Week 1

Day 1: I began my first day of work on Monday May 7th, 2007. One of my counterparts, Jovenes sin Fronteras (Youth without Borders) told me they were having a meeting at 8 am so I showed up at the office. What he actually meant by a meeting was that we were going to a middle school to give a 4 hour HIV/AIDS charla (talk). The group of students ended up being bigger than we expected so we split it in two and I helped lead one of the groups. Luckily we had learned some of the activities in training so I didn’t make a complete fool of myself, only a little. Charles, the manager of Jovenes sin Fronteras, told me there was a meeting at 4 pm with the committee and I should come.
In the meantime I headed back to the Agua Pura para el Mundo (Pure Water for the World) office where I met Dave the Canadian volunteer who just left. He asked if I would be going out to one of the sites that afternoon and I said that I had not heard about that plan and that I had another meeting with Jovenes sin Fronteras so I couldn’t. That didn’t make him very happy and he proceeded to ask what my intentions were with Agua Pura and talk to me about how I really needed to dedicate my time to them and that they were doing just what I wanted to be doing. That really threw me off because I didn’t expect to feel pressured from another volunteer. I tried to explain to him that Peace Corps operates a little differently than his organization. What they do is set volunteers up with a number of possible counterparts and give the volunteers the liberty to meet and get to know them and decide who they will work with and how much time they will dedicate to each organization. In my case I have a number of counterparts including Agua Pura and Jovenes sin Fronteras that I will be working with and still other organizations that I have not yet met with. As a Peace Corps volunteer I am not an employee of any of the organizations and have the freedom to work where and when I want as long as I am working towards the goals of the Peace Corps health project. This response didn’t really satisfy him and he continued to pressure me. In the end I realized that he must have just been nervous. He has spent the past six months here working very hard to support Agua Pura and he was about to leave and wanted to be sure that all he had done didn’t fall apart after he left.
Peace Corps actually warns us about the possessive nature of some of our counterparts. They sometimes see us like free employees and basically want us working only with them 8-5 six days a week and it is hard to explain that we don’t work like that. So I still am trying to figure out how I want to spend my time and how I can work that out with my counterparts. Not all volunteers are in the same situation as me though. Some show up at their site with nothing at all to do and have to work for months just to put together a project or somebody who is willing to work with them. So I guess I am just at one extreme of the spectrum and I would rather have to much to do than not enough.
So, back to my first day. I hung out at the Agua Pura office for a few hours then headed over to the Jovenes sin Fronteras office to go to the 4 pm meeting. Well, nobody showed up until 5 pm (I am still getting used to Honduran time, which by the way volunteers are not allowed to use). We talked about some business details and then I had to introduce myself to the group and then they all welcomed me. Honduran are big on flattery and speeches. I introduced myself and talked about how I was so excited to be there and work with them and then they all said how happy they were to have me and that they would help me with whatever I needed, etc. Then we dinner and cake (which I had no idea we would have) and celebrated mother’s day for the mothers in the committee. Well, I was getting a little worried because I had to be home for dinner for the goodbye party for the Canadian volunteer at 6 pm. I ended up staying for food and cake until 6:15 and then rushed home for dinner. Well, nobody was even there when I got home and we didn’t even eat until 7:30 (again, still getting used to Honduran time). We had the goodbye party and in Honduran fashion everyone of us went around and said kind words about Dave and how great it was to have him here and how everybody would miss him. It made me sad that I had just met him a week ago because according to what everybody else was saying he would have been a pretty cool guy to know and he had really done an amazing job with turning Agua Pura around. Nothing like jumping right into things on my first day.

Day 2: I decided to tell both my counterparts that I would not be coming to work on Tuesday and instead took some time to do all the personal stuff I had to get done, like open my bank account, buy sunglasses, write e-mail, apply for a Peace Corps bike, walk around town and try to get to know things, etc. During training Peace Corps always talks about ‘community entry’ and illusive notion that you are supposed to do for the first three months of your service. Basically they say you shouldn’t even worry about doing projects for the first three months, you should just take time to get to know your area and the people in it. Well since I was already working my first day doesn’t seem like I will be taking a leisurely three months to ease into things. Although I do want to figure out a way to make Honduran friends and feel like I am a part of my community. With so many foreigners and English speakers around it makes it a lot harder.

Day 3: Back to work with Agua Pura, we drove to an aldea (small town) about an hour away to deliver and install water filters. The filters are heavy cement containers made by my host dad at his workshop. He delivers them to the town in his truck the day before and we follow the next day to set them up. Supposedly the people in the town are supposed to make sure the filters get to each of the houses when they are delivered but that often doesn’t happen and when we arrived they were all laying on the road outside. So we, actually the two guys on the team (the girls supervised), spent the first hour or two delivering the filters to the house with a dolley that ended up breaking in the end. Then we went to each house and installed the filters. The filters are cement containers to which we add gravel and sand and a diffuser (I’ll write up a description of how it works soon enough). We finished the day with some beans and tortillas and mangos from one of the households and headed back to Santa Barbara nice and dirty. There happened to be another Peace Corps volunteer on the way back to town so we stopped by there and chatted for a bit. The day wore me out and I went to bed early that night.
Prior to seeing the condition of the aldeas surrounding Santa Barbara I kinda wondered why Peace Corps was in Santa Barbara. Everybody seemed well off and already capable of doing their work, I wondered if they really needed help. Well, seeing the aldeas reminded me of why Peace Corps is in Honduras. Unlike in most of the cities the people do not have electricity and reliable water sources or nice houses. Many of the houses consist of one room and are made of adobe (mud) bricks or sticks, mud and rocks with floors of mud. Animals and barefoot children are constantly running in and out of the houses. I could see that these people could actually benefit from what I could offer as a Peace Corps volunteer. Although I’m sure I will continue to ask myself the infamous “Why am I here?” question throughout my service.

Day 4: I took day four a little easier, just spending time in the Agua Pura office trying to organize things, figure out what they needed and how I could be a part of it. Also trying to figure out how Agua Pura runs, how they get their funding, etc. is tricky.

Day 5: Out into the aldeas again to install filters. We spent the day going from house to house setting up filters and telling people how to use them. At about three in the afternoon we were treated to lunch. Two rice tamales, which were very good, (usually they are made from meat, so I was pleasantly surprised to find rice inside) and a glass of some unknown juice (which I was scared to drink, but I haven’t gotten sick yet, so it was probably fine). It is tricky eating in the aldeas; we are of course hungry and want to eat, but it is sometimes hard to eat whatever is served to you and it is rude to refuse it. For example we finished eating at one house and then went to the next house and they also wanted to feed us, but we were all stuffed. It is even harder for me because I don’t drink coffee or pop or eat meat, so I have to refuse stuff a lot. Something else that is funny is that they sit and stare at us while we eat. There were probably about 20 people in and around one house while we ate bread and coffee, just watching us.

Day 6: Again we drove out to another aldea to give a capacitacion (training/talk) to teach the people that had already received filters how to use them and general hygiene. It was interesting to see how Agua Pura does it and I am excited to help them continue to improve.

Day 7: Relax, clean my room, do my laundry (in the washing machine), write e-mails, call my mom and wish her happy mother´s day, study Spanish, prepare to do it all over again.