It’s been 2 weeks already!!

It’s almost been a week since I last wrote and over 2 weeks since I arrived in Honduras – the last few days have been really good and I have a lot to forward to at the moment so I’m really loving being here 🙂 So I’ll just run through what I’ve done since last Friday and more crazy things about this crazy city…

I didn’t get up to much on Saturday – my host dad works away so when he comes back home the family just like to stay in and spend time together. On Sunday, we went to visit an old college friend of my host parents and their house is in a valley about 30 minutes drive from Tegus – it was HOT. No one here wears shorts so I’ve had to buy lots of leggings and jeans and I really don’t know how I’m going to cope wearing them when it gets to summer here!! While we were there we went to have a look around the best university in Honduras, Zamorano, an agricultural university which is very strict! We were there on a sunday and most of the students were still in uniform and my host sister’s friend who showed us around told us that any parties have to be finished my 10pm!! Nightmare… but it was the prettiest campus I’ve ever seen. I’ll put the pictures on fb soon but it was a very lovely, peaceful place… but I think I would get quite bored after a few months! Also, last year two students from the university were found dead in their car after leaving a party. It is pretty much certain that the police killed them both but no one really knows why – one of the boy’s mother was the president of the university but it was all very covered up. Very sad…

The rest of the week was mostly Spanish lessons and other random activities – we had a first aid talk, HIV/AIDS talk and a presentation on hurricanes and Earthquakes. Most of this was pretty boring tbh – we receive a lot more education on this kind of stuff in the UK than they do here so it was a bit strange being shown how to put on a condom on again!! There were some interesting bits of info we found out though – like the fact that you have to be some ridiculous age to get condoms for free from the hospital without your parents there, so with a lot of people here living on less than $1 a day (and condoms not being the first thing they will buy!) you can see why underage pregnancies and things like HIV spread so easily. Also, it is estimated that in Honduras there is only 1 firefighter to every 6,000 people so if you have a fire at your home you are likely going to wait for an hour before anyone can help you! 

Today I visited my project for the first time – we weren’t there for long but I think I’m going to love it!!! The director is so lovely and although she doesn’t speak any English she was talking really slow for me so I could pick up on quite a lot of what she was saying. The project will be preparing lunches for children when they go back to school soon so i’ll have something nice and easy to get involved with while I’m still learning the language! The main work of the project is to go out to the various markets in Tegus and Comayaguela (Tegus’s more dangerous sister city) and give presentations on issues like HIV, violence, human rights etc. It seems like they’re doing such important work and I can’t wait to help. They also have some bilingual staff so they’ve said I can put some presentations together myself and they’ll translate them for me which would be amazing! They’ve also recently received funding from the EU so it will be interesting to see what they do with that help and how useful the EU are… So I start next Monday so I’m really excited for that 🙂 

Until then, we’re having a big ICYE meal tonight at TGI Fridays with all the current and previous volunteers which should be a lot of fun! And tomorrow night my host mum has really kindly invited the new volunteers to the house – the garden has amazing views over Tegus so I’m looking forward to sitting out there with a nice, cold glass of wine! My host brother has also mentioned going to a mountain on the other side of Tegus for a little day trip so that will be really fun 🙂 

During all this I’ve noticed the following things:

1. You hear a lot of crazy stories here and however crazy some of them sound, you begin to realise that most of it is probably true! For example, a few years ago the financial minister’s wife was pulled over by police with some ridiculous amount of money ( i think around $40,000). She claimed to just be making a deposit and tribed to bribe the policemen with $500… it didn’t work! However, her husband is still working in parliment, just in a different position.

2. My host sister and brother took me to rent some films to watch – the shop doesn’t have one genuine copy of a dvd or game. They are all really obviously fake – it’s just crazy to know that in the UK a shop like that would be closed down straight away but here its just normal! 

3. Also, all of the little corner shops have metal bars at the door and the guy in the shop just asks you what you want and brings it to you so no one ever actually goes in the shop…

4. In regard to the crazy corruption here, we were told about how prisoners are often let out for hours, or days, at a time to go see their girlfriends and continue their drug dealing etc. I even read about one guy who went out at weekends at a time thanks to his police friends but when he was eventually formally released from jail, he was shot within minutes. Supposedly because he could have revealed too much about how he left prison so often – the three people that witnessed the murder were all killed within days as well. 

