My name is Judge...

Well there, happy 2008!! Its been awhile but I’m back at the blogging scene so you can all sleep a little easier now. I hope everyone had a fantastic holidays and that you bums are now back at work or school! Ok, before I forget, any suggestions regarding Mr. Blog here? Did you guys like the rolling update or do you have other ideas? I have noticed, of course, that after about month four or five that the “Comments” section went bare…this is your end of the deal, kids, so lets try to pick that ball up again.

Not much point trying to recap what happened in the last couple of months, but it was a good time. All of November was essentially a wash, as I think I was mentioning in the last full entry I had, except the last week when I was able to return to one of the villages and fix the problems with the altitude of the (proposed) conduction line. That started an avalanche of work that didn’t end until a few days before Christmas, which was nice, and included essentially completing my first water system design. Whoa, it looks like I am recapping after all! I spent Christmas in my town, which was actually not depressing or lonely at all, and was worth several months of community integration in just the three days leading up to and including Christmas. Walking through town singing carols, exchanging food as gifts, going to a 5 yr olds birthday party, evening mass and a dance on Christmas Eve to name a few things. It was not like being home with friends and family, of course, but it was nice to feel like a part of things here.

Anyway, despite that warm feeling of being in site for Navidad, within a couple of days I got anxious and decided to take a trip to El Salvador. I kind of just picked up and left without really letting anyone (besides Peace Corps) know because I didn’t want the opportunity to slip away. I realize now, after having been in Honduras for almost a year, that time slips away largely unnoticed and before I know it I will be completing end-of-service forms. The trip itself was unspectacular in that I didn’t really intend it to be an adventurous trip—no white-water rafting, no hiking up a volcano, none of that. Just kind of wanted to jump across the border and see some new cities and in that sense it was fun. I went to San Salvador for a couple days and to Santa Ana as well. I loved the activity in the capital and there are a number of Monseñor Oscar Romero sites as well, which were sobering and inspiring. Santa Ana is much more calm and laid back—I sat in the town square for hours one afternoon just people watching. I stayed at backpacking type spots and that was another highlight because they are not expensive and its easy to meet fellow travelers or, in the case of San Salvador, other Peace Corps volunteers. And that was about it, nothing too exciting but a nice trip into an unknown country with sites to see and places to visit.

I came back to Honduras and slept over in San Pedro Sula the night of the Iowa primary because one cannot reasonably make the trip from San Salvador to humble Victoria, Yoro in one day. That was kind of exciting to watch, for both sides of the aisle I suppose, and was reassuring that our country has not entirely lost its mind. That’s it on that subject—El Amor Prohibido is not going to devolve into political commentary this election year. And then I made it back home and it was nice to be back. Making things even nicer were that there were two bodacious babes waiting for me!! Yes, by that I mean my sitemate (and friend) Gen and her friend Meghan Battle.

Since it is a new year I have decided to stop putting “my sitemate” at the beginning of “Gen” any time I mention her. This is the last entry where that will happen and the only entry where I explain this process—“my sitemate Gen” will henceforth be just “Gen”. The five of you reading this blog already know this and I don’t anticipate any new arrivals late to the game. Gen you all know because I have mentioned her on El Amor Prohibido before—Meghan Battle may be a new addition, which if that is the case, I apologize to everyone involved. I met Meg for the first time in the summer of 2007—I had just recently arrived in Victoria after our swearing-in ceremony in May and she came in June to live and work with Gen on a youth project for two months. The two of them had met and become friends in Boston, where Gen worked for a brief time before joining PC and where Meg was (and is) a current student of one of the greatest academic institutions the civilized world has known—namely, Boston College. Yes, so in the span of less than two months in 2007, two BC students (one former, one current) arrived in Victoria, Yoro completely independent of one another.

It goes without saying that Meg is naturally very intelligent, socially aware, stunningly attractive—the hallmarks of a BC student—and that we quickly became friends. (That last sentence is all true except for the “hallmarks” aside; I’m evidence enough of that particular generalization’s blatant inaccuracy.) Anyway, she did her thing here last summer, was another friendly face that helped ease my transition into the pc way of life, and that was that…

…and then I come back from El Salvador, five months later and a mere three days into the new year, and who comes knocking on my gate a few hours after I get into town? Yes, yes, you’re very good—Meg Battle is the answer! She was only in town for a few days this time, but it was time well spent. A few days after I returned the three of us took a mini-break and went to fairly large waterfall near the lake (Lago de Yojoa) and took a tour in and underneath it and did some steep jumps into nearby pools…it was a good time. So there you have it, that pretty much catches things up. Back in Victoria now and there’s plenty of work ahead.

