Fall Update from Honduras

To start, sorry for the delay in updates!

I have been in my site for nearly two months now and I am really like things so far. As people say here, “ya se halló acá.” More or less, this means “you’ve found your way here” or “you’ve acclimated.” And thinking about it, I feel pretty acclimated to life in rural Honduras. Despite short bouts of loneliness and urges to fly home just to eat Portillo’s or Lou Malnati’s with the Kadlecs, I am enjoying myself and finding good work here.

To give you a better idea of my life in Honduras, here is my daily schedule (more or less):

6-6:30am: Wake-up! I get embarassed if I sleep past 6:30 because my host parents are up early to milk the cow, make tortillas, and bring zacate for the horse to eat.

7-8am: drink coffee, shower in mountain stream icewater, get ready to head to the school, to the coffe cooperative, or farms

8am-12pm: Work with the kids in the school (we painted a map of the world…sorry internet is too slow for pics), work on a commercialization project with the coffee co-op, or just get to know people by visiting their farms and cutting/depulping/washing coffee

12pm: lunch–> tortillas, rice, beans, orange juice, sometimes chicken (One of my favorite meals is friend chicken with plaintain chips covered in ketchup and mayonaise)

1pm-4pm: I either wash clothes by hand, go to the field to play soccer with all the kids, go to wrange cows, go back to the farms to bring wood/cut more coffee, or hang out in the coffee cooperative during the afternoons. I also use this time to talk about different ideas that I have for projects with people in my village. Right now, we are working on getting some land acquired to protect a microwatershed, environmental education for the next school year, a women’s health group, and potentially an income generation project with farmers who want to create pepper/tomato greenhouses…more on these projects to come!

4pm: COFFEE HOUR, yet again. I happily enjoy more coffee and bread. Sometimes, I drink coffee with my host family but I also go out and sit with my friends in the village to drink coffee as well. However, Hondurans love sugar in their coffee (AND LOTS OF IT). I, on the other hand, like my coffee bien amargo (very bitter). Most everyone in my village knows this now and kindly serves me unsweetened coffee. **For future note, I do like sweet tea (as in the Southern Sweet Tea)

4-7pm: A lot of meetings are held in the afternoons because the men are back from the farms, the women are done making tortillas/food/also back from the farm, and the kids are out of school. So, meetings of different organizations happen around these hours. This week, I have a meeting with the kids in my town to create little checkbooks that they can use during the coffee season to keep track of their income/expenditures. My fellow PCV Aimme came up with a great idea to get kids used to keeping track of their money, saving, and eventually thinking about opening a bank account. We are going to see how many kids keep track throughout the whole season (now-end of February/early March) and for those that do, we are going to have a pizza party and hike. Luckily, the adobe/clay ovens that Hondurans use to make bread are perfect to cook delicious pizzas. So, if you all have any good pizza recipes that you think I should try, send them my way.

7pm: SOAP OPERA TIME. My host mom loves telenovelas (spanish soap operas) and we generally watch at least 5 (all at the same time). Personally, I go back and forth with novelas. However, right now I really do not like Bella Calamidades because Lola (main woman) is not assertive enough of her rights and the main male (Marcelo) is way unrealistic and can’t make a right decision.

8pm-9pm: Read, write & sleep!

Maybe this gives you a better idea of what my days here are like. I will try and get some photos up soon to accompany this post.

happy november.

I send you all my love and peace from Honduras.