Ask not what your country can do for you...

of course I forgot the pics

2007-09-06T09:49:00.001-07:00

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Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

hurricane felix and chickens...

2007-09-06T09:33:00.001-07:00

First off I wanted to thank everyone for worrying about me during hurricane Felix. Truth is where I was it barely even rained. I was supposed to be in Tegus for my one year medical appointments on Tuesday but after many phone calls and text messages from other volunteers, I called my security boss to find out what I should do, leave the mountain on Monday or stay put. At about 10:30 he called me back and told me to come to Tegus, the only problem that late in the day is that there were no cars passing for me to get a ride with, so I paid someone to drive me down to Tiupa where I would catch the bus that goes to Tegus at 1:30. I got on the bus ok, it was packed and took forever to get to the bus station in Tegus, but I made it and went to the hotel where other volunteers in for 1 year meds were. It still wasn't raining Monday night or Tuesday morning when we got up so we continued with our medical appointments. Bascially the hurricane didn't amount to anything in the capital but I did call my site to make sure the mountain was still there and they said there had been a lot of rain and wind, but I guess I won't know the full damage until I get back to site tomorrow.

Where to begin…

The main reason why I have not written is because of the amount of time I have had to spend in my sight working with my projects and therefore have not had access to internet or electricity. Right now we have 6 chicken coops completed, hopefully tomorrow I will be building another one and the last 2 will be finished in late August (15 in total) when all of the new trainees come to my site for a day to learn about the project. But I think I am getting a little ahead here.

About the same time as we had our one year in county anniversary (!) my project received funding so instead of going off to the beaches of Tela I stayed in my site to plan our trips to get materials. What would one more week have been if I had gone? The reason why is because the women in the group were starting to think that the project was a sham and that we were never going to make the coops, we sent in our proposal in March (a week before Easter/ Semana Santa) and not until June did we have our money in the bank. I have realized this is a problem with Honduras and surely with developing nations worldwide. The people here are accustomed to officials, organizations, ect telling them that improvement will come and it never does. I am still waiting, with my whole community, for electricity to come to San Isidro, but the last I heard was someone lost a "very" important document and now nothing can be built, I think the truth is the money isn't there.

We started out a group of 20, but now we will only be building 15 chicken coops. The reasons the women dropped out of the group are varying but they also illuminate other problems of development. One woman left because her husband didn't want to make the mud bricks (called adobes) to build the coops (in the grant we applied for the community is required to give 25% of the total cost of the project, which would be the bricks, manual labor and a few other things). Another 2 left because their adobes fell apart once the rainy season started. My counterpart's wife quit because she said the project would never get the money. And another woman never came back to the meetings because no one ever sent her a note after the first and she was too embarrassed to just show up.

Maybe I should explain the process of which I went through with this. The truth is I made some mistakes: culturally, common sensically, lingually. But in my defense, I didn't know any better at the time. Everything I did was thinking of the best interest of the community and with the advice of the members of the group and community.

This whole project started one day in November, let's see I was almost 2 months in site and still struggling with my language skills. But we decided to go on with the project. The same week that I flew home for Christmas, we had an interest meeting and we elected leaders (key word here: ELECTED). When I got back from my trip home, we had another meeting, I asked questions, we planned dates for the workshops. One VERY important question I asked was how many chickens they thought they could manage? I said 10? 5? 15? 100? 15 they told me, we voted, everyone was in agreement. I wrote it on the chalk board. More time goes by, during this time I am doing research on chickens, I am talking to doctors, farmers, government workers, NGOs, and reading LOTS of books in Spanish, trying to get an idea for the very best way to do the project so its sustainable and effective. This work of mine I will not discredit but for future projects I will include this essential part of project building with a community counterpart because it was by far the hardest part. But the reality of this work is it would never have gotten done if I hadn't done it. Being the volunteer I was the one who was supposed to make the sacrifices for the group, spend the time in the buses and look for the contacts because these women are tied down, to their houses, to their kids and to their husbands. They do not leave the mountain. It is culturally unacceptable to be vagabonding all over El Paraiso like I was for this project. I know there are smaller ways to incorporate people into this part of the work but because it is so important and NO ONE wants to do it either because it costs too much money to travel, they don't have the time because of other commitments or they don't want to for fear of what the community will say about them.

OK, everyone with me still? After I consulted a number of sources, including the women in the group, but mostly the leaders, I began to write the proposal, in Spanish. A lot of the questions from the grant were a different way of thinking than Hondurans are use to, and this basically is because it was writing by the US government. So when I asked people what they thought about a sustainability plan they had no idea what I was talking about. I explained and explained things to the president of the group but ultimately what she told me I used in my own words, I was afraid that a poorly written document would get us no funding. I have no idea if I poorly written grant proposal would get funding from PC or no and I'm not sure from other sources either, but I have a good feeling that the answer is no.

I think the proposal would have been more rewarding for the group if they personally had sat down pen in hand and wrote it. But I don't think it ever would have gotten done. The people of Honduras have become very accustomed as well to waiting till things come to them. This is not a "go-getter" society, and for this reason I would show up at women's houses to personally invite them to the meetings, but I drew the line at dragging them out of the house to get them to show up, but that's what they are waiting for. But nor do they have a lot of patience.

So with the proposal in the works, my boss calls me one day and says there are other proposals already in the office and if I don't hurry up I might not get funding (remember I said that USDA and the Honduran equivalent SAG were giving a 8 million Lps grant to PC?) So in two days I wrote the entire grant in Spanish (after thinking about it for 3 months) and off it went to Tegus. I never got a phone call about corrections to the grant the only phone call I got was to say the project had been approved and the money would be ready in 2 weeks (which was really 8). Now, supposedly, my project is the model for all other chicken projects, at least this is what other volunteers tell me. And for that aspect I do not regret doing the proposal myself!

So money shows up in the bank. We call the place in Tiupa to see of they have the supplies. The lady tells me no, but they can bring them from Tegus they have a guy there now buying materials. Great we tell her, call us back later to let us know. She never called back. Early that morning we decided, while waiting for the bus, that we'll go to Danli instead of buying in Tiupa. So we get to Tiupa and go looking for a large truck that can bring all the materials to the mountain.

(Since I started this email a while ago I don't really remember where I was going with this and it's turning into a long story).

After getting Danli we went to the hardware store that told me the orginal prices and said that they didn't have all the chicken wire we needed so we went looking for other stores. After covering almost every single hardware store in Danli we ended back up where we started and they tell us prices higher than what they quoted me in the middle of all this it started to pour, it had been raining almost the whole day. Around 6 we finally get things settled and end up buying fewer materials than planned. On a steeper part of the road on the way back the roofing panels slide out of the truck bed and took the rolls of chicken wire with them so we ended up having to reload the truck in the dark and rain. We ended up making it back to San Isidro at 11:00 at night.

Once we had everything in site I started with one coops to see how it would turn out and exactly how many yards, nails, post staples would need. The actual construction took about 2 days but just to get the actually structure built. And another few days of work to put up the perch, the nests, and to whitewash the adobe bricks.

And since we over budgeted a little too much, ok a lot, we will hopefully have enough money left over from the project to make pilas (which are cement water storage containers that have a wash board on top of them) because 35 of the 95 houses in my community do not have a large storage container for water. What exactly would they really need one of these for? Well if a family does not have a large water storage system they tend to waste more water washing clothes or dishes, bathing, ect. But unfortunately we will not enough have enough money to construct one for all of the homes that need one. On Friday I am planning on solicting the mayor's office for help at least with thr trips to bring supplies but maybe they will be willing to add some money to the project. If not, once we finish the 10 or so from the women in my group we will look for money to make more. But I've found that money is a large barrier that I am encountering now; the people in my community and especially one counterpart organization have great ideas, but costly ones.

Not that I'm solicting money from you all (yet) but if anyone has any ideas on a place where I could find a large sum of money for training events please send the info my way. Basically what this project would include would be training events for all the water boards in the association of boards, because a lot of them do not even know the basic knowledge of maintaining their systems and therefore will not last as long and the quality of water that the village receives is very poor. Another idea that this board has is to start a water bottling business to make themselves sustainable which they are more than willing to do with a loan but I have yet to see the business plan but the idea is on the right track (as far as sustainability).

And more projects I am working on, which are still very much in process, are an environmental video with the high school students as well as a tree farm of fruit trees. When we make more headway on the video I will post it on uTube or something, but I am really excited about this project. We have another tree farm with the water board to plant near the water source to further protect and manage it.

I think thats it for right now. Lista is doing great, I'll attach a picture of her playing with a pinata at a quincera that we had when my family was down. Horse is ok, a couple of weeks ago he bit a girl that was shadowing me from Zamorano on a study abroad program in the neck, which I found to be rather funny, but I don't think she did and once we got the blood all cleared up everything was ok, she didn't die but will now have a nice story from Honduras. Anyway, I was a little worried as to why he bit someone so I lent him to someone to work but it turns out he really just didn't like this girl because he's still the exactly the same as before, very tame. And also I got him shoes, but I'm tempted to take them off so I can hang them in my house and have lucky horse shoes.

Other pic that is included is one of the chicken coops, the first one we did, its not quite yet finished, but just so you can have an idea.

PC Amor,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

in haste

2007-04-27T16:29:00.001-07:00

I spelled caballo wrong and attached the WRONG pic of lista. va

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

lista y caballo mio

2007-04-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hey All!
Its been awhile again I suppose. I'm the capital right now, came in to check on my proposal for my chicken coop project. The money will be deposited in our account next week, ojala. It's crazy to think that we really will be doing a project. I'm glad that this got off the ground, but at the same time I do have some reservations. For those of you spanishisly inclined I will attach the proposal, but for those of you not so spanishly (if that's even a word) I will explain a little more in detail the objectives and goals of this project.
But before I begin to explain, I want to share a few things. There is a picture of me holding a rather large rooster during training with a very scared and shocked looked on my face, I don't I had ever held a chicken as large in my life (maybe I've never even held a chicken ever, mom?). Needless to say I was not enthusiastic about a chicken project that involved the slaughter and delivery of fresh chicken meat. But from the very beginning I told myself that whatever they wanted to do in my site I would offer the best help and support I could. Keeping in mind that because I am the first volunteer in my site I am there more to introduce the idea, feel out the community and access the needs and abilities. Today I was told that first site volunteers are not really expected to get projects off the ground. This is not acceptable to me, I came to offer support and if I didn't get busy I might have gone mad sitting in my hut with out light. I know if I didn't begin somwhere there would have been a chance that we never would have begun, and now that this has started and my spanish has improved 10 folds I hope to do things more proactive for the people's lives (laterines, water storage, environmental education, ect.)
So low and behold, one of the first projects someone approached me about was pollos engordes, or chicken meat. OK I said, lets have a meeting and figure this out, see who else wants to join and move on with it. Shortly after I talked to my boss, and he suggested a different approach. The project that we learned about in training was done in an area that had access to a large market where they could sell their chicken meat without exhausting the market. In San Isidro the only market available is in the mountain surrounding us because of transportation and on top of that not that many families can afford to eat meat every day. So the project turned into an individual family project.
About 20 families, 20 women, will have their own chicken coops and will responsible for maintaining their chickens that they have right now in their patio. After we have constructed all of the coops we will grow baby chicks so each women will have 15 chickens (these will be of a different species, not the "indos" as they are known in the mountain).
The idea is that each family will then have enough eggs for the entire family to eat daily and more than enough to share to make a nice small profit (about 500 limpiras a month) and the meat will be better tasting and more for the families to kill every once in a while.
Two women will be raising chickens only to sell which will earn them more money but will not flood the market. At one of the introductory meetings I asked all of them women if anymore than 2 would like to participate in this aspect of the project. And none of them did, because it is true, more work, less money at the beginning.
And so, right now we have had 2 workshops that have gone fairly smoothly, especially considering my Spanish and my knowledge of chickens. May 5th we will have our 3rd and pretty soon after we will start constructing the coops.

In other news, I bought a horse. The name is still up for grabs. Right now the favorites in my site are Capitain or Caballo Bayo. But I've noticed when it comes to naming pets Hondurans lack creativity so I know if I name him either of these, I will find 30 more with the same name. Attached there is a picture of him.
Also attached is a picture of my puppy, who no longer is a pup. Lista is her name and she is almost 4 months old.

Going to cut this short, hopefully I will be able to write more about everything later. Going back to site tomorrow I think. Hope all is well in the states.

Paz,
Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

coffee season, and its aftermath

2007-03-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!

I know its been a while since I have written, especially since I have been getting emails from people asking for updates, sorry guys! I'm not really sure where I should begin this email. I originally meant to write this about a specific incident that happened near my site because of coffee season. But right now I'm sitting in Zamorano - a Honduran agr university that actually does a lot of work with UGA. I'm waiting to meet with a Doctor on campus who works with chickens, but he is in a meeting as I type so I got lucky and was shown the computer lab! with free internet! I am the only person here in the lab and the lab guy, i have no idea what his job title is, really wants to carry on a conversation, so a saber if I'll get to finish this email today or never.

I guess I'll digress a bit and go back to right before our project reconnect - the 3 month in site meeting. I went to Danli, a big city in the opposite direction of Teguc from my site, to run some errands and catch up with friends for the day. To get there though, I was going to take a ride down the mountain and catch an early bus direct from Teupacenti to Danli, it turned out that one of the coffee farmers from San Isidro was going all the way to Danli and offered to take me. Peace Corps volunteers rarely give up free rides, especially from people they trust. On the way, we stopped in Teupa at the secadora so he could clear up some business and we left from there to Danli. Later, around 6 PM, I got a text message from one of the coffee farmers in my site saying that the owner of the secadora had been killed. I wrote him back and asked how. He texted back and said they robbed him. My friend the coffee farmer was concerned and so was I.

In Teupacenti there are 2 large secardoras - or coffee dryers. This is the place that people take their "wet" coffee to sell. There they have large machines that they put the coffee through to dry it more rapidly or they lay it out on cement patios to dry it by the sun, which takes more time. There is one dryer that is right next to the salida, o sea the exit for San Isidro. And thus everyone from my area sells their coffee there. I have frequented the secardora on several occasions with farmers who have given me a jalon, o sea a ride, to town. None of them have been to show me around the place or explain exactly what happens, because I'm a female and why would I care. So in passing I knew the owner of the secardora, I stand out, its very hard not to standout. Anyway, so I was genuinely upset when I heard this news. At first I thought someone had broken into the office of the dryer late at night and robbed him and it wasn't until the next day that I got the whole story.

The next I went to the bus station in search of the Tiupa bus, which as it turns out, was not there. So I took a bus that would pass by the desvio (or the fork in the road) that goes up to Tiupa, from there I waited for t a car to pass or from a jalon. Luckily the bus came.

