Erin Miller

Not much terribly exciting has happened during the last week. But I have been getting requests for updates from my little corner of the world, and I figure describing a more or less average week might help any possible future volunteers get a better idea of the routine of daily life here.
The problem with trying to describe my daily activities here is that I am often filled with a sense of surrealism. I see so many things everyday that are so far outside my understanding that I stop noticing them. I don’t even blink when I see a donkey-pulled cart flying down a hill much to the thrill of the man driving it and feel the dust coat my sunscreeened skin and fill my mouth so that when I touch my teeth together they grind over the dirt. I see bulls and horses walking unattended down the streets or being pulled behind men and boys riding bicycles. Currently, whole fields are being purposefully torched to prepare them for planting and the valleys are filled with smoke. Everyday, I walk past a talking parrot (even though he usually won’t talk to me). This week I saw a child digging through the garbage in central park. And much to our dismay, our house hasn’t received a single drop of water from the city in five days. Surrounded by these things it makes it easier to understand that if you set a meeting for 9, people will show up around 10, and if the meeting has miraculously started already, they will walk in and noisily introduce themselves, and give a hearty “buenos dias” even in the middle of a speech. It makes it easier to believe that if you are sweating when you get in the shower, your heart might just stop, and that you can go on a walk to look at holes in the ground that go on infinitely without ever reaching a bottom.

the field across the street from our house on fire

burnt fields
So, here it goes, my week:
Monday
Monday morning at the hospital I updated by diabetes club poster so that it had the date for the next club meeting on Friday. I did my usual rounds in the pourperio, talking to women who have recently given birth and are waiting to be discharged home. I talk with them about family planning, breastfeeding, and infant nutrition. Then I went out to the Albergue to check in on the women and see how many there were this week. Once I was back in the center of town, I bought the food to give out at the “charlas” at the albergue on Tuesday at the market .Then I went to my favorite Internet cafe in town to eat a piece of chocolate cake cooked by a North American woman and attempt to maintain my so-called real life. I actually had some time to read the news and was amazed at the hammerhead shark that gave birth to a pup that had no paternal DNA. Read about it here if you’re interested. I had a relaxing lunch at the kiosk in Central park for approximately two US dollars.

baleadas, the Honduran vegetarian speciality.
And I spent some time in the afternoon relaxing, reading, writing in my journal and thinking about my place in the world. Monday was a hair-wash day, so I took my first shower in mountain spring water, because Monday was the first day that our house stopped getting city water. La Esperanza is in a bit of a drought and because I live so far out from the center (about 2 miles) the water always cuts at our house first and we are usually one of the last houses to get it back. About three months ago I went on a hike with my host mom around the mountain on the back of the house. She saw a bit of water dripping out of the ground and asked me to take a picture of it. She said she wanted to bring the water back to the house. I thought she was crazy. It seemed like too little water to make any sort of noticeable difference. But I took the picture and transferred it to her computer for her. Apparently, since then, our yard worker has been working on tapping and transporting the water to the house and the crude system was put in place Monday when the water stopped. Since then, the mountain water, direct from the ground, as been the only water at the house. It seems clean, and I swear it gets my hair cleaner than it has ever been. But I have forgotten twice and brushed my teeth with it. I’m hoping for the best. That drizzle of water from the mountains has provided enough water for all ten people who bathe at our house to take baths, enough to wash about 8 articles of clothing each, and sufficient water for cooking and cleaning. The pump stops being able to pull it up around 7pm, but the tanks fill over night and we have water starting around 5 in the morning. I am just a tiny bit worried that when Dan gets here he will find me smelling like a lake.

my shower head
Every night I eat dinner with my host family in an effort to work on my Spanish. Dinner generally does not vary much from 2 corn tortillas with mantequilla, half an avocado (often a Honduran avocado, but on lucky days its an imported one from Mexico, which have a much nicer flavor), a scrambled egg, red beans (whole or refried) and due to my continual insistence and once in protest actually chomping down a raw green pepper from the fridge in a search of vitamins, a vegetable.

my host family’s house
Tuesday
Tuesday we gave the food to the womenat the albergue and went through our educational presentations. The peace corps volunteer who is going to be taking over the project for me watched another round of “charlas” and the high school students that I have been working with gave their own presentation on HIV/AIDS and performed a condom demonstration on a platano. The condom demonstration was very well done and probably an important addition to the discussions as my mention of condoms is usually the first time the women at the albergue have ever heard of them.

