How fast the time flys.
If we haven't called or emailed some of you yet, it's simply because we are overwhelmed by all of the typical cultural adjustments...you know..good food, acceptable climate (yeah its cold, but just remember, you can always put more clothes on), real pillows, new clothes, t.v., radio, newspapers, driving, endless water supply, family.
And looking for employment.
And here ends this blog. For now.
Its been fun mostly.
Que le vaya bien.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Part 3 of 3. Antigua, The City of Eternal Spring
..is what they call the place and for reason. This was our second trip to Antigua and the weather was very spring-like both times. Vacation wise-Antigua is very affordable. There are tons of hostels that range from $6 USD to $25 or $30 USD per night. We have stayed in a few hostels in Antigua-all have been clean, the employees are super friendly and willing to provide help and tips about everything.
And for those non-spanish speakers out there, no worries. There are plenty of tours and hotels and people within the city who speak English/German/French/Japanese/etc. etc..but especially English.
Both times we stayed in Antigua, we were able to just bus in and walk the streets looking for a room. The only time I would suggest booking a hostel or hotel in advance would be for Semana Santa (Easter week). Antigua has the most elaborate Easter celebrations in all of Central America. The streets are *packed* and that means restaurants and rooms are, too. Book a place at least a month ahead of time to gaurantee you get to stay somewhere you want-and near the festivities of the town.
Don`t forget to read parts 1 and 2!
And for those non-spanish speakers out there, no worries. There are plenty of tours and hotels and people within the city who speak English/German/French/Japanese/etc. etc..but especially English.
Both times we stayed in Antigua, we were able to just bus in and walk the streets looking for a room. The only time I would suggest booking a hostel or hotel in advance would be for Semana Santa (Easter week). Antigua has the most elaborate Easter celebrations in all of Central America. The streets are *packed* and that means restaurants and rooms are, too. Book a place at least a month ahead of time to gaurantee you get to stay somewhere you want-and near the festivities of the town.
Don`t forget to read parts 1 and 2!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Part 2 of 3. Hot Lava.
And it really is that hot. We threw some sticks into it and the sticks just burst into flames. Probably not so safe to be so close, but that is the beauty of Central America.
If you're crazy enough to try something, nobody will stop you. Anything goes.
If you're crazy enough to try something, nobody will stop you. Anything goes.
Part 1 of 3 Volcán Pacaya
The Pacaya Volcano is 1 of 3 volcanoes that surrounds Antigua (which means `ancient`)Guatemala. After an hour or so drive from the center of town in our little white tour van, we arrived at the base of the national park where the volcano is located and began the hike up. The highest point we reached was 2500 meters. After that, it is no longer safe to hike, since volcàn pacaya is still active.
The hike itself wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. We're not exactly the hard core hiking type, but we're in good shape and can hold our own if we have to. There were parts where I definitely had to stop and take a break for 5 minutes, but all in all-and with plenty of water we had brought with in our backpack-it was very do-able. Just a note-if you get half way and decide you can't go any further-it's ok. Along the way you will run into little kids on horses who you can pay to give youa ride up. And back down if you like.
This was probably the last thing I thought I`d ever do, since anywhere else on Earth one would have to sign a million waivers and need special equipment for the hike.
We were wearing our best hiking gear: chuckies, jeans, and tee shirts. My chuckies melted on the bottom while trying to get close to the lava for pictures. Don't wear Chucks. The only rule on these tours is that you cannot wear sandals of any kind. So, if you want to climb the volcanoes, be sure to bring at least tennis shoes.
This is the real thing. At 2500 meters its very windy and cold, but the second you step near flowing lava, it warms you right up.
The dried lava (all that gray stuff)that we had to walk across is about a year old. It`s about as sharp as coral, so keeping your balance is important. Besides, if you fell and put your bare hand on it, you might burn yourself.
Here is a view from up top looking down at Antigua and at the other 2 volcanoes (called Fuego and Agua)
And here are some sleepy volcano puppies! Who'd have thought that dogs could live on volcanoes? I think they live off of gringo tourists' lunches. I know they got part of mine.
More to come...
The hike itself wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. We're not exactly the hard core hiking type, but we're in good shape and can hold our own if we have to. There were parts where I definitely had to stop and take a break for 5 minutes, but all in all-and with plenty of water we had brought with in our backpack-it was very do-able. Just a note-if you get half way and decide you can't go any further-it's ok. Along the way you will run into little kids on horses who you can pay to give youa ride up. And back down if you like.
This was probably the last thing I thought I`d ever do, since anywhere else on Earth one would have to sign a million waivers and need special equipment for the hike.
We were wearing our best hiking gear: chuckies, jeans, and tee shirts. My chuckies melted on the bottom while trying to get close to the lava for pictures. Don't wear Chucks. The only rule on these tours is that you cannot wear sandals of any kind. So, if you want to climb the volcanoes, be sure to bring at least tennis shoes.
This is the real thing. At 2500 meters its very windy and cold, but the second you step near flowing lava, it warms you right up.
The dried lava (all that gray stuff)that we had to walk across is about a year old. It`s about as sharp as coral, so keeping your balance is important. Besides, if you fell and put your bare hand on it, you might burn yourself.
Here is a view from up top looking down at Antigua and at the other 2 volcanoes (called Fuego and Agua)
And here are some sleepy volcano puppies! Who'd have thought that dogs could live on volcanoes? I think they live off of gringo tourists' lunches. I know they got part of mine.
More to come...
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Close of Service
That right folks! As of Saturday morning, C and I were no longer Peace Corps Volunteers in Honduras (I have not been able to write those last five words with impunity in a loooong time)
Therefore, we jumped on a bus Saturday morning and took a grueling 14 hour bus ride to Antigua, Guatemala, where we are currently getting some kicks for a couple days. Tomorrow we are gonna climb an active volcano, and perhaps enjoy some giant Guatemalan beers. We’ll be here for a couple days, before we return to Las Vegas to say some goodbyes, sell some things, and then make our triumphant return to the United States. We’ll post some pics and stories when we get the chance.
Therefore, I advise you to keep your eyes peeled in the states for any piercingly bright halos of golden light, as they will most likely announce the arrival of us, the two most altruistic and accomplished development workers that the known world has experienced. You may see animals of the forest bringing us gifts, this is normal, it is only a small token of mother nature's eternal gratitude. Not to brag, but saving the world (at least the Honduran part of it) was a lot easier than we thought it would be!! :)
….and to Honduras, you’re welcome!
S
Therefore, we jumped on a bus Saturday morning and took a grueling 14 hour bus ride to Antigua, Guatemala, where we are currently getting some kicks for a couple days. Tomorrow we are gonna climb an active volcano, and perhaps enjoy some giant Guatemalan beers. We’ll be here for a couple days, before we return to Las Vegas to say some goodbyes, sell some things, and then make our triumphant return to the United States. We’ll post some pics and stories when we get the chance.
Therefore, I advise you to keep your eyes peeled in the states for any piercingly bright halos of golden light, as they will most likely announce the arrival of us, the two most altruistic and accomplished development workers that the known world has experienced. You may see animals of the forest bringing us gifts, this is normal, it is only a small token of mother nature's eternal gratitude. Not to brag, but saving the world (at least the Honduran part of it) was a lot easier than we thought it would be!! :)
….and to Honduras, you’re welcome!
S
Monday, October 29, 2007
Spelling Bee
One of our last projects as volunteers has been coordinating and judging a highschool spelling bee...in English! The students from the aldeas of Los Laureles and El Bijau participated, along with two of our teacher friends as facilitators.
Categories for the students were: (in English) Days of the week, colors, Months of the year, Fruits, and numbers 0-100.
We spent a week narrowing it down to 8 contestants. These 8 kids were so nervous when we saw them and as one of the girls told me,
¨Estudiè por toda anoche y cuando me levantè estudiè mas!¨( I studied all last night and when I woke up I just studied some more!)
Well, it was a good thing she did, because she ended up taking 2nd place. First they had to write the word on paper, then write it on the board, and then deletrearlo (spell it out). Thats alot of work for these guys.
So here`s a picture of us with the final winners and our teacher friends.
Categories for the students were: (in English) Days of the week, colors, Months of the year, Fruits, and numbers 0-100.
We spent a week narrowing it down to 8 contestants. These 8 kids were so nervous when we saw them and as one of the girls told me,
¨Estudiè por toda anoche y cuando me levantè estudiè mas!¨( I studied all last night and when I woke up I just studied some more!)
Well, it was a good thing she did, because she ended up taking 2nd place. First they had to write the word on paper, then write it on the board, and then deletrearlo (spell it out). Thats alot of work for these guys.
So here`s a picture of us with the final winners and our teacher friends.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
What did you say? Ahh..si, claro.
So the other night one of our good Honduran friends who has a great job in the mine that influences our town asked us if we`d like to go up to the miner`s club with him and meet the new boss. Our mine is owned and operated by a Canadian company, and the majority of the managers are Canadian, Brazilian, Argentinian and a number of other nationalities. The new man in charge is Canadian, therefore speaks French and English. We got there and went around the table to introduce ourselves as the local volunteers.
He preferred English or French.
His wife spoke French and a little Spanish.
Our friend speaks Spanish and a little English.
We speak English and Spanish.
Their son spoke French, but understood English.
The waiter spoke all three.
It was headache, all around.
I had a strategy to speak in spanish with his wife, because some of the words are similar to french and she was learning spanish. It didnt work so well, though. English was out of the question. So, we had an enlightening talk about motorcycles using broken sentences of all three languages combined with sound effects and hand motions. It was too funny. At one point, she didnt know a word in english and I didnt know it in french, but we both luckily knew it in spanish: Harley Davidson (with a spanish accent). I couldn´t make this up.
I told her, well, motioned to her, that my grandparents are avid Harley drivers. She just loved it! For years, her and her husband have driven Harleys, but when they trasferred here from India, they had to give it up because its too dangerous to ride in central america. The rest of the night we smiled at each other and every now and then she would make the motion of riding and say ¨Vroom Vroooooommm!¨ meaning that she missed it so much.
It was quite possibly one of the most confusing yet rewarding conversations I have ever had. About motorcycles, anyway.
Crystal
He preferred English or French.
His wife spoke French and a little Spanish.
Our friend speaks Spanish and a little English.
We speak English and Spanish.
Their son spoke French, but understood English.
The waiter spoke all three.
It was headache, all around.
I had a strategy to speak in spanish with his wife, because some of the words are similar to french and she was learning spanish. It didnt work so well, though. English was out of the question. So, we had an enlightening talk about motorcycles using broken sentences of all three languages combined with sound effects and hand motions. It was too funny. At one point, she didnt know a word in english and I didnt know it in french, but we both luckily knew it in spanish: Harley Davidson (with a spanish accent). I couldn´t make this up.
