Independence Day

September 15th is Central American Independence Day, which means parades! I was actually supposed to march in the parade and hold a sign for the Santa Barbara HIV/AIDS Network, but not enough people could do it so I didn’t have to march, which made me happy because the thought of carrying a sign in the hot sun for 5 hours wasn’t that appealing to me. I did, however, watch the parade, which consisted of representatives from the schools of Santa Barbara as well as various other groups.

This is the winner of the India Bonita competition (do you think that would fly in the States?)

The guys on stilts were my favorite! Each student is holding a sign representing a community organization or NGO. The third years (think high school seniors) all had to march with their schools…they look bored, hot and uncomfortable . This group carried representations of Honduran money throughout history. This is a map of Honduras displaying different types of wood produced across the country.

I think the following was the most interesting display done by high school students. The sign translates to The Enclave; arrival of the capitalist system. The banner is followed by a train (itself representing broken promises to Honduras) carrying a dragon with a tattered Honduran flag hanging out of its mouth. The boxcars are labeled Rosario Mining Company and Standard Fruit Company. The caboose is a bed of sugar cane plants being sprayed with fertilizer/pesticides.


The following display spoke of the environmental problems Honduras is currently facing. The sign translates to “A Dangerous Rhythm” Ecological Disasters…The banner is followed by things representing threats to Honduras’s environment such as mining and deforestation. Then comes a representation of the globe, but I’m not sure what the shape is supposed to mean...
PCVs are often disturbed by the amount of trash found all over Honduras, people seem to have no moral qualms whatsoever about littering and don’t seem to care about their country’s environment at all. Therefore it was inspiring for me to see these young students taking a stand. My inspiration was soon squashed when one of the students holding the world threw his water bag on the ground and left it there. As the parade started moving past me I ran out and grabbed the bag and ran after him to tell him that he ¨forgot¨ something. I think he was embarrassed and told me to leave it, but I waited until he took it from me (who knows how long he waited to throw it on the ground again). I got pretty worked up after that and starting ranting to one of my friends who happens to be a teacher about how hypocritical it is to litter while you are in the very process of protesting the destruction of the environment. He explained to me that the students didn’t really care; they were just doing what their teachers told them to do and wanted to get extra credit. I asked him if he would recount the situation to his students on Monday to remind them that actions speak louder than banners.

Reconnect

Following Mary’s birthday celebration we all headed to Siguatepeque, a town about 1.5 hours away from Santa Barbara for our reconnect and project workshop. The first day we met with all the volunteers from the Health and Water & Sanitation from Hondu 10 (the group that I came in with in February). It was great to see volunteers that I hadn’t seen since training and hear about their experiences. The second day we were joined by all the other volunteers from the Health project (Hondu 8 has been here about a year) and continued to share experiences with our individual projects and learn about new Peace Corps Health initiatives. I had not met most of the other health volunteers from previous groups so it was nice to get to know them. It was exciting to hear about the new groups the Health project is working on, including Men’s Health, Abstinence, Support Groups for people living with HIV/AIDS and Women’s Health. All of these projects will be supported with new funding from PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). I was invited to join the Men’s Health team, which means I will be working with the Health administration to strengthen the program. I will be doing trainings in my site as well as traveling to other sites to train incoming PCVs and Hondurans. Although it means more work and more travel out of my site, I am excited to be part of the team.

Mary’s Birthday

Saturday September 8th was Mary’s birthday (Mary is a fellow PCV who lives on the north coast). Mary, Raphael, Kendra and Molly, all PCVs, came to Santa Barbara to celebrate and we had a relaxing weekend. I was able to buy cake frosting (which I had been craving since my birthday) in Teguc and made Mary a chocolate cake with white frosting, very good. We ate lots, played cards, hiked and worked on our 6 month reports for Peace Corps (since some of us waited until the last minute to start).
Mary and I on the steps of the ruins.
Kendra & Mary

Mary, Kendra and Raphael

Hurricane Felix

As many of you already know hurricane Felix passed through Honduras and other Central American countries recently. Thank you for everyone who e-mailed to make sure I was okay, and yes I am fine. Volunteers were first notified over the weekend telling us that the storm was projected to hit Honduras on Monday or Tuesday. Volunteers on the north coast were “consolidated” which means they all had to leave their sites and travel to Siguatepeque, a city in central Honduras and wait out the storm. The rest of the volunteers were on “standfast” which means we weren’t allowed to leave our sites to travel.

