Random Post Friday/Happy Veteran's Day

November 11^th, 2011

Before we get to the RPF, I just want to take the time to thank all of the veteran’s out there for your service to the great nation of the United States of America. No matter where or when your service was, I know that the sacrifices that were made were great and I appreciate what you have done for us. And on to the RPF…

Welcome to another Random Post Friday, I hope that your week went well and the waiting for this week’s RPF did not stress you out too much. I want to take the time to apologize to Jobro because sadly this week’s RPF is not going to be an account of who would play me in a movie made about my life, what that movie would be named, and other details about said movie. While I am sure that would be a very interesting post and would lead to much discussion I just did not have the time this week to truly put in all of the thought and effort such a brilliant topic requires, so right now it is on the backburner and maybe it will appear in a RPF to come.

Anyways, this week’s topic is about tickling. Can you not be ticklish? I think that you can not be ticklish and my evidence is that I myself am not ticklish, however at one time, I was ticklish and I want to share with you the story of how I became unticklish. It all started back when I was in what I remember to be middle school Merl (only half of Merl, the Me part), Pat, Jobro, Lydia, and Me were sitting in the study watching some tv when all of the sudden Lydia has the great idea to yell out tickle attack. We soon learned that a tickle attack was when one of the unfortunate people in the room was held down on the ground by the others and tickled until the others felt it was sufficient. It was great fun when you were not the one being tickled however when you were the one being tickled it was not as much fun, even though you were laughing, a lot. The first few times that I was a victim of a tickle attack I tried my best not to laugh but it just never worked, however I have always believed in the power of the brain and with time I was able to calm myself down during these attacks and simply breath and what do you know, I became unticklish. The thought that really helped me out was that tickling is really no different from scratching yourself and there is no way that you can tickle yourself (go ahead try it…) so this must mean then that tickling is all mental and something that we learn from a young age. (Quick note: I am sure that my logic is wrong here as it usually is but it makes sense to me so I am leaving it).

So if being tickled is a learned response as my new theory states, why then do babies automatically laugh when they are tickled? I was tickling my host sister Maria Belen today and she was just laughing up a storm when I would tickle her. I do not think that anyone has ever told her that when someone tickles you, you should laugh. That therefore points to being ticklish being some sort of weird instinct that we are born with and that some of us outgrow. All of this means that I cannot make my mind up about being ticklish and whether it is a learned behavior or an instinct that we are born with. Now you might be asking yourself right now why all this matters and the answer is that it does not matter in the least, just another random thought that I had and thought I would share with the world. Not one of my better RPF’s but two for three isn’t bad maybe I should try baseball… or maybe I should have gone with the movie idea.

The Aldeas

November 9^th, 2011

            So this week I have been visiting the aldeas (neighboring communities that are smaller but are all a part of the municipality of Dulce Nombre, we have 6) to get to know them and also to tag along with my site mate and counterpart as they give charlas (little chats/presentations) to the women of the communities about basic health information. The aldeas are where you find people that are much less accustomed to dealing with Gringos as well as just people in general. Many of the people living in the aldeas have lived there their entire life and do not travel outside of the aldea very much, at the most, maybe a trip every week to Dulce Nombre but nothing more than that. It is very much like going back into time and what I imagine the early nineteen hundreds to be like in the rural areas of the States. In fact, I am reading a book right now called, “Growing Up” by Russel Baker and he is recounting the life of his mother, the following passage basically describes an aldea, “to find jobs she traveled…into primitive backwaters where mountain children came barefoot to school and dropped out after fourth grade to take dollar-a-week work in the fields.” That was in 1917 in the States, obviously things have improved themselves greatly in almost one hundred years. Here in Honduras however, that is still the reality.

            While things may not be as primitive here as they were back in the early nineteen hundreds, things are still fairly underdeveloped. I have seen many children people who look as though they have not bathed in a month or two and are walking around barefoot. I think that the thing that surprises me the most however is the lack of education and the lack an importance placed on education. During the past 3 days, I have encountered more women who cannot read and write than I ever thought possible (we are only working with women, there are plenty of men who cannot read or write either). It is sad that there are people out there in the world who do not have this basic knowledge in which they can improve their lives but I will say that the tide is changing, slowly (very slowly), but surly. The youth here can all read and write (with the exception of those with special needs who are not allowed in the school system, but that is another blog post), and I am certain that with time they will continue to improve upon themselves and past generations thanks to the hard work of many Honduras who are helping their fellow countrymen.  

