Day 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63
Day 33 – Saturday December 01, 2001
I got up at 5:30 AM this morning to meet with my neighbor Don Lito who was gracious enough to invite me along for the morning ritual of “Ordeñando los vacas” or milking the cows. I sat out in front of his house, after I arrived at 6AM, for about 20 minutes before he appeared from his house with two buckets and long strand of rope. While I was waiting there was a gentleman in the street who took a seat next to me and started a conversation. We spoke briefly about what a nice guy Don Lito was and how he knew the volunteer who served in the site before we arrived, the famous “Mateo”.
Don Lito and I walked for about 5 minutes up the road from the corner we both live on, to his pasture behind the kindergarten. There penned in with wooden posts and lots of barbed wire were two huge cows. Honduran cows are all huge, about 1 ½ times the size of a Minnesota cow. If you remember the old commercial for Schlitz Malt Liquor with the big huge bull or the bulls they fight in the bull fighting ring. This is the kind of cow it was. They all have horns with the only distinction being that the males have huge horns and the females have smaller horns. There were also two calves penned up in a separate area. Don Lito let the first calf out, it found its mother and started taking in some morning milk. Don Lito directed the calf’s mouth with much skill to each of the mother’s teats and then yanked the calf’s head away and tied it securely to the front leg of the mother. This was to keep the calf from drinking all of the milk and keep it from getting in the way. Don Lito cleaned off the cow’s utter with some water and a washcloth, and then proceeded to milk, by hand, with no stool or anything else to sit on. I gave it try and found that it was much harder work to do than it looked. Don Lito had the technique down perfect and shot milk into the bucket like a machine. My technique needed some practice and became sporadic as the milk was depleted from the cow. After finishing with the first cow we untied the calf and set a 2 gallon bucket of milk on the nearby stone fence. We repeated the earlier steps, letting out the other calf, strapping him to the leg, and all that. The second cow was a little different and harder to milk. As we were milking her Don Lito jumps up and starts screaming at the other cow. Who has climbed up on top of a stone troth used years ago for feeding many more cows, and had managed to tip over the entire bucket of milk. Don Lito in true Honduran farmer fashion picked up a stick and started beating the back end of the cow and chasing it around the small field. He yelled some obscenities in Spanish and told the cow that it was receiving punishment for tipping over the milk. The cow more scared than hurt just kept running away, not quite sure what to do. Don Lito returned to milking and finished filling a much smaller bucket from the smaller cow. He then looked at the 2 gallons that had been spilled on the ground and went back to chasing the cow with a small stick, whacking it in the hind end when ever he was with in striking distance. I think he realized how silly he looked because he gave me a big grin when he came back and we both kind of laughed about the whole thing. He was thrilled to have been the person to have taught me how to milk a cow. I told him I would come with him another day and bring Jennifer with me. He told me when I go home that I will have to convince Jennifer that we should buy a cow, so I would have one to milk too.
One of the things I truly enjoy about this country is the people’s willingness to share their lives, traditions, and customs with us. We are never short of new things to experience here. Even as I write Jennifer is off with a group of women celebrating “Porisima” which is the first 8 days of December before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. They pray, sing, and go to a different house each night for the activities. At the house the host gives each one of the people in attendance a little care package. We have received 2 “Pílas” (a bucket that looks like a dog dish that is very useful here) not to be confused with a pila, which is the cement water container (not the accented í), oranges, a plastic coffee cup, and few other little goodies.
We spent about 9 hours working on tapes we have been making for Christmas presents.
Day 34 – Sunday December 02, 2001
We had a visitor today. Our neighbor Bryan showed up on his bicycle to say hi and check out our fine city. Bryan lives in Triunfo which is 2 hours away by bus. I asked him how long it took him to get to our site and told me it took him about 2 ½ hours, but that he got lost along the way and had to turn around at one point and peddle back for half hour to a fork in the road he took after some helpful Honduras gave him bad directions. This wouldn’t be a huge deal, but it take the bus 2 hours to get from our site to Triunfo, further bolstering my theory that a bicycle would be faster than the bus down the mountain. Bryan was exhausted and worn out from his ride. He missed the last bus out and didn’t have enough time or energy to ride home, so he stayed the night with us. Him and I watched the movie “The Postman” on the laptop while Jennifer went to he “Porisima” celebration. We went out for “Pollo Frito” or fried chicken and worked on the final stages of the website overhaul we wanted to upload once we got to Tegucigalpa the next day.
Jennifer busied herself packing, Bryan got into a book he brought and I converted photos and built new web pages. Jennifer’s addition of nearly 150 photos to the site made for some rigorous linking. I’m looking forward to upgrading Microsoft Front Page to take advantage of some of the new features.
Bryan enjoyed sleeping on our floor on our “extra” mattress. I retired to our room to work for another 2 hours on the website before going to bed at 2AM.
