Correction to that fun fact I gave in the last blog update: only SEVEN (not five) aldeas in the municipio of Victoria have electricity, which is FOUR (not two) more than had it before the current mayor came. Even more impressive than I lead on, no?
March 12
Just got back from a three day topo study in a village. This one was rough—lots of hiking, extreme temperatures (very hot during the day, very cold at night), difficult terrain—and the bad news is all of it was a re-shoot. A friend and I did a conduction line (from the water source to the storage tank) study for this village last year, but it turned out there were several points along the way that were too high for water to reach in a gravity-fed system. So another route had to be found, one on significantly lower ground, and then we needed to do another study to measure the terrain.
By the time we had hiked to the starting point for the study each day, the shirt I was wearing was already soaked through. And then one night we were definitely hiking back to their village by moonlight because we had finished working so late and were so far away. This is all great and I certainly love the work. The only problem is the only footwear I brought was the pair of rubber boots I purchased here in Honduras. These boots far outstrip the cool REI boots I have when it comes to trekking through mud or rivers (once the soles of those REI boots get wet, you might as well put on rollerblades), but they are not nearly as comfortable and are downright stupid to wear on long hikes. Long hikes like the ones we did each morning...and again each evening. Not to mention being upright all day doing the actual study. By the time we finished (thank goodness we actually finished!), I was sure my boots were slowly filling with blood because the pain on the last hike back had me convinced my skin was slowly being ripped off. And that’s no joke—the pain was intense and the last hike was all downhill, so my foot was gripping and slipping within the boot the whole time. Of course, as it turns out, no blood. And a visual inspection of the soles of my feet reveals no external damage or distress marks of any kind. But the pain was real, I tell you!!
And the other thing I hate is that I come back from this community just riddled with all sorts of skin ailments—insect bites, rashes, eczema outbreaks—because of having spent so much time offroad and without showers. Nothing more to say about that, I guess. Hopefully this route we just measured is much more generous to gravity-fed water system designs. And then in a week or two I go back to take measurements within the actual community.
March 18
A PC trainee, or a volunteer-to-be, just left Victoria today after having spent the last two and a half days here living the life of a real volunteer. That “real volunteer” would be me—hold it a second, gotta brush this dirt off my shoulder—and, where was I? Right. Anyway, the new group just arrived in Honduras about three weeks ago and now is the time that each of them leaves the training site and goes to visit one of us out in the field. Sometimes these visits are just blown off but they can be pretty useful, as well. Luckily the guy sent to Victoria and I had couple different things to do. On Monday we went to see a water source with about ten caballeros from a nearby community that want to use it for their as-yet-unbuilt water system. I talked to them about the pros and cons of the source (distance from the community, elevation difference, flow strength, etc.) and that was that. Monday afternoon was great because it gave the illusion that I am very integrated into the community—a high schooler came over looking for help with English homework; a friend came by to play guitar; and a neighbor’s kid was here playing with Tek the whole time. Seriously, those three things converged within a two or three hour span in a way they rarely ever do on a normal day.
On the way to lunch on Monday a gentlemen stopped us in the street and asked if I was the “water guy.” He then proceeded to tell us about the problem he has in his village with the system that is already in place and asked when could I go check it out—and just like that we had Tuesday morning plans! The next day we met that gentleman at the water source to his system and then proceeded to walk the tubería to his pueblo (one of the four that now has electricity within the past couple years) and saw that open faucets had no water coming out of them the further away we walked from the source. We talked about what some of the problems could be and then he invited us to his mother-in-law’s house where we had some coffee. Tuesday afternoon much less cool—no English homework to help with, no guitar-playing friends, just a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses to chat about the Bible with as my “aspirante” took a nap.
March 26
A fairly normal week so far, but I will update this a bit. Thursday of last week was my birthday and it was a normal day here in Victoria, but just a little bit sweeter. Thanks to all of you who wrote or called—calling is cooler than writing, because there’s no internet here, but I accept birthday emails, of course! And if you did neither, well, don’t even bother reading the rest of this blog. And you’re banned from the next entry, as well, it’s like a red card, baby!! All joking aside, I ran in the morning and then opened a care package from the folks (that Sara had brought back from Teguc). In the early afternoon the mayor’s office crew threw me a little lunch deal and had a small gift and card to go with it, and then in the evening Sara and pcv friend of hers who was passing through got together and baked cookies and then made me dinner! What’s not to love about birthdays?!
