Spring Break

I am terrible at updating this blog. But two weeks after returning to Tegucigalpa, I am going to finally post about my spring break. Four friends and I traveled on Wednesday morning of our break to La Ceiba, where we stayed at the hottest hotel of our lives, and had some delicious baleadas for dinner. That night we were joined by another member of our group, and the next day we went to Cayos Cochinos. This was a gorgeous little collection of islands off the coast. We swam, had fresh fish, and visited an indigenous village. It was really beautiful, the whole time we felt like we were in a postcard. This was also where the last Survivor was shot.
The next day, we were joined by the remaining two members of our group and left for what was going to be the bulk of our trip, La Moskitia. There ended up being 8 of us, 7 Calvin students and 1 Honduran. We woke up at 3:30am Friday morning to leave. We thought there was a 4am bus, but got conflicting information about bus times. We decided to be ready by 4am anyways. So we sat at the bus station in the middle of the night for an hour or so until we found a bus to Tocoa, which was where we would catch the trucks to La Moskitia. We probably sat on the bus for an hour or two before we actually began on our journey, but eventually got to Tocoa and were able to find a truck with little problem. There were a bounty of trucks to choose from, and everyone was eager for us to use their trucks. We eventually settled on one, and fit the 8 of us, as well as one child and another man who we were paying to take us. We had wooden planks to sit on, and also shared our space with 15 or so crates of beer. The truck ride took about 5 hours, but the scenery was beautiful and it was an interesting experience. We held on for dear life, but thankfully no one fell out. For the last few hours we were driving along the coast, and at a few parts, through the ocean. This trip cannot be good for these poor trucks.
We arrived at Batalla, and took a two hour boat ride to our destination for the night, Raista, a small village with very simple but surprisingly comfortable accommodations. This was also the only place we stayed in La Moskitia with a shower. From this point on we got really, really dirty. We decided that might to go to Las Marías, the part of La Moskitia that was more tropical rainforests rather than beaches.
The next morning we took a 7 hour boat ride to Las Marías, again sitting on wooden planks. Luckily the scenery was sufficiently beautiful to distract us from our sore behinds. The sun was a force to be reckoned with, but we liberally applied sunscreen the whole time, and took many swim breaks in the wonderful river water. We arrived in Las Marías, and stayed at a hotel that was more rustic than the first, but still comfortable. We decided to go on a three days hike in Pico Bonita, a gorgeous mountain a few more hours into Las Marías. As our clothes had become quite dirty and stinky, we washed them in the river and they ended up being surprisingly clean.
The next morning we filled 5 backpacks with what we would need for the next three days, left the rest of our stuff at the hotel, bought our food for the next three days (beans, rice, chicken soup mix, coffee, oatmeal, and tang) and got going. We took canoes right out of Pocahontas to get to Pico Bonita, and it was another beautiful trip. This one only took about two hours. After this canoe trip we arrived at the base of the mountain, where we hiked about three hours up to where our cabin was. This was a bit of a difficult hike, as we had our heavy backpacks and it was all uphill. We reached the cabin eventually, and were elated to be able to rest. We had drank most of our water on the way up the mountain, so we inquired where we could get water to drink and if there was a river to bathe. We were told there was a river nearby where we would have to get our water and where we could bathe. We didn’t have anything to purify our water, and we were all a little hesitant to drink out of a stream, but we didn’t have any other choice. We changed into our swimsuits, grabbed our water bottles and headed down to the river. The “river” ended up being a few leech infested puddles. Needless to say, we were not able to bathe there. I will say though, that by the end of those three days we were so dirty that we happily embraced that puddle, and bathed the best way we could. The water we got to drink did seem very pure though, and hopefully parasite free. None of us have gotten sick yet, so with any luck we are clean.
We went to bed early, and slept in some of the most uncomfortable beds I have ever been in. They were able the size of twin beds (maybe a bit smaller), and basically just slabs of wood. The girls shared two to a bed, and thank goodness that we all smelled equally bad. We cooked for ourselves for the three days we were up there, beans and rice for just about every meal. Not the most delicious, but it made us appreciate all the different foods we had when we get back.
The hike itself was great fun. It was difficult on the way up, as it was all uphill, and once we reached the peak we all just wanted to take naps. The way back down was quite a bit easier. We fell many times, but the moss generally cushioned our blows. We were all exhausted after the hike, but probably did not sleep much better the second night than the first. We were woken up bright and early the next morning by our guides playing with their machetes directly under our cabin.
The day we left it was raining, so the hike back down the mountain was a lot of fun. Very, very slippery. We backtracked and to make a long story short ended up back in La Ceiba for the night. We stayed at a place that functions as a church camp, and that was a lot of fun. The campers were coming the next day, so we were able to stay there. We bought hot dogs and stuff for s’mores and cooked out.
Well this was my brief recap of spring break. Writing this two weeks after spring is not ideal for remembering details, but I tried. I am now in my third and final class for the semester. We only have about four and a half weeks left, I can’t believe how quickly this semester has gone. Next week is our rural research. We will be going out into rural Honduras and live in a small community for a week, from what I have heard it’s about 50 houses, and no electricity. So I will get a temporary new host family, and we will basically be following them around for a week to see what life is like. We are also doing some mini research projects so we will be working on that. I am in a group for malnutrition in children. It should be fun. That week we are also meeting with some peace corp volunteers and visiting some caves.

