Capacitation-ing - or - The Art of the Charla – or – How to Integrate in 360 days – or – the Mitzvah finger puppet kit

08.08.08
The Loroco Rock

This AM at 5:30 I went to purchase loroco (local edible flower) in Bo. el Tigre with Olfania, the lil sis of Elma. I took pictures of the white flower and the petit woman as she climbed up the slippery log ladder to pick the flowers from the canopy upon which they grow and then toss them down to her awaiting daughter who collected them one by one. Back in mi casa I added a section on the freshly picked flower to the cookbook's layout. (I started a new project for me-myself-and I: a Traditional Copan/Honduran Cookbook)
After that, I went with Monchito to visit the Mayan Chorti Goat Farm Project. There we talked with brother Herman about his collaboration with a group of women in la Pintada, Copan to see if they would give Capacitationes to our group of Chorti women. (The Chortis are an indigenous group here in Honduras, basically the descendants of the Mayan Indians) Herman was keen on the idea and said that we could even do the workshop at the finca! So that is the plan as of now—teach our Chorti woman of Cabañas how to make dolls out of tusa (dried corn husk) and other crafts to sell in their future microempresa (small business).
After that we went to the Monitores de Salud (health monitors) meeting to find me two counterparts to go to the Taller Emergencias Obstétricas in Gracias, Lempira this upcoming Tuesday. Finally found two women willing to go, and so I sent the info to those organizing the taller and I guess we are off this Tuesday to Gracias.

***

The second Project Citizen session in the elementary school in Bo. Morazan went great this past tuesday, the kids really liked the activities I did with them, were appropriate and very participativos…so that was great. I didn’t have time to finish all we needed to do before I leave for next week, and so I am going in tomorrow to talk them through the next step: Identifying the problems in the community.

English Classes in Bo. Morazon are also advancing and I have pretty much left the PC TEAM manual in the dust, but will refer back to it again sometime. I need to think of some different ways to engage the students, esp. since the levels are so uneven in some cases. Here that is a huge problem…how the learning process can be hindered because some kids slow others down…it must be frustrating for all: The quick and the slow. I can only imagine…they hardly have enough teachers let alone time and resources available to divide the kids into levels of advancement.

08.15.08
Get into the groove. It’s a Mitzvah!
So after a rough start in August I am now officially learning my trade. Who I am and what I am suppose to be doing here. I guess it does take about a year to integrate, 365 days, give or take a few.
First thing first, you’ve gotta be able to communicate. And not just in the local language, but in the local customs. Speaking Spanish only gets you halfway in the door, you’ve got to speak it in the way of the people with whom you are addressing—or you might as well be speaking it backwards, or with a big post-it on your forehead that reads: you may find me to be slightly retarded or stupid, but just smile back please. That is that.
***
Today will forever be known as the Honduran Mitzvah, because today is the day that I met Ellen. A real nice Gringa y Jewish lady who never leaves home without gummy finger puppets in her purse and used to play bass guitar in a church band.
Anyway, Ellen is going to be working in the Copan area helping raise funds for educational projects. She came to Cabañas because she somehow heard about a project for a kindergarten in Montagua. It turned out, the price for a school was too much for her or her group, but I’m going to work with Obeniel to see if we can do a proposal for a school where the Municipalidad provides one portion of the funding/materials and her group donates another. Small projects are what she is interested in instead of doing something really big, so we can get some projects done and documented and then perhaps do a bigger project… She was very emotional in meeting me, saying she had been waiting to find me, and had goosebumps. I guess she rrreally wants to help out. It’s actually a perfect team because I have the contacts now in the community that took me a yr to make and she has the pisto and the ability to get more of it! Score, no? Double win? We will see, right?

Anyway, after I had that brief and unexpected meeting, there was the meeting of the corporation municipal, and in that I presented the tourism project and had juan monroy sign the compromiso so that we may pass for his property, make new cenderos (paths), make different places where the tourists can rest, ect, ect. …Napo said one day he, I and monchito will go to Teguc to present our project to the Institute of Turismo, and try to secure funding for it…so I will have to have some stuff prepared for that and bug Napo so that it happens. Then Lastenia from the OGN of OCDIH showed up and she gave me the list for the participantes for the capacitacion that we will have here for the mujeres that are going to be learning how to make Tusa dolls for the microempresa they will establish…so that is todo cheque. Once I get the go ahead from brother Herman, we will teach our ladies how to be crafty!

Anyway, all and all, a really good day. No hay luz. But did go for a run and took the icy cold shower that I know, a year before, would’ve brought me near tears. I am proud. Will not hide it.

08.17.08
On the floor
I don’t know why, even though I now have furniture that I am still happiest in my house when I’m sprawled out on the cold tile floor…could be that the floor is kept muy clean, that its my house, that this is my only true home in the world. It’s so crazy to think about that Home=honduras and job=community development worker.

Went off to Copan today to meet with the only other blue-eyed blond-haired Jew in Honduras, Ellen, who with the help of churches is going to do some projects in the schools of Cabañas. Backs are both scratched, and she said she would like to help me with funds for my cookbook, so that is really exciting, it could really happen!
From idea to accion, in just one brief meeting.

