It's beginning to feel a little like Christmas

The biggest thing to happen since our last post didn’t even happen in Honduras. Shannon’s brother Robert and his girlfriend Erica got engaged Wednesday night so we would like to congratulate them on their engagement. We are really happy for them and this also gives us a reason to come home. It is still early but they are thinking of a May wedding so you all might get to see us sometime in May. We will keep you updated on our plans as they develop. Hopefully we will be able to get some fresh fruit while we are there since we missed out on most of the summer fruits from the valley last summer as well. Our house did get painted finally, so Shannon doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. We cleaned out and refilled our pila finally as well. The painters made a big mess in it and got yellow paint all over the newly green painted pila. You can still see some crayon marks through the paint but it looks a lot nicer now. The head painter told Kevin that the son-in-law of the owner was cheap and didn’t want to pay a lot for the house to get painted either. Yellow is not a good color to cover up dark crayon marks on the wall with only one coat. We think the son-in-law and daughter might have had to pay for the paint as their kids are the ones who destroyed the walls, we are not real sure on that. Things work-wise are still slow as all the schools are now out. We had our last English class on Monday and the students all brought food and we had karaoke which was fun. Later that night we went to have dinner with the director of the university Kevin works at and his girlfriend who is from the states. She made lasagna and salad and it was really good. We had a good time there and will probably have more dinners together in the future. Tuesday night we went to a Christmas dinner with one of Shannon’s counterparts. It was fun and they had fried shrimp for dinner along with rice and vegetables from the Chinese restaurant. Since we don’t really eat shrimp, others around us had plenty to take home. Shannon had also made sugar cookies to take that never even got opened so we had plenty of sugar cookies to eat when we got back. Last Friday we went to a lunch with Shannon’s counterpart CEREPA, the rehabilitation center here in Catacamas and heard a lot of former patient’s testimonials. We went to a little Christmas gathering last Sunday night next door at Katia’s apartment, a German who is working here in Catacamas. We had a lot of good food there as well and tried for the first time an avocado that has a hint of a licorice taste and some fried yucca paste stuff. We don’t remember what they were called but they were good. We broke down and decided to live like all of our neighbors and got cable Friday afternoon. We have been enjoying it and watched a nice Christmas movie last night, in English with Spanish subtitles of course so we still learn Spanish as we watch it. The cats we have adopted, for now, are doing well. They are all growing including the mother and now live in our kitchen. They have peed on the floor more than once which we do not like but have so managed to deal with. They do not sell litter here in Catacamas so Shannon made a box of dirt for them to use as the bathroom. We named the little orange kitten Basa as that is what our nephew Tristan apparently thought it should be named after seeing it in a photo. We now think they are both girls. Kevin is now going to work with another counterpart at least on a couple of projects. Since Derek was forced to leave the Peace Corps late last month and Kevin was going to be working with him on projects Kevin is now going to work with Derek’s counterpart on some projects that Derek had started. His counterpart is an awesome guy to work with. The two other volunteers who live her in Catacamas, Jarryd and Kendra, have not both left for the holiday season so it will be a little lonelier for a couple of weeks but people are coming to our place for Christmas so that will be nice and we are planning on making and eating a lot of good Christmas food. Friday night we made pupusas for the first time and they turned out really well. They are basically fat corn tortillas stuffed with cheese, and beans and or meat. They are not really that hard to make and are pretty good. Another volunteer, Matt, was in town the other day on his birthday and we made and ate some chocolate cake with him and Kendra. Our computer has developed horizontal lines along the screen so that is not good…we are hoping that it doesn’t get worse as we can still use it. Computers hate Honduras. Both of us are going to be working with a school to try to help make it go zero waste, an awesome opportunity here in Honduras. Shannon, and maybe Kevin too, is also going to give talks on HIV/safe sex, self esteem and other youth issues. The principal eventually wants to go zero waste and then show other schools in Honduras how to do the same. Shannon continued her bad luck with water bottles as she took Kevin’s this time to go play soccer one night and left it there. We went back later to try to find it and it was gone. Luckily Kendra had an extra that he now uses.

