October 13, 2008
We’re back with a quick entry to get the ball rolling. The last entry ended with Gen leaving Honduras and me leaving Victoria for a solid block of time. Before I get to all that let me just say that I am no longer the only volunteer here in Victoria. The newbie arrived and her name is Sara and all is right with the world. Get this: she is a baseball stud, and by that I mean she not only played as a child but in college as well…at a Division I school. So our little youth baseball team project might actually have a chance of doing something productive this year. Neither Gen or I had much idea what we were doing and practices consisted mainly of throwing the baseballs as high in the air as we could and running around, giggling like idiots. At the time I was pretty proud of the effort. But no, now I see that it was inadequate!
So, the reason I ditched Victoria the same day as Gen left for good was that I had two buddies fly in. One is a red-headed lawyer from Minnesota, valedictorian of his Boston College class; the other is a gray-haired New Yorker currently getting his PhD in mathematics. So I have to walk on eggshells around these guys and try and not make them feel stupid…it’s rough. Who am I kidding? The five of you who read this know Reif and Cutrone, so let’s just leave it at that. Ok, the trip was excellent and I am still kind of in disbelief they actually made the trip. Especially that red-haired one, what with his getting married later this month (I’m sending a couple seed bracelets your way, buddy!).
I will not go through the entire itinerary with the rest of you, but we did see Mayan ruins at Copán and some hot spots in Guatemala. It was actually cold in Guatemala which I could not get over given how brutally hot it was (and still is) in neighboring Honduras. The trip was excellent, as I said before, but it was rushed due only to my lack of free time because of an impending volunteer workshop that was a mandatory attendance deal. Nearly every morning the three of us were getting up at ridiculously early hours to catch shuttles to the next destination but somehow we always made it. We saw some truly remarkable things, for sure, but the best part was sitting in various bars and restaurants, drinking the local brew, and just talking. Good talks, bad jokes, and just generally not making the United States look good to those around us. But good talks.
October 14
I spent a day in Victoria once Reif and Cutrone left, gathering my things for the Peace Corps mandated training workshop. That ended up only being about two days long but took up nearly a week including travel time. Not much to talk about there—it was great seeing friends because I go months and months without seeing any other volunteers, normally, and there were some good presentations and information exchanged about projects, etc. Forced reunions are never anyone’s first choice but this one turned out to be pretty worthwhile.
Two days later a high school friend and one of the most upstanding citizens I know, we’ll call him Sarat, came to visit. He is a doctor starting his residency in orthopedic surgery (is that right, dude?!) in Miami—but back off, ladies, he has a girlfriend. Sarat took a year off med school and lived and worked in India for six months and then Guatemala for six months. So not only his he world traveled but the Spanish language is one he has already mastered.
Anyway, we took a different route with his time here. It could have been Guatemala on the one hand, the Bay Islands (and scuba diving) on the other, but there was a super secret option three: go back to Victoria, stay for the Independence Day celebrations (parade, pool party, dance), and then head north and do adventure stuff outside of La Ceiba. We opted for super secret option three. The downside, as we said at the beginning, was travel (the bus rides can be brutal) and time lost traveling. But the upside was seeing small town Victoria in all its celebratory best AND doing some touristy stuff later on.
So we hung out in my town for a day and a half first. Meeting some of my friends and seeing a massive parade came first—let me correct that, Sarat ended up meeting half of the town—and in the afternoon we took a walk to the big pool just on the outskirts of town. At an event like this theres generally three distinct crowds: the first is the older guys (38 yrs+) who go just to hang out and drink beer; the second group is the cool kids from the colegio (ages 16-19) who are there to see and be seen; the third group are the kids age 12 and below who just want to swim and play. We hung with that last crowd and now know a few things: Sarat is much faster than me at swim sprints; I am much faster than 10 yr olds at swim sprints; I can hold my breath longer than Sarat; 10 yr olds can hold their breath longer than me.
After we said goodbye to Victoria we headed to the north coast. Outside of La Ceiba we found a “lodge” on the river and stayed there for a couple of days doing beer drinking, reading, white water rafting, rock climbing and cliff jumping, and canopy tours. It was a great mix of high adrenaline adventure activities (!!) during the day and good food, on-the-river relaxing atmosphere in the evening. And before you know it that trip was complete as well—it just seemed like seven days is not enough time. But I was grateful for all three guys coming down and had a blast and a much needed break from all things pcv.
Now I am here in Victoria and have been here since the last week in September. The last three weeks have been a great chance to get back into things after nearly a month away. I have gotten back into the running routine, have been teaching every week at the elementary school, and been finishing some designs that needed work. On top of that there is a new volunteer here to get to know, so Sara and I are beginning that process whenever time allows, and with her enthusiasm being the key ingredient we started baseball practice with the youth team a couple of weeks ago!
October 15
This isn’t really an entry, but I had to share this. I am at the elementary school today, have just begun a class with sixth graders, and the power goes out—surprise!! Ok, so all the kids run out of class and commence memorizing something in a pamphlet. I sit outside and watch them and before long a couple come over to talk. I ask them what they are doing and they show me. They have to memorize the explanations for every line in their national anthem—and their anthem is ridiculously long. At public events they sing what amounts to a fifth of the entire thing. And of course every line has significance, and these children have to memorize the meaning of everything.
Before long they are asking me about the “himno nacional” for my country. They want it in Spanish and I say I only know it in English. Then they want me to sing it and I say I’ll cant sing but I’ll say it to them, but only a bit because they have to get back to memorizing (I didn’t want poor grades for anyone based on me singing or talking). So I began saying it, and all was going well. And as I approached the end of the first stanza I decided not to keep going. So I stopped and told them to get back to work, but I was feeling uneasy about the words—as if I couldn’t remember everything. But I knew that was ridiculous because EVERYONE in the United States of America knows the national anthem. Its not like some know it and some don’t. No. EVERYONE knows it.
So I began writing it down, line by line. Soon there was a crowd of fifth and sixth graders huddled around me, curious about what I seemed so intent to write. Some started saying, “You don’t know it, do you?” and I brushed them off with a “Por favor, chicos!” and then demanded space. I was waivering, slowly but surely losing my balance on this metaphoric tight wire, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was shocking to me but there was no avoiding it. After twenty minutes of solid concentration, this is what I had:
Oh say can you see
By the dawns early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilights last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still standing
O say does that banner
(something something) still wave
O’er the land of the free
And the home of the brave
Don’t worry, I got it before much longer and completely on my own. Yes, all of it...in the correct order. And that last point is a very important one. All on my own. At some point this may be used against me for a very public shaming, I am sure. But I felt I should share…
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Her?!..
First off, please check out the entry previous--I loaded the appropriate pictures to aid in digestion of the meandering narrative. Finally, and without further ado, the Genevieve tribute I promised, in honor of her successful completion of PC service...
...giving Tek his first bath...
...being assaulted by big Tek...
...with the children of the Comedor Infantil...
...aiding in the murder of a chicken...
...with our beisbol team at the regional torneo...
...and what can be said about this? Its a classic pose...!
She will be missed.
I´ll be back with another entry soon, everyone. Much love from Honduras.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
...Lord knows they´re squinters!
