She’s not that Mexican, mom, she’s my Mexican…and she’s Columbian or something.

Ok, a tip of the hat to my sister as I begin a new feature to El Amor Prohibido…the rolling update!

August 31
Just got back from the village I visited earlier in the month, this time to finish the topo study. Another excellent visit, this time spent going from the tank to every house. Overall it took four days to complete, even longer than the conduction line. I really should write some more about it because I loved being up there and doing it but it was the same thing as the last time, just alongside the roads of the town. I stayed with the same family and they were great and I love doing the work and left on Thursday afternoon feeling like I had been very productive. I haven’t done anything yet, just to be clear, but the grunt work portion of the system design is now complete.

September 2
First off, I really can not believe it is already September. That happens to me when I am back in the States as well, so really having nothing to do with being in Honduras for the first summer of my life. But seriously, where have the last few months gone? College football has already begun (and with an opening weekend win for BC and major loss at home for Notre Dame, can it get any better?), pro football is not far behind, baseball is entering crunch time, tennis is in the year’s final grand slam…it’s a good time to be a sports fan. The truth is that at the moment I am enthralled with soccer and I take it in any shape or color I can get it (including the MLS!), but no matter where I am there is always the nostalgic tug of the sports I grew up watching and will always love. But I digress…

Yesterday, the first day of September, was the anniversary of the founding of Victoria, Yoro as a town 105 years earlier. As such there was a little festival throughout the day which began with fireworks at 4am (I was still asleep, have no doubt) and then a parade several hours later that included all the municipal workers and schoolchildren and teachers. My sitemate and I were out with cameras in tow, documenting the action, and it really was a festive atmosphere. After the parade several tents appeared in the main square area and people were selling all sorts of local dishes for several hours as a band from a neighboring town played. By about 1pm or so the excitement was fading and the sun had sapped what was left of everyone’s energy, but overall a good day and unique experience.

September 6
Today is Thursday and I just returned from several days of “seclusion” spent near the center of Honduras with about a dozen other volunteers that had been plucked from the north to wait out Hurricane Felix. We stayed in a modest hostel type compound and though there was very little to do for the three days we were there they did feed us three meals a day, so we had that going for us. As far as I know Felix did not do too much damage to Honduras—areas of the north and west had flooding but overall the country was fortunate not to have the casualties that Nicaragua sustained. In our little campsite area there was some rain but nothing unusual and very little wind at all. Overall the reunion with fellow volunteers was good for meeting new people, getting to read (a lot), and playing some Beirut (just a little). There really is not much to do here and unfortunately I have to come back to this exact spot next week for a “re-connect” meeting with all the wat/san volunteers. This week was supposed to be another topo study in a different village but that plan was chucked as soon as I got the call Monday morning to meet in a new city by the end of the day.

When I arrived back to my town I found three guys repairing the roof of my house. Good to have the work begin, absolutely, but it does mean the house is now full of broken tiles and other debris and mountains of dust. Once this is done it will be so nice to not have the fridge in the living room and not have to move my laptop from spot to spot when it starts raining. As soon as the guys left for the day I swept and cleaned just as much as necessary to do a little cooking and not breath in dust all night, and took out mr. laptop and sat down to a few choice episodes of arrested development. Aaahhhhh, it’s good to be home!

September 10
Monday morning now as I write and just found out last night by talking with another volunteer that I don’t need to leave today for the reunion with team water/sanitation. That deal starts tomorrow but not first thing in the morning so there’s no need for me to jump on a bus today—I’m hoping I can make it there by noon mañana. Great weekend just completed out here. First off, the roof is done and looks solid. Surprisingly there has not been an extended rain to test things yet but I am very hopeful. So in fact most of the weekend was spent cleaning things up after the roof guys left and re-organizing yada yada yada but now its all done and the casa looks good. Saturday night I was cooking myself some dinner when in stopped a couple of friends of mine from town to say hi and we all ended up eating what I had cooked together. This type of thing happens all the time to my sitemate, but since I had moved into the house this was the first time for me. Excellent stuff…can you say “town integration”? Then on Sunday night a friend of Gen’s who is a volunteer from a nearby town came by and we all piled into her kitchen to help her cook an amazing dinner. By help I mean we watched her kind of closely and occasionally got in her way, of course. Anyway, here was the meal: breaded chicken fried in sesame seeds, covered in a mandarin chile sauce with wild rice and steamed broccoli on the side. Really? Let’s be clear: this is on another level of meals from what I was cooking for myself in San Diego, so you can imagine what I’m whipping up in Honduras. Needless to say it tasted even better than it looked and it looked damn good. Then we all sat down to a special viewing of the original “Nightmare on Elm Street”. It is creepy, in case any of you had forgotten, and despite some bits of horrendous acting it holds up pretty well.

September 14
Just finished the four day reunion with water/sanitation kids. It was a good time but I am eager to get back to my site because tomorrow is the day Honduras celebrates its independence. Also, I haven't checked internet yet so I have no idea how things are going in the world of sports--ie, don't mock me for a Redskins score I dont know yet!

Talk to everyone soon. Much love, Joe

What’s Spanish for “I know you speak English...”

