Things have been pretty busy down here these last couple of weeks. As Jeff already wrote, we went around town to the various schools for World Handwashing Day, and even though most of the plan fell through, we capacitar-ed a couple hundred kids in how to wash their hands! We've also been traveling a little bit for fun (mostly), and are about to be traveling a bit for work. A few weeks ago we headed down to Salamá and Campamento for the Olancho Pueblo Crawl, one of the first officially approved gatherings of more than 10 volunteers. We want to give a shout out to our country director Emily for letting that continue. Those of us still here in Olancho after the removal of volunteers from the Catacamas area wanted to put Olancho back on the map, and show everyone that we can be visited (safely, and within the rules), and nothing bad will happen to them. And guess what? Nothing bad DID happen, people were responsible, and we had a ton of fun!
Last Thursday one of the Honduran league teams, Motagua, played against the LA Galaxy (you know, that team David Beckham and Landon Donovan are on?) in Teguz. Jeff and I decided that attending would be great fun, since one of Jeff's favourite pasttimes is belligerently yelling obnoxious things at fútbolistas. One of our almost-neighbors, Emily from Guaimaca, coordinated an official trip, complete with a busito to transport us and Juan Carlos, our S&S coordinator to escort us. A great time was had by all. Unfortunately, Jeff got robbed.
---
Well, technically, I didn't get robbed, but I did have an official security incident. More on that later. We had an uneventful trip to Teguz, and got some business done at the office, then met up with the 30ish other Volunteers going to the game and took a busito there. We had nice seats, but I never used one, of course. Tickets here are for a section, not for a seat, and our section was behind the benches. I spent the game hanging out with some new Honduran friends on the fence 10 meters from the Galaxy bench. I wore my DC United shirt and got some double takes from the Galaxy players when they looked over at my English, and then snapping their head back at the United jersey and additional provocative English. The game was a fun one to watch, even with only one goal, but it was a delightful strike from distance. I enjoyed yelling at Bruce Arena a lot, and I know he heard me.
***Edit***
Found a ESPN article about the Honduran love of Beckham and coverage of the game. While not identified by name, it quotes me without quoting. My 15 seconds of fame are most of the way through the article. Read the article here: http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/soccer/post/_/id/11698/galaxy-adoring-hondurans-stun-l-a
*** ***
After the game, the bus dropped a few people off at the hotel and picked up a few more and headed to a club for dancing. It was awesome to be able to dance. Unfortunately, I ran into a pickpocket there. She danced with me a bit, then when she left I noticed that my front pockets were empty! Good thing I'm a compulsive pocket checker. My phone, my cash, and my ID and bank card were gone. I quickly snagged her, as she wasn't far away, and asked her where my phone was. She said she didn't have it. I didn't believe, grabbed her pockets and took my cash out of one of them. She went into the bathroom, and I asked two Honduran guys waiting to not let her leave because she robbed me. I went and got a PCV that is a native Spanish speaker to help, and then a bouncer. She came out, the bouncer took her outside, and other staff found my cards in the trash can, but no phone. She continued to deny having my phone, so the police were called. They sat her in the back of their pickup truck and questioned her, she denied everything. They told me they couldn't search her because they were all male, and there wasn't much they could do. At this point, half of my phone was found between the cab and the bed of the truck. I had a slider phone, and the screen half magically showed up! Still didn't find the other half, but after that the police took her and put her in jail for 24 hours. Juan Carlos talked with the police in the morning after and they found the other half in the truck after searching in daylight, so I'll get that back, with my memory card and game photos, eventually. So all in all, not a terrible encounter with a pickpocket.
I feel that this could have happened to me anywhere, not just here in Honduras, and the outcome was good because I wasn't fall down drunk and have good awareness habits. I didn't have more than I needed which reduced the amount of stuff I could have lost, even though everything was recovered, albeit in more pieces than it was taken, and that was only because she was angry and spiteful. Technically, I was only the victim of theft, as a robbery is taking with the use or threat of force while theft covers pickpocketing and taking laptops left on tables.
In a bit, I have another trip to Teguz for a medical appointment and then I'm headed further west from there to do a bit of work and visiting with friends. In between, I've got classes to give at the high school and elementary school to keep me busy.
After a month of not much, the past three weeks have been chock-a-block with stuff, and it's been awesome!
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
24 October 2011
14 October 2011
Lavarse Las Manos!
The 15th of October is World Handwashing Day. Since we received a dozen emails about it from Peace Corps, we decided to do something for it. Sam did some thinking and drew up the basic plan: we would give charlas to the schools on Friday the 14th and have a contest where the kids would present skits or songs in groups on Saturday the 15th. There was a stage set up in the central park for our town feria, which just ended, and we were going to use that. We also put a song, called appropriately enough, Lavarse Las Manos, on the radio for the week. It was recorded by a PCV a few years ago and is ridiculously catchy. Doctor Octavio loves it.
