Peter in Honduras

The following is adapted from an email that I sent to my parents:

So, I was telling you how I’ve just had a great last couple of days, really the whole week, in fact! It’s amazing to think that ten days ago I was feeling as low as I’ve felt in a long time and today I’m definitely at the high point of my short Peace Corps career (167 at the time of this writing) . Well, a number of things have been going right this week; I’ll start from the top:

The encuesta- I started it this week, which was a bit stressful, intimidating, and exciting. I spent the whole the week visiting farmers out in the field and delivering the approximately 40-60 minute interview. It’s hard. Sometimes they’re communicative and friendly, sometimes they’re not and I feel like a complete idiot. But I’m learning SO much and I’ve got big plans for this. I’m hoping this week to move onto a new region and start racking up the number of completed surveys. It stands at 12 right now and I’m aiming for 80. This is, of course, tricky given the amount of vacation I am taking in the next month, but I have a schedule and I believe it’s reachable.

The Spanish- I can tell you what affects it, but I’m positive that one’s Spanish speaking ability comes and goes, just like a cycle. Some might compare it to the graph of the sine function. Well, to be extra nerdy, I’m at 90 degrees right now- the high point. I still stumble and stutter, but hell, I am GIVING interviews.

Friends- this week I’ve spent a lot of time with my Honduran friends, and made a whole gang of new ones. Up until now I haven’t been hanging out with any kids at all. Sure, I say hi in passing and shake a hand or two, but I generally don’t spend much time with them. This changed big time this week. Thursday two kids, Gerson y Julian (5th and 2nd grades, respectively), visited me and saw that I had a soccer ball in my house- plans were made immediately to play the following day at 5:30pm. They arrived at 5:29. I’ll spare you the summary, but the tally read:

Gerson y Julian: 20

Peter: 18

It was a hard fought game, played in my side patio with plastic chairs as goals. High fives were exchanged, yells of “que golaso!” could be heard loud and far. The next day, two new kids showed up, waiting on my stoop as I returned from the market. Enter Aunt Marnie. On our last day together in Seattle, Aunt Marnie and I toured around buying last second things for Honduras. Among these was a set of magnet shapes. The kids LOVED these. We quickly translated the names of the various patterns they could make (space ships: nave espacial, etc, etc). Another idea occurred to me, inspired by a combination of Aunt Marnie and Sarah Trent. I remember Marnie telling me how she always brings drawing supplies with her where ever she travels. Well, Sarah brough me some colored pencils to give as a gift to my friendly neighbors, which I still have not done yet. So I took out half of these, used the old scrap paper I have laying around, and a drawing station was set up. So we have: football, magnets, drawing. Today we added “making recycled paper” (a current project of mine) and also a short english language class resulting in that we now have five kids saying “Good morning, how are you? I am very well, thank you.” at all times of the day.

Needless to say, it’s been a lot of fun, the last week. Also, German (carpenter friend) helped me build a new table for my kitchen to put my fridge and stove top on. I asked him how much and he has twice told me that “we’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Such kindness.

So that’s the state of things, you wouldn’t think they could get any better, but of course, YOU’RE visiting me shortly! Que bueno!

Much love, and I’ve attached pictures of the fun.

Is it starting to happen? Are the blog posts getting farther and farther apart, leading towards yet another hopelessly out of date blog lingering in the internet? No- not if I have anything to do with it. Today the blog returns in full force as we discuss: Post Sarah Depression (PSD), Getting Serious About Café, Social networking, The Real Honduras, and finally, How to Get Bit by a Million Mosquitos- and live to tell about it.

Yes, it’s true, PSD hit me pretty hard. Life didn’t seem as promising, the PB&J sandwiches didn’t taste the same, and the two new chairs just looked patheticly half filled. I’m actually not really exaggerating, having guests is terrific, but leaves you with a lonely feeling after departure. After about a week you get back on track, and it didn’t help that I had a really low period of work that week after her leaving. Things are back on track, in a big way.

I say this because things are finally showing sign of getting underway in this long awaited and much planned coffee research project. While I’m still await final approval of some sort, I think I’ll be able to begin interviewing caficultores (coffee farmers) this week. As fate would have it, I think it has served me better to endure this long delay. For one, it’s a good lesson in how things get done and how to expedite the process in the future, and the other half is that it has allowed my Spanish and knowledge of coffee to grow to levels where I feel comfortable talking to campesinos (imagine someone speaking English without pronouncing the first and last syllable of every word).

