We have a home!

The wait is over, we finally know where we will be living for the next two years, and really we couldn´t be happier. Our new town is called San Francisco del Valle. It is a small town, of about 1,000 people located in the western part of the country. We may already be partial, but the western part of the country is the most beautiful. It is full of green rolling hills and semi-tropical vegetation. Our small town is also located close to the Mayan Ruins at Copán, which is nice because then anyone coming to visit us can also easily visit the ruins. We are about 4 hours south of the second largest city in the country, San Pedro Sula, though we don´t have much reason to go there anyways, it is pretty dangerous. Are town is pretty small and doesn´t have all the conveniences but it is only 2km from the neighboring town that is medium sized and has restaraunts, internet, and small-scale shopping.

It is quite a trip from the capital though, about 10 hours by bus. We are sandwiched in the western corner of the country, about 18 miles from both Guatemala and El Salvador. This region is very safe and the people here are very nice. Also, we were excited to discover that it is not blazing hot here. It is usually 70-85 degrees and there is a dry season and a wet season. A variety of fruits can also be found in this region- pineapples, watermelons, oranges, limes, lemons, and bananas can all be grown here. This area is also famous for its coffee farming. Yesterday as we travelled around the mountain towns with our coworkers we passed coffee farms all along the side of the road. Now to this point in our lives Emily and I haven´t been coffee drinkers. We are going to give it a try, though we aren´t sure if that´s a good idea or not.

Our host family here is very nice and quite well off. Obviously there are many views of the immigration problems in the U.S. but I feel that he did it the "right way." He worked long hours in the U.S. for four years so he could come home and open his own business and farm. He now has a coffee farm and a construction business here in Honduras. We were happy to see that because a lot of parents that leave Honduras for the U.S. never come back. Emily and I have both just finished reading a really good book about the journey of a young boy from Honduras to the U.S. in search of his mother who left him. We recommend it to anybody and everybody, regardless of your stance on the issue. It shows what the journey to the U.S. entails and the positive and negative consequences for the people involved. The book is titled "Enrique´s Journey."

The actual trip to our site was quite a journey within itself. We were lucky enough to get a ride with another volunteer who´s coworker brought a van and was going to a town near ours. Otherwise we would have had to pack 5 huge bags on a few different buses and hope not to lose any. We started at 5am, the first challenge was the lingering smell of gasoline (Emily says antifreeze and she´s from a farm so she´s probably right) that permeated the van the entire trip. At first it gave us a headache but letter we just started to think that everything was very funny. Our driver was very good but the rules of the road are different here. Double yellow on a corner means go faster when you pass and lay on the horn. We continued more or less without incident until we were only 5 miles from our town and we blew a tire in the crater sized holes in the road. This was on the highway, this stretch is full of BIG holes that are around 6 inches deep. The driver changed the tire in the dark and we made it to town, by this time it was 8pm. Then we couldn´t find our host family´s home so a couple local kids jumped in the back of the truck and took us there. Also, there was no electricity, but we made and we love it. In the center of town is a park with a 114 year old Ceiba tree, very cool.

We spent all day yesterday meeting our counterparts, coworkers, and kids at the school. Tonight we have a dinner with the mayor and a meeting with the 190 or so teachers in the district/county. Tomorrow we will go back to the capital on the 10 hour bus for one more week of training and then we will swear in as official volunteers on September 27. And then we get back on the bus and make the trip here again. We´ll tell you more about who we will be working with and what we will be doing in the next blog.

yes, that is 2 dogs stuck together...

It’s been a long time! It’s difficult to summarize the highlights because they are all the little things that we experience along the way. This experience is nearly impossible to comprehend unless you are living or have lived it. The numerous horses and donkeys that just wonder around the streets, the funny/rude comments we get in English from people who generally have no idea what they are saying, going to teach a class and then realizing the students aren’t there because the teachers are on strike (again), realizing that you and your friends bought all the ice cream in town and are going to have to wait another week to get more, and every animal possible barking, meowing, hee hawing, naying, and cock a doodling all night long just for the fun of it.

We are counting the days until training is over, 25 I think. Training is hard work and long days. Our Spanish is coming along but now we realize that we were kidding ourselves thinking that we would leave training as fluent speakers, there is just too much to learn and too little time. The good news is that almost all of the volunteers we meet are at a very high level of Spanish, meaning a lot of learning happens when you are at your site.

