HIV/AIDS charlas, strikes, tamales, and corn festivals

We’ve been working on our field based projects for a couple weeks now, and they’re going well. I usually walk up at 5:10, go running, shower and eat, go to Spanish class, and then we have self-directed projects or tech sessions. For our Self-directed projects, we’re in groups and we have to work on our own in the community. My group of five is working in Jacaleapa, a nearby town. We’re working with the mayor’s office, the schools, and some community based organizations. We have certain objectives we’re supposed to achieve and we don’t have much time. In the mornings we have Spanish class and a couple afternoons a week we get driven to Jacaleapa in Peace Corps vehicles. The other afternoons we have training sessions here.

It’s frustrating trying to schedule things, because of this tight schedule and other setbacks. We’ve had a lot of setbacks. For one example, this past week Monday and Tuesday the teachers went on strike in the whole country so we couldn’t do any talks in the schools, which we need to do. The strikes are really frequent. The teachers just announce they’re going to strike certain days and then there are no classes. It’s such a shame because the students are suffering. They don’t get the greatest education as it is, and then when they lose all these days of class, they get more set back. Also, there was a road block Monday, so we couldn’t even get to Jacaleapa. There were three simultaneous strikes going on, one was a bus company, one was the teachers, and the other was Hondutel, the national government phone company. It seems like there’s always someone striking. Sometimes it gets violent. Last month there were incidents during the miners’ strike.

Anyway, we’ve done some interesting things in our project. Last week, on Wed, the 22nd, we went to a meeting with the mayor for a program called atención a jóvenes (attention to youths). The senior citizens in the town spend time with jóvenes a riesgo (youths at risk) once or twice a week. So we got to sit in the meeting with all the senior citizens and with about 12 or 14 teenagers. At first the mayor had us sit at the front of the meeting hall and then we had to introduce ourselves. It was an interesting meeting and I really like the program. In the afternoon we had Spanish class but it was an exciting day because we all had class together and the other classes taught how to make recipes. First, Brian and Susan taught how to make tamales. It was really fun. We had to shuck a lot of corn and then cut the corn off the cob and then we all went in the Peace Corps van to the molino (small hand-operated mill) to have the corn ground. Then we made the tamales. It was really fun. Next, Rachael, Dan, and Brianna Bailey made guacamole, which was delicious.

Last weekend we went to Danli for the corn festival on Saturday. We met up with people from another project, Protected Areas Management, who are doing Field Based Training in another town. It was really fun to see them. There actually wasn’t much corn at the festival. There was a mountain of clothes and shoes though. People were just lining the roads with there stalls of clothes and shoes, some of them were just piled up several feet high. It was an interesting site.

This past week was good. On Wednesday, the 29th, my Spanish class, which is me, Alice, and Carmen, went to the health center to give a self-esteem talk to a group of pregnant women. Our teacher came with to watch us and see how we did with our Spanish. It went really well. We talked about self-esteem in yourself and your own life, self-esteem in relationships, and teaching your children self-esteem. At the end one woman said we did a good job and another said it was really good to be reminded of these things and she was happy we came. That was my first charla (talk/lecture) and I was happy it went well.

On Thursday some current volunteers came to teach us how to do an HIV/AIDS charla. Although we’re not the Health program, HVI/AIDS education and prevention is a main goal of Peace Corps and it’s everyone’s responsibility to work toward this goal. The charla we did is a pre-planned charla and it’s mostly dínamicas (games/acitivities) so there’s not too much prep work to do with it except preparing the materials. So Thursday morning the volunteers did the charla with us and in the afternoon we got in groups of 3 or 4 and prepared to give it the next day.
Friday we went to one of the high schools and each group had a different class of 17-20 students ages 13-16 . It was about a 3.5 hour charla. Jordan, Brianna Bailey, and Susan were in my group. There were activities like: a race to find the HIV/AIDS vocab word that matched the definition, a true false game about AIDS, an activity with pictures in which the students have to say if the activity can transfer HIV or not, a game in which the students had to put in order the steps of using a condom, and then we had to demonstrate the steps, and have each student practice all the steps. Honduras has a high HIV/AIDS rate, the highest in Central America, I’m pretty sure, so these talks are really important.

It was definitely one of my favorite activities that I’ve done so far. I think the kids really enjoyed it and got something out of it. It was exhausting doing the charla, even though there were four of us giving it. But it was really loud in the room, because of outside noise, so we had to yell just to be heard, and even when someone else in my group was leading the activity, I was making sure the kids were paying attention or explaining it to kids who didn’t understand. It was also really hot, and by the time we were done I was so tired. That was the first time I’ve worked with a class or a big group of kids and I really enjoyed it. I’d definitely like to give the AIDS charla when I get to site, but I don’t think there’s any way I could do it alone, or even with the teacher, because it’s so tiring. I’d need another volunteer to do it with me. But it’s definitely a good activity to do.
Friday afternoon a women living with HIV came to talk to us and share her story. It was really emotional and really brought to life the problem. So it was a good day, but difficult.

Two more weeks until we find out our sites! I feel like half our conversations are about our sites and where they could be and what we want them to be like and if we’ll be close to each other. It’s hard not knowing, but it’d also be hard knowing. I have kind of mixed feelings about going to my sites. I’m ready to start working and I have lots of ideas of what projects I want to do, and I can’t wait to find out who I’ll be working with and what I’ll be doing. I’m so excited to go. But on the other hand, Field Based Training is really fun, and we have such a good group and we’re all friends, so it will be hard leaving everyone when we disperse all over the country. We’ll get opportunities for some of us to meet up, but it will be hard for all of us to get together again. We don’t actually leave for our sites until the 28th, so there’s still time. It will be so exciting to see our homes for the next two years.
So, that’s all for now, it’s been an eventful two weeks. ¡Hasta luego!