Volunteer Visita

Hi All,

First of all, congrats to Cindy for figuring out how much I”m making! It's right around $3 a day. Which, to be honest, is ok, because our housing and food is being provided right now. However, it is a little tough when we are expected to get cell phones and other items that cost about a week's worth of pay. Most of us brought some American dollars with us, so that has gone to the extra stuff.

This past week, we had our volunteer visits, and mine was incredible! Myself and another trainee were place with a volunteer in El Negrito, which is located in Yoro. Each trainee is supposed to have their own volunteer, but the original volunteer I was assigned to had a family emergency and had to go back to the States. Kristina, another one of the Health Trainees, was kind enough to share her volunteer with me! We got to El Negrito on Sunday, and just walked around the town with Krista, the volunteer who is currently serving there. She has been in country for two years, and will end her service in April. El Negrito is a town of approximately 13,000, but with the surrounding aldeas, it might be more. The people that we spoke with were all really nice. This was also the first time I really had to deal with piropos, which are just dirty things that men yell at a lot of the women here. Think about walking through one giant construction site all day long. It's not bad here in Santa Lucia, but it was bad at the bus stops along the way. They especially like to single out the gringas, so that's an added frustration.

Krista is currently working on several projects, one of which is an abstinence initiative funded by money from PEPFAR. She is working with several other volunteers to create a course designed for girls ages 10-13. The hope is that once the project is finished, it can be implemented on a national level. I was a bit skeptical at first, but after reading through the lessons, the project is so much more than just abstinence education. It also addresses self-esteem, good life choices and independence, which are all themes that the women and girls in this country need. Krista scheduled a charla (class) for us Tuesday morning, so Kristina and I were able to help her teach a class to 6^th grade girls on reproductive anatomy. It was actually a lot of fun, and the girls were really enthusiastic and fun. Krista is also working on bringing a public library to her town. She is working with a committee made of school teachers, and they are in the process of completing the building and fundraising for books. They have put a lot of work into this project, and it is really exciting for the community to have a place to actually read books. Right now, the kids in the schools don't really have any resources to do research or write reports for their classes, so that will be a big help. We also were able to visit a local nutrition center for malnourished kids – it was a lot of fun to play with all the kids, and they're really really sweet, but it was difficult to see them so sick from things that are completely preventable. I have a lot of pics from the nutrition center, but don't feel too comfortable posting them here, so I'm just posting this one, which is my absolute favorite. I fell in love with this girl the moment I met here, she is just a really great kid. If you want to see more photos from the visit, just let me know and I'll be happy to email them.

*Note - I couldn't get the photo to upload, so I'm just going to try to put it on my flickr page...sorry!*

It was also really great to get some American food during the visit – I love Honduran food, especially the food my host mom makes (she's a GREAT cook!) But after a while, you just want things from home. We had brownies with ice cream, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and made calzones one night. Yum.

Today we leave for FBT in La Paz, I am really excited about this, because we'll actually be doing more hands on work. I'll be living with a new family in a small aldea outside of La Paz.

Oh, and a BIG thanks to Mom and Tom for the apple pie recipes – I kind of mixed them together and baked one yesterday – I think everyone liked it, because there's none left today.

That's it for now!