Both Hondurans and gringos alike ask me the same things about my upcoming move back to the US: What will you miss about Honduras? What are you looking forward to? I usually say that I’m looking forward to the food in the US, which is true, but that’s just the beginning. I’m looking forward to a feeling. A feeling that comes with addresses, hours of operation, and consistent electricity. To being an English-speaker in an English-speaking place. A feeling of true belonging.
I’m also excited to be among people of a more similar socioeconomic status. It sounds strange to say and stranger to feel, but I’m tired of having bread and butter for breakfast and having to answer questions or handle remarks about how much each item costs (butter and sliced wheat bread are too expensive for the common household). Tired of feeling like I have to tell people I went to a training workshop for a week instead of where I actually went, scuba diving in Utila, because I feel awkward about the differences in our economic realities. Even though I hardly live a extravagant lifestyle, I can’t help but feel that way sometimes, and I’m weary of feeling guilty about it.
So many times I’ve wanted to write about this sort of thing, about how I feel lazy around my extremely hardworking host mother who can’t even afford a night of vacation in a hotel. How unfair life is. And it is unfair. It’s unfair that if I were to get married in the United States, they couldn’t come, not only because the visa is near impossible to get, but because they simply could not afford it.
I will miss my host family and I will miss the natural beauty all around me. I have always found such pleasure in those rides back up to my little village from town, standing in the back of a pickup truck with my hands on the hood of the cabin, watching the mountain approach, the fields passing by and the river alongside. Passing the bridge over that river, it’s shady coolness giving a precious moment’s relief from the sun. That I will miss.
I haven’t written a blog post in quite sometime and I think it’s because I’m finding it harder and harder to summarize my feelings and experiences here. One day I’ll feel motivated to write a frustrated post on, for example, how the culture is so accepting of telling lies, and the next I just can’t summon that same feeling of frustration–it has passed. The positive and the negative are all mixed together. The people I’m around never say please or thank you but that’s because they are so close to one another that they don’t feel it’s necessary (or that’s what they tell me when I ask about it). I feel so frustrated that teaching a such a seemingly simple thing like proper waste management is actually painfully difficult and slow, and yet I know now that I have made an impact… somehow. Nothing seems black and white anymore.
To catch you up on my projects here, we are finishing the construction a school relleno sanitario (tiny landfill) to use instead of burning the trash. Upon finishing, I will give lessons to the students on how to manage it (layer with dirt and compact). We are also finishing a new compost bin, made of old tires, as the old one was difficult to manage and got mixed with remnants burned inorganic trash (lesson learned–don’t forget to work with the ladies who clean the school…) The fourth grade class and I have also planted a small organic garden.
I am currently preparing to give the first of three nutrition classes (charlas) in my community this Saturday. We will discuss common nutritional problems in Honduras (40% of children ages 1-5 suffer from anemia, which often times results in diminished brain development and low IQs; meanwhile, high cholesterol, heart disease, and diabetes type II are all heavy on the rise), proper nutrition, and, perhaps most importantly, how to make certain recipes that are more nutritional. I’m excited for the charlas; I’ve been wanting to do this almost since the day I arrived.
I have only six weeks left until my official close of service. I have a lot yet to do : )
xoxo
Lexi
ps. for those of you not using facebook, here is a link to some recent photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100351546973863.2968161.2200439&l=113438f762
Today is May 1st. I have been back with a host family for one month now. My countdown until departure is down to approximately three and one-half months. I was thinking today about my state of mind before I joined Peace Corps; I spent an entire year thinking about getting in, where I might go, what I might do. Now I am on the verge of another big step in my life and I really don’t know what I’ll do when this ends. Any ideas?
Let me update you on things here. This last month with the family has been pretty great. I don’t isolate myself as much, and I’m surrounded by “family” as soon as I step foot outside my bedroom door. Dad, Lisa, and Eliza came to visit and stayed here in the house with us for two days and two nights. I think this was their favorite part of the trip. Lisa and Selenia seemed to have a lot to talk about, only hindered by the fact that they don´t speak the same language. But Lisa fit right in, walking with Selenia to the corn mill at 6am both mornings. The second morning I saw the two of them walking back, looking casual, making comments that the respective reciprocant could not understand:) Before we left, Lisa left a really stunning long skirt with Selenia because Lisa was able to understand how much Selenia admired it. Selenia is now very proud of it and planning to wear it for the big second birthday of her youngest son.