I told her, well, motioned to her, that my grandparents are avid Harley drivers. She just loved it! For years, her and her husband have driven Harleys, but when they trasferred here from India, they had to give it up because its too dangerous to ride in central america. The rest of the night we smiled at each other and every now and then she would make the motion of riding and say ¨Vroom Vroooooommm!¨ meaning that she missed it so much.
It was quite possibly one of the most confusing yet rewarding conversations I have ever had. About motorcycles, anyway.
Crystal
Friday, October 12, 2007
Departing Friends
Here is the last of the Hondu 7 Youth Development group. We`ve spend over 2.5 years with these people. They`ve seen the best and worst of the both of us, and quite honestly, departing from these people is what I dread most about leaving Honduras.
Every one of them is my true friend and it`s difficult knowing we will soon be spread across the United States and no longer a 3-10 hour ride on a chicken bus.
Things are getting pretty crazy right now.
Our Close of Service conference went well. A lot of resume writing tips, a lot of preparation for the culture shock we are about to experience upon our return to the states.
We talked about how to say goodbye to our villages and how to say hello to what awaits. I can tell that living here for so long has really changed my perspective on almost everything, ever. Going home will be bittersweet but also really scary.
Stay tuned.
Crystal
Every one of them is my true friend and it`s difficult knowing we will soon be spread across the United States and no longer a 3-10 hour ride on a chicken bus.
Things are getting pretty crazy right now.
Our Close of Service conference went well. A lot of resume writing tips, a lot of preparation for the culture shock we are about to experience upon our return to the states.
We talked about how to say goodbye to our villages and how to say hello to what awaits. I can tell that living here for so long has really changed my perspective on almost everything, ever. Going home will be bittersweet but also really scary.
Stay tuned.
Crystal
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Two Years...
Two years ago, C and I were moving into a tiny room attached to a larger house in Santa Lucia, Honduras. I can easily recall our first day in Honduras; a harrowing flight that grazed treetops and spiraled onto a landing strip on a cliff, the bus ride from the airport in Tegucigalpa: sprawling urbanization, juxtaposition between mansions on hills and tenement houses etched into valleys; arriving in Santa Lucia, our new home for the next three months of training, set atop a lush green mountain.
That first night we struggled to communicate with our host families, often shedding tears of frustration in the process, it took us at least an hour to explain that we wanted to go to sleep. We were suddenly in a whole new situation: new foods, new climate, new geography, and 30 other new volunteers who would become our ¨new¨ social network. And the overwhelming idea that two years were hanging over our heads; an eternity in which we were to learn how to live and work within a new culture, using a new language, and in areas (such as teaching) that were completely new endeavors.
I remember trying to calculate the time we had left during our first week in terms of days, and it seemed impossible. How could I ever learn enough about Honduras in just two years? Just as a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, a journey of two years began with that first day.
I distinctly remember the struggles through our training, wishing that I would just be able to communicate my ideas and feelings in Spanish, afraid that I never would be able. Wondering where my new home would be for the next two years, curious about the person I would become on the other end our time in Honduras.
As time passed, we grew into our new roles as volunteers. Our Spanish improved, we made friends, we ran into challenges and problems that were unique to our new culture and situation, we began a series of projects and ideas within our community with varying levels of success, and we slowly became an integrated part of Honduras and our community. Where we were once afraid to start a conversation, we found ourselves as leaders in our community.
Included along the way were days of unbearable frustration and anger, moments of euphoric joy and accomplishment, months of progress and maturation. And now we stand on the other side of two years, wondering how it all passed so quickly.
Looking back on the last two years, I’m struck by the nature of our transformations, the experiences we’ve had, and also with the thought that we are about to once again readjust, albeit this time to old places and faces, but under a new context. Within the next two months we will be once again moving our entire lives to another country, adjusting what we remember from the way things were two years ago to the way that they are now, and using our experiences from Honduras like a new pair of eyes.
We´ve seen things that we will never forget, met people that will always be carried in our hearts and minds, and created memories that will influence the rest of our lives. Its amazing what can happen in two years.
That first night we struggled to communicate with our host families, often shedding tears of frustration in the process, it took us at least an hour to explain that we wanted to go to sleep. We were suddenly in a whole new situation: new foods, new climate, new geography, and 30 other new volunteers who would become our ¨new¨ social network. And the overwhelming idea that two years were hanging over our heads; an eternity in which we were to learn how to live and work within a new culture, using a new language, and in areas (such as teaching) that were completely new endeavors.
I remember trying to calculate the time we had left during our first week in terms of days, and it seemed impossible. How could I ever learn enough about Honduras in just two years? Just as a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, a journey of two years began with that first day.
I distinctly remember the struggles through our training, wishing that I would just be able to communicate my ideas and feelings in Spanish, afraid that I never would be able. Wondering where my new home would be for the next two years, curious about the person I would become on the other end our time in Honduras.
As time passed, we grew into our new roles as volunteers. Our Spanish improved, we made friends, we ran into challenges and problems that were unique to our new culture and situation, we began a series of projects and ideas within our community with varying levels of success, and we slowly became an integrated part of Honduras and our community. Where we were once afraid to start a conversation, we found ourselves as leaders in our community.
Included along the way were days of unbearable frustration and anger, moments of euphoric joy and accomplishment, months of progress and maturation. And now we stand on the other side of two years, wondering how it all passed so quickly.
Looking back on the last two years, I’m struck by the nature of our transformations, the experiences we’ve had, and also with the thought that we are about to once again readjust, albeit this time to old places and faces, but under a new context. Within the next two months we will be once again moving our entire lives to another country, adjusting what we remember from the way things were two years ago to the way that they are now, and using our experiences from Honduras like a new pair of eyes.
We´ve seen things that we will never forget, met people that will always be carried in our hearts and minds, and created memories that will influence the rest of our lives. Its amazing what can happen in two years.
Friday, September 21, 2007
2 Years in Country!
Felicidades to us! I woke up the other day realizing that I now comfortably call thsi country my home. weird.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Hurricane Felix becomes Slight Drizzle Felix
First and Foremost, everything is totally fine in Las Vegas. As we went to sleep on Monday night, weather reports had it on good authority that Felix was going to decrease in force and wind speed by the time it made landfall in Nicaragua and Honduras, and would follow a common path into the Honduran Bay Islands and towards Belize.
Tuesday morning brought different and slightly startling news: Felix was back to Category 5 and taking the same path that Mitch did in 1998, which did incredible damage to Honduras. This path also had it projected to pass over our house. We watched and waited all day Tuesday, with that same mixture of fear and anticipation that only severe weather can create, and nothing happened. Truth be told, we received less rain on Tuesday and Wednesday than we would have on any other average day during Honduras´ rainy season.
Phone calls from friends and family from the states came and went, but no hurricane. Due to the mountainous landscape and the slow pace of the storm, it broke up into a tropical depression before it even reached our side of the country. It did manage to destroy a great deal of homes and lives of indigenous populations of the Mosquito Coast in Eastern Honduras and Western Nicaragua, but generally speaking disaster was diverted.
Other than that, we are pretty busy getting some marching bands ready for a competition next week, we’ll be sure to post some pics soon!
We´re getting so close to coming home we can almost taste it!
see you soon,
J&C
Tuesday morning brought different and slightly startling news: Felix was back to Category 5 and taking the same path that Mitch did in 1998, which did incredible damage to Honduras. This path also had it projected to pass over our house. We watched and waited all day Tuesday, with that same mixture of fear and anticipation that only severe weather can create, and nothing happened. Truth be told, we received less rain on Tuesday and Wednesday than we would have on any other average day during Honduras´ rainy season.
Phone calls from friends and family from the states came and went, but no hurricane. Due to the mountainous landscape and the slow pace of the storm, it broke up into a tropical depression before it even reached our side of the country. It did manage to destroy a great deal of homes and lives of indigenous populations of the Mosquito Coast in Eastern Honduras and Western Nicaragua, but generally speaking disaster was diverted.
Other than that, we are pretty busy getting some marching bands ready for a competition next week, we’ll be sure to post some pics soon!
We´re getting so close to coming home we can almost taste it!
see you soon,
J&C
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Hurricane Felix
Hey guys!
So, many of you may have heard already (by the super crazy CNN people),that we`ve got a hurricane headed right for us and we are all going to die.
Well, it`s true that it is headed right for us, but we are just letting everyone know that we(being all volunteers)are on standfast(whatever exactly that means),safe and waiting for the worst of it to hit us sometime tonight or early tomorrow.
Out town doesn't seem very concerned about it. For as much as Hondurans love to talk about the weather, you'd think there would be more talk of this thing. But, really, it's just business as usual in Las Vegas. Main concerns are for our aldeas. They are located quite a ways up the mountain and in the past have been prone to mud slides.
No one is attempting to protect their houses from the elements, but, I guess there's not a lot you can do to protect a big piece of tin as a roof. The rains are supposed to hit us this afternoon and the eye is to pass over us tonight. We are ready and safe, waiting with candles for when the power goes out. We will let you know how it went after it blows over.
Stay dry wherever you are!
ps. we live right in the middle of that Wednesday a.m. white line :)
So, many of you may have heard already (by the super crazy CNN people),that we`ve got a hurricane headed right for us and we are all going to die.
Well, it`s true that it is headed right for us, but we are just letting everyone know that we(being all volunteers)are on standfast(whatever exactly that means),safe and waiting for the worst of it to hit us sometime tonight or early tomorrow.
Out town doesn't seem very concerned about it. For as much as Hondurans love to talk about the weather, you'd think there would be more talk of this thing. But, really, it's just business as usual in Las Vegas. Main concerns are for our aldeas. They are located quite a ways up the mountain and in the past have been prone to mud slides.
No one is attempting to protect their houses from the elements, but, I guess there's not a lot you can do to protect a big piece of tin as a roof. The rains are supposed to hit us this afternoon and the eye is to pass over us tonight. We are ready and safe, waiting with candles for when the power goes out. We will let you know how it went after it blows over.
Stay dry wherever you are!
ps. we live right in the middle of that Wednesday a.m. white line :)
Monday, August 13, 2007
and when there`s no water for 3 days?
You wish for a good thunderstorm and alot of buckets.
Today we hit the jackpot! Bucket baths for everyone tonight!
This is something I definitely WON'T miss about living in Las Vegas. In the neighborhood we live in, water usually makes it through the crappy underground city water pipes 3-4 times a week. During the rainy season, the pipes clog full of mud and clay so we get fresh water 2 or 3 days a week-depending on the week.
We keep all extra water in a big cement tank in the back of the house (called a pila-every house has one!)
