Conde

Even more newsworthy than ousted-President Mel Zelaya’s return to Honduras (and consequent riots and curfews) is the arrival of our new dog, Conde. He was a gift from a friend of ours who has a big farm outside Talanga, with several dogs on the property. We’d been searching for a dog for a few weeks, and when I mentioned our search to him, he happily handed over Conde. Conde is a three and half year old black lab/German Shepard mix. That being said, he’s like 90% black lab, so he looks and acts exactly like a lab. He came with the name Conde, which means “Duke” in Spanish, as in like “Duke of Wales.” He’s super tranquilo (Spanish for laid-back or relaxed) but also fun to play with and big enough to be a guard dog. He makes an awesome running partner; I take him out with me almost every day. He’s a little slow, though, and very easily distracted by puddles of mud to jump in, other dogs, and passing horses and cows. I also just love to walk around town with him. I always take him on a leash, which is very strange for the people here. Almost everyone has dogs, but only for the sake of guarding the house. They are not treated like pets, literally kicked around. Few even have names, and none wear collars or are on leashes. It’s amazing to me they don’t just run away; they are trained really well to stay put, or always return. Conde, though, always wears his collar and leash when we go out, and people think I’m crazy to pet him, talk to him, and generally treat him really nicely. Life pre-Conde was great, but now just that much better; he’s so awesome. Here’s a picture right after we went running. He has a ton of mud on his hind legs from playing around in a puddle of mud. You can also see our hammock in the background, which is pretty much my favorite place at our house, especially with Conde laying on the ground right beside me.

Snapshot: Terrero Colorado

This past Tuesday Jean, Jamie, and I stayed overnight in an aldea called Terrero Colorado. We have been visiting weekly the same family in Terrero, and I’ve really taken a liking to the people there and the gorgeous views that surround the aldea (it’s up in the mountains). We decided to stay overnight so we would have plenty of time to hike up and explore the mountains in the early morning, before it got too hot. That night we slept four people in a queen sized bed (pretty standard), but despite the crowd I slept so well in the pitch black night. There is no electricity in Terrero so it was not only one of the darkest places I’ve been but also had the best stars ever. Anyway, the next morning we awoke early to climb the mountain with the 80 year old grandfather as our guide. There was barely a trail through the woods in some places, but luckily he brought his machete to blaze a path. After about 1 ½ hours walking up and down hills, we reached a small natural pool. Unfortunately no waterfall and it wasn’t deep enough to cliff jump into but it was still really fun to play around in the water among the rocks and forest. After that we hiked another half hour to find a hidden cave. All over the walls were drawings and art from centuries upon centuries ago by the indigenous people of the region. Jamie had seen a special on Discovery channel about the indigenous art of Central America, and it highlighted the practice of chewing petals or the whatever the dye was made of and then spitting it at walls as the person held his hand up, thus making a hand print on the wall. There were so many of those, it was so awesome! I’m having such a great time getting to know the people here, and am so grateful that they are willing to share their lives, not to mention hidden pools and cave with us.

Our leader:



The cave drawings:



The view:

Dia de los Ninos Pictures

One of the girls in my class:



The first grade (a few of the 42 are missing):



Teachers in the show:



First graders watching:

Month 1

I’m just shy of the month point here in Talanga! I can’t believe that it’s been that long. On one hand I feel like I just got here but on the other it feels like I’ve lived here for years. Either way, things are going really well. It’s about time for us to start on our own projects for this year. Up to now we’ve been continuing what previous groups started (I think I enumerated most of those in the last blog), getting to know Talanga and the people here, and thinking about opportunities for new projects. Well, we’ve decided to go ahead with a project to open a “Comedor Infantil” (basically a soup kitchen-like establishment for children) in town. There is already a building right in the center of Talanga that the government built but never actually opened. So we are seeking rights to use the building and finally open it up for service. First we’ll apply for grants and funding from a few NGOs that are active in Talanga, and if that’s successful, go ahead with the management of the Comedor. That will require amassing volunteers (ideally, the single mothers of the children we’ll serve meals), getting supplies, preparing the building, and so much more. The most important aspect of our planning is ensuring that when we leave in a year, the Comedor is fully operable without us. Sustainability is the most important tenet of the Passionist Volunteers’ mission. It will be a ton of work, and it might take all year here to get it started, but I’m super excited to work on this with my fellow volunteers and Talangan community.

There are quite a few holidays around this time of year that are worth mentioning. Flag Day on September 1st marked the beginning of a few weeks of gifts, parades, and “actos civicos” (think boring, really long all-school assemblies). Last Thursday September 10th was Dia de los Ninos (Kid’s Day). The point of the day is that everyone – adults included – can celebrate being a kid. I celebrated with my first grade class at school. First, there was a delayed opening so the kids came at like 8:30ish instead of 7. Then all of the teachers put on a show; they dressed up in hilarious costumes and danced to all types of music on stage. It last about an hour and all of the kids laughed so hard, it was really funny. Then there was a piñata, lunch, and cake in the classrooms, and each kid got a toy to take home. All in all, a really fun day. It’s also pretty much the only day the kids can expect to get toys and cake. Birthdays aren’t very big here, kids are lucky to get cake and a small party. And very few kids get more than a new outfit to wear to church for Christmas. Makes Dia de los Ninos really exciting every year!

