November & December: The abridged version.

I've been a bad blogger. Here is a recap of the past two months. Enjoy!

November 3-December 12: Field work and interviewing at La Estanzuela.
My research has been taking a lot turns and detours over the past few months, but I've primarily been working in a local village and interviewing parents, teachers, and students about their personal experiences with the school system and education in general.

November & December: Graduate School Applications: Round 3!
I applied to nine graduate programs in Public Policy and Administration and shelled out a painful amount of money in application fees. Happily, the process is now over and now I can devote my time to figuring out how the hell I'm going to pay my tuition.

November 20-23: Tegucigalpa Trip.
Graham and I traveled to Tegucigalpa with Nick & Nikki, Tyler & Paige, Megan, and Mario (Graham's co-workers at Mayatan Bilingual School) for the Discovery School Conference. I chilled out in the lobby of the swanky Teguc Marriott Hotel and analyzed my field notes while they hit up workshops on classroom strategies with teachers from the most elite schools of Honduras. The Honduran Secretary of Education, Marlon Brevé Reyes, whose children attend The Discovery School, opened the conference by informing the audience of educators that "Honduras has a very low-quality education system." I can't help but wonder if that would change if some of the people in power started sending their children to public school . . .

November 27: Thanksgiving!
We hosted a Thanksgiving potluck at our house. Graham and I were committed to having the Thanksgivingy-est Thanksgiving ever. So, we adorned the house with historical information about the holiday (in English and Spanish, of course), paper Turkeys, Thanksgiving comics, we tracked down A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and we cooked a ton of food. We ended up with a ton of food and a good chunk of the local ex-pat crowd at our place.

November 28-29: Border Crossings Bicycle Style.
Graham participated in the Travesia Montecristo, a three day bike ride through Honduras and Guatemala. Graham and our friend Nick quickly became notorious among the Honduran bikers for their use of locally purchased $75 Bacini bikes. Check out Graham's blog for more info.

December 5-6: Un Año!
To celebrate one year of dating bliss, Graham and I decided to splurge and stay the night at Hacienda San Lucas, an awesome locale just outside of Copan Ruinas. Though the prices are a bit steep (at $120 a night Hacienda San Lucas provides the most expensive night's lodging in Copan) our experience was well worth it. Our five course dinner was made of all local food and prepared using traditional cooking methods. It was delicious.

After I woke up and did some early morning yoga at the outdoor meditation space, Graham and I took some time to explore the extensive grounds surrounding Hacienda San Lucas. We had to check out Los Sapos (the toads), an area thought to be an ancient fertility spot for the Mayans. All that remains is a carving of a toad, a man's face, and something that is undeniably phallic in appearance. The experience made me think twice about touching any toads in the near future.

December 16: Return to the USA!
Graham and I woke up painfully at 3:20AM to the incessant howling of a cat in heat outside our window. By 4:45AM we were on our way to the bus station, Graham hauling my suitcase packed with Christmas gifts over his shoulder and me dragging Graham's 55 lb suitcase over the cobblestones. The 2km walk was pretty unpleasant, but we caught our bus and were at the airport by 10:00AM. We parted ways at the airport and I finally arrived home in Sodus at 1:30AM EST, a mere 21 hours after my day of travel began. Then, it started snowing!

December 17-January 1: Home sweet home.
After four months in Honduras, I got to return home to spend some quality time with my family. It went by way too quickly and I can't wait until everyone comes to visit in May!

And the winner is . . .

Barack Obama!!!!!!!!

This week has been so fantastic in so many ways, it has been difficult to decide how to begin this week's blog. The truth is, one event superseded all others this week. Watching Barack Obama win the presidential election was one of the most incredible moments of my life.

Obama's election was the not the first historic moment I've experienced from overseas. On September 11, 2001, I was sitting in a classroom in London when the director of our study abroad program rushed in to tell us that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. A year and a half later, on March 30, 2003, I was in Costa Rica watching television with my host family, when I heard the announcement that the United States had invaded Iraq. On Tuesday, November 4, 2008, over five years later, I sat in a pizza shop where an enormous Honduran flag served as the backdrop for epic words that flashed across the television screen "Barack Obama Elected President!" The crowd that had gathered erupted in cheers and I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe this man could start to heal the wounds caused on 9/11 and 3/30.

