It is I, Becky, the now Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.

Yes, I live. 

Well, a lot of things have happened in the past 6 months that I have basically just not updated on. So I am hoping in the next week or so to post some things about what has been going on and what is happening next.

My blog name is going to change to Karmakaze since I am no longer in Honduras, but I will be doing a bit of traveling the next few months and perhaps into the next year or so depending on what happens. So I figure I may as well keep up my blog since so many people seem to like it. I anticipate much cultural confusion and hilarity to ensue…

Stay tuned and I will fill you in on what is happening!

Yeah so I guess I am officially one of those people that writes a blog every once in awhile and then puts it off until she gets scolded by family member. I could give you all sorts of reasons but my blogs are long enough as it is so I will spare your eyes the excuses.

So if you recall in my last blog I was struggling quite a bit. It was not the lowest point in my service which actually hit a couple of weeks ago, but I was not in a good place emotionally. I’m not going to say that everything is perfect now, but what can you do? Peace Corps isn´t supposed to be easy. You can give up and go home. You can stop caring. You can refuse to love. Or, you can pull yourself up, learn from your mistakes, and try to do better. Seems to me that this is pretty much what life is about – learning from your mistakes and improving yourself constantly (you may need to remind me of this occasionally).

I still stand by many of the things I said in my last blog. I’m not so sure that I am a very good person anymore though I want to be. Honduras has shown me some of the worst in myself though some of the best, too. I think one of the things that really illustrate this was something that happened in San Pedro Sula a bit ago. I was returning from a trip and had been traveling together with a friend for 12 hours. We got to our hotel exhausted and hungry and after dealing with major issues with a flooded hotel room walked to a nearby pizza chain to get some food. On the way a couple of dirty, probably homeless kids of around 12 years old asked us for money to buy food. I have a pretty standard policy of not giving money away in Honduras because I’m really not paid much, for the sheer quantity of times I get asked, and that it puts you in danger of people thinking you have money here. It’s some of the basic security we are taught. So I told the kids no and walked into the pizza place.

So we got our pizza and started walking back to our hotel with it and one of the kids started shouting at me to give him some pizza and started running across the street to catch us. My initial reaction was to turn and shout at him “DON’T BOTHER ME! GO AWAY!” and he was clearly startled by my reaction and backed off. For some reason that has troubled me ever since. Not because I didn’t give a homeless kid money. Like I said, here it is dangerous to just hand out money although I arguably should have bought them a pizza which is what I would have done in the states. It was my initial reaction that this kid was going to rob me and the rather hateful immediate response that I had. Part of me argues with myself that this is my Peace Corps training kicking in as well as the knowledge that here in Honduras it is usually kids that rob you so I was not wrong in my reaction. But the other part of me wonders at the attitude behind my assumption and thus what my heart really shows.

I’ve been bothered by this event quite a bit since it happened and sometimes my thoughts will float back there. I also wrote last that I was struggling to find peace. So I have spent a lot of time reading lately on these themes and one thing I read that really struck me is that it’s what your heart shows that matters. Bad thoughts, negative attitudes, laziness, and so on affect you even if it is passive and you don’t indulge in it. The trick is to change your heart by changing your thoughts. Am I getting to new wavy? This is what happens when you guys tell me to update my blog when I’m turned inward. Anyway, so I’m working on it – on letting go of the past and future, on cultivating love for all people, on having a graceful heart. My grandma who knows I have been struggling and who is pretty much my rock (and the rock in my family) sent me this poem you have probably heard before:

Dear Lord,

So far today, I am doing alright.

I have no gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or self indulgent.

I have not whined, complained, cursed, or eaten chocolate.

I have charged nothing on my credit card.

But I will be getting out of bed in a minute, and I think that I will really need your help then.

There is also a song I have recently acquired from a friend (thanks C, best CD ever) called “After the Storm” by Mumford and Sons that illustrate what I feel like has happened in my life recently (really the whole damn CD is sort of a theme for me these days. You should check it out). Not just the incident with the boy and the pizza but also my attitude, the smothering loneliness of Peace Corps, looking at myself with painful honesty, trying to accomplish projects, suffering heartbreak, realizing some of my weaknesses, and trying to grow, find peace, be better. Again. Still. Always. And don’t worry, I know I am way too hard on myself. I can’t seem to help it. It’s an ingrained personality trait to blame myself when things don’t go well. But I’m working on it.

But there will come a time, you’ll see.

With no more tears.

And love will not break your heart

And dismiss your fears.

Get over your hill and see

What you find there

With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

So yeah, that is pretty much it. I was nice enough to give you a pretty short version (short for me). Things have been tough. But they are getting better by sheer willpower combined with some meditation and increased exercise (hahaha!). And I honestly have to say that my neighbor ladies (friends) have become my 3 aunts. They have noticed that when I shut myself up in my apartment that I am depressed and have now made obvious attempts to drag me out, come in and chat, bring me food, and so on when they notice it. But I now spend a lot of time hanging out with them. Especially Nolbia who has become a genuinely close friend. Of course, they still have no idea I am gay, but that is just better. They are my saviors here I think. Very very good friends. The picture on the right is actually me watching World Cup with Nolbia, my other neighbor Kenya (they are making fish soup), and Heiro (Nolbia’s brother-in-law).

Speaking of World Cup. What the hell is with the refs? And holy cow this has been an exciting world cup! And go Honduras! Eliminated, yes, but they went for the first time in 28 years. Pretty awesome. I also put here the picture of Carlos when we all got up at 5:30am to watch the first Honduras game.  (Okay so this paragraph is proof that I started on this blog like a million years ago and just now finished it.)

So enough cogitating on life, love, loss, learning, and whatever other bit of alliteration I can throw in. On to life in Honduras.

So I was thinking the other day about why I wasn’t writing as many blogs lately and some of it was my mindset, yes, and some of it is that things have just become normal now. It’s not that the humor is gone so much as that it is a normal part of life. So instead of thinking of things as odd I now just see them as normal. This does give me a bit of concern as to how I may behave when I go back to the states for Christmas. Oh, by the way, rules and suggestions for Christmas if I come to visit you or if you visit me in Tallahassee:

1. Becky shall not be fed eggs, plantains, rice, beans, or tortillas or any version thereof unless it is an ingredient in King Ranch Chicken or something amazingly not Honduran.
2. If Becky is handed a bottle of piss-beer she reserves the right to hit the giver over the head with the bottle and demand a proper ale.
3. Becky shall not be fed rum of any sort in any rummy appearance unless it involves the word “cake.”
4. Please do not be alarmed if Becky can’t stop staring at your entertainment system, iPhone 67, hovercraft, flux capacitor, and whatever the hell else has been invented in the past 2 years.
5. Please do not be alarmed if you find Becky hiding in a box. This is just culture shock. Give Becky a beer (please see #2 above) and she will be fine.
6. Becky may attempt to ride in the back of and/or hang on the side of your vehicle. Simply show Becky that a seat is available and instruct her in the use of a seat belt.
7. In accordance with #6 you may want to hide any cows or donkeys or Becky may mistakenly think it is her ride.
8. Please do not be alarmed if Becky closes her eyes and whispers prayers of deliverance while you are driving. This is simply habit and is not a reflection on you or your driving.
9. Please be aware that any whistling or kissing noise may be misconstrued and Becky may punch the innocent noise maker in the nose.
10. Be aware that Becky realizes that her left leg looks like it was ravaged by a cheese grater. This was due to an unfortunate incident with a bug. Focus on Becky’s right leg. It looks almost normal.
11. You are encouraged to roll with the Spanglish.
12. Becky shall not be required to listen to Raeggeaton, Bryan Adams, Toto, or Celine Dion.
13. Becky shall not be asked if she is married, if she has a boyfriend, why she doesn’t have a boyfriend, or if she can marry you and take you to Never-neverland.
14. No reference shall be made to Becky’s raggedy ass clothes. If you don’t like her raggedy ass clothes you can buy her a new shirt. She makes $6 a day god damnit.
15. Be aware that Becky is allowed to take bubble baths in lengths exceeding what you may consider appropriate.
16. Please do not be alarmed if Becky gasps in amazement or freezes in awe. Likewise do not be surprised if she constantly exclaims phrases such as: “But it’s so CLEAN!” or “Nobody is STARING at me!” or “You can drink it out of the TAP?!?!” or “GOD I miss GAY PEOPLE!”

So I have started thinking about what I want to do after Peace Corps. I mentioned in past blogs that diving is pretty much the one thing that gives me unconditional joy (well my nieces are pretty damn cute). Well, I would be pretty pissed if my equipment failed and I died so maybe there is that ONE condition. That I not die. So I’m trying to figure out ways that I can do diving as a career or at least continue to dive and possibly work part time in diving after Peace Corps. I’m also feeling the pressure to pay off my student loans (someday, someday) so I feel like I should work in a better paying job as well. So I’m not really sure but for your entertainment and knowledge at the moment I am seriously considering the following after PC:

• Getting my Divemaster (this is a certainty regardless) and working as a DM to save money to get the instructors and then work as an instructor for awhile. Ideally I would like to work as an Instructional Designer while doing this so I can pay off my loans while working to live as a DM/Instructor. This is my #1 choice but may be unlikely as I don’t have savings to rely on if things go sour. But on the bright side I could make everyone call me “Instructional Designer Scuba Master Becky” or maybe just “Divemaster-B.”
• Teach English in Taiwan a year. I have started investigating this pretty heartily. It looks like the pay is decent enough but I wouldn’t be able to pay on my loans. But I would be very near to diving in South Taiwan and possibly could get put down in the South so I can dive frequently and maybe even freelance as a Divemaster. I’ve never taught English but I’m pretty sure I could do it. I may have to brush up on a few things, like what nouns are, but no worries.
• Teach English in Korea a year. I have also started investigating this. It looks like the pay is really good and I could save a lot of money. There is some diving in South Korea but I’m not sure how good it is. Need to research the diving a bit more but this also seems like a really cool option. Plus I would be near Buddhist centers and could work on some of that a bit. Same in Taiwan I expect. Plus from Korea I could springboard pretty easily to Cambodia, Japan, etc. And hell, if the apocalypse hits I’ll be right in the middle of it and won’t have to worry about dealing with being a survivor!
• Work abroad in Instructional Design. Even if I can’t dive I still want to travel. I’m considering looking around Europe for ID jobs. I know it’s hard to get work visa’s over there but if I can get a job in the EU it might be a good springboard for traveling to all the nearby countries while working. And I could always wreck dive.
• Return to work in the US in ID. This is obviously the most likely thing to happen. But I want to stay somewhere near diving so my obvious top choices would be Florida, California, and Hawaii.
• Do ID work for PADI or NAUI (dive certification companies). They use IDers and I would LOVE to do ID work for the dive industry. But not sure how to break into that and if I need to be an instructor first. I imagine so.
• Become a pirate.

So yeah, my idea is that I want to keep doing ID work and keep diving. I like ID work a lot especially for academia and it’s pretty much what I have continued doing here in Honduras. But diving is what I really want to do. If I didn’t have the loans it would be no contest. I would just be a dive instructor. But then I’m not even a rescue diver yet so I should probably do that first… Anyway, anybody out there have any other ideas for traveling and working? I don’t think I’m cut out for Foreign Service although I did think about USAID.

Oh so yeah, above I was talking about that now things seem more normal to me than they did before so I don’t really find things that funny anymore. And really this is pretty true. I mean, to me, having a 2 ton bull chilling out in your front yard just means you have to be careful not to step in 2 ton bull shit. I was surprised the other day when a couple of new trainees were visiting me and they took pictures of the donkeys chilling on the sidewalk by my house. It took me a second to remember that donkeys don’t normally hang out on your front porch in the US. What an odd country, the US. I mean, how are you supposed to haul your beans home if you don’t have a donkey nearby? It’s a wonder the US is a superpower at all!

I also just have come to really enjoy taxi rides in Tegucigalpa rather than being terrified. They are just pure comedy. First of all you are literally taking your life into your hands when you ride in a taxi as they swerve up on curbs, through red lights, between lanes, never slowing, never braking, just going with the flow. Or creating the flow. My last taxi ride had the best theme song to it ever. Usually it is reaggeaton which is appropriate enough for a taxi ride. But this time I started giggling in the back seat as I heard the bumping beats of:

In L.A they get Krazy (Hey)

Miami they get Krazy
In New York they get Krazy (I see it)

Atlanta they get Krazy (ATL Baby)
In London they get Krazy (a Huh)

in Paris they get Krazy (a Huh)

(And so on)

I mean how perfect? And I swear taxis move to the beat of the song including when they hit bumps so I feel the whole time like I am in a Guerilla’s music video.

So yeah, although I have come to accept a lot of things about Honduras there are still a lot of things about the US that I really miss. I definitely made a tactical error in not going home before this coming Christmas. Now of course I miss my family and friends, more than they probably realize. More than I realized I would, honestly, but even more so I miss things such as:

• Sidewalks. Sidewalks here mystify me. Why bother wasting concrete if you are just going to put an electric pole in the middle of your sidewalk. Or make it go from 4 feet wide to 1 inch wide in the space of 10 feet. Or make it 4 feet above the street with no stairs. Or let your drunk uncle sleep on it. I mean seriously, people.
• Lines. I am convinced that lines are the mark of a developed country. When people in developing countries can queue up and wait their turn it will be a sign that the NGO’s, USAID, and Peace Corps can go home. Their work is done.
• Men. Now this one may surprise you. But I mean it. And just hang with me for a second all of my jaded lady friends. I miss having male friends and it being perfectly normal. And I miss not having to wonder if a guy is talking to me because he hopes I’ll marry him, have 20 of his babies, make tortillas all day, and take him to the US so he can cheat on me. I swear I am suspicious of every man who says a word to me and it makes me feel terrible. But I swear people, the men here are about to drive me into a life of raging lesbianism…. Wait…
• Gay people. And by gay I do mean happy, of course. But I also mean gay people.
• Kitchen Appliances. Now I have learned that these are really entirely unnecessary. But dear god I do miss blending, baking, liquefying, poaching, grating, wokking, and so on.

Okay seriously I could go on and on but I think I should save some things for another blog. I’ll come back to that topic next time.

So I have been up to a lot work wise. Rather than go on and on about it I’m going to put up a couple of pages with information on what has been going on with my projects. Feel free to read them if you are interested and feel free to lend some help if you so feel inclined as well. There are tabs up at the top of the page for my projects.

