Unexpected Changes

Well, as much as we hate to say it (and most of you already know), it looks like Jacob and I are officially being medically-evacuated. But, we will keep posting to the blog (probably mostly consisting of pictures of food and stores we'll visit in the States that we haven't had access to in 10 months) trying to look on the bright side and make the best of our situation. Small daily victories will be our priority, and we will update in further detail on a more private channel.

We will miss Honduras, our wonderful fellow PCVs, the Peace Corps Staff, and the lovely Lencan people.

All the best to everyone.

Lauren & Jacob

Days Like Yesterday...

... are why we are Peace Corps Volunteers. Whereas Wednesday was a bit frustrating, yesterday felt like a golden moment of development and progress.

Before Jacob and I left on vacation, the daycare staff asked if I could give them some more packets of seeds to plant in a neighbor's backyard. I admit I was a bit skeptical if they would every be planted, but handed over 10 packets of seeds anyway. I went into the daycare yesterday to get some papers signed, and they said they wanted to show me something down the street... They had started their very own bio-intensive garden! It wasn't perfect, but the seedlings were doing very well, and the neighbor whose yard they were using owns a restaurant and plans to add the veggies into the daily lunch she serves!

I thought such progress would only come near the end of our service, but it was incredible! Not only did they take amazing initiative to begin another garden, they showed such deep concern for the well being of their community as a whole. Even just the thought of growing them to sell as part of a meal in a restaurant, I was so impressed!

It makes me very proud to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. You always hope that your projects are sustainable and can grow and be managed without you. And that is exactly what the staff has accomplished. I didn't expect it so early on in the process, but am incredibly excited that it has happened.

But, I shouldn't have been so surprised, these women are all incredibly intelligent and motivated, even if they've never had the chance to advance their educations. They live to the fullest each day, caring more about others than themselves. These women work so hard to make their community a better place, despite the fact that they are denied common human rights that we women enjoy in the States. They are truly an inspiration.

Honduras Wins Again...

"Honduras wins again" is a phrase we PCVs love to use when, for whatever reason; be it that Hondurans will only come to meetings when snacks are involved (and PCVs don't have funding for snacks guys, sorry), a meeting that was pressed upon you to start at 8am maaaaybe starts at 10am (when the snacks arrive), or the mayor of your town storms out of a medical brigade because he wasn't properly depicted in a construction paper mural which causes general chaos, etc... (all personal experiences).

For whatever reason, we use this phrase to help us cope with the differences that exist between our world here, and the world we are used to at home. Just as "fijese que" used to sound like nails grinding on a chalk board, it now only brings a general eye-roll (fijese que basically means "The thing is..." followed by a lousy excuse about something that should have happened, but clearly won't be happening now). When these events happen, we are now pretty used to them, and the matter can be summed up in 3 little words. Honduras wins again.

People often ask me what my day is like as a PCV. Every day is different. I don't have an office let alone a desk at my counterpart agency, so I work alot from home. But, I try to make it into the office a few times a week to see where I can be of assistance on various projects. Between the Family Health Initiative, my work with the local daycare, my youth group of girls and nutrition classes, I'm rather swamped.

I certainly don't want to use this blog as an outlet for frustration, and I hope no one sees it that way. But, I thought I would share some of the set backs that come with progress and development. It's never a straight line froward, but one that ebbs and flows, moving ever so slowly in the right direction.

On Sunday, Jacob and I returned from a wonderful and much needed vacation in Belize with my parents. I saw Sandra (my counterpart) on Monday, and she asked if I could assist with a baby weighing and nutrition project happening in a nearby village today. Of course I'll help! I've been rather busy lately with the Family Health Manual and finishing up a gallinera (chicken coop) proposal and haven't been able to venture out with my counterpart much, so this seemed like a great opportunity.

This morning I get to the office at 8am and everyone is leaving to go to an NGO meeting outside of town... Hmmm.

"Aren't we going to the village to weigh babies???

-Oh, Sandra said you could go by yourself (she hasn't made it into the office yet).

-Umm, no. You know I don't walk to villages by myself. Let's call her and see what her plans are for the day."

I never walk to villages by myself for security reasons, no matter what the event is or how close it may be, and I made that very clear after a few attempts by my counterpart agency to leave me in villages alone. Jacob will sometimes travel with me as a last resort, but I hate to take him away from his own work. Anyway, we call her and she tells me that 2 nurses and a doctor are going too... go to the Health Center and there should be a car waiting for you all. Great!

(enter nurses' station)

"Hey, Tavo, are you guys going to weigh babies today?

-Fijese que, no hay transporte. (The thing is, there's no transportation.)

-Why not?

