Obama´s Inauguration

After witnessing the reaction to Obama’s election back in November, I decided along with two other volunteers that we needed to make the trip to Washington D.C. for the January 20th inauguration. We bought our plane tickets together after many frustrations with the slow internet connection, just four days after the election. As we got closer and closer to our departure date I could not believe that I was actually going to be in the US again after almost a year of living in Honduras, and that I was going to be there for the inauguration. Before I left I even had several friends tell me they were going to look for me on TV and to tell Obama that Honduras loves him.

I finally got to the airport in San Pedro Sula after a five hour bus ride and 45 min taxi ride only to discover that the system was down to check in bags. My friend Anna and I nervously checked our bags full of nice, warm winter clothes hoping they would still get there with handwritten baggage tags while Matt carried his bag on with some of our more necessary items just in case. Our boarding passes were handwritten slips of paper as well that would supposedly take us all the way through our layover in Miami to Washington. After not too much waiting we all finally got on the plane at Gate 4 (of 5) of the most used of two airports in Honduras.

The flight to Miami was just a few hours long and we couldn’t get over how much leg room we had. There was no luggage on our laps, no sweaty people standing over us until we hunch lower in our seats, and no people throwing up all around us, where were we? We also got reprimanded by the flight attendant for not recycling out cans after the beverages were passed out, but how were we supposed to remember that planes miles high recycle when there aren’t even any trash cans in any of our towns?

Our layover at the Miami airport was the first time in this trip we realized that we probably needed to work on our social skills before spending too much more time in public in the US. We stared at all the gringos there, were in awe at all the restaurants and food options, and talked loudly about other people forgetting they could understand what we were saying. Classy. We also had huge problems going back through security after customs and then again boarding our plane because no airport personnel knew what to do with our handwritten boarding passes. Each time we had to show them to someone new, we were asked where we were coming from as they called friends over to stare at our strange documents.

Finally arriving in DC, we were welcomed by freezing cold and by Anna’s parents. They dropped Matt and I off at Matt’s cousin’s apartment where we stayed for the next few days and planned to meet up the next day. We ate some amazing food and even went out dancing after dark. I think I saw more people out after sunset than I have the entire time I’ve been in Honduras.

Our first whole day in DC, the day before the inauguration, Matt and I walked around DC with some of his friends from college and meet up with Anna in the afternoon. While we were on our way to meet Anna, we were stopped by a couple who asked us to take their picture. The woman, who was one of the representatives of Kentucky, asked us if we were going to pick up our tickets to the inauguration and when we told her we didn’t have any, she told us to try the representative from Puerto Rico since none of his constituents were able to come. We got really excited with the prospect of possibly getting tickets so went in the building to give it a shot. When we got to the Puerto Rico office we found out that they had given all their tickets away an hour ago but decided to keep trying. We tried many other offices, and after one of the staff members in the office of my representative told us rather rudely that it would be a complete waste of time and wasn’t worth the effort to look, we still kept searching. On the way to a representative from Minnesota we passed by the office of the Northern Marina Islands delegate and decided to give it a try. I went in alone to be less overwhelming and had my Peace Corps Honduras shirt on. I told the people who were in there all about our experience with the election in Honduras and our decision to make the trip up when one of the women went to a back office and came out with three tickets for us. We got their last three!! We were so excited that we made a scene in the office and I think they were really glad they gave us the tickets due to our reaction.

I have never seen so many people in one place as I did on the morning of the inauguration. People were flooding the streets, Capitol Mall, and the subway. After a bit of difficulty navigating through the masses of people we finally made it to the silver gate where we had to enter to watch the inauguration. It was not very well organized and a lot of people with tickets didn’t get in. That being said, it was extremely peaceful and if something like that happened somewhere else there easily could have been an outbreak of violence. We made it in with the last group to enter and got to stand with a good view of the Capitol right at the first jumbotron. The atmosphere was so amazing and people were laughing, crying, hugging, and praying everywhere. Obama’s speech was amazing and I’m so glad I got to be there.

With mixed feelings to be leaving the states, I got on the plane back to Miami and then to San Pedro Sula completely exhausted. Those four days in DC felt like an entire month was crammed into them. I was so overwhelmed with everything so easily available to people, how fast everything and everyone moved, and just life in general. It wore me out so much that I slept 36 of my first 72 hours back in Honduras. I wasn’t quite sure how I would feel getting back to Honduras since I didn’t even get to see my family even though I was in the same country, but as soon as I stepped off the plane in San Pedro, I knew. I was home.

A Not-So-Typical Saturday Afternoon

I went on another run today, probably only the third one since my last blog entry about running, but this one was vastly different. I have now finished the sex ed curriculum with my girls group and have continued meeting with them doing various other activities. On Wednesday after an intense Scrabble game, Jessy invited me to go running with her on Saturday. She had told me before that she went sometimes with her sister and I was excited to go with her. We decided to meet up at 3:30 in the afternoon at her house and would then go meet Leily, another one of the girls in the group, on the way so she could run with us as well.