Day 35 – Monday December 03, 2001
I woke up at 5 AM and had a surprising amount of energy for only having 3 hours of sleep. I fixed a full breakfast for Bryan, Jennifer and myself; packed up the laptop, and finished eating just in time to hear a young man calling my name to tell me my ride was ready to leave. Matt, the “Super Volunteer” who was in Concepción de Maria before us was in town and was heading back to the capitol. Matt had just purchased a newer Toyota Land Cruiser and the trip to the capitol, usually about 7 hours by bus, was reduced to a 3 hour car ride in a very nice vehicle. So nice in fact that I was able to complete the wedding album photo page in the car as we drove to the capitol.
Matt was also kind enough to let us stay at his beautiful house in Tegucigalpa, the capitol, where we enjoyed the company of him, 2 other former volunteer who were now working in the capitol with Peace Corps in a different capacity, and another volunteer who had stopped into visit. We had home made pizza and were fortunate enough to tap into Matt’s 128K cable modem that after the internet use died down, gave us super fast access to the internet. We dropped our stuff off at Matt’s house and headed to the Peace Corps Office.
We left from there and went to the center of town to do some business at the post office, and have some lunch. The post office went very smoothly and lunch was a great experience at the newly remodeled McDonalds where Jennifer ordered her usual of a #6 with a coke and a Sunday with chocolate and caramel. The routine at McDonalds (from the last 3 time we have been there) goes like this… We walk in Jen tells me what she wants and goes to the bathroom. No problem right…wrong. McDonalds here only will give you a Sunday with chocolate or with caramel. Every time I go I have to beg, and I mean beg, for both chocolate and caramel on the Sunday. I get it every time, but it is a lot of work. I usually get some huge sandwich, but on this day I went with the economy meal like Jennifer and ordered the #6 which is a small burger with lettuce, tomato, and pickle, small fries and a coke.
We went back to the Peace Corps office to find the mail guy, who scolded us for looking for him earlier as his hours for handling mail were clearly posted on his door (M-F 8AM to 9AM and 3PM to 4PM). We were delighted to find that we had 10 packages waiting for us from our family and friends. Our dilemma now was how to get them home. We had pack and left enough room for a couple of packages and our groceries, now we had a mountain of packages. After some creative packing and absconding with a box that was in one of the Peace Corps offices we managed to fit everything in two boxes that would travel well enough to make it home with some effort.
Matt also took us to Price Mart and helped us tote all our groceries back to the house in the back of his Land Cruiser. The only drawback of staying at Matt’s was that his guest bed was a single bed, which Jennifer and I squeezed ourselves into together. We have become accustom to sleeping in tight quarters, so it wasn’t too bad. It worked out better in the long run as the temperature dropped into what I think was probably the mid 50’s during the night and we got really cold having only a sheet to cover up with and each other to keep us warm.
I went to bed at 2AM after working on the website, downloading updates, and downloading news items to read later in my site. None of which function very well as the internet connection was painfully slow. In the process I managed to download the headers from Jennifer’s Hotmail account which showed she had a dozen or so new messages, however I was not able to download the full messages due to a problem with the internet connection or the Hotmail server. At about 1:30 AM the server finally sped up to reveal that all of Jennifer’s messages had been deleted. A huge set back in the world of email. Checking messages on my account I found a warning message I had been deleting on Jennifer’s account warning that if we didn’t delete some messages soon Hotmail would reduce the size of our account for us, which it did…mercilessly. We sent out a message to everyone that we would be using the globalsilveras@yahoo.com address from now on, and went to bed. Jennifer, who relies on email as a sort of emotional tie to what we left in the U.S., was crushed to find that mail she had waiting to read all week long was now lost to the evil Microsoft’s inbox reduction monster that ate her email. The yahoo account now gives us twice the storage space and so far, no junk mail. We received about 200 pieces of junk mail a week on hotmail, most of which was filtered out before it reached our inboxes, but about 10% actually made it trough cluttering up our inboxes and frustrating us with nasty messages about “free porn”.
Day 36 – Tuesday December 04, 2001
I woke up at around 5:30 AM and got out of bed to go try out the internet connection figuring not too many people would be online at 5:30 in the morning. My theory was correct and I had unbelievable speed accessing tons of information in a matter of a few seconds. I downloaded the newest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, updated my virus definitions, and finished uploading the last images and pages for our website.
We went and bought beagles for ourselves and other people in the house, finding blueberry which made Matt pretty happy as they bagel shop hasn’t had much variety the last few time he has been there. We went to the Peace Corps office to retrieve our packages out of a locker, and headed back to Matt’s house.
We headed out to the Mall Multi Plaza to check out the movies and ended up seeing a Disney movie call “The Princess Diary” which as it turns out was dubbed over in Spanish with no subtitles. We were even more surprised to find that understood everything being said and had no problems following the movie. We then went to an internet café for an hour and email some, and then went back to see another movie called “Crazy Beautiful”.
