Volunteer Visit: Concepción de María, Choluteca

I just got back from my volunteer visit a few hours ago (I’m writing this post on Thursday night), and I am so tired!  Bus travel is exhausting!

We left from Las Cañadas on Sunday morning around 7:15.  I traveled with Emily and Deandra, two other trainees from my group.  Deandra was going with me to visit Melissa, a current youth development volunteer in Concepción de María; and Emily was going to visit Ashley, the volunteer who lives in Namasigue.  Once we got into Tegucigalpa, we took a taxi to the bus station and then took the three-hour bus ride to Choluteca, a fairly large city southeast of Tegucigalpa.

Ashley’s site, Namasigue, is only 30-40 minutes outside of Choluteca, so she met us at the bus terminal.  We walked to Wendy’s for lunch (definitely a nice change from beans and tortillas), stopped by the grocery store to pick up some food, and then got on another bus to Concepción de María (another 3 hours or so).  By the time we got to our destination it was getting dark and we were pretty tired.  However, the feria was going on in the town, so there were lots of things going on.  We met Melissa, the volunteer that Deandra and I were visiting, and Laura, a health volunteer who lives in Triunfo (about an hour and a half away from Melissa).  After a dinner of tacos (Mexican food is so hard to find that Ashley had her parents send her taco seasoning in the mail), we headed out to the feria. 

While we were walking through the feria, we got a taste of what it is like to be a volunteer in a small site (the town has about 1,000 people).  Melissa was super friendly, and greeted and talked to everyone that we passed.  Everyone in her town knows her and she, amazingly, knows almost everyone’s names.  The feria had some sketchy carnival rides, including a ferris wheel that was a little rickety and went at 3 times the speed of a normal ferris wheel (which made it also 3 times more fun!).  There was also a merry-go-round that was pushed by hand by one of the workers, rather than having a motor that makes it go around.  Throughout the night, we rode the ferris wheel twice, played some games, and went into the town hall to the dance, where a band that looked and danced like the Honduran version of the Backstreet Boys was performing.  We had a great time and didn’t get back home until around 12:30.   Melissa lives in a great little house.  It kind of made me jealous because Peace Corps Honduras recently changed the rules so that, starting with my group (H-19), we are required to live with host families the whole time.  It’s kind of a bummer that I’ll never get to have my own place like Melissa does, but it’s definitely safer to be living with a family, so it’s a trade-off.

Feria rides

Early Monday morning, Emily, Ashley, and Laura left.  Some kids from Melissa’s Joven a Joven (vocational training) class at the high school came over to prepare yucca with chismol for the cultural show that was happening that day in the center of town, another event for the feria.  I helped the kids peel the yucca and chop up the onions, peppers, and tomatoes to make the chismol.  I got to practice my Spanish with them, and we talked about our favorite movies.  Once the food was done, we brought it over to the cultural show.  All of the different organizations and schools from the area had little booths with typical foods and crafts.  Before the show started, they called Melissa up to sit at the front table with all of the important people from the town.  It was really cool to see how respected and loved she is in her community.  The show had dancers, skits, singers, and a marching band.  After the show, we hung out at Melissa’s house for awhile.  In the evening, we went back out to the feria, which was much less busy than the night before.  We sat and ate pupusas at one of the food stands.  Then, Melissa took us to a restaurant that had a little room on the third floor with karaoke.  Although none of us wanted to sing into the microphone, we flipped through a lot of the songs (all in Spanish) and attempted to sing some of them.  They had the song from Titanic, in both Spanish and English, and we ended up singing that a few times.  A few other people showed up to sing, and we hung out and sang along, before heading back and going to bed.

