Post Peace Corps

Finishing Peace Corps feels much like graduating from college; everyone is asking you what you will do next. Some are applying for grad school, some are looking for jobs, and some have no clue and just plan to move back in with their parents (I fall into the third category). Some of you may have heard a little rumor that I would be going to Africa next year to extend my Peace Corps service…Well, I did actually apply to extend to Africa for one year but due to budget issues they cannot accept transfers at this time (or in the foreseeable future). So, what now? Every year USAID (United States Agency for international Development) offers two internship positions in the Strategic and Program Support Office in Tegucigalpa. The positions are only available to Peace Corps Volunteers from Honduras who have finished their service so I am considering applying to gain more experience in international development. We shall see…


Throughout service volunteers come up with grand plans to travel through all of South America or to travel back to the US by land, but one by one they loose steam and many of my friends have decided just to fly straight home without traveling afterward. I personally have wavered back and forth a great deal. After my Guatemala trip I was totally inspired to travel afterward, but after my Nicaragua/Costa Rica trip I was sick of all of Central America and didn’t want anything more to do with it. Then after being re-inspired by the COS Conference I am now interested in traveling again. So, regardless of whether I stay in Honduras or not I will have a few months off to travel and see family. I plan to go from Honduras through northern Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, and then fly home from Cancun. Sadly, all of my friends are either leaving early or flying straight home so I will be traveling by myself. Shortly after I arrive I will be having a welcome home party, so get ready for Honduran food, meringue & reggaeton music and Jeopardy to see how well you have been keeping up with my blog.

If I do not stay in Honduras with USAID I will move back to Cleveland to live with my parents. Although many people my age shutter at the idea of moving back in with the folks, I have no shame and love living with my parents, can’t wait to spend time with them and be back in Cleveland (although I think I will have to do something about the winter issue). Maybe I will go to India…When I graduated from college my parents gave me a wonderful gift; a plane ticket to anywhere in the world. I have been thinking about how best to use it and think that I may take advantage of it to go to India. I have been practicing yoga for a while and in the past have wanted to go to India to practice yoga. In Costa Rica our yoga instructor mentioned how cheap the teacher trainings are and since then I have been considering the possibility of going to study and getting certified as a yoga instructor. It would be nice if I could coordinate that with winter in Cleveland because I would really like to avoid that if at all possible.

Tegucigalpa, India, Cleveland…who knows where I will end up next year. On the other hand, I am pretty sure I want to go to grad school in Public Health Administration the following year, so wherever I am, I will be researching schools (in warm climates) and applying for fall 2010.

I really don’t know what I will be doing next and I am totally okay with that. I am excited for whatever my future brings and know that regardless I will make the best of it.

Close of Service Conference

COS stands for Close of Service (yet another Peace Corps acronym) and refers to the process of finishing a term as a Peace Corps volunteer, including final report writing, administrative procedures and medical clearance. In January we had our COS Conference to start this process and help prepare us for the culture shock that is sure to hit us after we leave Peace Corps. I actually think it was one of the most useful Peace Corps conferences that we have had in the past two years and it did wonders to bring me out of a bitter slump.

36 volunteers (out of an original 51) showed up at the two day conference to talk about future job opportunities, resumes and interviewing skills, hear from RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) and learn that we will have to poop in a cup three days in a row just to make sure we have no parasites before we leave Honduras. The wife of a RPCV living in Honduras came to talk to us about all of the skills we have acquired and honed in Honduras and how to sell them to a future employer. We talked about soft, hard and transferable skills, such as patience, flexibility, cultural sensitivity (soft), Spanish language proficiency, grant writing, manual development (hard) and facilitating groups, planning and budgeting (transferable skills). Thinking about everything we have accomplished and learned here made me feel very satisfied about my time here and also excited about how I can use the skills learned here in future jobs. Speaking of future jobs…

Back in Honduras

I arrived back in Honduras without trouble and spent just a few days in Santa Barbara before I left again to go to our Close of Service (COS) Conference. It was nice to be back in my own home in Santa Barbara but I was also feeling a little sick of being in Central America and just wanted to be done with my service and go home. Not to mention that I was actually physically sick as well. I returned home with a horrible sore throat and then came down with pink eye a few days after I got home. Luckily my little slump only lasted a few days because the COS conference really helped change my attitude and antibiotics cleared up my ailments.