We whipped this plan up in two weeks, presented it to the centro de salud, made a few changes, then wrote a solicitud for funding from the municipality. We had a health promoter to go around presenting with us, and I had found a truck to borrow to get us everywhere in time. We talked with several of the schools and everyone involved was excited and things looked awesome. Then as this week went on, almost the entire plan fell apart.
Wednesday we found out that the health promoter had a meeting on Friday, so he couldn't go, and without him we couldn't use the truck. There is a lot of paperwork involved for a PCV to get permission to drive, and it wasn't happening in two days. That was a loss, but after our 6th grade sex ed class we talked with the sub director (vice principal) at the big elementary school and confirmed our plans for Friday. He even promised to have the night watchman turn the water on to fill the pilla Thursday night. However, between him and the Directora at the highschool, we decided to cut the Saturday contest because they had run out of time to create skits. Thursday, we found out that the municipality wasn't able to fund the things we asked for, which wasn't much. Soap and bowls and a few prizes for the competition, which was fine because it wasn't happening anymore. I also went to the smaller elementary school and talked to the teacher there about presenting on Friday, but they were not going to have class, it was going to be a four day holiday weekend! So I made plans to go present the charlita at 0800 Tuesday morning. We also make our charla papers to be ready.
Friday rolls around, and unsure if the night watchman actually turned the water on, Sam rode over to the school at 0730 to check if we would need to haul the water we need for handwashing demonstrations. There was water, the pilla was full! Awesome! However, there were suspiciously few kids around, and no teachers. Sam talked to them and found out there was no class today! They were having a four day weekend too! We were very surprised, sometimes things change but to have confirmed on Wednesday for a presentation TWO days later on a Friday, and to show up to find there was a holiday was a bit much, even for Honduras.
All was not lost, however. We confirmed with the high school that they did indeed have classes, and we were still on track for our original 1330 time. We went over, and gave 3 short presentations to a total of 78 high school kids about the importance of handwashing, shared the song with them, and then we all washed our hands properly. Success! AND we have plans for Tuesday. Not all that we had originally planned for, but with only two weeks notice and Honduras, I think we did pretty well for World Handwashing Day.
Wash, wash your hands
Wash, wash for your health.
Before you eat and after the bathroom
Combating microbes
Combating microbes
You can't see microbes (but)
You have lots on your body
If you don't keep it clean
You will have lots of microbes. (How ugly!)
We whipped this plan up in two weeks, presented it to the centro de salud, made a few changes, then wrote a solicitud for funding from the municipality. We had a health promoter to go around presenting with us, and I had found a truck to borrow to get us everywhere in time. We talked with several of the schools and everyone involved was excited and things looked awesome. Then as this week went on, almost the entire plan fell apart.
Wednesday we found out that the health promoter had a meeting on Friday, so he couldn't go, and without him we couldn't use the truck. There is a lot of paperwork involved for a PCV to get permission to drive, and it wasn't happening in two days. That was a loss, but after our 6th grade sex ed class we talked with the sub director (vice principal) at the big elementary school and confirmed our plans for Friday. He even promised to have the night watchman turn the water on to fill the pilla Thursday night. However, between him and the Directora at the highschool, we decided to cut the Saturday contest because they had run out of time to create skits. Thursday, we found out that the municipality wasn't able to fund the things we asked for, which wasn't much. Soap and bowls and a few prizes for the competition, which was fine because it wasn't happening anymore. I also went to the smaller elementary school and talked to the teacher there about presenting on Friday, but they were not going to have class, it was going to be a four day holiday weekend! So I made plans to go present the charlita at 0800 Tuesday morning. We also make our charla papers to be ready.
Friday rolls around, and unsure if the night watchman actually turned the water on, Sam rode over to the school at 0730 to check if we would need to haul the water we need for handwashing demonstrations. There was water, the pilla was full! Awesome! However, there were suspiciously few kids around, and no teachers. Sam talked to them and found out there was no class today! They were having a four day weekend too! We were very surprised, sometimes things change but to have confirmed on Wednesday for a presentation TWO days later on a Friday, and to show up to find there was a holiday was a bit much, even for Honduras.
All was not lost, however. We confirmed with the high school that they did indeed have classes, and we were still on track for our original 1330 time. We went over, and gave 3 short presentations to a total of 78 high school kids about the importance of handwashing, shared the song with them, and then we all washed our hands properly. Success! AND we have plans for Tuesday. Not all that we had originally planned for, but with only two weeks notice and Honduras, I think we did pretty well for World Handwashing Day.
And because I was asked, here is the song we taught them.
¡Lavarse las manos!
*Lavarse, lavarse las manos
C C F C
Lavarse, lavarse para su salud
C C F G
Antes de comer y después del baño
C C F C
Combatimos los microbios
C F G C
Combatimos los microbios
C F G C
Los microbios no se miran (pero)
C
F
Hay muchos en el cuerpo
C
F
Si no se mantiene limpio
C
F
Tendrá muchos microbios (¡Qué feo!)