The pila is where we do our laundry, wash our dishes, and sometimes wash up for bed. In the rainy season we try to keep it especially clean since it fills with mosquito larvae and turns into a breeding ground for dengue and malaria. Luckily, as far as we know, Las Vegas hasn't had any cases of Malaria. Our organization asks that we take Malaria medication every week for 2 years. I won't elaborate on whether we took our medication or not, but since there's no dengue in our area, I'll let you make your best guess. We've both had dengue fever, though. It's not fun.
Today we hit the jackpot! Bucket baths for everyone tonight!
This is something I definitely WON'T miss about living in Las Vegas. In the neighborhood we live in, water usually makes it through the crappy underground city water pipes 3-4 times a week. During the rainy season, the pipes clog full of mud and clay so we get fresh water 2 or 3 days a week-depending on the week.
We keep all extra water in a big cement tank in the back of the house (called a pila-every house has one!)
The pila is where we do our laundry, wash our dishes, and sometimes wash up for bed. In the rainy season we try to keep it especially clean since it fills with mosquito larvae and turns into a breeding ground for dengue and malaria. Luckily, as far as we know, Las Vegas hasn't had any cases of Malaria. Our organization asks that we take Malaria medication every week for 2 years. I won't elaborate on whether we took our medication or not, but since there's no dengue in our area, I'll let you make your best guess. We've both had dengue fever, though. It's not fun.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Moving to Honduras, you are fully prepared to experience a disaster. Mudslides, hurricanes, bus accidents, and other catastrophes tend to plague nations with depleted budgets dedicated to infrastructure, or with misfortunate geographical placement. When you move here, you expect it; it becomes a part of your mentality as within the range of possible every time that there is a violent storm or when you flag down a bus. What you least suspect is something of a similar magnitude happening back home.
With the Chi High bus crash in 2005 and the bridge collapse on Wednesday, we were both extremely shocked and upset by what happened; for the obvious reasons such as the needless loss and overall senselessness of the situation, but also that such things could happen back in Minnesota or Wisconsin; places that we depict as serene and safe in contrast to our surroundings and living situation. Its one thing to prepare for tragedy to happen when you live in a developing country, and quite another to deal with an event that effects those you love thousands of miles away in the place you call home.
It’s not my intention to delve into platitudes about what happened, nor write something emotionally stirring; plenty of people with more justification than I will do so. We just want to express our gratitude that everyone we know and love is alrightsimon
With the Chi High bus crash in 2005 and the bridge collapse on Wednesday, we were both extremely shocked and upset by what happened; for the obvious reasons such as the needless loss and overall senselessness of the situation, but also that such things could happen back in Minnesota or Wisconsin; places that we depict as serene and safe in contrast to our surroundings and living situation. Its one thing to prepare for tragedy to happen when you live in a developing country, and quite another to deal with an event that effects those you love thousands of miles away in the place you call home.
It’s not my intention to delve into platitudes about what happened, nor write something emotionally stirring; plenty of people with more justification than I will do so. We just want to express our gratitude that everyone we know and love is alrightsimon
The Tarp.
This a blog taken from our fellow friend and PCV, Kathryn. I was going to write out a blog about this Community/Youth Development training that the PC made us do, but I never got around to it...then I read Kat's blog and realized I couldn't have said it better myself...Below is an clear cut, all-encompassing example of what Pcv's go through before they get to be placed in their sites. It's a little out of place, but a great story. Enjoy.
We went to the department of Santa Barbara Monday afternoon to attend a camp. Santa Barbara is beautiful, tree covered mountains, a beautiful river and natural hot springs with these caves that are like saunas. It is a camp mainly for kids/teens for leadership and environmental education. On Monday we went down to the river, some people swam, and we all passed through the sauna caves. It was really hot and steamy in there and just 2 minutes in there really cleared up my skin. After dinner, we had a bonfire that lasted a few hours. It was really nice and I had the chance to talk with some of the girls in our group. We went to bed around 10 pm in our cabin filled with 9 beds. Sounds OK, right? Kind of like a big sleepover...
"Dinámica" is a word that I may use a lot in the next 2 years so I´ll explain it now. A dinámica is a warm up activity or a bonding activity that is used A LOT by PC. Some of them are fun and some of them are horrible. A simple dinámica could be "give me your name and an adjective that starts with the same letter as your name" Knowldegeable Kathryn. (Yeah right!)
...we wake up around 6:45 Tuesday to a breakfast of beans and eggs. I know that I´ve said I can eat scrambled eggs now but not first thing in the morning--so I just ate beans and tortillas. After breakfast we started with some streches and then broke up into 2 groups to do dinámicas--we did a trust fall, one where we had to carry a tennis ball on a ring and another one where we basically threw people over a "wall" to display teamwork. It wasn´t bad but after every activity we had discussion. "How did you feel? How does it feel working as a team?" What was your role?" Then we had some races and received some environmental education. Not bad right?
Until the tarp.
It was 11:05 am. Lunch is at 1130. Most of us didn´t shower in the morning because the showers were scary. We were all sweaty from running and it was hot outside. That´s when we got our final dinámica as a full group--the dinámica of doom.
14 of us stood on a 2 ft by 2 ft tarp that we were supposed to turn over to the other side without any of us stepping outside of the tarp. That´s 30 feet of various sizes on a 576 sq in surface. 14 sweaty, tired, and hungry bodies crammed together. I am not claustrophobic (spelling?) but I still enjoy my own personal space. We tried standing on one foot and balancing on each other and piggybacking by we couldn´t flip that tarp.
11:23 am. Only a few are on the tarp trying to figure it out. Everyone else (myself included) were on the outside waiting for lunch. We could not figure out a solution. Crabbiness was visible among most.
11:35 am. We try again but I just feel so uncomfortable that I just stand off the tarp with Crystal. We´re both in a funk because we want to eat and don´t want to stand anymore. Our friend Brandon was sitting in a chair away from the whole scene by then. Others begin to step off the tarp too.
11:40 am. The coordinatior gives us the solution. But it doesn´t work when we try it.
11:45 am. Discussion.
11:46 am. Our YD trainers chew us out.
-"When you think of YD-you are not just going to be playing with kids-you are not here to babysit"
-"You have to keep a positive attitude when working because it´s going to be really hard"
-"Your participation level has continued to drop throughout the day"
-"what are you going to do when you have a bad day at site? Give up?"
-"Community development is not easy. You cannot just quit the way some of you did."
-"Maybe community development is not for you if you all give up"
And it continued until 12 pm. It was like facing a firing squad and I felt hurt, sad, and angry all at once. It´s funny because I understood where they were coming from but at the same time I felt like they didn´t understand us (tired, sweaty, smelly, hungry). Crystal said at lunch, "If the dinámica had been done after lunch, it may have had different results", which could be true.
All I wanted to do was cry simply because it felt like I was letting down my parents. I really like the YD trainers and respect and value their opinions-so when they said those things I felt like 14 years old again and being punished by my parents for breaking curfew.
We left Santa Barbara after lunch in a pretty quiet car ride. When we get back to Siguat we still have Spanish class. I drop off my stuff at home, go to the local store because all I want to do is drown my sorrows in a bag (yes bag) of chocolate milk. But they´re sold out! I walked to my Spanish class in a nasty mood about being chewed out and no milk.
Surprisingly, Spanish class was wonderful. We change teachers every 2 weeks and right now our instructor is Carlos, who is funny and light hearted. During class, we just laughed about the disaster dinámica and ate cake (perfect). I have never enjoyed Spanish class like this before. It was what I needed.
However, I am still thinking about what our trainers said. Is what they said true? It gets to you sometimes.
We went to the department of Santa Barbara Monday afternoon to attend a camp. Santa Barbara is beautiful, tree covered mountains, a beautiful river and natural hot springs with these caves that are like saunas. It is a camp mainly for kids/teens for leadership and environmental education. On Monday we went down to the river, some people swam, and we all passed through the sauna caves. It was really hot and steamy in there and just 2 minutes in there really cleared up my skin. After dinner, we had a bonfire that lasted a few hours. It was really nice and I had the chance to talk with some of the girls in our group. We went to bed around 10 pm in our cabin filled with 9 beds. Sounds OK, right? Kind of like a big sleepover...
"Dinámica" is a word that I may use a lot in the next 2 years so I´ll explain it now. A dinámica is a warm up activity or a bonding activity that is used A LOT by PC. Some of them are fun and some of them are horrible. A simple dinámica could be "give me your name and an adjective that starts with the same letter as your name" Knowldegeable Kathryn. (Yeah right!)
...we wake up around 6:45 Tuesday to a breakfast of beans and eggs. I know that I´ve said I can eat scrambled eggs now but not first thing in the morning--so I just ate beans and tortillas. After breakfast we started with some streches and then broke up into 2 groups to do dinámicas--we did a trust fall, one where we had to carry a tennis ball on a ring and another one where we basically threw people over a "wall" to display teamwork. It wasn´t bad but after every activity we had discussion. "How did you feel? How does it feel working as a team?" What was your role?" Then we had some races and received some environmental education. Not bad right?
Until the tarp.
It was 11:05 am. Lunch is at 1130. Most of us didn´t shower in the morning because the showers were scary. We were all sweaty from running and it was hot outside. That´s when we got our final dinámica as a full group--the dinámica of doom.
14 of us stood on a 2 ft by 2 ft tarp that we were supposed to turn over to the other side without any of us stepping outside of the tarp. That´s 30 feet of various sizes on a 576 sq in surface. 14 sweaty, tired, and hungry bodies crammed together. I am not claustrophobic (spelling?) but I still enjoy my own personal space. We tried standing on one foot and balancing on each other and piggybacking by we couldn´t flip that tarp.
11:23 am. Only a few are on the tarp trying to figure it out. Everyone else (myself included) were on the outside waiting for lunch. We could not figure out a solution. Crabbiness was visible among most.
11:35 am. We try again but I just feel so uncomfortable that I just stand off the tarp with Crystal. We´re both in a funk because we want to eat and don´t want to stand anymore. Our friend Brandon was sitting in a chair away from the whole scene by then. Others begin to step off the tarp too.
11:40 am. The coordinatior gives us the solution. But it doesn´t work when we try it.
11:45 am. Discussion.
11:46 am. Our YD trainers chew us out.
-"When you think of YD-you are not just going to be playing with kids-you are not here to babysit"
-"You have to keep a positive attitude when working because it´s going to be really hard"
-"Your participation level has continued to drop throughout the day"
-"what are you going to do when you have a bad day at site? Give up?"
-"Community development is not easy. You cannot just quit the way some of you did."
-"Maybe community development is not for you if you all give up"
And it continued until 12 pm. It was like facing a firing squad and I felt hurt, sad, and angry all at once. It´s funny because I understood where they were coming from but at the same time I felt like they didn´t understand us (tired, sweaty, smelly, hungry). Crystal said at lunch, "If the dinámica had been done after lunch, it may have had different results", which could be true.
