Feria! (urgh)

Javi and I have put some long hours in lately at the Escuela Taller, helping the kids get ready for their product and service exhibition at Comayagua's annual feria (fair). There was lots of coordinating to do, logistics, inventory tags, fliers to make, etc, so it has been pretty hectic. To add to the stress, there is the "Honduran way" of doing things that always makes things a bit more complicated and last minute.

For example, take this picture to the left. See the variety of products displayed? This is not what we had planned for at all. Javi and I had planned for the students to have 3 - 4 weeks of shop time to make more feria like products (small, cheaper things) but because of the hectic and random way things go down at the school, 4 weeks turned into 3 days. We pulled out projects they had worked on in previous shop lessons, cleaned em up and shipped out to the feria. We added some products from the artisan group and then even pulled some stuff out from around the office from years past, dusted it off and set it out. It's not ideal, but we got it together.

The idea more than anything is to show Comayagua what the student's can do and inform the area who they are, so that people know in the future where to go if they would like custom made furniture, doors, etc. I think we accomplished that at least.

Friday we were supposed to have everything over to the fair grounds before 5 pm, after which no more vendors/exhibitors were to be allowed in. We were ready at 3 pm, but the guy who arranged our transport didn't get our truck to us until 4:30, at which time we were sweating bullets. No worry on the Honduran side, though....this is how it works here, they said.

Sales have been slow to put it delicately - we have actually sold about 120 lempiras worth of stuff ($6) in 2 days, not counting the 60 lempiras we took out to feed some hungry Escuela Taller kids on Friday night! But the kids are getting experience talking to customers about their products, probably the first time they've ever had a professional experience in their lives, so that is good. They seem to be enjoying it too.

We have another week in the exhibition, so we might just sell some stuff yet. However, the stuff is expensive for Honduran standards. All being made by hand makes it more expensive then the Chinese-imported goods that many prefer to buy on their limited budget. This has been a learning experience for us as well - how things are here in Honduras and the deep seeded problems start to reveal themselves to us. But there is hope and these guys are leaning, and that's all we can ask for I guess.

Missing home on Thanksgiving

Yesterday Javi and I were in a bit of a depressed mood. We started blaming work and living in Honduras in general, but later in the day we figured it out - we just missed home. Holidays we knew would be tough and this is the first real family holiday that we have passed away from home. (And at least we have each other! We were thinking of all those single volunteers in rural Honduras, passing the holiday on a lonely mountain top somewhere.)

To combat this feeling, volunteers generally join up and celebrate Thanksgiving together. Javi and I joined one such gathering (volunteers were meeting up all over the country). We met up with about 30 others in a nearby town called La Paz (The Peace, apropriately). Everyone brought something and we had a full on, traditional meal. Even cranberry! And the turkey was delicious.

Below is a picture of the spread......

And the devestation that followed.......

Some of the attendees.........................

And Javi with his plate.......

Being that the gathering consisted of mostly 20 somethings, the atmosphere wasn't that of the traditional family get together. Later that evening, there were several non-traditional Thanksgiving activities.

Instead of Thanksgiving day football, we had a feats of strength competition, followed by acrobatics.....

Marachis stopped by and played a few favorites, and then, for reasons unbeknowst to me, the guys started taking their shirts off........

All in all it was a fun evening, but it didn't take the place of being with family and friends from home. We missed you all!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope your Thanksgiving was nice and that you appreciated the people you were gathered with.

Suegro activities

Javi and I took the suegros to Lake Yojoa this weekend. (Oh rather, I guess they took us since they paid.) We stayed at a beautiful lake side hotel where we were treated to beautiful views of the lake and the surrounding cloud covered mountains that surround the waters. They needed a break from Comayagua and our house as we were busy most of last week with work. It was actually rainy and cold this weekend (in the tropics!) but we enjoyed ourselves immensely!

The hotel where we stayed is the nicest on the lake but we chose the cheapest method to get there......the bus! Deb and Jesus got the whole Honduran public transport experience. We took a bus from Comayagua to a town called La Guama, where we needed to catch another bus to the lake. On the bus to Comayagua, the bus drivers packed as many people on as possible (which is completely normal here) and people were crammed into our bus, standing in the aisles on top of each other, carrying bags and buckets of this and that. Javi and I made sure that we all had seats at least! When our stop came, they had to fight their way through the aisles to the exit.