G
C
* Repetir
Wash, wash your hands
Wash, wash for your health.
Before you eat and after the bathroom
Combating microbes
Combating microbes
You can't see microbes (but)
You have lots on your body
If you don't keep it clean
You will have lots of microbes. (How ugly!)
26 September 2011
The light side.
So, after what was probably the dark side of Peace Corps in those last two posts, I decided that I should bring us back to the lighter side of Peace Corps: actually successful work. Of course, success depends on your own definitions, but right now success in my book means having work to do!
As I wrote about a month ago, my Alcaldeza (female mayor, or in this case, vice mayor) came to me because she wanted to start a micro-empresas class for women. I suggested to her that we work in conjunction with the Women's Office for our municipality. We set up a meeting for the following monday, and promptly sat down, went through names of needy women, thought about how large a class I could do, and right then and there wrote a proposal to take to the Mayor. The following day it was typed, the Alcaldeza and I signed it, and it went to his desk. It was approved before the end of the week. Sometimes it is awesome to work with the vice-mayor.
However, that was the end of the awesome efficiency we had going and we promptly waited a month for funds to be released. We had timed the class to end right before reconnect, but in reality, we started the week before reconnect, and I did three of the scheduled six classes on a thursday, friday, and the following monday. The very first day there were 25 women who attended--some of whom walked an hour to come. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as my class got smaller), there are about 14 who stayed on, and I had a regular attendance of about 12, not including the Alcaldeza, women's office director, and librarian (classes were at the library).
The class concluded last week with the women being in three groups, and preparing business plans for three businesses (a cafe, a restaurant, and artisan jewelry). However, in my attempt to bring some start-up funds from the government, the women realized they needed a group of at least 10 to get the seed capital and promptly decided to give up their plans in favor of one big panadería (bakery). I think this is extremely unfortunate, because they could have formed a group of ten or more, obtained their small business loans, and still started three businesses. One large panadería is a terrible idea here, because there is no way a business of a size large enough to support 10 families can be successful or sustainable here. I mean, I haven't even SEEN a business with more than 5 employees who aren't related to one another. So, I'm still trying to talk them out of it. I was happy, however, when one of the best students was like "Even if we don't decide to be a part of this group and get the loans, now we have the capacidad to start our own businesses", and one of the students even called me yesterday to see if I could continue advising them.
So, it's not all a wash. After seeing Carrie's presentation at Reconnect on her class "Mi Vida Empresarial", I'd really like to adopt that format, though I have doubts about how to obtain the funding for that. Jeff might be starting (read: the doctor wants him to start) a pregnant teens support group, and this might be the next step for them toward income generation as well.
P.S. I'm sorry that our blog lacks photos. This is because until recently we only had iPhones to take photos with, and those are likely to get stolen if we take them in public. We have a digital camera now, but are waiting on a connection cable and battery charger for it.
As I wrote about a month ago, my Alcaldeza (female mayor, or in this case, vice mayor) came to me because she wanted to start a micro-empresas class for women. I suggested to her that we work in conjunction with the Women's Office for our municipality. We set up a meeting for the following monday, and promptly sat down, went through names of needy women, thought about how large a class I could do, and right then and there wrote a proposal to take to the Mayor. The following day it was typed, the Alcaldeza and I signed it, and it went to his desk. It was approved before the end of the week. Sometimes it is awesome to work with the vice-mayor.
However, that was the end of the awesome efficiency we had going and we promptly waited a month for funds to be released. We had timed the class to end right before reconnect, but in reality, we started the week before reconnect, and I did three of the scheduled six classes on a thursday, friday, and the following monday. The very first day there were 25 women who attended--some of whom walked an hour to come. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as my class got smaller), there are about 14 who stayed on, and I had a regular attendance of about 12, not including the Alcaldeza, women's office director, and librarian (classes were at the library).
The class concluded last week with the women being in three groups, and preparing business plans for three businesses (a cafe, a restaurant, and artisan jewelry). However, in my attempt to bring some start-up funds from the government, the women realized they needed a group of at least 10 to get the seed capital and promptly decided to give up their plans in favor of one big panadería (bakery). I think this is extremely unfortunate, because they could have formed a group of ten or more, obtained their small business loans, and still started three businesses. One large panadería is a terrible idea here, because there is no way a business of a size large enough to support 10 families can be successful or sustainable here. I mean, I haven't even SEEN a business with more than 5 employees who aren't related to one another. So, I'm still trying to talk them out of it. I was happy, however, when one of the best students was like "Even if we don't decide to be a part of this group and get the loans, now we have the capacidad to start our own businesses", and one of the students even called me yesterday to see if I could continue advising them.
