Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008

Today, I got called a "frijolero" ("beaner") by my host mom because I asked for some extra beans for lunch. As far as I'm concerned, that means I won at the Peace Corps. At least earned a ton of XP. I will sing the song by Molotov now to celebrate.

That is all, carry on.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Today, I got called a frijolero again because I asked for more beans again during lunch. Must have more protein. I'm sorely lacking the the fruit department, and vegetables are just barely enough, I think. Beans and rice and eggs and bologna are cheap, apparently, because I'm eating a lot of it. I know fruit is expensive right now. I can probably get all the canteloupe I could ever eat right now, from what I hear. But I'm devouring any tomatos or peppers I get. Cabbage is popular. Onions for flavor in the beans, it seems. I get a tiny bit of chicken occasionally...like, part of a leg. Not a whole drumstick.

I scored some vitamin C chewable tablets from a buddy. I'm rationing them out to keep the scurvy at bay. I might need to break down and buy some OJ every other day when these tablets get eaten. They're so delicious. But yeah, I figure I could use some multivitamins. Coulda sworn I packed some.

Big event today was a field trip in the afternoon. We learned about watersheds and microwatersheds in theory yesterday, looking at topographic maps and whatnot. Boring. Don't get me wrong, I do and have always enjoyed looking at maps, but not for 4 hours.

Today, we went to the place we were looking at on the topographic map. About 20 minutes away by LandCruiser (these jeeps are so nice). We climbed a mountain. We were basically going uphill from a starting point (a well) to find all the area from which water would flow to reach the well, basically, to track potential contamination of the water source. Used GPS thingos to make waypoints. Used machetes to hack through the brush. We got halfway up the mountain and it was a straight pine forest, so we didn't machetes anymore. We left packs and machetes at a point we'd return to when we headed back and pressed onward and upward. I kept my machete. Just in case of chupacabras, doncha know. Made it to the top. They all took lots of pictures. The view was the best so far...top of a rocky vertical outcrop on top of a mountain. In La Trinidad. Then when it was time to head back, everyone else was in single file going down. I hate walking in single file. So I found my own switchbacks again and also ran down the mountain, Man-vs-Wild style. With a machete. I didn't trip at all. It's the parkour, I'm sure. Well, I didn't trip at all until the last 10 meters or so walking on the road to the cars. Totally wiped out on the dirt road. Tossed the machete so I could catch myself on my hands. Guess I needed to be kept humble. It didn't work. I know I'm awesome at the speed hiking.
Didn't really learn a lot. Water flows downhill, perpendicular to the elevation lines on a topo map. Not difficult to figure out which points are going to result in contaminated water flow to a downhill point. Microwatersheds are easy.

Supposedly next week we're shuffling our Spanish classes a bit, since we all changed proficiency levels. Who knows what'll happen. Saturday morning we get to drive at 6:45 am to Tegus for immigration stuff. I think this is the event that'll let us stay here longer than 2 months.
I'm reading Faust, courtesy of the Gutenberg Project, when I'm not writing or reading downloaded emails. I'm about halfway done.

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I am drinking tea pretty regularly. Coffee is huge here...so all the adults pretty much drink it. I tell people I don't like it, because I don't, but I ask for tea instead. Whatever the tea is, it isn't bad. Lots of sugar. It's not in a bag, I don't think. It's some sort of tree bark. Sort of a burnt orange brown color. Lighter than cinnamon. I'm getting the hang of sipping hot beverages. I feel like the terrorists have now won, because Alex is drinking hot drinks now.

Another fun fact: Tigo is everywhere. Tigo is a cell phone company here...I think it has one competitor. By everywhere, I mean even the traffic cop uniforms of the National Police force have Tigo logos on them. Yeah.

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Friday, March 28, 2008 or so

Made a basic wood-burning stove out of clay bricks and mud we mixed up from dirt, manure, and water. Pretty interesting. Metal chimney, metal sheet for the cooking surface, lots of shards of ceramic tile inside as insulation to keep heat and reduce firewood consumption.

