13 November 2007

Culture Junky


Hey Folks!

So what’s new stateside? I want to hear from you guys! My email box has been a little dry lately. As well as my snail mail, a little void of envelopes/boxes with U.S. stamps!

Speaking of snail mail boxes, here’s what I’ve been needing/craving lately…
-The Egetter’s Famous Fudge Pie. (I think it’s cold enough here to transport semi-safely).
-Colgate Total Advanced Clean with Whitening. Good/Fancy toothpaste in general.
-Fancy toothbrush
-Winter cap/beenie
-Old Navy/Gap blue jeans/pants. Size W30 L30. An imposible size to find in Honduras.
-Cookies, chocolate chip.
-Gillete Mach 3 razor refils
-Movies! DVD’s! Send me good ones! Send me what you like, because I like you and I’ll probably like what you like!
-Music! CD’s! Again, send me what you like, because brillant minds think alike.
-Pictures. It’s so much fun getting to see you and I love sharing with my friends here in Honduras who my friends are in the states.
-Drink mixes, crystal lite, gatorade. They come in small “on the go” boxes with individual packets for one bottle. Perfect for keeping me hydrated.
-Canned cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving is approaching! And I friggin’ love the stuff. It makes such a horrible presentation on the Thanksgiving table, with the can ripples still visible on the perfectly cylindrical maroon loaf. Oh wow, I can’t get enough! Yes, I am being serious.

If you’d be so kind to send any of these items you’d absolutely make my day. Here’s my address again in case ya’ll forgot…
Davíd Egetter
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Santa Cruz de Yojoa, Cortés
Honduras
America Central

and my email... egetter@gmail.com

Okay, so what’s new in Honduras…

It’s stinkin’ cold! Yeah, COLD! I remember when I was in Montana it was a dry harsh cold, and in Georgia it’s a wet miserable cold. Well in Honduras it’s a wetter miserable cold. And there’s no form of heating my cement block house with wooden doors and windows. I just got to cuddle close to Gringo for warmth, and he’s always filthy muddy from playing outside.

I went to Copan, probably the most popular tourist spot in Honduras for a Peace Corps Halloween party. It was a lot of fun! It was a costume party so I dressed up as a cyclist. Yeah, I know, kinda lame considering it’s something I normally wear anyway, but I didn’t have a lot of time to think/plan out a costume. Plus I can’t just cruise down to town and find a costume store. The cyclist getup wound up being a big hit, because spandex is always an attention winner. The JICA group was there in Copan as well and celebrated with us. JICA is the Japanese equivalent of Peace Corps. They send volunteers for two years and have training in the same little town near Tegucigalpa. It’s fun hanging out with the JICA kids because they are experiencing the same things we are, but from a different vector. And it’s fun talking to them in Spanish, they don’t speak English nor do we speak Japanese so we’re forced to communicate in our second tongue and it’s fun! JICA had a Japanese cultural day that weekend with free sushi and dance exhibitions. Very cool dances with drums and traditional garments. And the cool dragon dance of course. While watching all of this I turned to a Peace Corps friend and was like “what would we present if we were presenting American Culture?” And he was like, “we’d need a whole week at least, we’d present jazz, rock n’ roll, motown, etc.” But when it comes to ancient culture, like what the JICA crew presented, we don’t have anything. We could present some Native American dances, but that wouldn’t exactly feel right. So I was sort of bummed out, but on the other hand that’s what’s so cool about America right? That we’re still young as a nation. And that we’re kind of a conglomerate of many many different ancient cultures. I’m realizing that I’m a culture junky, I love learning about people and their culture, their music, their food, their language, their dances, their beliefs, etc. And for a culture junky I guess I couldn’t be from a better country than the U.S. of A where we’ve got a good mixture of everything. And at the same time I’m proud of our own new and developing culture we call our own in the U.S.

Obviously one of my favorite cultures would have to be anything Latino. So I’m super excited about my next adventure to come in December. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is the capital of Bachata and Merengue, two of my favorite latin music/dance styles. And two weeks ago Alba and I bought tickets to fly there for my birthday! We fly out December 6th and return on the 13th. We plan on passing the weekend of my bday (the 9th) on the beaches of Punta Cana, a popular tourist destination of the D.R. I’m extremely excited, we plan on dancing the nights away, and sleeping and eating all day long. Alba and I share one very common and binding characteristic, we love to dance. I can’t wait!

Here in Santa Elena things have slowed down due to the ugly weather. People just stay boarded up in their houses and sit close to the wood burning stoves drinking lots of coffee. Coffee is in season and lots of people are out in the coffee farms picking the ripe coffee beans.

The Canadian NGO “Global Village” that runs the park I work in recently received a grant to build “biodigestors” for two families in Santa Elena. Biodigestors use coffee pulp, human feces, pig feces, etc. to make gas for cooking. The idea is to eliminate diseases that would be laying around the yard (pig/human feces) and to provide an alternative energy source other than fire wood (thus lessening the deforestation in the park). So I went straight to the house in town where everyone in town knows there’s pigs to see if they had interest in the project. I was nervous that the lady who lived there would be sort of “stand offish” because I had never visited her or talked to her in my 15 months here in Santa Elena. But I was welcomed by a “Hi David, come on in!” She seems very interested in the project and we plan on getting things rolling on Wednesday! She has 6 or 7 pigs and her case is a perfect fit for the biodigestor project. I’m still working on finding the other prospect at home, he’s got 3 pigs. And it’s been really tough to catch him while he’s at home.

The pineapple cooperative is slowly starting to divide and fall apart I’m afraid. There’s lots of politics involved. I won’t get into it, but to put it simply, I think the guys like drama and we are having trouble putting the “cooperate” part into “cooperative.” I’m not sure if we’ll ever see a pineapple jelly product from Santa Elena. It’s sad. But I’m still working with the group, and we’ll see what we can do. I’m not giving up.

Okay, that’s a good healthy journal entry, right? Again, emails please, snail mail please! I miss you all terribly! Hasta la proxima…

Much love,
David

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Sweet David,
You are NOT forgotten, in spite of the thundering silence from my corner of the world. I'm just the world's worst "get-it-off-in-time" person. A small box will be headed very soon (it's almost ready to go) from here towards Honduras with you and all your loved ones in mind.
My household will soon be filled with friends and family, but know that you'll be here, too, in all our thoughts and prayers.
Laura

2:40 PM  

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