Independence Day is this Tuesday, September 15th. Kids have been practicing marching with drums, pom-poms, batons, and fake rifles pretty much since we arrived a month ago for the big parade on Independence Day. In fact I can hear drums approaching my house as I write this. I’m actually in the parade, too. One of the daughters in a family that’s super involved with PVI is on the baton twirling team at her school. A baton twirler myself, I went to see what it’s all about a couple weeks ago and they invited me to be in the parade! So I’ve been practicing with them a few times a week. Tomorrow (Monday) they say practice is from 7 AM to 5 PM. Seems ridiculous, I have no idea what to expect. I think I’ll go for a couple of hours in the morning to practice marching and twirling at the same time; it would be rather embarrassing to fall into a puddle or something during the parade, especially since people are going to stare at me and wonder why the gringa (white person) is in the parade. Teacher’s Day is on September 17th, so with the majority of kids practicing all day Monday, Independence Day on Tuesday and Teacher’s Day on Thursday, this week coming up is basically a week off for schools.

The celebrations have made Talanga a pretty busy place to be, and my tranquilo life is starting to fill up with projects, meetings, practices, and, of course, time for fun with my community. We’ve had a couple parties at our house with Peace Corps volunteers who are here until September 15th for training. Then they will be dispersed all over Honduras for their two-year assignments. It’s been nice to have some other gringas and gringos around to speak English and have American-style parties.

As things have started picking up, I’m realizing more and more that my life is here now, and I’m really excited about it. Thanks for all of the encouragement, mail, and e-mail. Keep it coming! I love hearing about things going on at home. Love to all!

Patricia

Here are a few photos from the last two weeks:

The first is my favorite photo so far. I don't know this boy's name but I saw him in an aldea called La Majada Verde. I just love his expression.

The second is the view from La Majada Verde, an aldea up in the mountains surrounding Talanga. The vista is incredible, most of the countryside indeed looks like this. Que bonita!

The third is a group pic of the PVI's on a hill overlooking Talanga.

Week 2

First, sorry for the delay in updating TalangaVision. I’ve come to the internet café twice in the past week to make a post, but I could hardly remember what I did in the past two weeks much less tell you about it. Alas, here’s my best shot at communicating what’s been going on.

I think the most exciting part of the last two weeks has been getting to know my host mom, Eva. While I live in a house with fellow volunteers, we are all assigned a host family in addition to practice Spanish, learn about culture and tradition, and as a break from the house and service. Eva has turned out to be a great host mom. She cooks me dinner all the time, brought me to a fair a few nights ago, and is very patient as I learn Spanish. She lives just around the corner from me in a nice house with her daughter, granddaughter, brother, and perhaps a few others. That’s another thing I’m observing and seek to understand – families here extend very far. Despite the utmost importance placed on family, though, nuclear families are very hard to find. The majority of couples are never married, first, because it’s expensive, and second, because they are so vehemently opposed to divorce. Fathers often leave and single motherhood is the norm. So, daughters stay with their moms as they raise children. As my relationship with Eva develops, I hope to learn more about her family and family structure in general here in Talanga.

A few of you might be wondering about food here. It’s actually quite good! I’ve been able to try several typical dishes since Eva cooks for me often. Most meals involve beans and corn tortillas with mantequilla (a condiment that’s a cross between butter and sour cream). I think that corn must be in season because it is used in basically everything: corn tortillas, corn on the cob (sold on the street), tamales, tamallitos, atol, etc. Those last three are typical Honduran dishes. Yuca is also popular; it’s a potato-like food often fried. Balleadas are great; there is a vendor in town who sells these quesadilla-like flour tortillas with refried beans, eggs, mantequilla, and a little bit of cheese inside. As I expected, meat and/or poultry is very rare. My stomach is handling the food well, though, and I’m enjoying learning how to make and eat it. Oh yea, utensils are also rare, usually just a fork is given, so I use the tortilla and fork together and basically eat with my hands.

Hm what else? I’m learning to drive stick. It’s going pretty well so far. I’m nervous to try it out on the treacherous hills outside the city up to the aldeas, but I’ll learn eventually. My Spanish is coming along. Even after just two weeks I feel more confident and can feel myself improving. We have Spanish class twice a week with a Seminarian here named Oscar, but I’m learning mostly by listening and trying. At the end of the day my brain can’t wait to rest after working tirelessly all day just to communicate. Needless to say, I sleep really well here in my mosquito-net-enclosed bottom bunk. My bed is great is great, so comfortable.

