I can’t even begin to figure out how to summarize the past 19 months… I left my home, my people, my culture and my language to give two years to strangers in a developing country. Giving up security, amenities and comforts is not easy. Making it through 3 months of 12 hour training days is trying. Living with several different host families can be frustrating. Arriving in a small town with just a suitcase (or 2) and little to no resources is overwhelming. Yet despite all of the challenges and personal struggles that all Peace Corps volunteers face, I still found myself bawling in the arms of my project boss at the airport when we finally had to part ways.Typically, people spend the final few months of their service saying their goodbyes and wrapping things up in their communities. We got 22 days’ notice about the departure from our sites, and once I got back from my Christmas vacation (nearly half the volunteers in Honduras went home for the holidays) I had 5 days to say goodbye (possibly forever) to the town that became my home and the friends that became my family. My community heard about Peace Corps’ evacuation in the news, and saw my picture in the paper, but they still were all dying for me to tell them if it was true or not. Sadly, I told them it was, and thus began a whirlwind of lunch and dinner invitations, speeches about their gratitude for my service, vultures coming to see what possessions of mine they could claim, lots of hugs, and lots of tears.
The past year and a half has opened my eyes tremendously, and though it came with its string of mishaps, I wouldn’t trade a second of it. The Honduran Peace Corps staff is amazing, in particular my project team, Sandra (Youth Development director) and Ronaldo (Youth Development training specialist). Because of their passion and dedication to our project’s mission, my fellow youth volunteers and I were able to take our sites by storm and have their unconditional support through it all. As a way to re-cap a little bit of what I went through since June 2010, here is a list:
1 parasite (giardia lambia)
1 incarceration
1 witness of a human corpse in the street
1 bacteria infection
1 bus stall (stuck in the mud for an hour)
2 cases of lice (I am shocked it was only 2)
2 Christmas caroling events, in Spanish of course.
2 birthday piñatas
2 successful grants written, accepted and received to fund projects
2 t-shirt making parties with other youth volunteers (we are a special breed for sure)
3 whistles
3 cell phones (things break much more easily in developing countries)
3 original Spanish children’s songs
3 times we were put on “standfast” which means we could not leave our sites (2 for political unrest/protests and 1 for the few weeks before our evacuation)
3 nation-wide teacher strikes
3 Spanish language interviews with Peace Corps
4 “super-star” moments (giving the president a Valentine, meeting the Olsen Twins, having my picture selected for the Peace Corps homepage, and being the picture in the Honduran newspapers article about Peace Corps’ evacuation)
4 birthday cakes (only 2 birthday’s… but Hondurans love cake!)
4 In-service trainings with Youth Development
4 overnight visits to fellow volunteers (I rarely left my site on account of always having a lot of work to do! I was saving a lot of visits for the last few months of service figuring I would have finished up a lot of projects… I guess this is why you really should live in the moment).
5 shirts torn from hand-washing them on the pila
6 weeks on medical evacuation in Washington DC
6 times pooping in a cup (for medical purposes, not a weird Peace Corps hobby)
7 sing-a-long songs that my teacher’s learned in English
7 stand-in moms
13 teachers who learned dynamic and participative methodology from me
20 (approx.) nail painting parties with kids who had never seen nail polish prior to my arrival
26 teacher observations where I went and sat in on their English classes to give
feedback
30 bucket baths (just one of my host families did not have running water- I lucked out!)
38 5th and 6th graders who hopefully feel more confident about themselves and will remember what they’ve learned about healthy relationships
40 lessons about brushing teeth
50 best friends under 6 years old
120 cards/letters/packages received from family and friends (a fairly accurate estimate as I could cover the entire back of my door with all the cards I had gotten)
300 (approx.) elementary school students who participated in a spelling bee and got excited about studying the list of words- they would literally run up to me in the streets and spell words they had been practicing
600 (approx.) high school students with more information on contraceptives and resources to help avoid teen pregnancy
13,500 hugs from the most impoverished kids in my town (assuming each day in site I received about 30, which might actually be an under-statement!)
27,000 cat-calls/gross gestures from men (an approximation, assuming each day in Honduras involved about 5 encounters)
Thank you to everyone who helped me through this experience- everyone from home who reluctantly let me pack my bags and move to the most violent country in the world, everyone in Peace Corps for their unfailing support, all 158 volunteers in Honduras for being part of something so special, my dear little town of Gracias and all it's people for welcoming me with open arms.... Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
