Have you heard about the Dengue?

Wednesday, June 23, 2010


Houston, Texas to Tegucigalpa, Honduras

After boarding everyone onto the plane, I settle into my middle seat (many thanks, PC) for the short ride down to Honduras. I take this opportunity to put in my ear plugs and catch a much needed nap after the four hours I received in Houston the night before, but not before the flight attendant announces the movie will be ‘Invictus’ and I can’t think of a more inspiring movie for 57 PC volunteers before they are thrown into Pre-Service Training (hereby referred to as PST). Unfortunately, all 57 of us pass out before take off. Somewhere over Belize I wake up long enough to ask the flight attendant if he can check on the score of the US-Algeria World Cup game and a few minutes later we all burst into cheer when the Captain announces we have won! Whoop Whoop!

After landing in Honduras, we guide ourselves off the plane and through customs with our new PC passports (which looks nothing like me, since my hair is now short and dark) and into the baggage claim area. Since we take up 112 bags coming off the turn table, me and a couple other volunteers begin grabbing every bag with a blue piece of yarn (something PC made us do in Houston) and piling them up in the middle of the airport. After everything has been accounted for, I toss on my backpack, only to walk four steps and plop it down on the x-ray machine again. When I have finally cleared every hurdle, I guide myself outside into a sea of Hondurans where I find PC staff waiting and one of them takes a group of us outside. We walk past a large construction zone and the first thing I see is a Dominos Pizza. Next to the Dominos is five trucks loading all the PC luggage in and then we are invited to our first meal in Honduras….Dominos and cookies. So, obviously we will survive the next 27 months. Each truck has six PC volunteers assigned to it and is taking our luggage to our new host family. We are going in a large yellow school bus to our training center in Zarabanda. After everyone has filled up on pizza and nectar juice we are instructed to load up on the bus. Here are some things I over hear: “Wow, we get to ride the bus, that is so cool!” “I love this nectar juice; I hope we get to drink it all the time!” “I love it when the guy has to hit the front of the bus to make it run.” Here are some of the things I said to them “Well, I’m glad you like the bus, because we will be riding them a lot in the next two years.” “Don’t like the juice too much, because the mosquitoes like it, too!”

The bus ride takes about 45 minutes and on the way we are given our host family’s information. I will be living with in Los Planes, near Zarabanda, with a sweet older couple. They are in their 70’s with no children in the house, and better yet NO PETS (no perros!!!) They do have five grown children and 14 grandchildren who live on the road, so we know everyone. First, we are headed to the PC training site, and once we arrive it is very beautiful.” It is right near a national forest and the flowers are blooming everywhere. The first day we are introduced to the training director, all the different project directors and given an overview of what training will be like. There are many books handed out, calendars and mas information. I am a little overwhelmed by all the paperwork. It is like applying all over again. One thing I notice, though, is that I am not nervous. I am really excited to finally be here. I know that I decided to join PC for a reason and was sent to Honduras for a specific purpose. Sometime over the next 11 weeks of training I will figure out what it is and for now I can’t wait to see what is ahead.

After training ends we meet our families and they take us back to our houses. There are many different communities housing volunteers and in my community there is another volunteer from North Carolina…Asheboro! (There are actually five volunteers from North Carolina, the largest state represented, including another guy from Garner, right next to Clayton). In my house I have my own bedroom, bathroom, and hot water. After unpacking, I gave my host mom her present and then showed her all the pictures and notes everyone sent. She really loved the ones of Chinatown (Sue), Erika with her cat, and Katie in front of the Atlanta Braves baseball! I don’t think I am her first volunteer from North Carolina, b/c she seemed pretty familiar with the postcards and she really enjoys the mountains, especially the fall foliage. My first dinner tonight was excellent, it included chicken and avocado; she told me she loves avocado and eats it all the time. But, at 7:30 PM I excuse myself, explaining that I am really tired and head off to bed. I could definitely live here so far!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Zarabanda, Honduras

