Site Visit

Recommendation: PRINT THIS ENTRY, it’s pretty long, and you’ll have a better chance of reading it all if you print it, and it will be easier to read.

My new address:
Kristyn Oldendorf
Rdo. Angel A. Soto
Honducor
Cucuyagua, Copán
Honduras, C.A.

(This is the address of the local post office, and when I get letters or packages they will let me know and I can go pick them up. Make sure you use this address and not the previous addresses I gave you. Please feel free to send me stuff, just don’t send any really big boxes, and nothing perishable.)

This past weekend was our site visit, from Thur-Sun. Counterpart day was Wednesday, all the counterparts from our sites came to the training center to meet us, and the directors gave some speeches. It was interesting seeing all the different counterparts from all over. On Friday we traveled back to our sites with our counterparts. I took all my stuff with me, except enough clothes for this week.

My counterpart is also my host family. My host dad is Arnulfo and my host mom is Yesenia. They are really energetic and involved in the community. They have a small, new NGO, and it’s part of my assignment to help them organize and get things going. Also, my host mom/coutnerpart is president of the caja rural (rural micro bank). My host mom is also part of a group of 7 women who crochet shirts and bags and things, and make wedding dresses. They have four kids, aged 14-9, named Karin, Kevin, Kristian, and Kelvin, which is funny because my name just fits right in. The kids are beautiful and it’s nice having kids in the house. Also, they have a computer and the previous volunteer installed a game which is all the original Nintendo games, onto the computer. So all weekend the kids were playing original Super Mario Brothers, which was exciting.

The house is basically on top of a mountain; it’s about a 40 minute drive from San Pedro, the town, up to the house. It’s a beautiful drive up the mountain, and there are a few rivers, which are really pretty. The road is terrible, all muddy and rocky and full of holes and bumpy. I live in caserio, it’s called, because there’s our house and a couple other houses and that’s it, it’s so far out in the middle of nowhere. Also, it’s a farm. They grow coffee and have chicken coops, pigs, tilapia ponds, cows, turkeys, ducks, geese, sheep, and goats, all right outside the house. It’s crazy. It is nice that we get tons of fresh food from all the animals. The tortillas are really good, and my host mom makes good homemade pizza and cake.

I was also really surprised and happy to find out that they have running water all the time and it’s drinkable right out of the faucet, which is very unusual, but they get it right from the source, since they’re on top of the mountain and the water doesn’t have to make it down to the town. Also, they have a washing machine, which makes things so much easier. I knew they were building me a room, but I was shocked when I saw it. They built me my own little apartment, minus a kitchen. There’s a large front room, a bedroom, a good size bathroom, a closet, and a little patio area. It’s really amazing. They were still finishing it up when I was there but it will be done by the time I go back at the end of the week. I have a bed and little fridge from the previous volunteer but I’ll need to buy a desk and chair and whatever else I want. I’m paying about $150 a month for rent with all my meals included.

I only am required to stay with them 2 months, but they want me to stay longer and I’m considering it, but I’m worried about transportation because I’m so far up the mountain and my only way of getting around is to get rides from my host dad/counterpart. There’s a bus into town once a day at 6am, and it returns at 2pm. But if I’m working more with aldeas in the mountains, it would make more sense to live in the mountains. So I’ll have to wait and see how it goes. A big negative is that I don’t get cell phone service in the house. I can receive text messages, but I get them a couple hours after they’re sent. There’s a little hill outside next to the house where the water tank is, so I can go there to get reception and make calls. I might buy an antenna for my phone, which might help. When I stand outside the house and look around I literally can’t see anything except trees and mountains, there’s not one house in view. It’s really pretty, but it was kind of a shock. Usually people from the Municipal Development program are in municipalities, close to the mayor’s office. I can move to the municipality after my two months home stay, but I’m not sure if I will.

Also, I’m replacing a volunteer, and I was able to meet her, we spent all weekend together. She’s leaving this week though because she just got a job at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. So that’s kind of funny because I just came from Bethesda, so it’s like we’re switching places. She’s from Maryland and went to UMD. It was really helpful hearing her experiences and suggestions, and she’s really nice. She gave me lots of tips. We’re really close to Guatemala and El Salvador, so it’s easy to travel to both, and she gave me some info on buses and hotels for when I travel. On Sunday we traveled together back to the capital, because she has to do administrative stuff this week with Peace Corps before she leaves on Friday for the US. She lived in the town of San Pedro her whole service, and she started out with a different counterpart before she found my current counterpart, so I will have a different experience. She had a cat while she was here, Tigre, and she decided to bring him back to the States with her, so it was an interesting trip back to Tegucigalpa, traveling with all her luggage and a cat. The cat was really good though, and very calm the whole day. We left San Pedro at 5am and got to Tegucigalpa at about 4:30 pm and I got back to Santa Lucia at 5:30pm. It was a long day. We did get to stop at Wendy’s for a quick lunch, which was exciting.

I had a good weekend. We spent most of Friday driving around to different aldeas and meeting people. Saturday evening we had a goodbye/welcome dinner and cake for the old volunteer and me, which was nice. It was really sad watching her say goodbye to everyone, it makes me think about how hard it is going to be to leave here after two years.

The big project my counterpart wants to start is a latrine project, so hopefully we can get that going in the next month. There are a lot of possible projects but I think it will take me a while to find my place. I’m also kind of worried because the coffee crop is from November through Jan or Feb and everyone’s going to be busy in the fields all the time, so it will be a challenge finding projects to do. I’m really excited to get going. The other people in my group had good visits. Almost everyone has some concerns about something, but everyone is still committed. Thursday is our swear in ceremony at the embassy and our reception at the Ambassador’s house and Friday we travel to our sites for good.