If You Build it, They Will Come

January 27, 2011

If You Build it, They Will Come

The last few months have found me super busy out of the Casco Urbano at meetings with local women groups discussing my continuing stove project.



Typical Stove

 For those of you who don’t know, almost every home here in Honduras has an ‘estufa’ or an open fire stove, which allows the smoke to openly escape into the house and directly into the lungs of (mostly) women and children, since they are the ones who do most of the cooking. A lot of these estufas are inside a home and the number one cause of respiratory and eye problems. According to the World Health Organization, of the two million people that die every year (worldwide) from household pollution, 44 per cent of these are from childhood pneumonia, the single biggest cause of children's death in the world. Fifty-four per cent of deaths are from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 2 per cent from lung cancer. The WHO ranks the problem as one of the worst health risks facing the poor (worldwide). Here is a link to a great article about the worldwide problem  http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/home-fires-the-worlds-most-lethal-pollution-2192000.html



New Stove

 After garnering enough support to decide that the project would be a success here in Orocuina, I set out to find funding for the project. This was not an easy task (although I find asking for money in any country or language never is). But, my idea for this project was large. I wanted to work with several PCV’s and an NGO here in Orocuina. I wanted to do something sustainable, so the women would know how to build the stoves well after I leave. After contacting several different NGO’s that help to build these stoves, I spoke with Trees Water and People www.treeswaterpeople.org/  an organization based out of Colorado and founded by a former PCV. They have a great history of building stoves here in Honduras and put me in contact with AHDESA, a group for the Development of Honduras. Last week I went to Teguz and met with them, saw where they make parts for the stoves (the chimneys and planchas) and we talked about our goals and objectives. I told them we wanted to build 200 stoves in the community; they asked me how about 500? I was blown away! 500 stoves, what a great goal, but could it be done? I was so happy to be working with people who had higher aspirations than me!

I returned back to site and began speaking with the women. Amanda (my friend in site who works for the NGO) had begun speaking with the women as well. They were very excited and had begun spreading the word. I have hung posters up at the Centro de Salud and this morning a lady called me at 7:00 am asking me about the stoves! I have begun to complete the proposal, which was already outlined for me by another community member, and hope to have it turned in the first week of February. Next week we are meeting with the women and the AHDESA group is coming to answer all their questions. Today I will continue walking throughout the community and spreading the word about the meeting. More news about the stoves later, but for now, things are looking up!

Why is it So Expensive to Leave This Country?

January 25, 2011

Why is it so expensive to leave this country? I have spent two days searching and searching tickets on various days, various months and various times only to be shut out of the airplane market. I was never worried about not being able to go home to the USA to visit because I have thousands and thousands of airline miles and Continental flies in and out of Tegucigalpa daily. So, imagine my surprise when I called US Airways on Sunday to cash in some of these hard earned miles only to be told Continental does not operate out of Teguz-y-what? As the phone operator so kindly worded it.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning. Dear US Airways, I know that your customer service lacks in many ways. I have sat on the tarmac more than once and been treated like leftover dog food enough times to recognize that you don’t give a flying flip about your customers; even those like me who hold a very high status for all the miles we have earned over the years. I’ll never forget the time I ordered champagne in first class and the lady told me “We haven’t been serving champagne for two months now” as though I SHOULD OBVIOUSLY know that, b/c anyone who flies in first class should keep an updated list of the US Airways bev compartment with them at all times. So, it came as no surprise to me when I logged online and found that you no longer service any airport in Honduras, meaning that I would have to fly directly out of Costa Rica or Belize to cash in my miles. I could, however, use them on a sister-carrier of the Star Alliance network, which I’m well aware of since I earn half the miles on Continental anyway. It did come as a SHOCK to me when I called the Dividend Miles number and the ‘oh-so’ eloquent (insert sarcasm here) phone operator couldn’t find the airport code for Tegucigalpa, so I told her just to check Honduras, then she told me there was no airport code for Honduras. Shocker, really?!? For a moment I thought maybe we just dropped the plane down on the soccer field. After offering her the code myself she told me that Continental didn’t offer service and I couldn’t use my miles, which again flabbergasted me since I flew into this country on Continental and was looking at a flight serviced by the airline on the Internet at that moment. After thanking her for being of no help, I called Continental just to double-check they were still in business where they lady informed me that she could let me use my airline miles, but only in first class and only to Houston, if I wanted to visit anywhere else in America, I would have to figure it out on my own (and not on the day I wanted to travel). So, let me get this straight, I have to change my travel plans, toss in an extra 30,000 miles, not drink champagne, and only get to Houston. What a deal….why haven’t I used these miles sooner?

