Take the good with the bad...

Or is it the bad with the good?


One week until we're in Guaimaca!  I'm pretty excited, but a little nervous.  Last year I was nervous for many definable reasons, including the community life, the language, teaching, cultural differences, safety...and this year these concerns are all present again, but differently.  For example, I still have a decent handle on Spanish, and it's going to come back quickly, but what if I never progress beyond where I was last year?  Last year I was scared to step into the classroom because I had never done it before, this year I'm nervous to step into the classroom because I will be teaching new students, and I'm afraid to find out that the only reason I enjoyed the experience so much last year was that the group of girls I was with and I developed a strong relationship, and that my new students and I won't do so.


But, like I said, I'm mostly excited.  I know that last year was last year, that, except for the mark it left on me, it's gone.  This year will be a completely new experience, and I'm looking forward to finding out what that entails.  I will be much more comfortable in my surroundings than I was in the beginning of last year, so I will be able to start enjoying life and pulling as much as I can out of the day to day interactions.


This excitement comes at the tail end of two difficult and worrisome weeks.  Honduras has recently received a lot more news coverage, and the safety situation has been called into question.  Safety is always an issue in Latin America, especially Honduras, but this year the concerns surfaced strongly enough that Kris and Stonehill really had to evaluate the program.  Fortunately for us and the Center, they were able to contact several groups working in the country, including the sisters and Father Craig, to get a real idea of how things currently are, a perspective that I was afraid would be overlooked in the face of the recent news, which like much media coverage, is either not entirely informed or at least slanted.  So, the possibility of not going was very hard to deal with, but we received an email yesterday informing us that, based on all of the investigation they performed, we will still have the opportunity to go to Guaimaca and live this incredible service experience.


In all I was really pleased and happy with the response Stonehill took to the situation.  Kris made a lot of calls to organizations in Honduras, and considered the situation from every angle.  The prompt and responsible response they made strengthened my already strong trust and faith in our program, and helped lend me a bit of peace, which I need as I go back...especially in light of the news I received recently about Sandra.


Sandra, always the top of my class last year (with academics and with daily expression of the school's values), wanted to become a math teacher, something I was really pleased about.  Her succeeding and rising from an aldea to a very well respected profession, teaching and motivating younger generations, is exactly what I would hope to see as the outcome of my work.  That situation is so much better than a culture dependent on foreign help...it's great that young people want to go and help, but the most we can do, the most I can do, is lend a helping hand to the start of this process.  Neither I, nor any volunteer, can create the type better future that Sandra could contribute to.


Before I left last year, I sat down with each of the seniors and had an exit interview type reflection with them, about where they had been, what they have learned, and where they will be going.  I am not going to write more about that--it was pretty personal and emotional--but I had high hopes for all of them, especially Sandra.  


And now, this week, I heard that she was having problems in her house and that she had left to go to her boyfriend's house.  It's not that unusual for a 17 year old Honduran to run away from her problems, it's actually not that unusual for a Honduran of any age to run away, at least not from our experiences with some of the girls' families.  But, the message that I got from Sandra in response to something I sent her, saying that she was there for good, was unexpected and...very hard to read.  I'm going to try to talk with her when I get back, but there's a good chance she will already be pregnant, or that I will just never see her again.


What good is it, in the long run, that I go to Honduras for a year and teach the values that the Center and I share, if even the most promising students can't escape their cultural history?

Resurrection

I have decided to continue with the blog, at least for a little bit.  For my sake, and for yours as readers, I'm going to try and keep the updates quicker and more frequent.


I am now home after the first year of my service in Honduras.  Last year, I learned so much--about sacrifice, patience, love and compassion, peace, faith, and myself.  I returned here, thankful for the opportunity to rest up, regain some weight, eat home cooked meals, drink good beer, see some friends, but most of all, spend time with my family.  With every little thing that I learned last year, I was learning more about my life here than was hard to take stock of while I was still here.  It's not exactly like I didn't appreciate what I had until I didn't have it (see the posts from the beginning of last year), but my life in Guaimaca gently shoved me into the present, into a deeper understanding and feeling of the appreciation I have for the amazing family I have been blessed with.


Last year, I was blessed with the opportunity to find a new family in Guaimaca, composed of my students, my friends and co-workers, the Sisters and Fr. Craig, and of course our own volunteer community.  This year, I look forward to developing new relationships and fostering old ones.  I look forward to continuing to receive and give God's grace and love through my relationships with my family in Guaimaca.


