Yarumela

This last weekend was great, the two month travel restriction where we had to stay in site had just expired, perfect timing for my host-mom’s birthday in Yarumela. After working real hard with the military school a weekend with the closest thing I have to family was a perfect break. After 6 hours on buses I finally arrived in Yarumela, where I had spent 2 months earlier, it was weird being there without the other volunteers, but not much had changed other than that. My parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, everyone was still there. A lot of people from the town still remembered who I was too and the high school girls still yelled ‘estuart my love’… good to be back home? Although we didn’t do much, lots of eating and one adventurous trip to the river, it was a perfect break to rest and see familiar faces, now it’s back to my new home San Marcos and back to work.

El Batallón

So in my first soccer story i wrote about creating a counterpart connection with the Batallon or battalion in Pinalejo, a town about 20 minutes (and two bus rides) from San Marcos, last week I finally started my work there. Like most things here, and when I say most things I really mean everything, it doesn’t go according to plan. I was hoping that because I was working with a military organization that they would be more organized, punctual, and well behaved…not quite, maybe a half step above normal, but it’s been like pulling teeth getting work done here. The only reason I’m sticking with it and trying so hard to make it work is because I think that it is very important and when it does work it is really fun. Last week the plan was to give classes on hygiene, HIV/AIDS, STIs, and drugs and alcohol, the plan was Tuesday and Wednesday 3 ½ hours before lunch and 2 ½ after lunch and then just a half day on Thursday to finish everything up. Getting 15 hours of stuff together, planned and organized is not easy, especially in Spanish and not using the normal materials that the Peace Corps usually goes with, I had to get creative to have a captive audience of military students listening and participating for 3 ½ hours on hygiene, but I put in a lot of work and got it all set. Then I got the call, 10 PM Monday night… “fijase que” (read the previous entry if you don’t get this). It was the Coronel calling saying that everything was set up for tomorrow to give class to the new group for 3 hours before lunch….the whole afternoon session was scrapped. As frustrated as I was about this I decieded that I’d make it work, if I cut some stuff, really was efficient with my time I could try and squeeze it all in 9 hours instead of 15. Tuesday morning came and ‘fijase que’ they had a meeting till 9:30… so I changed my plans again, Tuesday I just did hygiene, Wednesday worked fine, I rushed though the HIV/AIDS in a little over 3 hours just fine, Thursday started good, the plan was do to STIs and Drugs and Alcohol all in 3 hours, rough but doable. Until my class got interrupted for over an hour’s so that a American pastor could give a church service…AHHH! In the end I learned a lot from this experience and hopefully things will go smoother in the future, I did have a lot of fun with the guys, get free lunches, get to see lots of military drills and I know where they keep their guns… we’ll see how next week goes…

Fíjase que….

A very important phrase to know in Honduras is ‘fijase que’, when you hear this said you have to hold on and get ready because it means something went wrong. The English translation would be something like ‘I’m really sorry but…’. It’s amazing how much of a part of the Honduran culture this phrase is, all you have to do is say ‘fijase que…’ give a awkward face and people know what’s up. It’s usually used when people make promises or schedule things and then have to back out of the commitments, which is very frequent. Part of the reason for it’s prevalence is that, in general, Hondurans aren’t very confrontational, they would rather commit to doing something to your face knowing full well that they will have to back out of it later than seemingly letting you down on the spot. This sucks when all your work has to be planned with other people, especially in schools and organizations; they are the masters of the ’fijase que’.

