Hello Everyone!

We arrived in Cartagena, Colombia just a few days ago after a very short one hour flight from Panama City. We were on the smallest plane! Only 36 people could fit - it was the smallest plane I have ever been on. We sped through customs and were at our hostel in a very short amount of time. We were not staying in the best area of Cartagena, but we were close to the center and our hostel was very safe. Cartagena is a pretty cool city - the old part (basically the city center) is surrounded by walls built by the Spanish to protect the city from ocean attacks (since the city sits on the Caribbean coast) with forts at each corner and one big one high up on a hill overlooking the city. The roads are super narrow and the buildings and homes still have a very Spanish colonial feel. The city center felt really safe and there were always tons of tourism, community, and regular police patrolling. In Granada, Nicaragua, there were a lot of people walking around begging for money, but not at all in Cartagena - there were a lot of people trying to sell us crafts and Panama hats, but no one begging and no one selling drugs. Food was kind of expensive in Cartagena, but we tried to eat only at the food stalls and street food. We found a delicious bakery that was quite inexpensive and ate a lot of shrimp and snail ceviche!

We took one day trip while in Cartagena and that was to the Volcano Totumo. It is a mud volcano and you go to it to basically sit in the mud. It didn’t look much like a volcano more like some people piled up a bunch of dirt and then added some water to make it muddy! But it was a interesting experience. When you go into the mud you can get a mini massage and when you leave the mud to rinse off in the lagoon there are woman there to bath you! I choose to opt out of both of those, but a lot of people had the woman wash them - it was pretty funny because they just peel off your bathing suit without any warning. Brian and I are still rinsing mud out of our bathing suits!

Yesterday we arrived in Taganga. It is a small town on the Caribbean coast about 5 hours away from Cartagena. We will be here for a few days to soak up some rays and get our Advanced Open Water SCUBA Certification. So far, we like the town as it is really small (the smallest since we started traveling) and the people here are so nice. We are staying at our most expensive hostel yet ($22 a night!!!), but we have a great view, a great private room and bathroom, and a hammock on our balcony! Plus, the front door of the hostel opens up onto the beach. We really cant complain! We haven’t tried any of the local street fare yet, but it looks quite promising.

We have been having a good time trying all the new foods here - most of it is fried, but we have had some super yummy ceviche both shrimp and sea snail. We also like arepas which are kind of like super fluffy corn tortillas grilled and then sliced open and stuffed with butter, cheese, and sometimes egg. We also had empanada like pastries filled with chicken. Yesterday, we ate something that I think was mushed up yucca, stuffed with chicken and veggies and flavored like curry and then deep fried. Also, something that tasted like corn and plantains smashed together and fried that was served with a piece of white cheese. The good thing is that the cheese has been getting better and better as we move south. It is still mostly just white cheeses made with fresh unpasteurized milk, but the flavors are much better than in Honduras. Our favorites thus far (well besides the ceviche and the bakery) have been all of the fruit juices and fruit cups that you can buy from street vendors for only 50 cents. The papaya here is just incredible.

Puchica! Now that we are officially not Peace Corps Volunteers anymore - we officially are jobless and quite homeless!

We finished our very short and very small tour of Nicaragua. We started in Leon - a very cool (certainly not temperature wise) city with a lot of young Nicaraguans (Nicas) and lots of super interesting museums. In Leon, we visited several museums, churches, and the HUGE basilica. The streets were pretty empty during the day (since it is so hot), but once the sun starts setting people start to fill the streets and the park/plaza/basilica area. People set up food stands, souvenir stands, and other such stands in the park and people just sort of hang out, eat, and chat. We, of course, tried just about every food item we saw in the park and also ate plenty in the Leon market. My favorite drink in Honduras and El Salvador was horchata, but I haven’t been able to find it here. They have a cold chocolate sort of drink that is very tasty and also something called ‘tiste’ which is pretty close to horchata and really yummy.

While in Leon, we also went to Leon Viejo - it took us two buses and a long hot walk to get there! - which is where Leon was originally built, but then ruined by lava and earthquakes. It was not nearly as interesting as we thought it was going to be. We were also just boiling the whole time!

After Leon, we went to Granada. Granada is just like Leon, but with a lot more tourists and a fresh coat of paint on everything. And a lot less Nicas - lots and lots of tourists and then on weekends wealthy Nicas from Managua (the capital). There was really good Nica food in Leon, but hardly any to be found in Granada. But I am certainly not complaining as there was a ton of other delicious (and expensive) food. In Granada we looked at more churches (where I dropped the camera down the spiral stair case from the bell tower and broke it) and we also went on day trips to small cities around Granada. We went to Masaya were they sell a lot of artisan stuff set up in different booths around a series of walk ways. We also went to Catarina, a very very cute little town where we went to see the view of Laguna de Apoyo. Seriously, one of the most beautiful bodies of water I have ever seen. It is a crater lake filled with warm fresh slightly salty water. The people in town were very nice to us. They also sold a lot of artisan items - jewelry, pottery, fabrics, etc.

From Granada we made our way to Isla de Ometepe. The trip to the Isla would have been more pleasant if we weren’t being lied to every second about how exactly to get to the port, but we made it (a few pesos lighter) and then another adventure began - getting to our eco-lodge. Transportation isn’t nonexistent on the island, it too was just difficult to figure out the bus schedule. Once we figured things out we made it to our very eco-friendly lodge. Our ‘cabin’ was very basic - a thatched roof hut on stilts with a bed and a mosquito net. Most of the time we had power! The toilets we compost toilets and all of the showers were for the most part out doors (not exposed!). The lodge had their own farm and made baked goods. They also had a kitchen for us to use, which was good because once the sun set there was no leaving the lodge as there were no lights anywhere and it was a least half a mile from the lodge to the main street (not that there was anything there to do anyway!!). Many people fall in love with this island - it has two volcanoes, one active and one dormant. Lots of jungle and wildlife, monkeys, incredible birds, iguanas, geckos. Waterfalls and hiking trials all situated in the middle of the largest lake in Central America, the 21st largest in the world. - I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I did, however, LOVE the lodge we stayed in (El Zopilote) and would love to go there again. We didn’t do too much on the island, we walked around a lot, visited the small beaches, and rode around the dirt roads on a motorcycle (not recommended as I am very sore).

Did I mention that Nicaragua is HOT? It is. And we never had air conditioning. L

So, after the Isla de Ometepe, since I was over the whole lake thing we made our way over to the Pacific Ocean side of Nicaragua to beautiful San Juan del Sur. SJDS is located on a half-moon shaped bay. It has beautiful beaches and a lot of restaurants on the beach from which to enjoy the beautiful sunset. This small town (about 5,000 people) attracts a lot (and I mean a lot) of foreign visitors. It has hostels that run from about $6 a night for a dorm bed to private cabins that go for $200+ a night (www.piedrasyolas.com and www.morgansrock.com , for anyone looking for a nice getaway). SJDS also hosts a large ex-pat population. The ex-pats are mainly restaurant owners, engineers working in construction, and real estate investors. A lot of them are from Canada, although a good number come from the US and Europe as well.

We spent some time on the beaches in and around town (there are some beautiful deserted beaches only a few km from town), roaming the streets and a lot of time trying to stay cool (it was HOT!!). All in all, it was a nice town with beautiful beaches and good end to our time in Nicaragua.

We definitely would like to come back here again as it is a beautiful country with lots and lots to do. It can also be very budget friendly!!

Our next stop will be Panama City. Check back soon to read about it.

Hello everyone,

Well as of September 19, 2009 Jessica and I are no longer Peace Corps Volunteers. We are officially Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV), although we technically have not returned anywhere. Our last few weeks in town were both very fun, satisfying, busy and sad. On September 5, we headed up to La Esperanza for a despedida (going away party) for the 5 volunteers who are finishing this month. Emelina (another Volunteer) made some delicious Korean dishes for dinner and we said good by to all of the volunteers that we have grown so close to during our service.

We spent our last week in town finishing projects (Educatodos, TEAM, business presentations) and packing up the house before we moved back in with our host family for a few nights. We had a going away party with Jessica's TEAM class (English for teachers). They sang, played guitar and presented us with some very nice gifts. We also had two separate going away parties with classes in the high school whom we taught English too earlier this year. Again, they both were a lot of fun. It was nice to see the kids organize and put the events together for us. Later in the week the teachers from the colegio had a another despedida for us. We spent the last two nights in town out our host family's house (back in our old room, but this time with a giant queen bed instead of the two single beds we had before). This was really great as we got spend a lot of time with them. On Sunday night, our host sister made us a very nice dinner and the whole family sat down to eat with us. Unfortunately, our host mom could not make it as she was in San Pedro visiting her brother. (She did call several times to see how things were going.)

Overall, we had a fantastic last week in Colomoncagua. Lots of despedidas. Lots of food. Lots of cake and soda. As we left bright and early Monday morning, our whole host family got up to have coffee with us and see us off. It was very sad to say goodbye, but we could not be happier about how we spent our last few days in Colo.

This past week we have been in Tegucigalpa meeting with PC staff and doctors getting ready to leave. To make a long week sound short, after pooing in a cup for three days straight, Jess has parasites and I have giardia (sp?). PC did give us medicine to kill all of the little creatures and a voucher to get tested again stateside. And we are done. RPCVs. It does not seem like we have been here since July 11, 2007. And it has not hit us that we are done.

Now onto our next adventure. Tomorrow, September 19, we are leaving for Leon, Nicaragua as we start our travels. We will spend time in Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador. We will update the blog as often as possible, so stay tuned.

We miss you all back home and cannot wait to see you!

Wow! So much has been going on!