By about 1pm on election day, I found myself unable to do anything productive work-wise (perhaps due to my need to check cnn.com every two minutes for any potential clues on the direction the election was going in) so I decided to begin preparations for an election night extravaganza. I know that some of you in the more developed world probably hosted fancy election return parties, but I had to work with what I had available. After a little brainstorming I decided to make the following contributions to election night festivities:

1. Cupcakes with Obama flags.



2. Sugar cookies with blue frosting and Obama pictures on top (no photo available).

3. Blank maps of the U.S.A. and blue and red markers (to keep track of electoral wins!)



4. A big poster that read YES WE CAN! YES WE DID!

I received a fair amount of teasing from Graham for my Obama baking spree, but he graciously helped me carry trays of sugary treats across town. We both looked pretty silly traipsing through Copan with Obama cupcakes, but the end result was well worth the walk of shame. The Obama heavy crowd loved the baked goods and other election fare and we all celebrated together when the West Coast returns were announced and tipped the scales undeniably in Obama's favor. It was a great moment and, though I missed being with my loved ones in the States, our election night festivities turned out to be a great bonding experience for everyone involved.

Oh, my aching belly.

Living in Honduras can do a real number on your digestive system. Nasty bacteria and parasites lurk on tasty looking vegetables and fruits, just waiting to attack weak-stomached foreigners. I would love to count myself among the stomach-of-iron, “I can eat anything,” human garbage disposal types, but the belly gods had something else in mind for me last Saturday. Perhaps I didn’t put enough bleach in the water when we washed our vegetables last week, or maybe the ice in my fresh lemonade wasn’t not of purified origins. I may never know the culprit in my digestive tragedy, but I was definitely the victim.

Don’t worry. This is not a Halloween horror story (if you really want to know the details of my symptoms, google giardia); it is a tale of post-sickness renewal. Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling better than I had since my arrival in Honduras. It may have had something to do with my ability to eat something other than oatmeal for the first time in four days, but I felt like a new woman.

Things just kept getting better after that. After weeks of waiting, my absentee ballot finally arrived (I requested it back in August) on Wednesday! Initially, it looked like my vote wasn’t going to count. My district requires that all absentee ballots arrive within seven days after the election and it usually takes three weeks for mail to get to the USA from Honduras. Obviously Obama doesn’t need my vote in New York, but there is a hotly contested House seat up for grabs in my congressional district (a republican stronghold) and the democratic candidate, Dan Maffei, needs every vote he can get. Besides that, I desperately wanted to cast my vote for Obama, even if he is a sure thing in New York. Eventually, I was able to find a service that can get letters to the States in eight days and my ballot is now on its way to the Wayne County Board of Elections.

Halloween is not a holiday typically celebrated in Honduras. Locals observe All Saints Day and a few recognize Day of the Dead, but I wasn’t expecting there to be much action on October 31st in Copan. In fact, at the beginning of this school year, Graham’s bosses at the bilingual school gave specific instructions to staff to keep a low profile on Halloween. Upon some investigation, we discovered the root of the anti-Halloween directive. Apparently, a few years ago, a staff Halloween party caused quite a stir when Mayatan teachers were spotted stumbling home (perhaps slightly intoxicated) at 4am on All Saints Day in strange costumes. People in the community, unfamiliar with the much-beloved American Halloween tradition, suspected the teachers of being involved with some sort of strange satanic rituals. Cultural confusion at its best.

Much to my own surprise, I did end up going out with friends to celebrate Halloween this year. There were nearly a hundred Peace Corps volunteers in town for the weekend – a boon for Copan during the low tourism season. The volunteers flock here annually from all over Honduras and Guatemala (some spend 11+ hours on the bus) for a Halloween party at Via Via, a local bar. It was my first night out since I arrived in August (I’m embarrassed to admit) and throughout the evening I had the sneaking suspicion that I’d somehow been transported back to the States. I was celebrating an American holiday, surrounded by twenty-something gringos, and dancing to a band that sang almost exclusively in English. It was slightly surreal, but all in all a good way to celebrate Halloween. Favorite costume of the night: a man dressed as a backpack. He was literally wearing a hiking backpack - legs through the bottom, head through the top. Bizarre, yet somehow appropriate.

Accountability?