On Saturday Sara, two more gringa pcv’s, and I went to a nearby town to attend a dance. Actually the first one I have been to outside of Victoria proper, and it was a good one. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that the town in question was the same one the volunteer-in-training who came to visit me and I went to to evaluate their water problems; AND that the salón where the dance was held had just had its inaugural opening three days prior. So there you go. It was nothing exciting, just a dance. But it is always interesting to have volunteers from other places in your site watching you cut loose a little.
And yesterday, two noteworthy things happened. First, the boss-man of my Wat/San program came out to Victoria to pay a visit and see how things were going. Nothing super special there, just a reminder of all the forms and reports and miscellaneous stuff that I need to do in a rapidly shrinking amount of time, along with the work I still need to complete. But it was good to get some advice about how to best go about finishing things. The exciting thing happened in the evening, after my boss had left, after I had eaten and cleaned up from dinner, even after I had showered. I am sitting in the living room, reading before I go to bed, and I notice a small something on my right heel. I shake my foot but nothing flies off, and I assume its just because my foot is still wet from having showered. And then I lift up my foot and get a better look. Across my entire right heel I have formed an off-colored, pseudo second skin—i.e. a big effing blister. So much for that hellish study not leaving any distress marks on my feet!!!
More on Victoria later. I miss you guys. Hope you’re enjoying March Madness!
Love, Joe
Friday, March 27, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Who can save our village?
Once again, no rolling update—sorry about that. That is the best way to update this thing but I just didn’t get around to it. And for those of you who wrote me emails AGES ago, I apologize—you have something waiting in your “inbox” now. Hopefully. So there is not a lot of news news over here. When I was in a major city last to update the blog, Obama inauguration timeframe, I was there because my group of peace corps volunteers was gathered for our Close of Service conference. Its where PC gives us the laundry list of reports that need to be finished, forms that need to be filled out, medical appointments scheduled, yada yada. Since then I have been in Victoria the entire time, occasionally returning to villages to finish up work on a study and design and, in a few cases, visiting them for the first time to get to know the water situation.
The new development is that I am definitely at the point in my service where the information I collect now about villages is something I will pass down to the new volunteer who follows me here in Victoria. In the past couple of weeks, for example, I have gone to three places I had never been to before and each one is starting from nothing. But since the season for measuring the output of each water source is not until (normally) late March through early May, I will be fortunate to be able to take those measurements before I leave. And all that must happen before the topo study and design. So a portion of my work at the moment is just organizing information for the next volunteer.
One thing that is unique to what I have done here to this point is that the first week in February I started hosting a (very) brief segment during the evening news hour on Victoria’s own radio station—in case that news had not quite reached your various states yet, its 90.5 FM (www.rsvictoria.com)! My segment is ten minutes normally, once a week, and it deals with environmental and basic sanitation issues. I do a mock interview with the same fictional campesino, and each week he is defending his unsanitary or environmentally destructive actions because of complaints lodged against him by his neighbors. Hilarity ensues and we eventually do learn something each and every week. This project is largely based off the work a former volunteer did a couple of years ago, but I have a friend here who is helping me tailor it to the area.
That brings up an intriguing truth about Victoria—not too long ago the town began it’s very own radio station (complete with a satellite internet hookup), and yet electricity here is not a constant. There are families here, who have sons and cousins and uncles in the States, who live in two story mansion-looking homes, and there are families living in shacks that are pieced together with whatever materials people could find. The casco urbano, or Victoria proper (where the mayor’s office is), does not have many of those shacks, but there are some and they stand in stark contrast to the expansive homes not far away. There are only two places that have internet in the entire muncipality—the new, privately owned radio station; and at the office of the Spanish NGO in town. Not in the high school, not in the mayor’s office, nowhere else.
Victoria is one of the largest municipalities in the department of Yoro and is the poorest. The casco urbano is located at one of the extreme ends of its own municipality, right on the border of another department, Comayagua. To give an example of how oddly placed the town is within its own municipio, check this out: when I go on runs, one of the paths I take goes south and from the mayor’s office, following that path, I can be in another department (Comayagua) inside of five minutes; yet, there are some towns and villages to the north and west that are part of Victoria that are three and four hours away by bus. Very odd. It should not be hard to imagine that many of the people in these far-away villages spend much more of their time going to nearby cities (that have supermarkets, paved roads, internet, etc.) to do errands than they do going to Victoria. But none of these other, bigger cities (Santa Rita, El Negrito, Morazán) has any kind of jurisdiction over them and can not help them for water, health, or property issues, etc.