Free food, lies, and a new way to meet your neighbors

Last Thursday we had dinner with the Deputy Director of the Peace Corps and several other volunteers here in Catacamas. She was nice and we talked about a lot of good stuff. We also really enjoyed the free dinner. We finally got our water fixed this past Saturday so it is nice not to have to bring water into the house by buckets. We do not have hot water in the shower and Shannon does not like that but we may get that problem resolved soon. The shower head is also really clogged and hardly any water comes out of it and shoots all over the place but for now it is stuck and can’t be cleaned out until someone comes to fix it. During the time we were using bucket water, Shannon accidentally drank some tadpole water thinking it was a glass of clean water. It actually did have tadpoles swimming around in it, not in the glass but in the bucket. She didn’t get sick, yet. We have been cleaning the house a lot (mainly Shannon, she has spent entire days cleaning) and someday it may actually get painted. Shannon has been frustrated with how slow things have been getting done with the house. The painters were going to come Monday, it is now Wednesday and they came by to look at it today and said they will come tomorrow to start. Shannon got frustrated yesterday when they didn’t come and went and hunted down the owner of the house to talk to him. He said “Hondurans are liars. They say they are going to do things and they don’t do them. You need to have patience because you are not in the US anymore and things don’t work the same here.” That statement coming from a Honduran pretty much sums up the way things work here. And they wonder why the country is not developing. On that note, Kevin was supposed to go on a topographical study for a water system for a small community up in the mountains about a 3 hour mule ride away this morning with two other volunteers. They caught their six o’clock bus out of town and arrived ready to mount their mules only to find out that the people weren’t ready yet. This is the second and maybe last time they have gone through this exact same thing with the same exact community. Only the last time they waited around for 4 hours before someone told them that the community wasn’t ready. We still have cats here. The momma cat had moved one kitten down out of the attic and then back up to a different part but never moved the other one that we could here crying. Kevin finally found a way to get it down on Monday. The mom didn’t want anything to do with it at first so Shannon fed it milk through a dropper and slept with it all night. It is a lot smaller that the other one. The next day the mom took it and put it with its sibling and they both seem to be doing fine now. Tuesday night, Kevin found out a good way to meet neighbors – let one of their dogs bite your leg. While walking back home from dinner and the grocery store with three other volunteers, the dog that lives two houses down from our house started barking at us as we walked by. This seemed normal to Kevin as he has walked by this dog many times before and he didn’t bother trying to move farther away from the dog. The dog then jumped out and bit at him biting his upper leg and putting a hole in his jeans. It wasn’t too bad really and is more like a scratch than a tooth puncture wound but it wasn’t fun and now he has to take antibiotics. Shannon talked to the owners while Kevin was washing his wound out after talking to the Peace Corps medical staff and the dog is up to date on its rabies shots. Plus, as Peace Corps volunteers we all received pre-exposure rabies shots in Honduras and all is hopefully well.

A house of our own

We hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving last week. A lot has happened since our last post. Kevin went with the second year university students from the department he works with, there are only 15 right now, out to Las Marañones (the cashews), a small city just inside the Rio Platano Biosphere. They went out there Wednesday morning and returned Thursday night. He had a lot of fun and practiced Spanish a lot as only one student can speak English. They made a lot of good food and Kevin was on the breakfast crew and squeezed oranges by hand, no juicer whatsoever, until there was enough for everyone and then fried some plantains. His hands were tired after that. The trip out there was on a university bus about two hours on a dirt, very dusty road. The university co-owns a facility with the Honduran Forest Service there that can sleep about 25 people, with a kitchen and solar panels that they built with the help of a grant from an organization in the US. There are no power lines that go that far out. Most of the residents there are descendents of native Pech Indians. Last week, we said goodbye to two more volunteers from our class, both in Kevin’s project. We wish them the best in whatever they end up doing. Kevin is particularly sad as he was going to be working a lot with one of them as he only lived a few kilometers away. While Kevin was with the students on Thanksgiving, Shannon had a nice Thanksgiving meal with other gringos in Catacamas. She at least brought back some apple crisp for him to eat. Saturday, we went to Juticalpa, about an hour bus ride away to have a Thanksgiving dinner with about 25 other people there. We had Turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, regular salad, rolls, chili, gravy and then we had desert with pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, apple pie, apple crisp and pumpkin cheesecake. It was a great meal and we all made sure to overeat. Sunday was the primary elections here in Honduras. One of the people running had apparently been disqualified from running, we don’t really know why but they put another name on the ballot that the people knew if you voted for him, you were really voting for the other guy, who ended up winning. Really weird, and we don’t know why or how this works. Now we have another year of obnoxious billboards, commercials and our least favorite, cars driving around with speakers promoting the candidates (usually at 5:30 AM). And for some bigger news, we moved into our own house Monday night and have been staying there since. On Friday we had bought a mattress and stove with our move in allowance form Peace Corps and paid for it, expecting to have it delivered on Monday. Then we find out that the people who were living there are leaving the stove and refrigerator for us to use. We went back to the store and could not get a refund so we were forced to buy a tv and dvd player and some other things we needed like a fan and some plastic stools to sit on. We also had previously bought a slightly used refrigerator too which we are going to try to sell to another volunteer. The previous tenants also left some chairs, an entertainment center to put our tv on, some shelves and place to put our clothes but right now there is a broken pipe and no running water. That is supposed to get fixed by tomorrow, keep your fingers crossed. We do have running water outside and in our pila, the traditional way to store water here, but we have been spoiled the last two months with warm, running water in our shower and to revert back to cold bucket baths is not fun. At first we thought we had rats in the space between the roof and ceiling but now we hear at least one kitten crying and there is a cat that hangs around our house, so apparently we have cats in our attic. Shannon wants a kitten now. This Thursday we are going to have dinner with a couple of people from Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington D.C. who are coming to visit Honduras and they are sending them out to our part of the country as they have never visited this part before. The second in command of Peace Corps, the Deputy Director, and the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff are coming so that should be an interesting dinner.

