Another 5 weeks passed by without a peep from us. If anyone still checks this, sorry about that! It just got difficult to download pictures and write stuff without the computer, and being so busy before leaving, blogging got pushed off to the side. But we have just 4 days left in Comayagua and 10 days left in Honduras. We've had all our despedidas (good bye parties) and have been wrapping everything up these past days. Its amazing how time flies at the end. Its a bit sad but VERY exciting to be going home!

I promise, PROMISE to post pictures and maybe a story or too from our trip we are taking after signing out of here. Like I said before, we've got 6 weeks of beach time lined up in Costa Rica, Panama and Columbia. Should be a nice treat before heading home.

Sorry to flake out here at the end but check back in a few weeks to see if I got my act together for a few vacation photos.

I guess its been about a month since we last put something up here. We ran into a bit of a rough patch and sort of didn't want to talk about it.....but since we've put most news worthy things in our lives up on this blog since the beginning of this adventure, might as well keep up with that now that we are almost finished.

We got robbed again, and lost a few of our most valuable "worldly" goods (in Honduras)......again. This time was on a bus going to the capital. We had our laptop and ipod in a backpack in the compartment above us (things on our lap, thus the bag was not right with us). At a stop right outside of the capital a man standing in the aisle asked us to find something for him on the floor and as we looked for it, his buddy grabbed our bag and was off the bus in a second. I knew something was fishy but Javi was hip to the scam right away and ran off the bus looking for the guys before I even knew what had happened. Of course they were gone by that point. The feeling was crushing....complete disappointment in this place and anger.....

Its hard. A few weeks have passed since then and we are feeling better but its a bit difficult to not feel jaded and tired of it all.

But, on to cheerier topics....here is a picture of our close of service conference with the other volunteers who came down here with us.....(those that are still left!)

There were 35 of us left at this time....out of an original 51, so about 68% of us made it to the two year mark. Life happens and things bring people home for a variety of reasons....sometimes, like after the second robbery, you REALLY understand why.......

So we have just 7 full weeks left as peace corps volunteers in Honduras. We are officially done the 17th of April. Many people have asked us...so what is next? First we are going on a little vacation before heading home. We're planning on spending about 6 weeks on the beaches of costa rica and panama. After that we are headed back home for good and we're planning on going back to New Mexico. There might be a little back and forth at first as we visit family and get readjusted, but eventually we will be back in Albuquerque. Besides the scary job situation and downward spiral of our economy, we are super excited to be back home.....friends and family! salad! anonymity!

I'll try to keep this better updated our last little bit here, because we will be signing off the blog once we've returned. Thanks for continuing to check on us!

I know it may appear as if all we are doing these days is travelling, but I promise we are definitely still working hard here in Comayagua! (Harder than ever actually, trying to wrap things up before we leave in mid April.) The thing is we had a few vacation days left that peace corps was going to take away from us (no vacation allowed the last two months) and we can't be having that! A goal of ours was to see every country that borders Honduras, so we had just one country left.....El Salvador.

With limited time and budget, we kept this trip simple....just two destinations in the whole country.

First stop was the beach, a tiny little dot on the map called "Playa El Cuco:"

Its largely a surfing town, but with waves small this time of year and not much else to bring tourists around, it wasn't exactly a big destination on the gringo trail. We actually ended up staying right next to the only other gringos around. Here is a pic of our friendly neighbors at the place we stayed:

This guy Lloyd was BIG TIME into making this drum for his female companion, something he had recently learned how to do during a trip to Guinea in West Africa. He basically worked on it the entire time we were there....3 days. Here he is after attaching the goat hide: Hmmm.... Here is where we stayed: I was on the phone with my dad a few nights ago telling him about this trip. I was explaining that the room cost $15 night and he was amazed! Here is what we got for our $15 a night. Shower facilities:

(Hard to get sand out of the swim suit.) Luxury accommodations:

And beautiful sunrises/sunsets right out your front door:

Our other stop was to a town called Perquin, a former stronghold of the FMLN revolutionary army during the 80's and 90's. The main attraction was an interesting museum describing the salvadorian revolution from a very leftist point of view:

Unfortunately (but not entirely surprising) the exhibits were a bit hard to follow as they were disorganized and cluttered. We left the museum still confused as to what exactly happened, but the sentiment stuck with us and the pictures were very powerful. This is probably hard to read, but here is a poster from the "solidarity" room filled with foreign country posters expressing support for the salvadorian's situation and denouncing U.S. foreign policy of aiding "contras" in Central America during that time period.

The secret radio headquarters of the FMLN's "Radio Venceremos" was located where the museum currently stands.

Sign says: "Hole from a Bomb of 500 lbs - made in the United States"

Interesting perspective on what happened there, isn't it?

If anyone is interested, here are a few pics from our trip to Guatemala over Christmas.

Lago Atitlan:

Christmas dinner at our hotel on the lake:

A very full belly after christmas dinner:

Volcano hike (near Antigua):

No regulations on these sorts of things so the turistas just walked straight up the lava flow...

"LAVA!!!"

Antigua:

Market day in Chichicastenango:

My mom came for one last visit before we are finished with our service here in just a few months. She decided that she hadn't gotten enough of Honduras last time during my family's visit last Christmas. Well, this time she definitely got a feel for it, Honduras "cooperated" you could say. Lights went out while cooking (with headlamp cooking ensuing), she stood in bus aisles when no seats were available, she got to experience the horribleness of when you already have motion sickness from the windy roads on the bus and you get a good whiff of someone's breakfast they have just vomited in the aisle next to you, she hitch hiked on a country road (that's right!) and even got to go to a friend's house and have them make a lunch for her, a meal of the 4 Honduran food groups - meat, coca cola, starch and more starch.