After ten hours of sleep last night, I rose early at 5:00 AM to perform some yoga. I didn’t realize how sore I was until I got out of bed and could barely move my stiff bones; I’m not sure if this is from all the traveling or sleeping in a new bed. Whatever…I rolled out my mat and began my routine. After 90 minutes I was feeling a lot better and no stress. I headed to the breakfast table where my host mom had pancakes waiting for me! They were more like crepes with applesauce, and oh’ so delicious! Another PC Volunteer, Jenna, came knocking and we headed down to the end of our road to meet one of our pre-service trainers (PST) that will drive us the rest of the way to the training site. Our truck has dark tinted windows and sits all seven of us “comfortably.” The morning sessions begin around 7:30 AM and we are inundated with more information about PC, training, rules not to break and so forth. The staff performs skits for us including how to act around our host families (please make sure we take a shower, how to use a pila, don’t come home drunk EVER). At home the PC values are hanging up on my wall and I find the amount of time and effort the PC and Honduran staff has put into the training very well executed. They are a wealth of information and this “boot camp” we have been thrown into is nothing short of a crash course in helpfulness. After lunch we are separated into language classes, where we can find out exactly how much we do know about how second language. The language teacher has separated us into groups, based upon what our resume says. The PC has set up with the best language facilitators ever, so I will leave here fluent in three months. Over the next three months I will be given what is called “Survival Spanish” and taught how to “make it” out in my community. Their goal is for all of us to become fluent, but before our swearing in we have to pass a competency test at 100% and if we don’t then we don’t get sworn in and are back to PST for another two weeks (at least).

I head off to my group and the five of us are met by our teacher and a big white on, wipe off board. Immediately we are instructed to write down phrases and greetings for all times of the day and then move into role playing for pulperia and medical situations. It seems a few people in my group are slightly more advanced, but for the most part all of us are on the same intermediate level, in need of some major brush up work. Throughout all 57 of us, I would say that about seven people have strong fluency, although their dialect is different, and most are intermediate novices, with about seven who have no Spanish background at all. Over the next three days we have language tests to determine where our permanent groups will be over the next two weeks. Those will be decided over the weekend. Our role playing doesn’t really deserve any Oscar’s, but between Olyvia and I, we help the rest of the group learn how to explain to our host families that we have a headache and need the Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO ) assistance, as well as how to buy some detergent in the marketplace for our clothes. In the afternoon we get some much better acting from our training officers, who role play how to act while our and about in the community and their enthusiasm is great. The overall theme? Remember, you are representing the USA when out and about, so don’t do anything stupid because you might end up on YouTube! We are here to complete our assignments and have fun after…cheque?!?!? That is a new word I learned here, Hondurans say it with everything, it means got it, sure, okay, move on. Cheque? During lunch a group of us take the opportunity to try out my new Spanish Scrabble game where I kick the game off with the word Diablo, not too welcoming, but a great start in the point value section.

Back at home tonight my neighbors took me, Jenna, and Caitlin for a hike down our road. It ends up in the El Tigre National Forest and by a waterfall. It is really beautiful, but there are a few too many dogs for my liking. Things I agree with on my host mom; neither of us are fans of dogs, making homemade tortillas, and we both love avocadoes. Cheque? Also, tonight my host mom was asking me what type of sports I like. Apparently Honduras has a soccer game tomorrow against the Swiss and if they don’t win they are coming home. That is looking likely. I explained to her that I like running, hiking, watching soccer and American football and yoga. Yoga, she asked? So, I broke out my mat in the middle of the kitchen and showed her downward dog and then she started humming…obviously I am not the first PC volunteer she has had to practice yoga. Then, I showed her my resistance bands and had her practice. She was laughing and I taught her the word “Namaste.” Since I decided we liked the same things, I begin playing my iPod for her and turned up the Dixie Chicks and Sheryl Crow, which she really enjoyed. She wants me to play some music in Spanish, but all I have is “Learning Spanish like Crazy,” which I don’t think she needs. Then, together we read the rules of my Spanish Scrabble, a game she had never seen before. It helped me A LOT because she was able to explain some of the rules to me and I was able to teach her about the letters. The first word I spelled out for her was “Gringa” simply because it was the only word I could think of right away that we both knew. She laughed, so it worked. After dinner, the other PC volunteers from the neighborhood came over and we played Spanish Scrabble, which helps tremendously. I got very lucky in drawing the “ll” and starting my turn with llave in order to begin with 28 points, and after that I learned the word miel, which means honey. My goal is to learn a new word every day during training. So far it is working!