Costa Rica

My parents arrived about two hours before me and were already at the Pura Vida hotel in Alajuela waiting for me. I was so excited to see them that I was almost crying. It has been just over a year since I had last been with them and I couldn’t wait. I got to the hotel and the owner showed me to their room and I started cry as I walked with her and then burst out crying as soon as I saw them. I was so excited that it took me a minute to realize that my dad had a beard!
That night we had a wonderful dinner and then opened Christmas presents. I gave my parents a large plaque that says The O’Donnell Family to put over the front door and they gave me many wonderful things. Most notably my mom bought me 15 pairs of underwear which means I can throw away my old saggy underwear with holes and no elastic. I don’t think people are generally excited to get underwear for Christmas but I certainly was.

Puerto Viejo

The next day we took a 4.5 hour bus ride to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca a small town on the Caribbean coast near the Panamanian border. When we stepped off the bus we weren’t exactly impressed with what we saw. When I imagined Costa Rica I thought of incredible white sand beaches and all inclusive resorts…Well, let me just say that that is not what we got. We checked into Cashew Hill Lodge, owned by an American couple with four kids who moved to Costa Rica as self proclaimed political refugees. It is on a beautiful property with about 7 different houses, all very colorful and unique.

Then we walked around town pondering if we should stay in Puerto Viejo or leave the next day for the Pacific side and check into an all inclusive resort on a pristine beach. Actually, throughout our entire vacation we continued to ponder if we should cut our loses and go but in the end we stayed there the whole time and did enjoy ourselves although it wasn’t exactly what any of us expected.

Yoga

Once we got settled in we rented bikes and went in search of a yoga studio/instructor. The owners of the hotel put us in touch with an instructor named Ishmael and he ended coming to our house everyday to give private class to my parents and I. My mom and I have been practicing yoga for years and we have always tried to get my dad into it since he has a bad back, but it never seemed to work out before, so we were both overjoyed that we could all take class together. Ishmael was great and my dad liked it, so we all ended up happy.

Surfing

Another order of business was to set up surf lessons. We checked out a few places and then finally went with the son of the hotel owner. We got long, sort boards and started off on the beach with about 2 minutes of instruction and 2 minutes of practice popping up, then into the waves we went. The instructors basically held our boards, pushed us into the wave and yelled at us when to stand up. Beyond that, there wasn’t much teaching involved. I got up on my first try and both mom and dad were able to get up as well. Overall, it was fun but we were all a little frustrated that there was not more solid instruction. Whenever I asked how do I know which waves are good and when to go, my instructor just told me that I would feel it with time.
A few hours after our lesson the backs of my legs began to burn and I realized that somehow suntan lotion either didn’t get on the backs of my legs or it somehow came off…very curious. By nightime my legs hurt so badly I could barely move and I made my mom put wet towels on me and then Aloe Vera.
Originally I had told my dad I wanted to surf four times so I could really get in some practice, but my legs hurt so bad that I didn’t go again until the last day in Costa Rica.

Puerto Viejo is a town of only about 500 residents and a few thousand tourists. Most of them are young backpackers who come to surf and be hippies. No matter who they are they all dress with minimal clothing. The girls wear very short shorts, skirts of dresses and the boys wear board shorts. I personally enjoyed this since I haven’t worn shorts in Honduras for two years even when it is 40 degrees Celsius. However, the boys did something that boggled my mind. They would wear their board shorts so low that you could see their pubic hair in the front and their butt crack in the back. See photo below for example.
I asked a few guys about this and they just said it was the fashion and didn’t think it was odd at all. Hmmm…

Salsa

I had hoped to go out with the daughter of the hotel owners numerous nights but at first I was too exhausted and then after I burned my legs I was in too much pain. Luckily by Friday night I was finally ready to go out and went to a salsa club called Maritza with a live salsa band. My parents stayed with me at first and then once people started dancing they went home to go to bed (Although my dad came back an hour later to check on me). I was bored for about the first hour but finally I met some good salsa dancers and enjoyed the rest of my night.

