FINALLY!!!

Here is my room in Santa Lucia


Finally...

Here is the nest of bugs that I murdered in my room in Santa Lucia, after which I nearly suffocated from the fumes of the bug spray


Here's a view of Santa Lucia from the mountain where we hiked a lot


This is a view of the capital, Tegucigalpa AKA the forbidden land, from Santa Lucia


All of the following are taken from the diarrhea charla we gave during a training session (It was supposed to be about upper-respiratory infections, but my group got a little off topic)







All the photos above were taken during training in Santa Lucia. Now, I'm living in La Paz, where we've had more opportunities for hands-on experience in the community. Last Friday, we went to the Police Academy for a session on Men's health. This is an important topic in Honduras because of the machismo...men rarely go to the doctor, and lack opportunities for education about many health issues. We split up into several groups, and gave charlas to groups of about 25 each. The guys were between the ages of 18 and 30, and were a really interesting group to work with. We utilized a lot of non-formal education techniques, which is why a lot of these pictures look like we're just playing games...



This photo is of another aspirante instructing a session with the cadets. It was pretty funny...before we went, we were told to ask them all to remove their guns because we were going to be playing a lot of games that involved running around, and it was unlikely that they had the safety on. Fortunately, our group did not have any guns


It's a fact of life!!!...not sure if this picture is too clear, but if you can see what they're doing, I'm sure you can imagine the comedy in the situation.



Anyway, that session was a lot of fun. This week, we traveled to an aldea (a small community outlying a larger community) where we visited the Centro de Salud (health center). Friday, we are going to another community to have session on baby-weighing and maternal health. From the sessions we've had so far, I definitely think I have more interest in working with people living with HIV,AIDS, and with the Men's health program...I'll find out in 4 weeks what I'll end up doing!

Here's a couple pictures of my house in La Paz. I love it. As you can see, I have a giant mango tree right in front of my bedroom that provides shade for the awesome hammock underneath. Unfortunately, a giant, horribly mean pitbull lives underneath the hammock, so I don't think I'll be spending a lot of time there. Nonetheless, it's a great house and an awesome family that has been helping me out a lot.





As you can see, I have a TV in my room, with cable. I also have a stable supply of electricity, so am able to charge and use my laptop frequently. It's quite luxurious.

Next week is Semana Santa. It used to be an important religious holiday in Honduras, and still is in some parts. However, most people use it as a chance to go to the beaches, rivers, or basically anywhere they can swim and get wet. We have training Mon-Wed, so I'm not sure what will go on the rest of the week. We're still not allowed to travel, so I'm sure it won't be too exciting of a time.

PS Thanks for figuring out how to post the pics, Caroline

So...I just looked at the blog as it appears for you guys and realize that the texts do not line up with the pictures. I'm sure you guys can all figure out what's going on in them. This was a trial run, so hopefully now I'll have an easier time getting them up.

Pictures

So I have my USB thing here, with pictures on it...only problem is I don't know how to get them on the blog. Rather than waste my money trying to figure it out online, I'll ask around and see if a friend can show me. Or, if anyone reading this has any idea, please email me. Thanks

Already been here a month!!

I arrived in La Paz yesterday. It´s a great town, from what I´ve seen so far. The bus dropped us off at the city center, where we then had to lug all our bags around town looking for our host families. Luckily, my friend lives nearby, so he dropped off his stuff and helped me with mine. My house here is amazing. The people of La Paz appear to have more money, in general, than in Santa Lucia. My house resembles a hotel...you walk through a living room and kitchen to get to a common area outside, where there are 2 giant hammocks to lounge around on. My host mom is amazing, although it will be difficult to work on my Spanish with her...she has a cleft palate, so her speech is a bit slurred. The house is sort of like a boarding house. There are 10 Honduran students living there in addition to the Japanese JICA volunteer. The students are from all over Honduras, and are in La Paz to go to the Normal, which is a school to become a teacher. My mom also has a glorieta at the Normal, which is like a kitchen-type thing that serves snacks and stuff. My host dad works in Tegucigalpa, which means he takes a bus 2 hours each way, every day. The house is huge, so they must be doing pretty well with the jobs. In addition to the 10 students, my host mom´s daughter lives in the house as well. She is 8, and has been helping me understand when I can´t make out what her mom says. I forgot to mention that in my room, I have a TV with cable (yesterday I watched Dukes of Hazzard dubbed over in Spanish) and my own bathroom. Pretty luxurious! Strange thing is there are no mirrors whatsover in the house, so I have no idea what I look like when I leave the house...it´s a nice change.