All I wanted to do was cry simply because it felt like I was letting down my parents. I really like the YD trainers and respect and value their opinions-so when they said those things I felt like 14 years old again and being punished by my parents for breaking curfew.
We left Santa Barbara after lunch in a pretty quiet car ride. When we get back to Siguat we still have Spanish class. I drop off my stuff at home, go to the local store because all I want to do is drown my sorrows in a bag (yes bag) of chocolate milk. But they´re sold out! I walked to my Spanish class in a nasty mood about being chewed out and no milk.
Surprisingly, Spanish class was wonderful. We change teachers every 2 weeks and right now our instructor is Carlos, who is funny and light hearted. During class, we just laughed about the disaster dinámica and ate cake (perfect). I have never enjoyed Spanish class like this before. It was what I needed.
However, I am still thinking about what our trainers said. Is what they said true? It gets to you sometimes.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
So whatcha doin´?
Well, here is my triumphant return to the blogosphere, after an inexcusable absence. The past months have been extremely busy for us, and it almost seemed like there wasn’t time to fully bring people up to speed. Here is some more background info to accompany Crystal’s photo essay:
Baseball Tourney: In May, the annual baseball tournament took place in Honduras. Although our team was unable to participate this year (we’ve been having problems getting support from our community) Crystal and I undertook a much more stressful position: Tournament coordinators. Instead of managing one ragtag group of 10 year olds on sugar rushes, we suddenly became responsible for nine teams of over stimulated youth from every corner of Honduras. We spent the entire time whipping around the capital in range rovers, delivering water bottles and lunches to stadiums, negotiating with hotels to prevent the horrors of last year’s accommodations (see last year’s tournament post), visiting army bases to borrow their color guard, posing for pictures and giving interviews to lecherous old men, settling disputes about official tourney rules, and trying to sell as many t-shirts as possible to augment our tiny budget. At the end of three 14 hour days, we stood exhausted and smiling, as an underdog team knocked off the reigning champs to take this year’s crown. After dedicating so much of our service to baseball, it was the ultimate reward to see this year’s tourney come off as wonderful as it did.
Brigades: One of the greatest things about being the gringos in the developing world is that we can pretty much walk into any situation and by granted deference to do as we please. Case in point has been our work with a couple of medical brigades that visited Las Vegas from the states recently. One fabulous group consisted of a bunch of dentists from the Pacific Northwest. We offered our services as translators, but quickly found ourselves wearing scrubs and gloves, digging in the decayed mouths of Las Vegas´ youth. It was fascinating work, once we got the hang of it, according to one dentist; we each received a year’s worth of dental hygienist training in the course of a week, everything from tooth reconstruction to fillings to pulling teeth. A couple of weeks later, a general health brigade came to town, and Crystal and I, along with our friend Delfo, were wearing lab coats and stethoscopes, being referred to as ¨doctor¨ by the inhabitants of Las Vegas´ surrounding villages. We were quickly taught some basic diagnostic techniques, and treated the less severe of the medical conditions presented to us. Where else in the world can you be a teacher, a doctor, a baseball coach, a dentist, a musician, and an artist in the same week, by having a Public Relations and a History Degree?
Wedding: Our pals Joe and Emily recently got married on the island of Utila, and graciously invited Crystal and I. One of the Bay Islands on Honduras, Utila is recognized as the best and cheapest place in the world to scuba dive. We didn’t quite get that adventurous, but we managed to snorkel over pristine coral reefs, log some beach time, and hang out with some of our favorite people in Honduras.
Teaching: Our school year is in full swing, and we are teaching a lot this year. We’re working on three different English classes, Crystal has been teaching art and music in the afternoons ( I tag along), and I have achieved the status of ¨god¨ amongst the boys of one of our schools by teaching basketball during phy ed. In coordination with Colgate, we are teaching some first graders basic hygiene skills, which you can see in the picture of my bald head below. And last week we started marching band practice, as we are gearing up for Honduras´ Independence Day on September 15th.
Its hard to believe, but our time in Honduras is hitting the homestretch. In roughly four months we be back in the states, ready to fully embrace whatever lies in the future for us. It’s a weird position to be in at the moment so aware of a coming change, so aware that our current situation, for all of its faults and advantages is fleeting. We are looking forward to all the people, places, and perks that are waiting for us in the states, and yet also trying to stretch out what time we have left in Honduras. Its bound to be an interesting transformation, we’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
Simon
Baseball Tourney: In May, the annual baseball tournament took place in Honduras. Although our team was unable to participate this year (we’ve been having problems getting support from our community) Crystal and I undertook a much more stressful position: Tournament coordinators. Instead of managing one ragtag group of 10 year olds on sugar rushes, we suddenly became responsible for nine teams of over stimulated youth from every corner of Honduras. We spent the entire time whipping around the capital in range rovers, delivering water bottles and lunches to stadiums, negotiating with hotels to prevent the horrors of last year’s accommodations (see last year’s tournament post), visiting army bases to borrow their color guard, posing for pictures and giving interviews to lecherous old men, settling disputes about official tourney rules, and trying to sell as many t-shirts as possible to augment our tiny budget. At the end of three 14 hour days, we stood exhausted and smiling, as an underdog team knocked off the reigning champs to take this year’s crown. After dedicating so much of our service to baseball, it was the ultimate reward to see this year’s tourney come off as wonderful as it did.
Brigades: One of the greatest things about being the gringos in the developing world is that we can pretty much walk into any situation and by granted deference to do as we please. Case in point has been our work with a couple of medical brigades that visited Las Vegas from the states recently. One fabulous group consisted of a bunch of dentists from the Pacific Northwest. We offered our services as translators, but quickly found ourselves wearing scrubs and gloves, digging in the decayed mouths of Las Vegas´ youth. It was fascinating work, once we got the hang of it, according to one dentist; we each received a year’s worth of dental hygienist training in the course of a week, everything from tooth reconstruction to fillings to pulling teeth. A couple of weeks later, a general health brigade came to town, and Crystal and I, along with our friend Delfo, were wearing lab coats and stethoscopes, being referred to as ¨doctor¨ by the inhabitants of Las Vegas´ surrounding villages. We were quickly taught some basic diagnostic techniques, and treated the less severe of the medical conditions presented to us. Where else in the world can you be a teacher, a doctor, a baseball coach, a dentist, a musician, and an artist in the same week, by having a Public Relations and a History Degree?
Wedding: Our pals Joe and Emily recently got married on the island of Utila, and graciously invited Crystal and I. One of the Bay Islands on Honduras, Utila is recognized as the best and cheapest place in the world to scuba dive. We didn’t quite get that adventurous, but we managed to snorkel over pristine coral reefs, log some beach time, and hang out with some of our favorite people in Honduras.
Teaching: Our school year is in full swing, and we are teaching a lot this year. We’re working on three different English classes, Crystal has been teaching art and music in the afternoons ( I tag along), and I have achieved the status of ¨god¨ amongst the boys of one of our schools by teaching basketball during phy ed. In coordination with Colgate, we are teaching some first graders basic hygiene skills, which you can see in the picture of my bald head below. And last week we started marching band practice, as we are gearing up for Honduras´ Independence Day on September 15th.
Its hard to believe, but our time in Honduras is hitting the homestretch. In roughly four months we be back in the states, ready to fully embrace whatever lies in the future for us. It’s a weird position to be in at the moment so aware of a coming change, so aware that our current situation, for all of its faults and advantages is fleeting. We are looking forward to all the people, places, and perks that are waiting for us in the states, and yet also trying to stretch out what time we have left in Honduras. Its bound to be an interesting transformation, we’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
Simon
Sunday Morning
For anyone wondering what exactly goes on at our house these days, here is a pretty accurate look at the normal Honduran Sunday morning.
6 am: After a 5 am jog with the dog, it`s time for some coffee, a good book (today`s read:Harry Potter..thanks to Amber h. we can actually get caught up on the worldwide sensation), and some fresh flowers from our wonderful, sort of site-mate, Laura. Oh, and in the background is our house.
8am: A check on the zuchini plant. A friendly chat with our neighbor lady.
After showing said neighbor lady our zuchinis, she informs me that they cannot be eaten and are only good for drying out and using as a medicinal sponge for bathing yourself. What do you think? Zuchini...bath sponge...or both? We are still confused. This is a zuchini, right?
9 am: Time to wash clothes before it gets too hot out! Ever wonder how we wash clothes without a washing machine? Here it is, our pila. Also, during dry season we only have water a couple days a week, so we store every drop we can get in the pila (pee-la). It doubles great as a nesting grounds for malaria and dengue ridden moskitos, and also as a shower when there is no water inside.
10:30 am: After hanging the clothes, it`s time to play with our dog, also before the heat of the day kicks in. This is her playing with Laura`s kitten. We were kitten-sitting for the week and stella was beside herself having another animal friend in the house to lick and play with.
And that's it, really. A full morning.
Sunday funday.
6 am: After a 5 am jog with the dog, it`s time for some coffee, a good book (today`s read:Harry Potter..thanks to Amber h. we can actually get caught up on the worldwide sensation), and some fresh flowers from our wonderful, sort of site-mate, Laura. Oh, and in the background is our house.
8am: A check on the zuchini plant. A friendly chat with our neighbor lady.
After showing said neighbor lady our zuchinis, she informs me that they cannot be eaten and are only good for drying out and using as a medicinal sponge for bathing yourself. What do you think? Zuchini...bath sponge...or both? We are still confused. This is a zuchini, right?
9 am: Time to wash clothes before it gets too hot out! Ever wonder how we wash clothes without a washing machine? Here it is, our pila. Also, during dry season we only have water a couple days a week, so we store every drop we can get in the pila (pee-la). It doubles great as a nesting grounds for malaria and dengue ridden moskitos, and also as a shower when there is no water inside.
10:30 am: After hanging the clothes, it`s time to play with our dog, also before the heat of the day kicks in. This is her playing with Laura`s kitten. We were kitten-sitting for the week and stella was beside herself having another animal friend in the house to lick and play with.
And that's it, really. A full morning.
Sunday funday.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Part 1 of 2. Hard at work!
Here are some things we`ve been up to as of lately.
Play Ball! (Umping a fellow volunteer`s baseball team in the city of Siguatepeque.)
A really great group of dentists from the states came to town awhile back in this medical brigade at our school.
This is our classroom, transformed into a dentist office. Our main purpose working at this brigade was to be translators between the kids/patients who only speak spanish and the doctors who spoke english. We totally got to pull some teeth, too. Well, we helped anyway. For the record: I was not cut out to be a dental hygenist. I passed out. Almost twice.
Our daily view, walking home from school during the rainy season.
Simon being trampled by our tooth brushing class. If we let these first graders put the toothpate on by themselves, a disaster would be underway.
Check out part 2. Coming soon!
Play Ball! (Umping a fellow volunteer`s baseball team in the city of Siguatepeque.)