So, it's not all a wash. After seeing Carrie's presentation at Reconnect on her class "Mi Vida Empresarial", I'd really like to adopt that format, though I have doubts about how to obtain the funding for that. Jeff might be starting (read: the doctor wants him to start) a pregnant teens support group, and this might be the next step for them toward income generation as well.
P.S. I'm sorry that our blog lacks photos. This is because until recently we only had iPhones to take photos with, and those are likely to get stolen if we take them in public. We have a digital camera now, but are waiting on a connection cable and battery charger for it.
26 August 2011
The Blues
Sorry its been so long! I know some people are very good about updating every week. We obviously are not. Mostly because there's been very little going on for us to write about. This is a post I wrote about two weeks ago now, but was too busy to type up (read: to lazy to type up). Next up, vacation with my family.
From 28/7/11:
I know we've tried hard to keep this blog upbeat and lighthearted about how amazing Peace Corps is, but the reality this week is that sometimes it is really hard--and really boring. Community integration is really hard even when you have a daily routine or an office, and we have neither. I try to note at least one small success each day (today it was making a date with our vice-mayor for monday to discuss forming microemprezas, yesterday it was playing "bananagrams" with our neighbors, 5 & 7). Some days, though, that is really the only thing I can say was accomplished, and some days it is coupled with finding out the baleada lady has a black eye and didn't work yesterday or that the people we say hi to every day kick their dogs.
Still, we are living a relaxed life, full of new experiences, great (and sometimes terrible) food, and new friends. However, sometimes it is just hard, and lonely, and I miss feeling effective.
From Today:
I'm ashamed to admit that we've become a bit reclusive. Our house is kind of a walk from the main town and Peace Corps won't approve our bicycle request because my form isn't signed by my counterpart (who I haven't seen in nearly a month), so we spend many days just in our house or our neighborhood. It's too easy to become absorbed in a book or training manual, dreaming about the counterparts or projects we could have. I've been really at a loss, since neither of my counterparts really wants to work with me. I had that meeting with the vice-mayor, and we got funding from the municipality to run a taller for single mothers about how to start a business. Now we are (still) waiting for the funds to be released. I'm tempted to just front the money myself and get reimbursed, but that sets a bad precedent. At least then I'd have something to do. When we get together in two weeks for reconnect I'd really like to be able to say I've done something, but it sure doesn't feel like that right now. I'm frustrated with my job and our location (I really really wanted to work with food security, and made that clear to my project team. USAID just started a huge new FS program here called Feed the Future. Guess where they work? The West. That's right, they absolutely do not give any funding in this entire half of the country.), my counterparts, and my general lack of activity, and its making me short with Jeff. At least he has opportunities (and when he doesn't want to follow all his job leads it make me even more frustrated that I have none. Not his fault, but my fuse is short right now). All that coupled with the security stuff and I just don't feel like leaving my house.
Sorry this was a down post. Next one will be happier, I'm sure.
From 28/7/11:
I know we've tried hard to keep this blog upbeat and lighthearted about how amazing Peace Corps is, but the reality this week is that sometimes it is really hard--and really boring. Community integration is really hard even when you have a daily routine or an office, and we have neither. I try to note at least one small success each day (today it was making a date with our vice-mayor for monday to discuss forming microemprezas, yesterday it was playing "bananagrams" with our neighbors, 5 & 7). Some days, though, that is really the only thing I can say was accomplished, and some days it is coupled with finding out the baleada lady has a black eye and didn't work yesterday or that the people we say hi to every day kick their dogs.
Still, we are living a relaxed life, full of new experiences, great (and sometimes terrible) food, and new friends. However, sometimes it is just hard, and lonely, and I miss feeling effective.
From Today:
I'm ashamed to admit that we've become a bit reclusive. Our house is kind of a walk from the main town and Peace Corps won't approve our bicycle request because my form isn't signed by my counterpart (who I haven't seen in nearly a month), so we spend many days just in our house or our neighborhood. It's too easy to become absorbed in a book or training manual, dreaming about the counterparts or projects we could have. I've been really at a loss, since neither of my counterparts really wants to work with me. I had that meeting with the vice-mayor, and we got funding from the municipality to run a taller for single mothers about how to start a business. Now we are (still) waiting for the funds to be released. I'm tempted to just front the money myself and get reimbursed, but that sets a bad precedent. At least then I'd have something to do. When we get together in two weeks for reconnect I'd really like to be able to say I've done something, but it sure doesn't feel like that right now. I'm frustrated with my job and our location (I really really wanted to work with food security, and made that clear to my project team. USAID just started a huge new FS program here called Feed the Future. Guess where they work? The West. That's right, they absolutely do not give any funding in this entire half of the country.), my counterparts, and my general lack of activity, and its making me short with Jeff. At least he has opportunities (and when he doesn't want to follow all his job leads it make me even more frustrated that I have none. Not his fault, but my fuse is short right now). All that coupled with the security stuff and I just don't feel like leaving my house.
Sorry this was a down post. Next one will be happier, I'm sure.