We have been having a lot of fun with our family here, they took us to a corn festival in a large nearby city, we ate some corn and had a great time. The highlight of the trip was definitely the stop at a small supermarket (which we don’t have in our current town) where we bough peanut butter and jelly and became the envy of all other volunteers. Seriously, we have become easily amused and typically have very boring conversations. Watching the ants at work or talking about foods we miss from home. I think we are all in the first stage of craziness. There is kind of a theory that all volunteers more or less lose it after being in site for a year. So for those who thought we left weird, wait until we come back. Today we went with our family to a small place where the mother grew up. I won´t call it a village because it´s just a few houses. We felt honored that they took us there and our mother introduced us as her new children. We took the opportunity to stock up on some fruit and veggies that the extended family had growing in various trees. There were HUGE papayas, avacados, bananas, plantains, and other small sweet fruits that are yummy but I don´t know the names in English because we don´t have them in the states.

We have been working extremely hard recently. Typically what happens is some current volunteers come and train us in how to teach a certain concept or work with a certain group (small businesses, self-esteem, youth sports, libraries, HIV, arts and crafts) and then the next day we go and work with that group or concept (in groups of 3), putting into practice what we learned. It is really fun to get into the schools and actually work with the students and in some cases parents (we gave a couple classes to parents of the schools we work in- nutrition, family unity, discipline and stuff like that). The kids seem to love us (or maybe just the break from regular work) and we always get them involved.

This last week we gave our most difficult charla (class) yet. It was a four hour charla about HIV/AIDS to local high school students. We received the charla in the morning from our trainers, had 3 hours to plan, and then gave it the next day. If that doesn’t sound hard enough remember that we had to do the whole thing in Spanish. The kids actually had a good time and learned a lot, we did a pre and post test and “computerized” the results (sadly, I’m already losing my English vocabulary- limited as it was to begin with). The highlight of the charla was having the students put condoms on bananas. Now when they see us around town we won’t just be the gringos, we’ll be the “banana condom” gringos.

I set a record. Because of my mother I sometimes us a step-o-meter thing (pedometer?) to count my steps. I went with a couple friends to a national park and by the end of it all I had walked some 34,000 steps and 22 miles (so it said). I almost walked four more just so I could say I did a marathon. Let’s just say it was fun and all but I’ll never walk that far again (not to mention it was extremely uphill).

We met another volunteer who is about to finish his service. He is from Washington as well. He told us of a Washingtonian tradition, there is a book here with pictures from Washington and it has been passed down from one Washington volunteer to the next, so people could share it with their families and communities. It looks like it’s been here for awhile and it has some great notes in it. It is now in our hands (our goal is not to lose it).

So far the highlight of Cantaranas has to be our dog story. During training we heard a rumor that dogs could actual become stuck together during sex. We debated this topic for awhile and then it happened…we were startled by the noise, dogs aren’t supposed to sound like that, we ran outside to check it out, and there it was, two dogs, our dogs, were stuck together. The female would try to walk away and the male would yelp (understandably) in pain. Like any other smart person, we got the camera and made it a Kodak moment for all. Apparently our female dog was in heat and our male dog couldn’t keep his dirty hands off her. He wasn’t the only one, during that week, I’d look out the front door and there would be five or six dogs just standing there staring at our female. PLEASE, listen to Bob Barker and get your pets spayed or neutered!

p.s. a big shout to Ferndale and UW for taking care of business.

it`s HOT!

Well we still don`t have a winner from last week`s trivia. That either means no one reads the blog or you could care less about the trivia. I`m going to pretend it`s the latter, and maybe the fact that word got around that winners weren`t receiving their prizes :)

We are at our new site now, there is no internet so we have to take a bus on the weekends to use internet. It`s really hot here, and there is malaria and dengue fever. We are all much more scared of the latter as a few people in the town have recently died from dengue. Not to worry though, we have good medical care here. This town is a lot different from Santa Lucia. The families have never hosted a volunteer and we get a lot more attention and have to deal with more American stereotypes.

Our family is very nice. There is a mother (Maria del Carmen), an older sister with a child (3 yr old), another younger sister (10) , a 17 year old brother, and a 5 year old brother. We will be with them for the next six weeks. I`ll try to put some pics of our new living situation on here next week. It`s been a week of culture shock for some here, but it`s nice because we are really getting down to the nitty gritty in training. On Monday, we split into groups of 5 and spent the morning at schools in different villages near our small town. The kids were very excited to see us. We will be working with them once a week for the next six weeks. Our assignment is to design and impliment some recreational activities for the kids to do (and that teachers could use later), the teachers are already quite busy.

Our assigned school has about 55 kids in two classrooms. There are two teachers, one teaches 1st, 3rd, and 6th grades, and the other teaches 2nd, 4th, and 5th grades- all at the same time. The kids are just grouped according to age and the teacher moves from one age to the next. The communities are very agriculturally oriented, and most the kids and parents work harvesting tomatos in the afternoons.

