Where did June go?

June just flew by.

The day after we arrived home from the States, at 7 am, our work (the Programa Comayagua Colonial) started calling. The annual planning meeting was starting that day up in Puerto Cortes and they wanted to make sure we were going with them. For being the "planning meeting," not a whole lot of planning went into actually telling us when it would be happening, since calling us VERY early the day after we got back from a long trip doesn't really constitute fair warning.

We joined them up there in Puerto Cortes the day after. Here is a picture of some of the group, the last day of the meeting when some of us spent the afternoon at the beach:



Puerto Cortes was the site we almost had.... We were supposed to go there but our site was changed last minute to Comayagua when there were too many security incidents on the road between San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortes (the only access to the city).

We didn't see much of the city since we spent most of the time there at the hotel in meetings. I felt slightly sad that we didn't get the beach town as our site, but not really since I like our set up in Comayagua.

This is a picture of an abandoned boat right off the beach in Puerto Cortes. Apparently the story is it was left by some "narco traficantes" (drug traffickers) and sat in the bay for many years. Then, when Hurricane Mitch (the storm of the century here in Honduras) hit about 10 years ago, it was washed up and now sits in about 3-4 feet of water almost on the shore.

So, after the frantic and last minute trip to Puerto Cortes, we arrived home just to turn around and go back up to the North Coast a day and a half later. A long while back we had promised some friends we'd meet up with them that weekend in Triunfo de la Cruz, a little Garifuna town near Tela.

Here is a picture of a friend we made, named "Vicki Fresh:"

We met Vicki Fresh when he swam up to us in the ocean and just started singing reggae/rap songs in Garifuna and Spanish. He was fun and it's always nice to get to know the locals but he sort of outlived his welcome with us (he spent a lot of time with us), especially when he started asking for money. That, and we were all couples and he was sort of a 5th wheel. Oh well. I'm sure we will all never forget Vicki Fresh....

Here are some other pictures from Triunfo de la Cruz:

Then, as soon as we arrived from Triunfo de la Cruz back to Comayagua, we had something else waiting for us to do.....an intense 3 day workshop with us teaching a majority of the material. The workshop was for other peace corps volunteers who are not in the business project but are working with small businesses in their sites. We gave a crash course on how to write a business plan, keep accounting records, figure product costs, etc. It was a fun experience but at the same time very tiring.

After all the madness, we were sitting at home on Thursday night enjoying the peace and quiet. As we were sitting there, Javi decided, out of the blue, he wanted to cut his hair.....all of it. We did it.

Here are the before and after pictures:





People at work acted like it was the craziest thing ever and literally stared and commented for like 10 minutes the first day they saw him with the new hair-do. It was quite a scandal and they are still giving him a hard time about it.

Well, we are enjoying the return to our normal schedule. Its nice to be back and enjoy a quiet and peaceful weekend at home.