Things are moving along nicely here in Honduras. Last week I did my first ever topographical study of a village and it was fantastic. Actually I only did from the water source in the bosque to the site where the town wants to have the tank built, so I have to return next week to finish the distribution network (going house to house). I went up on a Monday and went with a different group of men from the town every day to do the survey until we finished Thursday afternoon. The town does not have electricity (or running water, obviously) and there is only one bus that comes through twice a day taking people to the town where I live. What a great experience, though—I stayed with a host family that was very generous and kind and during the day I was out all day hiking into the forest and crossing little rivers. The actual work of the survey is extremely boring and repetitive but I love that it is outdoors and that we’re making up our own path as we go. Then when we finished in the afternoon we would walk back and just relax and soak up the cool air and beautiful scenery—this town is 1000 meters higher in elevation than where I live so there is almost a constant, refreshingly cool breeze blowing through. Add to it that the town is in the middle of the mountains and the clouds are so close and active and it makes for a very peaceful experience.

The living there was great too, particularly because the family that hosted me was excellent. The water they use comes from big drums they have positioned outside to catch the rain as it comes off the roof—a great idea because it rains there so consistently during these months. They boil the water to drink and use in the kitchen on their wood burning stove deal and it all kind of works from there. They fed me more than they ate, I think, and I felt bad about that. But after being in the sun and hiking and taking measurements all day I was grateful. And no electricity is not a big deal when you’re so exhausted you end up going to bed by around 8pm or so anyway. The brief taste of life in that town, as in most towns in the municipality (only 5 out of 178 have electricity), that I got was extremely peaceful and relaxing and invigorating. I had a little fight with the family’s pig one morning when I was out on the front porch area washing my face with the rainwater and the pig picked up my soap dish quickly and scurried off. The mother saw it all from the kitchen window and was laughing hysterically and screaming to her six yr old to chase down the pig and get my soap back. I know this idealized picture of life there is only in my head—as much as I enjoyed it I would not choose to live without electricity for the rest of my life. And when I asked the family they said of course they want it as well and are going to ask the mayor to start a project in their town (but water first!). But there is something appealing and refreshing about seeing life stripped away of excess, in all its forms.

As I ran out the door of the family’s house to catch the last bus leaving on Thursday afternoon, the mother thrust a bag full of bananas into my hands. By the time I got home to check them out, it appeared as though they were all heading south quickly. But it gave me a chance to put my kitchen skills to work, as well as the microwave-sized toaster oven I had purchased the weekend before. Yes, I was fully into my own house—had gone to the big city to get groceries and all—only a few days before I left to do the topo study. So once I returned life on my own began in earnest and I decided to make task number one the baking of as many banana breads as my recently-gifted (and quickly blackening) bananas could support. I got the recipe from my sitemate, Gen, and rounded up all the ingredients at a nearby pulpería (corner shop type store, usually run out of a person’s home). The entire process was not the smoothest run operation, but it worked and I was able to make three deals of banana bread, after all was said and done. What a payoff! I ran with my first one straight out of the oven to my host family’s house. They were shocked and laughing and kept saying, “You cook?” over and over. But they ate it up quickly and told me it was excellent. It actually was not too bad and since I did not have anyone else I thought it was appropriate to give the other loafs to, I kept them for myself (still working on loaf three).

Yes, life in my own casa is going well. Slowly I am getting back into the groove of cooking for myself and it is nice. I have eaten more vegetables in the past week than in the previous four months combined. That’s a bit of an exaggeration but really not much. The house is pretty smooth as well, significantly bigger than my apartment in San Diego, and it has running water and a huge, enclosed back yard. There are a couple hiccups, of course, and one of them is that the roof is not exactly rain-proof. During rain of any kind I have water streaking down a main room wall and when it pours there are a couple of spots where there is heavy dripping action. These spots are directly over locations on the wall where there are electrical outlets, which is cool, since of the entire three locations in the house where I occasionally plug something in, two now have rainwater falling on them during storms. As a result mr. mini-refrigerator is now in the living room.

A fridge in the living room is not the worst thing, either, when a house is as bare mine is now. There was absolutely nothing in it when I moved in (some volunteers move into fully furnished places) and since I spent all of the no money PC gives us on a bed and a mini fridge, well there really isn’t anything else in any of the rooms. In the backyard there was a whole stack of wood and a couple of benches, so I cleaned the benches off and brought them in and with the wood got set to making something reminiscent of furniture. But as you might imagine that has not been a success, in the traditional sense of the word. I made a table which works decently, actually, but it is a lot higher than a table that one normally sits at to eat (don’t ask how I did that), so I use it to stand and type on my laptop. It is not super-stable, either, so I doubt it would have tolerated the little shaking that might result from cutting things with a knife and fork. And speaking of stability, you all should witness the marvel that is a bench/chair that I put together. I say bench/chair because the seat is the size of a chair but without any back support, so also bench-like. Anyway, I found a piece of wood that has a cool shape to it; curved and coming to a point at one side and the opposite end has a broad, flat side—almost like the back end of a Nike swoosh. Good seat for a chair, I thought, and so I measured out some legs and put my wonderful creation together. I wanted to maintain the cool, modern (?) look it had going for it so I only used three legs, strategically placed, so as to suggest that this chair could just as easily be in a hip club somewhere as in my house. I thought the legs were strategically placed. This chair subsequently became known as the “most unstable piece of furniture…ever” for a period of time before I tacked on a fourth leg. It was amazing how truly unstable, unpredictable one might say as well, this thing was. Almost like a horse that is refusing it’s rider-to-be, this chair would buck up on one side nearly as soon as it was touched. Sitting on it took careful consideration and planning. Even using it as a footrest was something not easily accomplished and ultimately bound for failure. I swear this to you: a master craftsman could not intentionally design a piece of furniture this unstable if he tried.

