Pittsburgh

I still remember the conversation I had with my father in May 2005 when he told me they were going to move to Cleveland. My dad said he got a job at the Cleveland Clinic and I said okay, cool and didn’t think anything of it. Then he said that they would be coming to Cleveland that weekend to look at houses and I didn’t quite understand why. When he said he got a job at the Clinic I thought that meant he would be doing consulting on the weekends and not that they would actually MOVE to Cleveland. My parents were a little worried that I would be upset because I had grown up in Michigan and I loved our house there. Well, I wasn’t upset at all. In fact I was super excited about it, we found a wonderful house, I was close to my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and close to Oberlin, my college. Many people were surprised to hear how much I liked Cleveland, but once I told them I was from Detroit they could understand a little better.

It was great to have my parents so close my senior year of college so I could easily go home for the holidays and when I was homesick. Then, after I was graduated from college I ended up living in Cleveland for about 9 months. I had planned to go directly to the Peace Corps in July of 2006 after graduating in May, but Peace Corps had other plans for me. At first I was incredibly upset because I had my mind set on leaving straight away, but in the end it worked it was the best thing for me. My dad rented the movie The Graduate for me because I spent the first month or so just hanging out (less the affair with an older married man). Then I got a great job at HealthSpace Cleveland as a health educator, which did a wonderful job of preparing me for the Peace Corps and gave me enough money to support my yoga and dancing habits. I also got to spend tons of time with family, meet wonderful people in Cleveland and be home for my sisters wedding. I love Cleveland!

When my parents came to visit me in Honduras in December I was looking through my dad’s photos on my computer and saw some of a city I didn’t recognize. My dad tried to play it off and tell me they were from his recent trip to China (I didn’t buy it). So later my parents decided that they had to tell me that the pictures weren’t really from China, they were from Pittsburgh! My dad had been offered a job at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and they were still in negotiations about the details. Hmm…At first I wasn’t quite as excited about this move as I was about Cleveland but after a while it grew on me. It is only two hours away from Cleveland and apparently isn’t that bad (at least we keep moving up from Detroit).

I wondered what it would be like to go back to a new house in a new city where I wouldn’t know anybody. Then I realized that it might be a good opportunity for me. Sometimes moving back home after the Peace Corps can be a difficult transition (okay, it is always a difficult transition). Like when I came home from Korea in 1999 I found that many of my friends had changed (or had not changed at all) while I had definitely changed a ton and it was hard to fit back into my old life. Moving back to Pittsburgh will be moving back into a totally different life with no preconceived expectations and I won’t feel sad if none of my friends remember me because I won’t have any, I’ll just make all new ones.

There is also the fact that when I finish Peace Corps I will be an adult (maybe) and don’t necessarily have to go home to live with my parents (although after making no money for 2 years it sounds like a good prospect to me). I could live in Cleveland and bum off of my grandpa and loving aunts and uncles (just joking) or perhaps I will be recruited right out of the Peace Corps and start a wonderful job in a city yet to be determined (optimistic). Who knows what the future brings for me after Peace Corps (but if it involves Brazil I won’t mind).

So, my parents packed up their two cars (aren’t they light travelers) and moved to Pittsburgh on the 23rd of March, 2008. They finally managed to downsize to a two-bedroom loft (I can’t believe my parents are living in a loft and I am not there!) and are renting furniture because all of the old furniture won’t fit in the new apartment (that’s not really true, they left the furniture in the old house until it sells and they can buy a new house in Pittsburgh). Which means that my mom still has a fully furnished house to stay in when she goes back to Cleveland to visit family every few weeks.

So this unfortunately means that my parents won’t be able to host my Oberlin alumni friends for dinner when I am not there, we won’t have spaghetti dinner every Sunday night, I can’t go salsa dancing every weekend at the View or Sunset Lounge, I will miss classes at Cleveland Yoga with Marni and at Viva Dance with Rebecca, I can’t eat at Tommy’s in Coventry or swim at the Shoreby Club (and act like I am a socialite with my mom) or watch the sun set over Lake Erie or perform with Aquerela du Mundo or see my extended family whenever I want or be close to Oberlin College. So in the end I guess that just means I’ll have to visit Cleveland a whole bunch (and see if they finally finished construction on the Euclid corridor)!

