Huelgas, Catrachas and Brushing your teeth!

I can’t believe its August… more than halfway through August at that… I wore my bathing suit for the first time this summer yesterday when we went to visit the MuniD site (we picnic’d at a pool). I keep forgetting its summer since it’s not summer here… The school year goes from February through November… And we’re not near a beach!

We have three more weeks of training in Talanga and one week in Zarabanda before we all, hopefully, get sworn in as volunteers. LOCO!

What’s been going on… lets see….


Our El Rosario group gave mini health classes (health was a topic that the parents wanted us to cover) so we split it up between the 4 of us into washing hands, exercise, healthy food and brushing your teeth. I did brushing your teeth…. And made up a song to teach them!! It goes to the tune of Far-e-sha-ka (pardon the spelling):

Cepille los, Cepille los (brush your, brush your)
Dientes… Dientes (teeth, teeth)
Yo hago cada dia (I do it everyday)
Despues de la comida (After the food0
Sonrisa, Sonrisa (Smile, smile)

I POSTED A VIDEO ON FACEBOOK IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT IN ACTION!


We also made an AWESOME BANNER to carry in our parade! The big day is September 2nd. Whooooo! Thanks to Margarita's mom, for the daises! I'm having blog problems so i will hopefully post pictures later!!


Last week we did Dental Hygiene training, and then went and gave a class on it in a school (we threw in my song!). Peace Corps does a program with Colgate, and Colgate donates toothbrushes and toothpaste to kids if we work with teachers to carry through with the program. We talk about basic hygiene, cavities, healthy food and preventative measures… the kicker is getting the teacher to hold up her end of the deal and get the kids to brush their teeth at school (they get one toothbrush for home and one for school). Dental hygiene is a huge problem here... dentists are hard to find, and when you find one, they are too expensive to visit... a lot of kids have black spots on their teeth, which can only be removed by dental tools, and are caused by food/bacteria that was never removed. I feel quite strongly about the Colgate program given my recent dental fiasco... baaaahah..... if only someone came to talk to me about flossing during those 8 years I abstained from the dentist.....


We’ve also gotten training on TEAM, Teaching English and Methodology, which is a program to teach teachers how to teach English. They say that pretty much every YD volunteer ends up having a TEAM class. This week we have a two day training on HIV/AIDS.


This week marks the second week of the latest teacher strike… This is one of the challenges of youth development volunteers, as much of our work is scheduled around schools. It’s just the public schools that go on strike. There are also some private ones (which, as you’d imagine, they cost a lot of money that most people don’t have), and there is another kind of school that doesn’t get funding from the government to pay the teachers (though they get resources, like text books/materials) so every parent pays a little bit to pay the teacher, and since the government is not paying those teachers, they don’t go on strike (we did our dental hygiene class in one of those schools).


Despite the strike, the kinder I'm doing my individual project in has remained opened... some teachers (very few) have chosen to continue classes, just out of good conscience and devotion to their students (as they are the ones suffering the most)... it's a sticky situation because the teachers that continue to give classes during strikes are usually targeted by their colleagues. Buttttt I've had my story hour the past two weeks! We read a book about a puppy who didn't want to eat his dinner and got sick off of caramelos and made puppy masks (adorable, sadly I forgot my camera that day). And then today we worked with numbers and we made number necklaces! One of the teachers was so impressed, and the kids were so excited (yes, about NUMBERS!) that they got to take home their necklaces. Fun activities are lacking like whoaaaaa.


Oh! A kinder. That's like... a mix between preschool and kindergarten... its kindergarten aged kids, but there isn't much of a preschool system, and the kinder day is shorter, AND it is usually separate from the schools...


We had another interview this past week with the YD director and the Training Director, where we talk about our strengths and interests, and concerns about where we will be placed…. I got them to admit (kind of) that they know where they are sending me, butttt I’ve got to wait until September 1st to find out what Honduran community needs Lisa the most…. a community desperate for arts and crafts???


Friday was cultural day…. We all had to make a typical Honduran dish with our families to bring, and then each Spanish class gave a presentation on an aspect of our culture in the United States. One class did Thanksgiving, one did Football, one did Hollywood, one did the four seasons, and my class did the melting pot. There was quite the array of food… my host mom and I made Catrachas, which are deep friend tortillas topped with refried beans and cheese (a heart attack waiting to happen)… the word Catracha is actually another term for Honduran, and the connotation has a lot of national pride in it, so these little friend tortilla things are one of the national foods of Honduras.



