Gerald's Peace Corps 12 - The End

These last two photos are of Mayan ruins at Copan.  That's me on the ball court on the second photo.  Besides work I was able to travel to different parts of Honduras and on vacation visited Guatemala several times.  That concludes this blog.  I have more photos and more stories but that's probably more than sufficient to give you a taste of Peace Corps Volunteer service.  I still look back on those two years as probably the most meaningful time in my life.  I would recommend it highly to anyone.

Gerald's Peace Corps 11

The San Juancito area was mountainous and the apple trees were mostly planted on steep slopes.  I helped demonstrate some soil conservation practices.... Small semi-circular terraces for each tree.  And I showed how to prune and shape young apple trees so as to get more production from each tree.  Walking up the mountain to visit farms was hard work....so the Peace Corps bought me the mule in the second photo.  One night I gave a talk in the Rosario school up above and when it was over it was so dark I literally could not see my hand in front of my face.  I got on the mule and he took me down the steep road and we arrived in town safely in about an hour.  He was a lifesaver that night.....but most of the time he was a pain in the butt. 😁  I finished up my year in San Juancito by getting a grant to pay for a 4 day field trip to visit successful apple farms in Guatemala.  Ten of us went and the trip went very well and for 7 of the farmers it was their first opportunity to travel to another country.

Gerald's Peace Corps 10

Above are members of the cooperative meeting in the school.  San Juancito had both electricity and running water.....in fact in the early 1900's the Rosario Mining Company built a small hydroelectric plant powered by the stream coming down the mountain and San Juancito was the first town in Central America to have electricity.  It went out of operation in years past.  I loved living in San Juanito....it was much cooler and there weren't many scorpions 😊....although my house did have several bats that lived in it.

Gerald's Peace Corps 9

I changed locations after the first year and my supervisor placed me in the small pueblo of San Juancito.....which was near Tegucigalpa.  It had an interesting history in that it was where miners had lived while the Rosario Mine was being mined for gold and silver.  The mine was higher up the mountain and the pueblo was below.  The mine shut down in the 1950's and San Juancito nearly dried up after the miners left.  A few stayed on to grow coffee and in the early '80's a few farmers planted apple trees and then a cooperative was started.  I was sent to work with the cooperative and help them improve their Apple production.

From the photo you can see the cloudy area above the town.  That's where the mine was and 10 months out of the year it's a cloud forest with lush vegetation.   In the dry season the cloud disappears.  The Honduran government turned the area into a national park named La Tigra.  It's cool and moist in the forest.  I once saw a quetzal bird near the edge of the forest.  There are beautiful streams which Tegucigalpa uses as a water source.

Gerald's Peace Corps 8

I went into Tegucigalpa every so often to shop and visit the Peace Corps office.  It was a long bus ride in the old recycled school buses......perfect for the short Hondurans......but torture for a guy 6'2".  It was a 6 hour slow ride over rutted roads with the bus frequently breaking down or getting a flat.  I passed the hours reading paperbacks that I picked up from the Peace Corps office.  Sometimes the trip in was because of official business or visiting the Peace Corps nurse to help with frequent stomach ailments.  In Tegucigalpa I could get a cheeseburger or pizza and see a movie....so the 6 hour torture was always worth it.  The bottom photo is of the market.

Gerald's Peace Corps 7

The first photo shows the almost completed ditch for capturing runoff.  Even though the climate was arid there were occasional intense storms.  The second photo is of a guy from Switzerland holding Padre Antonio's pet spider monkey.  It was usually tethered to that tree.  One day it got loose and was wreaking havoc inside the hospital and I had to catch it.  I finally got it out of the rafters after receiving several bites.  Padre Antonio was able to get frequent young people to stay a month or more to volunteer in the hospital.  The bottom photo is of a project of another Peace Corps Volunteer who lived in town.  She worked with a women's group way out in the campo.  I rode a mule and she rode a horse to get there.  These women are standing in front of a chicken coop.....a small grant helped to pay for the fencing....so that the chickens could be controlled....and eggs could be more easily found.

Gerald's Peace Corps 6

I was assigned to work with a Franciscan priest from Belgium.....Padre Antonio....that's him in the brown robe in the second photo.  He started a natural healing hospital....the first photo.  The second photo is him with many of the patients.  He had developed a farm to provide food for the patients and irrigated his garden with a diesel powered pump.....getting water from the river.  I was focusing on conservation so we developed a demonstration to capture more water from the infrequent thunderstorms.  We constructed contour ditches to capture the rainfall runoff to allow the water to soak into the soil.  That's me in the bottom photo on the right.

Gerald's Peace Corp 5

I lived across the river from town in a small wood framed shack.  There was a swinging suspension footbridge to cross the river (that's how I took the bottom photo). A lot of folks washed their laundry and bathed in the river.  I boiled a gallon water for an hour each evening on my 2 burner kerosene stove and let the water cool over night.  No refrigerator....not sure why I had the ketchup.  I ate a lot of bananas and egg sandwiches for breakfast and dinner.   For lunch I ate at lady's house in town and she frequently fed me cabbage soup with a beef bone.  I lost 25 lbs that year ....guess I should try that diet again.  One of my main problems was the scorpions....they seemed to like my house.  I hunted them every evening before sunset....I became a skilled scorpion killer. 😁

Gerald's Peace Corps 4

Life seemed to be very slow in Texiguat.  I know I was slow....because of the heat.  Everyday it was hot.....probably in the 90's.  It took me weeks to adjust to the heat.  The above photo is me standing in front of the middle school which had classes in the evening.  When I first arrived in Texiguat there was a generator to provide lights to the school ....but it broke down that first month.  I had bought a Coleman lantern and I lent it to the school and used candles instead.  The bottom photo is the Catholic Church ....there was a crowd because of an event to commemorate a new statue of Francisco Morazon.....who was like the "George Washington" of Central America.

Gerald's Peace Corps 3

After training there was a graduation ceremony and we were officially sworn in by a representative of the US Embassy as Peace Corps Volunteers.   I was assigned to the small village of Texiguat ....which is in one of the poorest areas of Honduras.  It has a hot and arid climate and farmers are unable to grow corn....so they grow millet instead.  There are some livestock but no pasture and cattle forage like goats to find what is edible.  The town has dusty streets and while I was there no electricity.  There was running water from a spring higher in elevation to houses in town.  Away from town water had to be carried.  Several small stores had kerosene refrigerators with cold sodas and beer.

Gerald's Peace Corps 2

This was my host family.....part of it actually.....grandparents also lived there and other family members came and went....especially on the weekends.  Below is the kitchen with the Adobe cook stove.  Smoke went up the wall and through the roof.  Very typical in Latin America ....bad for the lungs.

In case you're not sure where Honduras is here's a map.  The little town of Santa Lucia where we trained is located very near Tegucigalpa..... the capital city.  Our training consisted of Spanish classes daily as well as classes on the culture and politics of Honduras.  My sector learned about Honduran agriculture and we received hands on training in soil and water conservation.

Gerald's Peace Corps 1 - Honduras 1984-86

In this blog are photos I took as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras from July 1984 to August 1986.

From Miami our group of trainees flew down to Tegucigalpa, Honduras and then on to the training center in the small mountain town of Santa Lucia.  We were here until September....although we did overnight field trips as a group and we were sent out individually to visit Volunteers in the field.  About half of the trainees were in the agriculture sector (including me) and half in the forestry sector.  We each lived with a different family during training.

Here's 2 photos of Santa Lucia.  The second photo shows the house of the family who hosted me.  That little building above and to the right of the blue car was my room.