Holding the United States Accountable for the Rise in Violence in Honduras

Another great article about the rise in violence in Honduras.

Our girls and women's soccer team wearing our new uniform. We purchased the uniform after hosting a town dance on Christmas Eve. Plus check out our cleats (Thanks Anne!) and our soccer ball (Thanks Makenna!). On the right is Yuri our trainer and Honoria our President, and her son Esteven. I'm standing next to Noelia the captain.

On Dec. 20th all Peace Corps volunteers in Honduras received word that due to the increase in violence in Central America volunteers would be pulled out of country and placed on administrative hold until staff can restructure the program and review which sites are safe to return to. Until we leave the country we are on Standfast, which means we are prohibited from leaving our communities. For several months now volunteers have spoken about the possibility that the country would close. The security situation is something I’ve dealt with privately for my entire service. It’s a topic I was reluctant to bring up with all of you or write about on my blog for fear that doing so would make my loved ones worry and jeopardize my ability to continue working in my community. I’ve been lucky to escape the worst of the violence. I’ve reported five incidents to Peace Corps Honduras that occurred over the last year however the incidents were minor. No one was physically hurt and life moved on. I love Honduras in a way I can’t express. The relationships I made with my host family and my community have profoundly changed my life and made me see myself from a different perspective. When I arrived here I lacked the words to express myself in Spanish. Instead I learned how to be quiet and listen as people explained to me what it means to be a Honduran. I’ve learned how to deal with failure and I’ve gotten over my fear of making a fool of myself. I’ve learned to accept charity from those who have very little themselves. I’ve done good work here. I’m proud of the projects I leave behind. With the 9th grade students we applied for, received, and administered a $2,000 grant with which we painted murals depicting our town’s natural resources and endangered animals and with which we installed recycling bins and taught the kids how to use them. With my teachers we organized trash pick-up days and taught over 40 environmental education classes. Working with a fellow volunteer we wrote formal lesson plans and created a yearlong environmental education curriculum, which with funding from our municipality reached over 800 students in the first year. In my spare time I taught English classes, facilitated a pen pal program between Honduran and American students, and was treasurer for our newly formed women’s soccer team. Just this last weekend we successfully finished raising funds to purchase team uniforms. It was an incredibly constructive year and a half. Yet I had so many things I still hoped to accomplish. My town council and I are in the middle of applying for funding to complete a latrine project, we had hoped to write a middle school edition to our environmental education manual and expand the reach of our elementary school manual, and I planned to continue giving English classes. Plus I hoped to be here as my host cousin finds out if he will receive a scholarship to study in the states that we’ve been working towards for the last several months and be present as my 1-year-old neighbor will gets emergency heart surgery from a group of doctors visiting from the states. It’s so hard to leave Honduras because leaving suggests defeat. It suggests that we’re calling it quits after 50 years of service to the people of Honduras. It means that we can escape a dangerous situation while leaving behind those who aren’t privileged enough to be born a few more degrees north. I will go home because a part of me has been waiting for this phone call for months. The logical part of me has known it’s the right thing to do even if the sentimental part has refused to leave. My safety is more important than my work. But life moves on, even if we’re not yet ready to. So now I’ll head home and figure out the next step in my life. I’m not sure where I’ll end up but I’m looking forward to being with my American family and I’ll always look back on my service with pride and satisfaction. I’ll see you soon, Kari

I stole this article from the WashingtonPost. It explains pretty clearly what the security situation in Honduras is looking like these days.

Nick Miroff

Monday, Dec 26, 2011In the most murderous part of the most murderous country in the world, the families of murdered sons and husbands and sisters meet each month in a concrete building next to the Nuestra Senora de Guada-lupe church.

They sit in plastic chairs, leaning forward to speak, and the anguish pours out. There is the dread of birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas. Or knowing who the killer is, and that he will not be arrested, and the perversity of that.

The group had 10 families when it started three years ago. Today it has 60, and all but one of their cases remain unsolved.

“We are living in constant fear,” said Blanca Alvarez, wearing a pin bearing a portrait of her dead son, Jason, shot in a carjacking in 2006. “We have had marches for peace, wearing white, releasing white balloons into the air. Nothing is going to change here. Nothing.”

Honduras had 82.1 homicides per 100,000 residents last year, the highest per-capita rate in the world, according to a global homicide report published by the United Nations in October that included estimates for Iraq and Afghanistan. Security concerns prompted the U.S. Peace Corps to announce last week that it would pull all 158 volunteers out of Honduras.

As in Guatemala and El Salvador, Honduras’s neighbors in the Northern Triangle region of Central America, the homicide problem goes back decades. But as Mexico’s billionaire drug mafias expand their smuggling networks deeper into Central America to evade stiffer enforcement in Mexico and the Caribbean, violence has exploded, as if the cocaine were gasoline tossed on a fire.

Honduras’s grim tally reached 6,239 killings in 2010, compared with 2,417 in 2005, and researchers say the count will be even higher this year. The largest number of homicides occurred here around San Pedro Sula, a once-booming manufacturing center that is fast becoming the Ciudad Juarez of Central America.

That troubled city on the U.S.-Mexico border and San Pedro Sula share more than a reputation for low-wage assembly plants and fratricidal violence. They are at opposite ends of the billion-dollar smuggling chain that extends from the north coast of Honduras to the United States.

It starts on the isolated beaches and jungle airstrips of Honduras’s Mosquitia region, where 95 percent of the suspected drug flights from South America to Central America land, according to U.S. narcotics agents. U.S. radar detected 90 such flights into Honduras last year, compared with 24 in 2008, marking a major shift in trafficking patterns that indicates a strong preference for the country’s rugged geography and feeble institutions.

In March, authorities raided a cocaine processing lab in the mountains near San Pedro Sula. The facility was the first of its kind in Central America, capable of churning out a ton of powder each month by combining imported coca paste with hydrochloric acid and other chemicals.

Then, in July, a semi-submersible “narco submarine” with $180 million worth of cocaine was caught by the U.S. Coast Guard in international waters off Honduras, the first such craft detected in the Caribbean. Since then, three more have been busted.

Honduran lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last month to deploy the country’s military against drug traffickers, adopting the security strategy charted by Mexican President Felipe Calderon with mixed results.

Overall, U.S. officials estimate that 25 to 30 tons of cocaine arrive in Honduras each month by air and sea — one-third of the world’s total volume — before continuing north into Mexico through Guatemala and Belize on fast boats, fishing vessels or cargo trucks.

“Honduras is by far the world’s largest primary transshipment point for cocaine,” said a U.S. official working here who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing security protocols.

Shepherding the precious merchandise is a dangerous but lucrative occupation, as the payoff to local smugglers for receiving an average-size planeload of 500 kilograms and delivering it to Guatemala can be $1 million. Honduran police commanders say smugglers are also increasingly paying their contacts in raw product rather than cash, driving up local drug-dealing and the lethal violence that accompanies it.

‘Total impunity’

Researchers caution that the surge in killings here cannot be attributed entirely to narcotics trafficking. As in Ciudad Juarez, drug-fueled violence appears to have fostered an overall climate of impunity, in which bullets settle the slightest dispute and anyone can literally get away with murder.

Journalists, labor activists and gays also are apparently being killed at elevated rates, and political violence has flared since the 2009 coup that deposed leftist President Manuel Zelaya. Then there are the thousands of other Hondurans who seemingly have nothing to do with the drug trade who have been slain in carjackings, muggings and hotheaded feuds.

“You always imagine that your parent will die of old age, not murder,” said Claudia Castillo, whose father, who drove a grocery delivery truck, was killed last December in San Pedro Sula for falling behind on extortion payments, which gang members here call the impuesto de guerra (“war tax”). He had been mugged, assaulted or shot at on at least eight other occasions, Castillo said, including an incident a few months before his death in which teenage gangsters ordered him to dance and fired at his feet.

“We begged him to quit, but he said he had to pay for us to go to college,” Castillo said. After burying him, her family moved to another neighborhood after receiving new threats from the gang.

At nearly every business here, from Burger King to the smallest mini-market, armed men with 12-gauge shotguns stand guard. Those who can afford it barricade their families behind razor wire, 10-foot walls and electrified fencing.

“If a person kills someone and the next day they’re sitting in a restaurant drinking coffee as if nothing happened, then that person feels they have permission to kill anyone they want,” said Jose Antonio Canales, a priest who works with the support group for victims’ families. “There is total impunity.”

Gang warfare

For much of the 20th century, Canales said, the north coast of Honduras was a place of opportunity, drawing workers to the vast banana plantations owned by U.S. fruit companies. In the 1980s, as civil wars raged in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, Honduras and especially the San Pedro Sula area were held up as a model of export-driven development, attracting waves of workers to the assembly plants known as maquilas.

“People came from all over, but when they didn’t find opportunity, the pockets of misery formed,” Canales said. “Then a lot of kids were raised by a single mom or a grandmother because their parents were in the United States.”

The transnational gangs MS-13 and 18th Street took root in the city’s slums and have been warring ever since, reinforced by deported criminals from Los Angeles street gangs and U.S. prisons.

The United States has been drawn deep into Honduras’s counter-drug fight, spending at least $50 million on security assistance since 2008, according to U.S. officials.

“This is a poor country where 65 percent of the people live in poverty and the government’s law enforcement budget cannot begin to compare to the funds that drug trafficking organizations have,” U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kubiske said in an interview here. “It’s clear the country needs help.”

Armed American drug agents are on the front lines of anti-narcotics operations, launching helicopter raids into the jungles of Mosquitia from the Soto Cano air base, where the United States has a large military presence. U.S. advisers are teaching police how to gather evidence and are helping modernize Honduras’s ghoulish prison system. The United States has provided armored vehicles to protect judges from assassination and sophisticated mobile X-ray equipment that can scan vehicle cargo at checkpoints and border crossings.

But setbacks have undercut recent security improvements. On Dec. 7, former security minister Alfredo Landaverde — an outspoken critic of growing police corruption tied to organized crime — was gunned down in his car, a day after assassins pumped 37 bullets into the vehicle of radio journalist Luz Marina Paz Villalobos. Since then, Honduras’s Congress has banned all motorcycle drivers from carrying passengers, because both victims were slain by hit men riding on the backs of motorbikes.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a good or a bad person here, or if you’re someone with a future,” said Irwin Santos, whose brother Deybis — a university student — was killed in 2008 in San Pedro Sula. “In the end, you become just another statistic.”

miroffn@washpost.com

This article was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

In the last two years the Honduran government has declared a state of emergency, on average, every 38 days.