-The mayor is using the vehicle and said he didn't have to time pick us up (He was going to the same village for the same reason).

-Oh. Can't we walk there together? It's not too far...

-The doctor and nurses don't want to walk.

-Oh (internal eye-roll). Well, give me a call if anyone changes their mind.

And, by 8:45 am I am back home. Honduras wins again. I have no idea who is going to weigh babies now or if the nutrition presentation will happen, which was planned in one of the most malnourished villages I know. But, one thing is for sure... they will get their snack.

Thankfully, I still have plenty of work to do.

Transplanting Day at the Daycare

A side note: In light of the 7 billionth person being born, the World Food Program has compiled 7 suggested readings on food security and hunger. The articles are available here.

After 4 date changes and a hurricane that brought 10 straight days of rain, we finally transplanted the seedlings for the daycare on Monday. Because of the date changes, only one father was able to help with the planting. Thankfully Sam and Jeff, a Peace Corps couple from Olancho, traveled to help us. Sam wrote her dissertation on biointensive gardening, so we definitely took advantage of our resident expert (that's how we roll in Peace Corps).

Originally, we wanted to formally present the biointensive model to all of the parents and the staff, but we ended up keeping it rather informal. So, the 4 of us gathered on the spot with the 1 father and 2 staff members (the 3rd was watching the children) and explained what we were doing and why we were trying out a new method. Sam explained some of the many advantages of biointensive gardening, and everyone was on board.

One of the ways we adapt and integrate into our sites is to identify how our communities learn best. I've discovered, at least in my site, that when presenting information lecture style I lose my audience within 5 minutes. So, gathering right on top of the planting spot, explaining the major ideas and then moving right into step-by-step demonstrations worked really well. They weren't nearly as intimidated by the new information, and we weren't towering over anyone at a lecture stand spouting off ideas that they couldn't visualize.

We marked off four 4 meter x 1 meter beds, and Jeff moved right into demonstrating the double-dig method. (You can read a basic description of Biointensive Agriculture here.)

Once we had the idea down, we divided up among the 4 beds and began preparing the beds. The soil was an incredible deep brown with few rocks, so the digging went much faster than planned. In 3 hours we had all 4 beds ready to go.

But, the day wasn't without any setbacks. I knew that the spot we were using used to be the Health Center's backyard. They moved about 10 years ago to a larger building across town, but may have still been using the backyard to burn biohazard materials. Anyway, the image above is just a small portion of what we found in the soil. Some bottles were dated as late as 2003! (Welcome to the third world.) We carefully removed what we could while trying to avoid needles. Thankfully, the Health Center now uses receptacles for this sort of thing instead of burning or burying it all.

Unfortunately, with so many hazardous materials, we shut the gate so the children wouldn't enter. We originally wanted to let them help, kids love this stuff! But, we didn't want them potentially hurting themselves. Still, they got a good look at the seedlings and were very excited about having a garden.

Once the beds were prepped, we started planting the 300+ seeds that germinated. We were able to take advantage of companion planting, and planted anywhere from 2 to 4 different kinds of seedlings in each 4x1 meter bed. The only pair that we had to really separate was onions and potatoes, so they are currently at opposite ends of the garden. One of the many advantages of this type of planting is that we can plant the seedlings closer together, most being anywhere from 20-40 cm apart. (Above) Jacob planting cabbage and cauliflower with the daycare Director.

Once Jacob and Jimmy (the father who came) disposed of all of the bio-hazardous materials in a deep pit they had dug at the corner of the yard, we let the kids come in to watch. They were so excited!

While I was conducting research on the best way to prepare and plant potatoes, I got fed up with the variety of answers. So, I called up my grandfather, who has been planting potatoes for much longer than I can remember. Some of my best childhood memories are helping dig up potatoes with him and my great uncles. I think he was thrilled that I called, and he gave me some great advice. And, with the double dig method, you can plant them as you dig, saving a lot of time in the process.

Anyway, we ended the day about 2 pm and went for a much deserved lunch. My original plan was to give each Honduran participant a packet of seeds to try the method at home. But, because Jimmy was the only one who came, we ended up giving him 8 packets of seeds and the leftover seedlings that wouldn't fit in the beds. Hopefully, he'll tell the other fathers and next season we'll have a much bigger crowd :)

The fruits (or veggies) of our labor!...

Repollo rojo (red cabbage)

Brócoli (broccoli)

Zanahoria y un gusano! (carrot and a worm!)

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Meet the kids of Hogar Comunal del Niño, the local daycare at site:

The approximately 25 children who come daily range in age from 2 to 8 and live in the surrounding villages. They come each day to receive 2 meals, breakfast and lunch, meals they would not receive otherwise due to extreme poverty.

