Leala in Honduras!

Eight months have gone by and I cannot seem to find the words to describe everything that has happened.

Since the last post, I have

. . .watched Honduras qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1982.
. . .been in awe of how ridiculous and dividing the coup d'etat became.
. . .gone off to roast marshmallows over lava and climb Mayan ruins in Guatemala.
. . .done RoadTrip Nation with Alex and Chris who came to visit me.
. . .experienced my first Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) in a Catholic country.
. . .experienced my first Skype Christmas with my family back home.
. . .said hello to 2010 in Honduras.
. . .realized that the time I have left in Honduras is dwindling.
. . .run around like crazy trying and hoping to get a 1 year long extension to my PC service in Honduras (it was denied due to security issues in my site).
. . .accepted and rejoiced in the fact that I was given more time in Honduras (3 month extension until late July!).
. . .said "Adios" to 2 Honduran Presidents and said "Bienvenido" to the newest one as my first coup d'etat came to a close.
. . .come to expect some progress with the change in political party in my town government (but it's still the same ol' crap).
. . .seen my cat grow from a kitten to be a 11+ lb mini-tiger.
. . .tried to find the cheapest and most convenient way to take said mini-tiger to the States in the cabin with me when there are 13 lb weight limits (including carrier) on most airlines going from Central America.
. . .been waiting for the politics in my town to get out of the way so that I can get started on implementing my sexual health education program in the local schools (how am I supposed to get any work done in the schools when there are 3 Superintendents in office right now??).
. . .helped train some of the newest PC trainees as they begin the journey I began 2 years ago.
. . .said some heart-wrenching goodbyes to the training group I came in with as they finished their service in April.
. . .been to Paradise and seen turtles and barracudas and Goliath Fish while scuba diving in Belize.
. . .realized that my future is opening up once more as I reach the end of this wonderful wonderful journey.


It will be hard closing this chapter of my life and saying goodbye to the people here, but I know that I need to move on and learn more about life in different settings and with different people in order to grow more as a person. I do not know what will happen in the end but at least for the 12 months after I leave Honduras (Aug. 4) my path is open, and I can't wait to see what will happen next!


Future goals until Sept 2011:
Apply to a Master's program in Public Health.
Go to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios Orlando.
Travel to Southeast Asia.
Travel around Central America and South America.
Whatever else comes my way.

Hey everyone! So yes, I have been really really bad and lazy at updating and responding to emails and facebook posts. Sorry for that, but here goes with a 9-month update. I assure you that it won't be THAT long, so let's get started with my Top # lists!

First a disclaimer for the next 2 lists. I have found a love for cooking that has filled up my boring days with deliciousness.

Top 11 - Foods I Have Successfully Cooked from Scratch
1. Zucchini Bread - Delicious!
2. Apple Bread - Even more delicious!
3. Zucchini Brownies
4. Bagels - Need to make it more flavorful though
5. Pad Woon Sen - Glass Noodle Stir-Fry - quite proud of myself actually
6. Pizza - Though the crust can use a bit more work. Mine comes out super crusty.
7. Guacamole - Absolutely delicious
8. Nacho Cheese - I am serious. The cheesy, gooey, deliciousness that we find at convenience stores and at fairs.
9. Buttercream Frosting - handmade frosting was pretty good, esp when I don't have a blender
10. Chocolate Cake - Not bad tasting. I even used coffee in it
11. Topogigios - Frozen milk with chocolate and cinnamon put and eat from a small plastic bag. Like a popsicle in a bag. I love these!!


Top 5 - Foods I Have Failed to Cook from Scratch
1. Carrot Bread - I just don't understand why it isn't flavorful
2. Banana Bread - Again, flavorless, maybe the bananas were TOO ripe
3. Pad Thai - I will leave it up to my mom to cook this
4. Thai Style Egg Rolls including the Egg Roll Wrappers Handmade - This was the biggest challenge ever. God, Egg Roll Wrappers are so hard to make!! Again, I will leave it up to other people to make them
5. Chocolate Cake - This belongs on both lists cause it caused me such aggravation when I had to redo it 3 times.


Top 10 - Things That Have Happened Since I Last Updated
1. I got a kitty cat in July! His name is Jalapeño because he is Espicy (as we say it in Spanglish)! He was 6 weeks old when I got him but is currently 17 weeks old, loves to eat, sleep and cuddle (is sleeping on my lap right now), but also loves to play, bite and scratch. I have the scars to prove it! It's definitely a challenge raising a kitten to be a cat. He secretly ate some of my zucchini brownies the other day and got chocolate poisoning! Started vomiting and having diarrhea; however, he is all better now. Jalapeño is my little baby and has been entertaining me throughout the past coup filled months. I will probably take him back to the States with me. What an adventure that will be!



