Shitty Week

As if the boob incident wasn’t enough for a week, I also confirmed my suspicions that our host family had been lying to us about some stuff. Nothing really important, but enough to make me distrust them. Ever tried living with people you don’t trust and pretended to be nice to them in order to make the stay a little more bearable? If you have, then you know how hard it is.

Anyway, I woke up excited that it was Friday and we were getting ready for the weekend. Max was going with me in the morning to my mini-project, and then we were going to Morocelì, our volunteer visit town, to show the rest of the trainees a computer center there. We had a good time when we were there, and were looking forward to seeing some of the places and people we’ve seen. After the visit to the computer center, we all decided to take a walk to a waterfall in town. It is really pretty and the locals think it is blessed, because it has been flowing water constantly as long as they can remember. While we were enjoying the waterfall someone (we assume local kids) started throwing rocks at us trough the bushes. We couldn’t see who it was because they were hiding behind trees so I suggested we head out of there. As we are getting ready to leave, I got hit by a pretty big rock on the elbow. The rock made a small bruise in my skin and it hurt for the rest of the evening, but what that rock meant hurt me a lot inside. As soon as it hit me, I couldn’t control the emotions I had been holding all week and cried. In front of all our friends and Honduran teachers. I cried like a little girl, with gasps of emotion impeding my breath. When I could speak again, I asked my Honduran teachers if this were the people we were here to help. People that disrespect women, that lie to us, that throw rocks as us.

This has been a shitty week that has made me change in many ways. I came here with an open heart, with every emotional shield down, ready to embrace the experience and get in touch with people. I am starting to learn that in order to keep my sanity that might not be possible.

The Boob Incident

This past Tuesday morning (about 10am), I was walking to my mini project office in Danlì from our training center when, unexpectedly, a man grabbed my boob. He had apparently eyed me walking in the distance, and stood sideways on the sidewalk where I was walking. Since the sidewalks here are very narrow, I had to walk close to him, so it was easy for him to grab it. The grab wasn’t only a grab… it was more of a caress.

My initial reaction was to get scared and scream. With my loud scream, you would think one of the passers by would have stopped to find out what was going on. Nothing. As soon as I realized what the son of a bitch had done, I got really mad (the guy was still standing there) and started hitting him with the notebook I was carrying. At this point he started walking away, and I was so pissed that I yelled a string of insults in Spanish: CABRON, ME CAGO EN TU MADRE HIJO DE PUTA!!! And I left. No one ever came to help.

As I walked the rest of the way, I was enraged. I was pissed at myself for not kicking or punching him like they taught us in self-defense class… I am sure the notebook didn’t hurt much, I was pissed at every Honduran man I walked by… for being the machistas assholes most of them are, and I was pissed at every woman I saw… for putting up with all the crap they do and not doing anything about it. I was so enraged I felt like crying, but I didn’t let myself drop a single tear for the individual that did that to me.

The sad part is that this is not an isolated incident in this country. In fact it is not even uncommon. A volunteer that works in this town told me that two times she has had her butt grabbed by guys in bicycles. Once she tried running after the bastard but couldn’t catch up. In Morocelì, the town we went to for volunteer visit, the volunteer told us an older guy had grabbed both her breasts and tried kissing her.

It even gets worst. We’ve been told in training that some volunteers have had hormones to induce cows into heat put in their drinks with other drugs when they are out in bars or clubs. The hormones have been mixed with other drugs to make them black-out and then they are raped, sometimes multiple times. In almost every case the individual doing it gets away unpunished, because the girl must have done something to cause him to behave in such a way. One volunteer that had this happen to her was sent to a Honduran psychologist in Tegucigalpa, who said that they needed to work on changing her behavior so she wouldn’t bring this upon herself again.

As far as I am concerned, I plan on walking with Max or someone else as much as possible. No job is more important to me than my personal safety. As far as trusting men here, I will have a hard time doing it… maybe with time.

