Here are some videos that show the house we are living in in Catacamas. Enjoy!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
September 13, 2008
I have had a busy but good first week working with Diaconia Nacional. Doris, who lives next door, also works at Diaconia so we often ride together a couple miles to a nearby town called Santa Maria del Real where the office is located. This week I have been working with David Cruz on the environment/agriculture program. First we went to the tree nursery of the municipality and picked up a few loads of saplings to bring to a local high school that is doing some reforestation projects with Diaconia. In the past a lot of deforestation has happened in Honduras, especially in Olancho. The traditional way of cooking is using a woodstove, so firewood is in demand. Honduras is also known for its high quality timber such as mahogany. Some of the trees we supplied will be good for lumber in the future. David also has a nursery set up at Diaconia. He provides trees to farmers which will give a good return when they are sold as lumber in the future. In all we moved about 1000 little trees this week.
The high school we are working with is in another town about 30 minutes south of Catacamas across the valley. I have been driving on a lot of these trips, which has been just fine. We are in a valley and it is very flat terrain. It reminds me of rumbling down the gravel roads of Minnesota. The Sierra de Agalta mountain range looms just to the north of Catacamas. I love being this close to majestic mountains Driving down the dusty and very bumpy road we see a lot of people hauling milk from their dairy farms. There are a lot of cattle in Olancho. On one of the trips we also visited a few farmers that Diaconia has worked with to provide pigs (sows to be specific). The group shares a boar, and the piglets that are produced will be finished and sold for meat. I am excited to get more involved in this project.
This Friday I went with Don Roldan and Arturo to another community where they held a meeting in the local Christian Reformed Church. The meeting was held to help the community organize itself and form a board (President, Secretary, etc) that could help direct community projects. The people were very enthusiastic, and it was a great meeting. Being organized will help them be able to petition the government for grants and community development projects.
David and I will soon be working on a bio-digester stove project which I am very excited about. It is basically a big bag filled with manure that produces methane for use as cooking fuel. This type of stove would significantly cut down on fuel expense (either in terms of money or labor).
--Matt
I have had a busy but good first week working with Diaconia Nacional. Doris, who lives next door, also works at Diaconia so we often ride together a couple miles to a nearby town called Santa Maria del Real where the office is located. This week I have been working with David Cruz on the environment/agriculture program. First we went to the tree nursery of the municipality and picked up a few loads of saplings to bring to a local high school that is doing some reforestation projects with Diaconia. In the past a lot of deforestation has happened in Honduras, especially in Olancho. The traditional way of cooking is using a woodstove, so firewood is in demand. Honduras is also known for its high quality timber such as mahogany. Some of the trees we supplied will be good for lumber in the future. David also has a nursery set up at Diaconia. He provides trees to farmers which will give a good return when they are sold as lumber in the future. In all we moved about 1000 little trees this week.
The high school we are working with is in another town about 30 minutes south of Catacamas across the valley. I have been driving on a lot of these trips, which has been just fine. We are in a valley and it is very flat terrain. It reminds me of rumbling down the gravel roads of Minnesota. The Sierra de Agalta mountain range looms just to the north of Catacamas. I love being this close to majestic mountains Driving down the dusty and very bumpy road we see a lot of people hauling milk from their dairy farms. There are a lot of cattle in Olancho. On one of the trips we also visited a few farmers that Diaconia has worked with to provide pigs (sows to be specific). The group shares a boar, and the piglets that are produced will be finished and sold for meat. I am excited to get more involved in this project.
This Friday I went with Don Roldan and Arturo to another community where they held a meeting in the local Christian Reformed Church. The meeting was held to help the community organize itself and form a board (President, Secretary, etc) that could help direct community projects. The people were very enthusiastic, and it was a great meeting. Being organized will help them be able to petition the government for grants and community development projects.
David and I will soon be working on a bio-digester stove project which I am very excited about. It is basically a big bag filled with manure that produces methane for use as cooking fuel. This type of stove would significantly cut down on fuel expense (either in terms of money or labor).
--Matt
Tostadas
Matt and I have been learning to cook Honduran over the past few weeks. Thanks to a cookbook I found when we were in Tegucigalpa and to the expert guidance of some Honduran mothers, we get better with every meal.
Here’s a creation that we’re quite proud of:
September 13, 2008
Tostadas
Shell: Corn tortillas fried in vegetable oil. Fry until just crispy, flipping once.
First layer: Red or black beans. We like them cooked with onions and a little hot sauce.
Second layer: Ground beef or chicken cooked with onion, tomato paste, and a teaspoon or so of vinegar.
Third layer: Chismol salsa consisting of one tomato, one green pepper, and one small onion all chopped finely. Add plenty of salt and lime juice to taste.
Buen provecho! (Bon apatite!)
-- Katie
Here’s a creation that we’re quite proud of:
September 13, 2008
Tostadas
Shell: Corn tortillas fried in vegetable oil. Fry until just crispy, flipping once.
First layer: Red or black beans. We like them cooked with onions and a little hot sauce.
Second layer: Ground beef or chicken cooked with onion, tomato paste, and a teaspoon or so of vinegar.
Third layer: Chismol salsa consisting of one tomato, one green pepper, and one small onion all chopped finely. Add plenty of salt and lime juice to taste.
Buen provecho! (Bon apatite!)
-- Katie
Bienvenidos a Catacamas!