Kitty cat is now so big!

2. My external hard drive died and my computer died twice. First time around, I fixed them with the limited resources I had. Second time around, I gave up, dipped into my savings and bought myself a mini netbook computer. What can I say, I can't live without a computer, it's just impossible work wise, entertainment-wise, and sanity-wise. It has a video camera, so let's talk over Skype! My sn is lealagool.

3. In April, I became open-water scuba diving certified in Utila, one of the islands of Honduras - cheapest place to do it in the world. This means that I can dive up to 60ft anywhere in the waters of the world.

So cool underwater!

My diving team and me.

4. I completed one year of service - Countdown T-7 months if I don't decide to extend my service for an extra 8 months. This will all depend on if I think I can continue with my project next year. If I can, I will stay until the end of the school year, which is usually in November or December.

5. Saw Harry Potter Half Blood Prince in theaters. And even though it came out June 15 everywhere else in the world, I had to wait until June 23rd for it to come out here and also take a 6-hour bus ride to see it in the theater.


6. My family came to visit me in June and my little sis stayed for just a bit longer. My friends, host-family, and colleagues went all out for them when they came. Afterwards, we went from the islands to the ruins and back! Thanks for visiting, but I have to say that I have my fill until the holiday blues comes around again.

My family and me at the Mayan Ruins of Copan.

7. I turned 25 years old! Craziness. Thanks for the well wishes! Here in Honduras, my friends and host-fam went all out. Surprise visits from PC friends from around the country, three parties all within 4 hours and lots and lots of food. Thanks everyone!

The candles got broken beforehand, so this is the Honduran re-make of it. Delicious!

8. Golpe de estado or coup d'etat occured on June 28, 2009. I live in Olanchito, a big town where the resistance (Anti-coup) feelings are strong. Every time there was a protest or a march (which was everyday at the beginning), I was always a witness to them, since I live in the center of town right next to the mayor's office and the park, where the marches would end up. (I can spy on them from my windows). Seeing the resistance makes me think back to coup that happened in Thailand in 2006 and the Thai military oppressions that my parents lived through and protested against in the 70's. Though the marches and protests are always peaceful here, I am lucky that quite a few of the people participating are my friends or people with whom I work closely. I have to say that I am proud of the my friends and colleagues here for fighting for their rights in a peaceful manner; however at the same time, I fear for what might happen to them, my town, and all the people in the big cities where there are greater conflicts between the military and the resistance members. As for Peace Corps volunteers, a few days after the golpe, we were pretty scared that we would be pulled out of Honduras for security reasons. Personally, I would not have been ready to leave behind the life I had built here nor the friends I have made. Interestingly enough though, according to the charter of Peace Corps, it is an agency that is not affected by a coup d'etat unless there is direct threat towards volunteers as Americans living in that particular country, which there hasn't been in the case of Honduras. Thus, we can continue to live and work here since the violence and what not are occurring mostly in the 2-3 biggest cities in the country and not in our smaller towns.

"Because it's better to die standing than live on your knees forever"

I was totally going to upload a video of one of the protests in my town but my internet failed me...

9. Life goes on, but the quantity of work has plummeted. After the coup and because of it and the resistance, students only went to school 3 days a week. For 3 weeks after the coup, it was even worse in Olanchito. Since my town is a town of teachers and intellectuals, the majority of whom are participating in the resistance, there were absolutely no classes in the public schools for 3 weeks straight. Afterwards, classes continued 3 days a week like the rest of the country. Can you imagine it? There are 5 public high schools in Olanchito (some with over 2000 students) and over 10 public elementary schools that do not have classes. For awhile, there was even (and still is) a fear that ALL the students in Olanchito were going to lose this school year and have to repeat it next year. Because of this, I have not had work. The little amount of classes that the students have now cannot be taken away from them even for a project as great as my abstinence one (hehe). So now, I am seeing how I can salvage my project and continue it next year and seeing how I can diversify my work, principally working with the new support group for people living with HIV and Aids that just started in my town. We'll see what happens. Interestingly enough, this week I was supposed to start meeting with my teachers and parents again, but with Prez Mel Zelaya back, everything is chaos once again.