Honduras is still coup - ing. Mel Zelaya the ousted presidente is somewhere (maybe Nicaragua? Probably not Mexico… maybe the USA?) he crossed into Honduras for literally 20 minutes and then went back to Nicaragua. It doesn’t look like there is going to be any sort of solution any time soon. Roberto Micheletti likes being el presidente and Mel Zelaya liked being el presidente and wants to come back. Some people are striking (ie the teachers) in support of Mel and others are marching in support of Micheletti. Thank goodness most of the schools in our town are back in session - some for only three days a week, but that is better than no school at all.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO two weeks ago, Megan (Brian’s sister) and her novio (Luis) were supposed to come visit Bri and I in Honduras. We planned on meeting them in La Esperanza as both of them speak excellent Spanish instead of in Tegucigalpa where they landed. Brian and I were craving cheeseburgers and so went to Siguatepeque before their arrival. Well, we were running late in Siguat but were not too worried about it as Megan and Luis would have to pass through Siguat anyway to get to La Esperanza. We were near the bus station when a bus passed and we thought that they were probably on that bus or maybe the next one. Brian went to the bus to save seats and see if his sister and Luis were on it (while I bought myself a delicious strawberry cream popsicle). Brian hopped on the bus and I shortly followed. Not too surprisingly, Brian’s sister was in fact on the bus.

BUT

SURPRISE

SURPRISE

Luis was NO WHERE on the bus!

WHY???

Because instead of Megan bringing Luis to Honduras she surprised us with his MOM! Yay! It was a HUGE surprise! I was so shocked I couldn’t even speak. I just could not believe it nor could Brian. Megan was such a good liar, I mean surpriser! It took awhile for the shock to wear off - I think we are still shocked!

Once we got to La Esperanza, Brian got Megan and Maureen right into Honduran cuisine and bought them some baleadas as they had had a long night and day of flying. We took them straight to the hotel to settle in and to catch up. Then we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things, then to the market, and then to Chris and Robynn’s house for some homemade pizza. They had had a long day so after a wonderful time and a great meal at Robynn and Chris’s we called it a night and went back to the hotel. Wednesday, we took our time waking up but eventually got going and went to the Lencan fruit and vegetable market, the Lencan woman’s artesenia store, another small super market, and then hopped on the bus for the 4 hour bus ride to our town of Colomoncagua. Another tiring day ended with a very yummy traditional Honduran at our friend and neighbor’s (Dinsora) little café.

Megan and Maureen spent the next 4 days in our town - they met Profe Francisco and saw the high school, they meet our host family, we took a day trip to El Salvador (where they went to the FMLN museum and old camp sites), Megan milked cows and rode a horse, we drank fresh milk, they experienced our fabulous little Sunday market, we stuffed our faces with traditional Honduran food all day Sunday, Maureen hiked Picacho for excellent views of our town, and then they had to wake up insanely early for the bus ride out on Monday.

Unfortunately, Brian and I were unable to go away with them, but Megan and Maureen went to Copan Ruinas on Monday. They spent the next few days there horseback riding, eating salads (this is jealous Jessica), drinking delicious coffee, exploring the Mayan Ruins, discovering small indigenous villages, visiting a bird park, and shopping. They (I really really hope) had a great time. Copan is a great town with a lot for visitors to discover. Plus, Copan has great food and is just a really cute Honduran town! Go there!

Luckily, Brian was able to meet up with his Mom and Sister on Friday in the town of Gracias. Gracias is a little city along the Ruta Lenca - which is just a route to take to visit various Lencan (indigenous Indians) communities. Gracias is also a jumping off point to hike the national reserve of the mountain Celaque. Celaque has a cloud forest, lots of wild animals, and huge waterfalls. Celaque is an indigenous word meaning box of water. I guess the mountain sort of looks like a box and 11 rivers start from Celaque. Megan, Maureen, and Brian got up very early on Saturday to hike part of Celaque. They hiked an easy trail and then decided to find coffee somewhere on the mountain. Luckily, a man and his mom lived near the trail and they served coffee, food, and offered tours of the mountain (an absolute necessity). Since they had only taken a short trail they decided to hire the man, Miguel, to take them on a hike to see a waterfall. Well, an hour and a half into the hike they were all exhausted and not yet at the waterfall. BUT they were seeing amazing things and Miguel was an excellent and knowledgeable guide. He also had a great love for the mountain, his home on the mountain, and showing off his beautiful mountain to visitors. After almost two hours, they made it to the point to SEE the waterfall. To get to the actual waterfall, they would have to hike for another SEVEN hours!! But seeing it was rewarding enough and they slowly made the descent down the mountain. They stopped again at Miguel’s house for a home cooked meal - fresh chicken soup (I mean freshly killed chicken) - DELICIOUS. A yummy end to a great and challenging day.

Later that afternoon, I was able to meet up with them. We spent the evening at the hotel relaxing and talking. Sunday, we walked around town, explored a small botanical garden, protected Gracias from an old Spanish fort, and waiting what felt like two hours for a truly mediocre pizza! Oh well, it was a great day! This pretty much takes us to the end. We, as usual, had an early bus to catch on Monday. We all went to La Esperanza, did some last minute shopping and photos, and ate a breakfast of baleadas. Brian and I watched Megan and Maureen get on the bus to Teguc and prayed that their flight wouldn’t be postponed (for some reason this happens a lot!). Tuesday morning they left Honduras…

Brian and I are so so happy that his Mom and Sister came for a visit. We absolutely love having people and are so grateful to be able to share this experience. We are coming to the end of our service and going through another life transition. It was so nice to have family here with us to help us through once again. Thank you Megan and Maureen!

The first of many acronyms that we learned during our SCUBA Open Water Dive certification course! About three weeks ago now, Brian and I (along with some friends) went to the Honduran island of Utila to get dive certified. Not only is the diving great in the waters off of Utila, the price for the dive certification (and diving in general) is quite inexpensive.

Now, I must admit that although I was super excited about going SCUBA diving I was also very very nervous (ie extremely scared). Brian didn’t seem to be very worried about it, nor did anyone else in our group…so I pretended not to be scared either.

We took a boat, much like the one to Catalina, to Utila. When we got off the boat we were swarmed with ‘dive masters’ from practically ALL of the dive centers on the island trying to get us to take their dive course and stay at their hotel. Luckily, we already had reservations at a dive center and hotel (Underwater Vision) and some Australian friends were already on the island waiting for us at the dock. Also, our dive instructor, Dave, was there to take us to the hotel and talk to us a little about the dive course. Well, I was at first not impressed with Dave. Which just made me a little bit more nervous about the whole diving thing.

Dave took us to the dive center and got us all set up in our rooms and with our diving reading materials. Our homework for the night was to read the book and prepare ourselves for hours upon hours of instructional diving videos. I think I was just relieved that we would not be diving until two days later! The next day came and went, we watched our videos and read the book. The day after that, we did some review in the book and took a quiz after each chapter leading up to our first diving experience - the contained dive.

Before the actual dive, we met our equipment and the dive masters that would be helping us during our dives. We had an easy swim test, then we put all our SCUBA gear on and hopped in the water. Now, the contained dive site was neither far nor very deep, but to me still quite scary. We made our way over the site of the contained dive - our instructor Dave gave us some instructions and down we started to go….

Wait!! DOWN!?! ALREADY!?!?!?!?! IMPOSSIBLE!!!! You want me to WHAT????? Breath underwater? Ummm, no. Not happening. NO WAY, NO HOW! OHH - MY - GOD.

That went through my head as I was slipping from the surface of the water into the great abyss of the ocean - at a depth of about two feet…hehe. Yeah, I freaked out. I was not prepared. I was having a panic attack. I grabbed the instructor (even though I had no idea it was him) and made the hand signal to go back up to the surface. By this time, I am crying and fully freaking out. The instructor grabbed my head and made the hand motions to breath deep - in and out, in and out. I resisted…I wanted to go back up where human beings are supposed to be…above the water! But before I knew it, I was calming down and we reached the bottom where Brian was waiting for me. I eventually calmed down, although I was by no means comfortable while down there. We practiced our drills and did our drill tests which took us about an hour and a half to complete. Looking at everyone underwater they all looked so calm and comfortable. We finally went up to the surface and got out of the water where I was reassured by two things - one: other people were either uncomfortable or felt nervous and two no one noticed that I had a melt down.

The next few days we went on more dives and by the end of the course I felt pretty darn comfortable being underwater. It took awhile, but eventually all of us felt comfortable and calm in the water. By the time the last dives rolled around we were all able to really enjoy the beautiful underwater world. We were better divers, more efficient breathers, and were actually able to control our underwater buoyancy. I left the course feeling exhilarated and proud! I actually fell in love with SCUBA diving.

So do it!! SCUBA. It is a scary and fun challenge. Go to Utila - Underwater Vision (underwatervision.net) and get Dave as your instructor. He was amazing and my first impressions were so wrong. I can not imagine a better instructor. He loves his job, he loves diving, and he is a stickler for safety and rules.

AND while all of this was happening - there was a coup in Honduras. We were underwater when Peace Corps Volunteers were informed of the coup. We got out and Honduras was a little bit different. Luckily, for us and the people of Honduras there has been little to no violence during this time. Brian will write in a later blog about the coup and the effects on our Peace Corps service.

June 7th, 2009

We have now been bat free for almost two straight weeks!! Brian put up some wood and other random objects between the wall and the roof so he can not get in as easily. Also, every time we heard the bat come in we would get out of bed and chase it around with brooms - at like 3 in the morning. Our goal was to kill it (every one tells us to kill the bat by smacking it with a broom), but our ceiling is really high so he would just fly up there so we couldn’t reach him. Then he would fly at us and we would get really scared and duck. So maybe we scared him and that is why he has decided to stop coming into the house.

We gave away two of the three kittens already. We still have one left, but he technically has a home. We just do not want to give him up yet! But the darn mother cat is in heat again and running around town with some male cats. It looks like we will be seeing another litter of kittens before we leave.

The high school put on an event called ‘La Novia del Estudiante‘, which literally means Student Girlfriend. Each class in the high school elected a girl to be their ‘novia.’ Then the girls put on a fashion show. They practiced for about four days - you know walking down the aisle, posing, then walking back up the aisle. Although, they most definitely did not practice smiling while walking and posing. Brian and I went to the big event - it was a BIG event as people got really dressed up - and watched the modeling. The girls only had one wardrobe change (I thought they were going to have two) casual wear and sport wear. Casual wear was really just another word for really short skirt wear and sport wear was the category for really short shorts wear. One girl came out in a tennis outfit, which impressed me because I didn’t know they knew about tennis (although she was carrying a ping pong paddle). The boys REALLY loved her outfit because when she did her little spin they could all see her underwear. Alas, no winner was announced because apparently they have another night where we all go back to hear the winner - I am hoping they also have an evening wear competition. The truly best part about the night was that one of my teacher students karaoke a Vicente Fernandez song - if I cant post my video - I will at least post a You Tube of the song he sang.

