Peace Corps Stories: Honduras
by Molly McCord, UK graduate, study abroad returnee, Peace Corps Volunteer (Honduras)
My Peace Corps Application Experience
Hi! My name is Molly McCord, and on February 12, 2007, I will begin the "toughest job I'll ever love"- the Peace Corps! My assignment is Business Advising and Community Development in Honduras. This can entail working with small businesses, non-governmental organizations, women's groups, or community banks, and focuses on raising the standard of living in that community. I don't know where exactly in Honduras I'll be working, but I find out sometime during my three months of training in Santa Lucia.
After three months of training, I begin two years of my job, which may seem like a long time, but I'm not worried. Having spent a semester in Spain and a semester in Argentina while earning my degree at UK, I accustomed myself to living with host families in another culture for an extended period of time and speaking only Spanish. In both places, I did not want to leave when my time was up. I felt I was just beginning to really belong to the community, have close local friends, and set a routine when I had to go back to the US. Therefore, I feel that two years in the Peace Corps will be a perfect amount of time to really have an impact and make a difference, and after looking forward to it for so long, I can't wait to get started!
The application process was long and definitely weeds out the not-so-determined applicants. The time lapse from the first click of the on-line application to the acceptance of the Invitation can be anywhere between six and twelve months. I personally will begin training eleven months after sending in my application. The Peace Corps wants to know everything about you, from your grades to your volunteer experience to your relationship status: have you ever spent time abroad? How do you handle stress? Have you ever had inter-cultural friendships? Can you ride a bicycle? After your personal information is collected, you need to pass their clearances on your medical, dental, and legal history, all of which can take months to obtain. This means scheduling physicals and check-ups, and then re-examinations if the Peace Corps is not satisfied with the results. Somewhat daunting, to say the least.
Peace Corps Safety Standards are very high and they do not want any volunteer to be at risk in a region where their medical or dental needs cannot be met. Which is another great thing about the Peace Corps. They collect all the information they could possibly want from you, and match you to a site where your specific skills are needed and where your site preferences are met. As it is said, the Peace Corps isn't simply something great, it is the beginning of something great. I hope my two years of service will continue the vision of the volunteers before me, and when I return to the US, I trust that there will be a new group of volunteers to continue what I have done in Honduras. I'm sure that when I look back on the experience, it will be the most rewarding thing I have ever done.
Reflections on Arrival to Honduras
"We have at least 4 hours of Spanish everyday. Then a lunch break, where our host families WALK our lunches up and down these hills to us and drop them off at the entrance to the Peace Corps complex, and then at 11:30 we walk down the driveway and pick up the lunch that says our names on it! How funny! The Peace Corps complex is really cool, it's like a little embassy, because absolutely no one is allowed in except the volunteers and the workers and teachers and staff. It's a HUGE building, orange-stucco-Honduran style with a basketball court and a huge veranda where we all sit in the hot sun and eat our lunches. The trees are beautiful and the driveway up to the complex is cobblestone and covered with pine needles and surrounded by trees. We will find out more about our projects and our sites later on, after we've had more interviews with our program directors. I LOVE the Peace Corps and my host family, and am really having a great time!"
A Day in the Life of a Peace Corps Trainee
5:15am-- Wake up and go running with 2 other Peace Corps trainees.
Come home, heat water on the stove for a bucket bath. Marvel at how many bugs-dirt-ants-other things are in my water that I'm supposed to use to get clean. Also, marvel at how many bugs, lizards and spiders are in the ''showering area'' outside.
Eat breakfast -- sometimes beans and tortillas, sometimes hot milk and cornflakes....my family has taken to giving me fresh cows milk. Yes, un-pasteurized cow's milk, but don't worry! They boil it, then serve it to me hot, which instantly turns the corn flakes to mush.
7:30am-- One day a week I go to Spanish class for 4 hours, until 1130. The other days I go to the local school and teach a class to the sixth graders. I'm teaching them junior achievement- the advantages of staying in school. The education system here is very different. The kids are primarily taught through memorization. Plus it's so hot, there are only screens for half of the walls, which makes it unbelievably noisy also....some of the kids come in without breakfast in the morning....and plus the school day is 730 to 1200 everyday, and that's it. The kids are great though, we get along and they like my class, and we pretty much understand each other. I see them out in the pueblo and they're always excited to talk to me, its really cute.
1130-1pm. lunchtime! Usually beans and rice with a meat of some sort.
1-5pm business class!!! This is where we learn everything we'll need to learn about working in our sites here. We learn about tourism, small business development, savings and loans cooperatives, education, non-governmental organizations.... On particularly hot days, it can be pretty rough. There are some holes in the ceiling, and half the walls here are also screens, but trust me, it gets HOT.
Afterwards we frequent this ice cream place and hang out...theres also a restaurant that makes really good baleadas, we might change things up and go there...then we go home for dinner and sometimes we go out after dinner and hang out, sometimes not. Usually go to bed at 8:30 or 9:00.
