Peter in Honduras

It’s raining. Really, really hard. Now, I’m pretty used to rain, being from Seattle and all, but this is spectacular. It’s got everything; sheet lightning, booming thunder, that lightning that just sort of creeps across the sky. It was so good I sat out on my front step for about 30 minutes just watching and listening. Unfortunately my laundry is still hanging up, but not drying at the moment.

A lot has been happening ever since I arrived in San Marcos, it’s all been a blur. I was lucky enough to arrive during the biggest fair of the year, where they crown the Reina de Café. So the last three nights there has been lots of music, festivities, venders, etc, which has provided a fun night life, although it’s hard to enjoy it when you feel like going to sleep at 9pm every night. Being in a new place is just tiring, you tend to spend a lot of energy during simple things, leaving very little left over for what you actually want to do.

Yesterday was my first day of “work” at Hermandad. I put work in quotes because I’m technically a volunteer, and it’s a very fine and politically interesting line between volunteer and employee, but I’ll come back to this later. Yesterday I spent most of the day meeting with different jefes of the various programs at Hermandad. The most interesting meeting came at the end of the day, when I met with Mauricio Roderno who is the head of the microfinance department. This guy is really cool. He speaks fluent English which makes his Spanish much easier to understand, especially because he speaks slowly and clearly and translates idioms and business jargon. He asked me if I would be interested in helping him with a project that he has wanted to do for some time, a project he thought would be ganar-ganar for both of us (remember the volunteer-employee line? He was really trying to sell me on the project, the whole time I’m thinking “I will do whatever this man tells me to do.”). I’ll break down the basics really quickly:

            The microfinance department lends a lot of money to producers of café, which is a very important crop for Honduras. However, you’re probably thinking “funny, I don’t usually buy Honduran coffee; it’s usually from Guatemala or elsewhere…” That’s because Honduras doesn’t really have it all together when it comes to processing, marketing, and finally exporting. What Mauricio wants me to do is start with a survey of the coffee producers here in Western Honduras. The end goal is to help them achieve a better quality product and find access to a better market. Too often in Honduras the middleman, or coyote, is able to take advantage of the farmer because of lack of information. They’ll buy the beans from the farmer who doesn’t have the technology to dry them enough, process them further, and sell them for much more than the farmer received.

Ok, so are you thinking the same thing I am? “Peter doesn’t know anything about coffee, in fact, I don’t even think he drinks the stuff.” Well, if it’s not blended with ice, you’re probably right. But oh man, am I going to learn. Don Mauricio just so happens to be a socio in Marquense, the towering café-refining plant in town. When he offered me this project he said he could promise me one thing: “You are going to learn everything there is to know about the process of café.” So that’s the first project I’m going to start on in the coming months, among others. A few other areas we’ve already discussed are:

• Working with PACTA, an organization that gives aid to farmers to buy land, and then helps them develop the land, design business plans, and helps them manage the investment.
• Working with Cajas Rurales (community banks), helping form new groups, providing support and training to existing banks. This is something I’m very interested in because it means working really closely with people out in the campo, in much poorer areas.
• Administrative support at Hermandad. They’ve got some issues as an institution, and while this isn’t exactly directly helping Hondurans, it may be politically necessary that I spend some time in this area.

So that’s the four projects I’ve got going on already with Hermandad, which is plenty for right now, because I’d also like to branch out to other organizations and find projects of my own accord. But as a start, it’s very helpful to have an organization like Hermandad because it offers a great jumping off point to my service as well as the resources to accomplish my projects. What more can I say, I'm psyched!

Yes, it´s official, I am now a sworn-in volunteer of the Peace Corps. Somehow I don´t feel any different. We had the ceremony Thursday at the U.S. embassy with our training staff, us, the ambassador, and even a few dignatories. I got a kick out of the fact that they call the ambassador El excelentisimo senor embajador Charles Ford. The Charles Ford part is like a car wreck at the end of a beautiful phrase in spanish. Kind of like when I try to introduce myself… I have a lot of great pictures, which I will post later, but right now all my stuff is in a big heap in my NEW HOUSE. I realized today that this is the first time I have ever rented my own place, without other roomates. And this place is nice, really nice. I have nice tiled floors, a nice kitchen, and even a spot to hang my hammock chair (that makes it official that I´m in the Peace Corps). Of course, at present I own no furniture whatsoever, so my two bedrooms are very very empty, as is my living room, and kitchen (I don´t even have pots and pans). 

Tommorrow is a big fair here (the PC volunteer living here said I have to ride a bull) so I probably won´t get much more done on my house and then Monday I´m going in to meet with my counterpart again (Hermandad de Honduras). I´m nervous about this, but also excited, I´m going to learn a LOT… 

Much more later, it´s kind of lonely here so I bet you´ll hear more from me now. 