OH! So. One of the aspirantes (trainees) met a man who wanted help in his english class.... so a few of us signed up to help last weekend... a few went in the morning, and Margarita and I went in the afternoon... The teacher thought we would stay until the school closed, and come back all weekend (8-5)! We went thinking we were going to meet with the class and talk about something that they wanted to learn but we went in and were assumed to be teaching the class... so, we gave an impromptu intro to English course.... I explained that we had other commitments and could not come back all weekend, but would return for an hour... I'm not sure why this happened... The teacher just... wanted us to teach his class... but this is probably going to happen an awful lot when we get into site... The problem is that it's not sustainable if we just pop in and take over.... But since we are just here for 3 more weeks, we'll just... teach some numbers and colors. It was such a weird situation.... hahahah we had said we had to leave at 4, and hour after we got there, and it was about 5 of 4 when we were asking the students (three 17 year old boys) the kinds of things they wanted to learn next time, and the teacher stops me and says we still have 5 more minutes of teaching left to do... WHOA! Tranquilo, budddy, tranquilo.


Annnnd.... Anything else? We've been having our dance classes.... i gotta say... i am not too graceful on my feet... Thats all i really have to say about that.


Thanks for reading, sorry about the technical difficulties, i really don't know what's wrong! Miss and love you all, take care!

Huelgas, Catrachas and Brusing Teeth!

I can’t believe its August… more than halfway through August at that… I wore my bathing suit for the first time this summer yesterday when we went to visit the MuniD site (we picnic’d at a pool). I keep forgetting its summer since it’s not summer here… The school year goes from February through November… And we’re not near a beach!

We have three more weeks of training in Talanga and one week in Zarabanda before we all, hopefully, get sworn in as volunteers. LOCO!

What’s been going on… lets see….

Our El Rosario group gave mini health classes (health was a topic that the parents wanted us to cover) so we split it up between the 4 of us into washing hands, exercise, healthy food and brushing your teeth. I did brushing your teeth…. And made up a song to teach them!! It goes to the tune of Far-e-sha-ka (pardon the spelling):

Cepille los, Cepille los (brush your, brush your)

Dientes… Dientes (teeth, teeth)

Yo hago cada dia (I do it everyday)

Despues de la comida (After the food0

Sonrisa, Sonrisa (Smile, smile)

I POSTED A VIDEO ON FACEBOOK IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT IN ACTION!

We also made an AWESOME BANNER to carry in our parade! The big day is September 2nd. Whooooo! Thanks to Margarita's mom, for the daises!

Last week we did Dental Hygiene training, and then went and gave a class on it in a school (we threw in my song!). Peace Corps does a program with Colgate, and Colgate donates toothbrushes and toothpaste to kids if we work with teachers to carry through with the program. We talk about basic hygiene, cavities, healthy food and preventative measures… the kicker is getting the teacher to hold up her end of the deal and get the kids to brush their teeth at school (they get one toothbrush for home and one for school). Dental hygiene is a huge problem here... dentists are hard to find, and when you find one, they are too expensive to visit... a lot of kids have black spots on their teeth, which can only be removed by dental tools, and are caused by food/bacteria that was never removed. I feel quite strongly about the Colgate program given my recent dental fiasco... baaaahah..... if only someone came to talk to me about flossing during those 8 years I abstained from the dentist.....

We’ve also gotten training on TEAM, Teaching English and Methodology, which is a program to teach teachers how to teach English. They say that pretty much every YD volunteer ends up having a TEAM class. This week we have a two day training on HIV/AIDS.

This week marks the second week of the latest teacher strike… This is one of the challenges of youth development volunteers, as much of our work is scheduled around schools. It’s just the public schools that go on strike. There are also some private ones (which, as you’d imagine, they cost a lot of money that most people don’t have), and there is another kind of school that doesn’t get funding from the government to pay the teachers (though they get resources, like text books/materials) so every parent pays a little bit to pay the teacher, and since the government is not paying those teachers, they don’t go on strike (we did our dental hygiene class in one of those schools).