I know that this year will be different from last year--I will not be teaching the same senior girls with whom I developed a relationship I can't begin to describe, I will not be living with the same people, I will not be teaching the same classes.  I will be better at Spanish, more capable of communicating, more experienced and knowledgeable about Honduras and the culture, more in touch with who I am and how I can use my gifts to help.  There will be difficulties (last year was the hardest year of my life, and I'm not expecting it to have gotten any easier in my short absence) and there will be joys (last year was the best year of my life, and I am now rested and capable of returning and giving my all once again).


I am nervous, but I am more excited.  Remember in Psychology classes, when we learned about adrenaline?  It's good to be a little nervous just before a test, a race, or a year of service; it keeps you on your toes and gives you an edge.  That edge that I have found and used all my life, that's what keeps me going, it's what helps me accept my faults and still proceed, it's the Serenity Prayer.


So, this post on New Year's Eve is not just something for myself; it is not meant to assuage my guilt over not posting more at the end of the year.  Its purpose is to remind all of us to take stock of the past year and give thanks.  Its purpose is to resurrect the fire of determination and hope so that, whatever your own personal journey looks like over the New Year, we take that first step, not aspiring to change, not waiting or preparing to become the person we want to be.  Rather, may we reconcile who we are and who we want to be, where we are and where we want to be, and may we do it today.


God bless you, your families, and this New Year we will share together.

I'm in the airport in Fort Lauderdale and...

...it absolutely blows my mind that I can flush toilet paper.


...people here are gigantic (not just the group of basketball players sitting next to me).


...the sausage egg and cheese sandwich I just had was amazing.


...I can't figure out why anyone would buy bottled water when we're blessed with perfectly drinkable water from the tap.


...I miss speaking Spanish.  I miss my friends.

Some September Updates

My students took their admissions exam for the university yesterday.  They get the results in November, and although it's not a huge deal if they don't pass (there's an agreement and scholarship between the Center and the University because of the work we do here to advance the lives of these poor young women), it's a huge deal if they do pass, and there's an opportunity for more money.  I had no idea how to prepare them, so I prepared them as best I could, as intensely as I could in Bio, Chem and Math, and then found out yesterday it probably would have been better to just review the basics of everything.  The test was only 30 min, with about one fundamental question from each topic on the list.  There was also a 30 min logical reasoning test, and a 567 question psychological examination.  I just hope I didn't fail them too much.


Only one week left of classes before the two-three weeks of exams/cleanup.  The year flew by.


Which brings me to this point, that I'm definitely staying here for another year.  I'm pretty sure everyone already knows already, including all of the girls that I've been trying to keep it a secret from.  But, here it is, officially stated.  So, another year for all of you to come down and visit!


I have other journal entries about things that have gone on in the past few months, but I don't think I'm going to post them.  At first I was trying to share as much as possible with all of you, but with my thoughts and reflections moving past the differences in life here and the new environment, I found myself exploring more the differences that I found in myself, my feelings, my thoughts on things I am unsure about...more personal stuff, harder to share.  


So, if anyone has any questions you can reach out to me via email and I'll answer those completely honestly and openly.  I just don't feel right posting some things on the internet for everyone in the world (apparently, I've had readers in Denmark, Russia, Ireland, Spain, Brazil and a few other countries) to stumble upon.  For example, if anyone would like to read my reaction to one of the girls running off with her boyfriend, just email and ask.  So far we've had 7 girls stop coming, most of them recently.  In some ways it's been hard, in some ways it's so expected that it felt normal.


I might continue to update like this, more sporadically and briefly, but I think it's about time I admit to myself that I'm not going to keep posting the detailed updates like I did earlier, if only so I stop feeling bad about not keeping all of you up to date.  Also, look for pictures when I go home in December and have internet.  


All my love and prayers to everyone at home.  It's not that I want to leave and get out of here, but I miss the family and friends, and can't wait to get back and spend some time with you.  I hope everyone is in good health and peace.

The Third Trimester

Sorry I've been bad at updating this recently.  Part of it is that I just don’t have much time, but it’s also that I haven’t found a lot of time for it. I haven’t had a lot of time because, during the week in the start of this new trimester, I have been incredibly busy. My first trimester was a difficult workload, the second trimester was difficult because of all kinds of things that were going on outside of school, and this trimester will be very difficult because of, again, the workload and, also the third trimester is the shortest. The first trimester was about 12 weeks long, the second was 10 (less with the time that I wasn’t here for) and the third is only about 8 weeks. I think it may even be shorter for the seniors, but I don’t know for sure. Things aren’t always communicated very well to us from the administration, which can be pretty frustrating.