Once in La Guama, we caught a yellow school bus (public buses in rural parts) to the entrance to the hotel. Deb and Jesus grimmaced as the bus flew around blind curves into on coming traffic to pass other cars and buses. The bus dropped us off at the entrance to the hotel, but it was still a mile walk to the hotel. We only walked a few minutes before the hotel owner drove by in her truck and offered us a ride. Deb grabbed the front seat and Javi, Jesus and I took the back with a few other Hondurans. This hilarious picture is Jesus holding on for dear life in the back of the pickup as the driver picked up speed.

Most people who can afford to stay at the hotel have cars, so I think they thought it amusing that the gringos were walking.

It was a very nice weekend.

The next pictures are from the World Map project that I finally finished last week. TWO MONTHS of work!! Deb came with me to help finish up, and seeing as how she was both a teacher for 30 (?) years and completely fluent in Spanish, I'd say she knew what she was doing.

It was really satisfying to finish the job and I think we did great! We still need to label the map (a whole other project) but because their "summer" break starts next week until February, we will have to wait til then. They will be in 8th grade when I come back.

We drew the map by hand (with a grid system) and I tried my best to make sure it was proportionate.

Here is the class:

Painting:

Deb helping direct the painters:

Deb and Jesus want to go to Tela next weekend before they leave. I'll post a few pictures when we get back.

Work, work, work

Hace mucho tiempo que les he escrito!!



Sorry for the long delay in a post. Things have gotten quite busy around here. The last couple weeks at work have had us working a full 8 hours a day (Yes, actually a full work day!) and then we have the added burdens of daily life here which easily fill up the extra hours in a day. Walking to the market and carrying heavy bags full of goods, washing laundry by hand, etc….all those things take more time than you think. Then, yesterday the SUEGROS (in-laws) arrived for a two week visit.



Several things are in full swing at work. The “vivero de empresas” project with the students of the Escuela Taller began 2 weeks ago. This is the business training program that Javi and I designed to teach 30 kids with carpentry, metal work and electricity backgrounds the fundamentals of business. This summer we were busy arranging the methodology for how this program was going to work, and lining up Honduran organizations to deliver the business classes. {We could teach it, but I don’t think these poor kids want to listen to MY Spanish for 4 hours a day!!!} Our counterparts at the Escuela Taller have thrown us for several loops (read last blog post) where things were changed at the last minute or we were not told vital pieces of information. But, the program continues and we are surviving the unforeseen bumps in the road. So far the students have been through a “How to get a job” orientation and an introduction to business and now are in a 4 week program where they will make business plans based on their skills and the products/services that they can offer. Our role through this time is to assist after class hours to answer questions and help students who might be falling behind in the curriculum. These kids are 16 – 20 years old, with varying levels of education from some of the poorer areas of Comayagua, so concepts like target market and fixed/variable costs don’t always come as easy. Our next step with this project will be to help arrange the “Feria de Productos” (Product Fair) where they will show off what they can make and manage it all with their new found business skills in Comayagua’s annual town fair, the first week of December. After that, we will wrap up the education side of the program, and the kids who want to stay will have the option of selling their products and services through the school in a small store. We also are supposed to set up how the shop will function, which is another project on our plates right now.



Here is a picture from one of the sessions that Javi and I coordinated. We set up mock interviews and prepped the students on how to give answers to key questions. This student (one of the “tougher guys”) is nervously sitting though his first interview:

At the Chamber of Commerce Javi has been busy helping our university interns organize their work for upgrading the website. Although he is no webmaster, he is good at organizing people and ideas and he is great at getting people motivated. I have been working with the interns to upgrade the Chamber’s business resource library, which has not seen much attention in a long time. Most of the information they have is old and a lot is not very relevant to the needs of the community, so this has been a challenge to upgrade the content without any money. I have been organizing the students to identify areas where we need new stuff and getting them to solicit the information. We also have someone creating a digital database of the library’s content.
There is also the world map project I have been doing in a small town school near here which is almost finished! Its been a pain in the arse to get out there every Wednesday afternoon, since the buses that take you there are not always running. I never know how I will get to and from Valle de Angeles where the school is; usually a combination of bus, walking, waiting on the side of the road or catching a ride with someone. But we are down to painting the last countries which hopefully can be done in one more session. I will post the finished product when we are finally done.