I have continued to travel around although the past couple of months I have stayed home to try to make some headway on a few projects that needed quite a bit of attention. I was planning on going to Nicaragua soon but my plans got a bit waylaid. So now I’m considering if I want to go to Guatemala and El Salvador for a bit and then go to Nicaragua and Costa Rica after service or vice versa. I have about 2 weeks before I start the DM that I want to travel a bit. I’d like to see all of Central America before I leave if possible. And maybe get down to Colombia to see a couple of friends down there. But I am sidetracked.

Anyway, lots of people ask me about diving and when I have been last. Truthfully last I went was in late February early March. Waaaaay too long ago. So I think I may make another trip very soon to finally suck it up and do Rescue. I have a bit of a problem taking my mask of underwater (sort of like extreme terror) so I have to fix that issue before I can rescue people, but hopefully I will be a Rescue Diver by my birthday. And then I’ll just dive for fun when/if I can afford it until I start the DM! I’m so excited about that it’s ridiculous.

So I guess I will leave it for now. Feel free to check out what is going on in my projects. A lot has been going on down here but not all of it is stuff that I can blog about. Suffice it to say that things have been interesting. I’ve been on top of the world and I’ve also been pretty low. But at the end of the day I try to remember my reasons for coming, I try to remember there are people who need and want my help, and I try to remember that you can choose to learn from all the things that happen to you. Then there are still beautiful things in the world, like the millions of butterflies in Honduras that flitter and flutter by you when you are walking to a community. Things like that make me smile. And who knows, maybe I will accomplish something good. And if I don’t, well, at least I will have tried. That’s more than most.

So what have I been doing the past months? Oh well I have been all over the place. I have been nearly as far North and as far South as you can go in Honduras. I have spent time with people so poor that they only have rice, beans, corn, and coffee to eat and I have spent time with people who can afford olives and fancy cheeses (of which I shamelessly took the leftovers home). I have been on the top of a mountain and the bottom of the ocean. I have had moments of uplifting joy and debilitating sadness. I have had successes and I have had failures. I have spent days working so much that I barely had time to sleep and days that all I did was sleep for lack of work. I have traveled with livestock, shat behind bushes, bathed in front of a village, been robbed, given myself food poisoning, fought off parasites, hitchhiked in the back of trucks, eaten things that I don’t even want to know what they were, and have continued to try to do some good all the while wondering if I have lost my mind coming to this crazy country.

As you all may have noticed, I try to keep my blogs lighthearted with a humorous look at the odd things that happen to you when alone in a foreign country such as realizing that the reason pages are missing from your Peace Corps library book is probably because the previous reader also got vomited on by a small child on a bus and had to use the pages to remove the bus-food that the idiot woman fed her child on super curvy roads. Not to mention daily routines such as neighbors supplying you with garlic when what you wanted to borrow was a pot (damn similar words), the complete normalcy of a random 2-ton bull grazing in your yard, and idiotic conversations with bus drivers:

“Para donde va?” (Where are you going?)

“Sabanagrande.”

“Como?” (Huh?)

“Sabanagrande.”

“San Lorenzo?”

“No, Sabanagrande. Sabanagrande!”

“Tiloarque?”

“No, Sa-ba-na-gran-de.”

“Eh?”

“Sabanagrande!!!!!”

“Ohhhh SabanaGRANde!”

And so on. But I think it is only fair that once in awhile I tell the other side about Peace Corps service. Usually we volunteers rely on each other to bring us out of the inevitable funks of service when you spend hours staring at the dust bunny in the corner whilst thinking: “Am I helping at all?” “Am I completely useless?” “Is there anything that I’m actually good at?” “Is all of this for nothing?” “Should I worry about that rash?” “Where the hell do all these ants COME from!?!”

But about this time in service (according to the very annoyingly accurate “graph of Peace Corps service”) most of all of us find ourselves struggling. For many of us talking to people at home doesn’t help much as it’s hard for people to understand what service is like and most of our families think we are nuts anyway. Thus being the reason why Returned Peace Corps Volunteers have a tendency to have an immediate bond regardless of where in the world they served and what their project was: “You were a computer technician in a town of 200,000 with electricity, cable, and running water in Costa Rica??? COOL! I had to raise my own sheep for food and taught farming in a town of 200 on top of a mountain in Mongolia! FRIEND!!!!”

I know for myself one of the hardest things at the moment is recognizing how much I have changed and not knowing if I have necessarily changed all for the better. That is probably an unfair statement as it is likely more a stark realization and admission of my weaknesses more than it is that I have changed for the worse. I certainly have become a better person and have realized a lot of the things that we see as truths in the states, subconsciously or not, as false (such as the insatiable need for “things”). I have also realized what I want to do when I grow up (finally) and the steps I am going to need to get there.

I don’t want to go too in depth about my failures in the past year of Peace Corps especially as most of them are personal failures. Suffice it to say that this past year was one of learning and all of this is leading up to me saying that one of the things I have always struggled with in life (as do most of us) is the search for Peace. I think Peace Corps service brings into stark revelation the difficulty of finding inner peace due largely to the incredible amount of time you spend by yourself. The loneliness of Peace Corps can be absolutely smothering even in a “posh corps” country where there is internet and phone access (anyone who thinks Honduras is “posh corps” should sit through our security trainings with our super awesome yet frightening security advisor whom we refer to as Batman). And with overwhelming loneliness comes far too much time to think.

My marathon bouts of thinking have led me to my own personal truth that many people around the world try to live, some even successfully: only you can give yourself Peace. It doesn’t come from your job. It doesn’t come from your friends. It does not come from your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, or children. It does not come from your car, house, iphone, or your brand new cornflower blue upholstered duvet from IKEA. I do not believe it comes from religion (and yes, I consider spirituality and religion to be different). And it most assuredly does not come from volunteer service overseas. Jobs are fleeting. Friends come and go. Relationships come and go, dynamics change, and children grow up and move on. Your stuff breaks or becomes old. Religion can be as damaging as it can be a salvation. And service is just as selfish as it is altruistic. And though these things are normal parts of life the only thing you really have control over is your choice to learn, grow, and find the Peace you are looking for within yourself. And there is no need for you to agree. We are all on our own journey and this is simply a glimpse of mine.

So I am hoping that the things I have learned about myself both good and bad will lead to good things in my second year of service. When I am able to see past the difficulties of life in the Peace Corps I feel lucky to have another year to work on myself without the pressures of life in the United States. And I am looking forward to embracing my successes and learning from my failures, growing as a person, and discovering Peace within myself. First, I have to get up in the morning. I have to put one foot in front of the other. I have to put my pathetically bedraggled pants on one leg at a time. I have to laugh and cry. And I have GOT to win this food war with my neighbor.

FOOD WAR

I don’t know exactly HOW I ended up in a food war with my neighbor and I thought this was an isolated situation until another volunteer told me that SHE is having a food war with her neighbor TOO! What is a food war you might ask? Well, it starts out as a simple typical conversation with your Honduran neighbor that goes something like:

“So what exactly do you EAT Rebecca?”

“Huh?”

“Well you can’t cook, so what do you eat?”

“What makes you think I can’t cook?”

“Well you don’t cook in the US. You just make things from cans and eat at McDonalds.”

“(…long disbelieving pause…) Well, I can actually cook.”

“You can?”

“Yeah I used to cook all the time at home I just don’t cook as much here because I live alone. (Which is true. I eat like a college student now. Mmmmm popcorn and cookies for dinner…).”

So after this conversation I made some delicious coconut-curry lentil and vegetable stew and took it over to my neighbors’ for her to try. She looked at it skeptically but tried it and said it was fantastic. Well, I didn’t think much of it until a day later when she brought me over a plate of carne asada. And then I brought over French Toast which she didn’t know how to make. And then she returned with banana fritters. Cantaloupe is answered by Blackberry Juice. M&Ms with balleadas (a most fantastic Honduran food). Peanut Butter Toast is countered with fried fish! I can’t win with this woman! I sneak popcorn to her kids at 2 in the afternoon and by 7 at night there is candied papaya at my door! At the moment I think I am up by an offering of tangerines. But I know deep inside that I may have won the battle. But the war rages on.

HOLIDAYS

So it has been so long since I have written that I actually have to go all the way back to Christmas and New Years. I decided to stay in my town for the holidays so that I could see a Honduran holiday at least one during my service. And I must say that I am very glad that I did. It was an absolutely charming time.

First of all, here in Hondyland they do not celebrate Christmas Day but instead Celebrate Christmas Eve. So at 10pm Christmas Eve I set off to church with my neighbor. Which in and of itself was interesting as I do not frequent churches, I’m not Catholic and have never been to mass, everything was in Spanish and since it was Catholic I wasn’t really catching the Spanish versions of “thus” and “thou,” and I was most obviously the ADD gringa sitting in the middle of the church looking harried and awkward. After mass I took pictures of Nolbia’s kids including this lovely one at the right which features the feet of a passed out man across the street from the church and at the foot of the nativity. Even on Christmas Honduras is charming. We then went back to her house and ate some of the best food I have ever had in Honduras which apparently is only made at Christmas including chicken cooked with pork. Which ironically I’m pretty sure is anti-bible. But whatever, who am I to point fingers? Actually, I must say, it was nice to see a Christmas that was completely about the meaning of the day rather than commercialism. People here are too poor to give gifts except maybe one small gift so the day is really very meaningful.

I was supposed to go to my host family’s party that night but I didn’t as there are some politics between Nolbia and my host family, and frankly it was 3am. So I went to bed. Next day I woke up and realized that not only do Hondurans not celebrate on Christmas Day but the whole town is deserted. Everyone stays at home with their families. And who is the unprepared gringa who has no food in her house? This girl. So around 3pm and very very hungry I finally decide to go to my host family’s house to beg for food. And when I arrive… the party is still raging. Now I have never seen my host family party. So they make up for lack of partying by throwing one gigantic party. I barely walk in the door and my host dad is handing me a….soda (cough cough). What better way to celebrate the birth of Christ than a nice cold… soda… I always say. After a few drinks and an empty stomach I grabbed my host mom while she was walking by and said “Please. I am so hungry. Do you have anything to eat???” And she brought out 3 tamales cut up for us all to share. And on the sly she hands me a giant plate of rice and chicken. Thank god for host moms.

New Years was a blast though it started out with me sitting in my living room watching Ocean’s 12 and 13. Around 10pm I decided I was being lame and needed to go out. So I went to the park where to large groups of kids were throwing fireworks at each other. You should probably know that fireworks are common enough here that I can now easily distinguish between fireworks and gunshots. At Christmastime it is ridiculous as fireworks are very very cheap. And we are talking about REAL fireworks. Not those prissy little ones we have in the states but legitimate 1st degree burn, finger loss, toilet exploding fireworks. So this firework battle was like a full scale war. If a kid got close to hitting a kid the air was filled with whoops and hollers. And at least twice I had to hop over my bench and duck to avoid being hit by a stray. This went on for at least an hour and a half with gaps in the action only occurring when an occasional little old lady walked slowly through the milieu. After a screechy pink firework flew past my ear, I decided to go back to my host family’s house and see what they were up to.

Well, the host fam was pretty partied out after Christmas so instead I went with Alejandro (related to host family by marriage and boyfriend of former volunteer) to watch the formal fireworks. Now, I was expecting a piddly little firework show with some kid throwing bottle rockets into the air. I was surprised to find out that precisely at midnight the skies absolutely lit up with fantastic fireworks right above all of our houses. It was so awesome and amazingly fire-starting dangerous. The best part was that all around town were “muñecas” which are basically effigies of people (some included ousted president Mel Zalaya, Baraq Obama, Pepe Lobo the new president, and others). Well these life-sized effigies are FILLED with fireworks and are placed all around town. At precisely midnight they are all set off in this fantastic display of explosions and fireworks streaming out of them. This is a really beautiful (literally and figuratively) tradition that is meant to get rid of all of the bad things of the past year an usher in a fresh start to the New Year. It was really cool. The night got quite a bit crazier after that but sadly I cannot divulge the goings-on on my blog. I will have to tell you in person. Let´s just say it involved pushing a car down a road, a nearly boyfriend, clear liquid in a bottle with a hummer on the label, and climbing my fence to get back into my place.

WORKING HARD FOR THE MONEY

So besides fireworks and food I have actually been occasionally finding time to work as well. I’ve been up to a fair amount including a 2 week gender training with USAID in Tegucigalpa. This happened purely by accident thanks to a contact in the USA who I developed a course for at UF who was personal friends with the lady giving the training. So I was able to act as an instructional designer and help her create and give the training. It was a lot of fun and was really cool to see another aid organization from the US. Especially one so different from Peace Corps.

The best part, I have to admit, is that the lady who I did the workshop with bought me food at restaurants that I would look at longingly and never enter on my Peace Corps salary and she even let me take a BATH in her bathtub in her super posh hotel room. It was my first bath that didn’t come from a bucket in a year and I felt like a princess. I think she thought I was slightly off my rocker especially when she took me to the hotel restaurant buffet and I stood there for about 5 minutes literally gaping at the amount and variety of food. Of course, on the other hand, Peace Corps changes your perspective so much that I was horrified at the gross lavishness and excess in a country of starving people (whilst licking a 4th helping of deliciousness off of my fingers).

My main project is the Water Board Training Manual which is quiet boring to talk about as it is a pretty solitary job. But maybe you can appreciate that I’m trying to create a training manual for illiterate audiences. I mean, can you think of how to teach accounting and bookkeeping, even a very simple version, to illiterate people? Dear god in heaven it is stretching my instructional design creativity to the maximum.

One of my favorite projects that I have been up to was a survey in Guapichilin. This is a very small rural coffee farmer town on the top of a mountain. There are around 50 houses total and this is one of the poorer places I have been. For example, the only family with a latrine was the one that I lived with during the survey. The rest of the survey, if I wasn’t at their house, I was going behind bushes. This family was lucky as they had a pila to hold their water (kind of like a concrete holding tank). The houses are all dirt adobe with dirt floors. Most of the community walks 2 hours one way to work on a coffee farm for 70 lempira a day ($3.70). This is their entire income to supplement what they are able to grow as subsistence farmers. I asked them what happens if their crops fail and they say “We don’t eat.” Working with this community for a week was very moving.

The funniest part was at the end of the survey. Usually, during a survey, you end up collecting kids who are curious and follow you around most of the day. I always stop and lower my total station so they can look through it as it has a powerful scope and you can see for miles. The look on their faces when they look through and see a house that is very far away like it is up close is absolutely hysterical. Well, on the last day of my survey I was packing up my equipment and my host mom says “My son says you can see really far with that.” And I say, “Yeah you can. Do you want to see?” And she shyly says, “Yes, please!”

