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

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Happy Valentines Day Everyone! My boyfriend wrote up a great post about it, so you can check out his site if you feel like it. (see left.) This is just about the only time I can remember having a boyfriend on Valentines day, and it is ironic to be spending it 2,068 miles away from him.
I am currently sitting at an internet cafe in el centro, sweating, and listening to loud hipsanic music drift in from the street. I will gladly take the sweat over the freezing temperatures in Denver right now. My town in Honduras has grown on me and I am feeling more confortable in it. I can now see its beauties and charms.
I think I have also found some good work that I will be able to do here. This morning I talked to some women who are staying at the Albergue at the hospital. Women who live in the hills (who are mainly of Lenca decent) cannot give birth out alone in the country (or they chose not to,) so as they near the end of their pregnancy, they move into an Albergue at the hospital. It seems more like a makeshift village. The woman cook their food and wash their few clothes outside and sleep on old hospital beds. Most of them have no idea how long they’ll be there or when they’ll deliver, as they have never had an ultrasound. There are six women in the albergue now. Once they got over their shock at seeing a gringa, we had a great converstaion and they have tons of questions about their own nutrition and health, and how to feed their children. I will spend some time this afternoon making two posters to present to them tomorrow. One on birth control and one on nutrition during pregnancy. One of the most basic things they could do for their health and the health of the babies is to get enough to eat, as most of them are hungry most of the time. The food here in town is too expensive for them to buy.
My host family has a cat, two dogs, an assortment of chickens, a very loud rooster, and I think we have some cows too. There are probably other things I am missing. Anyway, I asked the woman who does our cooking if its a problem having the dogs and chickens together. “What do you mean?” “Well, my dog would try to eat the chickens.” “Oh, it is the same here.” “umm, OK, I said.” Aparently, this is not a problem.
Last weekend, all fifteen of us gringo volunteers in town took a trip to nearby lake Yojoa, the largest natural lake in Honduras. It was a great chance to get out of La Esperanza and see a bit more touristy area of the country. I loved the lake, though it might have had something to do with the very welcome lukewarm showers. There are some relatively famous waterfalls (cascadas) close to the lake. We had all heard of them from people who had been in country awhile and from our guidebooks. Our in-country program coordinator explained that we could get a guide to walk us behind them. She said that there is about “10 seconds” where there is lots of water and its a tiny bit scarey, but then you are behind them and its beautiful. She had painted this image of a tranquil tropical waterfall, with a breif, easy walk we could take to float behind it. So, Saturday we made our way out to the falls. As we walked in the entrace gate, a young man introduced himself as a guide to the falls. We negotiated a price, stowed our bags, and he led us down to the bottom of the falls. He undid a lock on a gate blocking off a trail along the rocks. We were a good little hike in when he finally thought to ask, “Can everyone swim?” As soon as we all nodded our heads, he took the first pluge of the day, about a 7 foot jump into a calm pool of water. We followed. We climbed out on the other side of the pool and continued to follow the guide closer to the falls. There is nothing peaceful or tranquil about a 43 meter waterfall. The water hit the ground with an incredible force. The spashback began to get thick, and it was getting difficult to see. I began to think that we must be just about done with the “10 second” part with lots of water when the guide turns to me “Ok, this next part has lots of mist. Don’t be scared. Breath through your mouth.” We all linked arms and followed our guide further into the falls. I couldn’t see at all, it was difficult to breath; water came up from all directions. We waited as all of the volunteers made their way through, and proceeded further into the falls. We got out of the worst of the mist and the guide says, “look up.” And there we are, standing behind a 43 meter waterfall.
We weaved in and out of some of the caves around the falls on our way back out. As we neared the exit to the falls, the guide pointed out a 10 meter jump into some relatively calm water. He said it was safe and that people could jump if they wanted to. All the boys made the plunge. I had to follow. It was high enough for you to actually have some time in the air to think about the fact that you were flying. Overall, the expiernce provided one of the best adreneline rushes I had had in a long time, and comes strongly recommended.
One of the most humorous aspects of the weekend spent traveling was the difficulty my British counterparts had traveling in a country that doesn’t have time tables. If you want to take a bus, you walk to the the road the bus goes on and wait for it to come. You might wait 2 minutes, you might wait an hour, but you just sit and wait. The Brits couldn’t stand not knowing when we would get to wherever we were going. I guess that’s what happens if your country has an incredibly efficient, and timely, train system.
Feliz dia de San Valentin and adios,
Erin