We picked her up from the airport on our way back to Comayagua from our vacation in Guatemala. (Pictures to follow on some later post.) The three of us hung out in Comayagua for a few days, and then to break up the exciting time that is hanging out at our house, we went to the lake (Lago de Yajoa) where we could do a few "touristy" things. This trip was where we took the majority of photos (or Javi took them, as you will see he isn't actually in any of them) so they form the story that follows.

Our first stop was the "fish shacks" that line the highway on a certain stretch beside the lake. (This was the leg of the trip where she stood on the bus because all seats were taken. She stood the whole way - 2 hours. At first she was laughing and telling stories, enjoying the adventure, and then motion sickness kicked in and she was glad to get off the bus when she did!)

She dug into that plate of fried fish and fried bananas (called tajadas). Yum! She even ate the cabbage and onion that are in those suspicious looking jars of colored liquids.

The next day we went on a bird tour with a British man living at the lake, eking out a humble existence doing what he loves best. He was an excellent guide! Here we are climbing into the row boat for our tour on the lake.

Our guide, Malcolm, was a very interesting character. He'd swing his binoculars around suddenly if another bird flew by and say all kinds of funny British sayings. He could rattle off tons of interesting things about the birds and lake. After that, we dragged my mom down a hot and dusty road so she could see this:

(the famous waterfall!)

This was the only picture we took where she didn't look like she'd been hit by a truck from the heat and walking!

After the falls we were waiting on the side of the road for a ride...bus or whatever came our way, since transportation is spotty out there.

The first mode of transport willing to take us somewhere was a nice Honduran family. Javi waived them down and we climbed in the back. It was my mom's first time to hitchhike!

They took us to the nearest town where we caught a bus to get to the main highway. From there, we were lucky to get a passing bus to take us to Comayagua that had seats available. Mom never thought she'd be so grateful for a simple seat on a bus! What a fun trip!

I flew home for a few days to see my sister graduate from New Mexico State University. It took me as much time to travel there and back, as time I had to spend with my family, but it was worth it nonetheless.

Here is a pic with my sister and my mom in her professor regalia:

Congratulations Holly and Andy!

I went by myself. Some family members were concerned about me travelling to and from the San Pedro Sula airport solita, but there are many single lady volunteers who do that stuff every day, so of course I survived it.

A volunteer I knew (who has finished up her service and gone home) once told me after a quick trip to the States, she should have never gone back home so close to the end of her service. Although I don’t exactly feel the same, now I understand. I’ve been a bit grumpy since I’ve gotten back. Maybe it’s the lingering resentment from the butt slapping (see below – which by the way, has led me to ALWAYS carry something heavy in my hand while walking around in case I need to peg somebody with it). It could be a form of senioritis – “learned a lot, had fun, time to move on.” Could also be that, with only 3months left here after Christmas that we are starting to see how SO many things we worked hard for are still the same……

Anyway, getting out and changing scenery is usually a good thing so for Christmas we will be in Guatemala. Hopefully, the change up will be enough to charge up our batteries and work these last 3 months with some gusto. On the 30th my mom will be here through the first week of January (yay!) so that will also be fun.

Here’s a parting video for this entry, a “Christmas greeting.” I took it last night right before Javi and I opened Christmas gifts to each other. (Note the beautiful wrapping of the gifts under the “tree” and the “Christmas music.”)

I’ll post some Guatemala pictures later on.

Merry Christmas everyone!

This is one of those stories that is still making me BOILING mad, but also makes me laugh so I thought I’d share it out here on cyber space.

So I’m walking home a few days ago, of course minding my own business and just doing my thing. I come around the corner to a street where there is no one else around except for a young kid (boy) about 15 or 16 years old who is walking towards me. As we get closer to each other, I notice that he is acting a bit strange, but there are lots of strange folks here and I am a blond headed tall gringa so that sometimes throws people off, so I didn’t take much notice of it.

As he passes me, I feel a light slap on my rear end. That’s right, that little shit slapped my ass. Fury rose up in me. Almost 2 years of constant sexual harassment (usually only verbal) on Honduran streets, and my complete resentment and dislike of it, came to a boiling point. I flipped around immediately. He looked at me and started run. Without thinking, I started to run after him!!! Now, get this, I had been carrying my sun umbrella, so I start chasing this kid, with an open umbrella yelling obscenities in English (Spanish had completely escaped me in my moment of fury!). I have to laugh now thinking what that must have looked like. Now, the umbrella was causing understandably a lot of wind resistance, so I wasn’t going to be able to catch up to the kid, also considering he was half my age and a faster runner than I am. (It never occurred to me to drop the umbrella the whole time!)

When I realized I was never going to catch him, I took the water bottle I had been carrying in my hand and hucked it at him. Somehow (and I am the worst shot ever), it got him in the back! Of course, an almost empty plastic bottle did nothing, but I sure hope it scared him. I’m sure it did, because the look on his face when I first started chasing him was of complete surprise!!!

Crazy, huh?! The fury and my reaction was a complete surprise to myself….I seriously just flipped out. I get SO tired of the treatment women get here, so tired of the machismo, that when this little kid went and took that extra step by physically touching me, I just lost it!!!! It’s just one of those times that makes me REALLY look forward to being back home.

We opted out of the big volunteer thanksgiving gatherings that go on here in Honduras to do our own thing this year. We made thanksgiving dinner at home and invited Conor over...it was my first attempt at making a holiday dinner without knowing and experienced matriarchal figures around to help. It actually went pretty well! Of course, we were greatly aided by the fact that we did not make a turkey, due to cost (expensive import from the States!) and sheer amount of meat that would have resulted (we couldn't justify 16 lbs of meat among 3 people). So, Conor picked us up a delicious Honduran fried chicken (whole) and Javi and I made all the fixins!