P.S. If anybody wants to buy a beautiful and modest house just a stones throw away from Lake Erie in a friendly gated community call my parents.

Kevin´s Visit

In 1966 Kevin & Ellen and their 8 kids moved to South Korea and Kevin, my grandfather, became the first director of the South Korean Peace Corps. Forty-two years later he arrived in Honduras to check up on his Peace Corps Volunteer granddaughter.

He almost didn’t make it out of Cleveland, because apparently there was a huge blizzard (and he temporarily misplaced his passport). In the end he found his passport, got a taxi to the airport in the middle of the night and flew out of Cleveland at the crack of dawn and arrived safely in Tegucigalpa, Honduras around noon. I met him at the airport and from there we checked into the Maya Hotel (which is very fancy for a Peace Corps Volunteer). We took a walk to the Central Park to see the cathedral and had an ice cream cone from McDonalds (the first of many). Then Kevin took a nap and I went to the Peace Corps office to take advantage of free internet and air conditioning. That night we had dinner with Trudy Jaycox, the director of the PC in Honduras. Kevin and Trudy shared lots of stories about the old days and compared how it used to be. Things have definitely changed over the past 50 years (there are definitely more rules now, Kevin would never be able to get away with what he did back in the day).
Trudy, Kevin & I

The next day we headed back to my site in Santa Barbara to hang out for the week. Kevin was able to see where I live, eat in all the best restaurants in town (there are about 3), meet my counterparts, attend boring meetings in Spanish, see the view from the castle, wait around a lot and most importantly spend quality time with his granddaughter.

I was really excited that Kevin would be able to see the work I do and the people I work with since my parents didn’t really get to see me in action when they came to visit because it was during the holidays and we traveled so we were out of my site most of the time. The first day we went to El Pinal, an Agua Pura community where we have installed filters. The two health promoters for Agua Pura were holding a community agents training all day long to teach community members about the filters. Obviously the training was in Spanish, so it was a little boring for Kevin (actually we were both falling asleep during it), so we decided to explore the community. We just started walking along the road and found the kindergarten and stopped in to say hi to the teacher. Then as we were passing by a house three heads popped out of the door and watched us as we walked by, so we decided to go talk to them. That is one of the things I love about Honduras, you can just go into a perfect strangers house and sit down and have a conversation.

Blanca Rosa, her grandson and Kevin

Later on we passed by another house that was holding a cooking class and invited ourselves in to see what they were up to. A woman from INFOP (Honduran Professional Development Institute) was leading cooking classes that included various uses of soy products. On thing that really impressed me was the use of soy flour in the tortillas. Generally the tortillas are made of corn and water and fill the belly but are not very nutritious, so adding soy to them doesn’t change the flavor but adds protein. At the end of the day we went to visit another woman’s house who owned a coffee farm and tons of animals, so Kevin was able to ask all sorts of questions about coffee production and sales.


I had also set up a Men’s Health Workshop to facilitate while Kevin was in town because it is one of the most fun and interactive projects that I work on (which means that even though it is in Spanish it would still be entertaining). We arrived in the community and at first nobody showed up…We realized we had the wrong time, we were an hour early, so we waited. Then another hour passed by and still nobody showed up…Then it came out that the person who was supposed to remind everybody about the meeting forgot and therefore nobody showed up. Later on we found out that there was an important futbol game, so we think that also had something to do with it. So, then we decided to call it a day and go home, but then the truck that was supposed to pick us up had to do something else, so we had to wait some more…Well, I wanted Kevin to see me what my life is like here, and that he did…lots of waiting and tons of miscommunication.

That night we had dinner with five of the volunteers from around the Santa Barbara area. I think it was fun for Kevin to hear stories about what each of them does and their opinions about Peace Corps. After dinner we of course went for ice cream (the second cone of the day for Kevin & I) and talked until past 9 pm.

