Week Four

As I start my fourth week in Honduras, not a whole lot has changed.  I am still in training Monday thru Saturday, still spend time with host family and I am continuing to learn more and more with each passing day.

On Friday, I went with a small group of fellow trainees into Teguz to visit a market.  It was an exercise for our Spanish classes to practice using public transportation and shopping.  The trip was more or less uneventful.  The best part was that we were able to go to a grocery store in the city and I splurged on a jar of peanut butter! It was definitely worth it!

On Saturday we took another trip into Teguz to go to Immigration. We had to register for Honduran residency and have identification cards.  After more than four (very boring) hours and a crashed computer system later, all 53 of us had finally finished the process. After immigration the group headed to Pizza Hut for lunch.  It was nice to have some pizza after a few weeks of beans and tortillas every day! 

We only have a few more days left here before I head of to field based training.  I am nervous to leave since I really enjoy my current host family (and the hot water heater) that I have now.  In FBT the pace of things is going to pick up even more and we will start to phase out our sessions in English and move to all Spanish. 

I am not sure about the Internet situation during FBT so I am not sure about how often I will be able to update (not that I have updated much during my first few weeks).  

Week Three

I only have about two weeks left with my first host family.  On the March 23, 2011 we start field-based training (FBT).  For FBT we will break off into our project groups.  I will have a new host family in FBT and will live with them for around 7 weeks. 

I learned how to make corn tortillas from scratch today.  My family joked that I could open Tortilleria Jessica, but I think I still need some more practice.  My host mother could make the tortillas super fast and they all turned out the same size and shape.  My tortillas on the other hand, we all different shapes and sizes!

This Saturday we did not have class.  The other trainees and I organized to meet at the training facility do play soccer, ultimate Frisbee and some other games.  After playing for a few hours we decided to go to nearby Santa Lucia to get some lunch and hang out.  After waiting for a bus for 30 minutes, we decided to walk.  It took us about an hour and it was mostly uphill.  My legs were definitely sore the next day.

Sunday morning I attended mass with my family.  I came home and did some laundry.  Then I helped prepare lunch.  My host mother is trying to teach me how to cook like a Honduran so that when I am living by myself, I won’t starve to death.  We had some beef tacos with chismole, a salsa made from onions, green peppers, tomatoes and cilantro.  I spent the afternoon doing some homework and playing soccer with my little brothers.

The Peace Corps training staff is keeping us all very busy.  We are still having regular language classes and the rest of our time is spent on project specific work, volunteer health and safety session and an assortment of other lessons.  I have been learning a lot during the last few weeks and the more I learn the more excited I am about the two years that lie ahead of me.

Week Two

Time is flying by! It is hard to believe I have already been in Honduras for over a week.  This Saturday we had a half-day cultural event at the training center.  We learned about the indigenous groups in Honduras and learned how to prepare some typical Honduran dishes.  My favorite was a dish from the north coast that was a toasted yucca chip with garlic! After class my host mother took me to buy a cell phone.

            I spent Sunday with my family.  We went to church in the morning, which is a short 10 minute walk from our house.  After church I washed my clothes by hand in our “pilla.”   A pilla is a cement basin that holds water on one side and has a cement washboard on the other side.  This was quite the experience for me!  It took me about an hour or so to wash everything and hang it on the line to dry.  The worst part of the ordeal for me was that my family does own a washing machine.  The peace corps wants all the volunteers to learn how to wash their clothes in the pilla since our sites will most likely not have a washing machine. 

            My Spanish is coming along slowly.  I have around 4 hours of Spanish class every morning Monday through Friday.  My class consists of only 4 other fellow volunteers.  Our teacher is great and the Peace Corps language program is known to be one of the best in the world.

Week One

On Wednesday February 23, 2011 I left Houston bright and early at 6 am to travel to Atlanta, GA for my staging.  After arriving in Atlanta, I jumped on the MARTA (public train system) to head the hotel.  I meet a few of my fellow volunteers on the train (we were pretty easy to spot with our big back packs).  At staging we got to know our fellow volunteers and discussed the mission and goals of The Peace Corps.  The following morning we left our hotel at 4:30 to head to the airport.  We arrived in Honduras around 1 pm and were greeted by Peace Corps staff in the baggage claim area.  From the airport we boarded a yellow school bus and headed to The Peace Corps training center.

The training center is located 30 minutes outside of Teguz (The Peace Corps’ nickname for Tegucilgapa) in the mountains.   For the next three weeks or so I will be living in nearby with a host family and spending most of my time at the Peace Corps training center. This area has limited access to the internet, so my posts are likely to be sparse for the time being. I will be receving around $3 USD a day for 'walk around' money.   My host family feeds me three times a day, so the money is just for extra things I might need or want.

The host family I am living with is wonderful.  My host parents, Juan Carlos and Ingrid have 4 children and a nephew that live with them.  The two girls are 16 and 13 and the boys are 11, 5 and 3.  The little boys are a tad on the wild side, but they are so cute and sweet, they can get away with a lot!   We only have one bathroom for all of us to share, however, I am not complaining. Many of the other volunteers live in houses with that only have running water once a twice a week.  I am spoiled at my house with hot water and a toilet that flushes every day.  It is inevitable that in the future I will not be so lucky and have to switch to cold bucket baths.  My room is slightly larger than my closet in the states, but I have a bed and a dresser so I can’t complain.  As I am typing this, the boys are coming in and out of my room opening my drawers and playing with my empty suite cases.  They are very curious about everything! 

            For those of you that know me well, I have some interesting news for you.  We all know that I enjoy staying up late and sleeping in the next day.  So far in Honduras, I have been waking up around 5:45 every morning.  This means I am usually in bed around 9:30 or 10.  I should note that between the chicken coup behind my house, all the dogs wondering around and the other random animals roaming the streets, I have yet to have an uninterrupted nights sleep. Something I have learned since arriving in Honduras is that roosters do not only crow at sunrise.  They crow all night long and they are LOUD.  I am beginning to think it will be two years till I have a night quite enough to sleep through the night.

I am at the training center from 7:30am until 4:30pm Monday through Saturday.  We have Spanish lessons in the morning, a break for lunch, and then in the afternoon we have sessions on health, safety and other relevant information regarding our two-year service in Honduras.  We are being kept very busy!  My Spanish is nowhere near where it needs to be, but everyday I get a tiny bit better.  By the end of my training in 3 months, I must reach a certain level of Spanish competency.  The Peace Corps staff assures us that they always get trainees to this level, but I am still a little nervous. 

A little about the food here.  For the first few days, I think my family was trying to ease my transition into Honduras by feeding me “American food” like chicken nuggets, something like pizza (it was homemade) and spaghetti.  The last few days I have had a few more typical Honduran meals like two fried corn tortillas with cheese and some type of salsa between them.  Plantains are another staple here. I even had some fried plantains with cheese on them for breakfast this morning.  They drink a lot of coffee here, but the norm is to put equal parts coffee and sugar!  Another common staple here is beans and eggs.

 All in all things have been going well for me.  My inability to say everything I want in Spanish can be frustrating at times, but I know that will take time.  Honduras is a wonderful country that has its fair share of problems.  As I continue to learn more about all the problems this country faces, I am excited to know that I may be able to bring about some positive change in this country.