Traditions are important to carry on, even more so when you are away from home and in a foreign country. So, we tried to have a day as close to thanksgiving as we could get.

Example tradition 1: Carving the turkey (in our case, pollo frito)

Example tradition 2: Watching "foosball" on the tele (at Conor's house)

Example tradition 3: Baking pies(I was quite proud how my apple pie turned out...isn't it pretty?)

Next year we will be back home and Thanksgiving will once again be relegated to those older family members who really do it right. Back to cooking all day in the kitchen with the ladies, men on the couch with top pants buttons undone and watching football, etc..... Although I miss the traditional family get togethers now, some day soon we'll be home and we'll always have the fun memories of putting on holidays here in Honduras! Hope your's was nice as well. Happy thanksgiving!

Honduras has a sort of haphazard infrastructure in some aspects. Roads, public transport, water delivery, etc. are all sort of "random," but one thing that really exemplifies this are electrical wires. They are strung up and around in such disorder and in ways, in what appears to my non-engineering perspective, as extremely dangerous. It seems like it was jerry rigged the first time, and then jerry rigged a 100 times after that, and you get what you see today. Its one of those things that you really notice when you first get here, and then after a while, it sort of just fades off in the distance and you become oblivious to it. For some reason, the other day I was inspired to put something about it on the blog, so I walked around Comayagua and took a few shots.

Check this one out.....holy crap!

This seriously can't be safe!

Wires strung across the front of city hall:

A "telephone pole," on our street:

Growth on wires:

Nicaragua was a great trip! It was actually surprising how much there was to see and do. Here in Honduras there are a few cool things to do, but you can't have too high of standards for all the supposed "tourist destinations," so we weren't expecting the moon or anything. But it was really fun!

Here is a map (although tiny, of course) to look at if you want to see where some of the places we visited are located:

First stop, Leon:

A liberal city, with a good vibe. The cathedral above was one of many scattered around town. Next, Granada:(colonial city on Lago de Nicaragua)

The lake at sunset:

We met this painter who showed us some of his artwork:

Granada has a lot of fine places to eat and chill. I really liked this place in particular, with its interior garden, hammocks and colonial architecture:

From Granada, we spent one night on an island in the middle of the lake (Isla de Ometepe). The island was two active volcanoes, and here is one of them:

San Juan del Sur:(southwestern Nicaragua near the border with Costa Rica)

The view from our hotel in San Juan:

This hotel had a fabulous balcony, as you can see. We loved it! And it was the cheapest place we stayed the whole time...just $10 a night. However, the room also came with ferocious biting fire ants, that bit at night in bed as we slept, and attacked anything and everything in our bags and trash (including dirty laundry and clipped fingernails....gross)!

Another balcony picture:

San Juan had more surfers than I've ever seen in one place. They came from all over the world for the waves that crash on the beaches just north and south of San Juan. Although we didn't try surfing (this trip at least) we took a water taxi north one day to see some of these beaches.

This really cheesy guy came up to me on the beach and started flexing to get my attention. It didn't work!!!

The waves were really big and scary! We both got rocked a few times and after one good scare I decided to keep my distance from the crashing waves while swimming in the water.

Our last stop on the trip, the Laguna de Apoyo, just south of Masaya. (a small, peaceful lake in a crater)

We spent just one night here, although we could have done more. While out on kayaks on the lake, we could hear monkeys in the trees, even though we didn't get to see any. In several places on the trip, we met travellers backpacking through Central America. (Central America sort of lends itself to the backpacking traveler - cheap, lots of countries close together and many fun and exciting things to do.) Its always fun to meet those travelling types and hear their stories. You get to meet people from all over the world. We even met two American guys bicycling from Cancun to Panama City. Although we were joining them in many of the same destinations, we couldn't help but feel a little different from the backpackers. Understanding the language, the culture of the region, etc gives us a different perspective. You definitely see the difference between a person who is backpacking through and someone who has lived in the area for awhile. It was nice to be the latter.

Our friends Glenda and Giovanni came over for dinner this weekend, like they have many times before. We usually cook Honduran food, with them as head chefs and us running around as the sous chefs. Its fun! BUT, this past time Glenda got a glint in her eye and wanted to do something a little different. She proposed bringing over a live chicken, killing and cleaning it and then making sopa de gallina (not to be confused with sopa de pollo).

This is something a city girl like me has never seen before, so it was quite the experience! We documented the event with photos, so here they are -

(Caution - vegetarians and animal lovers beware!)

Here is the gallina that Glenda brought over in a Maggi bag (Maggi makes those little bouillon cubes that are chicken or beef flavored, which is kind of ironic).

"Please don't eat me!"

Next you've got us holding the chicken, which Glenda made us do before killing it. Shortly after it pooped on our floor.

Then Glenda did the actually killing. Everyone was too "chicken" to do the killing themselves (including her husband Giovanni). Glenda is a pretty tough lady!

To kill it, you've got to swing it around by the neck til you break it.

Next, we had to use hot water to pluck off the feathers as fast as you can. This bucket is also a laundry bucket I use, so with the blood and feathers, it was sort of freaky.

To get the rest of the feathers off, we lit some newspapers on fire and held it over the fire. In this picture the chicken almost looks fake!

(Notice the bloody cutting board and machete in the background. Nice!)The cleaning and cutting:And finally, the meal. Javi convinced them to make fried chicken, with mashed potatoes, gravy and corn (made by us) instead of soup. Well, we also made a broth soup with the chicken bones. Man, this chicken was REALLY tough and neither of us could hardly find a bite of meat on the whole thing. But it was a skinny little chicken, not like those fat, caged chickens that end up at our supermarkets. We left a lot of "meat" on there after a good effort at eating it (I mostly got tendens and super super tough meat) but Giovanni and Glenda ate that stuff down to the bone. Later, someone at work told me you are supposed to leave it for a day so it gets softer, but I don't think there was hardly any meat to even get soft.All and all it was pretty fun (minus the actual meal) and definitely one of those new experiences for us!