We don’t value teachers highly enough in the United States. They are under-paid, overworked, and consistently the scapegoats for all educational woes. Consequently, teaching is not a profession that is attracting the best and the brightest young minds in America. In Honduras, young people are flocking to the education profession. What makes Honduras so different, you ask? In Honduras, teachers are highly paid, they do not have to pay taxes, they receive a government pension when they retire, they are generally well-respected and viewed as professionals, and their job security is absolute. Unfortunately, the high status of teachers does little to reflect the functionality of the education system.

Honduras is an excellent example of how exalting the role of teachers does little to solve systemic problems in education. Before I go on, let me assure you that I am not advocating against improving teacher pay and benefits, as a former teacher I strongly support improving the status of education professionals. However, without sufficient accountability, oversight, and support, rewarding teachers does not improve educational outcomes.

Over the past two months, I’ve had countless conversations with Hondurans about the state of education in the country today, and there is one thing that everyone agrees on: the education system in Honduras is fundamentally broken. According to a recent report from FEREMA, twenty-five percent of students beginning sixth grade in 2004 did not graduate at the end of the school year. Nearly half a million school-aged children (6-13) in Honduras are not currently enrolled in school. With over 50% of the Honduran population under the age of 18, this does not bode well for the country’s economic future.

Finding agreement on the roots of the country's education problem is a difficult task. People are angry and frustrated and while adults argue about who is to blame, the future of Honduras's youth hangs in the balance . . .

Flooding in Honduras

The Honduran President declared a national emergency last week in response to the extensive flooding that occurred due to heavy rainfall throughout the country. Over twenty people have died and over two-hundred thousand have been affected by the flooding, according to reports on Honduras This Week. Early reports from the UN News Centre indicate that UNICEF is extremely concerned: “The aftermath of a natural disaster like this one can be deadly for children, who are highly vulnerable to waterborne diseases,” UNICEF Regional Director for Latin American and the Caribbean Nils Kastberg.

We have been lucky here in Copan Ruinas. Our biggest challenge resulting from the deluge of water nationwide was a damaged water system. As I mentioned last week, the large volume of rain we received, caused a pipe in the town's water system to explode, thus cutting off running water to all of Copan. Parts of town were without water for well over a week, including our neighborhood.

I could complain about the fact that we didn't have water until Wednesday afternoon (and I did), but more than anything else, the experience reminded me just how privileged a situation we were in. First of all, for the first 3.5 days the rest of the town was without water, we were blissfully unaware, due to the fact we have a relatively large water tank. Then, when we really should have suffered due to our lack of frugality, our landlady saved the day by gifting us with barrels full of water. I'm not going to pretend that trying to bathe using a bucket of water and cup was a pleasant experience, but at least I had a water supply. We were able to wash dishes and counter-tops and ourselves without giving it too much thought.

Our neighbors, on the other-hand, were faced with a choice between no water at all or hauling back buckets from the chocolate-brown Rio Quebrada or the streams running into the Copan River. What kind of options are those? What health risks arise from a week of bathing and washing dishes in a river that is surely contaminated? What other alternatives exist?

I have never had to grapple with these kinds of problems in my own life, and chances are, because of where I was born, the color of my skin, and my family's status in society, I probably never will. The more I explore the world, the more undeniable the advantages of my birth become. In Copan, I am painfully aware of my wealth and privilege. I have a house full of furniture and food. I have indoor plumbing and wireless internet. I don't bat an eye at going out to lunch or paying to have my clothes laundered. My Fulbright stipend, which would barely cover my rent living in a city like New York, pays me in a month what a Honduran field laborer can only hope to make in a year. Taking that into account, it's not difficult to understand why so many Hondurans have made their way north to try and make their fortune in the United States. The money they send back builds houses, educates their children, provides health care to ailing relatives, and pads the struggling economy of Honduras.

I don't have any effective way to wrap this up. So, until next week, adios.

Rain ≠ Water

Wednesday was a sad night for Honduras. After playing what was rumored to be their worst game of the season, Honduras lost 1-0 against Jamaica. All of their World Cup hopes now rest on next month’s game against Mexico. Now, I must admit that I did not actually watch the game. My energy was focused on something far more trivial than soccer: the final presidential debate. Braving the rain, Graham and I made our way downtown to Jim’s Pizza, the only business establishment in town where the game was not playing (Jim, as you have probably guessed, is a gringo), and joined a crowd of other Americans watching the debate. Of course, if you saw the debate, or read the coverage afterwards, you already know that the heavily pro-Obama audience, left the pizza joint happy. And then the rain really started to come down.