***Update - So the competition continues this Friday night (June 12th) with two more outfits - Cowgirl and Evening Wear. And guess what??? Brian has been chosen to be a judge…haha. He doesn’t really feel comfortable being a judge, but I told him I will just tell him whom to pick. BUT now that I know everyone gets all fancy we will dress up too! Oh this is just so exciting!!! ***

Our Peace Corps service is coming to an end…we still have four months, but things are wrapping up. Next week, we have our ‘close of service’ meeting, a ‘regional’ meeting, and then we go on our last vacation in Honduras. We are going to the island of Utila to get SCUBA certified!! Once we get back to Colomoncagua at the start of July we will only have 3 months left…crazy! We are planning on throwing a Fourth of July party for our friends in town - hot dogs, Doritos, USA flag cake, piñata - the usual stuff . It should be a fun way to have a little cultural exchange!

And then we receive our very last visitors - Megan and Luis - Brian’s sister and her novio!! Yay! We are super excited for their visit, but as of right now have nothing planned. Our hope is that they stay in our town over a Sunday to experience our Sunday market, because unfortunately none of our other guests had been able to see it and it is really the most exciting thing our town offers…Plus it is the annual Potato Festival in La Esperanza - which, again, is really the most exciting thing La Esperanza has to offer.

May 15, 2009 Today is a rainy day and I wish that we had internet in the house! Unfortunately, we don’t (we barely have internet in town!). The front of our house turns into the Amazon River when it rains hard and makes it near impossible to get to or from our front door. We literally have to forge the river to get into our house. I don’t want to leave! We have a second little gate that leaves our yard and if it wasn’t chained shut, we could avoid the Amazon, but, of course, it is locked shut. And we have a bat - or two - or maybe even more. We are not quite sure how many are actually coming into our house, but just about every night in one comes. The bat decided he likes our house to poop in - especially on the extra bed. I have taken to keeping a candle lit at night because I think it keeps the bat from coming into our room. I am quite confident that the candle does nothing, but I need something to help me relax. My fear…thanks to Michelle’s nurse mother… is that it is going to bite me and Peace Corps will have run out of the rabies medicine…or that it will be too rainy for the buses to run and I wont be able to get to the rabies vaccine. Terrible. I do not know if I should write about this on the blog, but I am going to anyway. As I mentioned a couple of months ago we are having housing issues with the Peace Corps. When we moved into this new house our rent went up quite a lot. I do not feel it is an unreasonable amount, as it seems to be pretty comparable to the other houses in town that are rented out. Anyway, PC will only pay part of our rent (most of it, but Brian and I are pay a small portion out of pocket). This wouldn’t bother me if we had a super nice house, but our house is quite average. I mean, we have bats and a river!! Also, we are being told different things by different Peace Corps staff members - which is just endlessly frustrating for me. What it really comes down to is that I do not think we should have to be paying anything out of pocket or at the very least we deserve an apology from Peace Corps staff members. If you want me to tell you more of the story send me an email…

And a little bit of work info... still teahcing English in the high school. We are pretty busy with them working three days a week. We started our creative projects project in the local elemantary school with 48 fifth graders. So far, things have been going really well - the kids love the projects are they are all worknig really well in their groups. We work with them twice a week. We have also started teaching English to teachers. We have about 26 teachers in the class - so far the classes have gone really well and I think the teachers are enjoying them as well. We taught them the ABC song and they LOVE singing it!! We are also meeting with them twice a week. And finally, we have our Educatodos students - we have two groups and we work them them three days a week. It is pretty amazing how filled our days have become.

March 10, 2009

So soon and I am posting another blog! Mostly because I realized that in the last one I only spoke of the fun we are having and not a thing about work. And I certainly would NOT want you to think that Peace Corps is all fun and games and NO work!

Work - well, we were asked by the high school principal to teach their English classes. The English teacher is currently out on maternity leave (hopefully coming back!) and the school did not have anyone to take over the classes. Originally, the principal asked Brian to teach one class and for me to teach one class, but there are more than just two classes. So we decided to teach the rest as well. We will find out on Monday just how many classes there are - I am thinking only about 6 more which would mean 3 more classes for me and 3 for Brian. Not too bad. So far I really enjoy teaching the classes as my students are really funny and are pretty good at participating. Also, I just like the feeling of being back in a real classroom and feeling like I have a real job. The major downside is that there are no text books or school materials so we are creating the curriculum and using our own materials.

We are continuing with EDUCATODOS which is school for people that were not able to or did not want to attend regular school. We do not have too many students this year and Brian and I are splitting the class. Thus far, it is much better than last year because I am sharing class with Brian.

Another downside to teaching in the high school is that three of the five weekday mornings are now taken and the other two by EDUCATODOS. This is not so good because the elementary schools are only in school during the morning. We also can not switch the high school schedule because those students only go in the morning as well! This leaves us no time to do work in the schools, which is something I really want to be doing. The high school teaching is supposed to be until the end of April, which will then leave us with the time to work with the elementary schools. We plan to do more with our creative projects, I received a donation for Colgate and plan on doing a teeth brushing campaign in a school, and we are going to do some creative writing projects.

Greetings from windy windy Honduras! Yup, windy. It is crazy the strength of this wind - it could knock over a young child! It certainly keeps me off balance. Plus, the dust - oh gosh - I have never seen so much dust in my life. Our house is filled with it - we sweep and 10 minutes later the floor and all of our shelves are covered. We even wake up covered in dust and dirt! Then there is the trash - our front yard is the gathering place for all lost trash in Colomoncagua. I do not know where it all comes from, but it is all in our front yard and outside our gate. This wouldn’t be so bad if there was trash service, but since there isn’t we either have to pick up all the trash and burn it or Brian gets to take all of it to the makeshift dump. Either way it is not a fun process!

Sunday, March 1st was Saudy’s seventh birthday. Since she doesn’t know her birthday (kids here rarely know how old they are and their birthdate) her mom, dad, Brian, and I were able to surprise her with a fun day. Dinora (Saudy;s mom) came over late Saturday to ask if we could go to her house in the morning to make pizza and other food (but she needed me to make the pizza) and then go out to the waterfalls to swim and picnic. So, we went over the their house around 8:30am on Sunday made pizza - one big one and Saudy made one small one all for herself, refried beans, rice, salsa, carne asada, and tortillas. Dinora had bought a delicious tres leches cake from Dona Liliam (who makes the best tres leches cake not only in Colo, but I am convinced all of Central America and possibly even the US). We packed everything in their pick-up and went to the waterfalls. Brian and I had been to the bottom of the falls with my mom and sister, but this time we went to the top. Since the cab only fits two - we sat in the back and got nice and dirty since it is a dirt road all the way to the falls. We found a good place to set up and then did a little bit of swimming. I had not planned on swimming and didn’t bring shorts to swim in (people here generally do not have bathing suits so they swim in shorts and a shirt, I think it is also a modesty issue as well), but while taking a photo with my feet in the water, I slipped!! So, I ended up doing a bit of wading in the water. It was a great day for us and I think for Saudy and her family as well. I felt so special to be invited along since we really were the only guests.

***I wrote this blog last week - Feria already happened and we had a great time! We had some Peace Corps friends come and stay with us a couple of nights for Feria which was a special treat for us - we don’t get too many visitors down here.***

Hi All!

This year I am going to be really good about blogging regularly! I know we sort of ignored the blog last year….so here it goes!

Our town is growing! Just in this last week three new restaurants have opened up. We now have a Chinese restaurant, a Honduran/Mexican restaurant, and one that looks like it could be a bar (I don’t know if they sell alcohol though)/restaurant. We have yet to eat at any of these new places, but definitely want to try the Chinese place. I really enjoy the Chinese food in this country! And it has a spiffy name - Bamboo. This brings the restaurant count up to 7 - there could be more, but this is what we have counted. We are not quite sure how this is possible considering there are only about 2,500 people in our town and most of them do not go out to eat!! But Brian and I like the variety!

So, this week is feria week in our town. The patron saint of Colomoncagua is Jesus de Rescaste so our town throws a giant party for the week. Almost all towns in Honduras (and I would assume most of Central America) celebrate their patron saint in the form of a feria. The party has already started here - the rides are set up (a small Ferris wheel and a bug Ferris wheel), the papas fritas (French fries) have arrived, the various vendors are set up, and people have essentially stopped working in preparation for the big night(s). Our town will be basically transformed these next few days and then suddenly everything will vanish.

The feria celebration begins with a few nights of dancing and loud music in the Casa de Cultura. There are some shows - traditional dances, kids lip syncing, a cultural fair. Then there is the election and crowning of the Princess of Colomoncagua (the prettiest teenaged girl in town) and a Rey Feo (basically people make fun of each other - Rey Feo means ugly king). These last two will happen on Friday night - the biggest night of the feria. Soon there will be carnival games set up, some sort of gambling games, and lots and lots of food stands. Many have already arrived and many are still setting up. It is pure madness!

The last thing I want to mention is our little battle with Peace Corps. Yup, we are fighting the higher ups at Peace Corps Honduras. Since moving in to our new home our rent has gone up (and yes, I admit quite a lot). Peace Corps Honduras thinks too much and does not want to pay for all of our rent. This makes me upset. Peace Corps says they are going to pay your rent and I think that if rent is reasonable and average with what other people in town are paying then it should not be an issue. But because our rent jumped when we moved, they are saying they will only pay for a 10% increase…crazy considering they have not reevaluated the cost of living in this area for a very long time. Anyway, our fight is over 500 lempiras, which is about $25 US. Not much, but it is principal and I think PC should have to pay. I am sending an emaill to the country director and a few other Peace Corps employees here in Honduras. If the situation is not settled with them, then I am going to start emailing my Congressman, Senator, and Peace Corps in Washington DC. I do not know if any of this will help to solve the problem, but I am going to try. Usually, I wouldn’t do this much, but other volunteers are having rent issues as well and Peace Corps seems to be doing nothing about it (except not paying the entire rent). I will let you know what happens in these next couple of weeks.

We are back in Honduras!!! After a GREAT time in the States we are back to Honduras! And of course, not without an adventure (I must post the story of our “adventure” leaving Honduras)!

