Route Week 1

Hey Everyone!

Time is flying by here in Honduras. It's hard to believe that I have already been here for almost a month. I am definitely keeping busy!

I just got back on Saturday from route. It was quite an adventure . One volunteer told me a story of when she was walking back to her house with her six year old host brother and he started shrieking peligroso (dangerous). She looked down and saw a snake in the path. The host brother proceeded to hand her a machete and motion at her to kill it . She did as she was told and then used the machete to fling the remains of the snake out of the road. Yikes! And this is not the end of the creatures encountered during the first week. When I was visiting this same volunteer, she came running out of the latrine yelling "scorpion." Her mother took advantage of her machete to take care of this critter as well.

But overall, the first week on route was a good one. My volunteers are adjusting well to their communities. Most volunteers have already met with youth in their communities to start planning the projects they will collaborate on over the next five weeks. The volunteers in Santiago are considering projects such as painting a mural on the side of the elementary school and working to start community trash pickup. In San Miguel, the proposed youth based projects include planting trees around the soccer field and starting a club for teenage girls that cooks and makes jewelry together. In Llano de la Cruz, the volunteers are working alongside the soccer team of youth ages 16-25 (the range of ages for youth in Latin America is a little more lenient). They want to build a fence around the soccer field so that they do not need to chase stray kicks down the side of the mountain! I am very impressed so far with the progress that all the volunteers have made, and I am excited to see how the rest of the summer pans out.

It has been awesome to be out in the communities with the volunteers after so much preparation and anticipation, not to mention the delicious food I get to look forward to for every meal! However, I am definitely still adapting to my role as a supervisor. I have been tempted to jump in and teach the kids or youth something, such a game or an American song. But, I am really trying to lay low and let the volunteers have their chance to shine. I think this will become easier over the course of the summer as the volunteers improve their Spanish speaking abilities and there are not so many “silent” moments with community members. While my experience as a supervisor is different that my experience as a volunteer, it is a welcome change. I enjoy being able to see a few different communities each week as well as getting to interact with 9 different volunteers from all over the States.

Another funny story from route: I arrived in Llano de la Cruz on Friday, right before lunchtime. Because of the rotating meal plan, the volunteers did not know the location of the house they would be eating at for lunch, only the name of the community member. So, the host sister of one of the volunteers agreed, though somewhat reluctantly to walk us to lunch. We followed her up the main road and past the school located in the center of the community. Then, we started walking up a pretty steep path. After hiking for about 15 minutes we asked how much further the house was. She replied “30 minutes” and we all groaned in disbelief. As we went around each corner hoping for a downward sloping part of the path, we were disappointed to see and endless steep upward path. When we finally reached the top of the mountain, we were just about there. We only had to avoid the vicious, barking dog that was guarding the house and then we were there. What an adventure. It’s a good thing that I did not end up putting one of the volunteers with this host family because I do not think the other volunteer would have ever braved the mountain to go visit. Scaling these steep mountain paths is starting to become routine.

After I returned to La Paz from Llano de la Cruz, I relaxed and played many rounds of cards, including a Rummy 500 tournament, with the other supervisors. On Sunday, we decided that we wanted to try our hands at making corn tortillas. They only contained corn meal (maseca) and water. How hard could it be? After we mixed up the dough to a close to normal consistency, we made the balls of dough into tortillas using our tortilla press. Then, we tried frying them in a pan. We ended up with half-cooked, half-burnt tortillas that were not nearly as good as those made by host moms from freshly ground corn out in the campo. But by this point, we were getting really hungry, and the quesadillas we made topped with avocado were quickly gobbled up.

Well, I am off to prepare for today. Staff meeting, running errands for the volunteers and washing clothes on the pila (washboard) await. And then tomorrow, I am back off for round two of route!

Hasta Luego!

Que le vaya bien!

Rachel