5. Rubbish is a huge problem here – there is no proper way in which the state collects and disposes of it, and often people just dump it in the river which makes flooding much worse. So you will often be walking or driving around and you will see someone just at the side of the road burning their rubbish.

6. When we were walking around in the centre of Tegus last week, our ICYE guy told us yesterday that someone came up to him and said ‘take them out of this country, its too dangerous here’. Which sounds quite scary but in a strange way its kind of nice because this guy actually cared about our safety and didn’t just see us as rich gringos… 

7. Another thing that really confuses me about this country and its corruption is how the Church influences some things and not others. Honduras, and the rest of Latin America, is hugely influenced by the Catholic church. The church’s influence stops sex education being taught in school and has made abortion illegal in Honduras. Yet, issues like murder and corruption are not affected by this God fearing culture… how does that make sense?? 

8. Before I came here I had read about the most common way in which people are addicted to drugs in Honduras and I saw it for the first time the other day. People (including children) who are very desperate get a bag (like the ones we use in supermarkets to put our veg in) and put glue in it. They then breathe this in and it stops them feeling hungry etc. but they become addicted and will do almost anything to get more. I think I will be meeting a lot of people using glue through my project which will be really hard to see 😦 

9. To finish on a light note, I had my first ‘cosita rica’ shouted at me last night!! And some more today… it means ‘you tasty little thing’ and you’ve just got to laugh! I was sat somewhere today and an old man came at sat next to me and literally just stared. Most of the time it’s like they just can’t believe they are seeing a white girl sat on her own in the middle of downtown Tegus… 

My first two weeks have gone so quickly and some of it has been hard but I am really enjoying it – so please don’t worry anyone!! I will put more pictures on facebook this weekend hopefully 🙂 x

More stories!!

I have started to take a notebook around with me (the one my mummy gave me for xmas, thank you!) as theres so much to remember all the time and I never know when i’m next going to get a chance to blog… we’re not too busy atm so I’ve been able to blog a lot 😉 

So Tuesday we went to learn about one of the ethnic groups in Honduras, called Garifunas, who were first brought here as slaves. It was really interesting and they showed us all their traditional dancing, the most common one being ‘punta’ – basically shaking your bum lots!! I asked our ICYE guy whether the garifuna (being originally from Africa) experience any discrimination but he said they didn’t. However, a few days later a tour guide at one of the museums said that racism is a huge problem in Honduras and anyone with dark skin is assumed to be dangerous and about to rob you… (Jewish and Arab people are assumed to be ruthless business men and of course, us gringos have lots of money and good to be robbed!!) 

On that day we also took our first buses!! The two main types of buses are the directivos and the amarillos – the directivos are around 11L (so about 60p) and are quite safe. The amarillos are a completely different thing and i HATE them – they are old yellow school buses that America don’t want and they are just 4L so very very cheap but that also means that you get the poorest people on there. When we went on everyone was staring at us constantly and it was so dirty – i’m definitely going to stick to the directivos whenever I get a bus!! 

The next day we had a police talk on safety – the advice was basically everything we had heard before but the police that did the talk were SOOO nice!! We all sat around afterwards having juice and oreos despite none of the police speaking English and none of us knowing Spanish – and we then mentioned we were going to the mall after and the police offered to escort us! We presumed they meant they had a couple of cars but no, they walked us – they would walk out into 4 lane roads and just stop the traffic for us! It was great and made us feel a lot safer but we managed to get even more stares than usual… 

The next day I went with the two girls who will be working with the children’s cancer project to see the office and hospital they will be working in. It was hard to see the hospital to say the least. The hospital is the largest in Honduras and still only has 23 beds for children with cancer – I don’t know where the rest of the children go. The children were all smiling and the parents were friendly too and I was slightly jealous of the girls project but I don’t know if I could handle it…! I mentioned to our ICYE guide how good the hospital seemed but he told me that the corridors etc. are ok but once you get deeper into the hospital it gets a lot worse (it is a public one so for the poorest people and gets very little funding). He also said that the situation is ‘sad but true’ 😦 

That night I had the yummiest meal yet here – egg in a hole (fried bread with a hole in the middle which you put an egg into – apparently its western??) with kidney beans, peppers, onions etc. So yum! I’ve also been trying to explain to my host family what yorkshire puddings are but it’s impossible… what are they?? 