Despite the strike, the kinder I'm doing my individual project in has remained opened... some teachers (very few) have chosen to continue classes, just out of good conscience and devotion to their students (as they are the ones suffering the most)... it's a sticky situation because the teachers that continue to give classes during strikes are usually targeted by their colleagues. Buttttt I've had my story hour the past two weeks! We read a book about a puppy who didn't want to eat his dinner and got sick off of caramelos and made puppy masks (adorable, sadly I forgot my camer

a that day). And then today we worked with numbers and we made number necklaces! One of the teachers was so impressed, and the kids were so excited (yes, about NUMBERS!) that they got to take home their necklaces. Fun activities are lacking like whoaaaaa.

Oh! A kinder. That's like... a mix between preschool

and kindergarten... its kindergarten aged kids, but there isn't much of a preschool system, and the kinder day is shorter, AND it is usually separate from the schools...

We had another interview this past week with the YD director and the Training Director, where we talk about our strengths and interests, and concerns about where we will be placed…. I got them to admit (kind of) that they know where they are sending me, butttt I’ve got to wait until September 1^st to find out what Honduran community needs Lisa the most…. a community desperate for arts and crafts???

Friday was cultural day…. We all had to make a typical Honduran dish with our families to bring, and then each Spanish class gave a presentation on an aspect of our culture in the United States. One class did Thanksgiving, one did Football, one did Hollywood, one did the four seasons, and my class did the melting pot. There was quite the array of food… my host mom and I made Catrachas, which are deep friend tortillas topped with refried beans and cheese (a heart attack waiting to happen)… the word Catracha is actually another term for Honduran, and the connotation has a lot of national pride in it, so these little friend tortilla things are one of the national foods of Honduras.

OH! So. One of the aspirantes (trainees) met a man who wanted help in his english class.... so a few of us signed up to help last weekend... a few went in the morning, and Margarita and I went in the afternoon... The teacher thought we would stay until the school closed, and come back all weekend (8-5)! We went thinking we were going to meet with the class and talk about something that they wanted to learn but we went in and were assumed to be teaching the class... so, we gave an impromptu intro to English course.... I explained that we had other commitments and could not come back all weekend, but would return for an hour... I'm not sure why this happened... The teacher just... wanted us to teach his class... but this is probably going to happen an awful lot when we get into site... The problem is that it's not sustainable if we just pop in and take over.... But since we are just here for 3 more weeks, we'll just... teach some numbers and colors. It was such a weird situation.... hahahah we had said we had to leave at 4, and hour after we got there, and it was about 5 of 4 when we were asking the students (three 17 year old boys) the kinds of things they wanted to learn next time, and the teacher stops me and says we still have 5 more minutes of teaching left to do... WHOA! Tranquilo, budddy, tranquilo.

Annnnd.... Anything else?We've been having our dance classes.... i gotta say... i am not too graceful on my feet... Thats all i really have to say about that.

I will leave you with

a picture of our awesome El Rosario group!

Thanks for reading, sorry about the technical difficulties, i really don't know what's wrong! Miss and love you all, take care!

Technical Difficulties?

I have received several notifications from several people that my blog was encountering problems (thank you for your concern, and continued support!). This is a test entry. Can you see me? Can you see my prior blog posts? I posted one over a week ago with some awesome pictures, including some fabulous masks we made in El Rosario. I will upload it again in case it was lost.
Let me know if you can see my previous entries! I've got more to say but want to make sure everything is showing up first.
The thing is, everyone in Honduras can see the updates no problem... which makes it hard to determine what's wrong.
Love you all,
Lisa

COMO ESTAN??? MUY BIEN!!

WOW in one month I will know my site. I can’t believe how fast training is starting to go by, it’s flying now that we’ve gotten our projects started!

For our self-directed projects, Team El Rosario is taking over that little aldea! We are having so much fun, our kiddies are fantastic! Asombroso, if you will! It’s the school that has 2 classes, and both teachers are phenomenal, they are so excited to have us. The first day we went, we talked with the kids to see what they wanted to do with us, then we played some games outside. Over the next 5 weeks we will be doing projects that will lead up to a parade we’re going to have through the town. We went yesterday to make masks and it was a hit for sure. At first the kids seemed to not know exactly what to do with themselves, but after a bit they got into it. One girl had glitter all over her body (no, it wasn’t me) and I’d like to be her friend. We will go back and make instruments, teach them a song in English, and some sort of dance.