A Brief Honduran Political Chronology

Here’s a boring entry about Honduras’ political history for anyone interested. The information was taken from a talk given to us by the head of the finance committee in Honduras’ congress and president of the PINU party… a minority party who call themselves social democrats and are considered an alternative to the two traditional parties.

1821 – Independence of Central America from Spain. Not a single bullet is shoot in the process… Spain drops the region to head to the more promising South American region. Was independence too cheap? Central America is fighting between and within for the next 100 years.

1821 to 1842 – Era of General Francisco Morazàn (The George Washington of Honduras). Morazàn becomes the prime figure of politics and government in Honduras. After independence the colonies (now Central American countries) were really poor and separated... they ask Mexico to be their colonies as part of the then Iturbide empire. Morazàn believed a huge problem for these colonies was the influence of the Church, wanted separation of church and tate and was a strong advocate of a Central American union. In 1942 the Catholic Church organized his betrayal and murder.

1850s – Ramòn Roso & Marco Eurelio Soto instigate liberal reform in Honduras. Their most important accomplishment is to change Honduran education from Theological to secular.

Foreign influence and conservative government were the rule from the 1890s to the 1950s

1900s – Birth of two major national parties: Partido Liberal and Partido Nacional… both very conservative parties. The two parties create power struggles that impede progress in the country. Honduras falls behind the rest of Central America in development.

1932 to 1948 – Tiburcio Carìas, the Trujillo of Honduras, becomes dictator for 16 years. By implementing a “tough hand” policy (often horrible dictatorship practices) he was able to bring peace to the country by stopping the power struggles between the two parties. Ruled during the 2nd World War era when US supported dictators in Latin America to keep peace in the region in order to face the challenges of Germany and Japan.

INTERESTING NOTE: Honduras will have presidential elections this year and the favorite candidate, Pepe Lobo, is running on a “tough hand” campaign with running adds that say: “During the years of Carìas we used to sleep with the doors opened”. He’s also proposing death penalty for the country.

1948 – US government pressed Carìas to have elections, power is won by his Vice President Juan Manuel Galvez.

1948 to 1954 – Galvez establishes Honduran IRS and opens doors to exiles. Period is considered a cradle to modern Honduran democracy.

1969 – WAR. Only formal war in Honduran history, named the One Hundred Hour War. The war against El Salvador is lost in a 100 hours and destroys the economy and the Central American comun market. The war opens the eyes of Hondurans that they can do things for themselves.

Birth of the PINU party by head of civilians that supported the army during the war, Miguel Andony Fernàndez. The Partido Inovaciòn y Unidad (PINU) becomes a civic movement for change. After the war the two main parties, the Nacional and Liberal, went back to power struggles and PINU provided an alternative to the people tired of the situation. The head of the party does not succeed due to his Arab ascend.

1970 to 1982 – Coud’tat in Honduras, succession of military governments supported by the US.

1982 – Modern democratic period begins, Honduran democracy is now 25 years old. Christian organized party is formed called, Partido Democràtico Cristiano de Honduras (PDCH).

1992 – Peace treaties are signed and the coalition of very leftist groups are organized into the Partido Unificaciòn Democràtica (PUD). These are old guerrilla members from factions that once hated each other and are now unified to have power in congress.

Honduran Hippies

A few days ago some of us aspirantes were talking about the predominant machismo culture in Honduras. We were wondering what would it take to change things for women here, and someone said jokingly “it would take a lot of hippies”. We all laughed and ended the conversation with no apparent solution to the situation at hand, but the comment has kept me thinking. Where are the people with radical change ideas? Why do people seem so content with so little?

It is true that there are very few people here with revolutionary change ideas like the hippies in the 60’s in the US, but we’ve met a few amazing women that have stepped out of the stereotypes and done amazing things. They might not be hippies in the true sense of the word, but to me they are in many ways strong agents of change in this country… hopefully the beginning of something big that will change gender relations in Honduras forever.