We arrived in Colomoncagua exhausted and drained. The trip back here was long and we were lugging a lot of stuff around with us. We opened the door to our house and everything seemed normal, except that we had some new neighbors. Then we opened up our back door and…..it was filled with animals! Okay, so not filled, but there were a lot of chickens and roosters and a couple of pigs. There was chicken poop all over the porch and the kitchen area. I burst into tears and Brian took action. He went to our land lord and asked him what was going on. He told Brian that his brother came back from the States and was moving (ahem had moved) into the house. He also told us that the house is his brother’s and not his. We had to move out RIGHT AWAY.

Well, I wanted to go home. I just thought that this was incredibly disrespectful and really pretty darn mean. Brian said I shouldn’t and couldn’t go home - and he went off to look for a new place to live, while I had a mini nervous breakdown. Brian found us a house almost right away and begged the woman to let us move in ASAP. She was hesitant, as the house was dirty and needed some work, but he begged and she caved. So we packed up and moved our stuff (with no help from our land lord or his brother - nice people, huh?) with the help of some of our friends in town. Our new land lady and her family came over and helped us to clean the whole house and back yard for three days.

Our new land lady is incredible. She is super nice as are her kids and her husband. They are a pretty prominent family in Colo and everyone knows and respects them. She is a teacher and her husband owns a hardware store here in town and also does veterinary services for farm animals. Our house has a bunch of storage rooms in the back filled with old furniture and other stuff and we are allowed to use just about anything we want. Our house has a living room, a small bedroom, and a bathroom attached to the bedroom (it is pretty large so we keep our clothes there, too.). The toilet works only sometimes and when there is water it runs constantly (and if you look at the pictures it is not a pretty toilet!) also we have an indoor shower with an electraducha (a shower head with electricity running through it to heat the water), but the heating part is broken so we get cold water. They are supposed to come and fix the toilet and the shower. Also, there is a kitchen outside (but it is covered and mostly enclosed), an extra room (with two broken stoves), and a pila. We also have a decent size backyard. The house also came with a little cat named Min (pronounced Meeen), which we have started feeding. She is pretty small and can barely meow, but so far she has been good company!

We are once again neighbors with our old neighbor Dinora. Her new comedor is just across the basketball courts from us. I have posted pictures of the house, but not yet of the basketball courts or Dinora’s. The woman in the photos with Brian is our boss and Country Director of Peace Corps Honduras, Trudy Jacox. She came for a visit last week.

Other than that, not much else is new. We are getting settled into our Honduras routine - not really doing anything!!! - and getting ready for the school year to start. We have some meetings next week with Peace Corps and I have some allergy and blood tests coming up (I have terrible allergies here and was anemic at my last check up). We are also planning a trip into El Salvador and planning where we want to visit in Honduras this year - we are hoping to get some visitors from the States to go with us!!! Hint hint…

We are already missing the yummy food from the States, but not happy about those extra pounds we gained while being home! And, of course, hot showers (why are those so wonderful!!).

Wow...I can not believe we have ignored this blog for so long!

Well, currently Brian and I are in the US! Yipppppeeeeeeeeeee! We had been waiting for this trip for a very very long time. And now that we are here the time is flying by way too fast and it just does not seem possible to see all of our friends and family and do everything we wanted. The good thing is that we return in less than a year and will be home for quite a long time. Both of us are having a wonderful time relaxing with our family and friends and eating delicious food!!

We leave in a few short days (okay so in a little over a week - January 5th) and will be be updating you again on a regular basis from Honduras. Pictures to follow...

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Blog by Jessica

What’s up and what’s new? As usual – not too much!

October was a busy month! First, Brian went to La Esperanza to help out with a medical brigade. I stayed in town and taught my Educatodos classes everyday (that was a bit too much for me!! The kids stress me out!!). I was lonely without him, but I went to La Esp shortly after to help with the same brigade the next week. Brian went off to Tegucigalpa for his yearly medical exams (Peace Corps required). He checked out fine – no parasites, his very first cavity and he got a new pair of glasses! He returned to Colomoncagua, while I then went to Teguc for my checkups! There was a small issue on my way to Teguc – a bridge was flooded and I had to stay the night in Siguatepeque with some friends before we could all cross the bridge the next day to Teguc (this sounds so simple, but it was really a complicated affair while it was happening. I was on a bus on my way to Teguc and got stuck for a couple of hours in the city where the bridge was. I was told that I could walk across the bridge and wait for another bus there, but PC called me and told me that I should absolutely not cross the bridge by foot nor bus that day! Several calls – and hours - later between myself, Peace Corps and other volunteers I finally found myself in Siguat at Wendy’s enjoying a very large cheeseburger!) Back to the health news - I, too, am healthy – no parasites and two small cavities.

Since the rainy season is winding down – it just couldn’t go away without a BANG! We have been getting a lot of rain – La Esperanza was muddy and gross and sometimes flooded, bridges and levies couldn’t handle all the water, one Peace Corps volunteer was evacuated from her site, there are mudslides galore, and travel is restricted for us PCVs. Honduras was in a ‘state of emergency’ because of all the water and damage, but now I think the rain is done (or almost done, thank goodness) and we will enter the dry season. In March, I will start complaining about the heat and all the dust! The joke in town is that you wish for the rainy season when it’s dry and wish for the dry season when it’s wet!

The last week of October brought a medical brigade to our town. We helped out almost every day and went to several communities around our site.

Get this – I am living in a third world country, but we are currently sitting in a hotel in Tegucigalpa watching CNN American election news, eating Dominos pizza, while I am working on my laptop, and using wireless internet – amazing!

Happy Independence Day Honduras!!! (September 15)

Happy 1 year anniversary in site Brian and Jessica (September 27)

Well, needless to say it has been awhile since our last blog post. A lot has been going on since then….kind of. First, I will update a few things from the last post. We started and finished our teamwork/creative projects program with another elementary school. It was a lot of work, and a little more difficult this time around, but it went well. We did this one at a school that is about an hour walk outside of town, so we did get some exercise traveling out there. We also, after a few delays, started Project Citizen with a class in the High School. We are still waiting on the certificates of completion for our Educatodos students (we have been waiting since March).

There is a NGO, named Shoulder to Shoulder, that is building a health clinic in an aldea (Santa Ana) of Colomoncagua. In July, three people from Texas arrived (Erin, Joey and Katie). Erin is working on her PhD in Epidemiology from Baylor University, and came to Colomoncagua to do a study for her dissertation. Erin worked in conjunction with Shoulder to Shoulder and the Doctor in our town that is running their clinic. They asked us to help them out with the study…..and it was the start of a wonderful friendship. Over the next six weeks Joey left, Becky came, then Katie left (that left Erin and Becky). The study consisted of 3 parts: 1) an interview with the mother of a child under 5 years, 2) weighing and measuring the child under 5 and 3) a group discussion with the parents and other community members about the general health of the community. The goal was to collect data from all of the communities that the clinic will serve (The new clinic is supposed to be built and ready to open in December). Erin was able to employ a small team of local Hondurans to help out as well. Jess and I traveled to 8 communities to help. We were generally in each community all day doing the interviews and helping with the group discussion. Erin, with the help of everyone, was able to gather all the data that she and Shoulder to Shoulder needed, and she and Becky headed back to the US on September 6.

We enjoyed helping with the study. We made some new friends, new community contacts and had some good times. To get to one of the communities, La Hacienda Grande (which is actually quite small), we had to walk across a river! The water was only shin deep, but still. The roads are too bad to drive out there, so this is something that the townspeople have to do whenever they want/need to come into town.

So, what are we up to now? We are still teaching our Educatodos classes. I am teaching 9th grade, and Jessica is teaching 8th grade (these classes are an alternative to school, so our students range in age from 15 to 40+). We are on schedule to finish right around Thanksgiving, which is our goal. We want to wrap up classes and get the students their certificates of completion before we head back to the States for Christmas. We also started Project Citizen in the High School. This is a program that was created by the Center of Civic Education in Calabasas, CA. They have adjusted it and been working to do it in various countries around the world. It was brought to Honduras a few years ago by a few Peace Corps volunteers. In this project, the students (working in groups) choose a local problem, investigate the causes and consequences of the problem, and then propose a solution that can be carried out on the local level. It is a good project for the students because it makes them realize that they can be responsible for solving their communities’ problems instead of waiting for the government or someone else to do it.

In October a medical brigade from the US (Missoula, Montana) is coming to La Esperanza for two weeks. We are going to work with them, translating and doing whatever else they need. We are expecting a medical brigade here in Colo as well. They will be working through the clinic that I mentioned above, and the Doctor (Doctora Carol) running the clinic asked us to help them out. This will keep us pretty busy in the coming months, as we await our trip home for Christmas.

As I mentioned above, September 27 is our one year anniversary for arriving in Colomoncagua. That means that we are almost at the point where we have less than a year left (We finish our service on Sept. 25, 2009). Some days we can’t believe that we have already been in Honduras for 15 months, and other days we can’t believe that we still have a year left.

That is all for now. Remember, that we love to hear from you! Write us an email and let us know what is going on stateside.

-Brian

Hello All!

So, when my mom and sister were here at the end of May an airplane crashed in the capitol city, Tegucigalpa. I wouldn’t actually say the plane crashed, I mean it didn’t fall out of the sky, it ran off the runway. Apparently the runway at the Teguc airport is quite short. It went off the runway onto the street – killing two people in their car and three passengers from the plane (the pilot, co-pilot and a man that was president of the development bank of Central America). It was a Taca airline flight coming in from San Salvador, El Salvador – a very common flight for people travelling to Honduras from all over Central/South America and the United States.

I am passing no judgment on the intelligence of the president of Honduras (his nickname is Mel), but he said in a press release that he was closing the Tegucigalpa airport FOREVER. Just slightly ridiculous. Anyway, the airport in Teguc has been closed since to all commercial international (and I believe national) flights. I think small planes were still running. However, on Monday the airport was re-opened! But apparently only for this year and some of 2009 until they can build a new airport – yeah right. Mel’s grand idea was to have all commercial flights land in Palmerola, a US air force base under the Honduran flag in Comayagua. However, they vetoed that idea pretty fast as they do not have the infrastructure, nor the desire, to have commercial flights land there. Anyway, how can a large capital city not have an airport? I suppose that is what some people have been thinking – so the airport has been reopened, at least temporarily.