Today, we went into the centre of Tegus which is full of old buildings and lots of people – except today there were demonstations around the congress so there were a lot of police/military barriers to stop cars and people getting too close. We were meant to be visiting 4 museums but only managed 3 due to this – the last one we got to as our police escort (again!!) told the military to let us past and we looked so cool haha. I also got a glimpse of my project and when I told one of the policewomen that it was my project she made a ‘oh really??’ face which was a bit unnerving… 

So that was the last few days and my journal has lots of things that I’ve noticed or thought that I can’t even remember where they fit in with the rest of it so again i’ll quickly run through them… 

1. homosexuality and abortion – BIG no no’s here. I haven’t seen much regarding these topics yet but i’ve heard little bits and pieces that show how controversial it is here, mainly as the Catholic church has such a big influence here 

2. I’ve seen a lot of people just throwing rubbish on the floor here despite there being perfectly good bins everywhere. The hills are covered in rubbish, the river is full of rubbish… i’ve seen people just moving rubbish from outside there house to outside their neighbours houses. People just don’t seem to care…

3. Being a gringo (technically an American but people don’t recognise the difference between Europeans or otherwise…) you constantly have taxis peeping at you because they assume you hve money and will want a taxi. It’s very strange because at home you assume you’re doing something wrong if someone is beeping at you! Being white also attracts shouts of ‘hey gringo’, ‘marry me gringo’ etc… The stares are also constant and it’s just something you’ve got to accept will happen. 

4. The constant taste and smell of the fumes is also horrible and another thing you just have to accept. I’m sure I’m going to knock about 10 years off my life just spending 6 months here…

5. The police talk also informed us that 70% of the car accidents here are fatal – but I’m finding it hard to believe as the two car crashes I have seen so far were just bumps and despite the roads being crazy, none of the cars have dents, bangs etc. 

6. The funniest thing about our police escorts was how laid back they were! Whenever we stopped for lunch or a drink they would get something too and just wander around with their coffee. They also all have Blackberrys and are on them all the time – its just so weird to see compared to home! The second time we saw them they were all hugging and kissing us on the cheeks, they’re just so lovely 🙂 

7. The most profound kind of thing someone has said to me so far was our Spanish teacher when we were discussing the corruption, poverty etc here. I asked her why she didn’t want to just get out and leave… she responded by saying ‘I’ve been to Europe, Asia, the United States… we don’t have the peace that you have in your countries’. I can’t really explain why that hit a nerve with me but it just seems so unfair and we don’t realise how good we have it in the UK etc. It was also interesting because people here, mostly, just accept how it is – in the UK people seem to strike over anything, but Hondurans have so many problems and they do have strikes but mostly they accept it. Our spanish teacher did admit that a lot of people want to leave and would if they could, but she said that she wanted to stay because people have to try and fix the situation, or at least try and make it better. 

8. Oh and lastly, one of the girls is fascinated by the fact that shops in the mall are allowed to sell completely fake brands – every shop has knock off Gucci, Prada, Ray Ban sunglasses. And I can’t understand why the govenment lets all the cars here have illegal blacked out windows. You come to realise though that the country has so many problems, where do you begin?? Blacked out windows and fake sunglasses probably aren’t at the top of the list…

I’ve just realised that this is quite a negative blog!! But the longer you spend here and the more you travel around I guess you can’t help but notice this stuff – and after the initial excitement, I guess it is natural to start seeing the reality of life here. Despite all the sad and awful things you see here though I am still really enjoying it, I feel like I am learning SO much and while I enjoyed my masters, I have probably learnt more in a week here than I ever could have done sat in a lecture hall in the UK… 

I’m on a computer that can’t load pics but I will put all the ones I have taken so far on facebook at some point this weekend… and you might notice that every beautiful picture of the landscape of Tegucigalpa’s surrounding mountains always seems to have something in the way, like a car letting out black smoke or a lamp post, but I think it’s kind of symbolic of this country!! Aren’t I becoming so deep and thoughtful… 😉 hope you all have a great weekend at home! 🙂 x

 

Too much to say…

I can´t believe it´s only been a few days since my last blog and I have so much to say already… as time goes on though I´m sure everything here will start to become normal and I might be strugling for things to write. 

