Lots to say (no really, LOTS to say)!

(Updated: 12 October, a picture of me at the swearing in ceremony, the bígote ridículo photo is just too incriminating to publish to the internet)

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG JOURNAL ENTRY
*Break up the reading into sections, and don’t read late at night after drinking a warm glass of milk.

Friends and Family!

Many apologies for my complete fall out with keeping up with these journal entries! I’ve been extremely busy! And by ignoring my loyal readers for so long, I have, in a way, been communicating my biggest lesson thus far in Honduras… patience. Patience is drilled into my being day in and day out. I told my friends the other day they should call it Patience Corps. Waiting for meetings to start on HST (Honduran Standard Time a.k.a. an hour and half after what it really is), waiting in line at the bank where people constantly cut, waiting in line for the bus, waiting on the bus as the bus makes a stop every 0.4 km and travels at a thrilling 23 km/hr, and Spanish, wow, learning Spanish has certainly been my biggest lesson in patience. I just want to communicate with the people around me! I didn’t realize how good I was at English untill I moved to a place where its not used. I’ll have you know that I am stinkin’ good at English! You are as well! My friends, my community here in Santa Elena never see me speaking English, so as far as they know, I just don’t communicate very well. Patience is a virture; that’s the understatement of the century! So, yeah, sorry about the delay, here we go…

Well, where to begin? First of all, I am now an official “Volunteer!” No more “Trainee,” I am now an official Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz. “Cuerpo de Paz” translates to “Body of Peace” in Spanish, and that’s what Peace Corps is known as in Central and South America. A lot of people here in Honduras who are not familiar with Cuerpo de Paz think we’re some sort of religious organization (trust me, there’s a plethora of those here). And when I explain that it’s an organization of the United States Government, some draw parallels to the FBI, or CIA that they see in the movies so often. Maybe I’ll start introducing myself as Agente Egetter, and start wearing a black suit and sunglasses. Just kidding, I think “Davíd el Voluntario” is much more suiting for my Chaco sandals, white t-shirt, and Boston Red Sox ball cap (yes, your hat that I “acquired,” Mario) attire.

My site for the next two years is known as the community of Santa Elena. It is the closest Peace Corps site in Honduras to Honduras’ only natural lake, Lago de Yojoa. Santa Elena is a relatively new community (apprx. 45 years old), and has a lot going on, but there’s not a lot of organization. It has a population of 2,000 or so folks. We have electricity, and water that is safe to drink (pretty nice, aye?). Many of the people who live in Santa Elena make their income by one or more of the following three ways; 1) They have a relative in the United States sending money, 2) They work in a factory in San Pedro Sula, the closest buzzing metropolitan city, and/or 3) They grow coffee, and/or pineapple, and/or citrus fruits for a land owner who lives in San Pedro Sula.

