Reconnect Workshop
- At the end of February I went to a meeting of all the youth development volunteers. It was a short 14 hours away (3 different busses). I had to bring a community member with me so it was great trying to convince someone to ride 14 hours on a bus, be in meetings for one day, and then turn around and go home (I stayed the whole week but we only needed counterparts for the first day). The first person I convinced to go with me conveniently hurt her ankle the night before we were supposed to leave. She didn’t call to tell me that she was cancelling but luckily I stopped by her house to make sure she was ready to go in the morning. After she backed out I went to a birthday party at Edna’s house and luckily ran into another teacher that agreed to go with me at the last minute. Reconnect was a lot of fun, except for all of the actual learning and sharing and meeting stuff. There are about 30ish youth development volunteers in Honduras, half got here a year before me and the rest arrived with me. The veterans shared a lot of their experiences and successful projects which was helpful. I also got to see a lot of people I either had never met or hadn’t seen since training. It was great to hang out with everyone.
- Right after reconnect I went with a couple friends to a tiny island called Amapala off the southern coast of Honduras. We were there to participate in a REF meeting (religious equity forum). The first night we got there we swam and hung out enjoying the island. The next morning we were planning on having our discussion sessions but fijase que there was an earthquake in Chile. We were told that there was a possibility that there was a tsunami headed towards us and Peace Corps essentially told us to run up to the top of the volcano in the center of the island. We (some of us begrudgingly) did so and luckily there was never a tsunami so we headed back down a couple hours later. Later a couple of us headed back to Choluteca on the mainland for a going away party. The theme of the party was (beer) Olympics. It was a lot of fun and there were a ton of volunteers there. The winner received an elaborately carved chalice (volunteers tend to have a little too much time on their hands). Then, I headed home to my.....
- I have a new house of my very own, there are pictures up. It is a little ridiculous because I have no furniture but, I like it. I salvaged an old school desk from the backyard and put my stove on it. Unfortunately it has termites (or something) but I am hopeful that it will hold up for another year and a half. The rest of my furniture is made of the finest plastic so I am not concerned about the termites spreading. The greatest thing about the house is that there is a mango tree and a papaya tree in the backyard. Right now it is mango season so I eat about a million and three every day.
- I have settled into a relatively regular schedule now. I am teaching classes at an aldea (outside of town) school Tuesdays and Thursdays. It kind of sucks because I get a ride there but I have to walk home and it takes about an hour. When I finally get back into town everyone I see is thrilled to tell me how red and tired I look and they always yell at me for not bringing an umbrella for shade. I know I should but I always forget and plus, I need a little pigmentation. Mondays and Wednesdays I teach classes in the elementary school in town. Friday I hold little mini counseling sessions with kids in the colegio (high school). It is not so much counseling because (despite the rumors) I am not a psychologist, but it is a chance for the kids to talk about their lives and futures with a quasi authority figure who isn’t going to judge them or try to push them one way or another. So far it is my favorite thing I have done but it is kind of sad sometimes because a lot of these kids are up against a lot.
- The week before Easter is a big deal in Honduras. School is out and everyone goes to visit family/beaches/etc. I had some grand plans for Semana Santa but unfortunately got sick the weekend before so I had to cancel them. I pretty much spent Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday in a coma and then rallied Wednesday night. On Thursday I went to a birthday party with my host family (see pictures). It was fun but by the end of it (I was there for like 5 hours) I was exhausted. The next day my friend Blair came from her site to see a Colo tradition. Every year during Semana Santa a bunch of the boys and men in town dress up as “Jewish people.” For whatever reason, this usually involves tight women’s clothing and really freaky Halloween-esq masks. They parade through the town fighting each other with wooden machetes and being “chased” by statues of Jesus and Mary. There are several different “showtimes” for the parade. During the final “shows” a bishop-y looking guy with a metal machete joins the fight and he starts beating on the “Jewish” people. It is one of the strangest, most politically incorrect things I have ever seen in my life. Needless to say I was laughing my ass of but also, to be completely honest, kind of worried about having nightmares because some of the guys looked pretty freaky. I tried to take pictures but unfortunately I just couldn’t capture the “magic” but they are up as well.
- The day before Easter I went to the beach in El Salvador with my host family (see pictures). It was kind of like a trailer park version of a beach. We parked in a circle behind a beachfront building and hung up hammocks. No one really sat out like you would at an American beach. I kind of looked like a killer whale in my all black outfit and radiating white skin. Lucky for me, the radiating white skin quickly morphed into neon red, so I was less killer whale, more stupid burnt gringa. The car ride home from the beach was quite an adventure. In El Salvador all the roads are paved, which means you can actually go above 20 mph (something my host dad took full advantage of). However, as soon as you cross the border the road turns into a terrible pile of dirt and rocks. This pile is made even more terrible when there are torrential downpours, just like the one right before we arrived back in Honduras. The rain turned the very hilly road into a mudslick. We basically almost had to sleep in the car because we couldn't get up the hills, but, with a lot of jumping and pushing and luck we made it.
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