Saturday, August 28, 2010
More pictures on facebook.....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2509972&id=15938884&l=08b07e03c9
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Even One of our campesino friends who taught us about the watersheds and the disconnect between the people who live in the mountains and the people in the cities below who use the drainages from the mountains.
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At left: Even in Honduras they have no hunting signs!Below: my luxurious home in La Cuesta for Field Based Training.
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Update from the past two months!
Already I have two tortilla-filled months without hot showers in this relatively untraveled paradise called Honduras. I have ached for home often, knowing that all the Kolars were together for a reunion over the fourth, missing all my families birthdays in July and August, and thinking about the smell of sweet clover soaked by a brief August thunderstorm. However, I have not had a chance to be bored enough to think too much.
Training
These first two months have been a small scale representing the two years I will spend in my actual volunteer site after training is completed. And that's exactly how field based training is set up. When we moved to La Cuesta, a ~2,000 person town outside of Comayagua, we were assigned with tasks to get to know the community. For example, we drew a map of the community including amenities, services and resources; we walked around the community with a list of tree names and asked people to help us find the trees on our list; and we walked around giving small interviews on topics such as the cultural perspective of using fertilizer from a composting latrine (an outhouse above two large vats that fill with feces, ash, sawdust, and other organic matter to create sterile compost). Now I know the difference between a acacia, mango and indio desnudo (naked indian - named for the smooth red bark) trees, as well as the ballpark price for constructing a latrine. Latrines are important in the coffee fincas (farms) here because in order to meet criteria to sell to large exporters, coffee farmers usually have to show that they're not just going to the bathroom in their fincas – a tradition for farmers even in the U.S. It also helps to prevent water contamination for the cities who live at lower elevations, since much of the fresh water in Honduras is surface water.
For training we continue to work in three groups: environmental education, income generation and natural resource management, representative of the goals of the Protected Areas Management project, on small-scale projects here in the community. I am in the environmental education group, and after our first community meeting, we found that there is a large consensus that litter is a leading concern here. So, we have given a class in the high school on the types of garbage and how they decompose at different rates (paper: a few months, a shoe: 30-50 years, plastic: indefinitely, glass: only shatters and does not decompose). We have planned a second talk on reasons for not burning certain types of trash (inhaling fumes from burning plastics, styrofoams, etc... can cause lung diseases and asthma), and not throwing batteries, paint and such in the garbage piles because there are enough heavy metals in batteries to contaminate hundreds to thousands of liters of water, which is horrible for the pregnant mothers and toddlers who drink the water that runs off from the town up the mountain. However, we don't think that talk will happen because the teachers in Honduras have been on strike for a few weeks with no promising end in sight. We are going to try to hold one more meeting with the health center because much of their garbage should be considered bio-hazardous, and we think it'd be beneficial for them to dig a mini-landfill that could be lined and covered. Otherwise, the garbage that is collected goes to a large, open-air dump in Comayagua.
We've also been receiving hours of informative information on forestry, environmental education, watershed management, biodiversity management, ecotourism, coffee farming, ect... as well as our daily Spanish classes. The Peace Corps recognizes 10 stages of speaking Spanish, three levels (low, medium and high) for novice, intermediate and advanced, and a superior/native stage. I am happy that I've reached the minimum requirement for Honduras (Intermediate-mid: I can hold basic conversations, respond directly to questions, describe events in the past, present and future, and use basic transitions to add some fluency to narrations); however, I still have a long way to go in order to increase my comprehension and to speak more naturally using pronouns, hypothetical topics, with increased vocabulary.
Adventure
We've also had amazing field trips during training. We just returned from a two-day trip to visit a volunteer, Gabriel, in the Rio Negro National Protected Area. We stayed in tents in a local guide's yard and ate amazing food while there. The guide, Avilio gave us a tour of his organic, shade-grown coffee finca. We also visited a women's group that makes impressively stylish purses and jewelry out of recycled bags from chips, magazines, etc... On the second day, after a morning of good coffee and extraordinary bird-watching opportunities, we took off for a trailhead where six students who have been studying English with Gabriel led us up through the cloud forest to an amazing waterfall. They had ~15 stations where they stopped and gave us information over the history of the land, trees, birds, and wildlife in the park, ALL IN ENGLISH! It was the first time they'd led trips in English, and although not perfect, they had very impressive speaking abilities, and did a wonderful job.