Yesterday we all went to the Supermarket here, and I told her all the foods I like and dislike. She had no problem with my vegetarianism, and I think she will be an awesome cook. We have an hour and a half every afternoon to go home for lunch. Today I had fish (I´ve been eating this occasionally because I don´t see any reason to turn it down), which was interesting because it was the entire fish (head, bones, everything) fried, with rice, tortillas, and a salad. I have no complaints.

The weather here is much hotter than Santa Lucia, but not unbearable. For those of you wondering about pictures, I have them, but have not found a computer with internet that has a USB port. There are several other internet places in town, so I´m sure eventually I will find one that will work. I´ve also discovered there´s a gym here. It costs 300 lempira a month (about 17 dollars) and has a lot of weights, bikes, and elliptical machines. I may not be on the internet much after I join, because I will be spending the majority of my wages for the next few weeks on the membership. There´s no ATM here, so once I´m out of cash, I´m out for a while.
Other than that, I don´t have much else exciting going on. For those of you that have been texting me and not getting a response, it´s because I don´t have any more minutes left on my phone. The way phones work down here is you buy a card with a certain value, and once you use that up, you have to buy another one...which I am still deciding if I can afford, at the moment. However, even if I don´t have minutes, I can accept calls for free.

I´ll try to post pics sometime this week!

On to La Paz

So, my time here in Santa Lucia is coming to an end. Tomorrow, all of us in the Health project are moving on to the city of La Paz. This is a much bigger city (it has a movie theater!!!) and the weather is a bit warmer than our current location. I will be living with a family who has a mom, dad, and 2 kids. I can't remember the ages, but my mom runs a restaurant, which I'm excited about. I will also be living with a JICA volunteer, which is the equivalent of the Peace Corps, pretty much, but from Japan (and they make A LOT more money than us)...so it should be quite an interesting cultural exchange. Initially, we were going to have to take all our stuff (for me, this would mean carrying my laptop, a giant medical kit we received, my yoga mat, my large backback, and a giant duffel bag) on the bus to Tegucigalpa, then get to the bus station to take us to La Paz, hop on that bus, and then we were expected to find our host families given only a map of the town and no addresses. My training class found this rather interesting, seeing as how we are not allowed to travel to Teguc for the day, yet were encouraged to go there as a giant pack of gringos carrying all our belongings. Needless to say, we rented a bus so we'll have less of a hassel with the traveling, but are still expected to find our families given only a hand-drawn map of the town. I'll let you all know how that works out...

I had my second language interview this week. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but you have to test into an Intermediate-Medium level of Spanish in order to swear in. When I got here, I tested in at Intermediate-Low (+), and now I'm at Intermediate-High. I'm glad I don't have to worry about the swearing in, but now am aiming to get much more fluid in my speaking. Friday, during our Health training, we learned about Respiratory Infections in children (the leading cause of child death here in Honduras). Afterward, we divided into small groups and were supposed to give charlas (basically just a general talk) about a topic of our choice. My group decided to talk about diarrhea (a popular topic amongst us trainees), and we had some great posters. I finally got my camera cards, and have some pretty sweet pictures, so I'll get them up ASAP. As I preview, I'll just share that the posters included the terms ¿Tiene pupu explosiva? and ¿Sangre en su mierda? Our trainers got a kick out of them, but unfortunately they will not be appropriate to use in the campo.

Oh yeah, I sprained my ankle the other day...turns out running on slippery, uneven cobblestone when the sun hasn't come up isn't such a good idea. It's not too bad though, a few days rest and I should be fine.

More about the cellular

Apparently to call me from the States, you have to dial 011 504 9817 2471. The 504 is my country code, and the last 8 numbers are my actual number. In response to Caroline's comment, the number is 8 digits because for some reason Honduras recently switched to 8 digit numbers...it's not a black market carrier, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Let me know if anyone figures out how to call me!!

Random updates

-My host-sister had her baby last Sunday AM at 2:15. She was home by 3 in the afternoon. Ironically, she delivered at the same hospital where my health project was visiting on Friday morning. If she would have been a few hours earlier, we may have seen her, as we were also in the maternity ward!

-I went to a soccer game here in town last Sunday, the semi-finals of 2 teams from Santa Lucia. It's amazing how much intensity and excitement there is with the fans and the players. On several occassions, fights had to be controlled. Interestingly enough, a lot of times it was the players stopping the fans from getting out of control. I can't wait until I'm able to see the national teams play in Tegucigalpa.

