Cuevas, cuevas y mas cuevas

Last Friday, we went to visit a cave that Kevin already had visited but had not really explored the inside of. The cave does not have trails or lights inside it which made it a lot more fun to explore with our headlamps. There were three big rooms and one short tunnel in which Shannon supposedly saw a spider and got scared and ran away. She did continue to explore in the cave, just not in any small spaces. There were lots of sparkly rocks and some cool formations. It was the first time that either of us had explored a cave on our own without a guide, and it was awesome! After exploring the cave, we went out and swung on vines Tarzan style. It was really fun and we highly recommend it. We ended up going back the next day because more people wanted to see the cave and it was still awesome. We also had to retrieve the camera case that the cave stole from us. Luckily we got it back, without much of a struggle. This week we have been meeting with a Fullbright Specialist in linguistics who is helping us become great English teachers. This is especially helpful to Kevin as he will be teaching English at the university next semester. Kevin also went on another tour of the University (he learns something new every time) and milked a cow for the first time in his life and tried the fruit of the cashew tree as well as some juice. Not bad. Today, for the second time in 10 days we have enough water pressure to take a shower, without a bucket. Because it has been so dry, there isn't enough water and some days we only have it in the sinks and other days not at all. It is also the season to burn off the dead fields and we could barely see the mountains (that are really, really close)yesterday and today. It is kind of like being back at home but worse. It is also really hot here now and Shannon wants to die 500 times a day. Friday we are going to Isla Del Tigre and Amapala to hang out with other married couples in Peace Corps Honduras. Then to the glorious United States, we can hardly wait to see everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Semana Santa

Well, once again it has been a while since we have last written on our blog. Almost three weeks this time. We have both done some traveling, together and separately, for work and for fun and we have done many things since the last post. There are four new links to photos at the top of the blog from this last week we spent traveling for Semana Santa (Holy Week) but first we will start where we left off. Shannon went to a week long workshop called Joven a Joven in Valle de Angeles, close to where we had our training. The workshop was for youth development volunteers and a community partner that they brought with them and focused on teaching youth skills to find a job such as interviewing and also how to choose a career that they like. During that time, Kevin stayed home and continued going to the university and he met up with Shannon in Tegucigalpa on the following Saturday where we spent two nights together there before Shannon left to Siguatepeque where she had a two day training meeting for the new emergency phone coordinators. Honduras is split up into E-zones where two people in each zone have special phones and receive important messages and relay them to the rest of the volunteers in their zone. This really would come into play for emergencies but we get messages about big road closures and things of that sort so we know where to avoid if we are traveling. As a result she has a new phone number 011-504-9965-4039, call her lots;). While Shannon was doing that, Kevin went to an exchange with the guides of the children's hands-on science museum located in Tegucigalpa. They mostly talked about environmental education stuff but it was a good cross cultural experience as well and it was nice to see such a nice museum where kids can learn in a such a poor country. We were planning on going to the Honduras/Mexico World Cup Qualifying game in San Pedro Sula that Wednesday but decided not too as it would be expensive and Honduras had not played very well their last two games but ended up winning (and dominating Mexico) 3-1. Go Honduras! Honduras now sits in third position just above Mexico. We came home that Wednesday and the university Kevin is working with hosted several professors from North Carlina State University's ag department so Kevin went with them Thursday up to the mountains where they talked to some local farmers and leaders and ate a home cooked meal and drank horchata made from scratch. They went on a walk to a large cave and then swung on vines like Tarzan (pictures coming soon). Friday, we both went with the NCSU people on a tour of Catacamas and then went to the university to have lunch and a meeting about how the two universities could cooperate together more in the future. Saturday we both went with many university workers and the NCSU peope to a nice lunch at a Tilapia place just outside of town. It was interesting to hear their views on Honduras and the university and students.
This past week was Semana Santa and we spent Monday at the beach of the coastal town of El Porvenir, near La Ceiba on the Caribbean Coast. It was a miserable trip up, we decided to go the "shorter, cheaper" way on a dirt road that was not really short or cheap. The bus we wanted never came so we took another that went approximately 20 miles per hour (if even that fast), was super crowded (at one point the two of us were sharing a seat big enough for only one person with a little girl who nobody would let sit down), so hot and dusty. We left our house at 4:30 AM and did not arrive in El Porvenir until 7:30 PM after 3 buses and and a rear-ending accident caused by a cow! We stayed with a volunteer who works there and had a lot of fun. Four of us went and watched UNC trounce MSU in the NCAA basketball final that night. Tuesday we went into La Ceiba and had a nice lunch and then tried to watch a movie but the theaters didn't open until night. Then came the rain, and boy did it pour. We left to Comayagua Wednesday morning while it was still raining. We got to Comayagua, ate at Wendy`s and then went to another volunteers site to spend the night about 30 minutes away. It was hot there. Thursday we returned to Comayagua and toured the religious museum and the bell tower of the cool looking cathedral (see pictures) and went through the Casa de Cultura. That night was when they started building the alfombras. They start between 9:00 and midnight and work all night to have them completed by 10:00 AM the next morning. Generally a family or an organization pays for the materials and friends and family make the alfombra.
Most of the alfombras are made of colored sawdust imported from Guatemala or El Salvador but some use other materials such as egg shells, rocks, glass, seeds, etc. in their designs. There were probably close to 50 alfombras this year. At around 10:00 Friday morning the small procession starts with children dressed as Jesus carrying crosses with crowns of thorns and fake blood, men wearing what look like KKK hoods, and people singing, and a band goes around the whole circuit of carpets, slowly destroying them one by one. So sad. All that hard work gone in a matter of minutes. But, it was beautiful to see and we highly recommend it to anyone in the area during Semana Santa. They do some amazing work. We finally returned home last Saturday and enjoyed a very low key Easter dinner on Sunday. It was nice to relax in our own home.
Next up: The Isla Del Tigre and the city of Amapala in the Pacific and then our trip back to California. Our Spanish will suffer.