Deandra, Melissa, Me at Karaoke

Tuesday, we headed out to the library to help Melissa plan and prepare for her upcoming classes.  The library was a small building with maybe 4 or 5 shelves of books and some tables and chairs.  We prepared for a sex ed. lesson that we were going to teach with Laura in Triunfo on Wednesday, but plans ended up changing so we didn’t get to do it after all.  We went back to the house for lunch.  The other trainee that was with us had some health issues, so she stayed home and napped, and I headed back to the library with Melissa.  The kids got out of school early in the afternoon, and a bunch of them came into the library.  I sat and read with some of them, and then Melissa did a spontaneous story hour and gave them paper and colored pencils to color with, just to keep them occupied so she could get some work done.  Later on in the evening, we headed out and ended up sitting and talking with some neighbors for a couple of hours.  They were super nice and invited us to come back and visit again.  Melissa said that her best advice for integrating into your community is doing just what we did on Tuesday night, spending time just hanging out and talking to people.  It will definitely take the courage to step outside my comfort zone, but it is obvious how well integrated she is into her community, so I will definitely take her advice!

Wednesday we left super early because we had to go back into Choluteca to stop at the hospital and get medicine (don’t worry it wasn’t for me, I’m still healthy!).  After running that errand, we hung out in a café for awhile, then met up with Emily and Ashley again to have lunch at Pizza Hut.  After lunch, we stopped again at the grocery store and the 5 of us (Me, Deandra, Melissa, Ashley, and Emily), headed to Ashley’s house in Namasigue, which seemed to be about the same size as Melissa’s site, although we didn’t get a chance to walk around too much.  Once we got there, we made rice krispy treats (with cornflakes though, because there weren’t any rice krispies at the grocery store), and helped Ashley prepare some of her materials for her classes.  In order to give Deandra and I the experience of helping with a project (Melissa’s projects were put on hold for the week because of the feria), she called the kindergarten teacher and made plans to do a dental hygiene lesson in the morning, so that we could go and help with it before we had to leave.  Before bed, we moved all of the mattresses into Ashley’s living room and watched a couple of episodes of Modern Family on her computer.

This morning, we went to the kinder at 9:00 to do a quick lesson with the kids.  The topic of the lesson was knowing the difference between foods that are good for your teeth and foods that are bad for your teeth.  Afterwards, we hung out some more, then took the long trip back home (first to Choluteca, then the long bus ride to Tegucigalpa, then another shorter trip to Las Cañadas). 

The volunteer visit turned out to be a great experience.  I got to see what it looks like to be a happy, successful volunteer.  I got to ask Melissa a million questions about life as a volunteer, we had some fun at the feria, and we got to help facilitate a lesson with Ashley.  I learned a lot about how to become a part of your community, the importance of being friendly, open, and interested in everyone and everything that’s going on.  One thing I didn’t expect was to become friends with the volunteers so quickly.  I could definitely see myself going back and visiting Ashley and Melissa, and hopefully I’ll be placed at a site close enough that I’ll be able to.

We’re officially more than halfway done with training, and I can’t believe it!  It was great to have a change of pace during the volunteer visit and not be so busy all the time, but tomorrow it’s back to regular training until we’re sworn in on September 22^nd!

¡Exito! (Success!)

Two blog posts in one week!  Imagine that! 

When we got here to Honduras, the Peace Corps training staff referred to training as an “11 week long job interview.”  This week we have had various meetings to talk about our progress, and it seems like they are happy with me and my performance thus far.  I had a meeting with the training director and with the youth development project staff, and they had nothing but good things to say.

But, the thing that I’m most excited about is my second language interview, which was on Tuesday.  The Spanish facilitators worked hard on Tuesday night to review the interviews and figure out our levels so that they could let us know in class on Wednesday.  I was pleased to find out that I moved up not one, but two levels.  So, I am officially Intermediate-High!  It was great to see that my hard work in Spanish class and talking with my family have paid off, but it’s also nice to know that I have met the criteria to be a volunteer.  In order to be sworn in on September 22^nd, we need to be at least Intermediate-Mid.  So, I did it!