We returned to Matt’s house, went out to dinner with him at a really nice Mexican restaurant, returned to Matt’s house and enjoyed more free cable internet access, talking to our friends in North Carolina on Yahoo’s voice capable chat, saving ourselves about $60.00 in phone bills.
Day 37 – Wednesday, December 05, 2001
We left at 10AM from Tegucigalpa on the “Lujo” or luxury bus from the capitol to Choluteca. The distinctions in Luxury being that they serve a small snack, have movies, and don’t stop along the way. It also only takes 2 ½ hours to get there compared to the 4 hours that the “Chicken bus” would take. After arriving in Choluteca we met up with another volunteer whose package we picked up at the Peace Corps Office, went shopping at the grocery store for our meats and cheeses, and then headed back up the mountain. We arrived in our site at about 5:30, had some dinner, and opened our packages like it was Christmas.
Day 38 – Thursday, December 06, 2001
We spent the day relaxing and recuperating from our trip the day before. 7 hours on a bus takes a lot out of a person. Jennifer wasn’t feeling very good and slept until noon. I went to the high school to meet with the photography club, but I couldn’t find any of the members, so I left.
Jennifer and I attended the graduation Celebration at the Catholic Church, then went to a neighbors house to rest for an hour before going to the actual graduation ceremony for the 20 high school kids that were graduation this year. One of this countries main set backs is in the area of education with only 20% of the population graduating from high school and an even smaller percentage graduating from college. So where there were 20 kids graduating, another 80 dropped out, started working early, got pregnant and started a family, or had parents who didn’t make them go to school. The ceremony was nice and we got to sit at the table for “VIPS”, received refreshments in the middle of the ceremony, and got a free dinner.
Day 39 – Friday, December 07, 2001
I got up early this morning, at about 5:45 am, and did the laundry. Jennifer slept in and caught up on her rest. We spent most of the day working on Update Letter #11 which turned out really nice. I also worked on some updates for the web. Jennifer was up until 2 am putting the final touches on it. We make a fine pair, “pick and picker”. I went to bed early knowing I would be the one sent in the morning to send it.
Day 40 – Saturday, December 08, 2001
I went to the high school and sent update letter #11. Everything went surprisingly smooth. We had beans and rice for lunch/dinner and packed for our trip the next day to Choluteca and then El Tigre.
Day 41 – Sunday, December 09, 2001
I tried to do email again this morning, but had some difficulty logging on, we rushed from the school to catch the bus and start our long journey to El Tigre where my sector, Municipal Development, is having its conference. We met another volunteer in Choluteca, walked around, and finally went to an internet café to do some emailing and check our messages. Which was very nice as it had one of the faster connections I’ve seen here.
We walked around in 90 degree heat for about 2 hours looking for somewhere to spend the night. Due to the phones being out in our site the week before and not being able to use email on Sunday we never confirmed a place to stay (other volunteers house), and the three volunteers that live in Choluteca were no where to be found. Just as we were beginning to wonder if we would have to spring and get a hotel, we found one of the volunteers home. We went to a movie at the one theatre in town, which was playing “What Could Happen?” with Danny Devito and Martin Lawrence.
We went to bed at 10:30 PM after watching CNN for a little while.
Day 42 – Monday, December 10, 2001
We got up and had breakfast at a little restaurant that had beans, eggs, and tortillas for breakfast, and headed off to the bank to try to take some money out. The previous day we had tried two of the three cash machines in town, but neither worked. We went to the bank and were 45 minutes early with 30 people in front of us in line. I took off in a taxi while Jennifer stood in line. My mission was to find us some coffee, and check out the other cash machine that was half way across town to see if it was working. When I got the shopping center where the other cash machine is located I noticed a line at that bank too. The cash machine wasn’t working there either. I got myself a Dr. Pepper and Jennifer a Café Latte at the Café Americano in the little modernized strip mall ( the only one in town) that has about 10 little shops and a grocery store that we usually shop at. I headed back to Jennifer and arrived about 10 minutes before the bank opened. I noticed that there was a second line forming with people who didn’t seem to want to wait in line. The second line was a cluster of people who formed their own line in another direction from the door. When the bank doors opened the guard tried his best to keep the “new” line back, but gave up after about 30 seconds letting 20 or so people push in front of the fine people who had been waiting in line (some for more than an hour). By the time we made it into the actual business part of the bank we were nearly at the end of the line with twice as many people in front of us than there were when we first got into line. I’ve developed a new attitude that doesn’t really fit with my Minnesota nice personality. In the future I will try to make sure that we do not do any banking on Monday mornings, but if it should be necessary I’m going to play “I’m a big mean, rude, American get out of my way or I will crush you, you tiny Honduran.” I figure the 6 inches and 80 pounds I have on most Hondurans can easily be used to by benefit in these types of situations.
