November

i'm going to come back home for a week in november from the 10th throught the 17th, come find me

Planchar-to iron

It’s been raining a lot down here, way too much in the evening and the night so it’s been increasingly difficult to find stuff to do. Usually it means listening to music, watching tv, hanging out with my family, but one new activity that I have begun to love is ironing! I know most people have probably never seen me in an ironed shirt or pants, it’s probably because I never ironed back in the States, the truth is I didn’t really even know how to iron. Down here my style has had to change, I don’t really ever leave the house, unless I’m playing soccer, without wearing a collared shirt. Not only do I wear collared shirts and slacks every day I also never leave the house in unironed clothes, even my jeans…don’t worry I don’t make a crease in the leg, that’s too much. I really enjoy my once a week midafternoon ironing session, I throw the blanket on the table, get my pile of wrinkled clothes, put on some reggaeton music videos and get to work…what a life I live!

Puerto Cortes

Although I was already running out of clean clothes and I was really ready to head back to San Marcos I had a slight change of plans and got to keep having fun. The fam took off from San Pedro on Friday morning, their plane taking off at noonish, they took off to the airport at 10:15 and I headed to the bus terminal. Instead of heading west to San Marcos I had received a phone call earlier that week and got invited by my old host family in Yarumela to go with them up to Puerto Cortes, a town on the north coast that was going to be having their annual fair. I couldn’t say no to a chance to see my host family and get to see some new stuff. I met up with a group of family members, my cousins and aunts and uncles and we took the hour and a half bus up to the coast. It turned out that there were a ton of family members there, some that lived in Cortes, a ton from Yarumela, and also a group from Tegus, all in all there were probably about 35…crazyness, but soo much fun. The first night was a mini version of the fair, it started out with a couple music groups in the park, that was followed up by the real start of the feria which was at the Municipal Beach or the Coca Cola Beach as it is usually called. We got there about 9:00 and everything was just getting started, there were tons of people, food, drinks, and live music. There were 6 different stages set up along the street that paralleled the beach, tons of fun listening and dancing, many people were quite intoxicated and that was amusing to see. At about 11:30 the bands took a break, we went swimming, and then the music started up again till 2:30, after that more swimming and a cold walk/taxi ride to get back to the house at 5:30, people were already getting up there so I didn’t really get to sleep that night…oh well. Saturday we all went to a beach in Omoa, there were actually waves there so the whole family got in the water although nobody can really swim…Honduras as a whole is a lifeguard’s nightmare. We hung out there for a couple of hours, me getting burned, everyone else turning black. Saturday night meant more live music and dancing, this time in the city and only till 2. Sunday we all went to another beach, here we went on a banana (big yellow tube pulled by a boat) this was hilarious because it was very tame compared to anything in the states, but everyone there loved it, I pushed my host dad off. Sunday night I went with my cousin and host sister to the fair, during the walk there there was a terrible rainstorm so we didn’t spend too much time there, the rides were super sketchy but fun anyway. Then Monday morning it was back to San Marcos. It was a crazy 3 weeks, lots of travel, lots of family, and lots and lots of fun.

Roatán

We spent one last night in San Marcos before taking off to Roatán, my family was so thankful for the hospitality that they received from my host family that we decided to take them out to dinner. This was funny, 12 of us out to dinner, but it was fun and I was glad that we could treat them this way. Monday morning we were off to the airport, from which we would take off for Roatán, fortunately everything went smoothly…más o menos. We almost got left behind due to some gate changes and lack of clear communication, fortunately the plane only had about 15 people including the four of us so they came and found us before taking off. It was a quick ½ hour flight to the island of Roatán, a very beautiful entry to a landing strip that is just off the water, on the way in you could look down on all the reefs that surround the island. Roatán is said to have the best reefs for diving outside of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We got to our rental house, it was bigger than I expected and right on the beach. It seemed like it was going to be perfect…within about ½ hour however, things started to look not so great. Bryn immediately decided to go for a swim off of our dock, she came back in in about 20 minutes and had started to break out in a rash and hives from an allergic reaction to the sea grass, this is pretty normal for her though. Then Phil went out to do some laundry, within a couple of minutes we heard barking and yelling, Phil came back up to the house with two dog bites from a Rottweiler, one on each leg, great start… After that however things started going better. Although we didn’t end up doing a whole lot there we did have a really good time, I guess that’s what vacation is all about, relaxing. We did go snorkeling twice, we weren’t there long enough to get scuba certified, although my sister already was. We went out with a boat from West End, just a little bit off the shore you could get to the reefs. The water there is the clearest I have ever seen in my life, you could easily see 30 meters without problems. The area we were going was also a natural reserve so there was an abundance of different types of colorful fish. Going into the trip I had a little bit of a cold, which isn’t good for diving come to find out. I wanted to get closer to the fish so naturally I would dive down, my ears, head, and sinuses hated me for that, I thought my head was going to explode any time I went more than 6 feet under, but naturally that didn’t stop me from going 20 feet down…oops. Just an angry side note, the Peace Corps issued sunscreen, although it says is waterproof and SPF 45…doesn’t work, my back and shoulders are now peeling horribly. We returned to the mainland on Thursday, unfortunately we weren’t able to go to the Sounders game against Maratón that was playing in San Pedro Sula, that would have been sweet. All in all it was a great vacation, way too much food, but really relaxing and great to spent time with the family.