So, I set up the total station in their back yard from where you can see at least three towns (we were very high up) and focused on a house. She looked through it and gasped and started chattering so fast I couldn’t catch her Spanish. Next thing you know there is a line of about 30 people including men, women, and children who are all vying for a chance to look through. I ended up focusing it on a soccer game in a nearby town and one by one they would look through and narrate the game “The guy in the red shirt just scored!!!” (kid gets pushed away by another kid) “The guy in blue has the ball! He passed it! (another kid pushes that one away…). It was a great moment. One I will always remember.

Oh dear, I have so much I haven’t written about yet. Let’s see, other work stuff is pretty much more of the same. Surveys, designs, workshops, more surveys, lots of tortillas and beans, hmmm… I have seen some more of Hondyland…

AROUND HONDURAS

Utila continues to be one of my absolute favorite places in Honduras if not one of my favorite places anywhere. It is such a relaxed little island but with enough of a developed world vibe to make it a nice break from mainland Honduras. I spent another week diving in Utila in February. Every moment I spend diving just solidifies more and more that this is something I would like to do for a lifetime. I will certainly get my professional dive certification after service and will very likely stay in Utila for the longer term. If you hear of any distance-based Instructional Design jobs be sure to let me know.

On this trip to the funky little island one of the best moments was diving with a sea turtle for 45 minutes of an hour long dive. It was only the second time I had ever seen a turtle (the previous being the day before and only very briefly) and it was just the coolest time. There were 4 of us diving together and apparently during the dive we were all having the same thought “I hope the others don’t mind I keep staring at this turtle…” But how could you possibly want to swim away? Their personalities are absolutely adorable and literally remind me of the turtles in Finding Nemo (which has captured the personalities of the sea life in the movie in astonishing accuracy… though I have not yet encountered a vegetarian shark but I imagine they are just like that). At the end of the dive when we finally had to go up the turtle literally stopped and watched us swim to the surface and get out of the water. I am virtually positive he was thinking “Duuuuude! Where ya going!?!?”

Other crowning moments of the dive included seeing a porcupine fish on nearly every single dive. They are hysterical creatures and one of the dive masters describes them as swimming around the ocean and going up to other sea life saying “Will you be my friend???” with doofy accents. I think this is a completely accurate description.

And my other favorite moment was with a huuuuge Anglefish who decided to come investigate my mask and ate one of my air bubbles. I was cracking up! Yeah, I will spare you from going on at length about diving. I feel like my blog is becoming too much like “Becky’s Blog of Sea Life Fun!” and there is plenty of time for that after Peace Corps service.

I will also say that I sadly got my bag stolen on the way home from that trip and lost all kinds of stuff including all of my toiletries, books, clothes, all my diving/swimming clothes, a credit card, and so on. It cost me half a month’s salary to replace all of the toiletries alone. That stuff is really expensive here. I will now likely be diving in soccer shorts and a t-shirt as well. Ah well. At least my bag was only stolen. It could have been far worse here in Honduras.

I also took a trip to the Pico Bonito National Park with a friend of mine. That was an absolutely awesome time. The place we stayed at was run by a German couple and was very nice. The food was amazing and we were given the “jungle cabin” to stay in which was located just over a babbling brook and was a nice wooden cabin with windows all around the perimeter. The lodge was right in the national park so it was incredibly quiet and peaceful. While at the park we went on a waterfall hike which led us through a river and up a mountain where we first ended up at a small pool of water and a little waterfall where we stopped and swam a bit. Then we continued up the mountain where I managed to bloody myself falling on a rock, to the main part of the waterfall which was absolutely astoundingly beautiful. The funny part was I ended up interpreting for our Honduran guide for the gringo’s. I guess Spanish can come in handy in… Honduras.

Anyway, the trip to Pico Bonito was incredibly memorable and we spent a lot of time at the river just watching the birds and how pretty everything was. It was, tourist wise, one of the best weeks I have had in Honduras. I can’t wait to go back.

I also visited Lake Yajoa, the only lake in Honduras, with a Peace Corps group. That was also really cool and we also went to see a waterfall. We decided to go with the guide behind the waterfall which turned out to be incredibly treacherous and super fun. One of those moments that you would never be able to do in the states for liability. For some reason, when our guide said “You get completely wet.” I figured that meant “You get somewhat wet.” So I kept my jeans on even though I had shorts on underneath. Turns out that “You get completely wet” means exactly what it sounds like! At one point you are up to your chest in water with the waterfall pouring down. You have to look down to breathe. It was sooooo cool.

On the same trip we went bird watching with a quirky British man and saw 44 different bird species! It was so nerdily cool.

FERRIA (CARNIVAL)

And the last major thing that happened recently was ferria in Sabanagrande which is sort of like carnival. This is a weeklong event and pretty much everything stops for it. It was a great time although I spent a great deal of time eyeing the oh-so-obvious 1960s discarded American carnival rides with great trepidation. I did end up being convinced to ride the Viking ship (you know, the one that swings back and forth) and started laughing once I realized that the generator was only for the lights on the ride. The ride itself functioned by two sweaty teenage boys swinging the boat back and forth until it had enough momentum to move on its own. It was freeking hysterical and I was waiting for the whole thing to fall apart at any moment. Not to mention that Nolbia was holding her 5 year old nephew by the shirt collar to keep him from sliding under the railing while he was laughing hysterically.

The other fun thing about ferria were the insane amount of coronations. This is one tradition that completely baffled me. Every night someone was being crowned for something including a little girl, a teenage girl, an old woman, and the “rey feo” or “ugly king” which was basically a bunch of dudes in drag. It was completely mystifying to me but I enjoyed it and the whole town would be out watching. This was one of all kinds of crazy events including boxing matches (kids, adults, men, women… although none of the women would actually fight), a foot race, bull riding, greased pig catching, and so on. They even had a sheep riding contest for the kids. It was like being at a spring festival in 1850.

So that is my odd little life in Honduras. I have a bunch of stuff coming up including trying to raise money for a water system that is ready to be built (I will put up another post about that soon), activities in schools such as a World Map art project and the Colgate (how to brush your teeth!!!) program and reforestation activities. And continuing to work on the manual and water surveys. We have our one year medical review coming up soon which should be fun to find out who has become diabetic or developed high blood pressure from the horrible food here. And who has been walking around unknowingly with a parasite or cavities (coca cola is given out like water here… probably because the water will give you parasites…).

And of course I always have my eye on another trip diving whenever I can afford it and have the time. And if you come visit… we can totally go diving… So I hope you are all well. I will try to be better about making more consistent posts. But you guys should post a comment now and again so I know you are still reading! Until next time. Come visit.

Look at the pretty pictures that I recently put up and you shall be convinced…

Guapichilin Survey

A Very Honduran Navidad

Honduras is Pretty 2010 (Lake Yajoa and Pico Bonito)

You can search iTunes for the podcast: La Vida Hondureña or you can simply go to http://balemos.podbean.com/

Enjoy and I will post soon!

Not a creature was stirring (though the bedbugs still bite).

The work boots were hung by the pila with care,

In hopes that St. Nick would smoosh the spider over there…

The gringa was nestled in her foam colchon bed,

While visions from malaria meds danced in her head.

And host mom in her kerchief, and chickens in the door,

Had just settled down for a brief tropic snore.

When out in the cornfield there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my mosquito net to see what was the matter.

Past the latrine I flew like a flash,

Down the dirt road while scratching my rash.

The moon on the leaves of the new growing beans,

Gave the luster of soap stains on my patched hand-washed jeans.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear?

But a broken down Ford with a rusty veneer!

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be Santos Nick.

More rapid than ants in the kitchen they came,

He whistled and shouted his reindeer by name:

Now Juan Carlos Romero Gonzalez! Now Maria Blanca Espanoza Gomez! Now Pablo Jorge Rivera Castillo, and Jesus Carlos Nuñez Castro!

On Juancho, On Rosa, On Sonia Mirza Sanchez Avila!

To the top of the roof with adobe dirt walls!

Now dash away! Dash away! Ignore those cat calls!

So up to the clay roofs they nimbly flew,

With a Ford full of jalóners, and Santos Nicholas, too!

And then like the mice I hear in the roof,

Came the prancing and pawing of each little hoof!

A sleeping bolo I stepped clumsily ‘round,

While out the fogón Santos Nicholas came with a bound!

He was dressed with his belly sticking out of his shirt,

And his clothes were all tarnished with tobacco and dirt.

And he looked like a campesino just opening his pack,

He had flung on back of a small donkey’s back.

His eyes—how they twinkled! His dimples how merry.

His cheeks were like mangoes his nose a strawberry.

His quaint little mouth was rolled up like a tortilla,

Ready to dip in frijoles with mantequilla.

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow,

(Though what snow is I really don’t know.)

The stump of a pipe he held tight with his tooth,

And the smoke it encircled his head in a poof.

He had a little round belly and a broad smiling face,

For large bravo dogs he was ready with mace.

He was chubby and plump like a giant catratcho yeti,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of his machete.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the rain boots; then turned with a jerk.

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a snap up the fogón he rose.

He sprang to his Ford, to his team gave whistle,

And away they all flew like an ousted president hiding in Brazilian Embassy thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

Happy Christmas to all, and don’t forget the selección plays tonight!

(fogon is a dirt and poo stove, pila is a concrete water basin, colchon is a foam mat, jaloner is a hitchhiker, campesino is a famer, mantequilla is like sour cream)

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM HONDURAS!!! I MISS YOU ALL!!!

Well, it has been an interesting few weeks. I actually am currently swamped with work but knew that I have been shirking my blog again, so I wanted to write one up to send to ya’ll. Sadly, I have not had the opportunity to continue with my photo blog so hopefully I can pick that up next time. So, since I need to get back to focusing on work, here is a quick update of my Peace Corps happenings:

Thanksgiving in a Nutshell:

• Celebrated in La Esperanza, Intibucá which is the coldest part of Honduras.
• 20 volunteers congregated.
• Veggies and dip, Fruit salad, Swedish meatballs, mini-quiches, whole wheat rolls, poppy seed rolls, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, stuffing, bacon turkey, regular turkey, backyard campo turkey, pumpkin pie, apple pie, pumpkin cheesecake, tiramisu, pumpkin log, and brownies! Shew!
• Bonfire, hippie guitar playing, singing of songs, fireworks.

Backyard Campo Turkey

So perhaps you noticed I slipped in Backyard Campo Turkey in the Thanksgiving feast and perhaps you did not. But clearly there is a story here.

So I got to the Thanksgiving house a couple of days early to meet some folks and work on the Water Board training manual. And while we were working there were also Thanksgiving preparations taking place. And I kept hearing about these three turkeys, two of which were already purchased from a supermarket in a nearby city and one of which was to be brought by a couple of volunteers. So they were respectfully called turkey, bacon turkey, and campo (farm) turkey. Well, I hear Melissa and Elayne arrive one morning while I am in the shower and when I get out of the bathroom I immediately go into the backyard to hang up my towel and lo and behold but what do I find? Campo Turkey is standing in the backyard and is staring at me. What. The. Hell.

When I met Campo Turkey I started to suspect that perhaps he was not a frozen butterball but in fact a real live turkey. And I also think that Campo Turkey was starting to suspect that he may meet with his demise quite soon as he seemed to be suspiciously eyeing the two turkeys thawing on the pila. Turns out that we were quite right as Peace Corps La Esperanza Thanksgiving apparently has a standing tradition of slaughtering a turkey and Campo Turkey was not just an oddly chosen and poorly named pet. Something about being closer to your food? I don’t know. I was a vegetarian far too long, am a vegetarian in my heart, and thus was horrified that Campo Turkey was standing under the clothes line looking quite nervous.

 Well, Melissa and Elayne told me the story of how they got the turkey tied up in a sack and then transported in their laps on the bus and all I can tell you is it was hysterical and I’m glad it wasn’t me. I did not attend the slaughtering of Campo Turkey, but I did try some and it was much tougher and gamier than turkey or bacon turkey. But it was good. I did not feel closer to Campo Turkey for having met him, but I am glad that the others did and had a nicer Thanksgiving for it. I did, however, meet most of the Granny Smith apples and thus felt very close to the apple pie…

El Ocotal (not La Jagua) Survey!

This survey took 5 days and was exceedingly complicated including having to pass under the PanAmerican highway 3 times. The first day I am pretty sure I surveyed with the human equivalent of a litter of puppies. When they weren’t jabbing each other with their machetes, knocking each other in the head, and goofing off we surveyed. This may have been because the roster included: Geraldo Avila, Santos Avila, Vijilio Avila, Alfredo Avila, Ricky Avila, Daniel Avila, Eugenio Avila, and Supriano Avila Espenoza. I kid you not.

On the first day I surveyed 33 houses and 22 had the surname Avila.  When I inquired (they all realized it was funny) the explanation was that it was “colonial.” Oh, well, if it’s colonial than I guess it’s not weird. Can I use that to explain all things Honduran?

• Why is that guy passed out in the street? He’s colonial.
• Why do you guys set off bottle rockets in broad daylight? It’s a colonial thing.
• Why are there ants everywhere? Came over on colonial ships.
• Why are you guys late all the time? The colonies transcend time.

Some of my favorite moments of this survey included:

• We had to literally rock climb up a cliff wall of about 10 meters set up against soft sand that was being excavated. It’s really never good when the Hondurans slip and almost fall.
• My back shot was held by a 10 year old boy the almost entire time. He was by far the best worker of them all. He also managed to carry a 2  meter high stick (about 6 1/2 ft) up the cliff wall without problems.
• We had to survey through 4 storm drains so that we could bring the water across the highway. One of the storm drains we actually had to go into and I could feel the bats whizzing by my head. Once, however, a lady in the community brought us all cokes and cookies and we sat and ate them down in the storm drain ditch. It was kind of nice other than that I was warily eyeing the holes in the ground that seemed to indicate snakes and the obvious perfect dark and dank environment for gigantic spiders. I guess, however, we were noisy and obnoxious enough that all the critters fled…  except the bats.
• We had to survey through the middle of the El Ocotal Restaurant and Zoo which not only fed me breakfast and lunch the whole week, but also proudly displays a vast assortment of animals including snakes, ostriches, pumas, monkeys, and the ever-so-rare raccoon.
• My biggest regret on this survey was not taking a camera with me to show you how ridiculous this terrain was and how hysterical the community was. One thing that drove me nuts was the guy with the prism, where I shoot the laser to (forward shot) kept putting the prism in the most awkward places where I then had to follow him and attempt to set up and level my equipment including on a 3 foot high pile of gravel sitting in the middle of a perfectly flat piece of land (why???), and just in front of a large steaming pile of donkey poo.
• The two best moments of the entire survey were:

1. When I accidentally broke my pencil lead and Eugenio grabbed it and sharpened it with his machete.
2.  When I was waiting for everyone to show up after lunch and at almost exactly at 1pm a donkey standing nearby (as livestock often are) let out one single long and obnoxious bray. I didn’t even notice he was there (yep, 10 months in Honduras) and I looked up and my eyebrows went up into my scalp. And without missing a beat this old toothless machete wielding Honduran man says, “Oh, don’t worry. That’s what we call a Honduran clock. He does that every hour.” I had to walk away I was laughing so hard.

