I left my site for Thanksgiving and travelled to a volunteer married couple´s house in Olancho, the eastern part of the country. No one celebrates Thankgiving here, and not that I am a holiday fanatic, but it was going to be quite lonely if I was stuck eating the same beans and corn tortillas. So, it was really nice that they had about 14 of us over to their house. They live in big city, so they have a bigger house, complete with kitchen, running water, refridgerator, electricity, tv, shower.. it blew my mind. I think my favorite part was the shower, HOT shower. Bucket baths just don´t really make a person feel clean. (Picture, mop bucket filled with cold water from the garden hose. Next use small tupperware to pour water from the old bucket over one´s body to wet. Apply shampoo soap etc. Rinse using the same tupperware/mop bucket method) And, now that the weather has cooled off the frigid water from the mountains in the mornings is almost unbearable, so the hot shower was absolutely fantastic.
Oh, and by the way, I heard Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Whats the scoop with that? For what? and when?
Honduras had the highly anticipated elections yesterday.. the blue Nationalista party won the presidency as well as most of the lesser positions. I believe they owe part of their victory to the colossal botch that was the coup detat in June (of which both parties.. the deposed president as well as the interim replacement were red Liberales). A lot of people were expecting lots of violence, especially because many Liberales refuse to acknowledge the elections, presumably because there was still a ¨coup¨ government in place until yesterday. But, I have heard very little about demonstrations in Teguc or San Pedro. Obviously, quiet little La Laguna was tranquil. People were definitely nervous about the turnout and there was general excited electricity in the air, but no blood. I went to San Marcos to see their voting center, much bigger than little Laguna´s single classroom school yard. The government had sent some army and policemen with guns, but again, no serious altercations. Vaguely remembering this from Poli Sci classes, but all voting centers have to be open to public observation if the voting is to be considered fair and just, right? Ruth, Caroline, Morgan?
So, anyways, Ashley and I sort of said we were international observers and they let me snap a few pics. In truth, I think the guy at the door was more interested in getting the white girls digits than anything about international electoral litigation.
Other than that, some dick stole my debit card number in October and charged a bunch of stuff in New York. Trying to sort that out from here is kind of a pain because of the international calls, faxes, etc that the bank wants. Mom is an angel helping me, but because she does not have my power of attorney (SO stupid of me not to do that before I left) there is only so much she can do. I am in Guaimaca at the moment to try to fax the bank my signature, but the whole country is closed to celebrate the elections yesterday. Lame. P.S. When mom told me the charges, she said H&M was one. I laughed for an hour thinking it was S&M. Stupid, but for a moment I thought it was at least for a humorous cause.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
La Laguna
I´ve been in my site a little more than a month and a half.. definitely been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Every week I am becoming more and more comfortable in La Laguna. I´ve made the community leaders my counterparts, and have started a youth group and a girl´s soccer team. The youth group has proved a great way to facilitate community integration. Through the kids I have been able to gain confianza, or trust, with parents and adults who may have otherwise remained a little skeptical. We have led an environmental campaign to clean the one street in La Laguna, clean the cemetary, had several fundraisers in an effort to raise money. We had a big party with a portable disco machine that has its own solar panel (complete with 2 disco balls) last Saturday night. Our girl´s soccer team has been training for weeks now and we played Ashley´s team in San Marcos, losing 2 to 0, challenged them to a rematch the following Sunday and won 2 to 0. -San Marcos is the slightly larger rural town a few miles south and Ashley is the volunteer placed there from my training class, a Youth Development volunteer. I´ve been teaching english classes once a week, not my ideal job but there is a high demand for English so another easily achieved community integration tool.
La Laguna is also home to a fairly substantial Mennonite colony, unique to Honduras and our area specifically. It´s pretty bizarre to me. So Mennonites are like Amish but can drive cars and use the internet. In this way they are less stuck in the dark ages, but they have an impressive focus on missionary ¨Spreading the Word to the Natives¨ mentality. There are two gringo families from Missouri that live in La Laguna. I´ve visited with them a few times, and are very nice but largely keep to themselves. They don´t participate in the community and prohibit their Mennonite followers from doing the same. Thus, out of my 500 person community about half is mennonite, leaving about 250 to work with in my projects, such as the youth group and girl´s soccer team. However, the white Mennonites refuse to teach their followers English even though the Honduran Mennonites have been asking for years. I have an impressive Mennonite showing in my English classes.
