Hey! I am happy to report that survey was a blast. On Wednesday (June 23), I took a bus to Santiago and then a mototaxi to my first community, Delicias. It is a small community of about 300 people out in the campo (country) where most everyone is involved in subsistence farming. I met the most wonderful host family for one of my volunteers. The host dad plays guitar and the family sits around the kitchen and sings the most beautiful Spanish harmonies in the evening. I wished I could just stay with this family for the rest of the summer, if not longer! This family had an AMIGOS volunteer two years ago who played guitar and taught the host family Beatles music. After they told me this, I was determined to find a guitarist for this summer.
In this community I also had my first foray in legitimate Honduran food. I had tortillas made from corn grown on the family’s farm, filled with beans, rice and Honduran cheese. And after eating this delicious combination for every meal on survey, I am excited to go back to visit the communities each week to eat more of it. For the coffee fanatics, you would be in a little piece of heaven here. Many of the host families grow their own coffee and roast their own beans. It doesn’t get much fresher than that!
From Delicias, I traveled back to Santiago on Thursday. Santiago is much larger, with about 4000 people living in the center of the city. It took significantly longer to prepare this community for the volunteers. It was difficult to find host families for the entire summer; at first the people I spoke to in the community were offering that the volunteers could stay a night in each of their houses. That was not going to work, since AMIGOS requires the volunteers to each stay with one host family for the whole summer. But, I eventually found housing for the volunteers with the mayor, the director of the elementary school and one of the director’s friends.
On Thursday, I woke up early to meet my point person, Esna, identified by our partner agency Plan Honduras to trek to San Miguel. A community member from Santiago walked with me to Esna’s house. Then, Esna, and I and all of things I thought I would need for my four day journey packed in my hiking backpack hiked up to the top of one of the mountains bordering Santiago, where my next community was located. It was a beautiful hike, but I will definitely downsize the contents of my pack before next time. I spent the morning finding out details about the community with Esna and another prominent community leader, Wilmer. Then, in the afternoon I was off to search for host families. I found one of my host families in the funniest way. I was sitting on the steps in front of the school with Esna, and as we were resting here, a smiling man, a machete in hand and knee high rainboots over his jeans walks by. He was returning home after working on his finca (farm) in the campo. I jumped up and approached him, telling him all about AMIGOS and the volunteers that were going to arrive in his community in a week. Within five minutes of chatting, he welcomed one of the volunteers to stay at his house. I happily confirmed and then stayed the night with his family.
The next morning, his wife and daughter happily showed me how to make the tortillas that went with breakfast. They chuckled as I ground the corn kernels in the manual mill (which is actually much more taxing than it looks). The giggles only continued when I put the dough, just cornmeal and water, in the tortilla press. A few times I put too much dough and the extra cornmeal paste oozed out the side. Another time, I forgot the place the plastic sheet over the dough and the dough stuck like glue to the tortilla press. I was quite the entertainment!
On Friday, I hiked out of San Miguel with one of the community leaders and over to the nearby community of Llano de la Cruz. I found a welcoming host family, with a mere 10 children, early on during my visit. The 8 and 10 year sisters were super excited to have me there and clung to me like glue. And, they taught me a new phrase, specific to Honduran culture. As I unpacked my cot, sleeping bag and mosquito net, each new thing was greeting with oohhs, aahhs and the phrase “que cheque.” It means “how cool.” And, I also found out that I could use the phrase “todo cheque” to respond to “como estas?” I guess I am starting to pick up bits and pieces of the Honduran lingo already.
On Sunday, I returned to Santiago and spoke with a couple more community members there. I spent some time at one of the future host family’s homes and her daughter introduced me to some of the Honduran fruit growing in their backyard. She shook down some paterna’s from their tree and with some trepidation, I ate the fruit off of what looked like seeds in a massive peapod. The flavor was interesting, and reminded me of a milky peach taste. And while I am on the topic of food, it’s hard not to mention the delicious tilapia that the host mom made for lunch. She had bought a fresh, whole tilapia in the market that day and then I watched her de-scale and prepare the fish with the skill of master fisherman. But, I think that is enough of the epicurean aspect of Honduras for now.
That afternoon, I returned to La Paz and then it was crunch time up until the volunteers arrived on Tuesday. I typed up all the notes I had taken in community as community profiles for the volunteers as well as helped plan out the activities for in-country briefing.
Then, some of the most mature incoming high school juniors and seniors from all over the United States arrived at the briefing site, which was near the top of a mountain next to La Paz. Missing luggage and chemically treated mosquito nets which burned the faces of some of the volunteers on the first night were among some of the crazy events at briefing. In addition, the international director of our partner agency, Plan Honduras, gave a talk about their organization which included a long tangent about Hondurans reproducing like rabbits, which had everyone laughing. We also ran through the normal briefing activities, going over the specifics of our project, the role of volunteers in the communities and the standards of conduct as well as the get to know you energizing games. The craziness came to peak on Wednesday night when we (the supervisors) made partnerships from 10 pm-3 am, matching up volunteers we thought would work well together as well as matching these pairs with one of the 25 communities we visited on survey. And, I was even able to put a guitarist into the first host community.
Yesterday, I met with my route a few different times to go over more project specifics. My route is the group of 9 volunteers that is distributed across the 4 communities I surveyed. The volunteer are awesome and I am psyched to visit them starting next Tuesday.
Now, I have a short break, to rest, relax in the city of La Paz with the other supervisors.
Be well and take care of yourself.
Rachel
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