My regular blog writing has obviously gotten off to a rough start. It seemed like July was packed from start to finish, and I have been out of my site quite a bit.
July started out great. For the 4th, a few volunteers and I went to Gracias and found a swimming pool, some pizza and beer. We spent the weekend in Gracias, which is a backpacker-touristy town, with beautiful views of one of Honduras' tallest mountains, Celaque. We made plans to climb it before our service is over. We'll see what happens with that.
The month continued with the start of the Encargado de mi Vida classes at the colegio here. However, I'm not sure how much longer these will be going on. Myself and the other teachers I am working with agreed to have two teaching teams, each team having 20 students per class. However, the first day I came to the school to teach, it was only myself and one other person and 40 kids, and has continued this way. I thought I might be able to handle that amount of kids, but the activities in the program are designed for smaller groups, and I'm not sure the kids are getting anything out of it. There are a lot more worthwhile activities I could be doing in the community.
Towards the end of the month, I went to Tegus for a week to participate in a workshop about “Yo Merezco,” the new course on abstinence that some PC Honduras volunteers have designed. The workshop was great, we learned a lot, and I can't wait to start the program in my site.
I've also been a little bit sick, so spent a few days in Santa Barbara getting lab tests and speaking with the doctor. At first, we thought I had some sort of bacterial stomach infection, but it looks like I just have an irritated stomach lining, so am now taking medicine for that. Things are much better now, and I'm definitely better off than some of the other volunteers who've had dengue, parasites, etc.
I also wanted to give you guys an example of one of my days here. I've been home for a few minutes, and feel like I've had a really productive day. I'll let you be the judge:
8:00 am – Get up (I'm not working at the clinic this week, so have been sleeping in.)
10:00 am – Go to my new house. Help clean up, prepare for painting, etc.
12:00 pm – lunch.
12:30 pm – 4:00 pm – Got to the elementary school, help Red Cross Youth Group give their play and presentation about Dengue to 40 elementary schoolers. Passed out ABATE (larvacide for the mosquitos that cause Dengue) to the kids. I was super proud of the kids, they did a really good job.
4:00 pm – 4:30 pm – boy's 10-year-old birthday party. Cake. Yum.
Stopped by the health center on my way home to chat with one of the nurses, scheduled appointment to go to the CAI (HIV clinic in San Pedro) for Tuesday. Ran some errands.
5:00 pm – arrived home, started writing this blog.
This was an incredibly long and exhausting day. However, when I look back on it, it doesn't really look like I did anything. I've heard this from a lot of volunteers, that your expectations and definition of a productive day change during your time here. The things I accomplished in an entire day would be what I would do after a day at work in the States. However, when you're walking everywhere, waiting for people, chatting with friends along the way, and taking breaks due to the heat, a lot less gets done. Even so, I feel great about the work that got done today. I really like hanging out with the kids from the Red Cross, and am hoping to do the “Yo Merezco” program with the girls in the group.
Plans are still in the works for Pregnant Mom's (starting August 13th) and Men's Health (grant application in progress.) More on these when they begin.
So I know I promised a story about the circus, and here it is:
My Honduran friend and I decided to go to the local traveling circus one evening, and it was an experience I won't soon forget. The circus here is more like just the main act of a circus in the States. You pay, enter, find a seat, and while you're waiting for the show to start, small children try to sell you cokes, mango verde, and enchiladas. The show starts, and while its hard to explain a lot of the acts unless you've lived here for a while, the one that I think translates in any culture was the midget-in-the-barrel routine. About halfway through the show, the ringmaster and little person come into the arena and go straight for a barrel full of water that had been sitting at the edge of the ring. The little person got in the barrel, the lights went out, and the ringmaster proceeded to set the barrel on fire. Apparently, there wasn't water in the barrel, but gasoline, and the entire thing went straight up in flames. The little person was supposed to slap out the flames with his arm before popping out, but he didn't quite get the job done, and when he popped out, his head was in flames. At this point, I was absolutely terrified, but as I looked around the arena, the Hondurans were loving it. Luckily, the ringmaster pushed him back underwater, put out the flames, dragged out the little person, and took him backstage to roaring applause. I did see him later, with a baseball cap on, and he seemed to be fine. Smelled a little smoky, but fine overall.
Thats if for now, I'll let everyone know how the new house turns out. Thanks to everyone for the emails, letters, calls, etc. Its been great to hear from so many people!