23 June 2011
Civilization? And more....
We spent this sunday-tuesday in Tegucigalpa, paid for partially by Peace Corps. It was a great trip! Normally we are not allowed to travel overnight outside of our E-zone (emergency zones) before our two-month travel restriction is up, but I was able to go with special permission, since Jeff had to go to the office. It isn't possible for us to get to the Peace Corps office in one day, since we get in about 10:30, and the last bus back leaves at 12. Most of the time the E-zones have a welcome party for new volunteers, but since ours got cut in half two weeks after we got here, we haven't really gotten together to see people yet (and there are now only 6 of us). So, this was a really awesome opportunity to see some people, since our visit just happened to coincide with the VAC (volunteer advisory committee) meeting. We got to see some friends from training (Hi Andrea's mom!), and meet some new volunteers too! We had delicious food variety and lots of luxuries we don't normally have--like showers. And, more importantly, now we have our own internet modem to use whenever we want! If you have our US phone numbers, we can now send and recieve txt messages on them for free through Google Voice.
In the job department, things are... going. I guess. We got back from the city and promptly ran into one of my compañeros in the park, and he invited me to go to a protected areas charla next week. Also, they just got a bunch of new equipment for the office that I've been invited to share. I hadn't really been over to the office until today, since I'm the only person who would be in it, but I found it quite a productive place for me to be. Today I created a facebook page for the national park, La Muralla, that I'm working with. If you are reading this and have facebook (or, if you are reading this and don't have facebook, get it!), please go 'like' La Muralla so that I can get a registered username (need 25 likes). I'm also working on editing the wikipedia page for the park in English and creating it in Spanish. Who knew wikipedia was so complicated?
Also, now that we're somewhat settled (still looking for a house, but probably going to make that decision this week), I'm going to create a Wishlist page of things that would be awesome to have sent to us. If you've sent us stuff already we haven't gotten it, and that might be my fault. Apparently I had a superfluous '2' in the address that Jeff rectified a few days ago.
Sam
P.S. Any H19ers that are reading this, I plan to write a post of advice for you if you want it. I have a habit of forgetting to do things like that, but feel free to hustle me along through comments.
In the job department, things are... going. I guess. We got back from the city and promptly ran into one of my compañeros in the park, and he invited me to go to a protected areas charla next week. Also, they just got a bunch of new equipment for the office that I've been invited to share. I hadn't really been over to the office until today, since I'm the only person who would be in it, but I found it quite a productive place for me to be. Today I created a facebook page for the national park, La Muralla, that I'm working with. If you are reading this and have facebook (or, if you are reading this and don't have facebook, get it!), please go 'like' La Muralla so that I can get a registered username (need 25 likes). I'm also working on editing the wikipedia page for the park in English and creating it in Spanish. Who knew wikipedia was so complicated?
Also, now that we're somewhat settled (still looking for a house, but probably going to make that decision this week), I'm going to create a Wishlist page of things that would be awesome to have sent to us. If you've sent us stuff already we haven't gotten it, and that might be my fault. Apparently I had a superfluous '2' in the address that Jeff rectified a few days ago.
Sam
P.S. Any H19ers that are reading this, I plan to write a post of advice for you if you want it. I have a habit of forgetting to do things like that, but feel free to hustle me along through comments.
08 June 2011
Brigades and Pancakes
So, it is Wednesday morning, 1030 and 81F here in La Unión. It has been like this the past two weeks or so, low to mid 80s during the day, low to mid 70s at night, very pleasant and nicer weather than I’ve been hearing about back in DC. I am enjoying town, becoming comfortable here. The medical brigade that came last week was helpful in that process.
When I say medical brigade, I don’t mean anything military, it is just a group of (usually) gringos that comes for a few days to do medical work. Ours had 2 Honduran doctors, a Honduran dentist, and a US pediatric nurse practitioner, and a half dozen assorted others to see humans, and a vet team for animals. Sam worked with the vet team and wrote about it in her blog post. I stayed in the church where the human medical team set up, and spent most of my time translating medication instructions. Patients came in and went to “triage”, or registration, where they got a form that served as their chart and had their name, blood pressure and chief complaint written on it. Then they waited for one of the doctors to become available, and after the doctor saw them, if they were prescribed any medications they came to the pharmacy, which is where I was for three days. Cindy, the team leader, worked the pharmacy with two others to fill the scripts, and then I gave the medications to the patients and explained what they were for and when to use it. It was certainly the most intensive, and important to get correct, uses of my Spanish yet. It was very helpful though, in that I was using basically the same language over and over, and the repetition was great. I was able to handle most everything, and only had to go get help to understand a question a few times, and most of those it appeared that the patient had a mental issue, and it wasn’t me not able to understand, they really didn’t make sense. I think I did really well with my Spanish for only being in country 3.5 months!