I should note that I am no longer the only resident at the house I am renting here. Gen’s dog, Pele, gave birth to a litter of pups at the end of November—the day after people broke into her house, to be exact. Those pups are now eight weeks old so a few days ago I welcomed in Tek and right now we’re going through the messy process of potty training, among other things. Below is a photo of Tek and I giving our best ¨magnum.¨ More soon...

No, they used to ROAST dad because they thought he had a sense of humor about himself...

...but he doesnt and neither do you.

Hey everyone, I just broke out the old Arrested Development DVDs for the first time in a couple months (this is why my entry titles have been hurting lately) and came across one of the Christmas episodes...how fitting. I have nothing poetic or profound to say here but I did want to tell you all (except for those of you who I dont know) how grateful I am to have friends and family like you. But thats about as mushy as I want to get. I will be here in my site for Navidad and then who knows where for the new year--if I do something cool I'll be sure to bring mr. camera along to document it. Otherwise, I want to wish everyone a merry christmas and happy new year! Take care of yourselves and enjoy being around your friends and family! Much love from Honduras.
Joe

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Its been a brief bit of time since my last entry but in lieu of writing a novel I thought I would bridge the gap with some pictures. Ok, the first few come from that village I described feeling very peaceful at, the one where the church (where I slept) overlooked the soccer field which overlooked valley below...

This is an afternoon shot...

...and this one is bright and early in the morning.

This is an image of the village itself, and you can really see the majority of it here:

And then finally some sunset shots I couldnt pass up...

The next few come from a study I was doing for another village, this one six kilometers to the east of Victoria. Unfortunately the fuente, or water source, for their system is another five and a half kilometers to the north of my town. And because of the massive hills in between, there is no cutting a shorter path between the two points; five and a half km from fuente to Victoria, then six more to their town. This past week we were only able to finish the first leg but it is the harder of the two--anyway, more later. Now the pictures...

A field along the way to the water source...

This is us cutting a path and taking measurements as we slowly work our way back to my town...

...and this is a great shot above Victoria one day as we were returning.

Its been a strange and hectic few weeks since my last entry. First off there was Thanksgiving and while my sitemate Gen and I were out of town celebrating that with friends in different towns, her house was broken into. Not fun at all. The day she found out and returned to Victoria her dog had eight pups, so there was that going on at the same time. She is much better now but was understandably in a bit of a haze for awhile there, not really wanting to do much of anything. Right after that happened I had a rush of work things come together and for three weeks straight was in three different villages, either making repairs to existing topo study problems or initiating studies. It was great to be so busy and get some very good work done but I am glad to be at home in Victoria doing computer work this week. OK, thats it for the moment--I have to run but will say hi again before Navidad! I hope everyone is well.

Joe

turkey day....

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I am truly thankful for all of my family and friends, you are all the best. Enjoy the turkey leftovers...

...there was talk of boiling me into a biscuit at one point

November 6
It was a little over a week ago that I returned from my five day excursion to the north of the municipality, cold and wet and sick. That next week was largely spent recovering and staying in and it did the trick because I feel much better now. I slept or took naps like it was my job, took a steady dose of medicine Gen had given me, washed my clothes, cleaned up the house a bit, and organized my work stuff but that was largely it for productivity for the week. Gen recently asked me to help out coaching her baseball team of 8 to 12 yr olds so that has been on the agenda as well. I love it because at the moment it is the first honest to goodness work I am actually doing in the town of Victoria. I ran practice on my own on Thursday and Friday because Gen was out of town and that was an experience. “Bad News Bears” is the term that comes to mind—my hopes for a well-oiled baseball machine did not survive the first drill I planned for them. In my defense it was my first practice solo with them, but I failed to grasp just how unimportant they view fielding, or how small some of them are, so I did not anticipate how frightening that throw from the shortstop position to first base would be. Collecting the ground ball I threw towards them was difficult for many and then throwing accurately to the first baseman was just not in the cards. Most of the throws were moon-shots that traveled nearly as far vertically as they did horizontally, very few of which landed within several feet of first. I scrapped the next few drills I had planned because they had an increased degree of difficulty, not something that would have been helpful to anyone. We scrimmaged next, and there were some bright spots, but it is probably enough to say that every time I turned to ask the defense how many outs we had or where the next throw was going the outfielders were lying down or throwing their gloves up in the air and catching them. Hey, we’re not the Red Sox, but we’re working at it…