After we got into the bank it took about 40 minutes to get through the line and get all our business taken care of. We were then off on our next adventure, finding a bus out of town. We found a nice looking bus that had way too many people on it. Before we left the Centro of the city the bus driver’s helper had come back and organized all of us standing in the isle the assure that we were packed in as tight as possible. We stood in the isle for 45 minutes with Hondurans packed on each side like sardines. We arrived at the turn off that goes to Collolito where we had to get off. At the “desvio” or turn off, we met up with about a dozen other volunteers that were also going to the Municipal Development conference on El Tigre, where we were heading. We caught another bus a short time later to Collolito and a boat that then took out to the dormant volcano know as the island of El Tigre.
Once on the island we were introduced to the people we would be staying with over the next few days and chatted with other volunteers who were arriving. We stayed with Don Adolfo, a fisherman. The house was very simple and the latrine was even simpler. As the host "father" just kind of hovered about the house. We were occupying their house and sleeping in the bedroom/kitchen, the door between the bedroom/kitchen and the living room (where the front door was) was a screen door. When we changed our cloths we had to be quick less we be seen by those coming and going in the living room. Our host family along with 90 others on the island make up a network of guest houses on the island which visitors and tourist can use for a very cheap place to stay. The cost is 100 Lempira per night per person (about $6.50 a night), which compared to the hotel on the island is cheap (the hotel costs $30.00 and $60.00 per person). However it is not like staying at a hotel. It is like staying in a rustic cabin. They only complaint I had was for the latrine. I am very happy that we have a porcelain toilet in our site, because I don't think I could handle any extended period of time using a rustic latrine. The latrine conducted of a cement slab with a rough cement seat built in to it, and a tiny tin shack built around it. At night there were 30-40 cockroaches (as big as they come) sitting on top, inside of, and out side of the stool, and usually a scorpion or two on the floor with a cockroach in its claws. After shining a flashlight and banging the cardboard box sitting next to the stool (used for used toilet paper) against the floor and stool, it was usually free enough of bug to go in quick and take care of business. During training I leaned about how to build a "good" latrine, this one was not very good because of the bugs, and due to the fact that there was no ventilation. The stench and gasses in the latrine were terrible, and could have been fixed with a little lye and a proper vent pipe. The family we stayed with also had a house on the beach and a little restaurant. The shower, which was at the beach house, consisted of something that looked like a small tool shed with a bucket of water in it, and the latrine was pretty much the same as the one at the other house.
We spent the late afternoon in a session which was started with “the process we are going to learn is very long and tedious, we are only going to do the first step. It should take about 2 ½ hours, but I we could definitely spend more time on it. We are not going to take any breaks.” This was being told to 40 people who were tired and most of whom had traveled for two days to be at the conference. We then spent the next 2 ½ hours on a long boring “special process” that resembled a simple brain storming session that could have been completed in less than a ½ hour. As for the rest of the process we could just look at the handout we were given to figure out what that was all about. I read through the hand out and found it much more useful than the actual practical exercise and imagined using it with a group of people in the future, or at least teaching the process to a group of people. I decided that I would follow the many helpful suggestions in the handout on how to teach this technique and ignore anything that was presented.
We wrapped up the evening at a nice little beach side home where we were served shrimp and steak kabobs, rice, and soda. We then were transported, in the back of a pick up, to our host home to get some much needed rest.
Day 43 – Tuesday, December 11, 2001
We woke up this morning to someone entering our room to get a change of cloths from the large storage area that is only accessible by coming into the room we were sleeping in. After getting up we were led about ¼ mile away to a the family’s beach house, where we fed "Plato Tipico" for breakfast-scrambled eggs (cooked in lots of oil), platens (cooked in lots of oil), 2 huge hunks of stinky cheese (a salty dry cheese I am still acquiring a taste for), tortillas, coffee (made with water from what I think is a contaminated well- It had a funny smell and taste), and Cornflakes in hot cow’s milk (which I didn’t eat as I was full from all the other food).
The morning sessions started not too long after breakfast as our morning session was being held at our host’s beach front restaurant (small shack where they served food and had a patio with chairs). The morning session covered one of my favorite topics, computers. The first session was on the use of GPS (Global Positioning Satellites) and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to map cities and improve tax collection. We then moved on to an ambitious project started my a couple of other volunteers that involved the creation of a computer training manual. The manual covers lesson outlines for teaching basic skills in general computer use, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. I see myself using these resources a lot in the near future. The manual is a work in progress and should be completed by mid-January.
For a mid morning snack we had "tacitos" a small fried tortilla with meat and veggies in the middle and cheese sprinkled on top, and of course sodas. For lunch we had fish, which was very good. The fish was prepared whole. The innards are removed and the entire fish is fried with a light sprinkle of flour on the outside.