I started my individual mini-proyecto and the kinder- its basically going to be a story hour and activity with 2 classes (separately). I am still going to find a way to incorporate puppets, but the age group is a little too young to teach a theme to other kids (I think). This week my story is about how every child is special and we are all individual. I made a big world, and had them color little people to put around the world, showing that “Aunque somos diferentes, podemos vivir en paz.” (Even though we are different, we can live in peace). I’m changing the other class’s project just to spice things up a bit (same story/theme)- They will decorate little stars to glue onto a big sky that says “Con todas las estrellas diferentes, encendemos el cielo.” (With all the different stars, we light up the sky).

The school in El Rosario is in a rural little community, without many resources. They did not have their own pencils, crayons, or any sort of art supplies. In contrast, the kinder I am doing my other project is here in Talanga, a more urban setting with more access to resources, and each student has her/his own little container of crayons. It’s unbelievable to see the difference between the schools here. In the states, access to resources depends on the school district, but

I think most schools have a least a box of crayons to share.

Anyways, though it’s slightly overwhelming, as we are busy with other parts of training and sometimes there doesn’t seem like there is enough time to plan, it is definitely worth the practice. Also, it had been almost three months since the last time I was in a preschool and it felt so nice to be back with my people!

This past weekend we trekked up a hill to find a cave…. We found bats inside! Very cool. Sadly I didn’t bring my camera, as I’d heard some horror stories and decided I wasn’t ready for anyone to rob me of it just yet… thankfully we didn’t come across any ladrones or creepers.

Religion. My host mom is Catholic, and my host dad is Evangelical- This is a crazy scenario here in Honduras, because you are either super super super Catholic or super super super Evangelical, and the two groups do NOT intermingle. It’s kind of like society’s reaction to interracial marriages 50 years ago, a “taboo” but people know it shouldn’t be so they just ignore it and talk behind your back about it. Anyways, both my host mom and host dad are extremely involved in their congregations separately, and the kids bounce back and forth to both churches. I think it’s cool. They’ve both kept an important part of themselves, do their own thing, and now the kids are exposed to both. I’ve been to the Catholic service both Sundays, and it is exactly like Catholic mass in the states, just in Spanish. This weekend I went to my host dad’s Evangelical church (out in an aldea) which involved much more singing and shouting, AND in the middle of the service, the pastor noticed me, made me come up to the altar, gave me the microphone, and had me explain to everyone why I was there, where I was from, and what my deal was.. T

hankfully I know Spanish and could do that- I would have peed myself if I didn’t. As it turns out last November, that pastor was visiting Boston- his comments were that it was enormous, and cold.

My host mom thought my 2-year-old host sister thought my name was Hola. Every time she sees me, and then every 3 minutes after that she says “Hola!” But we’ve cleared it up. She knows I’m Lisa (e-sha).

Last week was Ronaldo’s birthday (Youth Development Training Director) so we celebrated by making him two pinatas and cake! One piñata was a big peace sign (go figure), and the other was his head! Actually, it was one of the language facilitator’s birthdays as well so one side was Ronaldo’s face and the other side was Jose Louis’s face. Unfortunately, Jose Louis could not celebrate that day because he had malaria and went home. Thankfully he’s back now, and all better, but he did not get to enjoy his birthday piñata.

HUELGAS. Those are strikes. The teachers have them all the time. I haven’t even been here two months and there have already been three. Public schools close for a day, two days, or several days…. There is so much corruption in the government, and a lot of times the teachers go on strike when they don’t get paid. A valid reason, but as it is the education system is rocky…. So not only do kids get out of school at noon (if not earlier), but rarely do they have a full, 5 day school week. And when they’re not at school, there are little to no extracurricular activities, clubs or organizations (Enter, Youth Development project). Today marks day three of the most recent huelga... we´ll see if i get to do my kinder project this week!

Que mas! Things have been busy… OH we are starting dance classes this week! After we expressed interest, Ronaldo found a teacher who’s willing to meet with us two nights a week to teach us Honduran dance… Wooo!

And, one of the language facilitators hosted a movie night at her house.... Juno in Spanish, with English subtitles.... let me tell you, the jokes do not translate quite the same (Example, "Your eggo is preggo = Esta embarazada).

Dad! I would like to bring one thing to your attention. Last week we were playing basketball at the park, and another trainee Stacie said I was CARRYING our team! Imagine that! (For anyone who doesn’t already know, I played basketball for about 4 years before I ever scored a basket.).