It really makes you wonder, doesn't it?

My host brother graduated from 9th grade! He asked me to walk him down the aisle at the ceremony.

It's been busy since I've gotten back from the states. So instead I give you some wise well-researched words coming from a place I'm not even allowed to visit (Peace Corps policy). Enjoy.

Carbon Credits in the "Valley of Death"

By Jeremy Kryt

At 3,000 square miles, the Aguan River Valley in northeastern Honduras is about the same size as California’s Death Valley. But despite being green and fertile, the Aguan basin is becoming famous as a “valley of death.” Since January 2010, at least 45 displaced peasants have been killed in clashes over land rights in Aguan, and “the actual number of killings is probably much higher,” according to Annie Bird, co-director of the human rights advocacy group Rights Action (RA), who visited Honduras in September.Bird and other critics say that the violence in Aguan is driven by competition over resources between local farmers and large-scale, biofuel production facilities. The valley is home to more than a dozen African palm plantations that supply “green” energy to Europe and Asia, as well as a pair of biogas plants that operate as part of a United Nations carbon-credit initiative.“The agribusinesses are after all the prime farmland in Aguan,” Bird says. “That’s what’s driving the conflict here.”African palm plantations have also been linked to land-based violence in Indonesia, Africa, and elsewhere in Latin America, as worldwide demand for biofuels has soared in recent years. But using arable land for fuels, as opposed to food production, has caused a spike in global food prices. In October 2011, the UN Committee on Food Security issued a report citing biofuel production as one of the leading causes of food shortages worldwide.Ignoring its own committee’s report, the UN continues to endorse the two biogas plants attached to African palm plantations in the Aguan Valley as part of its controversial Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) program. A product of the Kyoto Protocol, CDMs allow governments and companies from Western countries to trade carbon credits with businesses in developing nations that utilize renewable energy and other carbon-saving techniques. Critics of the CDM program point to the food-vs-fuel dilemma, as well as the issue of “additionality”–that is, whether or not a given CDM would exist without UN-sanctioned investments. But Bird says there is a moral component as well.“By approving investment in these projects, the UN has made itself an accomplice to a human rights crisis,” Bird says. “It’s just shameful.”Killings and Forced Evictions

Both the CDMs in Aguan use the bacteria-rich wastewater left over from palm-oil extraction to produce methane for biogas. But the methane capture process is only cost-effective on a large scale–and observers say that gives local companies a direct incentive to expand operations.David Calix, spokesman for the Campesino Movement of Aguan (MCA), says, “Within the last two years more than 1,500 peasant families have lost their homes, schools and communities due to forceful evictions,” all of which have been linked to African Palm expansion efforts in the Aguan valley.In July, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) released a report on Aguan alleging evictions and armed attacks against local communities by “plantation security guards and private militia groups” allowed to act with impunity. The FIDH paper forced a couple of powerful European investors to back out of the Aguan CDM project and caused the European Parliament to order a fact-finding mission. So far, however, these measures don’t seem to have had any impact on the escalating violence.Over just two days in August, skirmishes between guards and peasants left 11 people dead. A few days later, two more campesino leaders were assassinated–one of them, Pedro Salgado, was shot down in his home along with his wife. An entire peasant village was burned to the ground. The international outcry became so severe that in early September, the Honduran government dispatched a force of about 1,000 special police officers and soldiers to occupy the valley.But Bird says that instead of protecting peasants’ human rights, the occupation forces have aided in their persecution. Reports have emerged of police and soldiers cracking down on peasant communities, and even taking part in evictions. “Death squad” attacks on peasants have continued at about the same pace during the occupation, with four assassinations in the same week in early October. No arrests have been made in any of the killings, and no suspects have been named.Hazardous Occupation

“The troops say they have come to bring us security, but that is a lie,” says MCA President Rodolfo Cruz. “They are here to serve the interests of the rich land owners, the same ones who control the politicians back in [the Honduran capital of] Tegucigalpa.” Cruz is also acting mayor of a small peasant community called Rigores, which he claims has been threatened several times with eviction by both security guards and law enforcement.Cruz also reports that citizens are being searched at random, and that there have been mass round-ups and arrests as the authorities hunt down leaders of the movement.“They are accusing us of having weapons, of forming an insurgency,” says Cruz, whose 16-year-old son, Santos, was allegedly tortured for information while in police custody on September 19. Cruz maintains that the MCA and other organizations are pacifist movements dedicated to nonviolent resistance.Bird, who has researched the case, believes there is no doubt that Cruz’ son was targeted by authorities because his father is a prominent spokesman for land reform. “It’s all part of their pattern of intimidation,” she says. “There is no functional justice system in Honduras.” As further evidence of legal dysfunction, Bird points out that the businessman with the most holdings in Aguan, Miguel Facusse Barjum, was recently revealed by WikiLeaks to have strong ties to Colombian cocaine traffickers. “The police are evicting peasants from the property of a known drug lord,” she says. “That just shows you how rotten the system is.”Although in September there were hints in the Honduran press that the police have captured cell phones that prove the existence of a rebel army some 300 strong, Honduran Police Chief Julio Benitez is much more circumspect. “We really don’t know what is going on in Aguan,” Avila says. “We know there are armed groups. We know people are being shot up under mysterious circumstances. But it is very complicated.”When asked about the charges of police brutality, Avila declined to respond, saying only, “[The Honduran police] are a professional organization. We behave in a professional manner. We are working hard to safeguard the peasants of Aguan and to protect them from violent criminals.”Push for Reform

“The situation in Honduras is, of course, of great concern to us,” CDM board Chair Martin Hession says. “We don’t want to be associated with this type of thing in any way.” Hession says that as a result of the violence in Aguan, the CDM Board has “increased surveillance” in regard to approving new projects.But Eva Filzmoser, program director of the Brussels-based CDM Watch, believes that’s too little, too late. “We are deeply disappointed … that the [Aguan] project was registered despite the serious concerns about alleged human rights abuses,” Filzmoser wrote in an e-mail.Filzmoser charges that Hession and the rest of the board chose to ignore early reports of violence coming out of Honduras when they approved the project in July of 2011. Part of the problem is systemic, she writes, stemming from a lack of stakeholder oversight by the CDM board itself. “The [Aguan] project would never have been registered if the proper rules were in place,” Filzmoser wrote.Bird also sees an inherent flaw in the CDM program. “If you’re taking away land from poor people to generate biofuels, you’re effectively condemning them to death by starvation,” she says.Hession says such things are beyond the purview of the CDM board. “We can’t be the arbiter of human rights across the world.” To which Bird responds: “That’s the single, fundamental mandate of the UN Human rights are what the UN was created to promote. And the CDM board is still part of the UN.”For Cruz, who is also a farmer, the issue at stake is less philosophical than practical: “All we want is a place to grow our corn, to grow our beans,” he says. “All we want is a right to work the land.” (12/5/11)Note: This article was reprinted with permission. It was originally published by In These Times. The author is a graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has been reporting from Honduras since August 2009.

Drug war spills over into Honduras Murder rate is on the rise, and police are part of the problem Stephanie S. Garlow GlobalPost TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — To be fair, this country is a tough place for a lawman. Starting police pay is about $250 a month, and job duties include battling criminals armed with automatic weapons and limitless drug cash. Deep departmental corruption and disorder chock the wheels of justice even when the bad guys get caught. But at a time when Honduras urgently needs a functional law enforcement presence capable of lowering the country’s staggering homicide rate — the highest in the world in 2010, according to a new U.N. report — its police force has hit a low point. It’s not a question of bribe-taking or petty corruption, which are accepted as supplemental income for police in this part of the world. But in recent months, as transnational drug trafficking organizations push deeper into the country to secure new cocaine routes through Central America, Honduran police seem to be making matters worse. In a case that has become emblematic of the security crisis in Honduras, the 22-year-old son of the president of the national university was murdered last month along with a friend after a late-night traffic stop by police here in the capital. Forensic evidence gathered by the university’s own investigators pointed to four young officers, who were later taken into custody. But within days, the suspects were released. A national outcry followed and the officers were ordered rearrested, but they had already fled, forcing the police to offer reward money for their recapture just days after releasing them. Several of the country’s top police commanders were fired as the scandal widened. “The problem isn’t that the (police) are overwhelmed by crime. The problem is that they’re working with the criminals,” said Julieta Castellanos, the university president whose son, Rafael Alejandro, was allegedly shot at close range in the family car while returning home from a birthday party. A friend, Carlos David Pineda, was riding in the passenger seat, and Castellanos said he was driven to the outskirts of the city and executed an hour and a half later. Honduras recorded 82.1 killings per 100,000 residents in 2010, making it the most violent country in the world, followed by El Salvador, with 66 killings per 100,000. In the 2011 United Nations’ Global Study on Homicide released last month, Central America stands out as the deadliest region on the planet. Police officials and security experts blame the soaring murder rate on the drug trade, as Mexican cartels look to evade tougher enforcement further north by using Central America as a primary artery for moving cocaine. But thousands of ordinary Hondurans have been killed in recent years who appear to have nothing to do with the narcotics smuggling. Castellanos said she did not know why her son was killed, but said that kidnappings and extortion schemes targeting motorists had become common in the middle-class neighborhood where the young men were driving that night. She said she believed higher-ranking police officials were involved, and that investigators in the case were the targets of an intimidation campaign. “They have been threatened. Their cars have been followed,” said Castellanos, a sociologist who formerly directed the country’s leading data-gathering center for violence and homicide, her own son now a statistic. Police officials acknowledged the case has further diminished already-poor public perceptions of their officers at a particularly sensitive time. “Mistakes were made, and now we’re taking steps to correct them,” said police commander Antonio Somoza in an interview here, vowing to re-capture the officers suspected in the killing. While it is widely accepted here among victims of crime and their families that Honduras’ legal system is stacked against the poor, the murder of Castellanos’ son has stunned many who say it shows not even the country’s elite are not spared from the cycle of murder and immunity. In another recent case, a popular community leader in the tough Ciudad Planeta neighborhood outside the northern city of La Lima was taken into police custody in late August, never to be seen again. “The worst thing is not knowing whether if he’s alive or dead,” said Marta Cruz, whose brother, Jose Reinaldo Cruz, had been threatened for complaining of police abuses against residents in his neighborhood. “We don’t know if he’s cold, or hungry, or sick,” she said. Cruz’s neighborhood is a stronghold of the feared 18th Street gang, and police accused her brother of working for the criminals because he lived within their territory. “If he were a gang leader, why did he die poor?” his sister asked, saying the family was four months behind on mortgage payments and at risk of losing their home. The United States has spent at least $50 million on security aid to Honduras in recent years, with programs to train police investigators, prosecutors, prison guards and others. But many here say that corruption and institutional dysfunction has only grown worse since the 2009 coup that toppled leftist president Jose Manuel Zelaya, as that the forces of organized crime burrow deeper into the government and security forces. “If people see crime in their communities but they don’t report it because they don’t trust the police, then where are we?” said a US official working here, who could not be identified due to security protocols. “The public trust has been broken repeatedly.” Honduran security forces have made important gains, U.S. diplomats note, including the largest seizure of assets in the country’s history in an Oct. 24 multi-agency raid that confiscated in $24 million in cash and property from criminal suspects. But that operation was soon obscured by a fresh embarrassment, when Honduran officials revealed Oct. 31 that 300 assault rifles, 300,000 rounds of ammunition and other weapons had been stolen from the armory of an elite police unit in 2009, only to be kept quiet until now.