La Esquina Caliente

In San Marcos i try to be pretty social, meeting and hanging out with random people and eventually getting to know their names… usually I know a lot about people before I know their names, it’s kind of a problem I have. Most days if I don’t have any work to do and it’s not raining (which really limits my time) I can just walk from my house in any direction and within about a minute I’ll run into someone I already know or someone who waves me over to talk to the gringo. It’s a great way to meet new people, but it can be tiring constantly having so many acquaintances but no real friends. Fortunately I have become part of a group of guys that has taken me in as more or less one of their own. They call themselves the “esquina caliente” or the “hot corner”, if they weren’t all in high school, part of the church, and very friendly it would be like I was part of a gang. The reason they are called the esquina caliente is because, after hanging out in the park every evening till about 8:30 playing soccer, we walk to the corner store, buy a 2 liter of soda or juice and drink it and hang out talking to whoever passes by. This is how I pass my nights…super exciting. One of my first days in site we went to the rio and had a BBQ and hung out, and yesterday we traveled to Petoa to play soccer against another group from there. I scored a nice goal from 25 yards out, but we lost 3-2, I am now referred to as “Gringo Donavan”. We couldn’t finish the game because we had to leave early because the last bus home was leaving without us…they don’t really think these things through ahead of time, but we managed to make it back safely to San Marcos. Although sometimes I get tired of hanging out with highschool kids because I feel super old around them I really do appreciate the way they have taken me in and provided me with some fun times.

Catholic Church

Here in San Marcos, and Honduras in general, religion plays a big role in society. Contrary to what I anticipated the Catholic Church doesn’t have as much dominance in the towns, the Evangelical churches are growing at a much faster rate. In San Marcos I’m pretty sure the Catholic Church is the larger and more dominant religion. Although I had never been to Catholic Church before, I go a lot here because there isn’t really that much to do here besides soccer. I usually go to the Thursday service and the Sunday night service and I’m becoming more involved with the youth group that meets Saturday nights. It is interesting seeing how divided they can be though, although this is mostly only seen/talked about with the old people. Where it is most seen by me is when people die, if they were Catholics there is a ‘velorio’ or wake the night of the death from 9ish to 4,5,6 in the morning where the entire community comes by and hangs out, the family serves bread, coffee, and rum. Then there is a big church service followed by a procession to the cemetery for the ‘entierro’ or burial. If they are evangelical only a small group of people go to a service and only a handful go to the burial.You’d think that this wouldn’t be that apparent, because we are a town of less than 5,000 people, but somehow there are tons of deaths, at least one a week since coming here, sometimes up to 3 in a week, I really don’t know how it works. During our training they say it can make work difficult if you associate yourself with one church or another, fortunately for me, when people ask if I’m Catholic or Evangelical and I say I’m Presbyterian they have no clue what to make of it and they leave it at that. Gotta go to a funeral right now…seriously.

Youth Group Retreat

This last weekend the Youth group at the Catholic church went on a overnight retreat and i was invited. I didn’t know what to say, but because I’m friends with a lot of them and there wasn’t anything else to do I said “why not?” and went along with them. I didn’t know what to expect on this retreat, all I knew was that we were going to meet at 7:00 AM in the park, bring 70 lempira ($3.50) for food and lodging, and some clothes and a bible. Just like normal at about 8:30 AM we finally left the park and went to ‘las milpas’ which was like a retreat center about 20 mins away. I was amazed when everyone got there, it was mostly people from San Marcos, but also some from Trinidad, Quimistan, and from some of the aldeas of San Marcos, in all there were about 70 people there. The retreat ended up being OK, not the most interesting and fun retreat I’ve ever been on, but it was enjoyable none the less. We had a lot of lectures, 7 in total, all about an hour/hour and a half long about different topics. This was nearly unbearable by the end of the day when it was super hot, no power, and another lecture in Spanish. It was fun getting to know the people, most of the kids were between 13 and 18 and then there were some leaders between 22 and 50 years old. The thing that killed me though was the sleeping situation, in theory it wasn’t bad, everyone had their own bed and sheets, the problem was that there were 30 teenage boys in one big room and we were told that we had to be in the room with the lights off at 10…never going to happen! What did ensue was a 2 hour pillow fight and then tons of talking until about 1 AM and then at quarter to 5 in the morning they all woke up and started fighting again, I am too old for this! At 6:30 we had to go to mass and then another 3 talks to round out the trip. By the time I got back home, 2PM, 31 hours after leaving, I was absolutely exhausted and in a very antisocial mood, but all in all I’d say it was worth it.