I´m seeing so much every day – some things that shock me and make me want to run home… and some things that make me want to learn as much about Honduras and Tegucigalpa as I can. 

So after my last post I had my first full day in Honduras – it was pretty boring!! All of my host family either works or studies so I was in the house most of the day and whereas in another city I would have happily wandered around and kept myself entertained, that is definitely something I can´t do here. But I took it as probably one of my last quiet days to read a book and stalk facebook as I´m sure i´m going to be too busy to do all of that soon… I also had cheese toasties and homemade brownies that evening so definitely ended on a high note 😀

The next day was the start of the ICYE orientation camp – all of the volunteers who have just arrived, been in Honduras a while and about to leave were there (us two English girls, two Danish girls, two Swiss girls, a guy from Austria, a girl and guy from Sweden, a girl from Taiwan and a girl from Japan), and also four Hondurans about to go to Germany, Austria and New Zealand. Most of the weekend was just information about culture shock, stereotypes etc so I won´t bore you!! But I definitely realised I packed for the wrong weather… we all arrived in little shirts and our bikinis packed and were definitely disappointed! The camp was up in the mountains so we had a few warm moments but mostly it was cold – especially at night!! I would just love another day in England to pack a whole different suitcase – missing my jumpers and jeans so much!! Despite the bad weather I still managed to get sunburnt after 20 minutes in the sun…! Meeting everyone at the camp really made me realise how lazy we are in the UK with language – everyone except me and Laura knew at least two languages so I´ve got so much motivation to learn Spanish right now!! 🙂

The place we stayed was lovely – little four bed villa type things each with a hammock outside 🙂 and the hightlight of the weekend was definitely the cage with about 5 parrots in that loved saying ´hola hola!´ over and over again… even at 6 in the morning you had to laugh! On the last night we had a big bonfire and toasted marshmallows which was so lovely 🙂 I´ll be back there for my final evaluation camp in 6 months time – looking forward to giving advice to the next volunteers already! The biggest problem with the camp for me was the food… one lunch I swear they gave us pig feet!! And the best day was sausages and plantain (fried bananas), I did try everything but I wasn´t too impressed..! 

After the camp, on the way back to Tegus, I was dropped off at my host family´s relative´s house – as they hadn´t been able to meet over Christmas they were having a big party that day instead and doing secret santa. It was a bit confusing watching it all in Spanish but so sweet when some people got emotional – I just want to know what they´re saying! At the end of the presents, my host mum said they were also welcoming me to the family and gave me a present. It was so thoughtful, I had to try really hard not to cry in front of about 30 strangers!! They had noticed I have a bit of a love for things with owls on so they got me an owl bag – so sweet!! They did a pinata as well which was really fun and it´s really nice seeing what families here are about. When we got home, I watched the Iron Lady with my host sisters and had a lovely homemade strawberry smoothie 🙂 

The next two weeks we are just doing activities with ICYE and learning about Honduras etc and also getting Spanish lessons. Today we went to the UN office for Honduras and had a presentation on the UN´s goals and how Honduras compares with it. It was really interesting and I couldn´t help but ask a lot of questions! I´m really finding the situation here fasinating and I´ll talk more about it later on… 

We then walked 10 minutes to a little shopping centre (the most I´ve walked since I got here!!) and saw a strike – there wasn´t many people and they were playing music so a lot happier than the strikes we see back home! To get back to the office we took a taxi – its quite complicated to explain but Tegus has 3 different types of taxis and 3 types of buses and it´s all very complicated! The kind of taxi we got is 13 Lemperia each (less than 80p) and it will take you anywhere within its restricted zone but the taxi has to be full for it to leave – so often you´ll be riding along with complete strangers! Luckily there was four of us so it was nice and easy 🙂 

So for the afternoon we had our introduction to Spanish – it is insanely complicated and doesn´t make sense to any of us but I loved the lesson! The teacher is great and we had a laugh with the Lonely Planet text book… and even though I know its going to take me a while to get my head around all of it, I will be really proud of myself when I can have a conversation with someone in this language! I know a lot of people say English is a hard language to learn but when you have to work our whether to use the masculine, feminine, formal or informal use of a word, English looks very easy!! 