It wasn't until I was on the bus on my way back to Teupacenti when I got the whole story. I realized that the man sitting next to me was reading an article with some very gruesome photos. After about 15 minutes I decided to ask him if it was about the guy who was murdered. It was and in the article it said that the ex-diputado was carrying 500,000 limpera with him and was ambushed by 4 men with AK 47s and shotguns. In the car with him were 2 body guards, a worker and 2 women to whom he was givings rides to from the desvio- o sea where the main highway meets the dirt road that goes to Teupacenti. Only he was killed, but as we passed the spot on the road everyone got up and looked out the side of the bus, the blood was still visible on the road.

Rumors say that these men were tipped off that he would be traveling with this much money. His wife said he was carrying so much because he needed to pay workers. The reality of the situation is that there is a small bank and several cooperatives in Teupacenti but I don't think any of them are large enough to manage the amount of money that they use. So he might not have had other options for traveling with this money. Another unfortunate reality is that many coffee farmers are traveling with more money and because of the high traffic of cars traveling through the mountain, the bus has become less and less regular. And that leaves less options for me to travel away from site.

After this happened, I didn't really know what to think. Was I in danger living where I am, if I had tried to go home the day before like I had planned and waited for a jalon where I waited the day before, would I have been in the car with them? I didn't know. So I made a meeting with the Safety and Security director of PCH, the day before we left to go to another city for several days for our conference. After explaining everything to the SS Director his immediate reaction was that I needed to change my site. And all I could do was stare at him, I was afraid I was going to freak out more. Me, who was the least gunho about their site from the beginning, me who was scared to death to go to site, was now scared to death to change sites. I told the man that the very LAST thing I wanted to do was leave San Isidro. After more conversation, we decided that I would only travel in buses and avoid people in the community that may be traveling with more money. And that I should take a break for the weekend and hang out with friends and enjoy myself. (!) All of this is easier said than done of course. But I am trying my hardest. And don't worry the minute I ever feel unsafe where I am living I will be out of there.

Since I have come back from my trip to the states 8 people in my side of Tiupa have been killed over money made during coffee season, almost always something about people owing other people money. For a while it seemed like every day the police were driving by in the mornings to another village and in the afternoons with people in the back in handcuffs. At least the police are doing something, but the fact remains that people are still killing people. And the best I can see to explain this a little better to explain exactly the way coffee season runs.

Although in all parts of the country coffee season begins and ends differently. In my region, November begins the season and should end in mid March. Coffee berries ripen at different times so usually the coffee farmers have to make at least three cuts. The people who actually pick the coffee are the poorer people in the community and surrounding communities. And after the second cut many of these people don't want to cut anymore, so a lack of workers is a common complaint among the farmers. Thus forcing them to pick the green berries, which sell for practically nothing and produce coffee that is awful.

But the reason why the workers get tired of picking is because the farms are all on very steep slopes, it is still the raining season and fairly cold where the farms are located because of the shade needed and the altitude. Another huge factor is the amount the owner's pay the pickers. For each lata, a 5 gallon bucket, the owner will pay 20-25 Limperias (about $1 US). An average adult, picking all day (from 6am-4pm) can pick between 3-6 latas. So the average coffee picker is making between 60 and 150 Limperias a day (or about $7.50 US) in 10 hours. I can sympathize with these people. And from experience of picking, it is not a very easy task, although one does get better with time. The trees are often very high and the berries do not just pop right off, and if you break part of the stem that part of the plant will not produce berries again.

On the other side of things are the growers. Which have their share of problems as well. Many coffee farms have been planted and replanted for decades without much fertilization, thus leaving the soil poor and the production poorer. Many farmers lack very specific technical knowledge of coffee and therefore cannot benefit from improvements with the new technology. But they are still producing and still selling, but because of something in the past, Honduras' coffee product has a bad reputation and cannot be sold for the same prices that some farmers get in say Guatemala or Columbia or even Africa. Some people in Nicaragua will even cross the boarder and buy Honduran coffee for less and take it back to Nicaragua and sell it for more, because they have a better market. So recently the coffee market has dropped, but the price for a lata at the beginning of the season (in Tiupa) was 210 Limpera (now it is 180 Lps.) in one manzana an average farmer can get about 60 latas of wet coffee. The farmers have no choice but to pay very small wages. And the average coffee grower only has 3-5 manzanas.

Anyway, enough about coffee season and the extremely depressing reality of Honduras. We went to reconnect in Siguatepeque for 4 days, this conference was for all the current volunteers in my project and we talked about common problems and also had a few technical sessions on topics we didn't not cover in-depth in training. It was a lot of fun to be with everyone, especially the volunteers that live on the other side of the country that I hardly ever see. After the conference a bunch of us headed over to the lake, Lago de Yajoa, for my birthday/to hang out. The lake was awesome. We stayed in some ex-pat's (from Britain) hotel that has cabins and a bunk room, access to the lake, a restaurant, and boats to rent. We ended up getting there late on Friday because a few of us stayed behind in Seguatepeque to go to a seed storage place that was providing the seeds for the Trees for Future projects that a few of us are involved in (myself included - hopefully my community and I will be planting over 5,000 trees!) By the time we got to the lake it was nearly sun down, so we hung out, got dinner and relaxed and watched the sun set. Later that night, some friends broke out there instruments ( a guitar and a cello) and jammed for us a little bit, I went downstairs to use the bathroom and when I came back up everyone sang happy birthday to me with a cake! There were about 20 of us in all. And then the ex-pats and his family.

The next morning we got up late and hung around, went and walked down the street to check out the little shacks that sell fried tilapia and came back in the afternoon because the owner told us he'd take us out for a swim in the lake. We went swimming for about 30 minutes and came out covered in green algae. We got showered up, grabbed a cooler from the restaurant and went on a "party cruise" to watch the sunset on the lake. The next morning we got up and all parted ways.

I left and went back to site and arrived much more relaxed.

Well I'd love to write more right now, I still haven't covered the latest on the chicken project, but my friend Ashley is flying into Honduras today and I'm leaving to go to the airport to get her. She is definitely in for some surprises, we have to go back to my site, because on Saturday I have my very first chicken workshop with my women's group. And I want to start mapping the watershed with her help. So after she leaves I will have much more to write about, more adventures and more gripes I'm sure!

I hope this email finds everyone well!

PC Amor,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

thanksgiving and beyond

2007-01-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

Well a lot has passed and not much has happened. I guess the last anyone heard from me was when I was in the capital for Thanksgiving. Well the next morning after our very sub par meal at TGIF's I was peer pressured, very easily so might I add, into going to La Paz, La Paz to eat dinner at another volunteer's house for TG dinner. It was totally worth it. The food ws awesome (we even had pumpkin pie) and the company was even better. There was maybe about 35-40 volunteers there for the night. The whole month of November La Paz has their feria so after dinner we all headed out to the central park to watch the torres de fuego. A wooden structure that resembles a bull but has fireworks that look like sticks of dynamite all over it. A person picks up the bull and lifts it over their head and the fireworks are lit and they run through the crowd with it. After a few minutes the bull is passed off, still lit, to another person who then also runs through the crowd. OK, maybe you had to be there, but I have some movies that I took and will try and post. I left the next afternoon to go back to Teguc to try and catch the GA v GT game with Saira (who went to Tech). We made it in time for half time, so we watched the rest of the game and tried to head back to her site, which is in the same department as mine. Apparently we missed the last bus that was supposed to leave at 6, even though we were there at 5:45.

The month of December pretty much flew by here. Especially because I spent almost half of it in the states. But before I left I finalized everything for my house (or at least I thought I did) and had a meeting about our chicken project.

The chicken project is supposed to take the chickens that the women already have and make them healthier and better egg producers. I invited 20 women and by 2:15 no one had showed up, the meeting was to start at 2. By 2:30 5 were there and by 3 15 were there. I never really believed that whole one hour later thing because almost all of the meetings I have attended started about on time, but that's ok. I didn't really have a whole lot going on that day. I spent a lot of time getting ready or this meeting, making posters and name tags and agendas and prat icing what I was going to say. I didn't think I was exactly ready, but prepared regardless. It turns out that over half of the women that were there cannot read or write, so my posters were useless, they didn't get my ice breakers or they cheated, and they wrote so small on the name tags I couldn't read them. On top of this some of them experienced the mind block, as I like to call it, of my Spanish. This occurs when someone does not care to understand you even if you are speaking perfect Spanish because you look and act different. Luckily for me about 5 women in the community are very use to my Spanish and helped me translate from my Spanish to their Spanish. There were very few questions but the ones they did ask were very pertinent. I thought all had gone fairly well until I got back to my site and and asked Suyupa what people has been saying and I know she wanted to be nice so she said she hadn't talked to anyone about it. But honestly, a woman approached me to have this project, it wasn't the other way around, so I can keep working with the water board and still be very busy, although I would really like to have all the chickens in San Isidro in chicken coops, purely for the reason that I hate them and they bite me, no seriously they bite. More to come on the chicken project as it develops.

Right now I am also trying to write a watershed management plan that we can begin to implement in our town and then can be easily transferred to other villages. This is not the easiest task. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know!

A few Honduran anecdotes:

The other day I was at the pulperia and this very North American looking girl walked by, she said hola and only spoke in Spanish, surely I thought to myself if she was from the states she would realize I was too and talk to me in English. Who is that I asked Elida. That's the gringo's daughter. What? I said, where does the gringo live? Arriba, she told me. (Arriba to my community it anywhere above where you are standing, and abajo is anywhere below where you are standing). Arriba where? I demanded. Do you know the cantina? No I said I don't KNOW the cantina, but I know where it is (a cantina in the mnt is a guy who sells warm beer and guaro out of his house). There, he lives there. Ohh, I said, you mean he's Honduran but looks like a gringo. Yeah, she says. So he doesn't speak English then? No of course not, she tells me. Aye, if I had just asked from the beginning, but instead we played this game for 7 mins or so.

The day before I left to go to Teguc to fly home I was supposed to go to the mayor's office to pick up the form requesting a new volunteer for Teupacenti. I told them I would be more than happy to take the form into the PC office. Of course I had ulterior motives, but they didn't know this. So I get to the office early to pick up the form. Oh he's not here, one of the women working there tells me. When will he be here? He's in Teguc right now. What do you mean he's in Teguc? Don't worry she tells me, he should be back later today. When later today? By 3, she tells me. So I wonder around the town until 3 and return. He's there but is very surprised to see me. I came to get the form I tell him, what form, he asks. I explain and he has to ask the mayor if it's done. He comes back and tells me, no it has not been completed but maybe if I wait around it might be done in a few hours. OK I say, I'll wait. I doesn't get done so I tell him if they really do want another volunteer in Teupa the form needs to be done in Jan. Oh well, he tells me, I thought we could have it in by March and be ok. You do realize the volunteers come in Feb, right? I say. Yes, and he stares at me blankly. Things aren't looking good for me having anyone near by.

So going home was nice, but extremely overwhelming. I thought I wouldn't notice the commercialization or the people and while it could be because of the holidays, I couldn't stop gaping at these things. While it was nice to have a hot shower and food options, I couldn't believe how rude the people were and how horrible the traffic was and basically everything I took for granted before I left. It's very strange how accustomed I have become to not having choices or not having anything. Conditions I would never have put up with the states are just another part of everyday life here. I'm not sure what it will be like when I go back for good, but I guess I understand why the PC says readjusting to the states is much harder than leaving.

I got back to country on the 30th and almost immediately took a bus 7 hours to La Cieba to see one of my better friends in the Peace Corps who's mom is dying of brain cancer and therefore will be leaving for good very soon. La Cieba was extremely disappointing. The beaches were beyond dirty, we saw a needle lying on the road and there was a brown pelican swimming in an absolutely horrible river with a broken (or something) wing. I couldn't wait to leave that place and go back to my site. Although I hear the islands are very nice, the only ferry to them is through Cieba and that alone may keep me from going to them. We celebrated the 31st like Americans, but all the fun in Honduras doesn't begin until after 12am, everyone spends the evening with their families and then goes out. But we managed to still have a good time. Also another difference about the north coast, more people speak English because the population is mostly made up of gurifinos (relatives of African slaves brought over to work in the plantations) but the English they do speak is a pidgin and often very hard to understand. We found it easier to speak to them in Spanish. I also met a bunch of people that went illegally to the states and lived in Miami (or near) and it seems all of the people that go illegally to the states in my mountain live in Virginia (near DC).

So I got back to Teupa and went to see if I could get on the bus with all my luggage (I brought back 2 solar panels, one for me and one for my counterpart) and it turned out the bus wasn't running because the road had gotten so bad from the rain the past 2 weeks (before I left I seriously doubted I would be able to get down the mnt, because it rained straight for 7 days). So I walked about 7 more blocks to the salida to wait for a car to pass, for 3 hours only one car passed and it was already very full. By then it was getting close to sun down and I had been sitting with a lady from San Isidro, where are you going to spend the night? she asked. I don't know I said. By then it had started to rain again so she told me to come stay with her at her mom's house. So away I went. I ate dinner with them and slept there. She assured me we would leave early to get back to the mountain. By 3 PM I was still sitting around waiting. Finally at 3:30 we left. I got to my new house to find it still very much occupied. Great, I thought, Esperanza (the owner of the house) comes out and sees me and proceeds to tell me that my boss told her I wouldn't be moving in until the end of the month, which I know was a bold faced lie. But don't worry she says tomorrow we'll move. And for tonight I say? You can sleep with us, she offers (right there are already 3 women, an infant, a 20 yr old and an old man). Thanks I say, I'm going to go ask some others. So leave my stuff in her house and go around saying feliz ano nuevo to everyone. I ended up finding 3 more places to sleep and was hanging out at one family's house when Antonio showed up (my counterpart). He basically insisted that I spend the night there, which was fine. The next morning I went over to my house to see if they needed any help and almost everything was gone from inside. So now I have my house with all my stuff in it and a borrowed bed and that's about it. And also 4 1\2 people living right outside my door (a least until feb). But I have high hopes for it, I bought some nails and a new lock and I am going to start fixing it up!

Hope every one's new year started off on the right foot. Take care and I will write more soon.

