Strides to Integration

Above left: This is the view from my kitchen to the backyard. That´s Pico Bonito your looking at.
Above right: Me and my little primito Ellis (cousin).

Cultural integration habits I am working on:

Eating every piece of meat off of a whole fried fish. This one was originally on my *have mastered* list, however I had to lessen my expertise ranking after dinner on Monday. When I passed over my plate of bones to be tossed out in the backyard and my host mother grabbed my fish head and rhetorically asked if it was mine to no one in particular, as she recognized this was certainly not any of her children´s doing, then she sunk her teeth into the skeleton for the remnants of the meat I had left behind. Did I mention this fish was probably caught an hour before we ate it? Definitely something I can work on.

Riding a bike, at least two at a time. While I haven´t tried this one yet, it takes me back to my childhood (Missy and me) when I see it. It´s very common to see adults doing it here, so I hope to have the opportunity to rehash this pastime. This is how it works, one person sits on the seat and pedals, the other person sits in from of the seat on the bar that connects the steering wheel and seat and steers. Talk about a task for trust and teamwork. Being a bit of a control freak I think this would be good therapy for me. I actually saw an entire family on one bike recently, Mom, Dad, young boy and baby in arms, I wouldnt have believed it if I didn´t see it.. It´s definitely a skill they have acquired, here, I´ve yet to see anyone even close to crashing.

Cultural integration habits I may never get down:

Chicharron. Those of you who know me well know that I am by no means a picky eater, in fact, I could probably benefit from being a little pickier. I tried to like chicharron, I really did. The first time tried they were served just like pork rinds, only they are much harder on the skin side and a little soft on the underside. Two such contrasting textures should not exist in one bite of anything, ever. I politely informed my host mother that I didn´t care for the popular skin treat I thought I was in the clear, then they served a meal after a meeting I attended and, I´m sure you´ve guessed by now, chichirron. This time it was served with yucca (a starchy root vegetable, much like a potato, which I do like) and warm cooked in a stew. The disguise did not fool my taste buds. Not wanting to be rude I choked down most of it, leaving a few bites for which I could not muster the strength.

Spitting. I´m not really sure what this one is all about yet, but so many people do it here. I´ve been trying to figure out if it´s from the dust or some sort of food staple that causes excess mucus production to rationalize it but have concluded that it´s just a bad habit like many have in the states. Part of my integration will not be picking up this habit.

Cultural integration habits which I have mastered:

Bucket baths. At this point I don’t even remember what a shower feels like, and have no desire for one. My morning bathing ritual includes a giant barrel of cold water in the bathroom and a little bowl used to scoop from the barrel onto my head and body. The bathroom is just one big open room with a toilet on one end then you stand at the other end by the barrel and just pour the water over you, soap up and rinse it off. Here´s a picture of our bathroom. Sandy, take deep breaths.

The lip point. This one is so simple and fun. In the states we use our fingers to point something out to someone, but in Honduras we use our lips. I know you want to try it, go ahead. Purse your lips like you{re kissing the air, but in the direction you want someone to look, also your eyes look in the same direction. Sometimes your lips curve around the corners of your mouth, sometimes they go straight up because it{s something behind you. You can even add your own twist, I personally like the eyebrow raise. I had witnessed the lip point for about 2 months until one day someone asked me where I lived and without even thinking about it gave the ole lip point as if I had been doing it my whole life.

Front porch sittin. I imagine in any country in the world this would be soothing to me, whether it be in the south in the states with a cold sweet tea or in Honduras with an icy chatamusca. I know, what is a chatamusca, right? It{s a popsicle in a bag. Pick a juice any juice, pour it in a little plastic bag, freeze it, then bite a hole in the bag to suck out the fruity goodness. There{s just something about passing the day or night with your family on the front porch as neighbors pass by enjoying each other and the environment that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. We talk and laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more. The relationships amongst family members here is something many Americans could take a lesson from. Hugging, smiling, listening, laughing, joking, touching, holding hands and really spending quality time together, habits that should be universally cultural in my opinion.

Me and my host mother, Marizta, also known as the maker of the best flour tortillas round these parts!

