Paletas

Necessity is the mother of invention or so some say. I think that Yarumela is the mother of creativity. When you are in a small town with nothing to do you have to find things to kill the time, my activities usually range from attempting to run to cutting hair, or in my case giving myself a mustache. There are always little things to entertain yourself with, but this last week I finally decided to something beneficial for myself, my family, and the community... OK, that might be a little too far, but I'm proud of my work. When it is ridiculously hot in La Paz there is nothing better than a good paleta or charamusca, essentially a sketchy street vender popsicle or a frozen bag of flavored ice. After my obsession slowly started to take a toll on my bank account I decided that I'd do something about it. The other day i went to the pulperia (corner store) and bought some plastic cups, popsicle sticks, found a stash of limes and went to work. I quickly cranked out 16 very sour lime popsicles to share with my family and everyone who wanted or could stand the sour punch. The next day, in order to appease the sweet glands of all Hondurans I made some amazing paletas de piña. Although it's not the most exciting activity I'm having fun and spreading 6oz cups of joy to the residents of Yarumela. Next on my flavor list are mango, mora, guava, horchata, coco, chocolate, and the ultimate flavor combo thanks to John, peanut butter-milk-Oreo.

La Tormenta

So as I was writing about the orphanage I was very rudely interrupted by a gigantic rain, wind, thunder and lightning storm. It started to rain about 8:00 and by 8:10 it was a full scale torment. It is still pouring rain about 45 min later but i think the worst is over...hopefully. This is arguably the hardest I've ever seen or experienced rain in my life, but being from Seattle I'm loving it while my family is freaking out. The rain is so hard it is nearly impossible to talk, i even resorted to yelling in English just for fun because nobody could hear or understand me, the fact that we have tin roofs that act like kettle drums probably don't help the sound and there are many holes where the rain is coming in, but at least it keeps the majority out. I have also noticed another key difference between the American and Honduran lifestyle, as they ran for cover I did what seemed natural to me, i kicked off my shoes, tossed my phone and wallet in my room and ran through the rain, being soaked to the bone within 5 seconds, my family looked at me like i was crazy, but i had a great time none the less. Also, I'm not really sure what happened, but the US Army seemed to have the same mentality as me because there was at least one helicopter that was flying very low over my house for a while, who knows what they were doing, but word on the calle is that there are some houses in Yarumela that profit from illegal activities, maybe it had something to do with that...who knows. anyway, I'm going to get back the writing about the orphanage and listening to my music with headphones just to try to lessen the bulla from all the lluvia.

El Orfanato

So part of being in the ´avanzado´ group in terms of Spanish abilities means that instead of having 4 hours of normal Spanish class every day we get to actually do something with the Spanish that we already know. I got the last pick out of the group of five of us, but I’m positive that I got the best project, maybe I’m a little biased, but whatever. I get the privilege of getting to work at Hogar San José, an orphanage in La Paz, working alongside Fortunato, a PCV from Seattle, and Sister Edith, an amazing nun from Honduras with a sweet story. In short the orphanage is located in the remains of an abandoned hospital and houses 23 kids from 9months old to 13 years old, run by the Sister and it receives little if no funding from the government. From that quick description you can probably get a little picture of what’s going on, but it is an amazing place. I am in charge of getting records and medical information for the kids, a very important issue from the health aspect, but it is also part of the process for them to hopefully get government help. I am in the process of taking pictures, weight, height, MUAC (middle upper arm calculation) measurements, as well as creating and finishing records for the kids, including going to the La Paz registry department to get birth certificates. This is great practice for me, related to the AIN-C program but also getting me experience talking to government officials, doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals. The thing that really makes my project the best isn’t the work I’m doing though, it’s getting to hang out with the kids and get to know them. After a long day of technical training there’s nothing better than while walking and sweating through the streets of La Paz to have a group of kids run up to you shouting your name and giving you huge hugs, that’s why my project is awesome.

my address... for now

Stuart Fluharty, PCT
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 3158
Tegucigalpa, D.C 11102
Honduras

Fiesta de Baile 4/3?