September 21, 2008
Yes, the rolling update is back and yes, I am only just beginning this entry now, two months after I posted my last one. We’re not going to dwell on that, are we? Ok, I am back in Victoria and many things have changed. This will be a quick entry because I am going to bed soon so I can get up and run for the first time in over two months—but I had to start sometime so why not now? See? I haven’t written an update in two months, I haven’t run in two months…I abandoned other things, not just the blog! Like I said, I am back in Victoria and am typing this section on a brand new computer…ok, its not brand new but its new to me. Mine finally broke down (it was nice enough to give me a lot of notice) and a friend (Mr. Joseph William Cutrone) did the amazingly generous act of finding a workable used one and then flew it down to me here. So, new computer. Also, this is my first full day here in my site since my last bit of vacation ended, and third full day in the month of September. Finally (just for now), I am the only peace corps volunteer here in Victoria. The inevitable has happened, and actually it happened three weeks ago. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending) I have not had to come to grips with Gen’s departure yet because ever since she left I have been entertaining friends or going to PC mandated trainings. But no more.
I just want to throw out this bit of Victoria knowledge for you guys, too, even at the risk of sounding like I am whining. The loaf of wheat bread I just bought at the grocery store in San Pedro Sula is nearly gone after, you got it, one full day here in Victoria. Why? No power from 6:30 this morning until 4pm meant that lunch was tuna fish sandwiches (followed by pb&j for dessert). And rains starting at 5pm meant that water in every faucet came out looking like chocolate milk an hour later and so dinner was grilled cheese sandwiches (followed by pb&j for dessert). After a couple of weeks outside of this sleepy little town I was not expecting this kind of welcome, but what are you gonna do?
September 22
Yes, its Monday and I DID run today for the first time in two months! That’s the good news—the bad is that work kind of took a backseat to stupid little errands that occasionally dominate my mornings such as getting vegetables and/or tortillas, a new water jug, cleaning supplies for clothes and the house, etc. I have one design I should finish and turn in this week and another that is nearly done but has altitude issues. After three weeks of being mostly out of Victoria and away from work I have an intense desire to not get on another chicken bus for several months and to bury myself in work. That last one is probably a symptom of Gen leaving, too, but the truth is I have no time to be bummed about it because later this week her replacement arrives. A new pc volunteer here in Victoria to continue with the work Gen started—I don’t envy her a bit! But that will be exciting and I vow to do more for the newbie than Gen (“The Ice Queen”) did for me
when I first arrived. Haha, kind of a joke…kind of not!
Bueno, so where did the last two months go, you ask? I don’t know exactly but they did go quickly. The last entry was in early July and two weeks later it was bottling day for our beer-making experiment. Here are some pics:
This consists only of boiling some sugar water (me), adding it to an empty 6 gallon bucket (me again), siphoning the bucket of wort that was fermenting in my closet for two weeks into the new bucket (Gen, finally), then slowly filling bottles (me) and capping them (Gen). Much quicker than the beer making day and with a much better payoff—individual bottles of a nearly beer-like substance! The bottles then went back into the closet to ferment for another two weeks…
In the meantime there were only two noteworthy events for the rest of the month. The first was that Gen and I met up with some of her friends and hiked the highest peak in Honduras, Celaque, at a whopping 2849 meters above sea level. This is not nearly the hike that La Picucha is though it definitely has challenging parts to it. Everything was made much easier by the fact that one of Gen’s friends is dating a Canadian volunteer who has a car—it’s a tough road from Gracias, the town at the mountain’s base, to get to base camp. Luckily we did not have to sweat that. It rained most of our time hiking but there were some unbelievably beautiful sites along the way, including a cloud forest for the last two or so hours to the top.
Then the last week of July I joined up with a new wat/san volunteer who lives in a town 2.5 hours from Victoria, the only other wat/san’er in the department of Yoro. She brought her theodolite and we did a brutal study of the conduction line of an aldea in the mountains. The study was brutal for a couple of reasons—first was that the water source for the village in question is in the bosque on the other side of a completely different aldea. So with a normal study you have a rough first day or two because you are slowly working your way out of the forest and making it towards the town. Not with this one. Because our goal was not the village closest but another one entirely we actually had to cut the long away through everything to get to the best point from which to leave the area. For each of the first three days we had successively longer hikes from the houses where we were staying to the points where we had finished the previous day—it is counter-intuitive, of course, and was brutal.
For some reason this study brought out the worst in our skin, as well. First off, both Emelina (the volunteer helping me out) and I have eczema and at the end of the week it was pretty well taking us over. It has been almost a non-issue for me here in Honduras, gracias a Dios, but after this study it was devouring my hands—MUCH, much worse than I’ve ever had it. Aliens were building little cities on my fingers is what it looked like, painful cities. Poor Emelina had it along her waist and all over her legs. So, there’s the eczema. Then there was other stuff. Along the way we encountered a fairly substantial thicket of thorns and had to get through it. I being the idiot gringo, grabbed the machete of an older gentleman and joined the rest, hacking away. Literally everything we were swinging at was covered in thorns but somehow I was the only one whose follow through carried his hands into said thicket…several times. There were probably a dozen little blood streaked mini-cuts on my hands and fingers after this little adventure. Much better than my compatriota, though, who somewhere along the way managed to get microscopic insects in her skin. A month later she could not join us for a going-away party for Gen because she was still getting rid of the buggers. Yikes.
By the way, I realize that I forgot to mention something. This new computer I am using (which is awesome, Joe) unfortunately does not have DVD capability. Which is fine except it means that my Arrested Development discs, the ones that just recently found their way back home to Victoria, are likely to sit and gather dust for my remaining eight or so months here. And that means no clever blog entry titles…
September 27
Saturday now and the week has been a good one. I made it back to give computer classes to my fifth and sixth graders, so that was excellent, and I have very nearly finished a design of another aldea. The other major thing I had to do this week was sort through the load of stuff Gen left for me. Some of it was ok (medical supplies), most of it was not (EVERY SINGLE spice she had in her kitchen, most of which I already had). A completely empty coffee creamer jug was among the contents, as well. Completely empty. Coffee creamer. I don’t drink coffee (she knows this), but even if I did it would have served little purpose because it was completely…empty. Thanks for that, carrot!
Back to the past two month review…we were done with July, no? August does not have a lot written all over it but it was a memorable month. That conduction line study that destroyed my skin (eczema, death by a thousand cuts) went into the first few days of the month. A few days later was the BIG day…beer tasting day!! Gen and I handled it very casually, very much without pomp and circumstance—after all, we weren’t sure it wasn’t going to taste like cardboard water. We lucked out, though, and it was remarkably good. It ended up being a medium-bodied brew that had a malty character surrounded by a nutty aroma—but that’s just how I would describe it! It was an English Brown Ale according to the beer kit and the taste of a dark beer on my lips was something special. Gen and I would be on occasionally divergent paths throughout her final three weeks but every time we were both in Victoria we enjoyed our ale and it really only lasted until the end of the month.
Next thing I did in August was two days after beer tasting night and it might seem like a minor thing. Pele and Tek needed their rabies shots so I walked them twenty minutes to the spot, each of them on leashes (they are not used to and do not like leashes). Both received their shots without much trouble, but the incident does highlight a marked difference between mother and son that you, the loyal readers of El Amor Prohibido, should have some passing knowledge of. Pele is Tek’s mom, as you already know, but what you may not know is that Pele is not Honduran. No, and I know this may come as a shock to some. Gen rescued her as a tiny, malnourished pup on a trip to Guatemala in December of 2006. There is no telling what she had endured to that point, of course, but to be sure it left some sort of imprint on her. But lets stick to what we know—Pele is what I would call an excellent guard dog. She barks at every unknown person that approaches Gen’s front gate, period. She also barks at every single dog that even walks down the street, but that’s neither here nor there.