Tajaditas Del Racimo

In a small aldea about 45 minutes outside of Danlí, there is a group of five women that run a business of 19 employees, named Nueva Esperanza, and are the sole provider of jobs in their community. This is a huge deal in Honduras… these women only have a 6th grade level of education. They told us their story.

About five years ago, a Swiss organization came to their aldea, Quebrada Larga, and taught a few members that they could start planting plantains instead of just corn and beans. This would increase their income significantly since the plantain market is not as saturated as the basic grains market. They had the land, and everyone in the families (men, woman, and children) were capacitated to grow the crop. They started working the fields, but the work was hard for the women. They were working with machetes, and carrying heavy sacks of fertilizer and heavy plantain clusters. One of the women decided that it was too much work for her. She was already older, had raised several kids, and the work in the fields was more than what she could handle. She decided to communicate the situation to the Swiss organization representative that visited the community every now and then to provide technical assistance. He suggested the women form a group and sell something. That would provide the income needed to pay workers on the fields.

That’s how Nueva Esperanza started. Another woman in the community had been selling plantain chips that she made with the scrap plantain that couldn’t be sold in the market. The five women got together in one of the houses and started producing more chips to sell in the community. They were taught how to negotiate product, how to keep simple accounting books, and were given juridical personality. The business was small, but they were all wanting and would make it work.

For six months they worked with no salaries… every penny earned was re-invested into the business. Their husbands started opposing the idea. They complained the women were now spending all day hanging together and neglecting their families. “Women belong to the house and the kitchen”. “You better have my food ready when I get home” “You’re not making any money” were some of the comments they had to endure. But they persisted and the business grew.
Today they have a bigger facility where they produce up to 2,500 bags of chips a day. Instead of selling the product in clear plastic bags, they have their own label, with printed bags and other signs. They went from selling to their neighbors in the community to selling to small stores all over the municipality. Since their aldea is so far from Danlí, they have a distribution center, with two employees that distribute to local stores in bicycles. They have now traveled to Perù and Chile, telling other groups their story and selling the product. Those illiterate campesinas traveling!!! The youngest one went back to finish high school and all their kids can now afford to go to school. And the husbands… they are now ok with their wives working, as long as they cook before they leave the house in the mornings.

When we asked about their plans for the future their faces brighten with ideas. They want to keep growing, their husbands can no longer produce enough plantain to meet their demand and they are urging the community to start planting. They want to raise the standard of living in their aldea by providing direct and indirect jobs. They already have bigger bags to sell to bigger supermarkets, they want to buy a car so they can deliver to the capital and start selling there, they want a computer to keep their books, they want to travel more and want their kids to go to college. They are entrepreneurs in the full sense of the word.

By the way… the name of their product is “Tajaditas del Racimo”.


Colina Verde

Similar to the women in Empresa Nueva Esperanza, we met a group of women that work in Danlì producing and selling organic compost. They went to one of the multiple run-down parks in town and fixed it up. They made agreements with the local market to collect their organic refuse every day and take it to the park… and then they got to work.

What was interesting from this story is how much they’ve had to endure to be successful. First there were the jokes from people in town calling them “trash workers”, neighbors complained about their presence in the park, the media got involved. Their husbands were not happy… they wanted their wives staying home, they were embarrassing their families. Some of them had to endure verbal and physical abuse from their husbands, one of the women there had her finger broken by her husband. She told us this time she hit him back. Some of them told us how their husbands want to leave them and how they are not afraid now that they have the means to sustain themselves and their children.

Their business is still relatively new and small and it is yet to be seen how successful it will be. However there has already been a transformation inside them. They are no longer victims, they know they can take care of themselves and their kids, they know they can do anything they set out to do.