It rained Wednesday. It rained Thursday. It rained Friday. It rained Saturday. I was happy. For days, I could actually wear long-sleeve shirts and pretend it was fall (a season that does not exist in Copan). The cool weather was a welcome change to an upstate New Yorker like me. Suddenly, I had an excuse to make lentil soup and track down some cheddar (a near impossible feat here) for grilled cheese sandwiches. Unfortunately, as I was reveling in the chilly damp October air, most of Copan Ruinas was suffering.

As I have said many times, we have a sweet house here in Copan. One of the things that makes it wonderful is the water tank above our house. The water system* in Copan is antiquated. Designed years ago, before the town exploded as a tourist destination, the slender pipes cannot take much abuse. Toilet paper, for example, does not EVER belong in the commode, instead, all bathrooms are outfitted with small basureros (trashcans) lined with plastic bags. These nifty little receptacles are the recipients of all non-bodily waste, a fact that may cause us from the States to wrinkle our noses, but one quickly gets used to the system.

Back to the tank. Like I said, the water system in Copan is delicate. And, when it rains (especially when it rains a lot), the town frequently loses its running water supply. Now, this initially seemed counter-intuitive to me. Why, I asked myself, does the town lose access to running water, when water is falling in such abundance from the sky? The answer, as it turns out, is fairly simple. When it rains, the system gets flooded. The pipes cannot handle the excess water and they burst, cutting off the town’s water supply until someone can get them repaired. You would think that an intelligent person such as myself would think to herself, “Hmmm . . . there has been a lot of rain, the town is probably without water, I am probably operating on tank water and should conserve.” Instead I thought “I’m muddy and cold, I should take really long hot showers and go on baking sprees that create lots of dishes to be washed.” I’m embarrassed to admit that I was surprised when yesterday morning the water barely trickled out of the faucet. By the evening, the drippy faucets had dried up completely, and we joined the rest of Copan in life without water.

Luckily, Doña Berta, our landlady, experienced with the challenges of the water system, had both been conserving her tank water and collecting rain water in buckets and basins. Doña Berta is wonderful, not only did she share water with us last night, but she also gave us a lesson in tortilla making! They are really easy to make. All it takes is corn flour, water, and a flat frying pan.

Step 1: Mix water and corn flour.
Step 2: Make little balls out of the dough.
Step 3: Pat the dough into a pancake.
Step 4: Put on frying pan (no oil necessary).
Step 5: Flip twice and remove from heat when slightly browned on each side.

After our lesson, which produced about ten small tortillas, Doña Berta brought us beans from her kitchen and a special cheese (it’s like goat cheese – so much better than anything else we’ve had here!) that her sister had brought her from one of the villages outside of Copan. We uncorked the $8 bottle of wine we picked up on Friday and enjoyed one of the best meals we’ve had since we arrived in Copan nearly two months ago.

Doña Berta came back after dinner with a bag of oranges picked from her yard and insisted that Graham borrow more water from her stash, so we’d have enough. She brings us food, teaches us how to make typical Honduran dishes, and gives us good advice about conserving water, hand-washing clothes, and other Honduran life essentials. We are really in good hands.

It’s Sunday now, and though we are still without water, there is only one thing that I feel could really improve our life here today: an outhouse.


* It is not safe to drink water from the tap in Copan under any circumstances. We wash all vegetables and fruits in water we treat with bleach. We purchase our drinking water in five-gallon re-usable jugs.

Understanding Linkages between Culture, Gender and Education in Rural Honduras

Because this blog will serve as a forum for me to share my research process with you, it seems appropriate to begin by explaining why I am in Honduras and what I will be doing here. Through a generous grant from the Fulbright Program, I will spend the next nine months in Copán Ruinas, Honduras conducting educational research in local schools. Most of this first entry is pulled directly from the research proposal that I submitted to the Fulbright Program a year ago. I have made a few adjustments here and there, as my project is already evolving, but the proposal does convey a general sense of what I will be doing here in Copán Ruinas for the next nine months.

Several Latin American countries have achieved gender parity in their primary education systems. Honduras is among the countries that have achieved this parity and, in fact, girls are now more likely than boys to enroll in and complete school at the primary level (United Nations, 2007). Although the progress made for the education of girls should be applauded, high dropout and grade repetition rates among both girls and boys continue to plague the Honduran education system. The goal of this project is to facilitate understanding of the strengths and limitations of current educational strategies employed in four schools within rural Honduras. This understanding is critical to development of innovative education practices responsive to gender and likely to promote the timely completion of primary school for both boys and girls.