PC Amor,

Bridget

happy early thanksgiving

2006-11-22T11:17:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone -

I hope the holidays have started treating y'all well. Here in Honduras it really wasn't starting to feel like the season until Sunday. A cold front has come through. Right now in the valley it is not freezing, but in the mountain, where it is almost 3000 asl, IT IS ABSOLUTELY FREEZING. For the past few nights I have slept in my Northface fleece in my 32 degree sleeping bag with socks and gloves on and I'm still cold. The actually temperature, so I'm told, is only about 15 degrees C (about 60 F) but with the wind that whips through the mountains, I swear its below freezing. The first night the front came through I woke up and thought I was in the middle of a hurricane, and when I got out of bed it actually did resemble the aftermath, all the trees had their leaves ripped off. Anyway that was Sunday, and here it is Wednesday and still no let up. This unexpected weather has presented several problems in my daily routine. On top of the water coming straight from the stream cold, now its freezing, so bathing has turned into a nightmare. I boil water but still, the shower is outside with the windchill, its just absolutely absurd. Alright I'm done complaining.

I came into town today to have a meeting with the engineer from the NGO IHCAFE, who I finally tracked down after almost three months of searching and waiting for him. It turns out too that its a different guy and the other has left. But he seems to be very interested in my assistance and projects so hopefully this will be a fruitful partnership, but if not, just as well. Tomorrow morning I'm taking the bus into the capital for a Thanksgiving dinner with friends. TGIF's said they would do a turkey dinner for us, we got a room reserved and are just going to hang out and watch football. I wanted to stay and watch the UGA GT game but I think I'm going to try and come back to site Sat morning.

The schools have let out for the year, until February. And now they are having their graduation ceremonies, Saturday is SI's kinder graduation so I'm going to try and make it back for that. Wednesday is our 6th and 9th grade graduation. I was invited to the 9th grade graduation by a family\boy in SI. I'm not really sure what all it entails, but I know there is a lot of eating involved. I'll take pictures and let everyone know more in depth what exactly is involved in this celebration!

Its hard for me to believe, but I've been in country almost 6 months and in site for 3. Right now I have started planing what projects we will be doing for the years to come. It looks like the first large project will be a formal plan on the watershed. Included in this will be the reforestation of the watershed, but herein lies the first problem. A man in our community owns the land and is not willing to sell it. If this is any indicator of the problems to come I can't wait. I'm starting now to get maps and wiping the polvo off the GPS so we can do all of this legally. Another organization came to SI to talk to us about giving us funding for this project, but the lady said we needed to own the land first, she also said we needed to reforest where our PVC tubes are laid, so, that's another issue. But the monies would be helpful because there are many houses in my community that do not have potable water, although the current stream does not have the capacity to sustain the entire community, so looking for more water and building the system are two large and expensive tasks. Also educating the community on the importance of the watershed and what exactly one is will be included in this plan because right now no one, aside from the water board, understands exactly how they effect their own water system.

More projects will follow but for right now, this is my main focus. Though tomorrow it might very well change, who knows. I'm trying to get everything on a time line so we can have a solid work plan but Hondurans are not planners, as I've been told and have come to find out for myself.

Almost forgot, I was walking back from soccer field the other day and saw a coral snake in the road, and then two days ago I was walking to some one's house and saw another greenish\blackish snake and then yesterday I woke up and there was a scorpion on my wall in my room. I didn't have any idea how to say scorpion in Spanish so I looked it up in the dictionary and walked to the living room and said to Antonio, um there's a...pause...escoporion in my room...Antonio gets up and walks into my room and looks up at the wall and says ohh yeah, it is and then smashes the thing with a broom handle on the wall. Apparently they are not lethal here but pica duro (carry a fierce bite), someone told me she was bit as a kid and her whole arm hurt for 2 days.

Well that's about it I believe. Hope all is well and I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow.

PC Amor,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

one more thing

2006-11-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

Hi sorry all for two emails, but I didn't want to short anyone on more anecdotes from Bridget! I have more time seeing how I will be spending the night in Teguc to go to a dermatologist today about my face, as much as I say I like Honduras it doesn't want to get on the boat - triste. Anyway, I don't know how many of you have read or even heard about the book, "Don't Be Afraid Gringo," it was one of the books they recommend reading before you get to country (although I just finished it a few weeks ago). It's about the campasinos fight to have their own land to farm during the 70s and 80s told by a female activist. After the country passed a law that said any land that wasn't actively being used could be passed over to farmers with no land, well basically that's what it says. So her and her group started taking rich land owners land and squatting it for days until they could get the government to sign the paperwork to give it to the farmers. Many people were killed and assassinated, and many violent battles.

Now that you have the background, one the groups that was started back then is still active today and was squatting on a piece of land on the way up to the cabins we went to this weekend. I kind of felt like I was getting to see history in the making, I have a feeling that I was the only one that thought it was really cool, but whatever. I wish I had taken some pictures but I didn't. They had a Honduran flag flying and a banner that said something about land feeding the hungry. And they stand along the fence with their machetes and watch the road. All very dramatic.

Also a volunteer who lives on the boarder of El Salvador showed up because he heard a bunch on gringos were in town (I would have done the same thing, this is what our excitement has been deduced to) and he told us about PC El Salvador, apparently they have around 150 volunteers, which I think is absurd for the size of the country, but we all decided that the people of El Salvador really need it. Also, my parents should be very happy about this, it is apparently FAR more dangerous than Honduras as far as number of murders per year.

Alright, I think I have finally run out of interesting things to say, at least for right now. Its is possible that you all may get yet another email since I have access to FREE internet and really nothing to do here.

PC Amor,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

chicken brains, el salvador and rambo

2006-11-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone -

Nice subject title right? Wanted to keep every one's attention. I'll get to explanations in a few lines I swear. Right now I'm in Teguc, I just got back from a little trip and decided to wait for the next bus to my site and hope the jalon gods are with me today so I could print some stuff out and go buy a jar a of peanut butter (a whole jar in 3 weeks isn't ridiculous, right?)

So the last time I wrote there were some things that I completely just left out. Rambo, the other dog of my counterparts was ran over by a car., this happened in September when I was away for the conference in Olancho, I guess I'm over it now, but he was a cute dog. Named Rambo after a futbol player, not after the movie character which is what I originally thought. I suppose why I wanted to mention it before was because I found it very strange that he was hit by a car, when maybe only one passes every 3 or 4 hours, if even that. Maybe that's why he got hit. I'm still looking for a puppy but still haven't had any luck since Paluka's died. The other house that I am trying to figure out a way lease has a nice fenced in yard, but the other doesn't.

Meat in my community, and most of Honduras is a luxury. Chicken is by far the cheapest, no one really ever eats beef or pork and if they do its very fatty and a poor product. So about once a week we have chicken at my house, Nolvia has about 30 chickens, she counted the other day, which in my opinion is 30 too many, but I'll get to that. So with the 30 chickens and every so often they actually hatch their eggs, we continuously have more, so one a week is doing no damage to the population. Its always boiled or fried chicken, but mostly boiled. Some times we have it in soup and some times just with rice and beans. When we have it with soup we usually will eat it for two days straight. These chickens usually don't have a lot of meat on them to begin with, and to be perfectly honest I usually pick a little bit off and give the rest to the dog, but one day I was eating soup and could find almost no meant on the bone, while I was turning the bones over and over and picking out little pieces here and there it occurred to me what I was holding in my hand - the skull. And I had been eating the brains! I know Nolvia had been watching me eat and I'm sure its because she wanted to know what I was going to do with it, and then of course it could have been my paranoia, but all she said was, not a lot of meat on that one. Whatever, I stopped eating it and gave the rest to the dog. Life went on, but no, it didn't taste like chicken.

Not much else has been going on in my site, I'm here right now in Teguc looking for some information to start teaching an english class and when I get back I'm going to start looking for some wild growing medicinal plants, because the nurse and I are going to practice making some remedies and then we're going to have a class kinda thingy to teach these remedies to all the health center guardians that live in each community.

This weekend I went to visit another volunteer that has a rural tourism project going with some of my friends from my training class. His town is outside of Marcala called Zancudo. This town use to be part of El Salvador, but during the last war it was given to Honduras. But the people there are a little confused, they travel freely from El Salvador to Honduras to buy groceries and what not, the area has also been declared dry by the president, I suppose because he is afraid a war will break out induced by alcohol consumption. Bu there are plenty of people there that have horror stories about what happened to them, their family and friends during the wars. One of the ladies that was cooking our food at the lodge lost a son by an American bomb that El Salvador dropped. I asked the volunteer that lived there if there were many people with post traumatic stress or anything and he didn't really seem to notice anything, although he thought the people that were considered the "town drunks" had the most horrific experiences. We went to a boarder town named Purkine (sp?) and it just seemed completely different over there, we could see the two active volcanoes as well. Although most of the people in this region make a living my "chopping wood" the forests in this area didn't seem as deforested as near my site. The weather was much colder, although right now in Tegus its kinda chilly so its possible that "winter" has spread across the whole country, but I doubt it. The site is higher up in the mountains too, and seems more piney than my site.

The tourist place was really interesting, apparently there have been people asking around the area for a place to stay, the project is really only marketed at locals and I guess the occasional PCV, but right now there are 3 cabins with two double beds and private bathrooms and one cabin with bunk beds and a bathroom outside (to be used kind of like a hostel type room). They were still putting the finishing touches on everything when we were there but they were quaint wooden structures, all made there because next to the land is a wood shop kind of place that makes wood furniture. Also on the property is going to be the office of the NGO that is developing the project and a tourist office type place. A little further up from there is going to be a restaurant for the people staying in the cabins (also made from wood).

There isn't much to see or do, but we went on a nature walk to Zancuda which round around a stream and through the forest for about 30 mins. Once we got to Zancuda we checked out the town (this is the volunteer's site) and then sampled some of their corn products they were having for their corn festival. It was typical corn products, atol - which is the juice that comes out of the corn after it is ground, tamales de alote which is just the ground corn (when its still moist) and wrapped in corn husks and steamed on a stove and corn on the cob 0of the different types of corn they grow. Also later that night we ate the tamales de alote fried (in my site they like to add sugar after frying them).

We did a lot of hanging out and were supposed to leave on Sunday but decided on the trip last minute. So here I am and I'm getting ready to head back to my site, I have to catch a bus at 12. More to come later.

PC Amor,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

life in the campo

2006-10-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

This has to be a quick one, I've already been on the internet for 2 hours! How time flies so fast when you're using technology and not when you're sitting around in the campo is beside me. But that's OK, because not much has happened.

In my last email I forgot to mention that each night I watch the sunset, I have photos and the next time I'm in Teguc I will put them up I swear! Anyway, in the past few weeks I have added something new to me daily routine, going to the futbal campo to run. This apparently baffles and entertains the ENTIRE community, but it keeps me busy for at least an hour. At first no one knew what I was doing and then slowly it caught on and all of a sudden I have an audience of about 7 kids/teenagers. On Monday I actually got three of my favorite little ninas to go with me, so we played tag and raced each other and all kinds of fun things.

On the Sunday before it had been raining we were all at the campo for the last game of a soccer tournament the community was having to raise money to build a community center when the team decided to walk out of the tournament, because there wasn't enough money for 2nd place. This I thought was absolutely ridiculous, and I still do, I'm not sure how much money we ended up making from the tournament, but hopefully it was worth wile. After we drove back in the pouring rain we were at the house when my three favorite 9 yr olds came over, I told them on Saturday I was going to teach them how to make friendship bracelets so there they were, eager to learn. We did that for about 3 hours and then one of them said she was cold so I gave her my NorthFace and it hung on her like I dress, I took a picture and then they went insane. Let's take a picture here, let me see, let me take it, take one of me, now of you two. Everyone that walked up to the house had to have their picture taken! It was funny. And then I showed them my pictures from home, that was even better, look how pretty you are bridget with your sunglasses, is that your house?, are those your dogs? is that your brother? your mom? your dad? your friend? what do you mean you have 2 friends named Ashley? It was great!

Aside from having a good time with the kids, I've been going to a lot more community meetings and getting to know more of the area. Last Friday we had a clean water co-op where we all went house to house looking for standing water and larvae. Also we counted the number of people who don't have latrines and pilas, that's going to turn into my first project. This past week I went up with someone from the water board to look at the water system, we cleaned the tank and walked along the stream that provides the water. I got to ride a horse half of the way up the mountain too! It was the most fun part of course!

Right now I am currently in the works of getting together a place to move into in November, so then anyone who wants to come visit me can!

Other than that things are pretty slow right now, we're not supposed to be starting work until after the 3rd month anyway. Hope all is well with everyone and I will try and muster up a more entertaining email next time, I'm burnt out right now!

PC Amor,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

how 'bout them dawgs...

2006-09-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

Its been quite a while hasn't it? It hasn't been because of a lack of trying that you haven't heard from me. So I guess now my updates will be a little less regular and a little longer, yay right?! But in all reality not a whole lot has been going on. Just a few momentous moves in my Peace Corps career. OK that's over-doing it a little.

So the last time i left everyone was right after I had my site visit, and I admit I wasn't as pumped as I thought I was going to be. But now things are different, although I am in Teguc writing this with electricity and hot water I still 900% better than I did when I wrote that last message.

I guess I will start a little from the present. I've been away from my site since Wednesday of this week because I went to a conference in Catacamas, the same place you will recall that we had our FBT, about men and their role in family and production integration. Basically it was about Honduran men and their perceptions of women's roles in society as well as a look at integrated farming practices. We were supposed to bring either our counterparts or a person from our community but I has some problems finding someone to come (we'll get to why in a min) so I came by myself. I really wished that someone would have come with me because it ended up being a great conference and it would have benefited someone from my community greatly but I'm glad I went nonetheless because I had the opportunity to listen to clear proper Spanish and catch up with someone of the other volunteers in my training class as well as some older volunteers. I hate to say it to but I kind of needed the little vacay from my site. But as they say, absence does make the heart grow fonder. I guess I'm just getting more settled in and adjusted to my little aldea so it's more like home than anything else in this country.

So I was going to go back today but since I have only been there two weeks (although everyone in my community swears its been at least a month) I really have limited resources for finding a jalon back to my site. The bus situation is rather intimidating. I have a bus that goes past my site at 7:30 in the morning to go to Teupasenti and goes back up the mountain at 2 and gets to my site around 4ish. The first bus that leaves for Teguc is at 5am and the second is at 9am. So unless I spend the night in Teupa and took the 5am I could never get to Teguc at any reasonable time to do stuff and come back, it takes about 2.5 hrs. And also there is always the chance that the bus just won't show up, like the 9am bus on Wednesday. What do you do in that case, you ask? Well...

