Sunday, September 26, 2010

2 years old and starving

The children's stories are incredible. I met a little girl named Gaby that just four months ago was about to die from malnutrition. She was two years old and weighed 18 pounds. Her hair was falling out in patches. She spent a week in the hospital and was bed ridden another week. She had been ignored (and perhaps abused) to the point that she acted out wildly. She used to crawl around trying to bite others and refused to talk. Until recently the foster family couldn't take her out in public because she feared people. They think she was kept in complete isolation. Today she is doing a lot better. She's gained about 8 pounds and is slowly starting to talk. She warmed up to me =) and I spent a good while on the swings with her. Then she got the courage to participate in the pinata breaking. She is totally adorable!!

I also met a twelve year old girl and her twenty day old baby. Yeah! Her mom gave her away to a thirty year old man whose she had been living with for the last two years. She just had her healthy baby and is now under foster care. However, she wants to return to live with her "novio". From what they know, she's only attended first grade but flunked out. She says she is happy with him and happy being a stay at home mom.

Stories like these are a reality for many kids in Honduras. =|

Little info on Honduras:
According to CIA World Facts: 59% of the population lives below the poverty line.

From BBC: "Honduran society is rife with economic inequalities. Malnutrition, poor housing and infant diseases are widespread. The country has a youthful population; 50% of Hondurans are under the age of 19.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

A walk in the clouds...






Today was a great day! We went on a field trip with my counterpart, Vida Cristiana. They are an Evangelical church that runs a Center for Development working with high risk/needy kids. Our site was invited to a celebration of the crops at a nearby center. The community is nuzzled high up in a cloud forest...we were literally walking in the clouds. The church teaches the kids how to cultivate their own crops. Today they had atol (drink made from fresh corn) waiting for over 500 guests. After several dance, cultural, singing and prayer presentations we all got to pick our own crops. The visiting kids received a bag full of bananas, plantains, oranges, squash, pumpkin, guavas, coffee, corn, and coffee. I made a few friends and hope to visit them soon. It is incredibly beautiful up there. Unfortunately, the entire community has only on large classroom that serves as their school and some of the kids have to walk over three miles to get to it.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

OMG...you wouldn't believe


Yeah, I can't believe what I have to battle with on a daily basis. It's only been a week but they are finally getting to me. =| So, I've mentioned I have a little office right? Well it is slowly being invaded by the locals....wasps, ants, spiders, bees, flies....and BATS! Yes, all these little critters are my neighbors. The wasps live in the corners, the ants are all over the floor/chairs, bees & flies are in and out, and the bats are in the roof right outside my door. (We even have wild horses but these mind their own business for now.) Apparently these critters don't bother anyone else. I on the other hand am totally freaked out. I purchase RAID to fight them off but I think they are starting a rebellion of their own against me. Erk!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

On the ground and running...






My first week in site has been very exciting. I've met most of the staff members at school. My counter part did a great job of hosting me. He had a group of students waiting for me with flowers Monday morning. Plus, the principal introduced me at Friday's staff meeting. Unlike most schools we had class Thurs. & Fri. after the parade. My favorite was participating with the school's Cuadra de Honor (Honor roll students) and Cuadra de Danza (Folkloric dance group) in Weds. Independence Parade. We walked through the main parts of town and it kinda serves as my introduction to the community as a whole.

Work consists of me helping with the English course for 1st year students (equivalent to 10th grade). I see each group once a week....we have 10 groups of about 45-50 students each!! Yeah! Talk about oversized language classes. The goal is that I focus on pronunciation, conversation, incorporating manipulatives, class projects, dinamicas, games, songs, etc. into class. Classes are only 40 mins long...yeah can we say challenging....so I try to model all aspects of teaching. So far the students have been great!! They love to say "Bye teacher" as I walk through the hallways. The campus is huge and on the outskirts of town...we ride the bus in at 6:30am and return to town at 3:00pm. El profe even got me an oficina that I hope to decorate this week.

My other counterpart is totally cool! She's been visiting almost daily. I haven't done much with the project. I've toured the facilities, the home (for abused girls), and observed yesterday's activities. They handed out a large donation of toys to the most needy kids. The toys were provided by a local construction company. We also visited a local orphanage for el Dia del Nino (Children's day). The statistics of the kids we work with are scary. She estimates that 7 out of 10 girls have been sexually abused and most of the kids live in domestic violence. Most of them do not attend regular public education and look malnourished. A few of the girls are warming up to me. Wish I had more time to work with them.