Culture Differences

As we are sure you can imagine there are a lot of cultural differences between Honduras and the U.S. Some of them are really awesome, and some of them drive us crazy! We thought we would talk about some of them today so you can get a feel for Honduras and life here. One of the cultural differences that we really like is the closeness of neighborhoods. Since most people live in the same city, and many even the same neighborhood their whole lives, the neighborhoods are very close knit. Everyone knows everyone else and they look after each other. When someone needs help, there are lots of people there offering support, and things are safer because everyone is keeping an eye out. This is really nice for us, especially since we live in one of the oldest neighborhoods and everyone is very close. In the U.S. we did not know our neighbors and it is nice to be part of a tightly-knit community. One of the differences that is hard to get used to is the slow pace. Most people do things very slowly, especially walk, and they are also late to EVERYTHING. It is really frustrating when you are at a training, class at a school, or any type of meeting, and people show up an hour late. Another big difference is the way people use cell phones. Most people here have cell phones and they never turn them off. They ring in meetings, classes, even church AND they always get answered in the meeting, class, or church. At first this really bothered us, but then we started asking around and were told that one of the main reasons people answer their cell phones everywhere and do not put them on silent is due to the fact that it does not cost you anything to receive a call but if you miss it and have to call someone back, you have to pay. This made a lot more sense to us and although it is still annoying to hear cell phones ringing and people talking on them in meetings and such, at least we understand part of the rationale behind it. There are also a lot of catcalls (piropos as they are called here). This is impossible to get used to and drives Shannon crazy all of the time. Last week an 8-year-old yelled at her! Kevin gets some too which is also funny. An interesting note is that if we are together, we both still get them. Some men call Kevin their brother-in-law implying that they are going to marry Shannon. We just keep hoping that as people get more used to us the piropos will die down. That’s just a few of the cultural differences that we have noticed, there are, of course, a lot more…perhaps we will write about them in a future blog.

Another slow week

Another slow week last week. For being the rainy season, it hasn't rained since November 1 here, thats over 2 weeks and the dust is starting to pile up around the town. We hopefully found a place to live starting December 1. There is a house across the street from our host family that is going to be vacant and we already know the owner. The only thing to do now is hope that the people actually move out in time for us to move in. It will be so easy to move our stuff there and we already know all of the neighbors. The people that live there are actually the daughter and her family of the lady that owns it and on Sunday we went with our host family out to their new house and swam in the pool and bar-b-qued, which was nice. There are three new, nice houses there, all family, that share the pool and it is a very nice place.

Our first (and hopefully last) robbery

Yesterday we were talking about how our week had been pretty boring and then, last night, we were robbed…not so boring. We had gone to dinner with one of the other volunteers in our site and were walking home at about 8:15. A group of three high school age boys walked past us and then eventually turned around and started following us. We were joking around that they were probably going to rob us and steal our crappy phones. For some reason Shannon took her phone out of her purse and put it in the waistband of her skirt (just in case) and we continued to walk. We turned a corner and they followed us. At this point we were pretty sure they were planning to rob us and we hurried because we could see a pulperia with a lot of people ahead. The boys saw it too and one ran up and grabbed Shannon’s purse. She of course tried to fight him for it and then he said something to one of his friends who reached into his waistband like he had a weapon. At this point we realized that it was not worth it and Shannon let go of her purse. They then told the other volunteer to give them her purse and they also took the bags with our leftover Chinese food and ran off. We went home and called the Peace Corps and they contacted the police who went out to look for the boys (not very likely that they would find them but we did see them driving around). Luckily Shannon only had five Lempiras (about 30 cents) and her water bottle in her purse (she is really sad about her water bottle and her NRA sticker). The other volunteer was not so lucky and her phone, ID, and debit card were all in her purse along with a couple of dollars. Luckily nobody got hurt and we all laughed about getting robbed by 15-year-olds who stole our Chinese food. Now we will be more careful and only take what we need and not walk down dark streets…it was bound to happen sometime, hopefully this will be the first and last time!

Hurricane Paloma

Not much exciting has happened this week. We both had our Peace Corps project managers come out for a site visit. They both went well and we got a free dinner out of it so that is always good. People here, Hondurans as well as others, are happy that Obama will be the next president. Kevin was supposed to go with the university kids out to the east on the edge of the Biosphere but because Hurricane Paloma was hanging around there yesterday and the day before, they decided not to go but now Paloma is heading toward Cuba so it probably would have been ok. They will go next Friday though. By the way Paloma means dove or pigeon. Most of you back in the States had a time change, we did not so now we are the same as the Central Time Zone, two hours ahead of California. We really didnt have any rain all week, which was nice, but some places are already getting pretty dusty in Catacamas.