Pele’s affection is not easily won over but once she knows who you are she lavishes all kinds of love on you. I love this part of her. Love for owner and close friends, acceptance for people who make occasional appearances, rage and terror for everyone else. When I am gone visiting an aldea and come back to Victoria, the first time I see Pele she is jumping and clawing at the gate, whining and shrieking with joy.
Tek is quite the opposite. He is equal opportunity with his affection and has plenty for whoever walks through his (my) front gate. His reaction to my return from a trip of several days is one that I wouldn’t quite call indifference so much as muted joy—he remains in the position I found him in when I approached the gate. His eyes are fixed on me but his tail is only barely moving. I open the gate and step onto the front porch and there is still little tail movement. I turn and close the gate, then turn and head for the front door and only then does he jump up and begin the violent shaking of his butt and tail simultaneously. It’s a reaction that says, “I know who you are and, frankly, I’m not super impressed. I do love that you give me food and rub my belly, though!” People who have not seen him before are often scared of Tek because he is getting bigger, but I have zero fears that he would ever harm anyone—he loves everyone. As such, not a great guard dog.
What this comes down to, of course, is that Tek is extremely comfortable with and trusting of people and his mother trusts almost no one. This was never more apparent than when I took them both to get the rabies shot. Pele, nearing the age of two, has had this done before, and between her and her son should be the seasoned pro. No dog likes getting shots, I think is safe to say, but all dogs do not react the same. Tek was sitting upright, I held his mouth closed at the doc’s request, and he gave Tek the shot. It was over in about two or three seconds and Tek didn’t flinch, budge, whine, nothing—he sat stoic and calm. It was kind of amazing. We tried the same technique with Pele but as the doc approached she bolted. In the end we had to surround her with three or four men as I held her while the shot was administered. The whole time her head was swinging back and forth, eyes wild with fear. Pele was not the worst dog I saw at this makeshift rabies shot clinic, but she was nothing like her offspring!
Moving on, we’re now into the second half of August. I had a topo study to do of a small village and Gen wanted to see what all this wat/san nonsense was about and asked if she could come along. “Of course,” I said, wondering how our occasional shouting match would go over in an aldea of 120 people. That’s a joke, we rarely resort to shouting—its mostly passive aggressive stuff, really. Anyway, we were gone for 5 or 6 days and it ended up being one of my more memorable topo studies. There are only 19 houses but the majority are all packed in closely. That, in addition it being one of the more remote villages I have worked in, made the arrival of not one but two gringos an irresistible show that none of the children were going to miss. Seriously, within twenty minutes of our arrival after the first day of work, I had probably seventeen males between the ages of 5 and 22 surrounding me—Gen was similarly swarmed by
the girls. The rest of the week preceded as such, both Gen and I directing our respective clans in an all-out gender battle. I had a few girls who were amused by my antics but its pretty clear Gen was the far superior at gaining defectors. A very fun week to say the least and another cool aspect was that Gen, along solely to see how I do a topo study and learn the ropes herself at first, brought her own expertise to the aldea. By the end of the week she had identified two children who had slight defects with their mouths, taken pictures of them and spoken to their parents. These are defects which can be fixed for free by a medical brigade from Cuba, I think, and from working with the doctors earlier in her service, Gen knows when and where the next instance of the clin
ic will be. It goes without saying that I had not even noticed the defects in question (in my defense, they are small and have to do with the INSIDE of the mouth), forget about the fact that I had no knowledge of the medical brigade or the services they offer. Had it been left to me these children would not have had a chance! But that was the incredible aspect to the week—we were two volunteers from completely different programs and each of us brought unique skills to the town and helped out in distinct ways. And used the aldea’s children to torment one another instead of doing it ourselves.
To round out August (and that will be the end of this entry), the final week I was in Victoria. There was nothing spectacular about this week but it was the final one for Gen in Victoria, so it was definitely sad. We had a going away party for her one night that luckily managed to be a surprise right up until the moment she arrived. It turned out pretty nicely and there were a lot of people from the town there, so it was all good. I taught classes that week as well and visited a completely new town that just had repairs done to its system, but all in all it was mellow. Gen left Victoria for good on the first of September and later that morning I left for what would be essentially three solid weeks. Those three weeks will be captured in an amateurish way in the blog entry that follows…
I miss you guys.
September 28
Just for the official record—power went out four separate times in the last seven days and currently there is no running water. I love Victoria, but this has been a rough week!
Now, in honor of her successful completion of Peace Corps service and departure from Honduras, I leave you with a Genevieve tribute. Enjoy…
PS--Ok, there is internet in Victoria now (just in time for Gen´s departure!) but at 10min a pop to load a photo, I´ll do the pictures once I am somewhere else.
Yes, the rolling update is back and yes, I am only just beginning this entry now, two months after I posted my last one. We’re not going to dwell on that, are we? Ok, I am back in Victoria and many things have changed. This will be a quick entry because I am going to bed soon so I can get up and run for the first time in over two months—but I had to start sometime so why not now? See? I haven’t written an update in two months, I haven’t run in two months…I abandoned other things, not just the blog! Like I said, I am back in Victoria and am typing this section on a brand new computer…ok, its not brand new but its new to me. Mine finally broke down (it was nice enough to give me a lot of notice) and a friend (Mr. Joseph William Cutrone) did the amazingly generous act of finding a workable used one and then flew it down to me here. So, new computer. Also, this is my first full day here in my site since my last bit of vacation ended, and third full day in the month of September. Finally (just for now), I am the only peace corps volunteer here in Victoria. The inevitable has happened, and actually it happened three weeks ago. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending) I have not had to come to grips with Gen’s departure yet because ever since she left I have been entertaining friends or going to PC mandated trainings. But no more.
I just want to throw out this bit of Victoria knowledge for you guys, too, even at the risk of sounding like I am whining. The loaf of wheat bread I just bought at the grocery store in San Pedro Sula is nearly gone after, you got it, one full day here in Victoria. Why? No power from 6:30 this morning until 4pm meant that lunch was tuna fish sandwiches (followed by pb&j for dessert). And rains starting at 5pm meant that water in every faucet came out looking like chocolate milk an hour later and so dinner was grilled cheese sandwiches (followed by pb&j for dessert). After a couple of weeks outside of this sleepy little town I was not expecting this kind of welcome, but what are you gonna do?