The closing of the airport caused quite a few issues as many Peace Corps volunteers had family or friends visiting who had flights leaving from Teguc. From what I have heard, everyone made it home pretty much on time. The flights were just changed to the San Pedro Sula airport where my mom and sister left from (and arrived at). The whole point of this story – Brian and I have been planning our visit home, but have been worrying about the airport closure. We are taking Maya with us and know that we can get her to Teguc and to the veterinarian there, but were very unsure about the same for San Pedro. However, we will now be leaving once again through Tegucigalpa. Hopefully!

And so, the meat of this blog (not really): we are planning on coming home December 18 to January 6. Yippee! We are SO excited!

Because you all have been so incredibly generous – I am going to ask you for more stuff. If you could please save old greeting cards (just the cover), scraps of fabric, colored paper, ribbon, and other craft items, old buttons, beads, popsicle sticks, etc for me to bring back with me to Honduras for various arts and crafts projects. A lot of these things are just not available to me in my site. We received a great box from Casey and Matt filled with tons of art stuff – the number one favorite item from the box……..PIPE CLEANERS!! Who knew? They just don’t have them here so the kids are totally enthralled by them! I swear I can make paper flowers attached to pipe cleaners for the rest of my Peace Corps service and the kids would just love me.

Currently, we are losing our battle with the mold. I win in one area, ie the fridge, and lose in another, my suitcase. However, our house is pretty much leak free so we are at least dry inside the main part of the house. Also, the rain has decided to come earlier in the day so our clothes are having some issues with drying. Anyone want to ship us a clothes dryer?? J

Brian and I have been fairly busy this month, I think I already mentioned that we started our creative projects campaign in another elementary school. The school is located in an aldea (a small town part of our municipality, but outside of our main town) called Llano Grande. It is about an hour walk from where we live, but so far we have been quite fortunate and while walking towards the aldea have been offered rides (as well as for the way back). I will be going to Teguc at the end of this month to help train the new volunteers and I will be teaching them all of our creative projects. We shared this campaign with some fellow Peace Corps volunteers in our region, as well as with our Country Director, Trudy, and all seemed to really like it. Our favorite part was that we think we impressed Trudy, yay!

Brian will be going to Teguc this month as well for a VAC meeting. He was elected by his fellow PCV Muni D peers to represent them at this quarterly meeting. His is basically an advocate for his peers to the higher ups in PC Honduras. I will also be going to Valle de Angeles for a workshop about teaching abstinence (as well as self esteem, menstruation, general sex ed, AIDS/HIV, empowerment, etc) to young girls. I will be taking with me a young woman from my site that is interested in health education and working with girls in a youth group setting. Then, from the 27th to the 30th Brian and I are having a PC married couple come to visit us. They are from the new training group and are going to be working the same sectors as Brian and I. We really loved our volunteer visit and hope that we can show them the same hospitality and kindness that our volunteers showed us.

The finale: Thank you to the donators (donors???? I don’t know what word to use here) that have so generously donated to our school project in El Almendro.

Nader and Theresa – The cutest couple in San Fran – possibly in all of California – only because Bri and I are currently in Honduras. :)

Mr. Darryl Gross, himself. Ladies, he’s single, (I think), generous, and good looking!

Ralph Alva - The one from Salt Lake City - or maybe the one from California...we´re not sure!

Chris Hageman - The surfer that can no longer surf...ladies, here is another one for you!

HPI, Hill Partnership, Inc. The BEST architecture firm in the world. Really you can check out their totally cool office in Newport.

Blog

From: Jessica

June 25, 2008

There are things that I eat here in Honduras that I am not sure I have ever eaten or would eat at home.

§ Chicharron – I am not quite sure what this is (I think maybe fried pig skin?), but I like it. It is deep fried, the bag it comes in is greasy, and it costs only 1 Lempira (that’s right – a nickel). Plus, it comes with a little packet of hot sauce that is not too hot. Note: I only like the Chicharron found in the pulperias here in Colomoncagua. Street chicharron is not okay by me.

§ Tortillas con quesillo – Two deeeeeep fried corn tortillas with this white (kind of like mozzarella) cheese in the middle, watered down sweetened ketchup on top, and some powdered white cheese. Yum! I eat this at least twice a week!

§ Fried bologna – for dinner. This is not a favorite of mine, but when people are giving you dinner – you eat it! Usually, I have to hide this in my napkin to then give to a dog, but the other day we had some made crispy…and I actually liked it.

§ Sopa de frijol – Bean soup, but not the kind of bean soup you are thinking. Bean soup as in either a: open a can of kidney or black beans and eat it with that weird syrup, or b: make beans and eat them with the water.

§ Chicken Salad Sandwich – again, not what you’re thinking. This is made with two maybe three teeny tiny pieces of shredded chicken, the whitest white bread available, and a ‘sanweech’ spread consisting of what I think is mayonnaise, ketchup, onions, mustard, and sugar.

Some of these things I LOVE, ie the Chicharron, and others I do not really like! There are also some food items (a lot actually) that I really miss: 2% milk (not this long life whole milk), real butter, real maple syrup, being able to choose what pieces of chicken you want (the chicken comes frozen in a one pound bag – you have no clue what you are getting), and many many other things. I am not really sure how I am surviving without real butter considering I would eat an entire stick with three pieces of toast.

Now a brief update! I am not sure if we told you about Sandra. She is a young woman (21 years) here in our site. She recently won a scholarship to study in the US for two years. Originally, we thought she would be studying at Georgetown or somewhere in DC because the scholarship is through Georgetown University. She found out last month that she is actually going to Mt. Hood Community College in Portland, Oregon. There are 19 other scholarship winners from Central and South America going with her to the US (only 3 or 4 are going to Oregon with her). Her first year she lives with a host family and takes English courses as well as regular college courses. Her second year she is able to live with friends. We have been getting to know her because she came to us for some English classes. She is a really wonderful young woman, bright, funny, and always in a great mood. She is really a perfect candidate and will come back to Honduras to help her fellow Catrachos (nick name for Hondurans, they think it is funny when we refer to them as it). I, however, am incredibly sad that she is leaving. We have become very good friends and I will miss her friendship, company, and insight on Honduran ways. She leaves August 8th for the United States…only one more month for her here in Honduras. Yeah for her, boo hoo for me.

Other goings on: Maya ate Brian’s cell phone charger (about three months ago she ate the keypad off his cell phone), our refrigerator is broken and is now growing mold, we taught a lady how to use a camcorder her son sent her from the US without directions (don’t most electronics these days come with directions in Spanish, let alone directions?), we have a new internet place in town (not quite sure how well it works), Brian and I each have about ONE MILLION mosquito bites and counting (I seriously look like I have chicken pox, my neighbor screamed when she saw my legs), and La Esperanza might get a Dominos Pizza and a Dunken Doughnuts! I have also decided that Honduras in rainy season is one giant mold experiment – mold on clothes, on shoes, on wooden spoons, in the fridge, in books, on money, and probably on me, too.

July 11 is our 1 year anniversary of being in Honduras. I can hardly believe it – I am not sure if I can’t believe that one year has already passed or that only one year has passed!! We have 15 more months here in Honduras. In six months we will be home for the holidays – yippee! Maya is pretty excited to be moving to the States – she gets a flea and tick free life as well as a delicious assortment of doggy treats. Hopefully getting her home won’t be too difficult. As one volunteer said, “it was easier to get my Honduran husband home to the US than my Honduran dog.” Hmmm.

Rain rain GO AWAY… don’t come again another day because it is just way TOO MUCH for me! And I thought I liked rain. Hmph.

About our vacation and visit from my mom and sisiter: we went to Copan Ruinas for a few days and had a great time! We arrived to Copan in the afternoon (it was sweltering!) and spent the day walking around town, shopping for souvenirs, and visiting some of the town museums. The next day we went to the Mayan Ruins where we saw some pretty incredible architecture, tunnels, and carvings. I wasn’t feeling too well so we had a pretty relaxed day – I needed to prepare for our next adventure – which was a day of horseback riding, learning about coffee and cardamom, and swimming in hot springs. We went to a coffee and cardamom farm called Finca El Cisne where a man named Carlos took us all around his farm. We rode horses for about three hours all over his property learning about coffee and the various other things growing on his farm. We tried star fruit, pineapples, and fresh coconuts (the water and the flesh). On the farm, we had a delicious lunch and visited the place where they process the coffee. It started to rain pretty hard, but we still went around the farm and then went to the hot springs. We were pretty soaked by the time we got to the hot springs because we had to ride in the back of a pickup truck to get there. All were soaked except for my mom because she rode in the cabin! The next day, we went to Los Sapos for a canopy tour – zip lining! It was amazing! The lines are pretty high up and two of them are over a kilometer long! It was such a good time and there were some incredible views of the city of Copan and the Mayan Ruins. After all our fun in Copan we went to La Esperanza for a couple of days – where we visited public baths. We didn’t bathe, but we looked around and took lots of pictures. It looked like a little playground/park. Then my mom and sis came to Colomoncagua!! They met a lot of people here and, I think, had a pretty good time. We got to see the high school students dance in a dance competition and we went to a waterfall that is near where we live (by the time we got home we were, again, soaking wet because there was so much rain!). There was also a hurricane warning while they were here, so we had quite a bit of rain! Sadly, they had to leave so I went with them to San Pedro Sula where we had lunch at McDonalds (we had to try it!) and did some last minute souvenir shopping. The next day they left (from San Pedro) and I had to head to Tegucigalpa.

I am so happy that they came to visit and that they came to see where and how Brian and I live. They also experienced the bus rides, the food, and all the rain that we get down here! And a little scare – an airplane crashed at the Teguc airport. But now they are back home and I am just a little sad

Things are already back to normal – we are teaching Educatodos and waiting for the second set of text books. We are also still waiting for the students’ completion certificates from last school year (they have been working on them for months now!). We are also trying to schedule a creative projects program with another elementary school. We are teaching an English class and will start Project Citizen in the high school soon.

Remember the crafts class we were supposed to give? The one that took us over a month to prepare for? The one that I made a bajillion craft projects for? They cancelled on us!! It was supposed to be on a Tuesday and they told us Monday morning that it was cancelled. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but I was a little upset that they cancelled.

