Hmmmmm…

 I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write in this blog post, but it’s been tough.  As much as I want to write that everything is wonderful (lollipops, cupcakes, and rainbows), if I did that then I’d be lying.  It’s going to be a rough transition.  The Peace Corps warned us about this, but I’ve tried to be optimistic in thinking that everything would work out, but it’s definitely just as hard as they said it was, if not harder.

            So, I’m here at my site.  Let’s start with some positives…swearing in happened on Thursday, the 22^nd of September, and it was great!  We got to get all dressed up, and my host sister Yeisling dried and straightened my hair for the occasion.  It was a really long day.  We left Las Cañadas at 7:15 a.m., and went to the Peace Corps office in Teguz to meet our counterparts.  I think I’ve mentioned it before—but all of us have at least 3 Honduran counterparts that we’re working with, in an effort to make our projects more sustainable.  By working with Hondurans, there’s a better chance that our projects can continue once we leave.  My counterpart that came to swearing-in teaches English at the high school and is also my new host dad.  We had a training in the morning and into the afternoon about working together and what youth development is. 

            Around 2 or 3, we headed to the embassy for swearing-in.  There were speeches from our training director (Luis), program director (Sandra), the director of Peace Corps Honduras (Emily), the new U.S. Ambassador, as well as the Honduran Minister of Youth and Vice Minister of Education.  These two people from the Honduran government presented the Peace Corps with plaques to celebrate its 50^th anniversary.  I would love to be able to explain more about the ceremony and what all of the speeches were about, but it was really all a huge blur.  In addition to these speeches, Constance made a speech on behalf of our group that was both meaningful and funny.  We also sang the national anthems of both Honduras and the U.S., and our whole group sang “Peace Train” (well, Chris played the guitar and sang the verses, and we sang the chorus with him).  It was a really special occasion.  Afterwards, we took some pictures, had some refreshments, and headed back to spend our last night with our host families.  We hung out together for a little while, but I headed home to finish packing and spend some time with my host family. 

Happy 50th Birthday Peace Corps!

Me and Emily, the director of Peace Corps Honduras

Me, Julie, and Constance

            Friday morning, we had to meet up at 5:00 sharp with all of our bags in order to meet our counterparts at their hotel in Teguz.  It was super early, but a few people had to catch a 6:00 bus to make it to their sites, so we all had to wake up and be ready to go.  Saying goodbye to my host family was really hard.  I still tear up when I think about it.  I don’t think I realized it until I had to say goodbye how much I appreciated all their help, friendship, care, and acceptance over the past 3 months.  I hope that I can come to feel the same way about my new host family, but they have big shoes to fill.  I miss them a lot already, and I can’t wait until I get the chance to go back and visit them again. (My host mom even made me call her when I got to my site…just like a real mom would do :-)

            Saying goodbye to all of the other volunteers was just as difficult.  On the bus ride to the hotel, I thought a lot about the transition that was about to happen.  It is not often that you go into a new experience not having any clue whatsoever what it’s going to be like.  Sure, going away to college is a big transition, but most likely you’ve visited the school before, gone to orientation, etc.  Starting a new job is hard too, but usually you’ve learned a lot about your job through classes or had a similar experience in an internship, so you know more or less what to expect.  Even with study abroad—I was always with a group of people I knew, and we had met each other before we left the country.  Coming to Honduras and starting training was almost as hard of a transition, but we were with a group of 15, lived with experienced host families, and had Peace Corps close at hand to help us with any problems we had.  But this time, we’re going out, alone, to a place we’ve never been before, to work with people we’ve never met, live with a new family, and we really have no idea what to expect.  That’s tough.

            I’ve been trying to keep this in mind since I said my tearful goodbye on Friday morning to the people who have become some of my closest friends.  Peace Corps has told us that it will be “the hardest job you’ll ever love” and that we need to be patient and give ourselves time to settle in, but let me tell you…it is hard!

             My new host family has a house in Teguz where 3 of their daughters live with their aunt, cousin, and grandmother.  The girls are studying in Teguz (2 in college, 1 in high school).  So, instead of heading to Sulaco on Friday, we stayed there on Friday night and headed out on Saturday.  Friday (keep in mind I woke up at 4 a.m. to lug all of my luggage up a steep hill and down the street then had to say goodbye to my old host family and all of my friends), I was dragged along on a million errands with my new host mom and dad.  We were literally out driving from place to place from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m.  I did get to spend some time getting to know their daughters, who seem pretty cool, but with the emotional rollercoaster, combined with the lack of sleep, I was barely holding it together.  We got back to the house, and I laid down at 6:30, slept until 9:30, got up to brush my teeth and then slept the rest of the night.  The next morning was filled with more errands (the second youngest daughter, Amada, had teeth pulled on Friday and got braces on Saturday morning), and we finally left for Sulaco at around 2:00 in the afternoon.  The ride was about 3 ½ hours, and about half of it was on bumpy, unpaved roads. 