TOILET PAPER ROLLS! SAVE THEM! If you live near my parents, drop them off (I’ve asked them to leave a box in our breeze way). In the fall, once I’m settled at my site, my mom is going to send them down (and will hopefully be able to send them here and there over the next 2 years). They make for PERFECT craft projects! Fire crackers, microphones, maracas, kaleidoscopes, reindeer (thank you, Bright Beginnings)…. Thanks!

On that note, I will end this entry. Everything’s going swimmingly here in Talanga…. The Youth Development group is lovely, and equipo El Ro

sario a force to be reckoned with. It’s hot, and rainy sometimes. It’s not uncommon to be stuck behind two giant bulls pulling wood in the middle of the road. Everyone sells things from their homes. And juice is sold in bags.

Miss and love you all, abrazos para todos! Oh one more thing, as I am typing this up in a word document on my laptop, I am watching Peter Pan in Spanish.

Love, Lisa

1 month down, 26 to go!

Hola de Talanga! Last week we got to our Field Based Training sites, settled in with our new host families, and have been super busy with training ever since. Talanga is a pretty big site- there is a park in the center, lots of churches, Ropa Americana stores (where the old clothes you donate end up!), ‘restaurants’, little stores, a few internet places, and lots of schools/kinders (which is probably why Youth Development ended up here). There are cars and busses going down the streets, but just as often you see bulls pulling wagons, people on horses, and random pigs and roosters. As far as Honduran standards/Peace Corps standards, I would say this would be a medium-big sized site for volunteers… however none of us will be placed here… but its good to get an idea of the different community sizes.

So far so good with my host family. My mom is a first grade teacher at a local school, my dad has an agriculture business, my 13 year old host sister Meredel, and my 11 year old host brother Alejandro go to a private school in Teguz, and my 2 year old host sister Norella has finally warmed up to me. There is a woman who comes and watches the 2 year old during the day… I hang out with her when I come back for lunch during the day…. My family has some family in the states too! My host mom’s mom and several of her brothers live in New York, and I think my host dad has family in North Carolina. New York makes sense as a place for people to immigrate to, but I find it funny that SO MANY Hondurans have family in North Carolina…. Seriously, its either Miami, NY, or NC…NC just seems so random.

My host family is also very close with a family down the street (I don’t believe they are related, but my host mom is the God mother of the kids). So as a result I have 3 more host siblings, Anthony (9), Aandy (8) and Clarissa (12). They ALWAYS greet me with big hugs and kisses. My actual host siblings are cool too, they’re just more laid back in the sense that when I come home they great me with words instead of plowing me down with hugs. In this culture, the hug thing is pretty typical, so I was taken aback at first with my host siblings, but I’ve realized they still like me. They’re just more mellow.

We have two perros, Capitan and Preciosa, but they live in the garage L they aren’t welcomed inside the house. I had the same conversation with this host family as I did with my host family in Zarabana about how different a dog’s life is in the States verses here. My host mom said they only have the dogs to “protect the house” and bark if anyone trespasses. I try to sneak them some lovin’ every so often…

IT IS HOT HERE. And we found out the other day that most of the YD sites that we will be assigned to are either equally hot, or hotter. I am going to melt. This is what I get for growing up in New England ahaha. I will miss the seasons so much… especially the fall.

I have two upcoming projects to do over the next 6 weeks. The first one is an individual project (all by myself!) that I have to do as part of my Spanish class. I am going to try and contact a school in a rural aldea (campo), and talk to the teacher so see if I can do some sort of story hour/ puppet making project. My idea is to have a small group of kids, chose a theme with the teacher (health, respect, friendship, etc..), read stories about it, make puppets, and create a skit to present to the rest of the school (it will take place over about 5 weeks). The second project is in groups, as part of our Tech training. My group is assigned to a rural school in a community called El Rosario (where there are 2 teachers for the entire school, 6 grades). This coming week we are going to do a ‘needs assessment’ investigation, and with the teachers, we will figure out what kind of activities they want us to do.

The other, 2 other girls from my Spanish class had independent work time to figure out what we are doing for our projects, and in that time, we went to a kinder (kindergartens are separate from the other schools) to introduce ourselves, and one class was dancing so we jumped in and danced with them for 20 minutes.

There is definitely more of a community feel in this town than in the last one I was in. The other volunteers and I have been inviting our host families to the park to play soccer… the kids LOVE it….