La Jagua (the real one) Survey

Took 1 day. Fast, easy, simple, and not terribly notable other than that it was an absolutely beautiful sunny and cool day. Best moment of the entire survey:

“Okay, so we are going to give each point a letter and a number, for example A1, A2, A3 but we are going to change letters at each branch.”

“Oh, like the A, C, V’s?”

“What?”

“You know, A… C… V… S… E… the A,C,V’s.”

“……….. Exactly.”

 Other Projects

• Next week helping out with a workshop on Gender in Development for USAid, Hoduras. To be given to gringos. I’m frantically reading up on this topic.
• Have to present my very first design to a community on Tuesday.
• Have to proof and translate about 15 activities for the Water Board manual sent to me by a volunteer and have to create and translate 10 of my own by the end of December. Yikes.

Elections

Well, elections were pretty chill, thankfully as we were all kind of half waiting for all of Honduras to explode (as were the Hondurans). There was all this news of a resistance but it ended up not really materializing other than a bus bombing in the North of the country a week before the elections. We were on lockdown in our sites during the elections which was probably a good move on Peace Corps’ part. I sort of observed from a distance as my host father was running for mayor and I was curious if he would win or not. The main differences that I found interesting in their elections were the huge military presence in every single community. They actually shut down schools early this year for the elections, cut off access to the building that had the ballots backed up with military vehicles and personnel wielding machine guns, and in some cases cut off entire streets so that nobody could pass.

During the elections it was surprisingly quiet. In the evening when the ballots closed I watched from my balcony as each “urna” was brought sealed with tape and accompanied by two armed guards to the counting station. Curiosity did get the better of me eventually and I walked to the outskirts of where they were counting the ballots for the local vote. That was interesting because the street was filled with people waiting for the results and there were armed military everywhere.

Since the elections there have been constant parties by the nationalist party who won the presidential vote. That means not much to me as I have never really been able to tell the difference between the parties here. But I have to stay away from those events. My host dad did, in fact, get elected which may end up being good for me with work, but it was weird going to congratulate him because I had to kind of say “Congratulations!” and then run away from the party. And that’s about it with that.

So that’s it in a nutshell.

In other news, we have been struck by a bit of tragedy at my workplace, unfortunately. A couple of weeks ago one of my coworkers got into a motorcycle accident and got banged up pretty bad. Then this past Friday another one of my coworkers, a 28 year old accountant named Cristian, was in another motorcycle accident. From what I understand, he was in the right lane on a curvy part of the highway and a car going the opposite direction tried to pass another and came into his lane and hit him. He died the next day in the hospital in Tegucigalpa and left behind a wife and young son. So today I went with my coworkers to his wake which was only surpassed in discomfort by the time that I accidentally ended up at the head table at that random Honduran wedding.

It was an odd thing to intrude on the suffering of a family that I do not know to pay my respects to a Honduran man I barely knew. Cristian was a very nice guy but very quiet and I never worked directly with him. All I can truly say is that he was always very respectful towards me, which is both a rarity and a blessing in this machismo culture. He always had a ready smile, laughed at my attempted jokes in Spanish, and we had the occasional nice conversation – usually about the differences between the US and Honduras. I am sad that I did not know him better.

What I was struck by most at the wake was the suffering of his family, friends, and some of my coworkers who were closer with him. And it just made me think about the frailty of life and how I still have not learned to live in the here and now. Though, I am learning how to do this a bit more every day and continue to try to improve. It also made me think about how death is a step to the next great adventure for the deceased and only those left behind suffer. But when I die, I don’t want my family and friends to suffer as I believe that I will simply be moving on. Therefore, I have outlined below what I would like to occur at my wake/funeral in the event that I leave early. Let it be known to all that:

• If possible my organs shall be donated.
• My body shall be disposed of with the new “green” method of freezing and then shattering the body to make fertilizer. My fertilizer shall be spread in a field of pretty flowers. Try to avoid ragweed as it gave me fits during life. I would prefer wildflowers though I realize that this means I will likely end up in the median of a Florida highway. Just please be sure it isn’t windy that day as I don’t fancy being blown onto the pavement and run over by a bunch of cars from Ohio.
• If green proves too expensive, I shall be cremated and taken to Utila Bay, Honduras, and spread onto the sea on the North side of the island during the sunset. It is preferred that a pod of dolphins, a whaleshark, and a sea turtle be present.
• All photos must be sporting either me with my customary peace sign, thumbs up sign, or goofy grin. Bad dancing pictures are also encouraged. All pictures from my sweater vest phase or my permed hair years are prohibited.
• Events shall start with the piece Everyday by Carly Comando and once everybody is convinced that my funeral will be your average sad affair, the pianist shall transition into Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Monty Python (singing/whistling pianist required).
• Guinness on tap shall be served freely along with an assortment of red wines and a mojito fountain. While I am at it, there shall also be a fountain of chocolate. Actually three: white, milk, and dark to compliment the mojitoes, Guinness, and red wine respectively. Oh, and vegan chocolate for the cousins.
• Mort and Andy must BBQ delicious foodstuffs.
•  There shall be neither wailing nor gnashing of teeth but instead either A) dueling pianists or B) karaoke. If option B is chosen the following requests have officially been made:
  • Summies must sing Toxic, by Brittany Spears.
  • There must be at least one horrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Life on Mars by David Bowie.
  • My favorite Irish drinking song, No Nay Never, shall be sung at top volume with much sloshing of beer and stomping of feet.
  • Any bluegrass song shall be accompanied by spoon-playing. Jambalaya is perfect for this.
  • My favorite karaoke songs should be sung including but not limited to: ABC, by The Jackson Five; Fat Bottom Girls, by Queen; the Joni Mitchell version of Big Yellow Taxi; A Little Respect, by Erasure; and I Don’t Feel Like Dancing, by The Scissor Sisters. Good songs are encouraged as well.
  • Summies, Jamietons, Sinneigh, and Kellinator must sing the Tell Me Whatcha Want Whatcha Really Really Want song by The Spice Girls. Pink assless chaps from Summer and Sindy’s wedding are encouraged but not required.
  • All Water and Sanitation Honduras 14 volunteers present must sing our theme song: Africa, by Toto getting all the words wrong until the chorus: “I blessed the rains down in Aaaaafricaaaa (I blessed the rains!)”
• A spontaneous rendition of the theme song to Golden Girls would be much appreciated. Spontaneity is optional.
• There shall be at least one ridiculously Honduran moment. Suggestions include:
  • Setting off bottle rockets during broad daylight.
  • Letting a chicken loose inside.
  • One relative getting exceedingly drunk and passing out face down on the floor with only one shoe on.
  • Coffee made of 50% sugar, 40% water, and 10% coffee served at boiling temperature in thin plastic cups.
  • A donkey that brays the hour every hour.
• There must be a giant bouncehouse for the children…. Okay and for most of my friends too.
• There must be a holy person from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths just in case. Not so worried about the Eastern Religions as they mostly think I will be reincarnated anyway.
• Everyone at an appointed time shall gather together to phone Sallie Mae and tell them that I have kicked the bucket and thus will not be paying my student loans. Everybody shall rejoice with much laughter, clink glasses, and toast to my triumph.
• Upon leaving all present shall be given:
  • A copy of The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.
  • Prayer flags to hang and a permanent pen to write prayers.
  •  An origami paper crane with a witty, amusing, and life affirming quote similar to the dove chocolates written inside.
  • A chest of tea. English Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Chai must be included in each.
  • A coupon for an iced mocha or a hazelnut coffee.
  • The most recent Beer Advocate magazine.
  • A scuba flag. Or a pirate flag. Or a scuba flag with a pirate on it.
  • A Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry school crest temporary tattoo.
  • A stuffed animal Meerkat.

Okay, well sorry so short but I really must focus on work. I have thus far managed to clean my house, do the dishes, take out the trash, do my laundry, write a blog, check my email, plug in my rechargeable batteries, and make several iPod playlists. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a toaster oven or I may have started to bake cookies as well. So now I must face the music and start on my work today. But first, I’m going to go buy a coke. And I really haven’t seen the host family in awhile…

Anyhoo, I am assuming I will post again before Christmas, but as I seem to be a bit of a blog slacker, if I don’t a Merry Christmas to all. For my Christmas I shall either force myself upon a poor unsuspecting Honduran family or I shall lock myself up in my apartment and marathon all 6 Harry Potter movies. We shall see. But I do miss you all terribly and wish I were celebrating with you at home. If you want to send a Christmas package don’t forget that sending me the postage via PayPal at rjwilliams79@gmail.com would be just as awesome and would save you time and effort. Packages are nice too. I can open them on Christmas and pretend like I’m normal. Well, as normal as I get, anyway.

Until next time stay away from motorcycles unless they fly and Hagrid is driving them, be sure to set off all your bottle rockets during New Years Day, and next time you are at karaoke please honor me with a stirring Honduran rendition of The Jackson Five: A, C, V! Easy as 6, 2, 3!

Beck

It started by a simple conversation that I struck up with my coworkers. “Han visto El Negrito?” I asked in complete innocence. Suddenly the entire office stopped dead in their tracks and looked at me like I had lost my mind. So naturally, I figured that I should repeat myself. “Han visto El Negrito??” I asked while thinking everyone was really being quite peculiar. My counterpart slowly turned to me with a look of complete incredulity on his face and said in a very slow and deliberate way, “Como?” And then it hit me. “Han visto El Negrito” literally translates to “Have you seen the little black man.” However, since El Negrito is the name of the town that I was just working in, I meant it as “Have you seen El Negrito.” Of course, where I may have erred is in the “Have you seen” bit. I mean, perhaps I should have used a more sensical phrase such as “Have you been to.” In any case my entire office thought I was being completely racist and quite frankly, a bit funny in the head to ask them if I had seen the little black man. When it hit me I said:

“No! No! El Negrito, Yoro! El pueblo! El Negrito, Yoro!”

“Ohhhhhhh, no, Rebecca. El frase es ‘Conocen El Negrito?’”

Yeah. At least when they figured out what I meant they laughed about it. Loudly. For quite some time.

Then a few days later I was walking a community to get to know the layout a bit and I kept insisting that we needed to work in “pájaros.” “Necesitamos trabajar en pájaros.” Yeah. They also kept looking at me like I grew a third arm. Not sure why, I personally think that: “We need to work in birds” is completely clear. Right. Pájaros = birds. Parejas = partners. They must have been wondering what birds had to do with a water system. I was wondering why the hell they had such a problem working in pairs.

Then after I bounced off of the “bad grammar” branch, I hit the oh-so-thorny “geographically challenged gringa” branch…

So, I had promised the community La Jagua months ago that I would do their topographical survey even though they hadn’t yet done an aforo study (aforo study determines the quantity and quality of water underground). This is not customary but I was doing it as a favor to my host dad. So this week Hoda took me to meet with a community and I thought it was La Jagua again, just meeting in a different location. So I made a nice long speech about how I had promised that I would do the study even though they hadn’t done the aforo and that I was going to keep my word and that I was ready for the topo survey when they were (I had dengue during this, by the way)! Go me! Yeah… wrong community. Oops. So now I have to do TWO topo surveys without aforos. It’s like Helen Keller is designing water systems. “WAAAATEERRR” (I may burn in hell for that comment…) Oh well. They can’t get funding without the aforo anyway, so it will have to be done eventually and then I will just redo any part of the design that needs to be adjusted.

Then I knocked into a few “confusion” branches and landed on the “bad planning” branch…

Suddenly, everybody wants my assistance so I have been trying to schedule myself to do a topographical survey, a Junta de Agua training manual meeting in another community, and some time to work with my counterpart on some educational leadership manuals. Well, I ran into my host dad the other day and he asked me when I was available to go with him to see the folks in La Jagua. Well, at this point I still was confused and thought El Ocotal WAS La Jagua. So I explained to him that I had confused some dates and needed to tell the community that I had to move the dates of our topographical survey to the week of the 16^th. “Great! I will tell them! And I will come with you the first day when you walk the community.” My host dad tells me. I thought that was rather nice of him!

Then, I get a phone call from the people of La Jagua (not the real one, it was actually El Ocotal whom I THOUGHT was La Jagua) and they ask if I am ready to start the survey tomorrow! I am now confused as I am pretty sure that I just had a conversation with my host dad a week ago where he said he would call them and move the dates to the 16^th. So, I tell them that there was some kind of miscommunication (WAAAATEEERRR…) and that I needed to move the dates of the survey and I would call him with the new dates after I talked with my counterpart about their schedule.

Then, I get a phone call from my host dad who asks me if I can meet with a community the next morning. Sure, no problem! I tell him. He tells me that it is the people of El Ocotal so now I think I’m going to go meet a new community! Fun! So next morning he picks me up and we drive to… wait… I thought this was La Jagua… Oh SHIT! This was El Ocotal the whole time!?!?! And then it dawns on me that the message never got to this community that I had to move the dates and there are 5 Honduran men with machetes ready to get to work! So, I walk the community with them (while calling my counterpart and telling him I’m going to be late because apparently I can’t speak Spanish) for about 4 hours. Then, I blame Tropical Storm Ida (rather than my own stupidity) on the fact that I have to now, at the last minute, move the topographical study (fijese que…). They took it quite well, actually. Of course, the next day ended up being perfectly sunny. God damn you, Ida.

So now, the question remains, where does the real La Jagua come into play in this whole scenario? And what did I agree to do the week of the 16^th? Where am I? What the hell is going on? WAAAATEERRRR…

Then, just to add insult to injury, I fell through all the branches and landed in the “screw over your neighbor” pile of crap fertilizing the base of the tree…

So yeah, my neighbor (and my only local Honduran friend) got a computer from funds sent by her illegal immigrant husband. She bought it second hand and all of the programs were in English. So, I promised I would get her the needed software in Spanish (I have a source). And she asked me if I could put a password on the computer so her kids couldn’t play it whenever they wanted (smart lady). So I said sure, no problem! Well, I put in the password, and when we restarted the computer… it wouldn’t accept it. No matter what combination of the number 13 and the word November we used it would not work. Not English, not Spanish, nothing. I felt like the worst person in the world. So her computer was completely locked. Thankfully, after I explained to her that I needed to get a hold of Vista reinstallation disks, she called the people whom she bought the machine from and they came over with the disks and reinstalled everything. I don’t think she will be asking me for computer help again anytime soon.