And that’s kind of it in the way of updates. I did manage to find a cheese here that does not melt at all but I’m not sure I want the blog to descend to those levels of storytelling just yet—we have a higher standard here on El Amor Prohibido, don’t we? Is that a common thing, by the way? I’m asking because I don’t know—cheese that does not melt for anything seems a bit odd. I guess its time I learned about stuff like that. Ahem, in the time since I last wrote an update my mom had a birthday (happy belated, mom!) and just recently was the bday of one Janelle Naños—feliz cumpleaños a usted, también. And if I don’t get to update within the next ten days or so, there is going to be a major event in the vicinity of Syracuse, New York on or about the first of September. If you don’t already know, well, you better aks somebody. Josh, Kate—a big congrats to the both of you!! You each get a kiss from me when we meet next.
Much love from Honduras,
Joe

Alias is a show about a spy…

Ok, last time I talked about taking a trip down to Tegucigalpa to visit the head of my project and one of my buddies. Also there was a bit about lots of my host family’s extended family staying at the house, and of course the ever present subject of my future housing. So where to begin? I will begin by apologizing for the long time between updates, especially since I have nothing in the way of cool stories to account for the delay. No one’s ankle was carved up, no more visits from the president, no high school beauty contests…not even a soccer tournament to discuss the ins and outs of Team USA and its plethora of young talent. Sorry, none of that.

As I write this I am nearly 100% in to my own casa. In fact, over the past couple of weeks I have been getting it ready—bought a bed and sheets, built (that’s right) a table—in anticipation of, you know, living there. Here’s the deal (long and uninteresting story made short and uninteresting): I don’t want to live in my own place until I can cook for myself as well…and I can not cook for myself until I get a ride to a bigger city, something that has eluded me thus far…so I am still in my host family’s house. What are you going to do? Yes, I said I would not still be there once I updated the blog. But also, yes, I will wrap up this ordeal by the end of the week, so have no worries—as far as you’re concerned, I am in my own place and it’s great!!

The trip to Teguc was fantastic. It was great to be in a big city again, great to see one of my buddies from training and how he is living and working in his site. My program manager was extremely helpful with all of the questions I had and gave me a ton of useful information. And it was kind of cool to visit PC headquarters as a volunteer, and not as a fledgling volunteer-to-be knockoff. My host parent’s eldest daughter (my host sister?), the one who lives in Teguc but is staying up in Victoria with her three children for the summer, was actually in Teguc at the same time, so she gave me a ride back to the northern town I call home. How great was it to go from sweating getting to the bus station on time, that I would have enough money, and that I could actually carry everything I had with me (not to mention the 5 ½ hour ride) to jumping into a climate-controlled SUV and sitting shotgun for free (for a 3 hour drive)? Extremely great. But I have to confess it was a tad surreal going from penny-pinching and public transportation to an SUV with a backseat full of children and Burger King drive-thru bags. Which one of us is supposed to be doing the helping here?

Work is going well and because I have been so busy getting my house stuff together my non-village visiting days have been packed and very not boring. But there have been a couple noteworthy visits. The first was a couple of weeks ago and my counterpart and I went with the mayor to one village with three other villages within reasonable walking distance. It just so happens that those three do not have potable water systems, so I went to all three that day, checking their sources and looking at the layout of their towns, etc. What was exceptional about this day was that I rode on not one, but two horses amongst the different villages. It was sweet, we were river crossing, mountain climbing horseback fools! Another day I wish I had had a horse because my counterpart at the mayor’s office, a very nice guy, is so laid back and calm about details and appointments and just about everything, that he failed to mention that there was a two hour uphill hike involved. Now I am a young guy and generally try not to shy from a physical challenge, especially when the challenger is significantly older and in no kind of shape at all. But “C’mon!”, as Gob would say, if the day involves four hours of hiking to get to and from a particular village, you’re going to want some sort of advance warning, right? So maybe you can bring a bit more than just a nalgene of water? I got no warning and I was toast. My counterpart brought an empty water bottle because he can just fill it up at anyone’s little well or spring because his stomach is used to everything here. By the time we got to the village I was 90% through my water and had no conceivable way of getting any more for the return—I was anticipating the worst. Luckily the water source this town plans to use for their water system was glorious…glorious! We’re 1100 meters above sea level, there is virtually no higher ground anywhere within miles and miles, and out of the side of this mountain water is GUSHING out with enough pressure to wash an elephant. It was cold and clear and I was dying so I filled up mr. nalgene and had zero problems on the return journey. I don’t know what you call that besides fantastic water and a lucky break for me.

And that is about all she wrote for me—working on the house and visiting villages now and then. I understand the summer of movie sequels is well on its way back in the States. Has anyone seen any or all of them? Who knew there would be another Die Hard and Bourne Identity movies? I would see it all if I were with you guys—tell me how they are! Aside from summer entertainment, I hope everyone is doing well. Much love from Victoria.
Joe

Operation Hot Brother...

