Has anyone in this family ever even seen a chicken?

Correction to that fun fact I gave in the last blog update: only SEVEN (not five) aldeas in the municipio of Victoria have electricity, which is FOUR (not two) more than had it before the current mayor came. Even more impressive than I lead on, no?

March 12
Just got back from a three day topo study in a village. This one was rough—lots of hiking, extreme temperatures (very hot during the day, very cold at night), difficult terrain—and the bad news is all of it was a re-shoot. A friend and I did a conduction line (from the water source to the storage tank) study for this village last year, but it turned out there were several points along the way that were too high for water to reach in a gravity-fed system. So another route had to be found, one on significantly lower ground, and then we needed to do another study to measure the terrain.

By the time we had hiked to the starting point for the study each day, the shirt I was wearing was already soaked through. And then one night we were definitely hiking back to their village by moonlight because we had finished working so late and were so far away. This is all great and I certainly love the work. The only problem is the only footwear I brought was the pair of rubber boots I purchased here in Honduras. These boots far outstrip the cool REI boots I have when it comes to trekking through mud or rivers (once the soles of those REI boots get wet, you might as well put on rollerblades), but they are not nearly as comfortable and are downright stupid to wear on long hikes. Long hikes like the ones we did each morning...and again each evening. Not to mention being upright all day doing the actual study. By the time we finished (thank goodness we actually finished!), I was sure my boots were slowly filling with blood because the pain on the last hike back had me convinced my skin was slowly being ripped off. And that’s no joke—the pain was intense and the last hike was all downhill, so my foot was gripping and slipping within the boot the whole time. Of course, as it turns out, no blood. And a visual inspection of the soles of my feet reveals no external damage or distress marks of any kind. But the pain was real, I tell you!!

And the other thing I hate is that I come back from this community just riddled with all sorts of skin ailments—insect bites, rashes, eczema outbreaks—because of having spent so much time offroad and without showers. Nothing more to say about that, I guess. Hopefully this route we just measured is much more generous to gravity-fed water system designs. And then in a week or two I go back to take measurements within the actual community.

March 18
A PC trainee, or a volunteer-to-be, just left Victoria today after having spent the last two and a half days here living the life of a real volunteer. That “real volunteer” would be me—hold it a second, gotta brush this dirt off my shoulder—and, where was I? Right. Anyway, the new group just arrived in Honduras about three weeks ago and now is the time that each of them leaves the training site and goes to visit one of us out in the field. Sometimes these visits are just blown off but they can be pretty useful, as well. Luckily the guy sent to Victoria and I had couple different things to do. On Monday we went to see a water source with about ten caballeros from a nearby community that want to use it for their as-yet-unbuilt water system. I talked to them about the pros and cons of the source (distance from the community, elevation difference, flow strength, etc.) and that was that. Monday afternoon was great because it gave the illusion that I am very integrated into the community—a high schooler came over looking for help with English homework; a friend came by to play guitar; and a neighbor’s kid was here playing with Tek the whole time. Seriously, those three things converged within a two or three hour span in a way they rarely ever do on a normal day.

On the way to lunch on Monday a gentlemen stopped us in the street and asked if I was the “water guy.” He then proceeded to tell us about the problem he has in his village with the system that is already in place and asked when could I go check it out—and just like that we had Tuesday morning plans! The next day we met that gentleman at the water source to his system and then proceeded to walk the tubería to his pueblo (one of the four that now has electricity within the past couple years) and saw that open faucets had no water coming out of them the further away we walked from the source. We talked about what some of the problems could be and then he invited us to his mother-in-law’s house where we had some coffee. Tuesday afternoon much less cool—no English homework to help with, no guitar-playing friends, just a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses to chat about the Bible with as my “aspirante” took a nap.

March 26
A fairly normal week so far, but I will update this a bit. Thursday of last week was my birthday and it was a normal day here in Victoria, but just a little bit sweeter. Thanks to all of you who wrote or called—calling is cooler than writing, because there’s no internet here, but I accept birthday emails, of course! And if you did neither, well, don’t even bother reading the rest of this blog. And you’re banned from the next entry, as well, it’s like a red card, baby!! All joking aside, I ran in the morning and then opened a care package from the folks (that Sara had brought back from Teguc). In the early afternoon the mayor’s office crew threw me a little lunch deal and had a small gift and card to go with it, and then in the evening Sara and pcv friend of hers who was passing through got together and baked cookies and then made me dinner! What’s not to love about birthdays?!

On Saturday Sara, two more gringa pcv’s, and I went to a nearby town to attend a dance. Actually the first one I have been to outside of Victoria proper, and it was a good one. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that the town in question was the same one the volunteer-in-training who came to visit me and I went to to evaluate their water problems; AND that the salón where the dance was held had just had its inaugural opening three days prior. So there you go. It was nothing exciting, just a dance. But it is always interesting to have volunteers from other places in your site watching you cut loose a little.

And yesterday, two noteworthy things happened. First, the boss-man of my Wat/San program came out to Victoria to pay a visit and see how things were going. Nothing super special there, just a reminder of all the forms and reports and miscellaneous stuff that I need to do in a rapidly shrinking amount of time, along with the work I still need to complete. But it was good to get some advice about how to best go about finishing things. The exciting thing happened in the evening, after my boss had left, after I had eaten and cleaned up from dinner, even after I had showered. I am sitting in the living room, reading before I go to bed, and I notice a small something on my right heel. I shake my foot but nothing flies off, and I assume its just because my foot is still wet from having showered. And then I lift up my foot and get a better look. Across my entire right heel I have formed an off-colored, pseudo second skin—i.e. a big effing blister. So much for that hellish study not leaving any distress marks on my feet!!!

More on Victoria later. I miss you guys. Hope you’re enjoying March Madness!
Love, Joe