I threw up some pictures from Semana Santa, you can check them out by clicking the link to see pictures located on the right side of your screen. I'll be updating in a week or so, from San Marcos…

This week we returned home to Santa Lucia, up in the mountains above
Tegucigalpa. I have to admit, it’s feels a little weird to be back here. While it’s great to be back with all the other volunteers whom we haven’t seen for 5 weeks, it’s definitely different than before. In general, I think everyone is pretty much ready to finish training an begin service, so the feet are dragging a little bit these days. For example, today Sean and I just decided to go to Teguz in the middle of the day, where I bought a Doublestack at Wendy’s… mmmm, Wendy’s. Now that we’ve all had a little taste of our sites, I think we’re just taking these last two weeks as vacation before the real work begins.

Ok, a little more about my site. My NGO, Hermandad de Honduras, is pretty great. Here’s a picture of their compound in San Marcos, where I will have my office. They’ve got tons of programs going on, all with acronyms that I have no idea what they represent in Spanish (Hondurans love getting creative with acronyms). But there’s work, lots of work. I’m going to be spending the first week interviewing with the different jefes to get a better idea of where they are in the projects and what they’ve got planned for the future. They seemed very excited to get me working in the Cajas Rurales projects. If I haven’t explained this before, a Caja Rural is pretty much a group of people (as small as 2, sometimes into the hundreds) who form together to provide micro credit to each other. Hermandad works with about 50-60 of these, providing support and counseling. What excites me about this is that it will mean going out into the campo and really getting to see the true Honduras. What scares me about this is that it means trying to learn to speak the way campesinos speak, which is impossible to understand at my level of Spanish.

My living situation in San Marcos is also pretty good. I think I’m going to rent a nice little house. Two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, bathroom, patio. Nice place. The problem is that there is no furnishings whatsoever, so this means buying the basics (bed, table, stove, refrigerator) all myself. While this is not exactly appealing, I don’t mind some Spartan living for a while, hell I am in the Peace Corps after all. I’ve got a picture of my house now, and here it is. I’m not sure who that handsome guy standing in front of it is, but I hope to befriend him. The house is pretty much all concrete, but I’ll figure out something to make it a little more lively. Suggestions?

This week is Semana Santa (Easter) in Honduras, so the whole country shuts down. I’m just going to take it easy, maybe go into Teguz tomorrow, and then Friday we’re going to Valle de Angeles, a nearby town, and renting a hotel room for the night. After all the activity of the last couple weeks, it’ll be nice to have some down time, catch up on reading, writing, and phone calls.

San Marcos! 

What do you mean you´ve never heard of San Marcos.

Yes, there are many San Marcos´ in Honduras, and I suspect throughout Central America, but there´s only one San Marcos de Ocotepeque, and that´s where I live. Ok, a little about the town:  it´s a good sized town, 6k people in the city proper and 17k in the metro area. The main streets are paved, others are dirt. It´s cool in the winter and warm to hot in the summer, bound to be some rain too, they tell me. It has all the modern comforts of home: running water, electricity, mail, internet, cable television, etc. The nearest big cities are Ocotepeque to the West and Santa Rosa de Copan to the North. I have made a map for your convenience, you can access it HERE. For a little more history about
San Marcos, go HERE. 

The important stuff: El Trabajo! I will be working with an NGO se llama Hermandad de Honduras. Follow the link to check out their website, it appears that the English language component is down right now (did someone say project?) but their Spanish language site is pretty good. They are a microfinance organization with many different projects. They lend money to individuals, microempresas, farmers, women´s groups, etc. In addition to their work in microfinance, they also participate in Community Development, Health projects, and Education. They were founded in 1977 with their principal office in San Marcos and have now expanded to 12 other locations in 7 departamentos (counties) of
Honduras.  

What will I be doing, you ask? Good question. The information I have received from my Counterpart, Melecio Larrama, is very open ended. He talks about supporting and coordinating a wide range of projects, from administrative work to community development. I see this as a positive, he seems very flexible and eager to involve me. I am traveling to Sigautepeque today where all three projects will be reunited and we will meet our Counterparts. The plan is to travel with Melecio back to
San Marcos where he will show me the ropes of Hermandad de Honduras and I will also choose a place to live for the next two years.  

My Reaction: Initially I was a little disappointed. I am OUT THERE, not to see the bright lights of Teguz for many months to come. It is about a 10 hour bus ride to get back to the capital, and about 5-6 to get to
San Pedro Sula. However, San Salvadore (capital de
El Salvador) is a short 1.5 hour hop away. The other initial negative is that I am not close to any of my friends in the business program. There is one BZ volunteer only 20 minutes from
San Marcos, but we are not close friends. However (are you seeing a trend here?) there is currently an active PCV in
San Marcos AND I learned today my good friend Ana is less than an hour away. Some other benefits of my location: the local PCVs own a house in Santa Rosa de Copan, kind of a Peace Corps hostel, I am close to city of
Copan, home to the famous Ruins, I am close to another good friend, Sarah. 