Hey everyone, this week I am sending the update from Sabanagrande, site of our field based training about two months ago. The first part of this week I am spending in the capital, Tegucigalpa, to check in with the powers that be in the PC office and then to hang with a buddy of mine who lives and works in the previously mentioned small town not far away. Another thing on my to-do list is get some items in the big city in preparation for the upcoming move into my very own house. The housing update has its sour and its sweet: no, the house is not ready yet (sour) but there has been significant work done on it since I last updated you all (sweet). It’s true—one day I was actually walking by and saw the owner’s mother inside directing some guys who were painting and putting screens on the windows and everything! As for the local drunks and bums passing out in front of my gate, yea that still happens but a local judge (that’s right—no courtroom here but we have a judge working in the mayor’s office) said I could just give him a call to have the police come and shoo them away (sweet). By the time I update this blog next, I will have slept in my own casa here in Victoria, I promise you that.

The work of the past week or so was fairly uneventful. A lot of waiting around and stalling and more waiting all in the hopes of using Salud’s truck and not much to show for it. Late in the week I said screw it and took a bus up to one of the sites I will be working on and met a guy who is with the Spanish NGO in town to take some altitude measurements and walk around discussing their deal. That was good, a very productive day and I was happy to have ditched the mayor’s office and be working with the NGO guys. But that covers one day and while there was the occasional meeting, maybe, it does leave something to be desired in the way of consistent work. Two weeks ago I barely had time to breathe we were going this way and that, visiting villages and doing town meetings like it was our, ahem, job. And that’s followed by a week where everyday its mañana that we’ll go, mañana that we get to business. Argh.

The free time this week did allow me to do some much needed fútbol research for you guys. As a result, here is a Team USA update: the Copa America did not go as well for our boys as the Copa de Oro did. Devotees will remember that the US won the latter tournament, winning every game it played. Well, if you’re going to be technical about it, the US finished in last place of all the teams in the Copa America. The technical argument would mention that the US was the only team to not get a single point for any of its games and that they had the worst goal differential in the tournament. A more nuanced view of the tournament (and that’s what I give you) will reveal that the US brought almost none of its well known players—no Donovan, no Ching, no Beasley, no Dempsey to name a few—and was using this tournament as a way of getting the younger players some much needed international experience. Given that fact, I think it’s hard to argue that the US’ effort in this Copa was anything but impressive. They played with an Argentina team full of its stars for a good hour before things came apart and they full on dominated a Paraguay team that is generally considered to be one of the best South American squads behind Brasil and Argentina. That domination of Paraguay did not produce much in the way of goals, of course, which is why they lost, but they outshot their opponent something on the order of 19 to 8. Overall I think things went well. I do not know what comes next but when I know, you’ll know. After all, if the so-called “Sportscenter” won’t update you on the world’s most popular sport, where else can you turn?

But the out of the ordinary news this week was the arrival to my host family’s house of many, many family members. My host parents have 8 children and all but the youngest are married and have children of their own. Two live here in Victoria, two others in different parts of Honduras, and four live in the States. This week the eldest who lives in Tegucigalpa brought her three children here to chill for the summer. Later on the son who lives in another part of Honduras came to town with his wife and two kids. That same day one of the sons who lives in New York came as well, complete with his two sons. To add to the chaos, the first night that everyone was here together the power went and the next morning we discovered there was no water either…aaahhh Honduras. It has been a good time and although the one family who lives in a different part of Honduras just left, at one point during the weekend there was something on the order of ten kids between the ages of 15 months and 16 years, all under one roof. Good times. No, actually it was kind of fun and my host parents are saints for letting me stay a week + past my expected departure time, taking up a room and a bed to myself when everyone else is practically sleeping on top of each other. I told them what I am telling you: this time next week I will be in my own place. Period. Si Dios quiere.

Don’t ask, “Can I?” ask, “I can!”

Dog update: you think these updates are going away and that maybe I’m paranoid and overselling the dangers of man’s best friend down here in Honduras. You are mistaken. My sitemate, Gen, took a trip last week to other parts of the country to attend some classes and get some training, etc. She was supposed to come back Sunday, mid-day, but I did not hear from her and as I walked by the house she’s renting on Monday morning I noticed that she had not yet returned. Skip ahead to Monday afternoon and a text message I received from Gen: “I am coming home today, got bit by a dog in La Esperanza and had to stay a little longer to get rabies shots—argh”. You see? Don’t ever doubt the validity of my warnings…they are dire and they are real.

But returning to Gen’s trip as a segue to a completely different subject, along the way she made a stop in the capital. While in the capital she visited the main PC Office and, as any true-of-heart Peace Corps type would, decided to pick up my mail for me. I won’t disclose here just how much mail I received, nor who it came from—if you, yes, you reading this blog right now, have not sent me mail, well then…you know. No, the important part of this story is that my folks came through like the superstars they are and sent me another care package the contents of which included the third season of Arrested Development. Yes, after several months and far too many blog entries to recall without a reference to one of the funniest shows ever made, I am now able to return to the humble origins of this blog. Thank you, mom and dad, you have done me and all the many, many readers of this blog a great service. What would an online journal entitled “Amor Prohibido” be, after all, without Arrested Development?

