Anyway, before I post a ton of stuff about the Cohen brothers’ epic invasion last week, I wanted to post a quick entry about a few days Lauren and I spent out with our buddy Jim, aka the Professor, a nickname I threw out back in Washington and am surprised to this day that it stuck.
A few words about my good friend Jim. Jim's the kind of guy who if you told him something can't be done, he's already halfway there trying to do it. He’s got that drive inside that many people don’t.
Jim was one of the guys that during site selection interviews told our boss "bring it on."
Well, she did.
Jim lives up in the mountains on the Honduran border, a good two-hour hike from the mountain town where we went for the eye campaign back in February. If you remember from my February post, that’s waaaay the hell up there. Getting there was intense. A full day of hitchhiking and multiple hours of waiting and dancing on the side of the highway. But eventually we made it, and it was definitely worth the trouble.
Jim's community sits atop a series of dry, pine covered mountains. They have no electricity and have largely built their own houses from the pine trees they harvest.
The previous PC volunteer was a Maine carpenter, so Jim, the lucky bastard, lives in his very own log cabin. Picture Walden, but without the frequent visits from his friends and supply shipments from his family in Boston (read the book - it’s true).
Here’s a shot of the Professor’s modern day Walden
No, apart from a few creature comforts, Jim lives the quintessential "peace corps" life. That romantic JFK/peace corps ideal people still cherish. Those Norman Rockwell-esque images burned in our collective conscious.
Jim gets up with the sun, goes to sleep when it sets. An exciting night is talking for hours with his neighbors, sitting around a small wood fire propped up on the stove.
Lauren and I went there perhaps for the same reasons people went out to visit Thoreau. To see an old friend and get a little perspective on our own experiences.
You see, there’s a tendency for PCVs to suffer from classic “grass is always greener” syndrome. There’s often a tinge of envy every time we ask our friends how things are going. We look at their sites and say to ourselves, man, if only I had that in my community, I'd be kicking ass. I guess it’s just a coping mechanism to help us deal with the fact that development work is slow. Like really, really slow. And results are few and far between. So when we visit other volunteers’ communities, it’s only natural to blame elements of your own for the lack of tangible results. Or just as natural to take at face value the successes you see around you. Not taking into account the challenges and failures you can’t see.
But spending time up at Hoop’s site was great. A real trip. We ate meals with his neighbors, swam in ice cold rivers, and enjoyed a simple life Paris Hilton couldn’t ever imagine.
Plus it was great seeing Jim’s work. Using money from both the community and USAID, his community has been working on a mini dam to generate hydroelectric power. His community development council is hoping to divert water from their river and generate power for the community. A pretty ambitious endeavor, but poco a poco they're getting it done.
Jim also had set up a youth soccer game against kids from a nearby town where a few of our Irish buddies are working.
They’re sort of an Irish version of PC, funded by their government and working with the same organization that plans the giant Eye Care Campaign every February in Perquin.
After the game, we headed off to our Irish buddies’ site, a half hour hike through the woods.
Another quick note about Jim. He's a huge climber. I mean huge. And along the way we stopped every once in a while so he could hop on interesting rock faces or show the kids how it's done. A lot of the fun was just seeing Jim act like the big kid he is when it comes to climbing, almost forgetting to let the kids have their fun too.
Eventually we ended up at an amazing series of waterfalls called Las Pilas, where we swam in natural pools, practiced scaling rock faces, and tried not to fall off the very high waterfall just downstream...
All in all, a great experience. Thanks Jim!
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