The work I do is mostly (if not entirely) in these villages far away from Victoria proper. Some of these villages are the kind where it takes a three hour bus ride and then a two hour hike to get to—completely isolated, away from everything. You can imagine what kind of assistance people in towns like this can expect from their local government, especially considering the corruption and poverty that wracks this country. Victoria has a pretty awesome mayor, an engineer who worked with an NGO in Victoria and nearby municipios for decades before running for office. There are always political factions and party loyalty issues, but nearly everyone admits the current mayor has done more in the past three years for Victoria than were done in the twenty years previous. But he can only do so much—forget about how much money he does not have to do all the projects that need doing, the mayor’s office does not have transportation. Neither the mayor nor anyone who works for him has a car or truck to go visit these villages. People who work in the office use their own motos for transport, if they have one, but a good portion of the towns pertaining to the municipio are often inaccesible to moto given the time of year and weather conditions.
So there you go, thats probably enough Victoria for one blog entry, no?! Here’s one last quick fact for use at parties/inaugural balls: there are 168 towns and villages in the municipio of Victoria and only five of them have electricity. But that is two more than had electricity before the current mayor took power. More to come, I hope everyone is well.
The new development is that I am definitely at the point in my service where the information I collect now about villages is something I will pass down to the new volunteer who follows me here in Victoria. In the past couple of weeks, for example, I have gone to three places I had never been to before and each one is starting from nothing. But since the season for measuring the output of each water source is not until (normally) late March through early May, I will be fortunate to be able to take those measurements before I leave. And all that must happen before the topo study and design. So a portion of my work at the moment is just organizing information for the next volunteer.
One thing that is unique to what I have done here to this point is that the first week in February I started hosting a (very) brief segment during the evening news hour on Victoria’s own radio station—in case that news had not quite reached your various states yet, its 90.5 FM (www.rsvictoria.com)! My segment is ten minutes normally, once a week, and it deals with environmental and basic sanitation issues. I do a mock interview with the same fictional campesino, and each week he is defending his unsanitary or environmentally destructive actions because of complaints lodged against him by his neighbors. Hilarity ensues and we eventually do learn something each and every week. This project is largely based off the work a former volunteer did a couple of years ago, but I have a friend here who is helping me tailor it to the area.
That brings up an intriguing truth about Victoria—not too long ago the town began it’s very own radio station (complete with a satellite internet hookup), and yet electricity here is not a constant. There are families here, who have sons and cousins and uncles in the States, who live in two story mansion-looking homes, and there are families living in shacks that are pieced together with whatever materials people could find. The casco urbano, or Victoria proper (where the mayor’s office is), does not have many of those shacks, but there are some and they stand in stark contrast to the expansive homes not far away. There are only two places that have internet in the entire muncipality—the new, privately owned radio station; and at the office of the Spanish NGO in town. Not in the high school, not in the mayor’s office, nowhere else.
Victoria is one of the largest municipalities in the department of Yoro and is the poorest. The casco urbano is located at one of the extreme ends of its own municipality, right on the border of another department, Comayagua. To give an example of how oddly placed the town is within its own municipio, check this out: when I go on runs, one of the paths I take goes south and from the mayor’s office, following that path, I can be in another department (Comayagua) inside of five minutes; yet, there are some towns and villages to the north and west that are part of Victoria that are three and four hours away by bus. Very odd. It should not be hard to imagine that many of the people in these far-away villages spend much more of their time going to nearby cities (that have supermarkets, paved roads, internet, etc.) to do errands than they do going to Victoria. But none of these other, bigger cities (Santa Rita, El Negrito, Morazán) has any kind of jurisdiction over them and can not help them for water, health, or property issues, etc.
The work I do is mostly (if not entirely) in these villages far away from Victoria proper. Some of these villages are the kind where it takes a three hour bus ride and then a two hour hike to get to—completely isolated, away from everything. You can imagine what kind of assistance people in towns like this can expect from their local government, especially considering the corruption and poverty that wracks this country. Victoria has a pretty awesome mayor, an engineer who worked with an NGO in Victoria and nearby municipios for decades before running for office. There are always political factions and party loyalty issues, but nearly everyone admits the current mayor has done more in the past three years for Victoria than were done in the twenty years previous. But he can only do so much—forget about how much money he does not have to do all the projects that need doing, the mayor’s office does not have transportation. Neither the mayor nor anyone who works for him has a car or truck to go visit these villages. People who work in the office use their own motos for transport, if they have one, but a good portion of the towns pertaining to the municipio are often inaccesible to moto given the time of year and weather conditions.