The Beaches

The beach at Puerto Viejo didn’t exactly strike my parents and me as the most beautiful beaches we had ever seen (in fact the beaches at West Bay in Roatan, Honduras were much better). Fortunately, the beaches down the coast were beautiful so we visited a few of them. Cocles beach had great waves so we could watch people surf and play in the waves.
Cocles

Punta Uva was beautiful with white sandy beaches and fairly clear water.
Punta Uva

Towards the end of our trip we went to Manzanillo, a tiny town at the end of the road (literally) to go dolphin watching. Sherman, our guide, took us about 30 minutes down the coast towards Panama to a spot where the dolphins are.
They advertise an 80% chance of seeing dolphins because apparently the dolphins are pretty consistent. Luckily we were not part of the unlucky 20% who see nothing and saw tons of bottle nose and spotted dolphins. It was the first time I had ever seen dolphins swimming in the wild, so I was pretty excited.
When we finished with the dolphin watching we just relaxed on the beautiful beach at Manzaillo and Sherman cut up tangerines and watermelon for us.
Manzanillo

After we finished eating he did an amazing thing, which sadly I don’t think would ever happen in Honduras. He gathered up all of our trash, then he picked up some more trash that had been left nearby, then he walked about 50 meters to a trash can and threw it all away. I was personally blown away! My dad commented on it and he said “Yeah man, this my home, I got to take care of it.” Although that may seem like a very logical and simple mentality, unfortunately I have found few Hondurans that think the same way.
Sherman

The only thing we didn’t get out of our beach experiences was snorkeling. My dad had his heart set on it but everywhere we asked said the “sea was ugly” meaning that things were just too choppy to be able to see anything. After the dolphin tour my parents tried for a bit but we just weren’t there at the right time of year.

Our Tour with Delroy

Delroy and his wife Veronica own a macrobiotic vegetarian restaurant in Puerto Viejo and after eating there we decided to take a tour with Delroy. First, we stopped off at an iguana farm. The owners raise the iguanas and then let them into the wild because the population has been depleted mostly due to people hunting and eating them.
Then we talked to a proud BriBri man about his culture and history and bought some of the handicrafts that the rural BriBri communities make.

After that we took a hike through the jungle to a beautiful waterfall and my mom fell half way in trying to jump from one rock to a large tree trunk (I think she subconsciously did it on purpose).

Finally we finished the day with a tour of the cocoa (chocolate) making process. I was actually very impressed by the woman who ran it and her ability to concisely explain the process. We got to suck on cocoa beans right from the fruit, see the production process and then sample the finished product.


Time to go home

I actually left a few days before my parents since I didn’t have enough vacation days. Ironically my parents were ready to go home when I left and even tried to change their flight to leave early. Even though we did have a wonderful time the vacation turned out to be a little rougher than we expected. There were lots of bugs in the hotel (a crab scurried across our bathroom floor our first night), everything was a little damp (which causes mold), dad was attacked my mosquitoes and some unidentified creature that made his eye swell up and dad and I both got sick…and of course there was the face meets bottom of ocean incident
Notice he shaved his beard…it got itchy.

I realized that I have been living a rustic lifestyle for two years now and I have had my fill. I really just want to enjoy luxury and comfort, so I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next vacation.

Earthquake

A few days after we got to Costa Rica there was a 6.2 earthquake outside of San Jose, the capital city. We heard about it through the news because fortunately Puerto Viejo did not feel it and was in no way affected. Maura, my aunt, called our hotel to make sure we were okay and many friends asked about it when I got back (it was nice to know that people were thinking about us).

Nicaragua

After almost two years in Honduras I had only visited one other Central American country so I decided that I needed to get a move on it. So after Christmas I headed to Nicaragua with a few Peace Corps friends and then to Costa Rica with my parents for a long vacation. Overall, it was wonderful to relax and see my parents but neither of the trips were exactly what I expected them to be.