It rained about half an hour on Tuesday, all Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in Santa Barbara, which is a lot of rain, but nothing disastrous. This is the river nearby my house; clearly it rose substantially, but not enough to do any damage.

This is what the river normally looks like...

This is the central park full of water.
This is the central park not full of water...

Somehow my bedroom ended up with water on the floor, but I still can’t figure out how, the ceiling and walls were all dry, no sign of leaks, and just one place on the floor was wet. I guess it came from below, but luckily it didn’t do any damage. Although it only rained half a work day and there was no apparent damage, you would think that the worst was coming to Santa Barbara based on how people reacted. Most everything was closed including stores and restaurants, people took the day of work and meetings were canceled throughout the week. I had a meeting planned for Wednesday at 2 p.m. (by that time it was sunny and dry) but of course the meeting was canceled due to la lluvia.
Apparently other parts of Honduras were hit harder with flooding, but from what I know, things didn’t turn out as bad as they could have, lucky for Honduras.

Moroceli, El Paraiso

Hondu 11 is here already! Every new incoming Peace Corps group is labeled with a number, for example, my group (which includes Health, Water & Sanitation and Business) is Hondu 10. Although it feels like Hondu 10 just got here, Hondu 11 (Protected Areas Management-PAM, Youth Development and Municipal Development) is already here and in training. Last week I went to Morocei, Danli, the training site of the PAM volunteers to do an HIV/AIDS workshop with them.

It was a small group of only 11 trainees (compared to Health which had 20) and they were pretty chill, much more chill than my group. Maybe it is because they are PAMers, who have it the roughest of all Honduras PCVs because they usually live in the boonies without electricity or cell phone service. Anyway, the training went well, much easier than I expected, and it was fun to meet the incoming volunteers. What didn’t go well was the “hotel” situation! I have to qualify it as the worst hotel experience of my life. The toilet was tapped shut to indicate that it was out of order and covered in about a years worth of filth. There was a big bucket of dirty water in the shower to bath with (although we did get lucky enough to have running water in the morning). There was no ceiling, just a tile roof, which means that bugs, rain and miscellaneous items can freely enter the room. The bed sheets were so dirty that I actually put my yoga mat on top of my bed and slept on that. Everything smelled like mold and the first night I was kept up practically all night because the guy in the next room was sick and I could hear him pucking and coughing all night. The whole experience made me appreciate the beauty and comfort of Santa Barbara and I couldn’t wait to get make to my lujo (luxury) apartment.

On a happier note, we had twoo side excursions to check out Honduran manufacturing. First we visited Yuscaran, El Paraiso, home of the Yuscaran Guaro factory! Guaro is strong liquor (35% alcohol) made from sugar cane favorite among Honduran bolos (drunks). All we had to do was knock on the door and a few minutes later a manager showed up to give us an in depth tour. The whole place smelled very sweet and we got to stick our fingers in the huge vats of processed sugar cane (I know, very hygienic). Then we got to taste different types of guaro, although the smell was so strong that I passed on most of the taste tests. They did have one type that I really liked because it had corn honey in it, so it was sweet. I asked if I could buy that one in stores, they said no, so instead they gave me a bottle right from the factory.

Second, we went to visit a cigar factory in Moroceli. Again, we just knocked on the door and a manger came and gave us over an hour long tour and lecture about Cuba (his home country). Although I don’t smoke cigars and don’t support the tobacco industry, the tour was really interesting and the entire factory smelled amazing!