We also hiked (in a taxi) up to the castle that overlooks Santa Barbara.
Kevin overlooking Santa Barbara

Everybody in Santa Barbara was very impressed to meet my grandfather and thought it was wonderful that he was brave enough to come down and visit me. They all asked how old he was (that is not rude here) and were so amazed at how strong and energetic he was.

Friday morning we went to Copan Ruinas to check out the Mayan ruins. This time it took us just under 3 hours to get there, compared to the 7 hours it took to get there with my parents because we hired a car and driver (that is definitely the way to go). We checked into the Hacienda San Lucas, which is an incredible B&B overlooking the town of Copan (Kevin loved it!). We went and did a quick tour of the ruins, napped in the hammocks and then had dinner (the most amazing Honduran food I have ever had) at the Hacienda with Christine, an Agua Pura volunteer who lives in Copan.

Kevin at Copan Ruinas

Doing what Peace Corps volunteers do best...(that is a joke).

The next day we slept in until 9 am, it was so nice! We had a leisurely breakfast and then went to Luna Jaguar, a natural hot springs in the mountains outside of Copan. We started out with a tour of the hot springs, which consisted of walking in hot and cold water to open up the pours, having a very natural mud mask, sitting in a “sauna” which was built over a small waterfall (the water comes out of the mountain at 85 degrees Celsius so just the steam is enough to heat the sauna naturally) and finishing it off by sitting first in a hot tub and then in a freezing cold tub.
At the second station our guide told me to get into a murky pond and then go over to the rock in the middle of it and stick my hand underneath it to dig up some mud and rub it all over my face. Meanwhile she and Kevin just watched and I’m sure they were thoroughly amused because I was freaking out the whole time and it took a while for me to stick my hand under a rock in murky water (the guide kept reassuring me that there was nothing in the water except mud…)
This is the cold tub…it was really cold.

Then we were free to swim in the two pools that were filled with water from the hot springs, and were thus hot, which on an incredibly hot day were not the most refreshing thing, so I went and laid in the river and then we headed back to Copan.

We finished the night with another wonderful dinner at the Hacienda and then left for the airport in San Pedro Sula first thing the next morning for Kevin’s flight. Overall it was a wonderful trip and I was so proud to have my grandfather here.
Kevin & I at Hacienda San Lucas our last night in Copan Ruinas

Katie´s Balneario BBQ Bash

Katie Strass, my sitemate, turned 27 on March 5th. To celebrate she invited a ton of volunteers to Santa Barbara and planned a Balneario BBQ Bash (Balneario means swimming pool). The days leading up to the party were scorching hot, Katie and I got sun burns just from going grocery shopping, so we thought that it would be a perfect time to cool off in a pool. Well, when we woke up the morning of the party it was cold and rainy. We considered going to the pool anyway, but in the end decided to stay and have the party in the apartments, which was just fine and made it a lot easier to heat everything up. About 9 volunteers showed up and all crashed on our floors. Katie prepared an incredible spread, including hamburgers, pinwheels (bacon & steak wrapped up), veggie kabobs, corn bread, potato salad, baked beans, macaroni & cheese, watermelon, jello, lemon squares, apple pie, pecan pie and birthday cake! We ate all day and were stuffed and thoroughly satisfied.

Luke grilling (I enjoyed the veggie kabobs)

Above from left: Allison, Nick, Molly, Katie, Neil (it seemed like a good idea, but then we partly broke the hammock).

Below: a stomach ache

Maine Rotary

The month of February was packed full of Rotary! First, a group from the Freeport, Maine Rotary Club came to visit. They sponsor one of the grants for Agua Pura para el Mundo and were coming down to help out with the project. On February 9th I went to the airport with one of the local Santa Barbara Rotarians and Ramon, the driver for the week. We actually had to find a new driver at the last minute because the one we had set up went mojado (illegally) to the states without telling us. We called his house the night before to confirm for the third time that he would be the driver for the week and his wife informed us that he had left the country. Anyway, we got a wonderful driver at the last minute and met the group of five at the airport.

