I Finally Have Water!

Well, I should clarify and say that I can finally control some of the water access in my apartment. For the last two months I’ve had water in my apartment every two days for just a half a day and rather than being able to just turn on the tap when I wanted water, none of the taps worked so one of them I had shut off and the other, the one in the bathroom, just shot out water every time the water came on. For the entire time. The kitchen also flooded every other day from a combination of the broken sink and all the rain and since my shower doesn’t work I’m still bathing out of a bucket. I know the flooding is a huge waste of water and kept trying to get the landlord to fix it, but things move at their own pace here and it was just finally fixed yesterday. The landlord came in, new faucet in hand, with the announcement that he was going to replace the faucet in the bathroom so it would actually work. After playing around with it for a while he announced that it didn’t fit and was going to keep trying, but the next time I turned around, he was gone and there was a huge gaping hole in my sink. No faucet. I began to worry about how much my bathroom would flood now that there wasn’t even a faucet to control the flow when finally, a few hours later, he came back with a shiny new faucet that is now in my sink and works like a charm. So far, with only day with water behind me, everything works. The water that comes out is brown with chunks of dirt and other debris and since that’s what I’m bathing with it may have been an extremely long time since I’ve actually been clean, but at least I can sometimes get water out of my sink by request, so I can’t complain. By the way, just so you can get a good mental image of my beautiful bathroom, it’s hot pink. That was somehow a result of Heather and Marisa visiting although I’m not quite sure how it happened. I get asked about “La Disco” by some of my friends when I see them on the street and they wonder why there is no disco ball in my baño.

Along with my apartment, my work is finally coming along as well. I’ve started the girls group here in Ocotepeque and meet with 10 seventh graders once a week. So far I really like working with them and they’re all really good kids. I’m looking forward to getting to know them a lot better and to be able to serve as a role model or older sister to them (although at only 23 I’m only a year or two younger than some of their mothers). Kids here, but girls especially, have so few opportunities I just can’t imagine what they would think if they saw all the opportunities for extracurricular activities I had growing up. Even though this course only lasts through mid-December, I’m hoping to continue meeting with them once a month throughout my service and to be a resource for them anytime they want to talk.

As per someone’s request for more photos and less text and with some stateside help, some pictures will be coming soon. Much sooner than when promised the last time.

Yo Merezco, Women´s Health, and Visitors

I write this overdue entry sitting in my apartment soaking wet after walking/running home on the dirt and cobblestone streets in the pouring rain after this afternoon finally taking my first real, non-bucket shower with water that wasn’t brown in several days. I’ve eaten countless numbers of baleadas (flour tortillas filled with beans) in the past week alone, my kitchen floor flooded yesterday and my bathroom flooded today for unknown reasons (even though I’m on the second floor), yet I couldn’t be happier. I moved into my own apartment a little over a week ago and I’m finally going to be starting some of my own projects.

I’m working right now on getting a group of 12 year olds together that will be comprised of just 10-15 girls. We will hopefully start meeting in September and will be discussing abstinence, self-esteem, HIV and other STIs, good decision-making, communication, anatomy, puberty, and pregnancy in adolescents. The focus of the group is on HIV/AIDS prevention through abstinence and I’m really excited about it. I never thought I would be working on abstinence education here because I think the general feeling, at home at least, is that it is not effective but this program is completely different. I think that few people would argue that 12 years old is an appropriate age to be sexually active, especially after seeing how many 12 year olds and other adolescents here are getting pregnant, and this program gives these girls the tools they will need to make their own decisions and hopefully delay the initiation of sexual activity. So many girls and women here have low self-esteem and if a boy or a man says they will give their love in return for sex (although not so directly), they will usually give in. This program, called Yo Merezco, or I deserve, focuses on allowing the girls to see their self-worth and understand the risks of getting an STI or becoming pregnant at such a young age. It will also empower them just by giving them an activity to do outside of the home and classroom.

The other big project I’m involved with right now is the Women’s Health initiative. I’m on a team with three other PCVs and right now we’re working on writing a training manual as well as planning a workshop for midwives on obstetric emergencies, focusing on hemorrhage. The workshop is coming up in a little over a week and people will be coming from all over the country to attend. Each PCV will be bringing a counterpart from a health center and a midwife. I’m looking forward to the workshop and since I’m a newer member to the team I will only be facilitating a small part but I’m still excited to be on the other side and to learn more about putting on a workshop on the scale.

The Women’s Health initiative is fairly young, so we have a lot of work ahead of us. There are many initiatives within Peace Corps that have developed manuals with training programs to be used both by Hondurans and other volunteers, and we’re going to be developing a guide to be used with any women’s group. The guide will be used to facilitate a women’s group for roughly 15 weeks with a weekly meeting and will be about general health including fun activities for them to be doing outside of the home. Each of us are writing chapters since we’re working on just the first draft of the manual and I’ll be writing the sections for mental health and self-esteem which includes knowing your self-worth and values, how to hold on to these when confronted with pressure or stress and how to deal with stress, as well as domestic violence and alcohol or drug abuse by either the woman or her husband. In addition to these chapters we will also be covering gender, reproductive health, HIV and STIs, and communication. This is going to be a long process to get the manual written and to finally get a group started in our communities but I am definitely looking forward to working on a project that I know will be here after I have completed my service.

