Here are just a few of the pictures I´ve taken so far so people can see where I´ve been, what I´ve been up to, and who I´ve been living with. The first five are all pictures from my time during FBT here in Yarumela (and La Paz). Three of the pictures are of the carpets made of sawdust for Semana Santa in Comayagua. They are absolutely beautiful. People start working on the carpets at 12 or 1 in the morning and continue working up to the parade which starts at 10. It is incredible how much time people put into them when they just get trampled by the parade. Another picture is me with three of my host brothers and one of their sons when they took me and a couple other trainees to the ruins north of town in their yellow school bus. Yes, they actually have a yellow school bus from the states which they drive between La Paz and Comayagua five days per week as part of the public transportation system. The last picture of the batch is some of my fellow trainees in Comayagua.
The second set of pictures are all from before FBT. The first is of my host brother and sisters from Santa Lucía after we ran a race for which they had made prizes for everyone. Another of the pictures is of a lake and waterfall where I went swimming on my volunteer visit. The other three are also of my family in Santa Lucía, one after playing soccer and the other with my host parents and their parents as well.
We have two and a half weeks left of FBT and then it´s back to Santa Lucía for two weeks before heading back to our sites. FBT has been flying by and I can´t believe I´ll be in my site in just a month.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
FBT and Semana Santa
I’m now in Yarumela, La Paz for our health field based training (FBT). There’s no internet access here so I haven’t written in a long time because I have to wait until an afternoon I can stay in La Paz after our training to use the internet. We’ve been here for two weeks now and I really like it here. Half of the health group is staying in La Paz which is the bigger city where we have our training and I’m with the other half in a tiny aldea outside of La Paz called Yarumela. We go in Peace Corps vehicles every morning to La Paz for training, come home for lunch, and then head back again. Training is going well so far and it’s been nice to get involved in more health-related information. Starting this week with HIV/AIDS we’ll be covering a different theme each week. Living in Yarumela is a very different experience than being in Santa Lucia, but I’ve really enjoying getting to know a different community. Yarumela is smaller and this is the first year in a long time that they’ve had volunteers living here so everyone in town knows who we are and knew who we were the first day we got here. My family is great although very different from the one I stayed with in Santa Lucia. News also spreads really quickly especially since several of the host families are related so there is no keeping secrets here. My host parents have five sons ages 30, 36, 23, 19, and 17. The two oldest live in town with their families although one of them, Ariel, is over here with his family every day. I love it when they come to visit because they have a one year old who learned to walk in the two weeks I’ve been here and another son who is also fun to play with. His wife is my age and is really fun to talk to. She even taught me how to make tortillas by hand! The next two sons attend universities outside of La Paz and were home last week for Semana Santa. The son who studies in Tegus, Edwin, comes home every weekend so I still get to see him a fair amount. The youngest, Alexander, goes to the colegio (high school) in town. There are people in and out of the house all the time which means there is always something going on.
All of the eight trainees who are staying in Yarumela live within one and a half blocks from each other. One of the other trainees, Katie, lives next door with the sister of my host mom and another, Anna, lives behind me with another one of my host mom’s sisters. This means we get to do a lot of things together and have integrated pretty well into the community already. Several nights of the week we get together with a ton of neighborhood kids to play soccer in the street. The streets aren’t paved and the other night when we played for an hour we only had to stop twice to let a car go by. There is also a river nearby where we’ve gone to swim a couple times. Living here is definitely a lot more similar to how I imagined Peace Corps to be and I would love to be in a village like this one.
Last week was Semana Santa, Holy Week, so we only had half a week of training. A lot of people travel during this week and no one works so that people can really take advantage of the holiday. On Wednesday my class organized a Cultural Day to present some of the culture from the US and Honduran culture as well. Each class had a typical US activity planned, such as Easter egg dyeing, the seventh inning stretch, the electric slide, and singing, to show our Honduran families who came to the event as well. We had all helped our families prepare typical Honduran food as well so we got to try a little bit of everything for lunch. It was a fun event and I think the families really enjoyed themselves.