I’m still working away on the trash management effort in the community. This week I am doing trash related activities with the 7th through 9th graders. Sound fun? It is. Furthermore, we are constructing a landfill with 4 square meters of volume for the school to use for their inorganic trash. We’ve gotten a bit stopped up, however, as we dug the pit and found an enourmous rock occupying much of the needed space. So, we’ve taken a cue from the Mayans and we are breaking it up (in stages, it’s so big) by setting fire around it for long periods of time to try to break it into pieces. After that will come cementing, roofing, and fencing it in. Hopefully we’ll be using it by the end of the month… or mid-June.
I am now in possesion of exaclty 50 books that will be inaugurated as the first school library this Sunday! I got some wood donated and Roman is working on building a cart on wheels that will serve to rotate the books among the 4 classrooms on a weekly basis. Thank you so much to those who donated! It´s pretty amazing to see a kid get so excited about a simple book.
Okay that’s enough for now.
I know, WHY would I move back in with a host family when I have the option of sweet, sweet independence? A big house all to myself? Well I’ve decided that independence and being alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
So why did I move?
1. I was slightly depressed. I went to school and went back to my house. At school, the behavior of the kids, as well as of the teachers, made me sad. And on the way to and from school, I smiled and said pleasantries to people on the way, but nothing made me stop to chat. I went and sat in my house, roasting, to watch movies or read books. The only person who came and went besides myself was my friend Roman, which was an issue in itself…
2. Roman. He had come to feel like my house was his house as well. I didn’t like that. I wanted my space and time to be MINE. I know it sounds contradictory, but at least here in the family’s house (his sister’s house) I have my room, with a closed door on which I insist everyone knock. And if I want my time alone to read or write something like this, he has five other people around to entertain him. I have been freed from that duty.
3. I want to feel like I’m in Honduras. For too long I was waking up, reading in English, watching a movie in English, sending text messages in English, and feeling anxious to leaving the house, to enter another world, it seemed. But now, I wake up to hushed words in Spanish, and I leave my bedroom door and the first person I see is my favorite Honduran, Selenia, who immediately speaks Spanish to me. The other morning, the two year-old, Israel, wandered off to his grandfather’s house next door. I offered to go retrieve him. I ended up sitting and chatting for almost an hour with the elderly Honduran and his middle-aged daughter. They had a lot of questions about me and the US, culture, and news, and I felt so good to be able to chat with them with out having to consciously think about going out to “visit people.” It just happened naturally as a result of my place here. Already I felt good about my day and it wasn’t even 9am.
I like structure. I like that the house awakens at 7am and I can’t lie in bed too long and then feel guilty about it. I like that every morning Selenia sweeps and mops and I am expected to do my part in my–by the way–giant room.
So that’s why I did it. After just four nights and five days I can say that I’m happy with my choice, though it does have it’s drawbacks. Most notably, my cell phone service is absolutely terrible here, though I can still send and receive texts, hint hint.
Oh, also, Selenia feeds me.
xoxo Lexi
It’s been quite a long while since I’ve written. The reason is, and I’ll be playing opposite day bc of Peas Core rules, I’ve NOT been on vacation once each month since December. Costa Rica at the end of January with Dad and Judy (thanks guys!), Roatan with college friends Mari, Susannah, and Lauren, and a fabulous whirlwind tour with best friend Emily Hall and her dad Chic. I think I’m getting pretty good at making itineraries now, so I’m going to share my last one with you, as well as the once about to come–on April 16th, my Dad, sister Lisa, and niece Eliza will be visiting for a week.
Itinerary which I created in order to see a lot of nature and wildlife and to keep one activity coming after another (that’s how the Hall’s like it!) Notes about what actually happened in italics.