Ok, so in the event that I spoiled you last week (two weeks ago?) with stories of Presidential helicopters in corn fields and high school girls parading on stage to the hoots and hollers of an entire town, there will be nothing of the sort in this entry. I will tell you instead about some blood spilled—both on a village visit I did last week and in general on the TV news here. First, the village visit: I was in a truck driven by a gentleman working for the Centro de Salud of the municipality and riding with us was my counterpart at the mayor’s office. We were going to visit a tiny community of about 150 people at the absolute top of a massive hill to talk to them about instituting a rainwater collection system in their town. At the moment they have no water system of any kind and the relative elevation of their village means that their options are limited. The roads getting to this town are brutal and, truly, do not see cars pass over them much at all. (Seriously, I talk about how my town has nothing but dirt roads in all directions for hours but I live in the center of a booming metropolis compared to some of the sites I am visiting, this being one of them.) It was not a surprise, then, at a fork in the road nearly half way up the mountain to see a massive tree blocking further passage. This was no doubt due to any of the many storms that have come through recently and who knows how long ago the tree had fallen because the only thing on the other side of it was the village we were going to visit and I doubt they leave their perch very often.

We had in the back of the truck a moto because the mayor’s office guy had to run an errand even further out later on that day and the roads in that direction are not wide enough for a truck. There was no way to cut the tree and move it aside because we didn’t have a machete or ax so we decided the moto was our only option. Now during the discussion of what to do not once did walking the rest of the way even come into consideration for the gentlemen I was with, despite that we had clearly gone the majority of the way. Well I decided to show them who was the man and announced that I would hike to the town while the gentleman from the Centro de Salud rode the moto. Obviously, stupid on my part—but that’s not the point of this story. Three hundred meters in elevation and forty minutes after I began my trek (covered in sweat and still not having arrived at the village), I come across a man coming down the mountain on horseback. We exchange greetings and I ask him how much further to the town. He says another twenty minutes or so on foot, and I understand this part clearly, but then he goes into something about how “the man with the moto is coming back down right now behind me because there was an accident and I’m bleeding”. I was confused but understood that he was injured and I asked where and he directed me to the other side of his horse and pointed at his foot—there was a white rag tied around his foot covered in blood.

The man continued on down the road and I continued up, expecting to see my moto guy and get some better idea of what happened. Sure enough within two minutes the moto comes tearing around a corner and I flag him down and ask “How’d it go”, not really sure where the bloody foot guy fit into things and mostly asking about the rainwater presentation to the town. He answered very bluntly: “Not well. There weren’t many people available for the talk and then a man asked for a ride on the moto and we started to go and his shoelace got caught in the wheel and cut his foot up.” And that was pretty much that. We all went back down the mountain, got the man into the truck, strapped the moto down and went into the centro de salud in the nearest town. Once we were there and the injured man was receiving care from the medics, I took a look at the wound. From one side of his ankle all the way around the back to the other side was sliced open—his foot didn’t get ground up in the spokes but must have been cut by the disc which the spokes rotate on. Anyway, the cut was deep, deep enough that I worried that his Achilles tendon might have been severed. Apparently not, though, because the docs cleaned the wound and stitched him back up—18 stitches on one ankle! The whole time this man did not so much as grimace despite the fact that it looked like his heel might fall off. Calm and collected under excruciating circumstances. Unreal.

Now let’s move to blood spilled on the TV news. I figure you guys want bits of life down here every once and awhile and not just the exciting stories of romance and world-saving that I involve myself in on a day to day basis. So here it is: in Honduras the television news programs show things that I have not seen in R-rated movies…and they do it all the time. There is no warning either, no “what you are about to see may disturb you…” etc. They’re just talking about the news and then BAM—and you throw up in your mouth!! I’m going to give you just a couple examples, so you get the idea, but rest assured these are not the worst I have seen in my brief time down here. What you are about to read may disturb you, so skip ahead to the next paragraph if you don’t want to picture a couple unsettling images as you sit there in front of the computer. First one comes from a recent flood that hit the capital and while that got most of the footage they did stop to do a side story about how the commotion of the flood gave a new mother the chance to dispose of her unwanted child. Yup, then they cut to a shot of a plastic bag opened with a newborn baby inside, still covered in blood and clearly dead. Second one is a little more intriguing, no less disturbing. A couple of men were picked up on charges of having raped and murdered two five year old boys recently. The other prisoners knew of their alleged crimes as well, because within three hours of first arriving to the prison the men were burned alive. I missed the back story initially and walked into the TV room in my host family’s house and saw what looked to be a burned log in the middle of a concrete patio. And then I saw the kicker: a human arm extending sideways from the “burned log.” Yeah, the arm from the elbow up was completely normal but the body was unrecognizable as human; just a large, coal-black mass covered in flakes occasionally blowing away in the breeze. It can make mealtime an adventure.

On the lighter side of news, I was very pleased to see the US National Team win the Copa de Oro last week. You are all Americans and currently living in the US, so this regional tournament of the world’s most popular sport likely passed undetected on your sports radar (ie Sportscenter)—if I was in the States it would have happened to me, too. Anyway, the national teams from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean were represented—12 teams in all. The entire tournament was played in the States, too, with Mexico and Team USA being the heavy favorites. In fact, in the 8 times that this tournament had happened leading up to this year’s event, the USA and Mexico had won it between them 7 times. The only other team to win the tournament is Canada, so it is not a small thorn in the side of Central America that only teams north of C.A. have won it. This year’s final ended up being between USA and Mexico, of course, and the yanks came from behind to win 2-1. ¡Excelente! Next up for the US is the Copa America, which takes place in Venezuela (it started this week) and features all South American teams and also the US and Mexico. The US has gained significantly in worldwide stature in recent years (despite the ’06 World Cup) and we look good heading into this tournament having just won the Copa de Oro, but with teams like Brasil and Argentina around our boys are definitely not the favorites.