A really great group of dentists from the states came to town awhile back in this medical brigade at our school.
This is our classroom, transformed into a dentist office. Our main purpose working at this brigade was to be translators between the kids/patients who only speak spanish and the doctors who spoke english. We totally got to pull some teeth, too. Well, we helped anyway. For the record: I was not cut out to be a dental hygenist. I passed out. Almost twice.
Our daily view, walking home from school during the rainy season.
Simon being trampled by our tooth brushing class. If we let these first graders put the toothpate on by themselves, a disaster would be underway.
Check out part 2. Coming soon!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Ya viene la lluvia...but that`s not always good.
Note: That whole blog was a bunch of crap. The rainy season hasn`t been that bad AT ALL this year. It`s either going to stay this nice, or we are in for a surprise in October. We`ll keep you posted.
Oh, and I have pics to post soon from our visit to the bay island, Utila. Next time. Speaking of Utila-it was the absolute cutest and cheapest little island ever. And a backpacker's haven. Full of clean and cheap hotels, good restaurants with endless fresh seafood.
You can walk the entire Island in a day. We walked a good portion of it before succumbing to the heat and ending up at the beach.
Currently, our town has had a very constant, very heavy haze lingering over it for the past 4 weeks now, and this means one thing. Rainy season is quickly approaching. Sometimes looking up at the haze covering the mountains can be almost eerie.
For me personally, this is a good thing. Things will get nice and green again. It`s the closest thing to a season we have here. The rain on the tin roof helps me sleep, and the smell of the rain on the roads lifts my spirits a bit.
The humidity breaks to a manageable point and that`s really nice.
Unfortunately, this is bad for the internet, and also for phone calls. Our computer time is going to be cut in half and we won`t be able to call out unless we are in San Pedro Sula (note:every couple of weeks). Its hard to say what day the clouds are going to break exactly, but when it happens, nothing works very well. The internet is already becoming frustrating.
Be on the lookout for more snail mail. Just a fair warning.
later,
Crystal
Oh, and I have pics to post soon from our visit to the bay island, Utila. Next time. Speaking of Utila-it was the absolute cutest and cheapest little island ever. And a backpacker's haven. Full of clean and cheap hotels, good restaurants with endless fresh seafood.
You can walk the entire Island in a day. We walked a good portion of it before succumbing to the heat and ending up at the beach.
Currently, our town has had a very constant, very heavy haze lingering over it for the past 4 weeks now, and this means one thing. Rainy season is quickly approaching. Sometimes looking up at the haze covering the mountains can be almost eerie.
For me personally, this is a good thing. Things will get nice and green again. It`s the closest thing to a season we have here. The rain on the tin roof helps me sleep, and the smell of the rain on the roads lifts my spirits a bit.
The humidity breaks to a manageable point and that`s really nice.
Unfortunately, this is bad for the internet, and also for phone calls. Our computer time is going to be cut in half and we won`t be able to call out unless we are in San Pedro Sula (note:every couple of weeks). Its hard to say what day the clouds are going to break exactly, but when it happens, nothing works very well. The internet is already becoming frustrating.
Be on the lookout for more snail mail. Just a fair warning.
later,
Crystal
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Feliz día de la madre
So this one is for you, mom.
Mother´s Day isnt taken lightly down here and with good reason. It seems that the mothers of the family do everything- cooking, cleaning, getting the kids to school, running their shops, doing the laundry and having dinner ready by 6pm. And that´s just the easy stuff.
Well one of our schools decided to bring the holiday in with style by having a Mother´s day Celebration of sorts. After being called up unexpectedly to give a speech to all of our students mothers(gulp), I tried my best to capture the day.
The stage was all set. ¨Felicidades Madres¨ (Congratulations Mothers) it says.
Then the Honduran Flag made an appearance, followed by the National Anthem..¨Tú bandera..Tú bandera¨..Everyone watched slyly to make sure I knew the words...I do.
Then the fourth grade boys dressed as ¨Reggatóneros¨ (gangsters who rap to Reggatón..is that a fair translation?) to dance-rap to everyone´s favorite Daddy Yankee song, ¨Gasolina¨. Those of you who haven´t had the thrill of listening to Reggatón music 20 hours a day, when we come home I´ll teach you all 6 songs.
Then it was the grand finale. A speech was given to all moms for their hard work and good food. Afterwards, there was a fashion show to display all of the very important roles of mothers everywhere!
Here were the given roles, from left to right...
1. a nurse
2. the housewife
3. a muchacha (who is a women that is hired to come clean your house and do laundry)
4. The ¨fresa¨ wife (a fresa is a strawberry, but in Honduras it is a nickname for ¨rich city person¨)
5. the pulpería (corner-store) worker
6. Baker
7. Seamstress
8. and last but not least...Dancer.
A little different than what we would have seen at home, right?
Mass ammounts of ¨pastelitos de arroz¨ and ¨Horchata¨ (little fried rice things and thick rice-sugar drink) were passed out to all. As I turned to get out of the room and escape the craziness, I ran into 3 boys from our class. They were all dressed up in their little Honduran cowboy outfits and just too cute. They saw my camera and that was it. I was there for another 20 minutes taking pics of the kids. Hopefully more can be posted later, but here´s a pic of the boys.
So, that about wraps up this mothers day. Simon is out of town, and I´ve been invited to a neighbor´s house for some pastel y coca (Cake and Coke).
Happy Mother´s Day to all! Love you mom!
Crystal
Mother´s Day isnt taken lightly down here and with good reason. It seems that the mothers of the family do everything- cooking, cleaning, getting the kids to school, running their shops, doing the laundry and having dinner ready by 6pm. And that´s just the easy stuff.
Well one of our schools decided to bring the holiday in with style by having a Mother´s day Celebration of sorts. After being called up unexpectedly to give a speech to all of our students mothers(gulp), I tried my best to capture the day.
The stage was all set. ¨Felicidades Madres¨ (Congratulations Mothers) it says.
Then the Honduran Flag made an appearance, followed by the National Anthem..¨Tú bandera..Tú bandera¨..Everyone watched slyly to make sure I knew the words...I do.
Then the fourth grade boys dressed as ¨Reggatóneros¨ (gangsters who rap to Reggatón..is that a fair translation?) to dance-rap to everyone´s favorite Daddy Yankee song, ¨Gasolina¨. Those of you who haven´t had the thrill of listening to Reggatón music 20 hours a day, when we come home I´ll teach you all 6 songs.
Then it was the grand finale. A speech was given to all moms for their hard work and good food. Afterwards, there was a fashion show to display all of the very important roles of mothers everywhere!
Here were the given roles, from left to right...
1. a nurse
2. the housewife
3. a muchacha (who is a women that is hired to come clean your house and do laundry)
4. The ¨fresa¨ wife (a fresa is a strawberry, but in Honduras it is a nickname for ¨rich city person¨)
5. the pulpería (corner-store) worker
6. Baker
7. Seamstress
8. and last but not least...Dancer.
A little different than what we would have seen at home, right?
Mass ammounts of ¨pastelitos de arroz¨ and ¨Horchata¨ (little fried rice things and thick rice-sugar drink) were passed out to all. As I turned to get out of the room and escape the craziness, I ran into 3 boys from our class. They were all dressed up in their little Honduran cowboy outfits and just too cute. They saw my camera and that was it. I was there for another 20 minutes taking pics of the kids. Hopefully more can be posted later, but here´s a pic of the boys.
So, that about wraps up this mothers day. Simon is out of town, and I´ve been invited to a neighbor´s house for some pastel y coca (Cake and Coke).
Happy Mother´s Day to all! Love you mom!
Crystal
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
...y ya cepillamos los dientes. que rico es.
Today we taught our first graders how to brush their teeth! Cogate has a dental program for schools where they donate the tooth brushes and toothpaste, and provide little fun colored calendars so the kids can keep track of how often they brush their teeth. Dental hygiene is hardly existent in the campo and more rural areas of Honduras. Many children end up having their baby teeth pulled out only to find that the adult teeth underneath are also rotted.
This is mainly due to the amount of sugar in the Honduran diet. Kids eat nothing but candies and coke all day. Partially, because they aren't taught about what foods are good for them, but also because coke is cheaper than bottled water in some places.
We were riding the bus one day, and I turned to find a women feeding her baby coca cola out of a bottle. Yep, a baby bottle. And little baby was sucking it all down. Other times, we see babies drinking coffee out of a bottle. Why not water? Because in the smaller aldeas, people are not taught that coke is better than water. And when there is little food to eat for their children, coke provides calories, no matter how unhealthy those calories might be.
Anyhow, the kids were pretty pumped to learn how to brush their teeth. So excited, in fact, that more toothpaste ended up on the ground and on their faces than on their teeth.
This is mainly due to the amount of sugar in the Honduran diet. Kids eat nothing but candies and coke all day. Partially, because they aren't taught about what foods are good for them, but also because coke is cheaper than bottled water in some places.
We were riding the bus one day, and I turned to find a women feeding her baby coca cola out of a bottle. Yep, a baby bottle. And little baby was sucking it all down. Other times, we see babies drinking coffee out of a bottle. Why not water? Because in the smaller aldeas, people are not taught that coke is better than water. And when there is little food to eat for their children, coke provides calories, no matter how unhealthy those calories might be.
Anyhow, the kids were pretty pumped to learn how to brush their teeth. So excited, in fact, that more toothpaste ended up on the ground and on their faces than on their teeth.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Nicas and Casas
Our first week back in Las Vegas since our Nica Vacation has been eventful; here is the news with us....
Foremost, Nicaragua was fantastic, equally as interesting and culturally stimulating as our previous voyage out of Honduras into Guatemala. As Crystal demonstrated with her earlier posts, we started in Leon, which is the educational and artistic heart of Nicaragua. Leon is known for its famous poets like Ruben Dario, its murals of national heroes and civil wars, and as the socialist center which spawned the plan to assassinate Somoza and gave rise to Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (The Sandinistas of the Iran Contra fiasco). We then traveled to Granada: early Spanish colonial settlement, one time Nicaraguan capital, and long time rival of Leon for the rest of Semana Santa. Semana Santa means ¨holy week¨and is the principle vacation season in Latin America, as many cities have traditional processionals, drape their streets in colored sawdust carpets, and of celebrate late into the night. It is said that Semana Santa separates the population of Latin America into two groups, those that go to church to commemorate Easter, and those who go to the beach to soak some rays. Granada’s large fresco cathedrals, ancient architecture, friendly residents and international cuisine make it a great place to visit in an unassuming country like Nicaragua. We found the Nicas (as they call themselves) extremely passionate and proud of their history, which was a breath of fresh air from the usually apathetic attitude towards history and politics found in Honduras. We have some more pics from our trip which we will get up on the blog shortly... The year before we came down to Honduras, Crystal and I had changed our residence some six or seven times, changing states, staying with each of our parents, essentially living a transient lifestyle. During the constant packing and unpacking, I remember anticipating the stability that moving to Honduras would provide, surely we would be forced to stay put for two years, and put the constant motion behind us. That being said, we are now making arrangements to move into our fourth different house and to rent from our fifth different landlord since we moved to Las Vegas, a period of about a year and a half. So much for expectations... To recap: The first house we left because it was half constructed when we moved in and remained so for six months, the second we vacated after it was burglarized while our friend Ben was visiting from the states, and now we are being expelled from our third and current house. What happened is that our landlord started showing people the house, but assured us that he wouldn’t sell it until after we left. Then about a month ago, he appeared with the apparently new owner, who basically demanded our absence. We tried to work it out with her and bought ourselves another month, but last night push came to shove as she demanded an arbitrary increase in our rent to 125% of what we normally pay. We smiled politely, told her that she was trying to take advantage of us, and then told her that we are moving out. What she didn’t know is that we had an ace up our collective sleeves. The previous day, sensing that a showdown was eminent, we checked out coolest house in all of Las Vegas. It’s twice as big as our current house, has a beautiful view of the mountain, and is the same price. Today we locked up the deal, and will be moving in May.