I haven’t been assigned yet or chosen specific projects to work on, but some opportunities that I’ve learned about over the past two weeks are: coordinating a Domestic Violence support group, visiting the sick, spending time with internos at an AIDS hospice nearby, working with Catechists at the church as they lead kids’ programs (Eva is a Catechist), getting funding for a new soup-kitchen like cafeteria for street kids who can’t afford to go to school, supervising a program in one of the aldeas to weigh and track the weight of (mostly underweight) children, and so much more. There is no shortage of work to be done, it’s just a matter of choosing what I want to do and where I’m best suited. I’ll keep you updated.

Thanks for all of your e-mails and encouragement. I’ll try to update a bit more frequently going forward. Hope you had a great weekend!

Abrazos,
Patricia

Snapshot: Correlitos

I’ll post snapshots occasionally to report experiences that touch me particularly strongly. Without much commentary, I’ll give you a snapshot of what happened.

Last week we visited an aldea called Correlitos. Aldeas refer to small villages outside the town of Talanga. Most aldeas are only about 3-4 miles outside of town, but the drive is about 45 minutes to an hour due to treacherous roads up hill (aside: our truck has gotten stuck three times in two weeks in holes). The families that live in the aldeas are very isolated; they live very simply entirely from the land and rarely leave the aldeas, with the exception of fathers, husbands, and brothers who work on larger farms or sell their crops in Talanga – a two hour walk there and back. On a particularly nice day, we six volunteers and Father Lucian visited a family in Correlitos that former volunteers frequented. The matriarch, three of her daughters, and their collective 10+ children were there. After they made us a great lunch, the other volunteers took the children to a river down the hill to wash the car and play. I stayed behind with Father Lucian because there was little room in the car and I didn’t really feel like going in the river at the time. It turned out to be a great decision. I hung out in the kitchen with the mom and her three daughters (all in their late twenties, I think) as they made tamales and gossiped, in Spanish of course, about a pregnant friend who has no husband or money. It was really refreshing and felt very natural to be among a family just sitting around, preparing food, laughing and talking about people. The parallel to my own family should be obvious.
The experience leveled the playing field in a way and deepened my understanding of why I’m here in Talanga. While there are vast differences between the family in Correlitos and my own in New York, we are also very much the same. I’m here to find those similarities and forge relationships with them, to find a common understanding of each other.

Changing the Channel

Estoy aqui! I´m here!

I arrived in Honduras on August 15th. Flights went smoothly and I met my fellow Passionist Volunteers and our director Fr. Lucian at the Tegucigalpa airport. We drove through Tegucigalpa to get to the highway to Talanga. Graffiti on most buildings and walls provides evidence of recent protests and political turmoil, but the city otherwise seemed normal. A bumpy drive through green countryside and hills brought us to Talanga. The house we live in is in the center of town. It has three bedrooms and two ¨bathrooms,¨ though no running water. That means bucket showers and flushing the toilet by dumping a pot of water into the toilet bowl. It´s very basic but livable; my only complaint is a lack of natural light in our communal living space, but the room that I share with Joanine and Jean has great light. After meeting various neighbors and friends, we were very tired. I successfully hung my bednet in my bottom bunk, creating a little nook. On Sunday, we went to a two masses. The children’s mass in the morning was crazy. Everything is done by the children, even the singing. It was basically a free for all. We also attended an evening mass with lots of community members. Fr. Lucian introduced us to the parish; they were very excited to meet the new gringas. Monday we toured the schools that we will be volunteering in all year. We will not be teaching, but rather placed in a classroom initially to help with learning Spanish and once we are comfortable, as a teacher’s aide. I chose a first-grade class at a school around the block from our house. The kids are adorable and have so much energy. Unfortunately they cannot afford workbooks for each child, so the teacher has to write everything on the board and the children simply copy; the amount of learning actually taking place is minimal. I can’t wait until I’m more confident in my Spanish and can actually communicate with the children and the teachers (not to mention everyone in Talanga…).

My roommates are great. I live with four other girls and one guy. In English there names are: Joanine, Jean, Carolyn, Jamie, and Mike. In Spanish, their names are: Nina, Juanita, Carolina, Rosalina, y Miguel, respectively. One HUGE change for me is that my name is Patricia here. Since there are two Carolyns in our group, and it would be really confusing for the Talangas if we had the same name, I decided to go by my middle name. It’s a bit weird, but I like it. New life, new name.

Life is great so far. I still can’t believe that I’ll be here for a year; as time goes on I’m sure it will get more real, but for now, I’m just enjoying the learning process. Not knowing Spanish is frustrating, but I trust that I’ll get it someday.
My contact info in Talanga is:

Carolyn Patricia Plunkett
Iglesia Catolica
Voluntarios Pasionistas
Talanga, F.M.
Honduras, Central America

Cell # +504 31 94 2036

Thanks for reading! I'll try and post often and with a bit more commentary so it's not simply a rundown of my days when I get to know the people better. Hopefully that will be soon!

Abrazos!