Day 1: Arrive to San Pedro Sula airport at noonish. Get taxi to bus station. Two hour bus to Santa Barbara. Twenty-minute mini-bus OR pick-up truck to my site, La Zona. In reality, the first bus–an old American school bus–broke down, so we waited by the side of the road for a bit, caught a second bus which dropped us at a junction, ate some snacks while waiting for a third bus to get us all the way to Santa Barbara. Lots of running, shoving, and standing in buses:)
Dinner of the classic Honduran “baleada,” cooked by my soon-to-be NEW host-mom Selenia on her woodburning stove. (Will explain host thing later.) Night spent in my house.
Day 2: Check out latrines we’ve built in the AM, see the school trash police I’ve organized. Teachers on strike so no school was actually in session. Take local bus (another old school bus) up the mountain at noon, arrive to San Luis Planes, a 1,300 person coffee-growing town, high in the Santa Barbara mountain, around 2pm. Bus was extremely crowded, had to stand for long period, then minutes before arriving, a drunk threw up on Emily’s sandaled foot.
Go for short hike in the afternoon. Go up to a lookout point to see town below. Very cool. Dinner at a family’s house. Night at another guy’s house. Very uncomfortable beds.
Day 3: Wake up early, breakfast. Get ride in back of pick-up truck to a coffee farm. Get to pick coffee! Coffee farmers can make about 7 or 8 dollars in a day. We probably picked enough to make 40 cents. It’s hard work. Afterward, visit the local coffee processing plant and learn how it operates. So many steps! From the tree, the beans get depulped, washed, dried halfway, sorted for quality (weight), shelled, dried again, and put into huge sacks, all before leaving the mountain for export. I may have gotten that slightly wrong but that’s more or less the process.
After coffee tour, have lunch and get a ride down the mountain. In the back of a pick-up truck.
Stay the night in Santa Barbara in a hotel. Enjoy the hot water and AC!
Day 4: Early bus to San Pedro Sula (2 hours). Luxury bus from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba (3 hours). Taxi from bus station to Omega Lodge on the “River of Crabs,” located next to the incredibly imposing Pico Bonito mountain and national park. Short afternoon hike around grounds.
Day 5: Whitewater rafting! I fell out but was immediately rescued by Chic and Emily.
Naps and relaxing in the afternoon. Huge rains came in even though it’s the dry season here. Almost totally overwhelmed the sound babbling brook running beneath the cabin I insisted upon getting:)
Day 6: Leave Omega and the jungle around us for kayaking the Cacao Lagoon on the Carribean Sea. Stop at new hotel, Helen’s, on the way to drop off stuff. In amongst the mangroves off of the lagoon, we were able to see white-faced capuchin monkeys (very rare to see in the wild) as well as one howler monkey that pooped into the water near us as a defense mechanism. Saw lots of very unique birds and I also saw a baby crocodile taking in some sun.
Dinner at Helen’s.
Day 7: Sleep in a bit! We could hear the ocean from our hotel room, which was very nice, with a little kitchen room, three full beds, a tv-watching area, and a sizeable deck.
Taxi to La Ceiba for lunch and some souvenier shopping. Emily and Chic barely made it out of there. To their friends and fam, you should feel very loved after all the time they spent picking out and analyzing various items.
Canopy tour and hot-springs in the afternoon.
Dinner at another restaurant down the beach owned by two American expats. Great set up, amazing food, kooky people. The night ended with me, sober as a kitten, singing Eagles harmonies with the very drunk expat couple and Emily egging me on.
Day 8: Eight AM boat ride to Cayos Cochinos for snorkeling and beachtime! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Two sizeable islands and 13 teeny tiny cays. One was maybe the size of a football field and yet had a population of about 200 people! Another much smaller cay is used for an Italian version of Survivor as their “punishment island.” Reminded me of those cartoons in which two people or two dogs or whatever are stranded on a deserted island.
Relaxing in the afternoon.
Day 9: Early luxury bus to San Pedro Sula for noonish flight out.
