Taking Inventory

Maybe it’s because I haven’t left my site this month. Or maybe it’s just that time; I’ve been here almost 5 months now and the newness is wearing off. I still have a daily plan of where to go at least. But I ask I’m starting to ask myself each morning what I expect to accomplish. And to be quite honest, it’s not very much. However, referring back to my Peace Corps application that kept telling me to have no expectations, I’m right on course.

So what am I doing?

I’m still showing up to the elementary school with the intention to teach a computer class or two. I think it’s been a month since that actually happened. They’re studying for an exam one week, taking it the next, have some kind of Independence holiday, then the air conditioning isn’t working, and there’s no way we’re gonna put 35 fresh-from-recess kids in a closed room with 15 running computers in the middle of Honduras. So there’s that.

I still go to the cooperative three times a week, sit around and use the internet, meet new people, sit in random meetings about fertilizer, etc. Some of the socios ask me my name again and ask what exactly I do here. That question was easy to answer when I first got here, because being new is a good excuse for not doing anything. But now, I talk about what we hope to accomplish in the future. I’m stuck in this in between phase. I’m not at the beginning, but I haven’t quite started. Poco a poco. Little by little, we’re implementing accounting procedures and making plans. We’ll see how things turn out when the cosecha (harvest) comes next month. The biggest dynamic I’m noticing is that I’ve more or less integrated myself into the community and the cooperative, but I still feel like an outsider when it comes to sensitive issues like money management and internal affairs. Part of that is simple office dynamics; there are only 3 employees, the técnico (consultant), and myself. There’s not really a need, most of the time, to hold office meetings, because information is just communicated directly (which, if this were the States, I would be a huge proponent of this), but I’m definitely out of the loop on a lot of the goings-on, which makes helping the cooperative challenging.

Some good news: my time hanging around the high school is starting to pay off. Starting tomorrow morning I’m going to start giving weekly charlas (lessons) on business plans. The 3^rd year students, as part of their final project, are required to complete a business plan. The agri-business students will be writing a business plan for a gallinero (chicken farm), which they will submit to the municipality for project funding. They have most of the structure already complete on the high school’s property, so the funding will go towards fencing off the structure and buying the actual chickens to start.

The other project I’m going to start at the high school is a recycling project/business. The 3^rd year students, aside from having to do business plans, are also required to do a social project – two actually, environmental and health. I think if we incorporate an educational health component into the recycling program, we can combine these two which makes the students just a little more excited to do this project. Also, they have a yearly project to better the school. This year, the students funded and constructed some bathrooms on the school property. Next year, the students will be constructing a 5^th classroom. (Note: The school year here is a calendar year. They start in February and go through November). The problem they have each year is raising the funds for the materials. If only there was a way they could create a business that could continually fund their projects…

Oh wait! Self, you know all those plastic Coca Cola bottles all over the street?

Yeah.

What if we could like sell those for cash or something?

Hey, that’s a brilliant idea!

I know.

And Hondurans sure won’t ever stop drinking Coke, so we’ll always have business.

*Applause*

OK, so maybe a bit dramatic. But there’s a lot of potential in this project and I’ve seen it work before, like when I went to Olancho to visit Erika. She’s gone now and they’re still making money. So we’re starting early with the 2^nd year students to build momentum into next year. We’ll hopefully be doing a lot of investigation this year, so that we can start implementing right away next year.

“The highest highs and the lowest lows.” That’s what they told me Peace Corps would be like. I would put this time in the ‘low’ category, but there is hope.

Hope. At least there’s that.