Moving out

After a lot of thought, I´ve decided to move out of my homestay. When I first got here, I thought maybe I would stay here, but now I´d really rather live in my own house, and in town, for many reasons. I´ve been living with host families for nearly five months, and I miss the privacy and independence of living on my own. It´s true I have my own little house here, but it´s still connected to the family´s house, and I don´t have a kitchen. I miss deciding and preparing what I want to eat, and eating when I want to. It´s hard being on someone else´s schedule and eating what someone else feels like cooking. Also, I can hear everything from my room and they can hear everything I do. For example, one night, I had a cold, and I was up all during the night blowing my nose, and the next morning, they were all asking me how I felt, since they could here me up all night with a stuffy nose. I would like a little more privacy than that. And my room shares a wall with the house bathroom, so I can hear everytime someone uses the bathroom. I just would rather have my own independent house. Two years is a long time.

More importantly, I feel really isolated where we are, and really dependent on my host parents all the time. There are only 3 other houses here! How am I supposed to integrate into the community and work with the community if I´m not living in the community? It makes things really difficult and it´s really hard to get around. I´m also with my host family all the time, since they are also my counterparts. They are great counterparts, I couldn´t imagine better counterparts, but I´m here for the whole community, and I feel limited in what I can do with my current living situation. And I feel like it´s not a great idea to live with your counterpart. There´s a lack of a divide between home and work, and you become too dependent on that person. So I really need to move out of the house, and have my own house and more independence.

Also, I think I´ll be happier in town. This whole past year, while I was waiting for my Peace Corps assignment, when I found out it was Honduras, when I was in training, I always pictured myself living in a small town. I like where I´m living- everyday I can´t believe how beautiful it is- but I think I could be more effective as a volunteer in town. I´ll be able to walk around all over. I can work with all the schools, and the mayor´s office. There are three towns all right next to each other, so I can work with all three munincipalities. My project is Munincipal Development, which is working with the local government and community based organizations. We learned all about how the government functions in training, but I haven´t done much with the government because I haven´t been in town that much. Of course, I want to continue working alot in the aldeas, in the mountains. I really like the people and there are some great projects I want to work on here. But I think I can be more useful in town.

So I told my host dad two weeks ago that I decided to move out, even though I really like living with them, but that I´m used to living alone, and that´s just how we are, all volunteers have thier own houses. I was really nervous about telling him. I had been worrying about it for weeks, since I know he wants me to stay living with them, and they built me that whole little house, and I feel guilty about leaving after all they´ve done for me. But then I thought, if I was able to tell my own family that I was leaving for two years to live in another country, then I should be able to tell this family I met two months ago that I´m leaving their house to a house 40 minutes away. That gave me some resolve to tell him. He was disapointed, since they were expecting my to stay with them, but he said it was ok, he understood. He said it would be hard to find housing in town, though, which made me worried it would be months before I found an available house.

So last Saturday, Dec. 1, was World AIDS Day, and there was an educational fair in the town next to my town. The volunteer who lives there was helping to run it, so I went to help out. I was talking to one of the nurses who lives in San Pedro, my town, and I said I wanted to move there and did she know of any houses available. This was the first person I asked about housing, and she said yes, her sister had a house that no one was living in. They were renting it out to students but now it´s empty. It was so lucky that the first person I asked about houses had a house available! So later that day I went to see it. It´s a few blocks from the park and mayor´s office. It´s a nice house, and it´s in a quiet, pretty area of town. The house has two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a main room. It doesn´t have a pila (which is like a large sink that also stores lots of water, I keep meaning to take a picture of one to post) but they said they could build me one. The house doesn´t have tiled floors, just concrete, but that´s ok. It has a nice front porch. So tommorrow I´m going back to talk to the woman about improvements that need to be made and rent, and to sign a contract. I´m hoping to move in in January if everything´s ready. I think I´m going to buy a new camera next week, since mine won´t turn on anymore, and then I´ll take some pictures of the house.

Now that I´ve decided to move out, and that I´ve told my host family, I feel much better and more positive. I have something to look forward to, and I´ll be doing what I wanted to do from the begining. I did give it a shot here, and I´m going to live here through December, and maybe part of January, but to be happy here for two years, I want my own house and I don´t want to be so isolated. So I´m really looking forward to the oppurtunities I´ll have in town and the independence I´ll have with my own house!