I also explained the cell phone system here to them, and set them up with a phone so they could call home. This particular brigade tries to come to Honduras every year, so they are going to be able to use the phone on their next trip. We also introduced them to baleadas, which they had somehow not had yet. They had gone to a grocery store in La Ceiba before coming to La Unión and had several US style meals. They invited Sam and I to eat with them, and we really enjoyed the food. Pancakes with syrup, spaghetti with a meat sauce that wasn’t baloney, pan-fried chicken breast (no bones!) and toast with butter were some highlights. Don’t get me wrong, I like Honduran food, but a taste of home and the variety was delightful.
The brigade was in La Unión and saw patients on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. These were full days of work from 0800-1800, which is not the standard day here. Let me briefly cover the rest of the week. Wednesday, the brigade left but we hung out with them most of the morning. We stopped by the centro de salud, where they were finishing installing a new dentist chair in the front room. I guess we had misunderstood the previous week as it seems we are going to get a full time dentist here, who is very needed. (The dentist with the brigade didn’t do fillings, if teeth were rotted they got pulled. In three days the dentist pulled around 120 teeth, mostly from children.) In the afternoon, we went to a meeting of escuela para padres y madres, which is kind of like a PTA, and gave a brief charlita about VIH/SIDA (HIV/AIDS) to 25 parents. Sam did a great job facilitating and I filled in with the technical health information.
Thursday, I went to the centro in the morning. There are two health promoters that only work in the morning on a malaria and dengue campaign, and I went with them to a house that had a pit in their backyard that has the dankest most mosquito ridden water I have ever seen. We took some samples of the water to show the doctor and use in charlas, and then put abate (larvacide) in the water to eliminate it as a mosquito source. After that, we sat around the centro and talked about things. Water cooler chat stuff, great Spanish practice but not really work. Sam had finally met one of her counterparts, and we went to the next door municipality of Yocon to meet some people. After lunch and a meeting, we were back home after 2 hours and done for the day.
Friday, I went to the centro again in the morning and made a plan for the next week. Then in the afternoon Dario, the fulltime health promoter, drove me out to the municipal cremetorio, or landfill/trash burning field/pit that is about a mile outside town. There is no collection though, so many people just burn their trash outside their house in town. After that, we climbed a hill at one end of town to get a view down on town, and that was my work Friday. Sam and I then went to Rosario (another town about 10km away) with Letty, my counterpart at the centro, to visit her family there for a bit, and after we got home Sam and I had dinner and watched Hancock and Charlie St Cloud. This was a busy and full day! (You can click on any of the pictures for larger sizes of them.)
Picture of the trash pit, yes it is smoldering.
View of La Unión from halfway up a mountain.
Saturday, we did laundry, read (I started and finished We Are All The Same, by Jim Wooten), had lunch out (fried chicken), and found Sam two pairs of jeans.
So there was a week in the life of me as a Peace Corps Honduras Volunteer. It was a busy one! A lot of current volunteers have told us not to get frustrated if we don’t do any work for the first month or so, but it turned out we don’t have to worry about that! In addition to all that, this Monday I was on the radio to talk about diarrhea for 30 minutes, gave a brief charlita to the waiting room at the centro about the same on Tuesday, and think I will be on the radio again this afternoon to talk about malaria.
I’ve had busy days and I’ve had slow days, and my money is on busy days being more common. That is good, because there are not a lot of things to occupy free time here in La Unión outside of soccer. We will be reading a lot, and you can look at our Books page to see how much and what we are reading.
I suppose that two pages of text is plenty for one post, I’ll try to post shorter and more often.
-Jeff
Tl;dr: A medical team came to town, we helped them translate. The rest of the week was not as busy, but still full. I had a 30 minute radio show about diarrhea. I’m going to try and post shorter and more often.
When I say medical brigade, I don’t mean anything military, it is just a group of (usually) gringos that comes for a few days to do medical work. Ours had 2 Honduran doctors, a Honduran dentist, and a US pediatric nurse practitioner, and a half dozen assorted others to see humans, and a vet team for animals. Sam worked with the vet team and wrote about it in her blog post. I stayed in the church where the human medical team set up, and spent most of my time translating medication instructions. Patients came in and went to “triage”, or registration, where they got a form that served as their chart and had their name, blood pressure and chief complaint written on it. Then they waited for one of the doctors to become available, and after the doctor saw them, if they were prescribed any medications they came to the pharmacy, which is where I was for three days. Cindy, the team leader, worked the pharmacy with two others to fill the scripts, and then I gave the medications to the patients and explained what they were for and when to use it. It was certainly the most intensive, and important to get correct, uses of my Spanish yet. It was very helpful though, in that I was using basically the same language over and over, and the repetition was great. I was able to handle most everything, and only had to go get help to understand a question a few times, and most of those it appeared that the patient had a mental issue, and it wasn’t me not able to understand, they really didn’t make sense. I think I did really well with my Spanish for only being in country 3.5 months!