In Peace Corps news there is good and there is bad. The good is that my work has actually picked up a lot in recent weeks and I have barely had time to do leisure reading, let alone multiple viewings of the same movies. There have been many visits to villages to see what kind of water issues they are having and mostly these end without any blood shed on anyone’s part. There is also the occasional town meeting type event, where I basically introduce myself and sit back down and that’s it, but those have been great for meeting community representatives one on one and discussing problems to be fixed. So the work is good and at times has made me feel like I am actually beginning to do something here. The bad news is that recently three people I know pretty well decided to go back home for good. One of these was a close friend who left suddenly and since I haven’t been able to check email in almost two weeks I don’t know the details, just that he’s gone. The other two were people in my wat/san group as well and both were solid. I’m not going to pretend I know how Peace Corps life goes and how this impacts things specifically, but I do know that after a few months in my site I was looking forward to reuniting with people I trained with and know fairly well and that now these people will not be there. But what can you do besides go one day at a time. As the wise people at Sportscenter have said, “So-and-so is listed as day to day…but aren’t we all.”

To conclude this entry I will return to something I began last time, a “housing” update. In the last edition I talked about the imminent joys of living solo and described the place I had found, etc. Well I had made arrangements to rent this particular house and the people left in charge of it (the owner is in the States) assured me they would spend the next couple of weeks “fixing things up”. There has not been so much in the way of “fixing things up,” unfortunately, and the other thing is that while this house is pretty cool its location leaves something to be desired. On one side is the town liquor store and down the other side no more than ten meters is a pool hall, reknowned in Honduras for being filled with the town drunks and bums. Excellent. Now safety is not an issue because there are bars on the windows and the house has a wall and gate around it besides and since Hondurans love to put barbed wire on things, there is barbed wire snaking around the top of the gate and wall. But nearly every time I walk by now to check to see if anything is being “fixed”, I have noticed drunks passed out right in front of my new house-to-be. This is going to be fun. More to come from me, I hope all of you are doing well. Much love, Joe

Wes Anderson, Noam Chomsky, and high school girls…

Dog update: I have a new running route, this one has some serious hills and some seriously awesome views of the country. Really, if not to visit me some of you need to get down here just to see some of these vistas! Anyway, new route means new potential dog dangers, this must always be kept in mind. But to my surprise and delight I have not encountered any dogs interested in my running by enough to chase and/or attack me yet. In fact, to this point my site here in Victoria has become a run-without-a-stone-in-hand type of place…excellent.

Ok, so if week four helped me to see how my service could begin to take shape, then week five helped me to see how enlightened and cool I can become by watching Wes Anderson flicks and reading nonfiction books. Yes, it was a return to the general malaise of the first three weeks wherein there is much to be done but just not…right…now, damnit. The deal is us PCV’s are forbidden from riding motorcycles at all because in years past there were a number of deaths due to moto accidents. Ok, understood. Except that everyone in my neck of Honduras gets around by moto and when I say everyone I mean even the mayor. All of the roads are pretty bad around here, none of them are paved, and some aren’t big enough for cars. The municipality’s only car is in the shop, naturally, and so we have had to wait until the Centro de Salud made up their calendar for the summer of what towns they are going to visit so we can hitch a ride in their truck. Did you want to know all that? It means that next week there are villages to visit and work to begin…but this week, ahem, not.

Back to the issue at hand, Wes Anderson flicks and nonfiction books. If any of you dear friends and family out there have not yet seen either “The Royal Tenebaums” or “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” then I suggest you do so. Now I don’t plan on making this blog a “wow, this is the coolest movie/book/music group” type blog—no, that doesn’t interest me at all. But speaking purely objectively, if you have not seen these movies then you need to, and fast. They are brilliant and it is a kind of brilliance that transcends taste, I think. You know how seeing a Will Ferrell movie more than once makes it much funnier? Well, seeing a Wes Anderson movie more than once makes it funnier, cooler, and significantly more layered and complex than you initially realized. Seriously, get on it. I have watched each three times in recent weeks, with audio commentary and without, and I might not stop there.

To be completely honest, I should point out that the Wes Anderson flicks in question have been the only movies available for me to watch. Ever since arriving here in Victoria I have been leeching off of my sitemate, Gen, and her collection of books and movies (and Wes Anderson is all she’s got). See I was under the impression that movies and books would be a waste of luggage space and would lie useless on some shelf somewhere as I busily saved the world. But quickly I discovered that when the work comes along as slowly as it does, there are only so many times one can walk around the town waving to people or hours one can sit and read or play “solitaire”or “hearts” on the computer before pulling one’s hair out becomes the next logical step. Hence, other people’s movies. This is not a smooth and subtle request for movies or books, either. Once the work starts up I think it will occupy a lot of my time and if I had an entire library of movies it might definitely cut into my town integration time, which will be important. Also, once I come back to the states I don’t want to lug boxes of the stuff back with me. But you see the situation I was in. Gen and Wes Anderson to the rescue!