As my birthday is coming up (yes November is fast in coming), I`m working on a wish list from the states. It will include very expensive things like thai red curry paste, south park dvds, and spices. I see that I missed history- I didn´t see Bonds hit 756. Our new family does have a tv, but it`s always tuned to discovery kids. I know all the spanish cartoon sing a longs!

Interesting Observations from the last week:
- There are no street names (anywhere), and all the roads around our new home look similar, so we`ve had to find a way to remember where we live. Fear not, we`ve got it, go 100 yards past the ice cream shop and take a left at the donkey. Seriously, if the donkey`s not there, it`s hard to get home.
- We have a chicken and a rooster, and they sleep in the tree in the yard- there is a ladder so they can get up.
- After our fourth day, the 3 year old finally spoke to us (well, to Emily, not me). She said "adios momily."
- Our cold water bucket shower is wonderful, because it is really hot.
- All dogs here are really long- somewhere there is a studly and proud weiner dog.

Adios to all and thanks for reading, we miss you. make sure to leave your name when you comment or text message us.

Carlos (kyler) and Emily

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?

We have PHOTOS!

I´ve added a link to the webpage with our photo albums. There aren´t too many pictures in there yet because it takes about 15 minutes to add one photo, but I´ll be adding more in the future.
As far as us, things are well. We have a lime tree and and I made a lot of fresh limeade today, it was quite wonderful but I drank a little too much. Saturday is always a cleaning day. This morning, Emily went on a trip with some girls and I cleaned the house and washed clothes for a couple hours! For those worried about the spiders...be afraid, be very afraid...we kill about 5 spiders everyday.

Dog Days of Summer

Congratulations to last week’s trivia winner: Erica Dahl. She will be receiving a complimentary toothbrush and floss.

The highlight of last week was a party on Saturday night that our host mothers put on for us. There was food, games, and dancing. I volunteered to play musical chairs. I lost. When I lost I was told that I had to do something- sing, dance, whatever. So I grabbed the mic like Barry White and seranaded Emily with a beautiful Spanish love song. I figured if I had to be embarrassed she might as well join me!

We´ve been here 15 days but it feels like an eternity. Already people are craving items from the states- chocolate, cheese nips, candy- it´s kind of like being in detox. Spanish classes are moving along. I had to give two 10-15 minute presentations in Spanish, wish I had them on tape, they’d be real entertaining someday when I can actually speak.

I’ve done a lot of athletic things and I’ve been in pretty good shape but I’ve never walked this much in my life. And it really is uphill both ways. Our walk to school through the woods is so steep that we can’t come home that way- we slide down the hill and can’t get footing. I go to the “campo” to play soccer a few times a week. Usually it is a mix of a few volunteers and more locals. I’m used to being really good at sports, so soccer is a bit difficult; I mean yeah, I’m still fast and I can kick it a bit, but I’m no Ronaldihno. Soccer is really fun though, except that the field is a mile or so below the town, so the walk home after the game is really hard.

This last weekend four other volunteers and I went to La Tigra National Park, which is about an hour away. The adventure was mostly just getting there, because we had no knowledge of the bus schedule. The park is a really pretty cloud forest with waterfalls and great views. It was nice to get out of our little town for the day.

Next week we will go in small groups to the markets in the capital to practice our Spanish and buy local fruits and vegetables. A few groups went today, and they returned with Dunkin Donuts and stories of triple decker Baskin Robin’s ice cream cones. They were quickly beaten up by their tortilla eating comrades.

A few of the guys and I have taken to going to the pool hall sometimes after school. It is a nice getaway and girls aren’t allowed (women in pool halls are generally considered prostitutes) so we get to go there and gossip.

In a couple weeks we’ll be splitting up into our respective groups (Youth Development, Municipal Development, and Protected Areas Management) and heading to different cities for Field Based Training. We’ve had many experts come to speak with us about the problems concerning youth in Honduras and I think we have a better grasp of what we’ll be doing. Basically, during the first few months, we’ll be trying to integrate into the community, observe the local culture/customs, and try to do a needs assessment with the local youth. We will be assigned local leaders to work with and we’ll try to implement projects that will benefit the community. The other groups will immediately be able to see tangible results: new water systems, trees planted, etc. That is our challenge, working with youth you don’t immediately (if ever) see the fruits of your labor. More on that boring work stuff some other day.