Conor, our site mate who works in health has asked us to attend meetings for a group he works with, a group of people who live with HIV/AIDS. They would like to think of ways to generate funds to pay for transportation for some of the harder up members (who cannot pay the bus fare to get to the meeting in Comayagua) and would like to generate some money to pay for prescriptions and other expenses if possible. We have only gone one time, so we will see where the group takes us.

And now we have the in laws visiting as well, although they are pretty low maintenance. Mostly they are interested in seeing our lives here and what we do, so we don’t have to spend too much time entertaining.

Here is a photo I took today of Deb, Jesus and Javi in front of Comayagua’s beautiful cathedral.

I am trying to get something together to post about Honduran emigration to the States which is a HUGE issue here. I will post that soon.

Hasta pronto!

The Roller Coaster Ride

Life can sometimes be like a roller coaster out here. The highs are so high, but the lows are so low. At first a lot of our ups and downs came with the living situation, but now we have control of that in our own comfortable house away from host families…the ride mostly has to do with work. (Who knows what else will be affected in the future.) We were in for a bumpy one this past week. Sometimes it can be SO FRUSTRATING here, where all can seem in vain and you wonder why you have left a good home to be here. Then there are times where you are connecting with people, ideas are flowing and you feel like some good is coming about from your being here. Phew……

I went to a meeting on Thursday here in Comayagua promoting the first year of the Millennium Challenge project in Honduras. The Millennium Challenge is one of many poverty reduction strategies of the UN, in Honduras focusing on training and education for farmers to help stimulate economic growth. My project director asked me to go (I wasn’t quite sure why while I was there) but I guess it was good to have a Peace Corps representative. The president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, was there, and so was the US Ambassador to Honduras. If nothing else, it was very interesting to see the interaction between the Ambassador and the President and to see Mel speak. They were pushing lots of hoopla about how many farmers had been helped by the project, and there was lots of media attention and smiling politicians. Below is a picture I took (a bad one, sorry about that) of the ambassador and the president at the event. They are the guys in the black suits.

Now as a personal source of those numbers for such reports (we write how many people we “helped” in our 6 month reports we send to Washington), I wonder about those projections of results. It is hard to quantify results and “development” (as far as I’ve seen in my experience) is a pain staking slow process, requiring extreme patience. There are SO many international aid organizations here in Honduras, governmental and NGOs, with their signs and banners displayed all over buildings, flyers and programs in every corner of the country. Many of us volunteers have wondered….what would happen if they (and we) all just pulled out one day? What would Honduras and Hondurans do to make their country a better place? Would it inspire them to do it themselves and finally see some real results? Or would a country already on the brink suffer even more?

We ended this work week on a good note, after a few ups and downs on the roller coaster. This week we had a run in with people flaking out on us and people not owing up to the promises they made. Break downs in communications were a problem. Also - extreme procrastination and (dare I say it?) laziness. Things that we can take for granted at home, things that make things WORK and get things DONE.

Where does the complicated root of the problem lie? Why is this country (and so many others) so poor? Wow, that is a question I am not qualified to answer. Some that come to mind.....Hunger and poor nutrition, lack of access to education, disease, dirty water (or no water access at all), corruption, lack of capital, inept government, violence, general feeling of helplessness, centuries of exploitation by foreign countries, crumbling infrastructure, emigration…the list goes on and on.

Small successes are our personal goals as volunteers. We are each one person and can only make small (very small) impacts. Mostly these come with the few individuals that we make connections with at work. We can impart some of the skills and habits we have acquired simply from being American and coming from an educated and privileged background. Organizational skills, planning, and idea generation help, not to mention a free, college educated worker to help get things done in financially strapped organizations. And we are getting experience too. Not only all the organizing and planning skills I just mentioned, but exposure to new areas we are asked to lead and projects where we are asked to come up with ideas. Some of the projects we are asked to work on, we have absolutely no experience in and have no idea where to start, but we are the best they’ve got to get something done, and we give them the all we’ve got.