I guess it just goes to show that expectations can be dangerous, and that perhaps we are not so good about setting down roots. One of the most frustrating aspects is that we have to tell our friends in town that we have a new house, yet again, and people that are looking for us will have a harder time figuring out where we live, and we now have a whole new neighborhood of curious people who will come over just to examine our ¨gringo treasures¨. The offer still stands for people to come down and visit us, just make sure not to ask anyone in town where our house is, you might get a couple of different answers.
Foremost, Nicaragua was fantastic, equally as interesting and culturally stimulating as our previous voyage out of Honduras into Guatemala. As Crystal demonstrated with her earlier posts, we started in Leon, which is the educational and artistic heart of Nicaragua. Leon is known for its famous poets like Ruben Dario, its murals of national heroes and civil wars, and as the socialist center which spawned the plan to assassinate Somoza and gave rise to Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (The Sandinistas of the Iran Contra fiasco). We then traveled to Granada: early Spanish colonial settlement, one time Nicaraguan capital, and long time rival of Leon for the rest of Semana Santa. Semana Santa means ¨holy week¨and is the principle vacation season in Latin America, as many cities have traditional processionals, drape their streets in colored sawdust carpets, and of celebrate late into the night. It is said that Semana Santa separates the population of Latin America into two groups, those that go to church to commemorate Easter, and those who go to the beach to soak some rays. Granada’s large fresco cathedrals, ancient architecture, friendly residents and international cuisine make it a great place to visit in an unassuming country like Nicaragua. We found the Nicas (as they call themselves) extremely passionate and proud of their history, which was a breath of fresh air from the usually apathetic attitude towards history and politics found in Honduras. We have some more pics from our trip which we will get up on the blog shortly... The year before we came down to Honduras, Crystal and I had changed our residence some six or seven times, changing states, staying with each of our parents, essentially living a transient lifestyle. During the constant packing and unpacking, I remember anticipating the stability that moving to Honduras would provide, surely we would be forced to stay put for two years, and put the constant motion behind us. That being said, we are now making arrangements to move into our fourth different house and to rent from our fifth different landlord since we moved to Las Vegas, a period of about a year and a half. So much for expectations... To recap: The first house we left because it was half constructed when we moved in and remained so for six months, the second we vacated after it was burglarized while our friend Ben was visiting from the states, and now we are being expelled from our third and current house. What happened is that our landlord started showing people the house, but assured us that he wouldn’t sell it until after we left. Then about a month ago, he appeared with the apparently new owner, who basically demanded our absence. We tried to work it out with her and bought ourselves another month, but last night push came to shove as she demanded an arbitrary increase in our rent to 125% of what we normally pay. We smiled politely, told her that she was trying to take advantage of us, and then told her that we are moving out. What she didn’t know is that we had an ace up our collective sleeves. The previous day, sensing that a showdown was eminent, we checked out coolest house in all of Las Vegas. It’s twice as big as our current house, has a beautiful view of the mountain, and is the same price. Today we locked up the deal, and will be moving in May.
I guess it just goes to show that expectations can be dangerous, and that perhaps we are not so good about setting down roots. One of the most frustrating aspects is that we have to tell our friends in town that we have a new house, yet again, and people that are looking for us will have a harder time figuring out where we live, and we now have a whole new neighborhood of curious people who will come over just to examine our ¨gringo treasures¨. The offer still stands for people to come down and visit us, just make sure not to ask anyone in town where our house is, you might get a couple of different answers.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
It doesn`t get much more accurate than this.
So being down here with volunteers from all over the u.s, over the past 20 months Simon and I have really caught alot of flack for our accents.
The second Simon opens his mouth everyone knows where he`s from. People can`t always figure my accent out. They just know its strange. (As I type this, our good friend Delfo is standing behind me laughing and doing impersonations of me asking for a bag-which does rhyme with vague by the way.)
We found this quiz, courtesy of my friend (thanks amy) and after taking it, this was my result.
And I do get asked those questions.
Simon`s result: Straight up tried and true Minnesota accent.
And he says I talk funny.
Yous guys should try it out!
The second Simon opens his mouth everyone knows where he`s from. People can`t always figure my accent out. They just know its strange. (As I type this, our good friend Delfo is standing behind me laughing and doing impersonations of me asking for a bag-which does rhyme with vague by the way.)
We found this quiz, courtesy of my friend (thanks amy) and after taking it, this was my result.
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop." | |
| The Midland | |
| The Northeast | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The South | |
| North Central | |
| The West | |
| Boston | |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
And I do get asked those questions.
Simon`s result: Straight up tried and true Minnesota accent.
And he says I talk funny.
Yous guys should try it out!
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Leon, Nicaragua...Great Success!
So the first city on our whirlwind tour of Nica was better than we had imagined. The people of Leon were strong supporters of the Sandista movement, and there were relics of their long history everywhere we turned. Leon is a beautiful colonial city. Population: 117,000
Here are some pics from our trip so far....
Crossing the border from Honduras into Nicaragua. To get across, the bus dropped the 4 of us off and from there some guys pedaled us across on little bikes, kinda like a gringo parade on rickshaws. Strange, but kind of fun. Too bad they ripped us off afterwards.
This is Parque Central In Leon at Dusk. A colonial town founded by the Spanish, the
Architecture maintains a colonial european look.
A lone Sandista flag
waves above a building in town.
Here are some pics from our trip so far....
Crossing the border from Honduras into Nicaragua. To get across, the bus dropped the 4 of us off and from there some guys pedaled us across on little bikes, kinda like a gringo parade on rickshaws. Strange, but kind of fun. Too bad they ripped us off afterwards.
This is Parque Central In Leon at Dusk. A colonial town founded by the Spanish, the
Architecture maintains a colonial european look.
A lone Sandista flag
waves above a building in town. One of Leon´s many murals, this one steeped heavily in the symbolism of the Civil War and ensuing US clandestine and overt involvements.
Day 2: We took a trip to the pacific ocean. This was the warning on the beach.
And Simon and Delfo ignoring that warning.
We are now in Granada, longtime rival of Leon and another completely beautiful colonial city. We will post some new pics as we get them!
Cheers!
crystal and simon
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Want a vacation? That`s fine, but you`ll have to fight for it.
Hey everybody,
We are safe and sound (and sweating to death) in Leòn, Nicaragua. Simon and I, and our friends Delfo and Kathryn decided to spend Semana Santa (Holy Week-the most important of Latin American holidays), here in Leon and in Granada. On the itinerary will be pacific beach time, volcano climbing, people meeting, rainforest exploring and plenty of r&r.
That being said, the first day was a nightmare. This little bit was written by Kathryn. We couldn`t have said it better ourselves so enjoy:
what's that fuss? everybody move to the back of the bus
I'm spending the week in Nicaragua with friends Crystal, Simon and Delfo. We arrived late in the afternoon yesterday and it has already been interesting. First, we ask a cab in Tegucigalpa how much it would cost to take us to the bus station for the buses headed south and the cabbie simply replies, "I don't want to drive there." Alright then. A minute later, we do find a cab driver that will take us there, and after a quick stop to use the bathroom at McDonalds's, we get to the bus stop and see a mass of people trying to get on one of the buses headed south. It's insane. The bus was already packed but more people kept trying to board the bus and squeeze their way on.
People that were on the bus were holding seats for their family and the people that were outside were passing their kids through the bus windows to make sure they got on. After about 2 minutes of pushing, we realized that we weren't going to get on the bus, so we walked over to another bus that was headed south but didn't really stop for anyone. A guy tried to get on while it was slowly moving but was thrown off by the assistant. After about 5 minutes, another bus enters the parking lot and this one was empty and headed south. We start following the bus and try to position ourselves with 50 other Hondurans and chaos follows.
The bus stops, the door opens and everyone starts pushing forward...."Make a line! Make a line!"
Yeah right, lines don't exist here.
More shoving to try and get on the bus. Crystal was the closest to the front, so she does her best to position herself to get on the bus, but it is difficult because so many people are just shoving their way on. I'm right behind her and we're both getting pushed and grabbed but neither of us really care because our main focus is to get on that bus. Crystal was at the stairs of the bus and this guy shoves his kids under her arm to get them on the bus. Not just 2 kids, but 5. Then he pushes in front of her to get on too.
"Excuse me." Now you try to be polite after shoving your kids past us?
Finally Crystal gets on and I'm right behind her, though I'm pretty sure I flashed a few people with the top that I was wearing just because I kept getting shoved. We get to the back of the bus and save seats for Simon and Delfo. Simon gets on without a problem but the driver didn't want to let Delfo on because the bus was already full....after Simon pleaded with the driver by telling him that Delfo didn't speak any Spanish and was scared (lies), the driver agreed to let Delfo on and we were on our way.
A stressful way to leave Honduras.
We are safe and sound (and sweating to death) in Leòn, Nicaragua. Simon and I, and our friends Delfo and Kathryn decided to spend Semana Santa (Holy Week-the most important of Latin American holidays), here in Leon and in Granada. On the itinerary will be pacific beach time, volcano climbing, people meeting, rainforest exploring and plenty of r&r.
That being said, the first day was a nightmare. This little bit was written by Kathryn. We couldn`t have said it better ourselves so enjoy:
what's that fuss? everybody move to the back of the bus
I'm spending the week in Nicaragua with friends Crystal, Simon and Delfo. We arrived late in the afternoon yesterday and it has already been interesting. First, we ask a cab in Tegucigalpa how much it would cost to take us to the bus station for the buses headed south and the cabbie simply replies, "I don't want to drive there." Alright then. A minute later, we do find a cab driver that will take us there, and after a quick stop to use the bathroom at McDonalds's, we get to the bus stop and see a mass of people trying to get on one of the buses headed south. It's insane. The bus was already packed but more people kept trying to board the bus and squeeze their way on.