Does everyone here feel comfortable with the specs of the coffee project? If you need a little more information/background, try referring to past blog posts:

First Impressions or
Adelentar Los Relojes

They’re both linked there, just click on them. I believe I have finished my final draft of the boleta, which is what we call the sheet I plan to fill with data as I interview each producer. If you’re interested what kind of data I’m looking at, download it here. Any suggestions will be reviewed as long as they are in Spanish. Tomorrow I meet with Ingeniero Mauricio (as differentiated from Licenciado Mauricio who is head of the financial wing of Hermandad), so that he can offer me some suggestions and then Thursday I plan to start my first round of interviews.

Updated 7/13: After meeting with Ing. Lorrenzo, the boleta stands finish (I hope) thusly: Boleta Finished

As work grows, there’s also time for play, of course. For the 4^th of July I traveled to Gracias, Lempira, for a good ole fashioned celebration of our independence. This entailed, among other things, a trip to the hot springs, a wonderful hotel with a mountainside view of all of Gracias, topped off by about 7 hours poolside eating hot dogs and watching the World Cup. I saw a guy selling “Stars and Stripes” brand soda, which I thought was such a terrific coincidence (he had no idea what the 4^th meant) that I bought some and enjoyed it with my hot dogs (I ate 5). It was fun to see everyone and impressive the kind of foreign community we have – people came from Guatemala (one guy illegally crossed the border), and El Salvador, and we also had some guests that were just passing through and noticed the high concentration of Gringos. Uncle Sam would be proud.

The return to San Marcos again brought a bit of a down feeling, but this was quickly lifted by my trip to Jaralón on Friday. My compañero Edgardo brought me along, kindly enough, and I got to spend the day driving through the campo of Honduras. This is a Honduras I don’t get to see every day. Even though San Marcos is dirt poor by any international standard, it’s fairly well off by Honduran ones. But once you leave the town and start heading up, up, and even further up, things start heading, quite ironically, downhill pretty past. The poverty is very visible.

But despite the apparent poverty, these people are among the friendliest and most generous you’ll find. We were working on building a greenhouse for a Caja Rural that is administered by Hermandad. We worked (well, I mostly watched) all day, they brought us a nice lunch, and one of the men gave me a tour of his orchard and finca (farm), giving me a bag full of peaches to take home. It was a great experience, and I talked with him as much as I could about his coffee production. He uses all organic fertilizer, yet lacks certificacion which could bring the possibility of a higher price or the possibility of exportation. He said that using the peach trees as shade gives the coffee a sweet flavor, which I couldn’t discern because all Hondurans add about 2-3 scoops (tablespoons) of sugar to their coffee. Another side benefit of the trip was simply the driving through the countryside, learning names of the various villages. Edgardo, who is normally a little cool towards me, has really warmed up and seemed to enjoy teaching me the names, much to my enjoyment as well.

Well, as I move toward page three here, I’ll try to wrap it up, but I wanted to share one last thing about my recent adventures. I went up to “la montaña” (as I’ve begun to call it) with Neddi (my neighbor) and his family. This family has really started to adopt me, it seems, which I couldn’t be happier about. This is the third trip up there I’ve made with them, and each time I feel more and more comfortable. This last time I had a really good conversation with the father about what the problems are that face Honduran coffee growers. I should warn Mom, Dad (if he makes it), and Joel, though, that when you guys come they are planning to slaughter a pig in your honor. So, Joel – no vegetarianism, at least for one day, ok? This trip we worked on building a structure they plan to use as a shelter in which to give training classes to farmers. Part of the funds are coming from some NGOs and the other part the father is funding. So German (son in law to father, remember G’s are pronounced like H’s in Spanish), cut the beams with a combination of a chainsaw and a machete, and we hoisted them up about 8 feet and there you had it- the frame was up. It was great, we were all dirty and covered in sap and listening to the World Cup Final.

A rather upbeat blog entry, I have to say, but that’s the current mood in San Marcos, at least right now. Uh oh, it’s 3pm, here comes the rain.

P.S. No new pictures for now, I tend not to remember to bring my camera.