hollydoeshonduras-blog

[hollydoeshonduras-blog]

I've moved!

Tumblr decided it simply did not want to work over here (a combination of stubbornness and dodgy wifi I'd say) so I've moved my blog over to Wordpress! Sorry for the inconvenience, I just love making all your lives misery X hollydoeshonduras.wordpress.com

[hollydoeshonduras-blog]

Turns out saying goodbye to your parents is not easy. (Neither is carting about 30kg total around London.) Mum & Dad, I'll miss you. And at Belfast City Airport yesterday, I realised that the feeling is mutual. (Dad did NOT cry. Absolutely zero tears. Not one.) First stop: Heathrow! Only got a tiny bit lost. Forgot that England doesn't accept Northern Irish sterling. (Controversy anyone????) Met my predecessor, Jesse (One of the two Tomalá volunteers from 2016/17) who showed me the wonderful Shoreditch. I'd post a photo of her, but she's a little harsh on the eyes. This morning I met Ted at our hotel and we made our way to our terminal together. (After I insisted on him waiting with me to get my £5 deposit back from my Oyster card. I am absolutely rolling in cash.) We then joined the other 18 volunteers, and I was reunited with my partner Kirsten (unfortunately). After successfully burdening the airport staff, we were relieved from a grand total of around 400kg between all 20 of us. And now, we're on our way to our connection; Houston. We'll be staying there overnight to catch our flight tomorrow (Is it tomorrow? Who knows. Time zones have messed with my head.) to San Pedro Sula, Honduras! In other news- I was selected as a Project Trust Correspondent, meaning that I will be partly responsible for producing content for PT to use in videos and literature! Maybe one of these fine days I'll actually finish making the infamous (nonexistent as of now) training video. Hope to keep updating my blog, so I hope those family members who I threw my blog link to are all reading! Until then X

[hollydoeshonduras-blog]

A long overdue post-training blog

So straight after I finished my exams (and finished school forever??!) I headed back to the Isle of Coll, where Project Trust is based, to attend a week's training geared towards my country, Honduras. We shared the training with another country group, India, making us a pretty big group. (This was painfully evident at the ceilidh on the last night.)

The thing that I was without a doubt most apprehensive about was meeting my project partner, who I will be spending practically every second with for a full 12 months. After sitting in our hostel the night before training for a few hours and nervously watching the door as volunteer after volunteer arrived, checked in and told us where their project is, I was beginning to think PT had forgotten to find me a partner. Rosie & I even made a list of all the volunteers and worked out who was with who, leaving me partnerless (cry me a river, am I right?) But eventually, later on, while we were ceaselessly trying to stream Love Island in attempt to see the tragic 'Kember' breakup, Catriona came in to our dorm and told me that my partner was upstairs! I don't think I'll ever forget that surreal moment walking up the stairs of Oban Backpackers Plus knowing that once I opened the door at the top of the stairs, my partner would be on the other side. In hindsight, I really had nothing to worry about, as by some secretive system, PT managed to partner me up with the wonderful Kirsten!! As many have already said, this is quite a lot like an arranged marriage, but I honestly couldn't be happier with my new 'wife', despite the questionable manner in which we have been set up, and are now stuck with each other for a year. I have seen her since training and I can safely say that I am not sick of her just yet, but it's early days. She doesn't like dogs, which is usually a deal breaker for me, but I guess I'll have to put up with her regardless. Here’s the woman herself. 

Training was, as we had been warned, absolutely exhausting. We were woken up most mornings by pots and pans (big shoutout to Janice) and our days consisted of talks and sessions on everything from culture shock to classroom management. 

A lot of time was devoted to filling in our One Awards paperwork- which will allow us to get a qualification in Global Volunteering and Citizenship upon our return.

We were given plenty of sessions on teaching itself and as my project is TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), my sessions were geared more towards this. We were then given the opportunity to deliver our own 10 and 20 minute lessons to our fellow volunteers. I chose Colours as my topic, and by some miracle was able to drag out teaching 7 colours to 18 year old native English speakers over a period of 30 minutes. Although it was quite difficult, I am so much more confident now about standing in front of a class and delivering a lesson.

Training was a great time to find out more about Honduras, but also about our individual projects. Kirsten and I will be living in Tomalá, a small town situated up in the mountains, 10km from the El Salvador border. We will be living with a host family for the year, and will be teaching English to primary and secondary school children. We will be solely responsible for the delivery of the English programme, and will also be expected to set up extra-curricular activities.

As well as meeting my partner, training also gave me the chance to meet all the other Honduras volunteers. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better group. Here we all are on our last night (apart from Kirsten and Solomon).

Our free time was spent getting to know each other, walking up Ben Hogh, meeting our country rep Vegas over Skype (what a man), never saying goodnight to each other (Greig gals what are we like), eating copious amounts of cake and even learning how to eat properly with our hands. (This one was for the India volunteers, but we didn’t wanna feel left out.)