My counterparts drove into town Wednesday morning because Nolvia had a meeting so I got a jalon with them and they dropped me off at the bus waiting corner. Around 8:45 everyone started looking really nervous, and when the Hondurans are all doing something at the same time you know something is not right. So I asked some young girls next to me, is the bus coming. No they said. They next will be at 2, but in an hr there will be a bus going to Las Crucitas (the little area right before the dirt road that goes to Teupa). All of a sudden a pickup pulls up and everyone climbs into the bed. Still not really knowing what to do, I hesitated and then the pickup looks too full. Great, I'm thinking. And then I move toward the car and the passenger side door is still open and there is a guy standing there holding it and he asks do you want a ride, laaaaaaa like angels singing from heaven. I got in the truck, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

It was a nice trip, I didn't have to speak too much Spanish, there was another younger lady in the front with me, she ended up being a teacher in Teupa and the guy was really nice knew a lot of the other volunteers that use to be the city. So we got down there to Las Cruscitas paid the man (he made a killing for an hour's work) and walked to the highway. A bus coming from Danli stopped for us, so we got on. After a while we arrived in Teguc, I was waiting for the usual market to appear so we;d stop and then all of a sudden I realized we were going toward the airport. I asked a lady on the bus where we were going and she said Comayaguela, better known to PCVs as the kill zone. Great, right? So we driving and we're getting farther and father away from where I need to be and then I see the bank that we met at when we had our market visits in training. I got off the bus and took a taxis to the hotel I was meeting up with other PCVs for the night. It ended up being cheaper for me to take that bus farther away and take a taxis than my normal bus and taxis. Anyway I made it safely. But that is the reason why I am spending another night in Teguc because I am afraid that I would have gotten a bus back and another one not shown up. Hopefully a year from now this will not be a fear.

So I'm sure what everyone wants to know is what am I doing. I talked to Justin the other day and he asked me when I had to be back to work, as if I was on a lunch break. This question seemed very funny to me but then I realized that it might have seemed like I had a 9-5 job. This is what my daily routine has been like, but hopefully will change next week. I wake up around 4, 5:30 and then finally I get out of bed by 7:00/30 because of the chickens in my yard and the sun is up high enough where the room that I sleep in has started to bake slightly. I get dressed and walk out to wash my face and brush my teeth in the pila and I see my counterpart who says hay cafe. So the I drink a cup of sugar with cafe (as in there is more sugar than coffee) and have a piece of pan. And then I sit and watch the dogs play for a little while while I finish up my cafe. The I wash my mug and go and get a book. I read for another hour or so and then feel guilty and get out my Spanish texts and reviews Spanish grammar. After that gets boring I get my book back out and read some more. Around 12 Nolvia comes home from school (she teaches the morning classes) and she starts cooking lunch. I ask if she needs help and she always says no. So i go to my room and try and look busy, which really means I'm reading. Around 1 she tells me to eat lunch (as in the command form of almorzar). So I do, and that usually consists of rice, beans and some vegetables and tortillas, which is not as bad as you might be thinking, I like the food. I stand by that. And then after lunch she says, "hace calor." And I say,"verdad." And then I think she goes and naps. I go back to my room and read and then feel guilty again and go and look for someone in the community that I can harass and talk to. Usually I do or I walk around in the street and look for some kids and then they drag me to their house to meet their moms and then I have some more coffee and sit around and talk about the weather or something. And then I get around to leaving and they usually send me away with some kind of present, like mandarins, oranges or eggs.

Aside from the typical days I've been doing quite a bit of other stuff. We've had several meetings. One with the junta de agua (water board) they really want to get a project started with reforesting the watershed. And that is actually why my counterpart or any other responsible man could not go to this conference because on Friday there was a meeting with all of the water boards from all of the aldeas (39 in total) in Teupa. Also we had a padres de la famila meeting to plan the Sept 15th festivities and also I went to an organizational meeting for forming reds de mujers in Teupa with 2 women from my community. All of the meetings had men and women in attendance (except for the women's group one) and everyone pretty much participated. Although it is many of the same people that are involved in all of the civic activities in the town. The fact that these organizations are still there is great.

The 15th of September was the Honduras' Independence Day and San Isidro had a parade! It was very exciting. Although it wasn't really anything like an American parade it was still very entertaining. The school children were the only ones marching but it still worked. A lot of the people from the town came out to watch and cheer. The parade ended at the school where the kids got up and sang and presented the flag and all kinds of different activities to honor the country. Later that night we had a disco at the school which lasted til 2am and we still had light, so those solar power lights are pretty fuerte. I got the whole, you want to dance 50,000 times again. And finally I got some little girls to go dance with me, but the whole time she kept pulling on me and asking if I wanted to dance with this guy or that guy. It was cute, but I didn't really want the attention.

Also we had another holiday the first weekend I was back in my site, Dia de los Ninos. That was also very entertaining. The kids all played games and sang songs and whatnot. Luckily, I got pictures of both of these days, because for some crazy reason my camera is working!

A quick note about swearing in. We had a nice ceremony at the Embassy (US) and said the same oath that the president says. We had a nice lunch and then afterwards got to go to the Ambassador's house for a "fun day." He has a pool and tennis courts and a beach volleyball court. That was fun but we were all exhausted and wanted to go out later that night. We all got rooms at the Marriott. But as we were leaving, the President of Honduras was also leaving the house, so we all got to meet the President of Honduras. Just like that. It was very surreal. The Marriott is also very surreal. It felt like we were in America for basically the entire day, the people at the hotel spoke to us in English even. Unfortunately I threw up later that night before we went out so I opted to stay in with one of my better friends from training because she just found out that her mom has two large brain tumors. She has since gone home to be with her family during the surgeries, and hopefully will be coming back to us soon.

That's about all I've got for right now. Any questions or comments, let me know. The internet place in Teupa was started and is run by the government so it's not the best and more reliable place in the world but when it has internet it works, right? So hopefully I will be able to send out another update soon. Until then take care!

PC Amor,

Bridget
--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

get out your Honduras maps

2006-09-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

OK now put them away, because you won´t find my site on a map. I don´t want to lie, it was kind of a surprise. The name of the aldea, its not its own city, its part of another a larger city, is called San Isidro. The name of the city it is a part of is Taupacenti, which you will probably find on a map. Its in the southeast part of the country, in the department of El Parariso. The population of my little pueblo is about 300 people. We have no electricity but we do have running water. There are latrines and pilas for cooking, cleaning and what have you. To get to my site, I take a bus from Tegus to the municipality (there are three that run daily) which is a 3 hour trip and from there if I get into town by 2 I can take a bus up to my site (there is only one bus that runs down and up to my site) if I get there after 2 or want to go back before then I have to jalon up a mountain for an hour, I´m not sure if that is just a Honduran word, but basically it means hitchhike. Sorry gran gran, I´ll be safe I promise. The good news is that almost all of the people in my community have a car, and my counterpart goes down to town at least once a week, they have electricity and internet and places I can buy food. There are no commedors (kind of like restaurants but only serve plato tipico) and there are 5 pulperias (connivance stores) in my site. But no one has electricity so no one has fridges to keep things cold, so I can basically buy Tigo cards and churros (chips). This is not going to have any logic to it, I´m trying to type fast and get everything down, so ask questions if I confuse anyone!

The people make there money in this community by growing coffee and tomatoes, the reason why my project is working with this specific community is because it is a buffer zone community to a protected biological area, called El Chile. I haven´t been to El Chile yet, but the closest other PAM volunteer to me and I have decided we are basically going to single handedly map it ourselves. The potential projects include environmental education, a tree farm with the school and water board to reforest the watershed, crop diversification, finding better markets for the coffee harvest, pesticide management, bringing electricity to the town (this is a bit of a leap, but they asked) and home gardens. There are plenty of potentials for work, and the people I met seemed very excited to have me in their community, after all they were picked over several other communities.

The children we especially excited to have me there, which was a nice welcome. I went to my site for a visit on Thursday with my counterpart (Antonio), well one of them, the other is his wife. Respectfully they are the leaders of the community. He is the president of the water board and she is the director of the school as well as the president of the patronato (which is like a less developed Kiwanis Club, just a organization for the community). They are both really nice, Antonio is kind of hard to understand, but its because its almost like a different dialect of Spanish, but poca a poca, verdad? Anyway, lucky for me Antonio drove to Santa Lucia so I didn´t have to take the bus, and thus all my stuff, on the bus with me. One obstacle of the challenge taken care of! We got there around 3 in the afternoon, we stopped several times to run some errands and we ate lunch and then I took a siesta, which was nice. The climate is agreeable, hot in the sun during the day, but breezy and the nights that I was there were pretty cold, although I was told that during the dry months (March -May) it is a lot hotter at night. As far as the no electricity, it wasn´t so bad. I had a headlamp and they use candles, but they also have two car batteries charged so they can watch TV and turn on a light in the kitchen. I just go to bed around 8 now instead of 9 (ha) and get up around 7 (instead on 6:30), no really the chickens wake me up at like 5 but then I get back to sleep pretty fast. The school also has a pretty nice set up with a solar panel on top that charges 8 car batteries to run lights, 3 TVs and a computer. They told me I could use the school when ever I needed to charge my phone to I´m sure they wouldn´t mind me using it for computer work. Also it is a great location to hold town meetings.

On the first of September they had a little fiesta for the Senorita Inpendencia and Miss Chiquita, because on the 15th is their Independence Day. I went to the school that morning and met all the kids and helped them set up for the pageant. They were all really sweet. It will definitely be the kids that get me through the tough days. Nolvia (the wife) explained the them why I was there and what the PC was and that you shouldn´t call me gringa, because at counterpart day they made a big deal about the communities calling us gringo/a. The party started around 5, but it started to rain so we (practically the entire town) waited for the rain to let up, at one point we thought it did, but it started back up so we moved everything inside. And that started the festivities. The introduction to the evening also included an introduction to me well, and another please don´t call her gringa her name is Bridget and also she doesn´t speak a lot of Spanish, so talk slowly. I just kind of stood there red faced the whole time. But it was nice, there was food and dancing after the pageant. And I met some more of the coffee farmers. It turns out that almost all of them are in their mid 20s to mid 30s and single. So I think I looked a little too much like fresh bait to them, it´ll be interesting to see how a working relationship can be formed, I told one of them I wasn´t married, but I might pull out the boyfriend card and possibly the boyfriend in another site card as well, because Rich said he would visit enough!

OK its getting late here, Thursday we swear in as official volunteers and Friday I am off to my site. I´m not sure when I will get to write another email but hopefully soon. There is a lot of time to spare in my site right now, so I will be doing ample reading and research and thinking. Also, my address will be the same for now, until I figure out the postal system in Teapasenti, also if you´ve finished reading any good books, send them my way, I´m ready about a book and a 1/2 a week right now, and supplies are limited!

Thanks again for all your support!

PC Love,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

adios Catacamas

2006-08-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

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

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

se fue la luz

2006-08-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

I´ve been trying to send this email out for the past 2 weeks and it keeps
growing and growing, the latest excuse I have is, we had no electricity in
the city yesterday, I was actually in the middle of typing at an internet
place and the lights went out. Ohh well it happens. Sorry for the length,
read it in segments :)

Buenos,
I hope this email finds everyone well. Right now I am sitting at an
internet place in Gualaco. This weekend I am making up my volunteer visit,
but instead of 4 days I get 1. I got up at 5am this morning to catch a bus
at 6am out of Catacamas. By 7am I was standing on the side of a road in the
middle of no where waiting for a bus to Gualaco. In my lovely broken,
almost inaudible Spanish I got onto another bus going in that direction.
That bus ride took til 9 on a dirt road with many pot holes winding up and
down a mountain side. I made it here though, by myself, which I was
seriously questioning to my fellow aspirantes on Friday.
I´m getting a bit ahead of my self though, because not really any of you
knew that I was heading to another part of the country for 4 weeks. We
finished up in Santa Lucia 2 Fridays ago and on Sunday the three different
projects split off into other parts of Honduras for FBT (Field Based
Training) so PAM headed off for Catacamas, but not before I went into Tegus
for the day on Saturday to the mall to watch a movie and eat fast food. We
saw Pirates 2 with Spanish subtitles, they have 2 options for movies
usually, a dubbed version and a subtitled one (que suerte!). So a few of us
went to an early show and hung out and caught the 4 pm bus back to SL. The
whole movies experience was unique, we bought the tickets early in case it
sold out and hung around in the mall for a bit and went to a grocery store.
On the way into the movie there were several lines forming, so we asked a
guy standing behind us in Spanish if we were supposed to stand in line, he
gave us a weird look and then said, "umm I speak English." He ended up
working for the US Embassy, I´m not really sure in what capacity, but
was nice and explained the line process to us. Ohh I forgot, earlier when
we first got into the theater, one of the girls with us said she had to use
the bathroom and an English voice erupted from behind us, "its over there"
and pointed to the damas sign. I was like right, where it says ladies? We
walked away from them and someone guessed military. (ever since we had a guy
come to talk to us about safety in Honduras and he mentioned American
ex-pats and the crazy things they are doing in this country, so I tend to be
wary of anyone that is American looking and speaking English)

When we were talking to the embassy guy in line he told us there were a
bunch of military guys at the theatre right now, and that yes those two were
them (by military, I mean US Military). We went into the movie and there
must have been 50 kids in it who were not old enough to read. So throughout
the whole movies kids were talking and parents were not quieting them, and
then at one point the father (or responsible adult) of 5 kids behind me cell
phone rang and he answered it! But it was ok, we got to pretend like we
were in America for a few hours.
So Sunday morning we were all supposed to meet in front of the park
in SL and get on buses and go. We all got there around 8:30 but none of our
boss type people were there so some how we got ourselves organized and into
the two buses, youth devel came with us part of the way. It still amazes me
that we can organize ourselves sometimes without someone telling is what to
do. Our host families we waiting for us to arrive at 11:30, but we were on
Honduran time so off we went. On a side note, I left an entire duffel bag
in SL, I have NO idea how I´m going to get all my stuff to my site. Anyway
we got to Campmento, where YD was going on time, mas o menos, but we took
the same dirt road that PAM took to Campamento so it was a slow process with
cows and kids in the road, the driver stopping to talk to some random people
on the highway and picking up his kids and wife. After we dropped them off
we decided to stop for lunch, I´m still not really sure who came to this
decision, but we stopped. And that took a good two hours. We made it to to
Catacamas around 3:30 and had to take taxis to all of our houses. I shared
a taxis with someone who was living in my barrio, what completely fled us
though was that we didn´t have addresses of our houses, just directions, so
trying to relay this information to our driver was futile, so he dropped us
off in barrio La Cruz, and I had to drag all my stuff 3ish blocks on a
cobble stone road to a house that I wasn´t quite sure of where it was, but I
guessed right and rang the right bell, my new host brother answered the
door.