In other news that endless cloud-cover, nonstop rainy weather that I had in my travels while in the north of the municipality has settled over Victoria itself recently. On Friday afternoon I was talking to a friend who works at the mayor’s office and was planning on visiting a bee farm (????) the next day. He invited me to go along to see it but told me we’d only go if there was sunshine because when it’s cloudy the bees are much more “bravas” or brave/aggressive and we’d get stung. There was sunshine as we had that conversation and since then the sun has not made an appearance. We’re going on four days now of constant drizzling or outright rain and not a speck of blue skies or sunshine. It is actually cold here now—Gen was wearing a scarf yesterday, I am wearing long sleeve shirts and a sweatshirt when I go out, I no longer run the fan at night when I go to bed but now need to go out and find a blanket! It is a climate of mourning, one that seems appropriate due to BC’s first loss of the season. FSU. FSU. C’mon!

November 8
Still no sunshine, still an off-and-on drizzle that makes every path and road here a muddy mess. Some buses can not get to their destinations because of the mud and the hills. It’s still cold but I am healthy again, gracias a Dios, and have not really accomplished a whole lot this week. One of the two communities that I need to return to in order to correct problems with the conduction line gave me the red light for work this week. I had planned on working up there this week but on Monday spoke with a member of the community who had helped carry a pregnant woman from that village down the three hour trek in a hammock. Because of that and other reasons that community will be largely absent this week and unable to do any work on the water system. We re-scheduled for over the weekend because I need to be on the North Coast for a PC meeting in the middle of the next week. So nothing this week but Sunday we’re on through Tuesday when I need to come back.


November 12
Well, the Sunday deal did not happen—it is Monday now and I should be in a village making adjustments to a conduction line. But no. No one showed so I am still here in Victoria, rotting in my current streak of unproductiveness. In two days I leave for that PC meeting and until then I have more Newsweeks to read, I guess. Can’t fix problems in village number one because it requires a piece of equipment I do not currently have and need a wat/san engineer buddy to bring. He’s ocupado at the moment, you know, working near his own site. Understandable. Frustrating, but understandable. Village number two with problems requires only that someone come down and make the journey with me, since it is over three hours and I have only done it once and would likely get lost along the way and end up eating roots and poisonous berries. This is not the first time that my bag has been packed and ready to go and nothing happened. Argh.

The part about the current moment in my life that forces me to smile and enjoy God’s sense of humor is that my week and a half of zero progress has aligned itself perfectly (and coincidentally?) with one of the busiest extended periods in Gen’s schedule. Devotees will remember that my sitemate is named Gen, and while she is as professional as PC volunteers get and generally always has something going on, is not always leading a week-long (and all day Saturday) leadership conference deal for youth in the town and immediately following it up the next day (Sunday) by taking several people from neighboring villages into Tegucigalpa for free cataracts surgery. And this all-hands PC meeting that everyone in the north MUST attend later in the week? Oh, she will not be in attendance because on those dates she is running a training program for midwives in the area. Uh huh. Sounds about right to me. Youth leadership. Cataracts surgery. Midwives training. All in a two week span. What does my similar two week span entail? Several Newsweeks read. Several meals cooked. I washed my sheets. Oh, and I’ll go to this PC meeting. And that’s about it. Excellent. I know that comparing yourself to others is never a great idea and that once I get over this temporary hump that I have a ton of work to get done before Christmas. But at the moment it is as if I am stuck in Groundhog Day and that everyone else is going at warp speed. Dont cry for me, America, I´ll be OK.

...because we're brothers, mom, and we kinda like each other.

