Peter in Honduras

First off, sorry for the long delay in postings. It’s not that things have suddenly gotten boring, but I think the more accustomed I get to life down here, the less remarkable and blogworthy it seems to me. Yes, I’m settling in. You know the feeling – you find yourself fixed in your morning routine, you have the stores you like to shop in, the people you like to spend time with, etc. I view this as a good thing. But let’s start the post with a little bit about struggles of late.

I’d say mid May was a pretty tough time for me down here. I was coming into the offices of H de H day in and day out, but I felt like I wasn’t making any noticeable progress. Furthermore, I couldn’t really identify the role I was supposed to play in the organization. It’s like I’m some sort of rover who jumps around from project to project. Except that everyone expects to be an expert (which I’m not) and what’s more, be an expert while speaking a second language. So there was a week or so in there where I was pretty depressed. But one day, while self-pitying myself, I heard that voice in my head: Make a list. Yes, those Schlosser genes love lists. Thusly re-motivated, I outline a few things I would like to accomplish, and almost magically the opportunities to do so fell into my lap!

First, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to get involved with the Cajas Rurales, the community banks. I’ve attended a few workshops where they went over basic accounting practices, but I was only an observer, not an actual participant or facilitator. But last week my co-worker Carmen asked for my help on a problem. The issue is that very few of the Cajas are increasing their capital base, meaning they’re not growing in their ability to provide larger and wider ranging loans. So what I want to work on is developing planes de capitalizacion for the individual groups so that they can design and implement a plan for growth. This serves dual purposes for me because it will also provide me the opportunity to more deeply involve myself with these groups, hopefully opening the door so that I can provide further assistance. To be quite honest, my dream is excel spreadsheet bearing treasurers in every caja, but I’ll take things one day at a time.

The other project I want to jump into is working with small business groups. I actually came about this in a backwards way by asking a coworker about a project he’s doing with local high school students. Initially I wanted to help deliver basic classes in business – product design, raising capital, marketing, selling, business plans, etc. When I proposed this idea, he invited me to come along (today, in fact) to meet with a women’s group that is interested in developing a product (in this case hand crafts made from recycled products) and selling them here near San Marcos.

So, armed with these two new projects, the gloom has been defeated and I’m back on the motivated path. Now if I can only get this coffee project jump started. Perhaps a little caffeine…

And now on to the fun stuff. This weekend past Jason and I ventured to El Salvador for the first time. We arose at the crack of dawn on Saturday and rode in the back of a truck through a very chilly morning to the city of Ocotopeque, right on the border with El Salvador and Guatemala. We were both pleased to discover that the $10 fee for entering El Salvador apparently does not apply to Peace Corps Volunteers. The travel budget took a big jump up. From the border at El Poy we hopped a bus for the capital city, San Salvador, spent a few hours there, and then grabbed a bus to La Libertad, the surfing capital of El Salvador.

Some first impressions of El Salvador: well developed. While there’s still that third world poverty feel in many corners, it’s appears to be much better developed than Honduras. Stores clearly mark prices, people are helpful, customer service is good, etc. The first clue was that there are actually lines painted on the streets. All in all I was quite impressed by the place.

La Libertad was beautiful. Right on the warm Pacific Ocean, La Libertad has smooth black sand beaches that are met by the crashing waves that makes the city home to so many surfers (and many gringos). We stayed at a nice little hotel called the Surfer’s Lounge. For $6 a night we got a huge room and enjoyed the company of the owners as they treated us to fun conversation and snacks. We spent most of our time eating, walking on the beach, swimming, exploring the coast, watching a surfing competition (kind of), and of course: surfing. Well… almost. I think if the papers had written up the box score from my surfing adventure, it would have read like so:

Peter 0

El Mar 1

TKO, 26:19 minutes

La Libertad, El Salvador – The young man and the sea had a fairly disappointing bout this morning in the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. From the sound of the first bell, it was apparent that Schlosser was in trouble. With waves swelling to heights of 6 to 8 feet, the slightly overmatched Schlosser (6’ 2”) appeared to be fighting to literally keep his head above water. The defining moment of the match came at the 19 minute mark as a enormous wave pushed fellow surfer Jason McGibbon towards Schlosser in a torrent of water. In a mistaken attempt to protect himself, Schlosser ducked his head behind the surfboard, which the Ocean used as the perfect medium to deliver a solid blow to the left temple. Shaking the stars from his eyes, Schlosser attempted to tough it out, but as the goose eggs above his left eye swelled to Ostrich proportions, Schlosser dropped his gloves not yet halfway through the 26 minute mark. Vowing a return, Schlosser remarked, as he struggled to shore “but it looks so easy on TV.”

So, despite my struggles with the surfing, it was a blast. The waves were actually kind of scary at points (check out the pictures). But we all (Jason, Susie, and I) enjoyed playing in the surf and getting knocked down by waves. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot to mention. We met this cool German girl on the bus and she came and stayed with us at the hotel. She’s 29 and writing her dissertation on Philosophy of Religions right now. She spoke perfect English so we all got along quite nicely. We pretty much spent the whole weekend with her, which was fun to have some outside company. Yes, the whole weekend felt like I was in Hawaii (as I ate Ceviche on the second floor of a restaurant overlooking the ocean) except that it all cost next to nothing. We hopped a bus back to San Sal, endured the slow three hour ride to the border and made it back to San Marcos just as a huge rain storm came up. Thusly soaked, I settled back into my house, extremely contented with the situation.

Ok, now that I’ve written you a book about the last three weeks, I’ll end it here. Hope all is well wherever you may be.