Nonfiction books. I finished Tom Friedman’s “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” last week and am now tackling “Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky”. What does all this mean? It means that in the very near future I am going to be much smarter than you. Ok, that’s not what it means at all. But for anyone who’s ever wanted to ditch work and responsibility and just sit in a chair and read, something they’ve always wanted to read but never did, for hours on end and for days in a row—the Peace Corps might just be for you! That is not, as I understand it, the current slogan…but it could be. And just in case the work does actually kick in soon and I do not have the opportunity to enlighten myself with the teachings of the Friedman’s and Chomsky’s of the world nearly as much, then I am making sure to take full advantage right now and really choosing to occupy myself with little else.

A couple of other things have happened since my last entry which were pretty unique. One was the beauty contest in my town and the other was the President of Honduras coming via helicopter (that whole dirt roads for hours in every direction thing, I imagine) to a nearby town. The beauty contest was between about 7 or 8 high school girls and is called “Novia del colegio” or, literally, “Girlfriend of the high school”—basically their version of Homecoming Queen. Except this is not held at a high school dance but rather at the town’s event center and the entire town is in attendance. The girls walk one by one onto the stage and do a prearranged routine for the crowd, some of them looking very comfortable in this kind of environment, others as if they had just put on high heels for the first time. Then they all stand next to one another and a middle aged man with a microphone asks the crowd to scream for each girl and that’s how the “novia” is chosen. Good times. The worst was that there was a dance for the town in the same center but everyone had to leave after the beauty contest so they could set up for the dance, etc., but the microphone dude wasted so much time having the previous year’s winner come and put the crown on Miss Novia del Colegio 2007 that by the time she got the microphone to thank everyone half the people were on their way out the door.

Then in the middle of this past week there was an event put on by the government in a nearby town to promote some corn growing initiative. It was held in the afternoon in the middle of a corn field just to emphasize the point, I guess. The only problem with that is the rainy season began last week and the rains, at least up here in Yoro, are well known for starting in the afternoon. And it’s true; nearly two weeks into the season and every single day the rains have started sometime after 3pm. So there is a pretty big crowd in this corn field listening to people talking about the initiative and how the President is on his way. Then we see a couple of choppers come over some distant hills and the camouflaged, rifle-toting military dudes drop some yellow smoke deals in the field and the choppers land and Mr. President hops out. That was a cool spectacle to witness and I wondered if Marine One has ever landed in some cornfield, perhaps in Iowa. Anyway, there’s a line of handshaking, sign waving, normal presidential fanfare, he gets onstage, makes his speech. The rain starts slowly and sporadically while he is talking, he does a good job incorporating it into what he’s saying, and before I know it he’s done, off the stage, and heading back to the choppers. Well no sooner does he get into the chopper, and this is just before it takes off, than the sky opens up and the rain starts coming down hard. We’re in a cornfield with no trees or buildings or hope for cover, only a handful of people brought umbrellas, and the one road leading to this field is packed with about seventeen yellow school buses, all from different towns, which are now chaotically filling up with people who want to get the hell out of dodge, all at once. It didn’t happen smoothly, as you might imagine. But it was a great event and something like out of a cheap Hollywood script—President comes to rural town to give speech, then leaves without incident, rains come, everyone but President looks like they went swimming with their clothes on.

Lastly, the housing search. Life with my current host family is rapidly nearing an end, and while that means no more meals cooked for me or laundry washed for me, or TV of any kind (not that theres ever any good TV), it also means complete independence and privacy and comfort. I’ll take the good with the bad on this one. There is not much in the way of available housing in Victoria, but after talking with several people I was able to find a little place available to rent. It has a small patio in front and even a back yard, so I’m crossing my fingers that all goes well and I can actually move into this place in a couple of weeks. It may be a bit longer before I have, you know, a bed to sleep on or chairs to sit in, but before you know it I may have my own fully functional place for any and everyone to come and visit. Excellent. OK, that’s it from me. I hope you are all doing well. I love and miss you guys.
Joe

life begins...

Ok, so I have not done an exceptional job keeping this bad boy updated but this may be the new rule rather than exception since I have to travel to get to internet capable towns. Really, you all don’t want to be reading much more from me than once every ten days to two weeks anyway, do you? Didn’t think so…
So things here in Yoro, that is life as a Peace Corps Volunteer, started out very slowly. They told us in training that the majority of us would go through exactly that, especially at the beginning, but I chose to believe they were talking about other people. Wrong. I will not bore you all with the details of why the work did not begin right off the bat, just be content with the knowledge that it did not. I read two books during the eleven + weeks of training; I read three in the first three weeks here. I walked around the town meeting people and just waving and saying hi so much that I think the allure of a new gringo in town had long since faded and most were just annoyed…“Look, here comes the new gringo. He’s gonna wave and say hi, let’s duck inside real quick as he passes!”

Yea, it was kind of odd, definitely frustrating, and despite the people I had met and the books I had read, there was not much to show for the effort. I thought about all the stories I had heard of some volunteers that just end up reading books for two years. That idea does have some romantic qualities to it but if you were in my shoes you’d be feeling the same thing—WTF, I didn’t come down here to read!! Another thing I did do is settle into a decent running routine, too, which I mention as a way of transitioning to the beautiful views that are all around my town. It’s great pasture land with rolling hills covered in vegetation down one path and down another you’re running alongside a river that cuts between little mountains—just beautiful. So even though there was not much going on, I was occasionally pretty pleased with myself when I would stop and look around and take in the surroundings on one of these runs! Sustainable work? Nope. Any work at all? Haha, no. Beautiful Central American views? ¡Si!