Dia de los Muertos

Yesterday was Día de los Muertos. It is the first Sunday of November, and a day where everyone goes to the cemetery to clean and decorate the graves. We went to all three of the cemeteries in Catacamas with our family and it was very interesting. There were so many people at each cemetery and there were people outside the cemeteries selling flowers and food. Some people bring food with them and eat in the cemetery but our host mom said that she does not like to eat in the cemetery so we ate later. Most of the graves were covered in flowers or wreaths and the air smelled of flowers. It was really fascinating watching everyone honor their families and friends. We went to the graves of our host grandma who just died, our host mother’s husband (who we found out today died three years ago because his blood sugar got too low and he fainted and cracked open his head), and our host mother’s sister and her husband. The cemeteries were very different; the oldest having mostly above ground tombs was much smaller and unorganized. The newest, and biggest, was composed mostly of below ground graves which were somewhat organized and there were a lot less weeds. We thoroughly enjoyed this cultural event that was totally different than anything we do in the U.S.

Honduran Funerals

We have had an interesting/sad couple of days. Our host grandma, who was 104-years-old and lived with us, died yesterday. They originally said that she died early in the morning, then reported that she "came back to life". The rest of the day was spent basically waiting for her to die. Friends and relatives came to say goodbye and help prepare the house for the wake and we waited. Around 3:00, she died and the 24-hour wake began. We took everything out of the sitting room and it was decorated with flowers and white sheets. All of the pictures except one of her were removed and her casket was placed there for the viewing. It was interesting to say the least. Her grandchildren put her in the casket outside of her bedroom (with everyone watching) and then it was carried (Kevin helped) to the viewing room. All day and all night people came to say goodbye and pay respects to the family. It is very different here and the family is responsible for providing food, drinks, and lots of snacks to the mourners. We did not eat until around 11:00 P.M. and then most of the people left, only the close family remained. We finally went to bed around 12:45 and people stayed there all night and most returned around 8:00 A.M. Today was much the same, people hanging out, eating lots of cookies and drinking lots of soda, and then at 3:00 (24-hours after she died) the funeral procession began. Her casket was carried to the Catholic Church and there was a funeral complete with communion and offering. We then traveled to the cemetery where her casket was put into the tomb and cemented in. Then the family returned to the house and we took down all of the mourning paraphernalia, cleaned the house, and ate leftovers. It was very interesting to see how different cultures mourn. It was certainly an interesting Halloween! Now we plan to eat junk food and watch movies.

The power is back

The power came back on Sunday at about 4:00 p.m. It was nice coming back home to power after visiting Juticalpa. So we ended up not having power for just over a week. It wouldn't have been that bad if power outages were common but living in a city that relies on electricity is not good when the power is off for that long. Tomorrow we have a safety and security meeting with all of the volunteers in our department, Olancho-which is bigger than El Salvador. That should be fun or at least nice to be together with everyone. We heard that the Texaco between where we live and the university where Kevin works sells Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper. If that is true, and more than person has said this, Kevin will be happy to finally have found a place that carried Mt. Dew. It is kind of far to get to though, so that is the one drawback but we can live with that.

No Electricity

So we have had a ton of storms and heavy rain the past two weeks and apparently our power station flooded and a bunch of power poles broke so we hae not had power since last Sunday morning. When it rains a lot, the water also stops working because the pipes get clogged with dirt so we have only had water occasionally for the past week. And when it starts working again it is black with dirt...makes for a nice time. We came to Juticalpa today which is about an hour away to use the internet and have a little sanity. Living without power in a big city where everything is electric is not a lot of fun. The supermarket has a generator and a couple other places do but for the most part nobody can cook unless they happen to have a gas stove or an outside wood oven. There is one restaurant that has a generator and it is always packed. On a happy note, we went to the birthday party of our twin host nieces last weekend out in the country. They turned one and wore awesome tiras and butterfly wings...so cute. We left at 8 and got home at 7, a very long day but it was relaxing and we met a lot of people. The man´s house it was at had cattle, pigs, and lots of different fruit trees. He also gets endangered animals from the government and breeds them so they can be released in the wild. Very interesting, he had quite a few animals and a ton of birds. The next day we went to our host uncle´s house up in the mountains a little ways out of Catacamas and it was beautiful! He practically lives in the jungle and has monkeys and other animals. We had to cross a river to get there and the bridge had broken due to the heavy rain. It was still possible to walk accross it, but not to drive accross it. It was made of concrete and basically cracked in numerous places and is now different levels. A lot of bridges have broken, rivers have overflowed and ruined roads, and people´s houses have washed away. Rain does a lot of damage here mainly because things are not well constructed and cannot take heavy rain. It is really sad. Hopefully we will have a break from the rain so things can be repaired and people can get back to their lives.