The rain has really started. They past two weeks have been pretty much straight rain in our site – in the mornings is doesn’t really rain, but by afternoon it is really wet. The thing that really gets me is the gloom. Some mornings have sunshine, but not too much. This kind of depresses me. And it also doesn’t help dry our clothes at all! Brian wants to figure out how to make a dryer – maybe we can construct something with my hair dryer? Any ideas? Since we have so much rain – our yard is turning into a forest! We dug up some of the weeds/trees/plants/flowers/and other greenery today, but we barely put a dent in it. Next project: how to build a lawn mower.

For a good cause and some cool lookin’ shoes, check out www.tomsshoes.com

In a good way! My mom and sister just left yesterday after spending 11 wonderful days here in Honduras! They left and I cried for the entire bus ride to Tegucigalpa (over 4 hours!). It was so great to see them and to travel around Honduras, but them leaving me was quite painful. I definitly feel like I want to come home - but I'm not - I need to stay here.

I am going to try to post some pictures of our fabulous trip and write a really long blog about it. For now, I need to figure out how to upload photos on this computer.

Brian and I have been having a lot of fun with the fifth graders doing the creative activities project. On Tuesday, we did a sort of ‘relay race’ with them. Each group started off with a puzzle that they had to put together, then they had to solve a series of math problems, last they received cut up letters and had to figure out the phrase: Vuelo de los Huevos (which means Flight of the Eggs). This activity was pretty difficult for them, but they also had a lot of fun. The best part was when we explained what Flight of the Eggs means for them. Next week they have to build a protective case for an egg which they are going to drop from the gazebo in the park. They love love love this idea! The kids got so excited which in turn made Brian and I get really excited!

We really enjoy this project and every week we come home feeling really good about it. We feel that the teacher and the students are learning a lot from this project. Brian and I are definitely learning a lot as well! We are making notes of what is working and what doesn’t work as well as changes we want to make for the future. We hope to continue this project in at least two more schools, but hopefully more. I am also learning a lot about classroom management and the challenges that come with an out of control class (or a very large class). We have also been trying to keep the out of pocket cost of this project low so that the teacher (and other teachers) can maybe do the project with their students on their own. So far we feel we have been successful with keeping the cost low.

Other non-work related news: the new set of volunteers are swearing in tomorrow. This new group is of different projects than ours – Health, Business, and Water and Sanitation (as the old group of these projects left on April 19). Southern Intibucá (the province in which we live) is receiving 3 new volunteers (all male which is good for Brian because currently there are only girls and good for the other girls!). We are excited to meet them and will be heading up to La Esperanza next week for a welcome party.

It looks like Brian and I have both come down with a case of scabies – pretty gross, yes. Not quite sure how we got them, but oh well! We were also attacked by a giant army of ants…small ants, but they BITE (or sting)! We had a fierce battle but I am pretty confident that I won this one, although it was not without some injuries. When they realized I was trying to kill them they decided to attack and got me real good all over my feet. Lesson learned is wear shoes when fighting biting ants. Also, it seems poor Maya is a breeding ground for tics, but we seem to have cured this problem with lots of shampoo and tic medication. Apparently tics like cows and there are lots of cows around here – so when we walk Maya she gets them.

What’s been going on? Pues…(Well)…A LOT!! Get ready, this is a looooong one…

Last week Nader and Theresa (friends of Brian from college) came for a visit. They were able to see La Esperanza and even stayed in our site for a couple of days. While they were here we decided to get a babysitter for Maya. So, we took Maya to our friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Brianna’s house to stay. We stayed the night there on Friday – she lives in San Marcos a teeny tiny little town with little water. Her site is definitely tiny and her house is pretty primitive (we are living in LUXURY! compared to her), but it is a great site. Nice people, nice town, cute house, everything. Anyway, her backyard is pretty much open space so Maya was able to easily get away (we watched her climb the fagon and jump over a pretty large wall to escape). On Friday she got away and got stuck in some neighbor’s barbed wire. She then got attacked by some dogs. She ate Brianna’s chocolate chip banana pancakes, her head phones, and probably various other things. And now she may be preggers. I guess we will find out for sure in a couple of months! Now we know that taking Maya to someone’s house is not such a good idea – so from now on we will have our neighbor take care of her.

We started our projects (see previous blog) in the elementary school. We decided to only work with fifth grade right now because there are 50 fifth graders! It is difficult enough to control 50 5th graders, but then you throw in the fact that they only speak Spanish and my Spanish speaking ability is crap which should equal total and complete chaos, but as it turns out they are a great group to work with. The first session we had with the students we introduced ourselves, played an ice breaker, and made some nametags. Then, to form groups, we gave each student an animal (10 different animals in total) and the students had to find their animal group by only making the animal sound. That was CRAZINESS! It was so loud and insane, but the students, for the most part, all found their group and did not cheat too much. The cows totally won for the best animal sounds – they walked around the classroom with their arms around each other mooing – it was fantastic.

Tuesday, we did our second installment of the project. We decided to start again with an icebreaker (dinamica). It is called the human knot. COMPLETE DISASTER! The kids did not get it, we did not know how to explain it well, the teacher could not help us, and, yeah, it was just a mess. BUT it worked out well because the kids had no idea that we completely messed up and they had a good time. SUCCESS! The project also went really well (pictures to be posted soon). I think the kids learned a lot – how to understand gringo SpanishJ, to work in groups, to communicate well with one another, and to be creative and think outside of “the box”. Next week – the Puff Mobile or in espanol Puff (Poooooof) Auto (owww tow). We had to scratch using the LifeSavers as wheels because we received Breath Savers instead of LifeSavers and apparently Breath Savers do not have holes in the center – oops! But Brian and I practiced making Puff Autos and there is no need at all for the LifeSavers! Plus, we have been enjoying eating them and sharing them with kids.

Wednesday, there was a meeting for all the EDUCATODOS facilitators. The prometor guy (he is the person we go to for everything – I feel like ‘promoter’ is not a good English translation) came to our site and had a big meeting with everyone. We learned more about the program and what kinds of things we should be doing with the students. For example, the students need to complete a community project during the school year in order to pass (they didn’t do it last year because apparently no one got around to it – or they weren’t graded for it anyway – I am not sure). We also learned about all the forms that need to be filled out and various other very boring things. But we did get 300 Lempiras each for being facilitators (30 bucks!!); however we are not allowed to keep it because we are Peace Corps. So next week we are buying our students cake and soda to celebrate our birthdays!

Thursday, we went out to a little community to participate in a meeting at a Caja Rural. The woman (Paty) from the bank (which oversees the Caja) was holding a meeting to determine what the community needs and how the bank/Caja can help. It is basically a meeting to assess the needs of the community – so it can be anything from needing money to buy fertilizer for the farmers or wanting some basic business or basic math charlas (many people here do not go past 6th grade). Brian and I went to the meeting just to see how Hondurans run these sorts of meetings and to see how we can be of some help. Brian and I can definitely teach basic math techniques as well as give a basic business charla (one concept people sometimes have trouble with is that they buy 40 Lempiras worth of materials and then sell those materials, maybe in a different form, for 30 Lempiras – usually they think they made 30, but really they lost 10). It looks like in the future we will be doing both with some communities – it will be a different challenge working with adults, but fun! HOWEVER – we got to the community and NO ONE showed up! So, we went to a different community to try to find the people, but we could only find one guy (who informed us that the people no longer want to be part of the Caja)! Paty looked over some of their books and found out that a lot of people owe money to the Caja and that the Caja is still in debt to the bank. Big mess. Since we were in this community we decided to talk to the principal of the school about doing our creative projects there next month. He not only wants us to do the projects, but he also wants us to teach English to seventh graders. Pues, we are not quite sure if we want to teach English or if we even have time (he wants us to commit to two classes a week). We will see…

Friday, we were sitting at home relaxing and getting ready for my birthday lunch at Paty’s house (yup, I had a birthday lunch!! Arroz con pollo – YUM!) when the principal from the school in Llano Grande (an hours walk from us) came to house and asked us if we would go to a meeting in the local school. The meeting was for the teachers on the Junta de Directiva (I think this is sort of like a board of teachers, one teacher from each elementary school in the municipality). He didn’t really tell us why exactly he wanted us there, but we were to soon find out! They basically asked us about the creative project we were doing in the local school and then made the assumption that we are masters of arts and crafts. We were then asked to do a training in May (an ALL day training) for all the teachers in Colomoncagua about arts and crafts (manualidades). When they thought of this and why they didn’t ask us about it privately first, I have no idea. Needless to say, Brian and I sat there a little stunned trying to figure out what to say and how to answer all their questions. I knew when he asked us to the meeting that something crazy was going to go down. So, we will be doing a training (taller) for 130 - 150 teachers in May!! I am freaking out just a little bit! I so do not know enough arts and crafts to fill 8 hours.

Brian read Ceasar Millan and he is asserting himself as the pack leader – I think he likes that role! Also, as you may have heard, Brian ‘shaved’ his head. Not all the way, but pretty short. We met some Panama Peace Corps Volunteers and the boys decided to shave their heads with the clippers. Boys…

One last thing – we are soon going to be hitting ya’all up for some money. There is an extremely poor elementary school about an hour and a half – two hour walk away from our site in a little aldea. They are in real need of basic school supplies – notebooks, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, paints, erasers, pencil sharpeners, rulers, chalk, paper, puzzles, and books. We are hoping to somehow raise money to buy these supplies or to have them donated. Once we get our plan together we will keep you informed. So, start saving that extra change!

Abrazos y Amor,

Jess

It may be rainy season, but it is also MANGO season! Yum!

I totally thought we would be updating our blog far more often than we do. As it turns out, we have internet far less often than I originally anticipated! We have a computer center in our site with about 10 or so computers, a copy machine, 2 printers, a paper cutter and some other basic office services. The center is part of a government program to provide rural communities with computers and internet access. The computers work just fine as does the copy machine, what doesn’t always work is the internet. We are not quite sure why and we usually ask the woman who works there why the internet is not working and she always tells us that there is a problem in Tegucigalpa. What the problem is, we don’t know, but it happens a lot. So we do not always have internet access in our little town of Colomoncagua. I can’t complain too much because we have cell phones (which I didn’t think we would have) and they generally work!

