Another week of training...

I`ve gotten through another week here! I am halfway through training! And I find out my site assignment in a week and a half...Things are moving quickly!
It was another busy week with classes. On Thursday my spanish class gave a charla (a presentation) to anyone in the community who wanted to come about Dengue fever. Mostly just our host families came to support us. But I think it went really well. I am starting to feel more confident presenting in front of people. And I am glad to have learned more about Dengue myself! It is carried in a mosquito that bites by day, and is endemic to all tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The virus isn`t usually fatal unless it develops complications. Usually, you just get a high fever and achy bones and a terrible headache. Although we have the mosquito in the southern US, we do not have dengue epidemics, because of the quality of our health system and the fact that we don`t store water for human consumptions outside in open tanks. Anyway...it was an informative week, and it was great to start feeling confident about the work that I will soon be doing!
Besides that...Yesterday, my spanish class was ¨on¨ again--we facilitated a workshop for fourteen teachers and the other PCVs at the school. We presented to them about techniques for integrating environmental ed into all subject areas in schools (for example, writing a paper about endangered species for spanish class, counting percent decrease in endangered species for math classes, and learning about the regions the species live in for social science). After our presentation, we all paired up (a volunteer with a teacher) and planned lessons that we are going to help the teachers present on the upcoming tuesday. In all, the workshop went very well, and it was another great confidence booster! I have never taught before in a classroom, so it was very intimidating for me at first to be thinking about teaching teachers...but I have been realized that I am qualified to do this. And the thing about facilitation is that you don`t have to be the all-powerful, all-knowledgeable one, you just have to lead and direct the learning. Many of the teachers were very receptive and cooperative, and I felt confident speaking in front of them in spanish. So, I am feeling even more ready for my upcoming work!
This week, in technical classes we worked on making a flush latrine (latrina lavable) and a water cistern (pila). So we mixed cement and dug holes. I asked a lot of questions of the man who has been teaching us. I also have been hanging out with the kids that inevitably come to watch us. It was a fun and active week! My trainer told me that she is glad to see me so inquisitive and integrating so much into the community, because it will really help me at site. The integrating part, asking questions and meeting people, is really the fun part for me. And now that I am building skills at organizing people and facilitating meetings, I am starting to feel very ready to get going! I am sure I will learn more in the days to come, though...

will write again next week.
Jennifer

first photos

This week has been an experience. I`ve learned a lot and gotten to know a lot of new people. First of all, the town that we live in now is a lot smaller than the last one. It is also a lot more of a community, because it is more remote (you have to go on a dirt road to get to it, and there are no buses that go directly into the town--you have to walk to the main road). This community also has known about the Peace Corps, because a village up the road had two volunteers. So, they have seen less extranjeros (because they are not accessible to tourists) and they have an amazing amount of respect for PCVs.

The kids followed me to my room when I went to unpack, and played with my stuff (I bought a mirror, and one side of it enlarges faces, which they loved). They found my cards, and I discovered that they had never seen playing cards before. So that became our new game.

This week, every day that I came home from school, the neighbor kids and my host brother would be waiting for me (picture below). I taught them to play crazy eights and kings on the corner, and just yesterday I taught them go fish (which was a big hit). We also played more active games like SPUD (which they already new--just with slightly different rules) and hopscotch (rayuela). I am also making headway with the rest of my host family. I have been helping my host mom cook a little bit, and my host dad has been joking with me that he wants to have me help him make a latrine.

The training has greatly shifted here. We are trying to get more involved in community life here, as practice for our integration during service. So, I have felt very pushed by my spanish classes this week. This monday, we found out that we have to give a presentation next week to women in the community. So on wednesday we went out, shouting at peoples´ gates to go in and talk with them. We asked them if they would be interested in coming to our ´charla´ (as it`s called in spanish) and then we asked them what they`d like to learn about. I was very uneasy doing that, until I realized that while an assignment like that is not culturally acceptable in the US, it is very acceptable here. Especially since we are gringos. We are qualified by our white skin, to people here. But it is begining to make more sense to me--if the average Honduran only finishes sixth grade (which is the statistic now), then the ability to amass and present information, and the ability to think critically is enough to make me qualified to present to the community.

And really, I was received very well. I started with my host family and moved on to the family compound. It was quite fun to talk with people: they were glad to know me and excited about a charla. The consensus was that we should talk about Dengue fever, because it is the mosquito season.

So, we did some research online, and next thursday morning my class of five students will be presenting to anyone who wants to come. I`ll let you know how it goes.

Besides that, we have been learning how to make cisterns and latrines, how to run community meetings. Class gets long, because we start at seven thirty and end at five every day. And then there are always the kids to play with. But it has been good to be busy. I am glad to get a taste of what my future volunteering will be like.

The first two photos are of me and my host sister at the other house eating green mangoes. They made me take photos because they thought it was so funny that I couldn`t eat the mango very well. Green mangoes are very hard and you have to bite into them with your back teeth.

This is Jessica, Justin and Erik (other PCVs that i am training with)

This is of my last host parents. The photo is taken at their family farm (where they grow corn, potatoes, beans, and many kinds of fruit trees).

Here is my new mosquito netting. It`s great for keeping me safe from malaria and cockroaches! (I feel like a princess when I read under it in my bed).

My new host family. They were pleased and shy when I asked them if I could take a picture.

That`s all I got for now. I was going to take pictures of us making a cistern yesterday, but I forgot to bring my camera to class. I`ll do it sometimes soon. Maybe I`ll take a picture of the pila as well (the cistern where we wash everything from clothes to dishes to our bodies).

thanks for reading! more to come soon...

New Host Family

I moved to a new town this week. I`m doing well...I`m learning to navigate this new family. I think they are pretty in awe of me and respectful and quiet because of it, so I have a hard time having conversation with anyone over 14 in my house. Luckily, the kids aren`t so shy. They wait for me to be done with school. My host brother (8) waits, along with a bunch of cousins/neighbors. So we play cards and hopscotch and games with balls. I try to teach them new things, and everything with the cards is new and exciting for them. Usually every everyone else in the family (and some neighbors) come over to watch. I feel very on the spot a lot, but its has been fun and I feel useful.
More to come soon.