Okay, so I wrote most of my blog last night, and this morning I get a jolt of my phone waking me at, well honestly, a perfectly legitimate time to call a person. So turns out it was Hoda asking me if I was ready to go with him to…. Guess where… LA JAGUA!!!! The real La Jagua!!! Not El Ocotal posing as La Jagua! So, I am of course confused because today is most definitely NOT the 16^th. But, I get up, get dressed quickly, and meet him downstairs and off we go to La Jagua where I walked the community for 3 hours. Words of wisdom – when you arrive and all the machete carrying men are wearing rain boots… you are in trouble. Thankfully, I had my boots on but I still took notice of the copious amounts of mud and cow poo in which I trod. That is going to be REALLY fun with my equipment. I will be sure not to bite my nails during this survey. Oh, and I still have NO IDEA what I signed up for the week of the 16^th…

So, I have been up to no good since the last time I wrote. The biggest thing I have accomplished was that I went to the Peace Corps Halloween party in Copan Ruinas. I believe around 120 volunteers were in attendance at this event out of the 160 volunteers in Honduras. So, it is a pretty big deal in which I perhaps drank out of a skeleton straw, imbibed too much, danced a lot, and dressed like Steve Irwin. My costume was one of those that people stopped and said (virtually every time) “And who are you…. wait… no, you did not… that’s just WRONG!!!! Oh, too soon! Too soon!… I love it, it’s awesome.”  

Anyway, we also did some of the tourism bit and went to the Macaw Bird Park. That was pretty cool as it was full of Macaws and Toucans. The best part was that the paths were completely LADEN with Spiders. I made about 6 people go ahead of me and then I crept along behind them in a perpetual ducking motion. The guy in the front, at one point, looked like he had invented a new dance and then we all screamed and ran the other way. Okay, I was the only one that screamed and ran the other way. The pictures on the blog this week are of the bird park and Halloween. Feel free to take a gander at more pictures here: Halloween in Copan Ruinas, 2009

Oh dear God, I forgot about the giant sink-spider. So, I was minding my own business sitting on my porch drinking a coke and enjoying the sunset and being all zen and one-with-the-world, and I innocently walk into the kitchen to rinse out my coke bottle. I turn on the water, start filling the bottle, glance down, and HOLY  MONKEY  JUNK!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?! I screamed bloody murder, dropped the bottle, and ran out of my apartment. There was the HUGEST SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE (outside of a cage) sitting in my sink! It was ACTUALLY the size of a saucer! A SAUCER, PEOPLE! Thankfully, my neighbors, who thought I was being attacked, ran outside to see what was going on. And I start babbling at them “Are you afraid spiders? I no go back in there! It be huge! It be a spider! I no like spiders! I’m feared of spiders! Are you feared of the spiders? Kill it please? I no go back in! I fear spider! Please!?!?”

My neighbor on the North side of my apartment calmly picks up her 3 year old son, walks into my apartment, looks in the sink and exclaims “Wow, that’s a big spider.” And I peer around the corner (I’m still outside during all of this pacing back and forth in sheer terror) and the water is still on full blast and now the spider is trying to crawl OUT of the sink because of the rising water and I swear it’s like one of those creepy movies where there is like one leg that slowly curls over the side of the sink. And I scream again and back up against the rail. Then my other neighbor on the South side goes in for backup, although she stays a good 5 feet away from the spider and just looks back and forth between myself and the spider in amusement.

So, child-wielding-neighbor asks “Do you have a broom?” “Yes! On the porch!” I say. For some reason, she doesn’t want to go out to the porch that is literally right behind her through the door. So, she grabs a shoe. “Can I use your shoe?” she asks. “Sure, whatever!” I exclaim, though secretly wondering if she has completely lost her mind as now she has to get CLOSE to it. She then proceeds to beat the living hell out of the spider. I mean really, she had to hit it like 4 times to kill it (all the while holding her 3 year old on her hip). It was basically the size of a tarantula but not as hairy. They told me what kind it was but I can’t remember as I was too busy panicking and hyperventilating to have paid any attention.

Anyway, “Do you have a piece of paper?” she asks me. “Yeah, hold on” I say while creeping sideways into my office and rummaging around for paper. I then realize she is going to use the paper to pick up the spider, again I think she is a total nutter as that requires close proximity. Well, in the meantime she has found my dustpan and has scooped up the dead spider onto it. So I am trapped in my office as she is standing in the doorway with the dead spider. And I kid you not; she gets a little mischievous grin on her face and then proceeds TO CHASE ME WITH THE SPIDER. I again screamed like I was being murdered and she laughed and laughed (I have the highest-pitched most girlish scream ever, by the way.)

So now, I make sure the coke bottle is ALWAYS on the drain unless I am specifically doing dishes or something. I kid you not I was afraid of my sink for like a full week. I still approach it with caution along with the drains in my bathroom. NOT COOL, Honduras!

Oh, and believe it or not I got ill again. Apparently, dengue can really mess you up! So I ended up with a rather uncomfortable opportunistic infection which, for once, I will spare you the details of. Yeah, it was fun and charming enough to completely keep it to myself. That’s when you KNOW it was heinous. I got over it in a week or so, thankfully. So now I am trying really hard to eat as many vegetables as possible to help boost up my shattered immune system. Which, proves to be somewhat difficult albeit much easier here than my friend volunteering in Georgia who is on the white-food diet (potatoes, rice, cabbage). Cilantro has become my new leafy green vegetable. So I now eat A LOT of Pico de Gallo, which here is called Chismol. It’s the best I can do, really. I also stopped eating 3 cans of tuna a week after a friend gaped at me in disbelief and reminded me that canned tuna is rich in Omega 3’s AND in mercury. Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Silly gringa.

So honestly that is pretty much all I have been up to: completely confusing myself and every Honduran around me, acting like I was being murdered so my neighbor would kill my giant spider, dressing as the crocodile hunter and tackling toy alligators, and applying yet more medications. All in all, I would call that a relatively successful 2 weeks in the Peace Corps! Try not to be too jealous. I think Peace Corps may actually be driving me a bit mad. I noticed that I have been walking around in soccer shorts and wool socks lately. I also had a dream last night about the British, Severus Snape, and a giant Whaleshark, I kid you not.

So I do have a request for those of you thinking about sending me Christmas packages. I would like to request, that if you are feeling lazy, stressed out about getting your state-side friends and family gifts, and just have a general sense of malaise, that instead of sending me a package you send me the postage you would have spent on it via paypal. Why? Well, honestly, I would really like to purchase a proper bed and a toaster oven. However, if you want to send me a package I have updated my wish list! wOOt!

Well, now for the rest of my blog I am going to regale you with a multi-part photo-blog series (probably at least 1 more part) I like to call either, “Things I Love about Honduras: sarcastic or not… you decide…” or “Things I Love About Honduras: it’s the little things that amuse me.”

Well, this concludes this week’s Part 1 of the photo blog. Things to look forward to next week: the Fauxhawkmullet, Star-Crossed-Dog-Lovers, and Bags of Liquid! Stay tuned…

So, let’s talk about dengue, shall we? I mean, what would a blog from me be without at least some reference to a strange illness. So, it seems that I may or may not have dengue fever. How do I know (or not know, as it seems)? Well, it started when I got back from my birthday vacation extravaganza (how’s that for foreshadowing). I suddenly didn’t feel so hot and so I took a nap. For 4 days.

The first 24 hours my fever was pretty high and it felt like all of my bones were conspiring to implode. After that I got a mild fever that just hasn’t gone away for 6 days now. It’s just enough to make me annoyed, very tired, and have a complete lack of appetite. So I went to the doctor on day 4 and he pretty much told me I had all the symptoms of classic dengue: fever, rash (oh yeah, I have a rash too), cold sweats, no hunger, extreme tired, headache behind the eyes, and so on. He, myself, and the PC medical officers were all convinced I had classic dengue. So, he sent me to the lab next door to take blood to check on my white blood cells because apparently if they were low I would then definitely have dengue. But, the lab closes here at 11am. Why? Because why would you want to work past the hour when sick people drag out of bed? Then you would have to like, take blood and urine samples. Gross!

So I went back the next morning, got my blood and urine samples taken. Well, I GAVE the urine sample… in a baby food jar incidentally and labeled with duct tape and a sharpie. Pretty classy. It’s nothing like urine samples in the states where you pee into a fancy clinical cup that takes the temperature and Ph on contact and you have to follow like a million instructions for sanitation and to keep the sample clean. Here it’s just: “Here’s your baby food jar (as he blows out the dust). You lucky devil, you get mashed peaches! The toilet is over there. Watch out for the giant Roach, Jorge. There probably isn’t any toilet paper so don’t spill any. And don’t count on there being any soap either… Done? Okay. Let me put some duct tape on that and sharpie in your name. What’s your name?” “Rebecca Williams.” “Okay, Rebeca Wilian. Got it.”

Anyway, so I gave my sample, got my blood drawn (all without the doctor wearing gloves) and then I promptly went back to bed. But I didn’t get back up by 11am to get the results, so on day 6, today, I got my results back. Aaaaand…… white blood cells are normal. Hmmm. The doctor was baffled and says I am displaying all the symptoms of dengue but it must be a mysterious virus. I must admit, it’s a bit disconcerting when your doctor looks at your lab results with complete befuddlement and then claims that you have a “mysterious virus” and says “come back at the same time tomorrow” so he can check your vital signs for the 3^rd day in a row.  But, the good news is that I am getting farther along in Creepy Honduran Illness Bingo. I’m totally going to kick my training group’s ass:

I just need a fungus or a dog bite and I will TOTALLY win the pool…

So, I woke up this morning and the glass lid to my only pot was shattered. I have no idea how such a thing occurred, but I am very sad because now nothing will cook in my pot (I am eating again, just to update you from a few paragraphs ago). So, I figured I was relegated to nothing but my scrawny little frying pan, but I decided to go ahead and try to make noodles with my lidless pot anyway. So, I was cooking a lovely sauce of random stuff that I had in my apartment (garlic, green beans, onion, sofrito tomato sauce, tomatoes, and canned tuna… surprisingly delicious) and was using my only ceramic bowl as a lid (very brave – I give this last bowl like 2 weeks left of life) to keep the sauce hot while I was attempting to lidlessly boil water on a 110 volt hot plate. So, I decided that two bubbles = boiling and dumped in some pasta and then glared at the pot daring it to cook my dinner. And then, Lily, being a cute curious little puppy, decided to benignly sniff the plug. Unfortunately, this act pushed the plug (which was an extension cord) over the edge and it exploded in a violent shower of sparks and Lily about hit the ceiling and ran into the living room in complete astonishment. In all fairness to Lily, I had suspected this may happen eventually as every time I used both burners on my hot plate my apartment smelled like burning plastic and the extension cord got all hot and melty. So this was not Lily’s fault.

So then, I had a frying pan full of sauce covered with a ceramic plate, and a pot of uncooked pasta sitting in two-bubble-semi-boiling water both sitting on a hot plate that was attached to an exploded plug. Hmmmm. What to do. Well, the hardware store was closed so there was no buying another plug. So what does a good PC volunteer do but put the hot plate right on the floor, which handily I had just bleached (after considering duct taping the cord back together and then deciding that this would surely lead to electrocution). And then I had the brilliant idea to put the frying pan ON TOP of the lidless pot. So I managed to bring the water to a full boil with my frying pan of sauce sitting on top (thus keeping it warm) and I extricated the ceramic bowl in hopes that it would not shatter directly into my sauce. All the while Lily barked at me from the living room in complete confusion as to why in the hell I wanted to be anywhere near an exploding hot plate. Or maybe she was confused as to why I was cooking dinner on the floor.

Now I have to buy a new extension cord (maybe a slightly better one this time) AND a pot with a lid. Sadly though, I have to travel at the end of the month so I can’t really afford a pot at the moment. So, I shall continue to boil water in my pot with the frying pan as a lid for a few more weeks all the while thinking of the full set of pots and pans, toaster oven, microwave, and coffee pot sitting in my brother’s attic. Sigh. My life is very glamorous. Oh well, at least I don’t have to cook with fire.

Sometimes Honduras is really just too adorable for words. So, I will have to explain since soccer really isn’t that big of a deal in the United States. Here, it is like…. Life. And I don’t mean that in the “football season is my life and I have all the statistics memorized” or “I love skating so much I sit on my ass and play Tony Hawk on Xbox all day long.” It’s more like… without soccer I’m pretty sure everyone would just lay down and die. Men and women alike. All of Central America. They would just give up the ghost.

Anyhoo, so the past few months have been the qualifying games for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Long story short, last night Honduras played El Salvador and the US played Costa Rica. In order for Honduras to qualify for the world cup they had to beat El Salvador and the US had to beat or tie Costa Rica. And, what happened? Honduras beat El Salvador 1-0 and the US tied with Costa Rica 2-2 in the final moments of the game, thus sending Honduras to the World Cup for the first time in 24 years, I believe.

And the country went completely nuts. I didn’t see NEARLY this level of excitement during the coup. During the coup nobody really changed their routine at all. Last night however, my entire town was out in the streets lighting fireworks, singing, dancing, and there was even an impromptu motorcade with the 10 cars in town filled to the brim with sweaty shirtless men waving their jerseys around in the air while jumping up and down in the back of the trucks so it looked like they were all sporting super ghetto-style hydraulics. The motorcade just went down street by street (for all of the like, 10 streets here) and by the time they came all the way back around they were so full of people the cars would scrape the ground as they bounced along.

And of course, Hoda had projected the game on the side of the Catholic Church (one would assume to give a spiritual advantage to the team) and had hired a DJ so there was music blaring in the streets. It was insane. And left and right people were thanking ME for the US qualifying Honduras by tying Costa Rica. Can you believe that? I mean hell, its way nicer than people asking me why the US cancelled Honduran Visas to the states. The whole town was patting me on the back. I guess they forgot we just beat them last week which is why they HAD to beat El Salvador. That’s what I love about Honduras. They crack me up.