So, this trimester I have a Philosophy class and Physics with Segundo Bachillerato, a few English reviews and a workshop with Tercero Ciclo, several classes with Segundo Bachillerato to review Biology, Chemistry, Math, to prepare them for the University next year, the same gym classes, and English with Andrea.


I have been enjoying teaching Philosophy so far because it allows me to talk about some interesting things that aren’t Science, Math or English, which are either full of cognates, numbers or English. This class has added some variety into my teaching and the vocab I’m learning. Physics has been going decently well, although it looks like it will get pretty boring and difficult soon enough when I stop talking about Thermodynamics and stop burning things in lab, and have to start covering things like light, magnetism and electrical currents, for which I don’t really have many lab ideas.


I’m also going to talk to the sisters soon about the idea I had months ago to move the school away from the IHER radio programs and make the school a more self-sustaining private school. Right now we use that radio program and their books, which don’t prepare them at all for anything other than memorization. It’s a shame that many of these students could perform on such a high level, and yet they’re still using this program, which is designed for students in the middle of nowhere who don’t have teachers. Here, however, they have teachers, time set aside for classes, and physical resources the majority of students here probably never have access to. If I could convince the sisters to go along with this, I would try to start with the last two years of High School level (the Bachilleratos) to gradually phase it in, because it’s going to be difficult to find materials like books and more lab materials, and then develop curriculums and instruct the Honduran teachers about how it is going to work. The good thing is that every year there will be new volunteers from Stonehill to carry on the work. The bad part is that I already mentioned something like this in the beginning of the year to Sister Marta, and it seems like some of the nuns in the community are really afraid of the effort and the change that this would require.


I will keep updating when I can about the progress I make on this front. In the meantime, if anyone were able to find ANY kind of lab equipment (thermometers, hot plates, glassware, anything), especially those of you returning to schools this fall which may have things lying around, I would be eternally grateful. Also, old textbooks--Bio, Chem, Physics, Math--even in English, would be extremely useful for future classroom development. The future Extension Volunteers would definitely be able to use resources like these, even if the girls can’t use them. We’re kind of in a void of information here because all we have is what we brought in our memories, some resources we brought or were sent, and the occasional internet connection. Again, if anyone could help us out a little, we would all be extremely grateful.

Quick Updates

1. We started our third trimester a little more than a week ago.  Will post more on this later (now that I say it out loud hopefully I will do it and stop slacking on updating the blog).
2. I sold a pizza for 100 Lempira to the corner store two weekends ago, so that they could sell it to the people coming in on the buses.  First step to opening my Guaimaca pizza parlor!
3. We bought a chick on Saturday.  Cassie and I were biking past a hardware store and she saw a cage full, then kind of bet me that I wouldn't.  Of course, I took the bet and we now have another family member, who is (almost) the messiest in the house.  It's definitely the loudest...we better get some damned good eggs from this thing.
4. We still have two dogs, the "exchange" that was supposed to happen two months ago when the puppy from the farm was brought to the house hasn't happened, and doesn't look like it will happen.  Ranger's looking pretty depressed because we like Ceniza a lot more.
5. The novena for the patron saint of the parish started this past weekend, and there will be a mass in a different Barrio (neighborhood) every night.  So far they've been really pretty, especially with everyone working together to pull it off.
6. The town party is starting this coming weekend, which will be interesting.  We've heard a few accounts of the dancing, drinking and singing that happens in the park almost every night, all night.
7. The Day of the Indian (a day of national cultural pride here) was a couple of weeks ago, and was really a beautiful celebration.  Each class made their own costume and chose their representative to compete for the title of the Prettiest Indian.  Each class also made traditional food, so it was a pretty awesome day of learning more about their culture and eating great food.  Also, the best part was that my student, Lilian, who had an extremely difficult second trimester with a lot of illnesses and some family trouble, won the title.  My whole class was so happy, I have some great pictures of them screaming their heads off.


That's all I can think of now.  Sorry if it's been disappointing reading lately.  My thoughts and heart were with everyone at the clamboil this past weekend!