Next step, I decide maybe I’ll just fly out of Costa Rica and take a really long vacation. This is where I find out that it will cost me 80,000 miles to get back to the states. Again, 80,000 miles, two countries away, on dates I don’t want to travel, and this time it’s not even first class. Attention US Air, but for 80,000 I can go to Australia. Finally, succumbing to the misery of searching out my miles, I do a four hour long search of how to get to America from every possible airport in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Nothing comes back for less than $608, which only offers me times at 1:00 am, leaving from an airport 8 hours away by bus and flying into a town 3 hours away from my final destination. Which means that after I have flown 3,000 miles, I must still ride/drive for 11 hours. Why am I paying $608 again? That's more than I paid to go to Hawaii last year around this time.  And, if I'm going to pay this much money I want to earn the miles...don't TACA or Spirit me into it.

Why is it so expensive to leave this country? Where is everyone going? What are they doing? I have been looking at flights to come into Honduras and they aren’t as expensive to leave the USA. Here’s a tip America, I would like to go home and enjoy you again, if only for a short while. I was already dreaming of the amounts of sushi I was going to devour, the clean sheets I would sleep in and the time at the gym I would spend. When is Congress going to pass the Airline Miles Bill of Rights that allows me to use miles freely and whenever? There’s something worth voting for.

An Open Letter to Pizza Hut

An open letter to Pizza Hut





Not my photo

 David C. Novak, Chairman

Scott Bergren, President

Pizza Hut, Inc.

7100 Corporate Drive

Plano, Texas 75024



Dear Sirs:

I would like to take a moment and tell you about my visit to a Pizza Hut store yesterday in Choluteca, Honduras. Let me start by thanking you for having a store in Choluteca, Honduras. For without it, my life would be a lot more depressing. Although I tried to stay away from fattening pizza in the states, I have now found myself at your Choluteca establishment more times in the last seven months than in the previous seven years. You see, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in Southern Honduras, near Choluteca. Often times when PCV meet up and get together, we choose your fine establishment in order to take time away from the beans, rice, and tortillas that can become daily routine in our diet. Once I find myself at Pizza Hut, it’s like I am five years old again and suddenly gorging on every menu item available.

My two other volunteer friends found ourselves at the Choluteca Pizza Hut yesterday after taking a long hour bus ride, with no air conditioning, in the 90 degree weather, followed by a taxi. We decided to patronize your establishment in order to watch the NFL AFC and NFC playoff football games. We thoroughly understand that we live in soccer-loving, eating, breathing country and that yesterday was the Central American cup final, but with four TV’s in your restaurant, there was a glimmer of hope in our football loving hearts that we could watch the Green Bay Packers take on the Chicago Bears. This would be the only game we got to watch, since we had to catch a bus back to our small pueblo at 4:00 PM, before the Jets vs. Steelers came on. After sitting down, we were really excited when the manager told us it would not be a problem and he was happy to change the channel for us. It was our lucky day, why hadn’t we been coming here all season? But, as game time rolled around, and we began to flip through the channels, there was no football game to be found. Only channel after channel of soccer.

Now, I would like to know why an American restaurant that prides itself on being the food of American sports, and always has a commercial during the upcoming Superbowl, did not offer the NFL playoffs to be watched all across the world in its franchises. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have given up a lot to live in another country, for two years. This includes a healthy lifestyle, seeing friends and family everyday, access to water and electricity 24/7, feeling homeless by the time we show up to your restaurant because our backpacks are so heavy and full of stuff, the list continues, so when I travel an hour on a bus, then take a taxi, to Pizza Hut (America’s Pizza), I want to watch football. Really, I don’t think I am asking too much. The restaurant is full of American’s anyway. Let me just add that we were three women who were trying to watch these playoffs; how many women in America do you think were trying to watch the football games yesterday, much less seeking it out in Honduras? Also, our entire bill was L600 which takes all three of us two days combined to make. This was a big splurge day for us.