A little about my new family and Catacamas. I have a host mom, a host
sister who is 19 and a host brother who is 23. I have a host sister-in-law
who has a daughter who is 6. Her husband is in the states working as well
as is his other brother. So 2 of the kids of the family are in the states
working. They are very nice, although I think they thought I didn´t
understand or speak any Spanish, but now, a full two weeks into it, they
realize that I have pretty much understood them the whole time. They
defiantly have a different accent than my other family and they are not use
to having an American living with them like my family in SL, in fact this is
the first time they are doing this, so its a learning experience. The
family situation is different too, its nice having a family with younger
children because we have more in common, both of the children are in the
university right now, studying engineering and business, I think.
Our days are different, we usually have Spanish class in the mornings,
and lucky me my house is one of the places we have class, although next week
this is going to change, I will have class in someone Else's house. And
everyone goes home for lunch. The kids go to university in the afternoons
so we all have a big meal for lunch. The whole family sits down, its very
odd for me, I haven´t been use to family meals the whole time I´ve been
here. Sometimes its just my host brother and I at first, and he will always
say something like, Bridget, la gente en Honduras... and add some cultural
comment, like eat very fast or like chiles or something random. I have to
try really hard to keep from laughing. I never do but sin embargo its
pretty funny. Also my first experience with se fue la luz, Samantha
runs into the house after I got back from class and tells me to come
outside, I get out there and the whole family is there sitting around
their car listening to music, and my host brother turns to me and
says, usually, Bridget, la gente de Honduras come outside when we
don´t have light. It was fun though, very similar to something we
would do in the states too.

Also, Catacamas is hot, a lot hotter than SL, by now I am finally
getting use to it, but the first couple of days were ridiculous.
Another thing too, I think since there is more money here, there is
more meat and my family here feeds me wayyyy more traditional meals,
which I enjoy a lot. The other day we were having lunch and my host
mom made something they call enchalidas here but really they are like
fried tortillas with like a pulled chicken in sauce with rice and pico
de gallo on top, either way they end up being awkward to eat and I was
holding one in my hand trying to figure out the best angle to take
with eating it and I look up and my host brother is just starring at
me. Generally that happens a lot at meal times, sometimes I feel like
I am a zoo animal. And then my host mother sits down and says,
Bridget, how many enchalidas are on my plate. Seriously? I looked at
her and said 3. And they were all congratulating me. Wow. Another
time she asked me if I was eating fish or chicken. I thought at first
they were trick questions but no, she really thinks I don´t know the
answers. I think its pretty funny, they probably want to know why I´m
always laughing when I answer. ¿Que mas?
Ohh right, Catacamas is the wild west of Honduras, although it is in the
East. The people here are all very nice and hospitable but there are more
cattle ranches and more family feuds. You see oxen tied up to carts walking
down the street and women with umbrellas to block the sun. Its got three
supermarkets and plenty of internet places, a really great ice cream place in
the park,a hotel with a pool, and a few too many people for me to want this
as my site, but there are 2 PAM volunteers living here now and another very
close by, who will all be replaced by someone in our group.

And again as I was in the middle of typing the email again, the lights
flickered and we lost internet connection. So now I'm back at my house
trying to finish this up so I can just show up, send it without
anymore mishaps.

So far since we arrived, we learned how to build efficient wood
burning stoves, graft fruit trees, use integrated methods of pest
control, including more cheap environmentally friendly ways to capture
and eliminate local pests, make organic pesticides and how to spread
them, walked an entire watershed and analyzed it for a charla next
week, saw a small community water system, learned how to make yogurt,
marmalade, jelly and jam.

This past week we split into two large groups to give a charla to
teachers about integrated environmental education. After giving that
charla we were to get into groups of 2 and meet with one the teachers
so we could prepare a lesson with the kids for Friday. I'm sure the
news hasn't reached the states, but the teachers here have been on a
strike for the past week. So the logistics of these charlas were up
in the air, we had the one for the teachers planned but we didn't know
if we were even doing it until Tuesday morning. The situation with
the public schools here is the result of the government promising this
elaborate pay increase scale that has never come, so for the past 5 or
6 years the teachers have been striking occasionally, once for 2 or 3
months straight. But this time some of the teachers hadn't been paid
for 6 or 9 months, so they said they were striking for the week, and
no one took them seriously so they all fled to the capital and started
taking over streets in Tegus. The police were sent out and violence
started, some people were hospitalized and the President offered them
a 2,500 pay increase each if they would go back to work. So Monday
the public schools should be back in session, but we'll see. The
normal school year here is very different than ours, they have a
"summer" break in November and December, and so they are still in full
swing of classes.

My group ended up giving the charla at a private evangelical school in
town, the other group at a different private school. The charla with
the teachers, I think, went fairly well. I'm not sure they really
benefited from the information we had to provide, but they at least
participated, which was very helpful for us. When David and I were
supposed to meet with our teacher it turned out she wasn't there so we
left having no idea what we were supposed to be doing. On Thursday
afternoon we had sometime in our Spanish classes to work on our
charlas for the next day so David and I went back to the school to
look for the teacher and luckily she was there, she suggested we do
our lesson on conservation of natural resources. Oh yeah, we had a
fourth grade class. So David and I set out to plan.

I forgot to mention that, of course, this was all to be done in
Spanish. And at one point during our charla with the teachers we
broke into small groups to brain storm ways to integrate into each
subject and I asked one of the teachers in my group a question and she
just starred at me. This is the problem, even if I ask a really easy
question and I pronounce all the words correctly (which a very
difficult feat) someone who is not use to hearing a non native speaker
will not understand you. A lot of time if someone doesn't want to
understand you they won't. This is probably the most frustrating
thing I have come across here. I know my Spanish isn't perfect, but
I'm trying so why can't they? The same thing has been happening with
my host family, I would try and say something and if they were busy
than they wouldn't understand, now when I talk to them they look at me
in amazement because they actually do understand me now, and I don't
think they know what to do with this new situation.

Some people I have encountered are a lot more sympathetic and helpful
with my language skills. Coming home from Gualaco I sat next to a man
on the bus who was in the Honduran Navy and trained in the states and
he was very willing and encouraging and spoke to me in Spanish even
though he knew English. I know more of these people exist but when
you come across the other it really frustrates me.

Off topic there, but after I left the charla with the teachers I had
no idea how I was going to manage with fourteen 11 year olds. So
David and I planned everything, made visuals and showed up. The
teacher was there for support which really helped, but these kids
really already knew a lot about the environment, we tried to impart to
them the idea of an ecosystem and I think that they got it, I'm not
sure if they understood they reasoning behind humans protecting the
environment to preserve the global ecosystem, but possible in the
future they will understand. It was a good experience, although we
did talk about how different it will be in a public school versus a
private school at our sites, but having the opportunity to have the
attention of children for an hour and to have to convey a message to
them in Spanish was a valuable part of our training, I feel.

A little more about my trip to Gualaco, I made it safe and sound and
everything was fine. I spent all day Saturday there, we walked
around, talked to some of the volunteer's friends, ate at some
comedors and talked a lot about his experiences in the Peace Corps,
what his site was like, what his projects were like and what
challenges he faced. It was defiantly worth my time to go out there,
I was afraid of the buses but I needed to get over that fear and I
didn't really think a male volunteer would have that much to tell me
but he did. Also I got to stay in a hotel with hot water, which is
always nice! His project was a reforestation project for the town,
the mayor wanted trees to line the highway that comes into town as
well, so he went through the school. Each graduating class is
required to do a final project with an environmental component, so
they started a tree nursery at the school and grew 13,000 trees; they
only ended up planting 900 along the highway and gave another 2,000 or
so away to NGOs and people in the community. He also has a weekly
radio show of music in English in the town, people call in and request
songs. He has a few other side projects, but the tree project was his
major one while in service.

Tomorrow the Catacamas futbol season starts so my host brother and I
are going to the game. Next weekend we are going camping in one of
the National Parks nearby and to the caves.

PC Love,
Bridget

PS -

I forgot to mention that there are some missionaries in town for
the week, we met them yesterday. And I actually translated something
for one of them. I felt very proud of myself. But they told us this
story how the day before they saw some kids and threw candy at them,
basically they are, as grass root community development workers, our
worst nightmare. But I really did feel like a PC volunteer when we
were standing next to them in the park later that day. I know
everything isn´t perfect yet but in comparison, I´m defiantly in the
best position.

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

photos

2006-08-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Also, I don´t know if my mom sent out this link or not, but my photos are up, you can find them at http://community.webshots.com/user/bridgetkf .

Also please forgive all of my spelling errors, in my last email. And don´t show it to any of my English teachers.

Thanks,

B
--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

un dia typico

2006-07-31T23:47:00.000-07:00

19-Julio-2006

Hi everyone!

Thank you all for your concern about my health the past week. Sorry to be writing again so late, but this week just flew by. I am feeling much better than last week and my knee is also doing a lot better. Aside from the week ending pretty poorly I had some other realizations the weekend before last that kind of set a bad week into motion. Let me explain.

Two weekends ago my neighbor (Heidi) and I went with our uncle to visit his finca and another mountain that is home to a 'typical' agricultural pueblo. The finca that Yeti owns is right next to the one that my host mother owns and harvests each year. I found out this past weekend that she harvests so many frijoles that the whole family (I think some extended parts we well) does not need to buy frijoles for the whole year and they is plenty left over to sell. This is A LOT of frijoles, considering we eat them todos los días . Anyway, we went and checked out his crops, he grows corn, beans, several types of squash plants, and many fruit trees. He told us what everything was in Spanish, I got most of it but in general it was just nice to get out and see what a real finca looked like. It was raining and the hills were steep and muddy but the whole side of the mountain was green beyond belief. I took pictures that will hopefully get posted in the next batch.

After leaving his finca we drove out of Santa Lucia a little bit to a road in between Santa Lucia and Valle de Angles. We drove up this very steep dirt road in the rain with no windshield wipers, in an old Mitsubishi pickup truck. If I had known we were going on this side trip I might have opted out. But clearly we made it because I am here writing now, but this was basically my worst nightmare, even in the states. We made it up to a school and got out and checked out the school, it had open classrooms, solid walls but they were not all the way to the tin roof. They had an internet project going on at their school, with three IBM laptops, that was pretty neat to see especially after what we saw next.

After leaving the school we stopped first at a 'friends' house to say hello, and I think Yeti wanted Heidi and I to see what a real farming family lives in. The house was made of wood, we walked a little off the road, to get there. There was a little overhang in the front. Heidi and I hung back when Yeti knocked, but soon we were standing in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. It was probably about four feet wide and ten feet long with adobe walls and a dirt floor that was damp from the rain. Through another doorway was another room I could imagine was a sleeping area for three people that might have been ten by ten feet. The old man that lived there was eating frijoles and tortillas when we got there. That's all they ever eat Yeti told us, for every meal and everyday. They offered us food but Yeti told them that we had to go home because Maribel had lunch waiting for us. We left that house and stopped at another 'friend's' house. This lady had two young girls both walking around barefoot, six or so kittens and four or so puppies running around. This house was larger but still had dirt floors with two rooms and no furniture. I wanted to know how they slept but I didn't want to ask. The stoves both families used were adobe lit with wood scraps and the smoke from the fire had no ventilation so the roofs are charred black. I wish I could describe these scenes better because they were my first taste of a real Honduras, but it's difficult. We left the mountain and came back to our house and ate boiled Honduran shrimp with cocktail sauce and watched the World Cup.

Clearly my English is getting poorer the more days I am here. But I wanted to tell everyone what I've been doing, what a typical day is and what kind of concepts I am learning in training.

Monday through Friday we start class at 7:30. So I wake up around 6:45 and eat breakfast, which is usually fruit (mangos, papaya, and banana), and cereal (a cornflake type or granola) and often fresh squeezed orange juice. A little note about the oranges here: they are actually green and the juice is pretty, well not very tasty. Another fruit that is very confused down here is the lemon, or is it the lime, I'm not really sure, but a lemon is green and a lime is green. Also for breakfast I get two pieces of toast, not really knowing what to do with all this food I started taking a pb & j for a mid afternoon snack. Luckily, she understands what I am doing and gives me a piece of plastic to take it in. Sometimes for breakfast I'll have pancakes, which was good, but I'm VERY happy with my fruit and cereal.

In the mornings we have Spanish class usually until lunch (sometimes for a few hours after lunch). At 11:30 we eat lunch; lunch for everyone I think, is usually a fun surprise. Some days it'll be fried chicken or fish with rice and tortillas and fruit or vegetables, sometimes its pasta, or soup (especially when I don't feel good). The only thing I haven't liked that I have gotten in my lunch so far was this shell pasta thing that had a red sauce on it that tasted like ketchup (the ketchup here is another issue – its sweeter and people use it as a tomato sauce).

Usually after lunch we have tech training or a CORE activity (I have no idea what CORE stands for). This will either be about our individual projects (there are 3 in training right now: Youth Development, Municipal Development (this is where all the other IA majors are), and Protected Areas Management) or about things that effect all of us, like learning styles, teaching adults, AIDS, or health presentations. In tech training we haven't gone over very many specific things yet but last week we made a traditional compost piles and another type called bocashi, which is faster decomposing but more expensive to start. On Monday we planted, by shoots and fruits several different types of plants: pataste, sweet potato, bananas. We also learned the proper way to plant a grafted fruit tree. On Tuesday we planted seed beds for transplanting in raised beds. After that we actually transplanted some vegetable plants into plots that we cleared, plowed, pick axed, and fertilized. This is a lot more work than one would imagine. I'm pretty sure all of us have blisters and one of the guys in my group (there were 3 to a group) cut his finger open on a machete that he was sharpening (he ended up needing stitches). So now we have these plots to keep an eye on and water when needed, although it hasn't stopped raining for more than 30 minutes since we finished that project.

Today we went to a farm called Loma Linda, it was originally run by a famous innovative agriculturist in Central America. But he has since passed away and his wife has taken over running this farm. This farm is considered a 'human farm' because of its use of natural fertilizers, crop rotation, use of mixed plants in beds to prevent pests and finally because everything produced there is consumed there as well. The farm mostly serves now as a training facility for farmers in Honduras, with rooms for board and a mess hall and conference room. The produce we saw today really was amazing, a three year old mango tree was producing mangos twice the size as they are in the states and a lime (or maybe lemon) tree that had fruit bigger than a softball. I have no idea what one would do with that but it really shows that natural methods work in the long run. This farm has been operating for 28 years though so it's going to be hard to relate it to the right now for many people in Honduras.