September 22
Yes, its Monday and I DID run today for the first time in two months! That’s the good news—the bad is that work kind of took a backseat to stupid little errands that occasionally dominate my mornings such as getting vegetables and/or tortillas, a new water jug, cleaning supplies for clothes and the house, etc. I have one design I should finish and turn in this week and another that is nearly done but has altitude issues. After three weeks of being mostly out of Victoria and away from work I have an intense desire to not get on another chicken bus for several months and to bury myself in work. That last one is probably a symptom of Gen leaving, too, but the truth is I have no time to be bummed about it because later this week her replacement arrives. A new pc volunteer here in Victoria to continue with the work Gen started—I don’t envy her a bit! But that will be exciting and I vow to do more for the newbie than Gen (“The Ice Queen”) did for me
when I first arrived. Haha, kind of a joke…kind of not!Bueno, so where did the last two months go, you ask? I don’t know exactly but they did go quickly. The last entry was in early July and two weeks later it was bottling day for our beer-making experiment. Here are some pics:
This consists only of boiling some sugar water (me), adding it to an empty 6 gallon bucket (me again), siphoning the bucket of wort that was fermenting in my closet for two weeks into the new bucket (Gen, finally), then slowly filling bottles (me) and capping them (Gen). Much quicker than the beer making day and with a much better payoff—individual bottles of a nearly beer-like substance! The bottles then went back into the closet to ferment for another two weeks…
In the meantime there were only two noteworthy events for the rest of the month. The first was that Gen and I met up with some of her friends and hiked the highest peak in Honduras, Celaque, at a whopping 2849 meters above sea level. This is not nearly the hike that La Picucha is though it definitely has challenging parts to it. Everything was made much easier by the fact that one of Gen’s friends is dating a Canadian volunteer who has a car—it’s a tough road from Gracias, the town at the mountain’s base, to get to base camp. Luckily we did not have to sweat that. It rained most of our time hiking but there were some unbelievably beautiful sites along the way, including a cloud forest for the last two or so hours to the top.
Then the last week of July I joined up with a new wat/san volunteer who lives in a town 2.5 hours from Victoria, the only other wat/san’er in the department of Yoro. She brought her theodolite and we did a brutal study of the conduction line of an aldea in the mountains. The study was brutal for a couple of reasons—first was that the water source for the village in question is in the bosque on the other side of a completely different aldea. So with a normal study you have a rough first day or two because you are slowly working your way out of the forest and making it towards the town. Not with this one. Because our goal was not the village closest but another one entirely we actually had to cut the long away through everything to get to the best point from which to leave the area. For each of the first three days we had successively longer hikes from the houses where we were staying to the points where we had finished the previous day—it is counter-intuitive, of course, and was brutal.
For some reason this study brought out the worst in our skin, as well. First off, both Emelina (the volunteer helping me out) and I have eczema and at the end of the week it was pretty well taking us over. It has been almost a non-issue for me here in Honduras, gracias a Dios, but after this study it was devouring my hands—MUCH, much worse than I’ve ever had it. Aliens were building little cities on my fingers is what it looked like, painful cities. Poor Emelina had it along her waist and all over her legs. So, there’s the eczema. Then there was other stuff. Along the way we encountered a fairly substantial thicket of thorns and had to get through it. I being the idiot gringo, grabbed the machete of an older gentleman and joined the rest, hacking away. Literally everything we were swinging at was covered in thorns but somehow I was the only one whose follow through carried his hands into said thicket…several times. There were probably a dozen little blood streaked mini-cuts on my hands and fingers after this little adventure. Much better than my compatriota, though, who somewhere along the way managed to get microscopic insects in her skin. A month later she could not join us for a going-away party for Gen because she was still getting rid of the buggers. Yikes.
By the way, I realize that I forgot to mention something. This new computer I am using (which is awesome, Joe) unfortunately does not have DVD capability. Which is fine except it means that my Arrested Development discs, the ones that just recently found their way back home to Victoria, are likely to sit and gather dust for my remaining eight or so months here. And that means no clever blog entry titles…
September 27
Saturday now and the week has been a good one. I made it back to give computer classes to my fifth and sixth graders, so that was excellent, and I have very nearly finished a design of another aldea. The other major thing I had to do this week was sort through the load of stuff Gen left for me. Some of it was ok (medical supplies), most of it was not (EVERY SINGLE spice she had in her kitchen, most of which I already had). A completely empty coffee creamer jug was among the contents, as well. Completely empty. Coffee creamer. I don’t drink coffee (she knows this), but even if I did it would have served little purpose because it was completely…empty. Thanks for that, carrot!
Back to the past two month review…we were done with July, no? August does not have a lot written all over it but it was a memorable month. That conduction line study that destroyed my skin (eczema, death by a thousand cuts) went into the first few days of the month. A few days later was the BIG day…beer tasting day!! Gen and I handled it very casually, very much without pomp and circumstance—after all, we weren’t sure it wasn’t going to taste like cardboard water. We lucked out, though, and it was remarkably good. It ended up being a medium-bodied brew that had a malty character surrounded by a nutty aroma—but that’s just how I would describe it! It was an English Brown Ale according to the beer kit and the taste of a dark beer on my lips was something special. Gen and I would be on occasionally divergent paths throughout her final three weeks but every time we were both in Victoria we enjoyed our ale and it really only lasted until the end of the month.
Next thing I did in August was two days after beer tasting night and it might seem like a minor thing. Pele and Tek needed their rabies shots so I walked them twenty minutes to the spot, each of them on leashes (they are not used to and do not like leashes). Both received their shots without much trouble, but the incident does highlight a marked difference between mother and son that you, the loyal readers of El Amor Prohibido, should have some passing knowledge of. Pele is Tek’s mom, as you already know, but what you may not know is that Pele is not Honduran. No, and I know this may come as a shock to some. Gen rescued her as a tiny, malnourished pup on a trip to Guatemala in December of 2006. There is no telling what she had endured to that point, of course, but to be sure it left some sort of imprint on her. But lets stick to what we know—Pele is what I would call an excellent guard dog. She barks at every unknown person that approaches Gen’s front gate, period. She also barks at every single dog that even walks down the street, but that’s neither here nor there.
Pele’s affection is not easily won over but once she knows who you are she lavishes all kinds of love on you. I love this part of her. Love for owner and close friends, acceptance for people who make occasional appearances, rage and terror for everyone else. When I am gone visiting an aldea and come back to Victoria, the first time I see Pele she is jumping and clawing at the gate, whining and shrieking with joy.
Tek is quite the opposite. He is equal opportunity with his affection and has plenty for whoever walks through his (my) front gate. His reaction to my return from a trip of several days is one that I wouldn’t quite call indifference so much as muted joy—he remains in the position I found him in when I approached the gate. His eyes are fixed on me but his tail is only barely moving. I open the gate and step onto the front porch and there is still little tail movement. I turn and close the gate, then turn and head for the front door and only then does he jump up and begin the violent shaking of his butt and tail simultaneously. It’s a reaction that says, “I know who you are and, frankly, I’m not super impressed. I do love that you give me food and rub my belly, though!” People who have not seen him before are often scared of Tek because he is getting bigger, but I have zero fears that he would ever harm anyone—he loves everyone. As such, not a great guard dog.
What this comes down to, of course, is that Tek is extremely comfortable with and trusting of people and his mother trusts almost no one. This was never more apparent than when I took them both to get the rabies shot. Pele, nearing the age of two, has had this done before, and between her and her son should be the seasoned pro. No dog likes getting shots, I think is safe to say, but all dogs do not react the same. Tek was sitting upright, I held his mouth closed at the doc’s request, and he gave Tek the shot. It was over in about two or three seconds and Tek didn’t flinch, budge, whine, nothing—he sat stoic and calm. It was kind of amazing. We tried the same technique with Pele but as the doc approached she bolted. In the end we had to surround her with three or four men as I held her while the shot was administered. The whole time her head was swinging back and forth, eyes wild with fear. Pele was not the worst dog I saw at this makeshift rabies shot clinic, but she was nothing like her offspring!
