Garifuna Workshops

Last July when my cousin Ian came to visit, we went to visit Cayos Cuchinos, small islands off the north coast of Honduras. On the boat ride over there I met a woman named Perla and hit it off with her daughter, who goes to university in the states and has been to Ian’s hometown of Ashtebula, Ohio. Well, it turns out that Perla works with Garifuna youth from the north coast and HIV prevention, and so after months of talking we managed to put together three workshops with Garifuna youth, training over 60 of them with the Peace Corps Honduras Men’s Health methodology “Here Among Us”. It was a wonderful experience to go to Tela and Ceiba on the north coast and work with both the staff of her organization as well as the youth participants. The participants from the first workshop in Tela have all been part of youth theater groups for years and were full of energy, knowledge and spirit. I can honestly say it was the best group we have ever worked with and the activities have never run better.

The second set of workshops we did in Ceiba was with guys who hadn’t been part of the theater groups for as long and there was a marked difference. They were younger and more immature and it really showed us what a large impact the theater groups can make on the lives of these youth.

One of the goals of the Men’s Health Initiative is to train more Honduran NGOs and GOs in the “Here Among Us” methodology, so that it can grow beyond Peace Corps. So, as Peace Corps volunteers it was a big accomplishment to work with another organization to plan a large scale training in which Peace Corps didn’t pay for a thing. The participants liked it, we had fun, and the organization seemed to love it, so it was an all around success.

Minnesota 2009

Larry, Rene, me, Chris

Members of the Rotary group from Bemidji, Minnesota have been visiting Santa Barbara, Honduras for the past twenty years. During my service I have had the honor of working with them during four of their visits. This year they brought down thirty people, including dentists, a construction team, a urologist, a gastroenterologist and miscellaneous others. As the Peace Corps volunteer living in Santa Barbara, I set up all the translators and then worked with the group while they were here for over a week. I actually had one of the easiest jobs translating for Dr. Ted Will. I call him the MC of the group and he is now retired after years of coming to do good in Santa Barbara. So, I basically just acted as his assistant and we both went around and supervised, making sure everything was going well. I feel that I have become a very good supervisor during my time here in Honduras.

While with Ted I actually got to drop in on surgery and endoscopy and see some cool stuff.
I would say the prize goes to the worm they found in a young boys appendix. He had an appendicitis, so they performed an appendectomy and when they opened it up found what had caused the problem.

The appendix is on the left and the worm is on the right.

I also got to see endoscopies (the insides entering through the mouth) and colonoscopies (entering through the other end).

Another important part of the medical brigade was the teaching that many of the doctors did. One of the ER doctors gave a number of talks about airway management and stabilization to residents at the hospital and the firemen in town. One doctor gave a talk about foot care for diabetic patients and another gave a lecture on gastric pathology to all the doctors at the hospital. In addition to their formal lectures, the doctors from Minnesota worked side by side with Honduran doctors throughout their entire visit, teaching as they worked.

In addition to the work in the hospital and the dental and construction work done in the rural communities surrounding Santa Barbara the group also spent a day at the prison. Since I have been working with the prisoners over the past year, I helped coordinate a visit by the dentists to the prison to pull teeth. Apparently the dental team was a little apprehensive about visiting the prison, but at the end of the day I think they all really enjoyed the experience and came away with a positive impression.

Thanks to the leaders and the guards that I work with helping out, everything was perfectly organized and the dentists saw over 50 people in one day.

In addition to the dentists, the construction team purchased materials to build new stoves and chimneys in the prison kitchen. Previously they were cooking over open fires in completely enclosed rooms, causing all sorts of health problems for those who work in the kitchen. When I visited it last year I could hardly see after 10 minutes, I can’t imagine working in there all day.
Kitchen before

One of the prisoners is a mason, so Minnesota just ordered the materials and he took charge from there.


Katie and I often gush about why we like the Minnesota Rotarians… Here is a top ten list:

1. They rent and drive their own cars
2. They learn Spanish
3. They feed us
4. They are patient
5. They are flexible
6. They know more people in Santa Barbara than we do
7. They come twice a year (once to plan and once to work)
8. They teach
9. They listen
10. They get it

Katie’s B-Day BBQ Bash

Just days after the group from Minnesota left Peace Corps Volunteers from all over the country started arriving for Katie’s second annual b-day BBQ bash. Somehow over 25 people fit into Katie’s and my apartment as well as two empty “borrowed” apartments. We had tons of food, tons of friends and tons of fun.

Minimum Wage Hike

On January 15th the monthly Honduran minimum wage was raised from 3,500 L to 5,500 L ($185 to $291). Of course this was done to raise the standard of living for poor Hondurans, but the hike had unintended consequences (that couldn’t have been that hard to foresee). Many businesses and organizations didn’t have enough money to cover the abrupt change and therefore laid employees off or shut down completely.

One especially sad example of this is the case of the IHNFA. The IHNFA is basically a day care center for children from economically challenged families. They all have parents, but they work during the day or for whatever reason cannot take care of their kids, so they send them to the IHNFA from 8 am to 4 pm, where they are taken care of and receive three meals, a bath and help with homework.