Our municipality is one of the poorest in the nation; 70% of which lives on less than 1 USD a day. The inhabitants are primarily Lencan, an indigenous group that has been residing in the region for hundreds of years. Running water and electricity in homes are the exception, and most of the families live a subsistence lifestyle, sell homemade food and artisan items in the local markets or work as day laborers for the local coffee or lumber producers. While the food is delicious and artisan items are beautifully made, they often don't provide enough income to truly increase their standard of living. Too many times, the market is over saturated with women selling the same food and/or artisan items in the same small area (this is a whole other blog post, better written by the business guru, Jacob, so I'll let him tell that one).

A side note: Several local and international NGOs in the area have been working with the local villages to improve the standard of living for many in the region, but the process is slow: 2 steps forward, 1 step back kind of situation. So, while this post may seem a bit depressing, progress definitely has been made in the region... now back to the story.

Our host mom is the director of the daycare and she has put her heart and soul into improving the center, traveling monthly trying to recruit donations and necessities like shoes and clothing for the children.

The first month we were at site she invited Jacob and me to the daycare, and we were met with beautiful smiles and hugs from the children. She showed us the dilapidated facilities, and while there is a roof over their heads (which is not the case in some places), it is nothing compared to a daycare in a more developed country.

Breakfast (like in the photo above) is usually rice milk, made from grinding the rice and running it through a sieve in water (a pound of rice is less than half the price of a carton of milk) and a single pancake per child. Lunch is often rice pudding (which sounds lovely, but has hardly any nutritional content), or rice and beans with a tortilla and sometimes eggs. Unfortunately, the price of eggs just went up .5 lempiras this week, making it even harder for the daycare to purchase protein for the children. On special occasions they'll make chicken and rice soup.

I asked her if they had tried to start a vegetable garden, and she said they could not afford the seeds. So, not wanting to cough up my personal funds (which as a volunteer are tiny anyway), I spoke to my boss in Peace Corps and was put in contact with a Rotary Club in California. After a few emails, I received a certified box full of 250 packets of vegetable seeds, all donated to be used for the daycare. It felt like Christmas!

I brought the box to the daycare and the 3 ladies who make up the staff were elated. We wrote out a plan for the coming months, pinpointing dates to start an abonera (organic compost), to plant the seeds, and to transplant. Unlike most of Honduras, our region gets relatively cold (high-30s to 40s) during December and January. So, we chose mostly root vegetables and hardier crops to withstand the temperatures.

Side note #2: USAID has initiated a program this year throughout the Western corridor of the country, called ACCESO. Focusing on food security, the program, among other things, is intended to diversify the rural Honduran diet through gardens and provide assistance for marketing and selling the surplus, etc...

So, with that in mind, the staff, Jacob and I made the decision to research bio-intensive gardening, as it promotes growing a diverse range of vegetables all within a relatively small space. Only if the garden is so successful that they have a large surplus will we move onto selling the vegetables. That's where Jacob's business skills will come in to play.

Regardless, with bio-intensive gardening we can produce more food in a smaller space by using open pollinated seeds, a double-dig method, companion planting and organic composting. (It's much more complex, but to get the basic idea). We aren't making use of commercial fertilizers for many reasons, one of the main being that they simply can't afford to purchase the fertilizer when they need to purchase necessities and pay the electric bill.

The hardest part will be getting the parents to come and help with the digging and planting. Of course, all of the parents work when they can and taking a day off isn't really an option. The daycare staff thought that the best day to begin digging would be on a holiday when the parents are off. I hope they're right. To compensate for their time, we plan to give a packet of seeds to each family so they can try out the model in their own home, and encourage seed exchanging among their neighbors to further diversify their gardens. Much of the time will be spent demonstrating the double-dig method, creating fresh compost for the spring, and trying to explain why bio-intensive is better to people who have been using the same method of planting for many generations.

I was incredibly surprised to find such a low rate of family gardens when arriving at site. I assumed in my naivety that every family in a developing country has a garden and lives off of it. But, this is not the case, and many people go without vegetables on a daily basis. When families do have a garden, often times (at least in my region) they grow a large amount of a few crops and then sell them at the market. They then use those profits to buy more seeds of the same crop (further depleting the soil). Instead of buying other vegetables at the markets, they usually use the profits to also purchase items such as soft-drinks and processed foods like baloney, chips and candy for their families to show the local community that they are good providers. While being a good provider is very admirable, it doesn't help the family in the long run and only exacerbates chronic malnutrition in the region.

With this model, the parents won't need to use very much space and can add [more] vegetables to their family's diet, still being able to sell the other crops they have been selling. And, hopefully with nutrition classes, maybe they won't use the profits to buy soft-drinks and candy for their children quite as often.