The second session was on gender development and working towards including young girls and women in development. For dinner we went to a house with a very nice patio are and had fish patties, sodas, and a few beers.
Day 44 – Wednesday, December 12, 2001
We woke up this morning to someone again getting a change of cloths and starting breakfast for us. We had Cornflakes in hot whole milk (the kind you get right from the cow). I was the look out while Jennifer changed cloths.
Jennifer left earlier than I to go climb the volcano. She is going to write about that experience in her diary. I went fishing in the Gulf of Fonseca with my host Adolfo and another volunteer. We cruised around and line fished for a while. The fishing lines were chunks of wood with some heavy gauge fishing line and two hooks on the end with an odd piece of metal as the weight. We got no bites and just kind of sat around talking most of the time. Adolfo told me the story of how he came to have all he has now. He said up until two years ago he was very very poor and could barley feed his family. Then he met a Korean business man who owns a factory in the capitol and took an interest in him. In a strange twist of events the Korean banker instructed him to go to a bank in a nearby town two and half hours before it opened and speak with one of the people working there. When he did he found he had a new account opened in his name with 20,000 lempira in it, which is about $1300.00. He was confused, but the banker ensured him the money was now his. He withdrew it, took it back to his home in a back pack, and buried it in the sand near the beach. He then talked with the Korean business man who informed him he could spend the money to make his life better, but he could not spend it on alcohol or he would take the money back. He decided he wanted to buy a boat. He purchased food and cloths for his family and made improvements to their home. The business man then gave him another 34,000 lempira to purchase a boat, nets and a motor so he could fish and support his family. He purchased a larger fishing boat, a large set of nets, and a motor for his boat and now has a freezer full of fish to feed his family and sell to people that visit the island. He also sells some of the fish he catches to a market in Collolito. He said he has been very blessed. With in the next year the Korean business man has invited him to travel to Korea with him to see him home.
The afternoon session focused on developing youth programs; this is a new direction that Peace Corps is heading. They are encouraging creating youth groups and doing youth education about various issues. We also had a session on using colorful drawing to help in presentations, and a session on naming streets for better mapping.
For dinner we had fried chicken and sodas.
Day 45 – Thursday, December 13, 2001
For breakfast we managed to score some cold milk to have with our Cornflakes. The dinning table was crawling with little cockroaches that eventually scattered and hid after we sat and flicked a few off the table.
For our morning session before we left the island we had a panel of people from the schools, government, tourist board, and health officials who told us how they were working together to help solve some of the problems of the people on the island. For example the island dentist told us how there is 100% cavity rate among children on the island as the water sources are not fluorinated, there is no oral hygiene education, and people only go to the dentist when there is a problem. She said many times people come to her asking her to just pull all their teeth out and replace them with false teeth because they know they will last longer. She is working with the schools to develop an oral hygiene education curriculum to try to fix this problem.
We left in the afternoon, catching a boat back to the mainland, a bus to the main road, and stopping off in San Lorenzo to visit briefly with some of the other volunteers we were traveling with who lived there. San Lorenzo is the city in which the road to Collolito and the main road come together. We had a "licuado" (like a milkshake) and got to see their house. We then headed back to Choluteca and met up with John, who we would spend the night with before heading back up to Concepción de Maria.
Day 46 – Friday, December 14, 2001
We spent the morning in Choluteca. We ate breakfast a cute little café where Jennifer had Pancakes with bananas and syrup, and I had 2 eggs over easy, toast, and some beans. We both had coffee that was made with purified water, and was really good.
We then made out for the post office to see where the 5 packages we should have received 2 weeks ago were. We talked to the package lady who had one new package we weren’t expecting from a person we met in training that went home. The mail lady (the one that keeps track of letters) had one letter for us from the Peace Corps and wanted to know if we knew two people who they couldn’t find that had received poorly addressed mail. We recognized one of the names as John whose house we had just spent the night at. We told her we would send him a message about the letter and he would probably be in to pick it up on Monday. Funny that in a town of 100,000 people we would be able to help the mail folks find one of the people they had lost mail for.
We traveled back to our site on a bus that got a flat tire halfway there. Four hours later we arrived in Concepción de Maria, tired from the trip and happy to be back home where our toilet is out side, but made of a very clean and comfortable porcelain.
Day 47 – Saturday, December 15, 2001
We went to a special mass at the high school where they were having a special Mass for a newly ordained priest who was born and raised in Concepción de Maria. The crowd was huge with people traveling from miles and miles away to attend. Jennifer and stood for the first half hour and then found a shady spot under a tree to try to follow the mass and ignore the many distractions. About 3/4 of the way through the mass vendors showed up and started selling food and beverages to people who were on the fringes of the congregational pack. The entire mass was held out doors on the cement basketball court. They had strung up a series of tarps to shade a majority of the people, but were about two tarps short of having enough for the entire crowd, they were also short about a 100 chairs. There was one girl standing next to us that fainted from the heat (it was about 90 degrees out). The mass took about 3 hours and there was food served at the end for everyone there. We hung out and chatted with a few people we knew and then left. I was a little frustrated by some of the things that were going on during the mass like kids just outside the tent playing and yelling back and forth to each other, and people selling sodas and snacks like it was a football game. I got the impression that it was maybe looked down upon by some of the other people in attendance as well. I saw a few people shooting the lady who was selling fried platen chips a dirty look as she walked through the back of the crowd vending her wares.