After working as a teacher for three years in the public education system in the Mississippi Delta, I have learned that boys and girls face a unique set of obstacles hindering their academic success. Prior to my work as an educator, my involvement with Amnesty International and its Women’s Human Rights Program led me to similar conclusions – women and girls face many challenges that are gender-specific. However, as a teacher, I now understand that men and boys also face gender-specific barriers to academic success. In the United States, we are slowly beginning to understand that to support the educational success of all students, gender-specific teaching and retention strategies must be employed. This project will strive to enhance researcher and community understanding of the ways in which gender shapes the educational experience for primary students in Honduras in order to develop culturally appropriate, gender-specific policies and practices. I believe this understanding will directly assist educational institutions and educators within Honduras; ultimately, this knowledge is relevant to educational improvement and retention efforts across cultures.

In the next nine months, I will engage in participatory action research utilizing qualitative methods at four primary schools in the municipality of Copán Ruinas, spending approximately two months at each school. Through extensive observation in classrooms and school environments generally, I will examine instructional practices and school culture. I will also conduct semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, parents, and community and school leaders in each area to gauge attitudes, perceptions and expectations regarding education. My research questions will be refined through dialogue with and involvement of participants. As my findings begin to coalesce, I intend to actively share them with each community through informal methods as well as formal strategies such as a series of meetings with parents, teachers, school officials, and other local organizations working with the education system. I especially hope to share my discoveries with my participants, who, ideally, will view my research as an opportunity for mutual learning.

References:

United Nations (2007). Millennium Development Goals Indicators. Retrieved October 1, 2007 from http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals.

Video clip of me explaining my project:

Windows Media
Quicktime

100% Catracho

In its history, the Honduran national team has only made it to the World Cup once and that was in 1982. Despite this lack of success, the love of the Catrachos (Hondurans) for the National Team, is rivaled only by their love for their children (on good days). On game nights, the town shuts down and there is soccer on every television in Copan Ruinas. Not that you need a TV to know how the game is progressing; the town erupts in cheers that echo throughout Copan when Honduras scores a goal. Here el futbol (soccer) is the opiate of the masses. "It's more than our national pastime," my friend Luis tells me, "el futbol is our drug. When there is a game, we can all forget about our problems and Honduras's problems and just be happy and in the moment."

Saturday night, I got to experience the national drug first hand. My friend Enrique organized a bus to transport a group to Sap Pedro Sula for the Honduras v. Canada World Cup qualifying game. For 500L (about $25) a pop we got tickets to the game and transportation to and from the stadium (3ish hours each way). As the bus pulled away from Copan at 2pm, I felt suddenly relieved that Issis and Cecia (two of Graham's sixth grade girls) were sitting behind us. Without them, I would have been the sole female on a bus on a bus teeming with testosterone.

Our first, and only, pit stop on the way to the game, turned out to be a beer run. The guys loaded up on Salva Vida and Port Royal and proceeded to drink for the last hour of the bus ride (apparently completely legal in Honduras - Mississippi Delta, you are in good company). We arrived at Olympic Stadium in San Pedro Sula around 6:00pm, and even though the game wouldn't begin for over an hour, the atmosphere was already charged. The vendors, some pregnant, some under 12, were aggressive and sold everything you can imagine. Little Ceaser's Pizza, cold beer, fried meat on a stick, ice cream in a bag, Popeyes, empanadas, face paint, cigarettes, the options seemed endless.

Between the stands and the field was a cement wall encircled with barbed wire and a deep pit that ran along the circumference of the field. Within this protective barrier were about forty riot police stationed around the field. Fans, it seemed, could occasionally get too unruly at Olympic Stadium. When the players finally came on the field, the stadium erupted in cheers.

The first goal came early on in the game and Honduras spent the rest of the half up 1-0. There was little excitement and Honduras played very defensively. It was not until Act 2 that the Latin American drama began. Canada came back to tie up the game 1-1 and from that moment on, Oscar quality performances were made by all. To be fair, Honduras's second goal was magnificent, but it hardly made up for the amount of time the players were wasting laying on the ground. Did I mention, that many Honduran fans celebrated each goal by throwing whatever they had in their hands into the air - including full cups of beer? I was able to dodge the beer bullets, but the woman sitting in front of me was not so lucky. In the end, Honduras won 3-1 and has a solid chance of making it to the 2010 South Africa World Cup. They play Jamaica again on October 15. Which leaves me with a difficult question: Should I watch the World Cup Qualifier or the last presidential debate? That I can even ask such a question is proof that I still have a long way to go before I become 100% Catracha.