-Funny story...last Monday was a pretty rainy day. I hung out with my family, ate some dinner (Beans, homemade tortillas, spinach with onions, eggs...Oh and have I mentioned the popularity of manteca (lard) among Hondurans, and my family? The other day, my host dad gave me a breakfast of fried plantains with a heaping scoop of lard on top. It was pretty sweet. Unfortunately, I haven't reverted back to my childhood eating habits, so I put it all in a napkin when he wasn't looking. Ironic that I used to do that with my vegetables when I was little, and now that's what I want the most of!!) Anyway, after dinner, somehow the barrier between my host-parents' room and the chicken coop outside collapsed, and I spent quite a bit of time chasing roosters throughout the house...Picture two 65+ year-old Hondurans and the gringa (white person, basically...me) running around, in the dark (because apparently it's easier to catch them this way). Finally, they were apprehended, and the noise they made when caught can only be described as what it might sound like if a cat in heat were run over by a car, repeatedly. it was awful, but hilarious.

-My trip to the North Coast was canceled last-minute because there had been a ton of rain in the area, so roads were washed out because of landslides, etc. Instead, I went with my friend Laura (another trainee) to the departamento (equivalent of US state) of Santa Barbara, to a tiny tiny town called Concepcion Sur. We visited a Health volunteer who is finishing her service in 3 weeks. Her town was very small...she lived in a large house, by herself, with 3 extra rooms. It seemed like it would be a relaxing, slow-paced lifestyle but made me realize I would like my placement in a slightly larger area. One cool thing was that a family from her community invited us to have dinner with them Friday night. I would guess there were about 10 people living in the house, and from what I could see, there was only one bedroom area. This was a family considered pretty well off...they had a TV and a refrigerator, which most people in the rural areas do not have.

-When we arrived back in Teguc yesterday (we have to go through there for basically every bus transfer to get anywhere in the country) we went to a mall there to look for cell phones. In the area, there was a Baskin Robbins, TCBY, Burger King, Popeyes, Church's Chicken, Sbarro, Pizza Hut, Quizno's, Subway, TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesday, Dunkin Donuts and probably other American restaurants I am forgetting. It was a bit disappointing to see all the American crap food so popular in the mall, but not very suprising. It is very expensive here, though. Most people cannot afford to eat fast food the way Americans do, so McDonalds, etc here have security guards, very friendly service, and are super clean (This is what I've heard...I haven't eaten there).

I guess that's all for now. I have one week left in Santa Lucia, then all of us in the Health project will be moving to La Paz, in the departamento of La Paz, for 6 weeks of Field-based training. After that, we'll have one week in Santa Lucia, and then we'll find out our site placement for the next 2 years!! I can't believe how fast training is going by.

Oh yeah, I got a cell phone. The number is: 504 9817 2471

Volunteer visit and more

Another week has quickly passed, although it feels like I´ve been here a month and known the other trainees for longer than that. I´m still in good health, although I got a flu shot for the first time in my life today and did not feel too fantastic for a while, but I think I´ve recovered. The exciting news of the day is that I´ve found out where I´ll be going for my volunteer visit, which is next Thurs-Saturday. I will be going to visit a Municipal Development volunteer (I´m a Health volunteer in case you didn´t know) in the departamento of Atlantido in a pueblo called El Porvenir. I won´t say much about this until after I get back, for now all I´ll say is that you should be jealous. My site is probably one of the furthest that any of the trainees will be visiting (they say about a 6 hour bus ride, so I´m anticipating at least 7 or 8), but it is right on the Mosquito coast (it´s called that because of the indigenous group that lives there called the Mosquitos, not because of the insect...) which is also known as the Caribbean. I´ll let you all know how that goes while all you in the US enjoy your cold weather, snow, etc.

As for this weekend, I don´t have any big plans other than probably hiking in the mountains and avoiding my house on Sunday (it´s intestine soup day). Tomorrow the Health project is going to a hospital in Tegucigalpa to learn about the Ministry of Health in the country, as well as visit the maternity ward, etc. It should be pretty interesting.

Other than that, I don´t have a whole lot to update. Our group started our malaria meds last week, so we´ve begun to compare details of the strange and vivid dreams that are a side-effect...I´ve already noticed a difference after taking them for a week, so I can´t imagine what it will be like when I´ve had it in my system for 2+ years!!

Love,
Anna

Oh yeah, I haven´t taken any pictures. For one, I don´t have a memory card yet for my camera and I also am just getting a feel for appropriate/safe times to take my camera out. I´ll try to post some soon, though, because it´s beautiful here