----------------

When you read these stories they might seem small successes in your eyes. Let me tell you something, this is huge. It might not be a Honduran hippy movement like the one that happened in the US in the 60s, but it is a start of women being empowered. It is huge that they are thinking about the future (that rarely happens in this country… specially in the aldeas), that their kids are going to school, that they no longer depend on their husbands to support them, that there are new, real role-models to the girls of this country. In that sense they are to me hippies…

The Girl That Was Born Speaking

Ela Diosmira Valladares can be described as the cutest, smartest little girl you’ll ever meet. She has the most beautiful brown skin and long, wild, curly brown hair. Her big brown eyes are full of light and the innocence of those who have yet to experience life. She’s has the cutest combination of baby and adult teeth. She loves spending time with us, especially playing cards. We’ve taught her how to play UNO and War and she practices during the day to “beat Max when you guys get home tonight”.

Nohemy says that something special happened the day Ela was born. After the doctors bathed the baby and returned her to her mother, Ela looked at her mom directly in the eyes and said “Mama, Mama, Mama”. Nohemy tells us that it really scared her that the baby was born speaking, and it created a huge commotion at the hospital. Everybody knew about the girl that spoke the day she was born, and they all wanted to meet her. Nohemy had to start telling everybody hers wasn’t the girl that spoke in order to get some privacy.

Like me, you might find this story hard to believe, but the more time I spend with Ela, the more I think she really is an exceptional person that was probably born speaking. For example, I was amazed the other day when I asked her to find a book I could read to her. She gave me a book about the Earth, the planets, and the Universe. I started reading about the solar system, and she interrupted me to explain how the Sun is in the center of the solar system and all the planets rotate around it. She also said that the Sun only shines on one side of Earth at a time, and that is why we have night and day. I was shocked… this 6 year old that is not yet in Kindergarten because she’s not old enough, and who cannot read, can explain the wonders of our solar system. Things like this happen with Ela all the time.

Ela’s 5 year old cousin, Fátima, just got her picture taken for her passport to visit the US with her parents. One afternoon, as we were seated outside enjoying a beautiful sunset, Ela looked at me with her bright, wishful eyes and told me how her cousin would get to go on a plane and see the clouds and travel. There was a slight sadness in her eyes… the kind of sadness of those who know there’s a lot more out there and wish to be part of it. I really hope Ela gets her opportunities: to go to Kindergarten soon, as she so strongly wishes, to then go to college, to travel, to be the strong independent woman she can be.

Welcome to Danlí

Our Field Based Training (FBT) town is called Danlí in the region of El Paraíso. It is a town of about 68,000 within the city limits and about 170,000 in the entire municipal area – a somewhat large city by Honduran standards. The city rests in a valley surrounded by green mountains. The climate is fairly hot, but there’s always a refreshing rain in the afternoons or evenings during this rainy season.

We liked the city as soon as we got here. The roads are paved, there are side walks, not nearly as many stray dogs around town, and most houses are well cared for and painted. There’s a very large Catholic church in the center of town with a pretty park in front. Danlicenses (as the people of Danlí are known) enjoy afternoons of relaxation sitting in the park. This was all nice change from the fast pace in Siguatepeque. Also, it is very apparent that the people of Danlí are more educated and more cultured than the other we have visited. This gives the town an almost cosmopolitan feel.

Our host family are simple, polite, and lovable people. Nohemy, our host mother, is a retired school teacher and a tireless head of family that works hard to take care of every member. You will always find her doing something around the house. Her Mom and Dad, The Valladareses, live in the house too. Mr. Vallarades is 81 and spends his day sitting in a chair at the gate of the house greeting people. He is well known and well liked around town. However, he seems to be loosing some of his mental faculties and often makes comments unrelated to the conversation at hand. One morning he told us how he wasn’t able to sleep all night because he was worried about Max and I being out in the streets and how, now that we live in his house, we are like family to him. We explained kindly that we had been home all night playing cards with his granddaughter. His wife is a beautiful grandmother that works hard making bread and cookies to sell in the local cafeterias and pulperias (corner stores). In her eighties, she is still working very hard, generating income for the household. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her resting. Both Nohemy and her Mom spend a lot of their time and energy caring for the men in the house.