It´s official, I am a Peace Corps volunteer

It is cold here today, must be only 75 degrees. The whole month of October and most of November and December are cool with rain almost daily (I understand the relativity of this description and I imagine most of you are scoffing at me, deservedly so). It reminds me of early spring in northeast Ohio, only with palm trees and Hondurans rather than maples and Ohioans and without the remnants of that white stuff, what do you call that again? Funny how some things are so easily forgotten. I am now settling into my new home with ease and comfort. It is strange how natural it feels for me to be here, almost like something I did in another lifetime and I am just stepping back into this really familiar environment and taking over where I left off. While I was sad to see my new friends with whom I have spent the last 3 months training with go as we parted ways to our respective sites, I was also ready to start doing what I came here to do. You may ask, Jessica, what exactly is it you are there to do? My reply…I am figuring it out hour by hour, day by day, week by week. Every day another little piece of the puzzle comes to into the light, even if it is just a Spanish word I did not know the day before. Some pieces are bigger than others, yesterday for example the head of the Office for Ethnics (there are people of color here too, one prominent group in this area are the Garifunas) pulled me aside to discuss a latrine project he would like to see come to fruition during my time here. Next week we are going to take a ride out to the “campo”, which is what they call really rural areas of this country, to check out the sites. My role in this project will be to understand what they need, make a connection with funding sources that can make it happen, work along side them to write the grant, and offer any other support I am able. My role is as a development agent, developing people and their skills, not just do work for them. Besides, while I do know how to write grants (right Alan?!), my experience is in the United States and in English!! For me to attempt to write grants on behalf of the people in my community and the municipality would be futile. They obviously know more about their community and their language then I ever will, let alone after living here for one whole week. So what I can and will do is point them in the right direction, bring to their attention NGOs (non-governmental organization) they never knew existed that can help, give general guidance on grant writing and what lenders are looking for in projects and act as a task master to ensure the steps are being taken to accomplish the goals the people in my community have made for themselves. My work will also entail working in the schools with citizenship participation, teaching English and some health initiatives. Pretty good stuff huh? I sure think so. As I am now at my new residence, I have a new address for you to send mail (something I strongly suggest you do of course, I will happily return the correspondence):

Jessica Dillworth
El Porvenir, Atlatida
Barrio Nuevo
Honduras, Central America


These are for Kristin´s mom!! It´s so funny, lots of us have blogs, but some of us (I won´t mention any names Emily and Kristin) so I give them cameos in mine because their families read it. I love doing it!!

Thanks for taking this journey with me, I appreciate you checking in. I am glad to be able to share this time in my life with you.

Bienvenidos a El Porvenir Jessica!

You know it´s funny, over the last year I have been pondering where I would be living in Honduras and for some reason I never imagined it would be right on the Caribbean, but it is! This picture is about a 5 minute walk from the mayor´s office where I´ll be working a lot. My new home is about 20 kilometers west of La Ceiba, a large port city on the north coast. I had the opportunity to visit El Porvenir for four days and I have to tell you, I am totally psyched to officially begin my service, which will be on September 27, 2008. One of my counterparts, the mayor of El Porvenir picked me up in Zarabanda and we made the 6 hour drive together. When he said we were getting close I looked around and it looked just like something out of the book Where the Wild Things Are with huge palms towering over us. Next I saw, oh I don’t know, about a billion pineapples. El Porvenir is home to Standard Fruit Company, you know as in a little company called Dole. Needless to say there are acres and acres of pineapple fields just waiting to be shipped to you guys in the states, as one Honduran explained it. I was not able to get a picture yet of the pineapple fields, but do not worry, I have two years to get some great shots. This company serves as means of employment for many of the people in my site which is wonderful. So we were getting even closer and my new friend pulled up to this little stand that looked like the other corn stands I had seen in Honduras where you can get a piece of corn on the cob, but there was another little treat available too. I think he called them fritas, which literally translates to fried, and that they were. It was like cornbread which is heavenly anyway, but then fried crispy. Hmm, hmmm this place just keeps getting better and better. Well then of course we had worked up quite a thirst, so what do you do when you are thirsty in Honduras, why you drink coconut milk of course, and yes, you do it straight out a coconut. After we drank the milk, which was deliciously refreshing, the women selling them chopped them open and handed us a bent butter knife to scoop out the meat. Now I have never had fresh coconut, not this fresh, so it was fun for me. The flesh is sort of the texture of the white of a hard boiled egg, but a little more firm and the taste is subtle but scrumptious. What a great start to my first days, its like he knew the way to my heart was through my stomach. Has someone from home been talking to him??? Here´s picture of the restaurant my mayor runs. I had an amazing lunch there on Saturday, fried fish, plantains and coleslaw.