From Left: Allison, Paul, Katie, Tamara, Marjorie, Jim, Hector

Paul & Katie are both software engineers from San Diego, California who came along for the ride because Paul’s mom is Jim & Marjorie’s pastor (thankfully they both spoke Spanish, so they were very helpful). Tamara is a civil and environmental engineer from Maine and is the wife of a Rotarian. Jim & Marjorie are both engineers (mechanical & chemical respectively) from Maine and are members of the Freeport Rotary Club (actually Jim is the president). So, if you add that up, there were five engineers!

We were incredibly busy all week, visiting communities, meeting with the local filter manufacturer, local Rotarians and doing lots of administration. Sometimes having groups come from the states can be more work than help. If they don’t speak Spanish, if they have no real skills to offer the project and if they have no decision making power then it is a lot of work for us with no real benefit on our side. However, this was not at all the case with this group! As I said before, they were all engineers, two of them spoke Spanish and they were all incredibly intelligent, helpful and flexible. Tamara was able to help us evaluate our lab procedures for our water analysis, Paul & Katie helped with translating, Jim brought us a great filter carrier (they weight 300+ lbs) and Jim & Marjorie fixed a whole lot of problems that we were having with the project (sometimes you need the guys with power to step in and set things straight).
Filter carrier

While delivering and installing filters in El Conal we were treated to three different types of oranges. First, the people that were working with us climbed up into the trees to get them down for us…

And then peeled them for us…

We also visited the hospital to donate some supplies…
From Left: Marjorie, Dr. Peraza (Assistant Director), Jim, Dr. Mejia (Director), Dra. Marly (Rotarian)

And went to Zorca to deliver de-parasiting medicine to filter beneficiaries…

Marjorie & Tamara deparasiting

By the end of the week we felt very satisfied with all the work we had done, but also a little tired and slap-happy…
Nineth

One Year in Country

On February 18th, 2007 I arrived in Honduras. I was actually supposed to arrive a few days earlier, but we got snowed in in Washington D.C.

I arrived with about 50 other volunteers working with the Health, Business and Water & Sanitation projects and spent the first 2.5 months with them in training. Training basically consisted of half a day of Spanish class and half a day of skills training for our specific project. We lived with host families for the entire time. Although it was fun to get to know the volunteers and my host family was nice, we were all happy when training was over and we finally got our site placement and eventually got to live on our own.

Throughout training I had my heart set on going to the north coast of Honduras to enjoy the beaches and work with HIV/AIDS with the Garifuna population. So when I got assigned to Santa Barbara, in central Honduras, working with water filters I wasn’t exactly ecstatic. However, Santa Barbara has definitely grown on me and the more I visit other people’s sites, the more I love mine. I live in the capital of the department (like a state) in a mid-sized town for Honduras (about 15,000 people depending on who you ask). Before coming to the Peace Corps I imagined living in a mud hut with no electricity or running water…well, that’s not exactly what I ended up with. I live in a very nice two bedroom apartment with a hot shower and electricity 95% of the time.

My official counterpart is Agua Pura para el Mundo (Pure Water for the World), an organization from the states that makes bio-sand filters to purify water in rural communities without access to clean water. Working with them keeps me incredibly busy; installing filters, doing water analysis, researching anti-parasitic drugs, helping the manager with administrative tasks and communicating with our donor organizations in the states could keep me busy 7 days a week. But luckily I’m a volunteer so I can choose not to work that much and have some free time as well as work on other projects.

I also work with HIV/AIDS projects including Men’s Health, Youth without Borders, The HIV Network and Training of Trainers (TOT). Men’s Health consists of workshops for adult men, primarily concerning HIV prevention as well as other topics relevant to men’s health such as prostate and testicular cancer, erectile dysfunction (this one goes over really well) alcoholism, domestic violence, etc. I work with men in my town as well as on the Peace Corps Honduras Men’s Health team, training new Peace Corps volunteers in the methodology.
Youth without Borders is an NGO that teaches HIV prevention to middle and high school students. I basically just attend their meetings and provide advice when needed.
The HIV Network is a group of people who work with HIV as part of their job as well as retired teachers who want to be active in the community. They organize community wide events such as World AIDS Day on December 1st.
Training of Trainers is a program developed by Peace Corps to train Hondurans to be facilitators of HIV prevention workshops. Starting in March I will be responsible for training all new incoming Peace Corps volunteers in the methodology.


