So all my faithful, unfaithful, and new readers can see that I do work from time to time, I plan on updating you on the latest and greatest in the 9-5 department.
Being a Business Adviser to a town of 34,000 is a daunting task. I would love to say that my being here has made a big impact when I leave at the end of two years, but let’s be honest. In the long run my impact will have only been important for a handful. To maximize my impact I’m doing what I can to bring in long term help in the form of a Chamber of Commerce. It just so happens it was an idea I came up with after assessing the needs of the town, but when I talked it over with the vice-mayor he said it was something the mayor had promised in his campaign. However, due to huge political divide here he wasn’t very successful. Enter la gringa with no political ties and I’ve got the ball rolling!
My first step was calling the main office in Tegucigalpa to request information on what kinds of things need to be done in the process. Within a week we had an appointment in Tegucigalpa. You would have thought they were trying to sell the idea of the Chamber of Commerce to us here in Guaimaca, based on their presentation. It was great and definitely sounds like something that will be a huge help here. Two weeks later we were having a meeting here in Guaimaca to inform the business people here what would be the benefit for them. Unfortunately we had little turnout. We had invited around 80 people and maybe 30 showed up. It was disheartening, but one must always stay chin up in Peace Corps work. Nonetheless we formed a new committee to help spread the word. The committee and I had made an appearance on local TV to discuss the idea and share what would be the benefit to local business. Based on the calls to the program that evening, people seem interested and excited. However, my biggest challenge now is getting in contact with the Tegucigalpa office again. They have not responded to my e-mails in over a week now. I just hope they know I won’t give up and will go back into Tegucigalpa again if they try to ignore me.
One thing I love about the Peace Corps is that I am my own boss and can do whatever work I please. The Catholic church here in my town is a great connection to the US and they bring in many volunteer groups for various projects. A few weeks ago I was able to meet some Engineers Without Borders from the Boston chapter and I will be helping them give trainings about how to properly use latrines and conserve water once the water system is fully operational in a few months.
Last week I was a full time translator. The church had brought in a medical/dental brigade and was attending to patients morning and afternoon for four days. Translating for the medical part was easy enough as I already knew most of the vocabulary for common medical conditions here in Honduras such as: high blood pressure, diabetes, and allergies. Translating in the afternoons for the dentist (same guy as the doctor!) I learned some interesting new vocabulary: sit up straight in the chair, filling, and baby teeth. It was nice to have a week of actual 9-5 work for awhile, since most of the time my schedule is all over the place. The group of medical professionals who came down were a great team to work with and I really enjoyed getting to meet them all. So guys, here’s hoping one (or all of you) is reading and I will shout you out as promised. Bill, Dina, Steve, Noreen (Doreen?), Nicole and Jade you guys are amazing for dedicating your time to the people of Guaimaca and I hope you get to come back again! Thanks for letting me work with you. :)
I still have a long term goal of creating a Sister Cities relationship between Guaimaca and my home town in California, but it’s a difficult and lengthy process. Sister Cities International suggests beginning with linking things such as local Lions Clubs and high schools, so I’m starting there. Americans are generally open to international aid, so I addressed my Guaimaca Leones and asked if they would be interested before even trying to contact the club at home. Sure enough, they were interested and even passed a motion for me to become an honorary member. I think that means they won’t make me pay dues and I have to go to their meetings every Thursday. All I really want is to encourage them is to be more active in the community. Here’s hoping.
What I’m really looking forward to is on the horizon. The Honduran school year just began this week and I’m really excited to be working with the youth again. In a couple of weeks I will again be teaching the kids about marketing, production and how to write a business plan. After that the teachers will assign them to groups and they will form their own micro-businesses. I’m hoping to also start a girls’ volleyball team and some sort of mentoring programs. I’d also like to start a program, based off the successful project of another volunteer, where the people are taught how dangerous burning plastic is, plastic is instead collected and later recycled for income. So, mostly ideas for now, but I’m going to do my best to get them to reality. Again, here’s hoping!
Anyway crew, in future posts I’d like to do some brief ‘supporting cast’ profiles about the important people to me here in Guaimaca, so you can get to know who I know a little bit!
Hasta la proxima vez…