The biggest plus is my counterpart. This is exactly what I wanted. In fact, I said I wanted either an NGO or a financial cooperative of some kind. I got both rolled up in one. I think working with an NGO will give me a great base to begin my work. The resources and projects are already in place for me to play with, this will bypass the problem of not knowing where to start. Assuming my Counterpart is open minded and flexible, I should also be able to involve myself in personal projects. Miguel, one of my jefes seems very optimistic about the guy, saying he is very eager to get moving. This sounds great. It looks like this will fulfill some very important goals for PC Honduras: Make a noticeable impact in
Honduras, achieve sustainable projects, learn skills that will be applicable post PC.  

So, in summary, initially a little worried, currently optimistic, ready to take the next step and get moving. Of course, all of this is second hand information, I´ll know more after visiting this weekend. Sunday I return to beautiful Santa Lucia, the next week is Semana Santa (4 day weekend), and we swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers on April 20^th, 2006. Finally an opportunity to wear my pin stripe suit. Awesome.

I meant to write about this last week, but there was a lot going on and this ended up getting omitted. We completed our Business Simulation project with a local colegio (high school) on Friday, and my group had a great deal of success. It was one of the first times that I felt like I had actually made a measurable amount of change. Of course, I’m still in training, so it’s not like we’re expected to make a huge impact, but after this I’ve definitely gotten my taste of what it’s like, now I want to find more. Here’s what we did:

I think I explained this once before. You form a group, incorporate a business, raise capital, develop a product, sell a product, pay off your investors, divide the profits (if there are any). But this time, we were the teachers. In total we spent a week with the kids. The first two days we did about 4 hours of lectures about business (types of business, choosing products, target markets, promotion, electing managers, basic accounting, variable costs, fixed costs, margin of contribution, etc). Really, there’s a lot to cover. Our students were second year business track students, but either they had no background in what we covered or were just keeping quiet. So after Monday and Tuesday we sent them out into the world to try their hand at business. Wednesday met with disaster: there were no classes. No classes means no customers. Back to the drawing board. Luckily, the reason there was no classes was because there was a big exam on Thursday (captive market) so instead of having two days to sell, our kids had only one.

Their products were Pan de Banano y Ponche. Right off the bat I was proud because they figured out the idea of complementary products on their own, we only suggested that they sell one product. Smart kids. Banana bread is pretty self explanatory, but Ponche is interesting. It is a milk based drink with cinnamon and other flavors, but it’s served hot. The kicker is that there is a little bit of guaro in it (liquor), which at first provoked much anxiety on my part (this would never fly in the US) but apparently because it’s a cultural drink, it’s okay that it includes alcohol (not a noticeable amount, mind you). The principal gave it the thumbs up, and that was good enough for me.  Ok, so I know what you’re thinking, this is just a glorified bake sale. Well, yes, that’s pretty much the look of it, but it’s really deeper than this. I see it like planting a seed. Teach them to make a quick buck in High School selling sweets and maybe when they’re 21 and there are no jobs available they’ll try it again but on a bigger scale. Also, we really highlight the book keeping aspect, and I think it stuck.

Friday was for presentations. Every group (there were four) presented their product, with each gerente (manager) giving a report (CEO, Marketing, Finance, Production, and Personnel). Our group had it down. I’ll post the pictures here, as well as send them out by email. They calmly explained their variable costs and then their margin of contribution while we looked on. One of the other volunteers raised his hand and asked my group what their break even point was. My mind hiccupped… “wait, what is their break even point, did we forget to teach them about this…?” Marven, our finance manager, without breaking stride, calmly said “Good question, but because we elected not to pay salaries, we have no fixed costs, and therefore our break even point is zero, and the margin of contribution is pure ganancia (profit).” THAT was my moment, the difference making, or at least I thought so. I immediately regained my composure (not that anyone knew I didn’t know the answer to the question) and shouted ‘Punto para Los Increibles!’ (Their group name was “The Incredibles”). Everybody laughed, the volunteer was deservedly shamed.