I also work with groups that come to Honduras to do medical missions or other service projects. I have translated for an Optometry Brigade, a Taiwanese medical brigade and Rotarian medical brigades. I also work closely with the local Rotary Club to facilitate communication with donor Rotary Clubs in the states and Canada.

Overall, I feel like I have meaningful work that keeps me busy, although I still make sure I have a lot more free time than I ever did in the states. I am learning how to cook, (I got two great cookbooks as gifts from home), reading a lot (I have read 17 books since I got here, including Harry Potter 1-3 in Spanish), practicing yoga, working out, going to futbol games (aka soccer), traveling in Honduras with other volunteers and dancing with a local Honduran folk dance group.

I studied four years of Spanish in high school and a semester in college so I had a good base, but had forgotten so much when I first got here. Over the past year I have definitely improved a lot and can communicate just fine, although I still meet some people who I can’t understand for the life of me.

Before I left for the Peace Corps I had no intention to come home during my service, (although we are allowed to take vacation days to do so if we want to). As it turns out I have actually been back to the states twice in the last year. On April 4th, 2007 my grandma Elizabeth Nye died, so I flew to Denver, Colorado to go to the funeral and be with my family and celebrate Easter. Although it was not a happy reason to go home I was so thankful to be with my family. On December 13th, 2007 my grandma Ellen O’Donnell died, so I flew home to Cleveland, Ohio to go to the funeral and celebrate Christmas early with my family. Again, it was an unfortunate reason to have to go home, but I was so thankful to be with my family. Being away from them this year has only increased my love for them and made me even more proud of my heritage.

One thing that I was sure of before I left for the Peace Corps was that my parents would come visit me and if they didn’t I would never forgive them. On December 23rd my parents flew into Honduras and spent 10 days with me in my site, visiting Mayan Ruins in Copan and relaxing on the beach on Roatan, a Caribbean island off the north coast of Honduras. It was a wonderful vacation but it took me about a month to get over being really homesick after they left. Anybody else who wants to visit is welcome!

I’m still a vegetarian and I still don’t drink coffee or anything with bubbles in it. I think the Hondurans let me get away with this because I’m a foreigner and they just think I am weird.

I’ve been fairly lucky health wise. I have only had bad stomach issues once even though I basically eat everything, have avoided bad sun burns (and skin cancer) by using an umbrella rain and shine. I haven’t been as lucky with bug bites, however; on about three occasions I have gotten ant bites on my feet that swelled up so much I couldn’t put on a shoe.

Although I am truly enjoying my service and don’t regret my decision to join the Peace Corps for a second it is challenging. For Christmas my parents gave me a book about Jivamukti Yoga, which contains a wonderful quote for every Peace Corps volunteer around the world.

“Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference.” –Buddhist advice

Minnesota Rotary

Two days after the Maine Rotary Club left, the Minnesota Rotary Club (which has been coming to Santa Barbara for almost 20 years) showed up. In October three of them had come down to set up this trip, so Katie and I had already met with them and knew how much fun they were. This time they brought about 20 people with them, including doctors, dentists and a construction team. They spent two weeks pulling teeth in the rural villages, doing surgeries at the hospital, training local firemen and ambulance crews, working in the ER and repairing roofs of schools. Five Peace Corps volunteers from Santa Barbara spent the two weeks with them working as translators and thoroughly enjoying their company.

