1. Regular, plain black beans on the side with anything
2. Refried beans on the side with anything
3. Bailleanas, typical Honduran breakfast (beans in a tortilla, folded over to look like a quesadilla, with a little bit of cheese sprinkled in)
4. Bean soup, with hard boiled eggs (the water drained from the beans and loaded up with spices, no beans are actually served to you, but a plate of rice accompanies the soup on the side)
5. Rice and beans
6. Spaghetti and beans (in the place of meat)
7. French bread and beans (imagine a Reuben, but no pastrami…beans instead, with melted cheese)
8. Fried plantains, smothered with refried beans on top and sprinkle on a little cheese
9. Fried eggs with refried beans on top
10. Sausage and beans
Saturday, July 3, 2010
From the look of today, the Bay Islands are calling my name. At Cultural Day, the PST staff and language facilitators invited us throughout Honduras on a whirlwind vacation. With each stop, we learned about the different people, cultures, food, etc that make up this Latin American nation from the Mayan Ruins of Copan to the La Moskita rivers. My favorite was the Bay Islands, where we tasted coconut bread, and a yucca coco dessert; in the Garrafanda region we learned some more punta dance moves, and way over in Copan received a complete history lesson about the Mayans. Today was fantastic and I can’t wait to start exploring on my vacation days (I get 24 a year, so start planning a visit!).
Afterwards, I headed into Valle de Angeles and got set up with a cell phone. I have already sent out this information, so check your emails for my number and how to get in touch with me. Note: I did purchase the Internet modem thing, but don't expect me to be online all the time or SKYPE video with you. It is not high speed and takes me up to 20 minutes to dial up right now b/c I am out in the boonies of Honduras. Be lucky if you get an email or blog update from me.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Happy Birthday America! This wasn’t my first Fourth of July away from America, so I felt prepared in looking out for hamburgers and fries earlier in the week. With 57 PC trainees spread out across the area, it was hard to get us all in one spot. I decided to spend the day with my family, teaching them about America and sharing a cross-cultural experience. They were so nice and cute, heading to the next town over yesterday to get three hamburgers for us at L42, or $2. My mom made homemade papas fritas and sandia (watermelon), and I mixed up the ranch andidresso (dressing) that I backpacked down from the USA. My host mom LOVED it and the three of us danced to Michael Jackson and Beyonce while chowing down. My host dad asked me if Michael Jackson or Elvis Pressley was more famous, and I told him Elvis (mainly b/c I am really tired of talking about MJ), then they asked me who else is muy popular in Estados Unidos. We ended up talking about Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, 007 Sean Connery and Bon Jovi…totally random assortment of people, but that is who creeped into the conversation. I learned that I am not their first PC volunteer…they have been hosting for 30 years and have also hosted “Peace Corps” Japan. My family has tons of stories and I liked listening to them tell me about how the Japanese kids learned and didn’t eat a lot. Everytime they said “Buenas Dias” they put their hands together and bowed. Cheque? The rest of the Fourth of July was spent playing Scrabble with another volunteer who lives down the street and eating some chicken tacos for dinner. Although there were no fireworks involved, it was a pretty spectacular, easy-going day.Happy Birthday to my little brother, Chris! I took this opportunity to use my new Honduran cell phone to call the States and wish him the best, only to get voicemail. If you see a long 10 digit number pop up beginning with 504, it is probably me! Cheque? After four hours in Spanish class…where I am progressing well (at least I thought so, until my Spanish teacher said something to me that resembled either “I appreciate it when you repeat things for me, b/c it helps the other students learn” OR “Don’t repeat anymore b/c it disrupts class”) I’m not too sure, so I just nodded my head and said “si.” I also thought I spent a long time on my weekend homework, until I opened my book and she asked me to read, where I found that I did a whole different exercise. She said it wasn’t a problem. Like I did extra credit. Not how I saw it, but whatever. We are heading to the market later this week for a group project, so in order to prepare us our facilitator practiced numbers with us; it’s funny how fast you forget to count to one million unless you are a Spanish millionaire or working in a tienda. So, tonight, I brought the flashcards home to practice with my host mom’s nieta. After 40 minutes, and she was convinced I could count to 100 million, she called me “smart” and I called it a night.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Tomorrow we will be going to Tegucigalpa (a word I have finally learned to master, although everyone here refers to it as Teguz). Our mission: to successfully take a bus (chicken or not), connect to a directivo taxi, meet our facilitador at a listed bus stop, tour around Teguz, visit a Mercado….buy a list of items from our family…check off a bunch of stuff from the list that our project wants us to find out, and then tour the Peace Corps office. In order to prepare us for this, my language facilitador took us outside in our center park area and basically let us play red light, green light with each other except with directions. It was fun, and my otro aspirante (a Spanish name for trainees) led Margaret towards the flowers in order to make her bring one back to me. We then had to pretend we were in the back of a sketchy taxi and didn’t like the look of it, or had been robbed and needed to give directions to the policia…you get the idea. It was quite helpful and when it was all said and done we were given L100, or $5 to hit the day with. We then went home and gave our family a letter describing all the fun and goodness, which also asked them for L30, or $1.50 and