We get done with classes around 4:30 (Honduran time, so closer to 5). And we all walk home. One day a week I have a Spanish tutorial that lasts an hour so then I get done at 5:30. Once I get home I do my Spanish homework, talk to my host mother about what I did in school, to practice my Spanish. Around 7:30 or 8 I eat dinner, the way they cook here does not really allow for more than one meal to be ready at once so I'm usually sitting there eating by myself and then Cristobal is served and then Maribel comes and eats. So my whole waiting till everyone is served has become a painful habit to break. The typical dinner around here is frijoles (refried), avocado, eggs (scrambled, fried), queso (a white cheese), and 3 or 4 tortillas. That's usually what I have every night but some times there are variations. I've eaten Chinese take-out, homemade pizza, lasagna, and a casserole. After I eat I'm usually headed off to bed around 9ish and asleep around 10. In fact, it's getting about that time now.

Saturday my project is going on an overnight fieldtrip to Campimiento to visit a coffee research center. We will return sometime on Sunday afternoon. Nothing else planned for the weekend right now, looks pretty tame but hopefully I will have some entertaining stories when I return. The first weekend of FBT (Field Based Training) I will be making up my volunteer visit with a guy who lives closer to our new city so I will not have t travel through Tegus by myself, but it would have been cool to go and stay with the girl I was assigned. I heard she was doing some neat things.

PC Amor –

Bridget

Oh yeah "bolos" in Spanish are drunks.

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

mosquitera

2006-07-26T16:12:00.000-07:00

It's 7:45 PM here and I'm exhausted. I think the sun from yesterday in the finca wore me out (by the way a finca is a farm). I started packing up some things today because on Sunday my project is heading to a different town for 4 weeks for FBT. Actually all I did was take down my mosquitera. The city we are going to, Catacamas, is much bigger and will hopefully have internet and phone though I haven't heard yet. There will only be 17 of us there, everyone in PAM, the other projects will be in different cities.

This weekend my project took a fieldtrip to Campamento to visit a coffee research center. While it was extremely interesting, many of the practices were not ideal for rural poor coffee farmers. The entire complex was amazing though. They used natural pesticides, hormones that the bugs are attracted to. We learned how to make two kinds of these traps, one with manufactured products and another with an old liter bottle of coke or whatever. They are both kind of labor intensive, the traps need to be cleaned and refilled every 2-3 months which could be a lot of work for a single farmer. He would still need to buy the hormones too, which could be some money that they just don't have. Either way it was interesting. After we put the traps together we went down to the Tilapia ponds that are continuously receiving water from the irrigation. They harvest the fish for food once they reach a pound or so, however only the largest fish were in these ponds, the others are moved from holding tank to pond as they grow. So clearly they have some time and money invested in these little guys.

We also checked out some of the other integrated projects they have going on in their farm. They use manure from bunnies and chickens mixed with coffee pulp to make a fertilizer, though it is a little more complicated. The lectures were entirely in Spanish and very fast so it made it hard to understand at time, but we had our project trainer there to translate for us, which helped but I caught on to most of it. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about coffee and I may never drink another cup in my life, but I will spare all of you the details because I don't want to ruin a good thing for the coffee lovers.

After we were done for the day we went into down for dinner and they were having a fair type thing. There were rides and booths, also a stage for music that occasionally had an American rap song playing. The booths were pretty interesting; they were selling everything from clothes to bootleg DVDs and CDs. The rides were all powered manually, not something any of us were itching to try out. Ohh yeah I forgot they also had a rodeo, but I didn't get to see any of it because I headed down to the other part of the fair. We left before the things really got hopping though because most people wanted to head back to the dorm type things we were staying in.

We all hung out there until about 3:30 AM. And then the next day we headed back to Santa Lucia. Oh I forgot, on the way there we got a flat tire in the PC vehicle we were taking, so we all had to pile out on the side of a Honduran highway and change it. It was defiantly a new experience. Many of the roads here are considered 3 or 4 lanes, when clearly they are 2, so several large trucks and buses came rather close to the side of the road. Sunday ended pretty tranquillo so not much else to report on the weekend.

This week has flown by, on Tuesday we had a guy come a talk to us about AIDS in Honduras, and he had a pretty unique story to tell. He is a volunteer right now and once he got to his sight he found an artists there, who it turned out had AIDS, he told us the story of how he had to go to the hospital and the experience there and how he ended up dying and his experience at the funeral. He showed us a lot of photographs he had taken of his work and it really was touching. It kind of made the day rather somber, but it was a very touching story. We're finishing up the week with some work at Loma Linda, another integrated farm.

Also I wanted to point out that Amanda was right, I was told before I left that I would be very saddened by the poor people of Honduras as well as the dogs. I guess I was so ready to see it that when I came across the dogs I was ready and then settled in I wasn't ready to see the people. But it is a harsh reality here that I think it going to be hard for all of us to come to terms with, I was lucky I got to see it so soon in country, others will be waiting until September to see the real Honduras.

Hopefully there will be a great place to access internet and use the phone in Catacamas, but if not don't worry if you don't hear from me. Thanks for all your encouragement and emails.

PC Love,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

The ER, part 2

2006-07-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

16-Jul-06

So I know it's been a while, but I have another great excuse! Wednesday I was going to send out an email about my weekend, which I will get to later, but I had to go back to the hospital.

It started around 10 or so I started getting really cold but my face was very hot. I put on my fleece and sat though Spanish class for as long as I could, we get 10 or 15 minute breaks every hour, so during one of them I asked if I could have my temperature taken, of course they said. I suppose it was easier said than done. The thermometer they tried using didn't work and this other thing, a strip you stick on your forehead, wasn't sticking. So they told me to we had to call the PCMO (Peace Corps medical officer). I talked to her and described my symptoms, chills, what felt like a fairly high fever, and a headache. She told me she thought it was allergies and that she would send some allergy medicine up to the training center for me to try, but for now take some Panadol (which is like Tylenol, but the Central American version I guess). The problem with this instruction was that there was no Panadol around the training site for volunteers. Luckily, one of the secretaries had some in her desk that she gave to me. So I took that and went back to Spanish class. We have lunch at 11:30 everyday and when that rolled around I wasn't feeling THAT much better, but the sun was out so I wasn't as cold. I kept asking everyone, are you guys cold? For lunch that day I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because my host mom and her sister-in-law were both going to be in Tegus. I was excited about the Americanism of it, but I didn't feel like eating, but I ate it anyway.

I hate making long stories short, can't you tell? Anyway after lunch ended we had some other classes to go to, I went to the first one and after it ended decided I couldn't do anymore and asked to lie down. By then it was only one o'clock. A little later I was so cold I was shaking lying down. I went back out to the main office and asked them what I should do, so we called the PCMO again. By this time my allergy medicine arrived and she told me to take it and drink a lot of water. So I took it and tried drinking water; every time I did though I felt like I was going to throw it up, so I quite that. Around 4 I gave up on trying to warm myself up and went back out to the office, I told them I thought I still had a fever and I was so cold my teeth were chattering. The duty officer told me we had to call the PCMO again, and I had to tell her my symptoms again. She told me I had to go to the hospital, and that I would have to spend the night. Spend the night? Why? She told me it was so the doctors could monitor me over night. The next day all of us were supposed to be leaving for our volunteer visits. Don't worry, Bridget, you'll probably still be able to make it, and another trainee is in the hospital now too, so we'll put you in a room together.

By then all I wanted were some antibiotics to feel better. I got into one of the PC trucks going to Tegus to take some Spanish teachers home, and I don't know if it was because of the driving or what but I started throwing up. That was fun. Finally after what seemed like most round about way to get to the hospital we finally got there. But Junior, the driver, and one of the secretaries went in with me. They took my temperature and I tried asking what it was but that didn't really work so well. I think it was 40-something and everyone seemed very alarmed, which didn't make me feel better. Then the IV came, I knew from the way they were looking at my veins that it wasn't going to be easy. First they tried my left hand and then my right hand and then my right elbow joint and then my left and finally they seemed to get it to work. They injected something into the IV that made my whole body go warm and soon I passed out. Several doctors came in and talked to me, some in Spanish and some in English, but I don't remember what they said. A person from PC came in too and talked to me, said they were going to move me upstairs, but it felt like I waited there forever in the ER.

Finally they moved me up to the other room with Molly, the other PCT (Peace Corps trainee) that was in the hospital. We sat around and watched a Point Break in English and then soon I fell asleep. During my sleep I woke up several times to nurses fiddling with my IV, I guess I bent the one in my arm during my sleep because they had to redo it in my hand. Needless to say I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. When we woke up I felt better and I thought it was a good sign that for breakfast they brought me French toast with syrup and Molly crackers and jelly. But apparently it wasn't because Molly had a bacteria and I had a virus. She got to leave and I had to stay for another night and they would see in the morning how I was doing.

The room at the hospital was nice, the nurses were nice but didn't speak English, and the doctor spoke English perfectly, but it was so boring and lonely. My host mom and dad stopped by to see me and a lady from PC called me several times but the only thing I wanted was to get out of there, anywhere but in that hospital with the IV strapped to my hand. I passed the day by watching American television with Spanish subtitles. Dawson's Creek, Gilmore Girls, The OC, some movies, Seinfeld. I learned how to say great phrases in Spanish like, "oh my god," and "coming up next."

I didn't actually eat the breakfast they served me, I just had a banana, and I wasn't really up to French toast. So I was pretty excited when they brought lunch, but it was only three pieces of toast with jelly. And dinner was refried beans (which are frijoles – I don't know what they call beans that aren't refried) and avocado and this bologna meat stuff. I'm sure most Hondurans after being in a hospital for almost a full day looks forward to having a traditional Honduran meal, but after watching commercials all day of TGIF and Wendy's and other American restaurants, all I wanted was one of my dad's hamburgers.

I slept better the 2^nd night but the nurse woke me up in the morning for breakfast, pancakes (nothing compared to home's or Maribel's). I asked the nurse if I could go home and she went to look for the doctor. So I settled into watching more American TV. Finally, after they insisted on me eating their lunch, which I only picked at, I was allowed to go back to Sainta Lucia. My motorista friend, Miguel came to pick me up and came up to my room to get me, I have never been so happy to talk to someone in Spanish before. So Miguel took me home and I kind of sat around the house for a while, watched my host mom prepare frijoles and she told me about cooking them and harvesting them and storing them. Then I went to bed fairly early and didn't get up until 1 the next day. That was on Friday/Saturday. Now it's Sunday and I feel better but not completely better. I still can't really eat a lot, it tires me out. But the headache and general body ache is gone. Oh, forgot to mention that the doctor said it was just a three day stomach virus, "as you call it in the states." I've never had anything like this in the states. No Malaria, Typhoid, or Dengue (yet at least). Just wanted to let everyone know I was alive. I'll write more tonight and hopefully send it out tomorrow with replies. Take care.

PC Love,

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

3-July to today

2006-07-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

3-Jul-06

Last Friday we were sitting in one of our project classes with a current volunteer. A few days before he showed up with bandages on his elbow and a few cuts on his hand, that afternoon he told us how it happened. While traveling on a bus in Tegus he was trying to get off at a stop, when he finally got the driver to stop he stepped out and the bus driver slammed on the gas. I'm sure you can all see where this is going.

Saturday morning at 7 AM a few of us met in front of a fellow 'aspirantes' casa and we were going to walk down to the triangle, which is where the road to Santa Lucia meets the main highway and this is also where we needed to catch a bus to get to San Juancito. The six of us walked down there, about 2 km, and met up with another trainee. As we got there a bus pulled up, luckily for me, there were a few of us who spoke much better Spanish so we got on that bus so we wouldn't have to wait an hour for another one. This bus was only going to take us to Valles de Los Angels so we would have to wait for another one to get to Juancito. Either way we all got on the bus that was blasting reggaeton at 8 AM in the morning. It took maybe 30 minutes or so for us to get right outside of Los Angels. We saw a sign for San Juancito that said 12km and it looked like the bus driver was going to take us but this local Honduran that had been helping us talk to the driver said we should just get off here, at a stop in front of a pulperia. In fear of being stuck on the bus as the driver slammed on his gas I kind of ran down the steps and missed the last one and landed knee first on a rock.

The bus left and I stood up and blood starting pouring out of my leg. Luckily we were still very close to Los Angles and the local guy got off the bus with us. So Cathie and Ramon (I think, but we could never get it straight) went off to a pulperia to get some supplies while the rest of us tried to stop the blood. They came back with hydrogen peroxide and gauze and tape. One of the girls that had worked at a vet clinic cleaned out my wound and even pulled back the flap of skin that was left to make sure there weren't any rocks inside it. Again, lucky for me, my knee was complexly numb. One of the guys with us had an ace bandage, so we wrapped my knee up after we put on the gauze and headed back into town for a café.

We caught the next bus around 9:30, same reggaeton and everything. We got to San Juancito within 15 minutes or so and started for the road to the National Park, La Tigra. The entrance to the park is straight up a dirt road. Three hours later we made it to the entrance. A few minutes into the walk our friend showed back up that helped us get there or just hang out (I'm not really sure), apparently his mom called while he was on the bus and told him she wasn't home and he had no keys to get in. He was only 20, very nice and grew up with cuerpo de paz voluntarios. Anyway so he decided to take the hike with us.

We talked the guy into giving us the national deal for the entrance fee, usually it is $10 which is about 200 limperias; we only had to pay 20 limps. We decided to take the shorter hike to the waterfalls so we didn't miss the last bus out of town at 5:30. We left for the hike and the forest was absolutely amazing. We heard a couple of birds but didn't see any. There were some semi-wild horses eating on the trail we took, but that was about it. La Tigra, hundreds of years ago was a mining town, after the government declared it a national park the mines were closed but some of the structures remained, like the entrance to one of the mines and old houses. One of the main trails is actually the old mining road.

After more uphill hiking, we made it to an amazing waterfall inside a cloud. It was completely surreal. It was misty, raining too but that didn't matter. The temperature had dropped significantly as well. We ate our lunch at the out look by the waterfall and then headed back for the park entrance. My mom gave me a bunch of tiny bananas to chare with my friends and I made two hamon (which is not exactly ham) and queso sandwiches, one of which I gave to our new friend.

The downhill part was much easier and went by much faster. Included in the trail, I forgot to mention, were several bridges that went over other smaller waterfalls that turned into small rivers. The trail and the park in general had a lot of character. Also in the welcome center are rooms for rent, it all made sense when we got there why all of our host moms thought we were staying over.