I finally had my first baleada at La Princesita...yeah, I ate the entire thing. It is definitely my favorite Honduran food.....hand made flour tortilla filled with beans, fresh cream, eggs, avocado, fried plantains....mmm! It's a must if you're in town!!! (Not to mention free wireless internet)


Sunday, September 12, 2010

Dream come true...I´m a PCV!






9.11.10

I have arrived in my new home…Comayagua, Comayagua! We had a beautiful swearing in ceremony. Thanks again Jessica and Patricio for excellent speeches. It was a great feeling to have the Peace Corps Honduras familia together in one place, including Howard and his always pleasant, warm speeches. As we took oath, a surreal feeling came over me. One of my biggest dreams has come true. I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Yay!

I met my counterpart, el Profesor David, from the Escuela Normal, a primary school teacher college. He is the English methodology professor. I will be helping serve 1,300 students between the ages of 14 - 17 years old. Additionally, he would like to see me teach a group of current teachers from the community. We have a lot of work ahead. He is very eager to improve his class, teaching, and understanding of the English language. He seems like a very hardworking, positive, and healthy individual. I think we will get along great. He took excellent care of me as we made our way out to site. To start, he got us a ride to Teguz which meant no lugging my luggage down a dirt road to then load it onto a “chicken bus”. Not to mention he didn’t let me help with my HEAVY bags…..no really, two large suitcases that easily weigh over 50 lbs., one carry one that weighs about 40 lbs., plus a backpack full of books…another 30 lbs.

Comayagua is beautiful…just as described. The park with filled with vendors selling traditional food, crafts, and souvenirs. They had several dance groups performing ballet folklorico. El profe gave me a quick tour of the central park. I’m about four blocks away. Plus, I’m just around the corner from Café Princesita, the best café in town with free internet and huge baleadas (flour taco filled with refried beans, fresh cream, eggs plus you can add avocado and pico de gallo which they call chismol….yummylicious).

My new host family seems really nice. They are an elderly couple and totally adorable. They are very active in church (Evangelical). Their daughter is my other counterpart, the director of a NGO that provides at-risk youth extra-curricular activities/snacks/tutoring/counseling. We visited their casa hogar (home) for abused girls. They currently host 7 girls between the ages of 12 - 15. They collaborate with other organizations and have a lot going for the kids. During our visit the girls were working on purses/belts/bracelets hand-made from the snaps off soda cans. I’m also very excited for my work with this project.

I will really miss my compañer@s. I’m hoping everyone made it safely…especially after our little get together last night. We finally had a dance party! I’m kinda lucky in that I am situated in a central location. I can easily travel north to Santa Barbara, east to Olancho, south to Teguz or Choluteca, and sorta easily get to Ocotepeque. Just another advantage of living in the countries first capital.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Back in Zarabanda...five days till swearing in ceremony!

I’m in my new host family in Zarabanda. I ended up having a switch in host families. This new family is really cute. They seem to be a happy/healthy family….three girls, one little boy, a mom (professor) and a dad (civil engineer). Their house if beautiful and had an amazing view of the valley below. They spent the evening at a birthday party. I made small talk with the empleada (maid) and was in bed by 8:30pm.

They are heading off to church in Teguz and will most likely spend the day shopping. I decided to hang back and meet up with the girls in Valle de Angeles (where I am now).

Yesterday was a crazy long day. We met the bus and loaded luggage at 6:30 am. Dona Digna was in tears when I said goodbye. She had a little present for me and I had left her a card with a cross I thought she’d like. It was quite an adventure getting to Teguz. We had to stop halfway to fix the bus and then again to put gas in. Most of the afternoon was spent in the immigration office getting our residency cards, yay! The PAMers showed up later and it was really nice seeing the rest of the group. Even though I’m not close to everyone it was nice to have the whole group together again.

The last week in Talanga went by fast. Ronaldo and I ended up scheduling a charla at NPH. The facilities are amazing and really do resemble a huge ranch. The taller (workshop) students were hosting and exhibition of their projects. Their work was great and they would have easily sold at a mercado. I ended up buying two matching mantas (embroidered cloth) for Dona Digna and myself. I held charlas with the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. They asked me to speak on the rules of courtesy and self-esteem. The groups were really responsive but the 4th graders required more classroom management. All in all I think the students really enjoyed it and I certainly had them thinking about their actions and their future.

