25. January 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I’m proud of this ordinary-looking diploma.  With six years prior military service when I was but a kid, I have now served my country with two years in the U.S. Peace Corps as an old dude.  And I’m staying for another year.  We remaining 26 of 50 initial H-14 trainees who started this adventure back in 2009 met as a group for the final time in Valle de Angeles for our COS Conference last week.  Every six months a new 50-strong group enters service.  They alternate: Business; Water and Sanitation; and Health comprise three projects.  Next cycle comes Youth Development; Community Development; and Resources Management.  Most make it, some don’t.  Ours was a 50% success rate.  We were the survivors.  As you can imagine, our last conference, which focused on administrative separation duties, was filled with nostalgia and excellent memories.  And a little bit of booze (or maybe a lot, I forget).  But it was fun.  Three of my PCV companeras and I will be extending for another year.  The rest will scatter to the far corners of the States and the world, forever friends and companeros and very special folk.  We have experienced an adventure that will remain in our collective memories forever.  Adios amigos!

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17. January 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

 This is where the kids have been playing for almost the past two years.  A dirt and rock sanctuary.

The Palmerola Air Base asked me if we could use a few bags of cement.  Hell yes, I replied.  How many do you want?  How many do you have?  We ended up with 50 one-hundred-pound bags of donated concrete that I and insufficient but available help unloaded over two days.  Next came a donation of sand by a local colegio.  All this activity happened around the holidays.  Finally the President’s daughter came to visit and negotiated with the alcaldia the labor of prisoners from the centro penal who were working off their court penalty.      And this is now where the children will play until our new building is constructed sometime at the end of 2011.  We are confident that the Personeria Juridica will be approved.  If not, we have Sister Edith’s unbridled confidence to proceed siempre adelante.

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11. January 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

It appears that the monolithic bureaucratic entity is endemic to civilization, no matter the country’s development status.  A word about the Personeria Juridica: a Honduran legality conferring a status to an organization similar to incorporation in the States.  Sister Edith has been engaged in a bureaucratic battle for six years.  Her first two attorneys meant well but accomplished squat and ended up at odds with each other, the process at a dead stop when I became involved in March 2009.  A new attorney expressed interest and then a friend of hers joined the campaign.  Over the past year we have jumped hoops and organized folk to get to the point of completing and getting the required paperwork to the capital city for approval.  We have been in an approval situation since the first of December that is so stereotypically bureaucratic.  The Tegucigalpa governmental bureaucracy is asking for corrections to the tramite (legal paperwork) that have already been submitted.  Our lawyer told me she has completed all the requested modifications but she does not have the influence to move the tramite through the bureaucratic maze.  I have contacted folks to enlist the assistance of a diputado (similar to a congressman) from Comayagua; a lawyer assigned to Governacion y Justicia which is a governmental office, a staff person recommended by the President’s daughter; and the governor of the departamento of La Paz.  There is nothing more I can do.  It would seem that every country has its bureaucratic labyrinth that is impervious to common sense and whose squeaky, ponderous wheels are greased by who you know, power, and pure luck.  The tragedy, of course, is that the construction of a new building for the Hogar San Jose is contingent upon the approval of the Personeria Juridica.

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2. January 2011 by Fortunato Velasquez.

This year we expect the Personeria Juridica to be signed by the Country’s Secretary of Health any day now legitimizing the Fundacion Senor San Jose as a legal entity.

This year a new building for the Fundacion Senor San Jose with space for thirty-two children will be constructed.

This year I expect to write a Small Project Assistance (SPA) grant to remodel the Health Clinic (CESAMO) in a mountain aldea called Concepcion de Soluteca.

This year I will be coordinating the installation of a permanent, everyday 24/7 water system for the Hogar Materno where the peasant ladies from the mountain aldeas come to stay before they are ready to deliver their babies.