Itinerary for next trip, oriented around seeing the Mayan ruins, visiting less touristy sites, and observing the culture during Holy Week:
Day 1: Arrive in San Pedro, drive to Copan Ruinas. Enjoy international cuisine and international people. Day 2: See Mayan ruins in AM. Tour coffee farm in PM. Day 3: Drive to Santa Barbara. See city fruit and vegetable market. Drive up to my community. Day 4: Visit families, hike to see the “birth” of one of the rivers (it basically flows out of rock because it’s a limestone mountain), swimming, etc. Day 5: Leave La Zona, drive to the hot springs in Azacualpa (saw them with Mom; it’s like a vision out of a Dr. Suess book). Cook lunch in the boiling water (eggs? potatoes? veggies?) Drive up to Lago Yojoa after lunch. Take in the scenery. Day 6: Visit Pulhapanzak waterfall. Visit the little fishing towns nearby. Maybe visit Cerro Azul national park for a hike? Canoeing in the lake? Day 7: Leave early to drive up to San Pedro Sula for flight out.
Hope you liked to read these itineraries… I think this might be the last one!
In my next post I’ll explain why I’m moving out of my own house and in with a family as well as how it’s going… I move April 1.
(Written February 2, 2011)
Today I almost gave up on my work here.
For the past two months (the kid’s “summer” break) I’ve been working with a group of five fifth and sixth graders to develop a school “trash police”–a group of schoolyard litter vigilantes. I’ve been occasionally frustrated by the student’s lack of creativity and ability to think critically, but I’ve mostly felt quite pleased. They’ve learned the very basics about trash management–which practices are bad and why, and which are better and why–and seem to at least understand the attitudes I’m trying to shape in their minds. The other day, three of the five came to a meeting (typical) at which we played a game to help them understand the different paths that trash takes based on our actions and why recycling is so important. Though the kids practically had to be lead by the hand through each step whereas in the US I’ve seen kids a couple years younger do the exercise breezily, I was pleased with the end result. It was to be our last activity together.
Today, however, I got word that one of the girls, Yessy, had decided not to continue. I immediately went to talk to her. At first she said that she was always forgetting what we learned–an obvious excuse. I told her there were to be no tests and that she had been doing just fine. She continued. She said that if Belkis, another girl in the group, wasn’t going to continue neither would she. That Belkis had decided to quit was news to me. Apparently Belkis decided to quit out of fear that the other kids would tease her–another girl in the group, Sandy, had recently expressed the same concern. I explained to Yessy and Belkis–my voice beginning to elevate with frustration–that I felt very disappointed by all of this, especially after all the training sessions, and that I would not be able to start over with any other students.
I left them, fuming, fearing that this entire project–the one I have felt the most excited about–was about to collapse due to a case of the drama queens. Then the fuming turned into sadness–”what will I have done for this community if this project doesn’t succeed?” and “if this falls through, should just give up and leave?” I also began to feel saddened by the fact that only the girls have expressed reservations about teasing. They evidently lack much self-esteem.
And then, after really only about an hour of sulking and listening to Selenia tell me that Hondurans will never change and will always disappoint, Belkis’s mother approached me. This woman, who lives only about 30 yards from my house, has always seemed to me rather meek. She lives with her own parents and shuffles from their house to her brothers’ houses, washing clothes, holding babies, and saying little–I’ve hardly heard a peep from her the last year. Tonight, however, she genuinely surprised me, and, moreover, her words relieved me. I thought she might give me an excuse for her daughter’s decision to quit. Instead, she said, quietly and with little eye contact, “Belkis will not quit, she will continue with the group.” I looked at her, trying not to show my surprise. “I told her she cannot wrong Alejandra like that.” She repeated the words.
Such firmness, such tenacity out of this woman I had previously thought of as a cliche woman in a machista culture–timid, quiet, and possessing little sense of authority or autonomy. Her words made the knot in my chest lighten.
Her words relieved me not only because with Belkis still in the group, we might still have a group, but because I saw something in her that I had started to believe didn’t exist here. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what that thing is–strength in a woman with little power? A respect for order? Or maybe just a sense that someone really gave a damn.
So that’s the story of today.
