stuff

So it has been a little while since we have written. Kev’s parents came to visit for a week and we showed them the exciting sites of Catacamas and went to Tela, on the north coast, where we all got sunburned snorkeling (Shannon’s first sunburn in years, she was sad). We got to see some monkeys at a natural reserve and lots of plants at botanical gardens. Our almost site-mate Josh’s parents came right after Kevin’s parents so we got to meet them and spend some time with them as well. They accompanied Shannon and Josh to their English class and the teachers were super confused by their South African accents. It was good for them to hear something besides U.S.A. accents.

Shannon marched in a caminata pacífica (peaceful walk) last week with her counterparts. It was the second annual parade in which 10 schools and 5 high schools from the prevention program they do participated. It was a lot bigger than last year and was a lot of fun and of course Shannon is famous now because she was on TV.

We both attended the inauguration ceremony for the veterinary school that will be starting next year at the university where Kevin works. It was a huge event and people came from other countries as well as various ambassadors and diplomats. This will be the first veterinary school in Honduras so it is really exciting. The closest schools right now are in Nicaragua and Guatemala so having one in Honduras will be a great advantage for all of the young students who wish to study veterinary medicine. There is also much need here as many people treat their “pets” terribly and have no idea how to take care of them. It is very uncommon to spay and especially neuter animals (hence the millions of stray dogs and cats that run wild) so hopefully the school will focus on educating people about the advantages of this as well.

We celebrated biodiversity day a couple of weeks ago. The university hosted a big program put on by GTZ, a German organization, and we went on a trip to a town a couple of hours away to learn about biodiversity. We participated in a bird and plant count (Shannon almost died of boredom) where the vice mayor of the town was one of the guides and was extremely knowledgeable about birds. He impressed us by being able to identify all different types of birds just by listening to their calls. He also knew their names in English, Spanish, and their scientific names. We also got to see an endangered tree, Teocinte, which is endemic to the area and nowhere else in Honduras or the world. The Maya used it a lot during their reign and it the agency is trying to get people to protect and preserve it. We went to a local town pretty far into the campo (we had to ford a couple good sized rivers to get there) and saw the pine trees they planted as part of a reforestation project. It was a long day but we learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people. Go biodiversity!

Today we had some excitement when we went for a run at 5:30 in the morning. We got the to field where we normally run and saw special forces police officers everywhere crouching in bushes and surrounding about a block of houses. They were wearing bullet proof vests, helmets, and carrying semi-automatic weapons, something you don’t see everyday. A women who usually walks told us that they were trying to capture someone and that it was probably drug related so we should use the other entrance (on the side of the field away from them). We weren’t sure if it was safe to run but she assured us it was fine. Everyone else was going about their normal business, running, driving, and even walking through the mobs of police. So we ran as normal and after about 30 minutes they all stood up and it seemed like they were calling off the operation. It was weird. Later, our safety and security officer called to tell us that the DEA was running “operations” in Olancho this week. We assume this was part of it.

It rained a lot last weekend due to the storm Agatha. We heard that there were problems in Catacamas with flooding and bridges washing out and that the mayor had called a state of emergency. However, we didn’t see any of this and nobody could tell us where it was happening so we’re assuming everything was fine in most parts. Some other parts of the country were pretty hard hit so we were lucky we just had lots of rain (but don’t worry, if there had been an emergency Shannon recently went to the annual emergency zone coordinator meeting and is well prepared should there be an emergency). It tried to rain cats and dogs, but all it could muster up was a dead baby kitten on our patio. We’re still not sure where it came from, Kevin thinks that this evil stray cat that eats our cats’ food had babies but Shannon doesn’t think it was pregnant. A ver… Now we are just battling the terrible heat and humidity and trying not to melt (impossible).