So my birthday was just a few days ago and the nice people at work got me a cake:

That's right, it says "Congratulations Gringa." Funny!!!!My birthday was pretty low key, just a few presents, a few phone calls and a nice dinner at home. We found out some great news the other day. We wrote a post back in April about a grant we were writing for the microempresa (small business) program we set up with the Escuela Taller. Well, we were actually awarded that grant! Its from the World Bank and for $50,000 - a huge sum for the program, the school or the whole Foundation we work for! There were 5 grants in the WHOLE world of this type being handed out to business incubation programs in the first 2 years of operation - and we are one of them! The money is a "capacity building grant" meaning its a chunk of change meant to improve the program. The catch is that only $5,000 of it can be spent on "stuff" (which is still a good amount) but the rest - $45,000 - has to be spent on trainings, manuals, promotions, etc....not tangible things....and it all has to be spent in a year. Anyway, we are excited about it and so is the Escuela Taller. Peace Corps normally works directly with people and the philosophy is not to hand out money, but help people help themselves. I think that was true in this case as well, as we just helped the director of the Foundation write it, with many of her ideas in the proposal. On another subject, we are planning on going to Nicaragua in a few weeks to venture out of Honduras for the first real foray. There should be some good photos and stories from that!!!Thats all we got for now......

A gathering of all the business volunteers in Honduras finally got us out of our house and away for a few days. We had been a bit paranoid about leaving the house alone after the break in, but eventually things will call you away and you just have to do it! We travelled to the other side of Honduras, to a town called Gracias.

Each project (remember, there are 6 – business, health, water and sanitation, protected areas management, youth development and municipal development) meets each year to talk about what we’re doing and share ideas. Here is a picture of us with the business group:

And this is only 1 of 6 groups! (There are a lot of peace corps volunteers in Honduras –it’s the 2nd largest post in the world.)

After that we decided to attend the “Noche de Fumadores” (Smokers’ Night) in a nearby town, Santa Rosa de Copan. (It’s a festival celebrating the town’s cigar making heritage.) We weren’t the only gringos who decided to go; only about 50 other peace corps volunteers went so we took up a long table at the event:

Getting crazy with Marcus:

Despues….we had to do one more “fun” thing before heading home – hiking Celaque, the tallest mountain in Honduras. At about ~9,000 ft it wouldn’t turn heads back home but that is sort of tall for a Central American mountain. Anyway, it took about two days so we had to backpack in. It was cold and wet up there near the top (its cloud forest up there) but it was well worth the swollen knees and sore calves (and the bit of pica pica that I got into again). The view from the top was amazing.

“TEAM SUMMIT!” (Heading out on the trail with friends Annie and Luke). That is Celaque in the background:

Cloud forest:

At the top of Honduras:

The view from the top:

And when we made it home, everything was fine. Apparently the barbed wire, reinforced door frame, Conor spending the night a few times AND hiding everything of value before leaving worked!

Took this picture today and thought I'd write a little something about it for the blog. In Honduras, this guy is what we call a "Bolo:"

Now if you look up bolo in the spanish-english dictionary, I'm not sure if it would be there. And if you could find it, I'm not sure if it would accurately describe what a bolo truly is. Simply "a drunk" would not suffice.

Bolos are guys (although there a few bolas out there) who get so wasted drunk (usually off guaro which is aguardiente, a kind of moonshine) that they become totally incapacitated to the point where the pass out in the street. They lie there, bodies contorted, and dirty as hell. Sometimes they twitch, or will have a sudden movement of some kind. This guy, as we were walking past him, held up his two empty beer cans and mumbled something unintelligible. Before they pass out they can be seen hobbling around, usually yelling something at somebody (and gringos are especially fun to yell at), but they are on the whole a harmless group since they can hardly walk much less do anything else to harm you. A simple push in the chest would totally knock one over.

The thing that is the most interesting to me is how accepted bolos are here. People walk by, hardly giving a glance. And this from a people who generally look down on drinking (and you can imagine why if all you see is these guys and think that this is what happens to you when you drink). Its both kind of amusing and kind of sad.

The saddest thing is that (I'm told) these guys will often blow a weeks pay on their boozing, with nothing to show for it but a day spent in the streets and hungry family members. Sundays (like today) are the biggest bolo turnout days, with way more in the streets than on other days.

I just thought it would be an interesting thing to talk about, since bolos, at least in this capacity and number, just don't exist back home. You might see a homeless dude passed out with a brown paper sack but you won't see it this way, with this number of people, and with people who otherwise might be working very hard during the week and seem normal. Maybe its the boredom of the weekend, maybe its the desperation and poverty they deal with (and an easy escape) or maybe its just guys being jackasses and making a bad situation worse (i.e. spending a weeks pay when you have so little to begin with). Or maybe its all those things and things I can't possibly understand because I am not them.

Here are a few follow up photos from the bad luck events I wrote about last time. Things are better (time has a way of doing that) and we've been working at making things "right" again after the break in.

Here are a few pics from dengue fever:

Sick in bed:

Our friend Glenda came over with some Honduran chicken soup and some home remedies. One of her remedies included putting raw sliced onions in Javi's sock.

Javi was enjoying the home remedies:

Glenda and her husband were really sweet. They even cleaned up the whole kitchen for us, since we were in no state for doing chores. We were barely to pour a glass of water or heat up some oatmeal.