            So, I’m here, I made it, and I’m doing ok.  The house that I’m living in is really great.  It’s a two story house that they’ve been doing construction on for a long time, and I’m living on the 2^nd floor, which isn’t exactly finished yet, but I have a nice room and there’s a bathroom right next to it (with occasional running water).  And…there’s a toilet seat! (so Josh, you won’t need to bring me one :-)  My host mom is a teacher at the primary school, which is one of my counterparts, and my host dad teaches English at the high school, which is another one of my counterparts.  Their youngest daughter, Belen, lives with them here and goes to the high school.  Saturday night, I unpacked, set up my mosquito net, and that’s about it.  Sunday I was antsy to go out and do something.  I guess in my mind I had pictured arriving at my site and getting a full tour of the town and getting to know everything.  However, that wasn’t the case.  My host family literally did absolutely nothing all day.  At 4, my host mom was heading to church and I jumped at the opportunity to get out and see the community.  The church is a really pretty colonial building.  It’s a Catholic church, but was a lot less formal than what I picture when I think of Catholic churches.  There were kids and dogs running around, and lots of singing and clapping.  The priest’s sermon was about how the purpose of what we do should always be to serve others.  When we further our education or training, we should think of it as a way to bring us closer to people who are in need, rather than thinking of it benefiting ourselves.  I really enjoyed the message and the service in general.

            Monday morning, I woke up early to head to the high school with my host dad.  So, yesterday and today (I’m writing this on Tuesday, 9/27), have been a lot of introduction and, to be honest, super boring.  It seems like I’m arriving here at a bad time.  The high school currently does not have a director (principal), and the director at the primary school who filled out the proposal for a volunteer is no longer working there; there’s a new director.  Which means that Peace Corps was right, I am going to have to be really patient.  Being a typical U.S. go-getter, like-to-stay-busy type person, I would love to just jump into things and get going.  However, that’s not how it works here.  I’m going to have to be okay with doing a whole lot of nothing in the beginning, with the hopes that it will get better in the future.

            My biggest concern right now is living and working with the same people.  Peace Corps does not have people living with their counterparts.  Technically my official counterparts are the directors of the schools, but since the director at the primary school is new and the high school doesn’t have one…my host parents are basically my two counterparts right now.  I have a lot of things I’d like to do, but my host dad, because he lives and works with me, seems to think that he has the ultimate decision in what my schedule and projects look like.  Also, because they work where I work, I am constantly tagging along with them and really wish I could have a little more independence.  I have sort of a plan for what I’m going to do, but I have a feeling it’s going to take awhile to get going.

            Surprisingly, it’s the baseball project that’s looking the most positive.  Fernando, the baseball coach, seems really excited to have me here.  He went to the U.S. through some kind of non-profit organization to learn about baseball and how to start a team.  In Honduras, soccer is super popular and basically the only sport that exists, so the hope is to do something new and introduce kids to something different.  We are also going to try to get the girls involved and have a girls’ team because girls do not have very many opportunities to participate in sports.  I’m going to be going to baseball practice with Fernando on Thursday to meet the kids, and on Tuesdays I’ll be running the practice because he’ll be teaching (he’s the P.E. teacher at 2 different schools here in Sulaco).   

            So, I guess the bottom line is that I’m frustrated.  And worried about working and living with the same people.  Part of the difficulty comes from the fact that we are arriving at a bad time.  Schools here are in session until the end of November and then they don’t start up again until February.  There’s really not much time left until the end of the school year to start up projects and programs, but I don’t want to just be sitting around twiddling my thumbs.  There are projects that I’d like to start, like TEAM (Teaching English and Methodology class for teachers) and Colgate (dental hygiene program for little kids), but those involve requesting materials from Peace Corps, which will take time to arrive, and will have to start up at the beginning of the next school year in February.  So, it’s kind of hard.  Also, the high school is having exams in the next week or so, which means I’m really doing absolutely nothing there.