            Another thing that has struck me is the seemingly randomness of life, what I mean by this is that so much is determined simply by where you are born and to who you are born. This is such a random thing but it has everything to do with who we are and who we turn out to be. I was fortunate enough to be born in the United States to an amazing family who I love very much, but at the same time I very easily could have been born to a family who lived here in an aldea of Dulce Nombre. I cannot fully imagine how much my life would change but I am certain that it would change a lot. I would guess that I would probably only have around a 6^th grade education (if I was lucky) and most likely I would be working in the fields picking coffee beans. After a hard day’s work of picking coffee beans all day and picking 4 gallons worth of beans I would be paid 160 lempiras (the going rate is 40 lemps per gallon or 2 dollars per gallon) and then return to my house where I most likely already would have 2 or 3 children. That would be my life, and that is the reality of it. Sad but true, so please be thankful for what you have and what you have been blessed with because no everyone had/has the same opportunities that we do.   

Announcement

Just an fyi for everyone out there, the family has recently decided that we will officially call our celebrity couple Megan and Carl = Merl. Please everyone from this point on refer to them as such.

Going Mojado

November 7^th, 2011

            So one of the most common conversations that I have been having over the past few weeks or so is about family members who are living in the United States, no matter who you are talking to it seems like they have a family member (or multiple), or know someone who is in the States right now. This is a really interesting topic because a lot of the people who go to the states from Honduras obviously go for the prospect of more money. The basic plan is a male of the family go to the states (most likely illegally, which I will address a little later on), makes money and sends back money to the family living here. As stated previously in the blog, American money goes a longgggg way down here in Honduras so it is actually a fairly good plan, however what usually ends up happening to the majority of the people is that the male after living for some time in the States eventually finds a significant other and starts another family in the States. This new family then replaces his old family and his old family in Honduras is then left without anyone to provide for them, they are completely left on their own. Now this is not the same in 100% of the cases but it is very common and I have heard multiple stories that follow this same timeline. The other option is that the male gets deported (one reason why the male usually gets married in the States to become legal), while this is a happier ending because the family is not left on their own it is also a sad situation. This also is not an epidemic just in Honduras but is the same all throughout Central America and I once again want to stress that this is the most common situation but is not however every situation by any means. There are also a number of women who go to the States and a number of happily married couples who are split up living here and in the States.

            Now the reason that so many people decide to go to the States illegally or “mojado” (translates as wet) is because it is extremely hard for the people of Central America to get a visa into the States. Incredibly hard, from what I have been told (and this could be totally wrong…), in order to get a visa the person has to demonstrate that they have a job in the States while still in Honduras and before they get their Visa. As far as I know, that is pretty hard to do. The Visa process is also extremely long and very expensive. For these reasons, some opt to go to Spain where getting a visa is less of a struggle and they also do not have to worry about the language issue. However, the vast majority choose to go mojado and travel up through Central America and through Mexico where they eventually cross the border. Now this trip is by no means easy and certainly not safe, most of the people hire a coyote (guard) to help them through Mexico and across the border, this coyote is another whole issue and most of the time they exploit the people charging them lots of money and sometimes even deserting them. Maybe of the people do not make it and are sent back to where they live, however those that do are then subjected to living in the states with constant fear of being deported.

            Before I came here, I would say that I was more or less indifferent to illegal aliens I did not know enough about the situation in order to make an educated decision about it. However, I now have much more sympathy for these people and I totally understand why they have done what they have done, all they want to do is support their family and they are doing it in the best way that they know how. As Americans, who have also immigrated here at one point or the other, can we really treat them so horribly for simple wanting a little slice of the American dream?

Update on my life

November 6^th, 2011

            So I guess I should update everyone on what I have been doing in terms of my service here since I have not really updated everyone on this for a while. So as you all know I have my schedule all set up already so I have certain places to be on certain days and all so that is nice and I have been following this schedule for around 3 or 4 weeks I believe. So on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I work at the school from 8-10 and then R.B.C. from 10-12, at that point I return back to my house to eat. I eat two meals with my host family because frankly I am too lazy to learn how to cook (especially in Honduras, it is another whole world in the kitchen down here. Not everything can be thrown in the microwave and heated up…) and because why wouldn’t I want to get served delicious food for two years instead of making terrible food for myself? On Tuesday and Thursday I work in the library, which is conveniently right next door to me and has internet. During the afternoons I go to the library and it is kind of like my work time though I do not have a whole ton of work to do at this point so it is a nice time to surf the web etc. I believe that this will change soon enough and that I will soon be working at R.B.C. and possibly the school in the afternoons as well but that is still up in the air. So that is my schedule more or less and what I do basically every day.

