Lauren's Peace Corps Experience in Honduras

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed and experiences described in this travelogue are mine personally. Nothing written here should be interpreted as official or unofficial Peace Corps literature or as sanctioned by the Peace Corps or the U.S. government. I have chosen to write about my experience online in order to update family and friends; I am earning no money whatsoever from this endeavor. Please do not copy or forward any of these contents without my permission.

Friday, May 06, 2005

One month down, 23 to go

Hi all,

Just thought I'd post my first monthly report to my boss so you all could see a summary of the work I have been doing:

I have been pretty busy. I have gone to 3 hornilla demonstrations to groups of women, 2 of them out in the aldeas, and one in Dulce Nombre. I have also walked out to the aldeas 1-2 times a week with Pritham to do hornilla (improved stove) supervision, where we drop in on homes to see how the hornillas are functioning and to check up on progress with the project. I am learning a lot about the hornilla project and how it evolved for Pri. I have gone with her to the people who provide her with her materials and learned how to order and transport the materials. I have been with her as she troubleshooted problems which was interesting. Soon we will start the latrine project and I may have to finish it for her, but we will see about that. I participated with the Health Center with some of the vaccination campaign activities in the aldeas, and have gotten to know some of the nurses and other staff at the health center. I went today to give a health charla with Pri at the Health Center today but there weren't enough patients since they are between doctors, but I will start doing that when the doctor arrives.

I have been over to my counterpart's house most days. She has helped me meet a ton of community leaders and members. I recently helped her find women to start a micro empresa project, so went house to house looking for women for form groups of 15 to start these small businesses. I may be going with her to La Ceiba for a workshop this month, that we were supposed to go to last month in Santa Rosa but it filled up. I also started going to meetings and am now part of the organization to build the library and organize the logistics of that project. They are talking with the Riekin foundation and we hope to have them come out to Dulce Nombre soon. I have been helping Pri with her aerobics classes at my counterpart's house and plan to continue them with the community women when she leaves.

I have gone over to the kindergarten with Pri several times to do English classes. I went over to the 1-6 grade school on my own and met the director and several teachers, and got dragged into a school-wide awards ceremony, but now many kids know me and call me "Profe"...haha. I discussed starting Como Planear Mi Vida (which for my readers is the self-esteem, sexuality, life planning skills, communication, leadership, HIV/AIDS prevention manual we use) soon with the director of the school, probably with the 5th and 6th grades. Pri and I met with the English teacher from the colegio and are planning to go out to her class next Tuesday to observe her class and I will possibly help her with some conversation activities. Next week I am going out to an aldea of Dulce Nombre to do a Self Esteem charla at the invitation of a community member. I have been exploring the idea of a youth group in Dulce Nombre as a few youth have mentioned to me they would like such a group and have nothing constructive or fun to do in the community. At the awards ceremony at the school I met a youth kindgarten teacher who has been thinking about starting a youth group as well. We are going to meet and talk about it, so she could be a possible counterpart. Pri said Plan (a large NGO) might be willing to fund one in Dulce Nombre since they used to have one a while back so I already spoke to the Plan promoter that lives in Dulce Nombre and asked to meet with him soon.

That is all I can think of. I have been very busy though and am thankful to have Pri around to cut out a lot of the question marks. So far I really like my community and have started making some good friends. I even have been horseback riding around Dulce Nombre a few times...haha. Let me know if I left out anything that you need to know.

Thanks a lot!
Lauren M.

Well that's my report, you guys. Hope you enjoyed reading it. Last night, Thursday night, I came into Santa Rosa with Pri to spend a tranquilo night at the Santa Rosa house with a PCV who left today for home. She has finished her 2 years and is one of the last people in Pri's training group to leave - Pri extended for 2 extra months. So it was fun but a bit poignant this morning. We stayed in and watched a lot of Sex and the City and a chick flick late night. It was nice to stay at the house when there weren't a lot of people there...we all pretty much got our own room and I slept very well. I have to go to Banco Atlantida to withdraw some money to pay Carmen for staying at her house and to pay for my part of the May rent of the Santa Rosa house....I have been paying Carmen only 1000 Lps. a month for rent and food...that's about 50$. Cheap even by Honduran standards! When I move into my own house in about a month and a half I will have to spend more on food and also water, electricity, and gas, so I am enjoying my cheap lifestyle at the moment. My good friends that live in Santa Rosa have a more expensive cost of living due to the easy availability of such good food, higher rent, tempting pizza and sandwich cafes, clothing stores...so there is a price to pay with living in a place that is very convenient and lovely and modern. I think I have a good balance of small town living with relatively easy access to shopping and splurging in a big city. I will go back into Dulce Nombre in a couple hours. A few other PCVs are coming into DN tonight to observe an hornilla demonstration there tomorrow, so it'll be fun having some other volunteers in town.

Well I hope everyone has a great weekend. I think about you all lots and miss you as always!

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