VOS

So after the Men’s Health Conference in La Esperanza my next project was going to the VOS (Volunteers Offering Support) training. This was to be held in La Tigra, a wilderness reserve located just east of Tegus. With the Men’s health conference ending on Saturday morning and because I was supposed to have to return to Tegus on Monday for the VOS training I got permission to go straight to Tegus for a couple days before the meeting, thus saving myself 13+ hours in buses for what would have only been one day in site. Fortunately I know some people in Tegus and they let me stay there for a couple of nights, getting to explore the city a little and get some relaxation time. The VOS conference was interesting, I wasn’t completely sold on it at the beginning, it is essentially a network of Volunteers that are available to talk about whatever with other trainees and volunteers that are going through rough times, we offer an ear to listen and a promise not to share any information with other volunteers or staff. VOS people are nominated by their peers and the project managers so it is an honor to get nominated. I was a little incredulice to the effectiveness and necessity of this program but as the training went on I realized the usefulness of it and I learned some new techniques on listening and caring for others. This training session lasted till Thursday morning, after it finished I quickly hopped onto a bus back to San Marcos because my family was coming in early on Friday morning.

Mens Health

One of the health projects in the Peace Corps is called “Aqui entre nos…” or “just between us…” it is a men’s health initiative that targets at risk men, primarily dealing with HIV/AIDS prevention. This is a project that I want to get more involved with because I think it has a lot of potential to grow and improve. I had known about the conference for a while but it was looking like I wasn’t going to be able to attend because I was doing my own men’s health stuff with the military guys. Less than a week before the meeting my boss gave me a call asking again if I could possibly come and bring 2 counterparts that would want to work with this program too. After a few last minute changes in plans I managed to convince the coronel at the military battalion to lend me two people to attend this 4 day conference. It was all very last minute, but it ended out working out, I met the two counterparts at the bus stop in Quimistan at 6:30 in the morning, we got to the San Pedro Sula bus terminal and literally walked downstairs to the ticket office, paid, got on the bus, and left. We arrived in La Esperanza, Intibuca at the hotel at 11:58, 5 ½ hours later, two buses and half the country to get there 2 minutes early, it was amazingly easy…I was worried about that, nothing works that easy here. The hotel was ridiculous, it was very nice, in the woods, had a pool, and bizarre but beautiful wood and fake wood decorations and artwork. La Esperanza is a small town, the biggest in the department however, it is located near the center of the country, a little bit to the west, the craziest thing about it was that it was cold there. Maybe it’s just because I’m used to the heat in San Marcos, but I was legitimately cold there, I wore a jacket and hat all day and used a thick comforter all night, although it was a shock to my system it was a nice break from the heat. The conference wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, mostly because I had already seen the whole presentations 4 months earlier and I was already implementing the techniques in my site, but it was fun because there were 7 volunteers and 35 Hondurans participating, we had a lot of fun. On the second night we went out to a pool hall as a way to demonstrate how to teach in risky areas and also to have some fun, among our group we had a tournament, me and my partner, a super nice guy from the north coast, won the first game and then got killed in the second round. On Friday, the last day we got to go out in groups and implement the manual, my group was assigned to a group of police, we had a lot of fun and I honestly think that the policemen and one policewoman really learned some things. After doing the 4 hour presentation my group went exploring around the city a little bit before going back for the dreaded debriefing. We got to see a shrine to the Virgin Mary that was built into a hillside/rock face, from above it you could see the whole city and the aldeas. After that we went to see some natural bathing areas that had been built up by the city, also very pretty. All in all it was a fun trip, getting to see some volunteers I hadn’t seen in a while, meeting new people and hopefully strengthening the programs that I’m doing in site.