We ended up getting off the mountain around 4 so we had an hour and a half or so to kill so we went to a café and rested for a little while then we started back up another hill to get to the bus stop we needed. Luckily, again, our Honduran friend was with us because we would have never found it, we had to walk through another part of San Juancito and down a highway to this little overhang. After a while our friend's bus arrived, but ours still hadn't. I think it finally showed up around 6 so we loaded and headed back for Santa Lucia. This bus dropped us back off at the triangle and we still had another 2km to walk back to where our houses were. By then my knee had finally started hurting so we decided to wait for the Santa Lucia bus that would take us back to el Centro, where most of our houses were. That bus finally arrived from Tegus completely packed and other people waiting at the stop got on. This little kid, who must have been the son of the guy who was either driving the bus or collecting money, or maybe just a nice kid saw that I was limping and opened the back door of the bus for me. My friends helped me and one other friend on, so I wouldn't have to be alone, and they walked. Not really knowing where the bus route ended we got off at the entrance to town and right behind us were the rest us our group, someone had stopped and given them a ride.

We all went to our respected houses to get ready for the dance the town/high school was having that night. Every year the local high school elects a king and queen, usually seniors, for a fundraising and parade event (at least this is what I got out of it). The dance that the town was having was in some way connected to that. So once I got home and roughly translated what happened to my knee I showered and cleaned my knee again I went up the hill to the "club social" to check out the dance. Basically it was a lot of 16/17 year olds asking us to dance. It was a good time hanging out with the group but I was pretty beat from the extremely long day. So I asked two of the guys to walk me home because there were a lot of bolos out in the street.

The next morning I woke up and checked out my knee, I think it had been bleeding the whole night, or I just tore it back open from dancing and whatnot, but my host my called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and she said I had to go to the emergency room in Tegus, so I waited around for a driver to take me and Heidi, my neighbor whose host family is related to mine. We got the ER pretty quick, and the driver walked in with us and told them I was a cuerpo do paz volunteer and they immediately took me into a room. The place was very clean and the doctor spoke English, but the nurse did not and the last thing I wanted to do then was speak Spanish to someone. The doctor told me I needed stitches, but it was past 24 hours so it was a no go. He cleaned it out, gave me pain and antibiotic meds and sent me on my way to clean it again every day.

After we left I asked the driver if he would mind stopping to get ice cream and he said that was a wonderful question. So we stopped at a Texaco and there was a Wendy's inside! So I got all three of us a frosty, I've never had a frosty that tasted that good. When I got home I called my mom and explained all of it to her, so sorry mom, here is everything in detail. And then I watched Rush Hour 2 in English with Spanish subtitles, for studying of course. That is one thing about these Hondurans, they LOVE their movies.

Monday, Miguel, my driver from Sunday, picked me up because I was supposed to take a week off, which we all know was NEVER going to happen. On the way we ended up picking up a bunch of other aspirantes, so everyone was really excited about the rides in the mornings. By Wednesday though my leg was kind of green and mentioned something to someone and the next thing I knew I had to go back to Tegus to get it looked at in the PC (Peace Corps) medical office. So off I went and had to get it cleaned again, but I got to check out the headquarters and its pretty sweet with free internet and a huge outdoor stage thing. The doctor there said it was a little infected but it was healing ok I just kept reopening it when I was walking on it, so again she told me to take it easy, which is very hard to do on cobble stone streets and hills. Anyway it's forming a scab but like the doctor in the ER told me, I did do an enchilada on my knee.

Happy be-lated fourth to everyone. Ours was kind of tame, but for lunch at CHP (that's the name of the training site) we had Honduran hamburgers and hotdogs with baked beans, not quite like the ones my dad makes but they were fun. The staff also got us two piñatas that we got to take turns at, so much fun and a lot harder than I've ever seen before – someone holds the ropes and moves it and everyone around shouts at you where to swing. After class we went home and had our respected dinners (well most of us did some might have gone right after class) and then met up at this bar for a 'dance party.' One of the local restaurant owners had a big room connected to the main outdoor covered part and played music for us all there and gave us a deal on beers. I was still on my medication so it was a very tame night for me and I headed home fairly early, but late for what time I've been going to bed here every night, around 11.

I forgot to mention also, when I got home on the 4^th my host mom was very busy coordinating something and I found out later that someone in our community daughter died in a motorcycle-drug related accident in Tegus and her father who lives in Santa Lucia is very poor so Maribel was trying to find money to buy a casket; she's on the town's city council. Anyway they were all dealing with that and I was told we might be having some sort of thing at our house because the father also did not own a house. So when I got home from the party there were candles lit on the floor and all over. I thought I was going to walk into some mourning ritual, but my host mom and her friend were sitting in the kitchen and they told me we didn't have electricity. That's what I get for assuming. The electricity went back on before I went to bed.

Tomorrow my Spanish class in going into Tegus to go to a market for a lesson, well it's more like a learning activity. We have to take a bus into the city and then get a taxis to a location where a teacher will be meeting us. There are six people in my group and three groups going tomorrow, everyone that went the rest of the week said it's not so bad. But after my trip last weekend I feel like this will be a piece of cake! After the market we go back over to the PC office and wait for everyone to meet up so hopefully I can send this out and post my pictures.

On the way home I think we're stopping at Wendy's again, I asked Miguel today and he said yes. He really is a nice guy, very helpful and enthusiastic! But if not, it's ok because all of the food has been awesome anyway. On Saturday I am going back to Tegus with my family to go to a different bigger market to get food for the week and then on Sunday I am going to a family friend's finka (farm) to check out his crops and whatnot.

Sorry this is soooo long, I'll try and recap the weekend by Monday and have that sent out but like I've been saying, the internet is not a sure thing, so we'll see. This following weekend we have volunteer visits so as soon as I know more about where I'll be visiting I'll keep y'all posted too!

If you made it this far, thanks. Love you all so much. Take care.

PC Amor-

Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

sak pase

2006-06-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Just Kidding thats not spanish.

First off I AM SOOO SORRY STEVEN, I didn´t mean to not send you emails, I just don´t have your address.
Second, Mom and Papa I tried calling you today, Friday, but there was no answer!

I just wanted to send out a a quick note to let everyone know that I am ok. I will try and call tomorrow but a few of us from my project are going hiking in La Tigre National Park. You can google it but I can´t cause the internet is slllooooow. Its ok tho, they have it, right_ I don´t know whjere the question mark is. A bunch of mi companeros are planning futbol down in the valley so I´m headed off to that. After I get back from my hike I will try and write everyone back and write more in detail about the hike and the adventuire getting there, think yellow school buses with chickens and gringos!

I love you all so much and miss everyone of you, please keep sending me emails, they make me sooooo happy! Take care, and should I join my group_ Yo no se.

PC LOVE,
B

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

mas

2006-06-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

23-Jun-06

Hola! Que tal? Bien? Lo siento mi amores, I know I said I wouldn't speak in Spanish but now I am even having trouble remembering words in English and I have only been here 2 ½ days! It's crazy right? Some of my Spanish is coming back wonderfully, but not all of it. I guess that will take some more time.

I'm not sure if the other email I typed out the other day made it or not, so if it didn't I will try and repost it today. The internet place, AKA Hondutel, is very slow and we were having problems with almost every single computer in the place, a total of about 9. There is another internet place called MayaVision, hopefully that is where I will be sending my emails from, but to call someone I go to the other place, because it is 1 limperia cheaper, even though that does not translate to a lot of dollars, I have to live off of 50 limperias a day, which is about $2.50. Good luck right? Well we have all our meals prepared for us, so there is very little that I can see right now that I have to pay for, besides snacks, internet and phone. I have a feeling that we are going to be allowed to go to Teguc soon though, because yesterday I got lost when I left Hondutel to walk back to my house with another aspirante (that's what they call the trainees) and ended up at a PCVs house, Adam is actually one of our trainers right now, but there were a bunch of PCVs there and I kind of got the feeling that we will be allowed to go down there eventually.

Not much has happened since the last update I typed. Today we got our first dose of vaccines, I got an MMR and a Polio booster, because apparently you need another of both once you are an adult. Lo que, they paid for it, right? Also we had a bunch of free time to fill out paper work and have our medical interviews, during our free time there was optional Spanish classes, so of course I went to those, but they were a lot of fun. We played games and just got to ask questions in general. This learning is nothing like being in a class at a university because this is survival Spanish, you know? If you don't know how to say you don't want something or you can't eat it or you need to go somewhere, you're SOL.

Tomorrow I have my placement language interview, to graduate from training and become a volunteer you have to be at the intermediate level of language comprehension. There are four levels and 4 groups in the first 3 levels. Monday we will find out what level we are placed into and then we go from there. The trainers have been really great about keeping us informed about what we going to happen and what we need to do, they constantly ask if we need any help and are very approachable, which makes the transition that much easier.

OK, even though its only 9:30 here I am going to end now because I want to keep some of my computer battery life for later. The host families asked that the trainees not charge their laptops at home, so we have to bring them to the school to charge. Tomorrow we are also having a party later with all of our families after school around 5 with dancing (!) so that should be fun!!! I also have to read some stuff for class tomorrow and in general in case I have any questions. As always you can email me and I will get back to you personally: bridgetfrench@gmail.com. Hope everyone is doing great, I am for the most part!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm at the internet place now, I meant to send this one out yesterday but it was raining and because of that the phones and the internet was down, I asked if it was a storm and I was told it wasn't so I could only imagine was a storm looks like here. The party was fun the food was kind of potluck style and Heidi and I thought for sure we'd both be sick today but we're not. Three people have gotten sick already and had to go down to the capital to go to a hospital, the good news is they are all ok, but one of them is going home already, he was in my project. Triste. But this isn't for everyone and I guess they are figureing it out slowly. Tomorrow I found out what language level I am at, I had an interview on Saturday. Today I am going to the market in town and to look at the flower ladies flowers, the other day we walked down to 2 futbol fields, they were amazing but my camera died so I'm going to try and take pictures today. I'l try and send a few out. Like always, comments, questions, and love email me and I will write you back personally. Also if you know someone that wants to be added let me know and I will afix them to my list!

PC amor -

Bridget

PS – if anyone has any suggestions for a better way to introduce myself let me know, everyone is having a hard time with Bridget.

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

staging y mi primero dias

2006-06-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

I tried sending this the other say but sometimes the internet is sketchy.

I would like to say I don't know where to begin, so much has
happened in the past three days. But I do know where to start! Gaddy
Vasquez came and spoke to my group (Honduras 9) and Ecuador. There
were about 100 of us. His speech just made me want to get on the
plane and head down there even more! He said being the head of the
Peace Corps is great but its the people under him that are making the
difference, the ones who are helping in the world. Everything he had
to say was so positive. I didn't know this before, but the Peace
Corps is one of few government bodies whose budgets have increased and
in the past three years the most amount of volunteers to ever serve in
the history of the corps. Also he told us that of the 13,000 people
that apply only 1/3 are accepted! I'm not sure if he does this all
the time or not, but it was definitely a great way to keep me
motivated and finish this hectic process of staging. (found out he
makes it to almost ALL stagings in DC)
But now let me start from the beginning! I got to DC on time (I
couldn't see the other one on my ticket!) And while I was in
Charlotte I called and asked the hotel if they had a shuttle, so I
wouldn't have to flag down a taxis. They did, so when I landed I
lugged my backpack down to the baggage claim and paid a guy to take my
bags out to the curb for me. Yeah, what can I say I need a few more
luxuries before leaving the states. So I got out to the curb and
there were two other chicas waiting for the same shuttle with a large
amount of luggage. Both of them were volunteers but after everything
was said and done that day, it turned out one of them was going to
Ecuador, and there were actually two staging groups in D.C. those few
days.
I checked into my hotel room with the other girl and it turned out
we were roommates as well. Her name is Cathie and she's from NY, and
has TWO degrees in environmental sciences. Anyway, we both had a lot
of the same concerns and what not so it was nice to get there
immediately and have someone to talk to. We both went down stairs to
check-in and hand in our paperwork. At 3 we started with our ice
breakers and PC policy talks and whatnot. It was a lot to take in but
most of the information included a fun activity along with it, which
helped to get to know more people. After we got done at 7 I called my
cousin Bill and we went out to dinner at a italian place in
Georgetown, which was really nice because I'd never been there and I
haven't seen my cousin in forever. After dinner we went and checked
out his place and then I had to ask him to take me home because I was
exhausted from the flight and long nights I had the past few days.
The next day we got up and had to be downstairs at 7:30 to begin
our second day of training which ended up being very similar to the
first one. I went and ate lunch in the underground Crystal City with
some more volunteers. Toward the end of the day we had our final
information to get on the plane the next morning and head down to
Honduras! After we finished for the day I called Robin, because she
was in DC for a job interview, we were supposed to go out and have
dinner but then my roommate came back up and told me that the director
of the Peace Corps was coming to speak to us at 8:30, so we had to go
to dinner early, which was ok. Robin, Cathie and I went back to the
Crystal City underground for dinner and I had my last American beer.
After dinner we went back and listened to Mr. Vasquez speak and then
headed into bed.
At 2:15AM we got up to get down for my groups check out time -
which was 3:15AM, the latest - and we were on the bus to the airport
by 4:30AM and we were on the plane taking off at 7:30. There was a
completely different flight to Miami that left while we were all
sitting there too. It was kind of painful. Oh yeah and as we were
handed our passports and tickets I found out that one of the guys who
was helping out at staging is a UGA grad ('95). So that was cool, too
bad I didn't know before. And my luggage was overweight, but for
someone lucky reason I ended up not having to pay. I had to move a
lot of stuff around for the weather in Teguz so I guess I messed up
the whole plan. Ohh well its here, safe and sound!
OK so we landed in Honduras at 12:45ish and went outside and loaded
all of our bags into a truck and then put our overnight bags on a
school bus (a yellow one!) and drove the 17 kl to Sant Lucia. Around
3:30 we were introduced to our family (well the ladies of the
household) and then after socializing for a few minutes we were on our
way home! My host family is really nice. There are 4 people and me
living there and a 15 month old baby girl. Maribol y Cristobal are
the parents and there son Tito (Cristobal Jr.) lives with his child's
mother, Maria. Their baby's name is Andrea Daniella. Everyone is
very nice, but I think they are very use to volunteers because they
aren't really around a whole lot. The food was great. For dinner I
had tortillas y queso and avocados and hard boiled eggs and broccoli
and cauli flower. And for breakfast the next day I had pancakes,
watermelon, a banana, cafe and orange juice. For lunch I had
something great too! It was kind of like ramen noodles with
vegetables, peppers, carrots and something I'm not sure what it is.
Also she packed me cucumbers and tomatoes. So I'm definitely not
eating bad at all, actually its hard to get it all down! Right now
our host families are getting paid to feed us three meals a day, so I
get a packed lunch every day also.
Apparently my family has hosted many volunteers, for almost 20
years. I found this out because 2 Americans stopped by for dinner and
one of them was a RPCV. She was hosted by the same family in 98. It
was nice to have someone that knew English and Spanish after that
extremely long day. She helped me out with a few things I needed and
couldn't remember how to say. But i felt guilty speaking English.
She said that I was doing much better than she was when she got to
country. That made me feel a lot better. But it is still VERY
frustrating to not be able to express yourself.
I went to bed by 10ish and had to be up to get to the training
center by 7:30AM. So I woke up by some miracle because I forgot to
set the alarm. My bad. Anyway I will do that tonight for sure. I'm
running out of time at the internet place - like I said before its not
really a "cafe" its computers in a sketchy room. Tomorrow we start
getting our vaccines, I have to get quite a few because they said
you're supposed to have another round of all of your infant shots once
you're older. Whatever. We got paid today - 50 limpuras/day which is
about 3 dollars. Its about a 1:20 exchange. So by American standards
its not that much but hopefully it will be enough for right now.
OK I'm running out of time and I need to go call my mom. More
later. I'm not sure how often I will be able to get over here and use
the internet and keep everyone updated. I'm going to try very hard to
type things up at night and use a jump drive to easily send them.
Email me at bridgetfrench@gmail.com and I will write you back
individually but right now that seems kind of over whelming.