Also in the house lives Kathya, Nohemy´s 16 year old daughter. Like most teenagers, she’s busy with school, friends, and having fun. There’s also a 20 year old cousin that sits all day in only his boxers, watching TV. We don’t really know what he does or why he lives there, but one thing is certain, he´s always first in line when it is time to eat. It’s been “interesting” to see how the women in the house always eat last, and from whatever is left after the men have eaten.

Our favorite person in the house is Nohemy’s 6 year old daughter, Ela Diosmira Valladares, but we’ll tell you about her in another posting.

Pictures!!

We finally got around to posting some of our pictures. This link will take you to our picture page on our main site. There are several pages of pictures, so remember to click on the "next page" link on the left side. Also, if you click on one of the thumbnails, it will take you to a larger version of the image, and there are comments below the large photo that explain the picture. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment here so we can answer them. We hope you enjoy them, and we´ll work on taking more pictures and getting more of them up on our site.

The Little Things

With Contributions by Max and Lynnette

It is difficult to transmit our whole experience in writing. Everyday is filled with little things that don’t necessarily belong to a particular posting but that have become significant in our daily lives. Some are good, some are bad, but most are really funny. Here’s some of them.

Honduran Hospitality
Our host families are paid to put us up in their houses. The money is meant to cover our expenses: food, utilities, rent of the room, etc. This has caused a phenomenon in Siguatepeque: The business of hosting Peace Corps aspirantes. Families that sign up to host volunteers, in good capitalistic spirit, look for ways to cut costs in our accommodations in order to increase their profit. For example, every morning we see our host family cooking a feast for the day… a meat or fish, rice or pasta, salad or vegetables, and fresh fruit juice. However when we get home we always get the same old tortillas with refried beans, plantains, and their attempt at cheese. To put it down we get water or Sunny-D like orange juice. One morning I stayed home after our pancakes and honey breakfast (we love this breakfast because it the one time a week we get something other than Corn Flakes) and saw they were having fresh blackberry jam to go with their pancakes. Another morning we saw a few whole fish on the counter, spices and vegetables. Max and I spent the whole day talking about the great dinner we were having that night and how excited we were about it. Guess what we got for dinner? Yeap, you guessed right… tortillas and beans. Not even plantains that night.

We found out PC is planning to move the training center out of Siguatepeque soon… but we don’t dare talk to our host family about it because we think the only reason they are nice to us at all is because they are concerned about the reviews we give them which affect their chances of hosting aspirantes in the future. We wonder if they knew about this if we would get Corn Flakes three meals a day.

Taquería Los Cuernitos
Every group of Peace Corps trainees finds a local bar that they adopt as their favorite meeting place to blow off some of the steam that builds up in training. In the past, this place was usually Mangosta, a somewhat trendy American-style lounge near the central park in Siguatepeque. However, since that bar closed for good during the first week of our training, we went looking for others. We found La Bohemia, a nice spot just outside of town which has karaoke on Thursdays. We also found Iguana Mía, a pseudo-mexican restaurant run by a Canadian ex-patriot. However, our favorite spot for big parties and really cutting loose is Taquería Los Cuernitos (Little Horns Taco Place).

The Taquería is owned by a short Mexican-looking-Honduran with a round belly and a huge mustache and it is located in their house. The walls are decorated with posters of pimped-out semi-trucks, cruising motorcycles, and semi-naked photos of Shakira and Brittany Spears. His wife cooks the best “carnitas” (kind of like fajitas), “Tacos Mexicanos”, and Papusas in town. He´s always stocked with hundreds of bottles of local beer, and every now and then he is willing to share his home made aguardiente with us. We love taking his photo and he loves taking photos of us. All and all we’ve spent most of our best moments in our little Honduran heaven: Taquería Los Cuernitos ($0.40 beers!!).