So that´s what I´ve been up to the last few days but I´ve also noticed a few things that I think are really interesting (or scary!):

1. pretty much ALL of the cars here, even ones at home that a first time drivier would have, have blacked out windows. And not just a little blacked out – completely unable to see through, even the windshield. It´s very strange to not be able to see anyone else but kind of reassuring to know they can´t see you either! 

2. Following what I said about the divide between rich and poor – Hondurans I´ve spoken to do think that they have an upper class, higher middle class, lower middle class etc. But also say that the middle class is disappearing quickly… 

3. My feelings on the crime here have been very up and down – I´ve heard a lot of horror stories but none of the current volunteers have had anything happen to them despite getting the bus to work. One of the Honduran volunteers said that she would not walk 50m outside of the mall even in the day time but walking around today, I just didn´t get a big sense that someone was waiting ready to pounce on my bag! Don´t worry though I´m not about to go waving around my money – I only ever carry about 10 dollars now and my very old phone – and my camera only if we´re in a big group. I´m also going to have to get used to carrying a few dollars around in my shoe or bra…! 

4. There are lots of dogs wandering the streets and eating rubbish near my house – it´s hard to see but they seem to know what they´re doing with avoiding cars etc. A big surprise though was when we were driving back through the countryside to Tegus yesterday and seeing a stray horse picking its way through the rubbish! Very odd…

5. Honduras does have an amazing way of cashing cheques though that I can´t believe we don´t have! It´s like a drive-thru bank – they drive up to this little pod and put their cheque in a container and it goes up to the people in the bank, they check it and replace it with cash and it comes back to the pod! So it takes about 5 minutes to cash a cheque compared to 5 days… amazing!! 

6. I was speaking to someone today who told me they know people who have body guards and bullet proof glass in their cars as they own a large company in the country… very surreal…

7. Finally, the biggest thing to get used to here is the difference to the UK in terms of healthcare, schooling etc. From the UN talk today, we found out that only 30% of highschool aged children actually go to school! For the families who can´t afford private school, children go to the public schools – the teachers there who are meant to teach 250 days of the year rarely come in for 100 days a year. It costs $5 to see a doctor ($30 to see a good one) – which really may not sound a lot but here it really is. I can´t explain enough how much that is to some families here – a lot of people live on less than a $1 a day so a trip to the doctors is simply unaffordable. My first meal here was a tortilla and it was 17 lempiras which is about 50p. I saw coke today advertised for 15 lempira so even less! That seems amazing but It´s just crazy to realise that a family can afford a tortilla and a bottle of coke for the entire day… I´ve also realised that a big difference from home is that however much people complain in the UK, you can go to university if you really want to however expensive it is. And if you really work hard enough and make the effort, you can change your life for the better despite whaever family you´re born into. Here though good education is strictly limited to those with money – poor families just simply don´t understand that if they keep their children in schools they can earn more in the future. What family you are born into completely determines your future here… and it’s just your bad luck if you are born into the wrong one. People are also limited to follow the jobs that they really want to do – in the UK you can do pretty much anything you want if you work hard but some careers here are just unattainable (and often limited to those with LOTS of money and connections).

Over the past week I have definitely had moments where I just can´t understand the way things are done and its hard to see and hear a lot that you do in a city like Tegucigalpa. But  driving home tonight and looking at all the city lights I feel like I am really enjoying it here and I can´t wait to learn a lot more over the next few months. 

Hope that wasn´t too long – I had requests to write more 😉 I´ve put a few pics below as well… 

 

First experiences of Honduras

Well it has definitely been an interesting few days…

As most of you will know when myself and Laura got to Heathrow Airport at half 6 in the morning we found out we were facing a 7 hour delay due to ‘technical difficulties’ with the plane which meant we had to wait for a different plane to arrive from the Middle East… so we ended up getting to Miami at half 10 rather than at 2 in the afternoon. With no phones and no signs for where our hotel shuttle would be, alongside a definite lack of sleep, we eventually found our way to our room. The difficulty to find out where our shuttle would pick us up in an English speaking country definitely made the nerves about arriving in Honduras a little bit more noticeable…

Our flight over to Honduras from Miami was very easy and there were some lovely views over the Caribbean! Also flew over most of Honduras and I found it very hard to believe that this country has the highest murder rate in the World when it seemed to be completely covered in mountains!! However as we approached Tegucigalpa it looked very different… when looking at pictures of the country’s capital you see the world ‘sprawling’ a lot and there’s no better word. It lies in a large basin of mountains and you can get a whole view of the city and it just looks enormous! 