Here is the house with barbed wire we had installed since the robbery:

We sort of feel like we are living in prison. Its definitely not pretty, but LOTS of homes have it around here. We knew why before, but now we personally know why. Unfortunately security, and especially getting stuff stolen from you, is a real problem. We know vocational students at the Escuela Taller who have SO little, and they've had stuff stolen from them too, like cell phones and such, and that from people have have nothing.

This picture is a lucky one I snapped off while shooting the barbed wire. We see this cart (or ones like it) coming down our street sometimes. We live in a nice part of town on a sort of "suburban" street. Its just a reminder that although Honduras can seemed pretty developed sometimes, ox-driven carts still cruise around town and down residential streets.

We had a crappy streak there for awhile but these types of things can happen anywhere...getting sick and getting robbed.....so we are not blaming it on Honduras and just getting on with things!

Things have been pretty bad lately, folks. We have definitely been down on our luck. Thus, my long absence and no post......

Two crappy things have happened lately:

1. Javi and I BOTH (somehow) got dengue fever at the same time. One person sick on dengue is a mess, but the both of us.....feverish, headaches, eye aches, back aches, sweating, nausea......and all for 5 days was a lot to handle. And one couldn't help the other.

2. Our house was robbed while we were gone (see below) and just about EVERYTHING of value was stolen from us. That includes our computer, iPod, backpacks, memory sticks (with everything from work on it), etc. They even stole things like cords that connect camaras with the computer.

What a mess....

On top of it, we traveled to the United States, sick with dengue, to spend a few days with Javi's family for a family reunion. Needless to say, the trip was hellish, and we were sick for a major portion of the reunion. (Fun to see the fam though!) Our trip was quick, and when we returned home, we were greeted with a kicked in door and all our electronics taken from our house. Makes you glad that you came back here for that.

Looking on the bright side, we are back to good health and we have "stuff" insurance, so our computer and mp3 player will be replaced.

I'll put up something later....just wanted to leave a little word on what was happening.

Remember how I said everyone at work was making fun of Javi's hair?

This email (a word document) was going around the office today. I couldn't figure out how to post it on the blog so I just took a picture of it.

Every time I see it I laugh uncontrollably. I sent it to Javi's mom and she said she laughed so hard she cried!!!Funny!

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.

Wow what a whirlwind!

We just returned from a 12 day trip to the States. We went to 5 cities (Las Cruces, NM – Albuquerque, NM – Temple, TX – Killeen, TX – Austin, TX), stayed in 4 different houses and at our best guess saw 50 people. (That 50 people was our estimate of only people we “visited with” and doesn’t include many wedding guests, etc.)

We didn’t take a single picture in Las Cruces while we saw my family and only a few while in Albuquerque with Javi’s family. Sometimes you forget when you are just comfortable and relaxing at home. Both moms cried when we arrived and when we left. Its hard to be away so long...

Here is one of the few pictures we took while in NM - a picture with Javi’s dad, bottling homemade wine:

Some good Albuquerque friends threw a “surprise” birthday for Javi’s 30th on Sat, June 7th. It was so fun!! (I say “surprise” because Javi knew something was up but didn’t know the details of the get together or who was going to be there.) Unfortunately this get together was one of those times we slacked off on photos.

Being home was fantastic and we did not feel that much culture shock at all. We did notice things, but didn’t feel weird about being back. We noticed how POLITE everybody was to each other and noticed people’s respect for personal space. There was also the shopping factor – so many things to buy in the stores, all labeled appropriately and neatly organized.

We also felt the passage of time (the almost year and a half we have been here) while visiting with friends who have kids. They are so much older and bigger!

Things were easy and convenient – not only because of the American lifestyle but just speaking your own language all the time and being in your own culture (you know the cues, the right things to say, how to act in certain situations, etc).

After leaving New Mexico we flew to Texas for our friends’ wedding. First, we had a visit with my grandma in Temple:

My Uncle Keith showing off his new motorcycle and tattoos:

And our good friends Paul, Breanne and their daughter Isabel:

Sebastian and Erin's wedding in Austin was BEAUTIFUL!!!! (and FUN!!!) I felt so lucky to be part of it in the wedding party. Here is Erin as she came down the aisle with her dad:

She looks fantastic! The ceremony:

The wedding party:

First dance:

Most all the guests stayed at the hotel were the wedding took place. We stayed up late celebrating. At one point during the evening somebody discovered that on top of the tv entertainment centers in each room there were antique hats in hat boxes. One person started wearing on and it caught on. Eventually lots of people were wearing the silly hats. Here is a photo with a friend (also named Sara).

Sebastian and Erin rented a “party boat” the day after the wedding. (The wedding was actually on Friday evening so they decided to carry on the festivities through the next day.) The boat goes out on Lake Travis and a good group of friends can hang out, swim and have a good time.

The Austin crowd likes to have a good time!

What a crazy trip! Two good things came out of it - 1, We're really excited to go home and get back into the swing of things. We have a wonderful country! but 2 - We are glad to have a little more time down here in Honduras to enjoy those things that are different and unique from back home. Just a little over 10 more months left to enjoy it!

On Saturday we had a party for Javi's 30th birthday. I personally don't know (yet) but I hear the event can be a hard time on some so we wanted to bring in the new decade in style.

First we made dinner with some good gringo friends. A few people came in from out of town.

Afterwords the Honduran crowd (and a few European ladies) started to show up.

We had cake. Javi's face got pressed into the surface of it before we cut it up, and because people were chanting "Que le besa" Javi gave me a kiss and shared his icingLook at that face! Later on we played games and there were some water balloons involved....

Here is Javi with Emil, the guy he works very closely with at the Escuela Taller. These kinds of things build camaraderie which goes a long way when trying to get work done here.