October 12
Just got back yesterday from four days in another part of the country, a department called Olancho, visiting a friend. This friend, who we’ll call “Todd” just happens to be an engineer in my group, so I thought paying him a visit and staying over at his place was the least I could do for the hours of work he put in helping me transfer my topo study notes into something resembling a water system. “Todd” is a very smart guy and very cool to boot and I would have been pretty much nowhere without his help, so from that perspective the week was a good one. I also now have a much better understanding how these gravity-fed water systems will work and how to create a workable system based on only field notes—this was the key part because I did not want to have to run to an engineer every time I completed a study. The downside was the realization that there are significant problems with the water systems I am proposing to design.

At this point I have gone on three separate trips to do studies: the conduction line section of one village, the distribution network section of the same village a couple of weeks later, and the conduction line and distribution network together of the village I visited last week. Trip one of three, obviously the first study I had ever done, looked just like that once all the information was put into the program we use—I made mistakes left and right and the information made very little sense. So that one needs to be re-done. Studies two and three were a huge improvement and much more accurate (made sense and everything), which is nice, except they reveal that the proposed placement of the tubes or the storage tank (or both in one case) is just not going to work. Both these villages I have done studies in have very, very little difference between the altitude of where the water source is and the altitude where the community is located, something that’s obviously crucial to a gravity-fed system. The great part is now I know exactly where the problems begin and end so I can go to the community and say, “from this particular point XYZ we need to lower the conduction line 15 meters until we get to point ABC and from there we’re fine.” But both systems are going to need a lot more work and will not end up exactly how either community had hoped. Asi son las cosas.


October 14
Sunday at the moment and I just had confirmed something I had suspected, something that has become nearly a tradition in recent years…and that is Boston College traveling to South Bend and winning. Let’s be accurate—that happens in Chestnut Hill, too. Ok, ok, I shouldn’t kick a leprechaun when he is down. Yes, I understand that the Irish are going through a season of major growing pains, the kind to be expected when you lose major stars on both sides of the ball to the NFL or to graduation or both. Understood. But this most recent defeat is the fifth in a row between these two schools, if I am not mistaken, and possibly sixth in the last seven meetings. And included in there is a top-10 ranked, Brady Quinn-led Irish squad as well. Can we say “pattern”?! No, ND fans, the students and alumni of Boston College will have none of your, “It’s only because we lost all our stars this year—just wait until next year.” Between ND and BC, this year was just business as usual.

In Honduras news, Friday was my sitemate Gen’s birthday, so there was a little get together at her casa that included the breaded, sesame seed covered, topped with spicy mandarin sauce chicken I mentioned in an earlier entry. Good eatin’! And then Saturday night there was a fiesta in the town hall and that was a very good time, dancing with the locals. More to come.


October 18
Just confirmed plans for next week. Next Tuesday I will take a couple of buses to a town about 5 hrs away (it’s amazing this place is still in my town’s municipality) and from there I will be visiting six or seven villages I have never been to before to see what their water problems are. That will be good, I have been wanting to get out to these communities for awhile but never had the means. Now I have been introduced to a gentleman who works with the Centro de Salud here in Victoria who spends a lot of his time out where I am going next week, so he’ll be showing me around. The whole thing should take around three or four days which means I should come back by Friday or Saturday.

As for the communities where I did topo studies and need to return to, that planning is still ongoing. I have been fortunate to see members of both communities so far in town this week and been able to explain what the deal is with the designs. But at this point I can not say exactly when I can return because of a couple of PC meetings that have been scheduled for November. Frustrating at the moment, I know more for them than it is for me.


October 20
Happy Birthday, Cutrone!


October 22
I have been feeling sick and have not really slept well in recent days but today decided to get up early to run anyway—actually mostly because I’ll be gone for the rest of the week starting tomorrow and won’t have a chance to run. Anyway, my headache and sore throat and stuffy nose ceased to be a burden the moment I looked at my phone…three text messages and a voicemail all telling me the same thing. SOX GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!! I had been completely in the dark and for some reason these same friends who broke the great news had disappeared earlier in the week. The last I had heard from anyone was this past Wednesday that they were down 3-1 and game 5 was in Cleveland on Thursday. And then nothing from anyone. Maybe I’m exaggerating; someone did text me on Saturday morning that Boston had won game 5. But aside from that one there were no texts or phone calls all of Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. The tension was excruciating! I did not know until early this morning (Monday) that the Sox won games six and seven, too! Unreal. I know by the time I am able to get to an internet town and post this there is a decent chance the World Series will already be over, but that’s the risk you take with the rolling update, eh?! Go Sox!