Moving on, we’re now into the second half of August. I had a topo study to do of a small village and Gen wanted to see what all this wat/san nonsense was about and asked if she could come along. “Of course,” I said, wondering how our occasional shouting match would go over in an aldea of 120 people. That’s a joke, we rarely resort to shouting—its mostly passive aggressive stuff, really. Anyway, we were gone for 5 or 6 days and it ended up being one of my more memorable topo studies. There are only 19 houses but the majority are all packed in closely. That, in addition it being one of the more remote villages I have worked in, made the arrival of not one but two gringos an irresistible show that none of the children were going to miss. Seriously, within twenty minutes of our arrival after the first day of work, I had probably seventeen males between the ages of 5 and 22 surrounding me—Gen was similarly swarmed by
the girls. The rest of the week preceded as such, both Gen and I directing our respective clans in an all-out gender battle. I had a few girls who were amused by my antics but its pretty clear Gen was the far superior at gaining defectors. A very fun week to say the least and another cool aspect was that Gen, along solely to see how I do a topo study and learn the ropes herself at first, brought her own expertise to the aldea. By the end of the week she had identified two children who had slight defects with their mouths, taken pictures of them and spoken to their parents. These are defects which can be fixed for free by a medical brigade from Cuba, I think, and from working with the doctors earlier in her service, Gen knows when and where the next instance of the clin
ic will be. It goes without saying that I had not even noticed the defects in question (in my defense, they are small and have to do with the INSIDE of the mouth), forget about the fact that I had no knowledge of the medical brigade or the services they offer. Had it been left to me these children would not have had a chance! But that was the incredible aspect to the week—we were two volunteers from completely different programs and each of us brought unique skills to the town and helped out in distinct ways. And used the aldea’s children to torment one another instead of doing it ourselves.To round out August (and that will be the end of this entry), the final week I was in Victoria. There was nothing spectacular about this week but it was the final one for Gen in Victoria, so it was definitely sad. We had a going away party for her one night that luckily managed to be a surprise right up until the moment she arrived. It turned out pretty nicely and there were a lot of people from the town there, so it was all good. I taught classes that week as well and visited a completely new town that just had repairs done to its system, but all in all it was mellow. Gen left Victoria for good on the first of September and later that morning I left for what would be essentially three solid weeks. Those three weeks will be captured in an amateurish way in the blog entry that follows…
I miss you guys.
September 28
Just for the official record—power went out four separate times in the last seven days and currently there is no running water. I love Victoria, but this has been a rough week!
Now, in honor of her successful completion of Peace Corps service and departure from Honduras, I leave you with a Genevieve tribute. Enjoy…
PS--Ok, there is internet in Victoria now (just in time for Gen´s departure!) but at 10min a pop to load a photo, I´ll do the pictures once I am somewhere else.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Alias is a show about a spy…
(Just so we’re clear I have not watched an episode of Arrested Development since October and those dvds have been all over Honduras in the care of other volunteers.)
Hey everyone, its early July and I’m back with another entry. So if youre doing your biannual check of my blog you’ve missed a good…couple entries! Seriously, sorry about not being consistent with this guy. Ok, so in May I went back to the States and in June I posted some pictures of the trip and that’s about all. And that’s all I will do about that because El Amor Prohibido is NOT about weeklong benders spent in the USA drinking snow peak peach boone’s. Which, by the way, is the best flavor of boone’s (isn’t that right, Bleaker?)…
Ok, as I recount events in my head and my journal it turns out that June was actually a somewhat busy, exciting month—don’t worry, I wont subject you to all of it. The first three weeks were in fact dedicated to doing a topo study in the northern part of the municipio and once that was canceled I suddenly had an empty month on my hands. When I say three weeks I don’t mean it would have taken that long but that each of the first three weeks, separately, was set aside for the study. It was going to be the first week but then my buddy who has the theodolite we need had a scheduling conflict. Second week it was postponed to the third week because of transportation questions and other miscellaneous ridiculousness on everyone’s part. And then, at the beginning of the third week it was finally canceled once and for all when it was discovered that a topo study that had been previously done for the community (and very recently, apparently) was found in the mayor’s office. Scheduling conflicts and transportation issues were swept aside and I decided it was not necessary to do the same study twice, especially since there are many, many other communities that have never had a study done for them.
Since I was in Victoria more than expected I spent my time teaching my computacion classes and working on other system designs that needed fixes here and there. At the end of that first week I did decide to go south to Tegucigalpa and hang out with a couple of friends to watch game one of the nba finals. Not a bad decision at all. When week two opened up it really opened up because not only was the study postponed again but there were also no classes all week. Gen and I were hanging out one afternoon and we decided that on a whim we would go to San Pedro Sula the next day and bring each of our dogs to the vet. Small back story here for Gen’s dog, Pelé: while I was gone in the States one afternoon Gen was walking with her dog when a bolo riding a bicycle rammed into Pelé and screwed up one of her paws. Ever since I had been back it had been an obvious problem; she was limping everywhere she went and one of the nails was hanging loosely and awkwardly. So Gen wanted to get Pelé repaired and it was about the time for Tek to be “fixed” anyway. In the middle of the week we hopped onto the morning bus, dogs in tow, and kind of dominated the back row—everyone boarding the bus and heading towards the back to find a spot to sit was immediately intimidated by the sight of two, not-so-small dogs occupying seats. Our dogs are very chill dogs, though, and there were no incidents, gracias a Dios, of either the ‘attacking other passengers’ or ‘exploding bladders’ variety. It was seriously an impressive display—this trip, one way, is over four hours and they were fine the whole time. We had to leave the dogs at the vet overnight so once we dropped them off we did some errands and also caught the best Celtics game of the season—the Game 4, 20 point second half comeback win in L.A. to take a 3-1 series lead!!
Things went well with the vet—Pelé is all healed and able to walk without limping and after a week or so of me having to clean and hydrogen peroxide his newly sensitive area, Tek is good as well and we are back on speaking terms. Nothing out of the ordinary happened the week following but in the last week of the month I was able to go to a super-small community (14 houses, around 80 people) and complete a study. I had not done a study since the end of April so it was nice to get back on the horse and though the work itself went without incident the story of the week is the family I stayed with. Very generous, very sweet, and arguably the best looking family in Honduras! I know that must sound a bit odd but I’ll include a picture so you know what I’m talking about.
Hey everyone, its early July and I’m back with another entry. So if youre doing your biannual check of my blog you’ve missed a good…couple entries! Seriously, sorry about not being consistent with this guy. Ok, so in May I went back to the States and in June I posted some pictures of the trip and that’s about all. And that’s all I will do about that because El Amor Prohibido is NOT about weeklong benders spent in the USA drinking snow peak peach boone’s. Which, by the way, is the best flavor of boone’s (isn’t that right, Bleaker?)…
Ok, as I recount events in my head and my journal it turns out that June was actually a somewhat busy, exciting month—don’t worry, I wont subject you to all of it. The first three weeks were in fact dedicated to doing a topo study in the northern part of the municipio and once that was canceled I suddenly had an empty month on my hands. When I say three weeks I don’t mean it would have taken that long but that each of the first three weeks, separately, was set aside for the study. It was going to be the first week but then my buddy who has the theodolite we need had a scheduling conflict. Second week it was postponed to the third week because of transportation questions and other miscellaneous ridiculousness on everyone’s part. And then, at the beginning of the third week it was finally canceled once and for all when it was discovered that a topo study that had been previously done for the community (and very recently, apparently) was found in the mayor’s office. Scheduling conflicts and transportation issues were swept aside and I decided it was not necessary to do the same study twice, especially since there are many, many other communities that have never had a study done for them.