I started working with the older girls at the IHNFA last year through a program called “I Deserve” which teaches self-esteem, abstinence and decision making to young girls in order that they will decide to delay initiation of sexual relations. They are a tough group to work with but I had grown very fond of them and knew how important the IHNFA was to their livelihood. Unfortunately the minimum wage hike meant that there was no longer enough money to pay the 5 employees who work at the IHNFA and they made the sad decision to close. This not only meant that 5 people were out of work, it meant that about 60 kids were on the streets and not being fed.

About a month after the day care closed they had a meeting with the parents and some community leaders to brainstorm solutions to raise money. One of the problems is that the day care is not its own recognized institution, so it has less power to solicit donations and funding. It receives $600 a month from Reach International, an Adventist organization, and must ask for donations from the community to cover the rest of the monthly operating expenses ($3,070). During the meeting they talked about the negative impact that the closing of the day care has had on the children that rely on it and that one of the girls even tried to kill herself. She is 14 and the oldest of 6 kids and has never been to school, so not having the day care to go to during the day means that she has nothing to do. She took 25 pills that she found in her house and was then taken to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. Luckily she survived and was taken out of her home to live in the orphanage just outside of town also run by Reach International.
Tanya and me at the orphanage

During my sessions with the girls, she was always the most helpful to me, hanging around before and after to help me set up. She would write in her diary each week about her sadness and worry and then let me read it. Hearing about what happened to her really affected me and I became frustrated that there was no money to support this day care center that served a vital need when millions of dollars come in to Honduras every year. I had to leave the meeting early so I got up to leave and knew that if I said anything I would start crying. I tried to duck out without having to address the group but it didn’t work. They asked me if I wanted to say anything and I just nodded my head “no” while looking at the ground because the tears were already coming. They kept asking me and told me to stay around a while and then talked about how great I was for supporting the center. By the end I was sobbing and couldn’t say anything or do anything to stop it. I just looked at my feet and then left trying to smile goodbye.

There have really not been that many things in Honduras over the past two years that have touched me deeply but two of them have involved the IHNFA. I can honestly say that a lot of money comes to Honduras and a lot of it gets wasted, but the money spent on this day care is money well spent and it makes me feel impotent to know how much money there is and that this place that really needs it is not getting it.

The day care is now opened again, but only from 11 am to 3 pm. I have two more weeks in my 14 week “I Deserve” program.

Maine & Michigan

Agua Pura staff, Maine Rotarians and filter workshop workers at the filter workshop

Agua Pura para el Mundo (Pure Water for the World), my counterpart organization, receives its funding from grant money raised by various Rotary Clubs in Maine and other states, then matched by Rotary International. Every six months members of the head Rotary Club from Maine come to Santa Barbara to visit the project, meet with local Rotarians and help us with the project. The trip is always productive and allows us to deal with things that can’t necessarily happen over e-mail. This year they came with a group of five to spend the week visiting the filter factory, installing filters, giving deparasiting medicine and checking up on filters already installed. In addition to that, they donated medicine and supplies to the hospital and helped Nineth review the finances and project goals.

Me in El Dorado with Community Agents

One of the big things that needed to get done during their visit was a meeting with the local Rotarians on the filter committee. I was supposed to be the translator but I only lasted about five minutes. Just as soon as I sat down on of the Rotarians asked about something written on our white board in the office (we has listed who was lending us cars and drivers to take the group to the communities). I mentioned that Medicos del Mundo (Doctors of the World) was very generous to lend us their SUV with driver for three days. He responded back that he was also very generous to lend two of his cars for two days (although at the last minute he canceled and we had to find cars at 11 pm the night before…). To anybody else that comment wouldn’t have seemed like a big deal, but to me it encompasses all that I dislike about those men. He needed to feel good about himself and get credit for all that he was doing and didn’t even care that I had gotten another organization that has nothing to do with us to lend us their car and driver for three days. It really got to me and I left the room and started crying. I eventually called Nineth out and told her I couldn’t do it because I knew that the meeting would just get worse and I would just get more upset. I felt selfish ditching Nineth like that because she didn’t have the option to leave, while I did. In the end it was a horrible meeting for Nineth, who called me afterward crying. I felt guilty that I hadn’t been there to support her. She is so strong and puts up with so much disrespect; I hope I never have to deal with a situation like that.