October 29
It is a Monday, I am still feeling sick, and that must mean there is good news about the Sox. Congratulations to RED SOX NATION—WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS 2007!!! Was it really just last week that I had gotten word that they were going to the World Series? Yes, yes it was. Did the whole damn series take place from Wednesday to Sunday? Apparently so. Amazing, I don’t know what else to say. And I really shouldn’t try because, unfortunately, I did not see a single game of their playoff run so I have only bits and pieces from people to form a picture in my head of how things went. Man, another come-from-behind seven game ALCS followed by another World Series sweep…that’s crazy. As soon as I get to an internet town I plan on copying and pasting the recaps of every single game I missed. I may do it for Colorado’s NLCS run, too, because from what I’ve heard it sounded like they were on a tear until this week. But you already know about all of that, so I digress…

On Saturday afternoon I returned from my northern-Victoria-village-jaunt ‘07 and not in a good state. As my entry for the 22nd mentioned, I had been feeling sick even before I left but over the course of the week it got worse. The work aspect was good—I saw towns I had never seen and met with the people who know what their water scene is like, saw water sources in the middle of forests, and now have a good idea of who is ready for what. But I left sick and was in places where the elevation is three times what it is here in Victoria just as a cold front moved in to Honduras. I really do not think I saw the sun more than twice over the five days I was gone and it was cold and wet nearly everywhere I visited. Anyway, I came back on Saturday afternoon, having begun the day in a village 3 towns and 6 hrs hike away from Victoria, exhausted and shivering to the bone. I only did 2 hrs of the 6 hr hike on foot, luckily, because I was fortunate enough to be on horseback for the first three hours and then caught a bus for the homestretch which turned the last hour into twenty minutes. I had not showered in five days but the last thing I wanted was to stand under a cold stream of water. Woe is me, I know!

I will say this: my romantic notion of life in these villages has been thoroughly squashed. Although three of the four villages I spent the night in had some sort of solar plant that brought electricity to certain homes until about 9pm, many of the others that I visited during the day did not and almost none of them had latrines of any kind. Part of it is that I was not feeling so hot during the trip, but the experience definitely dragged on me. All of the people were very hospitable and generous, of course, and I did not lack for food or a bed wherever I went. It seemed like I had a cup of coffee every couple of hours during the day; with every new village I encountered there was at least one or two cups in different homes to be had. I have nothing eloquent or profound to say about this, but I still have an image in my head of the final village I stayed the night in. At dinner all seven of the family members crowd into the kitchen to eat in turns by the light of the wood burning stove, the only light and heat source in the house. And these are not malnourished, weak children either, but young men in their late teens or early twenties who have been working alongside dad in the corn or coffee fields for years, and teenage girls who are helping their mother with everything from carrying buckets of water from Lord knows how far away to cooking and cleaning for the entire household; all of them doing the kind of manual labor that would have made me shudder or cry if I were asked to do the same at their age. And still the image of life in these villages has gone from humble and peaceful to exhausting. More to come—I’m going to an internet town mañana and need to get to bed because I’m still coughing up a lung!

Andy Griffith wasn’t the bombshell…?

October 6
I just got back yesterday from doing a topo study in that town I was supposed to visit a couple of weeks ago but couldn’t because heavy rains had ruined the path. Two men came to my home on Monday morning with one horse between them and we set out for their village (~200 people) soon afterward. It turned out to be a solid three hour trek over very unforgiving terrain, much like I had been warned about. Devotees will remember I was advised against making this particular journey last month because of how difficult it would be…I thought at the very least they were exaggerating. Not so. First off, the three hour trek is exactly that—we left shortly before noon and arrived around quarter past 3pm. Secondly, while the journey itself is a bit less than 10km one way, you are climbing a solid 800 meters in elevation from my town to theirs. Finally, and most unfortunately, the path itself is not nice…nightmare is too strong a word, I think, but difficult doesn’t quite do it justice.