           

            So, that’s how it is.  It’s frustrating and difficult, but I’m hoping it will get better.  I debated whether I should sugar-coat everything for my blog, knowing that my mom will start worrying and call me in a panic if she knows I’m not completely happy and satisfied with everything, but I figured it would be better to be honest.  I also need to keep reminding myself that I haven’t even been here for a week yet, and I need to chill out and not worry so much right off the bat.  However, I wanted to give you an honest blog post about how I’m feeling and how things are going.  Don’t panic, I’ll be fine, I just have to wait it out and see what happens.  Needless to say, in the midst of all of the frustrations, it makes me miss all of you even more, but I know things will work out if I just keep plugging along!   

****While posting this on Thursday, I wanted to mention that things are really looking up now.  I´m going to be doing reading interventions and helping teach English at the elementary school three days a week, which will keep me busy.  The stuff at the high school is still really slow, but we´ll see what happens...things are getting better every day!  

Celebrations and Site Announcements!

            For Honduras, September is full of celebrations.  Last Saturday was “Dia del Niño” (Children’s Day), which is a BIG deal here.  The schools all hold huge celebrations with toys, food, games, cake, and piñatas….lots of piñatas!  On Friday, Julie, Constance, and I went out to the school that we worked with for our self-directed project—Escuela Vicente Chavez in Liquidambar.  When we got there, we found out that there were a bunch of high school kids that would be running the day’s activities.  So, basically, there wasn’t anything for us to do or help with.  We stuck around to watch the games, eat some arroz con pollo, and watch the kids break open the piñata.  Kids doing a piñata in Honduras is like every teacher or camp counselor’s worst nightmare—kids pushing, shoving, almost hitting each other in the head with the stick.  However, the teacher and parents didn’t seem worried…cultural differences I guess.  We were disappointed that we didn’t get to help with anything that day, but the teacher invited to come back on Saturday, which was the actual children’s day.  He was leading the whole thing himself, so he wanted us to come play some games.  Constance had plans to celebrate with her family, but Julie and I decided to go.

            Because it was a Saturday, the Peace Corps was not able to give us transportation, but they agreed to reimburse us for our travel costs.  So, Julie and I woke up early and caught the big yellow school bus to Cataranas, which goes past the school.  We were supposed to lead games from 9 to 10, but we didn’t end up starting until like 9:30 (cultural differences once again…punctuality just isn’t something that exists here).  We played some games, helped hand out food and cake, and supervised piñata.  We suggested to the teacher that they do different piñatas for different age groups so that not all of the kids were scrambling for the candy.  It worked out much better, and there was much less whining and no injuries.  

            Today (I’m writing this on Thursday, September 15^th) was Independence Day!  Graciously, the Peace Corps gave us the day off (except they still gave us a worksheet of questions about Independence day that we were supposed to do), so we all went with our families to Valle de Angeles to celebrate.  The parade was crazy!  Each school in the area marched.  There was such a variety of stuff, bands, some little kids acting like mimes (weird and kind of creepy), little kids in costumes, flags, girls dancing with batons, girls dancing with pom-poms, girls dancing with soccer balls and tennis racquets…really random stuff.  I walked around with Yeisling and her cousin Paola, and took lots of pictures. 

            OK, I guess this is the important part….On Monday, we found out our sites.  The site announcement process was really suspenseful, and Sandra, our project manager, loved watching us squirm.  First, she made us listen to an inspirational song and talk about the lyrics that were most meaningful to us.  Then she made us listen to it again and sing along (after 10 weeks of wondering about our sites, we really just wanted her to cut to the chase!).  In order to announce the sites, she had a powerpoint presentation.  She first showed us a quote from our personal statements, which we sent to her before we arrived.  She read it, translated it into Spanish so that the Spanish teachers could understand, and then made us guess who wrote it.  After some discussion and debate, she showed the name of the site, and then finally showed the picture of the person.

            Of course, I ended up being the very last one, so by process of elimination I knew exactly which site was mine….SULACO,YORO!  We each received a booklet of information about our site and our counterparts, and we spent the next 30 minutes sitting, reading our site descriptions, asking questions, and eating cake and ice cream.  Here are some facts on my site, I’ll try to give as much info as I can, but I’m sure I’ll be able to tell you more once I get there on the 23^rd.

·      It is located in North-ish Central Honduras, and it is the southernmost municipality in the department of Yoro. 