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I am safely in Honduras and the midst of culture shock. The country is beautiful and the people are friendly. The degree of poverty shook me a bit. Most of the roads are dirt, and its the dry season, so its a blowing, dusty, dirt. People take whatever left over water they have and throw it on the street in front of their house/shop to keep the dust down. As I walked the about 2 miles to the hospital this morning for work, an elderly man walking along side me said “cuidado! mucho polvo!” As he gestured for me to duck further into the side of the street as a large truck passed throwing dust 8 feet into the air.
La Esperanza is a beautiful town and I have finally gotten my bearings. I walked to the hospital and to the town center today and only got alittle lost.
I spent last Sunday night in Houston and had some added excitement getting to the airport to fly to Honduras Monday. I awoke in my hotel with just enough time to take one last warm, leisurely, American shower, eat a last balanced and free American continenetal breakfast and head to the airport. As I tried to open my eyes, I realized my right eye was swollen and my lashes were stuck together. “Oh crap, pinkeye.” I peeled my eyelids apart and frantically splashed water on my face. I threw my stuff back into my pack, my eye filling with pus, and rushed downstairs to call a cab and check the internet for 24-hour pharmacies. Finding 24 hour pharmacies online is easier said than done, but thankfully, just as I rushed to the waiting cab, a man at the counter knew of one relatively close. Thank goodness my parents are doctors; I phoned my mom from the cab to call in the RX. The pharmacist had this crazy obsession with insurance cards and ploicies… “I’ll pay cash! I need to catch a flight!” I was able to get the prescription and get to the aiport on time. The whole experience lightened my wallet about 60 bucks. $60 is about 1000 lempira.
It was on the plane that I first encountered one of my most valuable resourses on this trip, and one that I had alrgely overlooked when thinking about what the experience would be like — my fellow volunteers. “This might sound strange, but I couldn’t help but noticing your paper has i-to-i on it?” Megan is, like most of the other volunteers, an 18 year old, here to enjoy a strangely British phenomena known as a “gap year.” They take a year off between high school and college, earn as much money as they can in 6 months and then blow it all traveling and volunteering around the world. Terrific idea. There are a couple of other volunteers about my age, one grandpa, and one middle-aged couple. They have been unbelievably helpful. I am the only volunteer working in the hospital, and the only one living with my family, though a few others live only about a ten minute walk away. We spent the first night in Honduras in a colonial town outside the capital called Valle de Angeles. A cute town with cobblestone streets and everything. It would have been like any tourist town in mexico except that there was a donkey being loaded with cornmeal outside one of the small markets. Tuesday, we made the 3 and a half hour bus journey to La Esperanza.
I am living with a nurse and her microbiologist husband. One of the wealthiest families in town, and one of the few in which both parents work. They have a woman who “does the cooking” and helps look after their three daughters. I brought some floam for the girls and the were generally amazed by it, it was a great icebreaker. The five year old, Karly, (Karlita) can write my name, though as in Italy, not a single person can pronounce it. The girls enjoyed looking at my pictures. They think the dogs are pretty, and my host mother thinks that my mom is incredebly young-looking and that she has a gorgeous garden. They all think my borfriend is good looking and that Rachel’s wedding dress was stunning. Karlita saw a picture of my five-year-old cousin Hannah and was amazed to learn that there are five-year-olds all over the world. I have had some good times helping the children with their English and speaking with my host mother in Spanish. When the water is running, a bucket is filled under the sink and then the water used from the bucket to make dinner and clean the dishes so that as little as possible is wasted. I am living in an incredebly nice, large and clean house. I have my own bedroom and even my own bathroom. When the water is running I have my very own freezing cold shower. Its really more just like a faucet placed high up that drips really cold water. Its cold enough to take my breath away. But when it runs, it runs, and I realize that this is the first time in my life I have ever had my own bathroom.
One of the things that has struck me most about life here is the lack of waste. It seems that poverty forces a rather amazing level of conservation. Rarely are plastic plates or utentsils used, or any utensils for that matter. Each person gets one small paper napkin with their lunch. All the leftovers are taken home for the family dogs.
My work as been alright. I am just sort of getting use to things. I have been working in the lab, which is about my least favorite area of hospital work, but despite myself I have been learning some new things and sometimes find myself enjoying the scientific processes involved in diagnosis and bacteriology. I think that next week I will be working with some pregnant women in the hospital. My host family was exctied to learn that I had some experience working with pregnent women and explaining the benefits of breastfeeding and how to feed young children. Apparently many children still get very sick here from drinking from bottles that haven’t been adequetely cleaned, and that sort of education is really related to my thesis, so that might all work out really well. There is definitely lots of good to be done in town and I’d guess I’ll find a way to do some of it.
I miss my family, somehow being around another really nice family makes me miss mine. And I miss Dan like crazy and, of course, my pup. Sometimes being here seems so hard that its almost overwhelming and I nearly break into tears. But then, the water comes on again at my host family’s house, or one of the family dogs will walk with me to meet up with other volunteers to grab a beer, or someone will go out of their way to be friendly towards me and everything seems fine. The other volunteers have been a terrific source of support. We’re planning a weekend trip to some nearby waterfalls, and hopefully that adventure will be in my next post.
Adios

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