Work update! Brian and I are giving a charla (a little talk/presentation) on Thursday to a high school class about immigration in the United States. We are going to talk a little bit about the impacts immigration has on the US socially, economically, and culturally. We are also going to talk about the current immigration policy and the presidential candidates views on immigration. We are thinking of including some info about immigrant rights in the States as well as rights they do not have. We also have future charlas planned about religion, remesas (money sent from family members working and living in the States to their families here), and voting & voting rights (here in Honduras). For our immigration charla we are not going to tell students that they should or should not go to the States illegally or legally. So many of them want to go to the States for various reasons and we just want to give them some general information about immigration in the US. Also, the principal of the high school asked us to do it!

Starting in the middle of April we are going to work with 5th and 6th graders on a 5 week ‘project.’ We are going to meet with the classes once a week and do creative competition projects each week. Our plans are to split the classes up into groups of about 5 students where each group with come up with a team name. Week 1: the groups will be given several toilet paper rolls and other such objects. They must make the tallest structure possible. Week 2: the groups will be given several random objects in an envelope (including paperclips, straws, string, yarn, sticks, leaves, a tea bag, a pipe cleaner, a pencil, and tape). They must create the longest object possible and it MUST stay together. Week 3: the groups will be given 4 life savers, 3 straws, tape, and a sheet of paper. They need to make a ‘car’ or a ‘puff mobile.’ Then the groups will race their ‘puff mobiles.’ Week 4: the groups will meet, discuss, and begin to design a carrier for an egg for an egg drop competition. The students will have a week to come up with their own materials for their design. Week 5: if all goes well the students will build their designs for the egg drop competition. If they need more time the competition will be held in week 6. I think this will be a lot of fun and will be quite educational for the students! They are not really given much opportunity to think outside of the box or really to think critically or creatively in the classroom. I feel that if the teachers participate actively as well it will be a wonderful learning experience for all involved. If this works out well we hope to do this in more elementary schools in the area. We are still not quite sure if we like week one – so if you have any suggestions please send them our way.

Educatodos started on Monday – since we still do not have the books we started teaching the English portion without them. This way at least we do not fall too far behind. We really would like to finish the year in November!

Brian is working with a local bank to calculate interest and keep their account records on Microsoft Excel. The bank holds accounts for individuals, but also runs accounts for the local ‘banks’ located in rural communities. These ‘local banks’ are generally just run out of someone’s house and only open twice or so a month. He is going to go out into the communities with a woman from the main bank to help people better organize their banks and keep better bank records.

I have been in contact with the Meet the Masters program in the US. Currently I have been corresponding with a man from the company and he seems very interested in helping me out. We talked a little bit about what the needs of the schools are and possibly what Meet the Masters can offer. He can definitely give me the actual teaching material and other resources as well as possibly some art supplies. He asked me if I would need the materials in Spanish and I have told him yes, I would be teaching the program in only Spanish. So, we will see what happens – he might help translate the material (which would be awesome!) and hopefully he can really give me the actual curriculum. I am feeling pretty good about this! I really hope to either train several teachers in this art program or train one teacher (or volunteer from the community) that will continue using the program without me here. Art is such an important aspect of education.

Enough about work – the fun stuff! This past week was Semana Santa. Basically, this means that there was no school and no one did any work for a week! It was spring break Honduran style!! So, crowded crazy buses, tons of people visiting family in our little town, day trips to the beach in El Salvador, and the Jews fighting in the streets – you know, normal stuff like that. The traditions in Colo for Semana Santa are to go to the beaches in El Salvador (everyone went on Wednesday – not us though), eat tortas (some kind of fish pastry – haven’t tried it yet), and to watch the Judeos fight in the streets (the strangest tradition of all). Basically, people here do not even know what it means to be Jewish, so please no judging. J The tradition is that the men dress up in scary masks, wear capes, wear really loose or really tight pants, have wooden machetes, and brawl in the street. Thursday night at around 11pm the fighting started at the entrance to town – the men who were fighting met at the top of the street and a ‘master of ceremonies’ called for the fight to start. The guys basically jumped around (like a mosh pit) grunted and yelled and hit each other’s wooden machetes. Then they would stop, some discussion would go on, and then they would proceed down the street doing the same thing. The observers follow behind the fighting and people carrying a Jesus statue (I think it was Jesus) and some other saint. There was also some lady singing religious songs. This all happened again, during the day though, on Friday. Also on Friday there was a marching band playing that followed the fighters. I asked my host mom what this was all for and what it meant and she started to explain it to me. Then she said to me “You know what – Fijese que – I don’t understand this tradition and I don’t know what any of it means. I just come out to watch.” Last year her son was a fighting Jew, got hit with a wooden machete on the head and was bleeding. He fought again this year. PS teenagers and adults (like old men) participate, and there were even some little kids too!

A few weeks ago we had a wonderful opportunity to work with a medical brigade from Missoula, Montana. They come down with a non-profit, Missoula Medical Aid, and work here in Honduras with Save the Children. I worked mostly in the pharmacy and fitting people for glasses (old glasses donated from people in the States – like the bins in Target!). Brian translated for one of the nurse practitioners and signed people in. We mostly saw people for cough, head and body aches, and the common cold. The people with the brigade were just amazing to work with – they were a lot of fun (just an extremely outgoing funny group of women) plus they were donating not only their services, but they all paid their own way to get here and were losing two weeks of work. Plus, all of the Hondurans that work with Save the Children were super nice and great to hang out with! It was so cool working with really dedicated people.

And the future… Nader and Teresa are coming to visit us in April! Woo Hooooo a PERFECT birthday present! We are so excited we can’t stop talking about it. They are totally coming to our site for a few days and then they are headed to the north coast. We so wish we could go with them! Then at the end of May my mom and sister are coming! We are headed to Copan Ruinas for a few days and then to Colo. Our host family is really excited to meet my fam! We feel so lucky to be getting visitors we know it is hard to come down here…but we do hope to get more!! Honduras is a really beautiful country!

Abrazos!

Jessica

Brian and I just went on a FANTASTIC trip to Roatan - an island of Honduras. We went for a wedding and had a great time. The wedding was wonderful, the island was beyond beautiful, and best of all Brian´s parents came! Here are some photo highlights of the trip - I posted some on Picassa and there are some more to come.

Hi All! I was going to write about the education system here in Honduras, but I found a blog already written about (by a very intelligent and kind Peace Corps Volunteer - her name is Annie) So here is her info about the education system here in Honduras:

Apparently, Honduras’ educational system is the worst one in Central America. There are many problems including lack of resources and schools, lots of teacher strikes, poor teacher training and really no system of teacher accountability. By that I mean the teachers can do whatever they want in their classroom…they can chat with peers and drink coffee all day if they want and there is really no one who will tell them they can’t do that. I’m not saying all teachers in Honduras spend their days drinking coffee and chatting...of course, there are some very good teachers but there are some pretty bad ones too. A lot of teachers are teachers only because it was a good financial decision for them (steady pay, lots of time off, etc). According to one source, Honduras’ rate of illiteracy is 18.3% of the total population, 80% in the rural areas. Many Honduras never finish elementary school and much fewer finish high school.

Schools are divided up into a “ciclo básico” which consists of grades 1-6, a “ciclo común” which consists of 7-9 and then “bachillerato” which is like our high school but with a vocational focus and is from 2 to 3 years. People we’ve talked with have said somewhere around 65% graduate from the “ciclo báico” (through 6th grade) but official statistics are more around 85%. I’ve heard that teachers pass students onto the next grade even if they completely failed so their “numbers” don’t look bad. There will be kids in the 4th grade, for example, that still can’t read but keep getting passed to the next grade.Schools in the aldeas (village) often times have even more issues to deal with. Teachers of these schools usually don’t live in the aldea and show up only Tuesday-Thursday to teach so they don’t have to travel during the weekend. Some schools only have one teacher for all the grades (think one-room school house back in the days in the US). Due to the remoteness of some of these schools, the teacher(s)/school receive basically no supervision.Teacher strikes are problems for every school here. The government pays the salaries of teachers, defines their benefits, etc. so when the teachers aren’t getting what they need, they strike, often times for weeks or months at a time. In 2006, students were in school for only 140 days instead of the required 200. The other problem is that school only lasts for about 5 hours. You either go in the morning or afternoon. So it’s common to see kids running around at any hour of the day and impossible to tell if that kid goes to school or not. Very different from US schools where kids are in school from 8ish to 3 or 3:30 and where it’s odd to see any child over the age of 6 running around between those hours.There has been a big surge in private education in the last several decades. However, there is a lot of disagreement over whether private education is actually better quality than public or not.

Teachers here, for the most part, do not use much creativity in their teaching methodologies. Students are taught by copying what is written on the board into a notebook. Not much work is done to develop creativity, self-esteem, team-work, critical thinking, etc.Again, please remember that these observations are my own, made from talking with other volunteers that have worked in schools and from our training sessions. Needless to say, there’s a lot of work to be done!

So, that is it. I think it is a little confusing. There are always kids out and about during all hours of the day (and night) it is kind of odd.

Much Love...

Blog January 11, 2008

From: Jessica

We have not posted a ‘real’ blog since sometime in December – so here is goes! As most of you know (see earlier blogs) we got a dog named Maya. She was pretty much a gift from our neighbor, Dinora. Dinora told us what kind of dog she is in Spanish (of course), but (of course) we didn’t really understand what she said. So, we still don’t know exactly what type of dog she is. Our host family calls her a perrita india, which I think means a mutt. Today, little Mayita was supposed to be spayed. BUT we got to the place and the ¨vet¨was like OOOHHH I forgot to tell you yesterday that we have to keep her for 5 days and the price is triple from what I told you yesterday - and I might not be a vet! He said something like that anyway...so no surgery for Maya. Now we are stuck in El Salvador with her until about 1 o´clock. She is sleeping in the internet cafe right now.