Getting ready for spring break!

Well I haven’t done a whole lot since returning from Copan, but I figured I would do a blog post on some odds and ends before leaving for spring break tomorrow. I am pretty excited about spring. Tomorrow four other girls and I are leaving for La Ceiba, a pretty vibrant town up along the North coast, close to the Bay Islands where most of the tourists in Honduras go. We will be here until Friday, and then leave for our real adventure, La Moskitia. La Moskitia is a region of Honduras to the East of La Ceiba. It is the largest undeveloped rainforest in Central America, just north of the Amazon. It is mostly unreachable by land, so my friends and I will be taking trucks along the beach to get there. Once we get there we will mostly get around by boat or foot as there are no roads. There are 8 of us going on this leg of the trip, and it might be nice have a bit of a larger group to go on hikes and travel with, it also makes it cheaper. Going to a undeveloped rainforest is a lot more expensive than you would think. La Moskitia unfortunately has become a big area with the drug trade, with drugs coming from Colombia and getting passed through Honduras and to the Mexican drug cartels. A speaker in class today told us that La Moskitia is the “center of the universe for cocaine transportation”. As long as we stay on the beaten path with our guides we should be fine. I really don’t know what to expect, but it should definitely be an adventure.

In other news, we are just about halfway done with our time here in Honduras. We only have 54 more days until the end of the semester. I will be here a bit longer since my parents are coming down the day the group leave and we will be here for another week or so. I think we are going to go back to Copan and then up to the Bay Islands, which will be fun and it will be nice to see more of Honduras before I leave. It’s crazy; I don’t know where the time has gone. When we get back from spring break we will be in our last class. I can’t believe that everyone at Calvin is on spring break already. I am a bit jealous that they are all able to go home, but spring break here will be fun, and I will be home soon enough. I am trying to figure out all my summer plans, which is significantly harder when you are out of the country. I think I have found a good internship for the summer, and I will be happy if that all works out. I think I am also going to take some online classes at the community college and try to stay busy. Well that’s all for now- need to finish up packing for tomorrow.