On the way home from the mass we stopped at the mail ladies house to see if maybe she knew the whereabouts of our packages. She informed us that we did have one and she was planning on delivering it, but just hadn’t had a chance yet. Surprise, another package we weren’t expecting from Jennifer’s aunt. We scored big with this one as it has some really yummy snacks, a nice letter, and a photo showing how big Jennifer’s cousins were getting.
We spent the afternoon and evening preparing email to send the next morning.
Day 48 – Sunday, December 16, 2001
We had a great email morning and were able to send out a ton of mail, receive our mail, and chat with Jennifer’s parents, as well as my brother over yahoo chat. We were also able to update the website making it possible for people to print a copy of update letter #11.
We spent the afternoon relaxing, reading email, and catching up other correspondence.
Day 49 – Monday, December 17, 2001
I was supposed to go out to an "aldea" with John (a water and sanitation volunteer who has an engineering degree and works on water systems here) and work with him for the day on a water project, but I had to cancel due to meeting that I made to go over information on the library project. I am going to try to go tomorrow and work with John instead.
We visited the Centro de Salud to try to coordinate how and when we could go over some spreadsheet we had put together to help them with their annual reporting, but the director is on vacation for the week and there wasn’t anyone who could help us.
At around noon my community partner came by to tell me the meeting had been canceled and we would try to have it towards the end of the week.
I spent most of the afternoon updating this journal and the rest of the website.
My community Partner stopped by later in the evening to ask if I would go to Tegucigalpa to help him and a doctor from Cuba buy a computer, so she would have a nice present to take home to her children in Cuba. Due to the embargo they don’t have many computers or color televisions in Cuba. I asked him what happened to the meeting he had out of town that caused the cancellation of our meeting earlier in the day. He told me his car broke down and wasn’t able to go.
Day 50 – Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Jen and I were up at 5:30 AM this morning to get email done (which didn’t work), fix breakfast and be out the door at 7AM with John. The only problem with the plan was that John never showed up. We sat around for 4 hours waiting and finally decided that he probably would not be picking us up. We were kind of lost for the rest of the day, and John came by at about 4 PM to tell us they got a late start and just went straight up to the site figuring we would make other plans when they didn’t show up. He told us he would be by the next day at 7AM to pick one of us up to help out.
Day 51 – Wednesday, December 19, 2001
I got up at 5:30 again, went and tried email again (which worked), and when I returned I found John waiting on our front step. He told me they were ready to go and we would be back at around 4PM. I told him I had a graduation to attend so we had to back by 4PM.
After a 1 hours ride on a road that sees more horse and oxen travel than vehicle traffic, and which was so bumpy and rocky I started feeling like my bones were being jarred out of place. We arrived at the base of the mountain we would be climbing to get to the water source that needed to be mapped. We hiked for about an hour up into the hills to the top of a mountain and arrived at a natural spring. These tend to make the best water sources as they are high in the mountains and there are no houses or people above the water source to contaminate it. We started by setting up some equipment and giving instructions to the 7 or so locals from the village where the water would end up. We mapped a route from the water source to the village. I used a GPS to make a rough map and keep track of how far we had gone and how far we had to go, while John used a surveyors tool to measure the distance and angles of the route. It took us about 6 hours to complete the task. The sun was really hot and I ran out of water about 4 hours into the project. This made the last 2 hours really difficult to get through. I was not used to climbing through the mountains in the noon day sun of Honduras.
When we finished we headed back to Concepción de Maria where Carlos, the local that John was working with, started asking around as to where we could get a cold beer. I tried to explain that Concepción de Maria was a “Dry” town and they didn’t sell alcohol here. He just kind of laughed at me and got direction from a guy in the central to a local ""pulparia"" (that I haven’t been in) were they serve cold beers.
I then went home and got ready for the big graduation. We had been asked by our neighbor to be “padrinos” or godparents for her 6th grade graduation. Here in Honduras when a person graduates from 6th grade there is a huge celebration and the student asks a couple from the community to be their “padrinos”.