The celebration was so much fun. And then the president took over all of the TV stations to congratulate the team and then cancelled school and work for today across the country. HAHAHA! Can you believe that!? I mean can you imagine Obama cancelling school and work because of the results of the Super Bowl or something? Crazy, man. So then the DJ was trying to get people to dance and everyone started shouting “GRINGA! GRINGA! BAILE! BAILE!!! GRINGA!!!” And I was laughing along with them like “”WOOHOO!!! YAY!!! BAILE!!! BAILE!!!” until I realized…. GRINGA?!?! THAT’S ME!!! And I tried to run away but they grabbed me and made me dance the punta which I dance very very very badly. So badly that I ignore the squiggly red lines under the extra two “very’s” from Word telling me I am repetitive. I really only excel at dancing when club crowds are so thick nobody can see me moving. Plus, I had run outside wearing flip flops and without a belt on and my pants were falling down (lost a bit of weight on the dengue/mystery virus diet). Well, one way to integrate into the community is to be forced to dance. Of course, the entire crowd formed a circle around me and the man dancing with me and proceeded to shout and cheer the whole time I was attempting to shake my ass and hips in unison (which, since I dance like a middle-aged white man probably included an arm shimmy and biting my lip. For evidence see picture of me dancing a couple of years ago). And I look up and there is my host family taking pictures with their cell phones. Oh dear god. At least this country isn’t quite advanced enough for me to end up on YouTube dancing the Punta. It would probably be an instant internet-wide phenomenon and would solidify my position as single-forever along with the light-saber kid and the fat dude dancing to Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies.”

So yeah, I’m honestly quite excited to be living in Honduras during the World Cup. Even if they get eliminated right away it will be so fun to see how excited the town is.

Well, apparently I am really good with children, cats, monkeys, and college professors but terrible with dogs. Puppies seem to bring out a side of me that I don’t like so much. Well, at least having a puppy without a yard. Lily is now going to be our office dog. Which, honestly, I think is going to make her much happier because my office has a big yard for her and lots of people for her to socialize with. And I get the benefit of being able to see her every day, I can walk her or go running with her, but I don’t have to live with a hound dog that wants nothing but to be outside. So if you got me stuff for Lily, refrain from sending it (or send it anyway as I will still be with her every day). Call me a jerk if you will, but I would rather we both be happy than both be miserable (she says defensively).

So, the very quick update about work is that my coworkers are going through an audit that they were preparing for for 2 weeks and then is taking 2 weeks to complete. So in the mean time I’m trying to design a water system for the community that I did a survey for, and I started working with 2 other volunteers to develop a new training manual for water boards. I have two more surveys scheduled, one system to finish designing, and a basketball court/soccer field improvement plan that I surveyed and have to figure out how to use the information to give estimates on concrete. So basically I have a lot to do yet nothing to do.

So, let’s move on to the best subject of all. The week and a half I spent in Utila. Yes, I just wrote about Utila but I went back with my training group and probably had the best two weeks of my entire life including the best 30^th birthday one could possibly have. Am I exaggerating? Trust me when I tell you no. By the way, I’m going to be writing about diving for awhile so go to the potty, get a beer, smoke a cigarette, and brace yourself. Oh, and all the pictures are from the last trip because I was too busy being content to take any this time. And some are stolen from other PC volunteers and some are credit to Dom the Dive Master.

First of all, I find diving to be my favorite thing in the whole world to the point where I am now convinced that I will do the dive master certification training at the end of my Peace Corps service. I just absolutely love it. It’s so peaceful and freeing and just so much fun. I have seriously considered the fact that I joined PC to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up (well, what I wanted to specialize in) and I seriously think one of the reasons I joined PC (in the existential meaning of the word “reason”) was to discover diving. And now I am trying to figure out how to incorporate diving into what I want to study for graduate school. So now I know a few very key things about my graduate school interests:

1. I want to do environmental work because I personally find the need to treat our planet well as the most important thing there is. This is our Easter Island, after all (Collapse? Anyone? Jarryd Diamond? No?).
2. I find agricultural work to be interesting and incredibly important to environmental work as let’s face it, people cannot change until they are fed. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. Boom.
3. I really love diving as much as environmental work so it makes logical sense to study environmentalism in conjunction with reef ecosystems. And the agricultural tie in works as is evidenced by the problems in Honduras with agricultural runoff affecting reefs as far away as Belize.

Therefore, I am wondering how likely it is to pursue a graduate education that specializes in studying the effects of agricultural runoff on reef populations and what can be done about it. Considering topics such as nutrient loading, reef bleaching, the affects of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers on reef ecosystems, etc.  Sounds a bit like marine biology but I also don’t want yet another worthless degree (in all fairness I could work for a corporation with the Instructional Systems Design degree. Not so worthless but I would have to sell my soul. Maybe I should sell my soul for a few years and pay off my student loans…more like LEASING my soul…). So, I am now doing research as to the types of programs out there.

But let’s get back to the fun stuff. So, I was really excited that so many people remembered me from the last time I was diving in Utila. That speaks a lot to the staff that works at the dive center that I have come to be loyal to. And I got to know a few more people while I was there too. So the cast of characters this time changed a bit. Actually, the one thing that breaks my heart thinking about going back to Utila in 20 months to do the Dive Masters is that all of the staff will have changed out by then as the Dive Master Trainees leave and the Dive Masters and Instructors slowly move off to other places. But, I suppose that is the ebb and flow of life, anyway. It is sad though, I really like these people and it’s hard to imagine I will never see them again. Besides, they have taught me a whole new set of vocabulary with words such as “manky,” “bollocks (which can also be bollocking, bollocked, etc),” “rank (which I of course knew before but don’t use nearly enough), and so on.

So here is how the trip went down. First, my neighbor randomly asked me to help him survey the soccer field so that they could start planning to put a new basketball court along side of it. Turns out my neighbor is brothers with the current mayor who is cousins with Hoda who is running for mayor with the opposite party. Small town. Anyway, so we are at the field surveying when the mayor’s son, who was helping us, takes a phone call and it turns out that Mel Zalaya has snuck back into Honduras and was camping out at the Brazilian Embassy. So I immediately freak out because this likely meant I would never ever be able to leave Sabanagrande ever again (very rational) and thus would not be able to go back to Utila. So, I spent a few days lamenting my luck while listening to news reports of the current Honduran government instituting curfews, cutting power to the Brazilian Embassy (though apparently still sending food over… I picture Zalaya sitting on a cot munching on a ham sandwich while completely parched from lack of water due to the cut off electricity), and protesting like crazy. Great.

Well, thankfully our country director was quite nice about it and let us go anyway so I ended up leaving a couple of days early, before she changed her mind or the shit hit the fan, and went to visit Mcat (and do some work). For those of you who follow my Facebook status updates, that was when I had a not-so-friendly reminder that tequila is the devil. After two days with Mcat I finally went up to Utila with very little trouble other than some seasickness on the ferry. It was like being shaken up in a barrel full of monkeys for an hour and then thrown out onto the ground.

When I got to Utila I happened to arrive at the same time as a weekly event called the Booze Cruise. Which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s a sunset hour cruise around the bay with cheap drinks aboard one of the boats. So, the guy that rounded me up at the dock was nice enough to call the boat captain and have him swing over to the dock that I was at and pick me up. So I tore off my sneakers, rolled up my pants, hopped on the boat, and bought a beer while grinning from ear to ear to be back to my favorite part of Honduras during the most beautiful part of day.

Then, I spotted one of the people I had met on the previous trip, Caroline from Britain, and I went up to the front of the boat to say hello. Along with her was a girl named Vanessa who is from Canada and came down to hang out with her friend Marlo for several months, another person I knew from my last trip. So I pretty much chilled and chatted with Caroline and Vanessa who then invited me to a staff party after the booze cruise. The staff party was a blast and the most memorable part was when one of the Dive Master Trainees fell over whilst sitting down and then proceeded to scold people who brought her water. That’s when I knew I felt like I was at home, because I’m pretty sure that exact same scenario would have played out with any one of my friends state-side. I do run with a classy lot.

So, this time I took the Advanced Open Water course along with my friend Sweet Jen. A lovely woman named Lauren, from California, was our instructor and apparently is also the assistant-manager. She was a very good teacher, explained things very thoroughly, and was incredibly patient. Assisting Lauren was Nathan, a DMT from Australia who this time around was sporting a rather adorable Mohawk. I love this guy because he is such a child in the water. There were several times that Lauren had to grab his attention during the Advanced class because Nathan had wandered off or was doing flips instead of paying attention. One time he actually climbed up on our spare tank (at the 18 meter safety stop) and rode it like a horse. He cracked me up because it was so clear that he just enjoys every moment of life. And equally as amusing was watching patient Lauren corral him back to the activity at hand.

So the Advanced Course consisted of 6 specific training dives and 1 fun dive. The dives that were part of the training included: a deep dive to 40 meters (130 feet), fish/coral identification dive, a wreck dive, a night dive, buoyancy training, and navigation training. Each dive was soooo much fun. The fish/coral ID dive we basically learned the different types of common corals and how to figure out what they were along with some of the common fish in Utila. That dive was cool because after that I always could figure out what I was looking at and I would think to myself “Oh look, that’s finger coral!”Unfortunately this does not speak to my intelligence too much since all of the coral looks exactly like its name. “What’s that coral right there that looks like a maze?” “Ummm… that would be Maze Coral.” “Oh.” One time I was going through a swim-through and brushed up against some coral that burned like crazy and thought “and that must be fire coral.” Note to self: stay away from fire coral.

The deep dive was cool because of the change in colors. You lose red that far down so Lauren brought along a light that she could use to show us the actual colors of things. Plus you learn how different it is to breathe that deep (you have to pull harder to breathe because of the pressure differentials working on your body and on the air in your tank).

I was actually afraid of the wreck dive because for some reason I have always found underwater wrecks to be frightening. Turns out though, that it was really super cool and I wasn’t afraid at all. For Advanced you can only go through certain parts of the wreck so we were never in an enclosed space. But it was really cool to see the marine life take over the wreck and now I want to be sure to get a specialization in wreck diving so one day I can actually go into one.

The navigation dive was pretty self explanatory. We learned how to use the compass along with kick cycles to navigate a path, as well as how to use the landscape and the coral to figure out where we are.

The night dive was so awesome. Everything is so different at night. I was really nervous when I got in the water and realize that it was really…. well… dark. But we learned how to communicate with our lights rather than hand signals and I actually saw a spotted lobster, which apparently is quite rare. I also saw a HUGE king crab that was chilling with the lobster, probably having a debate about the necessity of crustacean hegemony over neighboring squid populations, or something. At least that’s what I imagine they were discussing. My favorite though was the little red eyes you could see everywhere from the shrimps who looked annoyed and put-upon even in the dark. “GET AWAY, YOU STOOPID UH-MERI-CUN!” Cute little guys.

Oh and on this dive I lost my buddy and FREAKED out. There were only 4 of us in my group so I didn’t stick REALLY close to my buddy (which is annoying when they are right on top of you anyway) and just glanced backwards occasionally to count the two lights that should have been behind me (and Lauren in front). Well, we rounded a corner of the reef wall and I turn around and there are TONS of lights! One of the other groups had caught up with us and I was like “AAAACK!!!! WHICH ONE IS MY BUDDY!” And of course, they were all wearing black wet suits with blue fins. I was like CRAP!!! So I turn around and spot Lauren floating there just watching me and I am looking all around like a nutter trying to spot Jen. I could not find her for like 20 seconds and then it turns out she was above me. Right. Crisis averted. Carry on.

The buoyancy dive was one of my favorites just because you really got to play underwater. So, buoyancy is basically the ability to control your breathing so that you move up when you breathe in, down when you breathe out, and you basically stay neutral when breathing in and out normally. It’s pretty easy once you figure it out but really freaking hard for a new diver (experienced divers are so good I swear you can’t even see HOW they are moving. They just glide along. I still am a klutz even under water). So, in this course we had to run through a bunch of drills to improve our buoyancy. On one of the drills, they put down 5 pound weights standing on end and we had to swim up to each weight and knock it down with our regulator. This means that you have to control your breathing so that you are merely inches above the sea floor, you have to swim without kicking up silt, and you have to control your speed when approaching the weights. And if you screw up and hit the bottom you have to get off of the bottom without disturbing the sand (by breathing in).

So, the first time I do this I approach the weight, breathe out, and slam face first directly into the weight so hard that I knocked my regulator out and swallowed a bunch of water and sand. And, of course, I started cracking up which didn’t help any. So I shoved my regulator back in my mouth, without moving any other part of my body as to not make more silt mess than necessary and took in a deep breath to raise up over the weights. Then, I approached the next weight, and slammed into the ocean floor face first again. I think I did this about 7,000 times before I finally figured it out and was able to knock over the damn weights without causing myself bodily injury. I actually hit the first weight so hard that I thought later that I had given myself a bloody nose. That turned out to just be sinus problems, so no worries. I refused to look at Lauren or Nathan the whole time because I am pretty sure they were gawking in disbelief at my total lack of finesse. Those of you who know me probably can picture with no problem my face smooshed into a 5 pound weight and my mouth full of sand with my regulator floating behind me. That would be something to replay in slow-mo, that’s for sure. And keep in mind that everything is very slow underwater so it was just completely ridiculous how slowly I slammed into the ocean floor. My eyes were completely wide and like OH SHIT! For easily 10 seconds before I hit the weight with my face: NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! BOOM!!!!! GURGLE, SPLUTTER, COUGH! as little sea creatures run for cover. Meanwhile, Jen goes after me and glides up to the weight and knocks it over with no problem like a damn mermaid.

I was vindicated later (much later, mind you) when we had to go through hoops by only controlling our air and our kick strokes. Now don’t get me wrong, the first several times I’m pretty sure they were moving the hoop so that I made through it with some semblance of dignity. But after a few minutes I finally figured things out and then I could go through the hoops upside down and backwards. And when Jen tried it she just floated away upside down. Which was probably about as amusing as my face in the sand like an ostrich. Whatever, I needed some good exfoliation, anyway.

So that was the Advanced Course. Then, I decided that I wanted to stay for my birthday because let’s face it, I didn’t want to leave Utila and scuba diving on your birthday is WAY better than whatever I would have been doing in Sabanagrande. And a very sweet family member gifted me 6 more dives. SWEET. The quick rundown of these dives were that I saw a 7 foot nurse shark chilling out under a ledge, did two drift dives where you go with the current and then the boat comes and picks you up where you pop up, saw a shrimp cleaning a trumpet fish, went face first super-man style over a reef wall (THAT was fun), dove an unmarked site that the captain of the boat took us to, saw a school of dolphin jumping out alongside the boat (they didn’t want to swim with us this time, unfortunately) and on my birthday dove a little tugboat wreck and got caught in a school of pretty blue fish that we all just chilled out and watched circle all around us.