pictures

Pre Swearing-in

Typical feria happenings

We almost met the president

Our host family in Zarabanda

Juan Carlos will protect us

Enjoying our last days in Zarabanda

Da bus

So we did go out to eat for our anniversary. We were going to go to the pizza place but it was closing as we got there at 6:00. You never know what is going to be open and when around here it seems. We ended up at this place called Tilapias. They do serve tilapia but neither of us had that. Kevin had fried chicken and fries, which were really good, and Shannon had chips with a bean/cheese sauce in pottery kept warm over hot coals. It is quite common here and tasty. Afterward we split a piece of cherry cheesecake and then a double scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream in a waffle cone. Shannon was in her first desfile (parade) Friday. It showcased the different schools and educational agencies in Catacamas. She marched with the district administrative office which is one of her counterparts. The Minister of Education for all of Honduras came and marched with them and then they all got to sit on the stage with him and watch the rest of the parade. Shannon’s name (correctly pronounced for once) was announced numerous times as they marched through the town and she was called “the Peace Corps Representative for the educational system in Catacamas”. It was an all day event and extremely hot and humid…not the best weather for a parade, but fun nonetheless. The ferria in Catacamas ended Saturday but there are still fireworks (in reality just REALLY loud booms) going off all of the time. Shannon hates them. Kevin continues to go to the small mountain town outside of Catacamas to meet more people and find out what he can do to help the people there. It is a slow process but is helping his Spanish.

Settling in at our site

Its been a little while since we have written so we figured we would write today. Today is our anniversary. We are both working today during the day. Kevin has a meeting with La Flor de Cafe, a community in the National Park, and with his counterparts from the university. Tonight we are going to go eat somewhere and maybe find some cheesecake or something. The choices of restaurants are limited and with Shannons pickiness it is hard to find somewhere to go. Things are going well here in Catacamas. This past weekend was the annual fair here and we saw the president of Honduras up close and personal as he is from Catacamas. We tried to shake his hand but he was on the other side of the street, so we missed out on that. A bunch of other volunteers from nearby came to town and so did a bunch of US teachers that are teaching at a private school in Juticalpa, a half hour a way. So, for a while there was a huge mob of gringos walking around town. We ate some food, watched some of the parade and then had ice cream. It was good. It has been hot and humid, of course, and raining more than usual but October is the wettest month of the year here. Our Spanish is slowly improving. Shannon understands most stuff while Kevin still struggles now and then. At least a lot of people at the university speak some English, that wont help him learn Spanish but it does help him communicate. Adios, for now.

We are FINALLY volunteers!

So we had our swearing in ceremony Friday and are oficially volunteers! We had the ceremony at the U.S. Embassy and then went to the Ambassador´s house where we were able to use the pool and play volleyball/basketball, and just hang out. It was a great day and it felt good to finally be volunteers and to be done with training. It felt a little like graduating from high school and going off to college (I will try to post pictures soon). We are now in Catacamas and it is miserably hot and humid...much like Austin in the summer only without air conditioning and our fan broke. Hopefully we will get used to this weather soon. We met the other two volunteers in our site yesterday and they seem really nice. It was good to hear about Catacamas from their points of view. They also told us about a nice house where other volunteers have lived that the landlady wants to rent to us. Hopefully we can go check it out soon. We have not done much in the way of work yet but we are going with one of the other volunteers tomorrow to help teach English since Shannon will be taking over that class soon. Right now we are just enjoying our new found freedom and learning about Catacamas and everything in the city. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone and knowing that we will not be able to see them for at least three months as we are not allowed to travel until then. I´m sure that three months will fly by as these past two and a half have! Kevin bought an Abercrombie polo shirt yesterday at the market for 25 lempiras which is about 1.30 USD. That is pretty awesome. They do not have shoes his size here though so that is not good.

