Hola desde Honduras

Hola desde Zarabanda, Honduras! I’ve arrived safe and sound after a very easy and painless day of travelling. I am glad to have finally made it after so many months of sitting around, waiting during the application process; I guess it’s exciting to be experiencing the fruits of my patience. Things are very different here, obviously, and buckets of information are being thrown at us from all sides all the time. I say ‘us’ because I am in a training group of 55 people, including 3 married couples and two middle-aged people. We’ve got people from all over the states and from all different schools. Nobody else is from my school, Wake Forest, but there’s a Tarheel and a William and Maryite and a Cavalier etc. I was surprised at how big our group is. Everybody’s been very friendly and many have interesting travel backgrounds.

Our trainers are mostly Hondurans and have so far been going over all the basics of the main topics like language and safety and culture and medical etc., like who to contact if you get bitten by a dog or not to toss things when people ask you to pass them to them (because that’s a big cultural no-no). We’ve had our first round of vaccinations already and they’ve given us our mosquito nets, which I skillfully hung up in my room after standing on my 5 foot tall dresser and looping a couple shoelaces around one of the wooden rafters supporting the tin roof.

Which brings me to my next topic, my familia. There’s a PC family coordinator who went around the community of Zarabanda (and Valle de Angeles and its ‘aldeas,’ if you want to get technical here), which is about 45 min up the mountain from Tegucigalpa, to meet the families who were interested in hosting us gringos, and to check out the houses and rooms. Well, this coordinator certainly did a great job in my case because my family’s great. I’m the first PC gringo that they’ve had and so we’re all sort of trying it out together. My madre is Meesabel, she’s a hair stylist in her forties, and she’s a recent widow. She has two kids: a daughter, Flavia, who’s 18 and who goes to the national public university in Tegucigalpa studying banking and finance, and a son, Ovidio, who’s 12 and who just started the first year of secondary school. They’re very friendly and very accommodating and have had no problems so far with giving me all they’ve got in terms of speaking very fast in authentic Honduran Spanish; my language wits have been tested and I’m already learning lots of new words and phrases (and remembering lots of words that I had forgotten).

The house is certainly plain according to American standards, but is pretty nice for here, I think. No running water, about six light fixtures total, two bedrooms, one bathroom, and an open living room/kitchen/dining room. So I’ll call it rustic yet cozy. The shower the first morning was quite an experience because it was a ‘bucket shower’ with ‘non-heated’ water—in other words, it woke me up really quickly. My madre has since been so very kind as to heat up some water on the stove for me before I get up. The awesome part about the house is its location. Sure you have to walk up a pretty steep and perilous and long hill to get to it, but the view of the mountains of Zarabanda is amazing. I’m posting a picture of the view from the front stoop.

Well, okay, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’m enjoying things so far and am ready to get through all the basics in training and start learning some more relevant and profound topics.

Oh yes, and by the way, for all of you reading this who are still enjoying the cold and snow, I’m sorry to say that it’s been in the 80’s here every day.

Insurance or not?

One of the last things that I'm doing to prepare for my departure is deciding about insurance. Sure I've been mulling it over for a few months now, but the time to make a decision is upon me. The questions at hand are:
1. Should I sign up for the Peace Corps endorsed life insurance policy?
2. Should I get personal-property insurance for my laptop and camera?

If I had a lot of money, I'm sure it would be an easy decision to pay for both lines of insurance. But I'm a recent college grad and I don't have a lot of money to mess around with. So, at this point, I'm leaning towards declining both:

1. I don't plan on dying- but who does? Why not keep the $60 that it would cost to buy the policy?

2. My laptop is getting old now and I'm probably going to need to get a new one in a couple years any way. I'm also backing up all my data before I go, as well as bringing a few memory sticks with me. Point being that I won't be devastated if my laptop gets stolen or broken. I have a pretty cheap digital camera and I wouldn't be too heartbroken if something happens to it too. I'm not planning on taking anything else of any real worth.

Personal property insurance isn't necessarily cheap, especially compared to what the PC pays us. The insurance company that the PC recommends (Clements International) charges a premium of $50 for $1000 of coverage. At this point, I'm not sure how much I'd need to get covered, but it would probably be more than $1000.

It seems that not every PCV in Honduras gets their laptop and camera stolen. Will insurance give me true "peace of mind" or will I feel ripped off if I've paid $50+ month after month for coverage that I didn't end up needing? To be honest, I think that if I pay for the insurance, I'd almost hope that my laptop gets stolen just to have made it worthwhile.

**Correction: I was mistaken; the Clements policy charges its premium annually, not monthly, so that makes a huge difference. Thanks for the comments.