I Read The News Today, Oh Boy...

Las Noticias

I got a text message around noon on Tuesday while I was waiting lunch. It was from Peace Corps, and it said that an important email had just been sent out to all volunteers. I wouldn’t be able to access a computer until I got home, thus I waited in agonizing curiosity for about a half hour. As I ate, my mind raced with the possibilities of what the message could contain. I tried my best to tell myself that it was nothing, but my gut was telling me that the news was big. As soon as I finished the meal I walked straight home and checked my email.

Only there was nothing. I found out later that through an error in the email system, my cohort of volunteers didn’t receive the message. Through the use of Facebook, thankfully, I was able to get someone to forward it to me.

I read through it quickly. There was so much information to take in. First, I found out that a ‘Standfast’ had been activated. This means that we are not allowed to leave our sites. I wouldn’t be able to celebrate Christmas in Valle de Angeles with my old host family, which I had been planning and looking forward to for months. I’m not even allowed to visit Danlí, which is only about a little over an hour away. This news wasn’t as bad as it could have been, as now I get to spend Christmas with other families in town that have been inviting me to celebrate with them.

But this wasn’t the biggest news. I had to read the following section over a few times in order to make sure I understood it completely:

Administrative Hold

After the January conference, all Honduras Volunteers will be placed on Administrative Hold for a period of at least thirty days and will return to their Home of Record in the United States while Peace Corps assesses the future direction of the program. We are currently working on the details of this process and will provide you with additional information at the Volunteer Conference. Administrative Hold means that you will remain a Volunteer, but will be away from your country of service for the convenience of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps will, among other things, continue to be responsible for your medical care. While you are on Administrative Hold, our staff will analyze our options and decide whether we can implement the steps that are necessary to ensure your safety and security.

The Impact

Once I made sense of it, my immediate reaction was one of excitement. I get to go home and see my family. Not only that, but the trip would be on Peace Corps’ dime.

I immediately called my parents to let them know what was happening. I then spent much of the rest of my day talking with other volunteers on the phone and through Facebook. Many of us were extremely upset, though I did my best to be positive. The problem is that there is a lot of uncertainty to the situation. The rest of the message includes a suggestion of the possibility of PC Honduras shutting down, perhaps with the opportunity to continue service in another country.

In my heart I know I want to stay here in Honduras, and in Teupasenti. In the past six months I have begun some great relationships that I had been extremely excited about developing over the next 21 months. My Spanish has a long way to go before I am an expert speaker, but it’s definitely developed enough to make friends and get a real sense of who people are. My optimism for the future is heavily based on how I have found people in this country who have come to feel as close as family. That’s a beautiful thing when the only world you’ve ever known is 2,000 miles away. On top of the social aspect, I also feel like I’m in a great position work-wise. In my first month and a half in site I was only able to get a few small projects done, but I also came a long way in bonding with my counterparts and getting to know the community. I feel really well-integrated, and I was excited about my position to help move towards meaningful changes in the school systems and community in the coming year.

Now, all of those relationships and work opportunities are at risk.

I can’t say for sure that I won’t be coming back here, but I can say that my gut is telling me it is extremely unlikely. I have so many questions that I simply must wait to get answers for. I know that Peace Corps is doing their best to let us know all that they can as soon as they can tell us, but it’s hard not to worry that the bureaucratic aliens in Washington that we’ve never met might not leave us with a favorable decision. Though nothing is certain, from what I’ve been told that if we end up going to a different country, the process of doing so would not be an easy one. It might require an entirely new application process, as well as starting the entire 27 months over fresh, training and all. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I’m trying my best not to worry about things until they happen.

But the worrying comes, despite how hard I try not to. In some ways this experience feels like a break-up. My mind has been racing with worried possibilities and uncertainty about what is to come. The first two nights I basically didn’t sleep, and my appetite wasn’t quite what it usually is. Just a week ago I had the next two years of my life completely figured out. The next two years were supposed to be a time of challenge and personal growth, to find out what I’m really made of and emerge as something entirely new. Though I’ve learned and grown so much in the past six months, I’m nowhere near where I want to be. So far I’ve barely gotten my feet wet, and it might be over already.