Here is a picture of the inside of the alcaldia I will be working with. I went there and met all of the staff and talked at length with the Community Development person about some of the projects they are working on. I got to take a field trip and see one, it was a tilapia farm. The government had given Hondurans funds to build such projects, projects that will create income for impoverished areas. An engineer and a couple of other concerned parties went out to the foot of Pico Bonitio (an unbelievable mountain, yes this is to my south and the Caribbean Sea is to my north, my new home is nestled in the middle, how luck am I!!!!) where a huge pit had been dug and thousands of little guppies were feeding. I didn’t understand a lot of what was said, but the engineer was happy with the progress and would report good things to the government. These are the types of things I am going to be involved with, great stuff. The other person I will be working with is from Canada and she does a lot with kids and health in the community. She has a beautiful home on the beach where I can work, someone pinch me!

As for my third and final host family, they are lovely. My host mother is Maritza, her husband is Don Jose and they have three children living at home, Onoria, Sandy and Oswaldo. Like my host family in Zarabanda I am the first American they have ever hosted (geez that´s a lot of pressure to make us all look good!). They are kind and spend lots of time together which is nice and relaxing. Yesterday for example we sat out in the back of the house and watched as a women tried to get her disobedient pigs to go home with her, they did not want to cooperate. Eventually she got them to go, squealing the whole way but she got em. Onoria works at the alcaldia with me and Sandy and Oswaldo are students. Don Jose works for Standard Fruit Company. They are kind family who I am looking forward to getting to know more.

So what is next? I will continue training until September 26 at which time we will be sworn in as volunteers. From there we will all go to our respective sites for our service. Wow, I have already been here for more than 2 months, it´s hard to believe. Stay posted for more pictures of my site and host family, I wasn´t able to get many on my short visit. Below are some random pics to tide you over. Thanks for checking in with me, I miss you all and think of you often. I will get you my new address just as soon as I figure it out, until then feel free to continue sending letters to the address in the second entry of my blog.

Here we are the day we found out which sites we were going to. They had a big party for us, it was great! The next one is of fisherman on the Caribbean. There there´s the forest of La Tigra, a mountain we climbed and hiked through a couple weeks ago. The other group picture is us at a birthday party for 2 of the Muni D girls. Finally there is a picture of my friend Elizabeth who was my roommate the very first night we were in DC. She is from Nashville and we bonded immediately. Her site is in a pine forest so I can´t wait to visit here there.

10 days until I find out where I will be living for the next 2 years!!

Seeing how Honduras was the original Banana Republic, how could I not post a picture of me posing with a beautiful bunch. This is in Siguatapeque at a farm where we learned about sustainable farming. This farm was amazing because everything they did was integrated and nothing went to waste. They catch the rain water, purify some for drinking and use the rest for watering crops and feeding animals. They use the waste of the animals to enrich the soil for the crops (beans, vegetables, herbs and such). There were some sophisticated latrines and they showed us some planting techniques like rotating crops and using contour lines for irrigation. They demonstrated some pretty savvy farming techniques which will serve as a good base for us to take with us to our individuals sites and possibly apply.

This one is for you, Emilie´s mom! This is Emilie and I hanging out after training one day being silly. Her hair is super cute, but her bangs were getting quite long as you can see. She recently paid 10 Lempiras, or the equivalent of 50 cents to get her hair cut. The result…. as seen in the next picture, definitely worth 50 cents. Some say it looks like a wig, she thought maybe Ringo Starr or possibly the beginning stages of a mullet. Any way you slice it, it has created hours of entertainment for us at her expense, but she is such a good sport about it, after all, it is just hair, it will grow back. Some days my sides hurt from laughing with Emilie so much.











