happenings...

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I was fortunate enough to go with a medical brigade into a small town in the mountains as a translator. They were a group of about 15, including doctors, nurses, construction workers, and people to play with kids. Because they were more or less in our area, 7 of us Peace Corps volunteers were able to go. It was a lot of fun and great to see some people get help when they are so far away from everything. It was sobering though, because people with more serious conditions here are just out of luck.
One woman carried her 3 year old daughter for 2 and 1/2 hours just to get to our "clinic." She said the girl had just hadn't been wanting to walk for the last month, that it hurt. It was decided that she has muscular dystrophy, and her muscles will only be going downhill. I wonder what's in store for her, the land where she lives isn't very conducive to wheelchairs. One thing she will get a lot of is love.
We saw a lot of body aches and pains, as well as a few bot flies (very gross). A few of the older people that came in (80's) that complained of pains, had surely been working hard physical labor in the hot sun for the last 65 years. The work ethic here always amazes me. The little 3 wheeled "moto-taxis" are often driven by teenagers or young men in their 20's. I had the opportunity to talk with one of them during my ride and found out that he works from 6am to 9pm, EVERYDAY. That is 105 hours per week! I'm sure there is a lunch break and a few bathroom breaks in there but when does he have time to do anything? Oh, and if you're wondering how much he makes, it is $10 a day. That is $300 dollars a month. It's not horrible for down here but it isn't great either. $300 dollars a month! I could make that in 3 days with the crappy job of substitute teaching!
Changing gears now...Emily and I had a week of "reconnect" in the capital with all the other youth volunteers. It turned out to be a really good chance to see other projects that people are doing and how we could successfully implement them in our site. Speaking of which, school is starting next week and it looks like we are going to be super busy with all sorts of different things.
Got to watch the Super Bowl last weekend. We got together with a few volunteers who borrowed a projector from work and had a blast. I thought maybe we were some test audience and in real life the Giants hadn't actually won. Crazy.

Oh, I almost forgot, I'm a cowboy now. Life is just better that way.

"O'bama"...sounds like...

Sometimes I enjoy passing time by hanging out around the park and just talking to people- the kids who take the money for the shuttle buses, the police officers, and this teenager with polio who is in a wheelchair. I didn't even know polio was still around anymore. How sad, that this kid has a disease that could have been prevented by getting a vaccine when he was a child. Anyways, just hanging out and seeing what happens can lead to some interesting conversations, like this next story...

I was asked an interesting question from one of the local police officers while I was hanging out in the park the other day. Before he asked, he did the look around to see who was around and then lowered his voice, so I knew it was going to be something good. He wanted to know what I, as a U.S. citizen, thought of Barack O’bama, because personally, he was a little worried. He prefaced his comments by saying “I know you guys are all into that equality stuff, but…” He was worried because Barack’s name doesn’t sound “American,” and not only does it not sound American, but it sounds a lot like the names in the countries that we are “at war” with. He also wanted to know where O’bama was born and if I was worried as well. I told him that I was not worried about O’bama actually being a terrorist and he shouldn’t believe everything Rush Limbaugh says. In the end, I think I calmed his fears and convinced him that O’bama would be as good a man as any to lead our country.

Work Update!

Just wanted to give you a little update on what we've been up to/will be up to as far as work.

Kyler:








Emily:













Just kidding. We are working on a lot of different things right now. Let's try this again.

Kyler:
-Still working with the baseball team- the wiffle balls I received have helped practice a ton. Our numbers are down a little bit as school hasn't started back up so the kids are working, but I have a pretty solid core. The regional tournament that we have to win is in March. There is also a little problem of getting money for uniforms. So that's baseball.
-I'm working with Emily's work to try to start a youth soccer league. It is going to be a lot of work but the goal is that once it gets going it will sustain itself and won't need any help from me. So I have been researching uniform costs, how to construct goals, league rules, trying to form a board of directors, and that sort of stuff. It's definitely a challenge but something that the kids really deserve.
-I'll be starting an English class for teachers in March. The teachers will teach their students English and I will observe and support them. This is a project supported by the Honduran Ministry of Education.
-I've got a bunch of old film cameras (and film) and I'd like to use them to do some sort of photography project with the high school.