Ok, that took longer to explain than expected, so I’ll just briefly touch on my journey to Juticalpa. It was AWESOME. I rode in the back of a pickup truck for 9 hours (we did the whole thing in one day, there and back). The pictures are posted here as well, and I highly encourage you to check them out. It was pleasantly fresco for most of the day, with good cloud cover, so I didn’t get burned. My brother and I chilled on our mattress and split the ear phones to my iPod. On the way there we rocked some classics like CCR and Bruce Springsteen. I made him listen to my Spanish language music (Ricardo Arjona, who’s just awesome) too, which he didn’t seem to mind. We ran into a protest march, a bunch of cows, and a road side stand that made wine out of these weird looking spiky trees (it wasn’t half bad). Once there, I met the newest addition to the family (he’s 7 months old) and watched some European soccer. The drive back was a little faster, but slightly less comfortable. Cesar Roberto, my brother, and I rocked some Eminem and listened to Chronic 2000 by Dr. Dre. The only downside was all the exhaust. For some reason I wore a white shirt- bad plan. When I showered this morning the soap from my hair was literally BLACK. Gross. I probably inhaled about a metric ton of carbon monoxide. We cruised into Danli after dark, which was awesome because the stars were gorgeous. Fun day, but exausting. Don’t forget to check out the pics, and if you ever get the chance to ride cross country in a pickup truck, do it- it’s great.

Today makes two months that I’ve lived in
Honduras. Tiempo vuele when you’re having fun. On my excel spreadsheet (details of all financial and planning aspects of training) I noticed that we have now completed 75% of our training. Obviously this is both good and bad. It’s great that we’re that much closer to finishing and getting to our sites, but it’s also intimidating to think that in 3 weeks we’ll be traveling alone to a foreign place where we are expected to do great things.

I had my final interview with my project manager on Tuesday. He asked me what I wanted and I told him. Then he didn’t really say anything. I’ll take this to mean that I’m getting exactly what I want. We’re all going out to dinner on Tuesday night for the big announcement, it’s pretty exciting. It’s exciting not just to know my own site but I can’t wait to see who is geographically close to me. Of course, the map of Honduras can be very deceptive because often times there are no roads between cities and they apparently took the saying “All roads lead to
Rome” very seriously because it is literally impossible to travel somewhere without going through the capital, Teguz.

Last night we had a despedida to thank the host families we stayed with. We put together a little program and made food (yours truly made chicken sandwiches, pineapple, and catrachitas). I was also asked to tell a funny story. This I can do, quite well I like to think, in English with no concern. However, I am still mastering (and by mastering I mean “have not yet learned”) the concept of humor in Spanish. Obviously what is funny in English just doesn’t work in Spanish (the Hondurans looked at me with blank faces when I said “Close, but no cigar”). But I gave it my best shot- I wrote a list of 5 suggestions for volunteers when it comes to living with host families (a la a Top Ten list, or something). This went over pretty well, much to my relief. Most of the humor centered on me being tall, awkward, and white… and also my lack of ability to speak the Spanish language.

After the program our families said a few words about us. I think I’ve already mentioned that my dad is a talker, and talk he did. But it was actually very nice; he talked about how Ï was a model son and very obedient (interesting). He talked about how it was important that we all went through the death of his mother together, which was very true. Many of you already know this, but my Aunt, Ethel Robb, died last weekend in
Seattle after more than 8 decades of life that were filled with happiness and family. It was helpful to me to be in the midst of my adopted family going through the same process. It was almost as if I were celebrating the life of Aunt Ethel as well as that of my host grandmother here in
Honduras. I feel lucky to have the support of friends and family here, as well as the means to be able to communicate with family back in
Seattle.

And, as long as I´m talking about communicating, my Spanish ability is improving rapidly, I can actually barely hold a conversation now! This is a good thing, because tomorrow I´m getting up at the crack of dawn for a road trip with my dad and some of his family. We´re hoppin´in the ´ole family pickup and heading for Olancho, which is to the north east of
Tegucigalpa. I´m not sure exactly how long this drive will take (we´re taking home a sister who came for the funeral) but I´m looking forward to it. He said that we´re going to bring a mattress to put in the back of the pickup bed so we can lay on that and watch the sky while we drive. This sounds like the perfect moment to do some deep thinking, mire: blue sky, wind-whipped hair, blazing sun. Perfecto.

I´d like to add a little more about my grandmother´s funeral here, especially because the internet is currently down and I´m only here awaiting it´s revival to post this entry. After the actually burial, we held 9 days of misas (catholic masses) in her house. The last day I got there at 4 and we stayed till 10 as friends and family came by and we held services every couple hours. It was amazing how many people come (hundreds, probably around 100 during each and every service), and touching to see the support in the community when a family member dies. But it also occurred to me how expensive this must be for the family, as they are expected to seat, feed, and provide drinks to the visitors as a show of appreciation for their support. I´m a little worried that this economic hardship is falling on my host father here, especially because he hasn´t worked since this all began about 3 weeks ago (my grandmother´s sickness) and appears to be selling his car. But I don´t want to pry into their personal family business, perhaps this is just how things are done in
Honduras.

Bueno, yo he escrito mucho, gracias por leerlo y venga el próximo semana para leer a cerca de mi viaje a Olancho!