Thanks for the cheesy bread and adios de Orocuina, Honduras-

Jenifer Bubenik

p.s. Maybe you just ultimately don’t give a crap, since I just went on your website and there is not even a space to comment on good or bad service from Honduras. Do you even know you have restaurants here?

How I Almost got Robbed While Translating 40 Pap Smears in Spanish

January 19, 2010

Brigada Medical

I have spent the last week translating for a medical brigade that came into town. The work has been long and tiring, but so rewarding and exactly what I thought Peace Corps was going to be when I signed up…getting out in the community everyday, working one on one with the people, speaking Spanish non-stop. I mean, really, if I had wanted to sit behind my computer in the municipality, I would have stayed home in the States where I got paid way better and had air-conditioning.













Drawing donated by my friend Laurel, given to the new maternal health clinic and women during the med brigade; for more photos go to www.donnabellasangels.org/

 The last week has been nothing short of amazing. The medical brigade rolled into town last Sunday and on Monday morning my local friend called to see if I could help them. I jumped at the opportunity and soon I was bouncing around in the back of the 4x4 Save the Children vehicle (their counterpart), off to my tiny aldeas far up in the mountains. Each day brought new adventure and lots of repetitive illness, too. A brigade works like this: a mom normally comes in with at least three kids and they all complain of pain in their head, back, stomach, nose, ears, or cough. They are given a bunch of meds to cure all these common colds and illnesses and sent on their way. Every now and then you will see a patient that really needs more medical care, like a young boy with a heart murmur and a two-year-old that was developmentally disabled. These are people who might have walked three hours just to get to the brigade in the first place. Depending on the circumstances, some people can be sent to Choluteca or Teguz for more medical care. Some of these people have never left their small pueblo (you might remember last month when I took my counterpart to Teguz for the first time) and now they have to take their sick child or sick mother to the big city. It is very overwhelming. Try calming them down in Spanish. It is a tiring task, but oh’ so rewarding and exactly why I wanted to be in the Peace Corps. The brigade offered many great things to the people of my community, like eye glasses and pap smears. One day I was asked to translate in the OBGYN room and it was a great experience for me to get to hold women’s hands as they received top-notch medical care from these doctors, some ladies had never received a pap smear ever even though they had given birth to three babies. I learned a lot of new words that day!



There was a tree blocking the road so a guy chopped it with an ax and the boys moved it



On the way up the mountain, we still have to get to that little white building

 Throughout the week we would get up early, have breakfast each day at 7 am, work until 5 pm, then crash into bed by 9 pm. I never knew that just translating all day could be so tiring. Since I was doing all this translating, I didn’t have time to wash my clothes (shocker! But, let’s be honest, I don’t like to wash them on the pila anyway, this is not a new post). So, I asked my fruit vendor, Dora, if her sister could wash my clothes this week. No problem, she said and she called her sister. Then, I met her sister in person and she said she would be at my house on Monday morning. She didn’t show up. I called her. She said she’d be there Tuesday. She didn’t show up, so I called her. She said she was sick. Then her friend called back and said Mirna (the sister) could was them the next day when she was feeling better. No worries, but she had to be at my house at 6:30 AM because we were leaving early for the brigade. The next morning Mirna calls me at 6:20 AM to tell me she’s on her way. At 6:50 I call her back, she says she’s still coming. At 7:00 AM I call back; I inform her I am leaving my house soon for a meeting. She says she is five minutes away. Within two minutes someone knocks on my door; she tells me she is Mirna’s friend here to get the clothes, so I give them to her (nothing out of the ordinary,okay. I figured Mirna called her and told her to come get them since I had to leave the house). Anyway, another 10 minutes later Mirna calls and tells me she’s at my house. I tell her her friend already came…what friend she asks? WHAT? Where are my clothes? For two days I have no idea where my clothes are; I’m pretty sure I’ve been robbed/hustled/whatever. I call Mirna, tell her to find out where my clothes are…I don’t care if she doesn’t know/care/give a crap about my clothes. I tell other people in Orocuina. I begin to look at people and see if they are dressing like me. After two days the little old lady is back sitting on my doorstep with all my clothes. I ask for her name and phone number. She says she doesn’t have a phone. But, my clothes are clean and smell good and they are all there. I have no idea what has just happened to me in the last two days.