Students and sofas and soccer*! Oh my!

Mornings in Copan are pretty glorious, especially on the weekends. A typical Saturday consists of waking up, eating a scrumptious breakfast of locally grown or produced fruits, vegetables, coffee, and eggs, sitting on our porch basking in the sun, and enjoying the view of the mist rising over the mountains.

This Saturday was no different. After breakfast, I headed into town to check out the seventh annual Cabildo Infantil (Youth Town Council) of Copan Ruinas. On Tuesday, I started observing at a primary school called La Estanzuela located about 5 kilometers from Copan. The students had spent most of their week working to create a book on the environment (the theme of the Cabildo Infantil this year) that would represent their school at the youth council. Like every school in the municipality of Copan Ruinas, they elected a student a student mayor** who would present the book at the council.

After seeing the kids (and their teachers) working so hard on the project, I was excited to see the program in action. I walked into Copan's municipal buildings around 9am and there were excited kids milling around all over the conference hall. Along the wall of the hall several tables had been set up to display the books that had been submitted. There were a lot of really neat entries, but I think La Estanzuela's book was one of the best. I hope that they won first place!***

After watching the kids get settled in and start working on projects (they had to create something useful out of a bag of "trash.") I said my goodbyes and headed back out to the town square to meet up with Graham.

In Copan Ruinas, it seems, couches are only sold as part of a three-piece set. This reality has been holding us back from upgrading from our plastic chairs to something a little more comfortable. We've almost bought couches several times. There was the set in Gallo mas gallo (the Honduran version of Walmart) that was cheap, but on closer observation, aready broken. We tried to hire a local carpenter to build us a couch, but that would have cost almost as much as the three-piece set. We were frustrated. Last week, we had a lucky break. Another couple at the Mayatan School decided they wanted to buy a loveseat and we agreed to go in on a three-piece furniture set for 5,900L. We hit a few snags along the way and ended up paying more than we'd hoped, but by noon our living room was complete with a heinous black, early-nineties, geometric print couch!

*The soccer part of this segment is getting its own entry. Check it out.

** I will soon be starting a blog about my Fulbright research on the Honduran education system. The first entry will touch on the story of Vanessa****, the little girl who was elected student mayor of La Estanzuela. If you are interested, please check it out.

*** La portada (the cover) of La Estanzuela's book won first place!

**** I will not be using the real names of students in my posts.

Climbing El Elefante

After three days of bottomless coffee and sweets and sitting through presentations at the Project Honduras Conference, I was itching to get outside and move around. After a lovely brunch of loroco, quesillo, and egg scramble, pan de banano, crepas con mermelada y nutella, and Jumex Apple Nectar, Graham and I decided to tackle El Elefante (that's the elephant for those non-Spanish speakers out there). As many of you know (because I have bragged about it incessantly), we have a sweet view from our back porch. Off to the right, we can see downtown Copan Ruinas, straight ahead we have a vista of mountains in the distance, and to the left we can see a large hill, dotted with cows and, occasionally, children flying trash bag kites. The hill is commonly known as El Elefante and we've been eager to climb it since we arrived in Honduras a month and a half ago.


So, after brunch, we donned our boots and and sunscreen and headed out for our hike. A hole in the barbed-wire fence along our road marked our trailhead and we both squeezed through without putting our tetanus inoculations to work. Crossing the river was a little trickier. Our options were to:

1. Rock hop.
2. Wade across.
3. Balance on a rusty pipe.
4. Caulk the wagon and float it.

We went with option number #3 and scooted our way across the river without any problems. After crossing the fields where Graham sometimes plays pickup soccer with some Honduran teenagers, we made it to the bottom of El Elefante. Of course, there wasn't exactly a marked path, so Graham and I had to blaze our own trail to the top. Though I ended up ankle deep in mud, we made it to the top and successfully avoided the cows and their massive droppings. The view from the peak was pretty great. Not only could we see the town of Copan Ruinas and the Mayatan School, where Graham works, we could see our own house too!

In the land of the taxis . . .