It was raining when we left which did not make things any easier because the first rough patch upon leaving my town is a steep and winding climb on solid rock. This is not gravel but stones the size of your foot and slightly bigger surrounding chunks of exposed boulders. You can imagine how annoying this can be, especially on a steady climb—in wet weather you want to avoid the boulders because they are slick as ice but in dry the smaller stones are anything but a stable place to put your foot. I was on horseback (they brought it for me because they thought I was bringing a whole host of heavy equipment which I was not and because they understand that gringo = hiking burden due to a lack of basic outdoors competency…that’s fair) and they were on foot, the two men accompanying me, which made me feel like a princess. But they were not carrying anything and I had a rather full backpack of clothes, notebooks, some equipment and was not about to refuse their offer of the horse. The horse did not much like the stone climb but was pretty confident and we made our way up without incident. The only other part of the journey worth mentioning came toward the end, deep in a forest where the light of the sun rarely penetrates. There we encountered the part I was most nervous about, the part where the men from two weeks ago said is so nasty even horses fall over. What it amounts to is a twenty minute climb and descent, both fairly steep, over nothing but mud; clay-like at parts and marsh-like at others. The horse did well, especially considering one of the men was walking behind us occasionally whipping him with a small branch over this section—the last thing I wanted the horse to be worried about going over this mud-covered forest was being whipped from behind, but he managed well. There was definitely a spot or two where the depth of the mud surprised even the horse and we stumbled a bit, splashing mud and water everywhere, but overall no issues.

And then we arrived at the village. My decision to not bring a camera was an unfortunate one, both because from atop the village I suspect you can capture the entire 25 houses, school, and church that encompass it AND because this village opens up onto a valley on the other side and the surrounding mountainous areas as well. It is a very impressive view to say the least. I won’t go through a day by day list of what all we did but will run briefly through some of the highlights. Shortly after we arrived there was a small town meeting where I mentioned what I would be doing and what I needed from them and the town discussed other organizational items among themselves. After we had everything concerning the work covered, one of the ladies in charge put out this question to the assembled group—“Ok, so who is going to feed him?” And there was silence. A prolonged silence. It was, for nearly a minute, one of the most awkward situations I think I have been in. No one said anything, everyone kind of absently looked around the room, waiting for someone else to say something. After awhile I started to suddenly not feel so awkward as I realized that sooner or later they would figure it out. That I was in fact there to help them AND that they had known I was coming for several weeks at least. At no point was I worried that the lady in charge would walk over to me and say, “I’m sorry. We can’t find anyone who will feed you. We’ll take you home now.” Then someone brought up tortillas and they were talking about that for a bit and I absent-mindedly kept one ear to the conversation as I chuckled to myself about the uniqueness of the situation. Then the lady in charge got my attention and asked me, “How many tortillas do you eat in a day?” I was stunned with the question; I was sure it was a joke even as part of me knew that it was not a joke at all. I unconsciously made a weird face, I’m sure, as I tried to rack my brain to find an appropriate answer, and there were clearly others in the room who appreciated the awkwardness of the scene because no sooner did I hesitantly offer a number than several people began laughing hysterically. I couldn’t help but laugh as well and soon everyone in the room was laughing.

In the end I did not lack for food at all; on the contrary they were over-generous and gave me much more than I asked for. Another one of the funny things I noticed as the week progressed was just how the meals the family that was feeding me grew in complexity. Tuesday, the first day of the topo study, a group of ten or so men from the village and I make our way deep into the forest to find the water source and get things going. We are working for several hours, one group just hacking away at the vegetation with their machetes, making a path so the other group of us could slowly mark our way and plot the changes in elevation. One can imagine this being a very masculine, even savage type of work—we’re in the middle of the wilderness, after all, blazing our own trail, making the forest bend to our demands at the end of a machete. And then around noon who appears almost out of nowhere but the wife of one of the men helping me, with her two little girls, holding lunch for me and her husband. How long they had been there before I noticed them or exactly how they made it out to where we were I have no idea. All I know is that my illusions of us being Lewis and Clark type adventurers was dashed as I watched the little girls with pig-tails walking hand in hand with mom, calmly making their way back to the community after leaving us our lunch.