My 6 fun dives were mainly with Katja and Marlo as DMs. Katja is a very tiny girl from Denmark, I believe. She was like diving with a little underwater sprite. She just kind of glided along in the water with zero effort and whenever she saw something worth pointing out she would get a big grin and would clap her hands together underwater in glee. It was so damn adorable that she probably could have shown me a rusty can and I would have been like “WOW! That’s so COOL!” Marlo was also so much fun to dive with because she gives your really fun ideas of ways to see the reefs. For example, at one point I just hung upside down and pretended the ocean floor was a ceiling (per her suggestion) totally cracked me up. She also taught me to just chill out and sit and watch one piece of coral for a long time. If you float there long enough you can see all of the little critters that you scared away at first. My favorite of these was a little baby cow fish who just looks so completely dopey and swam around in little circles.

Then, just when I thought it was all over, a friend of mine bought me one more dive. It was such a sweet thing to do and I was beyond excited because I was going to dive with just Marlo and Caroline, my two favorites on the island, on this dive. So this day was absolutely gorgeous and on the first dive (the boats always do two dives) I snorkeled around the boat and chased angel fish (which is one of my favorite past times). The dive itself was one to remember for a lifetime. My best dive yet. So on this dive Marlo wanted to show me all kinds of things that the DMTs and DMs do when they are messing around underwater. At one point we took off our fins, stood on the sand, and played around with running under water. The funnest thing to do is act like you are running and then take in a big breath and you float up like a superhero taking off. We did lots of flips and tornadoes, and then took off our BCD’s and rode them Nathan-style like horses. And the funnest was “captain diving.” This was named after the captains of the boats at the dive shop who dive without BCDs (the BCD is a sort of inflatable jacket that you wear that holds your tank and all your tubes and stuff). So one person dove without a BCD and just held the tank under her arm. And at one point they let me take off my BCD and pass it off and dive with just holding the tank. THAT was so much fun. I loved diving without the BCD it was really kind of trippy. Oh what a fun day that was. Best dive ever.

But, let me go backwards to my actual birthday. I had told a couple of people that it was my 30^th birthday, and so when I got back from diving they had decorated the dock with balloons and a Feliz Cumpleaños sign. I was putting away my equipment and didn’t even notice until it was pointed out to me and then I think I turned bright red. It was so damn sweet. And as soon as I stepped off the boat they put a beer in my hand. Then, just to be even more amazing, they took me to one of the houses of the DMs and they had made me cupcakes and had pizza. It was absolutely amazing. So, I haven’t introduced many people on the island but the ones responsible for this included Marlo (who I think was responsible for getting me toasted before going to the house), Vanessa who made the delicious chocolate cupcakes laden with caramel frosting (Marlo and Vanessa did the decorating of the dock too), Sarah the country-music lover who made me laugh underwater on my last dive and had me over to her house, Lauren my instructor for Advanced, Caroline who I believe was responsible for getting people to create all of these shenanigans, and several other people from the dive shop who stopped in now and again. Oh, and the owner of the shop gave me a T-shirt for my birthday too. I just can’t tell you how amazing that day was.

And when I wasn’t diving I was usually snorkeling around the dive centers where I saw a big trunk fish that I followed around forever, a really big barracuda, 3 seahorses that I literally could sit and watch for hours until the sun started to go down and I would get cold, and a little group of baby squid. They were funny. I followed them around for quite some time and then a big fish swam by and startled them and they all inked. I then choked on the water that I sucked into my snorkel from laughing. I also have a tendency to follow around angel fish because they are really pretty and super funny acting in the water. Especially when they realize you are following them. They keep glancing up at you like WHAT?!?! And if you can catch them above you they will try to eat your bubbles which always makes me think of Finding Nemo (BUBBLES!).

Anyway, so it was an amazing adventure on Utila Island. I know I have not done real justice to how much fun I had by writing it in my blog. There was too much stuff I had to leave out that would be uninteresting to the masses. Suffice it to say that it would not really have been humanly possible to have more fun than I did between the diving, the snorkeling, the sunsets, the delicious food, the rumonades (mmmmmm rum and lemonade), the amazing birthday, the awesome people at the dive shop, and the evenings of Animal Planet and instant coffee (after all, sleeping would have wasted SERIOUS time. Not even kidding. I can sleep in Sabanagrande. And do. Frequently). I literally think those two weeks were probably the most content I have ever been in my life. If the 30’s are anywhere near as good as my 30^th birthday, I will be one lucky woman.

So, just when I thought I had finished my blog I had an adventure with Hoda. I had a meeting tonight with a community to plan a topographical study in November. And, I should have thought about the fact that there is no going anywhere with Hoda that doesn’t become an adventure. So, he tells me he is going to pick me up at my apartment at 5:30. No problem. 5:25 comes around a knock at my door. There is a diminutive Honduran lady who takes one look at me and says, “Ah, you must be Rebecca.” “Ummmm, are you implying that I am a tall, chubby, white woman who sticks out in a Honduran town? Okay, yes. I’m Rebecca.” So I throw on some boots (finally learned to wear boots when going to the communities. Now I just need to remember to bring toilet paper, too) and follow little lady down like 5 streets (halfway to Hoda’s house) and round a corner and there is Hoda’s truck. Filled with Hondurans sporting blue “Vote for Pepe Lobo” t-shirts. Oh, shit. And of course, what am I wearing? Well, it used to be a purple polo shirt but after months of hand scrubbing it is now a rather scruffy blue-looking polo shirt. Way to keep out of the politics of town there, Rebecca. So I squeeze into the back of the truck and count, not even kidding you, 15 people crammed into the back of this little 4 cylinder truck. And of course, we stopped and picked up 3 more people on the way. And there were 3 people up front. 21 people in a 4 cylinder flat bed truck. Amazing. Now THAT is carpooling. I swear as soon as I get within 10 yards of Hoda the theme to Benny Hill starts playing.

Okay, I need to finish this blog and move on with my life. I’m going to go ahead and start the next one so that I have one to post next week too. It will probably be a photo blog of me attempting to cook on my floor.

So, until then, I encourage you to work the word “manky” into casual conversation, always have a spare extension cord in case yours explodes in a flurry of sparks, and remember that if you ever need deep exfoliation, just slam your face into the ocean floor a few times. Come diving with me. But not until I have more vacation days.

Beck

To start, I would like to discuss taxi drivers. Now, I know most of you have been to New York or somewhere similar that had absolutely reckless and insane taxi drivers, so stories about crazy taxi drivers are not that interesting. Especially considering that most of the taxi drivers in the states are from other countries, anyway. But the life threatening driving tactics of the taxi driver is not really what interests me. No, what interests me is that after spending 6 months in this country I have come to identify with my taxi driver and tend to support his inane decisions regardless of their questionability.

Let me explain. First of all, I find myself rooting for my taxi driver when it is apparent that they are not, in fact, going to rob me. I mean hell, that is already a good start to a taxi trip! I can usually tell because I will recognize the route we are on. The only time that the route was deviated, the taxi driver saw me eyeing the strange streets suspiciously, and informed me that he was going around the normal way because there was a political demonstration. Turned out he was telling the truth because on this day it took this poor man at least 45 minutes to get me to my destination including at least 10 3-point turns, 100 yards of backwards driving, 15 curses, 3 near accidents, 1,000+ protesters, and a tear or two. The tear came towards the end of the trip when we were caught on one street between the two opposing sides of the protest and we both knew that him getting me across those streets to the Peace Corps office just 6 blocks away was never ever going to happen. At this point I chose to thank him, paid him (he charged me slightly less), and I hauled ass running through the two parades all the while thanking god that I didn’t choose to wear red or blue that day (the two opposing colors). And then I speed-walked to the PC office all the while hoping that I didn’t get jumped on the way or yelled at by my country director and security officer for unknowingly arriving in the middle of a protest. Oops.

But, I digress. So, what I have come to learn about the taxi drivers that do not rob me, is that they are really just trying to make a living in this crazy country where it is much easier to just turn to a life of crime. In all seriousness, there is a 90% chance that you WILL NOT get caught for a crime here. So, first of all, I support my local taxista because he is working and not robbing (at least when I am in his car). Secondly, it is amazing how well they know the city. I can say “I want to go to the coffee shop. The little one by the stream.” And no problem, they cross, cut through, roundabout, and swerve their way through the city to my exact location. And thirdly, they really want to get me to my destination quickly so that they can get more people in and out of their car. And really, I don’t want to be in their cologne-smelling, reggaeton-playing, “jesus is my homeboy,” piece-of-crap car any more than I have to anyway, so it works out well for both of us. And lastly, they usually don’t try to rip me off. I usually get quoted the Honduran price once they learn I can speak Spanish and if I know they are ripping me off I don’t get in their taxi. Simple as that.

So I suddenly realized that I really support my local taxista as evidenced by my feelings towards other drivers:

• I’m sorry sir, but we are driving on the sidewalk here. I don’t really give a damn if you are trying to turn right in the right lane. We were here first and we very kindly tooted our horn for you to move. So don’t you get all uppity with us just because YOU didn’t think to drive on the sidewalk first!
• What? You have never seen anyone parked in the middle of the intersection on a red light? Don’t blame us! Blame that long line of idiots in front of us blocking the street!
• I’m sorry, but I’m turning around in the middle of the street here. If you were smart you would do the same thing as clearly the traffic isn’t moving. So get the hell out of my way or I will slam right into you.
• So what if this is a parking lot? If you didn’t want us to drive through it you shouldn’t have made an exit on the other side.
• Don’t glare at me for using the 3 inch space you left between you and the car in front of you to squeeze through. If you didn’t want me to edge in you shouldn’t have left ANY space.
• Yes, we realize that this is a one way street going in the other direction, but did you SEE that line of cars? Hell no. Get out of our way.
• Do you see that we are driving backwards here? You should, we have our break lights on AND we are honking the horn. Perhaps YOU should look where you are going. If you were paying attention you would have seen we were driving backwards BEFORE you turned onto this street. This is YOUR fault, my friend.

The NERVE of these people acting like my taxista is at fault.

So I am telling stories slightly out of order because it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want. So, I shall tell you that after I got back from diving I ended getting super sick again. Sadly, I was supposed to go do some work in another town and then pick up Lily, my new puppy, but ended up having to go to the capital after reconnect. Reconnect was a 4 day workshop type event where we basically met all of the other water/sanitation and health volunteers from the last group and we also had a bunch of sessions on things like building latrines. Oh, and we had an awesome 70’s party that I had to drink nothing but water at. I won’t spend much time talking about reconnect because I honestly spent most of that time in bed sleeping or in the bathroom…. bathrooming, if you will. Which, as an aside, ended up being most unfortunate as the power went out and the toilets wouldn’t flush. Just what you need is an intestinal bacterium with a non-flushing toilet. I advised my roommate to just use someone else’s toilet and maybe never enter our bathroom until the power came back on. It was for the best. She was wise to follow my advice. This is why we have remained friends.

So anyhoo, I ended up having to go to the doctor in the capital because I was quite ill. This time was just as much fun as the first time but with some added grossness which I shall impart. So, she sent me for a poo test which ended showing that I had a severe intestinal bacterial infection (she used the word severe, not me… but I will tell you that it was…. severe indeed), and a minor parasite that I had to have picked up within the past few weeks. Which means I either got it on my last survey whilst falling down mountains, in Utila (which I highly doubt as I was not around soil), or while building latrines the first day of reconnect. The lurvely thing about this particular parasite, for those interested in grossness, is that it’s larvae burned through my skin (usually they go through the feet but since I am usually a shoe-wearing tree hugging hippie I suspect it was from the soil from the latrine project that I had my hands all in when mixing concrete), then took a jaunt through my circulatory system, passed through my heart, then through my lungs, and eventually reached maturity in my intestines. Isn’t that lovely?

I named this parasite Freb. I don’t know why, I just feel like he’s a Freb. So Freb is not actually something somewhat disgusting like an amoeba, it’s something REALLY disgusting like a worm. So yeah. I’m grossed out by myself. Thankfully, I took a de-wormer (I suppose anti-parasite is nicer but let’s be honest, it was a de-wormer) and I take another one in 7 days to be sure it’s dead. I swear after I took it my abdomen made funny sounds and felt all weird for like a day and I’m convinced that this means Freb is in his death throes. Die, Freb, Die. No peanut-butter and M&Ms for you! Those are MINE!

So anyway, just to add insult to injury I also ended up with this really creepy looking rash over my arms, legs, feet, hands, and waist. It looked like I had spent a day in a vacuum with a million mosquitoes. And it itched like madness. So, I will not lie, I was secretly terrified that I had decompression sickness from diving and thus would never be allowed to dive again which would likely break my heart. But, turns out, according to the dermatologist, that I had an “immunological reaction to a bug bite.” I can actually tell you exactly how I think this happened. So, like 3 weeks ago I went to a training session for 3 days out of town. One night, I got rocked by a spider who I suspect was trapped in my bed with me and literally ended up with about 20 spider bites on my legs. You know, with the clear two little fang marks. It was either a vampire or a spider. And they really killed me and have in some places left me with rather ugly scars. Then, when I was at reconnect or a day or two before reconnect, I got bit by another spider. I can see the bite marks on my fingers in two places. And at this point my body was basically like “Look, Rebeckis, enough with the spider bites. Just for that I am freaking out now.” And my body screwed me over.

So, between my three varied illnesses I have become a petri dish of disgustingness vs. modern medicine and am now taking antiparasites, antibiotics, probiotics, steroids, prescription antihistamines, my regular allergy meds, and a steroid cream for my rash. Nice, eh? How very American of me to take 7 medications! Maybe I just needed a little feel of America.

Thankfully, I have stopped “bathrooming”, Freb feels like he is dying, I can eat bland things such as bread and pasta, and my rash is looking much better. So, I believe I shall survive. But, this event has made me think that there really should be some sort of parameter for retiring parasite names, kind of like bad hurricanes. So I have decided that the rubric for deciding retirement should be based on the following chart. Any parasite name scoring a 3.5 or above shall be retired.

So, According to my chart let’s look at both Edgar and Freb.

Edgar:

• Grossness of Entry into the Body: 1 point: And that is why you always bring your own water, my friends!
• Grossness of Type of Creature: 3 points: Amoebas. EEEEEWEEE!!!!!!!
• Proximity to Other Heinous Diseases: 3 points: That would be my first bacterial infection! Hooray lettuce!
• Severity of Medication and/or Difficulty in Eradication: 5 points: No wrapping worms around sticks, but I did vomit all night.
• Longevity of Future Storytelling: 5 points: This story was kind of nice because I was helping a very poor community who gave me their lunch. So I think I can get some “aawweee’s” out of it in the future even if I did spend a week in bed.