The first week I worked with Dr. Andrew Will, a physiatrist from Minnesota. We worked in a local orthopedic clinic and saw patients for free for two days. Most people came in complaining of lower or upper back pain mostly caused by herniated disks. For most of the cases surgery wasn’t necessary, just physical therapy, anti-inflamatories, ice and possibly steroids. I told Dr. Will that he should just refer all his patients to do yoga since all the physical therapy exercises are yoga moves. It was interesting to see people’s MRIs and learn how to read them and learn how to test for which nerve is being pinched. The best part of the whole thing was that we got to work with Carolina, the physical therapist that works in the office. She was incredibly helpful and was able to learn a lot from the doctor and will be around to follow up with all the patients we saw. The more I work with medical brigades the more useless I think they are if they don’t involve some education component for the local care providers.


One day we went to Buena Vista, a community where we have Agua Pura filters and where the Minnesota club is trying to fund a water system to do a good old-fashioned medical brigade. Show up with lots of docs, ask people their problem and give them aspirin and vitamins and sometimes refer them to go to the hospital in Santa Barbara (2-3 hours away depending on what season it is). I think that this type of activity is pretty much worthless because they are just putting temporary fixes on underlying problems and reinforcing dependency on foreigners.

The second week I worked with Dr. Joe Corser in the ER of the hospital. Dr. Corser is awesome and I got to see some interesting cases and learned some new technical vocabulary.
Dr. Joe Corser & Allison

Although it was fun for us and the ER staff liked having us there because we could help see patients I think it was pretty worthless; there was nothing that we could do that the Honduran staff couldn’t do faster.

The dentists went to different communities every day to pull teach. I think that this is useful because it fixes a pressing and usually painful problem that would otherwise probably go untreated. Pulling teeth coupled with giving toothbrushes and oral hygiene education is useful. The dentists told us about an interesting phenomenon that they have encountered during these types of dental brigades. Some women come in and ask to have their front teeth pulled even if they are perfectly healthy in order to give better blow jobs. Whether to pull or not turns into a moral dilemma for the dentists. Some argue that if a patient wants her teeth pulled the dentist should do as she asks and not make a moral judgment about the motive of the patient. Also, pulling the teeth could be seen as a form of birth control, and thus worthwhile. Other dentists refrain from doing it because they think it is wrong to pull healthy teeth when they have limited time and resources. Interesting dilemma…

Ambassador

From left: Molly, Aerka, Charles Ford, Allison, Katie

On February 22nd Charles Ford, the US ambassador to Honduras came to Santa Barbara to spend a day learning about the projects going on here. To start off his visit he met with four of the Peace Corps volunteers from Santa Barbara to hear about our projects. Before the meeting I tried to brainstorm some of the questions he may ask us, one of which being what I thought was the biggest obstacle to Honduran development. My answer would have been dependency; the lack of self-initiative and feelings of entitlement that many Hondurans have. The ambassador didn’t actually ask this question, but he himself expressed the same opinion about the problem of dependency, and that both sides (the US & Honduras) are responsible for creating the problem.

After lunch he went with the local Rotary Club to check out some of their projects and then we joined him again for dinner with the Rotary Club, the Minnesota Rotary people and other guests. Before dinner he spoke for about an hour and actually said some interesting things (unfortunately I have gotten used to people talking a lot and saying nothing, especially at dinners such as these). He argued that right now Honduras is in a position to develop and right now small business especially can take advantage of the US market through CAFTA. He talked about the “American Dream” that so many Hondurans have and suggested that instead of paying a coyote $5,000-$7,000 to get you to the US you invest that money in a small business and strive towards the “Honduran Dream” (In Spanish this is really catchy because it rhythms). This part I definitely agreed with, that you could do a lot better good investing that money in a business here than blowing it on a dangerous trip. However, I wasn’t convinced that small Honduran businesses would be able to compete in the US market. I understand how large manufacturers could do it, but I just do see how a small businessman could compete. He also compared Honduras to some of the Asian Tigers, citing how in the 1960s, Honduras was better off than South Korea and now South Korea is leaps and bounds ahead of Honduras. He used this comparison not to make the Hondurans feel bad, but to give them hope that they have the potential to develop within just one generation as South Korea did. His speech was respectful but did make some strong points that change really has to come from within the country. I asked a few Rotarians what they thought about his comments afterward and they seemed to agree that in the end they really are the ones that need to change to see their country change.