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.

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!)

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.

Reconnect and S&S

So I know that I promised the next post would be about family vacation.  I lied.  Well, it's not my fault really.  You see, mom and Mariah just started school again and John.... well he doesn't really have any excuse.  Anyway, I'm going to write about other things instead.



The 7th-10th of September was our Reconnect.  Reconnect is where everyone of the same project gets together to share about their work, sit through some boring-but-occasionally-useful lectures, and remember how great friends we were during training (or not).  This year, due to the budget situation, PC-H decided to hold Business, Health, and Wat-San reconnects all at the same place.  Not only was our entire training group there, but also the H-16ers--most of whom we hadn't met before.  All in all, most volunteers treated it like a giant party, and sometimes it was. 

Reconnect was hard for me.  It's difficult to sit and listen to other people talk about their work--especially when they are working in Food Security and neither asked for that, nor wanted to.  I was (and probably still am) angry at my project staff for building up my expectation of my counterpart which have turned out to be all false.  I think I could have handled not getting a FS project much better if they hadn't mislead my beliefs about what I was getting.  Disappointment is a harder emotion to get over than the others.  We also sat through several lectures about the new Acceso program from USAID which we don't qualify for in the east.  That was an awesome kick in the ass, especially since my project team is well aware that I sent them an email about what is up with my counterpart, and they haven't acknowledged it.

Anyway, I talked a while about it with TJ who lives south of us here and is my closest BZ neighbor.  He told me when he got to Salama, it was none of the things he asked for.  He pretty much spent a year not really having work, and feeling bitter about his assignment.  It was only recently that he started to have work again, and now he's happier.  The conclusion that I came to from all of this is that I want to try to love La Union for what it is, instead of hating it for what it's not.  And that, I suppose, can apply to all areas of my life. 


----------------------------------

On that note, safety and security has been much a concern here in Honduras lately.  Some new rules have come down restricting volunteer travel and get-togethers, mostly aimed at curbing public-drunkenness and the dangers that possesses.  It frustrates me a lot that Peace Corps has to put policies like that in place, since especially here in Olancho, we get together for nights of safe fun on a regular basis, and I feel like if we didn't we might all go insane.  There is no social life to speak of for many of us in our own towns.  Jeff and I are in by 6 (7 at the latest, but it's already dark by then), and we don't go out after dark.

Honduras has a lot of security problems unrelated to volunteer stupidity as well.  The murder rate here is the highest in the world (more dangerous than Afghanistan), and rising due to increasing drug violence.  Every month we get more disturbing updates about things like violence outside of Trujillo (there's an ongoing land dispute), or someone getting jumped in the woods by men with masks and then raped.  Thankfully neither of those things are near us, but the potential for violence everywhere in this country is very high.  Jeff and I are constantly asking ourselves if we can be effective here with all the limitations these security problems impose.  I think if asking to be relocated to a safer post was an option, we would be seriously considering that.  Unfortunately married couples do not really have the option, like single people, to not accept their first invitation to the Peace Corps.  We are told that "Very rarely does any couple get a second placement consideration", which means there's only one shot.

If you are considering joining the Peace Corps, think very hard about what is most important to you.  If safety and security is important, make that known to your placement officer.  However, if you had asked me if safety and security was important to me last year, I would probably have said that it wasn't any more important to me than the next person.  However, now I feel like it really restricts our ability to be effective volunteers while not breaking all of the safety and security rules.  

Mi casa es su casa!

We have a house! Yay!

Some of you have heard about our troubles finding a house here in La Union. In a town this size you just kinda have to know somebody who knows somebody who has a house (there aren't any "For Rent" signs). There were only a few options and only really two of them were good options, both owned by profesoras from the colegio. While we were waiting for my boss to come so we could get his opinion, the one I wanted to rent got rented to someone else, without the owners saying anything to us. I was very upset, because the other option (while it did have water all the time) had almost no solar (yard) for a garden! I really want to do garden projects here, and where better to start than my own backyard?

Anyway, the day my boss (read: project director) came to visit Jeff was asking some people about a vacant house next to theirs, and they said that it was under contract, but hey! They had a family member with a house available! It actually turns out that this house is right across the street from the one we lost, and is better! My boss thought it was a great choice, and it has actual tiled floors, and INDOOR pila, and sink in the kitchen. As well as lots of outdoor space where there is already corn, beans, and yucca planted. AND....

....

....

....a mango tree! Awesome! We're super excited--we signed a lease and got keys yesterday and are going to start moving things over there this afternoon!

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.

In Site

Day 3 in Site

So we are now in La Unión, Olancho, our home for the next two years. Today we met the staff at the colegio (high school), watched the school soccer team play against another school, and attended a fashion show/fiesta – all at the colegio. I had planned to meet people at the Centro de Salud but the jeffe Dr (boss man) wasn’t in today and my counterpart RN was way busy picking up the slack. I shall try again tomorrow. A big success we had today was meeting a local small business owner who studied in the States and volunteered his truck if we ever need it! Knowing people with vehicles seems to be an important thing here where we are a 3+ hour bus ride from the nearest full grocery store.
On the plan for tomorrow is to meet the mayor and the local police, and sometime this week travel the 3+ hours to Juticalpa to use an ATM, since the agente in La Unión left. I’m not sure exactly what was said about why they left, but I heard something about mismanagement and 100,000 lempiras, which is a huge chunk of change here!

We have a tiny room, the smallest room that Sam and I have ever shared, but the rest of the house is pretty big. It will be a challenge to keep our things organized in our room, especially since we have no place to store or hang our clothes. Suitcase living for two months, alright! Our host mom is really nice and helping to introduce us to people around town. She is well known and well respected as the Vice Principal at the colegio.

La Unión seems like a bigger town, it is definitely bigger than Villa San Antonio and Yuscarón, but much further from a big city. Our modem works here, but it only runs on GPRS. Gmail refuses to load on it, so I’m not quite sure how or if I will be able to use email here, but Facebook loads, albeit slowly. Send me messages through FB and I should be checking that daily. Still don’t have a very good feel for the town, having only been here since noon on Saturday, but I have seen three different cows being harassed by dogs in the street. Additionally, yesterday we were at a restaurant watching the Olimpia-Motagua soccer game, which happened to be the championship game of the season, when Motagua scored. A guy standing near the door stepped outside, pointed his pistola in the air, and emptied the clip. Olancho has a reputation as the “Wild West” of Honduras, and I am beginning to see why.

Vamos a ver que va a pasar.


Addition: It is now Saturday, a week after we arrived. Our Claro modem on GPRS refuses to load any google thing requiring a login, and I don’t know why. But we are now using a borrowed Tigo modem which gets EDGE here and lets me login to Blogger.