Site Visit

So we are visiting our site in Catacamas right now and it is fabulous! It is rather hot and humid (kind of like Texas) but otherwise perfect. The city is pretty big, depending on who you talk to, the population varies from 35,000 to 70,000. The city is extremely well laid out and the roads are paved and big by Honduran standards. So far, it is by far the nicest city I have seen. The roads are clean and actually have street signs and stop lights. There is pretty much everything we need here but it is more expensive than in smaller cities. Kevin is working with an agricultural university and one of his counterparts is from the US abd speaks English. So far he really likes it especially since the university is air conditioned and has wireless internet! I have five counterparts and it seems like I am going to be super busy. They told me that they have enough work for 100 volunteers! I am working with a substance abuse program, the administration office for all of the schools, a high school, a health center, and an agency that seems very similar to CPS. It is a bit overwhelming but I think I will really like it. Our host family is very nice and we actually have hot water and a washing machine! The family consists of a mother, her daughter and son who are in their 20s, and her three grandchildren, two twin girls who are 11 months and a 10 year old girl. We like it a lot and the food is really good too. Queso Olanchano is much better than the rest of the cheese out there and luckily we live in the cheese and dairy region. Olancho, our department, is called the ¨wild East¨and is supposed to be similar to Texas. Supposedly there are lots of guns and it is an unlawful land where people take the law into their own hands and have family feuds. I think that is more in the country because Catacamas seems very civilized. There are lots of cows and everyone eats red meat. There have been a lot of storms with crazy lightening and thunder but our mom says that is rare. The department of Olancho is the biggest department in Honduras and is bigger than El Salvador, but a lot of it is farm land and forrest. It´s very pretty, we are surrounded by lush mountains and love it!

Tarantulas and despedidas

Happy Wedding Jon and Sarah! We are so sad that we are not there to celebrate with you guys! On a horrible note, there was a giant tarantula in my room this morning. I nearly died of fright but somehow I managed to compose myself and squish it. Now I am afraid of my room and really glad that I have a mosquito net so at least nothing can touch me while I sleep. Thankfully we´re going back to Zarabanda in 3 days where I do not think that they have tarantulas. Tomorrow is our despedida for our families (in Kev´s town too). I am helping to make a ton of brownies (from scratch since I´m a super chef) and fruit salad. It should be interesting... Elizabeth, Hilary, and I gave our HIV/AIDS charla yesterday and it actually went really well. Our class was really well-behaved considering they were ninth graders. They participated and I think they actually laughed less than we did when we received the charla from current volunteers. My favorite part was watching them put condoms on bananas and of course the question and answer part. We got one question asking how to have sex and at what age. Luckily our director was there and he helped us out since my Spanish is not quite that good yet. Kev said that his charla went well too, his group was much larger so he did not have to talk as much which he liked. Otherwise not a lot is going on here. Just hot and humid and I want to die everytime I have to walk somewhere.

Last week of FBT

So things have been rather crazy here. My town has been having a ton of peace festivals which are super interesting, especially when the entire crowd chants “Jesus Cristo” and the Catholic youth group performs plays where the devil tries to corrupt a young boy and Jesus saves him. I love it! A young girl in Kevin’s town was struck by lightening and killed yesterday so that is very sad. I guess she was taking the clothes off the clothesline because it was starting to rain and lightening struck her. Kevin was outside when it happened and is pretty sure that he saw the lightening strike that killed her. I think that she was related to his host family but he did not know her. Now the town is in mourning for 9 days and it is an extremely sad situation. My group had our cultural day yesterday and we got to watch folkloric dancers and eat lots of good Honduran food. We also imparted some of our culture by teaching them games like red light green light, duck duck goose, three legged races, and making rice krispie treats. It was a hit! I am in Tegucigalpa again because I had to get my last rabies shot and another girl had to go to the doctor. We are bringing back a speaker for our AIDS panel tomorrow so we get to spend the night here! All of the volunteers 2 groups ahead of us are leaving Saturday and they are all here doing paperwork and going to the doctor. It is nice to be able to talk to them because we are replacing a lot of them and they give good advice. Tomorrow we all have to give charlas (lectures) on HIV/AIDS for 4 hours to the local high schools. I am missing out on all the preparation but will be back in time to give the charla. That should be interesting. So things are going well and we only have a few days until we are back together in Zarabanda and then we get to visit our site!

free texting to us

Go to www.tigo.com.hn and click on the box that says envia tus mensajes desde la web. Enter the info and only use the last 8 digits of the phone number. keep me up to date on football too, especially the big Fresno State game on monday if you can. thanks

1 more week apart

Shannon and I have one more week apart for training and then we will be back togther for the remainer of our service. I am staying with Shannon and her family this weekend, so that is nice. We basically found out that we will be living in Catacamas, Honduras for our 2 years. It is a good size city kind of away from most of the rest of the volunteers but we are excited for the opportunities there. We will have several counterparts to work with and I will have one person from my project close enough to work with so that is cool. This week, one more person left to go back to the US so we wish her the best. We still have 49 of our original 51 volunteers, which is pretty good. 3 more weeks of training and we all go off to our sites. on our way to use the internet today we saw a boy peeing in the middle of the street and by street I mean dirt road, but it was pretty nice. Really not too uncommon here. There is only one paved street here in Talanga and it is only paved halfway. most of the people are nice though, we do get the gringo yells and the girls get other comments as well. The food is basically beans, rice, corn tortillas, eggs. I eat a lot of fried plantains and eggs as well but they use a lot of oil to cook things and everything has salt in it. There are two kinds of standard cheeses here, salty and saltier. The salty isnt too bad but the saltier is pretty salty. They use a ton of sugar as well but the sodas taste so much better with real sugar instead of corn syrup, at least in my opinion. I definately drink more soda here than I did back home. Shannon went to a pool, had a talent show and wrote a play in Spanish. That was the highlight of her week. I helped make a little nursery at the local school, learned about making Tilapia ponds and visited coffee farms this week along with learning Spanish or at least trying. Once we get to our site, I might have internet in my office, that´s right, I will have an office, and can communicate with everyone more. Looking forward to that.