·      Population 15,000 , with about 5,000 living in the casco urbano (main town) and the rest in the aldeas (other villages that are part of the municipality)

·      It is located in a valley with mountains around it, there is a river and hot springs

·      The people depend on small scale farming of beans, corn, fruits, and vegetables, as well as coffee and cattle farming

·      I should have access to internet in my town (maybe in one of the schools or an internet café)

·      Average temperature 85-90 degrees

·      Looks like there’s at least one hotel and a few restaurants

·      My counterparts:

o   Escuela Francisco Morazan (primary school, grades 1-6)

§  Helping to organize the parenting school

§  Working with teachers who have already been trained in teaching English by the previous volunteer

§  Visiting poor families

§  Helping teach how to build home gardens

o   Instituto San Juan de Sula (high school, grades 7-?)

§  Work with the English teacher to do co-teaching

§  Work with the counselor to organize parenting school, drug prevention, teen pregnancy prevention

§  Workshops for teachers on teaching techniques, discipline techniques, positive reinforcement, etc.

§  Work with the Spanish teacher to motivate the youth to read more

o   Baseball team

§  I’m not really sure how this one’s going to go, I’m going to be working with the coach who is the physical education teacher, and I’ll be working with the team…should be interesting!

·      My host family:

o   The English teacher at the high school that I’ll be co-teaching with is also my host dad!  And my host mom is one of the teachers I’ll be working with at the primary school.  They have a 13 year-old daughter and a son who lives and studies in Tegucigalpa during the school year.

So, that’s the scoop!  I’m pretty excited about my site.  It’s really far away from the other people in my group, but there are a bunch of volunteers from other groups that are living and working in the department, so they’ll be within a few hours bus ride away from me. 

           

            The next week is filled with preparation for swearing-in and moving out to our sites.  I already had my final language interview on Wednesday (and it didn’t go great, I’ll probably stay at the same level that I was before) and we only have a few hours of Spanish class left.  We’re planning a celebration on Saturday night to spend some more time hanging out as a group before we’re scattered all over the place.  It’s definitely bittersweet.  I’m very excited to start working and be done with training, but the 15 of us have become so close and been through so much together in the past 11 weeks, that it’s going to be really sad leaving everyone.  There’s definitely a strange mix of emotions in the group right now, but we’re doing our best to enjoy the time we have left together!

            Thanks for reading!  The next time I write will probably be from my site in Sulaco! Ahhh!

(p.s. I tried to post pictures, but the internet was not cooperating, I'll try to post some either here or on facebook soon!)

           

Training is coming to a close…

 …which means a lot of mixed feelings and anticipation.  Although I am excited about finding out my site, being sworn in, and officially becoming a volunteer, it is bittersweet because the 15 of us have been together for the past 10 weeks, and now we will be scattered all over the country.

We had technical interviews this week, and Ronaldo (the training director for youth development) and Sandra (the director for youth development) gave us all a bunch of clues about our sites.  Because we’ve all received a list of the 15 sites, the past few days have been filled with lots of speculation as people shared their clues and tried to figure out where each of us will be.  Here are my clues:

·        Not a really big site, but not really small either

·        There aren’t many trees, a lot of deforestation (which was a really weird clue)

·        One of the poorest places in Honduras

·        They haven’t had a youth development volunteer before, but I will be replacing a volunteer from another project

·        My counterparts:

o   A colegio (high school)

o   An escuela (primary school)

o   A mystery third counterpart that they didn’t tell me the name of because “then you would be able to figure out which site it is”

·        My projects

o   The teachers at my site have already had TEAM (Teaching English and Methodology) Training, so I will be working with a teacher at the high school and one at the primary school to co-teach classes, which can open the door for me doing more professional development work with the teachers

o   The school wants to start some kind of summer school/camp program for the kids, so I will help with that during the “summer vacation,” which is December through February

o   My mystery third counterpart will give me the opportunity to work with promoting volunteerism in the community, but I don’t know anything else about it yet

All in all, I’m really excited about all of these clues, and I’ll know for sure on Monday what my site is!

I haven’t posted in awhile, mostly because we haven’t been going into Tegucigalpa to the Peace Corps office (where they have wireless internet).  Our technical trainings are pretty much over now.  In the past few weeks we have had a two-day training on school gardens and environmental education and a two-day training on HIV/AIDS.