So, how does our garden grow? Well, we've only started composting and have planted 350 seeds, most of which have germinated. We plan to transplant the last week of October and watch the garden grow through the holidays.

The Director of the daycare at left and staff member at right working on the abonera.

I purchased a plastic seed bed holding 200 seeds for my personal use, but decided to break it in using seeds for the local daycare. A plastic seed bed costs roughly 75 Lempiras ($3.96) and is too costly for many here to purchase. So, we gathered up some empty (and free!) egg cartons from around town and are using these as well. Each carton holds 30 eggs, so with 5 cartons we added another 150 seeds to be planted.

Because Jacob and I travel for business/health presentations and trainings, we made a green house to retain moisture, etc... when Jacob and I are away from site. It's our first green house, don't be too harsh :) The staff decided it was best to leave the seedlings at our house, so 50 little hands could get into them, lol.

This process will probably take a full two years to create sustainability. The garden won't truly be bio-intensive until then, but we'll get there. We'll harvest everything shortly after the beginning of the year and have our next compost ready for a spring planting of crops which can tolerate the heat (beans to help bring back nitrogen, peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, etc...) We plan to add gardening, seed saving and nutrition classes for the parents of the children at the daycare each month. When the harvest is ready, I also hope to teach a healthy cooking class for the parents using some of the vegetables we grew. Next year we can continue on a similar rotation, giving the staff and parents plenty of repetition to work from. At some point I hope to bring in someone from USAID to present to the parents and staff, but first we need to get the project off... or better yet, in the ground. Baby steps :)

Our Home Sweet Home in Honduras

We've been at site for over 4mths and are just now posting pics of our house. Oh, well... here they are!

The front porch, complete with a little moat. It comes in handy during the rainy season, believe it or not.

The back.... our landlords love yellow. All of the wood on the first floor is used for our fogon (below)

Our fogon... and the other half of the kitchen below. The fabric for the curtains was given to me by our host mom.

Dining area (Jacob's recent birthday present in the foreground)

Guest bedroom

Our bedroom. Jacob bought the bedspread for me at the local Lencan market. The woman who sold it to him said these types of quilts are traditional Lencan wedding gifts. Love it!

The view from our back porch

Our neighbor. I started feeding him our old bread, and now he comes up to the fence every time he sees me outside expecting to be fed. I have created a monster. The USA canisters can be found all over our backyard and around town. They housed food donations several years back, and now mine hold sage!

And, last but not least, an updated photo of our local waterfall. It will continue to grow in size until about mid-November when the rainy season lets up.

Have a great week everybody!

Eat Your Weeds

Much of my job entails going out to the surrounding villages, giving a presentation on nutrition and pneumonia and/or diarrhea (as these are the 2 leading causes of preventable infant deaths in the country), and the class follows with a cooking demonstration in one of the women's kitchens. We make everything from soy milk from scratch, soy chorizo, tortillas fortified with green leaves or pureed carrots, and chicken and vegetable soup made with local vegetables brought by the women.... all in a Lencan woman's tiny kitchen with no modern amenities.

During one of my first trips out to an aldea, the women and I were gathering leaves to grind and add to the maseca for tortillas, when someone shouted, "mira, espinaca!"... they found spinach. You couldn't have imagined my delight at hearing the word! Someone has spinach?! So we walk on over to where the women are pulling the leaves, and my heart sinks. "Ummmm.... that's not spinach. That's a weed..." I wanted to say, as they smiled and fervently pulled bunches for lunch. But, I didn't say anything and just watched as they added the leaves to the mixture and we went on with lunch. I figured if 10 mothers were eating the stuff, I wasn't going to die. And, low and behold, I didn't :)

So, being me, I went home and scoured the internet until I found an identical leaf structure and started researching exactly what it was. Turns out, it's what we would call Lambs Quarters, and most people in the US just pull it up like it's a weed. I then went to nutritiondata.com (only go there if you really want to feel bad about eating something unhealthy.... there are always way more calories than you think.... don't do it!) Anyway, I compared the nutritional content to that of what we would call spinach, and it's pretty spot on! So, feel free to eat your weeds! Well, this weed (I read somewhere that it has a large amount of oxalic acid, so in case that's an issue...)

I remembered there being a 4 foot tall stalk of lambs quarters in the backyard when we went to look at the house we are currently renting and instantly got excited. Of course our landlords, who were trying to be very nice, chopped (well... macheted) down our entire back yard right before we moved. They left a few flowers and the huge elephant ears, thankfully. So, I've spent the last three months waiting and hoping more would pop up... and just like a weed, I found 10 sprouting all of the yard.