asked them what they would like us to buy with it. My mom wants two avocadoes and a kilo of potatoes. Do you think you could get that for $1.50 in the states? I don’t think so, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I have strict instructions about how not to pay more than L8 for an avocado, or around 45 cents. I’m also quite excited about seeing the Peace Corps office; we are separated into groups and I’ll be heading off with some other Muni D people. Our challenge is to speak with the vendors in the market, see if they pay taxes/if they do then what do they pay, see the shape of the streets (I can already tell you they are going to be full of potholes), see if we notice any other public services hard at work, and try to find the five exports of Honduras for sale and how much they cost. For example, rice, beans, corn, coffee, and sugar. My mom is calling me a detective, even though I know I am not the first aspirante she has sent off to Teguz.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
7:00 AM, Caitlin and I are waiting for the bus to Teguz. I have my Yankees hat on and the nastiest clothes I could find without being absolutely PC horrendous. My host mom and dad wished me “Buenos Suertes” and sent me off this morning, and now I have money hidden in so many places I can’t even remember them (Juan Carlos, are you reading this?) At 7:15 AM Caitlin and I hop on the bus and to our delight it’s not even packed. We easily find a seat in the back and slide on in. After a few minutes the guy takes our L6, or 30 cents, and we continue on to the capital before I notice my host parent’s son and we start chatting. It’s nice to have a friend on the bus. Plus, he tells me where to get off and what to do after, so I feel slightly more confident since no one else in our group has taken the same bus. After arriving into Teguz, Caitlin and I wait for almost an hour before the rest of our group shows up, then we hop in a directivo taxi and are off to meet our facilitador. Our facilitadors told us not to pay more than L80, so when the guy offers us the price right away Caitlin and I take it, along with our other aspirante. Looking back, we should have bargained, but it was early and since we weren’t getting ripped off right away, we jumped in. After meeting our facilitador, he toured us around some bus terminals so we could get used to where we would be traveling in/out of, different prices, etc. then into another cabbie and over to the San Pablo market. The problem is that Juan Carlos has put the word San Pedro into my head so much that I kept telling the cabbie to take me to the San Pedro market. He kept looking at me like I am a stupid gringa and why in the hell would I want to go to San Pedro and get killed? After I repeated it like four times, Caitlin stepped in and said “No, San Pablo.” I was like “Oh, yeah!” Obviously, I am still in beginner Spanish and Juan Carlos should be worried that I am in a hurry to get to San Pedro (j/k!).
At the market we completed our assignment by speaking with three different vendors, one who owned a fruit/vegetable stand, one who owned a clothing stand, and one who owned a food stand. We found that some of them pay monthly rent, some own their shop, some pay taxes, all pay for the lighting/cleaning monthly, etc. The markets in Honduras are owned by the alcadea, which is something that I learned. We had to find out the various prices and pay attention to infrastructure in the city. I stepped in a pothole, so that obviously needs to be fixed. There was also a randomness to the stoplights in the city and a large construction area with no tape or cones surrounding it. The day ended at the Peace Corps office, which I spent a total of two minutes at, by walking through and into the back to get into our ride back to the training site. I didn’t bring my camera today, but will do it next time I hit up a market.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
With everyday I am here, it is one day closer to FBT, swearing in, and my actual project! That means more training for my actual project! Today we had another project training session and went to Valle de Angeles, a small municipality near Teguz. Our mission: to speak with various residents, business owners, public officers about the taxes in the city and their thoughts. We started out at the Cultural de Casa, a beautiful building that also houses the biblioteca. There were wonderful art sculptures and drawings for the public to come and see. Afterwards, my group set out to interview a policia, a Tigo rep (haha), a pulperia owner, and the bibliotecaria (librarian). So many different views from so many different people, but I think they were all pretty forthcoming with their responses. They all seemed very informed about the city services, the parks, the salud de centro, aqua, etc, etc. It was great to get out there and begin talking to people about Muni D projects and to think a little bit more about what I would like to work on for the next two years.
In the afternoon we got to speak with leaders from all six projects currently working in Honduras, including business, health, youth, Muni D, PAM, and water and sanitation. The youth program has an exciting program where they work with youth to become more involved in student government, then create a student newspaper, TV and radio. That really interests me, so I will try to talk with those leaders more about that. It was also exciting to see what the PC business program is doing in Honduras. Teaching young kids and women how to take their ideas and make money off of them; there are great things happening in Honduras. It’s been another great week in PST.
This upcoming weekend we are heading out for volunteer visits. We will be going to visit current PC volunteers, serving around Honduras. I can’t tell you where I am going for security reasons, but I get to visit a really cool PC volunteer, who I have already met and I’ll be traveling with another aspirante. I’m really excited and can’t wait to go see another part of Honduras and get to talk with another PCV about the awesome work they are doing here!
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