With the school gardens, we met with a volunteer who developed a science curriculum and started a bunch of school gardens at her site.  After learning lots of gardening information, we went down to the school in our town to do some hands-on projects.  We learned about how to compost (which I already knew lots about from Silver Lake!) and planted a bunch of vegetables.  The next day of the training, we did some environmental art projects like making planters out of old tires (you cut them and then flip them inside out—it’s really neat!), crocheting with plastic bags (which I was absolutely terrible at), and making recycled paper (another thing that I already knew about from SLCC!).

Our HIV/AIDS training last week (VIH/SIDA en español) was really informative.  Melissa, the volunteer that I visited for my volunteer visit came to do the training, along with a health volunteer who lives up north near the beach.  The first day of the training, the two of them did all of the different activities from the training manual with us.  We learned lots of new vocabulary and terms in Spanish. 

The second day, we went to INFOP, a vocational training school, in Valle de Angeles to give the training to the high school students there.  I worked with Peter (a fellow trainee, who just happened to have been in the same program with me at UConn), and we taught a small class of 6 students.  We thought there were going to be 16, but only 6 were there.  In addition, 3 of the students had special needs and couldn’t read or write.  Needless to say, we had to adapt our plan a little bit, but we did really well.  I was impressed by my ability to explain difficult, scientific topics in Spanish.  The kids had a lot of misconceptions about how HIV is spread, so I definitely felt like they learned something and changed their way of thinking.  We also got to practice putting condoms on bananas, which every kid said was their favorite part (haha). Afterwards, we reflected on the experience and also heard testimony from 2 girls who are living with HIV.  It was really powerful to hear their stories.  The older of the girls had a more positive experience, whereas the 15-year-old faced a lot of discrimination from her family and peers.  Both of them are currently volunteering with an organization that helps people living with HIV.  It definitely helped us realize how important it is to educate people about HIV-AIDS.  Some of the kids that we taught thought that HIV could be transmitted through kissing, hugging, or sharing cups.  It’s this kind of misinformation that causes discrimination in communities in Honduras.  HIV-AIDS is a huge issue here.  There are more cases in Honduras alone than the rest of the countries in Central America combined. 

As far as non-training-related news goes…I celebrated my birthday last weekend!  It is crazy to think that this is only the first of 3 birthdays that I’ll be celebrating here.  I was a little sad the week leading up to my birthday because I knew it would be weird being away from my friends and family, but once September 4^th rolled around, it ended up being great.  In the morning, I headed in to the internet café to Skype with some friends.  After quite a few technical difficulties, I was finally able to talk to them, which really made my day.  I couldn’t stop smiling after that.  Then I came home and the patio in front of my house had been decorated with streamers and balloons and a piñata.  My host family was busy preparing and cooking and wouldn’t let me help, so I showered and watched a movie on TV.  In the afternoon, all of the other trainees and some extended host family members (aunts, cousins, etc.) came over for the party.  We ate some yummy arroz con pollo and hung out on the patio.  Then we had some party games.  My host family had put little slips of paper into some of the balloons.  My friends and I took turns sitting on the balloons to pop them and then doing whatever it said on the piece of paper (silly things like acting like a monkey, singing happy birthday, etc.).  Then we played piñata, which was a lot more intense than I expected.  We had to be blindfolded and spun around.  I went first, and barely hit the piñata at all.  Everyone was screaming directions at me.  Afterwards, when I was watching everyone else try, I realized that all of the Hondurans were screaming the opposite directions to the person, which they thought was HILARIOUS Like yelling, “¡Arriba!” when it’s actually down low and “¡Abajo!” when it’s actually up high (no wonder I had so much trouble hitting it when it was my turn).   .  After piñata, I gave out goodie bags (I do realize that this sounds like a 3^rd birthday party and not 23^rd, but I swear we all had a great time) and then we had cake.  Afterwards, everyone hung out for a while longer before heading back to their host families.  All in all, it was a great day, and everyone kept remarking how much my host family really cares about me.  I’m definitely going to miss them, but hopefully my next host family will work out as well as this one did.

OK, well, training’s almost done, and I get sworn in on the 22^nd of September, and then I leave on the 23^rd for my site (wherever that may be).  I’ll try to post again after I find out my site.  Hope the beginning of the school year is going well for everyone, especially all of my friends who just started their first year of teaching!  Oh, and congrats Stacy and Matt! :-)

I´m still here!

Sorry I haven´t posted in awhile, I have had barely any internet access.  I had written a post awhile ago, but my flash drive isn´t working on this computer right now, so I´ll try again another time.  I had a great birthday, and I´m going to find out my site on Monday!  I´ll try to give an actual update sometime soon!