The high school students giving their talk on AIDS

Condom demonstration
Afterward, I again completed my rounds in the pourperio. And went through my usual routine of going to the Internet cafe and finding lunch. In the afternoon I worked on spending an independent donation I have received from England. Tuesday night all of the volunteers met up at our usual bar, El Fog’n. Dan calls it my “cheers bar” and that is a pretty accurate description. We always go to the same bar and it means that there will always be someone there that you know, and if you are looking for someone in particular, you know where you can find them. I have never lived somewhere where everyone went to the same bar every evening and I have actually really enjoyed it.

El Fog’n
Wednesday
If I have a full week in La Esperanza (I haven’t been traveling during part of the week) I usually take Wednesdays off to go building, which provides a nice break from the mental and theoretical work of the hospital and I like to think that it helps build some poor excuses for muscles as well. However, feeling the pressure of my last full week in La Esperanza, I took Wednesday morning off to store up on some Honduran-style zen and spent the morning sleeping in (until 8:15) and drinking coffee and reading my book (currently, 100 Years of Solitude) The book took me awhile to get into but I am enjoying it now and find it incredibly appropriate given my current location in the world. I was assigned the book in high school, and I am not particularly ashamed to admit that I was never able to get through it then and barely skimmed the book, reading just enough to get As on the tests. The mystical realism has an appeal to me here. Then, as per usual, I went to the Internet cafe and ate a light lunch while watching the first half of the European soccer championships. In the afternoon we went to finish getting a second coat of paint on the ceiling in one of the operating rooms. We traveled to the hospital in what I have discovered is one of the best ways to get around here — the back of a pick-up truck, for free.

Wednesday night, you guessed it, we went to the Fog’n. I was a bit hungry and was able to order one of my favorite Honduran foods at the bar, an anafre. An anafre is a warm bowl of refried beans and quesillo served with tortilla chips.

an anafre
Thursday
Thursday I gave the shorter of my two talks at the albergue and again did my rounds in the pourperio. I also confirmed plans for the diabetes club the next day. I went to the Internet cafe, yet again, and spent the afternoon working on spending the donation I received (a post about that will follow shortly). After spending some time reading, writing and thinking at my host-family’s house, we went to…one of the other volunteer’s houses for his 30th birthday party. (ha ha, you thought I was going to say the Fog’n.) The party was a complete blast (as Honduran birthdays usually are). We played one of my favorite games in the whole world (right up there with broomball and kickball) where you tie a balloon to your foot and go around trying to stomp on everyone else’s balloon and guard your own. I actually won the second round when my last competitor accidentally hit his own balloon with the point of his cowboy boots. We also played banco caliente (musical chairs) and finished the evening (after putting just a splash of rum in the bottom of our glasses full of Coca-cola) dancing under the Honduran night sky.

one of the greatest games ever
Friday
I led the diabetes club meeting and gave my usual diabetes talks. We also elected officers for the club so that it is more able to continue without my support once I leave. We also checked everyone’s blood sugar with some of the donated glucometers my parents brought. And we decided, as a club policy, that club members had to come to four club meetings before they could receive their own peronsal glucometer. Then I did my rounds and headed towards the center to make Dan and my hotel reservations at the nicest hotel in the center of town for next week. I headed toward the Internet cafe after a walk through the market to buy strawberries (50 cents a pound) and bananas. However, when I got to the internet cafe, the power was out, so that was that. I went home to spend some time relaxing and taking a nap in preparation for an evening full of good-byes (it was many volunteers’ last night in town) at the good ole Fog’n. Before my nap though, I did some washing in the pila. I love pilas and using them to do my washing. I find rubbing things along the wash board to be very meditative. Thankfully, one of our housekeepers does most of my washing in order to prevent me from using an embarrassing amount of water. I love that you can wash just about anything you can imagine in a pila. You can wash not only clothes but bags, shoes, dogs, and I am not ashamed to tell you that if I were to live in Honduras forever, I know where I would wash my baby. (Only on warm days, of course.)

La Pila
The good-bye parties (partidos) were a general blast and for some inexplicable reason the Fog’n had a 2 for 1 special on tequila, which kept the night interesting.

La Esperanza, L to the E
Saturday.
I slept in later than usual (perhaps due to the 2 for 1 tequilas), until about 9:45. Ate a pancake, drank strong Honduran coffee while reading my book and came to the Internet cafe to do some writing on my blog.
Sunday
We are planning to go on a walk tomorrow to see holes in the ground that have no bottom. The official explanation for the holes is that there is no explanation for them. However, rumor has it that they were chimneys for volcanic gases, and that seems to make sense to me.

a hole that goes to the center of the earth


view from the hike to the holes