Hola all!
So what I know up until now is:
Location: Honduras
Program: Water & Sanitation
Job Title: Educational Extensionist Educator
Staging: February 24th, 2009
Training: February 25th, 2009 – May 15th, 2009 in Santa Lucia, Honduras
Service: May 16th, 2009 – May 15th, 2011
What I can sort of glean from my paperwork is that it sounds like I will be handling creating teaching materials and actually teaching about Water & Sanitation in primary schools. The program description basically said that the Wat/San program has been going on for quite some time and during the last two years of the program (2009-2011) PC will be adding a primary education specialist. My guess is that is me since I have two education degrees and 7 years of education experience. Call me crazy.
But I’m not sure as they also have Wat/San Educators who will be working directly with Environmental Engineers and construction crews on whatever it is that we will be doing. In that specific situation it sounds like I could be creating training of some kind. Although seriously, I’m inclined to think that I will be the primary ed person.
I’m also super excited because it sounds like I will have to hoof-it around to different towns to do my work. That sounds like it could be fun.
It also says in my paperwork that I could be issued a bicycle or a MULE! I’m voting for Mule.
I’m voting for mule too, and then you MUST post pix of you and your stylin’ ride! I’ve subscribed to your blog, so now I will ALWAYS know what you’re up to.
I can’t believe it’s only, like, 2 months away, how exciting! The job possibilities sound pretty cool, too. I can’t wait to hear all about it!
Hey, followed your link from Amy’s facebook page and I remembered sending messages to you a long time ago about Honduras, but I figured that I’d send you a little more info to help out.
I just finished in Honduras in September, and I was a Protected Areas Management vol, but I had a lot of friends who were Wat/San. So since I was nosy and read your blog, I have some info that might help clear things up a bit:
A lot of wat/san vols get placed in cities for thier homes, and they work in the smaller villages around that city. Depending on what people need and what you are interested in doing, you can teach classes in schools, or spend all of your time in the field installing water systems. During training they will teach you do that, and they will guide you in how to find funding sources to provide these systems and how to get your communties to help provide materials and labor for installing them.
A lot of wat/san vols never get time off because water is such an important thing, so you probably wont have the problem that other vols will complain of: never having anything to do. You will always have something to do.
Since it sounds like you’re heavy on the ed side, you could teach in any of the communities about conserving water and health aspects and anything else that you want to. PC Honduras is very flexible about changing what your projects are, so you can do basically anything you want to as long as you are helping your communities.
As for hoofing it around, you are so right. You will do a LOT of walking. Especially to get out to the surrounding communities (we call them aldeas). You will have a counterpart who could work for the local govt or an ngo or the HN fed govt. They should (should is the key word) help you contact the aldeas, and they should provide you with means of visiting them. It could be by bus, or van (called a rapidito), or by having somebody drive thier pick-up to get you, or it could be by horse or donkey. PC has bikes they issue if you ask for one. But Honduras is really hilly and mountainous, so wait till you’re at your site before deciding what you want (or you could be a semi-pro mountain biker, and I’ll apologise for insulting you). Or just walking is how I got around mostly. It all depends on where you go and how hard they want you to work for them (most people will really want you, because you’re a wat/san vol, to work for them).
I think that you will really like your program manager and program specialist. I knew Carlos the program specialist more, he’s really awesome. Training can be long and tedious, but usually wat/san field based training is in Sabanagrande and you guys can spend time after class hanging out playing soccer or hiking. It depends on the mood of your training group. But wat/san usually has a great group of people.
You mentioned in the later blog about not knowing how communication will work. In Santa Lucia there is an internet cafe, its really slow, most of the time its down, but sometimes you can check it if you dont spend your stipend on beer instead. The country director, Trudy, is trying to move training out of Santa Lucia, so I dont know if you guys will actually be there or if you’ll be in Zarabonda (near Santa Lucia), or if she will have made it official to seperate the groups to spend all of your time at the field based training site, or (and this is her master plan) if you will be sent directly to your site and do all training there.