This year I will intensify my participation in the Centro de Atencion Integral (CAI), the clinic that administers to HIV positive patients and their families and to those with AIDS.  My goal is to establish a counseling (consejeria) service for the patients themselves to form a self-support group (Grupo de Auto Apoyo) (GAA) that provides them the knowledge and cumulative strength to combat the everpresent stigma, discrimination and rejection that accompany the collective community ignorance concerning this infection.  And of course to ultimately educate the community, if not into an attitude of acceptance, at least into one of tolerance.

This year I will continue to teach my three English classes geared to the three different levels of my students.

This year I will continue to integrate myself into the La Paz municipio community.  Every day I learn something new.  Every day I continue to grow.  Every day I continue to live life to the fullest amongst my contrapartes and my friends.  Every day is an adventure.

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25. December 2010 by Fortunato Velasquez.

The holiday season is especially meant for children, good food and excellent company.  All of which I immersed myself into with indulgent pleasure yesterday.  Surrounded by happy, healthy, well-fed little kids brings a special joy to my heart and makes me yearn for my own grandchildren so very far away celebrating in their own homes with family and friends.  I miss you all very much.  The pictures above take me back to my own boyhood, celebrating with my extended family in similar Hispanic fashion: Tamales steaming on an open fire,  laughter, everyone busy preparing food, gossiping, cooking and eating.  The kids all underfoot.  This special scene is repeated all over Spanish-Speaking America.  Hundreds of millions of families sharing a common bond and an ancient heritage veiled in the indigenous mists of time. 

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11. December 2010 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I returned from Tegus today.  The workshop in Valle de Angeles (in a beautiful mountainous scenic area 30″ from Tegucigalpa) went very well.  Yesterday, Friday, after the workshop I had a dental appointment for a sore molar in an upper gum in my mouth that had been bleeding for a couple of months when I brushed my teeth.  Turned out I had a periodontal abscess and the doc did minor surgery on my mouth, scraped out all the swollen infected gunk with pick, drill and scalpel (Debridement & Curettage) and put 4 stitches in the gum; have to return to Tegus next Friday to have the stitches taken out.  Afterward I’m traveling directly to La Ceiba from there for a week’s vacation.  Not only that, after my dental appt I consulted a Dermatologist for a bunch of bug bites on my back that were driving me crazy from the itching.  Turns out the bed I slept in at the upscale hotel where we had the workshop housed voracious insects that fed on me the three nights I was there.  Don’t know why they preferred my back.  Yesterday was a busy Friday afternoon indeed.  So I’m back in La Paz with a ton of meds to treat my gum surgery and my bug-bitten back.  But it sure is good to be home.  No matter how humble there is no place like home.  Thanks Dr. Nazar!  Thanks Dr. Morales!!  Thanks Peace Corps for the prompt response to my ills!!!

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4. December 2010 by Fortunato Velasquez.

The governor of the Departamento de La Paz was there; as were several city luminaries and many students from the school of nursing and other students who belong to Comvida, as well as hospital staff, and medical staff from the Region Sanitaria.  Escorted by the policia and bomberos with sirens blasting the desfilo garnered much attention as it made its way from Parque Morazan to the Parque Central across from the alcaldia.  At the mesa principal were gathered speakers who spoke of the ravages of AIDS.  Honduras is the Central American country with the greatest number of HIV positive cases.  I recently began working with the doctor who prescribes medications to the HIV positive patients in La Paz.  I provide the consejeria, with the goal of establishing a support group for patients and families ignorant of the disease process.  Our CAI (Centro de Atencion Integral) clinic is only three months old.  We have a long ways to go.  Next week I’m taking one volunteer staff Honduran and one HIV positive person to a Peace Corps sponsored workshop focused on micro businesses for Persons Living With HIV/AIDS.  I finish my pictorial with a pic of our beautiful central park designed by a Peace Corps Volunteer and a pic of the two-month-old son, Iverson, of one of my companeras who works with Jovenes Sin Fronteras, another Peace Corps-founded national group staffed by Hondurans who make a difference in their community.  Iverson is the symbol of a new, enlightened future for Honduras.