Choluteca and the entire southern region have been hit incredibly hard by the torrential rains that started over 12 days ago. We're in a state of emergency. In my community the adobe houses have been collapsing due to the constant rains and food is running out. Drinkable water is becoming hard to find as latrines are filling up and overflowing with water. Transportation is all but impossible since roads have turned to mud and landslides have closed roads. A large chuck of the pan-american highway connecting Choluteca and Tegucigalpa fell off the mountain side on Monday making transportation nearly impossible. Red Cross has shown up and set up refugee services and families are taking shelter in schools and public buildings. The military has been making helicopter drops of water and food to the areas hardest hit, however my town has yet to be reached. El Salvador and Guatemala have been affected even worse than Honduras and the death toll in Central America has hit 90.

On Monday, on orders from Peace Corps, I was evacuated from my town. Basically, I had to pack my bag and hike down the mountain until I found a bus that was running and able to pass the high rivers. Four other volunteers and I made it safely to Choluteca and then later to Tegucigalpa. Once the rains are over I'll hopefully be able to return to my town and help the process of rebuilding. I'm in communication with my host family every day and everyone is fine, albeit a little hungry.

So that's the situation. I wanted to everyone know that I'm well and in a safe place.

October 14, 2011

Today marks six days of non-stop rain. Morning to night. Every day.

What’s the big deal right? Get an umbrella and make do.

Except the students who live 30 or 50 minutes away by foot don’t come to class. Therefore the teachers don’t come to teach. And since the school is closed I have no work. The school principal tried to come yesterday but almost had his car washed away by the high river waters. The buses no longer reach our town. The road entering our town is too steep and too muddy to climb. Those who brave the water to leave town must walk an hour down the mountain to Tierra Blanca to find the bus. Then they pray that the river level is low enough for the bus to drive through.

The rain pounding continuously on the metal roof of my house is mind numbing. It makes conversation all but impossible. We sit in front of the TV watching programs that we can’t hear. I listen to music on my headphones cupping my hands over my ears struggling to hear.

The one miracle, for which I am constantly grateful, is that we still have electricity. It seems to only take a light breeze to knock out power for days at a time. But somehow we still have light, TV, and hot water in the electric showerhead.

It’s cold! Who would have imagined that Choluteca could get cold? I even have a blanket on my bed. I’ve already gone through the four long sleeve shirts I own and can’t wash my dirty clothes since there is absolutely no chance of them drying.

By day three I was going a little crazy with boredom. I cleaned my room, worked on lesson plans, wrote letters to the states, and finished two books. Now, three days later I’m just numb with boredom. Today, just like yesterday and the day before, I hope to get off the mountain. If at 8:00 the rain lightens enough to walk outside I’ll make the hike down to Tierra Blanca. If not, I’ll try again at 1:00. If not today, I’ll try again tomorrow or the day after. It’s bound to stop some day, right?

October 13, 2011

It’s a heartwarming experience to be welcomed into a community as one of their daughters. To be cared for, fed, loved, and looked after.

La Tajeada has, in so many ways, exceeded my expectations as a host community. It has become a home. As much as they’ve adopted me as a daughter, I’ve embraced these neighbors and this place as my own.

How can I express what it means to be adopted into a family? To be welcomed into their celebrations and their grief. To be told their secrets, to share their worries, to feel their happiness. To see their habits, quirks, anger, and dysfunction. It’s such a real and genuine experience that it humbles me to think about its significance. What an honor that they would trust me enough to let me into the spaces that so few see.

I often remind myself that it carries responsibilities. One cannot just walk away from such a commitment.

September 24, 2011 I just splattered my face, body, and clothes with cow’s blood. My grandpa Fidel left at 4:00am this morning for the city to buy mondongo, cow hoofs, and vegetables. Mondongo is the intestines of a cow, which are left over during butchering. Sopa de Mondongo or intestine soup is a popular Honduran dish. The intestines and cow hoofs are cooked in a gigantic pot for over 24 hours until they are soft and flavorful (albeit a little bit chewy). At the very end they add in potaste, potato, yucca, plantain, cabbage, and corn. The result is a heaping bowl of delicious veggie and intestine soup. My host mom and I had finished scraping the poop from the intestines (a necessary step before cooking) and had moved on to the hoofs. First cutting off the thin layer of furry skin and then letting them soak in boiling water. When they were hot we beat them against a large rock like a baseball bat until the hard shell that covers the hoof went flying off. I managed to send one flying successfully onto the roof but the second rebounded towards me spraying me with tiny drops of blood. I wonder if the Tide To Go Pen inventors ever imagined that I would need it to clean cow’s blood off my clothes.

September 23, 2011 I got back today from the swearing in of the most recent group of Peace Corps Honduras volunteers. I went to the swearing-in ceremony under the pretense of meeting our municipality’s new volunteer but really I was looking to be reenergized and reminded about my purpose. I was thinking on the long bus ride back from Tegucigalpa about what it means to be a Peace Corps volunteer. On my trip back to the states last June I found myself walking through the Atlanta airport feeling out of place and uncomfortable. I didn’t have a cell phone, a computer, or a single dollar. I had plenty of Lempiras (Honduras’s currency) but couldn’t buy anything. There were TVs blaring every few feet with the latest economic news, war news, celebrity news, and political news. The walls were lined with stores selling things I couldn’t even imagine affording, much less needing. Fancy clothes, gadgets, magazines, food, food, and more food. It was so overwhelming I could barely speak. When I passed through immigration they asked to see another form of ID, seeing as I’ve changed so much physically since I had my passport photo taken a year ago. The customs official looked dumbfounded from my passport to my driver’s license and back to my face, I mumbled that I eat tortillas and hike a lot. I was the only person singled out to have my shoes sanitized after checking the box “has spent time near farm animals”. The customs official looked confused when I explained to him that I milk cows with my grandfather every morning and that there is usually a calf tied up in our backyard. I felt like I didn’t belong in my own country. When I arrived at my gate I sat down and waited for my plane to arrive. When the time came to board, the gate attendant announced over the loud speaker that the members of the US military would have preferential boarding. As they passed by in their camouflage uniforms people stood and applauded. Our soldiers are rightfully given honor. They serve our country honorably, going where they are called in order to defend our people and our way of life. I applauded too, of course, however a part of me felt hurt. I may not wear a uniform but don’t I also serve my country in the name of democracy and peace? Yet the work of Peace Corps volunteers is not valued like that of soldiers. I don’t wish to say that Peace Corps volunteers sacrifice to the same degree as our armed forces. There are dangers involved in serving as a PCV in Honduras but nothing in comparison as to the dangers faced by our soldiers fighting our battles around the world. But that afternoon in the Atlanta airport, I couldn’t help but feel the sting of being overlooked. Arriving back in my own country, feeling like a foreigner, I wanted to be validated. I wanted someone to acknowledge that the last year of my life, serving in a far-off country, leaving behind my family and friends, struggling to learn a new language and culture, living in economic hardship, battling ailments, bug bites, funguses, diarrhea, and sexual harassment was an important contribution to our country and our global community. But instead I sat unnoticed and quietly waited my turn to board with the rest of the general public. At the swearing-in ceremony yesterday, the US ambassador to Honduras said that Peace Corps volunteers represent the best of the best America has to offer the world. I like to think that it’s true. I like to think that Americans agree that the work we do is important and useful. So the next time that you honor our nation’s soldiers, remember to also say thanks to those who’ve served our country in other capacities.

September 23, 2011

Un pensamiento de un alumno del 9º grado

El medio ambiente es lo mas rico que nosotros podemos tener en nuestras vidas

por su grandezas de montañas, sus animales, por su vegetación, su frescura, por

su colorido. También podemos apreciar sus aguas en cada alrededor de sus

montañas, por que el aire que respiramos viene del medio ambiente es por eso que

tenemos que cuidarlo con todo nuestro corazón, como si fuera parte de nuestro

cuerpo.

September 11, 2011

In Honduras, yesterday was el día del niño but today is el día de la gringa. Today, I’ve completed one year of my Peace Corps service.

Number of H-17 volunteers who came: 47

Number of H-17 volunteers still here: 37

Number of Protected Areas Management volunteers who came: 19

Number of Protected Areas Management volunteers still here: 16

Number of towns lived in: 3

Host mothers: 3

Host fathers: 2

Host siblings: 10

Approximate hours spent riding the bus: 277

Roundtrip bus ticket to Choluteca: $2.00

Number of trips to USA: 1

Roundtrip ticket home: $642.80

Average time spent hiking daily to and from work: 40 minutes

Number of students taught: 123

Number of students I’ve made cry during class: 1

Environmental education lesson plans distributed: 56

Funding sources obtained: 2

Murals painted: 2

Trash pick up days: 5

Tress planted: 200

Trees I’ve cut down: 1

Number of times I’ve seen my boss in the last year: 7

Number of movies seen in a theater: 3

Roundtrip bus to movie theater: 10 hours

Cost of trip and movie ticket: $17.00

Books read: 18

Books I anticipated reading: 50

Number of chickens killed: .5

Number of chickens plucked: 25

Number of pets: 2

Number of pets eaten: 1

Number of times I’ve milked a cow: 21

Number of near cow attacks: 2

Number of near deadly snakebites: 1

Number of lizards eaten: 3

Number of times I’ve been robbed: 0

Balls of yarn brought to HN: 7

Things knit: 0

Pink shirts brought to Honduras: 0

Pink shirts I currently own: 7

Quick dry shirts brought to Honduras: 5

Quick dry shirts I currently own: 1

Pairs of skinny jeans previously owned: 0

Pairs of skinny jeans I currently own: 4

Number of times I’ve worn my hiking boots: 3

Nights spent in the hospital: 1

Funguses obtained: 1

Current number of bug bites: 23

Bottles of sunscreen used: 4

Pounds lost: 35

Current length of hair in inches: 3

Funerals attended: 7

Weddings attended: 1

September 15, 2011

Las Estrellas soccer team before they marched in our town’s independence day parade. We borrowed the uniforms from the school.