We gave a presentation to the community last week where we presented all the different aspects of the Youth Development Project. We split up each topic (recreation, culture, leadership, healthy lifestyle, working with parents, working with organizations, and working with teachers ) and each presented something. I actually didn’t present a topic, but with Margarita and Stacie, we ran the DINAMICA! What’s a dinamica? It is a vital part of youth development… basically at the beginning of any talk or activity or project you do, you should do a dinamica…. It can be an ice breaker, or silly game, just to get people energized. It was a success… we asked preference questions, making people chose one or the other and go to the side of the room corresponding to their preference (dogs or cats, refried beans or regular beans, private school or public school…) We mixed it up with fun Qs and Qs related to working with youth… it might not sound that exciting but it is… and it was in Spanish… AND as part of it we had people make nametags as they came in! Not just regular nametags, but you had to pick your fav color, write your name (obvi), then your role in YD (desarrollo juvenil, teacher, parent, student), and then an adjective that describes you. They were a hit.

There is another group of Americans in Talanga right now… it’s a church missionary program, called Las Passionistas I believe. There are 5 of them that all live together in a house, and work with the churches here on various projects. I guess they’ve been coming here for a while…. A group comes to do one year of service, August to August. I met one of them today… walking down the street it is an automatic invitation to stop and talk to other Americans…She was super nice, and said two members of the group had just left a bit early so there are 3 of them staying until August.

I can’t believe I have been here one month already…. It’s gone by both fast and slow… the days are long, but the weeks fly. Life is so different, in good ways and bad. While the education system is a mess, people have such strong relationships with family and friends. There aren’t a lot of resources available, but as a result people are more resourceful. A few things do not have positive counterparts- Women are seen as promiscuous/easy/drunks if they drink, and its culturally acceptable for men to cat call and say creepy things to women. Though both of my host moms have had jobs and are strong women, the traditional family roles and the machismo of the culture make it so hard for women to make their own lives for themselves.

I miss liberal Massachusetts, not fighting for my right to opinions because of my sex, strong work ethics and ambition to better oneself, nutella and peanutbutter, and iced coffee. (I cant believe iced coffee doesn’t exist here, just as it didn’t in Spain! In Teguz there is a dunkins somewhere, so maybe one day I will get to go and find it… I just don’t get it.. its SO HOT here…. But allllll they drink is HOT coffee, its good don’t get me wrong, I am in no way complaining about Honduran coffee… I just can’t believe the concept of iced coffee is seemingly only a north American thing).

Thanks for sticking with me if you read all that, and even if you just skimmed I appreciate your interest J Sorry it was a bit lengthy. But I want to take advantage of being close to internet access to update you while I can… who knows where I will be shipped to in September! I hope everyone is doing well, and that you are keeping track of good movies that are coming out.

***THANK YOU AUNTIE RITA FOR YOUR LOVELY PACKAGES!!!! the peanut butter is wonderful, and the craft stuff will be perfect for when i get to my site! thanks! i really appreciate it :)

**** our favorite chant: "COMO ESTAN??" "MUY BIEN" (<--lift your arm to the sky!)

Time for Part 2 of Training!

Hola! Today is our last day of the first part of training. We move tomorrow, to a new town, a couple hours away, for field based training. Youth Development (me!) goes to one town, Municipal Development to another, and Protected Areas Management to another. We will be split up in our groups for 7 weeks, doing more hands on training, then we come back here, and hopefully, if we've met all the qualifications, we get sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers.

We got a sheet of paper with information about our new host families. My host mom supposedly is a teacher, i finally will have my first host dad (time to see what the machismo is all about), i have a 13 year old host sister, an 11 year old host brother, and a 2 year old host sister. We supposedly also have to dogs, Capitan and Preciosa. Wish me luck! My family here has been so wonderful... so i am hoping the next one is just as welcoming. (according to the sheet, i will have a real SHOWER!!)

Last week we went on volunteer visits. I went down south to a city called Choluteca, its the biggest site that YD volunteers get sent to, and the girl i visited is leaving in september and will be replaced. I wasnt crazy about how big her site was, but her counterparts were wonderful, and she does some pretty cool stuff. I sat in on her sex ed class with a group of 6th grade girls (i cant wait to do that!), and we did some dental health stuff with preschools. She also teaches teachers how to teach english to their classes. We met other volunteers who live outside of Choluteca for lunch (they were also hosting trainees).... guess where we went.... PIZZA HUT. but no. it was like a 5 star restaurant. there was a host who greeted us at the door, they sold alcohol, served you at your table, and it was the kind of place you dress up to go to! it was bizarre. i didnt tell the Hondurans that Pizza Hut in the states isn't so fancy...