Schools are back in session as of last week. The ministry of education claims schools will hold Saturday classes and will continue through the end of November. In Talanga, most schools were opting out of participating in the Independence Day parade. We got to see a bit of the festivities with Flag Day on September 1st. The ceremony was held at the park starting at 6am. Some of my favorite parts included a performance by the ballet folklorico and a poetry reading by a little girl.

Bueno, I’m looking forward to my cafecito at Expreso Americano!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

It's official I'm going to....





The following was typed yesterday, Aug. 30th...and yes, my official site assignment is Comayagua, Comayagua...yay for me!!! And congrats to the rest of the H17 Team!!

I will officially know my site assignment tomorrow afternoon. Although I am 99% sure it will be Comayagua. I had my tech interview last week and they gave me a ton of info on my counterparts and job assignment. I’ll be working with an Escuela Normal (primary teacher development). The students will have just graduated colegio (middle school, 7th-9th). I’ll be paired up with the English methodology professor. This will keep me very busy Monday thru Friday. I was told the school is located outside of the city so I will rely on the school’s transportation which may mean I’ll have to stay on campus all day. I’ll also be paired up with a Christian NGO that works with children mostly after school and on the weekend. From what I understand they want to improve their teaching practices for their tutoring sessions. I will most likely dedicate my Saturdays for this project.

Comayagua is a beautiful city filled with history and cultura. It was the first capital of Honduras and is undergoing a transformation to restore much of its colonialism. It is considered a large city with roughly 60,000. I am very excited because it sounds like it will be a city with a small town feel. There is a US military base just outside of the city that has undoubtably created a different perspective of the Americano. I am also expecting to run into a lot of gringos in town. This will definitely add an interesting twist to my Peace Corps experience.

As for technical training, we’ve done all kinds of activities and learned about possible projects. I really enjoyed a charla on HIV/AIDS. We had great facilitators and I personally cleared up a lot about this enfermedad (illness). Like usual, we put our skills to the test by holding our own charla with high schoolers. We were split into teams of four and had to recreate the charla. I think my team did an excellent job. As the native speaker I took care of clarifying the vocabulary and demonstrating the proper use of a condom. Yes, a room filled with high school boys listening to me describe how to properly use a condom in Spanish.

Last week, we learned about school gardens….as we created one. We started by first creating a compost pile. So there you had us youth development volunteers using our machete to cut dry grass and shoveling gallinaso (chicken poop). I must say that our group made a great looking abonera (compost pile). The following day we had to clear a ton of ground to plant our garden. Sadly our section of land was filled with random tiles, toilet parts, rocks, among other random things. I ended up exhausted, dirty, sweaty, and with two huge bug (maybe spider) bites. The swelled up to the size of a half dollar and looked nasty on my feet.

I did my best to develop a new project but had to go thru our program trainer. Only one organization got back to us, Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos. I have been wanting to visit since I volunteered at NPH Domincan Republic and would love to meet the group in Honduras. I know that it’s one of the oldest sites and I want to compare to the relatively new site in the DR. I am very excited about going to visit and possibly hosting a workshop. For now I will continue to tutor sixth graders in math at the only school that continued having classes despite the huelga (strike). BTW, most schools did resume today. We are hoping they will continue to be in session through the start of our service. Keep your fingers crossed!!

This past weekend my host mom and I set off on a little adventure to Teguz. We took the bus but ended up getting picked up by my host sister. She drove us to the Mulitplaza shopping mall. On our way there I got to see different parts of the city including sketchy looking streets filled with vendors and an overflowing river that has caused a lot of flooding. The city is really spread out and from my experience so far looks the same no matter where you are. The mall was amazing…many fufurufu (chic) stores, a few coffee shops, and a ton of American fast food chains. I didn’t buy much because I’m living on my allowance (58 Lempiras = $3.00 a day). I totally got ripped off when I purchased trail mix that I swear had a price tag of 67 Lempiras a pound and I ended up paying 189 Lempiras ($10.00) a pound….errk! It rained the rest of the weekend so we didn’t do much else. The streets are deserted in Talanga when it rains which makes it especially scary in the evening.