Here are the little kids from the pre-school in the Independence Day parade. Their signs say, “Don’t cut down the trees” and “Trees give life”.

Here is the group of students who dressed up as members of the community for the parade. There is a policeman, a soldier, a housewife, a farmer, the town president, a teacher, a nurse, a pastor, the president of the water board, the president of the PTA, and there is even the Peace Corps volunteer! Naturally, they picked the whitest girl in school represent me. (Far left, front) I giggled so much when she told me who she was.

My boss, Menelio (far right). He came to visit La Tajeada and to help inaugurate the new murals. Here he is talking about the importance of our mountain as a water source for southern Honduras and why we need to take care of it.

August 31, 2011

A few months back our ninth grade class and I applied for a Peace Corps grant to do environmental education projects. In July we finished part one, which was a trash pick up day. Today, after months of planning and two very hard weeks of ‘American Style’ work (i.e. start at 8:00 leave at 4:00) we’ve finished our murals! We worked with two fantastic artists from Casa Valle in Choluteca who helped the students brainstorm ideas. The students drew pictures of the natural resources in La Tajeada and from those drawings the artists created twomurals. The murals are unique to our town. One shows our mountain and the woman who is believed to live inside of it as she is giving water all the communities below us. Below her is the golden snake that is also rumored to be inside it. The other mural shows some of the animals that are special to our region: snakes, frogs, lizards, monkeys, toucans, butterflies, and lots of insects. Above everything is a message from the ninth graders, “Cuidemos el medio ambiente por un futuro major para nuestra humanidad” or “Take care of the environment for a better future for mankind”. Besides the two large murals, the muralists also painted bright colors throughout the hallways, which really gave the school an entirely new and creative feel. It was so much fun to work with the students and with the muralists. I’m incredibly exhausted and look forward to a few low-key Honduran weeks to rest up and collect myself again.So thank you Peace Corps! Thank you American taxpayer! Thank you everyone who helped make the murals possible. Still to be finished:Recycling Station

Day One!

Lots of very curious students during recess. New bright colors found all around the school. We put some students to work painting colorful blocks. After school painting. Luis (one of the muralists), myself, and one of the finished murals. Oscar (the other muralist) and myself.

Working on the message of the second mural. The finished product. “Cuidemos el medio ambiente por un future major para nuestra humanidad” The ninth grade students who helped design and paint the murals with the artists, their teacher, the principal, and myself.

August 28, 2011

La Tajeada has a ladies soccer team! We are “The Stars” Sports Club (It sounds better in Spanish than in English). The team has been playing now since the beginning of July. We officially practice three days a week, however the 30 girls show up to the soccer field just about every day. I’m constantly amazed and often a little frustrated by their non-stop desire to keep playing. I’ll see the evening rain clouds slowly sweep over our mountain towards the field, signaling the start of night, and am forced to convince the girls that they need to go home. I remind them that they’ll be plenty of time to play tomorrow. But they beg forjust a few minutes more. I think playing soccer is a new liberty that they are experiencing. They have so many responsibilities in their homes; making tortillas, cleaning, hand-washing clothes, cooking food, homework, school, that having time to just be girls is liberating. Soccer is THE sport of Honduras. It is an obsession. Most Honduran boys play it every single day. In spite of that, gender rolesare so strictly defined that many of the girls didn’t even know the basic rules of soccer when we started. It wasn’t something that girls were expected to take part in. What more, it is considered dangerous and somewhat scandalous for girls to attend men’s soccer games. However, now the girls have their own team, which the parents are starting to see as a good after-schoolactivity. Our games are a blast. There is nowhere for the fans to sit but the hills overlooking the field fill with parents, siblings and neighbors standing and peaking around trees as they watch the game. When our offense gets close to the goal the sidelines erupt with cheers and howls. It's fantastic. We’re making progress during practice. At our first game, nearly half the team played in skirts. Now they wear shorts or jeans. Before, the girls kept trying to catch the ball with their hands. Now they understand corner kicks, free kicks, fouls and penalties. None of the girls have soccer cleats. Our captain, a smart 17 year old who is studying to be a businesswoman, lost the pair she had. She cried for hours afterwards. Cleats are expensive (About $7.00 a pair) and none of the girls work or have any kind of income. Part-time jobs don’t exist for young women. So we’ve been organizing activities as a team to save up enough to buy 11 pairs of cleats. It wont be enough pairs for everyone on the team, but itwill be enough for those who are on the field playing. We sell water, snacks, and candy at soccer games and the girls organized a dance where they sold soda and candy and charged the boys .50 cents to enter. I’m really proud of the girls. They are stepping up into leadership positions. They are learning how to organize the group, how to sell, manage money, work towards goals. They are getting out of their houses and out of the community and competing. Plus, I’m excited because I have an excuse to get out of the house and get some exercise! Our local soccer field. It’s the only large flat area in our town and it’s got one of the best views of our mountain. At an away game selling water. I’m showing off my apron, which women wear when they sell so they can shove money into the deep pockets. Half of our team at an away game in Carrizo. We tied 0-0. Our men’s team lent us their old uniforms and a soccer ball. And yes, I really am that tall in comparison to the ladies. Cutting the grass and picking up trash from the field the day before a home game. There were over 50 people from the men and women’s teams who came to help work. And in case you were wondering, there were no lawn mowers, just machetes.

Bacher Oviedo, Pongo. Age 6 months. La Tajeada, Honduras. Beloved puppy, grandpuppy, and friend. Passed on after battling an infection. Born February 2011 to King and Colita. Grandpup to many. Pongo enjoyed chewing table legs, nipping ankles, chasing chickens and eating cheese, doggy treats, and the occasional churro. He often woke up with the sun to greet his Honduran grandpa and walk with him to the fields. He loved nothing more than greeting his human mom in the morning and cuddling with her. We will remember Pongo as a smart doggy that learned quickly. He had already mastered sit and lay down. He was just learning to enjoy having his coat brushed and his ears cleaned when he passed away. Pongo leaves behind a large Honduran and American family who will always remember the time he got his little puppy head stuck in a plastic cup. Our beloved puppy was buried behind his childhood home in a plot nestled between banana trees and overlooking a creek.

A young Pongo playing with his puppy toys.

Always smiling.

Pongo loved his bad-boy puppy dish.

Muddy and tired after playing with his puppy friends.

He loved playing with his human siblings.

We'll always love you puppy.

The Folly of One Laptop Per Child"In a country where almost 75 percent of children do not have access to education, providing a laptop for students in schools would still leave 75 percent of Honduras' children without access to education." To be clear, I highly doubt that 75 percent of Honduran children do not have access to education. I think a more accurate comment would be that 75 percent of Honduran children do not have access to quality education. None the less, I agree with the author that countries should instead,

"Take the proposed money and invest it in schools, good teachers, and quality curriculums that are available to everyone."

July 8, 2011A few months back our ninth grade class and I applied for a Peace Corps grant to do environmental education projects. Well, the money has arrived and is getting spent!Seventy-five students from 6th and 9th grade spent the morning picking up trash and recycling throughout the community. They collected over 30 bags of garbage! Our school will sell the plastic bottles in Choluteca. As a ‘thank you’ to the students who worked hard we all sat down for a snack afterwards.Thanks Peace Corps!Up next:Recycling BinsEnvironmental Murals

I brought my group of students all the way up to the highest point in our community, a 30 minute walk up the mountain. After convincing them that they really did have to pick up all the trash, not just the stuff they felt like picking up, we were rolling!

Ninth grade students and Professor Alexandra with the trash.

Sixth grade students and Professor Lilly with the trash.

Meylin also helped us supervise the students. I made her stand in front of me so my sweat drenched shirt wasn't so obvious.

Relaxing with a taco and a bag of Pepsi!

June 30, 2011 I’ve already been back a whole week.I’ve officially been in country a year!I love flossing daily.HN kids love Laffy Taffy.My host mom loves her fancy new Target knife.Pongo learned the command ‘lay down’!A scorpion fell out of my laundry.My uncle killed another big snake out behind our house.We have 5 new baby ducklings! There were six but Pongo killed one.My environmental education teachers have been teaching the lessons and have planted the trees I provided them.A 1st grade girl memorized almost the whole ABCs in English after overhearing me teach to a neighboring classroom.I’ve perfected my lick-smacking kiss catcall. However my host mom has forbidden me from using it on men.Meylin and I want to join our town’s newly formed women’s soccer team.The bus can no longer reach my house because the road washed out.I still love Honduras and can’t imagine leaving.

June 26, 2011 It’s important to floss daily.I brought back more things for Hondurans than I did for myself.It’s better to see less people more, than more people less.My family has become a dog family.Some people are really curious about what I do, others aren’t. Either way, it’s okay.Even though I threw up on the plane ride into Tegucigalpa, the night before was still completely worth it.Apparently I’m less silly than I used to be.Don’t bring a computer. You’re there to see people, not to send emails.I ate everything I could get my hands on and only gained a net total of 8 lbs.By the end of the trip, purchasing a b-rate movie for $5.00 didn’t seem like a totally ridiculous idea.Washing and drying my clothes in a machine was really as gratifying as I imagined it would be.People made jokes about current events that I didn’t understand.Avoid grocery stores and malls for the first week.Don’t eat McDonalds. It will mess you up.I’m still the same person. I just have a few new experiences and worse English.

June 6, 2011

Tomorrow I leave La Tajeada.

I’m going home! I can’t decide whether that statement deserves an exclamation mark or a period.

It’s not that I’m not excited to see my family and do all of those American things I’ve been missing. I’m super excited. However, I keep looking at myself in the mirror trying to figure out who is going home.

It’s amazing how much a year can mold me. This year has given me a new perspective on living, on myself, on the world, on development work. This year has matured me.