Travel, travel, travel

So this was a pretty busy week. Last weekend was one of our two three day weekends, so a group of 8 of us decided to go to El Salvador. It turned out to be great fun. We left Friday right after class, and just barely made it in time to catch the bus to the border, the first of our many fun bus rides that day. Because we couldn’t make it on time for the Tica Bus- the nicer, direct to Sal Salvador bus, we ended up taking chicken buses all the way there. The bus to the border was supposed to take two hours, and ended up taking about 4 ½ (when will we learn?), and was incredibly hot and very full of people. These chicken buses stop every few minutes to pick up and drop off people, so they can take forever. It is, however, a very cheap way to travel and you always meet interesting people. Well we made it to the border, realized that there was no way we would be able to make it to San Salvador that night, and changed up our plans a bit. We ended up spending the night in San Miguel. So a few bus trips, taxi rides, arguments about whether to stay in a cheap or safe hotel, and some unsavory characters, we ended up a nice hotel. We were stressed, irritated, and wondered what we had gotten into. We went out for a nice dinner and then went to bed early. The trip was uphill from there.
We took a luxury bus to San Salvador the next morning, watched Fireproof in Spanish, and arrived in the city before 9 am. We found a bus that would drop us off right at out hostel, so that was nice. Our hostel ended up being fabulous, and the beach was gorgeous. It is apparently a great surfing beach, so it was full of foreigners around our same age. The water was wonderful, and though none of us surfed, we had a terrific time.
I would say that one of the highlights of our trip was the hostel we ended up staying at. It just so happened that the day we arrived they were having a birthday party for the owner and his son in law, and they invited us. We had a blast. They gave us great food, lots of rum (which was mostly drunk by a German who was staying at the hostel) and made us feel right at home. El Salvadorians really know how to throw a party. They made us feel right at home. They had dancing and karaoke. Lots of karaoke. They were singing until about 7 o’clock the next morning, and the karaoke machine was about four feet from our room. We all had a difficult time being angry since we had had such a fun time.
The next day we pretty much just bummed around the beach and relaxed. We met some really interesting backpackers who had been traveling all throughout Central America for several months. It was interesting being around foreigners after just being around our small group of Americans for such a long time.
We decided, after the difficult trip to El Salvador, that we would take the Tica Bus back home. That was nice and easy. It ended up being about 10 hours to get back to Tegucigalpa, but was significantly less stressful to not need to change buses.
We got back Monday night, and then had to immediately pack up again for our class trip to San Pedro Sula and Copan the next day. That trip ended up being really fun too. We first went to a maquila (clothing factory), and saw the conditions there and heard some speakers about that industry. It was really interesting to see a factory. We had some difficulties getting in, even after everything had been Okayed the day before. Someone said that we needed authorization from the US government, which we clearly did not have, but it ended up working out fine. The maquila we went to was one of the nicer ones. It had air conditioning, and many different services for the workers. They told us that this factory was also unionized, which was surprising, but there were no union representatives there, so who knows how it actually is. After leaving the maquila we met with a workers rights group for maquila workers, so we heard a bit of the other side of the story from them. The clothing industry here is really in a hard situation. The US buys the majority of Honduras’ clothing, but Honduran clothing exports only make up about 2% of the total clothing imports in the US. Honduras then is easily replaceable in the eyes of the US, but Honduras needs the US to import their clothes. This puts Honduras in the unfortunate situation that they need the US to stay happy with them so they continue to buy their clothing. But back to the workers rights group. Maquila workers work in horrible conditions many times. Most of the factories are not air conditioned, and they workers are forced to work overtime without being paid. The workers are trying to form a union, but as soon as the companies find out they are trying to unionize they are fired and blacklisted. They had some great success stories though. One maquila in particular was closed after trying to unionize, and they got the support of university students all over the US and Canada and stopped buying that particular clothing brand, and the workers got their jobs back and got better working conditions and pay for overtime.
The next day we went to a Chiquita banana plantation. That was super cool. I have never actually given that much thought as to where my bananas come from. So they explained the process to us, showed us around, etc. One thing that I found interesting was how strict the regulations were for bananas going to the US. The bananas had to be completely without blemishes or anything unattractive, as well as a certain size and shape. The man who was taking us on the tour said that Americans are getting increasingly more and more picky with our bananas. The banana that didn’t cut it stayed in Central America. After the plantation we went to a banana workers union, which was similar to the maquila workers right group.
After San Pedro Sula, we left to go to the Copan Ruins for a few days. It was quite fun. The weather was horrendously hot while we were there, and the drive there (in our retired school bus without air conditioning in 100 degree plus weather) was a little rough at times, but we managed to keep hydrated and in fairly good moods. The ruins were so much fun, and the town was great. We just kind of took it easy and enjoyed ourselves. We went to a bird sanctuary one of the days, that was pretty neat too. I will be going back with my parents when they come down in May.
So now we are all back in Tegucigalpa, and happy to not be on a bus for a few days. We have a week here, and then a week and a half of spring break. The semester continues to fly by, as of today we only have 62 days left in the semester. Once we get back from spring break it will be a race to the end. Hopefully we can manage to get everything done that we want. Tomorrow we are going to do some picture sharing, so I will try to finally put up some pictures here.