We are still recovering from the night's festivities!

Anyway, we are off to the States on Tuesday to spend almost 2 weeks at home with family and friends AND to attend the wedding of two good friends who will be getting married in Austin. We are VERY excited to go home, as you can imagine! If theres a chance, I'll post a little something, but otherwise it'll have to wait awhile til I get home. Of course, thats no different than how we post here. But maybe we might have some interesting things to say and some random insights after being away from home for almost a year and a half now.

As some of you may know (or may not know), as peace corps volunteers we are not allowed to drive during our service. 27 months of walking around and living at the mercy of public transportation in a third world country is an interesting experience.

While in our sites, we mostly walk around. Even Javi and I, who live in one of the bigger cities peace corps volunteers live in (at least in Honduras) get almost everywhere we need by walking. Right now, because of the blazing sun, I carry around an umbrella for shade. Luckily most women do that here so no one thinks I'm a freak or anything. Sometimes, if we've got a 30 minute walk in front of us, or a lot of heavy groceries, we will spring 15 lempiras each ($.75) for a taxi ride. The taxis here, by the way, scare many foreign tourists who are not used to seeing these vehicles (in such a dilapidated shape) actually functioning. That price only works in Comayagua. (Its different in different cities.) In the big cities you've gotta negociate the price BEFORE climing in and arriving at your destination to avoid getting ripped off.

Moving around the country requires a combination of riding buses, walking and catching a taxi. Buses come in various sizes, ages, state of repair or disrepair, and amount of people riding in them. We've ridden in luxury buses where you got a movie and a snack (okay, that one was when my mom was here and she paid) and we've ridden in "chicken buses" (converted American school buses) so packed with people you've got buckets and elbows and luggage coming at you from all directions....and then everything in between.

On a recent trip, we snapped off some pictures.

Here are some of the guys waiting on the side of the country's main thoroughfare for a bus to stop:

(Nice road, huh? Thanks USAID!)

Normally, the strategy is to put the girls out on the side of the road, with the guys waiting off to the side. This is very important when trying to get a "jalon" (a hitch) in the back of someone's pickup. You can imagine why this strategy works better. However, this day we were tired of waiting in the sun, so the ladies passed the time in the shade:

That's me on the far left, reading a Newsweek. Peace corps provides it for free, so for a lot of us, we know mostly about world events and happenings at home through the pages of this magazine. Thankfully, with the internet, its not our only source.

Here's later on in the trip, "filling the tank:"

Okay, to be honest, this is not how its usually done. Of course there are regular gas stations here. But, there was a diesel shortage the last few weeks - the government subsidizes fuel, so you can just imagine the effects of supply and demand. It was on short supply this day (due to rationing) and we had to stop at various places before anybody had any gas. This gas station attendant had to carry it out in 5 gallon buckets and they filled'er up with a cut off water jug.In the picture above (with the ladies), two of us were talking about before coming here we used to think of our cars as "rights" and not the privileges that they really are. You feel like you "deserve" a car, and I guess, why not....when everybody else has it? But here, only the rich have nice cars, and SOME middle class folks have decent older cars. Everybody else gets around like we do, and that is a lot of people.Its been fun to do without a car for awhile, although, don't get me wrong, I miss mine!

Honduras is a noisy place. They don’t really have the same “respect” for quiet like we Americans do. There is usually someone in the neighborhood playing loud music, there’s people shouting, cars honking, dogs barking loudly, etc. Also, most Honduran homes have window slats (kept open except when it rains) to let air circulate through the house, so all the noise floats in. (Window slats are key when you don’t have air conditioner in the tropics.) When other volunteers come to our house they say we have a peaceful neighborhood, so you can just imagine.

The neighborhood behind ours on the hill is a neighborhood of “escasos recursos” they say here (scarce resources) and they’ve got more farm animals then you will find in our neighborhood. At night, about every 3 hours starting around 11ish, the farm animals get all stirred up and sing in chorus. Dogs, roosters and donkeys will bark, crow and hee-haw for like 10-15 minutes straight.

But Monday morning was the craziest night commotion yet, even beating the THOUSANDS (literally) of firecrackers that were set off here on Christmas Eve.

Javi and I were sound asleep in the wee-hours of the morning (around 4 am) when I awoke to the sound of a parade marching past our house. Yes, a full-on parade at 4 AM…..a school band with drums and xylophones, cars honking, a loud speaker. When I woke up I put my hand on Javi’s side of the bed, but he had moved to the “sofa” since he sometimes can’t sleep at night and needs to change his sleeping environment. I got up and went to find him, but when I looked at the "sofa" I couldn’t see him (it was dark and I was sleepy, after all). All of sudden, he bolts up from the "sofa" and starts running into the bedroom, head down, almost plowing me over. His eyes are wild. He was freaking out because he had just woken up and had yet to figure out what was going on. I’m shouting at him "ITS A PARADE!", trying to be heard over the noise (it was that loud!). They even gave us the courtesy of crossing by our house TWICE.

Of course, later in the day we were asking people what that hell that was all about. Some people didn’t think it was a big deal but there were a few people who thought it was kind of outrageous. Anyway, the consensus was that it was a school celebrating their anniversary.

WEIRD!

The director of the Programa Comayagua Colonial and our main counterpart, Ana Carolina, got married in Tegucigalpa this weekend. It was quite an affair, and one of the more fun weddings we've been to in awhile!

Here she is surrounded by some of the finer looking gentlemen of the PCC:

For the staff of the PCC, it was a big deal to be invited to a wedding like this one. It was a formal, elegant wedding in the capital (Ana comes from a well off family) and many middle class Hondurans just don't get to go to things like that. (Remember - like 65% of the country lives below the poverty line which is about $425 a month).