Edgar Scores: 17 points for an average of 3.4 points!

Status: Name retained for future parasite use! Hmmm. I may need to refine this rubric as Edgar was pretty freeking horrible… Wait, wasn’t there a hurricane that was like a category 1 that was retired because it caused so much damage? Screw it, EDGAR IS RETIRED!

Freb:

• Grossness of Entry into the Body: 5 points: Freb came through the skin. Possibly the anus as I did sit on the pile of fresh dirt for a few minutes. But I think it was through my hands. Dear god, I hope it was through my hands.
• Grossness of Type of Creature: 3 points: Although Freb technically could leave my body of his own volition that would mean I really let him just take over. Really he’s just super gross at 3 points.
• Proximity to Other Heinous Diseases: 5 points: Hooray severe bacterial infection and creepy rash!
• Severity of Medication and/or Difficulty in Eradication: 5 points: This medication could have made me vomit but thankfully it didn’t. I just feel Freb dying. But it gets 5 points for being 7 different medications.
• Longevity of Future Storytelling: 5 points: I think the grossness of worms can definitely be recounted. Especially when combined with shitting water for 4 days and a weird rash all over my body.

Freb Scores: 23 points for an average of 4.6 points!

Status: Freb has hereby been retired as a plausible parasite name!!!!

Oh, fun with disease.

So, I was warned by other volunteers that when I came home from vacation that I was going to be inundated with people thinking I had gone back to the states even though I specifically told all of them that I was going to be gone for two weeks. And sure enough, everyone thought I had left including my host family, my neighbors, and my coworkers. Seriously, people? I wrote it down on the dry erase board RIGHT THERE! Sigh. I haven’t broken it to them that I have to leave for another two weeks at the end of this month. I have another week long work thing and then another week long play thing. I’m going back to Utila for my 30^th birthday celebration even though it will dry out my bank account. Screw it, you only turn 30 once. And honestly, the little bit of money I have wouldn’t do shit in a real emergency anyway.

Which brings me to the best subject ever: UTILA!!!!

Oh my god, I fell in love with this hippie little island. There were backpacking Europeans as far as the eye could see, beautiful clear water where you could literally see the fish swim below you, decent food, expensive beer, and just a generally relaxed and friendly atmosphere. And the diving hooked me. It was just the most peaceful and zen experience I have ever had. I absolutely loved it. As a matter of fact I am seriously considering ditching my other “end of Peace Corps” travels that I was thinking about including: backpacking Europe (not likely as it would dry up my funds and I need to at least put down a rent and electricity deposit wherever I settle), the Appalachian Trail (someday, I shall tackle you), the Florida trail (maybe with my nieces one summer), bumming from family member to family member (family members include friends in Texas and Oklahoma), so that I can stay in Utila for a couple months to get a Dive Masters Certification. It would be the cheapest option and dear God! I could dive like 15 times a WEEK!

Anyhoo, so about the trip. I went with my friend Mcat and it started out with a very long bus ride with a lady poking me in the ribs with her elbow the whole time and a rather startling lack of food options at the rest stops. Not that the food mattered anyway because there are no lines in which to stand and buy it. It’s kind of just a free-for-all whoever is the loudest gets served system. Thankfully, I was reading a great book called “Bridge of Birds” that the Kellinator sent me (that book should totally be made into a movie) so I was content enough. Then we had a very choppy 45 minute ride on a ferry to the island where about 40% of the passengers turned a rather sickly white/green/gray color and laid down in the seats. Towards the end I was even getting a little nauseous and I have only been seasick once in my life.

Then we got onto the island, got to the dive center, we were showed around, we changed into swimsuits, and immediately jumped into the warm Caribbean goodness. And, as I usually say here in Honduras, “GOD, I LOVE THE WATER!” It isn’t until you have an alarming lack of recreational water that you realize how much you love it and miss it. Oh, magnificent sea, you are my siren call. Later, I learned that you could jump in from the top deck of the dock which afterwards became my normal mode of swimming entry (yes, I am going to be 30 next month and I still act like I am 13. And someday some lovely woman will love me for it and will bring me ibuprofen for my aches and pains). Although, when I didn’t feel like leaping off the top deck, I instead went running across the dock and soaring into a dive like a chubby mermaid leaping gloriously into her domain with merriment written across her face. I’m pretty sure that is exactly what I looked like, anyway.

So, the next day we had our first dive class which sadly was indoors. But you know, we had to learn some important things like nitrogen can really screw you up, and not to panic if some fool knocks your respirator out of your mouth. Oddly enough, we all laughed at the idiot in the video who kept doing that, but turns out that in reality it totally happens. Usually because of flighty red-headed New Zealanders in your dive class, but whatever, it can happen. Our dive instructor was a total stoner surfer type named Tyler who at first I thought would probably be the cause of my death. Turns out, he was extremely knowledgeable and very serious about diving and safety.

Next day we got to go into the water. At first, I am not going to lie, I kind of freaked out a bit. Mainly because I kept getting water in my mouth when switching from the respirator to the snorkel. But after awhile I got the hang of it and we learned to sit on the bottom of the ocean floor (on a giant training mat) and do some important stuff like taking all of your equipment on and off, clearing your mask of water, switching to your secondary respirator, buddy breathing, all of the important signs, and so on and so on.

Next day we went on our first real dive and it was amaaaaaaazing. I had such a blast. We went through a place called “Airport Caves” which was a short cave system. I was terrified but had so much fun going through them. I hadn’t (and haven’t) mastered the art of buoyancy (floating up and down correctly) so I would occasionally knock my tank on the ceiling and felt really badly about it. But as of that day I was completely hooked.

The last day of diving Tyler wasn’t with us as we were his last class so we went with another chap named Chip (hullo alliteration!) On this dive I freaked the hell out. We went under and I sank like a damn rock and totally wigged out trying not to touch the ocean floor. I could not figure out what was going on and at one point I was trapped between the coral wall and the other divers in my class and found myself either running into one or the other. So I opted to run into the divers and then try to swim up above them slightly. I got many dagger eyes from them, but I really didn’t want to mess up the coral.

And then I really just felt like something was wrong and I couldn’t breathe. So I absolutely lost it and panicked and hyperventilated. I told Mcat, my dive buddy, by making the “something is wrong” sign and pointing to my throat, which unfortunately was interpreted by her as me having a sore throat. But, I could tell by her face she realized something was wrong so I signaled that I was going to go tell our dive master. So I swam up next to him about an arm’s length away ready to tap him and let him know something was wrong. But, I decided to try to just calm myself. So I floated next to him, closed my eyes, and took some deep breaths and, honestly, chanted a mantra to calm myself. Thankfully, I calmed myself down. But, in the process of all of that I sucked up a lot of air. I ended up running out of air waaaaay before the others so our dive only lasted 38 minutes. When we got out of the water I felt terrible and kind of swam off a bit as to not cry in front of the others. I was so confused because I had no idea what had happened and I felt super bad for being the cause of the short dive (not that anyone knew other than me and our dive master).

Well, then we got back on the boat and Mcat mentioned to Chip that she felt like she was weighted wrong. Turns out, she had been weighted the weights they put on us our first day when the wanted us to sink to the bottom ON PURPOSE for training. Not our correct weighting for actual diving. So, as soon as I heard that I realized that I was overweighted significantly and turns out I was carrying nearly 20 pounds of weight instead of the 12 I had on real dives. So Chip changed my weights and the next dive was significantly different, lasted over an hour, and I felt like the freest, happiest, and calmest person on the planet. I just had so much fun it was amazing. The only thing that would have made that dive better would be me eating chocolate and well, you know what, at the same time as diving. But that would be difficult, I imagine. Later, when I told Chip what had happened, he very politely reminded me that I could have put air in my BCD (kind of like a jacket) and that would have equalized the extra weight. But, I honestly spaced that out and I also really could not figure out what was wrong. You can actually see in the pictures of the dive (we all chipped in for a camera on the last dive day) that I am swimming at a sharp angle instead of horizontal, which was caused by the weights pulling my hips down. NOW it all makes sense. Live and learn, you know?

So, what all did I see on my marvelous dives? Well, I saw lots of things that I am not sure what they were. But I can tell you that there was one part of the ocean floor that looked like a forest of conical trees. There was a fish that blended in the coral wall so well that I was about a foot away before I saw it and I literally leaped backwards in the water causing Tyler, the dive instructor, to laugh and suck in water. There was a squadron (?) of squid that swam over the top of us with their amusing body shapes and giant eyes. There was a school of beautiful bright blue fish that swam through us. There was all manner of coral including brain coral, coral that looked like fragile fans, all colors of the rainbow. There were fish that looked like they were painted by Picasso. There was a little shrimp that I named Pierre because I am positive he was a very angry French shrimp with his curly whiskers and disgruntled attitude who was sitting inside a conical piece of coral shaking his fist at us while screaming “freedom fries are not French, you IDIOT” as we passed. There were starfish. There were little worm looking critters on the ocean floor. There were crabs. There were so many things I couldn’t believe it. There was also a really cool eel that sounded like it was screaming at us from his hole in the coral.

One of my favorite things was that in some places where the ocean floor was sandy there wouldn’t be much coral. But even if there was one little piece like a foot high it was surrounded by fish who were “hiding.” Totally cracked me up. YOU CAN’T SEE ME! The few things that I am certain I know the names of, thanks to a Dive Master named Dom, are: the Atlantic Spadefish, Brain Coral, Branching Fire Coral, Sea Fan, Goldentail Moray, Gray Angelfish, Gray Snapper, Great Barracuda, Green Moray, Hermit Crab, Sponge Brittle Star, Squat Lobster, Squid, Variegated Urchin, and Wrasse.

Oh, oh! And then, the last day, I refused to believe the trip was almost over so I decided to snorkel the area around the dive center and saw even MORE cool things. In one spot some false reefs were sunken and I floated above it for about 15 minutes just watching the fish. Then, all of the sudden, a HUGE Green Moray (eel) swam out of one of the false reefs and into the other. I saw his whole body and he looked like he was 5 feet long! I, again, jumped back in the water I was so shocked!

But the most amazing part of the entire trip was the dolphins. When we came up out of the water our next to last day the people on the boat were yelling at us to hurry and get on the boat because there was a dolphin sighting nearby. So we all hopped onto the boat, ripped off our gear, put on just masks and fins (I didn’t have a snorkel which proved to be a huge pain in my ass), and chased off after the dolphins. When we found them we slowly slid into the water as to not scare them and I swam with at least 15 dolphins. I kid you not. It was the most amazing experience of my entire life, to swim with such a beautiful and intelligent creature IN THE WILD. And I swear to you they played with us. We never touched them but they would jump out of the water between us, would swim around us in circles, would dive down with us when we swam down into the water, and just generally PLAYED with us! Then, just to make it even more disgustingly beautiful, deep below the ones playing with us we saw three dolphins swimming so close as to touch each other and immediately next to them was a BABY. The baby and the three with it never came close to us but still stayed and swam close enough that you could clearly see them about 8 meters away. Eventually the pod swam away, but I kid you not, 4 different times we got on the boat, chased after them, and got back into the water with them. And you could hear them talking to each other! It wasn’t until about an hour and a half later when it was clear that they were leaving for good that we finally left as well. It was fitting, as the sun was setting. I have never experienced anything like that. And, of course, it doesn’t happen very often at the dive center. No joke that many of the dive instructors were in the water right with us. It was absolutely amazing.

So yeah, now you can see why I can’t wait to go back. Even though I probably won’t see dolphins again, I just can’t wait to go back to that peaceful world. It will be worth spending my last bit of money on. And hopefully next February I can go back a third time to get my Rescue Diver certification (I’m going to try to attempt the impossible and save some of my PC salary). I currently have “Open Water” which allows me to dive to 18m, I believe. At the end of this month I’m going back for my birthday for “Advanced Open Water” which will allow me to dive to 30 or 40m, and Rescue Diver is just what it sounds like but is required before you can do the Dive Masters.

Oh, and I met some super cool people in Utila too. My dive class included a really nice Canadian girl named Ashley, a very chill Australian named Steven, a flighty and apt-to-wander-off-underwater New Zealander named Roma, a quiet and quirky Spaniard named Philipo who spent most of his time in the water upside down (on purpose? Maybe?), and Mcat a lovely Wisconsonian who is my personal cheese advisor (I highly recommend you try the 4 year sharp aged cheddar). I also met some super cool people studying for their dive masters including Ash who turned out to be a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Azerbaijan, Marlo who is a good conversationalist and has a beautiful tattoo of bamboo on her back, Tyler the Surfer who claims to be our generations experiment in diving (he pushes all the limits including diving to 59.7 meters without enriched air… technically he was an instructor, he has his DM and much more), Dom who takes beautiful underwater photography, Max our handsome dorm-mate who was constantly running around rescuing people from various maladies (drowning, rabid dogs, you know… the usual) during his rescue diver training, and Caroline who was a very interesting and pretty chick from London with a super awesome accent and who uses cool words like “twigged.”

So, if anyone wants to visit, we should go to Utila, unless you want the real 3^rd world poverty experience, which I would be happy to show you in addition to or instead of Utila. Roatan is the main island but is VERY expensive and touristy. Utila is still chill enough to be totally affordable (for an American, not for a PC volunteer on a Honduran salary) and has become my personal paradise. Now, I am very excited to check out some dive spots in Florida when I have a real grown up job (again) and can afford to go more often.

Oh, I just can’t wait to go back to Utila.

I will tell you, that I was not exactly looking forward to coming home because I had so much fun in Utila and with my friends during reconnect (I tried to ignore my trifecta of disease as much as I could between trips to the bathroom and bouts of scratching). But, when I got back my neighbors were so excited to see me and chatted with me for like 2 hours. And when I went back to work they joked with me all day and made me feel really welcome to be back. And my host family saw me and all gave me a big hug (well, other than my hobro’s who are too cool for school) and told me they were worried. So, I feel a lot better about being here now. Maybe I’m making a bit more impact than I thought, even if it’s just making some connections here and there. And besides, I can always go visit my friends and once in a while, if the stars align correctly, I may be able to go dive again. Here’s hoping I get a tax return this year!

Until next time, I highly recommend swimming with dolphins if given the chance. I highly discourage getting a parasite, bacteria, and spider bite simultaneously. And I highly encourage you to come visit me in Utila, Honduras and pay for it, too.

Love, hugs, and Shrimps with French Accents!

Beck

PS. I have two new photo albums if you are intersted:

“SCUBA!!!!!!!” You can probably guess what that one is about.

“Reconnect: Latrines and Fiestas” Where we learned to build latrines, fiesta’d in funky town, and where I got ridiculously ill.