After finally finding Jessy’s house, I picked her up and we took off walking to the Ocotepeque health center to meet Leily. We only waited there for a little while before deciding to start walking on our way to Antigua since Leily lived further away from town than the health center and meet up with her a few minutes later. Leily had brought along her sister Suri to run with us, who she also brought to the party we had at the end of the Yo Merezco course, and had come in flip flops. We set off, alternating running with walking, at the most beautiful time of the day. By then it was about 4 and the sun was starting to get lower to the mountains in Guatemala. It was also a lot cooler than it had been earlier in the day, which was a really nice change. We ended up running and walking a little past the turnoff to Antigua where I go to the health center, which is probably 2.5 miles out of Ocotepeque. We turned around and ran past a man bringing his horse from the day. With a closer look, I realized that I knew him because he had been to the health center with a machete wound on his arm. After saying hello we kept on past the pastures and creeks until we got to El Soldado. El Soldado, the soldier, is a monument up on a hill to the Honduran Armed Forces that fought in the Hundred Days war against El Salvador in 1969. Other places in the country seem to think it was more of a skirmish than an actual war, but either way, Ocotepeque was actually captured by El Salvador. At that time there were a lot of El Salvador immigrants in Honduras supposedly taking jobs from Hondurans and because of this attitude there was also a lot of mistreatment of these El Salvadorian immigrants. Combined with a border dispute (that perhaps is still going on since the map I have of Ocotepeque is missing the border in some places), all that was needed to put the two countries over the edge was a soccer game. After the game between Honduras and El Salvador violence broke out and led to this Hundred Days War, also known as the Soccer War.

Going back to the run from my historical distraction, there is a field by the monument where people often exercise. We went up there, ran some stairs, did some abs, and sat for a while to take in the view. The sun was starting to set and we could see the houses of several villages up in the mountains. It was beautiful. We finally got moving again because a bolo (a drunk man) starting hanging around us with a huge wooden pole. After we got off the field and were approaching the road again, Jessy looked back and saw the bolo running at us with the huge pole. She took off screaming and laughing at the same time, as did Leily and Suri, so I went with them and when we looked back again he was heading the other direction, towards El Salvador. Bolos, because of their being so drunk and most of the time incoherent, are actually pretty harmless but it was pretty humorous to see him stumbling after us. After we finally stopped laughing we looked back again and saw that he had stopped and was trying to do some kind of martial arts movements with the pole against the cars and trucks going by on the highway. I don’t think it was bound to turn out very well so we got moving on our way back to Ocotepeque.

After an uneventful walk the rest of the way, we dropped Leily and Suri off at their turnoff to go home and decided to meet again on Tuesday. Jessy and I then walked back to her house where I had a few glasses of water before heading home. We probably went about five miles and although most of it was walking, I think that was one of the best and most satisfying runs that I’ve ever had in my life.

Christmas in Ocotepeque

After saying goodbye to my parents on Dec 22, I traveled all the way back down to Ocotepeque to start getting ready for Christmas.  My sitemate and I had decided a long time ago that we wanted to host Christmas for our Peace Corps friends in Oco and each were able to convince a few members of our respective training groups that it would be worth it to make the trip all the way to our town in the furthest reaches of Honduras.  I had just a short time to mourn the departure of my parents, whom I will at least get to see again in June, before the cleaning, baking, and planning started for the Christmas in Oco extravaganza.  Three other volunteers in my health group made the trip and stayed with me.

On Christmas Eve, when the last few of the other PCVs got here, we went to the market to get the last few items we needed to cook.  After bringing them back to the apartment we packed all our stuff up for a delicious Christmas Eve dinner, and headed across town to my sitemate's house.  She lives on the way to our final destination for the evening, a radio tower on a hill above town.  We stopped by to say hello to everyone staying there, then continued on our way to meet them at the tower.  From my sitemate's house it's only through a few pastures, across two creeks, and up the rock studded hill avoiding the cows for a 20 min walk to arrive.  We plopped down on some rocks setting down a blanket upon which we could lay out all our food.  We had compiled many different kinds of cheeses (Honduran and not quite the same quality of those at home), meats, treats, and other appetizer dishes to share for the evening.  We had the entire evening to eat, chat, and look at the beautiful view of the city down below us.  As it got darker we could even see the fireworks that, little did we know then, would just increase in size, danger, loudness, and intensity throughout the night.  After staying up there for a few hours we headed back down the hill, headlamps on, back to my apartment.  