Honduras… Doggy Style
Honduran dogs are plentiful (meaning there’s hundreds of them everywhere) and pitiful (meaning they are disgusting and scary looking). They are also crazy. Since people barely have money to feed themselves they don’t worry much about feeding their dogs, but for some reason they love to have them as pets. When you walk down the street you will see
dogs with deranged looks in their eyes, severe cases of mange, ribs showing, and evidence that the female dogs have had multiple litters of puppies.

Our favorite dog in town, Nipps, is the dog that lives at the training center. We gave her the name Nipps because of her huge scar nipple that hangs a good two inches below her chest. She is a cute mid-size brown mutt that eats all the food we don’t like from home. She’s a great indicator of the quality of your food… if she refuses to eat it we know we shouldn’t be eating it ourselves. She’s gained weight and luster in her eyes since we met her and recently mated with a fairly good-looking dog. We all wish we could be there for the birth of her puppies and be aunts and uncles to them.

The OTHER houses
It is great having other people adapting to life in the Peace Corps in Honduras with us. We all share every story… from what went on at class to our diarrhea problems to our accommodations. You know how bad… or how much better their houses, food, and host families are.

When Max and I got to Danlí we were happy with our new house. It was clean, no more mildew in our bedroom, no more roaches in the bathroom. Our family wants to talk to us. There are kids in the house to play with. Life couldn’t be any better... until we saw the houses where the other trainees are staying at. Our happiness was short-lived. Our friend’s houses have gardens, they have bathrooms all for themselves, some bedrooms are big, and some even have full sized mirrors.

Max has been trying to find out why we keep getting the “not so nice” houses (asking teachers and all)… which I find extremely inappropriate and hilarious.

Carbs
So our Siguatepeque family didn’t eat the same food they fed us, but at least what they gave us tasted good. Our new host family feeds us the same food they eat but… Let the menus speak for themselves.

Dinner on Sunday night
White Rice
White Pasta
Tortillas

Lunch on Monday
White Rice
A whole boiled potato, then fried.
Lettuce, Tomato, and Mayo-Ketchup dressing

Lunch Today
Clear soup (the color of water) with roots in it: a whole potato, yucca, cabbage, plantain.
White rice with carrots

Breakfast Every Day
Corn Flakes with bananas
Milk

When we eat the food we feel extremely full and then we are starving half an hour latter. I am dying to eat some chicken and Max wouldn’t mind beans with the meals. I would do anything to get some protein in my body. We are currently asking if anybody’s family is willing to take us in for every meal. Of course this is extremely inappropriate, but hilarious.

Field Based Training (FBT)

Sunday we are headed out of Siguatepeque to a new town for FBT. The name of the town is Danlí. We will be staying there with a new family for a month while we do more hands on training.

We are definitely excited for the change of pace. Training is not always easy to sit through. There are a lot of “dinamicas” (group activities) where we play games appropriate for 15 year olds while we learn things that are sometimes obvious. I definitely could not imagine us going into service without training, but after five weeks, it is hard to stay enthusiastic. There’s also the stress of not knowing where we will be based. We’ve met a few volunteers now, and have learned that there are great sites and not so great ones. Although we are here to help and be flexible, we wouldn’t mind doing so in a good site. Being a couple also adds to the stress since it is harder to find a place that can fit two different people’s skills. We’ve been a little concerned that we might get placed by the skills of one of us and the other would have to accommodate to whatever else needs to be done in the town, independent of what we can do.

So FBT is definitely something we’re looking forward to. We are taking the bus to Tegucigalpa tomorrow morning at 7:45am and then heading to Danlí from there. The trip can take anything from 4 to 6 hours depending on how many stops the bus makes. Once we get there, we will meet our new host family. We know there are 7 people living there (grandparents, parents, two daughters and a niece), that we get our own room, there’s no hot water in the house, that they have chickens as pets and that their toilet is of the kind that is outside the house and you dump a bucket of water after you use it to flush. We just hope the room is dry and clean so we can get better from our allergies.