I’ve realized that much of what happens next is out of my hands, and in a strange way that gives me peace. As many of my friends in town have been reminding me, “it’s in God’s hands now.” Whatever happens, I know that life will go on. I recently watched the movie “Cast Away”, one of the first movies I sat through after getting my hands on a giant collection of movie files from the hard drive of another volunteer. There was one line in the movie that struck a chord with me, so much so that I felt compelled to watch the same scene over again the following day. Tom Hanks is venting to an old friend after being rescued from being alone on a desert island for four years, only to find that his wife has moved on and started a family with another man. He has every reason to hate the world after finding this cruel irony, yet he’s reminded of the time on after several years on the island where a plastic sheet washed on shore out of the blue. This same plastic sheet was what he used to make a sail for a raft to escape from the island. After this scene where he is talking to his friend, he decides to move on and deliver the one package he brought with him from the island, the package that gave him hope. Upon its delivery, it is implied that the woman that receives it is to be the next love of his life. Instead of giving up, he takes his own advice, and something beautiful happens that he never would have imagined beforehand. His advice, his philosophy (which I purposely omitted earlier in this paragraph), is the simple and hopeful statement that “you never know what the tide will bring.”

Where do we go from here?

I’ll be home in mid-January, roughly the 16^th or 17^th. I can’t wait to see all of my friends and family, and I already have a list of things I’m looking forward to doing after being away from the country for six months. I’ll probably look for work (ECDC? Marriott? Both?) and then wait to hear my fate. Until then, I’m going to just enjoy myself. It’s as if I’ve been given three weeks to live, so I want to do it right. I’m going to spend my time doing the things I love the most, with the people I love the most. I don’t want to waste a single minute.

It’s almost as if there’s a life-lesson in all of this.

High School Graduation and... DONKEY POLO!!!

Qué más hay de nuevo acá?

Graduation, December 2nd

A couple weeks ago I was invited to the town high school graduation ceremony. High school graduation rates are a heck of a lot lower in this country than they are back at home, so it was a pretty big deal for the students. There were some nice speeches and all of the traditional procedures one would expect at a graduation ceremony, though it felt like the whole thing took forever (as with any graduation ceremony). I swear it lasted almost three hours, after starting an hour late. 

When it was finally done all of the students sang a couple celebratory songs together, with the music teacher playing the guitar. After that, the speakers blared a cover of ‘We Are the Champions’ as the students returned to embrace their friends and families and file their way out. A joyous time was had by all.

To cap off the night, I was invited out for a meal with all of the high school teachers at a local restaurant. I don’t know the high school teachers as well as I know the elementary school teachers, so it was a good opportunity to network for a bit. I find that it never hurts to at least make myself more visible in the community.  After the meal all of us made our way to the local discoteca/dance hall. I didn’t do much there, as the crowd was mostly the graduated students (17 and 18-year-olds). There were also groups of people that were both younger and much older. There’s a part of Honduran culture that I have a hard time accepting, which is that it is acceptable for a high-school administrator to dance very closely (and somewhat provocatively) with someone who was still a student 24 hours earlier. But who am I to judge?

Donkey Polo, December 10th

The following weekend I went to go meet up with a large group of volunteers at the feria (a type of fair that each town in the country throws once a year to celebrate their patron saint) in Yuscaran. The big draw: a Donkey Polo competition! It was something I had been anticipating to check of my Honduran culture to-do list for quite some time.

I arrived a little late to Yuscaran after my bus broke down on the way. After a rolling-start to get the bus going again, and a bit of walking, I was still able to make it just in time to play. I changed into shorts since it was raining and I didn’t want to ruin the only pair of jeans I had with me, yet this may have backfired a bit. I was definitely showing a lot of very pale leg as I was sitting on a donkey. Muddy jeans are temporary, but Facebook photos are forever. Oh well.