Yesterday, I cleared out a spot in our yard and transplanted every single one to the new space to cultivate. And, nicely enough, while clearing up the spot, I found 5 small green bean vines!

Lambs Quarters

Green Beans!

Over the last month, while poking around in the yard, I've been finding edibles all over the place. While clearing out some sugar cane (it's taking over the backyard!) I found what the locals call pepinitos, or mini cucumbers. They're growing on the back fence and are the size of a chubby pinky at maturity. We also have swiss chard from the former volunteer living in the house, our sweetsop tree is overloaded with fruit, we're getting 3-5 patastes weekly from our vine, and our plum tree just started producing. We've made some good friends out of neighbors by giving them fruits and veggies from the yard... Neither one of us can stand pataste, and I can only eat so much sweetsop, so it works out for everybody :)

I can't believe the garden I have... and I barely did a thing! To compensate, I've planted pak choi and more swiss chard, garlic, ginger root, lavender and rosemary so far. I hope to plant much more, but Jacob and I are currently working with the local daycare on a vegetable garden, and that's taken up alot of time and energy (will blog about that later).

Anyway, I'll end on a few pics of flowers that just popped up in the yard this week... so nice!

MARV Meeting in Tela, Honduras

On a side note, we'd like to thank Susan and Hatch for sending us a care package, and Jo and Aaron, too!!! Thanks so much guys, sorry I didn't post pics... it only means we devoured the box of goodies before I could get ahold of the camera :)

Marv, or Married Volunteers is a Worldwide Peace Corps group focusing on the needs of just that, married volunteers (Married coupes only make up about 7% of the volunteers serving). Twice a year, we marrieds get to meet in a location of our choosing for 2 nights and catch up, swap stories, etc... without having to use vacation days or personal leave.

Not that being a married volunteer is that difficult, I actually believe it to be easier. You come to Peace Corps with your best friend, you always have someone to talk to in your native language, and you can always get advice from someone who is not a host country national. Plus, being a woman in a foreign country isn't always easy, so there's the added bonus of a male traveling companion. And, as much as I hate to say it, having a husband in such a machista society seems to make my work more credible... they all assume he did it anyway.

But, regardless, having this meeting semi-annually is helpful. For this trip, we chose Tela on the North Coast... not too shabby, right? Please be aware that the US Government is not funding a get away for couples twice yearly. Yes, they do provide a small stipend to help with traveling to/from the meeting, but it comes no where near the amount of the cost of the trip for each couple. Other volunteers like to give us a hard time about it... we just tell them to get married :)

Tela, Honduras

Anyway, the first thing we all decided to do was jump in the water, a stone's throw from our hotel. The tourism industry in Honduras is still small and according to the locals here, tourism fell even more in 2009 and hasn't fully recovered. So, the beach was rather empty.... nice for us, but not nice for the locals trying to earn a living. There was one other family on the beach that day...

That night we decided to have our official meeting over dinner at Maya Vista... if you ever come to Tela, the restaurant has a great view...

During dinner we all simultaneously discovered that no one at site invites us couples to anything... weddings, fiestas, birthdays, or even lunch. People in all of our sites seem to assume that we have our own daily agendas and can't be bothered. Our single volunteer friends all tell us of the crazy fiestas they've been to, and Jacob and I kept thinking maybe the locals didn't like us too much. But, at least now we hope it's just because we're married, and I need to be at home to cook my husband's breakfast/lunch/dinner/wash his clothes.... you name it.

The next day, Honduras celebrated it's 190th year of independence, so we headed down to the central park to see the Garifuna marching in a parade and several Honduran marching bands from the local area schools.

Next stop was the boardwalk. We had piña coladas while watching a group of men play for people on the beach, and later ate pizza at a restaurant (Bella Italia) owned by an Italian woman. It was great! She spoke with us for a little while and told us she moved down here about 13 years ago with her husband. It's a small world when you can have authentic Italian pizza and wine in a little town on the edge of Honduras.

I'm already looking forward to our next meeting in March. It's always great to catch up with other volunteers, but especially nice to see the other married couples who sometimes face the same issues, and more often than not, provide great advice.

Christmas in July, Part Tres!

Continued from the last post...

Since the boxes my mom sent were also from other people, including Joyce and Megan, I'm not quite sure who sent what... but I think Joyce sent the some of the seeds, art supplies and The Week, thank you!

My parents have had to listen to me moan about how cold it is in our municipality (which I'm sure pisses off all the other volunteers in Honduras with their 90-105 degree days sans air conditioning), so they sent an entire box of hoodies, flannel pajamas and fleece... you guys are the best! I'm proudly sporting sweatpants and a fleece lined hoodie as I write this... so much better.