People that were on the bus were holding seats for their family and the people that were outside were passing their kids through the bus windows to make sure they got on. After about 2 minutes of pushing, we realized that we weren't going to get on the bus, so we walked over to another bus that was headed south but didn't really stop for anyone. A guy tried to get on while it was slowly moving but was thrown off by the assistant. After about 5 minutes, another bus enters the parking lot and this one was empty and headed south. We start following the bus and try to position ourselves with 50 other Hondurans and chaos follows.
The bus stops, the door opens and everyone starts pushing forward...."Make a line! Make a line!"
Yeah right, lines don't exist here.
More shoving to try and get on the bus. Crystal was the closest to the front, so she does her best to position herself to get on the bus, but it is difficult because so many people are just shoving their way on. I'm right behind her and we're both getting pushed and grabbed but neither of us really care because our main focus is to get on that bus. Crystal was at the stairs of the bus and this guy shoves his kids under her arm to get them on the bus. Not just 2 kids, but 5. Then he pushes in front of her to get on too.
"Excuse me." Now you try to be polite after shoving your kids past us?
Finally Crystal gets on and I'm right behind her, though I'm pretty sure I flashed a few people with the top that I was wearing just because I kept getting shoved. We get to the back of the bus and save seats for Simon and Delfo. Simon gets on without a problem but the driver didn't want to let Delfo on because the bus was already full....after Simon pleaded with the driver by telling him that Delfo didn't speak any Spanish and was scared (lies), the driver agreed to let Delfo on and we were on our way.
A stressful way to leave Honduras.
Monday, March 19, 2007
All in a day´s work
This was my walk to work. Another pcv needed a helping hand in one of our Aldeas, El Cedral. It's maybe a 45 minute walk up the mountain by dirt road. This is Las Vegas in the early morning. Truly one of the most beautiful areas of the country. Green all the time.
Trying to teach our class how to write their a,b,c´s.
Sadly, many of our 3rd graders still can't spell their names. This makes me enjoy teaching the younger ones--getting them ready for the later grades. In Honduras, many children won't go past 3rd grade because the families either can't afford to send them on, or they decide to start working in the coffee fields to make money for their families.
These little guys are primer grado. First grade. Note our dog in the background. She's a great teaching tool. When the kids finish a moth problem, essay or in this case..their a,b,c's--they get to pet the dog. Works like a charm.
Later that evening, I walked out of the bedroom to find a little game of ¨play dead¨ between the boys and Stella in our living room. The boys usually come over to play after their dinner every night...and after their lunch every day, and after school, and after they visit their uncle in Barrio San Juan...you get the idea.
These boys have helped me just as much as any teacher when it comes to learning Spanish. Dealing with kids is the best way to practice and learn a new language. Plus, they are unforgiving when you mess something up. Adults are typically too polite to tell you differently.
If I say a wrong word around these guys, I'll never hear the end of it.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Tipsy Chipsy
We recently traveled out to the wild west (a tiny little village up in the western mountains called San Ramon) to visit our friend K, and help her with some English classes at her school. This is a little story, as told best by her, about our encounter with the Chipsy man that afternoon.
My friends C & J came up Thursday to help out with my English classes, see what San Ramon is all about and meet the locos. After a pretty great English class (my kids were well behaved because there were 3 of us hounding them on their pronunciation) and a visit to the colegio (let's not get started), we went for a walk to a river about 45 minutes out of San Ramon.
When you are walking down the main road out of San Ramon, it starts to get really rural--no houses, just farm land--as you can see in the picture--so it's quiet and you don't see too many cars. Needless to say, it was surprising to us to see a parked ice cream van parked along the side of the road. It was warm and we had been walking for quite some time so ice cream sounded perfect. Here's how that interaction proceeded:
K: Hello? Hi!
C: Is anyone there?
J: Hello? (He looks behind the curtain of the van) To us: Yeah, there's a guy in there.
Guy stumbles out of the car, drunk, messing with his Razr phone (fancy phone for an aldea man) and looks at us.
'Yeah? What do you want?'
K: Do you have ice cream today?
Now this may seem like an idiotic question considering it is an ice cream van, but you just never know in this country.
'Yeah. We have ice cream bars only.'
C: Can we see them?
Again, may seem like a silly question--but again, you never know how ghetto this ice cream may actually be. If it's ice cream at all.
He stumbles into the van, pulls out the ice cream after much searching and it was real ice cream. We each get a bar, pay the guy and he stumbles back into the van. We continue walking and laugh about how this can only happen here and that while retelling the story may be funny, it just won't compare to having experienced it.
My friends C & J came up Thursday to help out with my English classes, see what San Ramon is all about and meet the locos. After a pretty great English class (my kids were well behaved because there were 3 of us hounding them on their pronunciation) and a visit to the colegio (let's not get started), we went for a walk to a river about 45 minutes out of San Ramon.
When you are walking down the main road out of San Ramon, it starts to get really rural--no houses, just farm land--as you can see in the picture--so it's quiet and you don't see too many cars. Needless to say, it was surprising to us to see a parked ice cream van parked along the side of the road. It was warm and we had been walking for quite some time so ice cream sounded perfect. Here's how that interaction proceeded:
K: Hello? Hi!
C: Is anyone there?
J: Hello? (He looks behind the curtain of the van) To us: Yeah, there's a guy in there.
Guy stumbles out of the car, drunk, messing with his Razr phone (fancy phone for an aldea man) and looks at us.
'Yeah? What do you want?'
K: Do you have ice cream today?
Now this may seem like an idiotic question considering it is an ice cream van, but you just never know in this country.
'Yeah. We have ice cream bars only.'
C: Can we see them?
Again, may seem like a silly question--but again, you never know how ghetto this ice cream may actually be. If it's ice cream at all.
He stumbles into the van, pulls out the ice cream after much searching and it was real ice cream. We each get a bar, pay the guy and he stumbles back into the van. We continue walking and laugh about how this can only happen here and that while retelling the story may be funny, it just won't compare to having experienced it.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Update of Updates
So its been awhile since we've given a real update on what our workload has been. Believe it or not, at times we are actually busy!
1. For two weeks, I was helping out with this kindergarden class of 14 kids in a little town up and out of the mountain. Everyday at 6 am, a mini van picked me up, bringing me to this little classroom to help teach. I pretty much hated it after 4 days because teaching isnt my favorite thing in the world. And these kids had attention spans of less than 2 minutes before wanting their play doh. I was witness to alot of things being eaten...pencils, glue, tape, playdoh, candy wrappers, dirt, paper.
The saddest part of my two weeks with these kids was when one of my girls was killed in an accident. She was 5 years old and was getting off the bus by her house. She went to run across the street in front of the bus, and a car was passing on the left of it, hitting her head on. The closest hospital was 2 hours away, and she didnt get there in time, unfortunately. I felt really terrible about it, as she was a smart, beautiful little girl.
The class was really confused, and though I explained what had happened, it didnt work like I had hoped. They are 5 year olds, and just dont understand yet, which made it heartbreaking for me.
student> Teacher, when is Kxxxxxx coming back to school?
me> Remember what we talked about? Im sorry, but Kxxxxx wont be coming back anymore.
student> Yeah, I understand that she's dead, but when can she come back to school?
me> "blank stares"
It was alot of that for a week.
2. Then this past week, Simon, our sitemate, and I helped work at a medical brigade in our aldea. This was alot of fun and a bit more uplifting.
The two doctors who came to do the brigade were an older married couple from Vermont who have traveled all over the world. The man is an eye doctor, and he taught his wife everything she needed to know to help him with these eye glasses brigades. Our job was to work alongside these 2 doctors and do all the translating from what the Hondurans would say into English and vise versa, as a translating job usually works.
It was nice to feel really useful, and even more nice to see many poor hondurans from our aldeas, who would never have the money to get an eye exam, walk away with big smiles and a new pair of glasses. This one older man was seeing clearly for the first time in 50 years, as he told me.
All of the glasses that the doctors brought were used ones that people from the states had donated to their local Lions Club. So, if you have old glasses that you don't wear anymore, donate them! We saw firsthand that they can still get plenty of use down here.
3. What else...English Classes. Simon and I have also started this English course that is certified by PC and also the Honduran Government.
It is designed to be a class only for teachers, and teaches them the basics of speaking and learning English so that they can teach English to their students with more confidence, and with a better methodology. There is a new law here that all students have to take an English class in high school, much like Spanish, french, German, whatever classes in North American high schools.
We have 15 teachers in our class, and although we are not professional English teachers, and run into problems while teaching certain grammar rules, its still fun.
4. Baseball! Its that time of year again, and we had our first practice last week. The national tournament is in May this year, so we're preparing for that. Simon and I took over the positions of the PC baseball coordinators this year, so we're doing alot of emailing between the other teams, and setting rules to the tournament.
5. Last but not least, The Cogate Project! This is more my project than Simon's but he'll be helping out, Im sure.
This is a project started by PC and Cogate toothpaste. The company has donated tons of toothbrushes and toothpaste and other things to PC. We will be receiving 40 toothbrush kits every month for 5 months, and be teaching a kindergarden class at one of our schools the importance of brushing your teeth and washing your hands. 3 days a week, we will brush our teeth with salt water...because toothpaste is very expensive here and not easily affordable to most, and 2 days a week we will use our toothpaste.
This is moreso a project to teach good habits, starting at an early age. We weill give charlas about brushing teeth, and about the mouth and what goes on inside of it, we will color pictures, and hopfully in the end, teach the importance of being clean to the kids.
It should be interesting.
Well, thats about all for this month. Semana Santa "Easter week" is coming up quick and the country seems to just shut down for it. We will be in Nicaragua at that time catching some pacific sun rays, volcanoes, and good food. More on that later, though.
Miss you all. Take care, Crystal
1. For two weeks, I was helping out with this kindergarden class of 14 kids in a little town up and out of the mountain. Everyday at 6 am, a mini van picked me up, bringing me to this little classroom to help teach. I pretty much hated it after 4 days because teaching isnt my favorite thing in the world. And these kids had attention spans of less than 2 minutes before wanting their play doh. I was witness to alot of things being eaten...pencils, glue, tape, playdoh, candy wrappers, dirt, paper.
The saddest part of my two weeks with these kids was when one of my girls was killed in an accident. She was 5 years old and was getting off the bus by her house. She went to run across the street in front of the bus, and a car was passing on the left of it, hitting her head on. The closest hospital was 2 hours away, and she didnt get there in time, unfortunately. I felt really terrible about it, as she was a smart, beautiful little girl.