Only ten more days until we find out where we are going to be living for the next two years. Like most other things here, I am eerily calm about this. I figure wherever they send me I will be happy, find good work and get along with the people. I am hoping to be placed somewhere central in the country to be able to get to pretty much anywhere semi-easily. Stay tuned, the next time I blog it will be to reveal the name of my new home then you can Google it to see what it´s like. Thanks for following my story, I love sharing it with you.

Carne Asada, Honduran style!

My new home for the next 6 weeks is Cantarranas, a rather small pueblo a couple of hours from Tegucigalpa. Here I will do FBT (field-based training). What does that mean you might ask, well it means that our three groups have split up by project and me and my fellow Municipal Developers will get more in depth training on what we may actually be doing in our respective sights. Por ejemplo, oops, I mean for example, today we split up into 4 groups and walked around Cantarranas noting what we encountered, pulperias (little stores), churches, schools and other landmarks and businesses. Our entire group came together and created a map of our findings, a community map of Cantarranas. Here’s a picture of us putting it all together, quite a resourceful little crew we have here.

The only thing that would make this picture more Peace Corpsy would be if I was wearing my Tevas sandals right? Oh and maybe if I were planting some trees, but I think it does justice to what people think of when they picture a Peace Corps volunteer. Here it is, honest to God proof that I’m here in the mountains of Honduras fumbling through what might be the most pivotal journey of my life. You are all witnesses.

My new family for the next 6 weeks is very kind, my host mother is, once again, named Patricia and she has two children, Patricio who is 14 and Zasquia who is 18. I’m a big fan of carne asada, so when Patricia asked me if I liked it I was excited about dinner, though once the preparations began I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening. Pictured here are the boyfriend of Zasquia, Wally I think is his name, and his friend along with Patricia (and yes, she is holding a blow dryer) and Jose, Patricia’s grandson. So they started the fire with some wood and other chips of some sort, got it nice and piping hot and started in with the hair dryer, which I now understand worked as agent to blow air onto the coals, making them extremely hot. They added sugar onto the coals and laid the meat on the grill after the flames went down. Mmmm, mmm, muy delicioso (come on, all of you know what that means)!!

Here´s what I´ve been up to

Alejandra and I made lasagna the other night, here is the fruit of our labor. It was pretty good, Javier had two portions, but he may have just been being polite. It was fun to show them something I know how to make after watching them make some great Honduran food for the past couple of weeks.




Mi familia, Javier, Patricia and Alejandra. I can´t tell you how much I really feel a part of their family. I hope to come back to visit them often while I´m here. They told me that I their home is my home during my entire service in their country.
This is a group of trainees that live by me and we walk home together. Starting from the left, Shannon, Emily, Daniel, Micheal, Kevin and Amanda.










When I visited a volunteer in Choluteca the town was in feria, which means a bunch of events take place, for instance rodeos. This "stadium" was built in a day just for this purpose. The hombres rode horses instead of bulls and it was pretty cool to watch.














Choluteca is pretty flat for the most part, but here´s a neat picture of a mountain nearby














Carmen (the volunteer I visited) and Casey a fellow trainee that visiting Carmen with me.















I think I should submit this one to national geographic if I do say so myself. I love this one.

July 26, 2008

This is our group (50) having breakfast our first morning in Honduras. There are three projects, mine which is Municipal Development, Child Development and Protected Areas Management.


So I got a little treat today and was able to get online for a little while. Training is chugging along. This weekend we go to live with a current volunteer for three days. I am going to the south to Choluteca with another trainee in my group. I am looking forward to the break and seeing what a real live volunteer lives like.

I would be lying if I said I didn´t have moments where I freak out a little, but the people here are wonderful so that makes this adjustment process a little easier. My family and I talked for hours last night, about real issues like immigration, the state of Honduras economically and the way we do things in the U.S. What an insightful conversation, I never would have guessed my Spanish was good enough to express myself on these topics, but I am surprising myself everyday here.

I am making my family an American meal tonight, lasagna! Don´t have ricotta cheese (at least at the market I went to) so I´ll let you know how that turns out.