 Having watched videos and read about how bad the landing can be in Tegus, me and Laura held hands very tightly and prepared ourselves to be frightened to death but it really wasn’t that bad at all! The turbulence over the Atlantic was definitely worse…

So finally, I was in Honduras! I will admit now that I have completely had the wrong idea of this country… having heard about the corruption, violence and poverty I don’t know what I was imagining but seeing a shopping mall, burger king, dominoes and pizza hut opposite the airport was definitely a shock! Many of the people in the airport also had expensive clothes and jewellery… and everyone has smart phones!! I’m definitely going to feel out of place with my old phone…

ICYE met us at the airport and we went in a taxi (without seatbelts!) to the charity’s office to wait for our host parents to pick us up. I also quickly met the other volunteers – a guy from Austria, a girl from Switzerland and a girl from Japan – it seems none of us know Spanish so at least I’m not the only one! 

So my host mum came to pick me up and she is lovely 🙂 she has lived quite a few places all over the world and in the US for 10 years so her English is excellent – she even teaches it at one of the universities! Which we drove past and there was a security guard with a huge gun… a sight I’m going to get used to here – they even have armed security outside of restaurants. 

Driving around in Tegucigalpa is definitely the experience I had read about – the city is full of criss-crossing roads with blind junctions and no one stops to see if anything is crossing and just pull out! It’s terrifying and I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to it! At one point we saw about 8 police cars and bikes flashing their lights and speeding off up a hill – so I assumed they were chasing some crime that had happened. Turned out it was most likely some low-level politician being taken home or something – my first sign of the corruption here. 

We then went to meet my host mother’s parents – they don’t speak any English so a lot of the time I was just trying hard to listen and picked up on a few words but on the whole I was completely lost! Having seen their house and my host family’s though I can’t emphasise enough how vast the divide is between the rich and poor here. The rich are extremely rich and the poor are extremely poor – I will try and take some pictures of this difference but as I’m starting to realise, I don’t want to be flashing a camera around! Nevermind how old and beat up it is…

I also met my two host sisters and brother last night (who all speak fluent English as well having gone to an American school) and we went for my first Honduran meal!! It was a subway type place but with tortillas – they had lots of different fillings and you can choose whatever you want. I went for fried beans, cheese (which is very salty here!) and cream. It was delicious 🙂 my family have made me feel very welcome already and they’re all really nice 🙂 

So that was my first day in Honduras done – I have really enjoyed it so far and can’t wait to learn more and the culture here. The only negative so far is the realisation that I will be largely confined to the house and my project unless my host mum is free to pick me up – as a white tourist I am going to stick out like a sore thumb walking around here and you just can’t ignore the crime rates. So I’m feeling a little like I’m going to miss that freedom at the moment but hopefully as I get used to it here I’ll get more confident to walk around… just not too far from home! 

Sorry if this blog was very long… I’ve had to miss a lot out as well but I don’t want to end up boring everyone! Hope you enjoyed the read 🙂 x

Getting nervous…

It’s now less than 10 days until I board the plane to begin my adventure and the nerves are starting to set in!! I’ve now had my project confirmed – it’s called Alternativas y Oportunidades. It is focused around helping children and youths who are forced to live and work on the streets of Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras). The project teaches them about issues that affect them, such as HIV/AIDS, human rights, drugs, violence and gangs. Within this I will be able to choose a group to work with (children or teenagers) and help with organising activities for them to help their learning. I’m really excited to get stuck in but definitely need to improve my Spanish before I can be any real help so hopefully I’ll learn quite quickly… 

I have been getting quite nervous about the prospect of being thrown into a completely different country and such an important project but I also found out about my host family and they look amazing! So I’m really excited to get to know them and learn about the Honduran culture.

I’ve started saying my goodbyes now (see pic!) as well but it hasn’t been too emotional yet as I just can’t really believe I’m going… I’m sure there will be a good cry at the airport though! But I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who has donated or made an effort to say bye and wish me luck, it really means so much!