Mal de Ojo

My last visit to El Porvenir was going to be a quick one. They were ready to start selling, and all I needed to do was give them a notebook I had prepared to track their inventory and teach them how to use it. I was also going to make plans to meet once more, a month from now, after we return from FBT. The idea is to discuss the inventory fluctuations, and help them decide if they need to change their production at all. I couldn’t fix all their problems, but at least I was doing something.

While I was there, new visitors arrived. It was an older woman, a younger one and a baby. The young woman was holding the baby in her hands, looking at it with sad eyes. They came in the house and sat in the living room. There was an exchange of looks between the visitors and our host María. I said I wasn’t in a hurry, and it was ok to interrupt our meeting to attend the visitors.

The older woman started talking. She said the baby is very sick. They have taken it to several doctors and they have not been able to cure it. They also took it to another woman in the town down the road; she helped the baby get a little better but not cure it. Evidently, they were in the house for help.

My host said she knew about the other woman. She has a reputation of using tarot cards and candles… all things from the devil. She went on about how she has a God given gift to know people and she is insulted when people suggest she’s like the other woman. The visitors agreed tarot and candles are from the devil, but they didn’t know that’s how the other woman worked. And, after all, she had not been able to help them with the baby.

I realized what was going on. María Marcelina, the pottery woman I have been working with, is also a “curandera”. “Curandera” is the word for a person that heals others by using a mix of herbs and spiritual rituals much like a witch doctor. She is a Christian “curandera”.

María asked about the condition of the baby. The young woman, who had not said much till this point, said she has really bad diarrhea. María asked if the color is green to which the Mom replied yes. She asked her to turn the baby to face her, looked it in the eye and made a diagnosis. This baby has “Mal de Ojo” or The Evil Eye. The older woman asked which eye had it been and María replied that it was the left eye. I looked at the baby’s left eye and it looked normal, just like the other one. To cure it, she explained, they would have to bathe it with a raw egg, she would prepare a herb remedy for the baby to drink, and a potion to be placed under its crib. That would take care of the bad spirit. She asked my 13 year old friend to go and get an egg from the chickens and took the baby, the egg, and the mom to a back room.

Since María can not read anyway, I proceeded with the inventory meeting with the other two attendants. In the background, I heard the baby crying while it was being bathed with the raw egg. I left before they came back from the room, and am still wondering if the baby’s diarrhea was miraculously cured.

Preparations

After my last visit to El Porvenir, I had been feeling overwhelmed. There’s so much to do and I have no time. I tried finding another volunteer in the area so I could spend the week preparing them to take over the project. The problem is, however, Peace Corps doesn’t send volunteers to sites where training is conducted, so I couldn’t arrange anything. I wasn’t looking forward to my next visit and having to tell them that that would be my last week with them.

Max asked permission to get away from Spanish class and go with me. It was great. The typically playful and extroverted kids in town were shy, hiding behind walls or trees. We talked with the women and planned for the first sell next Sunday. We discussed all the costs involved in producing each piece, and how much they should sell each for. We planned logistics to get the product to the market, and how much of the stuff they needed to sell to break even. We agreed I would come back once before I left to help train a few of the women who can read to keep track of the inventory and how to use it to make business decisions. The session was really productive and Max helped a lot, but the best was after the meeting was over.

All the kids kept trying to approach us. They were curious about the new “gingo”, but were shy to approach him. I remembered we had made some plain paper airplanes in one of my visits and asked Max to make them some. As soon as they saw him working on the planes, they got closer. They sat around him while he made a flower for one of the girls and birds or planes for the rest of the kids. I watched how much they loved what he was doing and I loved him too… for being there with me, and for caring about these people.

As we were leaving, a family (Mom, Dad, and Baby) was arriving on a bike. It wasn’t new to me since there’s always people visiting the house with babies. I’ve wondered why there’s so many visitors with babies but have never had the chance to ask. We were heading out and there was no time… I made a mental note to try and solve the mystery next time.