Enough art supplies to outfit an army of child artists... yay!

Aside from the seeds sent by the booster club (all of which will go to the daycare and other community projects), I now have an amazing personal stash of herbs and veggies. The only thing I have to do now is pick up a ton of rocks in the backyard and tier the space for a garden spot this November!

Christmas in July, Part Dos!

When Jacob and I came home yesterday, our host mom gave us a call. Jacob's boss was driving through our town on the way to see another volunteer in the West and dropped off 9 packages with our host mom! We were thinking we'd have to travel 5 hours to the capital to go pick them up, but no!

So, this post goes out to Megan W., Linda L., Ramona M., Joyce J., and my parents.... THANK YOU!!!! (another post to follow) You are all wonderful, thank you so much for taking the time to send us so many goodies! I now have 20 sticks of chap stick... seriously, I'm not kidding... and they will all be used within the year.

We also ended up having 5 containers of Lemon pepper! A few host family relatives came over last night with fried plantain empanadas for Jacob, who recently got 2 stitches (I'll let Jacob tell that story). So, we gave our host mom and her mother in law each a thing of lemon pepper, which made them very happy. Please don't be offended that we gave away a gift, it's sort of expected to share your gifts here, so this allowed us to do so without giving up something we only received one of... and nobody uses chap stick here, lol.

No packages were opened or rummaged through, our only uh-oh was not realizing that chocolate and gummy bears should not be sent during the hottest summer in a really long time. The gummy bears look like they're having an orgy... all glued together and such, and we're eating the chocolate in huge chunks... doesn't mean we're not going to stuff our faces with either, though.

Also, one package was from a Booster Club in California which donated over 100 packets of seeds for a garden we're starting with the local daycare (will blog about that later).

Anyway, here's what nine packages looks like... to a Peace Corps volunteer, these are diamonds!

All things awesome!

Ramona, I didn't know they made M&M bags this big! Also, thanks for the magazine... missing my New York fix.

Megan, we put the pic of the girls on the fridge, too cute! Our host mom came over last night to see the loot and wouldn't stop talking about how beautiful they are!!

Linda, you are now my husband's best friend... he ate all the jerky already, lol. Thank you!

Christmas in July!!!

Last week, another Peace Corps Volunteer passed through the capital and she gave me a call, saying there were "a ton" of packages at headquarters for Jacob and me, and she offered to pick up 5 of the smaller packages.

Yesterday, she was passing through our little town (and in very Honduran fashion) the bus driver stopped in the middle of the dirt road outside the church, and she passed them to Jacob and me through the bus window. Then the bus driver gave us a honk and went on its merry way, lol.

So, a heartfelt thanks goes out to the PCV to went out of her way to help us out! Only another PCV really knows how wonderful it is to receive a package (or several!) from the States.... it's like a tiny piece of home. There are still a few more boxes in the office, which means more Christmas to come!

Anyway, we want to thank my parents and Sue W. for sending boxes... look at all these goodies!!!!!

Nuts = nom, nom, nom!

I can't wait to have my first miso soup in 5 mths! A side note, I found a good recipe for tofu that I plan to try with my schmorgasborg of Japanese ingredients: Quick and Easy One Hour Tofu — La Fuji Mama

We now have enough nuts to hold us for at least a little while (I doubt the pistachios will last the weekend), and enough Japanese food, too... and lots, and lots of herb seeds, and stickers out the wha-zoo! I plan to plant several seeds in the next few weeks, and will also donate some to the local daycare where I'm planning a vegetable garden. The stickers and art supplies will be going to the local orphanage where I hope to start a large art class this Fall. The colorful band-aids will be going to the daycare and orphanage, but I may steal a few, too :)

My mom also sent my winter coat, which you'd think was a bit weird here in Central America... but apparently it gets down to almost freezing November-January up at our altitude, so this will definitely come in handy.

Anyway, we just wanted to send a great big thank you to Sue and my parents so being so very awesome! **Don't worry if we haven't received your package yet, apparently there are still several at headquarters and we'll be getting them shortly.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Lauren and Jacob

Lencan Kitchen: Pizza Edition

The first week we arrived at site, our host mom asked if we could teach her how to make pizza. "Sure!" Her next question was whether she should go out and buy ketchup and hotdogs for the pizza.... (NOOOOO!!!!) "Uh, don't worry about the ingredients, we'll take care of it."

Fyi, the word pizza here is a rather subjective term. Anything on a flat piece of bread/tortilla with something red, aka ketchup, and some type of cut up meat (don't forget the baloney!) is considered pizza.