We also toured the historical district of Comayagua, the original capital of Honduras. We visited a cathedral that seemed to transport us straight to Spain, and we climbed the bell tower to see the machinery of the 2nd oldest working clock in the world. We also went to a cultural museum of anthropology in a house that used to house the president. They had fossils of giant sloths that stood over 20 feet tall, pottery and beads from Lencan and Mayan tribes, as well as rusted colt revolvers from much later in history.
We've also toured a local experiment station/nursery, participated in a Peace Corps olympics (soccer, ultimate frisbee, sack races, three-legged races, and water balloon toss, all on a muddy field) with ~75 other serving volunteers. Last Tuesday we had a laid-back culture swap day where we danced Shakira's Waka Waka as well as the electric slide, and had a watermelon-seed-spitting contest. Last weekend, my neighboring trainee Ruth and I went with her host brothers and sisters on a hike up the mountain to a spring, and then we followed a beautiful stream down the mountain back to La Cuesta. I think we might pack lunches tomorrow and do the same hike over with a few other people.
Oh, and I'll post another link for pictures in a second!
Training
These first two months have been a small scale representing the two years I will spend in my actual volunteer site after training is completed. And that's exactly how field based training is set up. When we moved to La Cuesta, a ~2,000 person town outside of Comayagua, we were assigned with tasks to get to know the community. For example, we drew a map of the community including amenities, services and resources; we walked around the community with a list of tree names and asked people to help us find the trees on our list; and we walked around giving small interviews on topics such as the cultural perspective of using fertilizer from a composting latrine (an outhouse above two large vats that fill with feces, ash, sawdust, and other organic matter to create sterile compost). Now I know the difference between a acacia, mango and indio desnudo (naked indian - named for the smooth red bark) trees, as well as the ballpark price for constructing a latrine. Latrines are important in the coffee fincas (farms) here because in order to meet criteria to sell to large exporters, coffee farmers usually have to show that they're not just going to the bathroom in their fincas – a tradition for farmers even in the U.S. It also helps to prevent water contamination for the cities who live at lower elevations, since much of the fresh water in Honduras is surface water.
For training we continue to work in three groups: environmental education, income generation and natural resource management, representative of the goals of the Protected Areas Management project, on small-scale projects here in the community. I am in the environmental education group, and after our first community meeting, we found that there is a large consensus that litter is a leading concern here. So, we have given a class in the high school on the types of garbage and how they decompose at different rates (paper: a few months, a shoe: 30-50 years, plastic: indefinitely, glass: only shatters and does not decompose). We have planned a second talk on reasons for not burning certain types of trash (inhaling fumes from burning plastics, styrofoams, etc... can cause lung diseases and asthma), and not throwing batteries, paint and such in the garbage piles because there are enough heavy metals in batteries to contaminate hundreds to thousands of liters of water, which is horrible for the pregnant mothers and toddlers who drink the water that runs off from the town up the mountain. However, we don't think that talk will happen because the teachers in Honduras have been on strike for a few weeks with no promising end in sight. We are going to try to hold one more meeting with the health center because much of their garbage should be considered bio-hazardous, and we think it'd be beneficial for them to dig a mini-landfill that could be lined and covered. Otherwise, the garbage that is collected goes to a large, open-air dump in Comayagua.
We've also been receiving hours of informative information on forestry, environmental education, watershed management, biodiversity management, ecotourism, coffee farming, ect... as well as our daily Spanish classes. The Peace Corps recognizes 10 stages of speaking Spanish, three levels (low, medium and high) for novice, intermediate and advanced, and a superior/native stage. I am happy that I've reached the minimum requirement for Honduras (Intermediate-mid: I can hold basic conversations, respond directly to questions, describe events in the past, present and future, and use basic transitions to add some fluency to narrations); however, I still have a long way to go in order to increase my comprehension and to speak more naturally using pronouns, hypothetical topics, with increased vocabulary.
