Nedi! She makes me tamales and soup. Scarlett's "mom" /grandma.
Here is my best friend Scarlett.
here we are after a grueling baseball practice.
here are my kids hangin out on the soccer field.
they straight up hate AIDS. hate it to HELL.
Here are all the townspeople of alubaren who are interested in HIV/AIDS prevention; aka my baseball team who i forced to participate.7 December 2008
Hey, chochachos! Today is basically the best day ever. Why, you ask?? Because yesterday I opened the library with the woman who has the keys, as well as the gringa Johanna who lived here ten years ago and founded the dang thing, and who is here visiting, and now I have copies of “Anastasia,” “Ramona the Pest,” and “Tuck Everlasting,” all in Spanish. I loved those books as a kid and now I get to relive them in the mediocre way that only a Spanish translation can yield. Woo! The library had like seven inches of dust on the floor because the roof has a hole in it, but other than that it was looking pretty good. It has four big shelves filled with books, most of which were brought by Johanna on various visits (she is married to a Alubarén native and comes to visit every couple of years to check on the library, bring books, and visit her family). There ARE some kids books, which I didn’t realize—though not many. There are also many research-y books, and about 200 copies of some book called “Where do you turn when it hurts?” or something, about God and poverty. They’re all in English. I have no idea where they came from. There were four little tables and a handful of chairs, too. The current problem is that we have two women who want to be librarians, and only enough funds for one. It’s turned into a bit of a cat-fight, and I’m still struggling to understand why we can’t just vote and pick one. One of the issues is that the whole “Library Board” is made of three or four people, all of whom are family, so people complain that it’s turned into nepotism. (Apparently there used to be several members who were not related, but they’re since quit). However, as Johanna pointed out, this “family-ized” board has received money and books and none of it has been stolen or lost, so why rock the boat. We’ll see. I do want to open it up though, and start a weekly story time followed by a related art project with the kids. Hopefully we can do that before the New Year. In the meantime, I’m still hells of psyched to have Beverly Clearly and Lois Lowry en espanol for my own reading pleasure.
As many of you well-informed citizens might know, the 1st of December was World AIDS Day. I wasn’t actually aware of that until about a week beforehand, when Fondo Cristiano announced they were going to do something to celebrate. They then single-handedly changed World AIDS Day to the second of December, because the first was the day after Honduras’ internal elections and they informed me that the locals would be too tired from partying all night to come out to anything we might do. “We’ll do a march with the high school band, have health charlas, and of course lots of skits,” Franco informed me. We decided it would go down in the park like last time. Franco then proceeded to go sit in the little room where we have a computer and listen to music, while my two coworkers got to work on the giant mural, which is the centerpiece of any Honduran public campaign (created by taking a giant portable chalk board, covering it in big pieces of white paper, and cutting and pasting letters that state whatever it is we’re celebrating, which in this case read “Dia Mundial Contra VIH/SIDA”). I had this great mental vision of a park teeming with locals, eager to learn about the dangers of unprotected sex. I decided to make some “educational games,” where people could come up and pick a “Fact or Fiction” flap on a giant board and win a condom and lollipop with a correct response, or receive a little illustration of some behavior (people kissing, people sharing a glass of water, people boning) and win said condom/lollipop if correctly placed on the “Safe” or “Unsafe” side of the board. Then I planned out this skit with some local kids, which demonstrated how HIV works in the human body and how it turns in AIDS, eventually killing the infected person. My coworkers were in charge of planning the march and forming a skit for themselves. We also invited two neighboring villages to come participate. The big day came, windy as the dickens (why does this always happen?). I had placed a couple posters around the pueblo advertising what we were going to do, but by 9:00am the only people who had shown up were about 20 kids from my baseball team, who may (or may not) have been threatened by a certain gringa baseball coach that absence from the event would result in extra laps during practice (that might be a rumor, though, we Peace Corps volunteers believe in positive reinforcement and would never resort to threats in order to gain attendance at an event…). We also had to