Immigracion and Puppies!

So this past week has been very busy. I got sick AGAIN and had to go to a specialist in tegucigalpa. It turned out to be absolutely nothing but I got to stay in a hotel with hot water, watch the Olympics in English, eat fabulous food, and use the internet for free so it was a nice vacation. Hopefully I am done getting sick, I think it is either all of the grease that my mom uses (even though I told her the doctor told me not to eat greasy food), or the malaria medicine. We also had our first volunteer return to the US (we miss you Monica!), which was sad but it was also nice because we were together in Tegucigalpa and did not have to get lost on our own!

We all went to immigracion this past weekend and spent forever there getting our visas and ID cards. We got to get pizza and donuts afterwards and that was fabulous. It´s funny how much we appreciate simple things like pizza now! We also went to the US Catholic volunteers´ house for dinner and had spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. After eating so much greasy comida tipica spaghetti tasted so good.

Yesterday the power was out most of the day and night so there was not a lot to do. However, my family´s pregnant dog decided it would be a good time to give birth. It was an awesome experience, bonding with my dad and brother while watching the dog give birth in the candlelight. I had never seen an animal give birth before and it was very interesting. She knew exactly what to do and what to eat...crazy. She had seven puppies but one was either born dead or died sometime last night. We went to bed because we thought she had finished giving birth and then this morning there was one dead puppy and one more live one so I guess she was not done. Now I have cute little babies to play with!

We have been spending a lot of time in the local schools and that is always interesting. Last Friday I went to a classroom with four grades in it. I guess two of the teachers had not come to work so all of the grades were together. Needless to say, not much work got done that day. Public schools generally only have four to five hours of class per day and much of that is spent at recess, not to mention all of the days lost due to teacher strikes which are fairly common. It is very sad because most of the kids really want to learn and get extremely excited when we come to do activities and teach them new things. Hopefully we can make a difference in some of their lives.

Address

Just wanted to post our address. I am always sad that I never get any mail and then I realized that I did not give my address to anyone so nobody could write. So here it is:

Shannon and Kevin Parkinson
Voluntario de Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal #3158
Tegucigalpa, Honduras

We expect lots of letters!;)

Visit to El Ocotal

I got to visit Kevin this weekend in El Ocotal! It was great to see him and meet his family but his site has absolutely nothing! It is beautiful but up on a hill in the middle of nowhere. There is a pool down the hill from him so we spent the day yesterday and today with friends at the pool, it was a nice break from training. His family extremely nice but really difficult to understand so it is hard for him. My family is almost never home so I hang out by myself a lot. We had our second language interviews last week and we both moved up so that is good. I am now past the level I need to not get sent home and Kev only has one more step so that is nice (Elizabeth moved up quite a bit too so she was really excited). We are finally starting to go to schools and work with them so that is really nice. We are in groups of four (Michael is in my group and got to break up his first fight), and it is nice to have all different Spanish levels. Kevin got to help build a pila and a latrine and is now working on a presentation with a teacher so he is excited to be out doing things and not sitting in a classroom all day. I finally had to go to the doctor last week and it was actually not a horrible experience. I did not get hooked up to an IV or have any blood drawn so I was super stoked. I got a lot of medications (I have no idea what he would only say they were for my stomach) but I felt so much better afterwards. Now I am healthy again and back to eating ice cream on a daily basis. I also run most mornings (at 5:30 who would have thunk it), and that is really nice. So far so good and only 3 more weeks of FBT until we can go back to our awesome family in Zarabanda!

FBT Week 1

So we are in Field Based Training now and we are seperated. I am in a fairly large town with lots of stores and 3 internet cafes! Kev´s town is extremely small with only 28 houses and he does not even have electricity or indoor plumbing! Neither of our houses are as nice as our first one but they could be worse. Kev has 6 kids and 2 grandkids in his family so hopefully his Spanish is improving. We will be at these sites for the next 5 weeks and training has become more intense. A lot of it is in Spanish so hopefully our Spanish will improve too. I think it has already been helpful being seperated because we cannot talk to each other in English every night. My host mother is a political activist and that has already been interesting. The first night she took me to the liberal party headquarters where there were tons of people all wearing red and yelling ¨viva al partido liberal¨. We also went to the national persons registry which was open until 2 AM because it was the last day for people to get IDs in order to be able to vote in the internal elections in November. People are very into politics here, last night every local station had only political programs on. The day we arrived at FBT the community had planned a welcome party for us but it did not happen due to politics and clashing ideals. Very interesting. I have a host sister who is 9 and loves to talk to me...good for my Spanish. I also have 2 host brothers who are 15 and 19 and rarely around. My host dad is a truck driver and only lives with us on the weekends. They are a nice family so far and haven´t made me eat meat (although my mom looked at me like I was an alien when I told her I was a vegitarian). Meat is a luxory here so people do not understand that someone would choose not to eat it. I´ve been a little sick to my stomach the past few days but I think I am getting better... I was able to go running today with some other girls in my project and that was fabulous! It was so nice to exercise. Tonight we have more training until 8 PM...we are learning all about violence in Spanish so that should be interesting.