Now are you starting to understand the roller coaster????…..

La Primera Vez a la Costa Norte

Javi and I left Comayagua last Friday to spend a few days on Honduras’ north coast. Our official purpose for going up that way was to spend a few days in Tela to work on a peace corps business project. A group of nine volunteers met to work on a manual for a business simulation done during pre-service training for future volunteers in the business project. We had been putting the manual together over email and met to review and revise the first draft in person. We spent two nights in Tela but only part of one morning was spent on the manual, so it wasn’t too bad as far as “business trips” are concerned. (Getting to Tela takes several hours on the bus, thus the two night stay). Below is a picture of Javi and another volunteer, Marc, after we finished up our morning meeting.
Tela is a nice beach side town – Javi and I really liked it, and felt a twinge of jealousy because Tela is home to two lucky peace corps volunteers. Tela is small and relaxed with a mix of mestizo (what you normally think of as Hondurans) and Garifuna inhabitants.

Side note: Garifuna are black Caribbean people with an interesting story. They came to live on the Caribbean coasts of Belize and Honduras several hundred years ago after a series of historical events led them this way. The Garifuna are basically the product of Black Caribs (Native Americans from South America) and escaped/shipwrecked African slaves. They lived on the Caribbean island of San Vincente for many years where these two groups intermixed and created a unique race with their own language, dance and music, food and customs. They were deported off the island by the English in the late 1700’s to Honduras, where they established communities all over the Honduran North Coast region. Most speak Spanish, but there are still isolated communities where they only speak Garifuna.

Long before the Tela trip was to happen, Javi and I had been discussing checking about a national park near Tela called Jeanette Kawas (named after in advocate who was assassinated for working to save the park from developers). This park has a peninsula called Punta Sal, where I had read you could camp on the beach. After Tela, we made plans to camp two nights on Punta Sal with our friends Sean and Kate. We arranged a combination of taxi and boat travel to reach the peninsula (only reachable by boat) and made sure we had enough food and water. We were told two families lived on the peninsula on the beach, so we would be camping near them, and they could make us a few meals if we liked. The picture below is what we saw as we pulled up to Cocolito beach on the boat, where we camped.

Punta Sal, and especially Cocolito beach, was amazing. It is truly a very special place. The water was a clear green (like emerald) and combined with the green of the jungle it was absolutely beautiful. There was amazing animal life – we saw monkeys, tropical birds, colorful crabs, and some sea life (which we didn’t really get to see too much of because we unfortunately had no snorkel gear). We heard the monkeys howling in the trees within 30 minutes of getting there and were lucky enough to catch several glimpses of them, one time from the beach as we swam. The water was clear and warm, so we spent a lot of time in it. The first night when we sat on the dock after dinner, we could see glowing jelly fish swimming by. The second night, because the currents had taken away the jelly fish, we went for a swim where something beautiful and unexplainable happened in the water. Anytime you moved, glowing “sparks” of light would come alive under the water. They would stick to clothes and to hair long after you came out of the water and you could even see them sparkling on the beach. One of the guys who lived there, Alex, who was swimming with us that night said it was from the reflection of the moon, but we’re not sure about that. We couldn’t come up with an explanation for it, although I’m sure there is one.

Below are more pictures of Punta Sal:

It wasn’t all perfect at this place – in return for the amazing beauty and specialness of this place, you had to give one thing in return……bug bites. The bugs were relentless. Probably the most annoying were the sand flies – tiny, vile creatures that bit and left itchy red marks. When there wasn’t enough wind to keep them at bay we had to take refuge in the water. I fell asleep the second night to these guys biting me – they had found their way in the tent and would not let me fall asleep in peace. The second were the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes were so big, you could feel them landing on you. We all returned home yesterday with several HUNDRED bites from mosquitoes and sand flies that are still itching.

