Maestra Alicia

I am teaching elementary school in our most illiterate community. Most of you know I started with a basic literacy class that I developed myself and then adapted with some Peace Corps materials. However, as a couple months went by, I found that I have no training as a teacher and had problems developing efficient lessons. My lessons weren’t bad and I was teaching some important concepts, but it felt incomplete. I discovered a “class by CD” alternative education program called Educatodos that teaches 1-6th grade, as well as high school classes. Each grade has 4 CDs worth of lessons, and a book that follows along with each lesson. The materials provided include reading, writing, comprehension, history and math, and is very complete as far as learning. I started this program after three months of my own classes, which has now officially turned into a fourth grade class, first grade, and one nice young man who I teach individually 2nd grade. They listen to the tapes and I facilitate and check their assignments. My fourth grade class is GREAT, the five ladies (two around 13 years old, the other three in their early twenties) show up every week, do the assignments, and seem to have lots of fun. They are thrilled that I am doing this program for them and want to complete thru the 6th grade while I am here as a volunteer.

My first grade class was larger at first but has dwindled down to a mother in her 40’s and a man in his late 20’s. They show up almost every week and are very eager to learn. The lady always comes with her pre-teen daughter that supports and helps her through the lessons. She is smart and is learning quickly and can already look at words, divide them by sounds and then read them aloud. The young man has a much harder time and can barely recognize the letters of the alphabet but he has made progress and can write his own name now without help. He can also write the alphabet on his own and is much better with numbers than letters. He can recognize any number 1-100 and tell you what it is. This is much better than a few months ago, and as long as he continues to come, I will work with him till he can read and write basic words on his own.

Each week a few random kids come, belonging to one adult or another, and they are fun to play with and are seeing their family member in a learning environment. Hopefully they will get the opportunity to go to school and help make their parent’s economical situations better. Also, I teach a nice young man 2nd grade twice a week at my home. This community is about 30 minutes up the mountain by car (an hour or two walking), but luckily he works as a lawn man for the clinic about a block from my house in town and so we do the class twice a week after he gets off work. He was too advanced for one class and couldn’t keep up with the other, but it is fun to work one on one with someone.

This is the most humbling thing I have done here. While in some ways I wish I had more students in a community I know has a dire need, it is amazing to see the same students show up week after week to learn the basics of elementary school. Especially my fourth grade girls. They are young, fun, energetic, and could be doing a lot of other things on a Sunday morning but they really want to learn and have touched my heart. I started this after Christmas and will probably work in this community till I leave Honduras. I have one volunteer (the lady standing in the next photo) and she helps teach the classes with me. Also, she is facilitating a 6th grade class for her husband and a few other men in town in the evenings. Together, we are making a small difference in the educational level of the town, where more than 80% of the adults are illiterate.

We as Americans are so lucky with our educational system. For one, we have classes all day, where here it is just about 4-5 hours in the morning or afternoons. Also, the teachers here strike a lot, and sometimes for valid reasons, but the people that lose are the students. Literally last month the schools all over Honduras were on strike twice and resulted in a loss of about a week of classes, which makes a huge difference in the quality of education. I teach this alternative education program in a community church which has opened our doors to us to teach the class each week. We sit in the little blue church benches but it is so great to have a free place to use with electricity and the students feel comfortable going here more than the small elementary school in town they never actually attended the first time around. I found this project because, despite the blatant poverty in the community, there are several people who are really motivated to make their area’s situation better. They asked for my help when I attended their community meetings, and I saw it as something I could actually learn to do. So this is why, for me, this is what a Peace Corps project should be….you see a change you have helped make, the community shows up and wants the change, and you have a person or two who are willing to continue it after you leave.

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).

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

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!

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.