So there you go, thats probably enough Victoria for one blog entry, no?! Here’s one last quick fact for use at parties/inaugural balls: there are 168 towns and villages in the municipio of Victoria and only five of them have electricity. But that is two more than had electricity before the current mayor took power. More to come, I hope everyone is well.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Am I in...two thirds of a hospital room?
Hello everyone, happy new year! Its 2009 and, I think its official, the United States of America has a new President. What else needs to be said?
The new year is going well so far here in Victoria. But let me back up a bit to the end of December. The last part of my last entry was about La Posada, and how people gather in the town park every night in December and walk through the streets to a different house each time, singing Christmas carols and re-enacting María and José looking for a room. When all is said and done that will be one of my favorite memories here—its so unique and intimate and fun. I did that every night I was in Victoria in December but on the 23rd I left because my parents had flown to Costa Rica to do a working vacation or a volunteer vacation with a group called Global Volunteers over Christmas! They worked on a coffee farm for a week! Really!
I will not subject you all to every detail, but it was an excellent trip. We met in the mountainous region of Monteverde, spent some time there (where they had been for the coffee work), and then went to the capital, San José. By the time I arrived my folks had roughed it enough and eaten their fill of gallo pinto (a mixture of rice and beans), so they were eager to indulge in some of the luxuries of being a tourist—hot showers, meals without rice and beans, etc. I gave them a hard time, but ultimately relented. For their benefit. Here is a picture of the three of us at a nice San José restaurant their last night in town.
The new year is going well so far here in Victoria. But let me back up a bit to the end of December. The last part of my last entry was about La Posada, and how people gather in the town park every night in December and walk through the streets to a different house each time, singing Christmas carols and re-enacting María and José looking for a room. When all is said and done that will be one of my favorite memories here—its so unique and intimate and fun. I did that every night I was in Victoria in December but on the 23rd I left because my parents had flown to Costa Rica to do a working vacation or a volunteer vacation with a group called Global Volunteers over Christmas! They worked on a coffee farm for a week! Really!
I will not subject you all to every detail, but it was an excellent trip. We met in the mountainous region of Monteverde, spent some time there (where they had been for the coffee work), and then went to the capital, San José. By the time I arrived my folks had roughed it enough and eaten their fill of gallo pinto (a mixture of rice and beans), so they were eager to indulge in some of the luxuries of being a tourist—hot showers, meals without rice and beans, etc. I gave them a hard time, but ultimately relented. For their benefit. Here is a picture of the three of us at a nice San José restaurant their last night in town.
After they left I returned to the life of the solitary backpacker and found a hostel for a couple of nights. I figured a new year’s spent in the unknown of Costa Rica would top what I knew of Honduras. But no, I am doomed to forever experience lame New Years Eve’s. Sure hostels are a great place to meet people; unfortunately for me the only people to be met at the particular hostel where i was were middle aged German men. Ok, there was an attractive family from Puerto Rico there, too, but even then the closest girl to my age was fifteen. So I think at the exact moment that Costa Rica slipped into 2009, I was sitting in an arm chair in the living room of the hostel, watching The Notebook with said middle aged German man and adolescent Puerto Rican girl. Awesome.
But Victoria has had, and normally does have, an exciting first couple of weeks of the new year. The town’s feria just finished and EVERYONE from town comes back for this thing! Family members re-unite not for Christmas here but for the feria a few weeks later. And they’re not just coming from Tegucigalpa and San Pedro but Houston and New York, as well. Its no joke. Anyway, it is two weeks of almost non-stop events and the town is not the same for the rest of the calendar year. The church is never as filled as during the day of the patron saint, on January 15; the Salón de Actos Culturales is never as packed as later that night when a band is brought in to play live music for the fiesta!
I know I wrote about this last year but I think the only picture I had to contribute was what I referred to as an “artsy” picture—a blurred image of some lights and people. Here are some pics from this year’s event:
People leaving the church on the 15th...
...the welcome banner at one of town's entrances...
...from the side of the town's mini bull ring at a rodeo show...
