Peter in Honduras

Just another day in Peace Corps Honduras… 

I’m sitting at my desk, the one I use at Hermandad, trying to muster the enthusiasm to pound out this blog entry. You see, it’s not that I don’t like writing blog entries- completely the opposite- it’s just that when you start to write a story about two weeks that were among the best yet, you feel a little intimidated. The stage thusly set, let’s read on… 

I have the sense that this could be a long blog entry, as I try to convey the importance of every detail, so I’ll first talk about Sarah’s visit- the social highlight, and then talk about work accomplishments.

Last Thursday I put in a half day working in the office at Hermandad and then jumped a bus to Ocotopeque to go meet Sarah at the border. As I mentioned in the previous post, Sarah is the girlfriend of my brother, Joel, and she is going to Panama to work as an intern for UNICEF for six weeks. Due to the geographic proximity, she was nice enough to pay me a visit here in Honduras before continuing down South. So I wandered around the border for a while, chatting up the border guards, who informed me (to my delight) that you no longer have to pay the border crossing fee of $10 to travel by foot across the border. With this new fact in hand, I decided to stroll across to El Salvador where I met Sarah coming off the bus from San Sal. For never having met someone before, it felt very natural- an instant bond. We walked back to Honduras as it began to pour down rain. 

It was pretty amazing, like I said before, an instant bond. She brought me tons of goodies from the states (pictures here) and we could hardly force ourselves to go to sleep, there was just so much to talk about. Yes, I know, it sounds a little like a middle school slumber party, but it was great!

Friday we returned to San Marcos and I started making the rounds, introducing her to everyone. As we had discussed before, it was better to introduce her as my sister-in-law, just for appearances sake, since she would be sleeping in a spare bedroom of my house. This of course, made her family, roles which we both enjoyed filling immensely. I showed her the market, the baleada lady (who was so pleased she gave us both free bags of water, the first time I think I’ve gotten anything for free in a store), the Pupuseria, and of course, Hermandad. 

Saturday I had to go into Hermandad for a little while, so Sarah stayed home for the morning to write letters. Now, I’ll try not to offer up too much praise, but Sarah is the kind of person you feel totally comfortable leaving in your house while you’re out. I don’t mean in terms of honesty, but rather that you don’t feel pressured to offer up ways to fill the time- she’s just an independent person, someone who makes you feel completely at ease. We rendezvoused for the afternoon and got in a nice walk in the surrounding countryside of San Marcos, an area I haven’t explored much. After another adventure in the market, we got to watch the USA struggle to a 1-1 tie with Italy. My coworkers take great pleasure in listening to me outline, in Spanish, the scenarios in which the US will advance to the next round. 

Sunday we took another nice walk and tried to squeeze in at the Catholic Church service, which was packed, then headed off to explore Santa Rosa de Copan together. Well, unfortunately, Santa Rosa, a city of over 100k inhabitants, shuts down almost completely on Sundays, which I now know. So we were left with a pretty dull morning, but, and again the theme of Sarah is great emerges, the day was saved with ice cream and talking in the park.

Since she was due to continue on to Panama on Monday, we decided it would be best to head back to Ocotopeque and spend the night there so that she would be closer to the border for the morning bus trip. Of course, no visit would be complete to Honduras with out a little creepy sexual harassment- of which we were treated to two separate occurrences. The first was a guy on the bus to San Marcos, just a total creep, who would stop staring at Sarah and who moved to sit directly behind her after she and I switched seats. Luckily he got off before us, but it was still a little unsettling. After a Hollywood type end to our journey (picture lying in the back of a pick up truck in the open night sky, tons of stars, driving over a mountain pass), we arrived in Ocotopeque and went to grab a bite to eat where we ran into what must have been the twin of the first guy. We were sitting at our table and this guy starts making hand gestures to Sarah asking if we were a couple or who knows what. He then proceeds to come over to the table and lean over her, with his face right in our faces. I, of course, mumbled something in Spanish to the effect of “Hey, give us some space, buddy,” which he seemed to ignore, so finally I had to stand up, take Sarah by the hand, and shove past the guy to get out of the place. Creepy. But, as was the theme of our trip, bad things turned to good as we enjoyed another nice dinner at the Hoel Maya Chortis.

Monday we went back to the border, where Sarah was nice enough to buy me another comfortable chair for the house, and she was off to San Sal. It was great having someone else to hang around with down here. We especially enjoyed cooking together and hanging out in my new comfy El Salvadoran chairs. Of course, her departure was sort of a let down, as I now cook solo again- the licuados just don’t taste as sweet without someone to enjoy them with. 