Adventure
We've also had amazing field trips during training. We just returned from a two-day trip to visit a volunteer, Gabriel, in the Rio Negro National Protected Area. We stayed in tents in a local guide's yard and ate amazing food while there. The guide, Avilio gave us a tour of his organic, shade-grown coffee finca. We also visited a women's group that makes impressively stylish purses and jewelry out of recycled bags from chips, magazines, etc... On the second day, after a morning of good coffee and extraordinary bird-watching opportunities, we took off for a trailhead where six students who have been studying English with Gabriel led us up through the cloud forest to an amazing waterfall. They had ~15 stations where they stopped and gave us information over the history of the land, trees, birds, and wildlife in the park, ALL IN ENGLISH! It was the first time they'd led trips in English, and although not perfect, they had very impressive speaking abilities, and did a wonderful job.
We also toured the historical district of Comayagua, the original capital of Honduras. We visited a cathedral that seemed to transport us straight to Spain, and we climbed the bell tower to see the machinery of the 2nd oldest working clock in the world. We also went to a cultural museum of anthropology in a house that used to house the president. They had fossils of giant sloths that stood over 20 feet tall, pottery and beads from Lencan and Mayan tribes, as well as rusted colt revolvers from much later in history.
We've also toured a local experiment station/nursery, participated in a Peace Corps olympics (soccer, ultimate frisbee, sack races, three-legged races, and water balloon toss, all on a muddy field) with ~75 other serving volunteers. Last Tuesday we had a laid-back culture swap day where we danced Shakira's Waka Waka as well as the electric slide, and had a watermelon-seed-spitting contest. Last weekend, my neighboring trainee Ruth and I went with her host brothers and sisters on a hike up the mountain to a spring, and then we followed a beautiful stream down the mountain back to La Cuesta. I think we might pack lunches tomorrow and do the same hike over with a few other people.
Oh, and I'll post another link for pictures in a second!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Week 3 - 7/16/10
Week 3
The first stage of training has ended, and I will be moving to a community near Comayagua tomorrow (my mailing address will not change). My next host family Glenda and Isay are only 25 and 29 years old respectively, and don't have children, so it will be different. I'm somewhat bummed because children are wonderful for practicing Spanish, but it's a small community, so there will be children to hang out with.
Earlier this week I visited a volunteer, Josh, in the region of Olancho. Josh is a Protected Areas Management volunteer like me, but he's been here for a year. We got to know his site after watching the World Cup where The Orange Machine almost won:( He lives in a community within a buffer area of a protected area (all cloud forests above 1800m are protected in Honduras by the government, although not all forests are protected with proper enforcement). The community has ~12 homes and no electricity. You can only access it by foot or on horseback, and we had to strip down to cross a river in order to arrive at his house (the cold water felt awesome in the humid jungle).
For fun, we spelunked in the caves of Talgua (see if you can find pictures online; they're amazing). The oldest human remains from Central America are in the cave we explored (~10,000 years old) preserved by sodium bicarbonate. Supposedly they have glowing skulls (the sodium bicarbonate crystals are very shiny), but we could not see the six remaining skeletons because after the ~20/26 original skeletons were stolen, they sealed the chamber under lock and key. Still, the feeling while standing so close to such antiquity, in a cave decorated with stalactites, stalagmites, and formations that looked like frozen splashes of water, was quite mystical. Supposedly, the stalactites grow at a rate of 1 cm/50 years, so the 5-10 meter structures are...well very old. After walking, crawling, and wading for over 40 minutes into the cave we got to a point so tight that the bats couldn't escape without colliding into us-what an adventure.
We also trekked up a riverbed to an amazing waterfall, but on the way back I biffed it on a algae-covered rock and have a bruise the size of a coconut on my thigh to show for it. After that we went spelunking in one more lesser-known cave that had an entrance like a grand auditorium. But my leg wasn't doing too well, so we retired after that for dinner on the patio where we watched several species of toucans, woodpeckers, parakeets, and later on, fireflies.
The following day we walked ~45 minutes to a “nearby” school where Josh commonly teaches English to the teachers (the teachers are required, by law, to teach English, but they don't know English). He also uses a program sponsored by Colgate to teach children about dental hygiene, and more commonly, gives charlas (presentations/activities) on environmental topics. We spoke on animal migration, and after asking, “Does anyone here know the word migration, and what it means?” One little boy spoke up, “It's when people try to go to the U.S., but get kicked out and sent back to Honduras.” Paperwork for people to get into the US (Passports and Visas) is often more than 2 years of the average salary in that community. Anyway, Josh also works with the schools in three nearby communities, so he has an impact on a whole watershed, and he's working with one community 2 hours , on foot, up the mountain, to construct a new school implementing sustainable ideas like an improved stove, gravity fed irrigation for vegetable gardens, and compacted dirt walls, in order to model practices that are cheap and sustainable.
