Erin Miller

Hola,
Sorry for the delay in communication. Everything is fine here in La Esperanza. We were without power for a couple of days on and off, and about 16 hours straight. A strong storm system moved through town. Temperatures plummeted and the air filled with blowing mist. Rumor is that it was the wind that knocked out the power, but that’s unsubstantiated. Then the entire region of Intibuca had some sort of problem with their internet, and therefore, their phones. But things seem to be working at the moment. The pace of life is slow here, but it becomes a crawl with no power. I guess it is part of the challenge of living in a developing country. It is interesting to talk to people living more normal lives back in the States and to hear about all the things they are doing, like working on projects, or filing taxes, and to realize that the biggest thing I accomplished in the last 48 hours was peeing in the dark. It gets REALLY dark here, darker than I have ever seen it anywhere. When the power is out, you cannot even see the edge of the street you are walking on. The biggest power outage started Saturday night. All us gringos were hanging out at our favorite over-priced bar in town (still about a dollar a beer) when the power cut. The Hondurans all pulled out their cell phones to create some light. Our table had ten people with LCD headlamps out immediately.

Despite the slow pace of life, I have actually been managing to make some headway on my project. I am working on setting something up to receive donations for food for the woman in the Albergue, and hopefully that will be up soon. I am going to try to bring food in once a week, every tuesday, and give small talks, or “charlas” every Tuesday and Thursday. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I also make rounds with the woman at the hospital who have either just had an abortion, or just given birth. I enocurage birth control and discuss possible options. I also discuss infant and child nutrition and answer any questions they might have. Today a woman asked me if it mattered what she ate while she was breastfeeding. I said not really, as long as she ate a bit more than usual and she said that she had heard that she couldn’t eat anything green. She was really dissappointed becuase it’s green mango season here now, and she loves them. All Hondurans seem to love unripe mangos. They peel them, cut them up and but salt and chili sauce on them. I’ve been trying to acculturate myself by buying them off of the street vendors. At first its a bit weird to be eating unripened fruit, but its grown on me. I assured the breastfeeding woman that she could continue to eat her mangos. It looks like Wednesdays I will be working with CARE — pronouced “ca-ree.” Its a combo Honduran, USAID project that provides supplemental food and nutrition information to pregnant and breastfeeding woman and infants and children up to age 2, who live in rural areas (sound familiar?) I’ll be traveling all around the region of Intibuca with the group. A bunch of doctors from some midwestern state are coming to La Esperanza March 5-9. The doctors will be traveling with CARE for the week, and I have also been asked to come along, with the promise that I won’t have to translate the whole time. Either way, it sounds like fun.

On our spare time, all us volunteers have also been painting a center in town for children who are born to unwed mothers. The children stay at the center all day while their mothers work, mostly at the market. It was a depressing place that smelled of urine and looked like something on those 20/20 type news specials. We’re working on a solid cleaning and a munch needed new coat of paint, and the place looks better already. Its amazing how fast 15 people can paint a room.

I had a lovely Valentine’s day, possibly one of the best ever. I was incredebly sad to be away from my boyfriend, and to have missed out on the traditional chocolate from my mom, but it was still a pretty great day. I got to spend a day thinking about a boyfriend who loves me, even though we are 2,000 miles apart. After a great chat with the woman at the Albergue all of the children and my host mother and I all took a grand hike up the mountain behind our house. It was a terrific muddy adventure and provided great views of our part of the city. And then after the hike, because it was still relatively early in the evening, I got a reasonably high pressured (and therefore, fast) freezing cold shower. I was just so excited to be able to have lots of water and be able to go quickly, I was ecstatic. It’s amazing how my standards have changed.

Last weekend I took a small trip with the my host mother and the kids. We took a short bus ride to a nearby water park down in the valley by a river. It was peaceful and quiet and clean, and a nice change from the city. We walked by the river, and though the cold front was already moving in, it was warm enough in the valley for a couple of the kids to jump in the pools. I got to spend most of a day just talking and joking with my host family and practicing Spanish.

My birthday is tomorrow and I have been working for a week solid to gather all of the necessary ingrediants to make chocolate chip cookies, and I think I have managed to collect them all. Hopefully it all works out well and the children like them.
I had better head out because we are about to take a tour of a genuine Honduran winery (I have a feeling we will be traveling half an hour to look at a bathtub, but we’ll see how it goes.)

Warm weather has returned here, and I am stoked. I send any of you suffering through a cold spell warm carribean thoughts.
Adios,
Erin