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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Recap and Our New Home

Jacob and I returned from our respective Field Based Training sites (thank god), found out our site placement, and we swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers on Friday the 13th! We celebrated by gorging ourselves with the last sushi we'll be able to find for a while.



We have since moved to site and for the next two years we will be hanging out (a mile up) with the Lencans in a tiny town surrounded by pine forests and mountains. We ended up with the coldest available Peace Corps site, yay! I had to wear a fleece top to bed last night J Also, the buses to the Western half of Honduras pass right through the middle of our town or the larger city nearby, so we can be in Gracias, Santa Rosa or the Copan Ruins in a matter of hours.



Home: We are required to live with a host family for the first two months (integration… yada, yada), Our family is great… but, it’s a bit “rustic” here. Regardless, PC doesn’t really leave room for complaints, so I’ll move on to the waterfall 5 minutes from our house:




This is only the beginning of the rainy season, by September it will be roaring.



We’ve already found the house we want to rent. The ceilings in homes here are only seven to eight feet high (a form of insulation), which will take some getting used to, but other than that the house has a great view of the mountains and a traditional fogon (stove) inside the house. Also, it has a large back yard so I’m scouting for seeds and places to buy plants for the future garden. One of my projects will be working with communities on organic home and community gardens (or diversifying the ones they have), and I figured I should start with my own home. Some previous occupant made a decent start; there are currently 2 peach trees and leftover spinach, turnip greens and summer squash currently growing. Someone even planted several rose bushes and lilies, which I hope to add to.


Jacob’s only concern is where to put the hammock. That and how the hell we are going to get a full size fridge from a larger city to our site via a very rocky (and sometimes impassable) dirt road with a vehicle we do not have. Welcome to the 3rd world, baby. We will have a fridge… I demand it J



Our little town does not have the following: a post office, a grocery store, a bank, an ATM machine, a mid-wife (she was ninety and died last week) or paved roads. Not exactly New York City, but for two years, we can handle it.


But, it does have: Strawberries and apples- one of the only areas in Honduras where these are grown, a ton of pulperias (convenient stores), a hardware store, 1 Catholic church currently out of commission due to an earthquake a few years ago, 8 evangelical churches (not sure why you need 8, but…) and LOTS of pine trees with a waterfall and lagoon thrown in for good measure. Oh, and a butcher whom Jacob has already met. We’ve been here one week and we already have a butcher J.


(We are about 30 minutes from a city where we can get almost whatever our hearts desire, even raw nuts, organic seafood and peanut butter)



Jobs: Jacob’s working with a local forestry cooperative, and I’m sure by winter he will be Head Gringo Lumberjack, beard and all. Going to try and find him a red and black flannel shirt to wear to work. We also found a hardware store in the nearest city for all your Lumberjack needs (and the owner used to host Peace Corps volunteers… small world). In reality, he’s going to be working with their investments and exporting capabilities, drawing up business plans, etc… He’s also been paired with a Lencan artisan cooperative who make everything from pottery to pine needle baskets. I know what the family’s getting for the next two years!



I’m working with an international NGO, World Vision, and spent last Wednesday on the top of a mountain hanging out with a group of community volunteers who have just been trained by WV to teach a two year course to families with children (nutrition, hygiene, how to identify and prevent diarrhea and resp. infections, etc...) in the community. This week I gave two charlas (classes)on ways to prevent diarrhea and upper respiratory infections, and the second on the nutritional needs of children, both of which included a cooking class. Today I made soy milk from scratch with 9 Lencan women, and they got a great kick out of me trying to hand form tortillas (we didn't eat mine, lol).


I’ve also made a local contact who is also working on latrine and improved stove projects, so hopefully I can get some support when the time comes. I’ve also been placed with the local health clinic which has to 2 female doctors, a rare but exciting sight here. I’ve been invited to visit the next meeting for pregnant women, and they want me to start providing nutrition and healthy lifestyle classes at the health center. (The malnutrition and chronic sickness rates are unbelievable here, and so many live with so little.) Also, in time I hope to get to know the midwife groups that come to the health center, but it will take several months to gain their confidence… little by little. Needless to say, I hope to be busy.



Think that’s about it for now… we’re going to try and have a post office box in the next few weeks (for care packages, postcards and such J )



All the best guys,


Lauren