Chinese Peace Corps

I was reading the July 7-13 issue of the Christian Science Monitor World Edition (they give free subscriptions to Peace Corps Volunteers) and spotted this interesting article: Young Chinese vie to join their 'peace corps'.

China has just started a pilot volunteer program with 50 young men and women in three countries. They plan on expanding this to 300 volunteers by 2009. The article is a good read, and the two volunteers interviewed say things that many Peace Corps volunteers say. I definitely related to this passage about volunteer Sun Yingtao in Ethiopia:

During his time in Asossa, he has lost 10 pounds, and, he says, pulling up sleeves and pant legs to prove his point, received 188 bug bites.

I feel your pain, Sun.

Odds and Ends

First off, some good news: mail has started arriving in the States! I got emails today from two different people saying that letters and cards had arrived. Finally.

Today I went to the office of the Empresa Hondureña de Telecomunicaciones (HONDUTEL) to get information on activating the phone line in my apartment and getting internet service. First they guy at the counter tried to send me away saying they didn't know anything about the house where I lived, but I kept talking and finally they admitted that yes there was a physical line there and I could pay to have it activated. He then gave me a few forms that I had to go out and make copies of myself, at my own expense.

Finally, as we were filling out the forms, I started asking for details on the pricing of the phone line and "unlimited" dialup internet. The Hondutel Guy was somewhat evasive of my questions. Finally I asked him to just tell me what the monthly rate would be for phone plus internet. He said, "About 300 Lempiras a month, plus connection charges." Connection charges? "Oh, you get your first 200 minutes of calls free, then we charge 35 centavos a minute." So, the internet is technically unlimited, but after less than 3.5 hours of online time, I have to start paying by the minute for the connection to the call center that is less than 2 blocks from my house? "Yes, but 35 centavos is cheap! It's practically free!" Actually it isn't. 35 centavos a minute works out to 21 Lempiras ($1.10) an hour, and since dialup is so slow, I'll probably be connected for several hours a day.

I told the guy that I would be signing up with Tigo wireless internet and left the office, wondering how business like HONDUTEL maintain their existence. Of course, that is currently an empty threat because Tigo oversold wireless connections and are stretched beyond capacity so they aren't signing up any new wireless customers for the time being.

Lastly, I want to put a request out to folks who are reading this blog. I've been using my kitchen a lot, but my repertoire is pretty limited. I didn't bring down any cookbooks. Could y'all send me recipes? The simpler the better. Many ingredients are not available here. Beans, rice, corn, flour, oatmeal, fruits, and veggies are easy to get. There are some spices and canned/packaged foods, too. A recipe for Chili, for example, would be perfect. Thanks!

Mail

Since arriving in Trujillo, I've sent a number of postcards and letters to friends and family in the States. As far as I know, none have arrived. Meanwhile, many of you have sent me letters and packages, all of which have arrived within 3 weeks of their postmark. Today, I went to the post office and asked them if they knew why none of my letters had reached their destinations.

The guy behind the counter pulled out a La Prensa article from June 27. It was titled ¿Para qué te escribo?. The lead sentence said that no international mail had been delivered for the last 25 days because of a problem with air freight contracts. The article went on to explain that on June 1, the contract between HONDUCOR (the Honduran Postal Service) and two airlines, TACA and COPA, expired. HONDUCOR planned on changing carriers to Federal Express, but had not signed a contract with them. So there was no one to fly mail out of the country.

Bags and bags of mail were piling up in the storerooms below Toncontín Airport. The director of HONDUCOR, Nimia Valladares, could not be found for comment. Postal employees at the HONDUCOR offices at Toncontín Airport said she was in the old offices in downtown Teguz, but the employees there said she was at Toncontín.

According to the assistant to the director of HONDUCOR, air transport was to resume the day the article was published, but according to other sources many details in the contract with Fedex had yet to be worked out. Who knows if the mail has even started going out now, 3 weeks after this article was published.

In the States, this kind of breakdown of a key government service would have been headline news that day it happened. And really, it wouldn't ever happen. Here in Honduras, it wasn't even written about until the crisis had gone on for 25 days. And even then it was just a small article in the back of the newspaper. Gotta love Honduras!

UPDATE: As of July 13, mail was still having problems getting out of the country.

Settling In

Mujeres de Mi Pasado
Originally uploaded by StormyPetrel

According to the Peace Corps, the first three months in site is called the "Community Entry" phase. This is the phase where the volunteer learns the layout of the community, finds housing, and begins forming relationships (both personal and professional) with host country nationals (HCNs). About 2.5 months into my community entry, I am really starting to feel like I have found a place for myself here. The process goes in fits and starts, and some days I still feel frustrated or bored or lonely, but those are much fewer and farther between (and were never that many to begin with).

Little things happen that buoy my confidence and comfort. For one, I am able to hold much longer and more involved conversations in Spanish. And for the first time, I've been able to successfully translate a bit of wit and humor as well. I have honduran friends who I can call to hang out with on weekends. Work-wise, the success of the Men's Health workshops has given me a sense of momentum to take on more ambitious projects. Lastly the fact that I have a place to call my own, where I can be by myself and cook for myself, has also been a great help.

On Thursday we attended a presentation in Tocoa by the UN on the progress in Honduras toward the Millennium Development Goals. The UN presenters arrived over 2 hours late, and they didn't have enough snacks and water to go around, so I was faint with hunger by the time we finally got out. We headed straight to a Chinese restaurant. It took us over an hour to get a platter of fried rice. The service there was so bad that even the Hondurans were complaining.

The Men's Health Workshop on Saturday went wonderfully. We had 30 participants, up from 17 last week. Apparently people told their friends. The attendance and positive feedback we got make me think that there is great potential for doing ongoing work with men here in Trujillo.

The participants were also very enthusiastic. My favorite part of the workshop was when Mary was leading a discussion about intimate activities a couple can do that don't run the risk of transmitting HIV. All the easy ones (kissing, hugging, massages) were shouted out right away, but there was more hemming and hawing as the ideas became more intimate. One guy started to say, "If the guy touches her part....and she touches his part..." and another guy jumped up and shouted, "Mutual masturbation!" The whole group started cheering and applauding and high-fiving him as if he had just kicked a game-winning goal.

After the workshop Mary and I made Jambalaya for a little dinner party with our sitemates and Johnny, who came over from Casa Kiwi to visit. It was a night like so many back home: good company, good food, good music. It's such a seemingly small thing, but those are the things that make it possible to be happy.

This week is a bit slow as a couple of my counterparts are out of town. I'm taking advantage of the downtime to work on my apartment and do laundry. I will be traveling to Santa Rosa de Aguan on Thursday to give a hygiene charla with Agua Pura. Santa Rosa is a fairly isolated community a ways east of here. It used to is only be accessible by boat, but now there is a dirt road.