The class was really confused, and though I explained what had happened, it didnt work like I had hoped. They are 5 year olds, and just dont understand yet, which made it heartbreaking for me.
student> Teacher, when is Kxxxxxx coming back to school?
me> Remember what we talked about? Im sorry, but Kxxxxx wont be coming back anymore.
student> Yeah, I understand that she's dead, but when can she come back to school?
me> "blank stares"
It was alot of that for a week.
2. Then this past week, Simon, our sitemate, and I helped work at a medical brigade in our aldea. This was alot of fun and a bit more uplifting.
The two doctors who came to do the brigade were an older married couple from Vermont who have traveled all over the world. The man is an eye doctor, and he taught his wife everything she needed to know to help him with these eye glasses brigades. Our job was to work alongside these 2 doctors and do all the translating from what the Hondurans would say into English and vise versa, as a translating job usually works.
It was nice to feel really useful, and even more nice to see many poor hondurans from our aldeas, who would never have the money to get an eye exam, walk away with big smiles and a new pair of glasses. This one older man was seeing clearly for the first time in 50 years, as he told me.
All of the glasses that the doctors brought were used ones that people from the states had donated to their local Lions Club. So, if you have old glasses that you don't wear anymore, donate them! We saw firsthand that they can still get plenty of use down here.
3. What else...English Classes. Simon and I have also started this English course that is certified by PC and also the Honduran Government.
It is designed to be a class only for teachers, and teaches them the basics of speaking and learning English so that they can teach English to their students with more confidence, and with a better methodology. There is a new law here that all students have to take an English class in high school, much like Spanish, french, German, whatever classes in North American high schools.
We have 15 teachers in our class, and although we are not professional English teachers, and run into problems while teaching certain grammar rules, its still fun.
4. Baseball! Its that time of year again, and we had our first practice last week. The national tournament is in May this year, so we're preparing for that. Simon and I took over the positions of the PC baseball coordinators this year, so we're doing alot of emailing between the other teams, and setting rules to the tournament.
5. Last but not least, The Cogate Project! This is more my project than Simon's but he'll be helping out, Im sure.
This is a project started by PC and Cogate toothpaste. The company has donated tons of toothbrushes and toothpaste and other things to PC. We will be receiving 40 toothbrush kits every month for 5 months, and be teaching a kindergarden class at one of our schools the importance of brushing your teeth and washing your hands. 3 days a week, we will brush our teeth with salt water...because toothpaste is very expensive here and not easily affordable to most, and 2 days a week we will use our toothpaste.
This is moreso a project to teach good habits, starting at an early age. We weill give charlas about brushing teeth, and about the mouth and what goes on inside of it, we will color pictures, and hopfully in the end, teach the importance of being clean to the kids.
It should be interesting.
Well, thats about all for this month. Semana Santa "Easter week" is coming up quick and the country seems to just shut down for it. We will be in Nicaragua at that time catching some pacific sun rays, volcanoes, and good food. More on that later, though.
Miss you all. Take care, Crystal
Friday, February 9, 2007
Los Locos
Las Vegas, despite being a pretty small community, seems to have a proportionally high amount of crazy people that wander its streets. Not crazy in the sense of simply bizarre or eccentric, but more along its traditional definitions of people who have mental health issues which are untreated. Like many other conditions in the developing world that we would find atrocious, the lack of care and medical institutions to deal with these mental health issues isn’t a result of negligence, but rather is related to a lack of resources, knowledge and funding to properly treat these people properly.
Using our own armchair psychoanalysis techniques, we have noticed everything from mental retardation to severe schizophrenia. Far from being shunned in the community, these members are omnipresent in the interactions of Las Vegas, and we have had opportunity to meet all of them, with varying results. Here are some descriptions of our most regular encounters.
There is one woman who slaps me on the chest every time we cross paths, and reminds me what a ¨beautiful gringo¨ I am. Her reaction to C is less affectionate, as she lauds criticisms on her ranging from her choice of husband (directly contradicting her comments about me) to the devilish properties of our dog Stella.
Our next door neighbors harbor and care for two middle age men, whom we believe are their sons. One is extremely friendly and plays us songs on his toy harmonica; the other is equally affable, despite his vocabulary being limited to the words ¨heh¨ and now ¨estella¨. There are two other men who frequent our street, and who perform odds and ends for a little money, in the same manner people here send their children to carry firewood, or to retrieve an item from the store. In fact, the overall attitude towards our town’s people with mental health issues is similar to that of children; errand runners who require supervision. One of these two men yells an enthusiastic salutation at everyone he meets.
Other people around town are less friendly, and in fact give an air of volatility. One man never wears a shirt, is covered with what appears to be axle grease, and always has rags tied to his legs, like Steven Tyler’s microphone stand in the band Aerosmith. Although he has never uttered a word, his fiery eyes and taunt facial features seem to restrain a soon to occur violent event, he once sent an entire group of school children running while making an impromptu appearance at one of our schools. He is the personification of the character Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird, tragically misunderstood and feared by all.
By far the most interesting character in Las Vegas is a guy that we refer to simply as ¨crazy guy¨, and he is as complex and interesting a person as we have met in Honduras. He suffers from delusions, as one day he pulled a picture of famous soccer star Ronaldhino that he ripped out of the newspaper and insists that it was his son. He has a tendency to sometimes display a violent personality, which he warns people about by covering his mouth with his hand.
Sadly, he is almost constantly drunk, as the money he earns for small tasks around town goes straight to booze. One day he found C and some friends of our sitting in the park, and approached them with following, ¨Look, I’m drunk, but I just wanted to sing you this song, because you are beautiful.¨ before launching into a song he made up about Minnesota, and now asks all gringos if they are from Minnesota. Unfortunately, this drunkenness usually means that he is typically passed out on the sidewalk during the day, with fresh bruises from whatever fight he was in the night before. On his better days, he is friendly and inviting as anyone we have met in Las Vegas.
I think that one of the reasons that all these people approach us especially is that they share our outsider perspective in Las Vegas: they know that they will never blend in here, as we know that no matter what we do that there will always be a barrier that we won’t be able to breech. All you can do is wear your eccentrics and differences on your sleeve and hope people will understand.
Simon
Using our own armchair psychoanalysis techniques, we have noticed everything from mental retardation to severe schizophrenia. Far from being shunned in the community, these members are omnipresent in the interactions of Las Vegas, and we have had opportunity to meet all of them, with varying results. Here are some descriptions of our most regular encounters.
There is one woman who slaps me on the chest every time we cross paths, and reminds me what a ¨beautiful gringo¨ I am. Her reaction to C is less affectionate, as she lauds criticisms on her ranging from her choice of husband (directly contradicting her comments about me) to the devilish properties of our dog Stella.
Our next door neighbors harbor and care for two middle age men, whom we believe are their sons. One is extremely friendly and plays us songs on his toy harmonica; the other is equally affable, despite his vocabulary being limited to the words ¨heh¨ and now ¨estella¨. There are two other men who frequent our street, and who perform odds and ends for a little money, in the same manner people here send their children to carry firewood, or to retrieve an item from the store. In fact, the overall attitude towards our town’s people with mental health issues is similar to that of children; errand runners who require supervision. One of these two men yells an enthusiastic salutation at everyone he meets.
Other people around town are less friendly, and in fact give an air of volatility. One man never wears a shirt, is covered with what appears to be axle grease, and always has rags tied to his legs, like Steven Tyler’s microphone stand in the band Aerosmith. Although he has never uttered a word, his fiery eyes and taunt facial features seem to restrain a soon to occur violent event, he once sent an entire group of school children running while making an impromptu appearance at one of our schools. He is the personification of the character Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird, tragically misunderstood and feared by all.
By far the most interesting character in Las Vegas is a guy that we refer to simply as ¨crazy guy¨, and he is as complex and interesting a person as we have met in Honduras. He suffers from delusions, as one day he pulled a picture of famous soccer star Ronaldhino that he ripped out of the newspaper and insists that it was his son. He has a tendency to sometimes display a violent personality, which he warns people about by covering his mouth with his hand.
Sadly, he is almost constantly drunk, as the money he earns for small tasks around town goes straight to booze. One day he found C and some friends of our sitting in the park, and approached them with following, ¨Look, I’m drunk, but I just wanted to sing you this song, because you are beautiful.¨ before launching into a song he made up about Minnesota, and now asks all gringos if they are from Minnesota. Unfortunately, this drunkenness usually means that he is typically passed out on the sidewalk during the day, with fresh bruises from whatever fight he was in the night before. On his better days, he is friendly and inviting as anyone we have met in Las Vegas.
I think that one of the reasons that all these people approach us especially is that they share our outsider perspective in Las Vegas: they know that they will never blend in here, as we know that no matter what we do that there will always be a barrier that we won’t be able to breech. All you can do is wear your eccentrics and differences on your sleeve and hope people will understand.
Simon
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Hondu Ants.
Giant leaf cutter ants took over our kitchen last night. I was under the impression that they stayed in the forest, but I suppose kitchens have just as much to offer.
It was like a national geographic show except when we walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, instead of carrying leaves, they were carrying our food away. This is no joke. Piece after piece of rice. The powdered milk. Beans. They cut up our flour tortillas and were organized in lines, taking them back to their colony to eat I guess.
J wanted to throw bleach all over the bottom of our back door where they had broken in. I found this to be a bad idea and suggested throwing sugar on the back porch so the ants would change directions and want that instead of our necessities. He thought that was a bad idea, too.
(looking back-these were both terrible ideas)
So, not wanting to kill them, we just swept them out the door, and pretended to ignore them. They bit the dog, and my sandals, and eventually the army of ants seriously took all of our tortillas and rice.
If they come back tonight, it's likely that we´ll just ignore them again, and lose more food.
These ants are really huge.
They have scary fangs, for cutting leaves, and flesh, and at one point, people used to have the ants bite their gashes and cuts, pop the body off, and use them as sutures.
Any suggestions, let us know.
It was like a national geographic show except when we walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, instead of carrying leaves, they were carrying our food away. This is no joke. Piece after piece of rice. The powdered milk. Beans. They cut up our flour tortillas and were organized in lines, taking them back to their colony to eat I guess.
J wanted to throw bleach all over the bottom of our back door where they had broken in. I found this to be a bad idea and suggested throwing sugar on the back porch so the ants would change directions and want that instead of our necessities. He thought that was a bad idea, too.
(looking back-these were both terrible ideas)
So, not wanting to kill them, we just swept them out the door, and pretended to ignore them. They bit the dog, and my sandals, and eventually the army of ants seriously took all of our tortillas and rice.
If they come back tonight, it's likely that we´ll just ignore them again, and lose more food.
These ants are really huge.
They have scary fangs, for cutting leaves, and flesh, and at one point, people used to have the ants bite their gashes and cuts, pop the body off, and use them as sutures.
Any suggestions, let us know.
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