Also made an oven out of the same materials, and also a big 50 gallon (?) barrel. Like the kind you transport petroleum in. Barrel got heavily modified, rebar welded inside to form a two-level grill, chimney hole cut out in the side, and one of the circular ends got converted to a door/hatch. So you set this barrel on its side on top of an adobe slab. Then you take another barrel that has been cut vertically once and had both circular ends removed, so its more like a curved metal sheet than a barrel and you wrap the first barrel/grill with it so theres some space between them. This insulates heat. Cover the second barrel/sheet with the same mud mix to keep it in place and insulate more, plug a pre-fab metal chimney in the top, and poof. Bread oven.

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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Group bus ride to Tegucigalpa to get processed at the immigration building. I think we got approved for 2 year temporary residency or some equivalent, but they didn't really tell us what was going on.

The cool part was it was the first reunion of all of Hondu-12, the original 47 we had in Santa Lucia. Much socializing was done.

After the 4 hours there, we split up and someone convinced the bus driver to take us to the mall for a half hour so we could get food and shop at the grocery store. The mall is like any mall you'd expect to see in the US, honestly. Massive food court, arcade, etc etc. Two stories, escalators, white tiles, escalators. Only weird thing to me was the supermarket on one end acting as an achor store.

Two slices of a medium pizza at the Pizza Hut in the food court cost 64 Lempiras. A full medium pizza cost like 200 limps. So I starved myself. I'm a cheapskate. Thankfully I got some discarded sausage topping someone didn't want, and later got a good cheese and bread sandwich from someone who went to the grocery store and realized they had no fridge in which to store their edible swag. And I had some OJ when I got back to town and talked to my chick.

Also gotta tell you about all the fun liquids they sell in a bag. Remember the ice cream I got from that one guy? That's a normal way to package liquids. There's a brand of potable water they sell in breast-implant-sized bags, thick milkshake-like milk sold in a bag (very tasty...no corn syrup, just sugar), and you can buy liquados (like a smoothie or milkshake) at a restaurant on the highway nearby and they come in a plastic bag with a straw sticking out of it. Tasty. The novelty of the bags is wearing off quick but I figured I would mention it.

It was while indulging in one of the aforementioned milkshakes that I decided that nothing is more Honduras than a vast expanse of pine forest, with occasional palm trees scattered throughout.

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Tuesday, April 1, 2008

April Fool's Day? Not a big thing in Honduras, apparently. The gringos are having a bonfire tonight. I'll head over after I eat dinner in a bit. I had an insight. In AmeriCorps, writing my weekly blog was like a HUGE stress-reliever for me. Kept me connected. Here, the blog has taken a backseat. I'm spending most of my time writing to my girlfriend...so she's getting the bulk of my stress-relief. After writing to her, I feel very little motivation to write up a blog. Not sure if that makes sense, but I think it's accurate.

All the volunteers that come to visit and teach of stuff keep sympathizing with us about how dull and...odd the bulk of training is compared to the first 3 months of introductory time on-site. They basically advise we treat training as all introductory stuff, giving you all your options. You might only use one or two lessons from training in your actual job, and even then, you'll need to shadow a veteran volunteer for a few weeks before you'll feel confident doing the task on your own.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to the end of training for that reason. Eagerly awaiting the future for a few other reasons, too, but I'm trying to keep my reasons for being here at the front of my mind as much as I can.

I do have to give my host family props for two nights. Both times I was feeling antisocial and sleepy, so I was holed up in my room listening to music with the lights off around 9 pm. They usually go to sleep at 930. They called me out once to eat popsicles with them, and another time we all devoured a watermelon before going to bed. Yum. I think watermelons are sweeter here. Both times we talked and joked for the duration of the meal, and it cheered me up.
toodles

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Tuesday, April 2nd, 2008

Figured I should give you some "awww"-inducing info about the 1.5 year old girl in the host family. She's learning more and more words every day...learned my name, can say hola and adios when appropriate, but doesn't realize yet that you only need to say it once. So I can spend 5 minutes with her exchanging Holas and Adios's. Usually after it gets too much , the family breaks up the conversation somehow. She also tries to have conversations with me. 99% of what she says during these extemporaneous exchanges is unintelligible, to me at any rate. But they always crack up the family if they eavesdrop. A couple other neighbors indulge her in the same fashion, I've noticed, so I don't really feel like a silly gringo.