The usual way for the tourist to see Punta Sal is through a day trip from Tela, which is understandable due to the fact that the average tourist does not have camping gear, several free days to spend there or the inclination to put up with the bugs. We were lucky to pass a few days on Cocolito beach, not just to fully appreciate the place and see more wildlife, but also to hang out one night with Alex (who ran the restaurant) and the park ranger. Those guys told us stories and facts about the place, something the average passerby does not get to hear.
Leaving Punta Sal on Tuesday morning, we stopped in a traditional Garifuna village called Miami. Miami is built on a thin sliver of sand; on one side is the beach, on the other a lagoon. The four of us had a quick bite to eat on the beach. We had a friend with us as we ate, who was quite the ham when I asked him if I could take his picture with his pet crab. (Apparently I was not the first tourist to ever take his picture.)

Here is a picture of Miami from the beach side.

We made it back to Comayagua yesterday afternoon – tired, nasty from beach camping and covered with bites, but with a greater appreciation for this country that we are temporarily calling home.

Post script to "What we do"

Just FYI, the last post was not actually what Javi and I do personally. (Oh my God that would be crazy.) It is a list of what EVERYONE in the BUSINESS PROJECT (Honduras) does, which includes almost 30 people. I had a few people emailing me saying that we must be pretty busy down here with all those projects that we have going on. We have about 5 projects right now between the two of us. I'll write something about that later.

cheery-o!

What we do

I wrote this summary a few weeks ago, after all the business volunteers (both old and new) got together for our the annual "reconnect" meeting. I know some of you may be wondering what we actually do down here as so-called “volunteers” in the very vague area of “business.” Maybe this will help clear some of that up. We all had to give brief presentations of what we are working on, so I took notes of what people's projects are.

I’ve arranged this list by project, versus person, since you wouldn’t know people by names and there is some overlap with some people working on similar types of things. Most people are working on more than one project. So, without further ado, THIS IS WHAT WE DO:

• Support Caja Rurales (rural banks) and local Savings and Loans through trainings of members and staff in banking concepts and other types of organizational support
• Website development including design, content and maintenance
• Business Plan trainings, especially at the lower levels of Honduran society (ladies who make coconut bread or farmers for example). Javi and I are organizing a business plan curriculum to be taught to the students at the Escuela Taller here in Comayagua (we will actually end up teaching bits and pieces of it as well).
• Marketing and promotion for artisan groups (including many native peoples) and local tourist initiatives.
• Business simulations (like we did during training) for students in local middle and high schools
• Computer classes for all age groups, from everything on “this is how you use a mouse” to advanced programming courses. One volunteer is developing curriculum for a high school computer class in advanced computing topics.
• Supporting small business co-ops and groups on everything from trainings in how to organize and manage your business to support to find funding and get started. Many are women’s groups who make artisan goods or food items.
• Needs analysis and strategic planning for start-up NGO’s
• Implementation of databases (using excel) for organizations ranging from the local Health Center (to look up medical information) to collecting taxes at the local municipality
• Support to local coffee growers – including promotion of their product and improved fertilization techniques
• One volunteer is working with a water/sanitation volunteer to bring a landfill to his town (trash is currently thrown on a mountain side and is blowing into the town’s water source)
• Support to business youth groups (marketing surveys, product improvement techniques)
• Tourism development – including websites, tourist literature (tour guides, brochures, posters), cultural programming, even cutting trails for new ecotourism projects
• Support for an initiative that wishes to turn trash collection into a small business, with recyclables being sold off and organic items being turned into fertilizer.
• Building libraries in small towns and in schools. One volunteer has been recruited to become an elementary school’s part time librarian.
• Solar ovens (not yet started)
• AIDS charlas (lectures) to men’s only groups and school aged kids
• One on one computer training
• English classes
• Local town newspaper published by high school students, taught through a computer class
• Baseball teams
• The “colgate” project (How to brush properly)
• Why to stay in school charlas
• “Odyssey of the mind” (creative thinking competition among school kids.)
• The world map project (paint a giant map of the world on a school’s wall ---I am starting this one on Wednesday…..yikes! kids and paint!!)
• Someone started a rugby team (is that really considered development?)
• Pen pals programs with kids in the US
• And….this one is great so I’ll put it last….one girl has started heading up “Ladies Night” at her small town’s new gym. This might not sound legit, but actually, educating about physical fitness and teaching appropriate ways to work out definitely has its place.