Just remembered:
8. The opening of a new supermarket in town, owned by Walmart.  The only thing that's worth buying there is the beer, which is about half the price of the beer in other places, and the occasional fruit and veggies we want to use but can't find in the market or the back of someone's truck in the park (which usually only has seasonal and local produce).  The biggest advantage is that it's open later than the other stores, so if we need something before 7:00 we can now go there to pick it up.  This isn't an isolated case of development, however.  Even in just 7 months we've been here, we've seen a lot of development and construction around town.  Unfortunately, it's almost all been funded with drug money, remittances from the US, or by Walmart, as far as we know.  
9. Chris' bike was stolen from in front of the new supermarket, in the direct line of sight of the armed guard in the doorway. 

Can you say that?

First, I want to mention that I'm going to try and post about our family's visit soon, but I'm still trying to get caught up on the journaling and reflecting from then, so here's something new from today.

Political Correctness was always something I kind of laughed at in the same way that everyone does.  Before, what I was laughing at was the idea of “Correctness,” and that being decided in a courtroom.  Who’s to say what’s correct, and why do we need to define it?  

Many times PC seemed to be something over the top, something that disrupted normal living with rules that safeguarded who knows what, all because some misguided souls did not have the creativity to make up their own insults, or the openness to see the good in people, regardless of physical manifestations.  Of course, it was occasionally something that made a lot of sense.  When a lifestyle or physical appearance became so widely spread as an insult that children started using it ignorantly without regard to the millions of people they could be hurting with their slurs, in addition to the target, PC was something I was willing to defend.

Now that I have been in Honduras for six months, I can definitively say that I have changed in several ways, one of which is my sensitivity and awareness of what is PC.  Now, instead of laughing at the “Correct” half of the term, I find myself thinking more and more about the “Political” part, and how political is probably not the term we should use, but rather “Cultural.”  Politics is something that consumes and defines so much of our lives in the US, partly because of its presence in the media, but also because it seems like (compared to life here), in place of relying on cultural or traditional values, our society turns pretty quickly to litigation and rules (where here these hardly exist).  I’m really starting to get sidetracked, and feel like I’m getting into topics that I don’t know enough about, so I’m going to cut this line of thought short and explain what started me thinking about all of this.

First, my sensitivity to certain topics has definitely changed.  Here, people are very straightforward about body image, whether it’s weight, skin color, cleanliness, acne, height, what parts of you they think are less attractive, and the list could keep going.  After six months of hearing people very bluntly stating what you look like, I have become less surprised by it and think that I have become more straightforward myself.  Yes, I was fatter when I came.  No, the tan line on my forehead from my longer hair is not very attractive.  Yes, she is a little on the heavy side, yes he is quite dark.

This is probably fine as long as I’m here, but our culture in the US is so different, at times so on edge, that I can really get myself in trouble.  I realize this with groups here, especially when Kris and our parents came, because we spent so much time with them.  Occasionally I would say something that I would immediately have to justify, because I still remember that it’s rude where I come from.  Or, I would have to explain the cultural aspect, and how it is not the same here.  

Yesterday afternoon Ermin, Norlan’s brother, was over for dinner because he had been doing some work on the house and we invited him to stay.  Ermin is very dark for a Honduran, which we first noticed because his niece, sister-in-law and brother all said at some point that it makes him uglier and that it’s a good thing Alexandra and her sister take after their mother’s lighter complexion.  Like I said, at first this was pretty shocking, but as we started to understand more of their cultural values, and put aside our own political convictions, it got a little better.  

Yes, Ermin is dark-skinned.  Here, they value lighter skin, which is kind of sad because it seems to be, recently, based on commercialism from North America, and from the past, based on conquests from Europe.  However, Ermin does not seem to have suffered based on his skin color economically.  He has the same types of jobs as many men here in Guaimaca--he’s a go-to guy to fix or make anything, and people know he’s an honest, hard worker so people who know him, like the sisters, come to him for whatever they need done, as much as his lighter skinned colleagues, who call him “Negro” (black).  He also makes absolutely beautiful woodwork that he sells for the same prices anyone else could get, because it is superb work, anyone can see that.

In addition, Ermin does not seem to have suffered prejudicially from his darker skin, at least not extensively.  For example, yesterday afternoon Denis, Kenia, their daughter, and Kenia’s mother were also over and stayed for dinner as well.  Denis greeted him as Negro, and continued teasing him throughout the whole night by dropping that into conversation whenever he could.  This morning, he was calling Ermin because we were supposed to meet at our house to plan a party next week, but Ermin was late, and I noticed Ermin’s name in his phone was “Ermin negro.”  Although Denis used his nickname quite often, Ermin seemed quite used to it and never took offense to it, even referred to himself as darker a few times.  It’s what he is, why should he deny it?