Also, remember how I said I was doing pullups and ab excercises on the railroad rail and cinderblock wall next to my room? Well, she's seen me doing it, and now can climb up the back of the couch like I climb up the cinderblock wall, and she does cheater's pullups on the side of the dining room table, and also tries to mimic the ab excercises I do while hanging over the doorway. The mom said she learned all those movements from me over the last two weeks. Youngest parkour enthusiast ever is in Honduras, and a neutral third party would agree she's adorable.

Also, I have a habit of heading outside my room to the yard every night to look up at the stars. Usually the family is still up, and sometimes they look with me and we chat, sometimes they let me meditate awhile on my own. But the little girl has seen me staring straight up, just craning my neck and standing still, so sometimes she'll look at me and say my name, then jerk her head up and look at the ceiling for a second before looking back at me again. Then I try to explain to her that there are no stars indoors, especially not during the day.

We also have lots of fun handing items to each other repeatedly. We can pass a water bottle back and forth for hours. Who needs computer games when you can play Pass the Bottle? Too bad Pass the Bottle isn't compatible with Vista. I hear the sequel will be, though.

The new Spanish class is turning out to be pretty cool. Current teacher is apparently a bit of an activist at heart, so she enjoyed the heck out of my presentation on the situation in Tibet with all the recent violence, and we talked about the death penalty today. I like talking about that stuff way more than recounting what I did over the weekend, or what I used to do when I was living in the US.

A couple interesting notes about Honduran culture: I might be repeating myself, but I doubt I mentioned it...when I was visiting the volunteer outside Santa Barbara a couple weeks back, he gave me some info. Most of the strangers etiquette we have in the US doesn't apply in Honduras, at least in the campo. You can cut in line, and nobody will mind. Evidence: people cut in front of you and just ask for what they want from the clerk, and get it. Even if the clerk was in the middle of handing back a customer their change, sometimes. You can stare at people passively to your heart's content. Evidence: everybody and their mother is going to stare at you. Which means you can say hello to pretty much anyone, and since they're looking at you, there's eye contact and they have to say hello back. I tested this, and it even works on the toughest-looking street thugs outside the billiards bar at night. Doesn't mean they won't cut ya anyway, but their mothers raised 'em right in one regard, anyway. You can even just pass someone on the street, say hi ("buenas" is sort of like "g'day" in that you can say it regardless of the time of day or night) without making eye contact with mirror shades on without turning your head at all, and pretty much everyone within 10 feet of you in every direction will say hi back, just in case. Can be a pretty fun game that you could never play in the US, except maybe in a very small town.

Speaking of phrases, you can say "Que le vaya bien" or "Vaya pues" instead of Adios when the other person is walking away from you. Both pretty much mean "I hope you travel safely," but run through the same sort of strainer England used to get "Goodbye" out of "God be with you." I think I already mentioned "Buen probecho." I have lots of fun saying single phrases to complete strangers.

Also, speaking of etiquette not bothering anyone, you don't HAVE to say anything to anyone, unless they're trying to talk to you in a civil fashion. You can pretty much get anyway with anything mild when dealing with strangers on a cursory level, said my volunteer. But on the other hand, some minor things (to Americans) are huge deals here. Never ever ever slam a car door. Close 'em with about 25% of the force you're used to using in the states. Get in the taxi, settle yourself, then reach out and slowly close the door behind you. Else the taxista will yell at you for trying to break his car. I was warned about this beforehand, early on, and then forgot in my first taxi way back when and got chastised.

I also downloaded the Skype installer onto my flash drive, so I can install it on any computer in any internet cafe and run Skype. Meebo.com was nice and all, but it ran so slowly on computers here. So if you guys are dying to talk to me, keep a Skype window running in the background and get my info from me. I'm online at least twice a week. Cool thing about Skype is that most computers have headsets and webcams, so I can video chat with my lady back home. We are quite stoked.