They obsessed FOREVER about what they were going to wear (for weeks before) and even started freaking us out!

I went and bought a sparkly little number for the event since I did not exactly plan on bringing a formal dress with me to peace corps. Here we are:

I've got a funny little side story about that dress. I bought it in a "boutique" store in downtown Comayagua. It was a new dress, with the price tag from the store that originally tried to sell it in the States, the price still in dollars. Things like that, that don't sell, are shipped off to places like Honduras, where they are bought and sold again. I paid about $20 for the dress, much lower than it origanally cost, and was feeling very proud of myself for having done so well. Well, the waitress at our table at the wedding would put an end to that! When she came to our table to introduce herself as our server, she explained that she was new and was sorry if she made any mistakes. Well, later in the evening when she was bringing Javi and I our glasses of wine we ordered, she made one of the mistakes she was afraid of making.....she spilled an entire glass of wine down the back of my dress! Here is a picture of the aftermath (if you can see it):So much for feeling well dressed among Tegucigalpa's finest! Oh well!!!As a Latin wedding should, the party lasted late into the night. We tried to leave earlier with a few work friends, but the bride caught us and dragged us back. We ended up staying until the end and closing the place down. Here we are, the last table of probably at least 350 guests.

Oh, one more thing, we learned an important cultural lesson when we showed up for the wedding ceremony, which was scheduled for 7 pm. Nothing, not even weddings, start on time in Honduras. The gringos (we were the only ones) showed up at 7 on the dot, a little stressed about showing up at that hour. No worries! The only other people there were about 5 other family members! The actually ceremony did not start until 7:45. Sigh.....when will we learn?But it was good times and much needed fun after a sort of so-so month.

Wow! Long time, no write…. Sorry about that, but sometimes, there is nothing to say. Life has been, well you know, sort of normal these days. Even living in Honduras it eventually gets to that point. I figured enough somewhat interesting things had happened over the last month or so to constitute a blog entry, so here it goes.

What have we been up to? Well, we found out about a grant opportunity for the Vivero de Empresas program we helped start at the Escuela Taller, so we decided to go for it. $50,000 from the World Bank. We heard about it late, with only a week and a half to pull it together, but we did it and we were proud of the proposal we turned out. The day before we turned it in we worked about 12 hours each, until 1 am, which is not exactly the usual work hours we put in. It was fun and challenging, so even if we don’t get it, we can say we put in our best effort. But since we’ve turned it in, and returned to the normal pace, we’ve both felt sort of weird with out the deadlines and challenges of the project we just completed…..more ups and downs on this roller coaster.

Other things….

Remember this guy?

Well, he has somehow recovered from his skin disease and has grown most of his hair back. He looks so much better (and happy)! Its hard to believe its the same dog.

I’ve been planting a few things with seeds my mom sent me from home.

And theres been more of the usual other random stuff we deal with, like people at work or people we know asking us to get them visas to the States….and trying to explain that we can't exactly do that for them. Theres also been the usual flow of “piropos” of varying levels of vulgarity. (Remember, piropos literally mans “complements” here, but I like to interpret it as “sexual harassment by disgusting men on the street”). I laugh, sometimes I'm angry at them, sometimes I think its so sad that it has to be that way here. I have to deal with it for two years but the women who live here deal with it their whole lives and it becomes ingrained in their psyche....

On another subject, fruit is especially delicious right now with all the heat. Mangos, bananas, papayas (not my favorite, but available), berries, so many tasty things for SO cheap. We were given these beautiful bananas by one of our neighbors….

So, we are coming up on our one year anniversary in site. We have now crossed over the half way point of our time here, and have less time to go then we've spent here in Honduras. Sometimes it seems like not enough and sometimes it seems like ENOUGH and going home is SO far away......la vida hondurena.

Part I - Trujillo

Semana Santa is when all of Latin America takes a week long break. Its like Spring Break, for everybody. Javi and I decided to take advantage of the time off to go to the North Coast of Honduras before the crowds hit and it got crazy up there. We headed to Trujillo, the farthest city on the coast before the large expanse of La Mosquita, which is a huge swath of virgin jungle in Eastern Honduras.We stayed two nights in Trujillo before heading out of town a ways to a New Zealander owned hotel called Casa Kiwi. Trujillo is a lazy and hot town, the kind of place where prime beach front property is a place where abandoned pick up trucks sit so long they are taken over by vines…..

And where cows watch the sunset on the beach……

We left on Sunday, when masses of Hondurans arrive to spend the week on the beach. We did see a bit of the action on Saturday afternoon and watched the Semana Santa beach ritual with curiosity. They show up in droves, donned in tshirts and shorts, to swim in the water in front of the town beach. Its interesting how women how other wise wear very tight jeans and bosom-revealing shirts become very modest in a swimsuit. Ladies and small children sit in the shade of the restaurants that line that beach. Trash accumulates on the sand, and major drinking goes on all day.

Having had enough of that we headed to the Kiwi hotel for a break. It was a beautiful place on its own strip of beach surrounded by miles on either side of undeveloped and uninhabited beach front property. Here are a few photos…

Part II –Alfombras

(Alfombras = Carpets)

Comayagua is famous for their Easter alfombras and processions. The town lines a path through the colonial center’s streets with intricate and colorful sawdust carpets. On Good Friday, a procession walks the carpet path through town. People start work on the carpets at around midnight the night before the procession, which starts around 10 am on Good Friday. People work all night, carefully placing the layers of colored sawdust with cutouts, occasionally spraying it with water so the wind does not take out all their hard work. You also have to look out for the crazy street dogs who might race across the alfombra.There are varying levels of quality, some….hmmmm…had a lot of mess ups and you could tell had a low budget. Others were beautiful and immaculate and were obviously working with more funds. The Programa Comayagua Colonial made a carpet as well. We came in to help (Javi 11:30 pm – 5:30 am and me 3:00 – 5:30) but they had lots of help from the Escuela Taller kids so we mostly watched. Here are a few pictures from the festivities -Working on our carpet:

And the end result the next day:

Some of the prettier alfombras:And the procession:

The Programa Comayagua Colonial has recently launched a pretty decent website:

http://www.comayaguacolonial.org/

Its all in Spanish but that shouldn't deter you if you can't read la lengua espanola.....there are some nice photos.