Volunteer Site Visit

We are visiting 2 volunteers right now and their site is fabulous! It is nestled in the mountains right next to a river and everything is so green and gorgeous. We got to go with them to the local school where they worked with the kids on hand washing and brushing their teeth, it was fun to watch kindergartners brushing their teeth in the school yard. They also have a garden at the school and they teach the kids about eating healthy. We also attended their story hour which 18 kids attended. They read a story in Spanish and then did a little craft activity. The youth development volunteer also teaches 3 teachers English and that was really interesting to watch. I never realized how complicated English is until I saw people trying to learn it. It made me glad that I learned it when I was young. We also got to make fresh squeezed orange juice which was fun...the oranges taste much different here and are usually picked when they are still green so you have to add sugar to the juice. All of the juice here has sugar added, it is very sweet. We are now on our way to a waterfall to hang out for the day. Honduras is so beautiful and there are so many awesome places to see. Now we just need to master Spanish!

Week 2 down

So I just typed a post but of course it got erased since the internet is not very good here. Things are going well. We are learning Spanish poco a poco. We leave tomorrow for our volunteer visit. We are going to visit a married couple who are doing the same projects as us so that will be exciting. This week was busy...Kevin visited a farm and learned how to make soy foods and got to pick his own mango! Shannon visited a school and was able to watch a competition between four schools consisting of math, poetry, singing, dancing, writing, etc. It was very interesting. She also visited a school and watched a group of Peace Corps Health Volunteers give a presentation geared towards 10-14 year old girls on sexual education...also very interesting. The teachers are striking right now (which happens quite often for public schools, it is a huge problem) so there were not very many children there. The weather is interesting, it changes at least five times a day. It rains a lot and there is a lot of mud but we like it overall. We have been able to meet some of the current volunteers who are serving in Honduras and it is really nice to hear their stories and advice. For Elizabeth's family members, she is doing fabulously and has managed to avoid the hospital this week! Week two down!

Life in Honduras

We finally had time to go somewhere to use the internet after our Saturday Cultural lesson. i typed up a couple entrys to copy and paste but these computers are really slow so i am wasting time to see if it reads the thumb drive. apparently it does not work. We have a fabulous host family, with a really nice house. No hot water, but I have gotten used to taking bucket baths and kev takes cold showers. Our host mom is a spanish teacher so she is really great at teaching us. We have classes everyday from 7:30 to 4:30 and half days on Saturdays. Today we learned about the indigineous cultures in Honduras which was really interesting. Spanish learning is going well...it´s really exhausting speaking another language all day long and we usually go to bed around 9:30 at the latest. We did laundry by hand for the first time and it was quite an experience...very time consuming. We both got cell phones...ask our family members for the numbers as we do not want to post them on the internet. It is free for us to receive calls and texts so call us lots! You can also send us free texts on this website www.tigo.com.hn but it´s probably in Spanish. Anyway, we are short on time so this will be short too. Hopefully we will get access to the internet soon....being here has already shown me how many things we take for granted at home that many places in the world do not have access too. This is going to be a great learning experience!

Almost Gone

Well, we are done with staging. Quite a lot of fun, actually is was not bad. We found out we wont have internet access at our training site so the best we will be able to do is travel to a nearby town to use on a weekend or something. So don't count on hearing from us anytime soon. Still leave comments so we have plenty to read when we do check it.

D.C.

So we made it to D.C. in one piece. We had a whirlwind last week at home spending lots of time with our friends and families, and a fabulous going away party (thanks Lisa)! Now we have a few days to hang out with Mikael and Irini, watch some fireworks (yay), and eat lots of greasy food before we have to live in a hut with no electricity. I still don't think it has fully sunk in yet, after a nearly two year process it just did not seem like we were ever going and I don't think it will until we arrive in Honduras . It was sad saying our goodbyes, especially to our nephew and our kitty (Laurie better take good care of her or ELSE). We're looking forward to a fun weekend and finally arriving in Honduras after such a long wait!

Finally

Shannon and I finally found out that we are going to Honduras where I will be doing Protected Areas Management and Shannon will be working with youth development.