First days in site

Here I sit swatting and flicking who knows what kind of bugs as they insist on trying to join me in my bed. My can of OFF! lays cast aside as I wave the white flag in defeat. (Where are the geckos that normally hang out in my room when I need them?!) At this point it’s better to save it for my sacred skin then keep sweeping the room with it. It is a precious commodity after all. Eventually, I will run out of everything I have come to site with and have to buy my own, unless I can get the PCMOs to hook it up. Seeing as how I’m so close to Teguz, it certainly seems possible. I can live with that.
It’s only Wednesday of my first week in site and I feel so blessed. My work situation could hardly be better. My primary counterpart, vice-mayor Victor, is completely helpful, polite, respectful and goes out of his way to make my life easier. He has done great work to introduce me to everyone in the office, who are all amazing as well. It’s obvious all the people love their city and want to do their best to see it succeed. This actually makes my job easier. Lack of support is one of the biggest challenges PCVs face. I don’t get a creepy, chauvinistic vibe from any of the men in the office, which is also amazing. This little Honduran town (city really with a population near 20,000) is very progressive for a third world country, moreover Honduras. It almost seems unfair that this is considered PC service thinking about what some other volunteers have to deal with.
Monday I decided to not take the Cuerpo de Paseo route and show up to the office at 8AM. First day, gotta make a good impression. In typical Honduran style, I beat everyone there except one of the house keeping employees. Within the first few hours of the day I had been interviewed three times by local radio and TV stations (twice on camera, once on tape recorder). Referring again to how progressive this city is, Monday was the town hall meeting to review what the city had down in the first trimester of the year (lots of corruption here in Honduras, so this town has a civilian run transparency committee). I was invited and introduced to the community members who had opted to come. This first day I was presented with the idea of helping form a Farmer’s Market, helping people add value to their products to better market them and assist women’s micro businesses with the basics (accounting, marketing, production). The afternoon I got to see even more beautiful country side as I went out to an aldea to meet a PAM (Protected Areas Management) volunteer. She was very excited I’m living in her vicinity and it will be awesome to hang out and work together in the future. (This is the girl with whom I can develop eco-tourism in the local reserve.)
While Tuesday was a mere 24 hours ago, I can absolutely not recall the majority of the day. Victor took me to a school in the community where they have a lunch program for ultra low income kids (I use ‘ultra’ because most are generally low income). In the same compound is the city library and a mini escuela taller (a trade school). People at both the library and trade school feel I could help them with certain projects. I spent the afternoon reviewing the city’s strategic development plan which is over 100 pages long. Seriously, progressive.
Today, I was at the office all day. For the first hour and a half I just sat around in the waiting room with the Mayor’s secretary and chatted with her and people waiting to see the Mayor. It’s a great way to get to know people. After getting bored I headed to the “post office” next door, which is a small room of maybe 5 ft x 5 ft. Patty is the only one who works there and it’s a pretty common hang out spot. I got my daily dose of chisme (gossip) from Patty and another woman before heading to yet another community meeting. This time around the meeting consisted of a couple hundred people from all the surrounding aldeas (small outlying communities that the Mayor also presides over, there are 50). They were the chosen leaders from their communities and were being sworn in. Again, I was introduced in front of all these people. I’m getting amazing exposure in this town! Funny, I’m coming here as a business volunteer, but I’m working so much with the municipality and political leaders that I may see my future take a different path. Anywho, post meeting I met with a women’s group who came from 45 minutes away to meet with me, no one else, me. (It’s insane thinking I’m in such a position of high esteem considering my past work experiences.) They make these super cool baskets, burn guards (to place under hot dishes) and other things out of pine needles. These things are very well made, smell amazing (hello, pine needles!) and actually look cool. Now, I know snobby people, like my beloved sister (love you! :]) would not like these things, but there is certainly a market for them. That’s part of what they need help with. They need helping finding where to sell their product, getting their materials (besides the pine needles) and setting up basic accounting books. I couldn’t be more excited to start working with them, but I requested that they give me a little more time to settle in, adjust and make a game plan to tackle what they want. Today, I was also approached by a local teacher who wants to work with young girls in the aldeas to educate them more on reproductive health and sex ed. Unfortunately, she said there is quite a high rate of the young girls getting pregnant and then, they don’t have proper pre-natal care. I told her all PC has taught me is a simple HIV/AIDS charla. I did tell her that I have friends in the health project who are better prepared for this and in July when we’re free to mobilize we could bring some of them here to work on this and learn from them. It’s a double win for us PCVs because we get to see each other and hang out, while it doesn’t take vacation time because it’s for legit purposes! While Victor left me his office and computer again this afternoon to do research on basic accounting (I seriously gotta brush up, if I’m gonna teach these women!) another gentleman from the community stopped in to speak with me. Yes, he too had come just to find me in the city offices. (Weird, I’m telling you!) He spoke very fast, very passionately and very intently. I didn’t get all of what he was saying, but he was able to convey to me how much he loves this town, how much he wants to see it succeed and how dedicated he is to that purpose and also helping youth to reach those goals. He said he had seen/heard me in one of my aforementioned interviews and liked what I had to say. (I’m guessing the one where I said something along the lines of this is my home now and I want to do all I can to improve the quality of life here.)
I’ve got more to say. I had a great experience on Sunday evening and have some updates about my new host family. Those will have to wait I guess. This is almost spilling over onto the third page of my Word document after all! Thanks, again, for reading. :)
Hasta la proxima vez…