There were a few more….but I was getting tired of typing them up and ome were hard to explain in a single bullet point.

Honduras has six areas that volunteers work in. The other five are Municipal Development, Youth Development, Health/HIV-AIDS, Water/Sanitation, and Protected Areas Management. Other peace corps countries may have the same projects, or may have different ones depending on the needs of the particular country.

Sometimes day to day, you can feel as if what you are doing here isn't making much of a difference. But I was inspired (at least temporarily!) when we all got together and I saw what our project is doing here in Honduras.

Hurricane Felix

Well Javi and I thought we were in for our first hurricane, and a category 5 no less, yesterday evening. I checked the internet midday yesterday to see an image of a massive hurricane, the eye of the storm which was supposed to pass right over central Honduras! Mild panic and excitement set in!!


Up until that point, I thought the storm would only affect those on the north coast. We got a call from our project manager to tell us to "stead fast," or as we interpreted it, "hunker down," so we went around town in a frenzy buying food and stocking up on water. Hondurans, to the contrary, were pretty laxy dazy about the whole thing and continued on with their usual, laxy dazy pace. We figured this was due to one too many hurricanes passing through their country.

Anyway, after we were all stocked up, we waited. Some heavy rains came, but nothing worse than we had seen before. Turns out, (we found out this morning) Felix turned into a tropical storm by the time it hit land, mostly dumping rain on the swampy region that lies between northeastern Honduras and Nicaragua, the vast jungle wilderness of the Mosquitia.

Many had been comparing this hurricane to MITCH, a storm that wreaked havoc on Honduras in 1998, killing 11,000 (?) people and damaging the already feeble economy. I thought the most interesting part of the whole thing was when a guy at work told us that there were some people who were praying that the hurricane would bring that kind of damage, because then Honduras would get international attention again and the aid money would come poring in. That is crazy.

Another interesting antidote was a story I read on weather.com before we knew Felix would turn into a tropical storm. This guy had been evacuated from Roatan and was waiting for a flight back to the States. He was quoted as saying something to the effect that he hoped all this mess was worth it, because he had only gotten 7 dives in so far on his vacation, and he was a bit put out. SEVEN DIVES. And absolutely no thought for the rest of the people who actually live there on that island. Wow.

Well, thats all I have to say about that. Next time I will be posting something about the different kind of work business volunteers do here. Bye for now!

Parque Cental

We were out of town last week for the annual reconnect of the business project. Reconnect was a meeting of the PCV business groups of Hondu 8 and 10 which took place in a beautiful spot in the hills of Parque Cerro Azul Meambrar. We were initially not super excited about attending because of the all too close memories of times we had during training. Reluctant as we were about going (we had no choice as it is required of us) it ended up being a great experience gaining insight and new ideas from business volunteers from the class before us.

Reconnect added another benefit of allowing some friends a mas comoda (cheaper) opportunity to visiting us. They were our first planned on and “invited” friends to come and visit us in Comayagua. There are a handful of things for visitors to do here and most of it involves walking many hot hours around town. During the first half hour of walking around our group was separated resulting in the guys of the group looking for their wives for more than an hour.

After some time searching for them we ended up in Parque Central baffled about what our next step should be. Being off guard trying to come up with ideas of what to do, a crazy lady (very mentally ill person) who I have seen before around town, approached us slowly asking for “besos, pesos”, and then as nearing my chest “pechos”. This four foot something inch women attacked me, like a savaged animal with an open, mostly toothless, mouth going straight for my chest. She was trying to grab at my arms when in doing so made me turn back to her. At that moment she reached her hand into my rear crevasse area and jingled the family jewels. Keep in mind, Parque Central is a big plaza with the town cathedral in front of it. I turned around and told her trying to save face, “Basta! No enfrente de Dios!” A spark jumped into her eyes and she proceeded to go after each one of the three of us guys where we were so alarmed that we proceeded to high step around in a tight circle flailing our arms in all sorts of directions. In one of the circlings I caught a glimpse of other Hondurans sitting on benches in the park looking and laughing their asses off at us. Some how the gringo show ended and our lady friends, Sara and Kate, came strolling in to Parque Central minutes after the little psycho women had her way with us. I was extremely flustered from the incident and they were as calm and cool as could be excited about various used clothing prospects they had found around town.

