OK, the easy news to start with is that Peace Corps is "closing" its program in Honduras. Apparently, Honduras has the highest crime or homicide rate in the world and the narcotafficking has gotten totally out of control. Technically, and this is in the newspapers so I'm not violating any secrecy code, PC is sending all the volunteers home for 30 days while the staff visits all the sites to make sure they are safe but its not likely that the volunteers will be allowed to return for the forseeable future.
El Salvador and Guatemala are not in very good shape either but they are not closing those programs at this time. I am told that Nicaragua is not in danger because it has always had and continues to have a very strong police force and Army which has been able to keep a cap on the organized drug trafficking here. Hope so. In the paper they report that there is a lot of it on our East/carribean coast but not so much on our side, the west side, where the bulk of the population and commerce ( and PC volunteers ) are. We do have some volunteers on the carribean coast but apparently they are are in places that are considered safe.
Another christmas and new years has passed here and they were both much as I recall last year. I spent both in site without much excitement...which was just fine. On Christmas day, I went to the beach with my counterpart and her family...photos attached. I took along another volunteer from a nearby town who has just recently gotten here but I was really disappointed in her manners. Never said thank you or in any way showed appreciation to the family. I won't be inviting her anywhere soon again.
One thing I have noticed is that there are a lot of families visiting around and that many people take a chicken with them when they go to visit on Christmas. The chicken is usually hanging upside down along side the person, or off the side of a motorcycle, sometimes stashed away in a sack under the seat in the bus and you don't even know they are there until they get pulled out to get off the bus, The most unlucky ones are tied on top of the bus for what I am sure is a harrowing ( because it is harrowing inside the bus ) ride to their final destination. Hopefully, they don't know it will be their final destination. Anyhow, as much as I feel sorry for the chicken, it is sweet that people bring them with them when they go to visit. A little bit of a skinny thigh or wing is treasured by many people here and I am sure is considered to be a quite nice gift.
On Christmas eve, I went into Leon and had lunch with another "over 50" volunteer and her daughter who is visiting from CA. That was nice....a diversion. I am actually used to the bus craziness...it does not even phase me anymore. I have learned how to pick and choose which bus to get on and where to sit or stand so as they say....knowledge is power....that even applies to riding a bus.
One bus story.....I got on this bus early so I was in the seat right behind the driver...close to the door, etc. and a young woman got on assisting an older woman and it turned out that she was just putting the older woman on the bus..probably sending on to another sibling somewhere. Anyhow, this older woman started mumbling about " cosa de horno" ( translates literally as "thing from the oven") clearly she wanted a cosa de horno. There are a lot of women in the mercado/bus station who sell all types of food, including cosas de horno. Well, this older woman knew what she wanted and was relentless. No matter what anyone was selling, as they passed her she tugged at their arm or shirt and babbled, Cosa de horno.cosa de horno. One young woman assured her that she would send over the woman who sells cosas de horno, but.....she never came. After about .5 hour, the bus started pulling out and the older woman looked forlornly at the mercado passing in the windows, continuing to babble cosa de horno, cosa de horno. Soo sad. She never got a cosa de horno. But, happy ending. As the bus pulled out and turned the corner on to the main road, leaving all cosa de horno vendors behind, she opened her little suitcase type thing, pulled out a bottle of coca cola and a bag of chips and chowed down. All's well that ends well.
Another bus story, I went to Managua on the 30th for a couple things and at the end of the day got on the wrong bus heading back to Leon. It was a bus to Leon but it was going on the caretera viejo ( old highway) rather than the caretera nuevo ( new highway). Well, when they say viejo...they mean viejo.. I did not know of the alternate route until I was too far into the venture to get off and take a different bus. I am pretty sure when the gobierno build the neuvo caretera, they gave up all interest in the viejo caretera. Most of the time, we were riding, in a full sized school bus, alongside the asphalt because there were too many holes ( big ones) in the asphalt and the dirt shoulder was much more usable. Problem was, oncoming traffic often was vying for the same shoulder we were on so I would spot this huge 18 wheeler heading at us at a reasonably fast speed, but, just as we were about to collide head on, one or the other of us would find an alternate route, perhaps on to the asphalt, perhaps not, perhaps onto the shoulder of the shoulder. Very exciting !!! It took exactly twice as long as the normal trip, so that is 3 hours, but I saw some new countryside and got to Leon in time to get the last bus back to Malpaisillo. Another case of alls well that ends well. Didn't have anything else pressing.
My best story to report is that when Helen came to me for her first class after returning from Managua where she had been with her mother for at least 3 weeks, she rememberedEVERYTHING !!!!!! It was so great...I kept smiling at her, and saying how good she was doing, and then finally I just grabbed her and gave her a big ole hug. I'm lucky I didn't break some of her ribs..she is very skinny. But, she clearly was excited too ...a she was reading certain words aloud, she even seemed to surprise herself once in awhile. IT was so cute. When she started with me, she guessed at every word she saw...she had no way of figuring out a word. Now she is sounding them out and counting syllables and telling me how one word is different from another....its amazingly wonderful.
This all makes me want to go back to teaching reading but reading in Spanish is soooo much easier than English. Its a whole different ballgame, but of course still doable...but the rewards are slower coming and it takes a whole lot more work on the part of the teacher.
Now for some photos;
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| This is a shot of a hotel in Leon where PC had a meeting. Its especially charming. |
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| Another view in the same hotel. |
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| I was sitting on the stage, looking out to the kids and parents at the 6th grade graduation at one of my schools. They do the 6th grade up big as many of the kids don't go any further in school, and many don't make it this far. |
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| This is my other reading student, Marin. He will be 8 at the end of January and does not know his color words, number words, and lots of other stuff. He does know some vowel sounds so we have something to work with. He loves the milk I give him and he found this puzzle on my shelf and could not do anything else until we did it together. Hes making good progress...slow, but steady. |
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| Doris relaxing in the good chair. |
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| Loading up the truck to go to the beach on Christmas day. I got to ride in the front since they know PC won't let us ride in the back of pickups. Its actually illegal for anyone to ride back there but its another law that is not enforced. Everyone does it. At least all these people could sit, often they are standing cheek to cheek holding on to that bar. |
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| The Cruz Roja was giving rides in their boats as a fund raiser. Of course, there were no life jackets. I just watched. |
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| This was a public well where you could turn that wheel to get water to wash off the sand. Notice the guy lying in the dirt. He is drunk, passed out and people just walked around him as tho he was not there. I tried to get someone to help me drag him into the shade away from the well, but no takers. |
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| The significance of this photo...thats a goddam tortuga egg. Yep, illegal but served openly and this family, which is supposed to be "enlightened" ordered them. What they do is poke a hole in the shell and then suck the raw egg out...yummy !!! |
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| The fishing boats came in and threw these rayas up on the sand. I think there were 3 or 4 of them. Their tales had been cut off so maybe they were the stinging type. Don't know...but so much killing and abuse of animals...its gets sickening after awhile. The fishermen stuck their fingers in their eyes to pick them up and throw them on the beach...hopefully they were already dead. |
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| The people gathered around when the fishing boats pulled in. |
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| Loading up the truck about 4 pm getting ready to head home. Pretty sunset. |
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Its a little hard to read ( I don't like to get my cell phone out too much in the mercado) but the bus is called Arco de Noe, Noah's Ark for the uninitiated.
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Ththththththats all folks,
Pat