Embassy visit and Ojojona

It’s hard to believe, but this week will be the end of my Spanish intensive class, as well as our first development class. The first week or two I felt like this semester would never end, for better or worse. It’s hard to believe it is almost a third of the way over. This week is one of the harder weeks academically, with two papers and our final in Spanish. Oh, I also have a presentation to do in Spanish. Sometimes these classes are hard to take seriously as real classes, but I am really enjoying them. Yesterday for Spanish class we went out to eat and then to one of my Professor’s favorite bakeries for some cake, it was a lot of fun. Today we visited the American Embassy here in Tegucigalpa. It was interesting, I have always wanted to see an Embassy. It was, unsurprisingly, very nice. Well manicured lawns, and nice areas to sit outside, it was an odd site against the backdrop of Tegucigalpa. We heard four different people from the Embassy speak, and they seemed to have the ability to speak a lot without actually saying much. I felt like we got a little bit of a watered down version of the story. We were supposed to hear from the Ambassador, but he was called out on business. I doubt he ever intended on coming to speak to us. But it was interesting to hear a little more about what was going on with the Embassy, and what they are trying to accomplish in Honduras. One of the most interesting parts was hearing about how they gave out the visas. I still don’t quite understand the whole process, but it was interesting. For non-immigrant visas, you basically have to prove that you have strong ties to Honduras and that you will return. It costs $131 to apply for a Non-immigrant visa, and the refusal rate is 5-40%. There are around 250 applicants every day. The immigrant visas are a little different, someone in the US needs to petition to get someone from Honduras into the country. The fasted that you could get a visa is about 6 months, and it is quite complicated. The application costs $950, which is a huge amount of money here in Honduras, sometimes several months pay. In addition, many times you have to prove you are the biological parent of your child, and these DNA tests cost $800. It’s all quite complicated.

This past weekend a group of us went to Ojojona, a little artsy town about 45 minutes away from Tegucigalpa. It was a very cute little town. It looked like it was attempting to be a tourist trap, but whether it’s off season or many people just don’t know about it, it was not too busy. They had some different arts and crafts, mostly cheap tourist things. Transportation is always interesting here. I will never again take for granted being able to drive myself basically anywhere I want in the States. The drive up took about 2 hours, in a very crowded bus. The way back was a bit shorter, and both times it only cost about 50 cents to ride. Most public transportation here is dirt cheap.

This weekend will start a hectic week. I am going to El Salvador for our three day weekend, and that should be fun. I haven’t heard too many rave reviews of El Salvador, but at the very least it will be a fun experience. Transportation is a little iffy getting there and back, but I’m sure we will work it out. So I will get back on Monday, and on Tuesday we are leaving for San Pedro Sula. This is where I flew in at the beginning of the semester. We will go see some Maquilas (the clothing factories) and banana plantation there, and then go to the Copan Ruins on Thursday. The Copan Ruins are apparently the Paris of the Mayan civilization, and are very cool. I am very excited to see that. We are there until Saturday and then will head back to Tegucigalpa. We then have about a week until spring break, which is still in the works.

So that’s my next few weeks. Not much else going on. It has gotten quite hot here in Tegus, I never knew I could sweat so much. I think I have fully recovered from my illness, and I am hoping for good health the rest of the semester. There are still many ups and downs being here, but I am hoping for more ups and less downs from here on out.

Sickness and CAFTA

Well I had my first experience at a Honduran hospital today. I picked up a little something and had been pretty sick all weekend. A lot of the students from our group have been getting pretty sick, there has been about one person gone per day from class. It might be some sort of flu/virus going around. There are not usually this many students sick, the last two years no one had stayed home from class at all. We got rid of that record nice and quick. I spent my Saturday laying on my bed trying not to move, and making frequent trips to the bathroom. Lovely day. Sunday was a little better, but I woke up this morning quite dizzy and without energy. I decided I should probably go see the doctor. Hondurans love to go to the doctor, they are usually there the first day they show symptoms. The doctor I saw was the doctor that the Calvin students try to see when they are sick. He speaks excellent English, which is great since the last thing I want to do when describing my symptoms is try to translate in my sub-par Spanish. He concluded that I was quite dehydrated, so I got an IV drip. All in all it was pretty easy. I am hoping that this will be my last visit to the hospital as a patient. It all ended up costing about $30. A lot less paperwork than I am used to as well. I am feeling better, and should be able to go to school tomorrow. Ironically enough we will be going to visit a hospital.

Since I was bedridden all weekend I do not have anything incredibly interesting to report on that. On Friday night some of the students were craving American pizza, so I went to Pizza Hut with the girls from my neighborhood and a few of their host sisters. That was fun, but might have been the cause of my sickness. Who knows. Regardless, I don’t think I will be returning to Pizza Hut anytime soon.

