The women´s group that I mentioned in this blog about 2 months ago, finally had their first meeting a couple of days ago! Although many of you may be thinking, ¨what the heck was this girl doing for 2 months?¨ I will just remind you all once again, that I am working in Latin America. Enough said (I say that not as a slam against them, just a mere fact. All the Hondurans I know, at least, would agree whole-heartedly).
Well, this meeting went exceptionally well, considering about half the women were invited just the day before, and the other half had to walk at least an hour on foot to get there! The group of people that came to help out the women did a lot more than I expected. When I went to talk to the man, he gave me an already prepared talk about the recycling projects that he worked with in his town. I expected him only to come and give us a talk about that. However, they came instead, to talk about their organization, the importance of woman leadership in Honduras, as well as the roles of men and women in the household.
At one point, one of the women from the organization got up and did an example of the typical day of a Honduran man, and of a Honduran woman. The women had to give examples of what they and their husbands did in their daily routine. The room filled with laughter as some of the women started shouting in detail all the work they did in a day, and others began imitating their husbands asking for dinner while lying in a hammock. At the end, we could all see that the man´s day, which started at 5 am, and ended at 2 in the afternoon (the rest of the day is spent in the hammock), consisted of much less work than that of a woman, who´s day usually started at 3, sometimes 2 in the morning (she had to get up and prepare the lunch for the man to bring to work!), and ended at around 8 at night!
After the illustration, the woman very tactfully told the women, that this was meant for the women to go back to their homes and shout at their husbands, telling them how much more work they did then the men. It was simply to help the women realize that it´s okay sometimes to tell their husband that they have other work to do (like this cooperative), and don´t have time to make dinner. Or that they aren´t feeling very well, and can´t get up to clean after them. In a kind and loving way. Some of the women that I know in my town, I don´t think would ever think twice to say something like that to their husbands because they are too shameful, or don´t know anything different. But I was extremely happy to see another Honduran woman get up and empower these women. It is something that I, in the role that I am in, and the fact that I come from a different culture completely, could not do quite as effectively.
The next step of the cooperative is coming up with an idea, with what type of business we would like to have. When we think of that, we will meet again with this organization, and they will bring us through the process, step by step, to help us get the project off the ground. It is exciting to see, and I really hope it will continue to work!
jueves, 24 de abril de 2008
martes, 8 de abril de 2008
CSA in Honduras
CSA stands for community supported agriculture. I'm sure many of you know by now what a CSA is, but for those of you who don't, a CSA is when a community members pay a local farmer a set amount of money per week, and they get a basket of all the fresh veggies that they have available for that week. So for instance, one week, someone could get a bushel of green beans, 5 tomatoes, 10 carrots, 2 ounces of basil, and 1 head of lettuce. But another week, they could get 2 green peppers, 1 head of lettuce, 10 tomatoes and 2 carrots depending on the amount of harvest that week. But no matter what, they always pay the same thing, so it doesn't get confusing or too complicated. It is really cool, and a good way especially to help support local farmers.
Well, this idea was presented to my director by the wife of a UN worker living in Honduras. She says that it's really hard to find good, organic fruits and vegetables here in Honduras, so she has been looking elsewhere. Well, the farmers of my cooperative produce an ungodly amount of vegetables. So many, that especially during mango season, there is just tons of fruit rotting on the ground, because it's too much for people to eat.
So I met with her this week, and am very excited with the results. She was telling me that she knows enough people in Honduras (mostly foriegners) who are more than willing to pay a higher price for organic fruits, as well as pay for transportation to get it up to Tegucigulpa and delivered to their doors weekly.
This is a great opportunity for the cooperative, because it with reliable clients, at a good and fixed price, and it will get them used to the idea of selling to a client regularly. And from there, hopefully we can broaden our horizons.
Well, this idea was presented to my director by the wife of a UN worker living in Honduras. She says that it's really hard to find good, organic fruits and vegetables here in Honduras, so she has been looking elsewhere. Well, the farmers of my cooperative produce an ungodly amount of vegetables. So many, that especially during mango season, there is just tons of fruit rotting on the ground, because it's too much for people to eat.
So I met with her this week, and am very excited with the results. She was telling me that she knows enough people in Honduras (mostly foriegners) who are more than willing to pay a higher price for organic fruits, as well as pay for transportation to get it up to Tegucigulpa and delivered to their doors weekly.
This is a great opportunity for the cooperative, because it with reliable clients, at a good and fixed price, and it will get them used to the idea of selling to a client regularly. And from there, hopefully we can broaden our horizons.
martes, 1 de abril de 2008
A typical day
About a month ago, a friend wrote me and asked me to describe my typical day. I loved the idea, because although it is something so simple that I never think to recount to my friends and family when I talk to them, it really gives them a much clearer idea of what my life is like here in Peace Corps Honduras.
5:30 am--I am usually woken up by the sound of the first bus passing my house, and the shouts that come from it. Then I go right back to sleep.
6:30 am--I am usually woken up again by the second bus. This time, I am a little more awake, but I still fall back asleep for another hour or so.
7:30--wake up, but lay in bed for a good 15 minutes, trying to either plan out my day so I´m not bored to tears, or pray for the strength to do something that I am scared of or not looking foreward to
8:00-eat breakfast and get ready to go to the cooperative
8:30--show up at the cooperative for computer classes that I´m giving to some of the kids of the members of the cooperative. The class was supposed to start at 8, but neither I nor the student ever show up on time.