When everybody left after Christmas I was incredibly bored and still had to wait over a week to see my parents. I called Mary, a fellow PCV, to come down to Santa Barbara and keep me company and then we headed to Teguc the next day. The following day we took a 6.5 hour bus ride to Managua, Nicaragua (the capital) on a luxury air conditioned bus (we were freezing!). Things went smoothly on the first leg of the trip, but when we tried to catch a cab to the next bus station the cab driver lied to us and tried to cheat us. First, he tried to overcharge us (which is to be expected) and told us we had to leave right away because the next buses were leaving. Then once we were in the taxi he told us that the buses weren’t leaving now because they were full of students and he would have to take us to another bus station that was farther away and would cost more. We didn’t buy it and he took us to the original terminal which was functioning just fine. The second we stepped out of the taxi the bus attendants instantly surrounded us and started grabbing our bags and arms telling us to come with them. We plowed ahead and got on a bus where the bus attendant then proceeded to charge me an extra fair because I had a bag (which they didn’t do on the way back, so I think he was just taking advantage of me being fresh of the bus). Needless to say, our first impression of Nicaragua was not a favorable one. I think the fact that we live here made it even more infuriating because I am not just some clueless tourist that doesn’t speak any Spanish that can be taken advantage of. It also infuriated me when they would try to speak English to me and quote prices in dollars (I told them I didn’t earn dollars and didn’t have any).

We arrived in Granada, a popular colonial tourist town about an hour outside of the capital, and met up with Kendra and Nick, two other PCVs, as well as Nick’s friend Nick (yes, they are both named Nick) from the states.

Our first activity was to take a very slow and crowded chicken bus to Catarina a nearby town to go to the mirador that overlooked the nearby lake and the city of Granda.

After that we contemplated going to another little town known for its arts and crafts but were too lazy. Instead we headed back to Granada and looked for a place to eat. As we were searching we ran into one of the Rotary members who visits Santa Barbara a couple times a year with a medical and construction brigade. Small world! So of course we sat down and had a “safety meeting” over burritos with him and his wife.

To celebrate New Year’s Eve we met up with some of Nick’s friends from the states and had a wonderful dinner at El Hotel Corazon, a brand new hotel in Granada that gives 100% of its profits to a local community organization. We also celebrated Nick’s birthday with a chocolate chip cookie cake.

Then we headed to El Club for dancing until the wee hours of the morning. Mary and I realized we have been in Honduras too long when we begged the DJ to change up the techo music and play reggaeton.


New Year’s day we had the brilliant idea of going to the lake to swim but once we got there we realized that our idea wasn’t unique and that the rest of Nicaragua also had the same idea. We had to walk along the bank of the lake for about 20 minutes just to find a rocky slopped spot to lay down our towels.

As we walked in Mary, Kendra and I realized that we were probably the only foreigners there and that about half of the men had tattoos. In Honduras, tattoos are quite taboo and often associated with gang membership, so we began to feel slightly unsafe. Luckily a kind Nicaragua later explained to us that tattoos don’t have the same stigma in Nicaragua and they are quite common. We all felt better after that.

We had planned to travel to Ometepe, an island in the middle of the lake formed by two adjoining volcanoes, but decided to stay in Granada because Mary was sick all over. Our hotel wasn’t very nice and we had a little tiff with the owner about the exchange rate (yet another guy trying to cheat us) so Kendra and I scouted around town to find a nicer hotel to stay at for the next two days (ie. AC, cable TV, pool, beds with no springs sticking out, etc.). We found a great place called Hotel Capricho and spent the next two days there laying by the pool and snuggled three in a bed watching TV in English.



Although we really didn’t get to see much of Nicaragua we all enjoyed just relaxing. As we have all been in Honduras for almost two years we are a little tired of it all and didn’t mind holing up in a hotel for a few days if it meant we didn’t have to deal with cat calls, sweating, trash on the streets and drunk men that small like urine sleeping on the stairs of the Catholic Church.

On January 4th Mary was feeling slightly better and she and Kendra headed down south to go to the beach while I headed to the airport to fly to Costa Rica. As I went through immigration they looked quizzically at my passport. Due to the fact that I entered Nicaragua over land they did not stamp my passport and therefore there was no record that I had left Honduras. I wanted to tell them that “clearly I had left Honduras because here I am standing in front of you”. The immigration officer told me I couldn’t leave Nicaragua and that I would have to go back to Honduras and then fly from there to Costa Rica. I told them that wouldn’t work for me so could they please find a way for me to get on my flight. The officer left and talked to some other people and then explained to me that I would have to buy a tourist visa for $3 and then I could go. Although I didn’t really buy it I wasn’t going to argue over $3 so I paid it and off I went for a 45 minute flight to San Jose, Costa Rica.