P.s. I am trying to put together a small collection of Spanish language books for the kids to share at school. They currently have NO books other than their textbooks. The kids have no concept of reading for pleasure. If you would like to help, please purchase a book from our Amazon wishlist: http://amzn.com/w/VZPTFNW6WQDN
I have arranged it so that the books will be shipped to a friend in New York who will be visiting me in March. She will bring the books down with her.
Thank you!!
Things that have happened since my last entry:
For Thanksgiving I traveled 8 hours to the south of Honduras to be with a group of about 20 other volunteers for the holiday. It was a great, American meal. I had fun but I realized how much I enjoy and miss Thanksgiving with my family. The trip home started off quite badly. I took a dramamine maybe 10 minutes before leaving, which I now know to be an insufficient amount of time. Coming down from the mountain town, veering hard through each turn, I realized that my dramamine may have made me overconfident. I yelled for a plastic bag as my mouth began to salivate and proceeded to talk to myself in very loud English in an attempt to convince my body it didn’t really need to purge itself. But, much to the chagrin of the kid sitting next to me, I vomited. Then dry heaved for a while. Now I know this isn´t what someone wants to read about when they think ¨interesting Peace Corps story,¨ but it´s kind of funny, isn´t it.
Moving on…
I’ve held two “meetings” with my new environmental club, a collection of about 20 kids ages 7 to 12. The first time we made recycled paper. The second time we went on a walk and collected leaves with which we made crayon shadings. After the first meeting, I thought to myself “why am I doing this with such little kids?!” I feel as though I could make a much bigger impact on an older group who might understand more complicated environmental issues, but on the other hand, maybe what’s important is fostering curiosity and general interest. They certainly are a very enthusiastic group. One kid went home from the recycled paper session and started up his own blender to make more recycled paper.
I’ve also had one meeting with what will hopefully be the “Trash Police” when school starts back up again in February. Litter here is a HUGE problem. I don´t know if I´ve described it before, but people do not think twice to throw anything and everything out the bus window or simple drop it as they walk along. So, with the help of the professors, I chose six students (11 and 12 years old) to participate. They will undergo a rigorous training (not really) and when school starts they will be roaming the school yard and whistling out those who litter. I plan to do some activities regarding trash management as well as practicing them how to spot littering. In addition to the trash training, we’ll do some fundraising in order to buy whistles and sashes for them and two trash cans with lids for the school yard. Only three kids showed up for the first meeting, unfortunately…
The latrine project has faltered slightly, as the large amount of sand required (to mix the cement) and promised to us by the local government has not yet arrived. It’s also been a challenge to get the beneficiaries to volunteer to work together. They are not a very community-oriented people. They work for themselves and for their family. But outside of that, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of camaraderie.
With only about seven months left, I´m starting to really fret that I won´t make any significant impact on this community. At this point I´m the most excited about the trash police, as it is something new and innovative and might actually get a few kids to change their behavior. We shall see.
Looking forward to Christmas and all the trips and visitors to come in 2011!
(Written Wednesday Nov. 17, 2010)
Far from complaining, today I am going to write about a very happy, successful occasion. As you might have read earlier on, since my swearing-in and arrival to site over a year ago I have been planting gardens of my own and hoping to inspire some women in my village to start their own vegetable gardens. After much trepidation, I finally held, today, a sort of tea-party at my house (literal translation: a snack). I had invited perhaps 60% of the women, figuring word would get around to the others and then as little as 20% would actually come. Well it seemed that almost all of the women to whom I directly gave invitations came–about 30 women plus 15 or so children and adolescents! That aspect was absolutely a great success, though it made me horribly nervous as I quickly ran out of the juice I had made and found myself running around wanting desperately to entertain these women (whom, I had to remind myself, are not used to the types of parties I’m used to, and for whom sitting around staring at each other isn’t actually all that miserable.)
So the juice ran out and the main event, the snack, came late, but after that, all went smoothly and pleasantly. At the last hour before the event, I had taped up several photos of myself, my family, and friends. While it felt a little silly and slightly narcisistic to do, I’m SO glad I did it, as the braver of the women wandered around to inspect them, which inspired some greater movement and conversation among the rest.