I think I had mentioned in a previous blog post how I was surprised at how many American goods were being sold in the stores, as well as how many American food chains, tv channels, etc. there are in Honduras. I found out that most of this is a direct result of the Central America Free Trade Agreement. This agreement, passed in 2005, allowed free trade between The United States and Central America, with the exception of Costa Rica, who did join. The US wanted to open CA up to US services, especially banking, insurance, and telecommunications. Under CAFTA these formerly Honduran companies can be totally owned by US companies. For example, the grocery store I shop at, Pais, is owned by Wal-Mart. I could not for the life of me figure out why this store had the Wal-Mart brand items there, but I have now solved that puzzle. Under this agreement, the US will also receive more intellectual property rights, agriculture, and equal treatment to US companies. The Honduran government wanted to sell more textiles and agriculture to the US, and wanted a decrease in subsidies for US farmers. The US have benefitted greatly off of this agreement, getting everything they wanted, thus basically the same selection of candy, gum, and magazines at the checkout counters of my grocery store as I would find at any Meijer. Honduras has not quite benefitted so much from this agreement. They do export textiles to the US, but it is a bit more expensive than getting the clothes from somewhere in Asia, so a lot of the time their clothes orders come when the US needs clothing quickly. It has raised GDP here in Honduras by about .6%, but then some argue that that money is just going to the few elite here in Honduras. I don’t really know where I stand on all of this. To be honest I was only vaguely away that CAFTA even existed before now.

Well off to work on homework!

Odds and Ends

So today marks two weeks that I have been in Honduras, it’s pretty crazy. I feel like this semester will be gone in the blink of an eye. I think the setup of my days really make them fly. I leave home at 7:45 and usually get home around 5. Combined with the fact that I go to bed around 10, the days go by so fast. My classes have been going very well; we have had some interesting speakers in the last few weeks. Earlier this week we had a speaker come from the World Bank to talk about the Honduran economy, and last week the second to the US Ambassador in Honduras came to talk to our class about the Coup. It is great hearing about the things we are studying from several different perspectives. On an unrelated note I have gotten pretty used to the weather, and am enjoying it quite a bit. Today it was fairly cool, in the 70’s and probably into the 60’s tonight. I am really enjoying the food. My host mama is a great cook, I haven’t disliked anything she has made yet. My body also didn’t react negatively to the change in food, which was good. I usually buy my lunch from the school cafeteria, which is basically four different food stands with similar foods. Everything I have had has been delicious. Deep friend and unhealthy I am sure, but delicious. I usually spend around 20 lempiras for lunch, which is about a dollar. Many times I will just get a fruit salad for about 75 cents. The melon here is in season right now, and quite wonderful.

Today was great; we went to see an organization called Mujeres Valientes, a support group in Nueva Suyapa for women who have been victims of domestic abuse. We heard the stories of a few different women, and then went on a tour of Nueva Suyapa to see some of their houses, and hear more from them in smaller groups. Many of these women had incredibly sad stories, and for them to open up to us was very touching. We could tell that there was still a lot of hurting there, but the group has helped a lot. Mujeres Valientes works mainly by word of mouth. Women will seek out other women when they think that they may be victims of domestic abuse. They have individual counseling, group meetings, and support for other issues, such as cancer. Related to Mujeres Valientes is a microcredit program run by women in Nueva Suyapa. Somewhere around 70-80% of the households in this community are run by women, and this microcredit program is now reaching hundreds of households. I mentioned something about this in an earlier post, but usually financial things will go through the women in the household as they tend to spend the money more wisely, usually on their children rather than alcohol as many men do.

One of the other things we checked out while in Nueva Suyapa was pilas. These pilas are basically concrete structures where families can keep their water. The water only comes on about once a month in these neighborhoods, so the time of the month where the water is turned on, everyone drops what they are doing to fill of their coke bottles, barrels, etc. This water is for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, etc. and has to last a month. The pilas allow families to simply fill up these concrete structures, and have a larger amount of water in one place, instead of filling up 30 or so coke bottles. The pilas were constructed a few years ago, actually with the help of a Calvin group. They were able to build 16, and these went to some of the poorest families, chosen with the help of some of the leaders from Mujeres Valientes.

Last weekend I went to the Mayoreo, which is basically a giant open air market that happens every weekend in downtown Tegus. Countless people come in from the rural areas to sell their agricultural products, as well as everything from clothing to pirated dvds. It was one of the busiest places I have ever been, but it was definitely an experience. On Sunday I went to a family get together with my host family, that was a lot of fun. I also went to dinner with my host family and a Calvin grad who lived with my families several years ago, and her parents who were here for the weekend. She is not living in Honduras and teaching a few hours away from Tegus. It was nice to talk to her. Well it is almost 10 o’clock- way past my bedtime. I think this is where I will end today.