Some of my patients that I helped to translate for

 Overall, the brigade was an overwhelming positive experience and a great way to start off the New Year. I’m so happy I was able to be a part of it, plus it allowed me to travel up into the areas of Orocuina I never get to see and make some really good contacts. Now I look forward to working with those people on my projects throughout the year!




Aldeas near Orocuina, heading down the mountain



Heading home, but not before a hole tries to deter us



Six Month Mark

January 9, 2010


Six months in Honduras

So, I have been in Honduras for six months…and a few days. Almost seven months, actually. In some ways it seems like just yesterday I left Houston and entered Tegucigalpa, a city I couldn’t even pronounce, yet now I visit with such frequency I feel like I live there. The last six months have had many happy memories, like dancing and singing with my first host family Rosa and Gustavo as they showed me their wedding photos, drinking banana refresco and dancing the punta on my birthday, with all my closest PCV friends, building stoves for the poorest of the poor during training, conquering Spanish and learning how to kill a chicken. The last six months have also had stressful times, times upon which I reached for my innermost strength, when I thought about leaving and going back to the USA, like when I had the worst bacteria infection of my life, or contacted scabies and itched constantly for a month. How I thought I would never understand Spanish, broke down crying in front of my boss, listened to Lady Gaga everyday for two months while eating beans everyway possible.

I have forgotten what US money looks like, and now find myself bargaining over L5 when buying a pineapple. Although I know that L25 is already cheap, I stand there and bargain until she gives it to me for L20, which I know is a better deal, when in the long run, what is more valuable, my time or the twenty-five cents? The other day I found L10 in the back of my blue jeans and jumped for joy, would I be this excited if I found fifty-cents in America? I doubt it, but here I can go buy an avocado. My how my perception has changed. I fear that when I return, I will go to the check-out at Wal-Mart and tell the Manager on Duty that I need the onions for only thirty-cents a pound, since I believe their Rollback prices are “muy carro.” It seems quite normal to me now to walk alongside cows and donkeys on the side of the road, as they haul sticks and water jugs to their next destination. Have I forgotten about the clean streets of America, where people actually drive in line formation and state highway patrolmen pull you over for things like “speeding?” What is speeding? Here I take a bus that crosses across the median like we are racing to lunch with the President. These are things that seem completely normal to me. Are they not?

After six months, three of which I spent in training, I find myself no closer to knowing what I am supposed to be doing here than when I arrived. Yes, I had my goals and objectives outlined by my counterparts, but they quickly disappeared shortly after my arrival to site. As a past working professional, this led me to quickly find other projects to which my experience could be used and other counterparts that I could work side by side with. I have found great support in the schools and other NGO’s in town and my projects with recycling, stoves, and the World Wise School Program are keeping me busy. I hope in the next six months they take even greater strides, although they are not the projects I was sent here to do.

Six months. Half a year. I have been gone from the USA for half of a year. It is crazy to think that. Thank goodness for the Internet to help me keep in contact with all my friends and family back home; your support keeps me going. The SKYPE’s, the emails, the snail mails and packages, it keeps my spirits high. After six months I look back and am thankful that I came to Honduras. When I left the USA, I was at a point in my life when I needed to “get away.” Now, I ask myself, will I ever be at a point when I am ready to “get back?” The answer is yes. I am tired of being poor, I am tired of having streets that aren’t paved, I am tired of riding in busses where I have to stand for three hours or more (while being afraid that they will be robbed). I miss co-workers showing up for meetings on time and turning in proposals when they said they would. I miss walking down the street and not being hissed at; I miss noise ordinances being in place. But, it is all part of the package (I don’t really know if listening to Enrique Iglesias until 3 AM was what JFK had in mind when he set up the PC 50 years ago, but that’s what it is today). I have now learned how to clean a pila, kill a tarantula, and make bean soup. I have taught others how to cook chocolate chip cookies and pizza. Sharing cross-culture experiences is one of the main goals of PC, so in that I have succeeded in the first six months.