This week we had two trainings in which we got to go out into the community and work with kids.  The first was for TEAM, which stands for Teaching English and Methodology.  This is a program that the Peace Corps has implemented in Honduras in conjunction with the Ministry of Education.  There was a new law made fairly recently that requires students to be taught English starting in 4^th grade.  However, many teachers are not prepared to teach English to their students.  TEAM is a program in which Peace Corps volunteers teach Honduran teachers how to teach English.  At the same time, we try to model and equip them with better teaching methodology.  Students in schools here do a lot of activities in workbooks and copying from the chalkboard.  Through English, Peace Corps volunteers try to teach the teachers new, more interactive, student-centered ways of teaching.  In my technical interview the other day, I told Ronaldo and Sandra that this is definitely a program that I would like to do.  It seems like a great way to take the knowledge that I gained in my past 3 years at UConn and put it to good use by helping teachers here in Honduras.

For our practicum in this training, we went to the school in our town, Las Cañadas, and implemented some of the English lessons with students in grades 4 through 6.  My group, Jim, Peter, Natalie, and I, worked with 5^th graders, and our lesson was about colors.  Although our first icebreaker fell flat (because the kids were too nervous to start speaking English right away), the rest of the lesson went really well and the kids definitely learned something.  Our group just happened to end up with 4 teachers in it (not everyone in our group is a teacher, some are social workers, English majors, communication majors, etc.), and it was cool to get to teach with other people that have experience in the classroom.  Our group worked really well together!

On Thursday, we had our second visit to our self-directed project site.  Julie, Constance, and I went back to our school, Escuela Vicente Chavez in the alcaldea (small town) of Likidamba (isn’t that the coolest name ever?!). We had hoped to work with the kids at the end of their school day and then get to talk to the teacher, however Ronaldo informed us on our way there that the teacher would not be there.  Even though the kids didn’t have school, about 30 of them still showed up to meet us, which was really encouraging.  We did some icebreakers and played some games, including ship to shore (in Spanish, obviously), and a game where they had to find partners and follow our directions, connecting certain parts of the body.  For example, we would yell, “codo y pierna” (elbow and leg), and they would have to find a partner and one would touch their elbow to the other’s leg.  After playing a bunch of games, we went into the classroom and talked with the students about what they want to do with us when we spend time with them after school.  Some of the things that they seemed interested in included learning English, doing art projects, playing sports, and getting help with their homework.  We sent each of them home with a notice for their parents with the dates and times of all of our meetings.  We will be seeing them 9 times over the next few weeks. 

Constance, Julie, and I with our kids at Vicente Chavez School

Then, we said goodbye and headed up the trail to the road.  All of the kids followed us and ended up standing by the road with us.  It was a little bit awkward at first because we were waiting for at least 10 minutes for our ride to get there, but we started playing some more games with the kids like Ultimate Rock, Paper, Scissors (Piedra , Papel, Tijeras).   We also sang some camp songs with them, like Boom Chicka Boom, The Moose Song, and Wisconsin Milk.  Coincidentally, the three of us have all worked at camps and know a lot of the same songs.  Despite the fact that they had no idea what they were saying, the kids really enjoyed it!

On Sunday, we’re heading out to our volunteer visits, and we’ll be there until Thursday.  I am going with another trainee to visit Melissa, a volunteer who works in Concepción de María in Choluteca.  It’s about 6 hours away, to the south of here.  Melissa said that her town’s feria (fair/festival) is going to be going on, which should be really fun and interesting.  We’re also going to get to help her facilitate something for one of her projects and probably ask millions of questions about what it’s like to be a volunteer.  I’m excited to see another part of the country and to have a change of environment and routine for a few days.

In other news...my sister’s birthday is coming up on the 16^th!  Happy Birthday Emma!

One Month!

So, we’ve officially been here for a month now, and it’s flown by.  Weekdays have been filled with Spanish classes and technical training and weekends are filled with family time, cleaning, washing clothes (by hand) and hanging out with friends.  (Have I mentioned yet how hard it is to wash all of your clothes by hand?  Not to mention the fact that it rains almost everyday, so it takes like 4 days for everything to dry on the clothesline).