Overall, it was a really good opportunity to get to see what life as a volunteer is like.. of course, everyone has a different experience... you can't really compare...but it answered a lot of my questions.
We have our next interviews with out project managers in a few weeks... they MIGHT ask us if we have a preference for site size or location, but the reality is we will be placed where our skills best fit the community's needs... although at this point, i think i would rather give up some amenities for a smaller site, where everyone will get to know me and help me shoo away any creepers or bolos (drunks).

Last weekend i went to Santa Lucia, a cute little town, with my host cousins. They were excellent tour guides... it was so cute, it reminded me of spain. There was a little library there, and my cousins told me it was the closet one to them ( they said there arent many libraries here), and you cant take out books (as they dont have a lot of them). So you have to go there and stay to read.


Here is one of my roomates, my little Gecko friend.
The first time we met, i freaked out and got my host mom. She laughed at me. I guess he eats the mosquitoes, so i let him stay.

I miss and love you all, thanks for following! I will let you know how the new family is, wish me luck :)
love, lisa

My tummy has realized where i am

4 de julio 2010

To celebrate the 4th of July in Honduras, I washed my clothes in the pila for the first time! It was quite a process, but I think I was successful… we will see how much soap residue is left on my polo shirts once they are all dry…. (UPDATE: FOR THE MOST PART, IT WAS A SUCCESS! but please, when you are using your washing machines, think of my tired arms that spent an hour scrubbing my shirts on a pila).I also took a fun paseo with some of my host aunts and their sister in laws and nieces and nephews… its hard to keep track of who everyone is, and how they are part of the family, but the bottom line is that they are all family. I am beginning to feel like I am as well… I can’t believe I will have to leave them in just 2 weeks! We played an intense game of soccer (with a small, plastic ball, like a wiffle ball but bigger- you use whatever you have here) last night, mujeres verses hombres, of course the women won! Not much thanks to me hahaha but my little chicas here are pretty good!

I am also beginning to understand the lapse in the education system here. As I mentioned before, part of the Youth Development work will be collaborating with host teachers to help find a way to better teach math… I have been helping one of my host cousins with her division homework almost every night… we will make some progress, but then she will go to school, come home, sit down to do her math homework, and be more confused than ever.

My new favorite desert, the chocobanano. Its exactly what it sounds like, a banana dipped in chocolate, frozen and on a stick! Its amazing, absolutely amazing. I am going to start that trend in the States when I come back!

Also, in this picture here is a pair of flower hair clips! One of my trainee, Margaret, has a crafty little host sister, and she makes and sells hair clips! She’s only 12 and has a business, so I bought a pair of pink flowers for 15 lempira!
Its quite common for people to sell things from their house as well… we have neighbors that sell little ice creams, others who sell tortillas, and others who sell distinctly-cooked corn on the cobs! They make a simple sign on paper, saying what they sell and for how much, and you just knock on their door!

Oh, some sad news, Rosita the parrot passed away a few days ago, may she rest in peace.

8 de julio 2010
so my stomach is starting to wonder where i am, finally. it took about 3 weeeks. everythings fine, i talked to the medical officers and everything. not a parasite. hopefully it will pass.

on sunday we leave for our ´volunteer visits´ where we go spend 3 days visiting another volunteer! im slightly skeptical about traveling (we have been getting some intense safety and security sessions), butttt im super excited to shadow a youth development volunteer. stay tuned for an update on that!
we are suppose to come back wendesday, and then wrap up the last week here in Zarabanda before we leave on sunday for Field Based Training for the next 7 weeks.

some project ideas we´ve been talking about for youth development are:

-Yo Merezco, a sex ed program (most host country teachers know it has to be taught but dont want to do it, hence why many volunteers end up implementing this program.. the PC has a manual and everything)
-A colgate dental hygene program
-story hour
-tutoring
-a world map mural project
There is a lot of flexibility within this sector. and we will be getting to site right as the school year is ending, so instead of teacher trainings, we will probably be starting off trying to launch our own projects within the community.

oh, if you think of any light weight, easy and not too expensive to send craft materials... that be awesome! not just yet though! i wont get to my site until september. and a few other things i may add to that wishlist... febreaze, and old navy flip flops for the bucket shower. i may be able to find suitable alternatives so dont buy anything just yet (this last paragraph is mostly for you mom! ;) ...)