quick update

ok so im finally living by myself!! sweet freedom. it is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, but one bedroom is occupied with some belongings of the owner who is in america at the moment. i will be living there for the next year, and we will see what happens after that. i will do a proper update soon, as i plan on getting a wireless modem. it is slow at my site, about 53k, but in the bigger sites it is a lot faster. it costs about 15 dollars a month, but i think it is worth it because of all the usefull info on the web. oh, and i will be going back to new york for a wedding in october, so i hope to see everyone then. this is the only planned trip back to the states i forsee during my peacecorps service, so i hope to make it worthwhile!

Sometimes you don’t realize how important something is…until it is gone

Sorry if this post takes a serious tone, but I have to get something off my chest. I’ve only been in the Peace Corps for about four months now, but you start to realize all the things you have taken for granted in your life. To put things into perspective, I get $50 a month to pay for housing, which is about the norm for employed people in my site. I’ve paid more to eat out in New York. My monthly living allowance? About $215 to pay for everything else such as food, water, transportation, cell phone, internet, clothes, etc. That is less than a weekend out back home. The Honduran government, in an effort to reduce the usage of electricity, provides free electricity to all houses as long as they are under certain monthly usage (in terms of kilowatts). If they go over, then it can be expensive so it is an incentive to conserve electricity use. Food is either cooked on a wood burning stove or an electric powered stove, but the majority of the people use wood burning – even those who have an electric stove. The wood is acquired from the trees around them even though it is a protected area as the government is trying to reforest the area. The water that we receive is from the rivers, so after a heavy rainstorm you can expect to receive brown water (from all the earth the rain water picks up as it flows down). This is the water that you have to wash your dishes, your clothes, and even your body. Water doesn’t come every day so you have a pila (a cement tub) to save up water. Toilets have to be flushed by pouring water down them manually – if you splash the water, be prepared to have it get on you. The Honduran sewage system – if you can call it that as there is no centralized sewage in small areas like mine) – cannot handle toilet paper so you have to place it in trashcans next to the toilet. There is no trash collecting service so you have to burn all your trash – even the toilet paper from your bathroom. It is common for people to litter and throw their trash outside on the streets while walking, riding a car or even a bus. Why would you want to carry it home where you would have to burn it? There is no recycling either.

In my site they are undergoing a construction project so we have had no water for the longest time. The pila has run dry – I believe that water leaks out somewhere. We have had lots of rain, almost every night, but even when we collect it in small buckets and put it in the pila, the leak makes sure that the next morning we don’t have enough. With the little water we have, we have to wash dishes, flush the toilet, and when we have enough water, bath ourselves. We can’t even wash clothes right now. I hadn’t been able to take a shower/bathe for a while, so last night (I’m writing this on June 17), I finally had enough and decided to bathe myself. In the rain. I took a bar of soap, went to a corner in the backyard and tried to get wet (took about 5 minutes as it wasn’t raining as hard as I would have liked). I then lathered myself up and then waited in the rain for about another 5 minutes to try to get all the soap off. The corner of the roof had a steady stream of water from all the water that was running down it so I strategically placed myself under it to get maximum water. My source of light? The frequent lightning overhead. And I did this all while wearing my boxers so not to flash my host family.

But everything I’ve posted above? I knew that when I signed up for the Peace Corps that I would have to make sacrifices. I can’t expect to live in the same conditions as I was accustomed to in the U.S. I’m not really bothered too much by what I’ve written above. What I found that I really had taken for granted, the heart of this whole post is something I believe we all take for granted: the toilet seat. You see, when I first arrived into this house, to my chagrin I found that the toilet only had the right half of the toilet seat. Sure the toilet was disgusting as sometimes the water wouldn’t flush and there would be feces floating around in the toilet. That sometimes when I tried to flush it before I used it the water would splatter (as you would have to hold the bucket high up to get sufficient power to plough through whatever is clogging the pipe. But I found solace that at least whenever I had to do my business, I would only have to lean to the right and I would still be able to do my business. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked. But I was horrified yesterday morning when I heard a distinct clattering sound of hard plastic hitting the floor and my host mom cursing in disgust. When I looked into the bathroom, my worst fears were confirmed – my anchor, my only solace of hope and comfort in the bathroom, the right side of the toilet seat, had fallen off. I don’t believe they plan on buying a new toilet seat until after I leave because they want to remodel the hose then, so obviously it doesn’t make sense to buy a seat when they’ll just buy a new toilet soon anyway. But that means that for one month from now on I will have to squat to use the bathroom. I know that lots of girls squat in the United States (when using public bathrooms), and one guy as well (Dave), but I’ve always just lined the toilet seat with toilet paper to do my business in comfort. But yesterday was the first time I had to squat over a toilet (that isn’t a hole in the ground). I just can’t understand how anyone does that. Since I have arrived here, I have been pretty fast with the business. However, I was so unaccustomed to squatting that it took longer than usual, and my legs got really fatigued. I had to brace myself with one arm on the wall behind me for support. It was not a pleasant experience. When I was finally done, I got dressed and walked to the school, but my legs were so wobbly that I was walking like a drunk. At school, some of the kids wanted to play and I just couldn’t get my legs to comply. Needless to say, going forward for the next month, I will dread the mornings (like I did this one). So the next time you are doing your business comfortably at home, please think of me. As for me, when I finally find a house to move into, I think I will buy an extra toilet seat…just in case.