10. (Ex?)President Mel Zelaya came back to Honduras on Monday, so the curfews have come back. I don't know how he managed it, but Mel Zelaya is back in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Amazing actually. However, the pseudo-normalcy that had returned to us in the past few weeks disappeared, and the people took to the streets again. Classes are out for the week, the health centers are practically closed for most of the week, and suddenly we were told (at 3:30p) that a curfew was to put into effect at 4p until 6a the next morning. Now, in my town, curfews are highly enforced even though there is not a big police force here. The last time Mel came back to Honduras and a sudden curfew was put into effect at 6:30p, I was at my host-family's place and could not leave there until 7p. When I left, there was NO ONE in the streets, and it made me tense being outside during curfew hours. Definitely not something that I would like to repeat. So when Monday's curfew came around, I quickly made it home, even though my town did not shut down until 5p and there was a celebratory resistance march from 6-9p in the park. I thought, okay fine, tomorrow I can go on with my life, but no, the curfew was extended until 6p Tuesday! 26 hours! Then I heard it would be until 6p Wednesday. Ridiculous! They only gave us 30min to prep our houses with food and water for the curfew, then they want to prolong it. Luckily, I have enough food to last me for a couple weeks, but still, I was bored out of my mind not having a TV and not being able to voluntarily leave my apartment. I found out this morning that they just changed the curfew hours, and after 42 hours of curfew we have until 5p today to buy enough food and water. The curfew is supposed to end tomorrow morning, but who knows?

So now you know what has been happening in the past 9 months. Hopefully, I will update again soon. Now, I have to go by some foodstuffs before the curfew is back!

It has been too long since I last posted, but life is ridiculous. Here is a summary of what has been going on. Sorry that there are no pictures this time, I have too many rants. Check my flickr page though!

October
There was not really much work because my counterpart agency did not receive any funding (more on that later), but it was okay since I moved into my new apartment! Goo Leala! Moved into a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment that has mint green walls. It is also on the top floor (3rd) of the building so i get a pseudo-view. However, I did not really get a chance to appreciate my apartment since I had to travel so much. I moved in Oct 16, and by mid November, I had only been in my apartment for 2 weeks, with me being out of town for just about every single weekend. For Halloween, I went to celebrate in the town in western Honduras that is the site for some of the ancient Mayan ruins. Very very cool. Unfortunately I do not have any fotos from that time since my camera batteries were acting funny. Two last notes about October. The rainy season officially started in Olanchito at this time. Let me just say that I have never seen it rain so hard in my life, so hard that the bus lines out of my site actually stopped running for awhile. Luckily it does not flood in the area around my apartment. Unfortunately, the ceiling leaks in my apartment in almost every room. Booo!! Lastly, I have internet in my apartment! Actually, I have it in all of Honduras with my portable wireless (through the cell phone company) usb modem!! Let's just say that it has been the best and the worst thing to happen to me. I feel more connected to the world but less connected to my community.


November - Two important events: Thanksgiving and World AIDS Day
This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving at my apartment or as my friend calls it, the banquet hall, since there was not any furniture except for a bunch of tables and chairs. Actually, until Thanksgiving, I did not have a table, chairs, nor bed sheets. Hehe. Ridiculous, huh? That's how it is though when you don't want to be overcharged for bad bed sheets. I have to say that Thanksgiving was quite a success. We had 18 guests, volunteers and hondurans, a ham, a free turkey, homemade stuffing, more than a bucketful of mashed potatoes, and just about anything else you could want. It was a lovely cultural event, and I am glad to have been able to share it with everyone. Because of work though, Thanksgiving time did not mean vacation for me.
Every year, World AIDS Day is celebrated around the world on December 1. Of course, we were going to do that as well in Honduras, but there was a big complication. The primary elections for the city, state, and national governments was the day before, Apparently there is an election law in this country that says that there can be no big events (that attract crowds) after the elections until 6p the following day. Now this really put a kink in our plans, but we (Foro Nacional de SIDA) decided to move the plans up a bit with the coordination of Olanchito's health sector.
The day after Thanksgiving, we planned a big HIV/health fair with educational games. Then in the late afternoon we planned for a solidarity march with candle/brown paper bag torches that would end up at the Catholic church for a mass to commemorate those that have died from AIDS. In order to get everything done, Emérita and I rallied our youth group, and we worked for 3 days straight preparing everything. So far so good, no? Too bad, things fell apart real quickly.
When it came to the coordination with the health section, no one lifted a finger to help us. What happened was that they just wanted to be in on the planning stages so that they could say they had a part in it. Come World AIDS Day, Emerita, the teenagers, and I were doing ALL of the work for an event for a community of 40,000+ people. Absolutely ridiculous. I could not even spend time with my volunteer friends who came to my site for Thanksgiving. It's crazy, but it gets even worse.
In addition, because of the elections, all of the public schools had let out early (as if all the strikes weren't enough), so that the facilities could be used as polling/election stations. The end result is that hardly anyone showed up to our parade/march. We had expected about 200 or so people. Only 30 or so people showed up including my youth group, myself, and 4 of my PC volunteers friends. What was worse was that I heard that a lot of the health personnel was not going to show up since it was internal elections for the health sector as well. Absolutely horrible. We say that HIV and AIDS is not just a health issue but for goodness sakes, everyone in the health field should be conscientious of it and support the cause. I was just about ready to kill someone, especially since my youth group became so disillusioned and disappointed from the turnout after all of the work they had put in.
But what do you do? You have to keep going. So we did the march and I felt better for doing something and after a peaceful mass, I was able to put the anger behind me. After all of the trouble though, I just had about enough of World AIDS day and the level of community participation that exists in this town. Frankly, I have had enough of Olanchito (and Honduras) and the politics of getting things done here. I need a break.