La fiesta de balie (the dance party)
So last weekend a couple of us went to the town dance, but didn’t end up dancing, partially because we had to leave early but also because we didn’t know how to dance Honcuran style. My host dad had a good time making fun of our lack of dancing skills so I challenged him to teach us how to. After some planning we decided that Wednesday night would be good because we didn’t have class on Thursday. Tuesday night after another late night painting party (my family, relatives, and I have been painting the house, usually starting at 9 pm and going till 1 AM… don’t ask why) my two host cousins (who can dance like crazy) gave me a couple of dance lessons, a quick intro to Punta, Salsa, Meringue, Bachata, and Reggeton. I learned a little, but not much, but they had fun with it. Last night everything came together and we had the dance party at my house. It started a little slow, like everything in Honduras we didn’t get going till about an hour later then planned, but finally people started to show up and my dad started bumping the music. We ended up dancing every type of Honduran dance possible, or at least the girls did, the guys mostly clung to the walls. It ended up being really fun, about a dozen gringos and probably that many Hondurans dancing the night away, muy cheque.

Lobo, the love of my life 4/3

So Honduras has been full of surprises, especially after coming to Yarumela, mostly all for the good, I just never feel like I know what’s going to happen, why it’s happening, or who I’m talking to and how they are related to me. One example happened last night, after having a fun and full day of adventures I found myself at my house with half the neighborhood kids running around like usual, but at around 8:30 my host dad asked if I was going to help paint the house, not wanting to be rude I said ‘claro’. for the next 3 ½ hours my dad, me, and one of my ‘primas’ (I think) painted the outside of our house while bumping latin music for the whole town to hear. As if yesterday wasn’t random enough, today i got home from classes to find another 20 people at my house, we ended up having an impromptu family dinner party capped off by another painting party at 10:30 PM. Although some of these things catch me off guard, the biggest change to my life here has been that I found the love of my life… in the shape of a 2 month old ‘siberiano’ (husky) puppy named Lobo. When I got here I didn’t even know he existed for the first 2 days because my family didn’t pay him any attention and he is in a small cage behind the house. I have taken it upon myself to love this little puppy as much as I can, a concept foreign to most Hondurans. He is a tinny little guy, pretty skinny and has fleas, but I am absolutely head over heals in love with him. So far I daily clean his cage, give him water, and sneak him my extra food from meals, I also made him a makeshift dog house, donated my only comb to him to keep him clean, and last weekend I gave him a bath. I’m pretty sure my family thinks I’m a little crazy for caring for this dog so much, but they are starting to see that he is really only happy when I’m around him, nobody else gets this much of a reaction, there have even been hints from people talking about how Lobo has ‘a new owner’, although I’m not really sure what to make of these comments if there is any way that I could keep this dog I’d do anything. Although I know the odds are slim that they will ‘regalarme’ him, I keep hoping and keep making hints in hope that they come to realize how much I love him. I’ll keep yall updated and hopefully post some pics of him because right now he’s the highlight of every day for me, oh ‘mi amor’….

El baile en Yarumela 3/27

3/27 El baile en Yarumela
Today was a very Honduran day, hand washing clothes, hand washing my dog, and wandering around Yarumela trying to find something to do. Finally I ran into some other gringos and we decided we’d go to a play put on by the Instituto de la Juventud, a group that we have met before. The play was supposed to start at 3, some said 3:30, others said there was a second showing at 4, but after an hour and a half of waiting we realized that it, like many events here, got cancelled…fijese que… So instead of being active members of the community we went out and got ice cream and drinks. The day was not lost though because there was a community dance planned in Yarumela for the night. I discussed the safety factor of the dance with my parents before leaving, they thought it would be OK so they dressed me up and my dad even sprayed some cologne on me…thanks dad. Somebody said it started at 7 so we thought we’d show up fashionably late at 7:30... But this being Honduras of course it didn’t start at 7 or even 8 so a group of us hung out and discussed the chances of the worldwide hour long blackout that was ‘planned’ to happen from 8-9... I don’t know where that rumor came from, but the power did not even flicker. Since the dance was pushed back so much we hung out with my parents and grandma as they talked about how we should dance, how to ‘matar el guano’ and how on Sunday we could all have dance lessons from my dad. We finally showed up to the dance at around 8:45 to find out that the actual dance doesn’t start till 10:00, but that there is a dance competition before that, we figured ‘why not?’ and proceeded in. there ended up being 7 or 8 groups that danced/sang/break danced to very inappropriate English songs or to regaeton music, entertaining, but not always appropriate… whatever. Because half the group had to be home by 10ish we didn’t get to stay for the actual dance, probably for the best, but there is always dance lessons tomorrow to look forward to. Happy semana santa!