The match was of Hondurans vs. Gringos. It was a bit of a ‘crap’-show, both literally and figuratively. I say ‘literally’ because there was a bunch of uninhibited donkeys running around. I also say ‘figuratively’ because we stood absolutely no chance against the home team. They were using their own donkeys that they trained themselves and had ride every day, whereas pretty much all of us had never even sat on a donkey before. They don’t really listen, despite all the strange noises we made nor how many times we slapped them in the rear or the head.

My goal at first was to simply make contact between my polo stick and the ball. Upon doing so I considered the event to be a successful one, as my donkey basically just walked around randomly and favored standing still uselessly in the corner. I took a break and let someone else ride, only to get another opportunity on a separate donkey a little while later. This donkey was a little smaller (my feet could touch the ground!), but I was able to steer it by pushing its head in the direction I wanted it to go. Sitting atop my six-legged donkey, I hovered around the offensive side of the court (somewhere just outside of the three-point line, más o menos) where eventually I got my chance… A teammate somehow knocked the ball towards me and I took the opportunity to strike, reaching back with my mallet and smacking the ball towards the goal as hard as I could. The shot rang straight and true, and it flew right into the goal! I got some cheers from the gringo crowd, hoisting my mallet triumphantly into the air with pride.

We ended up losing roughly 41-2, but it was still a great time. After the game we all got off the donkeys and meandered around the court for a bit. As we were standing there a bunch of Honduran kids ran onto the court and we spontaneously started up a soccer match without saying the word. Again, it was Hondurans vs. Gringos (a.k.a. white people; I’m not sure if I’ve defined ‘gringo’ for the folks back home yet). I was mostly preoccupied by trying to not step in donkey poop as we ran around in the drizzling rain, but it was still a lot of fun. As a side note, the Honduran kids were definitely a lot more carefree about where they stepped. After about ten minutes of madness we called the game to an end, and got together for a final group shot. Oh, the memories…

We ended up all hanging out and partying for the rest of night, though I took it easy for the most part since I was feeling a little sick. Thankfully I still felt well enough to stay up and hang out with everyone else. There were a bunch of people there I hadn’t met before, and I had a good time getting to know them a bit. There were also some cool fireworks celebrations in the park, including the Latin-American equivalent of the ‘running of the bull’. This would be the infamous ‘toro’, a slightly bull-shaped mechanism stuffed to the rafters with fireworks. Essentially someone holds it over their head and runs through crowds of people as fiery explosives shoot out of it in every direction. Classic Honduran fun!

Until Next Time…

That’s all for now! It’s crazy to think Christmas is only one week away already, and I’m going to try to write one more post before the holiday. The other day I had a fun field trip to Teguz with a group of teachers in my town, and there were also some interesting celebrations the following night at home after the championship match of the Honduran soccer league. Stay tuned…

Thanksgiving!

As I mentioned earlier, work has scaled down a bit lately, though there have been plenty of social events around Honduras to keep me busy, starting with a Thanksgiving celebration…

Thanksgiving Weekend

This is the first time in my life that I had to celebrate Thanksgiving away from home, but I definitely made the best of it. There was a plethora of Peace Corps volunteer celebrations around the country, and I decided to celebrate with a group nearby in my department, in the city/town Danlí. It’s only about an hour and a half away from my site, and it’s the closest place to me that has other volunteers. We ended up getting together the Friday after Thanksgiving, since it wasn’t exactly feasible for all of us to travel on a Thursday. As you might have guessed, it is not celebrated by Hondurans, and many of us had to work on the actual day.

I didn’t really know most of the people that would be there, but as usual all of the volunteers were really cool people. We had a great time preparing some food together (mientras disfrutando algunas cervesas). Traditional Thanksgiving foods are far from typical in this country, but thankfully most of the ingredients could be found at a large supermarket nearby. In total we had all the essentials: turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and more. It was probably one of the best thanksgiving meals I’ve had. Also, in true Thanksgiving fashion, many Hondurans were invited to the meal (thus peacefully bringing together two distinct cultures). In total we must have had about 25 of us eating together.

