Monday, February 1, 2010

Looking Back to Look Ahead

At times it is necessary and therapeutic to literally put it down on a piece of paper. Journaling has never been my release because I find I am not honest enough with myself. What does work for me is telling the people that care for me about my successes, weaknesses, ideas and hopes; it forces me to be honest with them, and in turn with myself. I find myself at a place where I need to talk about what I have done, how I have succeeded, and at times failed, in order to pull myself through my remaining 8 months of service.

A million years ago I set out to a country in Central America called Honduras. Where is that I wondered? What will it be like? What will the people there be like and how will they receive me? Most importantly, what can I bring to the people to make their lives a little better, a little easier? Nearly 19 months later I am a little closer to answering those questions.

The first 3 months or so I observed, as I continue to do, but these first months were dedicated solely to soaking in my new surroundings. I walked to and from my place of work, the municipality, every day. Along the way I began to develop relationships with people; Letti, the lady who walks around town twice a week picking up plastic bottles to recycle, Oscar, the owner of the local grocery store, Eva, the 88 year old lady who loves talking to Gringos, Marvin, the 12 year old boy being raised by his grandparents and Aide, the entrepreneur who sells baleadas and fresh squeezed juice from a cart that she pushes around town. Being a relationship person, this task came very easily to me. In doing so I learned more about Honduras than any book could have ever taught me. Soon came a time when it was rare for me to walk down the street without hearing my name, a true feeling of belonging.

Those relationships allowed me to start my “real work” here, not to downplay my role as a community member, as cultural exchange is practically half of my job here. The project I was selected to partake in was Municipal Development, however, after sitting in the mayor’s office for 5 months observing and having very little luck with someone actually including me in any projects, I began to explore other options for work. Along with all of the locals whom with I had developed relationships, there are a handful of North Americans living here and doing various types of projects for the community. Scott and Susan are two of those people and they run a mission house which is equipped with a classroom. This is where my first, and longest standing project began, English classes. Many Peace Corps volunteers come into this with a strong aversion to this type of project, questioning its sustainability and real value for nationals. At this point, I wasn’t doing much of anything else, and it’s one of the requests my community had, so I dove in. I have been holding English class all day on Saturdays ever since, basic instruction in the morning and intermediate in the afternoons. Are my students getting anything out of it? Absolutely. Is that something the ability to communicate in English? For a handful, yes. As for the others, it is a safe, fun place to go every Saturday and hang out with their friends. I am at peace with this, but it took me a long time to be Ok with the fact that all of my students are not going to be fluent when my time comes to leave. If I have inspired one kid to continue and work hard, or one adult to pursue further classes, it’s valuable and worth my time, hands down. Not to mention the relationships I have built with my students, these days I cannot walk down the street without some kid yelling out, “Bye teacher”.

Aside from my partners at the mayor’s office, I was also assigned with work with Anne, a Canadian woman who spends half of the year in Toronto and half of the year here. The programs she has developed are mostly in the schools and for children. They are presentations regarding health issues, mostly dental care. We take four puppets and perform skits to teach kids about brushing, going to the dentist, how to eat a little better, washing hands, and throwing garbage where it belongs. Along with those skits we hand out toothbrushes, give them a fluoride treatment and check their vision. Last year after visiting about 5 schools I organized a bus to take all of the kids that had major vision problems to an eye clinic about 3 hours away to have them treated. Several of them received glasses and 2 kids received surgery they needed to correct a crossed eye. It’s like the story of the kid on the beach with a million starfish washed up on the shore and he is throwing them back, one by one. An old man stumbles upon him and asks, “Is that really going to make a difference, there are so many?” to which the boy picks up a starfish, throws it into the ocean and replies, “For that one it did.”

At this point I had still not given up on the municipality. I still went, and still go to this day, to see if there’s a fit for me there. A new project came to the municipality which involved a large sum of money coming in from the European Union for a project to protect the border of a river in town, as well as other environmental projects. Again, as before, I went to the municipality every day for 2 months, going to meetings, gaining knowledge on what the projects entailed. One part of the project being touted was to bring some type of garbage collection to my community, something I had been interested in from the start. Every day I was told, don’t worry, we are going to work on this, blah blah blah. A year later nothing has been done and I have been told by more than one person that the money has been “lost”. The fact of the matter is, most places in the states don’t really use volunteers efficiently, so in a developing country this inability is exponential. Between the mismanagement of government offices that is prominent in all municipalities in the country and my undefined role, working for the municipality as originally intended is not exactly working out. Though not all is lost; I have created relationships with the people there and have come to know the role they play in the community. It ends up I am a pretty good liason when it comes to showing community members where they can seek resources for myriad reasons.

Venturing outside of our intended roles is commonplace for Peace Corps volunteers. Rolling with the punches and going with the flow have become my way of life. Being content with affecting one person with the possibility of never even knowing that affect is reality for me; one that I still struggle with, but I’m getting better!.

Looking ahead while my optimism comes and goes, my plan is to continue with my English classes (we are on week 4 of the 3rd 12 week session!), working with Anne (we will be hosting a dental team for the second year who will clean about 300 kids’ teach and provide further care for those most in need) and open the library for the high school which we worked with a rotary club in Ames, Iowa to build. My newest interest is with a group of all volunteer firefighters who are in the process of building a fire station which will also serve as an ambulance service for the community. If anyone happens to know of an organization that might be willing to work with us on this project I would love to contact them. This is really the first project I have felt really encouraged about. Everyone in this group is a volunteer. They are building the station from the ground up on donations they seek. Once the building is established, they will continue to volunteer their time as firefighters and ambulance drivers. In addition, this is my favorite part, they are a group of community volunteers interested in educating the youth on health and environment issues. They have asked to be involved in any of my projects for which I need their help, regardless of my involvement with them. This is so encouraging to me, having volunteered most of my adult life. The concept just doesn’t exist here; it’s more of a “what do I get out of the deal?” attitude. Volunteers helping volunteers, I like the sound of that!



Here´s my intermediate English class. For most of my students this is their 3rd 12 week course! The cheeseball smiling and not taking her quiz like she´s supposed to be doing is Isabel, my best student and dear friend.

These beautiful ladies are all part of a women´s bible study I have been attending on and off since I got here. This was our Christmas luncheon where we had White Elephant gift exchange. I wish I would have gotten the granny panties with pockets!

A few weeks ago I helped another volunteer put on a seminar for kids on the environment. The kids had a ball, as you can see. The guys that helped are a group of volunteer firefighters that I have just stumbled upon and plan on working with them. Read further to find out more about them.


This is Josiah, aka Jojo. He is irrisistable. He is the son of one of Scott and Susans´workers. He was born in the mission house while I was visiting the states in August. Susan jokes that he has kicked my biological clock into overdrive, I don´t attempt to disagree. I kid with his mother that I am going to steal him, she laughs like I´m joking. Really, I am joking... she says with a devilish grin.

No comments: