KB in Honduras: Making Fogones

Three fellow volunteers who live near my site, Stacie, Caitlin, and Jacqui, have been working with a group of youth at a colegio (high school) in Stacie's site, El Nispero. The invited me to come participate in/observe the project on Friday because they were going to make a fogon at the colegio so the youth could learn step by step, and then each group of students had to make a fogon as well. A fogon is like a wood stove; feed the mouth of the fogon with wood and it heats the plancha on top, which is the flat metal cooking surface.

I took the 6am bus to El Nispero because we were planning to begin at 7:30am. When I arrived I found out the director of the school wouldn't let the students miss all of their classes so we couldn't begin until 11:30am. We went early to the school anyway because we had to get our materials ready and start making the clay to build the fogon. Basically, the students all had to go home to change into older clothes and some even had to bring their materials for their own fogones to the school still, so we did not even get started with our demonstration until 1:30. At that point the girls had decided there would not be enough time that afternoon to make our fogon and for the students to make their fogones, meaning they would not be ready to go make fogones the next morning in people's homes. So we took our time teaching the process on Friday afternoon and told the students they had to come back on Saturday morning to make their own fogones, and then on Sunday they would go to the aldea (tiny, poor town in the mountains) to make the fogones for the families who needed them. This schedule turned out to be better and not as rushed because the students participated as we taught them on Friday, and then they had all morning on Saturday to work in their groups making a fogon, with our guidance.

I was planning to leave on Saturday at noon after spending some time with the students while they made their fogones. However, I was misinformed about the bus times and after waiting 2 hours for a bus that never came, was told it had left 30 minutes before I got there and there would be no more buses that day. So I was stuck for another night, which wasn't all bad since I got to spend more time with fellow Americans. Then the next morning when the other girls were meeting the students at 5:30am to walk the hour up the mountain to the aldea to make fogones for families, I went outside to wait for the 5:30am bus. But there was no bus at 5:30am, and there was no bus at 6:30am like I was told. The bus didn't come until 7am and I was told that the other bus drivers just didn't feel like doing the early route since it was Sunday. Unfortunately, this is how all of Honduras operates and I will have to get used to it.