It’s tested me. It’s pushed me beyond what I thought I could handle. And each time I thought I had reached my limit, I adapted.

This year has made me proud of myself.

I’m nervous about stepping off the plane in Wisconsin and having to adapt again. This time to my own country.

I’m ready to be overwhelmed. I’ve already daydreamed about walking into the supermarket and not being able to decide between the 20 different kinds of mustard on the shelf. I’m ready for the trip to the mall where a pair of jeans cost $40, more than my neighbor’s weekly income.

My personal motto for Peace Corps training was, “Don’t have expectations”. I think I need to take my motto back home with me. Be flexible, don’t have expectations, adapt yourself to the situation, and don’t judge. Don’t judge. Don’t judge. Don’t judge.

As my wise mother has said, “it’s not right, it’s not wrong, it’s just different.”

May 27, 2011 It’s something how a day can change. One hour you’re sitting under a bright blue sky on a school field trip while a few hours later it’s storming and you’re standing, soaked, in a living room looking into the open eyes of a man struck dead by lightening. When word came up the mountain that two viajitos were stuck and killed by lightening my host mom left immediately, despite the persistent rain and lightening, to find out what happened. I went with her because it seemed like one of those things you just don’t say no to. We arrived after a 30-minute search soaked, cold, and more curious than ever. Somewhere along the long walk I realized how terrible of a thing we were doing. Rubbernecking, but to an extreme. Hiking around the mountain trying to find the two dead, old men. But when we arrived and were standing in the room looking at the dead body laying in the hammock surrounded by family, friends, acquaintances, and the curious that I realized the only thing worse than gawking is having an empty house and a dead body. You want people to care and to be near you. You want them to grieve with you. You want people to follow your father as his bent body is carried in a hammock back home. It was as more of the town slowly filled his house and spilled outside into the rain soaked yard that I realized that my understanding of death and grief is, like everything about me, distinctly American. Once he was placed on his bed in the middle of the living room, lit only by a oil burning candle, his children, grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews slowly lifted the old man’s body, washed him, dressed him in his finest clothes, and closed his eyes. My host mom held onto the shoulders of his thin, frail sister while she sat at her brother’s bedside rubbing his hand and weeping. I excused myself outside where the rain was calming and the boulder filled mountainside was covering itself with a cold layer of dusty fog. I watched as neighbors helped make arrangements for the night. Men ran electrical wire through the forest to the nearest house so the family might have a light bulb by which they can pass the night at his bedside. Our town mayor called to have the casket, a simple wooden box, sent. Women brought food and cared for the grieving. I pinched myself to wake up from the surreal Honduran moment but all I could see was fog and all I could hear was weeping.

Whatchya been up to? May 25, 2011 It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything more than photos of my dog or my vacation. Things have been getting busier on the mountain. I’m enjoying my work, feeling comfortable in my community, loving my host family, and all around having fun. It seems like just yesterday that I was spending my weeks milking cows, following my grandpa around in his field, and learning how to make tortillas. So here is a little update of what I’ve been up to: Amigos del Ambiente A few months back a fellow volunteer in a neighboring municipality asked for my help developing an environmental education program for her municipality. We met with her mayor’s office, got their suggestions and ideas, and then together wrote 5 months of environmental education lesson plans. With the funding of the mayor’s office we’ve started distributing materials and lesson plans to three pilot schools (one of them being my guardaria). I’ve also started distributing the lesson plans and materials to teachers at my local school, however we’re still hoping to get funding from my local mayor. English classes Once a week I teach English to my local 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classes. We’ve finished 5 weeks of classes and they recently had their first test. Ninth Grade Environmental Education Grant Several months ago my local school principal and I wrote a grant application for funding to do three large environmental education projects with the ninth grade students. And we got funded! In June, we’ll start trash pick up days. In July we’ll move on to constructing recycling bins at the school and in August we’ll finish with two large environmentally themed murals painted on the outside of the school. Project Design and Management Workshop Next week my president of the town council and I will attend a workshop in Valle de Angeles where we’ll learn everything we need to know about successfully executing town projects. Before going our town council will meet to discuss possible project ideas. He’s mentioned that there is a desire for a semi-levable latrine or pila project. Being a good community member I’ve spent a whole lot of time just being a good citizen. That means I’ve been attending birthday parties, helping kids studying for their English classes in the evenings, visiting friends, and of course, chatting with Don Fidel and Doña Fidelina. So that’s it. I’m proud of the work I’m doing and I think it’s important to celebrate your successes. So yay for me!

You may be an elected official hated during your time. But if you want to win the favor of future generations, open schools. - Juan Lindo.

Women Leaders in Agriculture in Gracias Lempira. Learning how to make elevated fertilizer banks ready for planting.

He looks so sweet.

But he's really a vampire bat! I call him Murciélago!

March 26, 2011 I got a baby sheep. It’s a long story but the to sum it up: My uncle bought two sheep several months ago. One of them was slaughtered for Christmas and a few months later the neighbor dog, King, killed the other. Then two weeks ago he bought three more sheep. A mommy and two babies. This morning King killed one of the babies in our backyard. My uncle happened to be drunk when he found out and got really upset and had the mommy sheep slaughtered in anger. He also wanted to kill the baby sheep. I talked to him and made him feel guilty enough to give me the sheep as a gift. I promised I would take good care of it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t one of those ‘crazy gringa’ moments when all of the Hondurans look at me and say, “What the heck does the gringa want to do?” Several family members said they were so sad that he wanted to kill the baby and that they were glad I convinced him out of it. So now I have my puppy, Pongo, and a baby sheep that we call Chivo, pronounced Cheevoh (which means goat in Spanish). I made a pen for the baby sheep so King doesn’t kill him and each day I’ll need to pay a local kid to go out and bring me fresh foliage for it to eat. Unfortunately, Peace Corps doesn’t pay me enough to maintain a zoo in the backyard. So donations to the baby sheep fund are welcome!

Chivo and I.

Chivo tied up behind the house. I would prefer that he wander around free but it’s too dangerous with King close by so we tied him up with the puppy collar and leash the first night and built him a pen the next morning.

And just case it was cute: Pongo and Capuyo napping. Capuyo and Pongo have become friends. During the day they play together and nip at each other’s fleas. And every night they sleep outside cuddled together. Adorable!

March 20th, 2011

Since my five readers seemed to enjoy my last post about an average Peace Corps day, I thought I would continue with that today.

It’s 8:05PM. Estoy rendida. I’m exhausted. My eyes are red and they hurt. It amazes me how a boring week of teacher strikes can turn into a crazy weekend of work.

I think in both Spanish and English now. It’s hard not to constantly sprinkle in Spanish as I write. However, I’m too tired to splice apart the Spanish from the English in my head and I don’t have the patience to explain each Spanish word. So sorry. Welcome to my messy brain.

I woke up at 6:00AM to feed my new puppy (who’s name is officially Pongo), to give the chickens maicillo, and to wash my clothes. By 8:00 I rushed to finish washing so I could eat a few baleadas and take off for my aunt’s house down the mountain. A bunch of kids from the family wanted to go swimming in the poza. We arrived at my aunt’s house but had to wait until my cousin finished washing her clothes to leave for the poza. When we arrived another group was just starting to swim. They were really friendly and we chatted while we swam. They even bought us a bottle of Coca Cola. It took my sister and my primas an extra hour to enter the water because they were too embarrassed to swim in front of strangers. Así es rural Honduras.

We left around 1:00 for my aunt’s house to eat lunch. Our new friends invited us to play a game of fútbol nearby but since we didn’t have cell phone reception we couldn’t call Mimi to find out if she would give the girls permission. Instead we ate chicken and rice followed by trigo en leche, bathed, and left with my Grandpa Fidel for the long walk home. Don Fidel came all the way down the mountain just to pick us up. He’s such a great guy. It’s pretty far to our house too. At least 30 minutes nonstop walking up steep hills. We got back to the house around 2:30.

When we got home I showered using my new hot water shower head that my uncle installed while I was out swimming. I paid him 50 Lempiras ($2.50) to install it. It was fantastic to have hot water. I got ready and left for my counterpart, Doña Dora’s house.

She had sent word down the mountain on Saturday that she wanted to talk with me. However, when I went to see her on Saturday she wasn’t there. Así es la vida Hondureña. On the walk up I passed my friend Miriam’s house. She has a cute little 7-month old named Justin (I like to call him Justin Bieber) and her mom is super friendly. So I stopped to chat for an hour or so. There were some other ladies there who I had never met so I asked all about their lives and children and they got a kick out of the fact that Kari sounds like the Spanish word for cavity. I explained to them that I prefer Karina for that reason. Then, since at least 5 drunks had already passed the house they walked me the rest of the way to Doña Dora’s house.

Doña Dora informed me that we had finally gotten word that our seamstress classes would be starting. So naturally, in a last-minute-Honduran-rush she sent me out to sign-up 15 women who want to take a 4 month long, 5-day a week, sewing class.

I left her house en carrera to search out my 15 women. I had already talked with 7 who were interested but had to go to each individual house to get their names and identification numbers. That meant walking up and down our barrio several times. I went to about 20 houses and I found 10 women by the time it got dark. After dark (6:00 PM) I don’t walk around outside our little group of houses and certainly not by myself.

I usually like to visit houses for a few hours to chat and eat. However, since I was limited on time I tried to keep to business. It sucked. I hate visiting houses without actually visiting. It feels so cheap and I think it’s kinda rude.

After the sun set I went back to my house and ate tacos with cabbage and tomato as we watched Daddy Daycare in Spanish. I spent an hour putting away my clothes, cleaning up my room, and packing my clothes for my trip tomorrow to Teguz.

Around 9:30 tonight I’ll wash my face, brush my teeth, scrub my feet (they get filthy), put lotion on my split heel, turn on the fan, and go to bed.

So that’s that. Just another day. Sorry if the Spanish-English stew doesn’t make sense. Sometimes the garble that comes out my brain only makes sense to me.

March 19, 2011

Meet Pongo. The cutest half Rottweiler ever. He is so tiny. Don Fidel likes to call him Disnutrido, which means underfed.

Napping on the cool tile floor.

So adorable.

Pongo and I napping in the hammock together.

Pongo got his head stuck in a plastic cup. I laughed and laughed and took pictures to embarrass him with when he grows up. Hopefully he learned his lesson: don’t eat trash.