Our week was rounded off with an incredible 3 course meal, a reception, and the inevitable ceilidh (which was to say the least, intimidating; with the vast majority of volunteers being Scottish).

It really was one of the best weeks of my life so far, and has made me feel more prepared than I ever thought I could be for my year out. Despite all the packing that has yet to be done, I am so ready to spend my year with these beaut people (group marriage, anyone??)

We head off in just one week from now, which is really quite hard to comprehend. Thank you to everyone for all your support throughout my fundraising which has made all this possible. Also want to say a huge thank you to Omagh Rotary Club for bringing me up to my final target! Here’s for hoping my future blogs are not as postponed as this one was! Thank you all, see you in Honduras X

[hollydoeshonduras-blog]

The beginning..? (a long post)

So on Friday the 5th of May I received my project placement confirmation- I will be living in Tomalá (I can’t yet seem to work out if the ‘a’ has a tilde or not so I’m just going to give it one regardless) in Honduras!

I was honestly quite scared that PT (Project Trust, that is, to all of you who don’t have the privilege of naming them on an initials-basis ~ it’s honestly simply because it’s getting a bit tedious writing it all out every time) would place me in one of my backup choices- Chile or Dominican Republic. ‘Holly Does Chile’ really doesn’t have that much of a ring to it. But nothing to worry about there! Holly will still be ‘doing’ Honduras! Cheers alliteration, you did me good.

It is now the 7th of May and after a weekend of intense procrastination, research on my soon-to-be home for a year, and a few hours of bag packing to go towards my fundraising, I have decided to write my first blog post for this crazy journey that I honestly still haven’t acknowledged is actually going to be happening. Writing this may or may not be a way to try to get myself further to acknowledging reality. It may not be though. (It is.)

I think I picked a perfect time to write this, what with my shockingly low levels of preparation for my rapidly approaching A levels, as well as my unfinished Spanish essay (Sorry Mrs Sotokelly- I really did try my best) lying spiritlessly on my desk trying to call out with any bit of life it has left that it is due TOMORROW MORNING. It really is an ideal time to write a rather unnecessary blog post.

It was really motivating finding out more about the specific project I will be doing in Honduras. I can now say that I will be teaching basic English to primary school children and also conversational English to high school pupils, as well as to teachers & students coming from surrounding schools.

As well as teaching English, I’ll be setting up extra-curricular activities. PT suggest art/crafts, music, drama, debating and sports. I think we all know that my forte here is sports, so I can confirm I will be teaching the community of Tomalá how to manage to mess up a simple throwing technique, how to trip over a stationary ball, and maybe even how to blame your hard-working teammates for your poor skills. Without even moving a muscle.

So that’s the basis of what I will be doing over there. I’ll be living with a host family for the year, which will hopefully make it even easier for me to immerse myself in the local community. I will also be spending the year with my project partner, who I won’t meet until training in June. I’ll be spending every waking hour with this poor, poor individual, so lets hope they’re willing to endure an absolute emotional wreck. I will better myself for you, future partner X

As I haven’t really posted anywhere about my fundraising, I’ll try to sum it all up here. I didn’t really start to make proper dolla until last December, and back then I was really s***ting bricks about how in the name of Jesus Christ Himself I was going to be able to raise £6200. But, lo and behold, I am now sitting (not literally) on £5749, with just over a month left to collect the rest! £450 is really not a lot of money in comparison to how much I’ve already raised, so I’m actually pretty proud of myself and all my lovely familia and amigos who have helped me get this far! (Big shoutout to the boyos (that’s u Dad) at Colinward Pharmacy for a v. generous donation).

To get all this sweet sweet cash I: held a couple of coffee mornings at my humble abode, selling my Mum’s crafts and offering an abundance of cakes; sold some unwanted jewellery; begged & pleaded family members for loose change; sold my piano (a heartbreaking moment); passive-aggressively shoved information about how to donate in the faces of loved ones; hosted a sponsored walk up CaveHill (and almost died when we took a questionable route to the top) and bagpacked at my local M&S! Not to mention of course, a very generous donation from The Allan & Nesta Ferguson Trust.

So there we go, exactly £451 left to raise, with about 7 weeks left to raise it. I will then be attending my training course on the Isle of Coll, in Scotland, to prepare me for this challenging year overseas. I booked flights etc. today for this and it made it all feel oh-so-real, but I still find myself having major difficulties accepting that in just 3 months, I will be living 5000 miles away from everyone I now know, and will be standing in front of a classroom of (hopefully) eager students teaching them the alphabet or how to count up to 100. Maybe they’re more advanced than that, but I guess we’ll see.

It’s about 2 in the morning now, so I guess that Spanish essay will have to wait just a little while longer. Thank you for reading, all 2 of you. Spreading endless love from my little room here in Belfast.