I also did a lot of activities with my family last week. My host brothers took me and a couple other trainees to the ruins just north of town on Thursday afternoon which were fun to look around. Compared to other ruins around Central America they aren’t very large or spectacular, but I really enjoyed the trip and from the top of the ruins there was an amazing view of the whole valley. Then on Friday there is a tradition in almost every town and city to recreate the stages of the cross so all the trainees in Yarumela got up early and went with three of my host brothers to Comayagua to see the procession. They have a yellow school bus from the US and since the buses didn’t work on Thursday or Friday they had offered to take us all. Comayagua has an amazing tradition where they make carpets on the streets for the procession and there are dozens of carpets made of brightly colored sawdust. People start work on the carpets the night before the procession and some of them only finished right when the procession was approaching. They were so intricate and beautiful and it was amazing to see the work people put into them when they were just going to be walked over less than an hour after completion. The procession was beautiful as well and was amazingly detailed in the recreation of all the stages of the cross. The carpets in Comayagua are supposed to be the best in Honduras and some of the best in Central America and I’m so glad I got to go see them so early on in my time in Honduras.
All of the eight trainees who are staying in Yarumela live within one and a half blocks from each other. One of the other trainees, Katie, lives next door with the sister of my host mom and another, Anna, lives behind me with another one of my host mom’s sisters. This means we get to do a lot of things together and have integrated pretty well into the community already. Several nights of the week we get together with a ton of neighborhood kids to play soccer in the street. The streets aren’t paved and the other night when we played for an hour we only had to stop twice to let a car go by. There is also a river nearby where we’ve gone to swim a couple times. Living here is definitely a lot more similar to how I imagined Peace Corps to be and I would love to be in a village like this one.
Last week was Semana Santa, Holy Week, so we only had half a week of training. A lot of people travel during this week and no one works so that people can really take advantage of the holiday. On Wednesday my class organized a Cultural Day to present some of the culture from the US and Honduran culture as well. Each class had a typical US activity planned, such as Easter egg dyeing, the seventh inning stretch, the electric slide, and singing, to show our Honduran families who came to the event as well. We had all helped our families prepare typical Honduran food as well so we got to try a little bit of everything for lunch. It was a fun event and I think the families really enjoyed themselves.
I also did a lot of activities with my family last week. My host brothers took me and a couple other trainees to the ruins just north of town on Thursday afternoon which were fun to look around. Compared to other ruins around Central America they aren’t very large or spectacular, but I really enjoyed the trip and from the top of the ruins there was an amazing view of the whole valley. Then on Friday there is a tradition in almost every town and city to recreate the stages of the cross so all the trainees in Yarumela got up early and went with three of my host brothers to Comayagua to see the procession. They have a yellow school bus from the US and since the buses didn’t work on Thursday or Friday they had offered to take us all. Comayagua has an amazing tradition where they make carpets on the streets for the procession and there are dozens of carpets made of brightly colored sawdust. People start work on the carpets the night before the procession and some of them only finished right when the procession was approaching. They were so intricate and beautiful and it was amazing to see the work people put into them when they were just going to be walked over less than an hour after completion. The procession was beautiful as well and was amazingly detailed in the recreation of all the stages of the cross. The carpets in Comayagua are supposed to be the best in Honduras and some of the best in Central America and I’m so glad I got to go see them so early on in my time in Honduras.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Getting into Training
So far in training we’ve been doing a lot of interesting activities and I’ve been learning a lot. Every day we have a few hours of Spanish then either work with our projects or have CORE training where we have been talking about sustainable development and activities we can do when we first get to our communities to assess their needs. My Spanish class has been really interesting so far. I placed into the Advanced group and we’ve been spending this week on debates. I discussed the death penalty and it’s great practice for me because giving and defending my opinion is something that’s a little harder for me to do in Spanish. In my group we only have four days of class per week and the fifth day we use to do research for community projects we’re working on. My topic is women’s groups in Honduras and their history and I will be presenting my research to at least some if not all of the other volunteers next Friday.
The highlight of this week was going into Tegucigalpa on Monday. All of the Spanish classes went this week to go to the market and to practice navigating the Honduran transportation system on our own. We had to catch the bus from the town center and take it to our stop in Tegus, take taxis from there to the market, and then meet our teacher there. The bus ride was amazing. All the buses here are old yellow school buses from the US and seventies disco music was blasting the whole way to the city. It was also pretty packed with a lot of people standing in the aisles and hanging out the door. Once we got off the bus the taxis that were supposed to be there for us weren’t there so we hailed some other cabs and were able to bargain the price and save a little money. The market we went to was pretty small and we all had grocery lists from our host mothers of things to buy. We also had an assignment to find out the prices of a lot of products which was hard because it isn’t culturally acceptable to ask a price without at least an interest of buying whatever it is you’re asking about. Although I learned the hard way, I found it was a lot easier to get people to talk to me about prices if I explained first what I was doing and why I needed the price information. After the market we all got to go to the Peace Corps office in Tegus before heading back up to Santa Lucía. It was really fun to see a little of the city since it was the first time going since we got here.