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27. November 2010 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Our Second Annual Dia de Gracias feast at the orphanage met with exuberant success.  This is the second turkey holocaust (3 birds) for me at my assigned post and will not be the last.  Fifteen PCVs joined with me to help cook, prepare and serve a traditional feast to 40 folks who included the fifteen resident children at the Hogar San Jose, three Cuban doctors, two German foreign exchange students, two visiting norteamericanos and several Honduran friends in an afternoon of giving thanks for our blessings by joining together to share a meal.  We gathered together as family grateful for the eternal unity of the human spirit no matter in which country one lives.  As the carver of fowl for 40 persons I was unfortunately not able to take as many pics as I wanted.  I say this feast will not be my last in Honduras because I have decided to extend my service for another year until May 2012.  There is much unfinished work upon which I will elaborate in subsequent posts.  Thank you Grandfather for allowing me to be here amongst friends whom I will never forget.

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13. November 2010 by Fortunato Velasquez.

When I received my first carton of seeds from Mel Hansen last year I thought to myself that it was certainly a boon, however I lived in La Paz, La Paz in the Comayagua Valley whose name the invading Spaniards had first given it was Valle de Piedras (Valley of Rocks) for a reason.  My first planting was plagued not only with the numerous rocks I had to dig out of the soil but with donated chickens that ran wild and ate all the canteloupes and watermelons (three watermelons miraculously survived and were duly consumed).  We also harvested corn and beans.  After we penned up the chickens someone this year donated a couple of rabbits.  I planted anew but the cute, furry bunnies ate all the nascent squash plants except the one that you can see above in the rocky soil: I had to resort to fencing the poor thing in until we finally got rid of the rabbits.  Our only other crop that has survived were the radishes that the nun planted in a washtub elevated on a 50-gallon drum above critters and kids.  Kids; our most enduring obstacle.  This is after all their home and one can’t be yelling at 2, 3 and 4-year-old kids for playing in the dirt amongst the plantings.  As can be seen above I have cleared three new areas after considerable labor and have planted sun flowers, green beans, more radishes, carrots, onions and jalapeno peppers!  Another large area not seen has a crop of corn planted.  I continue to clear garden spots: Thank you Mel Hansen and the Stockton, California Rotary Club for the donated seeds!!  Mel’s group donates seeds to Peace Corps Volunteers all over the world whose goal is to help native folk plant gardens and raise crops for healthy nutritious meals and better health.  A worthy endeavor indeed.  Happy Thanksgiving, Mel!!!

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30. October 2010 by Fortunato Velasquez.

Asked to stand as padrino (godfather) for the baptism of five abandoned children who live at the Hogar San Jose, I said ‘yes.’  My experience with the medical brigade had fizzled for a number of reasons, one of which was that I got sick.  I am only now regaining my voice.  So, in a croaky whisper I told Sor Edith that yes I would be happy to sponsor the children: she would be godmother.  The majority of the children’s baptismal pictures are taken in Edith’s element; the church.  The children were so happy and excited to be baptized, all dressed up and being the central part of the church’s ancient rites.  I was raised a Catholic but years of studying the history of centuries-long realities of religious warfare, lies, corruption and hypocrisy have made me a confirmed atheist.  That, however, does not stop me from respecting the spiritual beliefs of others, whether they be muslim, buddhist, animist, quaker, hindu, christian, or whatever motivates the beholder to believe in a spiritual savior.  That is their business, just as my beliefs are my business.  When I attended the mandatory three-hour orientation for parents (no parents for our kids) and padrinos Friday night I relived the mysteries of the church that were imbued in my own childhood rife with ignorance.  No matter, everyone in attendance, some 120, believed fervently in their religion.  I participated with their joy.  But knowing what I know of the world and of the history of mankind and our evolution, I could only wonder at the tremendous supernatural effort successfully perpetrated by the church on so many people over the centuries.  Political parties could learn from that deep and thorough soul-grasping indoctrination; perhaps they have.  Nonetheless, Saturday morning was a stimulating experience that unfolded seamlessly as a 2,000-year-old pageant little changed over the centuries.  And today I enjoyed participating in the ritual and I will do my best to help these children progress along a spiritual path of their choosing, whatever it may turn out to be.

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