I love Copan Ruinas. Even though navigating the cobblestone streets on foot can be, at times, treacherous, there is a general understanding that if you have somewhere to go, you walk. Sometimes, in cases of sudden rainfall or a load too heavy to carry, you might catch a three-wheeled mototaxi, but walking reigns as the transportation of choice in Copan Ruinas.

Not so in Tegucigalpa. I arrived in the Honduran capital on Tuesday after a comfy, but long (eight hour!), bus ride from Copan Ruinas and quickly learned that gringas who don’t know the city have only one option: hail a cab. I didn’t walk more than twenty consecutive feet again until I got back to Copan.

The cabs in Teguc are pretty crazy. Getting inside one of them takes a great leap of faith – faith that the taxista knows where he is going (frequently not the case), that he will not rip you off (no meters, lots of arguing in Spanish), and that the car will not explode before you get to your destination (I could see the street through the floor of at least one cab).

Despite the challenges of Tegucigalpa transit, my trip to the capital was very valuable. I met my contacts at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras: Natasha, the U.S. Cultural Affairs Officer and Karla, the Cultural Exchange Specialist. Between the two of them, I think they know half of the educational leadership working in Tegucigalpa. Within twenty minutes of my arrival at the Embassy, they were making calls and, suddenly, I had a full schedule of meetings with leaders in Honduran education.

I kicked things off on Wednesday morning with a meeting with Jeff Lansdale, a Cornell educated gringo who is director of the Honduras Improving Student Achievement Project (MIDEH). MIDEH is responsible for the creation and implementation of the new Honduran national curriculum in Spanish and Mathematics. I also met with Bill Cartwright, former human rights lawyer and the current national director of The Riecken Foundation an organization installing bibliotecas publicas (public libraries) throughout Honduras.

In the afternoon, I headed over to the offices of USAID and met with Cynthia Chassy. She recently relocated from USAID South Africa to serve as director of the USAID Office of Education in Honduras. Finally, I headed to the Peace Corps Headquarters on foot! Though the headquarters was less than two blocks from my hotel, I managed to get lost en route and I found myself in yet another taxi. When I finally arrived, I spoke with Alejandrina Carrasco (the only native Honduran I met with), one of the Peace Corps directors. She and several PC volunteers are working actively with a handful of other organizations to convince the Honduran Ministry of Education to integrate civic education into the national curriculum. Their program is adapted from Project Citizen, an educational initiative started in schools throughout the United States.

My evening was rounded out with an event at the Alianza Francesa. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will tell you that I ate baleadas and rebuffed, in Spanish, the French Ambassador’s efforts to get me to sing karaoke in English. What a diplomatic nightmare.

Machine Washable?

Packing, for some of us, is a painful practice that usually results in a severely over-stuffed suitcase. When packing for a year, the selection process, of clothes in particular, can be agonizing. Apparently, this was not the case for Graham. He wisely limited himself to two pairs of khakis (the pants demanded by his teaching dress code at the Mayatan School) that could be washed at the end of each week. Brilliant . . .

. . . that is until you decide to play fútbol (soccer) with your students during recess.

I was writing emails at the Guacamaya School around 2pm today, when I heard my cell phone ringing. It was Graham and he had an emergency. He quickly relayed to me that he had fallen backwards into a huge hole full of mud (much to the delight of his students) and had destroyed his pants. This presented a problem for the following reasons:

1. I had the only keys to the house.
2. There was a parent meeting at 4pm.
3. We did not (and still do not) have a washing machine.
4. He only had two pairs of work pants.
5. His other pair of khakis were at the lavendería (laundry service).
6. These were his favorite $8 gap khakis he’d bought at Goodwill.

Of course, I rushed home to let Graham into the house, but we were at a bit of a loss. Then we remembered (as it began to rain), we do, it turns out, have an outdoor station for hand-washing. It includes:

1. One large sink.
2. One large basin with ridges.
3. A faucet.
4. A drain.

After thirty minutes of scrubbing, we were amazed. We had saved Graham’s pants using the most tested and true method of cleaning clothes. And, more importantly, we found a new (old) way to save money, electricity, and get exercise!

Our crash course in hand-washing clothes was just another adventure in our transition to the day-to-day routine of living in Copan. And, after a long first week of teaching (for Graham) and Spanish classes (for me), all I can say is: ¡Gracias a dios que hoy es viernes!

Check out Graham hand-washing his pants!