This Sunday we’re leaving Santa Lucía for a few days to visit volunteers. Each trainee is going to a different site to visit a volunteer working in their same project area so I’m visiting a health volunteer working in the mountains towards the El Salvadorian border. I’m really looking forward to going. She works with an HIV/AIDS support group and does a lot of work with maternal/child health as well. I’ll be there until Wednesday when I come back to Santa Lucía. I think it will be a great opportunity to see what kind of work and project options are available as well as talk to a volunteer about her experience and what kind of advice she may have.
After getting back to Santa Lucía we only have a few days before we leave for field based training (FBT). All the groups leave for FBT the next Sunday and I’m heading off to La Paz with the rest of the health group. We’ll be there for six weeks getting more in-depth information about our projects and as part of my language class I will be doing a lot more community research and community-based projects. I’m really looking forward to these next few weeks because we have a lot of interesting activities planned.
The highlight of this week was going into Tegucigalpa on Monday. All of the Spanish classes went this week to go to the market and to practice navigating the Honduran transportation system on our own. We had to catch the bus from the town center and take it to our stop in Tegus, take taxis from there to the market, and then meet our teacher there. The bus ride was amazing. All the buses here are old yellow school buses from the US and seventies disco music was blasting the whole way to the city. It was also pretty packed with a lot of people standing in the aisles and hanging out the door. Once we got off the bus the taxis that were supposed to be there for us weren’t there so we hailed some other cabs and were able to bargain the price and save a little money. The market we went to was pretty small and we all had grocery lists from our host mothers of things to buy. We also had an assignment to find out the prices of a lot of products which was hard because it isn’t culturally acceptable to ask a price without at least an interest of buying whatever it is you’re asking about. Although I learned the hard way, I found it was a lot easier to get people to talk to me about prices if I explained first what I was doing and why I needed the price information. After the market we all got to go to the Peace Corps office in Tegus before heading back up to Santa Lucía. It was really fun to see a little of the city since it was the first time going since we got here.
This Sunday we’re leaving Santa Lucía for a few days to visit volunteers. Each trainee is going to a different site to visit a volunteer working in their same project area so I’m visiting a health volunteer working in the mountains towards the El Salvadorian border. I’m really looking forward to going. She works with an HIV/AIDS support group and does a lot of work with maternal/child health as well. I’ll be there until Wednesday when I come back to Santa Lucía. I think it will be a great opportunity to see what kind of work and project options are available as well as talk to a volunteer about her experience and what kind of advice she may have.
After getting back to Santa Lucía we only have a few days before we leave for field based training (FBT). All the groups leave for FBT the next Sunday and I’m heading off to La Paz with the rest of the health group. We’ll be there for six weeks getting more in-depth information about our projects and as part of my language class I will be doing a lot more community research and community-based projects. I’m really looking forward to these next few weeks because we have a lot of interesting activities planned.
Monday, February 18, 2008
First Days in Santa Lucía
I wrote this yesterday and was able to bring it on my flash drive to an internet cafe...how nice.
We finally arrived in Tegucigalpa Wednesday afternoon after a long delay in Miami, The Peace Corps staff meet us at the airport to take us to Santa Lucía. Driving through Tegucigalpa took quite a while since we ended up getting there during rush hour but after we left the city it was quite a nice drive up into the mountains toward Santa Lucía. Our families were waiting for us at the training center, which is a very nice building with a lot of friendly staff members, so we had a brief welcome to Honduras and then went to our homes. I live very close to the training center, about a five minute walk, with an incredible family. My host mother’s name is Erica and her husband is Hector. They have three children, Hector who is 13, Andrea who is 10, and Daniela who is 7 and Erica’s mother also lives with them. They even have a dog named Jumpy (but imagine it in a Spanish accent)! The kids are so great and since we didn’t have much time to do much on Wednesday they took me around town after class on Thursday. They showed me all around the town which is absolutely beautiful. It’s really fun playing with them and yesterday we even had races in the park for which they had spent all day making prizes (since it’s summer at the moment school actually starts on Monday).
So far I like what we’ve been doing at the training center. Even though the days have been long, from 7:30 to 4:30, we have been receiving interesting information. We’ve even had Spanish classes already but just two that we were placed in according to how much Spanish we’ve had. Most people had their language proficiency interviews on Friday although I had mine yesterday and we will find out what level we’re in on Monday or Tuesday. Then on Tuesday we start small language classes with other people in our level. We’ll also receive a lot of technical training in the coming weeks. I believe we will be here in Santa Lucía for only two or three more weeks and then will be moving to FBT (field based training) with our groups. The health group is going to La Paz which I believe is a community about an hour to the northwest and the Business and Water and Sanitation groups will be heading south of Tegucigalpa. We’ll actually be giving talks (charlas) to various groups about better health practices.