Anyway, it's the last weekend living with our host family, and we thought we'd do a little something for them, since they have been so generous with their home, etc... So, Jacob and I bought all the ingredients yesterday and prepared all the veggies last night.

This morning, I showed our host mom how to make the dough, and we let it rise for two hours while the horno (outdoor oven) was heating up with a dozen or so pieces of pine/firewood. We basically went step by step through the pizza making process, adding the sauce and veggies (then hiding them beneath the cheese so the kids couldn't tell) and the meat and cheese. We had to make a few substitutions: the meat was a mixture of hamburger and chorizo, because it just isn't a meal without chorizo here. Also, there's no such thing as mozzarella here, so we used quesillo, the closest Honduran cheese we could find. Quesillo has a bit of a stronger flavor, but it still worked and is local.

The Honduran version of an oven (made of brick and clay) is actually quite similar to a brick oven seen in pizza shops, so the pizza came out great and crispy. Everybody seemed to enjoy it, and it was quite nice to have something other than eggs and beans for lunch! Pictures below!

Host mom and brother

The largest cutting board ever

Pizzas ready!

Into the horno

Nom, nom, nom!

Live Like a Peace Corps Volunteer: Honduras Rules

I noticed the "Live Like a PCV Challenge" posted on another PCV's facebook page and of course had to take a look.

Here's the link: http://www.LiveLikeaPCV.org/

Anyway, the purpose of the site is to raise awareness about Peace Corps and to see what it's like to live like one of us.

Don't get me wrong... we're not trying to be martyrs here, and I embrace any resemblance of our "normality" in the US (aka peanut butter), but Jacob and I have actually adapted pretty well. Up until this point, we've just been accepting the differences, and now they are no longer so foreign to us. So when I read the Honduras Rules, I thought... "Oh, yeah. That is kind of weird, huh." Now, when we go back to the States, please don't yell at us for throwing our toilet paper in the trash.... sorry!

I figured that since Jacob and I never really discuss our daily living situation very often, I thought the Honduran Rules could be a good template for you guys to see how we live and work every day...

(See the website above for explanations to the rules and levels, etc...)

Dátal– Difficulty Level I:

(Choose 2 of the following)

You canʼt use running hot water, you may only use water you boiled (yes, this includes baths): True for now, but the house we are moving into has an "electro-ducha" which is an electric shower head plugged into a socket that heats up water (and somehow doesn't electrocute you), thus a hot shower! No hot water in the sinks, though :(

You canʼt use any microwave: What's a microwave?

No checks, no debit cards or credit cards, cash only all week: True, but we can use a debit card at the larger supermarkets in the state capital... just not at our site.

No washing machine or dish washers - plus you must wash all articles of clothing you wore during the week by hand: Ugh... so true! A hand washing video demonstration will be posted once we move into our house (ample warning for any cursing that may occur during said demonstration).

No flushing your toilet paper: True. For the next 2 years, Jacob and I get to throw our toilet paper in the trash next to the toilet. We then throw it out in the backyard in a burn barrel and burn all trash once a week (food is composted). *Don't judge our burning trash. It's either burn your trash or it sits there creating lawn art. There is no such thing as trash or recycling pick-up in our site.

Manzano - Difficulty Level II

(Choose 2 of the following plus 1 from Dátal)

You cannot watch television, but may watch soap operas and soccer at a neighborʼs house: Somewhat true. We have cable at our host family's house (but won't have a TV when we have our own house), but it's of course all in Spanish. And the soap opera and soccer comment is definitely true!

Must keep all valuables (cash, phone, id) hidden. Some options include bra, socks, hats. Get creative. So true... I'm now a master at hiding all things in my unmentionables. I even have "traveling pants" which have about 10 pockets and a spot for rolled money. I even forget where it all is sometimes, lol.

No sitting on couches for the week: Nah... there's even a couch in our room, which frankly is kind of annoying.

Internet only every other day and for only 1 hour each time: Oh, so False... we have a monthly internet plan. It took some time and pretending not to understand "no" in Spanish.... but we have lots of internets now :) But, other volunteers will say this is on par.

Men and women may not wear shorts in public (only choose this item if you live in a warm climate): True for me, not for Jacob.

Chata- Difficulty Level III:

(Choose 2 of the following plus 1 item from Manzano or 2 items from Dátal)

You can use your toilet but you must manually fill the tank or do a bucket flush. (turn off the water to the toilet): Thank God this is False! It is true for volunteers in hotter parts of the country where water doesn't come everyday. Our site is inundated with water, so no problem there.