Emily:
-Emily has a really exciting project on the horizon. There is a house for pregnant women in our neighboring town. Poor women from the aldeas (villages) can stay there for a couple weeks when they are going to give birth (so they are near the hospital). Emily is creating a program to work with the women on health and nutrition for their babies, as well as breathing techniques for the labor.
-In the middle of our park is a brand new kiosk, and Emily would like to start a business there with a group of high school youth. She is working with a business volunteer in the neighboring town to get this done. Things won't really get going until school is back in session.
-She is also teaching community English classes to adults.
-Every Wednesday is story hour at the library for the little kids.

So, this is what we've been up to/will be up to in the near future. Some of these things will work out a lot better than others. We're still really in the beginning of our service and trying to find our niche in what exactly we'll be doing. In a couple weeks we have a "reconnect" workshop with other youth volunteers where we'll learn about new and different projects, as well as discussing what has been working and what hasn't. Till next time...

Kyler

Barbie…Coffee Farms…and more…

It seems like recently, Emily and I can’t go anywhere without hearing, “Barbie! Barbie!” The thing is, they are talking to me! No, I don’t have long blond hair- but let me give you some background. Last week, I went to a nearby town with the soccer team to play in a game during the other towns fair. I played goalie, and we won 4-0. There was an announcer and when I would make a save he would say, “Oh, great save by Barbie, the Uruguayan.” I thought it was amusing and later my teammates told me that there is some really good goalie from Uruguay nicknamed Barbie. So now sometimes when my teammates see me around town they yell Barbie.

I recently took a trip up to a local coffee farm owned by our friend Joaquin. It was a great time. The landscape resembles the pine forests of eastern Washington with some more tropical plants thrown in. After a long windy drive with a pickup full of people that included a flat tire and the crossing of a few rivers, we arrived at the coffee farm. Coffee beans need shade so people usually plant bananas or oranges. This means there is a huge supply of free bananas and oranges right now (he invited me up to see the farm and cut some bananas). Joaquin grabbed a machete (standard equipment here) and gave me a tour of the various kinds of bananas (minimos, guineos, platanos, filipos). He walked up to the first tree which was about as thick as a telephone pole and with one quick chop the whole thing bent right over and the bananas that used to be 15 feet in the air were now hanging right in front of us. With one more quick chop we had about 50 bananas in our hands. After repeating this process a few more times, usually with me playing out some samurai fantasy and chopping away at the tree, we had a few hundred bananas. So now we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a few weeks. It's worth noting that banana trees grown REALLY fast and are only good for one "real" harvest. After the first harvest they grow worthless small and gross bananas. So they can sprout up 15 feet in less than a year. They are also easy to plant, you just chop a piece of the tree off and stick it in the ground.

Side note: a few months ago when Joaquin was crossing the river during some big some big rains, he was swept downstream for a good story and some minor scrapes and bruises. Interesting thing is the river was just a trickle when we crossed it.

Emily and I just received some “Christmas” packages and want to send a big thanks out to those that put those together. I imagined my grandma going through the checkout line with loads of candy and the clerk wondering if she had the munchies. Little stuff (and big stuff) from home means a lot here and other volunteers also benefit as everyone passes on books and magazines when they finish with them. I also have to add that Vago now has more toys than any dog in Honduras. Though I’m not sure that any of the great toys we received can replace his favorite 30 cent plastic ball that we play soccer with. Emily and I stand at opposite ends of the hallway and Vago stands in the middle, then we play soccer- he’s a tough defender.