December
December is filled with traveling as well. For the first 5 days of the month, I was in the capitol attending a HIV and AIDS convention. Interesting topics, but let me just say I am never going back again! I don't know where they learned it, but Hondurans at this convention were brought up well in the talking department. They were too eloquent and apparently did not know when to stop. Just imagine sitting through 10-20 minute not so pertinent speeches from 30 or so people a day from 8:00a until 5 or 6p. And please remember, this was ALL in Spanish.


Conclusions I have come to these past three months:
1) Too much traveling is just too much. It's great to see friends and visit other sites, but at the same time, I just want to be in my site doing normal things at the same time saving money.

2) The world economy has definitely slowed. Now, I have been keeping up with the news about America's economy, but really there has been no visible difference here in the Honduran economy. Unfortunately, I have been affected in other ways here. My counterpart agency, Foro Nacional de SIDA, receives its funding from the Swiss government even though it is mostly a national civil institution that is almost but not quite part of the Honduran government. It's very interesting. In Foro, there are 2 paid positions, the President and the Technical Officer. With a few exceptions across the country, it is almost always the Technical Officer who does all of the work in Foro, and the President is just there to supervise. That is not how it is supposed to be, but that's the way it is.
What has occurred this year is that funding has been cut for the upcoming year. Understandable due to the economy but what pisses me off is how Foro has handled the situation. Sure there is still money, albeit less, to program and get things down. However, they have done the worst thing possible. They have cut funding for the whole 2009 year for the Technical Officer position. What makes it even worse is that for the convention we had in December, they gave each of us (some 100 peoples) the equivalent of a month's pay for a Technical Officer! Absolutely ridiculous! It makes no sense to cut off funding from the people who are actually doing the work from the grassroots level. I am appalled at the misuse of money and the apparent lack of priorities this organization has. What is expected is that the President will execute all of the programs and that the ex-Technical Officers continue on as volunteers. What a laugh! It is going to be ridiculous next year.
I fear for the Foro branch in Olanchito. My friend, who is my counterpart, basically is now out of a job and has to search for one in a town that really lacks in NGO type jobs. MY crazy profe is the president of Foro in Olanchito, and I do not expect her to execute any of the projects or write any of the reports. She is a delegator not an executer of projects. Frankly, I think Foro in Olanchito has just been killed off. And so what does this mean for me? It means that I am out of a counterpart agency and less work for me (which is good and bad). The worst consequence is on the community level. It has just gotten a bit harder to do HIV and AIDS work in Olanchito when the only organization doing any work of this kind has just lost their sole executer of events. Geez man, all of this just because of the economy.

3) My last conclusion, and what I have already mentioned before, is that I need a break. I need to lessen my workload (which is happening for me!) and relax and get to know my community more. Because if I do not know my community, how am I going to know what they really need and want in regards to their health and happiness? So what I am hoping is that after a pretty long vacation in the States (I am flying in 13 hours!!!), I will have a clearer mind and be more invigorated and have about what I will be doing for the rest of my time here in Honduras (16.5 months left!! AHHH!!).

So I will leave it at that. . .See you guys soon (literally)! Happy Holidays to all of you!