But now I've returned by foot, by taxi, by buses and more buses to my host family's home. On my return route I was conned by a great ploy. In order to save time, each bus has a collector, so you board, take your seat, or stand, and the bus keeps on going while someone walks the aisle to collect money. I boarded a bus out of Tegucigalpa that was waiting to be filled, and a collector walked the aisle while we were waiting. I paid 20 Lempiras (~$1), expecting 10-15 back, but the collector shook his head and said, “20 to Zarabanda,” which was b.s, it should only be 7 Lempiras. Then, he returned to the front of the bus, GOT OFF THE BUS, and RAN! Then, the REAL collector walked the aisle! Fortunately, he only charged me 5 Lempiras. Ha ha, I guess if you're that clever, you deserve 20 free Lemps.
As far as health is concerend, thus far, only one cold, and a rumbling stomach after the new high-fiber diet of beans, beans beans, and a little rice. ...And a gimp leg, but it's healing rather quickly.
I love and miss everyone, especially Eli, Ayla and Owen! ¡Que le vaya bien!
The first stage of training has ended, and I will be moving to a community near Comayagua tomorrow (my mailing address will not change). My next host family Glenda and Isay are only 25 and 29 years old respectively, and don't have children, so it will be different. I'm somewhat bummed because children are wonderful for practicing Spanish, but it's a small community, so there will be children to hang out with.
Earlier this week I visited a volunteer, Josh, in the region of Olancho. Josh is a Protected Areas Management volunteer like me, but he's been here for a year. We got to know his site after watching the World Cup where The Orange Machine almost won:( He lives in a community within a buffer area of a protected area (all cloud forests above 1800m are protected in Honduras by the government, although not all forests are protected with proper enforcement). The community has ~12 homes and no electricity. You can only access it by foot or on horseback, and we had to strip down to cross a river in order to arrive at his house (the cold water felt awesome in the humid jungle).
For fun, we spelunked in the caves of Talgua (see if you can find pictures online; they're amazing). The oldest human remains from Central America are in the cave we explored (~10,000 years old) preserved by sodium bicarbonate. Supposedly they have glowing skulls (the sodium bicarbonate crystals are very shiny), but we could not see the six remaining skeletons because after the ~20/26 original skeletons were stolen, they sealed the chamber under lock and key. Still, the feeling while standing so close to such antiquity, in a cave decorated with stalactites, stalagmites, and formations that looked like frozen splashes of water, was quite mystical. Supposedly, the stalactites grow at a rate of 1 cm/50 years, so the 5-10 meter structures are...well very old. After walking, crawling, and wading for over 40 minutes into the cave we got to a point so tight that the bats couldn't escape without colliding into us-what an adventure.
We also trekked up a riverbed to an amazing waterfall, but on the way back I biffed it on a algae-covered rock and have a bruise the size of a coconut on my thigh to show for it. After that we went spelunking in one more lesser-known cave that had an entrance like a grand auditorium. But my leg wasn't doing too well, so we retired after that for dinner on the patio where we watched several species of toucans, woodpeckers, parakeets, and later on, fireflies.
The following day we walked ~45 minutes to a “nearby” school where Josh commonly teaches English to the teachers (the teachers are required, by law, to teach English, but they don't know English). He also uses a program sponsored by Colgate to teach children about dental hygiene, and more commonly, gives charlas (presentations/activities) on environmental topics. We spoke on animal migration, and after asking, “Does anyone here know the word migration, and what it means?” One little boy spoke up, “It's when people try to go to the U.S., but get kicked out and sent back to Honduras.” Paperwork for people to get into the US (Passports and Visas) is often more than 2 years of the average salary in that community. Anyway, Josh also works with the schools in three nearby communities, so he has an impact on a whole watershed, and he's working with one community 2 hours , on foot, up the mountain, to construct a new school implementing sustainable ideas like an improved stove, gravity fed irrigation for vegetable gardens, and compacted dirt walls, in order to model practices that are cheap and sustainable.