The interesting thing about dogs here is that a lot of them (50% I’d say) are more or less “wild.” By that I mean that they just wander the streets scavenging for food and they are so skinny and beat up from dog fights that they would all make the news back home in the states for animal abuse. This is because the people here can’t afford to take Bob Barker’s advice because it is really expensive to get your pet spayed or neutered and the only place it can be done is in the larger cities, which is a long expensive trip for most people.

Check back shortly as we should have a work update for those interested in what we're doing- like sitting in a hammock and playing with kids isn't work!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Here is a picture of Vago relaxing in the hammock. It's a little tough right now because we only have one hammock and we have 2 humans and 1 dog that always want to use it. Hopefully we'll get a few more after Christmas. This will be our first Christmas outside of the United States and away from family. That will be hard, plus there is no snow. Our neighbors here are all very nice though. As I was walking to Emily's office today they asked if we had a Christmas tree and when I told them no they said that they had one for us to use. The culture here is very giving, but we have to be careful when they ask us about things we need or they will just get it for us or give us theirs, regardless of how little money they have. And here, you really can't turn down a gift. The local soccer tournament just finished up with my team taking home the 2nd place trophy. They lost in a penalty shoot-out. I stopped 3 of 5 shots (which they tell me is good) but we couldn't make enough to win. So of course, they gave the trophy to the gringo as a keepsake. I really appreciated it and will always have that trophy as a great memory. Not a lot of Christmas plans here so Emily and I are going to have a Crib-a-Thon, kinda like my family in the States. Our goal is to play 25 games over the course of the 24th and 25th, but that is a lot, we'll see. We went with Emily's work to Caribbean coast for their company Christmas party. That was a lot of fun as we stayed at a really nice hotel on the beach and ate good (and free) food. It's really weird not being in the U.S. and around all the ads and commercials for Christmas. I realize know that that is a huge part of the "Christmas" season in the states. Kind of sad really. But we will definitely miss everybody during this time of year (not to mention the pies). Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone!

update part 2

This is update part 2, so read the one below first! I'm also working on getting some more pictures put up.

In working news, Emily has a story hour at the local library that is quite a hit with the 4-8 year olds. Libraries are different here, you can’t actually check out books, only read them in the library (which is open 4 hours a week) and there aren’t many books. One of my jobs is to start a baseball team with 4^th and 5^th grade girls. So I went to the classes and asked who wanted to play. Everybody wanted to play. So we had a baseball camp. A few volunteers from elsewhere came and helped teach kids who had never played before. We had 98 kids, and oh, if it doesn’t sound hard enough already, we only had 20 gloves, 14 balls and 5 adults. But they loved it. The biggest success of the camp is that no one was badly hurt. Kind of lucky, considering that the kids could already more or less throw, but had never really caught, especially with their left hand. Thankfully, our numbers have dropped a bit (I only need one team of 15) because it is now “summer” for the school kids. Just like in the states summer coincides with harvest (here, the crop is coffee). Not that kids in the states actually work harvest anymore (except Emily’s brothers). The baseball team still has a long way to go though, when I told the kids they weren’t supposed to slide at first they said that they didn’t want to get hit with the ball. Well, I couldn’t argue with that so until the first baseman can actually catch, they get to slide into first. We have other projects too, but they’re top secret so we can’t discuss them (actually it’s just because this is already so long).

I don’t know how I waited so long to tell you all, but I have been playing soccer with the local team. We are called Atletico San Francisco and we’ve got 4 different uniforms. It’s the big time! In my first game I stole the ball and scored a goal. All Emily or I heard about anywhere we went during the next week was my goal. I think it’s the first goal I’ve ever scored in my life. Right now we are playing in a tournament, with games on Sundays, and the town comes out to watch. I tell you, I don’t know if I’ve ever been as nervous as I was before the first game. You know, I don’t even know a lot of the rules, but I can’t really go ask my teammates either.

Emily and I got a few packages a couple weeks ago. We were surprised when it took less than two weeks. Thank you very much to our family for the wonderful goodies and photos. The most difficult thing about having one really good chocolate bar in your kitchen is how to decide when to eat it, because once it is gone you won’t get one for another few months.