Just a few days later we attended the weekly Rotary Club meeting. Nineth and I were there until 11 pm trying to organize cars, drivers and translators for the following day. When we finally finished we sat down with the Rotarians still hanging around. The same men that give Nineth and I such a hard time were teasing and flirting with us and just being incredibly jolly. We stayed until 1 am and had a wonderful time laughing like crazy. It really amazes me how differently people can act and how people who despise each other can act like the best of friends. In the end, although working with them hasn’t been pleasant, it sure has taught me a lot about life.
Maine Rotarians, Nineth and me at the Santa Barbara Rotary meeting

Like Minnesota, Maine has had some experience in Honduras and has kinda figured out how things work and they are a pleasant group to host. Well, half way through the week a group of 13 from Michigan (including 3 from Canada) arrived in Santa Barbara. They had contributed to the Agua Pura matching grant and were also interested in starting a new water filter project or funding one in Santa Barbara when the current grant is up, so they came to check it out. Individually, the members of the group were all very interesting and kind but as a group they were a handful. It seems like whenever large groups get together, go to a country they don’t know, in a language they don’t know, they loose all reasoning abilities. I felt like a travel agent, tour guide and babysitter. They didn’t rent cars and only one of them spoke Spanish so we had to find cars, drivers and translators for them as well as set up their transport out of Santa Barbara. It was a lot of work but they all expressed their gratitude and appreciation for the help I gave them, which was nice. They wanted to give me a thank you gift for all my work but I really couldn’t think of anything I wanted since I will be home in a month and can have whatever I want. So, finally I told them that I would like them to donate to Agua Pura and they ended up giving $185!
Rotary members from Maine, Michigan and Canada

Being around the group helped me appreciate the perspective I have gained being in the Peace Corps. Many people who come down have good intentions but can be naïve. People say things like “We are going to transform this country” and “Once we fix these people…”. Hearing things like that always makes me a little self-conscious about being an American and aware of our altruistic yet sometimes arrogant attitudes.

Despedida

After two years of sharing a site with Katie she is leaving! We both often wonder how our Peace Corps experience would have been different if we had been in a site alone. Would we have made more Honduran friends, would our Spanish be better, would we be lonely? Who knows how things would have been different, but I do know that Katie and I have been perfect site mates, that we get along amazingly (thanks to having separate apartments) and that we have been wonderful supports for each other throughout these two years. I think we have actually made each other better listeners as well. And my final crowning achievement is that I have (almost) converted her into a vegetarian!

Molly, another volunteer in the department of Santa Barbara, is also leaving a month early, so we had a joint despedida (going away party) for them. The new Peace Corps trainees that arrived in Honduras just three weeks ago also happened to be doing their volunteer visit (to see what volunteer life is like) so they joined us for the party and made it a bienvenida/despedida. It was also St. Patrick’s day, so that just added to the fun.

Close of Service Survey

Now that I have just over a month left of service I am starting to wrap up my projects and start my Peace Corps paperwork to leave. One of the fun things we do is called a Close of Service Survey about our good and not so good memories of Peace Corps. Here is mine, although some of it may not make much sense…

Nicknames: Ali, Alise
Biggest Accomplishment: Working myself out of a job with my counterpart
Biggest Disappointment: That I didn’t get the super hard core Peace Corps experience I expected
Biggest Regret: That I spent a large part of my time working with a group of people I didn’t like
Things you will miss most: Wearing flip flops every day and my flexible work schedule
Things you will miss least: Machismo
Biggest Irony: That I am in a Latin county and I miss burritos and salsa dancing from the states
Worst Illness: When my foot swelled up like a watermelon from an ant bite
Biggest Freak-out: When I yelled at the Rotarians for not supporting us enough
Biggest fear during PC: I don’t really remember being scared…
Most useful thing I brought: My computer
Least useful thing I brought: Therma Rest (haven’t used it once)
Favorite activity I did when bored: I was never really bored…
Favorite Hondureñismo: Fijese que…, Ya viene…, Cheque
Greatest lie I told at my site: I was pretty honest about everything
Favorite Honduran Inquiry: “But you make money in the states too, right?”
Best Honduran Gesture: Gotta be the lip point
Favorite CD/Song during my service: Isabella
Favorite books during service: Eat, Pray, Love and of course all 7 Harry Potter books in Spanish
Favorite Honduran fashion: Wearing dresses that should actually be shirts.
Best jalon: I was driven from my apartment to the PC office in Teguc by the driver of an Israeli engineer, free of charge in a nice SUV.
Worst jalon: In the back of a truck full of pineapples
Best bus ride: From Teguc to Santa Barbara with my grandfather, he loved the scenery
Worst bus ride: Anything on the north coast in the summer
Favorite food: Baleadas, tamalitos
Worst thing I ate: Nance
Untrue fact told to you as an undeniable truth: That a little girl got a sty from watching a chicken poop
You know you’ve been in Hn too long when: You request reggaeton
I never thought I would: Use an umbrella when it is not raining
If I had to do it all over again I: would
Favorite piropo: I hate them all
Favorite Ropa Americana t-shirt: Anything that involves “princess” on an old campesino man
Favorite animal story: Horse back riding through the campo on my volunteer visit
Best habit acquired: Practicing yoga on my own
Worst habit acquired: Referring to people as “el gordo” or “el negro”
Things you missed most from the U.S.: Salsa dancing
Things you missed least from the U.S.: Studying
Hn Highlights: Visiting Cayos Cuchinos
Things you wish you’d known when you signed up: That I wouldn’t be in a hut in the middle of nowhere
Best advice for fellow PCVs: “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