But now I've returned by foot, by taxi, by buses and more buses to my host family's home. On my return route I was conned by a great ploy. In order to save time, each bus has a collector, so you board, take your seat, or stand, and the bus keeps on going while someone walks the aisle to collect money. I boarded a bus out of Tegucigalpa that was waiting to be filled, and a collector walked the aisle while we were waiting. I paid 20 Lempiras (~$1), expecting 10-15 back, but the collector shook his head and said, “20 to Zarabanda,” which was b.s, it should only be 7 Lempiras. Then, he returned to the front of the bus, GOT OFF THE BUS, and RAN! Then, the REAL collector walked the aisle! Fortunately, he only charged me 5 Lempiras. Ha ha, I guess if you're that clever, you deserve 20 free Lemps.
As far as health is concerend, thus far, only one cold, and a rumbling stomach after the new high-fiber diet of beans, beans beans, and a little rice. ...And a gimp leg, but it's healing rather quickly.
I love and miss everyone, especially Eli, Ayla and Owen! ¡Que le vaya bien!
First Two Weeks in Honduras - 7/7/10
First two weeks in Honduras
After leaving Houston, TX, our group arrived in Tegucigalpa at around 11AM, and after customs, only one of 57 people lost a bag, (and it arrived the next day). That first afternoon, we ate pizza for lunch with apples (a rare fruit in Honduras) and bananas, in a secure parking lot next to the airport. We were organized into and rode to our training cite up in the mountains. The training cite is a beautifully manicured “lodge” where there are airy rooms for group sessions and smaller classrooms. It is surrounded by forest, and couldn't be much nicer. Also, each day we have purified water coolers and some of the best coffee I've had.
After a brief introduction, our host families picked us up from the training center and drove us to neighboring communities where we'd be living (since then, a bus takes us to and from the training center). My host mother and father, Alba and Ernesto, were somewhat too excited to meet me, and spoke too rapidly for me to comprehend. We arrived at their home, and I was shown my room (see pictures) and the rest of the “house.” I say “house” because there is not actually one solid structure, but rather, a few rooms and a few walls put together in juxtaposition so that the area between (the “hallway”), and the kitchen are not enclosed. So even though my bathroom is right across the “hallway” from my bedroom, if it's raining, I have to get wet to squeak a leak.
If you've read on other Honduran Peace Corps Volunteer blogs, you already know that sinks are not common in rural areas either. We use a large concrete basin called a pila for a water source, and scoop the water from the basin to a concrete “sink” that has it's own drain to wash clothes, hands, face, dishes, etc... Also, I'm lucky because we have indoor plumbing, so I actually have a real shower, albeit, only cold water—que refresco! Unfortunately, the plumbing doesn't tie into the toilet (other than the drain of course), so in order to flush, we just dump a few pails of water into the bowl. It's not too inconvenient, but when other people use the bathroom, they're not good at dumping pails of water into the bowl, so often there's water around the toilet, and it always seems like someone had poor aim.
The rest of my host family includes Luisa (13) and Oscar (16) and Cristobal (23), a Michigan grad who rents a room from my host family. Luisa has been an amazing help with my Español, as she's patient enough to rephrase things when I don't understand. Oscar, on the other hand, is not quite as patient, and while joking around with Cristobal and I, usually resorts to malas palabras or funny cultural signs. For example, here, if you hold your fist near your body (usually your stomach), and extend it to your side while making any noise resembling a fart, it means diarrhea, so we laugh while doing this gesture repeatedly.
Three paragraphs in a row with potty humor in the last sentence; I'm doing well.
My typical day currently includes waking at 5:45 to the cockledoodledoos (keekeleekee en Espanol) of nearby roosters, taking my cold, quick shower, eating breakfast (anything from corn flakes with hot milk to something resembling a white cheese tostoda), and heading up the block to the bus stop. We normally have language classes for the first 4 hours, and after lunch (seasoned rice, tortillas and a meat dish packed in a thermos by my host mom), we learn about security (Google crime rates in Honduras for fun), health (Google Chinches picudas, dengue or malaria in Honduras), or technical training, for me and 17 others (protected areas management). Despues, a bus ride back home, dinner, soccer or hanging around talking, telenovelas (typically Dona Barbara, but Lucha Libre (WWF) on Saturdays and Sundays), and then I retreat to my room to write a few lines home, look up all the words I didn't recognize, or want to learn to say, and then crawl under my mosquito net and fall asleep to the yaps, barks and howls of what must be thousands of local dogs. If I'm lucky, it begins to rain (most nights), and then the sound of raindrops on my sheetmetal roof lets me fall quickly asleep.