8:30-10:30ish--teach classes. This mostly consists of me trying my best to describe tiny little functions on word and excel to my student, and then waiting with anguish and impatience while watching them try for what seems like hours to figure out how to, for example, copy a sentence onto the next line, something which I just taught them how to do 5 seconds ago. Sometimes it takes everything in me to keep from shouting ¨no, you don´t do that, you do this! I just showed you, how could you have already forgotten?!?!?!¨ Ah, the pains of teaching technology to people who, the closest they´ve come to a computer in their whole lives is maybe seeing a picture of it in their school text books.
10:30ish-12:00--up in the air. I usually fool around at the cooperative, chatting, looking for work, or playing solitaire on the computer (so I´m not gonna lie to you guys, okay? It´s not always %100 work here)
12:00-1:00--this is usually up in the air, too. It is always definately lunch time, but where I go for lunch, it always depends. Sometimes I go to my house and make a feast (in other words, pasta, rice and beans, or stir-fry). Other days, when I´m feeling lazy, I go visit a near-by family and they always love to feed me :) Other days, though, when I´m feeling especially motivated, I take a hike to a nearby town (usually about an hour walk) to visit the people there, and talk to women about the women´s group. They usually feed me there, too!
1:00-7:00 or 8:00--work time. Usually consists of doing a job for the cooperative, teaching environmental education or English in the elementary schools, or lately it has been working on the women´s cooperative. Either going to the nearby towns to talk to women, doing surveys on the amount of trash the town produces in a week (unusually large), or things like that. Usually by night time, I go to one of the near-by houses again for a night/dinner visit (I almost never have to cook for myself, hehe!) and if the family has TV, I usually watch the telenovela that I had to leave when I left my host family´s house, because I´m still very interested to know who´s cheating on who, and who´s threatening who with death threats! Oh, spanish telenovelas, gotta love them!
8:00-10:00--my time! I love going back to my little house and making some hot tea, and sitting out on my hammock and reading a book. Or, when the stars are especially bright, I bring my yoga mat out onto the patio in front of my house, and lay down and watch the stars!
10:00--bed time.
So that´s practically my normal day. Except on special days, obviously, like Saturdays, when I spend the whole morning teaching, and the whole afternoon trying to decided whether to spend it in my hammock, or visiting families. Or Sundays, when I usually go to mass or pretend mass (that´s what I like to call it when the priest isn´t there) in the morning, and then invite myself over to a family´s house for lunch and try to fend off the bolos (drunk men....they love to drink on Sundays) in the afternoon.
5:30 am--I am usually woken up by the sound of the first bus passing my house, and the shouts that come from it. Then I go right back to sleep.
6:30 am--I am usually woken up again by the second bus. This time, I am a little more awake, but I still fall back asleep for another hour or so.
7:30--wake up, but lay in bed for a good 15 minutes, trying to either plan out my day so I´m not bored to tears, or pray for the strength to do something that I am scared of or not looking foreward to
8:00-eat breakfast and get ready to go to the cooperative
8:30--show up at the cooperative for computer classes that I´m giving to some of the kids of the members of the cooperative. The class was supposed to start at 8, but neither I nor the student ever show up on time.
8:30-10:30ish--teach classes. This mostly consists of me trying my best to describe tiny little functions on word and excel to my student, and then waiting with anguish and impatience while watching them try for what seems like hours to figure out how to, for example, copy a sentence onto the next line, something which I just taught them how to do 5 seconds ago. Sometimes it takes everything in me to keep from shouting ¨no, you don´t do that, you do this! I just showed you, how could you have already forgotten?!?!?!¨ Ah, the pains of teaching technology to people who, the closest they´ve come to a computer in their whole lives is maybe seeing a picture of it in their school text books.
10:30ish-12:00--up in the air. I usually fool around at the cooperative, chatting, looking for work, or playing solitaire on the computer (so I´m not gonna lie to you guys, okay? It´s not always %100 work here)
12:00-1:00--this is usually up in the air, too. It is always definately lunch time, but where I go for lunch, it always depends. Sometimes I go to my house and make a feast (in other words, pasta, rice and beans, or stir-fry). Other days, when I´m feeling lazy, I go visit a near-by family and they always love to feed me :) Other days, though, when I´m feeling especially motivated, I take a hike to a nearby town (usually about an hour walk) to visit the people there, and talk to women about the women´s group. They usually feed me there, too!
1:00-7:00 or 8:00--work time. Usually consists of doing a job for the cooperative, teaching environmental education or English in the elementary schools, or lately it has been working on the women´s cooperative. Either going to the nearby towns to talk to women, doing surveys on the amount of trash the town produces in a week (unusually large), or things like that. Usually by night time, I go to one of the near-by houses again for a night/dinner visit (I almost never have to cook for myself, hehe!) and if the family has TV, I usually watch the telenovela that I had to leave when I left my host family´s house, because I´m still very interested to know who´s cheating on who, and who´s threatening who with death threats! Oh, spanish telenovelas, gotta love them!
8:00-10:00--my time! I love going back to my little house and making some hot tea, and sitting out on my hammock and reading a book. Or, when the stars are especially bright, I bring my yoga mat out onto the patio in front of my house, and lay down and watch the stars!
10:00--bed time.
So that´s practically my normal day. Except on special days, obviously, like Saturdays, when I spend the whole morning teaching, and the whole afternoon trying to decided whether to spend it in my hammock, or visiting families. Or Sundays, when I usually go to mass or pretend mass (that´s what I like to call it when the priest isn´t there) in the morning, and then invite myself over to a family´s house for lunch and try to fend off the bolos (drunk men....they love to drink on Sundays) in the afternoon.
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