Week four began with a bang, though, and continued on with a very different theme from the previous weeks—things to do, projects to begin. On Monday I went with a guy from the Muni, who is the mayor’s very knowledgeable water guy, and a gentleman that works at the Centro de Salud, or health center (sounds like a gym, think more a village hospital type deal). We went to a village up in the hills that has no water system at all to talk to the local leaders and see for ourselves what the situation was. Long, winding, unpaved, rocky mountain roads for over an hour, 1000 meters higher in elevation and we were there. Man, what a difference in weather a little mountain elevation can give; it was breezy and actually quite comfortable up there as opposed to the stifling heat of my town.
Anyway, we trekked all over town taking elevation points, checking their water source in the forest and where they think a tank would go, seeing how high other important sites in town were, etc all day. One might call it a feasibility study—nothing scientific, just checking to make sure they had what is needed for a basic water system.

Anyway, that took all day and by the time we returned I realized I had just completed a genuine day’s work for the first time here…it was pretty exciting. Later in the week the Spanish NGO in town hosted a seminar for the representatives of about 16 communities in the area about the importance of adding chlorine to their water systems. This was pure gold because I am the new water volunteer in town and instead of meeting all of these guys one at a time by traveling to 16 different villages, they were all in my town for the last two days of the week. It was an excellent seminar because in the area, for those communities that have water systems set up and running, most are not treating the water with anything. So while it is great that they have water there are still problems with illnesses, especially in the children, and they need to know how to manage treating their systems with chlorine.

The opportunity to meet all of these men who are on the water boards in their towns was excellent and what they were learning about was tangible and necessary. At one point during the training it struck me that there is no other place I would rather be than here, doing what I am doing right now. It seems odd, to be writing about grown men, local leaders of their communities no less, learning for the first time about the how and why of adding chlorine to their water systems. But that will have such a significant impact on the health of their towns that it is kind of exciting to witness. The other thing is these particular men are representing towns that are fairly well off in comparison to many others. The two towns I visited prior to this seminar had no water system at all—none at all. Every last drop of water that is used in these towns—for bathing, washing clothes and dishes, cooking, drinking, using the latrine, etc.—is coming from a small river running nearby in one case, and in the other from a small ground water source that runs into a very shallow rock bed. In both cases the water source runs very close to dry during the summer and is never very clean when there is water. The people in these towns often have to choose what tasks they can and can not do on a given day based on how much water is available.

I could go on and on but you get the picture. After last week I am more excited than ever to get to work and make an impact in the lives of the people I am meeting. It was very nearly an accident that I ended up in this program, but I can not think of anything else I would rather be doing. I just read a very funny book, one of the things I was busy with during the first twenty or so days, called “The Sex Lives of Cannibals.” It’s about a guy who goes with his girlfriend to live on a remote island in the South Pacific because he’s not satisfied with how his life is turning out. He relates his adventures and most are laugh out loud funny, but in one case he describes a situation where he had a lack of water available in his house. He is describing how he was frantic at one point and suddenly realizes that when you break life down to its most basic necessities, water tops the list—there is no one thing more important. My folks were kind enough to send me a care package which I received recently and in it was the Green Issue of Vanity Fair. Check this out, it comes from an article in the magazine about “Big Water”:

“According to a report prepared by the International Water Management Institute, a respected international research group, one person out of every three on the planet today lacks reliable access to freshwater, whether because the water is unsafe, unaffordable, or unavailable.”

One in three?! This is followed by a quote from an author and national chairwoman of a citizen’s advocacy group describing how more children die everyday from dirty water than from HIV/AIDS, malaria, war, and accidents combined. I personally had no idea the worldwide water situation was so dire but it seems clear that in the coming years this is an issue that will begin to take hold more and more on the world stage.

Anyway, things in week four helped me to see how my service here could begin to take shape and that was exciting. But to return to “The Sex Lives of Cannibals” if I could (and I can), I would like to close this particular blog chapter by making an observation about animals—dogs, to be more precise. In his remote South Pacific island, Maarten (the author) remarks that he never thought he would be in a place mentally where he would feel ok hurling stones at dogs. As his new life on Kiribati unfolds, of course, he comes to feel very comfortable doing just that. Similarly, dogs here in Honduras seem to share little with their North American brothers and sisters. For one they are never spayed or neutered so at any moment one is liable to witness doggie love in action, which the first couple of times is somewhat amusing but soon becomes depressing. They are truly scavengers here, roaming the streets with chunks of their fur missing if they have any, many with permanent scars carving lines across their snouts or bodies, and feeding themselves off the garbage they can scrounge from the streets.

It goes without saying that, for the most part, they are not welcomed into the homes of Hondurans as they are in the States. Certainly there are many homes and families that have a healthy relationship with their dog and in those instances the extent of our North American love-fest with these animals does seem a tad sickening. But generally speaking Hondurans have no love of man’s best friend and he returns the favor. If I had a nickel for every PCV that came to help us during training with a hole in their jeans who had a story about a run-in with a dog or pack of dogs—well, I would have several nickels. During FBT in Sabanagrande one could not go on a run without a rock in hand and expect to complete the run unmolested. To this point the dogs here in my town are of the lay-around-all-day-regardless-of-how-close-anything-comes-to-their-“territory” type as opposed to the spittle-spewing-psychos-with-a-taste-for-human-blood type. This is a good thing…but I do keep a close eye on how close rocks are at any moment as I walk around town, just to be safe. More to come.
Joe