My Site Visit
This might officially be the longest time I've ever gone without using the internet. I'm adjusting much better to not having the internet--it was really hard at first, but I'm pretty used to it now. Which also happens to be true for hot fresh cow's milk, 110 degree weather, beans for breakfast lunch and dinner, no running water and bucket baths. Who knew?
Great news!! We had our site announcements, and as of right now I am on my site visit, in my future home for two years!!!! I'll be living a town of 2000 people, with 4000 living in the "aldeas'" around it. I'm going to work with the local government, the schools, the computer center and an international Christian children's organization here. I don't have a sitemate, but there are a ton of other volunteers within an hour or two, including at least 5 of my friends. Everyone so far is SUPER nice and welcoming. I'm the first PCV they've ever had. To get here you leave the main road and drive up and down a MILLION AND ONE hills on a dirt road for 10 miles, and then all of a sudden you're here. I'm living with the 19 year old girl who works in the computer center. She's really cool so far and I think we'll really get along for the next 2 months til I can get my own place. All in all, I'm really glad I have a small site---it's so much easier to get to know everyone, and I feel super safe here.
During training, I taught a 6th grade junior achievement class about the importance of staying in school. That's probably where I'll start here, to involve myself in the community and it's easy-in for me, since I've already taught the classes. Plus, even though I've only been here a couple hours, i seem to have a 12-year-old fan base. A ton of them were in here watching me use the computer and saying what little words they knew in English and then dying laughing.
Settling In
I'm doing well, after being in my site for almost 2 months now!! Sometimes it feels like time has flown, but I have moments when it feels like it's never been slower. I've managed to keep myself pretty busy with only minimal rubiks cube playing. ;-)
This month a medical brigade came here to my village for two weeks. It was pretty cool to have other Americans around for awhile. I was a translator for one of the doctors, and let me tell you, it was an experience!!! I'm sorry, but I'm just not trained to discuss all the bodily functions and what can go wrong with them. The worst part of translating was telling the patients things you knew they didn't want to hear. But overall it was a very good experience, especially since I ate 3 free cooked meals a day with them and they took me out on all their excursions, like to the ¨pools¨, the lake, and we got to move the clinic to other aldeas which I had never been to before. But these aldeas are SUPER-POOR. None have electricity, they are so far out in the middle of nowhere, the schools have no resources. On one trip we had to haul all the medicine and equipment down a steep muddy trail to get to the town, and I was really huffing and puffing and sweating and thinking just how horrible it was, when a bunch of little kids ran past us down the hill, squishing through the mud in their bare feet, super-excited to have something going on in their town, and I felt really bad.
I gave a 3 day business seminar about starting businesses to some high schoolers along with 2 other Peace Corps volunteers who live there. That was fun, especially since we got to be in an air-conditioned building from 9-5!!!! And then we had a huge party that weekend for all the Peace Corps volunteers who live in the state. It's neat seeing how everyone is in different stages of their service, and what their opinions are of their experience so far and about how much time they have left here.
Everyday at 3pm I teach the sixth graders English, something I'm growing to like more and more now that I know the kids so well. I try to make class fun (right now we're working on the classic song ''head, shoulders, knees and toes'') and they have their own fun by laughing at my accent or the way I pronounce their names. The past two classes it started to pour down rain in the middle of class and we had to cut class early because there were holes in the roof and the kids and I were getting wet. Then a pig was being slaughtered and dissected right outside the school, in someone's backyard. They were about 10 feet away from the ¨windows¨, and you could see everything and smell everything, so of course the kids couldn't concentrate (neither could I!)
One of Peace Corps' rules is that we had to live with a host family for 2 months in site, after living with host families in training and field-based training. And well, 2 months are almost up!! I'm going to move into the priest's house that he rents out because he doesn't use it-- he lives in the next town over. There are 3 bedrooms and palm trees in the backyard growing coconuts. Need I say more? Except that I'm going to have a puppy!!!! My host family's dog just had 7 puppies and I'm going to keep one of them. I doubt I'll take it back to the US with me; if another Peace Corps volunteer comes here when I leave, I'll just leave him/her the dog. Maybe. If not, sorry mom and dad, in advance. J
This week I'm going to start teaching an Economics Class to the seniors in the high school Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I'll also be working with the English teacher in the high school and helping him with the most advanced English class on Mondays and Tuesdays. I'm also going to start a sports league for girls, and begin teaching dance classes to kids at the Fondo Cristiano, a NGO in town that focuses on after-school activities for kids. School gets out at 12pm, high school gets out at 1:30pm, and the kids have NOTHING to do after that. When I say nothing, I mean NOTHING. I'm also working with a woman's group that makes sombreros and in July we have a training session, so that should be fun. I'm going to be giving some computer classes to people in the town with my host sister, Meliza. Then I'm going to work on a ¨Healthy Environment¨ Project on Fridays with someone from one of the Aldeas and I'll be going to the schools in the aldeas and teaching the kids about not littering, not burning the fields, etc.
So, regardless of all that I'm going to do, am doing, have done, I still find tons of free time on my hands, especially since I'm just starting out as a volunteer, and my puppy still is with her mama and can't even open her eyes yet!! So, I decided.I'm going to buy a guitar and learn how to play!!!