Many of you may be asking yourself “What is it exactly that he does?” Well, there are many opportunities here in Santa Elena…
- There is a school here for Kindergarten through 6th grade. Once my Spanish is up to par (fingers crossed) I will be teaching environmental education there once or twice a week. I have also started working with a guy named Isieas who is the Youth Pastor at the local Evangelical church (He reminds me of Jeff Hodges, he’s already gifted me with a Bible in Spanish), and we have plans of getting the 5th and 6th graders to pick up all the trash around the school on Monday. Littering is a part of the culture here, I think I mentioned this before, when you finish a bag of chips, you throw the bag on the ground, it’s just what they do here; luckily a part of the culture I haven’t integrated with. There’s also a collegio (high school equiv) in La Guama, our neighboring community, and there’s talk about me going there to talk about ecotourism when my Spanish gets a little better.
- I am a 40 minute hike from PANACAM (Parque Nacional Cerro Azul Meambar). There’s a visitors center there and the park is run by a Canadian NGO (non-governmental organization) Aldea Global. I have met the people there, and they are extremely cool. They offered their bunkhouses to me whenever I wanted to stay the night there, and let me enter the park whenever I want, with whoever is with me for free. I went there the other weekend with a gaggle of kids following behind. So, I hope to get more of the kids to visit the park, maybe develop some field trips with the school, we’ll see. There are a lot of people in my community, who have been living 40 minutes away from a National Park for 15 – 20 years and have never visited. There are two really amazing waterfalls, tons of beautiful cloud forest, and spectacular views of Lake Yojoa. Also, my friend Rain, whose site is very close to mine, and I have plans of developing some sort of database for thesis/graduate work purposes, most likely with reptiles and amphibians in PANACAM (Rain is obsessed with frogs and insists on either 1 blinding them with the flash of her camera, 2 capturing them in her hands or 3 capturing them in her hands and blinding them with the flash of her camera). There is also another volunteer, Jeremy, who has been at his site over a year now, who lives on the opposite side of the park who wants to build a trail from his side to my side of the park. All the PC volunteers that live around PANACAM had a little weekend get together at Jeremy’s place last weekend. So, lots of ecotourism, and research opportunities in PANACAM, to say the least.
- There is a Honduran NGO, known as AMUPROLAGO (Associacion de Municipalidades para el Protecion de Lago de Yojoa). I have already started working with them, and it looks pretty promising. They build latrines, wood efficient stoves, host environmental meetings, and other typical development projects around the Lake. I have plans with working with the group in La Guama, like I said a community very close to my site (and the stop off the main highway to get to my site). They have started building wood efficient stoves, and there are three farmers there that they are working with to integrate their farms with different crops, and trees. Different crops to better the nutritional value of their farm, and to prevent total wipe out of their farm in the case of a crop specific plague. Furthermore the trees help with soil conservation, keeping the soil from running out of the farm and into the lake, as well as aiding with crops that grow better in shade, such as coffee.
- Coffee picking season is coming up in mid-October, the beans are already turning from green to red, so I have plans of getting in the farm and picking coffee beans. Apparently, when coffee picking season comes along, everyone is out in the farms picking, entire families. I have made good friends with a local coffee farmer named Don Leonardo. His family is a lot of fun to visit, we always wind up laughing a lot, and they always have lots to talk about. They also, no big surprise, have the best cup of coffee in Santa Elena.

The main thing to mention here though, is that right now, I’m just getting to know people. During training they stressed the “start slow, start small” approach to development. So there are lots of opportunities, but I have been fighting my very David like impulse to load on the responsibilities early and fast. I have been making friends, working on my Spanish, just plain old learning about Santa Elena, its people, culture, climate, traditions, schedule, etc. I already feel at home here, the community has really made me feel very welcome. I sat at the “mesa principal,” which is like the table of honor, on Honduran Independence Day, I felt like a king. I get gifts of all sorts; coffee, bananas, oranges, breakfast, juice, lunch, pretty much anything edible. I don’t think I’ve felt hungry since the flight over here because I can’t stand airplane food. The leaders in my community are all very reputable and respected guys, and they are excited to have me in Santa Elena.

So it would be an injustice to not mention this little tidbit, so for those of you who didn’t give up reading when I started mentioning crop integration or soil conservation you will now be rewarded with more “juicy” reading. This is also more of a David’s personal journal thing, but I feel like I owe my readers something punchy after such a drought in my blogging. It’s also recently become a learning moment in life rather than a warm fuzzy memory. Well, about a week after I arrived at my site, I found my self in a relationship (that’s right, a girlfriend, una novia hondureño). I know I still can’t believe it either. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t dive into romantic relationships quickly; my few have been carefully planned and thought out, I think I even made a pros and cons list one time. Well a few weeks ago, maybe I thought that I needed a change of pace, maybe my immaturity just flared up, I’m not exactly sure. Anyway, Dinora (that’s her name) and I went on a few hikes with friends and before I knew it we were calling each other “novio/novia.” And here’s the kicker, six days later (yes, six days as in the number of days after five), not even a week later, she was giving me the boot. Apparently she was having trouble concentrating on her studies (she’s 20 and finishing up the sort of community college equiv here in Honduras) with a novio on the mind. So, just like that, less than a month as a Volunteer, and I have officially completed the shortest relationship (can I call it that?) of my life, less than a week! That’s like middle school crush duration or something. She mentioned something about continuing in the future, but I just don’t know about gals who give the boot six days into a relationship. So, there you have it, I’m still a little (no, “really” is the better adjective here) embarrassed and confused, so be gentle.