Christmas 2008

Even though this is my second Christmas in Santa Barbara it feels like my first. Last year I was in Cleveland until the 22nd of December and then returned to Santa Barbara with my parents and celebrated Christmas together, which meant that we basically just spent time together and didn’t do much community stuff. This year I have been here to see all aspects of the Christmas season. Work started to taper off around the 18th and I started to relax a little, which was wonderful. On the 19th Katie and I invited some of the women we work with over for dinner and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Their husbands/boyfriends kept calling them to see what they were doing and my counterpart Sara said it was the first time she had ever been to a party with only women.

Then I went to Copan Ruinas, a wonderful little town just a few miles from the Honduran border to visit friends for the weekend and saw the performances for their festival. They had fire throwers, jugglers, lots of people on stilts (including a precious little boy who looked about 8 years old) and drummers from Honduras performing. They also invited a theater group from Guatemala that did a performance on Mayan culture in the central park (their central park is gorgeous…unlike Santa Barbara’s).

Once I got back I started cooking and didn’t stop until Christmas. Another Peace Corps Volunteer happened to be staying in Santa Barbara for a few days to wait for her parents to get in since their original flight was canceled due to snow (snow?). It was wonderful to have her around to cook with since Katie was in Copan Ruinas with her parents. We made Rice Krispie treats for my Yo Merezco group (actually they were chocolate krispies since they don’t have Rice Krispies here). Then we experimented making yoghurt (I think it turned out all right for my first time). Then came the fudge…I was pretty nervous about this since I thought it was some big complicated process, but my mom sent me a recipe off the back of a Nestle Chocolate Chip bag and it turned out perfect and everyone was very impressed with me (including myself). The pumpkin bread was easy and this time we didn’t burn it in our little toaster oven, so that was good. Laura also helped me make a few dozen cookies for the prisoners I work with. We finished up with green bean casserole and roasted garlic (so good).

Christmas Eve I visited my counterpart Nineth and gave her some fudge and pumpkin bread.

Nineth & Allison

Then Katie and her parents and sister got back from Copan Ruinas and we went to the local sports bar for dinner and then watched Love Actually (a wonderful movie). At that point Katie and her family went to bed and I went to a Christmas Eve party. In Honduras they celebrate Christmas on December 24th, not the 25th. They actually celebrate it similar to how we celebrate the 31st. During the day they cook (and clean) and then may go to mass around 9 pm, then the parties and the eating start after that. I was invited to a friends party so I arrived at about 10:30 to a basketball court full of teenagers listening to (but not dancing to) reggaeton music. As awkward as it was I stayed there for about an hour and then went to the house of another woman I work with and she fed me tamales (made of corn mush with peas, potato and meat inside) and egg nog. She had a crèche that was about 12 by 15 feet with 3 feet tall Mary and Joseph. When I arrived there was a paper towel over the baby Jesus. They explained that it was because he hadn’t been born yet (at 12 they removed it with a broomstick). Then at midnight the fireworks reached their peak, which had been building for about a week prior.

While the rest of Santa Barbara stayed up the rest of the night eating, drinking and partying I went to bed around 1 am. Christmas day (when the rest of Honduras does nothing) I celebrated with three other Peace Corps volunteers from the area and Katie’s family.

We visited the jail around 11 am to give them cookies and then ate dinner around 5 pm (which would be Honduran time, since we planned to eat at 2 pm). For appetizers we had cheese & crackers, veggies & dip and hot mulled cider. For dinner we had mashed potatoes, chicken, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls and roasted garlic. Then we had an intermission to let our stomach’s settle and watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation followed by apple pie, pecan pie, fudge and pumpkin bread.
At that point most of us went to bed but a few stayed up to watch A White Christmas, which I had never seen before, but loved.

Friday all the volunteers left and I finished up some work that needed to get done before leaving the country. On December 30th I will go to Nicaragua with some other Peace Corps Volunteers then on January 4th fly to Costa Rica to meet up with my parents and spend almost two weeks with them. So once I get back you can look forward to a Nicaragua and Costa Rica blog entry.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I went to La Esperanza, Intibuca, a volunteer’s site about three hours away from Santa Barbara. It was a full house with about 30 volunteers and plenty of incredible food. Robynn, the host, is an incredible cook and prepared three turkeys (one of which they killed and prepared themselves), mashed potatoes, corn bread, biscuits, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing and much more. Susan was the designated pastry chef and made numerous pumpkin and apple pies as well as a pumpkin log. Yummy!