...from backstage at the "Miss Victoria" competition...
Ok, and I was wrong about which dance is the most crowded. I was under the impression that it was the dance on the 15th—not so. Two nights later they have a dance for the “Viejos”; anyone 70 yrs and up gets in for free. Couples of any age pay a discounted fare and single people pay an outrageous fare. I went this year because many people had told me how popular it is and how many people go just to watch the older couples dance. But I would not have believed it if I had not seen it…amazing. Older people, sweet old ladies and men, the ones you only see go to and from church once a week, were out on the dance floor kicking up a storm! I left at 2am and they were still going!!
PS—Happy Inauguration Day! Go USA!
PS—Happy Inauguration Day! Go USA!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Soy LOCO por las cornballs!
November 28
Thanksgiving Day was yesterday and I spent it in Victoria. My sitemate, a friend of hers from a site about an hour and a half away, and I all cooked together throughout the day and then enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving meal. It was actually a lot of fun, staggering the different dishes we were cooking, hanging out with Sara’s host family and explaining the tradition to them. And it somehow managed to take all day—there were cookies (oatmeal peanut butter!) in the morning until Elizabeth, Sara’s friend, arrived and then we moved on to the pumpkin pie and simultaneously the chicken dish (it was a non-traditional meal). By the time it was over there were also deviled eggs (I don’t think I’m a huge fan), stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, dinner rolls. And of course tonight we’re going to eat leftovers…excellent!
December 3
It’s Wednesday now and I’m in the middle of a new water project. This week I am spending in another municipio checking out the water situation in four aldeas because Engineers Without Borders is interested in the area. I am the closest wat/san volunteer so they have a gringo down here acting as a link between the organization and PCVs, among other things, so I’m checking out the deal. This is not at all unlike what I have been doing for about eighteen or so months here in Victoria, only now it is in a new location. I go visit the pueblo, talk to the local leaders, take an elevation point or two near the highest houses, and then walk to the location of the water source they want to use for the proposed system to check it out. First village we did on Monday and it was a breeze. But then yesterday was village number two and I have to say that of the fifteen or so aldeas I have before, yesterday was the most difficult. Without question. Part of it is that I still have not fully recovered from the bronchitis I have had since I came back from the States. But aside from that the mountain we were hiking on was a complete nightmare—it was only mud, mud, and more mud. And mud can be fun, I’ll admit that. But not this mud. This is the mud that’s making your hike so much more difficult when you are descending several hundred meters, making you slip like you’re wearing rollerblades…the mud that never lets you relax and just walk normally because you have to stare intently at every spot on the ground. But then there are the patches of mud like a bog, where there is nowhere else to put your foot, and trying to get your boot to come out of the mud still on your foot is an act that requires serious concentration.
The only time we were not putting our feet in mud was when we were crossing the river on little sticks people had set up between rocks. Normally this is a river one can just walk across but we’re still in the rainy season so it is way too strong to do that now. This scene was made all the worse by the fact that we were in a rain cloud the entire day. There was no sun, only rain. After we had hiked down (a generous profe gave us a ride in his truck UP the mountain on a road) for three hours, we found out that our plan to continue hiking down and thus out of the mountain would be impossible because the path further down had been washed out. So we then had no choice but to retrace our steps and hike back up three hours to where the truck had dropped us off. I returned to Victoria that night well after nightfall, completely covered in mud, still wet and very cold. I know it’s a boo-hoo story, but it was brutal.
December 6
Saturday now, the weekend is just beginning! Last night was a pretty cool event—the high school, or colegio, was having its graduation ceremony and dance. Last year at this time I had not done any work anywhere in the village proper of Victoria and did not have strong ties to many people here and knew nothing about town events. As a result, I do not think I even knew when or where the high school graduation happened last year. This year not so…I was an invited guest! It was a low key affair but the hall where they held the ceremony was packed and the local TV cameraman was there filming everything; it was pretty fun. I went with a friend’s family, took pictures of the students graduating, sat through some long speeches, and generally had a good time. Afterwards there was a dance for the new grads and it was funny because a lot of the parents were there as well—perhaps to make sure everyone behaved! Anyway, a unique event and definitely fun.
December 9
Last night the town began La Posada again! I think I mentioned it last year, but I didn’t catch on until the 20th or so of December. Beginning early in the month, every night everyone is welcome to gather in the town park at a certain hour. From there we all walk as a group through the town, singing Christmas carols and with a boy and girl out in front, going to a different house each night. Once we arrive at the house we re-enact María and José looking for a room at the inn. There’s a little back and forth song, first the people outside then the people inside responding in song. It is a great Christmas tradition!