After dessert, I knew it was officially Thanksgiving when I was so stuffed that I felt sick. Que rico!

Since we were all together as a group, we decided to enjoy our time off. Danlí is a much bigger place than many of us live in, so there is a lot more to do during the night. We wandered around town a bit, and spent most of our time dancing at a bar that was right next to one of the volunteer’s houses. The interior of the bar was actually quite nice, and for a moment it felt like we could have been back in the States. It was on the expensive side, with drinks costing what equates to $2 at the least. For a Peace Corps volunteer, that’s mucho pisto!

After taking a break from dancing I sat on the leather furniture and looked around the room, which was mostly lit by some sort of green strobe-light/laser display. I relaxed for a bit, listening to the pumping music and taking it all in. I spend so much time immersed in the poverty that exists in this country, and it just felt strange to juxtapose that reality with the ambiance of the bar. Just as when I get to visit the mall in Tegucigalpa from time to time, I realize that it’s not what I had imagined Peace Corps to be beforehand.

After a while we went to go home and stay at the nearby volunteer’s apartment. However, some of our group had gone into the apartment complex, and they couldn’t open the door to the building entrance from the inside! They slid the keys underneath the door, and we still couldn’t get it open from the outside! The main gate was broken, and there wasn’t anyone we could call for help at 1:30AM… We initially decided to worry about it in the morning and go sleep at another volunteer’s house (as there are 3 total in Danlí). At the last minute before giving up, we realized that there was a place on the balcony that was low enough for us to climb to, with the help of a boost from below. One by one we climbed up top, and were able to enter the actual apartment without a problem. We fell right asleep, and woke up to find that the lock had been fixed by the complex owner early in the morning. Only in Honduras…

On Saturday, I decided to stay in town for an extra day to help out with a project that one of the volunteers in town was doing. She was doing a project where she was painting a mural of the world map on the outside wall of a school with the help of students. About 16 middle school students showed up on a Saturday during their vacation, which I thought was a very successful attendance mark. In addition to painting, we helped lead some activities and games to test their knowledge about geography. The whole group enjoyed pizza for lunch, and then we walked home.

That night we went out to dinner. We went to a place that was supposed to have Mexican food, and I had a strong craving for some fajitas (or at least something slightly closer to the Central American food I had hoped for before I got here). The restaurant ended up being fresh out of fajitas (again, only in Honduras), so my friend Alex and I decided to leave the rest of the group and look for somewhere else to eat. We stopped by a small restaurant that is actually owned by an American man from Texas. I can’t remember his whole story, but apparently he moved here years ago and got married to a Honduran. Now he lives in Danlí and owns a small restaurant that serves ‘American’ dishes. I enjoyed some ribs, mashed potatoes, corn, and bread. It tasted pretty darn good!

We ended up going out dancing again to the same place as the night before. Thankfully, however, the apartment locks worked just fine and we were able to get home at the end of the night without incident. On Sunday some of us went out to get breakfast at the same American restaurant, and we all enjoyed some pancakes, eggs and bacon. I decided that I would try to come back and eat there as soon as I could. Around noon I was able to hop on a bus to go home. It was already full, so I ended up having to stand on the steps by the door the whole time. By the time I got back I was quite exhausted, and spend the rest of the day relaxing in my room.

Overall, did I miss being home and having Thanksgiving with my family? Of course I did. Even so, at the same time I couldn’t complain about the great time I had celebrating in my new home with my new friends and family.

More to come…

I have more to write about (since it took me so long to write this post), so expect some more posts very soon, possibly early next week. Between the town’s high school graduation ceremony, a Donkey Polo competition, and an upcoming Honduran wedding that I will be attending this weekend, I’ve been quite busy socially. Heck, I might even give some updates on work projects I’ve been doing lately, though they are admittedly sparse. I also just realized Christmas is coming in ten days…

El tiempo vuelve!

- Peter