Frustrations & Realizations

Peace Corps is very frustrating. Everyday I am frustrated by at least one thing, if not many, many things. Being slightly impatient and judgmental doesn’t make things any easier for me, but I’m learning to take things more in stride. Now, instead of getting frustrated, mad and offended I try not to take things personally and just laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Here are some examples of frustrations I have had along with some of the realizations that came with them.

When I first started working with one of my counterparts they were not doing monthly financial reports, which they should have been because they manage a large amount of money from grants from the states. So, we set up a format for the monthly reports and Nineth, my counterpart said she would fill it out (which consists of writing down all our expenses for the month according to which category of spending it falls under). Well, she didn’t do it and didn’t do it and still didn’t do it. Meanwhile the people who donate the money from the states were continually asking me when we would have it done and I in turn was continually asking Nineth. After about two months when she still hadn’t done it and I was so irritated. I kept asking her to do it and she kept saying okay and still never did it. Finally, I yelled at her and we sat down and did it together, it took about 20 minutes because we had only had a few expenses for the month. At that point I still didn’t understand what her problem was and why she couldn’t do such a simple thing. Months later I realized that it was something new for her and it was just a little daunting and she didn’t know how to ask for help. Once we sat down and did it together once it was never a problem again.

Agua Pura para el Mundo makes biosand filtres to purify water for familias who do not have access to clean water. Once the families have been using the filters for 6 months we give them anti-parasite medicine in order to get ride of any parasites they had before they started using the filters. So I e-mailed some people in the states and they sent me info about deparasiting programs from the WHO and I also went on pub-med to research different types of drugs. From the information I found on-line and experience from other volunteers working with Agua Pura in Honduras it all seemed very simple and straightforward. We would not do feces testing for everybody because through experience we just know that most people have at least one type of parasite. Also, we would be giving the same type of medicine to everybody because we don’t have the money to buy and provide tailored regimes for every individual. If we had all the time, money and expertise in the world we could do feces testing for everybody and then give them the most appropriate treatment available. Unfortunately this is not the case for the Agua Pura project, or virtually any other deparasiting campaign. So, after doing the research and learning from other volunteers Nineth goes to the hospital to try to coordinate with them (why reinvent the wheel, right?). Well, they tell us that we have to do feces testing and buy a really expensive drug to kill everything and that deparasiting medicine can be really dangerous and can kill a child if you don’t weigh him and give him the exact right dosage and that we would have to get the name, age and weight of every person we were going to give drugs to before the hospital could work with us. In the beginning, I though, wow, I was really wrong, I wonder why I didn’t find any of that information in my on-line search I guess I should just leave it up to Nineth to figure out with the doctors…Well, after months of trying to coordinate with the hospital, meet with different doctors who all gave us different information and trying to find the cheapest drug source possible we are finally ready to start the deparasiting process. What have we concluded? That we will do exactly what I thought we would do in the beginning; not do feces testing and give everybody the same easy to administer drug, no weighing necessary and no threats of killing babies. From this whole frustrating process I realized a few things. First, my college education taught me how to find out necessary information. Nobody that I work with at Agua Pura would have even had the slightest idea how to do on-line and find out medical information. They wholly rely on the (supposed) authorities because the do not personally have the knowledge or the means to get the knowledge. It made me feel pretty good that even if I don’t know something or how to do something I can pretty much figure it out. Second, in general I think it is good to work within already existing institutions and norms in order to not reinvent the wheel. However, after months of trying to work with the local hospital I realized that if the wheel does not spin you may need to reinvent it. Third, the process is sometimes just as important as the outcome; even if I could get the right answer from the beginning it was still necessary to go through the process to arrive where we did.