As I read over what I wrote, it just doesn’t convey how much fun the weekend with Sarah was. But perhaps that’s how you know it was so good, when just each other’s company can make seemingly ordinary experiences extraordinary. So that’s the report, friends and family, of Joel’s girlfriend, Sarah. Here’s hoping that the next time she comes to visit me I can honestly call her my cuñada! Hint, hint, Joel. 

Whew, this is getting long. So I’ll give you only one paragraph on the work accomplishments. I’m preparing to give seminars on raising capital for our groups of Caja Rurales (microfinance community banks), hoping to start moving forward on the café project, and yesterday I went to go visit a group of farmers looking to make a huge investment in more land and more cultivation but lacking in basic accounting skills. So yes, hallelujah, there is work! Add a million side projects, slowly building my house, plus the constant language barrier, and I’ve really got my hands full- it’s great.

I’ll keep you posted.

The last ten days have been a blur. Let’s break it down by the numbers:

2 – Number of countries I have been in

9 – Number of cities I have visited

6 – Different beds I have slept in

5 – Offices of Hermandad de Honduras I visited

2 – Shots received por detras to combat the effects of some bad repollo

Like always, I’ll explain.

I returned from El Salvador refreshed, invigorated, and ready to get back to saving the world only to turn on a dime and head back out on the road. I got back Monday night, spent Tuesday planning the next trip, visiting a women’s group (who appear excited to work together), and Wednesday morning at 7am I was back on the road. The reason for the new trip was that a car was already scheduled to be making a trip to various satellite offices of Hermandad, so I proposed that I go along to meet the local gerentes and to explain the goals of the café project and solicit their support. The schedule was for us to visit the offices in Neuva Ocotopeque, La Entrada, Santa Barbara, Sigautapeque, Marcala, La Esperanza, and finally the office in Gracias.

The first day we went to Ocotopeque and La Entrada where I was warmly received and explained the goals of the project and asked for suggestions and insights. Everyone is, as always, very friendly and supportive, which makes you wonder if they’re really going to support you down the road, but I’ll take their word for it. They have a wonderful habit of saying a la orden whenever I finish talking with them. It’s nice to know I have all these gerentes at my order.

Day two was more of a meet and greet day for me because I didn’t have specific business with the Santa Barbara and Siguatapeque offices, but it was fun getting to know the staffs and I even got to see a few volunteers that live in Siguat. We finished up that night in Marcala (pictures here), where I met a very knowledgeable engineer who told me everything I ever wanted to know (but was afraid to ask) about coffee. I visited friends in Marcala for about an hour and then met up again with my coworkers to celebrate a birthday over cake. It was about 10 o clock and I hadn’t eaten dinner yet so I got an order of tacos to go and took them back to my hotel room to be enjoyed as I watched the 10 o clock Spanish language broadcast of SportsCenter.

Big Mistake.

I woke up at 4 am feeling quite ill. This would be the general theme of the next few days. Friday I couldn’t hold anything down and was feeling so ill I had to eventually go to the hospital, where they promptly stuck me with two shots to the butt (this helps?) and gave me a prescription for two bottles of re-hydration solution (mmmm, manzana!). I gave a feeble thumbs up sign and urged my companeros to continue on while I recuperated in the relative comfort of a fellow volunteer’s home. It was definitely a good mark for the Peace Corps- they’ve got volunteer health and safety under control. The clinic didn’t bat an eye; they saw my PC card and just faxed the bill to Tegucigalpa right away. Good job, Peace Corps.

Saturday saw me feeling well enough to make the four hour bus ride to Lago de Yajoa to meet two good friends from training where we spent a comfortable night in a beautiful hotel on the lake. Still feeling pretty ill, I managed to enjoy myself, and, as always, it was good to see friends. Sunday, by shear will, I managed to make it six more hours to San Marcos without throwing up, arriving just in time for the power to go out in the pitch black downpour. Thusly empty-stomached, I decided to pass out on my mattress, with the pleasant result of getting a phone call from the padres, which was accompanied shortly thereafter by the return of the electricity. Que suerte.

So after a draining couple of weeks, I’m in a state somewhere in between feeling glad to be back in slower moving San Marcos and feeling a little let down after all the recent adventuring. This week I hope to see the completion of the proposal stage of the café project, as well as getting down to some planning in other realms as well. And to top it all off, I’m looking forward to a visit from Sarah Trent, my casi cuñada, in 9 days. Nos vemos muy pronito.