Since I was in Victoria more than expected I spent my time teaching my computacion classes and working on other system designs that needed fixes here and there. At the end of that first week I did decide to go south to Tegucigalpa and hang out with a couple of friends to watch game one of the nba finals. Not a bad decision at all. When week two opened up it really opened up because not only was the study postponed again but there were also no classes all week. Gen and I were hanging out one afternoon and we decided that on a whim we would go to San Pedro Sula the next day and bring each of our dogs to the vet. Small back story here for Gen’s dog, Pelé: while I was gone in the States one afternoon Gen was walking with her dog when a bolo riding a bicycle rammed into Pelé and screwed up one of her paws. Ever since I had been back it had been an obvious problem; she was limping everywhere she went and one of the nails was hanging loosely and awkwardly. So Gen wanted to get Pelé repaired and it was about the time for Tek to be “fixed” anyway. In the middle of the week we hopped onto the morning bus, dogs in tow, and kind of dominated the back row—everyone boarding the bus and heading towards the back to find a spot to sit was immediately intimidated by the sight of two, not-so-small dogs occupying seats. Our dogs are very chill dogs, though, and there were no incidents, gracias a Dios, of either the ‘attacking other passengers’ or ‘exploding bladders’ variety. It was seriously an impressive display—this trip, one way, is over four hours and they were fine the whole time. We had to leave the dogs at the vet overnight so once we dropped them off we did some errands and also caught the best Celtics game of the season—the Game 4, 20 point second half comeback win in L.A. to take a 3-1 series lead!!
Things went well with the vet—Pelé is all healed and able to walk without limping and after a week or so of me having to clean and hydrogen peroxide his newly sensitive area, Tek is good as well and we are back on speaking terms. Nothing out of the ordinary happened the week following but in the last week of the month I was able to go to a super-small community (14 houses, around 80 people) and complete a study. I had not done a study since the end of April so it was nice to get back on the horse and though the work itself went without incident the story of the week is the family I stayed with. Very generous, very sweet, and arguably the best looking family in Honduras! I know that must sound a bit odd but I’ll include a picture so you know what I’m talking about.
There are ten children in total but only six of them were in the house when I was there—three live in San Pedro and another one is in the States. The youngest, two girls aged 8 and 10 years, were schooling me as we ate dinner the first night about how I should call them “niñas” instead of “chicas” because the latter term is used only once someone has reached adolescence. They used that word, too, adolescence, and when I gave them a hard time and asked what age that was supposed to mean, the 10 yr old looked at me matter-of-factly and said, “15 years, silly.” OK then. Great family. And did I mention that in this village of 80 people in the mountains that I was actually able to watch the two European Cup semifinal games?! The family I stayed with is the only one in the village that has a solar plant, so they also have electricity. On a side note, what a great final, too--¡Viva España! (Oh, and heres a view from that town the morning that I left.)
And except for one last thing that pretty much catches you all up. Last week was an uneventful one of teaching and a failed attempt to visit an aldea in another municipio that has a rainwater system. The last thing is that a couple of days ago Gen and I embarked on a bold journey—we made our own beer!! Well, we steeped the grains and boiled the malt extract with the hops and once that was all done, pitched the yeast…you know what I’m talking about. Now the experiment is sitting in a bucket in my closet where it will remain for the next two weeks. After that we bottle the beer, wait another two weeks or so and then…beer time!! This being both of our first times at this I’m not really expecting it to turn out like anything other than murky, cardboard water. But the fun’s in the effort, right?
Ok, that’s it from Honduras for the moment. I hope all is well with everyone. Much love, Joe.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Yea, I can see marinating a chicken in that...
Ok, I have been back from the colonies for a couple weeks now and I have to say the trip was fantastic. First off I have to thank Lever and his parents, Sarat, and Cutrone for their generous hospitality, even if it did come with the "Joe, youre not paying--youre the only one of my friends who makes less than me" line every so often! Seriously, guys, thank you so much, you did too much but it was very much appreciated! I also want to thank Magri, Reif, and Bacon--not that you guys did much but it was great to see you too. There was no time to pre-write this and make it eloquent (or coherent) so I will leave you now with just a few pictures (this first one is me and Tek the morning I left Victoria) and get back to write a real update soon. I hope everyone is well.
This is the best man and I about to roast the groom at a pre-wedding dinner...
...this is the happy couple cutting the cake...
...my dog's namesake, up to bat after having crushed a solo shot at Camden Yards in Baltimore (the Sox lost)...
...and here is what the Preakness was inside. Go USA!!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
You’ll have plenty of time for ice cream in prison…ice cream sandwiches!
Fast forward to the final half inning: we are at the hour mark but its clear the umpire/tournament organizer (who is wearing an authentic replica Cubs uniform from head to toe for some reason) is going to let San Luis have its final swings before the game is called. Our pitcher is tired and not nearly as effective as earlier and after four batters there are runners on second and third with two outs. It is at this point that he calls to be replaced—my first thought is “C’mon! Are you kidding me, Fernando?! You’re one out away
from finishing this thing off!” Plus there’s the whole issue of someone not warmed up being called in to make sure no one crosses home plate when there are already two runners in scoring position. I don’t say any of this, though, and it ends up being the decision Grady Little never made but should have in ’03 against the Yanks. Our relief pitcher (and game 2 starter) comes in throwing hard and getting strikes and the PC volunteer from San Luis gives me a look that says, “Where did SHE come from?!” With two strikes and two outs the batter is free swinging and after a couple of fouls he pops one up toward second. You guys can imagine that with 10-12 yr olds who have just learned the game that routine plays are anything but—up to that point every time a ball was hit into the field of play the batter had reached base safely. So there is this moment where the ball is just hanging in the air, the runners are heading home, and Gen and I are both screaming something stupid in slow motion. But our second baseman catches the ball and we win! 
In the second game of the tournament Minas de Oro stomped all over the team we had just barely beaten and their score was 10-0. The team from Minas does not have a PC volunteer as a coach and they are oddly disciplined and very, very good (weird). As batters they hit home runs, as fielders they scoop up the ball and accurately throw to whatever base they want like its nothing. No one…drops…anything. It’s bizarre and I seriously can’t imagine there are children this age looking much more proficient at the sport in the traditional powerhouse countries that dominate it. After watching that second game suddenly our guys and girls are completely lacking motivation for the final, even after Mr. Cubs Uni explains that the winner gets a trophy and goes to Tegucigalpa to play in the national tournament.