March 10, 2011

After 22 years of begging my parents to get me a puppy my dream has finally come true. I only had to move to Honduras and get a new mom to do it. Incidentally, since I left the states 7 months ago my mom, brother, and uncle have all gotten dogs. Life is cruel. It’s 5:15 AM.It’s night one of life as a puppy owner. This is my third time getting up tonight to see why he is crying. First at 10:30, then 3:30,now 5:00. Each time he wanted to get out of his box to take a poop (huge in comparison to the size of his tiny body), pee, eat puppy food, drink water out of his little cup, and wander around. I finally gave up and moved his box to the bathroom where he can feel free to wander around, cry, and take big poops without waking me up. Tomorrow night he will be sleeping out in the chicken coop. Each time after getting him to sleep it took me another hour of reading old magazines to fall asleep. Add in my fear of fleas (I kept waking up to check my body for them) and I got probably 3 hours of real sleep tonight. The puppy is pretty cute which makes it less painful. He is half Rottweiler and jet black except for a little tuft of white fur under his head. He is only a month old. I wanted to wait to take him home for another month but his doggy mom stopped producing milk and his owners don’t have the money to buy puppy food. I like the way he falls over himself when he walks. Sometimes when the tile floor is a little wet from his puppy pee he slips and looks like he is learning to ice skate. I haven’t picked a name yet. I liked Pato (which means duck in Spanish) but naturally my Honduran family thought it was ridiculous. Next I tried Duke but my friend said it was ugly and started calling him bus to make his point (bus and duke sound similar in Spanish). I kinda like Fidel (in honor of my Grandpa Fidel), Lobo (wolf), and Leon (lion) but they just don’t have much punch. I want a name that says, “This dog will eat you alive if you mess with his owner.” I just haven’t found it yet.Pre-bath photo. During the bath. Poor little guy. Hanging out in his box. I gave him my "Mom Loves Me Best" t-shirt to sleep with.

March 2, 2011 This is for my friend Dan, who tells me I don’t write enough. I told him there wasn’t anything exciting to write about. It’s 6:25 PM and dusk is just starting to overtake the mountain. Another day is almost over in Honduras. After experiencing more than 250 Honduran sunsets, they still haven’t gotten boring. I just came in from helping my mom water down the dirt front yard. We water it down so it doesn’t get too dusty. I was joking around with my brother out front. He pretended to fight me with a stick and I defended myself with the broom. The fight ended with me throwing a flip flop at him. Each day his appearance reminds me more of my brother Erich when he was younger. It’s weird being older than him. It’s like I get to see my brother grow up all over again, this time as the big sister. This morning I was woken up at 6:00 by the crowing roosters. I got up anyway since it was time to take my pills. I hate taking medicine but Honduras has been rough on my body. Since moving to Choluteca I’ve had a splotchy skin condition that the doctors tell me is related to the heat. I’ve also had problems with low iron levels since I’m not getting enough fresh green vegetables. I eat lots of veggies, just not the green kind. Plus, I had fleas from petting and washing our dog, Capuyo. They gave me medicine for that too. Gross, right? I drank coffee and ate bread with my mom while the kids did their morning chores. We ate an early breakfast of fried quesadillas. Once the kids left for school my mom and I washed dishes and hauled bags of cement and old suitcases outside to our newly built storeroom. For the last few weeks my mom and I have been trying to do The Biggest Loser’s exercise video every day (to keep in shape and help my mom loose some extra pounds) but after hauling heavy bags all morning we had done enough. I finally got around to making up a box of flan that a fellow volunteer gave me as a gift. It was great! I ended up eating almost all of it myself since my family wasn’t crazy about it. Around 10:00 I took a shower, got dressed, and headed down to the school to meet with the principal. On the way I chatted with a few ladies who asked me to come visit the after-school program now that summer vacation is over. I had walked down to the school yesterday too but the principal was out of town at a meeting. Luckily, he was there today. We talked about the English classes I’ll start giving to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students and we discussed the class I’ll be giving to the 7th, 8th, and 9th grade English teachers once a week. We also continued talking about the 9th grade environmental projects we want to do. It’s comparable to community service requirement that American high school students must complete. Ideally, we’ll do a trash-pick up day, a recycling can project, and two environmentally themed murals. Once we finished, I went and bought a little bag of baby mangos and a can of peach juice and chatted with some ladies. One of the ladies is a good friend and we made plans to hang out next week. Afterwards I found my sister and we walked home together. The entire 6th grade class got released at 10:30 today for a parent’s meeting. I got home in time to eat lunch and watch a Spanish soap opera. We had rib and bean soup with tortillas. After lunch I started working on the grant proposal the principal and I will submit to Peace Corps for funds. I am supposed to work on it as a team with my Honduran counterpart, but I had no luck getting him interested in writing it with me. There are some battles you win and some battles you lose. I spent about 2 hours writing the proposal in Spanish before taking a break to talk with a fellow volunteer on the phone about our plans Friday. Later on I headed up to my grandma’s house to hang out. I bought a frozen milk and corn mush treat from my neighbor’s house, helped my cousin with her biology homework, tried unsuccessfully to climb the mango tree, and finally ended up eating baby mangos that my cousins picked. Before long it was getting dark and time to head back to the house. Before the sun went down I ran a quick errand to my counterpart’s house to drop off some papers. Soon we’ll eat dinner. It looks like my little sister is making hard boiled eggs mixed with avocado, fried beans, fried plantain and of course tortillas. I love that every ingredient in our dinner (except for the oil) comes from the mountain. At around 8:00 our living room will fill up with family and neighbors coming over to watch the new favorite soap opera. I usually take the opportunity to hide out in my room and watch an episode or two of American TV since it can get pretty exhausting and boring watching Spanish soap operas. However, I finished season 1 of Freaks and Geeks last night so I’m not sure what I’ll do tonight. I’ve got Hot Fuzz and Role Models waiting. Around 9:00 or 9:30 I’ll wash my face, brush my teeth, scrub my feet (they get filthy), put lotion on my split heel, turn on the fan, and go to bed.

So there you go, Dan. You can be the judge.

March 1, 2011 In La Tajeada, I’m never really alone. I took me several months to fully realize it, but I’m always surrounded by people. Even though I live with a relatively small host family (mom, brother, and sister), my family is more like 15 people.

Our house is within spitting distance of two aunts, two uncles, two grandparents, and four cousins. It’s within shouting distance of four more aunts and uncles, two comadres, and a pack of cousins. Add in friends, neighbors, aunts, uncles, and cousins who come to visit on the weekend, and the pigs, sheep, dogs, chickens, cows, and ducks and things start getting really big.

In some ways, we live communally. Often dinners are cooked together at our grandparent’s house. Each family will bring vegetables, rice, and a chicken and the moms and daughters will help out chopping, cooking, and stirring the gigantic pot of food.

Children do their homework together at a large table outside. Older cousins work the fields for their grandfather and do favors for their aunts in exchange for coffee, cookies, soda, and lunch. Tools like ladders, shovels, pickaxes, and horses are shared amongst family. There is no need for each family to own a saw when they can share.

Each afternoon around 3:00 or 4:00 we lock the house and head up to our grandparent’s house to hang out. We chit-chat, play cards, listen to music, and play fútbol until it gets dark. Friends and family from all over the barrio come by to pasear. It’s not unusual to see 10 or 15 people at their house at night.

As a person who loves being with her family, it’s a pleasure to live as we do. I love the sense of connectedness and warmth that exists. I think about what it would be like to have my U.S. family living the same way. Grandma and grandpa next door, all of our aunts and uncles across the street, cousins playing together every day, everyone sharing food and talking.

However, I think that it would look much different once you factor in cars, 9-5 jobs, college, computers, winter, and American independence. Especially, American independence.

I’m a sociable person in the United States but in La Tajeada I’m more introverted than everyone. My Honduran family thinks alone time is unusual. They don’t understand my desire to watch movies in English on my computer or to read in the hammock on sunny afternoons. In Minneapolis I loved to explore the city alone. I liked wandering into shops, going to museums, and walking by the river. Those activities just aren’t possible here.

It’s a give and take, just like everything in life. There is no perfect but I try to keep focused on the parts that make me happy.

February 27, 2011

Southern Honduras can be an intense place to live.

The seasons seem to change overnight. From fierce hurricanes that destroy houses to droughts that can last 5 months without a single drop of rain. During the dry, summer the top layer of soil dries, hardens, and eventually gets ground into dust. The plants that have the bad luck of growing near roads get covered in a thick layer of dirt that accumulates for months.

Around Christmas time strong winds whip through the banana trees, creating dust clouds that fill your lungs and burn your eyes. In mid-April the most intense heat will descend on Choluteca with temperatures reaching well into the 100’s. The southern plain, which is already well on it’s way to desertification, will cook in the high heats with hardly any vegetation to block the sun.

When the rains come the dust will wash away and the ground will soften into a muddy mess. The fields of dry, dead, brown plants will sprout anew and fill with lush tangle of weeds and leaves. Dry streambeds will slowly trickle to life, eventually becoming gushing rivers. The winding dirt road that creeps up the mountain and forges through rivers will become impassable when storms hit. The trees will again be covered with bright green leaves that blanket houses and hide the animalitos. Hurricanes start threatening the south in August and wreak havoc for three months. They wash away roads and tumble down houses with mountains of mud, water, and rocks. The rains will continue until October; at which point someone turns a switch and the rains stop and summer starts again.

Southern Honduras, with all of its heat, dust, rain, and mud, is a glorious place to live. The intensity reminds us that we are subject to the temper of the gods. We live at the pleasure of Mother Nature. Humans may manipulate the earth but someone else owns it.

February 9, 2011

Mom and Lindsay trying to wash clothes by hands. I had to take over.

Mom teaching the Bunny Hop to my cousins and sister. They loved it!

Hanging out at my aunt’s house for the afternoon. My cousins played guitar and sang love songs (it was el día de la mujer) while we made popcorn balls and chatted.

Harry and Fidel.

Making of the popcorn balls.

A very sunburned Lindsay in the boat on the way home from Amapala.

February 4, 2011 I meant to finish this last month but between translating for a medical brigade and my family’s visit the month of January flew by. So as I said before, these are a few of the people of importance in my community.