The other excitement here in Ocotepeque is that my first visitors are coming on Friday! Heather and Marisa are coming and I can’t believe that people from home are actually going to be seeing what my life is like as a Peace Corps volunteer. I think it will be really interesting for them to see where I live, meet my friends here, and see what kind of work I’m doing. I’m hoping one or both of them will write a blog entry after the visit to give the perspective of a newcomer into my life and since I haven’t even asked either of them yet I will admit this is a shameless attempt to get them to write.

I also love to hear what everyone is doing at home and appreciate the comments, emails, and letters I get. Please keep them coming!

What a Psychology Degree Means in Honduras

Since I arrived in Ocotepeque people have wanted to know what I studied and after telling them I studied psychology, have proceeded to become quite excited about meeting a psychologist. Now you may be wondering how you missed me going to grad school and getting a master’s or a doctorate, but to this there is a simple answer: you didn’t. In no city or town at home would I be considered qualified to counsel or work in any psychology-related profession but no matter how many times I explain this to people here they continue to ask me to help with whatever problem they or someone they know may have.

It started the first week in site with each of the people I work with coming to me with some personal problem and has now progressed to the outlying communities. I was taken aback when my coworkers started coming to me because we had just met yet they were opening up and sharing some of their deepest insecurities with me. Another health worker is convinced that I am continually analyzing him and the rest of the staff and always wants to know what I have decided about each of them*. Needless to say, I think it enabled us to have much more ‘confianza’ from the start, which has made for great relationships both in and outside of the health center.

The rumor that a psychologist has come to the health center in Antigua Ocotepeque has also now arrived in the aldeas. Several weeks ago when I was visiting a friend another member in her community asked if I would come back to see her mother who has been depressed lately, which I now find myself doing this Saturday. In another aldea over the weekend, as soon as people realized that I was the other Peace Corps Volunteer in town, they knew that I was the gringita Sarita, the psychologist at the health center and immediately a woman asked me if she could bring her daughter into the clinic to see me.

Although not prepared for this part of the job description, I am doing what I can. Real psychologists are uncommon and extremely expensive, so aside from me these people have no hope of ever getting help with their mental health. I figure once I talk to people I will have a better idea of what can be done to improve their situations at home to alleviate whatever problems they may be having. As a result of talking to a fourteen year old girl this week I am going to be heading up to her aldea hopefully sometime soon to give a charla on reproductive health, adolescence, and self-esteem. The woman who I am going to see this Saturday just seems really lonely so I’m hoping that it will help her to just have someone to talk to. Hopefully this psychologist title won’t get out of hand and in the meantime I’m just enjoying meeting and talking to new people to try and help them be happier in their everyday lives.

*I think an extra note would be quite appropriate here. As I am learning to pick my battles, I decided to just let these comments go rather than explain to him that it is human tendency to make snap judgments of people and situations right away, not just something done by ‘psychologists.’ If we did not make quick judgments daily we would continually be hampered by decision-making. This is the same mechanism we use to assess the safety of a situation. Rather than consciously thinking about each aspect of a scene to decide whether it is safe or not, which would take way too long if we needed to get out quickly, we make a snap judgment which usually comes across as an uncomfortable feeling that tells us to leave. This judgment is made from cues we pick up, consciously or unconsciously, the moment we enter into a new situation. Sidetrack aside, judging is something everyone does, even though there are many who like to say they do not, and is necessary to make it through life.

Ando sin Pisto

Wow how things have changed since I´ve come to Honduras. At home I never had a lot of cash on me, but the amount I used to carry around would be a fortune here. I also knew that I always had access to an ATM as well and could take out money anytime I needed. Here I am fortunate enough to have a bank in my site (as several volunteers do not) and I even discovered the other day that there is a person in one of the hardware shops in town who you can go to if you want to take out money as well. Last Friday I realized I should have gone to the bank because I only had 50 lempiras to get me through the weekend, which is roughly equivalent to $2.50, but as it isn´t open on the weekends I needed to wait until this week. By the time I got to the bank yesterday, with a grand total of 2 lempiras (ten cents), the system was down and no one could take out any money. I had gone to the bank with my sitemate who had slightly more money than I did, 40 lempiras, so not being able to take out any money we went to the agent in the hardware store. We didn´t have any more luck there as I couldn´t remember my pin number (because I have never used an ATM) and when my sitemate swiped her card it said it wasn´t a valid account. So now we are stuck with barely over two dollars between us until the system is fixed at the bank but at least people here understand the situation and will let me pay them back. Before coming here I never would have imagined myself walking around with so little money so we´ll see how long it lasts me...