Friday, June 25, 2010

If the goal of PST is to scare the hell out of you, today was the day. In the morning we received a visit from the PCMO (med office) who gave us all the information about malaria, dengue, PC med separation and my favorite quote of all “Just don’t get pregnant.” Cheque!!! The rise of dengue in the country is quite scary and the country is trying hard to control it, but there is currently no vaccine and with the shortage of water there’s not much else right now other than the public health dept handing out these little bags with filters inside that people can drop in their pilas or water supplies. What the health dept really wants people to do is clean out their pila once a week since that’s where the little mosquitoes are finding homes, but since people don’t have a lot of water, they don’t really like that idea. My family has a smaller pila than others, and they don’t really trap waer there. My family has a bag hanging on the end of their water faucet and I haven’t seen one mosquito in my room or my host family’s house, but that didn’t stop me from hanging up the mandatory mosquito net provided by the PCMO, so now my bedroom looks like a bee keeper on safari somewhere. And, watching my host mom tell my host dad what to do while he stood on a ladder with a hammer was like watching my mom instruct my dad how to hang a new purchase in North Carolina. Except in Spanish. The PCMO gave us all a mosquito net and a bag full of the following: repellent, sunscreen, anti-diarrhea meds, band-aids, and malaria pills. We will all be taking two malaria pills every Friday from now until we end service. After our fabulous presentation from PCMO we had medical interviews and vaccinations. Thankfully, I didn’t need any vaccinations since I’m all up to date, and in my med interview I was able to get some appointments that I haven’t been able to due to lack of health insurance. Thank you, President Obama. All I had to do was volunteer 27 months of my life to the US government for health care. In all actuality, the PCMO had my file in great order and even though I brought three months of my meds with me, I did need some new meds today that she said she would have for me tomorrow and she is scheduling an appointment for me in Tegucigalpa next week.

The afternoon brought on our fabulous PC Honduras safety team. After a slideshow presentation which included some ridiculously high numbers of the Latin American crime rate and Honduras in a slightly darker color than other countries, half of the 57 volunteers looked as though they were never taking a bus anywhere in country. I took photos, but won’t be sharing them with you as then you may never visit me. He had some great points, but I feel the best overall one was “use your common sense.” I’m not gonna lie…he says 2 out of 3 PC volunteers have some sort of violence against them during their service in Honduras; but, this can be anything from having your wallet stolen to having your underwear stolen off your laundry line. You HAVE TO report it! The good news?!?!? My project of Municipal Development is the lowest group with attacks against them! Whoop Whoop! So, things ARE looking up.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I had to visit a language facilitator for my language interview. I’m pretty sure I won’t be heading to the advanced class anytime soon. When it was over I asked her how I did and she said something along the lines of “You need to keep speaking with your host family poco a poco.” That’s all I got out of her. The interview consisted of her asking about my family/job in the states, my family in Honduras and my project in the PC. Then I had to pretend I was at a Muni Development meeting and introduce myself. Unfortunately at that time my microphone fell off of my blouse and I got all flustered and the interview went straight to hell. I’ll let you know if I’m in the tutorial group. Upon returning to my house I met one of my host parent’s son’s. He has his own business selling eggs throughout the municipal district and told me all about it before asking me about my book (I guess word has spread), so I showed it to him before he asked me if I had a copy in Spanish. They all want a copy in Spanish, so Random House, are you reading this? It would be very popular in Spanish! I feel like I am getting along well with my host family. Today at language class we had a race to see who could name five fruits and animals in Spanish first. Nobody won, so I asked my mom to help me at home. Even she found it difficult, but I learned the word aciatuna. During breakfast my dad and I were talking about Michael Jackson. He really likes his music and wanted to know if I ever saw him in concert and got to go to his funeral. Then he asked me if I know the moonwalk. He also described the punta to me, which I know is also a dirty word, but in Honduras it is some popular dance that I don’t know too much about yet but I am learning. My host dad was shaking his hips like Shakira (who he also likes a lot) and telling me I have to move really fast to be good at it. I think I will have this mastered by the time I come back, too.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

The rainy season is here in Honduras. Each night it wakes me up, even though I have my ear plugs in and the last two days it has pounded the training center area. This morning I woke up and performed some yoga while listening to it pelt down on the tin roof. My bed is definitely not too thick and comfy, so yoga is the saving grace for my bones and they crack their way through the routine; I light my candles and play my music to wake myself up. By the time it ends I am hot and ready for my cold shower. At breakfast I made birthday cards for three PC volunteers celebrating their birthday’s today and taught my host mom and dad how to scrapbook with all the supplies I backpacked down. My host dad was really interested in the rub on sticker things and taught me the word for glue while I showed him how to use the ribbon and jewels. Then we enjoyed some tortillas and beans/cheese quesadillas together. Each morning I drink the sweet coffee that they serve here in Honduras, as well. I don’t know the name of it, but you don’t need milk with it, and barely any sugar. It is so yummy and delicious! It’s not café con leche, it’s just black.