I also explained the cell phone system here to them, and set them up with a phone so they could call home. This particular brigade tries to come to Honduras every year, so they are going to be able to use the phone on their next trip. We also introduced them to baleadas, which they had somehow not had yet. They had gone to a grocery store in La Ceiba before coming to La Unión and had several US style meals. They invited Sam and I to eat with them, and we really enjoyed the food. Pancakes with syrup, spaghetti with a meat sauce that wasn’t baloney, pan-fried chicken breast (no bones!) and toast with butter were some highlights. Don’t get me wrong, I like Honduran food, but a taste of home and the variety was delightful.
The brigade was in La Unión and saw patients on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. These were full days of work from 0800-1800, which is not the standard day here. Let me briefly cover the rest of the week. Wednesday, the brigade left but we hung out with them most of the morning. We stopped by the centro de salud, where they were finishing installing a new dentist chair in the front room. I guess we had misunderstood the previous week as it seems we are going to get a full time dentist here, who is very needed. (The dentist with the brigade didn’t do fillings, if teeth were rotted they got pulled. In three days the dentist pulled around 120 teeth, mostly from children.) In the afternoon, we went to a meeting of escuela para padres y madres, which is kind of like a PTA, and gave a brief charlita about VIH/SIDA (HIV/AIDS) to 25 parents. Sam did a great job facilitating and I filled in with the technical health information.
Thursday, I went to the centro in the morning. There are two health promoters that only work in the morning on a malaria and dengue campaign, and I went with them to a house that had a pit in their backyard that has the dankest most mosquito ridden water I have ever seen. We took some samples of the water to show the doctor and use in charlas, and then put abate (larvacide) in the water to eliminate it as a mosquito source. After that, we sat around the centro and talked about things. Water cooler chat stuff, great Spanish practice but not really work. Sam had finally met one of her counterparts, and we went to the next door municipality of Yocon to meet some people. After lunch and a meeting, we were back home after 2 hours and done for the day.
Friday, I went to the centro again in the morning and made a plan for the next week. Then in the afternoon Dario, the fulltime health promoter, drove me out to the municipal cremetorio, or landfill/trash burning field/pit that is about a mile outside town. There is no collection though, so many people just burn their trash outside their house in town. After that, we climbed a hill at one end of town to get a view down on town, and that was my work Friday. Sam and I then went to Rosario (another town about 10km away) with Letty, my counterpart at the centro, to visit her family there for a bit, and after we got home Sam and I had dinner and watched Hancock and Charlie St Cloud. This was a busy and full day! (You can click on any of the pictures for larger sizes of them.)
Picture of the trash pit, yes it is smoldering.
View of La Unión from halfway up a mountain.Saturday, we did laundry, read (I started and finished We Are All The Same, by Jim Wooten), had lunch out (fried chicken), and found Sam two pairs of jeans.
So there was a week in the life of me as a Peace Corps Honduras Volunteer. It was a busy one! A lot of current volunteers have told us not to get frustrated if we don’t do any work for the first month or so, but it turned out we don’t have to worry about that! In addition to all that, this Monday I was on the radio to talk about diarrhea for 30 minutes, gave a brief charlita to the waiting room at the centro about the same on Tuesday, and think I will be on the radio again this afternoon to talk about malaria.
I’ve had busy days and I’ve had slow days, and my money is on busy days being more common. That is good, because there are not a lot of things to occupy free time here in La Unión outside of soccer. We will be reading a lot, and you can look at our Books page to see how much and what we are reading.
I suppose that two pages of text is plenty for one post, I’ll try to post shorter and more often.
-Jeff
Tl;dr: A medical team came to town, we helped them translate. The rest of the week was not as busy, but still full. I had a 30 minute radio show about diarrhea. I’m going to try and post shorter and more often.
05 June 2011
The real work begins
This week turned out to be an extremely productive one for us. About our second day here when we were going around with Jeff's counterpart Leti and meeting people in the community, she took us to meet her pastor, Mauricio. Pretty much the first thing he said after "Mucho Gusto" was, are you going to help with the brigade? And we were like, "What brigade?" So that's how we found out that there was going to be a group of gringos here for a medical brigade starting on the 28th. So, we hung around this weekend, in the hopes of doing some real work.
The brigade arrived on Saturday night late, so we didn't meet them until Sunday morning. We were walking up the street and they just kinda looked at us and said "You guys must speak English!" and, of course, we did. It was all downhill from there. It turns out that the brigade of a dentist, 2 doctors, 2 nurse practitioners, several other health-related professionals and a veterinary team was here having a clinic for people in Pastor Mauricio's church. We quickly discovered that 3 bilingual people in their group of 20 wasn't going to be enough and offered our services.