We left for the graduation 5 minutes late. Jennifer was telling me to hurry and that we were going to be late. I reminded her that the last graduation ceremony we attended started 2 ½ hours late, and I didn’t think this one was going to start on time either. We arrived at 5:07, 7 minutes after we “had to be there”; to find a few people milling about and ½ the students there dressed in their freshly cleaned school uniforms. About an hour later they started lining us up at the door to walk in. About a ½ hour after that we started walking and the ceremony started. We walked Yelsy in to the courtyard of the school and took our seats with the other “padrinos”. The ceremony started off with a celebration of the word by the Catholic “celebration of the word” guy, who was no less windy tonight that he had been the last few Sundays. He failed to even address the students, and just went on like it was Sunday morning. Then for the next 2 hours we listened as each student was called up with their “padrinos” to sign the “libro de recuerdo” or book of remembrance. Everything was very official and photos were taken. We got home at about 9:45PM and had dinner with Yelsy and another set of padrinos.
Day 52 – Thursday, December 20, 2001
We left at 7AM for Choluteca with the Mayorga family who was driving into “Cholu” to do some shopping. Our plan was to meet another volunteer who had invited us out to a beach house in Collolito for a couple of day. When we got to Choluteca we went to the office of our emergency zone coordinators, who told us they were coming to visit us the next day with Oscar, the assistant director for Municipal Development and Economic development. Since our little get away was not something that was approved by our directors we decided it would be in our best interest to cancel the trip to the beach house.
We spent the afternoon at John’s house, who lives in Choluteca, had pizza, and then went to our emergency zone coordinators house for dinner. We had nachos and burritos, and Jennifer and I shared floor space with Michelle, the volunteer who wanted us to got the beach house with her, as we spent the night sleeping on the floor.
Day 53 – Friday, December 21, 2001
We went back to our site today via Oscar, our assistant director, in a comfy land cruiser. We made the trip in 45 minutes. It sure is nicer than the usual 3 ½ hours. The visit was brief and he spent about 2 hours with us, much sorter than the usual full day he spends with other volunteers. I feel cheated and yet I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about any more surprise visits for the next year. Raja and Nina, our E-zone coordinators, tagged along with Oscar and thoroughly enjoyed their visit. They went off and walked through town while Oscar, Jennifer and I visited with our Community Partners and went over how we felt about our health, living conditions, and safety in our site. They returned with look of amusement and told us we had a beautiful site, and that they realized that they have a really ugly site in their dry, dusty, bowl of a city.
Oscar, Raja, and Nina left before noon leaving us happy to have our first site visit over with, but sad that we missed out on the beach.
Day 54 – Saturday, December 22, 2001
We worked on update letter #12 today had hamburgers for lunch/dinner, and just kind of hung out most of the day.
Day 55 – Sunday, December 23, 2001
We went with the Mayorga family, one of the people in our community, to their “place out in the country” where we celebrated a “work” Christmas party for the cooperative. We had steak and tortillas. The “place in the country” was a house on the way to Corpus that had a nice view of the Choluteca flats and gave us nice look at the setting sun. The party was over soon after sunset and we retuned to Concepción de Maria.
We stopped by my community partners house to pick up the key for the high school and drop off Christmas cookies Jennifer had made in our little toaster oven. We were introduced to his daughter, son, and son-in-law. Eloy my community partner invited me to go to Choluteca to check on a computer for the Cuban doctor who works in Concepción de Maria and is going back to Cuba at the end of the January.
Day 56 – Monday, December 24, 2001
Christmas Eve morning we went to the high school and hooked up with Jennifer’s parents on the computer, and in the afternoon we talked to my parents on the phone.
Most of my morning after connecting on the internet was spent in Choluteca where we were supposed to be going to check out a computer. After arriving we visited a guy about a box for the back of Eloy’s truck, then went to the bank which shut down while he was in line due to computer problems, put a new battery in his truck, and finally made it to the “Cuban compound” (an apartment in Choluteca rented by 7 Cuban doctors who have been volunteering their services here since Hurricane Mitch) to talk to the doctor who wanted to buy a computer. I thought we would be going to stores looking at specs and the like. Instead we looked at a system another doctor had purchased and then looked specs on a piece of paper I had approved of 4 days earlier in Concepción de Maria and told her it looked like a good deal if she could get more memory for the same price along with operating system and word processing software. We spent a total of 15 minutes of our 5 ½ hour journey actually “helping” the doctor buy a computer. I’m not bitter though because I was able to buy a block of mozzarella cheese at the grocery store that we used for super yummy pizza a few days later.
Christmas Eve night was spent going to Mass, and then having dinner with our neighbors, the Galindos. Before and after dinner we walked around town and visited different nativity scenes that had been set up by people on patios of their homes. They were very interesting in that people put anything small and toy like in the display. There were toy tucks, army men, dinosaurs, ninja fighters, matchbox cars, plastic ducks, construction vehicles, Christmas figurines, and many other assorted items all paying homage to the Christ child who before midnight is kept covered up until his birth at 1 AM, when he is uncovered and lots of fireworks are lit off. There were fireworks all night longs, and lots of people in the streets.