Here are some highlights since my last post:

• We had our first visit to our self-directed project site.  Julie, Constance, and I are working with Vicente Chavez School, which is located about 30 minutes away.  It is a very small school, with students in grades 1 through 6 all in one classroom with one teacher.  When we went there, we observed the classroom for awhile.  The students were mostly copying work into notebooks or using workbooks.  The teacher went around and gave each grade level their assignments.  Seeing a classroom with 40 students of such varied ages was really different than anything I’ve seen before.  I’m looking forward to working with the kids this week.  Besides observing, the major reason we were there was to talk with parents and use our community analysis tool to help us learn more and gather information about our project.  This part was kind of a flop.  There were 7 or 8 moms that showed up, and they did not have anything at all to say to us.  We asked some questions and sat in awkward silence for awhile.  We had Carlos, one of the Spanish teachers, with us, and he helped a little with the language stuff.  It was a little discouraging that the parents didn’t really want to talk to us, but on the bright side- it means that we can pretty much do whatever we want with the students for our project.  We’re going to be going there again on Thursday to talk to the kids and meet with the teacher to get a better idea of what we’re going to be doing with them.

• This week we had a training on dental hygiene.  In conjunction with Colgate, many of us will be implementing a dental hygiene program once we get to our sites.  Sandra, our Project Director, is a licensed dentist, so she did the training along with a current volunteer who has implemented the program in her site.  I learned more than I ever needed to know about teeth and dental health (and learned how to say it all in Spanish).  Then, on Friday morning, we all went to the school here in Las Cañadas to give charlas (short presentations/trainings) on dental hygiene.  My group gave our charla to a class of enthusiastic first graders.  It went really well and was a great confidence boost.  I felt really good about my Spanish and I think the kids actually learned something!

• This Saturday, we participated in a race that went through the huge national park, Parque Nacional La Tigra, that is near where we’re living.  We went into Valle de Angeles around 7 to register and get our numbers and t-shirts.  There was a 25K and 10K.  We did the 10K and planned to walk the whole thing.  There were some pretty intense athletes there, which we didn’t really expect.  The walk was beautiful.  There were great views of the mountains, and as we got higher and higher it was more like a jungle.  At the top, we were literally in the clouds, which was super cool.  To say that this hike was difficult would be an understatement.  However, we had an awesome time walking together (and pretty much came in dead last- haha). 

• On Sunday, my host family threw a baby shower for Patty, the cousin that lives behind us who is having a baby girl and is due on August 22^nd.  We spent the whole morning decorating, and I helped chop up vegetables for the food.  I think in all there were probably about 50 people there, which was crazy.  We had set up lots of chairs outside for everyone because the house is really small.  Luckily, the weather was great.  All week, my family had been asking me to help them with baby shower games.  Baby showers are a U.S. phenomenon, as demonstrated by the fact that there isn’t even a word for baby shower in Spanish.  When they told me about it, they said, “Vamos a tener un baby shower.” Haha.  I told them about a couple of games that I had heard of.  One of them involves people tasting baby foods and guessing what kind they are.  Something must have gotten lost in translation, because my host mom had both the person eating the baby food and the person feeding them be blindfolded, which turned into a crazy, funny, messy game.  We had a piñata and ate some great food: chilaquiles and jello with fruit.  After the baby shower, my family told me that I did a great job all day and was really a part of the family—helping to set up, run the games, and clean up afterwards.  Now they said I just have to start learning to cook!

There are a lot of things coming up.  This week we have our second language interviews.  Mine’s on Tuesday morning.  In the first interview, I was Intermediate-Low.  Two weeks ago, I got moved up to the Intermediate-Mid class.  I’m confident that I’ll get Intermediate-Mid on this interview, and I’m going to do my best to try to move up another level to Intermediate-High.  We’ll see how it goes!

On Sunday, we are going to be heading out for our volunteer visit.  From Sunday through Thursday we’re going off to visit a volunteer, work with them, and stay with them in order to better understand what life will be like when we finish training.

In other news, it’s August, which means you have 4 weeks to buy your international phone card so you can call me on my birthday.  Which also means that birthday cards need to be put in the mail soon. Haha Just kidding!  (Well, sort of)

Miss you all and hope everything’s going well!

p.s.  In reading over my blog posts, I’ve realized that my vocabulary in English is going downhill.  My writing is definitely not what it was before I left.  It must be a side effect of learning so much Spanish so quickly.  My apologies!