After dressing in my blue and red to support the USA World Cup game, I slopped on down through the mud with Amanda to meet up with our truck and head to the training center. There I tried to be inconspicuous and get 57 people to sign the birthday cards, but it was hard and afterwards we sang “Happy Birthday” to the three volunteers before beginning team building day. The first team building exercise included tossing a tennis ball in a large circle and having to remember everyone’s name, kind of like the camping game; then, we had to play something called acid river. Out of all the leadership things I have done, I had never played this game. Anyway, we had to try and build a bridge from one side of the acid river to the other. With my balance and upper body strength, I was chosen to go to the middle of the bridge and try to build another bridge….I almost had it until the very end, when I fell in the acid river and was declared “dead.” By the time we build our river two other teams had built theirs, we had killed two people, two people were missing legs, and one was missing a hand. My team had to carry me and one other person across. Either we are such good leaders we have so many ideas we want to try them all out or we are such good leaders we can’t listen to each other. You be the judge. Finally, we had three different squares and had to fit all fourteen of us in the different sizes with no body parts hanging out. All I’m gonna say is that there were no shoes involved and me and Andi were chosen to be in the middle hugging each other b/c, again, we have the best balance. We succeeded. Thankfully.

In the afternoon my host family and I watched the US World Cup game together, where unfortunately we lost. However, my host mom got quite excited while I, on the other hand, began falling asleep from boredom. She seemed really interested in Michael Bradley and kept asking me who #4 was, “no pello, no pello” was her quite accurate description. I tried to attract her to Landon Donovan, but she could not be swayed. Afterwards, we went off to church and to my surprise it was held in someone’s house in a nearby community. Their house was really large, with a swimming pool, hot tub, Internet, and big screen TV! Whoa! The deck was lined with chairs, had a make-shift altar and lots of people. Somewhere in the middle there was a random devotional time where people stood up and told every one of their sins (something I have never seen done before in church), and it got so quite that I started falling asleep. Obviously Hondurans aren’t too comfortable telling everyone about the bad things they’ve done during the week. Everytime I woke up I noticed the priest giving me the evil eye, so I’m not too sure I was invited back. Afterwards there was the awesome sweet coffee mixed with cinnamon (canela), my new word today and it was yummy! By the time we got home the rain was still coming down and my host mom and I had trekked through the mud in our loafers and dress clothes, but I felt my time with God was sufficient for the week. At the house I met another son, and grandson, and the three of us played Scrabble, a game they fell in love with. The game was THREE HOURS LONG! Seriously, I love me some Scrabble, but when the first word is bodas, or wedding, it doesn’t give us much to deal with off the “b” or “d.” At 9:00 PM we called it a night in order to conserve energy and before the lights possibly went out for the night. It was quite enjoyable because other family members kept coming in and out and laughing that we were still playing. If you are interested, my big word of the game was modelo, which I only know due to the popularity of the beer, not because of my ever expanding vocabulary.

Overall, my first week at PST has been an awesome experience. I love the PST staff and feel they are really looking out for us. They have everything really well organized and have done a great job matching up our host families to our needs, our experience to our projects, and our language experience to our facilitators (so far). Next week I’ll become more immersed in my Spanish classes, so expect my next post to be more in Spanish (haha, j/k). I am making some great friends, and it’s inspiring to be around such a good group of leaders. Obviously the PC chose us because we are all great leaders and when before all of us would be the person in the group to automatically take the lead, we must now step back and learn to work together in a circle of leadership so as not to butt heads. Five days in I believe we are doing a good job and learning to work together. Things I am really happy I brought are my yoga mat (saving grace for stress and health), portable speakers (best $1.50 I ever spent), and Scrabble (excellent way to learn and pass time). Until next time, love to all!