Life without ELECTRICITY

Probably not as bad as it sounds as a few houses have solar panels, but yes I am headed to a small town lacking electricity in Southern Honduras next weekend after I swear in as a volunteer. Just one week of training left. My main project will be collaborating with a water and sanitation engineer to bring a gravity water system to the community and it´s more or less all set to go. The wat/san guy is doing the topographic study now so I´ll be hiting the ground running contrary to the standard Peace Corps advice to take the first three months to do nothing except just get to know your community. So we´ll have to see how that goes.

So I got to visit my site for a few days the week before last. Here´s a little bit about it. It´s quite the remote small town, slightly more than 100 inhabitants, most of which belong to the same family. There is a small store (pulperia) where I can hopefully buy the necessities until I can get to the nearby town. My host family for the first few months (unless I don´t decide to get my own place when I can) has a solar panel so I can at least charge my cell phone and watch some black and white telenovelas (soap operas) and hopefully soccer games if the signal is clear. In general the town is pretty tranquilo (chill) especially after the sun goes down. Most of the people are farmers (beans and rice, although there are some vegetables and fruits like pineapple - Que Suerte) and some also have cattle for milk. There is also a small rio that divides the town in two; pretty sweet until it rains a lot and you want to get from one side to the other which brings me to:

LESSONS LEARNED

1. I need to work on my balance. There is one bridge at the top of the town and no one likes to walk all the way up to walk all the way down on the other side of the rio. So even the 60 year old men leap across the rocks like they are still 10. Not the gringo. My rio crossings were anything but graceful and the one day I managed to fall in while in more or less a seated position so that I got soaked up the waist. Endless laughs from my host dad and brothers, but it was ok because I only fell in because I was not wearing the typical rubber boots. So I was advised several times that I should buy some before I return. (I wonder whatever happened to the balance I had as a kid running along fallen tree trunks that crossed streams.)

1b. Importance of balance part2. I got the chance to ride a horse for the first time in ages and it was great at slow speed. Then everyone laughed at the gringo who looked like he was on a pogo stick when the pace picked up. Also managed to twist my ankle on the graceful dismount.

2. Expectations. This will be the first time a volunteer has lived in this site but volunteers have worked here in the past and the most recent one has left behind some tremendous shoes to fill. Thanks to her my community has some sweet latrines, and I mean sweet - significantly better than the FBT site. As a result my community (or at least those I met) are quite excited to have their own volunteer and have high hopes for me. I just hope I don´t let them down.

3. The pace of life. I already know Honduras often doesn´t operate on the same schedule as the US but this was a good reminder. My visit was pretty chill. I spent a lot of time just following my host dad and brothers around, watching them milk the cattle, transfer pastures, clear brush, and plow fields. My counterpart was going to introduce me to the community leaders and other important aspects of the town, but he had to sembrar frijoles (plant beans) so I actually didn´t spend much time with him. It´s good to keep in mind that although the project may be all set to go some needs are more important.


Well that´s all I have for today - Adios