Yesterday we had a cultural fiesta at the training center with our families which was a lot of fun. Representatives of almost all the ethnic groups of Honduras were there and we moved from table to table every ten minutes learning about their cultures and sampling some of their traditional foods. After going to all the tables the Garífuna (an ethnic group living on the north coast of Honduras) danced and brought up several volunteers to dance with them. It was really fun to watch. After the dancing there was a ton of typical Honduran food which was delicious. It was a great afternoon and wonderful learning opportunity for the volunteers and Hondurans. I am really enjoying being here getting to know more about Honduran culture and this town as well as getting to know the other volunteers better.
We finally arrived in Tegucigalpa Wednesday afternoon after a long delay in Miami, The Peace Corps staff meet us at the airport to take us to Santa Lucía. Driving through Tegucigalpa took quite a while since we ended up getting there during rush hour but after we left the city it was quite a nice drive up into the mountains toward Santa Lucía. Our families were waiting for us at the training center, which is a very nice building with a lot of friendly staff members, so we had a brief welcome to Honduras and then went to our homes. I live very close to the training center, about a five minute walk, with an incredible family. My host mother’s name is Erica and her husband is Hector. They have three children, Hector who is 13, Andrea who is 10, and Daniela who is 7 and Erica’s mother also lives with them. They even have a dog named Jumpy (but imagine it in a Spanish accent)! The kids are so great and since we didn’t have much time to do much on Wednesday they took me around town after class on Thursday. They showed me all around the town which is absolutely beautiful. It’s really fun playing with them and yesterday we even had races in the park for which they had spent all day making prizes (since it’s summer at the moment school actually starts on Monday).
So far I like what we’ve been doing at the training center. Even though the days have been long, from 7:30 to 4:30, we have been receiving interesting information. We’ve even had Spanish classes already but just two that we were placed in according to how much Spanish we’ve had. Most people had their language proficiency interviews on Friday although I had mine yesterday and we will find out what level we’re in on Monday or Tuesday. Then on Tuesday we start small language classes with other people in our level. We’ll also receive a lot of technical training in the coming weeks. I believe we will be here in Santa Lucía for only two or three more weeks and then will be moving to FBT (field based training) with our groups. The health group is going to La Paz which I believe is a community about an hour to the northwest and the Business and Water and Sanitation groups will be heading south of Tegucigalpa. We’ll actually be giving talks (charlas) to various groups about better health practices.
Yesterday we had a cultural fiesta at the training center with our families which was a lot of fun. Representatives of almost all the ethnic groups of Honduras were there and we moved from table to table every ten minutes learning about their cultures and sampling some of their traditional foods. After going to all the tables the Garífuna (an ethnic group living on the north coast of Honduras) danced and brought up several volunteers to dance with them. It was really fun to watch. After the dancing there was a ton of typical Honduran food which was delicious. It was a great afternoon and wonderful learning opportunity for the volunteers and Hondurans. I am really enjoying being here getting to know more about Honduran culture and this town as well as getting to know the other volunteers better.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Here We Go...
I'm in Washington, D.C. for the staging event until early Wednesday. I left California on Sunday morning after spending the weekend at Stanford to watch Heather's water polo tournament. After getting in on Sunday night I was able to meet up with my childhood friend Alyssa who now lives in D.C. which was an awesome introduction to my few days in the city. We started staging events Monday afternoon so I was able to see some of the monuments and memorials around the Capitol in the morning. Staging so far has been interesting with broad and basic information and meeting other volunteers. Everyone seems really prepared and excited with a lot of previous international experience. Volunteers in this group are divided up into three groups: HIV/AIDS and child survival, water and sanitation, and business.
We leave for Honduras Wednesday morning quite early. As soon as we get there we will head for the training center in Santa Lucía for an orientation and introduction to our host families. We move in that afternoon and get to spend the rest of the day getting to know the family which I'm really excited for because as of right now I know nothing about them. Then for the first few days in country we have several orientation activities, cultural activities, vaccinations, and a language proficiency interview. Training is going to be very busy with activities, classes, and discussions during the week from 7:30 to 4:30 and on some Saturdays. I'm really looking forward to meeting the Honduran people and learning more about their culture.
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