For dinner we had dry ugly looking turkey. It was nice to be included in the celebration, by the time we arrived after church the few present they had given to the kids were opened, and people were sitting around Chatting. After a few Christmas photos, we went up to the corner store and hung out for a little while before going out to look at more nativity scenes. We went to be at about 1 AM as world war three started with lots, and lots of fire works.
Day 57 – Tuesday, December 25, 2001
Jen slept in till 11 AM and I worked on some email. When Jennifer got up she made me a new friend named Marvin pancakes. Marvin works for a computer company in the capital and brought some nice software to me for Christmas. He also brought a downloaded CD version of Matrix, which Jennifer and I watched later in the afternoon with some popcorn.
Later in the evening we went over to visit with my community partner and his family who we had stopped and visited with the day before, and try to convince them to take us to the north coast with them, but they decided that it would be too rainy for us and that when we visited for the first time they wanted us to have a nice experience. It was the Honduran way of saying no, but after thinking about it we thought it would be better to wait as well. If it was raining as bad as they said we would be stuck in a musty house with all these people and 6 dogs. We did have a nice conversation and were at their house until the late houses talking and laughing. We are looking forward to our first trip to their house on the north coast, and staying with our new friends.
Day 58 – Wednesday, December 26, 2001
We just kind of hung out today. Jennifer made us yummy home made pizza, and we spent the day not doing too much. I transplanted some of the tomato plants I had reseeded after the dog dug them up a few weeks ago into the main bed of the little garden we have on our patio, and fortified the rope around it to keep to dog out.
Day 59 – Thursday, December 27, 2001
We did email in the morning, then took a 3 hour nap. I watched a movie in the mid afternoon while Jennifer sent an emergency email to her friend in North Carolina so she would have a dessert receipt for their anniversary dinner later in the day. When she got home from emailing Jennifer made us the best hamburger pizza I’ve ever had. It was made with spicy sauce, hamburger, and handmade crust.
Day 60 – Friday, December 28, 2001
We Went to corpus and talked to the carpenter this morning. We ordered a dresser that should be delivered on or around January 19th, 2002. It will have 5 drawers with two smaller ones on top that will have locks, and three larger ones below those. I watched more TV this afternoon; it’s becoming a bad habit here, but there is nothing else to do right now.
Day 61 – Saturday, December 29, 2001
I spent the morning refortifying the garden after I found the dog sleeping on top of my torn up tomato seedlings and replanted some more seedlings. I yelled at the dog and told him if he violated my garden again I was going to whack him in the head with a shovel. The owner told me later she punished the dog, but I don’t think he knows any better. It’s just a cool place to lie down in a hot country. I built up the walls with some cement blocks and bricks, and put up enough rope around the area a Chihuahua couldn’t get in.
I spent the afternoon learning how to use Corel Draw. I’ve heard of the program and used really early versions of it (versions built for Windows 3.12), but I haven’t used any current versions. I really like it and made a sample image that may or may not be on the web site in the future.
We had a nice visit from the mail carries (two girls who deliver the mail for their mom) and got a package from my mom and Jennifer’s grandmother. My mom sent a wonderful package filled with all sorts of Christmas goodies including two new shirts, a dress for Jen, chocolate that didn’t melt in transit, and tons of other stuff. The package from Jen’s Grandma had homemade popcorn balls.
Day 62 – Sunday, December 30, 2001
We had oatmeal for breakfast this morning after going to the “speaker of the word” for church. Since we don’t have a priest we have to go to the “speaker” on Sundays with a visit from the priest once a month.
We talked to my mom in the afternoon to let her know her package made it and how happy we were to receive it, had tuna fish sandwiches for lunch, and I took a nap while Jennifer went to a birthday party. I spent some time catching up on this journal while Jennifer “played” with one of her present from my mom; two books on crocheting, crocheting needles, and some yarn. She says she is going to make us dish cloth. As she was reading the book she exclaimed “Do you want to know the history of crocheting!!?” and started reading a paragraph out of the book. She said my mom was he “soul mother-in-law” like soul mate since she was able to pick out such a great gift for her. She was even more excited to find out that it was started by Catholic nuns.
Day 63 – Monday, December 31, 2001
New Years Eve-We had a very quiet day and a fairly quiet evening, We spent the day reading and relaxing. New Years Eve was spent with our neighbors. We went up to the corner store at about 11:15 and had punch, looked at the stars, listened to everyone in town lighting off fire works, watched a TV show with a Latin American new years eve count down, and gave “Happy New Years” to everyone present. Jennifer and I had traditional midnight kiss, and then retreated to our house after the drunken watchman from the cooperative came by, AK-47 in hand, for some midnight conversation from those in the store. Needless to say there were a few drunken people with weapons walking around. I didn’t feel like the 3500 lempira (about $200) we have in an account at the cooperative was all that safe at that point, but then remembered that there really isn’t much crime in Concepción de Maria to begging with.
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