Icy Hot and Expired Zythromax

At the health center in Antigua Ocotepeque we get shipments of medicine only four times every year. If we run out of anything before then, well, the people who have walked all the way to see the doctor are just out of luck. That’s how it was when I first got here but we just got a shipment of medicine a couple weeks ago. Before getting the shipment the doctor and nurses go through the pharmacy to see what they need and how much of it to request. They always have to request more than they actually need because they never get as much as they request. When the shipment came in we didn’t get a lot of the medicine we had requested and we also got a lot of medicine we hadn’t requested and didn’t need. In addition to the medicine on the list, our health center also received various donations from the US and while this seems like a great idea, it probably didn’t work out as well as was hoped. One of the extra items we got was Zythromax. It is a great antibiotic and we received cases and cases of it. Once we opened the boxes, however, we discovered that it expired in just one week. All of it. During that week we took it up to the aldeas to people who were sick and the doctor prescribed it to anyone who needed it and came into the clinic, but we barely made a dent in all that we had. It’s really unfortunate that it expired so quickly because it’s a drug we would never otherwise have access to.

We also got several boxes of Icy Hot patches. While they also have the potential to be helpful, the patches we received have no way of being attached to the skin because they are meant to be placed in leg, arm, or back braces so they can be applied to the area in pain at the same time that the area is being supported by the brace. Not only do we not have access to any braces, but the instructions to use and apply the patch are in English. I was able to explain how to use it, but health centers where no one speaks English may not be explaining correctly. You have to make sure you put a certain side against the skin and unless you read English, you would have no way of knowing.
We have a lot of people coming into the health center right now because word has gotten around that we got in a new shipment of medicine, but we’ll see how long it lasts and how health care continues in the next couple of months until we get the next one.

Border Work and the Rainy Season

I’ve been in site for a month now and am starting to really get to know Ocotepeque. I’m meeting more people as well and rarely leave the house without running into someone I know. The rainy season has started and, aside from making laundry difficult, so far I love the rain. It has taken away the heat and has also made the mountains and entire valley very green, but it doesn’t seem like June because it’s warm and rainy while I’m sure it’s blazing hot at home.

About a week ago I went to visit my friend from the health center in her aldea, which is a small town of about 250 people 20 minutes outside of the town where I work. I met several of her aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as her grandparents and had a great time. On my way home I had to cross a bridge that went over a small gorge and a river. I have no idea how old it was, but it was made of pieces of wood tied together (not very securely) with wire and there were several holes and gaps in the bridge. There was a wire handrail that was also extremely wobbly and did not help much to balance as I was crossing. After already having crossed it once, and not much braver for it, as we were getting ready to cross to head back to the highway it started pouring! When it rains here you have hardly any warning until the sky just opens up and lets loose. So not only did I have to cross the bridge again, but I had to cross when it was slippery and as I was getting drenched. Cynthia was walking me back and we were laughing the entire way trying not to slip between the pieces of wood. Going home in the rain, across the bridge, just completed my afternoon.

My work has been really interesting so far. I go into the health center every morning so I can become more familiar with the doctor, nurses, and the people from the surrounding communities. I haven’t started any of my own projects yet because I’m waiting until I understand the needs of the community better, so I have just been participating in the activities the health center already has planned. I have gone a couple times to El Poy, which is where customs is to pass between El Salvador and Honduras, to talk about HIV to the people passing through. There are a lot of trucks that pass though on the way to San Salvador or San Pedro Sula and these drivers are a high-risk population for HIV since they spend so much time away from home. Each time we went we were able to talk to a lot of men about HIV and the methods of transmission. Many of them are really interested in learning more because it’s spoken about so much but there are a lot of people who don’t know the difference between HIV and AIDS or that it can be passed from mother to child during pregnancy, birth, or breastfeeding. We are also trying to encourage people to get tested and other times the health center has gone they have taken rapid tests and tested people while they were waiting for their papers, but right now we are short on tests and need to save them for pregnant women. It is extremely important that pregnant women get tested because they can take anti-retroviral drugs to prevent transmission of the virus to their child during pregnancy. They can also have a C-section and learn about alternatives to breast-feeding in order to have a healthy child. While we were at El Poy we distributed condoms, showed people how to use them correctly, and educated them about the nature and transmission of HIV. It was a little intimidating at first, just walking up to groups of men and asking them what they know about HIV, but I really enjoyed the activity. I even got to board a couple tourist buses that were passing through to talk to all the passengers about HIV. These activities have been really fun and have given me more of an idea of the health situation in my site and the surrounding areas. I’m starting to think of some projects I can do during my two years here and it’s exciting to actually be able to begin to implement them soon.

I have been having trouble uploading pictures here, but hopefully some will be coming soon!