***

I was thinking today, as I cleaned my all-tile floor, how I love this job, how I can’t imagine doing any other kind of work…getting to connect with people, in all the frustrating and rewarding ways that can happen, and also getting to use my talents when ever I can…its great.
Big question for the day: Is fund raising an essential part of development work? Is that really sustainable? Will the buzz word always be sustainable?… Not so sure… but at least its helping the schools. And that is something I felt was missing from my service.


08.23.08
And the high rolls on
It’s nice to be home. And mean it. A bit of sweeping, vegi-cleaning, cereal and detergent buying, con una caja de jugo de naranja en el refi and I’m all set…I wont jump right back into work, give myself the rest of the day to unwind post-taller...

The workshop, Emergencias Obstétricas, done through the PeaceCorps’ health program, run by Helmuth was the best capacitation I’ve been to thus far. Not only was the material interesting, well presented, and extremely applicable and important for Honduras’ most remote communities, but the people + counterparts there were really great.
I brought a monitora de salud, Nelly de Carmen from Peñas I and a Partera (midwife) from las Lomas, Maria Valle. I didn’t know them at all before this, I’d seen Maria Valle before in meetings, but never Nelly. Maria had a great attitude the whole time and I feel like I really lucked out with her.
The last day of the capacitation we did a practica in one of the nursing schools there and it actually went a lot smoother than I thought it would…
That evening we had a nice dinner and then the diplomas were presented. We also had to create a plan de accion with our counterparts for how we are going to implement the project in our sites. For our team, we decided we could do a session during the monthly monitores de salud meetings in el centro de salud. So I actually think it will be implemented here with little resistence if we can truly blend into those meetings that are already existing…I will talk to the nurses at the health center tomorrow…

08.27.08
Today was the second part to a capacitation/modulo/civics class 101 about the political parties here in Honduras and the history of corrupt leaders and the wack voting system that has existed for years and is just recently being modified to be more, eh, democratic! Oh the word poder…power and politics, what the hell is power and politics anyway…just another way to end up in war. Tranquil existence was obviously not our species’ destiny. I honestly thought today, why did we evolve to where we are, these utterly ridiculous systems and complicated ways to win and loose money, and live and die…has anything our species accomplished, or accidentally stumbled upon actually benefited us or the earth’s existence? Not to mention other species? ….deep, deep sigh.

***
Ermas came over tonight for grupo intercambio, even though it was the second time this week that only he came…thanks ladies! Way to get the band back together again! He went off on this tangent about hanging out with his friends in the barn in the back of the pick-up truck just drinking beers and talking and talking and just being on the same page…and man do I miss that, so much!
It made me pretty damn sad because I rarely think about the kind of friendships I am missing out on while I'm here. The true deep connection you can feel with people who you know and love and can finish your thoughts/sentences and just touch in on every level and just hold your mind in their hands and put you at ease with whatever it is you are contemplating…I think a million things in a day that I can’t share with anyone here because as I told Ermas, I’m scared to offend the culture, the people…I want to yell at men here who pissst and catcall for my attention, but I can’t call them f***** pendejos because ladies just don’t talk like that…damn this environment can be suppressive! Small town life, right?
…God I miss Ben and Jerrys Chunky Monkey…I miss eating ice cream in bed and having a glass of wine. I miss walking the city blocks on cool summer nights… miss feeling sexy and alive, miss being a woman in America, never thought I would understand what that really meant, leave it to a small Honduran village in the western part of the country to teach me who I am, who I can’t ever be, who I would like to be, one day…

08.29.08
Charla-ing – or the Art of the Charla
I’m where I ought to be perhaps, discovering my own charla-ing power.(A Charla is kinda like giving a lecture) Though yesterdays Project Citizen session didn’t go as well as I would’ve hoped, I blame the material more so than the students or I…though they were not sooo attentive this time. The way I see it, doing it this time around I am definitely learning what works and what doesn’t work—the activities that are best understood, and useful for the project, and thus this will help me when I implement it in centro basico, which is where I’d like to go next with it.

This morning I went over to the centro de salud to do the first charla from the capacitation for emergencies obsetricas that we went to Gracias to learn. The two other women who went with me were not at the meeting so they could not participate, but hopefully next time I will give them a call ahead of time so we may have something prepared as a team. The little charla went really well, and I can feel myself becoming a better speaker in front of the Hondurans, a few frases clavos and you can present almost any tema (topic) better. It’s also a question of intonation, and knowing how to build up a question and then give the response, also how to fish the audiences out for a response—these are all skills I am learning here…I guess I’m honestly learning how to be a better public speaker, which is a huge part of the job. Being motivational tambíen, doesn’t hurt.

So today I’ve gone from preparing for grupo intercambio to English classes to tourism comitee reunions to proyecto ciudadano sessions to proyectos pequenos escolares proposals to emergencia obstetricas charlas…what next? It’s great though to be able to accumulate projects one-by-one and hopefully realize something in the end. Whatever, whenever the end may be. . .