Growing Needs

I went back on Monday, as agreed, to discuss the plan to sell the pottery in the market. The house where we always meet was wide open as usual, but to my surprise, there was nobody inside. Even the usual kids were not playing in the yard. I yelled “Hola” several times and 3 girls came by. I asked for Doña María or Doña Florita, but they were not there. They forgot I was coming.

Since I take the public bus to visit the women, I was stuck there for about 45 minutes until the next bus was scheduled to come by. The girls invited me into the living room and sat there with me. We started chatting. The conversation that followed gave me a better understanding of the situation in Honduras and what some of the biggest problems here are. Let me tell you what I found out…

The three girls are daughters of Doña Flora. The oldest and most talkative is about my age. She is a very thin girl with brown skin and eyes. Her hair was loosely tied in a pony tail, but it looked like she hadn’t brushed it in a few days. Her clothes were simple but clean, and her shoes, like everybody else’s here, were covered in mud. She’s a fairly pretty girl but has already lost all her teeth. I learned she has eight kids. Yes, she is my age and has eight kids already!!! She had to give one of her girls away to her mother in law, and hasn’t seen her in years. I asked if her kids go to school. She said they do, when she can take them. The school provides the uniforms and some supplies, but it is difficult for her to take them to school in the 45 minute bus ride. Her husband is usually away, selling things in other towns, and he doesn’t support sending the kids to school, because in his opinion, the school asks for too much. She told me how one of her little girls is in kindergarten and has great handwriting. The teacher is really frustrated because she misses class for weeks at a time and her progress is slow. I told her about the importance of going to school. How her girls would be dependent on men if they don’t get an education, how being educated can change things completely. I said those things because they were the right things to say. However, as I said them, I wondered about myself in the same situation. What if it was me living in complete poverty, raising seven kids by myself, dealing with disease and hunger? Would sending my kids to school be something I would have the time or energy to think about? I think the answer is probably not.

The second girl must be a teenager, maybe 16 or 17. She is so beautiful, very shy and quiet. Her hair is long and dark, she wears it down. Her eyes are big and shinny. She just sat there; quiet, during most of the conversation, rubbing her 5 month pregnant belly. She only moved from the couch to pick up fruit, spice it with salt and eat it. I asked if she knew the gender… it’s a boy she’s expecting. After the story I had just heard I wasn’t ready to ask anymore questions.

The last girl is 13. I’ve seen her in the house before. She’s usually around when I visit… sweeping the floor, cleaning the “pila”, playing with kids. She always smiles when I arrive and likes touching my skin. Once, touching my skin, she said she liked it, and asked why it is so pale. She always sits really close to me and hugs my arms when I am visiting. Since she’s always home when I visit I wondered if she goes to school. She said she doesn’t and the older sister explained that their mother has 13 kids, and the 13 year old stays home to help with the seven year old.

After those conversations, I realized how much work is needed in these communities. These people need to learn about basic health, education, gender equality, and family planning. The work selling pottery in the market seems so insignificant compared to these other needs. And I only have next week to work with them before the business group heads out to the town of Danlí for Field Based Training (FBT).

Waiting for a Response

After I dropped the letter, which contained the request for permission to sell pottery and my contact information at el Mercado San Juan, I waited. Things at class were really busy, and I needed the time to catch up on everything else. I waited for about a week and a half. No response. No response means No, I thought. And so, in my mind, I started thinking of where else we could sell. Maybe there’s another Mercado close by… Perhaps we can sell on the main plaza… I decided I’d go see the women that Friday, give them the bad news, and help them start planning an alternative.

Friday morning, I decided to go to the market first, before seeing the women. If they were going to say no, they’d have to say it to my face. I walked in prepared for the worst, but I wouldn’t let the set back put me down. I met the administrator in his office, and he greeted me with a smile. At least he recognized me, which was a good start. I shook his hand, and asked about the decision. He said YES, we could start as soon as Sunday.

Giving the news to the rest of the women was great. I was happy, and so were they. However, before we could sell there were a ton of preparations to be made.