Ok, so lunch on that particular day was in a tupperware type deal with beans, rice, and corn tortillas—a good, solid meal and pretty standard fare, you just use the tortillas to scoop up the beans and rice. The second day for lunch the mother did the same, made her way out to our location around noon with her girls to bring lunch, emasculating us all. My meal was similar to the first day only this time it came on a dinner plate with silverware, all wrapped tightly in one bag and in another a plastic bottle of a kool-aid type drink with a glass cup to drink it with! Meanwhile her husband is eating his lunch out of a plastic bag, no plates or silverware or anything. By day three we were doing our work in the community itself, so there was no hike involved in bringing us our meals. But on this day when the mother arrived at where we were working, she asked if I was ready to eat, I responded that I was, and she proceeded to withdraw a dinner plate with rice, beans, cheese, and flour tortillas. Then she whipped out a tupperware dish, pulled two drumsticks out and placed them on the rice, and then poured some of the marinating juices onto the rice…and only then was my lunch ready for me to eat. What is that banana dessert dish where the waiter lights it on fire just before serving it? It was like that. I was impressed by what she was doing and a little embarrassed she had gone to so much trouble for me. Yes, all of the meals were excellent and if anything, despite all the hiking that I was doing, I think I left that village a bit heavier than when I arrived.

The work of the study itself was good, nothing exceptional about it. This village was much smaller than the first one I did, only twenty five houses as opposed to over a hundred, so it was nice to be able to complete everything in less than a full week. I was put up in their church, which amounts to little more than a barn-looking structure with a dirt floor and a few benches inside. The family taking care of me was extremely kind and generous with everything and hung a hammock up in there so I could sleep and gave me a fantastic thick blanket to use at night so I wouldn’t freeze. Overall the conditions in this village were more spartan than the in the first village. There is absolutely no electricity in this one whereas in the first there were a series of houses linked to some sort of solar battery which provided light until about 8pm or so. This village has no roads that cars or buses can travel over to get to it while the first has a bus that comes through twice a day. Really and truly, the only way the people in this village interact with the mayors office or sell the crops they grow to the city stores is to make the three hour hike into town. They do it often and within an hour or two they turn around and head back home.

One of the best parts of the entire week was every night at around 7 or 8 when I would prop a little chair outside the church where I was sleeping and just sit. The only lights outside of the stars, which absolutely cover the entire sky, are those of a small town across the valley and at the top of a nearby mountain. It is probably a good couple dozen kilometers to the town but it looks so close because of the lights. The church sits on a hillside overlooking the little soccer field they have 30 meters below and the field itself overlooks the valley some 500 meters below that. The nights were cloudless when I was there and with all the stars and moon it was easy to make out the shadows of the outlying mountains and descent to the valley. It was so incredibly peaceful to just sit there, staring out at the landscape, taking in the stars and the lights of that town across another mountaintop. It is not altogether different from the peace one might get by looking into a burning candle in the middle of a darkened room, for example, but even in the town I live in I can not find a view—nothing close to it—like the one in this tiny village of 25 houses. Extremely peaceful.

We finished up on Thursday afternoon and then on Friday morning I headed back home. There was a family headed back to my town intent on selling several large bags of frijoles they had grown in the village, so they loaded up two horses, the owner was on a third horse and his wife and her sister and I followed on foot. I was aprehensive about being on foot because of the condition of the path, but I actually did not want to be on a horse because I had a vision of a nasty fall over the tricky mud part. I figured I could go as slowly as I needed to on foot and, after all, I was walking in boots I bought here that handle mud better than anything one can find at REI or any sporting good store Stateside. On top of all that I was only carrying my own weight because the man on horseback offered to wear my backpack, while the women were switching off carrying an infant and their purses and were only wearing flimsy shower sandals. How in the hell can they make this journey in those things? I thought to myself as we started out. I would soon discover that they barely walked at all—over the treacherous mudslide section they seemed to float effortlessly from tiny exposed rocks or roots. I looked at nothing else for entire sections besides the back of their sandal-clad feet and tried to mimick their foot placement as they danced over any and every nasty surface the path offered. It did not matter if they had a child in hand or not—as I struggled to steady myself by grabbing at everything I could, they would just nimbly hop from point to point. The women’s ability to navigate the terrain was dumbfounding and truly humbling and made me think maybe I did belong on horseback after all, with a placard hanging around my neck proclaiming, “Princess.”