Adjusting to Living in Honduras

Saludos again from Honduras! I’m still having a blast and learning a lot. The following are a few paragraphs highlighting some of the things that have been going on here. I´ve summarized the paragraphs-- read what interests you.

1. Technical training, rough schedule

2. Other training (safety, language etc)

3. Tegucigalpa safety

4. Jam packed public transportation

5. Hot weather, hiking, family members

6. Rooster coop outside my house, scorpions in my bathroom, doing laundry by hand, Latin soap operas

7. Volunteer visits coming up, conclusion

1. Training is in full swing now and we’re going in to the PC training center every day except for Sunday from 7:30 to 4:30 (on Saturdays we get to go home early at 12:30 though). So that means that I’m getting up at 6:00 every morning and going to bed by 9 or 9:30. Que loco. The schedule has definitely taken some getting used to, and I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’ve now become accustomed to waking up before the sun rises.

2. We have started our “technical” training now and I’m learning all about Honduran businesses as well as strategies for teaching adults and general development principles. They’re also going over general safety stuff (like dealing with unwanted attention, how to travel safely etc) and more medical stuff (what to do if you find fungus growing on parts of you etc). Also, finally, we have language class almost every day and I’m learning and relearning a lot, especially all the new Honduran words and phrases.

3. Of course the Peace Corps has told us all about various dangers present in Tegucigalpa, especially the crime there. They want us to be smart when we travel and ready for anything—ultimately, they want us to be safe. But considering that the capital city is so important to a small, sparsely populated country like Honduras, we’re destined to have to deal with the city various times throughout our service.

4. So, as part of our training, they sent us in small groups into the city on a sort of scavenger hunt, to test our language skills, to see if we could handle getting from parts of the city to others. Anyway, one morning, I got onto a bus with one other group member (from my group of three) and left for the city at 7am. Let me tell you that I have never seen, much less physically experienced, so many people get onto a bus before in my life. It just kept on stopping along the way to the city picking up more and more people. Finally, people were literally hanging onto the side of the bus. Add to that the curvy roads and the loud 80’s American pop music blasting on the PA and, by the time we got to the city, I was feeling kinda carsick, ready to get off. I can’t imagine having to deal with that every single day going to work, but for 10 lempiras ($.50), what can you really expect? At least it was an interesting experience, right? I have a feeling that’s going to be my theme or slogan for the next two years of my life. The rest of the city wasn’t bad at all—nobody got mugged or lost and we all bought vegetables for our families at the market, as per our assignment.

5. Up to now the weather here has been both really hot some days (in the 90s) and unexpectedly cold some nights (down to the 40s); I haven’t gotten too, too sunburned yet, but my freckles are out in full force. I’ve had the chance to do a little hiking around our neighborhood over the weekends with my host family. The views are really amazing as is the Honduran “flora and fauna” if you will. Last weekend, speaking of which, my host madre’s family came here for a visit from the city and we went out for a walk—it was a bit crazy getting used to so many Honduran family members talking at once all around me, but fun at the same time.

6. My 12 year old host brother, with the help of a cousin, just finished building a “gallinero” or a rooster coop outside our house with plans of raising roosters to sell. As a Business volunteer, I like his entrepreneurial spirit, but I’m not looking forward to the ca-cawing in the middle of the night right outside my bedroom. Sadly, however, the first night he actually brought the rooster and hens home, a stray dog clawed its way in and left only a few feathers on the ground. Ovidio was pretty upset. On the topic of nature, my madre found and killed an alacrán (scorpion) in the bathroom the other night, then later on I found four baby scorpions in our bathroom sink, which she proceeded to spray with Raid. Ugh. And speaking of ugh, all that’s on TV are telenovelas (soap operas—the dramatic latino kind). Also, I have learned how to do all my laundry by hand on a washboard outside.

7. At this point, I’m rambling on, so I’ll try to wrap it up here. I just purchased a cheap Honduran cell phone. Call me if you’d like, depending on how much it costs of course (email me for the number); I may be calling the States at some point because the plan on my end is pretty cheap. Finally, this weekend I’ll be travelling with another Business trainee to a small town called Lamaní in the department of Comayagua to visit a current Business volunteer there. Then, next week I’ll be heading off to the town of Ojojona, 1 hour east of Tegucigalpa, where we Business volunteers will have “field-based training” for the next 7 weeks. Wow, I wrote a lot here; I had hoped to keep my blog posts concise, but so much is going on right now that I couldn’t help myself.