If you click on "Quienes Somos" you will see a shot of the whole crew in front of Comayagua's cathedral...including two random blond gringos!

On the left hand side, if you click on the Escuela Taller picture and then follow the link to the "Viveros de Empresas," you can read about the program that Javi and I helped them set up.

Another one of our projects is in the name of the site itself....the "Fundacion Comayagua Colonial" (Fundacion = Foundation). They are not quite legally a foundation yet, but this, among other things including a business plan for the new foundation is another thing we are working with them on.

Que disfrutes!

Javi and I recently got ourselves a nasty case of poison ivy, or “pica-pica” (itch-itch) as the Hondurans call it. At the moment we are both quite miserable, constantly dosing ourselves in calamine lotion and staying heavily sedated on Benadryl.

I thought poison ivy was only a bane of the Northern Hemisphere, but it is alive and well here in the tropics.

However, HOW we came into contact with the vile plant was WELL worth our current suffering. We saw monkeys, in the wild, and got to talk with them! (well, communicate)

We traveled to Danli (near the Nicaraguan border) this past weekend to spend time with some friends who live there. Annie and Luke set us up on a fabulous trip to head into the mountains with a friend of theirs, a man who owns a coffee farm and a 100+ year old hacienda. We watched as he washed his coffee and we got to ask him all kinds of questions about growing coffee. He would later go on to sell his coffee that day for about $120 for two hundred pound sacks, still wet. ($.60 a pound) It sure does get a lot more expensive by the time you buy a cup at starbucks! Food for thought when you read one of their "fair trade" brochures they hand out at their coffee shops.

Anyway, Rene (the owner) led us through the mountain side (literally straight up the side) to a spot where we could find monkeys. He left to go back to work and we stayed and had a great time interacting with the monkeys.

I took a video as Javi was “talking” with one of the bigger males:

On the way down we got a bit off track and had to end up climbing down the mountain side through vines and jungle thicket. And that is where we found pica-pica, I’m sure.

I have heard that pets are often a reflection of the economic status of the place they live, and I think there is a lot of truth in that. For instance – American dogs are generally a happy, healthy bunch. I’ve seen quite a few overweight dogs and some get the royal treatment in many ways. There are dogs who get better health care than some Hondurans do! I even read the other day that some rich lady in Connecticut recently bequeathed to her dog her entire fortune of $12 million.

Well, no such luck would fall on a dog here in Honduras. I’ve seen some that seem to live in a pretty good situation, but I’ve seen MANY that have it pretty rough.

Take this guy for instance…..

I know what you are thinking. Is this even a dog? This guy has no hair and barely enough energy to drag his bony body around the block that he lives on. While I was taking his picture, I was warned to stay away due to all his diseases from a man sitting nearby in a wheel chair. But when I was talking to him, his wrinkled ears perked up and he did a little head tilt. Poor, poor dog. We walk past him everyday on the way to work so I’ve decided I will bring him scraps when I can.

There are lots of dogs always digging in the trash, trying to find a bite to eat. Some are mama dogs who look so malnourished you wonder what kind of milk they are giving to their pups. (…with what appears to be "utters" practically dragging on the ground.) Others are very scraggly beasts with so many fleas, you can see them swarming from a distance.

They almost always run at a "trot" around town, always seeming to go in a particular direction. I always think that is interesting and wonder where they are going with such purpose.

Sometimes you will see a female in heat running away from a pack of 2 – 10 dogs on her tail. In some of the poorer, smaller towns around here, you will often see two dogs "stuck together" (if you get my drift)….which is a very disturbing sight all in its own. Here are two dogs, "after the fact" (note tongues hanging low). No one wants to see the actual act so and I was fortuante to have missed it myself, so I'm glad we were all spared that!

Here is your usual subject. He exemplifies the classic street dog look - long ears, skinny body, ratty hair. And here is one lucky dog who happened to be adopted by a dog loving peace corps volunteer!

She is sweet but how quickly they get spoiled!

All guests to our house, if they stay long enough, eventually have to wash some laundry. I recently showed David the ropes.

Step 1: Soak in laundry soap for at least an hour.

Step 2: Take out of bucket and scrub (extra soap on the pits and dirty areas). The pila has a great cement washboard for scrubbing

Step 3: Rinse several times till all soap is removed.

Step 4: Hang to dry

Step 5: Repeat with all other articles of clothing that you dirtied that week.

**Extra step (not always necessary): Remove clothing from lines (or move to protected area) if there are dark clouds looming on the horizon.....rain is not good for clean clothes!

Javi took a quick film of him as he was getting the hang of it....

Transcript (if you have trouble hearing it):

(Me talking in the background about girls at work who asked if I do my laundry by hand.......)

Sara: They were surprised and they said I bet you didn't do that before you came here..... and I was like hell no! I had no idea!

David: Well, its new stuff for me! (pause) I tell you this sucks.

Well,

David has left us now, back to the States. Our house is quiet again and seems lonely without a visitor. After almost a month of visitors, it seems strange to not have anyone at the house!

Its been great fun. I can't wait for who visits us next!

The drop I didn't want to do.....

Another shot of the drop.....

David sans tooth......

With the guide.....