Ohh yeah for the ladies - almost all the guys are very attractive.
Its not bad duty. My project is split 50/50. I'll take more pictures
and hopefully get them up and whatnot very soon. Its been raining but
there are A LOT of pretty views and cute houses.

Hasta lluego,
Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

staging y mi primero dias

2006-06-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

I would like to say I don't know where to begin, so much has
happened in the past three days. But I do know where to start! Gaddy
Vasquez came and spoke to my group (Honduras 9) and Ecuador. There
were about 100 of us. His speech just made me want to get on the
plane and head down there even more! He said being the head of the
Peace Corps is great but its the people under him that are making the
difference, the ones who are helping in the world. Everything he had
to say was so positive. I didn't know this before, but the Peace
Corps is one of few government bodies whose budgets have increased and
in the past three years the most amount of volunteers to ever serve in
the history of the corps. Also he told us that of the 13,000 people
that apply only 1/3 are accepted! I'm not sure if he does this all
the time or not, but it was definitely a great way to keep me
motivated and finish this hectic process of staging. (found out he
makes it to almost ALL stagings in DC)
But now let me start from the beginning! I got to DC on time (I
couldn't see the other one on my ticket!) And while I was in
Charlotte I called and asked the hotel if they had a shuttle, so I
wouldn't have to flag down a taxis. They did, so when I landed I
lugged my backpack down to the baggage claim and paid a guy to take my
bags out to the curb for me. Yeah, what can I say I need a few more
luxuries before leaving the states. So I got out to the curb and
there were two other chicas waiting for the same shuttle with a large
amount of luggage. Both of them were volunteers but after everything
was said and done that day, it turned out one of them was going to
Ecuador, and there were actually two staging groups in D.C. those few
days.
I checked into my hotel room with the other girl and it turned out
we were roommates as well. Her name is Cathie and she's from NY, and
has TWO degrees in environmental sciences. Anyway, we both had a lot
of the same concerns and what not so it was nice to get there
immediately and have someone to talk to. We both went down stairs to
check-in and hand in our paperwork. At 3 we started with our ice
breakers and PC policy talks and whatnot. It was a lot to take in but
most of the information included a fun activity along with it, which
helped to get to know more people. After we got done at 7 I called my
cousin Bill and we went out to dinner at a italian place in
Georgetown, which was really nice because I'd never been there and I
haven't seen my cousin in forever. After dinner we went and checked
out his place and then I had to ask him to take me home because I was
exhausted from the flight and long nights I had the past few days.
The next day we got up and had to be downstairs at 7:30 to begin
our second day of training which ended up being very similar to the
first one. I went and ate lunch in the underground Crystal City with
some more volunteers. Toward the end of the day we had our final
information to get on the plane the next morning and head down to
Honduras! After we finished for the day I called Robin, because she
was in DC for a job interview, we were supposed to go out and have
dinner but then my roommate came back up and told me that the director
of the Peace Corps was coming to speak to us at 8:30, so we had to go
to dinner early, which was ok. Robin, Cathie and I went back to the
Crystal City underground for dinner and I had my last American beer.
After dinner we went back and listened to Mr. Vasquez speak and then
headed into bed.
At 2:15AM we got up to get down for my groups check out time -
which was 3:15AM, the latest - and we were on the bus to the airport
by 4:30AM and we were on the plane taking off at 7:30. There was a
completely different flight to Miami that left while we were all
sitting there too. It was kind of painful. Oh yeah and as we were
handed our passports and tickets I found out that one of the guys who
was helping out at staging is a UGA grad ('95). So that was cool, too
bad I didn't know before. And my luggage was overweight, but for
someone lucky reason I ended up not having to pay. I had to move a
lot of stuff around for the weather in Teguz so I guess I messed up
the whole plan. Ohh well its here, safe and sound!
OK so we landed in Honduras at 12:45ish and went outside and loaded
all of our bags into a truck and then put our overnight bags on a
school bus (a yellow one!) and drove the 17 kl to Sant Lucia. Around
3:30 we were introduced to our family (well the ladies of the
household) and then after socializing for a few minutes we were on our
way home! My host family is really nice. There are 4 people and me
living there and a 15 month old baby girl. Maribol y Cristobal are
the parents and there son Tito (Cristobal Jr.) lives with his child's
mother, Maria. Their baby's name is Andrea Daniella. Everyone is
very nice, but I think they are very use to volunteers because they
aren't really around a whole lot. The food was great. For dinner I
had tortillas y queso and avocados and hard boiled eggs and broccoli
and cauli flower. And for breakfast the next day I had pancakes,
watermelon, a banana, cafe and orange juice. For lunch I had
something great too! It was kind of like ramen noodles with
vegetables, peppers, carrots and something I'm not sure what it is.
Also she packed me cucumbers and tomatoes. So I'm definitely not
eating bad at all, actually its hard to get it all down! Right now
our host families are getting paid to feed us three meals a day, so I
get a packed lunch every day also.
Apparently my family has hosted many volunteers, for almost 20
years. I found this out because 2 Americans stopped by for dinner and
one of them was a RPCV. She was hosted by the same family in 98. It
was nice to have someone that knew English and Spanish after that
extremely long day. She helped me out with a few things I needed and
couldn't remember how to say. But i felt guilty speaking English.
She said that I was doing much better than she was when she got to
country. That made me feel a lot better. But it is still VERY
frustrating to not be able to express yourself.
I went to bed by 10ish and had to be up to get to the training
center by 7:30AM. So I woke up by some miracle because I forgot to
set the alarm. My bad. Anyway I will do that tonight for sure. I'm
running out of time at the internet place - like I said before its not
really a "cafe" its computers in a sketchy room. Tomorrow we start
getting our vaccines, I have to get quite a few because they said
you're supposed to have another round of all of your infant shots once
you're older. Whatever. We got paid today - 50 limpuras/day which is
about 3 dollars. Its about a 1:20 exchange. So by American standards
its not that much but hopefully it will be enough for right now.
OK I'm running out of time and I need to go call my mom. More
later. I'm not sure how often I will be able to get over here and use
the internet and keep everyone updated. I'm going to try very hard to
type things up at night and use a jump drive to easily send them.
Email me at bridgetfrench@gmail.com and I will write you back
individually but right now that seems kind of over whelming.

Ohh yeah for the ladies - almost all the guys are very attractive.
Its not bad duty. My project is split 50/50. I'll take more pictures
and hopefully get them up and whatnot very soon. Its been raining but
there are A LOT of pretty views and cute houses.

Hasta lluego,
Bridget

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

These are a few of my favorite things

2006-06-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful time this weekend at my going away party. The sad
part is now I have to go away! I know only a have few things I have
left to do before I depart, like pack. Haha, if only it were a little
easier. I still haven't heard anymore about specifically what I will
be doing while I am down there but as soon as I know I will be sure to
let everyone know!

Several people have been asking me what kinds of things I like so here
is a list!

Fruity candy - skittles, starbursts, mike n' ike,
Hot Tamales
Silly girly books
Non-mint flavor gums
Magazines - esp. news ones
Lip gloss
LETTERS!!
PICTURES of you having fun!
nail polish
travel games
CDs of new music
Friendship braclets (oh you know!)
Bullseyes (if they won't melt)
a play by play report of UGA football games
a detailed story line of The OC, 24, Law and Order SVU
Burned DVDs, if thats even possible
computer games
VISITORS! (I thought I'd just throw that in for good measure)

Thats all I ca think of right now. Thanks again for everything
everyone has done for me and your thoughtfulness! I greatly
appreciate it as I get ready to head off! More importantly thanks for
your continued support!

PC Love -
B
--
Bridget Kathleen French

its almost june!

2006-05-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

hi all-
getting closer to my leaving date.

Packing List Re-visited

2006-04-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

This is what I've got and don't got (haha, of course that includes my grammer).

Packing List

20 tops (kinda check)
(need a few more cool business casual tops)

1 or 2 sweaters or sweatshirts (check)

10 pairs (at least) of socks for all your shoes

14 pairs of underwear

2 swim suits

Rain gear

Light jacket or wind breaker

Caps and hats (for sun and cold protection)

Bandannas

Belts (check)

Running clothes (check)

3-6 pairs of pants for work

2-3 pairs of casual pants (check)

1-4 pairs of shorts (kinda check)

1-3 skirts or dresses (check)

2 dressy outfits for formal occasions (kinda check?)

1-2 pairs of comfortable/sturdy work shoes (def not check)

1 pair of hiking boots (check)

1 pair of running shoes

1 pair of comfortable casual shoes (check)

1 pair dress shoes (check)

Flip-flops (double check)

Start up supply of toiletries

Camera, replacement batteries, film (?)

Day pack (check)

Water-resistant, shockproof watch (check)

Small flashlight, with extra batteries

Money belt (check)

Pillowcases (check)

Multiple-utility pocket-knife (check)

2 flat sheets or double bed set

Travel alarm clock & extra batteries

Sturdy backpack or duffel for weekend trips (check)

Pocket-size Spanish-English dictionary

Fast drying towels

2 bath towels

1 beach towel

2 hand towels (check)

2 washcloths (check)

U.S. currency for training period (check?)

Travel games

Good scissors

Inexpensive jewelry (double check :) )

Small iron?

Journal

Light stuffable sleeping bag (check)

Sleeping bag pad (check)

Photos of friends & family (check, smile for me!)

Radio (with shortwave) with electrical cord and extra batteries or rechargeable batteries

Simple tool set

Small sewing kit

Start-up supply of stationary, pens, etc. (check)

World map or light weight atlas

Plastic food storage bags – though someone told me not to bother b/c of the leaf cutter ants.

Luggage locks

Binoculars (check, papa can I borrow your small binos again? pleeeease!)

Project specific books – any recommendations?

I also have added to this list:

powder gatorade

Shout out

2006-04-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

Check out the article in the Red & Black about Peace Corps and me!
(Ignore the huge typo in the first sentence, it never fails with
them!)

http://www.redandblack.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/04/06/4434879fd07d1?in_archive=1

PC Love -
BF

this was supposed to be posted last week

2006-04-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

I tried making a packing list yesterday when I was supposed to be listening to a lecture on Therapods, or Sauropods. I don't know. How am I supposed to do this? I know they give me a pretty specific list, but come on, the worst part is I really think that my current wardrobe is unacceptable, like I need to go buy new stuff.

I decided to sell almost everything, except for those items which I am particularly attached to, so help me out, give me 5 bucks and help me raise some money to buy a short wave radio and a new rain jacket, and in return you can have a piece of me, haha. Yes your very own Bridget memento.

Here is the packing list thus far -

Packing List

20 tops

1 or 2 sweaters or sweatshirts

10 pairs (at least) of socks for all your shoes

14 pairs of underwear

2 swim suits

Rain gear

Light jacket or wind breaker

Caps and hats (for sun and cold protection)

Bandannas

Belts

Running clothes

3-6 pairs of pants for work

2-3 pairs of casual pants

1-4 pairs of shorts

1-3 skirts or dresses

2 dressy outfits for formal occasions (what does that Peace Corps?)

1-2 pairs of comfortable/sturdy work shoes

1 pair of hiking boots

1 pair of running shoes

1 pair of comfortable casual shoes

1 pair dress shoes

Flip-flops

Start up supply of toiletries

Camera, replacement batteries, film (?)

Day pack

Water-resistant, shockproof watch

Small flashlight, with extra batteries

Money belt

Pillowcases

Multiple-utility pocket-knife

2 flat sheets or double bed set

Travel alarm clock & extra batteries

Sturdy backpack or duffel for weekend trips

Pocket-size Spanish-English dictionary

Fast drying towels

2 bath towels

1 beach towel

2 hand towels

2 washcloths

U.S. currency for training period

Travel games

Good scissors

Inexpensive jewelry

Small iron?

Journal

Light stuffable sleeping bag

Sleeping bag pad

Photos of friends & family

Radio (with shortwave) with electrical cord and extra batteries or rechargeable batteries

Simple tool set

Small sewing kit

Start-up supply of stationary, pens, etc.

World map or light weight atlas

Plastic food storage bags – though someone told me not to bother b/c of the leaf cutter ants.

Luggage locks

Binoculars

Project specific books – any recommendations?

--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

The Last Leg

2006-03-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

I guess its been a very long while and while many many many many many things have changed since I began this course in August of 05, I still didn't think it was anything too interesting to sit down and type it all out. Actually that's a lie, I am just extremely lazy.

I leave June 19th for Honduras. The only obstacles I have left are finals, graduation, dental work and saying goodbye.

In the past few days it has dawned on me, I have done a very good job of ignoring the situation and the reality. I have 46 days until I graduate and move home and 89 days until I am on a plane. It still seems so far away.

I'm going to try and write more frequently so everyone can have a better idea of what exactly I'm going through and the process. I have a strong feeling though that I will not have electricity when I get down there, which is completely OK with me (now at least). So I may only have these few posts before I am gone, in which case y'all need to be ready for snail mail, but that's ok, I know everyone loves a letter!

PC Love-
Bridget

The Postal System

2005-11-30T11:51:00.000-08:00

Everything is mailed off via first class mail today, now I must sit and wait 4-8 weeks I suppose...Hopefully I will know a definant answer by my 22nd birthday! But sooner would be much better, as one would imagine.

Since the beginning...

2005-10-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

So this is to start a little following of what I am up to, especially if I end up overseas...I know you all care so much about the process, ha, seriously. This way I can post pictures, stories and whatever else. Enjoy!
Bridget