In all we had a really good time with our first visitors, but plan on being more prepared for when family or friends come and visit us from back home, hopefully soon

--J

Random Photos

All photos except the last two are courtesy of our friends, who actually remember to take photos when we go places and do fun things.

Hummingbirds at Reconnect:
Kate tried very hard to get this picture...its not easy to get a shot of hummingbirds that isn't a blur. The cabins we stayed at during our meetings had several feeders which attracted some of the most colorful hummingbirds I've even seen. Beautiful!



At lunch one day during reconnect the kitchen staff surprised us with a meal of gigantic tilapia from the nearby lake. It was quite a feat to get through the whole fish, I don't think anyway managed to eat it all. Here Javi is getting friendly with his fish.


A few of us went on a hike through the beautiful Parque Nacional Cerro Azul Meambar. Here was the highlight of the hike, a beautiful waterfall tucked away in the jungle.



Sean and Kate came to visit us after Reconnect before heading back to Santa Rosa. Here are the guys eating helados in parque central.

Javi and I just got bikes from peace corps so we can cruise around Comayagua much faster. We are supposed to wear helmets (even if it will lead to rocks being thrown at us or intense harrasement) so here is Javi trying his on for size.

My mom sent me a few puzzles to work on, which has been keeping me entertained on slow nights (oh, the excitement!) Here is the progress so far....Thanks mom!!

Unexpected visitors and other news

There is an unwritten rule among volunteers in this country that you have total and complete access to stay at any other volunteer’s house. Of course, we don’t make much money so if you are passing through on your way to somewhere else or have business in town, you wouldn’t think of spending any of that precious little living allowance on a hotel, you’d call the local volunteer! With almost 200 of us in a small country, there are many volunteers and the possibility of a free night’s stay almost anywhere, especially in the west. Now that Javi and I have become established here in the house, we have begun to see a number of volunteers staying with us. We don’t even have a guest bed yet, but this is a hardy bunch and it doesn’t detract them one bit. The hard floor is fine with them. Some have come and gone without helping out with the cost of food and drink we provided (bad move) and some have been very gracious and generous. I know a couple who while living with the host family in their site, would allow passer-byers to sleep with them in their own bed (queen size) since there was no other place they could put them up. I personally would never do that, but you get the picture…free nights stay.

So last Thursday, Javi and Conor were planning on doing an AIDS lecture in a neighboring town and because of transportation logistics and the start of the talk, they had to spend the night the evening before (with a volunteer of course). It was the first night, I believe since arriving to Honduras, that I would have a night alone, so I was planning on enjoying a quiet evening to myself. Javi and Conor said goodbye at about 5 and not 30 minutes later I get a loud knock on the door. Upon opening the gate I see 6 gringo faces, all wishing to stay at my house, completely unannounced. Apparently there had been some emails exchanged among other people about them staying, but it was all news to me. I am normally completely fine with volunteer visitors, even when they push my patience I am normally okay with it, but this time I was pissed. They were on their way to do translating for a brigade doing health surveys in some nearby mountain towns, so what was I supposed to do? Turns out the guy in charge of coordinating the thing didn’t communicate fully that they would need a place to stay, so I held him accountable for the whole thing, forgave him and then let everybody in. We ended up having a good time that night hanging out, but sometimes I get tired of the attitude that my house (or anyone’s house) is a hostel or a frat house.

Below is a picture of some friends who were over that night:

Here is a picture of Javi, Conor and Marc (business volunteer in Cane, La Paz) after the three returned from the AIDS talk they did. The three of them were walking around the house shirtless that evening for some reason.....

In other news, we had our TWO year anniversary on Monday. The entertainment budget for the evening was less than last year’s in Dallas, but it was a good time. I made a quiche, Javi bought a bottle of Spanish wine (BIG SPENDERS!) and we had a nice dinner. Being the “Cotton anniversary,” I bought Javi a towel, and he bought me a shirt.