Noemi or Mimi for short. Mimi is a single mom who supports two kids on remittances from the United States and the rent I pay her each month. It’s more than most Hondurans make but it also isn’t a permanent source of income. She is my closest confidante and my Honduran mother. Every other week we take a trip into Choluteca to buy groceries together. It gives us a chance to get away from the house, chitchat, and hang out. Plus, she likes to have me around to carry the grocery bags. As a single mom, Mimi has to be strong and confident not only with her kids but also with other Hondurans. She belts out orders, doesn’t put up with back talk, and states her opinion. She doesn’t let other people run her over. So it’s nice when the kids are at school and it’s just her and I at home making tortillas and talking that I see her guard relax. She’ll express doubt and uncertainty and fear—things I rarely see her express in public.

This is my neighbor uncle Monca, Lily’s dad. He is a farmer who also occasionally works harvesting sugar cane and coffee. He left just yesterday for the north to work 3 months in the fields cutting sugar cane. Monca is tall for Honduran standards (which means that he is a little shorter than me). Monca taught me how to milk cows. When he is in town we wake up at 5:30 every morning to milk. He stands by my side while I milk to make sure that the other bravo (angry) cows don’t give me any trouble. He is funny, considerate, and a loving father. This is Lily. She is my cousin who lives next door. Lily is vibrant and exuberant and has a laugh that shoots through you. She doesn’t worry too much about appearances, which is a nice change of pace from the average Hondureñas I’ve met. She isn’t boy crazy and she is willing to play around and make a fool of herself. She likes to play soccer with me while the rest of the girls in our barrio sit on the sidelines and watch. She has never cut her hair. One of my first weeks here she was my guia as we explored the creek in our backyard. She taught me the names of the trees and plants and taught me how to crawl through barbed wire fences.

This is Doña Dora, my counterpart and all around bad-ass friend. She is a highly respected leader in the community and seems to know everything that goes on. She works closely with our municipal government and with the regional women’s group. She wants to start a local women’s group with me. She is the kind of woman who you can walk around with after dark because people wont mess with her. A fellow volunteer and I admire, ‘the Doña Dora dress’. It refers to her brightly colored, hand sewn, button down, pleated dresses which I absolutely love and covet. She is almost always wearing her apron, even during government meetings, and has long, dark, curly hair, which I’ve only glimpsed once as she reset her hair clip. I love this photo of her because she looks stoic. It’s as if she has the entire weight of Honduras resting on her shoulders.

February 3, 2011 I had a dream last night that I was back in high school. In the dream I saw my old friends and was literally skating on rollerblades from one side of the school to another trying to talk with them. There never was enough time to say anything substantial and I kept feeling like I was letting them down every time I skated away. Almost five years has passed since I graduated. It’s such a short amount of time and yet I’m amazed at how bad a job I’ve done keeping in touch with my friends back home. It seems like I get so concentrated and connected to the place and the people I’m with that I let slip the important relationships I left. I did it to the friends I made in high school, to the friends I made in college, and now I feel like I’m doing it to the friends I made during Peace Corps training. I think it’s a good thing to be physically and mentally present wherever I am. I like that I am cultivating strong friendships in my community. Last week I melted with happiness when my HN neighbor said that she likes having me around because I’m ‘como nosotros’ or ‘like us’. However, I need to find a way to balance my past and my present.

Today my family leaves to head back to the United States. They came down to see my community, to meet my Honduran family, and to spend a few days at the beaches in Amapala. It was fantastic.

I'll post pictures later but since we're in a fancy hotel in Teguz with wi-fi I thought I would share some recent articles I found interesting.

A Nation of Beggars

Model Cities and Misplaced Priorities

9 diciembre 2011 Hola estudiantes, ¿cómo están? Muchísimas gracias por su video de Navidad. Yo lo encanté. Mi mama anfitriona y toda de la familia les mandaron saludos y gracias. Hace mucho tiempo de mi ultimo respuesta pero aquí (como los EE.UU.) estaba muy ocupada con la Navidad. Estamos aprovechando las vacaciones de escuela y de trabajo. Entonces, aquí están sus preguntas y mis respuestas. Gigante de hora 7 me preguntó, “¿Cómo es la vida Hondureña diferente que la vida en los EE.UU.?” Hola Gigante. Buena pregunta. Es verdad que la vida Hondureña es diferente que la vida en los EE.UU. Pero las diferencias depende donde uno vive y el trabajo que uno tiene. Por ejemplo, la gente de las áreas rurales (como La Tajeada--mi comunidad) normalmente trabajan en los campos pero la gente de las áreas urbanas (como Tegucigalpa o San Pedro Sula) trabajan en empresas o en fabricas. En general, la vida Hondureña en La Tajeada es más relajada que los EE.UU. La gente viven cerca de los abuelos, los tíos, y los padres. Pasan mucho tiempo juntos platicando, cocinando, y trabajando. Pero, en general, la gente sufran más que en los EE.UU. La mayoría de la gente no tienen dinero suficiente para construir buenas casas, para ir a los doctores, o para ahorrar. Hay mucha gente aquí que trabajan todo el día y solo ganan 100 Lempiras (5 USD). Pero, es importante a recordar que también hay pobreza en los EE.UU. ¿no? En los EE.UU. hay gente que no tienen los recursos a construir buenas casas, a ir a los doctores, o a ahorrar. Evita me preguntó, “¿Cuál es tu parte favorita?” Mi parte favorita de Cuerpo de Paz es mi familia anfitriona. Me encanta platicar con mi familia. Es una oportunidad a relajarse y aprender. También estoy muy emocionada que estoy mejorando mi español. Cuando yo vine casi no hablaba español y ahora mi español esta más o menos satisfactoria. Sebastián de hora 4 me preguntó, “¿Recomiendes asistir a la cuerpo de paz a otras personas?” ¡Claro que sí! Cuerpo de Paz es una oportunidad perfecta para aprender, conocer, y compartir. Es una aventura adentro de una nueva comunidad y cultura. Sí quiere más información busca www.peacecorps.gov. Isabel me preguntó, “¿Tiene que pensar diferente en Honduras porque la cultura allá es muy diferente como la cultura aquí?” Yo siempre trato a tener ‘un mente abierto’. Yo no quiero ser critica de Honduras o de las cosas que no estoy acostumbrada. Tengo que reservarme mi opinión. Cuando uno está en una cultura diferente tiene que entender el contexto. Por ejemplo, en Honduras hay basura en las calles y en el las solares. Es fácil a venir y a decir, “Qué sucio, ¿porque ellos no limpian las calles?”. Pero, la realidad es que en muchas lugares de Honduras no hay manejo de basura, no hay tren de aseo, y no hay garbage dumps. Entonces, tenemos que ver la situación de la perspectiva de un Hondureño. (Perdóname, se me olvido la palabra de garbage dump en español y no está en mi diccionario) Otro ejemplo, unos norteamericanos me dicen, “Kari, ¿usted le gusta comer sopa de mondongo? ¡Gross!”. (Mondongo es los intestinos de la vaca). Pero, aquí en Honduras es normal a comer mondongo, es algo especial y muy rico para mi familia. La verdad es que en los EE.UU. comemos comida rara también. Por ejemplo, sushi. Me encanta sushi pero los Hondureños piensen que soy loca porque me encanta comer pescado crudo. Me dicen, “Pero Karina, ¿usted come pescado sin cocinarlo? ¡Qué raro!”. Entonces, sí. La cultura Hondureña es diferente que la cultura de los EE.UU. Pero yo trato a ver las diferencias con los ojos de una hondureña. Lorenzo de hora 3 me preguntó, “¿Te gusta Honduras?” Sí.

“What kind of peace do we seek? ... Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” - John F. Kennedy, American University speech, June 10, 1963

January 8, 2010 In honor of my slow slide towards a photo-diary (as mentioned yesterday), I’m going to introduce over the next few weeks a few of the Hondurans who are important in my life.

This is Elvia, my host mom who lives in La Cuesta. Elvia is at times timid and soft-spoken but can pierce the air as she belts out the assigned chores each Saturday morning. After 3 months without seeing one another she looked seriously concerned when I walked in the house 10 lbs lighter than when I left. I probably heard her say, ‘come sin pena’ (an order to eat without shame) more than anything else while I was visiting. She tried to undo 3 months of tortillas and beans in 2 short days. She fed me torrejas (It’s like French toast cooked in raw sugar), tutti-frutti (chopped up fruit), tamales, sandwiches, and baleadas until I fell into a food coma New Years Eve.

This is Stefany, my 6-year-old host sister from La Cuesta. She is wild, spunky, and loves to dress up in frilly pink dresses. She is very much ‘the girl’ in a household full of boys. She loves to watch LazyTown and Backyardigans every Saturday while her older brothers do chores.

Here are Fernando (left) and Flavio (right), my host brothers from La Cuesta. They work hard in the field with their dad 6 days a week, year-round and love to impress me with their strength during arm-wrestling contests. Flavio was my personal Spanish teacher during training, often spending evenings with me at the dinner table working on homework and chatting. He likes to steal my camera in order to make long videos of himself making funny faces and farting. Flavio knows a fair amount of English, however most of it are phrases he learned playing Grand Theft Auto. Nando likes to stay up late watching movies and texting with his novia who lives on the other side of town and eats 12 tortillas every meal. While they are both lighthearted and exuberant at home, once outside they both clam up and get shy. Flavio is my best friend in Honduras.

January 7, 2010 I’ve seem to have hit a lazy streak where it’s easier to just pick out some photos and write captions than to actually write complete thoughts. I’ve realized that once I hit 3 consecutive months in one place I lose my ability to see and write about the exciting and different. I noticed it in Bolivia and I’m noticing it again here in Honduras. Things got exciting once I moved from training to my site but now they are slowing down again. It’s not like exciting and interesting things don’t happen. It was just yesterday that I was crammed in a room with 30 other Hondurans standing over a dead un-embalmed body that had been steaming under the sun for over 12 hours. Or a week ago when I saw Harry Potter 7 in the movie theatre in Teguz. Sounds average, but for me it is a super exciting event. Or how about the sheep we killed for Christmas or the machete fight outside the Christmas Eve Catholic Church service that my uncle broke up (using my machete none-the-less!). Then there is the night I spent in the Cholu hospital, the endangered owl that my host brother caught and put in a cage, and the exciting fact that our one dirt road through town (which is more like a rocky slope punctuated by washed out bridges) is getting fixed! Then there are all the completely normal things that are exciting all by themselves. Like the fact that itty-bitty mangos are starting to grow on the trees or the new chicken coup my host mom is building out back. Not to mention birthdays that are celebrated by playing loud music early in the morning and the cows that I still love to milk every morning. And how about the excitement of having all of the extended family back in town to celebrate the holidays and the fact that my Spanish is slowly getting better. Good things are happening. I just can’t articulate them.