The neighborhood I am trying to move into in the next month is actually a largely Mennonite neighborhood. I chose it for several reasons, first of all it has the only available vacant house.. and by house it´s a small cinderblock box, of which the cold sterility vaguely resembles something from an insane asylum, haha. No, it´s nice, it already has concrete floors, and a little toilet INSIDE - definite luxury. The tin roof is fairly new, so no leaks, and the wooden windows and doors all have metal latches for locks. I cannot express how excited I am to finally live on my own.. I think about it about 25 times every day, no WAY more. As much as I have enjoyed my host families, and it´s been a great to really get to know the culture, etc etc I have lived with 5 different families for the past 4.5 months and I am HELLA ready for some personal peace and quiet!!! Going from no rules for 4 years in college living with girls my age to living with conservative, loud, rooster owning, baby bearing, church loving, spanish speaking families was definitely an adjustment of which I am glad to be on the tail end. That said, the Honduran Mennonites are some of the nicest people ever. And the neighbohood is completely safe, set away from any other people who may drink, have parties or guns, that sort of thing.
All in all, im adjusting and life is good. We get a few days off for Thanksgiving so I am going to visit some buddies in Olancho, should help ward off homesickness and will provide a much needed step back from my site. And, on the food side the mandarin trees are bearing tons of fruit so i eat about 6 mandarins every day. SO delicious. IF any of you want to send a package, send candy and gum, nasty. good, whatever as long as it´s American. haha, no but seriously kind of. Email me and I will give you my address, or call my mom, or it´s on facebook.
Carmencho
La Laguna is also home to a fairly substantial Mennonite colony, unique to Honduras and our area specifically. It´s pretty bizarre to me. So Mennonites are like Amish but can drive cars and use the internet. In this way they are less stuck in the dark ages, but they have an impressive focus on missionary ¨Spreading the Word to the Natives¨ mentality. There are two gringo families from Missouri that live in La Laguna. I´ve visited with them a few times, and are very nice but largely keep to themselves. They don´t participate in the community and prohibit their Mennonite followers from doing the same. Thus, out of my 500 person community about half is mennonite, leaving about 250 to work with in my projects, such as the youth group and girl´s soccer team. However, the white Mennonites refuse to teach their followers English even though the Honduran Mennonites have been asking for years. I have an impressive Mennonite showing in my English classes.
The neighborhood I am trying to move into in the next month is actually a largely Mennonite neighborhood. I chose it for several reasons, first of all it has the only available vacant house.. and by house it´s a small cinderblock box, of which the cold sterility vaguely resembles something from an insane asylum, haha. No, it´s nice, it already has concrete floors, and a little toilet INSIDE - definite luxury. The tin roof is fairly new, so no leaks, and the wooden windows and doors all have metal latches for locks. I cannot express how excited I am to finally live on my own.. I think about it about 25 times every day, no WAY more. As much as I have enjoyed my host families, and it´s been a great to really get to know the culture, etc etc I have lived with 5 different families for the past 4.5 months and I am HELLA ready for some personal peace and quiet!!! Going from no rules for 4 years in college living with girls my age to living with conservative, loud, rooster owning, baby bearing, church loving, spanish speaking families was definitely an adjustment of which I am glad to be on the tail end. That said, the Honduran Mennonites are some of the nicest people ever. And the neighbohood is completely safe, set away from any other people who may drink, have parties or guns, that sort of thing.
All in all, im adjusting and life is good. We get a few days off for Thanksgiving so I am going to visit some buddies in Olancho, should help ward off homesickness and will provide a much needed step back from my site. And, on the food side the mandarin trees are bearing tons of fruit so i eat about 6 mandarins every day. SO delicious. IF any of you want to send a package, send candy and gum, nasty. good, whatever as long as it´s American. haha, no but seriously kind of. Email me and I will give you my address, or call my mom, or it´s on facebook.
Carmencho
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)