In the picture below, you can see Javi hard at work starting on our garden. He spent an entire weekend sifting through the dirt to get rid of all the rocks. Soon as we can get some fertilizer from a guy at work, I will plant the seeds that another volunteer (pictured above eating spaghetti) was kind enough to give us. The seeds are kind of old, and intended for a milder climate, but it will be interesting to see what grows.

Waiting is Doing

Well, its hard to keep the posts going (and even harder for you to read them, I'm sure!) but we are trying to not slack off. This post is going to be a simple one with photos from another recent trip we took. On Thursday, week before last, we were asked to go on a trip with the staff and some of the students from the Escuela Taller. Good thing we are flexible because they were leaving the following Monday!! The premise of the trip was to visit two other Escuela Talleres financed by the Spanish development program. One is in Antigua, Guatemala, the other in Gracias, Lempira (western Honduras). In between the two, we stopped in Copan to see the famous Mayan ruins there. We had a fabulous time and enjoyed rollin around on a chartered bus with 50 Hondurans for five fast and furious days. Of course, our luck, the camera memory card went on the fritz after all the pictures we took in Antigua, but we will be back to get more!!! It was beautiful, even if it there were more gringos there than I have seen in all of Honduras in the last 6 months!

The best part of the trip is how much better we got to know the kids and the staff at the school. Relationship building with Hondurans is half the battle to getting work done here. We also learned a very important lesson about Honduran culture....waiting is doing. This Javi-coined phrase very accurately describes the amount of waiting we did with these guys on the trip. Any time we were going to do anything, or go anywhere, there was a lot of waiting involved, small group or large. But waiting was not an inconvenience, like waiting in line at the post office or the like, it was more of an activity which involved lots of talking and joking as we waited. This is a good cultural lesson for us fast paced, ultra-convenient demanding American types.

So, the first two pictures are the ruins at Copan, the last 4 pictures in Gracias with the staff and students from the Escuela Taller.

I promise we will get better about posting about life here in Honduras. (Some might be interested----) I already have some topics in mind......step by step pila laundry washing, a whole segment on PIROPOS (cat calls), the market, WORK, etc..... Hang in there with us!

Santa Rosa de Copan

This weekend, Javi and I went to visit some Peace Corps friends (Sean and Kate) in beautiful Santa Rosa de Copan. Man these guys have a great spot. Its a charming city, nice weather and people actually SMILE at you around town. We've just recently learned that we here in Comayagua happen to live in one of the most notoriously UNfriendly cities in Honduras. The other two are supposed to be Tegucigalpa (capital city, no surprise) and another city called Danli close to the Nicaragua border. Go figure!
Anyway, below we've got some shots of our visit.

This first one is of Kate, Sean and Javi strolling down the sidewalk. I thought Comayagua had uneven, chaotic sidewalks but Santa Rosa has it like this all over town! One that we walked down had a 4 foot drop off where the sidewalk just ended. We had to turn around and walk back, with amused locals looking on.


Here is a view of the city as you walk down the street. The whole town is built on gentle rolling hills, with pine forest on mountain tops in the distance.

Javi and I tried some of Santa Rosa's famous Copan Dry. People there are REALLY proud of it.

Santa Rosa is home to the one and only Peace Corps house in Honduras, so we went to check it out. It reminded me of a dirty college house but it had a certain charm to it. Stacks of books, games, maps and random items left by volunteers over the years were all over the place. Unfortunately the new country director has decided to shut the house down. Area volunteers are pretty upset since they use the place to crash quite often. We personally won't be affected out here since we are not likely to ever use the house, but its sad to see a peace corps tradition end.

On Sunday morning we went with Kate and Sean to the market for their weekly fruit and veggie purchases.

People were quite friendly and were actually making sure you got the right amount for the money you were handing over instead of trying to squeeze a few extra lempiras out of you. I'm normally kind of scared to take pictures at our vegetable market here in Comayagua but Santa Rosa is small and safe so I decided to bring the camara out.

Here is Kate picking through tomatoes at the market. They made us a delicious homemade spaghetti later that night.

We had a great visit. And when we got here to Comayagua, even though it was back to the HOT weather and hustle and bustle, it was nice to be back.