns out to be different I have to try another solution. So I look online and find someone as annoyed as me with the whole process with antivir and says he just gave up and put AVG. I think thats a fine idea as well, so I unstall the other virus scanner that never managed to download a single virus definition and start looking for AVG. Besides that fact it is twice as large, and thus takes four times as long to download, AVG works exactly as it says it would. Sadly, I am in the middle of installing it when he comes back again.

"is it ready?"
"no, the first one no work, had to find another, still waiting"
"why didn't it work?"
"well, I fixed one problem, and found another problem I didn't understand, so I don't know, but it didn't"
"you don't know?"
"no"
"I need to go back to teguc soon, how much longer?"
"if it works: 30 minutes, if it doesn't work: 3 or 4 days"
"I can work at the coffee shop for 30 minutes, if it doesn't work, don't do anything else."
"okay"

He leaves for a third time, and I can only assume he thinks I am messing with him. I am kinda wondering if my day would have been more fun if I had been messing with him. AVG works fine, first try, so I figure with my remaining time I should see if there are any more updates. The computer says there is one, but only one, so I install it and let the computer restart. The computer is now crawling from the update when he comes back. I tell him the antivirus is working and I think Windows is updated, but honestly i am almost certain that there are more updates. I tell him he needs to connect it to the internet every 2 weeks to install updates when tells me it isn't his computer. His friend lent it to him, but his friends is living in Taiwan, so it is his for now. I contemplate the fact I spent 5 hours fixing someone's friend's computer and decide I should ask more questions in the future.

May 1 is my birthday, and we are planning to grill up some food on the 3rd. SHould be a good time. Pictures coming soon!

Soup

Now, I wouldn't ordinarily dedicate an entire post to a food, but I am making an exception, since I have recently had an interesting experience.

Soup is not something I would eat in the states. Ever. When asked about "soup or salad" the choice for me was really closer to "house or cesar" but here in the big H, people seem to love soup. When I first got to Valle de Angeles my counter-part took me all the way to the capitial to his brother's restaurant called "spoons" so we could have soup for lunch. That day, I was the only one who had soup. It was a veggie soup with a pleasant aroma, but the odd thing about it was: they served me nearly a half gallon of it. Now, I'll admit, my primary issue with soup is that it realy doesn't "eat like a meal" rather it just makes me wish I had ordered something else. For the first time in my life, I was forced to actually stop eating a soup from being so full.

Well, as it would turn out, that was not going to be my last odd experience with soup. Every Sunday, Valle de Angeles comes alive with "rica sopa de mondongo" which translates into rich cow stomach soup. Now it is not tripe, since tripe only has the thinnest sliver of lining and no muscle, but her in Honduras, we eat the whole thing, muscle and all. In my experience their are 2 types of mondongo soup"good" and "I would rather die than eat another bite of this" and there is no difference that can be seen. One must try (and pay for) the soup to know. After eating about 4 varieties, I now know where to go, and I thought my soup adventures were over, since while I eat more soup than I ever have in the past, nothing could be as absurd as mondongo.

Until I found out a friend of mine lived near a comedor that had "garobo" soup every Tuesday. Garobo used to be one of Honduras' most treasured animals: the black iguana. That is of course, until they started eating it. Now it is very close to extinction. Hondurans had a problem. They loved the sweet lizard meat, but couldn't continue eating it without destroying the remaining population. The conflict was solved by the introduction of another animal to the menu: the green iguana, which they found tasted exactly the same, and was plenitful. So the name stuck, but the animal changed. As soon as I found this out, I was doomed to eat it. I love new things and lizard was something I had never eaten. Yesterday, I made the 4 hour trip out to the dirty,dirty and I rode in the back of a truck for almost a full hour to make it in time for lunch, where I enjoyed the delicacy of girobo soup. The texture of the meat was like rubbery chicken and the taste sweet with a tang to it. I got 2 pieces of girobo in my soup, a leg and a large potion of tail. The soup also came with green bananas, potato, rice, potaste and some soft tortillas. Mine was gone in a minute despite the fact it was at least 90 degrees and I was eating hot soup in a room without air conditioning. The soup was refreshing and I will have it again. The only thing I want to know is if what I ate was green or black, since I have major issue eating endanged animals, but no problem at all eating iguanas. When I used to work at the pet store iguanas would always come in agressive and mean and many managed to hit me with thier little club tail or bite me. So this is a big old: I WIN to the animal kingdom.

I still haven't pulled all the pictures off my camera,

Until then.