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About three weeks ago we had our Close of Service Conference with Peace Corps. Everyone who came to Honduras in our group (Honduras 13) who is still a volunteer was at this conference. Forty-one of the original fifty-one volunteers of our group were there. Those are actually pretty good numbers too. This was the only time since training that we have all been in the same place at the same time and Shannon hadn’t seen a couple of people since training so it was an exciting time to see everyone together again for the last time. About half of us are staying until September 24th, our actual close of service date, and we will get to see those people again. Others, who have plans to go back to school or teach or for whatever reason want to leave early have up to a month before that date to close their service with no penalties. We spent three days talking about what we have done here, how we can make training and service better and most importantly how to go about our futures. We had a lot of fun with everybody and had a good time but we also had to say a lot of good byes to people we will not see again here in Honduras – how sad. After the conference, it seemed as if we were already done but then we got back to Catacamas and realized we still have three months left so we got back to work. We are trying to finish all of our projects, not starting new ones, so we can finish everything before we go as neither of us is being replaced by new volunteers. It looks like we should be able to do that.

Other news: We visited another volunteer’s (Ryan) site and got to see our cats’ two sisters who now live there. They were doing very well and loved seeing us too. We also got to see a hammock bridge that Ryan helped build for his community which is pretty awesome. The Friday after we got back to our house, Shannon went to grab a bag and noticed a snake coiled up in the corner of the kitchen. Kevin went to get the camera and snapped a couple of pictures as the snake started moving. Not knowing if it was poisonous or not, we did not want to grab it and it went behind the oven and we couldn’t get it out. So, hoping it was not venomous, we eventually went to bed and didn’t see it again. Then, while cleaning Sunday morning, Kevin found about two inches of its tail by the front door that we assumed the cats had bitten off but still no sign of the snake. Shannon thought the cats had eaten it but Kevin was sure there would have been signs of part of the snake somewhere. Monday morning, after coming back from running, Kevin went in to take a shower, like most Honduran things, the shower doors do not fit right into the frame and the snake was coming out of the shower into the bathroom. We opened the back door and shooed it out, noticing that it was missing the end of its tail. We never saw it again but Kevin did look it up and found that it was a Northern Cat-Eyed Snake and is very docile and non-venomous. If only we had known that beforehand we could have just grabbed it and saved it some misery. One of our cats did have a sore that started oozing puss on his chest after that so maybe the snake did turn violent as it was getting its tail bitten off. We will never know.

We tried to hike the tallest mountain in Olancho two weekends ago. We have been wanting to do it the whole time we have been here and now that time is running out we are trying to squeeze this three day trip in. Unfortunately, it rained so much the night before that the river that we’d have to cross three times was impassable and we were unable to go. We have rescheduled it for another weekend and hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen again. It has been raining almost every afternoon now which also means our water turns brown and we often don’t have any running water in the morning and resort to showering by bucket or the other alternative of just not showering.
We invited all the volunteers in our department, along with some others, over for the 4th of July last weekend, which we celebrated on the third by finding ridiculous used “patriotic” clothing to wear. We had over 15 people at our house that night and had tons of food to eat and had a great time.

Dengue has also been hitting a lot of people in our site and around the country including our site-mate Elisabeth. Dengue is not fun. She barely had enough energy to pick up a glass of water and take a drink. This lasts for about a week. We took turns helping her out, taking her to the medical facility and cooking her food. Kevin didn’t mind as he went over every day to watch the World Cup games anyway. Now that the World Cup is over, he is really sad and was pretty devastated after the Netherlands lost. He had been rooting for them since before the World Cup even started. Maybe in four years. He even has a shirt he can wear in four years supporting the Netherlands, although it is in Spanish.

This past Friday and Saturday we went to Tegucigalpa to help do two training events with the brand new group of volunteers (trainees) that just came to Honduras three weeks ago. Friday afternoon we were on a panel to talk about safety and security since between the two of us we have been robbed, witnessed murders, had stuff stolen from our back yard, been bitten by a dog, etc. It’s always a fun time when you get to scare the new trainees. The next day was the fun day where we got to talk about the different Peace Corps support groups and do activities to really get to know the new trainees. We also had plenty of time for questions from the new trainees about what life is really like as a volunteer without any PC staff around. We can get some pretty interesting questions and it is pretty fun. We remember this activity very well from when we were in training and how exciting it was to finally get to talk to actual volunteers and ask them questions.