Although we stayed up quite a while longer talking and sharing Christmas and family stories with one another, we hadn't intended on staying up late.  Ocotepeque, apparently, had no regards for our plans because the fireworks and firecrackers just kept getting louder and louder.  The kids on my street were throwing firecrackers all over just outside my bedroom window and the youngest one was probably three.  As it approaches midnight, just getting louder and louder, we all get out of bed and decide to head up to the roof to watch.  I already live on the second story, a high rise for my town, so you get quite the view from the roof.  When we got up there, it looked and sounded like my town was under attack.  There were firecrackers going off everywhere and fireworks exploding VERY low to the ground.  The loudest firecrackers were blowing up part of the street around the corner from me in front of the police station.  You may be asking how anyone can be blowing up the street in front of the police station, but the culprits won't get in trouble since it was the police themselves, in uniform and all.  There were some fireball looking fireworks flying through the air looking like they were coming right at us, but overall we made it through the night unscathed, not taking eardrums into account.

Christmas Day was wonderful.  It was extraordinarily quiet in the morning, an aftermath of the firecrackers I believe, so we all slept in and relaxed most of the day.  We watched a Christmas movie, ate Christmas cookies and peppermint goodies, and cooked for dinner.  We had our Christmas dinner up on my roof and I invited my neighbor who is in her practicum to be a doctor and was just getting back after working since 7am Christmas Eve, so she came as well.  It was great to have a more tranquila night after the night before and it was a wonderful Christmas away from home and family.

I hope everyone had the happiest of holidays and has a wonderful new year!

Pictures!!!

So we finally have a few more pictures up of some of the work I´ve been doing in my site! The first four are with my Yo Merezco group that I run at the library in town. The first picture is of the girls putting the steps to conduct a breast self-exam in order, in the second they are listening to some HIV information on a day where several of them were watching younger siblings and had to bring them to the meeting, the third is of Jessy participating in an HIV transmission activity, and the fourth is Gabby participating in the same activity. Below those four are two pictures of some of the work I´ve been doing at the El Salvador border with my counterpart, the doctor from the health center. The first is of the two of us talking to two bus service workers about HIV and the second is of us talking to two truckers about HIV as well. There will hopefully be more to come sometime soon!!

Six Month Reflection

I´ve been in site now for over six months and decided that it was time for some reflection upon my work as well as an update of what all I´ve been up to. I can´t believe I´ve been here this long already and realizing that I´m over a quarter through my service has made me reflect somewhat on what I´ve done so far in site and what I hope to accomplish while I´m here.

My favorite project here so far is my Yo Merezco group. I absolutely love working with these girls and I even love preparing for the meetings. Now that school is out participation is definitely dwindling, which is somewhat discouraging. When school was in I would just go and remind the girls the morning of a meeting and more would show up. I even ran into one mother last week who told me that her husband found out their daughter was coming and doesn´t want her leaving the house. She was one of the girls who came all the time in the beginning and now doesn´t come at all. Another one of the girls who used to come to every meeting also isn´t allowed to come now that school is out. On the other hand, however, there are two girls who started coming late and now come to every meeting. One of them comes each week, and last week twice, all the way from a small village that is 45 minutes outside of Ocotepeque and her older sister has to go with her since it´s far for a 13 year old to be traveling by herself. Although it´s frustrating for me, I suppose that what they´re getting out of the group is worth it and it´s better than not coming to any meetings at all.

I´m still working on improving the monthly meetings at the health center with the pregnant women and adolescents. It´s difficult, just like any type of behavior change, to get the nurses to change the ways they prepare for the meetings. They still look to me to organize it sometimes but I think are at least getting used to the idea that I´m not going to do all the work. Maybe that means that within a year and a half I can get them to be more prepared and enthusiastic going into the meetings. We´ll see.

The manual that I´m working on for the Women´s Health team with three other PCVs is coming along and we´ll have a rough draft completed in January. I´m looking forward to starting the women´s group because through this project I´ve discovered that just writing programs without being part of the implementation is not as interesting to me. I want to start the women´s group in Antigua with the doctor at the health center because the women there don´t have as many opportunities or access to education as the women do in Ocotepeque. In January my friend Anna and I will be locking ourselves up in my apartment for several days to do all the editing before we submit it to the Peace Corps staff to get reviewed before printing. Then we´ll hopefully be on our way…

Personally, I guess I don´t really remember what I expected, but it probably wasn´t how things have turned out. I´m realizing how hard it is to make change actually happen and am trying to keep positive and to stick with the idea that small change is better than a large and drastic change, but it´s frustrating to see how long it actually takes. There are so many problems here and so many things that could be improved that it can be overwhelming to even think where to start. I´m also trying to come up with some good work activities to do in my communities, which will keep me focused because I think the rest of my time here is going to go by really quickly. Despite the frustrations, I´m really happy here, and there´s no where else I would rather be at this time in my life. I still love hearing from people at home so please send me updates when you get a chance. You can send me a letter at the address on the left or an email to sarahcwest@gmail.com.