Thanksgiving Day was yesterday and I spent it in Victoria. My sitemate, a friend of hers from a site about an hour and a half away, and I all cooked together throughout the day and then enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving meal. It was actually a lot of fun, staggering the different dishes we were cooking, hanging out with Sara’s host family and explaining the tradition to them. And it somehow managed to take all day—there were cookies (oatmeal peanut butter!) in the morning until Elizabeth, Sara’s friend, arrived and then we moved on to the pumpkin pie and simultaneously the chicken dish (it was a non-traditional meal). By the time it was over there were also deviled eggs (I don’t think I’m a huge fan), stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, dinner rolls. And of course tonight we’re going to eat leftovers…excellent!
December 3
It’s Wednesday now and I’m in the middle of a new water project. This week I am spending in another municipio checking out the water situation in four aldeas because Engineers Without Borders is interested in the area. I am the closest wat/san volunteer so they have a gringo down here acting as a link between the organization and PCVs, among other things, so I’m checking out the deal. This is not at all unlike what I have been doing for about eighteen or so months here in Victoria, only now it is in a new location. I go visit the pueblo, talk to the local leaders, take an elevation point or two near the highest houses, and then walk to the location of the water source they want to use for the proposed system to check it out. First village we did on Monday and it was a breeze. But then yesterday was village number two and I have to say that of the fifteen or so aldeas I have before, yesterday was the most difficult. Without question. Part of it is that I still have not fully recovered from the bronchitis I have had since I came back from the States. But aside from that the mountain we were hiking on was a complete nightmare—it was only mud, mud, and more mud. And mud can be fun, I’ll admit that. But not this mud. This is the mud that’s making your hike so much more difficult when you are descending several hundred meters, making you slip like you’re wearing rollerblades…the mud that never lets you relax and just walk normally because you have to stare intently at every spot on the ground. But then there are the patches of mud like a bog, where there is nowhere else to put your foot, and trying to get your boot to come out of the mud still on your foot is an act that requires serious concentration.
The only time we were not putting our feet in mud was when we were crossing the river on little sticks people had set up between rocks. Normally this is a river one can just walk across but we’re still in the rainy season so it is way too strong to do that now. This scene was made all the worse by the fact that we were in a rain cloud the entire day. There was no sun, only rain. After we had hiked down (a generous profe gave us a ride in his truck UP the mountain on a road) for three hours, we found out that our plan to continue hiking down and thus out of the mountain would be impossible because the path further down had been washed out. So we then had no choice but to retrace our steps and hike back up three hours to where the truck had dropped us off. I returned to Victoria that night well after nightfall, completely covered in mud, still wet and very cold. I know it’s a boo-hoo story, but it was brutal.
December 6
Saturday now, the weekend is just beginning! Last night was a pretty cool event—the high school, or colegio, was having its graduation ceremony and dance. Last year at this time I had not done any work anywhere in the village proper of Victoria and did not have strong ties to many people here and knew nothing about town events. As a result, I do not think I even knew when or where the high school graduation happened last year. This year not so…I was an invited guest! It was a low key affair but the hall where they held the ceremony was packed and the local TV cameraman was there filming everything; it was pretty fun. I went with a friend’s family, took pictures of the students graduating, sat through some long speeches, and generally had a good time. Afterwards there was a dance for the new grads and it was funny because a lot of the parents were there as well—perhaps to make sure everyone behaved! Anyway, a unique event and definitely fun.
December 9
Last night the town began La Posada again! I think I mentioned it last year, but I didn’t catch on until the 20th or so of December. Beginning early in the month, every night everyone is welcome to gather in the town park at a certain hour. From there we all walk as a group through the town, singing Christmas carols and with a boy and girl out in front, going to a different house each night. Once we arrive at the house we re-enact María and José looking for a room at the inn. There’s a little back and forth song, first the people outside then the people inside responding in song. It is a great Christmas tradition!