Real Juventud is the local division II futbol (soccer) team in Santa Barbara. For a while I had been trying to organize a time to do a Men’s Health workshop with the team to teach them about HIV prevention. I think it is an especially important group to work with for a number of reasons. First, they are all living away from their homes and families and thus may have other partners. Second, as futbol players they are like local celebrities and have amble opportunities to be with local girls. After months of trying to set up a date with the coach we finally decided on a date. I booked the location and Charles, another facilitator of the Men’s Health workshop agreed to help me lead it. The day before the event I confirmed everything with the coach and confirmed the locale. That night I mentioned it to some of the players and they had no idea what I was talking about. It turns out that the coach (in the span of just a few hours) had forgotten to tell the players. Well, I tried to call the coach that night to see if we were still on but couldn’t contact him. The next morning I got everything ready anyway, just in case he remembered to tell them later in the evening. As I approached the room where we were going to hold the workshop I see a big truck full of mattresses that are being unloaded and carried into the room where we are supposed to do the workshop. I talk to the girl I made the “reservation” with and she says that they are using the room to store the mattresses and we can’t use it. She also tells me that Charles won’t be able to facilitate with me because algo se presento (something presented itself). I hate passive language! Completely infuriated I went to go find the coach and asked him what happened. Sure enough he just forgot and his cell phone wasn’t working and he couldn’t call me. So in the end, everything went wrong, I had no place to do the workshop, nobody to facilitate it with and nobody to give it to…so it all worked out and none of it was my fault. The moral of the story is that if everything goes wrong it’s all good.

One of the organizations I work with does HIV/AIDS prevention education with youth. One day I was facilitating a workshop with them and asked one of the employees where the other employee was. She said he had to leave to wash his clothes because he didn’t have any clean clothes. I asked why he had to leave work to wash his clothes. She said because his family doesn’t live here so he has to take them to another town and so he had to leave work. I asked why he was washing his clothes during work. She said he asked permission so it was okay and that he didn’t have any clean clothes, so what would he wear to work the next day if he didn’t take off today to wash his clothes. And so it went; me trying to figure out why in the world you would take off work to go to another town to wash your clothes and the other employee telling me it was all okay. What was my brilliant realization after this situation…That I still don’t understand how things work here and I probably never will.

Diplomas are a big deal and resumes are thick in Honduras. I once counter over 40 “diplomas” in a doctor’s office in Tegucigalpa. Every workshop you attend, every speech you give, every training you finish and any good job you do comes with a diploma. If it is a proper diploma it will be a full sheet of paper, your name will be printer (not written), it will usually have at least two signatures and it MUST have a seal of the organization delivering the diploma. When I did my Men’s Health training in Santa Barbara I of course handed out diplomas at the end. One participant raised his hand and told me that I needed to have a stamp on the diploma. I told him I didn’t have a stamp. At another workshop I facilitated we printed two diplomas on one page to save paper. One of the participants insisted on having a full size diploma so she got the format from us, went and printed herself a full size diploma and then had us sign it again. Whereas in the states resumes are one to two pages here they are 10-20 pages. People list every workshop (even if it is only 2 hours long) that they have ever been to and attach copies of all their diplomas. When we were hiring new staff to work at Agua Pura we said that we wanted resumes of two pages max. Well, most people just didn’t understand this concept and still gave us thick packets with plastic covers. Unfortunately, although it is a lot of paper it contains very little content. They usually will only list where they worked and not include their job title or job description. Also, the “recommendations” from previous employers are just standard forms with a space to fill in a name. At first this absolutely drove me crazy then I realized that they place such a high importance on workshops and diplomas because most don’t have past a high school education or meaningful work experience so they have to make up for it somehow. They also list personal information such as home town, marital status, age, etc. Whereas you can’t even ask certain questions about personal information in an interview in the states these are all relevant issues here. For example, both the Health Promoters we hired for Agua Pura had lived their whole life in Santa Barbara which means that they know the people and they know the surrounding communities, which is important for the work we do.

I have four diplomas on my wall in my apartment.

Through all these frustrations I am definitely learning about the culture here and how to relax (at least a little more than usual). Yet I haven’t fallen in love with Honduras and I don’t know if I ever will. I just finished reading Fiction by Peace Corps Writers, a collection of short stories by RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) and even though they express frustration and anger at their situation there is often an underlying love for the country they are in and the people that inhabit it. I wonder if I will ever develop a true love for Honduras while I am here or is it only something that can happen after I leave here and the daily frustrations blur into the past.