The game begins and our squad bucks up and looks ready for the test. We get a couple of baserunners but don’t score in our half of the first; they get one run in the bottom half. After three or four innings we are hanging with them, 3-1, and everyone at the field is excited. We have to make a pitching change in the fourth and he is throwing alternately lasers or moonbeams and as a result walks three batters and strikes out two. So the bases are loaded with two outs and the first two pitches to the next batter are strikes. “Whew,” I think, “we’re almost out of this one.” The next pitch is hit for a grand slam and that’s the ball game. We score once in our half of the final inning for a respectable 7-2 final, but we know it could have been different. We just know it.
So with baseball complete I left Victoria the week following (last week) and did a water project. This was kind of cool, actually—I took a bus and went the long way around the municipality to get to a village up in the north. From there I visited two villages a day and stayed in a different one each night as I slowly made my way, by foot or horseback, back to Victoria. The plan this time was to do aforos, or measurements of each community’s water source, to see if they can sustain the population during the dry season. During the rainy season there is water coming out of every hole in the ground but some institutions will not give money to a project unless there is proof that the aforo was done in the dry season. So I went from one aldea to the next, hiking up
to the fuente with my 5 gallon bucket and camera and taking pictures of the guys measuring the output. In the morning I would do one village, come down and have some coffee or a bit of food with a generous family and then in the afternoon some representatives would arrive (sometimes with a horse) to take me to their village.
It is never usually more than a one hour walk from one town to the next but the last day, Friday, was a different story. We left in the morning from one village and did a nearly two hour hike up to its fuente. Once we finished measuring the flow we came back and I was handed off to a group from another village about twenty minutes away. When we had finished measuring their fuente we began what is normally a three hour hike to a town that is a one hour bus ride from Victoria. But three hours is really if you are walking the whole time and though I did not have much hope of catching that last bus to Victoria (when I had done this same trip in late October I ended up having to walk the hour-plus from the town in question to another town and taking a bus the last thirty minutes to Victoria), I did want to give myself as much daylight as possible to not only do the walk to the next town over but possibly catch a jalón back to Victoria. Luckily, so many aldeas have put me on horseback since my time here began that I have now perfected the sustained trot—its not a gallop, don’t be ridiculous. But it is a trot. So whenever possible my companion and I were at a trot and the stars aligned because we arrived in town just over two hours after leaving and not five minutes before the last bus left for Victoria!
And that brings us to this week. Unfortunately the news of this week is that I came down with something shortly after returning from my weeklong excursion. Bacterial stomach infection is the verdict, much better than the dreaded malaria or dengue, and I am well on my way with antibiotics. Classes will continue in the first part of next week and then I am off to the States to join some friends and go to a wedding! Below are some pics I did not include in the first half of this blog entry (published on Wednesday, Apr 30).
from finishing this thing off!” Plus there’s the whole issue of someone not warmed up being called in to make sure no one crosses home plate when there are already two runners in scoring position. I don’t say any of this, though, and it ends up being the decision Grady Little never made but should have in ’03 against the Yanks. Our relief pitcher (and game 2 starter) comes in throwing hard and getting strikes and the PC volunteer from San Luis gives me a look that says, “Where did SHE come from?!” With two strikes and two outs the batter is free swinging and after a couple of fouls he pops one up toward second. You guys can imagine that with 10-12 yr olds who have just learned the game that routine plays are anything but—up to that point every time a ball was hit into the field of play the batter had reached base safely. So there is this moment where the ball is just hanging in the air, the runners are heading home, and Gen and I are both screaming something stupid in slow motion. But our second baseman catches the ball and we win! 
In the second game of the tournament Minas de Oro stomped all over the team we had just barely beaten and their score was 10-0. The team from Minas does not have a PC volunteer as a coach and they are oddly disciplined and very, very good (weird). As batters they hit home runs, as fielders they scoop up the ball and accurately throw to whatever base they want like its nothing. No one…drops…anything. It’s bizarre and I seriously can’t imagine there are children this age looking much more proficient at the sport in the traditional powerhouse countries that dominate it. After watching that second game suddenly our guys and girls are completely lacking motivation for the final, even after Mr. Cubs Uni explains that the winner gets a trophy and goes to Tegucigalpa to play in the national tournament.
The game begins and our squad bucks up and looks ready for the test. We get a couple of baserunners but don’t score in our half of the first; they get one run in the bottom half. After three or four innings we are hanging with them, 3-1, and everyone at the field is excited. We have to make a pitching change in the fourth and he is throwing alternately lasers or moonbeams and as a result walks three batters and strikes out two. So the bases are loaded with two outs and the first two pitches to the next batter are strikes. “Whew,” I think, “we’re almost out of this one.” The next pitch is hit for a grand slam and that’s the ball game. We score once in our half of the final inning for a respectable 7-2 final, but we know it could have been different. We just know it.
So with baseball complete I left Victoria the week following (last week) and did a water project. This was kind of cool, actually—I took a bus and went the long way around the municipality to get to a village up in the north. From there I visited two villages a day and stayed in a different one each night as I slowly made my way, by foot or horseback, back to Victoria. The plan this time was to do aforos, or measurements of each community’s water source, to see if they can sustain the population during the dry season. During the rainy season there is water coming out of every hole in the ground but some institutions will not give money to a project unless there is proof that the aforo was done in the dry season. So I went from one aldea to the next, hiking up
to the fuente with my 5 gallon bucket and camera and taking pictures of the guys measuring the output. In the morning I would do one village, come down and have some coffee or a bit of food with a generous family and then in the afternoon some representatives would arrive (sometimes with a horse) to take me to their village.It is never usually more than a one hour walk from one town to the next but the last day, Friday, was a different story. We left in the morning from one village and did a nearly two hour hike up to its fuente. Once we finished measuring the flow we came back and I was handed off to a group from another village about twenty minutes away. When we had finished measuring their fuente we began what is normally a three hour hike to a town that is a one hour bus ride from Victoria. But three hours is really if you are walking the whole time and though I did not have much hope of catching that last bus to Victoria (when I had done this same trip in late October I ended up having to walk the hour-plus from the town in question to another town and taking a bus the last thirty minutes to Victoria), I did want to give myself as much daylight as possible to not only do the walk to the next town over but possibly catch a jalón back to Victoria. Luckily, so many aldeas have put me on horseback since my time here began that I have now perfected the sustained trot—its not a gallop, don’t be ridiculous. But it is a trot. So whenever possible my companion and I were at a trot and the stars aligned because we arrived in town just over two hours after leaving and not five minutes before the last bus left for Victoria!
And that brings us to this week. Unfortunately the news of this week is that I came down with something shortly after returning from my weeklong excursion. Bacterial stomach infection is the verdict, much better than the dreaded malaria or dengue, and I am well on my way with antibiotics. Classes will continue in the first part of next week and then I am off to the States to join some friends and go to a wedding! Below are some pics I did not include in the first half of this blog entry (published on Wednesday, Apr 30).
The top of La Picucha as seen from the first day of hiking... 
...crossing one of the streams on a nature-built bridge......views along the way...
...and reunited at the summit!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Mistake? What would I have made a huge mistake about?