Retreat and Global Village Project

Well I had a very interesting weekend. It was our retreat/a little bit of rural research. For our retreat we went up to Siguatepeque, a really beautiful little city way up in the mountains. It was a newer camp that looked like it hosts similar groups. They had a high ropes course that we did as groups, which basically entailed us trying to do all these different ropes course activities while 50 feet off the ground, harnessed in of course. It was quite a bit of fun once we realized we would not be falling to our deaths. My group was naturally the one that fell the most, and we have the cuts and bruises to show for it. The next day we went to Los Pinos, a place even higher in the mountains. The road up there was like nothing I have ever been on, I almost had to stop looking out the window and just trust that the driver was not going to let us tumble off the mountains. He is a great drive though, and we did not die. He has been driving for Calvin students for the past 5 years, and it a very nice guy. Los Pinos was easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The view was something out of a calendar or travel catalog. They had many great hiking trails, and we went on some at dusk and then a few of us went again before breakfast. It was breathtaking. The area we stayed at is clearly being developed in hopes of increasing tourism, but the difficulty getting there can be a challenge. You can hire people to take you up there. Also, while Honduras has never been dependent on tourism, the coup last summer has really kept a lot of tourists out of the country.

Today we traveled to the rural areas to see some of the projects going on there(Warning: this might be a little long-winded, I learned a lot today, haha). I group leaders are really involved with things in the rural areas, one of the focuses of Association for a Just Society is to get families in rural areas their land titles. Most of these people do not hold the deeds to their land, and usually several parties, including the government, claim to own the land and require payment. This can get very, very expensive. So they have helped tens of thousands of people get ownership of their land.

I have been told that to see the real Honduras you must get off the main roads. So that is what we did, and it was really great. First we went to La Oficina Proyecto de Desarrollo Yure, an organization that is working on HIV/AIDS prevention with youth. They work with young adults, as well as the workers who work far from home (one of the big spreaders of HIV/AIDS), as well as sex workers. AIDS is a big problem in Honduras, something I did not know. While there are only 66,000 people reported to have HIV/AIDS, this is only the information coming from the state institutions, and the numbers are probably closer to 200-300,000. This, in a population of 7 million, makes it the Central American country with the highest HIV/AIDS rate. The government will pay for anti retroviral drugs to treat HIV, but the problem is that they have so few drugs that the state will only give it to them after they have started showing signs for being infected with AIDS, a point where it is almost too late. The drugs cost more than 5 times the average Honduran salary, so buying them yourself is almost not an option. One interesting fact relating to this- the US has a military base in Honduras which is the largest military base in Central America. Honduran law stipulates that no other country can have a permanent military base in the country, so the US changes all their personnel here every six months, making it temporary. They have been doing this for over 15 years. Anyways, Hondurans blame this military base on the HIV/AIDS problem in Honduras. The area surrounding the base does have the highest HIV/AIDS rates, but I don’t know if that has been proven or not. It is the accepted belief though.

After this we visited a health clinic. This clinic operates mostly thanks to various American agencies. Their funds and supplies are all donated. It focuses on children, and helps quite a few people. Honduras is one of the best countries when it comes to vaccinations. They have virtually no polio or measles because of this. The clinic has helped the area reach almost no infant deaths in the last few years. They are doing great things with pregnant women too, especially women infected with HIV/ AIDS. Each visit costs only 10 lempiras, which is about 50 cents. Those who cannot pay will still receive treatment.

For the last leg of the journey we visited many houses with the Global Village Project. This is a really interesting thing. What they do is basically start off with giving one family a certain number of chickens, pigs, turkeys, or fish. They don’t pay for them, but what they do is give the same number of animals to another family in the village once their animals start reproducing. This is basically how they pay the debt for the animals, instead of cash. Then the next year the second family will give animals to the third, etc. until they arrive back at the first family. Many times the families will voluntarily keep the circle going after they own their animals. They then start the process in another community. Many times the families can make good wages off of selling the eggs or fish or whatever. We probably went to 5 different houses to see these people and their little farms, and they were all great people who benefitted from this a lot. Oh, also, one interesting thing is that the titles for these farms are always in the women’s name. This has to do with several factors. The men can be a bit irresponsible sometimes. Many men are alcoholics, and might sell off the animals for alcohol, or gamble them away. They also give them to the women because this project is meant for poor families, and not usually single men. It was really great seeing these people, I think they enjoyed having 20 “gringas” get overly excited about pigs and chickens. It was really fun.

Tomorrow I am starting my development class, which should be great. We are going to start learning about the coup soon, and we have a lot of insiders coming to speak to our class, which should be great. Very little is actually known about what happened during the coup still. It is great having leaders of this semester who are permanently here, they have so many connections and can help with almost any problem that arises.