December 27, 2010

A few volunteers and I spent a night working at El Venado beach in Guapinol with the Centro de Investigación y Protección de la Tortuga Golfina. The residents of Guapinol have been working with the sea turtles that lay their eggs on the local beach for over 25 years. They collect and protect the nests from venders looking to sell the eggs at market. Later, when the eggs hatch volunteers release them at night into the gulf. In August the Center built a research station that also accommodates volunteers looking to stay a few nights, learn about the turtles, and help with the releases.

This is the new research station with volunteer housing that was built in August. It’s the headquarters of the Centro de Investigación y Protección de la Tortuga Golfina in Guapinol. It’s got comfy hammocks and a great third floor lookout from which you can see Nicaragua to the left, the gulf straight ahead, Amapala to the right, and the lights of El Salvador in the distance.

Releasing the baby turtles on the beach. So cute. Boa Constrictor! Or at least that’s what our jalón driver told us it was. Southern Honduras used to be filled with mangrove forests which have been almost completely destroyed by sugar cane farming, cattle grazing, and human sprawl. Animals like boas, birds, and sea turtles are threatened more and more every year by the changing environment.

December 20, 2010

I’m listening to Christmas music right now but Christmas feels so far away.

This week my mind keeps wandering to my family’s Christmas traditions.

Cooking lobster or turkey with the whole family. Getting dressed up in my fancy Christmas dress. Eating a candle light dinner with the German mobile spinning in the center of the table. Driving to church late at night watching the brightly lit houses go by in silence. Seeing old friends who’ve moved away.

Hearing the story of His birth, part by part in the darkened church. Singing hymns that I know by heart between each passage. Watching the candle light pass down the aisle one by one while we sing Silent Night. Raising our candles at the last verse illuminating the dark stained glass windows.

Walking to the car bundled up in dresses, tights, and coats. Driving home in silence. Lighting the fire and sitting in the living room around the tree. Passing out gifts and taking turns opening them one by one. Playing board games until everyone goes to bed.

I went to our Catholic iglesia the other night with my family. The church is small and old. It is one large room filled with handmade benches and decorated with lacy cloth and paper cut outs of doves. It’s lovely and warm. My favorite part is the two gigantic palm trees outside. We don’t have a priest but members of the congregation lead la celebración every week.

This week they had a posada. It’s a time to get together and sing Christmas songs in preparation for Navidad. It’s a nice tradition but I couldn’t help but feeling out of place while everyone was singing. The whole time the only thing my mind could focus on was trying to remember the scripture verses that tell the story of Jesus’ birth.

When I got home I pulled out the Bible that the previous volunteer happened to leave here and poked around until I found those familiar verses:

“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.”…“And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”…“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.”…“For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

I love that written words can be so comforting and make me feel like I’m home. I wonder if the authors ever imagined the power their words would bear hundreds of years later.

December 16, 2010

Okay, so it isn’t officially six-months in country but it’s pretty close. December 21 will mark the 6-month anniversary of the day when my mom and dad drove me (and my suitcases) to the airport in Green Bay and wished me off.

The days leading up to June 21 were intense. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t concentrate. My mind was going crazy.

Now Field-Based-Training and Pre-Service-Training are all over. I’ve sworn in and become an official PCV. I’ve finished my mandatory two months in site without leave. I made it through the intense high of leaving for my site followed by the intense low of realizing my expectations for my site weren’t reality. I made it through Thanksgiving and fall without my family or any crunchy leaves. I made it through missing my sister’s wedding party, I made it through some rough days thinking about my grandpa and missing my family beyond belief.

But I’m still here. Heck yeah! And I love it! Puchica!

So next comes Christmas. Bring it on, world. I’m going to miss my family and probably cry a bit but I’m also going to have a great time hanging out, eating tamales, and dancing.

I’m sure in 6 months or in 9 months or in two years I’ll look back at this post and think, “Qué barbaridad, Kari you really hadn’t experienced anything yet” but that’s okay. As my host mom says, poco a poco, “you’re going to learn everything poco a poco.”

So here are some photos:

This is just a regular afternoon at my grandparent’s house. Tía Lilian is washing clothes while my cousins and sister hang out chatting.

We decorated the little trees out front our house with Christmas lights, a star, and a handful of bulbs. They look awesome. I love coming home at night to a bright, sparkly house.

Here is the final product. I like to sit on the hammock at night and chat with my host mom. We turn off the overhead lights and watch the Christmas lights change color until it’s time to go in and sleep.

1 diciembre 2010

¡Hola amigos! Yo he respondido a 4 más preguntas. ¡Disfrútenlas!

Rodolfo de hora 4 me preguntó, “¿Cómo son las personas nativas?”

Rodolfo, ¿quiere saber sobre los indios o sobre los hondureños en general? Voy a suponer que quiere saber sobre hondureños en general.

Los hondureños son muy similar a estadounidenses. Los dos desean a mejorar sus vidas. En general, los dos son trabajadores, chistosos, cariñosos, y cuiden a la familia.

Lo que es diferente es los recursos. Especialmente, dinero, terreno, y educación. En los estados hay más oportunidades a trabajar y ganar dinero. Mucho gente aquí no tienen terreno adecuado para los cultivos. Si uno no tiene terreno para cultivar tiene que moverse a las ciudades grandes para conseguir trabajo. En mi opinión, falta de educación es el problema más grande de Honduras. Sin buena educación toda la país sufre.

Pero, por lo general el espíritu de la gente en todos los lados del mundo es similar. Tenemos mucho en común.

Manuel de hora 4, “¿Cómo son los niños?”

Mi hermanita, Jackie (pronunciada –yak-e) es como muchas de las niñas en los EE.UU., ella le gusta ropa de American Eagle, Abercrombie y Fitch, y Hollister. Ayer la mama de ella y yo fuimos a comprar en Choluteca y tuvimos que comprar una nueva camiseta de Hollister para ella. Una camiseta de Hollister cuesta 180 lempiras o $9.00.

Pero, la mayoría de los niños de Honduras no pueden comprar ropa de American Eagle, Abercrombie y Fitch, ni Hollister. Son marcas caros. La mayoría de la gente llevan ropa americana. Ropa americana es ropa de Goodwill y The Salvation Army en los EE.UU. que esta mandado por Honduras para vender en los mercados. Una camiseta como así cuesta entre 20 y 50 lempiras ($1.00 - $1.50).

Los niños aquí quieren impresionar a los amigos. Las niñas les gusta maquillarse y vestirse en ropa de moda. Les gusta escuchar a música de Reggaeton y música en ingles. También, les encanta bailar. Cuando no hay nada divertirles ellos bailan.

Y siempre, todos los niños y todas las niñas les gusta jugar fútbol.

Una diferencia grande entre los niños en Honduras y los EE.UU. es que los niños aquí platican más con familia. Todas las noches mis primos y hermanos están en la casa de mi abuelos mirando televisión, jugando naipes, cocinando, jugando voleibol, y platicando.

Relámpago de hora 3 me preguntó, “¿Cuántos otros países ha visitado?”

Yo fui a otro país por la primera vez cuando tenía 12 años. Fui a Lituania con un grupo de mi iglesia en Green Bay. En total yo fui a Lituania 4 o 5 veces. También fui a Ecuador con mi iglesia.

Después de graduarme de escuela secundario mi hermana y yo fuimos a conocer Holanda y Italia por dos semanas. También yo fui a conocer Perú por dos semanas con mi prima y amiga cuando tenía veinte años. Visité Ixtapa, México con mis padres dos o tres veces y viví en Akumal, México por una mes durante universidad.

Hace dos años, cuando asistí la universidad, yo viví en Bolivia por tres meses.

Cuando estoy viviendo en Honduras yo quiero visitar Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, y Belize. Después de terminar Cuerpo de Paz quiero conocer a Cuba.

De todo, ¡mi país favorita es Honduras!

Francisco de hora 7 me preguntó, ¿”Cuál es su actividad favorita en Honduras?”

Hola Francisco, mi actividad favorita es ordeñar las vacas. Todos las mañanas me levanto a las 5:30 para ordeñar las vacas con mi tío, Monca. Mi abuelito y mi mama tienen tres vacas que están echando leche. A mi me gusta ordeñar la vaca se llama Coneja porque ella no es brava y tiene ubre muy suave y fácil a ordeñar.

Cuando regreso a los EE.UU. yo quiero tener una vaca para ordeñar.

Bueno, si tienen más preguntas, envíenlas a mi correo electrónico (kari.bacher.pchn@gmail.com) o a su Profesora. Me gusta responder a sus preguntas.

Karina (como ustedes, yo tengo un nombre en español)

November 30, 2010

There is a Haitian proverb: “Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe” or, “God gives but doesn’t share.” I prefer to think of it as, “God gives but humans don’t share.”

For several years I’ve found myself in a wobbly place between agnostic and atheist. I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what I believe. Some nights when I look up at the infinite blanket of stars overhead I can’t help but believe that a creator’s hand was at work. But then when my eyes fall to earth and I see houses made of cardboard and bloated bellies I can’t make myself imagine a creator who would create such a holy place and allow it to fill with such misery.

How is it that after thousands of years on this earth we still haven’t figured out how to live together? Why do we allow some to have so much (myself included) and others to have so little? I know that the answer is complicated by history, politics, geography, and greed but some days it doesn’t feel like the human race is making any progress towards equality.

Some days I want more than anything to be able to place my hopes and my fears into the hands of something more powerful than myself. I want to sit with people who understand my faith and my questions, I want to sing and worship whatever the hell created this mess, and I want to believe that something or someone has all the answers. It’s scary to think that it’s just us out here, responsible for fixing the world’s problems.

But the only answer I can reason is that we are our own liberators. And by ‘we’ I don’t mean Americans. I mean Haitians, Hondurans, Americans, and every other person. We must have the ambition and dedication to make the world an equal and just place, starting with the unequal distribution of land, resources, and wealth.

Paulo Freire wrote in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed that all of humanity is interconnected and that while one suffers, all suffer. My humanity is linked to yours, which is linked to his, which is linked to hers. And although I might be comfortable in my bed tonight, my humanity can never be whole until my neighbors and countrymen and fellow human beings sleep safe.

I have never found a place where my faith doesn’t collide with religion but nonetheless I do have faith. I have faith that one day humanity will be whole.