This is an essay I wrote about my experience for the scholarship I recieved to go to Honduras. I would like to print it here as it tells about my experience in the words of an 18 year old first time traveller.
Looking back over my year with AFS in Honduras I have achieved more than I thought I would and gained so much confidence and self-esteem at times I hardly recognise the "new Rhianon". I am sitting in my bedroom in Tela, Honduras, a small town situated on the northern carribean coast of Honduras in Central America. I am sick for only the second time since I arrived here and have been using the time to think about my past in New Zealand and about the time I have spent here and the effect it will have on my future plans.
My first days were spent in Tegucigalpa (the capital) on an orientation of sorts where we were all too overwhelmed and tired to really absorb anything. This was followed by a six hour bus ride to Tela the next morning. Tegucigalpa is in the mountains and is cooler at nights and we were departing at 4am so I was dressed in jeans. I had no idea that the bus trip was going to take so long and by the time we arrived in Tela I was very hot, thirsty, hungry and tired! We were dropped off at a merendero which is a snack bar. There was no representative waiting for us, contrary to what we had been told in Tegucigalpa. We started out joking about the situation but after two hours of waiting we were getting a little scared of being left in this strange place alone. Finally our representative turned up full of apologies that we understood more for her blushing than her words. The other two students were taken to their host families but there seemed to be some confusion over me. We were taken to a restaurant where an English speaker explained that there was a problem and that I was going to be taken somewhere new. I was shocked as I hadn''t been prepared for this but I decided to make the most of it. The next three days turned out to be the worst I would spend in Honduras.@The living conditions were unhygenic, I was given food I hardly managed to swallow, had to sleep on a cot-like bed in the "mothers" room and was made to wash the clothes, sweep the house and wash all the dishes after just arriving!! Talk about major culture shock! I believe that they thought I was to be their maid for a year!
I moved house on the third day, my birthday, and was placed in a lovely home with my 72 year old host mother Dona Emma. Emma was the owner of a pulperia which is like a small convenience store. A maid also lived with us and we shared a small room overlooking the Carribean Sea. My host mother liked to enjoy her life and encouraged me to make friends and go out. I learned the value of independence as I noticed that many other students weren''t allowed the freedom I had.
School was at Triunfo de la Cruz high school from 7.30am to 12 midday. I would go home for a cooked lunch and then had the afternoon free. For awhile I did community service in Tela Hospitals'' Pediatric ward. I was lookinf forward to helping with the children but ended up cutting a drawing medication cards for hours! After a month I got bored and stopped going.
As part of my studies I had to do 200 hours of social work. The organizing teacher got us to work on several projects during the last half of the year. These projects included:
* The clearing of the back yard of a kindergarten and planting vegetables for the children. We also had to maintain the gardens (watering and weeding regularly).
* We listened to a speech from a local dentist on child tooth care and then formed our own speeches in groups with diagrams and went to different schools in Tela to give the speech on looking after their teeth.
* We fixed library books in my school and wrote signs on cardboard, posting them around the school about reading and caring for books.
* We made a cabinet for the school Science laboratory.
* We made signs to inform students to look after school property, especially desks and followed it up with speeches in all the classrooms.
* Finally we formed seedlings/cuttings from trees in the school grounds (over 400) using sawdust, water and aluminium foil and later planted them on a stretch of highway just outside Tela.
During my time in Honduras as a student I was lucky enough to do a bit of travelling. I visited Trujillo and La Ceiba (two northern coastal towns), San Pedro Sula (the business capital of Honduras), El Progreso and La Lima (teo cities on the way to S.P.S. from Tela), Mezapa (a tiny village on a river), Copan (home of the Mayan ruins) and The Bay Islands the little Honduran paradise in the Carribean Sea).
I was really lucky to have been placed in Tela. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in Honduras. It has miles of beaches stretching out as far as you can see with palm trees and white sand. There is a much friendlier atmosphere in this town unlike in the larger cities. There is less street crime although the beach is dangerous at night.
The things that struck me the most when I first arrived in Honduras were the little horse and carts in the streets all the time and also the rubbish that people freely threw into the gutters. I was struck by the open air markets where people sell meat and fish with a mountain of flies around! The mosquitos also drove me crazy at first. I soon learned to use repellent and not scratch them because my new found tan left a little white mark if I did. At one stage I had legs with lots of white splotches. Not very nice!
The number of bicycles in Tela was quite incredible. It was definately an essential purchase for me. There are obviously little road rules here or drivers don't bother to observe them because the driving here is pretty bad!
to be continued ...