Our training class has had four people leave now. They left for various reasons, but this whole experience entails a lot of change and generally people don’t like change. There are the obvious things like a different country, different language, different food, having parents again (be home by 9pm!), missing family, and a new job. There are also smaller things like not being able to just “get” the food you want (small town stores don’t have much and no fast food), having to wait days to finish your laundry- clothes won’t dry because it’s been raining for a week, jogging with rocks in your hand so you have something to throw at the dogs, and tons of little cultural things- especially gender stereotypes for women. Really, everyone knew this when they signed up but it can be difficult to deal with nonetheless.

As far as female stereotypes, the Honduran guys weren’t too happy when they saw girls coming to play with us, but when we started to play and they saw the girls could more than hold their own and never hesitated to pass them the ball. It was funny to hear them when one of the girls blasted a perfect cross. That’s us, knockin’ down barriers one at a time!

I almost forgot this week´s trivia, whatever would you do? What are the main exports of Honduras (besides illegal immigrants)?

Santa Lucia and Training

Hello Everyone! We miss you all!

Congratulations to last week’s trivia winner- Jason Iwasaki! Jason has won a 7 day, 6 night stay here in Honduras with us. Airfare not included! Jason, I’ll send the I.O.U. through email. A shout out to Bernie who was just a few minutes behind Jason. Also, I fixed the comment rules, so now you shouldn’t have to sign up for anything to leave a comment- let me know if there are problems.

Well, Emily and I are here in Santa Lucia and things are going well. Our host family is great, we actually have a little apartment type building above their house. There is a mother, father, 16 year old daughter, and 6 year old boy. But the neighbor is family too and everyone hangs out together. We hang out with the kids as much as possible, they are very helpful in practicing Spanish and we are less afraid of sounding like idiots in front of them. Our father is a construction worker and our mother makes and sells tortillas at the pulperia (small store) next door that her sister owns. She makes about 3,000 tortillas a day! We are also very close to the training center; our walk is about 5 minutes compared to others who have a 25 minute walk. We live on a hill, and we just head through the forest and then catch a trail to the training center. There are a lot of spiders here, and really I’m torn- apparently they eat the mosquitoes, but I really hate spiders. Our family doesn’t have a refrigerator and they use an outdoor wood stove for cooking but the food has been great so far.

The town itself is pretty. It has a lot of hills. So forget those buns of steel videos and just come walk around here for a few days. Like all Central American towns, in the center of town is a park. There are stairs near the park where you can hike up and see the entire town and many miles down into the valley. It is a beautiful view! There is also a green lagoon and basketball court near the town center. I’m still exploring so I’ll update you in due time. Also, I’ll try to get some pictures on here (or to a linked site) so you have a better idea as to our living situation and the town.

We have class everyday from 7:30-4:30 and half days on Saturday. So far we’ve had a lot of introductory type lectures and team building activities. The trainers here are excellent and really know what they’re doing. We had our language interviews today to see what classes we’d be placed in next week. For the interview, you basically just sit down and talk with a teacher in Spanish for about 20 minutes. There are three level at each stage and there are three stages: Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced. There are a few people past advanced, they get to do something else. They make everyone else sick!

Today was the first time we’ve had any free time so we all had planned to meet up for a game of soccer. It was pouring down rain though so I didn’t think anyone would be there. I made the 20 minute walk on my own and low and behold there were 15-20 volunteers there. We all got completely drenched and had a very ugly game of soccer. The field overlooks miles of mountains and valleys and is quite nice.

Our group of trainees has become quite close and we’ve only been together a week. I really can’t stress how impressive these people are. Everyone is very competent, and has the ability to either lead or follow depending on the situation. I’m glad we have 10 more weeks together, but it will be sad when we all split up to go to our sites. We laugh a lot too, they told us that 10 people from the group that just finished their service got married- either to other volunteers or to Honduran nationals. So Emily and I have a game where we try to decide who is going to end up in a relationship together. The guys have pretty good odds here- there are 9 single guys and 29 single girls (10 of us already married). So guys, forget your dating scene, join the Peace Corps and your odds skyrocket. They try to keep us out of trouble by telling us the laws and customs around here. Having a date typically means having a chaperone and meeting the parents, and dating “around” isn’t done. Here’s one for ya, if you get someone under 18 (legal age here) pregnant, you either go jail or marry them- hmmm?

It sounds like most current volunteers here have cell phones and that they are quite affordable. Hopefully, Emily and I will be getting one in the future, we aren’t allowed to travel to the capital during training, so it may be awhile. That means that anyone from the states could call us directly (with a phone card I believe) and obviously that we could call you as well.

So that was really long- congrats to all of you who made it the entire way- real troopers!

This week’s trivia question will test your Google ability:

-Do Malaria and Dengue Fever come from the same mosquitoes, and when do those mosquitoes bite? Buena suerta a todos (good luck to all)!