change location to the elementary school at the last minute, because over the weekend the alcaldia (local government) had decided it would be a good time to start tearing up the park to rebuild it. So now it’s like 9:30, and our numbers had swelled to the incredible amount of about 30. So I took a lap around the park with a megaphone, and forced/bribed my baseball kids to follow me, who seemed excited at first, waving their little white flags I’d made with the AIDS ribbon on them. I announced we were about to march against AIDS, and that everyone should come out and join us and win “free prizes,” and that did you know AIDS was transmitted through three fluids: blood, breast milk, and sexual fluids?? (Once I started yelling through the megaphone about “sex fluids” my baseball kids just looked mortified). We headed back to the school to begin the real march, but almost no one new came to join us. World AIDS Day had now become “Hayley’s Baseball Team Learns About AIDS Day.” (Oh yeah, the marching band part also fell through). So off we went, up the dirt road and around the park, with little 7-year-old Anner cheerfully thrusting flags and little red paper ribbons with safety pins onto any interested parties, baseball kids Cristian, Samer, Jairo, Hanci, and Toño carrying a banner, and everybody else walking dutifully behind, while I continued to holler about sex fluids in Spanish through the megaphone. Once we got back to the school, everyone crammed into the shade and we went through the schedule, enjoying several prayers, a health talk given by yours truly, and a couple of skits. Then we played the games and I handed out condoms to old ladies, eight-year-olds, and everyone in between. Awesome.
Baseball is going awesome. We practice every day from 3-5pm up at the “campo,” which is the town’s soccer “field.” (It’s actually a huge dirt lot scarred by potholes and small ravines and an ample covering of cow and horse manure). (The latter actually comes in handy—cow shit makes awesome bases, as I discovered.) We run a lap around the field, then form a circle in the middle and stretch our muscles, during which time jokes are told (throw-back to my drumline days, aww-blaht). Then we play catch for a while, then do some other type of drill or game, and usually I split them into two teams and we play a short game. It’s funny because most of them can’t really catch, and no one seems to know where to throw the ball when they do catch it, so there are always tons of home runs. (I realize as a coach it’s my job to tell them where to do throw it, but I’m learning too, so whatever. We got time.) Sometimes it’s a liiiiittle stressful, because the kids fight a lot (I’ve had to send like three kids home for the day already due to the cusses and kicking), but some high school kids have started to show up and help me, which is awesome. VIVA LAS PANTERAS. Again, though, if anyone has kid-sized baseball mitts lying around, send those puppies to me and I will take pictures of the kids playing with them with looks of pure joy on their faces.
So the other day one of my baseball kids Esau (who’s mother is my future landlord) asked me if I’d like to have dinner at his house after the 6th Grade Graduation that Friday evening. I said of course, unknowing that this was a subtle invitation for my to be his Madrina, which is basically like an adult selected to walk across the “stage” area with the graduating kid when he gets his diploma. There is also the requirement of a gift. Now, I didn’t know anything about that, so when I showed up at the graduation on Friday and his mom ushered me to a special chair at their table set aside for the Madrina, I had several small heart attacks (since I had no present for the kid). The present is actually sort of a big deal, in the sense that it’s expected and then lots of pictures of taken with the madrina and the kid, with the present thrust out in front. So we had all our photo opts gift-less, and I apologized profusely several times while his mother awkwardly told me not to worry about it (oh, but I did). Then all the kids sat in the middle of the concrete court while the adults sat around them at special tables, and we listened to “We Are The Champions” on repeat for about two hours while the kids got their diplomas and the principal yelled at the crowd for not applauding enough. Then I went to Esau’s house and ate rice mixed with chicken bits. I’m gonna buy a present for him this weekend.
Guess that’s about it for now. I went to the Evangelical church last night and enjoyed it more than the Catholic mass (much easier to hear and understand), but after the preacher started yelling about the evils of Cartoon Network (their slogan, “Hacemos lo que Queremos,” or “We do what we want”, doesn’t sit well with him), I was ready to leave. Either way, my neighbors and Johanna the gringa invited me and the entire congregation was so delighted they included us in their prayer.
Peace out dudes!