The menu, you ask? Well, as I was using the vaguely described event–the invitation merely said “I invite you to my house for a snack!”–in hopes to create some talk about nutrition and then segue into vegetable gardens, I had my host mom make corn tortillas with the juice of dark green leaves (I’m assuming telling you that it was chaya will do no good…) thus creating a lovely green-colored “supertortilla,” as they then contain iron and other essential vitamins. Ontop of the tortilla went a small scoop of lightly refried beans, followed by a salad of minced tomato, onion, green pepper, cilantro, salt and lime juice. Served to those first arrivals was a juice of the same dark green leaf mixed with sugar and lemon juice (from which the vitamin C helps the absorption of plant-sourced iron–I’m learning a lot, right?)
After the snack was consumed, I entered the group into a brief Q and A competition. The crowded house ended up working to my advantage as I simply designated those sitting in the living room to be a team and those sitting on the porch as their competitors. I asked them each the same question and told them to discuss and come up with an answer. In this, I was following some of my latest reading (Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, C. Heath and D. Heath) in their suggestions on how to get people interested in something otherwise slightly boring–for example, to create mystery and discussion, and to use some of what they already know but then demonstrate that they still don’t know it all, leaving them curious.
The questions were as follows:
Question #1: Which is the best way for the body to obtain vitamins–via pills, injection, or food? Believe it or not I thought they might get it wrong, as the culture here gives A LOT of value to any medicine in injectable form. But, they got it right, which I think was good–they felt confident in their knowledge of nutrition, but I was about to show them otherwise, thus creating a greater interest in the topic–goes the theory.
Question #2: Which vitamin is the most important for proper brain development–Vitamin A, Vitamin C, or Iron? This is where it started to feel like I was possibly hitting home and hammering in the importance of iron and leafy green vegetables (in conjunction with the iron-rich leafy snack and juice). All of these women have children and are obviously all concerned about proper brain development. They discussed and discussed, and both groups got it wrong. But, after all the discussion and confusion, they seemed more interested to hear what I had to say about the green tortillas and the dark green juice and its ability to provide a free source of iron.
Question #3: How much money will I save in one month if I harvest one pound of tomatoes each week? Well, this was a fun moment because they quickly calculated and came up with numbers that imply that I am paying a decidedly higher price for tomatoes than they are. So we laughed and debated and no real winner was declared. I then followed up with, How much would I save in a month if I also produced a pound of cucumbers, a pound of carrots, and three green peppers each week? I asked it not intending for them to try to calculate it, but rather simply to imply that even with just that little the savings in one month can really make a difference. However, these women are very serious about prices and the amount food they can get so both groups set to work to calculate the exact amount. This also seemed to hit home. (Note: We discovered that, thankfully, I’ve been paying rather normal prices for all other produce aside from the tomatoes. Will have to take this up with my vendor.)
I closed by mentioning the savings that one could accumulate with a vegetable garden and that I would like to help women organize together to start some. Immediately there was interest and discussions amongst the women. That was the best moment. Hearing two women talk about with whom else they could share a garden and in the other ear hearing my host mom corroborating my message by recounting her recent savings with her own green pepper plants.
Twenty minutes after my closing words and after 30 or so goodbyes, I was left with a mountain of beans, a bowl of salad, and not one supertortilla. So as I happily mounded toppings onto saltine after saltine, I soaked in the moment. I knew that they might not stay so motivated and I knew that those who do end up wanting to start a garden will come across many frustrations (the first being the problem of wandering chickens), but I also knew that what happened was a big start towards something positive. My only regret might be not doing this sooner:)
Good grief. Well, back in July 2010, Lexi’s blog was infected by a nasty virus. Now, the hosting company that held on to her blog decided to go bellly up… I just can’t catch a break.
The good news is, if you’re reading this, it means that her blog is on her new, fancy, web hosting company, DreamHost.com. Lexi will have to come back in and repost some stuff, but everything is right with the world.
Sorry again…
Lexi’s brother,
Tom