Denis did tell one joke at dinner that I was really taken aback by and to which my initial thought was “He really just said that?!”  We were offering quesillo to everyone to go with our pasta dinner, but Ermin said he didn’t like quesillo, nor mantequilla.  I was pretty surprised, because these are two types of cheese very common in Honduras.  As I was trying to think of something to say in Spanish, Denis, with a big grin, said something like “It’s because they’re white and he’s black, he’s such a racist!”  Like I said, I was initially taken aback by his comment, but everyone was laughing, including Ermin.  

I started laughing too because it was pretty funny, and, watching everyone laughing, and how the conversation continued as normal after, I realized that this comment, although not PC where I’m from, was perfectly ok in our dining room in Honduras, eating dinner with a group of friends.  With the attention that they paid to Ermin’s stories, the level of respect they had for him as “un bien hombre” (a good man), and how much they were impressed with his woodwork, it was clear that, although they noticed that he was darker than them, they held no stigma or prejudice against him.  Ermin knew this as well, and felt very comfortable with all of us, even though we haven’t really spent that much time together prior to this.  When Cassie and I came back from church a little after 8:00, they were all still there, laughing and sharing a couple of beers that Ermin had gone out to buy, and stayed for another hour or so, telling stories and marveling at some of Ermin’s woodwork that he brought over to show us.

This is just one example of the differences in perceptions between our culture and ours.  In addition to last night and dinner with Ermin, we have had many experiences here that highlight our different perspectives.  However, one other experience that got me thinking was also with Denis, and was actually just this morning.  

Denis came over around 11:00 this morning to talk about the party next weekend, but we also started talking about the US, the states we were from, and the differences in some other states, like Arizona’s immigration laws.  My impression of the laws, of course my ignorant impression because I do an awful job of following the news, was that they have basically started to allow racial profiling of immigrants, and that several lawmakers have wanted to make them even more strict to keep Arizona “American.”  

First of all, I find that line of thought extremely ironically comic, as America was, is, and should continue to be, a country built on diversity and immigration.  It is something to be proud of, that people from all over the world recognized the values and ideals set forth in our Constitution, and decided to come to the US to be a part of that dream and try and make a better life for themselves and families.  It is something that should not stop now, or ever.  Last year on my HOPE trip, arguing with one of the donors to the Hogar del Niño, I said basically the same thing.  He wanted to block anyone who didn’t speak English from coming into the country, and I thought this was so wrong that I couldn’t keep quiet.

I just kind of assumed that all of the supporters of these laws, all of the sheriffs who jailed immigrants without papers and got them deported, all of the legislators who were making the laws, had the same convictions and values as the man I argued with in the DR.  I recognized that illegals are just that, illegals, and that they are breaking laws, but my impression of the response to them, the impression that trickled down to me up North, away from the frontier of the issue, was that they were usually, if not always, profiled because of their skin color or language.  Of course, some people are in fact snobbily defending their image of “America,” and I would bet that those who make really restrictive laws are either in this group, or at least paid by this group.

But, today talking with Dennis, I realized, that, as always, there’s a lot I don’t know, and that I don’t know how narrow my perspective is until it meets another.  Talking about the immigration laws with him, I half expected his reaction to be bitter or at least slightly frustrated.  However, he made some comments about how Latinos probably don’t obey the laws, and when I asked him what he meant, he elaborated about not waiting at red lights or stop signs, throwing trash in the street, and drinking and driving.  When he said that, I realized that, yes, those things are pretty serious infractions in the US, but that they are not well enforced, or even enforced at all, in many places here in Honduras, the Dominican, and according to stories I’ve heard, Nicaragua.  So, if the average Honduran were to go to Arizona, he or she might not be picked up by the police because of racial profiling, but because of any number of laws he or she may break, either out of ignorance or cultural differences.  

I haven’t really developed any good thoughts on all of this, other than I need to think about it more, and that the attitude here towards immigration to the US, from the people who have mentioned it, has been pretty interesting.  I haven’t gone out and interviewed people, but the conversations with friends have been valuable.  Anyway, it shows me a little about how little I know.