Week 1

My first week in Honduras has been quite a whirlwind. Our trip began at 3:30am on Saturday, September 2^nd. When we arrived at the San Pedro Sula Airport 12 hours later, Yamit and I were both exhausted. One of the trusted Honduras Child Alliance (HCA) drivers picked us up and drove us the remaining three hours to the small coastal town of El Porvenir (El P) -- our home for the next four months. During the entirety of the drive, I looked out the window and took in my surroundings. Honduras reminded me of many of the Caribbean countries I’d been to. Small, two lane roads were shared by cars, trucks, motorcycles and pedestrians alike. When drivers felt as though the car in front of them was going too slowly, they would swerve out into the lane of oncoming traffic, sometimes barely avoiding being hit by huge Mac trucks. It was quite hair-raising.

At one point during the drive, we stopped on the side of the road to buy a fruit called lichas from one of the many stands. A bag of lichas like the one in the photo cost 20 Lempira which is equivalent to 87 cents.

I knew we were close to El Porvenir when we began driving through miles of Dole pineapple fields. Apparently, many of the adults in El Porvenir work in these fields. Within 15 minutes of turning off the main highway (highway seems a generous term considering it’s a two lane road), we had arrived at Beach House – one of the two HCA volunteer houses. As we pulled up next to the house, we could see the light blue ocean water through the trees in front of us. It was beautiful.

Yamit and I met two of the three managers, Maggie (Philadelphia) and Eddy (Australia), and were shown to our room. It was a small space – smaller than I’d expected. The two of us were sharing a short bunk bed with me on the bottom and Yamit on top. In the other corner was the bed where our German roommate Regi slept. At first, it felt very cramped and small – especially because I’d been hoping for a spacious, two-person room – but it had a large closet and we had our own bathroom. Within a few days, I got used to it.

The next few days passed both slowly and quickly at the same time. I was overwhelmed by the amount of new information that I was being flooded with: names of volunteers, names of children, where to go in town, where not to go in town, expectations etc. I was also overwhelmed by the amount that Yamit and I had to do. When we’d stopped in the supermarket on the way from the airport to El P, we hadn’t known what we would have access to in the town and in the house, so we decided not to buy many groceries. Once we arrived though, we realized that there was much less than we’d originally thought. For the first few days, I was constantly stressed out about where we were going to get food and what we were going to eat. About two days in, we went to Funez’s grocery story in El P, and bought some essentials such as bananas and peanut butter and jelly. Once we had those, I felt much more at home.

A typical day in El P goes like this: Yamit and I wake up at around 7:45 and get ready for the day (breakfast, sunscreen etc.). There are three classroom locations (PEP Centro, PEP3, PEP2) of varying distances so we leave our house anywhere between 8:15 and 8:45 depending on which classroom we’re in that day. Some volunteers choose to take moto-taxis to some of the further locations, but I enjoy walking through the town and interacting with the people, so I’ve mostly chosen to go by foot. Morning class begins at 9am and goes until 10:30. Then we have a few hours of free time. The afternoon classes begin at 1:30pm and end at 3:30. Both Yamit and I are also teaching adult classes in the evenings from 6 to 7:30. These classes are attended by one or two adults per level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and run three nights a week. As much as I love working with the kids, the adult classes that I’ve shadowed at have been some of the most interesting. It’s in these classes that we are actually able to have real conversations. I’ve learned so much about Honduras and Honduran politics and I’ve only been to three classes so far. It also helps that I’m going to be teaching the advanced classes, so the adults I’ve been talking with have a very good handle on English.

On Wednesday evening, I had my first study-buddy session. Study buddies is a program run by HCA which gives volunteers an opportunity to practice their Spanish with people from the community. My study-buddy is a 20 year old, El Porvenir native named Taber. The coolest thing about having Taber as my ‘buddy’ is that he also attends the advanced adult classes. In situations like these – in which a privileged American is put in the position of helping the ‘poor, disadvantaged people’ it’s so easy to become arrogant and lofty and to develop the belief that you are superior to those whom you are helping. What I love about my study-buddy is that our relationship is completely reciprocal; he teaches me Spanish, I teach him English. We are equals. I don’t mean to say that this is not the case with the children – I think that in my time here they will teach me as much, if not more, than I will teach them, but the reciprocity in our relationships is different and it can be easy to forget that I am learning from them as well.

Besides the fact that it’s my first week, this week has been quite busy for other reasons as well. This coming Sunday, the 10^th is El Día del Niño which is one of the biggest holidays for children in Honduras. As far as my understanding goes, the purpose of this day is to celebrate children (seems like we should have a similar holiday in the U.S. J). On Día del Niño, children receive presents, tons of candy, and piñatas among other things. HCA planned its own celebration of Día del Niño involving fun games, a special snack, face painting, and relay races.

There has also been a lot of turnover in the volunteers – though I guess this is semi-normal. We arrived two weeks after the new manager had come. In the next two weeks, we have three new volunteers arriving and two leaving. It’s been a busy time.

On our second day here, Yamit and I tried a typical Honduran food called baleadas at the restaurant right across the street. We both ordered baleadas sencillos which are homemade tortillas filled with scrambled eggs, refried beans and cheese. Though we waited for them for about an hour and a half, they were totally worth it because they were delicious.

And on Tuesday evening a few of the volunteers went to a nearby restaurant called Iris’s where we had our first Honduran fried chicken, tajadas (plantains) and salad. Another delicious meal.

There’s so much more I could write about, but I don’t want my first post to be too overwhelming, so I’ll end it here. If there’s anything you’re curious about in my post, or anything that you don’t understand or want to understand better, please feel free to comment, email, or message me.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Word of the week:

Escasos Recursos: This is a word that I learned in study buddies. It roughly translates to people who have few resources

Yamit quote of the week:

“It’s soooo hot”