So it's been awhile since we've written, I guess we've been busy! Shannon has been busy with a prevention program for sixth graders that focuses on self-esteem, plans for their futures, and learning about the harms of drugs and alcohol. She has been enjoying meeting lots of kids, but disappointed with the school system in general and the teachers. So far, all of the teachers have left when she and her counterpart arrive and they do not help out at all, and sometimes cannot be found at the end of the talk to come back to their classes. The kids also seem to spend more time at snack and recess than they do in the classroom. They wander in and out of the classroom as they like, generally not asking permission. Sometimes kids from other classes wander in. The classes are also huge, some as big as 50 kids! Last week she went to a class and during their snack, a group led by this girl in the shortest skirt ever, started practicing a dance routine that they were going to perform the following day at their father's day celebration. The dance involved lots of gyrating and grinding and was very scandalous, but just a normal dance here! Shannon is also busy with a dental hygiene program. Colgate donated the toothbrushes and toothpaste and she is working with three schools in first through third grade. She does the program in very poor areas and the children were so excited to receive their toothbrushes! It was almost like Christmas. She gives a talk about dental hygiene with the teacher each week and the kids have to brush their teeth everyday after their snack in school. This goes on for six months and they then receive another toothbrush to take home to continue their tooth brushing. It is a really great program and so important since many of the children do not have tooth brushes nor do they know anything about dental hygiene. Shannon also started her English classes. She has two classes of fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. There was almost a riot on her first day of class because 40 teachers showed up and she told them that she could only have 30 in the class. It turned out that there was a group from Juticalpa which is a half an hour away and she told them that they were not allowed to be in the class since they live too far away for her to do the two required observations of them teaching English. They were not too happy but after a call to her boss and a promise that they can request a youth volunteer for their town, they calmed down and class resumed. Shannon has also been doing self-esteem talks in two classes at a private school. These are Fridays during the last two periods of the day so it is a bit tricky since the kids have pretty much checked out...she has been doing learning activities since they respond better to these, but that can still be hard in a class of 50 high school kids! She also started helping our site-mate with a pregnant teenager class that she will be taking over when Kendra leaves. It is basically a group for women under the age of 20 who are pregnant. It meets once a month and a nurse talks about a health-related topic and we she talks about a topic such as self esteem or drugs. Kevin has been busy too! He and a group of university students went to the mountain community in which he works and taught the community members how to plant a family garden. This was quite a process organizing the community and making the garden. While he was there he held a baby monkey, most likely captured out of the jungle, and Shannon was very jealous! Kevin was also on a safety and security panel for the group of new Peace Corps trainees. He talked about our robbery and how to stay safe in Honduras. He also went to a town about 3 hours away called Nueva Palestina because a church from North Carolina is helping them to make sand water filters and other environmentally friendly things and the university is thinking about becoming involved as well. He met a lot of people including a blind man who is an incredible guitar player. Last week three of the new trainees came to visit our site-mates to see what volunteers actually do in their sites. It was interesting to talk to the new trainees and be able to offer some advice to ease their worries. We (well everyone but Shannon since she had to work), went to the nearby caves and walked around in the park, nice and relaxing. This weekend we had some more visitors and ate a lot of good food and relaxed...it will be nice to be visitor-free for a little while!

So, apparently we have not written a blog update in a couple of weeks. That either means we have been super busy or just don't care (pick the first one). Shannon has gone to lots of schools to talk about drug/alcohol prevention with 6th graders and everything is in place for it to begin with about 10 schools. She also gave a charla on drugs and alcohol to teachers at one of the private schools, the different types of drugs, signs and symptoms of use, and how to work with kids that you suspect are using. She has also begun a program through Colgate in which she will go to three different schools working with first, second, and third graders. She will help the teachers to organize weekly lessons on dental hygiene, how to avoid cavities, and similar topics. Colgate provides manuals, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap, and the children have to brush their teeth and wash their hands everyday after their snack for six months. After six months, they receive a new toothbrush to take home to continue their tooth brushing. This is really important as there are many children who have never used a toothbrush before and have rotten teeth. She is really excited and glad to have good counterparts that are also excited and willing to devote time to this project. Last weekend, Shannon and her friend Elizabeth went to visit their friend Hillary in Yaramela, La Paz, near the middle of Honduras. It was a girls only trip so Kevin was banned. It was great for her to see another site that is much smaller and less developed than Catacamas, as well as projects being done. They also went to Comayagua, which used to be the capital of Honduras, and has a giant cathedral. The town is smaller than the current capital, Tegucigalpa, but much cleaner and safer. The cathedral was beautiful and they also saw two other big churches (one of these three is supposedly the oldest church in Honduras but nobody seemed sure which one it was). They then went to Tegucigalpa for doctors appointments and ate lots of great American fast food that would not be nearly as appetizing in the U.S.. Shannon has since given up junkfood for Lent as she does every year. It is much harder here as junkfood, especially chips, cookies, and soda, is a staple for most people here. Kevin wasn't totally bored while Shannon was gone as he worked and visited The Las Cuevas de Talgua- The Cave of the Glowing Skulls. The tour takes you back 400 meters into the cave where there is a locked gate because they are still studying the human bones beyond it. But, there is a ladder that climbs 11 meters and then there is a room that comes back over where you walked in the cave where they discovered a calcified human burial ground from about 400 A.D. The cacified remains "glow" when you look at them with lights. It is crazy to think ancient people went back that far into a cave climbed up over thirty feet to another room to bury their dead there, and they didn't even have flashlights!
This weekend we were busy in the mountains. On Saturday, we went with four students and one teacher from the University up to the community, La Flor de Cafe, that Kevin works in to talk about the family gardens that the university students will help him create in the community. It was a good trip and lots of plans were made. There are about 30 families that want to participate and most of them came to the meeting. After the meeting we went to the house of one of the families to look at their existing garden and they gave us lots of plants to take home. Most of them were cuttings that they said to just stick in the ground so who knows if they will live but we have our fingers crossed. Today, we went up to another mountain community, La Florida, to talk to the community about a fogon project that has been in the works for years. Unfortunately, the other two volunteers who tried to work on this project were both sent home early and it never got completed. The project will be creating more efficient wood burning stoves that have chimneys so the smoke does not stay in the house and use much less wood. We had quite a hike up a steep mountain to reach the community but it was definitely worth it. The community is located in the middle of the forest. A lot of the area right around the town has been cleared for agriculture but it is gorgeous nonetheless and has breathtakingly beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The people are extremely poor without electricity, or water in their houses, but very nice and generous (we ate so much food that we could barely walk back!). We had our first meal without silverware (tortillas work just as well as forks), and some really good lemongrass tea. It was a very long day but very rewarding. We also saw a rare species of toucan and several other bird species as well as Shannon's favorite animal - monkeys! White Faced Monkeys too be exact and later we heard Howler Monkeys off in the distance. It was an exciting, adventurous and eventful day and we look forward to having more like it.