Well that’s all for now. I must say that I will do a better job keeping up with this blog. The end of the school year made for a very busy team here because I became de facto computer genius. And don’t worry, Christmas season is here too, we were in the big mall in the capital and they have a 40 foot tree in the center. Though the Christmas music sounds a little different when it is sunny and 70 degrees.

update part 1

So it’s been awhile. We’ve been pretty busy around here, especially considering that volunteers are usually not very busy during their first few months. It would make sense to write about the past weeks in some sort of chronological order but that’s just not my style. The best news goes first!

We got a dog. We found a wonderful golden retriever pup in the capital city. He was raised with a wonderful family and was FAT when we got him. Now our site is about 10 hours from the capital so we were a little worried about having him in the crowded buses for so long…but….he did a great job. He pretty much slept the whole way and never made a mess. Now for those of you thinking “I didn’t know you could take a dog on a bus?” Around here, you can take damn near anything on a bus. Some are nicer “coach” style busses but a lot are also “chicken buses,” which are really just old school buses. But they are named chicken busses because people bring live chickens on them. Whenever I see them, the people usually just tie the feet together and tuck them under their arm. Finding a name for our dog was difficult, but then we decided on Hurley. Cute name, we thought. Well we live on a hill and when we were trying to walk the dog up the hill and all the neighbors were sitting around outside of course he wanted to embarrass us so he wouldn’t walk. So the neighbors took to calling him Vago, a slang word for lazy. So now our Hurley is officially had a name change to Vago (Spanish note: the pronunciation is more similar to bog (like the place) then “o”).

Other big news! The president of Honduras came to our small town. That would be akin to President Bush visiting Emily’s bustling home town of Colton Washington. He didn’t arrive by road because that would take too long, so he flew in on his helicopter. Now where do you land a helicopter in a poor rural Honduran town? Well, you would need somewhere large and flat…so…the soccer stadium (I say stadium just because it has a big concrete fence around it, there are no stands- there is a bench though). Now there are a few people that have keys to the stadium- the mayor’s office, soccer organization, and me. I don’t know what happened with the rest of them but early on the morning the president was coming a guy from the mayor’s office showed up asking to borrow my key because they couldn’t find theirs. I gave it to him, but looking back; I should have gone there and opened the gate myself for the president. What if we weren’t around? Sorry Mr. President, we can’t find the gringos with the key. The president brought quite an entourage, six helicopters landed on the field. Apparently Emily was on tv; or course, I was standing in the crowd near the president and Emily (who loves to stand- NOT! Not jokes work really well in writing!) was sitting in the park without a care in the world.

We are also happy to announce that we’ve moved into our own house. The week before we moved in was spent painting the entire house- bright happy colors of course. We did orange, yellow, green, and blue. It looks wonderful and the very relieved landlord likes it as well. She was noticeably nervous when we began! Right now, we are a little lacking in furniture, we have a bed and one plastic chair. But that means plenty of room for indoor soccer, yoga, and dog tricks. Our plan is for furniture is to use only hammocks (and some plastic chairs for the table we will get). We’ll get a couple hammock chairs and a couple regular hammocks. It’s exciting to be in a new neighborhood with wonderful neighbors but we’ll miss our old family- and they had tv. I think I’ll be visiting them on Sundays to watch football.

Our favorite holiday has passed. Thanksgiving. We had a great little gathering here in Western Honduras. About 15 volunteers got together, and had a real Thanksgiving meal. Some of the stuff was sent by family from the states (yams, cranberry stuff, etc), and others were home grown. The turkey was a concern during the week before as we couldn’t find one to kill (not like hunting, but find a family that would sell us a turkey). The guys in the neighboring town finally found one but chickened out (no pun intended) at the last minute and paid an old lady to do the dirty work of the killing. We ate around a huge elegant table that fit us all (it was actually a ping pong table with tablecloths over it) outside under a warm 65 degree evening.

I broke this into two parts because it was too long.