Time to move...Again

Scott won last week’s trivia! Congratulations to Brayden, who probably found the answer for him.

This last week has been an eventful one. On Wednesday we went to a large outdoor market in Tegucigalpa (capital) to practice our Spanish and to negotiate a good price. Our host mother gave us a list of things to buy and we had to go buy it at less than the normal “gringo price.” Emily and I did quite wonderful according to our mom. We came back with the correct items (a past volunteer came back with limes when he was supposed to get avocados) and at a good price. Going to the capital also meant FAST FOOD! We had our first McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, Pizza Hut, and Quizno’s. McDonald’s is quite high class here. They even walk the food to your table for you.

On Thursday we went on a volunteer visit. That means, we were given directions on a piece of paper and told to find a current volunteer and spend the weekend with them. Emily and I made a two hour journey east toward Nicaragua to the small town of Jacaleapa (don’t even try to pronounce it). There we met up with a female volunteer from Ohio. Like us, her project is Youth Development, so we got to see a little bit of what she does. She actually lives in a “guest house” of the mayor’s family. There aren’t really any restaurants in her town, so we ate lunch at the high school (schools usually have a little comedor with food and stuff). We also got to see her teach an English class to Honduran teachers who will teach English. She trains the teachers in methodology and pronunciation, as well as giving them Peace Corps provided textbooks. The teachers will have to pass the class at 80% to receive their diplomas and become certified. One single mother/teacher was especially dedicated- she travels over an hour to work each way and depending on the rain, sometimes has to wade through a river up to her waist to get there. She works up in the mountains and transportation is sparse, so she stays up there all week and comes down on the weekends, to the city where she “lives” and her daughter goes to school. People like her are the reasons we give the classes.

We left on Saturday because she and a few other volunteers were heading up into the mountains to do a leadership camp for exceptional youth, who will then go back to their respective communities and educate their peers. There wasn’t going to be enough foods or beds so we didn’t make the camp. It was nice to actually visit a volunteer and see the kind of stuff that we may be able to do. It was also nice to see how some of the volunteers live. Even though she lived with the mayor, the water was literally brown (straight from the river- she had a tadpole come out of the faucet once) and we had to take bucket showers. We actually didn’t mind the bucket showers (especially after mixing some hot water from the stove), you can get a pretty good amount of water pressure by dumping a bucket on your head! To flush her toilet, you just dump a bucket of water down the bowl and it does the trick every time.

WARNING: This paragraph is all about contacting us, etc. So if you don’t care, skip it! We got a cell phone last week! It cost us $40 though I later saw the same one for $25. The cell phones here don’t come with plans but instead you just purchase cards when you want more time. Because of competition here, it’s cheaper to call the U.S. than to call your neighbor, but still expensive on a Peace Corps budget. So it’d be wonderful if you could call us! You just have to buy any phone card that works for Central America. A good place to look would be wherever there are large immigrant communities. I think you dial 011-504-9765-4589. Lots of numbers huh? The first three are the country code, the next like an area code, and the last eight are our number. You can also text us but I’m not sure the charges on that. So now you have our address (on side panel à) and our phone number. No excuses! If you’re computer savvy (you’re reading a blog so you must be), then you can send us free text messages from the site www.tigo.hn. Just follow instructions, write the message and put in our phone number.

It’s also a little sad around here, this week we move to a new site for Field Based Training, so we are going to miss our family and the rest of our volunteer that are not in Youth Development. On a high note, our host sister found a tarantula today. Then our mom lit a bunch of paper on fire and they burned it! There was also a big scorpion in our house the other night, we couldn’t get him, so hopefully he likes us.

This week’s trivia: Who is the President of Honduras and what is his party?
Bonus: Who was the last U.S. president to visit Honduras and why?