adios Catacamas

Buenas –

 

      I´m thinking back now and gees its been almost two weeks again, sorry for that everyone, but I´m sure you're happier that I´m not crowding your inbox!   So the last time I left off with everyone was I think right before I went to the futbol game.  I think I may have had too high expectations for a futbol game in latin America, because the olanchos have nothing on Georgia football.  I am still attributing this to several factors, one of which being it was the first game and the other being the huge storm that happened right before the game started.   Right before we left I asked my host brother if he thought I should bring a rain jacket and he said no, as soon as we walked up to the stands, which hold about 6,000 people, it started to pour.  Luckily, we paid for the covered seats but there was also a strong wind blowing so I got soaked and then everything got muddy and then we sat down and watched the game.   The game wasn´t terribly close, but our team won by 3 goals.  There were no fights and no rushing the field afterwards, I was kind of disappointed, but I won´t give up on the sport quite yet.

            The following week we did so much but I´ll just insert the highlights, we´ve been so busy, everyday from 7-5 that I barely have time to get anything done!   Wednesday we had a ¨taller¨ in a community outside of Catacamas about there watershed.  It was basically a town meeting to recognize the problem and begin to take action.   The town currently has some issue with a large number of fecal coliforms getting into their distribution pipes, how I´m not really sure.  We aren´t part of that part of the process but it could be from the pipes being old and they might have fissures in them and since it is the raining season the water is carrying fecal matter into the water pipes.  So the meeting was ok, it was an interesting view into how a community would really react to you telling them they have a problem.  From denial to asking for us to fix it to actually saying something needs to be done.   My part of the charla was explaining the things that Hondurans do that can potentially affect the watershed in each level.   Very easy because other groups had to explain the technical stuff about the chemical water tests, but getting people to participate in our little activity was like pulling teeth, without novocaine.   Very very painful. But we did it and its over and now they have the ball in their court, so hopefully they will think about something to do, unfortuantly no one from our group in going to be placed in this town so we will probably not be able to further help the process along.

            Thursday and Friday were completely devoted to information about AIDS and HIV, Thursday we had another taller presented to us and on Friday we went to a local high school and presented almost the same presentation to a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds.   It amazed but didn´t at the same time what some of these kids thought were facts and myths about AIDS.  I hope that we imparted some knowledge, because it isn´t rare to see a 13 year old with a kid or pregnant in this country.  After the charla at the schools we had guest speaker come and talk to us about his experience with AIDS.  Apparently he and his son are both living with AIDS and his wife has passed away.  He told us about the process to get drugs and how he lives his life, very healthy but many people don´t.  And also how they won´t provide drugs for the child until his white blood cell count is much further down, next year he is supposed to start school but he is already sick all the time.   It's hard to see, the little boy has no concept of what is going on.

            Saturday morning we got up early and headed out to the National Park, Talgua.  Before going into the caves we hiked 3 hours up a mountain to visit a community of coffee farmers that actually live in the middle of the protected area and have farms there.  Its very strange to see, after hiking on this little trail for almost 2 hours all of a sudden we came upon a house and then a few more houses and then a community that even has a church.  For these people to get anything they have to walk down the mountain and go into the nearby town, for them to sell their coffee they have to haul it down the mountain and for them to go to the hospital or to the clinic they have to go down the mountain, and I´m not even sure the kids go to school, but again down the mountain.  The name of this town, by the way, is Florida.  The people were very nice and hospitiable, they ama de casa made us all a cup of coffee and a snack before we headed back down the mountain.  Once we got back down we headed into the caves, which apparently were discovered as an important anthropological site in the early 90s by some Peace Corps volunteers, they found a bunch of bones and precious jewels and metals in one of the crevices in the caves.  Harvard and UW came down and excavated.  The tour of the caves its self was very similar to one in the states, this stalactite looks like a bear, this one looks like a clown, but the whole set up was so foreign.   Safety could defiantly be an issue, but it feels a lot like you´re still part of the exploring process, and actually we can be, because they still have more caverns in the mountains and more in the lower one that have yet to be completely walked.   Annually they said they have almost 24,000 people come visit the park, which I think is absolutely amazing!  And defiantly a great success story in ecotourism in Honduras.  Sunday morning we got up and built a trail, we learned the basics for safety and sustainability.  They are a lot more similar to steps though, but it was really neat to see it finished.   (Also my camera is broken so I´m going to steal pictures from everyone and I´ll have to post those, don´t know when I´ll get another camera).

            This week has been equally exciting and exhausting, Monday we had a session on chicken management.   We had a mecture first and then Luis our trainer was going to demonstrate how to properly vaccinate chickens.  I was sitting in the front row when the farmer brought up this huge rooster and the next thing I know I´m holding it by its wings and choking its neck (well not chocking but I swear it was pretending) at one point I lost its neck and all I could say was uh ohh, the rooter was NOT happy with me.  But I survived and we vaccinated 150 chickens with needles and eye drops.  And I stuck them too, by the way.   On Wednesday we had a similar session but with cows, which I also vaccinated and herded and lassoed and road.  

            More importantly this week we had our dia del agricultor.  We spent the entire day with an assigned farmer at his farm, doing whatever it was that they were doing for the day.  Lucky for me I ended up with another female because the day could not have been more interesting!  First thing we did was pick frijoles, and then we made two raised seed beds (like an entire row of corn long) which included clearing, ploughing, ploughing again and then picking out the rocks and then smoothing it out.  After that the work was done (this was after lunch) we headed over to the neighbour's farm and weeded and ploughed his field that he was getting ready to plant with cabbage.   At the end of the day I left with 2 marriage proposals, from two brothers, and a pocket full of frijoles, to make me fertile.  As well as a sun burn, a rash from the leaves of corn, ant bites and a good appreciation of what the farmers in Honduras, as well as the rest of the world go through on a daily basis.

            Today we made a pit latrine, not a very easy task either.   And tomorrow we are heading back to Santa Lucia for the weekend.  On Tuesday we get our site assignments so I plan on sending out a huge email then letting everyone know what I will be up to.  Thursday we have a site visit until Sunday and then we come back to Santa Lucia, pack up and on Thursday we swear in as official volunteers!   I can´t believe it's all gone by soooooooo fast.  I miss you all and appreciate your support.  I will try and write everyone back on Sunday in SL.   Until then.

PC Love,

Bridget

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Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084