Matt and I have been in our new house in Catacamas for about six days now and we’re starting to get into the routine. We are blessed with a wonderful two-bedroom house next to a woman named Doris and her family. Doris works for Diaconia Nacional and takes great care of us. The house has a gas stove, refrigerator and a pila, a wash basin in the back yard. Doris and her family did a super job cleaning the place up for us and everything is sparkling. It’s very impressive!
We’ve begun our routine of going to our respective jobs here. Matt goes to the office every day and has been talking and learning about the history of the program and doing some visits to various places and making plans for future events. On Tuesday the staff had a little birthday party for me and another staff member, David. It was really thoughtful of them!
I went to school twice this week and met the staff and some parents and students. I’ll be helping the English teacher with his class. The school is sponsored by the Iglesia Cristiana Reformada (Christian Reformed Church of Honduras).
It’s one of those crazy weeks at school because there is a holiday today (Dia del Nino, Day of Kids) and there were classroom parties with piñatas, games, candy, cake and other food. On Monday it’s Independence Day and so the kids are practicing for their role in the parade. There is no school at all next week because of Independence Day and yet another holiday. This week is the equivalent of our spring break since the school year ends in about a month and a half.
All in all, things are going really well for us. We’re excited to be here and are very content with all that surrounds us.
The internet is a long way from our house, so we’ll probably only go once a week at best. Continue to write, though, and we’ll do our best to write back.
--Katie
We’ve begun our routine of going to our respective jobs here. Matt goes to the office every day and has been talking and learning about the history of the program and doing some visits to various places and making plans for future events. On Tuesday the staff had a little birthday party for me and another staff member, David. It was really thoughtful of them!
I went to school twice this week and met the staff and some parents and students. I’ll be helping the English teacher with his class. The school is sponsored by the Iglesia Cristiana Reformada (Christian Reformed Church of Honduras).
It’s one of those crazy weeks at school because there is a holiday today (Dia del Nino, Day of Kids) and there were classroom parties with piñatas, games, candy, cake and other food. On Monday it’s Independence Day and so the kids are practicing for their role in the parade. There is no school at all next week because of Independence Day and yet another holiday. This week is the equivalent of our spring break since the school year ends in about a month and a half.
All in all, things are going really well for us. We’re excited to be here and are very content with all that surrounds us.
The internet is a long way from our house, so we’ll probably only go once a week at best. Continue to write, though, and we’ll do our best to write back.
--Katie
Book Review: Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence
September 10, 2008
CRWRC armed us with a few books to read to help us discover more about the mission field. One of those books is Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence by David A. Livermore.
In the book, Livermore cites research that he and others have done on the impact of short-term missions on both the participants and the receiving parties. He exposes some common American assumptions about life, culture, mission work, and the Bible. He challenges us to "complexify" our understandings of these things, rather than do the typical American thing—to simplify them into easy-to-understand, and dangerously overgeneralized black-and-white categories.
For me, the most helpful section of the book was Part Three, about the theory of Cultural Intelligence (CQ). This was the first I had heard of this theory, and was impressed. He breaks CQ into four different, equally important parts:
Knowledge CQ: Understanding Cross-Cultural Differences
Interpretive CQ: Interpreting Cues
Perseverance CQ: Persevering through Cross-Cultural Differences
Behavioral CQ: Acting Appropriately
He mentions that the most training materials are made for Knowledge CQ and Behavioral CQ, but when used separately from the other two parts of Cultural Intelligence, they are at best useless knowledge and at worst extremely harmful in perpetuating vague generalizations about entire people groups. Books like Foreign to Familiar by Sarah A. Lanier and A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne can only provide a quarter of what we really need to be skilled at intercultural communications (and that is only if we can trust those books to be the kind that don’t make too many overgeneralizations).
Livermore’s book is a good solid read for anyone working with people of other cultures, and especially for anyone going on a short-term missions project. I find it useful!
--Katie
CRWRC armed us with a few books to read to help us discover more about the mission field. One of those books is Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence by David A. Livermore.
In the book, Livermore cites research that he and others have done on the impact of short-term missions on both the participants and the receiving parties. He exposes some common American assumptions about life, culture, mission work, and the Bible. He challenges us to "complexify" our understandings of these things, rather than do the typical American thing—to simplify them into easy-to-understand, and dangerously overgeneralized black-and-white categories.
For me, the most helpful section of the book was Part Three, about the theory of Cultural Intelligence (CQ). This was the first I had heard of this theory, and was impressed. He breaks CQ into four different, equally important parts:
Knowledge CQ: Understanding Cross-Cultural Differences
Interpretive CQ: Interpreting Cues
Perseverance CQ: Persevering through Cross-Cultural Differences
Behavioral CQ: Acting Appropriately
He mentions that the most training materials are made for Knowledge CQ and Behavioral CQ, but when used separately from the other two parts of Cultural Intelligence, they are at best useless knowledge and at worst extremely harmful in perpetuating vague generalizations about entire people groups. Books like Foreign to Familiar by Sarah A. Lanier and A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne can only provide a quarter of what we really need to be skilled at intercultural communications (and that is only if we can trust those books to be the kind that don’t make too many overgeneralizations).
Livermore’s book is a good solid read for anyone working with people of other cultures, and especially for anyone going on a short-term missions project. I find it useful!
--Katie
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