Shannon has been very busy lately. She is helping the drug and alcohol rehab center that she works at to create a library. They painted the room (lots of fun painting with oil-based paint and using gasoline to wash it off), and have begun creating an inventory of the books they already have as well as soliciting more. This will be the only lending library in all of Olancho so that is pretty exciting! There is currently one small library in Catacamas at the Cultural Center but they do not lend books as they have had problems with people stealing them in the past. Yesterday was the celebration of the 111th anniversary of Catacamas. There was a small parade and lots of activities throughout the day. A bunch of university students studying to be teachers came to display their didactic materials, it is very interesting because they have to make everything themselves. Unlike the U.S. where they have stores where you can buy charts and pictures, the teachers make all of that here. It was pretty impressive but seemed like a lot of work. Shannon helped run children's games at the celebration and it quickly got out of hand. There were at least 50 children and the woman in charge was not organized at all. The children began pushing and shoving and basically stampeding because they wanted candy. They were not able to do the pinatas because the children would not move back and it was too dangerous. The kids almost pulled a high school girl out of a tree who was throwing candy to them. The parents were no better and were pushing and shoving because they wanted candy too. To top it off, a drunk man threw a firework into the crowd of kids and it began exploding in the middle of them starting a stampede. A bunch of people kept asking Shannon where her parents were and if her mom was coming because they wanted to give her a letter. She kept explaining that her parents live in the U.S. and would not be coming. It turned out that they thought that she was the daughter of the President of Honduras. The daughter actually came a little later to help a little with the games and the confusion was solved.
Everyone who has ever used an ATM card at home knows how to use it. ATM machines are still relatively new here but you would think everyone who has a card would have used it by now and would be able to do their transactions quickly. Not so. We have yet to get in line at the ATM machine where the person using it doesn't take more than five minutes. We don't get it. It takes us 40 seconds and the machines are in Spanish.
We are both leaving today (Sunday) to head to our reconnect meetings this coming week where we meet with all the volunteers in Honduras in our project groups and discuss what's going on and learn some new stuff. This means we will be separated for Shannon's birthday on Tuesday. Well we will wake up together and then head out to our meetings early in the morning. Happy Birthday Shannon.