I dont know.
But, there are internet cafes in all major towns, and cell phone service is great. PC will probably get you guys to buy your phones all together while you’re in training still. That way they prevent you from having to go to Tegucigalpa (Teguc) for a day before you swear in as volunteers. Ok, let me rephrase something, service is mostly great when you’re in a city. If you travel to the aldeas you might lose signal, and especially in the mountains it can be pretty shitty. Calling from the states to Honduras can be expensive if you use just a regular international calling card. Sometimes you can find special cards for Honduras or Central America that have better rates. Calling from Honduras to the states is a lot cheaper, except that you get paid about $200/mo and most of that goes to rent and groceries and travelling. So, you have to weigh your priorities. But I still called home about once a week and was fine.
There are 2 airports, San Pedro Sula and Teguc. SPS is the better one, its not in a bowl like Teguc and pilots dont (often) make the error of crashing. Teguc was closed most of last year because of a crash. They’re trying to open up another airport in Comayagua, but it belongs to the military so I dont know how that will eventually work out. What family usually does, is fly to San Pedro and change planes to a smaller one and fly on to Teguc. Or you can take a charter bus, and there’s a fancy one that goes direct and only takes about 3-4 hours to get from SPS to Teguc. American Airlines goes to Teguc, but not SPS, and Delta only goes to SPS. Taca or Spirit, I think, flies into both.
Common Sense suggestions:
Pack a sweator, training can be chilly in Santa Lucia and even Sabanagrande is cool during the nights. Do pack at least one nice outfit for swearing in at the embassy, but dont worry too much about the “business casual” suggestion on the list they sent you. If you do teach in the schools, you might want a nice shirt to wear in front of the students, but you dont have to pack a full wardrobe because you can buy cheap clothing there that will be fine. Take at least one outfit that you dont mind getting muddy and filthy in during training and just wear that outfit during the day. Men in Honduras are usually pretty rude, so I never wore skirts or sleeve-less shirts, but I worked in the field a lot so I wore pants and shirts that I didnt mind getting stained or ripping. Most of your clothes will be ruined after 2 years of hand-washing, so dont take anything that you dont mind leaving behind.
Take a really good pair of walking shoes. I wore Chaco sandals all the time, but I also had a good pair of hiking shoes for when we went in the brush (there are spiders and sharp sticks not to mention the occasional snake). You get a 50% discount on Chacos and you can send in your acceptance letter to get it, or you can wait till you’re in HN and send a copy of your ID card. They only mail to the states, so you’ll have to get someone to forward them to you.
Take a good pocket/knife or Leatherman. It will come in handy.
Take some small presents for your host families, you will have maybe 3 of them, in Santa Lucia, Sabanagrande and in your site too. I took calanders of my state and postcards. It doesnt have to be fancy.
Take a good day-bag, or backpack for classes and for working in your site during the day. Take a nalgene or something similar, so you always have water on you. PC will provide bottled drinking water for you guys to re-fill them and your host families have to provide clean water for you to drink too. But dont take anything too fancy because it might get stolen.
Oh yea, dont take anything that you cant live without, people on the bus, in the mall, in town, walking around, will see you and even if it isnt anything really worth it, because you’re a gringo they will want it. Thats just how it is.
But I did take my iPod and laptop, I just always hid them, and I put a bunch of stickers on my laptop to make it look old. You can swap music with vols, and watch dvds to occupy your time, and I read a lot and exchanged books with a bunch of people. If you take something new, its nice to share with the old vols who havent had the opportunity to see/listen/read it yet. But you dont have to take a lot.
I dont know what else to say really. Sorry, I feel like I like verbally vomited. Its a lot of info. I just know how crazy it was trying to pack and trying to prepare myself for what it was going to be like. And PC never tells you enough. Its always “secrets!”
I hope that helps. If you want to know any other info, I’m in the states and I would love to help. You can email me, or call. 850 529 2711
Looks beautiful! Wage peace and take pictures!
I am so friggen happy for you! I can’t wait to hear all your stories!