OK, I am back at the blog and apologize for the long delay between entries. I am sure that all seven of you who read this look to it on a weekly basis to lighten your loads and fill you with mirth and I am sorry for holding out so long. As you may have noticed the blog delay was accompanied by an email delay of greater length and there really is no good reason either happened. I had some unexpected trips into Tegucigalpa here and there over the past couple of months and each time I had not spent the proper time either answering emails or updating the blog here on my laptop so when I arrived there was nothing for me to send. But enough about that…
The last blog entry was towards the end of the first week in March and the reason I was in Yoro in the first place was to buy some ingredients for a baseball team dinner that Gen and I hosted for our guys and girls the night before the regional tournament (devotees will recall that the torneo was originally scheduled for March 8). The dinner with the players and their parents was a hit and then that night, for the first time in over a week, it started to rain. It rained all night and we woke the next morning and got the call from the tournament organizer that it had been postponed. Everyone was geared up and ready to go and then nothing; it was very disappointing.
So that was that. The next few weeks were kind of a blur of me continuing to teach computer classes and throwing in some aldea visits on my non-teaching days but the only big thing happened the week before Easter, or Semana Santa here. As it turned out that was the week of my birthday, too, and I want to thank all of you guys for your care packages, emails, and phone calls—you are an all-star group!! That is a week where no one works and things basically shut down country-wide. Most people flock to the beaches here but I joined a group of about ten volunteers and we went to hike La Picucha, which is the highest peak in the department of Olancho. It was an excellent trip and I will throw in some pictures here:
*************************
We entered the bosque on a Wednesday and hiked out on Saturday and in between there were lots of peanut butter sandwiches, the occasional can of sardines (w/ chili sauce, of course), granola bars, stream water with iodine tablets, small tents and rain. The rain actually came the night before we reached the summit and lasted for a good twenty hours or so, well into our descent. That wasn’t too bad but it did mean that at the top we were in a cloud and could not see anything. But the trip was a great way to hang out with some people I had not seen since September or longer. That first meal after finishing, the first meal in four days that was cooked, was so good—I almost overdosed on peanut butter during the hike.
I had some water project trips postponed because of rain so the next couple of weeks were just me in Victoria teaching a couple days a week and visiting some new aldeas on the other days. Around Final Four time I decided I had missed out on enough major sporting events (World Series, Super Bowl, etc.) so I went to stay with a buddy in the south of Honduras who has a nice cable setup. There was a small group of us volunteers there watching some disappointing semifinal games and an amazing championship game. I still cant believe how good that Memphis/Kansas final was—and it came down to free throws after all!! Rock. Chalk. Jayhawk.
The last two work weeks I have been out of Victoria doing water stuff. Two weeks ago I went with an engineer friend of mine and we did a topo study in an aldea about two hours from here. Not much to tell about this one: I had been in the aldea a week or two before to visit a water source of a nearby town and it was super-dry, the roads nothing but dirt and rock and dust…naturally, the week my friend and I were up there it was raining and extremely muddy. It delayed us a bit but not too much and I was able to spend Friday of that week getting our baseball team’s jerseys for the big regional tournament the next day, Saturday.
Ok, so heres a big sports buildup for really a very small time event…but here goes nothing. Three teams in this mini torneo, one spot for a trip to the nationals in Tegucigalpa in June. The teams: Victoria, San Luis, and the host team, Minas de Oro. Minas de Oro has represented our region in the national tournament as long as anyone here can remember and with beat our humble Victoria squad last year by a score of 15-2, I believe. That Victoria team was coached by Gen and, though they did not win a game, did get an alternates spot in the nationals by virtue of having scored a lot of runs. We play San Luis first and the winner takes a break while the loser plays Minas in the next game. First game and our big pitcher, who is often as wild as Mitch Williams during practice, is on the mark and is striking batters out like it’s his job. San Luis’ pitcher also throws hard but is a little off the mark and actually walks in two runs for us in the first, 2-0. These games are only an hour long or five innings, whichever comes first, and the next few innings are tense but very even with no runs scored.
Another unexpected trip to Yoro so I´ll paste what I have and leave you in suspense about the results of the tournament. More to come very soon...
The last blog entry was towards the end of the first week in March and the reason I was in Yoro in the first place was to buy some ingredients for a baseball team dinner that Gen and I hosted for our guys and girls the night before the regional tournament (devotees will recall that the torneo was originally scheduled for March 8). The dinner with the players and their parents was a hit and then that night, for the first time in over a week, it started to rain. It rained all night and we woke the next morning and got the call from the tournament organizer that it had been postponed. Everyone was geared up and ready to go and then nothing; it was very disappointing.
So that was that. The next few weeks were kind of a blur of me continuing to teach computer classes and throwing in some aldea visits on my non-teaching days but the only big thing happened the week before Easter, or Semana Santa here. As it turned out that was the week of my birthday, too, and I want to thank all of you guys for your care packages, emails, and phone calls—you are an all-star group!! That is a week where no one works and things basically shut down country-wide. Most people flock to the beaches here but I joined a group of about ten volunteers and we went to hike La Picucha, which is the highest peak in the department of Olancho. It was an excellent trip and I will throw in some pictures here:
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We entered the bosque on a Wednesday and hiked out on Saturday and in between there were lots of peanut butter sandwiches, the occasional can of sardines (w/ chili sauce, of course), granola bars, stream water with iodine tablets, small tents and rain. The rain actually came the night before we reached the summit and lasted for a good twenty hours or so, well into our descent. That wasn’t too bad but it did mean that at the top we were in a cloud and could not see anything. But the trip was a great way to hang out with some people I had not seen since September or longer. That first meal after finishing, the first meal in four days that was cooked, was so good—I almost overdosed on peanut butter during the hike.
I had some water project trips postponed because of rain so the next couple of weeks were just me in Victoria teaching a couple days a week and visiting some new aldeas on the other days. Around Final Four time I decided I had missed out on enough major sporting events (World Series, Super Bowl, etc.) so I went to stay with a buddy in the south of Honduras who has a nice cable setup. There was a small group of us volunteers there watching some disappointing semifinal games and an amazing championship game. I still cant believe how good that Memphis/Kansas final was—and it came down to free throws after all!! Rock. Chalk. Jayhawk.
The last two work weeks I have been out of Victoria doing water stuff. Two weeks ago I went with an engineer friend of mine and we did a topo study in an aldea about two hours from here. Not much to tell about this one: I had been in the aldea a week or two before to visit a water source of a nearby town and it was super-dry, the roads nothing but dirt and rock and dust…naturally, the week my friend and I were up there it was raining and extremely muddy. It delayed us a bit but not too much and I was able to spend Friday of that week getting our baseball team’s jerseys for the big regional tournament the next day, Saturday.
Ok, so heres a big sports buildup for really a very small time event…but here goes nothing. Three teams in this mini torneo, one spot for a trip to the nationals in Tegucigalpa in June. The teams: Victoria, San Luis, and the host team, Minas de Oro. Minas de Oro has represented our region in the national tournament as long as anyone here can remember and with beat our humble Victoria squad last year by a score of 15-2, I believe. That Victoria team was coached by Gen and, though they did not win a game, did get an alternates spot in the nationals by virtue of having scored a lot of runs. We play San Luis first and the winner takes a break while the loser plays Minas in the next game. First game and our big pitcher, who is often as wild as Mitch Williams during practice, is on the mark and is striking batters out like it’s his job. San Luis’ pitcher also throws hard but is a little off the mark and actually walks in two runs for us in the first, 2-0. These games are only an hour long or five innings, whichever comes first, and the next few innings are tense but very even with no runs scored.
Another unexpected trip to Yoro so I´ll paste what I have and leave you in suspense about the results of the tournament. More to come very soon...
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