            Now a little bit about what I am doing in each of my settings. At the school right now I have been observing all of the classrooms to get a feel for the environment etc. I told the teachers and all that I was observing the student’s behavior however I was really just observing the teachers, SHH don’t tell them. The reason for all of this observing is really two fold, the first reason being that I want to see the methodology that the teachers use and where they can use help in working with students with disabilities and also because the school year is ending here real soon. The school year here is a little bit backwards as compared to the U.S. school system in terms of scheduling. The schooling here starts in February (if there are no teacher strikes, which usually there are…) and ends at the end of November meaning that the “summer break” here is December and January. The reason for this is so that the population can pick coffee during this time which is the lifeblood of my particular region of Honduras. So I have done all my observing and the teachers need a lot of help, so my plan for this is to give a series of “charlas” (basically presentations) to the teachers at the beginning of the year on how they can work with students with disabilities, classroom management techniques, and new teaching methodologies instead of rote memorization. Also during the break I am going to be working with some of the other teachers on providing tutoring to some of the students who are in most need. Once the school year starts up again, I am hoping that I can maybe start working with the students individually by pulling them out of class for a little bit of time in small groups and go from there.            

            At R.B.C. I am basically doing the same thing that I am doing at the school for the time being. Most of the kids do not come during the break as well so it did not really make a lot of sense for me to get started working there right away. Also R.B.C. is an interesting project because at this point it is really disorganized and there is a long way to go, there is only one lady that works there and she has no background in education (her background is health as she was a nurse). Anyways, she is really nice and enthusiastic about wanting to learn more but at this point just has no idea how to work with this population. Besides that, the kids just come and go as they please. There is no sort of schedule or organization whatsoever and that makes it really hard to work with these kids because there are so many different kids with so many different abilities. The basic day right now for the kids is they come in around 10 and they copy down or color different things in their notebook while most of the kids really just play with some broken toys that are around, like I said, there is a lot of work to do there. So my plan so far is I want to write a manual that outlines basic special education principles and also describes different disabilities and what exactly they need from a teacher/classroom to be successful. I am trying to write that during the break that we have here so I won’t be bored for two months. Once the school starts back up I want to get R.B.C. more organized and have a sort of schedule set up so that certain students with similar disabilities/abilities show up at the same time making it easier to work with them. I also want to set up actual lesson in which the students can learn life skills (hygiene, money skills, basically all of those skills that we do without thinking but for someone with a disability it is much harder), with this life skills program I also want to work with the volunteer and teach her more about lesson planning and classroom management. I think this is the project has the most amount of work but at the same time I will be able to see lots of changes which will be nice.

            My last project is the library; the library is awesome and really well set up and run. Out of all of my projects if I am being honest I am not sure they really need a whole lot of my help because they are more than capable of doing their thing (but I am not complaining because I get free internet there). The library has tons of great books in Spanish and English, it is probably one of the best libraries that I have seen here in Honduras. With all of these great books however, many of the teens and children who come in to the library really only want to use the computers for research of for surfing the web. It is great that they have that resource but at the same time a little bit sad that all of those books are not being utilized. Part of the reason that some of the books are not being utilized is the fact that a lot of the children’s books are in English. So, for the past two weeks or so I have been working on translating some of these books so that the kids can read them and who knows maybe even learn a bit of English at the same time. Some of the books I can translate no problem, while others I use my new best friend, translate.google.com (free shout out to google, you are welcome). I have been amazed at how good this translating program works and translating programs have really come a long way since my high school years when I would try to use these for my Spanish homework. So, if any of you out there are in a Spanish class and need a little bit of help (to check your work of course, not to cheat!) I would use that website. Besides translating books, I am also a little bit like the IT person of the library whenever there is any question about a computer they come to me and up to this point I have been able to help them out which has been nice. During the break, we are going to be working on a project that will encourage kids to read which I am excited about. I am picking out a bunch of children’s books and we are setting up a competition amongst the kids, they are going to form teams of three and as a team they will have to read all of the books that I pick out. Once they have read all of the books we are going to have a competition day in which the students, as a team, will answer questions about all of the books that they have read and compete for prizes. I am excited about this and hopefully it will encourage people to come in to the library during the break and read.

            So that is more or less what I am doing with my life nowadays, in my free time down here I do a lot of reading (right now I am reading Spanish books to improve my language skills, and it really helps…), try to talk to the people as much as possible, and besides that I watch a lot of Nickelodeon and local news with my host family. Speaking of my host family, over the weekend my host mom had her third child a girl (so that makes 3 host sisters…), she was named Meyta Gabrielle. In unrelated news, I received the Blackberry that was sent to me so nicely by Bunny Boyd (Thanks so much!). However it was a good news, bad news situation in which I got it safe and sound however me being the idiot that I am did not specify that I needed a Blackberry with a SIM card… sooooo the Blackberry is not going to work unfortunately. However, I have decided that I am just going to go ahead and buy a Blackberry down here (No worries I have been saving up my living allowance (helps that it is dirt cheap to live here) so basically your tax dollars at work here, thanks for the early Christmas present!) and get it all set up so bear with me and fairly soon anyone who has a smartphone will be able to text with me for free. Looking forward to that, hopefully I can get it all set up fairly soon meaning before Thanksgiving. Anyways, hope everything is going well with everyone and thanks again for following the blog!