Love, Hayley
Hey, chochachos! Today is basically the best day ever. Why, you ask?? Because yesterday I opened the library with the woman who has the keys, as well as the gringa Johanna who lived here ten years ago and founded the dang thing, and who is here visiting, and now I have copies of “Anastasia,” “Ramona the Pest,” and “Tuck Everlasting,” all in Spanish. I loved those books as a kid and now I get to relive them in the mediocre way that only a Spanish translation can yield. Woo! The library had like seven inches of dust on the floor because the roof has a hole in it, but other than that it was looking pretty good. It has four big shelves filled with books, most of which were brought by Johanna on various visits (she is married to a Alubarén native and comes to visit every couple of years to check on the library, bring books, and visit her family). There ARE some kids books, which I didn’t realize—though not many. There are also many research-y books, and about 200 copies of some book called “Where do you turn when it hurts?” or something, about God and poverty. They’re all in English. I have no idea where they came from. There were four little tables and a handful of chairs, too. The current problem is that we have two women who want to be librarians, and only enough funds for one. It’s turned into a bit of a cat-fight, and I’m still struggling to understand why we can’t just vote and pick one. One of the issues is that the whole “Library Board” is made of three or four people, all of whom are family, so people complain that it’s turned into nepotism. (Apparently there used to be several members who were not related, but they’re since quit). However, as Johanna pointed out, this “family-ized” board has received money and books and none of it has been stolen or lost, so why rock the boat. We’ll see. I do want to open it up though, and start a weekly story time followed by a related art project with the kids. Hopefully we can do that before the New Year. In the meantime, I’m still hells of psyched to have Beverly Clearly and Lois Lowry en espanol for my own reading pleasure.
As many of you well-informed citizens might know, the 1st of December was World AIDS Day. I wasn’t actually aware of that until about a week beforehand, when Fondo Cristiano announced they were going to do something to celebrate. They then single-handedly changed World AIDS Day to the second of December, because the first was the day after Honduras’ internal elections and they informed me that the locals would be too tired from partying all night to come out to anything we might do. “We’ll do a march with the high school band, have health charlas, and of course lots of skits,” Franco informed me. We decided it would go down in the park like last time. Franco then proceeded to go sit in the little room where we have a computer and listen to music, while my two coworkers got to work on the giant mural, which is the centerpiece of any Honduran public campaign (created by taking a giant portable chalk board, covering it in big pieces of white paper, and cutting and pasting letters that state whatever it is we’re celebrating, which in this case read “Dia Mundial Contra VIH/SIDA”). I had this great mental vision of a park teeming with locals, eager to learn about the dangers of unprotected sex. I decided to make some “educational games,” where people could come up and pick a “Fact or Fiction” flap on a giant board and win a condom and lollipop with a correct response, or receive a little illustration of some behavior (people kissing, people sharing a glass of water, people boning) and win said condom/lollipop if correctly placed on the “Safe” or “Unsafe” side of the board. Then I planned out this skit with some local kids, which demonstrated how HIV works in the human body and how it turns in AIDS, eventually killing the infected person. My coworkers were in charge of planning the march and forming a skit for themselves. We also invited two neighboring villages to come participate. The big day came, windy as the dickens (why does this always happen?). I had placed a couple posters around the pueblo advertising what we were going to do, but by 9:00am the only people who had shown up were about 20 kids from my baseball team, who may (or may not) have been threatened by a certain gringa baseball coach that absence from the event would result in extra laps during practice (that might be a rumor, though, we Peace Corps volunteers believe in positive reinforcement and would never resort to threats in order to gain attendance at an event…). We also had to change location to the elementary school at the last minute, because over the weekend the alcaldia (local government) had decided it would be a good time to start tearing up the park to rebuild it. So now it’s like 9:30, and our numbers had swelled to the incredible amount of about 30. So I took a lap around the park with a megaphone, and forced/bribed my baseball kids to follow me, who seemed excited at first, waving their little white flags I’d made with the AIDS ribbon on them. I announced we were about to march against AIDS, and that everyone should come out and join us and win “free prizes,” and that did you know AIDS was transmitted through three fluids: blood, breast milk, and sexual fluids?? (Once I started yelling through the megaphone about “sex fluids” my baseball kids just looked mortified). We headed back to the school to begin the real march, but almost no one new came to join us. World AIDS Day had now become “Hayley’s Baseball Team Learns About AIDS Day.” (Oh yeah, the marching band part also fell through). So off we went, up the dirt road and around the park, with little 7-year-old Anner cheerfully thrusting flags and little red paper ribbons with safety pins onto any interested parties, baseball kids Cristian, Samer, Jairo, Hanci, and Toño carrying a banner, and everybody else walking dutifully behind, while I continued to holler about sex fluids in Spanish through the megaphone. Once we got back to the school, everyone crammed into the shade and we went through the schedule, enjoying several prayers, a health talk given by yours truly, and a couple of skits. Then we played the games and I handed out condoms to old ladies, eight-year-olds, and everyone in between. Awesome.