Power outage. Have someone else throw a dice every day for how many hours you will be without power between (5a-11p) He/she cannot tell you how long it will be out for. (And he/she must turn off your power breakers): True, but at least it's not every day, only twice a week on average. Sometimes it's only for an hour... sometimes it's almost 24 hours.

You can only use one burner on your stove and no oven: True for now. I've never seen any Honduran use their oven for anything other than storing pots and pans. Most people have a stove/oven combination and only use the stove part (and usually only 1 or 2 burners work). But, Jacob and I plan to buy a gas oven in a few weeks for the house, yay for all things baked!!!

Say hi to everyone (including strangers) and make a comment about the weather to people you know: True, but actually they say "adios" when walking past, so really they are saying bye... odd.

No supermarkets: True. At site there are only the equivalent of convenient stores (think very minimally equipped 7 Elevens.) But, there are 2 supermarkets in the state capital.

Guineo - Difficulty Level IV:

(Choose 2 of the following plus 1 item from Chata or 2 items from Manzano, or 3 items from Dátal)

Reduced living space. You may only use your living room, bathroom and kitchen: OMG, so true... for now at least. We live in a 7x7 room, and I'm surprised Jacob and I haven't tried to kill each other yet. But, our house will actually be bigger than our apartment in NYC... which in reality isn't saying much, but we're definitely happy about it!

No driving. You can use public transportation, bike, or walk: True, but we're very used to this. No car in NYC either.

Cannot leave your house after sunset or before sunrise: Very True. The streets are deserted by sunset. There is no such thing as a night life here, and it is very inappropriate for women to be seen out of the house after dark.

No running water from your house, you must go fetch it from somewhere else. (a neighbors house is fine): False for us. For other volunteers, this is very true, but we're lucky in this regard.

Plátano - Difficulty Level V:

(Choose 1 from each level)

No English for the entire week: Nah, Jacob and I are cheaters... we get to talk all we want to each other in good ole' English.

Lack of temperature control. No heater or air conditioner in your house or car: True, but you'd be amazed at how easily you get used to it... of course this is coming from the coldest region in Honduras where the temperature is never above 80.

You can only use your cell phone for 10 minutes per day: False. Don't really know where this one comes from.

Your diet for the week must include coffee twice a day with 4 tsps of sugar with each cup or drink soda twice a day. Also must eat tortillas, beans, and eggs daily. (absolutely no butter): Sooo freaking True!! I'm rather addicted to sugar with coffee in it now, and I doubt I would consider anything a meal without eggs, tortillas or beans in it, lol. Oh, and the butter thing is true too. You can get all the "mantequilla" you could ever want, but it's not like the butter in the States. For US style butter, you must scour the shelves at every supermarket around for one block!

Anyway, that's a peek into some of the changes and adaptations we've made. It's pretty easy to get used to... but, oh how thankful will we be the next time we lay eyes on a washer and dryer!

Have a great weekend guys, and the next time you have a night out on the town, drink one for us!!!

A Good Start to Service

(Thursday a week ago) I was in the middle of giving a presentation over child illness prevention when the phone rang. The phone number on the caller ID was one that when it comes up... you answer it! It was our Country Director and had she called to inform us that Jacob and I were invited to a formal gathering in our region, which included the US Ambassador to Honduras and the President of Honduras, Pepe Lobo.

So, last Friday, yours truly, Jacob and another couple in the area got the chance to meet Pepe Lobo and talk with the US Ambassador again! We were also lucky enough to meet the Director of USAID in Honduras (who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Venezuela) and one of his right hand men. We got to chat with them about their food security initiative and hope to be able to help in the future.

As we were riding along in the motorcade (yep, got to ride in our first motorcade), Jacob just had to mention that we were in the first car... and if you've ever seen any action movie ever in your life (Patriot Games to name one), you know that's always the car you don't want to be in. But of course it was fine, and quite fun to zoom through streets that were not meant to be zoomed through, and up into the mountains at a pace that I've never encountered before.

The meeting was in an aldea where USAID, in conjunction with FHIS (Honduran Social Investment Fund) had worked together with the local community to provide electricity (via solar panels) and running water in every home, something they had never had before.

Speeches were given, a tour of several homes was provided, and the people seemed incredibly proud of their homes and the outcome. Part of the deal with USAID and FHIS was that the community itself had to help in providing support and money, and they were truly invested in the idea and the project.

So, here are a few photos from the event... (photos of us with President Lobo and Ambassador Llorens on Facebook!)

Traditional Lencan folk dance performed for the crowd,

President Lobo and Ambassador Llorens

Lots and lots of speeches!

Ambassador Llorens speaking with some community members,

love the Lencan head gear!

The Director of USAID Honduras, President Lobo, Ambassador Llorens and

community members in front of one of the houses set up with solar panels.