Let it be known:

This weblog is based entirely in the opinions of it's author, Peter Schlosser. Nothing written here should be interpreted as policy or opinion of the Peace Corps or of the United States government. 

There’s much confusion in Honduras today, because all this week the talk has been about the upcoming time shift, and tonight it will finally take place. You see, here in Honduras we don’t have daylight savings time, at least not usually. So when you all jumped your clocks an hour ahead (please ignore this if you live in Hawaii, Arizona, or certain parts of Indiana), I got one step closer to Pacific Time, and had to remind my computer that we were actually in Honduras, not Seattle. However, the powers that be have decided that in an effort to reduce electricity consumption, Honduras will move one hour ahead (along with El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala). Actually Nicaragua and Guatemala already made the shift last week, making Central America feel a little bit like the state of Indiana (Punto!). One of the girls who works at Hermandad, when explaining to me what time we were going to meet to go to the pool, was explaining we would meet at 9 o’clock, until I finally stopped her and made sure she meant 10 o’clock on the new time. Si, a las nueve…

That first paragraph was what we call a teaser. Girl at work? Pool? Oh yes, and it was amazing. The guys at Hermandad know how to have a good time. On Sunday we had a picnic at this pool about 30 minutes out of town. About 50 people came and we grilled carne asada and chorizo, played soccer, swam in the pool, drank some Tecates, and listened patiently as compañero after compañero introduced me to su compañera favorita. They’re pretty much convinced I came here to get married. Pictures of the whole day will be posted here

So the pool was lots of fun, but I need to back track a little bit. Last week I started out, a bit slowly, on this first project regarding the coffee production in Ocotopeque. I went out to San Marquense, a nearby processor of café, twice last week. The first time I just toured the facility and we talked about how the coffee comes in (uba), how it gets depulped, washed, dried, and finally comes to rest as pergamino, and later as oro. It was really interesting, albeit a bit overwhelming. San Marquense has it together too, they’ve even got a system in place to process the waste water runoff from depulping the coffee. The next day we went back again and talked for about 2 hours with this guy whom you could tell has spent his whole life working with coffee. He and Melecio (my counterpart, remember) talked the whole time about the coffee situation, the problems, what needs to be done, etc. As you can imagine, this was incredibly interesting to listen to- these guys know their stuff. I felt a little out of my league, but after three months of falling flat on my face with regards to language and culture, I’m getting pretty used to ignoring this feeling.

Wow, I have a lot more to say, so if you’re getting tired all ready, quit now and come back later because I’m about to switch tracks a little bit to something different. Today Melecio and I drove out to Nueva Ocotepeque (the departmental capital) for a meeting about creating a Center for Agro-businesses. If you’re not seeing the trend yet, I’ll be working in the field for the foreseeable future. The meeting was great, they’ve got an ambitious plan to build a huge complex where farmers can get together to learn new techniques, market their product, and contact buyers. We spent about 5 hours going over everything, talking about the business plan, the strategic plan, the physical plans, etc. At the end we all signed a letter of interest and designated the areas in which we could help. Melecio had me fill out the form (I’m not sure if he was trying to involve me or simply pawn off the work). What I didn’t realize was that the next step was to form a comite de trabajo which I had unwittingly made myself part of. It was actually kind of funny to hear my name read off with 19 other names like “Mejia” and “Henriquez” as they outlined the new committee for everyone. So I’ve got another meeting, this time in Sinuapa, next week, y no se lo que voy a hacer…

After the meeting we went and visited a few members of a Caja Rural that Melecio is working with, which was interesting but also slightly awkward to be this tall blond gringo standing there trying to smile while two Hondurans talk in clipped sentences about money. We headed back down the mountain and Melecio turned to me and said “We’re going to El Salvador” in English. I smile and said “Yes, we are going to El Salvador” as I normally do to reinforce what he just said when he tries to speak in English. He just smiled, so I followed that up with “uh, en serio?” We were only about 5 miles from the border so he decided it would be a good idea to show me what El Salvador was like. I gotta say, border towns are cool, lots of people (drifters, businessmen, mojados), lots of trucks parked on the side of the road, lots of cool stores (including duty free shops). We walked over the the immigration office and they stamped my passport “salida” and we walked over to El Salvador, bringing my number of Central American countries visited to “2.” However, the immigration official told me that because I had my American passport and not my official residency card (it’s in the mail) that I’d have to pay $10 to cross the border! Now, 10 bucks doesn’t seem like a lot, but keep in mind I only receive $5 per day for food, clothing, travel, todo! So, our trip was cut short, and we walked back towards Honduras, until I realized my passport carried a stamp saying I’d left the country May 8, 2006. Realizing this would cause a problem when I inevitably decide to leave, I returned and was given a fresh Entrada stamp. Que bueno.

In other news, I almost bought a refrigerator, but opted to wait it out to try to find something cheaper. In more exciting news, I finally bought a cell phone. So now, if you please, you may call me at my new number: (504) 893-3174

Also, while we’re on the subject, I have a new mailing address! It’s:

Peter Schlosser
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
San Marcos de Ocotopeque, Honduras
America Central

Please note the “de Ocotopeque” part is muy importante, there are many San Marcos’s. You’ll also note there’s no street address. That’s because all the mail here comes to the Post Office (it’s really just a house), and then they find you. I introduced myself to Jorge, the mailman, and his wife (who handles outgoing mail) and he asked me where I lived. As I stumbled trying to explain that I live kind of near the cemetery and my house was the color of peaches, he quickly interjected “No, your house is melon colored and is above the place where they make those concrete blocks.” This guy knows his stuff. I have no fear of losing a package.