Running in Honduras

As my alarm clock rudely cuts into the middle of my dream, I force my eyes open, notice that it’s still dark, and wonder why my alarm has gone off. Oh yeah, I was planning on running today. I wrestle myself out of bed to look out the window and see the faint hope of daylight through the clouds low to the valley. My running clothes on, I’m finally ready to head out the door. It’s 5:25. I head out the dirt streets avoiding the rocks and make it to the main road. The international highway. Whenever I run, I run on the side of the road going to the El Salvador border and leave my apartment early enough to avoid the human and vehicular traffic leaving or entering Honduras. I head out of town and see two women walking on the other side of the road. A surprising number of people, considering all the times before leaving that I was warned people didn’t exercise here, usually walk or run between 5:00 and 6:30 going south on the only road that heads out of town. There aren’t quite as many people out today I notice, probably because of the rain last night and the overcast weather this morning. I cross the bridge that goes over the tiny creek and see a big herd of cows taking over the road and the grass on the right. I cross the street to run around them knowing that their bodies are not made for running but for some reason still having the irrational fear that one will try to make a break for it and charge me. As I run past, the man herding the cows with nothing more than a stick shouts, “¡Buenos días,” and I wave in return. I look to the mountains on the east side of the valley to see the wisps of clouds weaving through the rocky crevasses and am reminded just how much I love it here. I pass a group of men in their black rain boots carrying machetes, ready to start their day of work in the campo. Harmless, but I pick up the pace. I finally get to the curve in the road where I have decided to turn around today since I am just starting to run again and can see the lights of El Salvador in the distance. I will get there another day. I ran a few times during FBT but upon coming to site I wanted to get the feel for my community before starting to run because in many places it is inappropriate and possibly dangerous for a woman to run by herself. I turn around to start home and can see the whole town of Ocotepeque on the valley floor. I try to find my apartment, one of my very lofty goals on my runs, but have no luck. One of these days I’m going to have to stop and really look for it instead of just glancing for it every now and then. I run past a horse grazing on the side of the road that I didn’t notice on my way out as a truck passes by, coming from the border, which officially opens at six to let trucks through. I approach the herd of cows and the man, with a huge grin on his face, this time says, “¡Adios!” “Adios,” I reply. As it gets to be lighter the clouds settle a little lower in the valley and it begins to sprinkle, a result of the tropical storm somewhere in the Caribbean. I’m almost home. I think about everything I have to do today and the bucket bath I will take before starting. Hopefully the power will still be on so I can heat up the water. I enter town, turn down one of the first side streets to zigzag my way back to my apartment and think to myself, “What will I have for breakfast? Beans and tortillas?” After a run just like any other, I realize how much my standards for normal have changed.

Finally!

So with some help from my mom at home, I finally have some pictures up! The first picture below is of my apartment and the second is a view out one of the windows in my bedroom. My apartment is on the second floor so I have great views of the mountains out of both of the windows and an even better view from the roof (where I sometimes like to eat dinner). The third picture was taken when Heather and Marisa came to visit and is of Heather and I on top of the bell tower of the church in Antigua Ocotepeque, where I work. The last picture in that set of four is of Cinthia and I at the health center. Cinthia is one of the nurses who works there and I really like to spend time with her. She lives in a small village of Antigua so I don´t get to see her as much as I would like, but she´s a really driven, awesome girl. The two pictures below are of Heather and I then of Marisa and I when they came to visit. It was awesome having them here to show them around and I can´t wait until my parents come in just two months!

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.