And although it's not raining tonight, the crickets and frogs are currently louder than the dogs, so I'm going to get some rest. ¡Cheque leque!
After leaving Houston, TX, our group arrived in Tegucigalpa at around 11AM, and after customs, only one of 57 people lost a bag, (and it arrived the next day). That first afternoon, we ate pizza for lunch with apples (a rare fruit in Honduras) and bananas, in a secure parking lot next to the airport. We were organized into and rode to our training cite up in the mountains. The training cite is a beautifully manicured “lodge” where there are airy rooms for group sessions and smaller classrooms. It is surrounded by forest, and couldn't be much nicer. Also, each day we have purified water coolers and some of the best coffee I've had.
After a brief introduction, our host families picked us up from the training center and drove us to neighboring communities where we'd be living (since then, a bus takes us to and from the training center). My host mother and father, Alba and Ernesto, were somewhat too excited to meet me, and spoke too rapidly for me to comprehend. We arrived at their home, and I was shown my room (see pictures) and the rest of the “house.” I say “house” because there is not actually one solid structure, but rather, a few rooms and a few walls put together in juxtaposition so that the area between (the “hallway”), and the kitchen are not enclosed. So even though my bathroom is right across the “hallway” from my bedroom, if it's raining, I have to get wet to squeak a leak.
If you've read on other Honduran Peace Corps Volunteer blogs, you already know that sinks are not common in rural areas either. We use a large concrete basin called a pila for a water source, and scoop the water from the basin to a concrete “sink” that has it's own drain to wash clothes, hands, face, dishes, etc... Also, I'm lucky because we have indoor plumbing, so I actually have a real shower, albeit, only cold water—que refresco! Unfortunately, the plumbing doesn't tie into the toilet (other than the drain of course), so in order to flush, we just dump a few pails of water into the bowl. It's not too inconvenient, but when other people use the bathroom, they're not good at dumping pails of water into the bowl, so often there's water around the toilet, and it always seems like someone had poor aim.
The rest of my host family includes Luisa (13) and Oscar (16) and Cristobal (23), a Michigan grad who rents a room from my host family. Luisa has been an amazing help with my Español, as she's patient enough to rephrase things when I don't understand. Oscar, on the other hand, is not quite as patient, and while joking around with Cristobal and I, usually resorts to malas palabras or funny cultural signs. For example, here, if you hold your fist near your body (usually your stomach), and extend it to your side while making any noise resembling a fart, it means diarrhea, so we laugh while doing this gesture repeatedly.
Three paragraphs in a row with potty humor in the last sentence; I'm doing well.
My typical day currently includes waking at 5:45 to the cockledoodledoos (keekeleekee en Espanol) of nearby roosters, taking my cold, quick shower, eating breakfast (anything from corn flakes with hot milk to something resembling a white cheese tostoda), and heading up the block to the bus stop. We normally have language classes for the first 4 hours, and after lunch (seasoned rice, tortillas and a meat dish packed in a thermos by my host mom), we learn about security (Google crime rates in Honduras for fun), health (Google Chinches picudas, dengue or malaria in Honduras), or technical training, for me and 17 others (protected areas management). Despues, a bus ride back home, dinner, soccer or hanging around talking, telenovelas (typically Dona Barbara, but Lucha Libre (WWF) on Saturdays and Sundays), and then I retreat to my room to write a few lines home, look up all the words I didn't recognize, or want to learn to say, and then crawl under my mosquito net and fall asleep to the yaps, barks and howls of what must be thousands of local dogs. If I'm lucky, it begins to rain (most nights), and then the sound of raindrops on my sheetmetal roof lets me fall quickly asleep.
And although it's not raining tonight, the crickets and frogs are currently louder than the dogs, so I'm going to get some rest. ¡Cheque leque!
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