Baseball is going awesome. We practice every day from 3-5pm up at the “campo,” which is the town’s soccer “field.” (It’s actually a huge dirt lot scarred by potholes and small ravines and an ample covering of cow and horse manure). (The latter actually comes in handy—cow shit makes awesome bases, as I discovered.) We run a lap around the field, then form a circle in the middle and stretch our muscles, during which time jokes are told (throw-back to my drumline days, aww-blaht). Then we play catch for a while, then do some other type of drill or game, and usually I split them into two teams and we play a short game. It’s funny because most of them can’t really catch, and no one seems to know where to throw the ball when they do catch it, so there are always tons of home runs. (I realize as a coach it’s my job to tell them where to do throw it, but I’m learning too, so whatever. We got time.) Sometimes it’s a liiiiittle stressful, because the kids fight a lot (I’ve had to send like three kids home for the day already due to the cusses and kicking), but some high school kids have started to show up and help me, which is awesome. VIVA LAS PANTERAS. Again, though, if anyone has kid-sized baseball mitts lying around, send those puppies to me and I will take pictures of the kids playing with them with looks of pure joy on their faces.
So the other day one of my baseball kids Esau (who’s mother is my future landlord) asked me if I’d like to have dinner at his house after the 6th Grade Graduation that Friday evening. I said of course, unknowing that this was a subtle invitation for my to be his Madrina, which is basically like an adult selected to walk across the “stage” area with the graduating kid when he gets his diploma. There is also the requirement of a gift. Now, I didn’t know anything about that, so when I showed up at the graduation on Friday and his mom ushered me to a special chair at their table set aside for the Madrina, I had several small heart attacks (since I had no present for the kid). The present is actually sort of a big deal, in the sense that it’s expected and then lots of pictures of taken with the madrina and the kid, with the present thrust out in front. So we had all our photo opts gift-less, and I apologized profusely several times while his mother awkwardly told me not to worry about it (oh, but I did). Then all the kids sat in the middle of the concrete court while the adults sat around them at special tables, and we listened to “We Are The Champions” on repeat for about two hours while the kids got their diplomas and the principal yelled at the crowd for not applauding enough. Then I went to Esau’s house and ate rice mixed with chicken bits. I’m gonna buy a present for him this weekend.
Guess that’s about it for now. I went to the Evangelical church last night and enjoyed it more than the Catholic mass (much easier to hear and understand), but after the preacher started yelling about the evils of Cartoon Network (their slogan, “Hacemos lo que Queremos,” or “We do what we want”, doesn’t sit well with him), I was ready to leave. Either way, my neighbors and Johanna the gringa invited me and the entire congregation was so delighted they included us in their prayer.
Peace out dudes!
Love, Hayley
5 comments:
Hurray libraries and World AIDS Day! Honduras, like Barack Obama, hates AIDS. Hates it.
Can I send some children's books en Espanol to you for the library? I'm sure I can find some here in the borderlands.
That was David Rubenstein, by the way. Didn't mean to be an anonymous creeperpants.
lol I immediately thought of myself when I saw the title of your post this time. Which sounds extraordinarily gross and strange, but really, after I began calling my friend Michelle "Mitchell", she retaliated by dubbing me "Loobes." Her nickname did not catch on at our clinic. Mine, unfortunately, did.
All my love,
Loobes
Where do you turn when it hurts, Hayley?
um, that kid in orange has the moves. also, david rubenstein is, by default, a creeperpants.
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