Monday, November 24, 2008
You just made a fool out of yourself in front of T-bone…
No rolling update this time, sorry. In the past month there have been a few major events. First off was the trip back to the United States of America to see family and friends. The New Mexico portion of the trip was excellent, just like coming home. My parents did way too much cooking (but it was soooo good), my sister drove out, and I got to see a lot of family friends as well. I managed to renew my driver’s license and voted early as well, so it wasn’t all r&r! The Minnesota portion of the trip was also excellent, if eye-opening. My good friend Michael Reif was married and I got to see some of my closest friends in the world. The reunion was not the smoothest but it was an important one, and since the attendees at the wedding constitute 92% of El Amor Prohibido’s readership, you know what I’m talking about. Needless to say, I love you all—friends, family, everyone I saw on this trip.
I returned less than a month ago and ever since I have struggled to regain my form, mostly due to bronchitis. There were torrential rains in Honduras while I was gone, twenty or so people died in mud slides or raging rivers, and when I returned people were comparing it to Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Mitch is the hurricane that utterly destroyed the country and from which there has not yet been a full recovery. Not even close. Anyway, when I returned people told me the Rio Sulaco, which passes just south of Victoria, had risen to Mitch heights and that buses had stopped running for a week in the region because the roads were so bad. I got bronchitis from a mold covered blanket that I put on my bed and was sleeping under for a week. Come to think of it, all the clothes in my house were covered in mold when I came back, so why I thought this blanket would be any different is a good question.
The next big thing was November 4th, of course. My sitemate Sara and I ditched Victoria for a fellow pcv’s house many many hours away in a site where there is cable tv. There we had an election party complete with hand made Obama signs, balloons, and among other things, rice krispy treats with American flag toothpicks sticking out of them. And we watched CNN. All afternoon and night. What an amazing night it was. I’ll leave it at that.
Much of the rest of the month has been struggling with bronchitis, finishing a design and planning what the next few months of work will look like, reading, and watching The Wire. Sara and I also had our baseball tryout two weekends ago and it was very successful. For a traveling team that can be no more than 15 players we had 52 kids show. I guess we can judge it “successful” only if a large portion of them continue to show each week, but it was a good first step. School is done here now (vacation is December and January) and the Primary Elections are coming up at the end of the month. Within just one party there are three mayoral candidates here in Victoria: the current mayor running for re-election, the current vice mayor, and a former mayor. That’s to say nothing of the other major party, which has a couple candidates as well.
That’s a little dry, I know, but that’s about it for now. Give me a break, I’ve been back from the States for less than a month and have had a debilitating cough for nearly 100% of that time. Tek is going crazy because I haven’t been running so he’s not getting out as much. More to come soon…
I returned less than a month ago and ever since I have struggled to regain my form, mostly due to bronchitis. There were torrential rains in Honduras while I was gone, twenty or so people died in mud slides or raging rivers, and when I returned people were comparing it to Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Mitch is the hurricane that utterly destroyed the country and from which there has not yet been a full recovery. Not even close. Anyway, when I returned people told me the Rio Sulaco, which passes just south of Victoria, had risen to Mitch heights and that buses had stopped running for a week in the region because the roads were so bad. I got bronchitis from a mold covered blanket that I put on my bed and was sleeping under for a week. Come to think of it, all the clothes in my house were covered in mold when I came back, so why I thought this blanket would be any different is a good question.
The next big thing was November 4th, of course. My sitemate Sara and I ditched Victoria for a fellow pcv’s house many many hours away in a site where there is cable tv. There we had an election party complete with hand made Obama signs, balloons, and among other things, rice krispy treats with American flag toothpicks sticking out of them. And we watched CNN. All afternoon and night. What an amazing night it was. I’ll leave it at that.
Much of the rest of the month has been struggling with bronchitis, finishing a design and planning what the next few months of work will look like, reading, and watching The Wire. Sara and I also had our baseball tryout two weekends ago and it was very successful. For a traveling team that can be no more than 15 players we had 52 kids show. I guess we can judge it “successful” only if a large portion of them continue to show each week, but it was a good first step. School is done here now (vacation is December and January) and the Primary Elections are coming up at the end of the month. Within just one party there are three mayoral candidates here in Victoria: the current mayor running for re-election, the current vice mayor, and a former mayor. That’s to say nothing of the other major party, which has a couple candidates as well.
That’s a little dry, I know, but that’s about it for now. Give me a break, I’ve been back from the States for less than a month and have had a debilitating cough for nearly 100% of that time. Tek is going crazy because I haven’t been running so he’s not getting out as much. More to come soon…
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
An historic day...
Congratulations to President-elect Obama! Congratulations to the United States of America!
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