In other news, now that I likely have your attention, here’s an important tidbit (did I just use the word “tidbit”? Yes I did …and it’s the second time, my gracious); my mailing (cookies) address. You don’t (send cookies) have to send (chocolate chip) me anything (oatmeal raisin) of course, but just (cookies cookies cookies) incase you feel the urge (…cookies).
************************************
Davíd Egetter, Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Santa Cruz de Yojoa, Cortés, Honduras
America Central
************************************
GOOD ideas for mailing:
- general letters
- cookies (who’d a thought?)
- pictures of yourselves
- CDs/DVDs
- really really good books
- cycling socks (they dry quick and keep my feet dry)
- Mach 3 razor refills
- your own address so I can reply

BAD ideas for mailing:
- candy (my teeth are already rotting enough as it is, there’s plenty of candy in Honduras, and coffee to catalyze the cavity process)
- anything heavy or bulky, it’ll cost you money and I don’t want to carry it around
- anything expensive, customs steals things

Santa Cruz is my municipality, and it’s an hour away, so whenever I get mail I go there and find this little old lady’s house that has the mail, and apparently she has a box set aside for cookies, I mean, Peace Corps mail. Not many folks in Honduras use the mail. This brings me to another point, or set of points…
Things I Took for Granite in the U.S. That I Will Never Again Take for Granite, and You Shouldn’t Either Now That You’ve Been Complained to By a Friend Abroad:
*Having a mailbox in the front of your house where a governmental employee drops off your mail every day. (Like I said, the postal service is not as popular, nor has the funds, to be like what we got in the States.)
*Being able to dial 911 and have the police, fire department, or ambulance at your house in less than an hour. (If someone robs me, I call one of the guys in the community with a truck, and he gets other guys with pistols and machetes and we go out looking for the dude ourselves. If I get injured, I call that guy with the truck and we drive to the hospital, an hour and a half away. If my house catches on fire, I get a bucket of water and get to work.)
*Having a trash pick up service. Wow, being able to leave your trash in a can at the edge of your driveway, and never having to see that trash again, is indeed a great blessing. (Here, you burn, bury, or burden your neighbor with your garbage. Trash management is a serious problem in Honduras.)
*Having a bank down the street or in town where you can wait no longer than 40 minutes. (I went to the bank last week, an hour away, waited four and a half hours in line, three of them outside in the sun, and when I finally arrived at the teller she kindly told me that they had just begun to work on the wires on top of the roof, and that there was “no hay systema.” I didn’t get money that day. Luckily my friend Rain was there with me to chat, I might have had a mental break down otherwise.)

Okay, that’s it for me for now folks. I vow to keep this journal maintained in the following two years, again, many apologies for leaving you all hanging for so long. I miss everyone very much! I had my first bought of sharp missing pains the other night when I got the bright idea of looking through my picture database on my laptop. Family, Friends, Georgia, Montana, Athens, Atlanta, Marietta, Smyrna, the Cello, the Bike, you are all deeply missed. Sorry this entry was so exhaustingly long. Please take care, and I look forward to making more succinct and interesting entries in the future.

Hasta luego,
David

P.S. Laura, I think I have heard of that crazy legend of the Chumpalumpa, or Chupacana, or whatever they say, I’m not sure. Apparently the Chumpawhatever are aliens that hide in the corn fields and jump out to consume goats and small children. I think it’s a tabloid sort of headline that just got out of hand here in Central America. People believe a lot of funny things here, and they don’t check their sources. I’ve also been told that bathing after working hard or exercising will make my bones shrink.

P.P.S. I almost forgot! ¡Bigoté Ridículo! If I can I’ll paste a picture of the horrible creation here in the journal entry. Well, all the men in my project, Protected Areas Management, there’s 9 of us, had manly beards as we went into Field Based Training. FBT was located in Olancho Honduras, which is known for machetes, pistols, and mustaches. It’s the “ol’ west” of Honduras, even though it’s actually in the east. So the men of PAM thought it would be a great idea to all shave our beards into commemorative Olancho Mustaches. I went with the handlebar style. I had to frequently remind the family I was staying with that the mustache was a joke, and that I really didn’t like sporting my ridiculous mustache. I may have lost a little bit of confianza with my homestay family, and a little self-respect, but it made for some great laughs and pictures. There you have it, the bigoté ridículo story, at last, hope it was all you had hoped for.