I went out with the veterinary team to the campo to help vaccinate dogs, cats, horses and pigs against rabies and treat their intestinal worms. The first day I went with them I was the only bilingual speaker (we had a guy from the community with us helping, but he only speaks spanish). I got to know some parts of the town I hadn't seen before, and some of the little towns around here. The other two days we went up into aldeas of our neighboring municipality of Yocon to small towns where Pastor Mauricio knows the preachers.
Sorry I don't have any pictures of the work with animals. It seemed like a bad idea to take pictures when I was covered in manure and pig. Maybe the team will email me some (*hint hint, wink wink*). I had a really fun time, and learned all about vaccinating animals, including how to hold down pigs. It turns out (i just learned) that I incorrectly told them the anti-worm medication was for fleas, but all the same it won't hurt the animals and will get rid of their intestinal parasites. Oh well. It was a great experience for us to practice spanish and to get to know the members of our community.
As an added bonus we made some super awesome friends who did their best to leave us with everything they could. It was like Christmas all over again! We are very lucky to have met them, and the timing couldn't have been better. I don't think we'll ever be able to come up with a big enough way to say thanks for treating us like family. It means a lot. (Many volunteers are lucky enough to be close to people who are about to end their service and get a lot of hand-me-down things to furnish a house with. Peace Corps gives us L5000 for moving out, but that's about enough to buy a decent bed and a table. Unfortunately, we are 3 hours from the closest volunteer, and not anywhere close to anyone who could pass stuff our way--so it makes even more difference to us!). Jeff will post sometime about his experience training as a bilingual pharmacist some other time :)
Cheers,
Sam
The brigade arrived on Saturday night late, so we didn't meet them until Sunday morning. We were walking up the street and they just kinda looked at us and said "You guys must speak English!" and, of course, we did. It was all downhill from there. It turns out that the brigade of a dentist, 2 doctors, 2 nurse practitioners, several other health-related professionals and a veterinary team was here having a clinic for people in Pastor Mauricio's church. We quickly discovered that 3 bilingual people in their group of 20 wasn't going to be enough and offered our services.
I went out with the veterinary team to the campo to help vaccinate dogs, cats, horses and pigs against rabies and treat their intestinal worms. The first day I went with them I was the only bilingual speaker (we had a guy from the community with us helping, but he only speaks spanish). I got to know some parts of the town I hadn't seen before, and some of the little towns around here. The other two days we went up into aldeas of our neighboring municipality of Yocon to small towns where Pastor Mauricio knows the preachers.
 |
| Team leader holding a 22-day-old baby |
 |
| Piñatas that were brought for the local children |
 |
| Reading about Jesus in English and Spanish before piñatas |
 |
| Panorama of the church set up as a clinic |
 |
| Cool view from the edge of town |
 |
| Boys with piñatas |
As an added bonus we made some super awesome friends who did their best to leave us with everything they could. It was like Christmas all over again! We are very lucky to have met them, and the timing couldn't have been better. I don't think we'll ever be able to come up with a big enough way to say thanks for treating us like family. It means a lot. (Many volunteers are lucky enough to be close to people who are about to end their service and get a lot of hand-me-down things to furnish a house with. Peace Corps gives us L5000 for moving out, but that's about enough to buy a decent bed and a table. Unfortunately, we are 3 hours from the closest volunteer, and not anywhere close to anyone who could pass stuff our way--so it makes even more difference to us!). Jeff will post sometime about his experience training as a bilingual pharmacist some other time :)
Cheers,
Sam
27 May 2011
Week 2
Well, it’s nearing the end of our second week here at site, and I still only know one of my official counterparts. Unfortunately, it’s the most informal one that doesn’t actually have paid staff. They have an office in someone’s house that is never opened. So, still waiting for work. I’ve been hanging out with Jeff a lot at the Centro de Salud and trying to help him get things started with his work there, but I don’t want to do that too much—I don’t want them to create expectations of having me around all the time.
Our host mom is the assistant principal at the Colegio (high school), and it looks like we'll be able to start doing work there pretty soon, but as many of you know teaching is NOT what I like to do. Vamos a ver.
The woman who came to pick me up on counterpart day isn’t actually one of my counterparts. She works for the ICF (institucion de Conservacion Forestal), which all of my counterpart agencies work with directly and indirectly. She’s the one who introduced me to the counterpart I do know, and is working on the other in her spare time.
Our host mom is the assistant principal at the Colegio (high school), and it looks like we'll be able to start doing work there pretty soon, but as many of you know teaching is NOT what I like to do. Vamos a ver.
We are trying not to spend all day in our house, but since we don’t really have work it’s kind of hard. We got some disheartening news this week—Peace Corps Honduras has decided to close the sites in eastern Olancho (that’s our department). This means that six people will be relocated, several of them are friends of ours from the volunteer visit. We are still waiting to hear what this means for us. As much as we like this site, we’d rather move now than be relocated in 8 months. Also, one of the things I liked most about this particular site was the network of volunteers that exists in Olancho, and now half of that is gone--including our friends from Santa Maria de Real.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)