We have just about finished last year’s classes with Educatodos. We should be done around the middle of January and will be starting the new school year (this school year) at the end of February/beginning of March. At that time we will go back to having classes two full days a week (currently we have three full days of classes), but Brian and I will be teaching all subjects. I will probably teach 8th grade and Brian will teach 9th grade. We might switch off the subjects just so it makes things a little more interesting for us. I am having trouble teaching right now since I do not understand everything that the book is trying to convey because it is in Spanish! Hopefully, that will get easier and easier. That is our plan for next year, but we are not exactly sure what will happen because our ‘boss’ was not hired back. Our new ‘boss’ lives in another town and has not yet contacted us. Technically, we are not supposed to be teaching all of the subjects anyway, only English. Maybe he will find someone to teach the other subjects…who knows.

I know I mentioned in my email that things have been kind of wacky around here. Our computer center (the one and only in Colomoncagua) has not had internet since the 23rd of December. Right after the 1st we had crazy strong winds – power was going in and out, parts of our roof were crashing into our backyard, and cell phones had zero service. This lasted for about 4 or 5 days. A couple of days ago we didn’t get water and found out that our land lord didn’t pay the water bill. He promptly paid it and the water came the next day! Then, yesterday Brian and I were in the kitchen when all of the appliances and lights turned off. We thought the power just went out, but when we went into the house we had lights. We figured we blew a fuse, but had no idea where to find the circuit breaker box thing! Brian had to walk around town being sent from place to place until he found the guy that had the key to the place where the circuit box is. He flipped the switch back and all was fine!

Our town, Colomoncagua, is absolutely beautiful! We are so lucky to have such a pretty site and the surrounding area is all beautiful as well. We have been taking various hikes into the mountains of our site with different people from our town and finding places to go on our own. Posted are some pictures of our hikes. We also have really been enjoying the weather here. It hasn’t been too hot and at night it still cools down quite significantly. Other towns nearby are supposedly quite hot – the town we visit in El Salvador is SUPER hot. I am so happy that we are high enough in the mountains that we don’t get the extreme heat and low enough so that it doesn’t get extremely cold. I am extremely happy with our town and would not want any other site – I hope you can all come visit because our little town is super cute. Plus, we have THREE paved roads – that is totally big time people!

And here is a video of our house.

HE EATS!!! Brian is so not anorexic, nor does he have a tape worm! Look!

Food! And I think a lot of it...that was his first helping he totally had more. They tell us that all the guys lose a ton of weight here and all the girls gain weight - life is so fair, isnt it?

Look at these little tiny green mangos - they are really good, but dont taste at all like a mango. I think they are just unripe mangos, but when I ask people they just tell me they are green mangos. Fijese que...

Meet Maya, our puppy!

Maya and I

Brian and Maya on Christmas Day

Blog

From: Jessica

December 18, 2007

Seven more days until Christmas and 13 until the New Year! Wow! So we have been here for about 5 months – I can’t decide how I feel about that! Sometimes I feel like we have been here FOREVER, but then other days I feel like the time is going by pretty quickly. I guess Christmas always sneaks up on me so right now I just can’t believe that Christmas is here and the year is almost over. A lot of people here have decorated their homes for Christmas. Quite a few people have lights around their windows or trimming their house…also I have seen quite a few Christmas trees with lights. The lights here are pretty expensive for our budget (about 200 lempiras - $10), so we have not bought any, but my mom and grandma sent us a few decorations. Our house is looking a little festive, which makes me feel good.  Some friends were supposed to come over for Christmas, but it looks like they won’t be coming over until about the 28th. We will just have to celebrate a few days late!

Brian and I have been keeping pretty busy with the same things – classes with Educatodos. We are actually moving along fairly quickly so it looks like we will finish by the middle of January. This will give the students (and us!) just over a month off before we need to start classes again. Our hope is that for this next school year we will be able to end sometime in November. This way we will be keeping the same schedule as the regular schools here. I am sure I mentioned it, but I will again, that right now the schools are on summer break. The new school year starts in February; this confuses me to no end because I am constantly thinking that it is summer break in the States, too. I think that starting next week, we will be teaching both 7th and 8th grade or one of us will teach 7th and the other 8th. The prometora, the women in charge of Educatodos here in Colomoncagua, should help us with the regular part of the classes, especially with the Spanish. Hopefully, she does.  Next year, I am not sure exactly what we will be doing, but we will probably teach 8th and 9th grade so that the students we have been working with can continue. Technically, Brian and I should only be helping out, at the most teaching English, but the program here is having its problems. They just cannot find someone to facilitate the classes.

We have been to El Salvador twice now. There is a bus from our town to El Salvador – we went to San Francisco Gotera both times. El Salvador uses dollars – which is pretty strange. We like it there because they have lots of fruit and vegetables, and they are much better quality there than in our site. Almost everything we bought was a dollar – so four apples for a dollar, a box of strawberries for a dollar, I bought a belt for a dollar! Some things seem to be a bit cheaper in El Salvador than here, but then other things are far more expensive. We wanted to buy a blender and the cheapest one we found in El Salvador was $45!! Here, we can get one for 400 lempiras which is about $20. And they are the really cheap blenders from like Target! El Salvador has almost all paved roads, which is quite a contrast from Honduras. And although you definitely know that you are still in Central America is has more of a developing country feel. I am happy that we got Honduras and not El Salvador for our service! 

A guy was supposed to come to our house to look at our broken pila and then hopefully fix it, but the three days he was supposed to show up, he didn’t. So, we still have a broken/leaky pila. It is really only a problem when we have a lot of laundry to do or when we need to flush the toilet and the water isn’t running! And this house gets so dirty! It has been quite windy and now that there is no rain it is super dusty so dust just comes in…our kitchen and dining room do not really close up, the windows just have screens, so they get particularly dirty. They do not really insulate the houses well here…there are just tons of cracks and spaces in the roof where dirt comes in – as well as from under the doors. Good house news…I have been practicing baking in the toaster oven. It has been turning out really well – I have made pizza, foccacia bread, peach cobbler, biscuits, and chocolate chip muffins. All of course, have been drastically modified using Honduran ingredients and to fit in the toaster oven. And it has taken some experimenting. Our toaster oven does not have temperature settings only top heaters, bottom heaters, or both. So I have to change the setting during cooking to get it just right.

More and more Brian and I are becoming ‘more popular’ if you will…hehe. Almost the second we step out of our house we get a “Brian, Jessica.” They like to just say our names! I get lots of little girls coming up to me to just talk or to touch my face or hair! “Es muy bonita” or “Es muy blanquita.” I am either pretty or white…haha!

Two books you should read if you are curious about Honduras: Don’t Be Afraid Gringo and Enrique’s Journey – both great books especially Enrique’s Journey. Jenna Bush’s book about AIDS in Latin America is supposed to be pretty good as well.

And I leave you with a little John Lennon…

Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try

No hell below us, above us only sky

Imagine all the people, living for today

Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too

Imagine all the people, livin’ life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one

I hope someday you will join us and the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can?

No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man,

Imagine all the people, sharing all the world…

You may say that I am dreamer, but I’m not the only one

I hope someday you join us and the world will live as one.

CONGRATS to Julie and Josh – now married and Matt and Casey – now engaged! Yay!

Hello!

You can totally send us boxes to this address....I just hope it works! Some other Volunteers have received mail-packages at the new address so it should be fine. :)

I posted a few pictures of our new house and of the good-bye party we had for Christeen (even though she is still here for a couple more weeks). There are also a few from a birthday that we were invited to last week. Our house is pretty bare right now, but I think that Brian and I are doing a good job of sprucing it up! There are a few issues with the house - the yard is a horrible mess and our pila leaks...it holds no water whatsoever which is a problem because we don´t always have running water. We need to talk to our landlord, but he is sometimes hard to find. He leaves town a lot! Hopefully, we will have it taken care of soon.

Today we are spending the day in Gotera, El Salvador. El Salvador is far more advanced than Honduras - ALL of their roads are paved! The town we are in also has fast internet, tons of places to eat, and lots of fresh fruit and veggies. We are going to stock up - especially now that we have a little fridge! They use US dollars here - which is sort of odd. Our breakfast this morning was $1.65 for both of us. In Lempiras is doesn´t seem so cheap (about 35 Lemps), but in dollars - wow!

Here is a picture of a little boy that I am in LOVE with - his name is Ceasar and he lives up the street from us. He is the sweetest kid!

Hey Ya'all!

I put up a new address where you can mail us stuff. We will always be able to receive things at the Tegucigalpa address, but this new one is a bit more convenient for us. As a side note, we might be getting a new one at the begining of the year.

Things we would love:

2 Double -Doubles, 2 fries, 2 diet cokes, and extra spread.

Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory

That would be soooo nice.....

Really, right now we just love getting things. We would love to get some hand-written letters and photos. Also, we are always craving American pop culture, so some magazines, cds, and dvds would be great.

Thank you guys for all the love and support...really, we wouldn't be able to survive here without it!

Love to you...

Brian and Jessica

Blog: From Jessica

It is summer here - all of the schools (except the private bilingual schools) are on summer break. The kinder is having their graduation this weekend and then sometime this week will be the graduation for the high school students. It feels strange that summer is just begining in Honduras and has just ended in the States. Since I am supposed to be working mostly with the schools I pretty much have nothing to do....except for Educatodos. WHICH is turning out to be A LOT of work. The thing that annoys me about it, it that we are really not even supposed to be teaching the classes. They are supposed to be taught or facilitated by Honduran volunteers. When I figure out exactly how Educatodos is supposed to work and the school system here in Honduras I will post about it.

Thanksgiving came and went - Brian and I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and stuffing. Not bad for a Honduran Thanksgiving! Supposedly there is one family in our town that celebrates Thanksgiving, but we are not quite sure who they are. Apparently, they lived in the States for quite a few years and still have family there so they like to celebrate it. We also heard that a lot of people in El Salvador celebrate Thanksgiving for the same reasons. Our host family also told us that they heard sweet potatoes were nearly sold out because so many people made them on Thursday! I was a little sad that we were missing all the fun in the States, but it was nice to share the day with our host family. And they LOVED loved loved all the food. In fact, today is our little host grandson´s graduation from kinder and they are making the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.

I was really nervous about the upcoming holidays because this is my favorite time of year. I love all the decorations and holiday music. I had no idea what Hondurans do for Christmas and if they even really celebrate with decorations and such. Thank goodness for the good ol´ American influence because they LOVE decorations! They day BEFORE Thanksgiving all the pulperias (little stores) pulled out the decorations and holiday music! Our host family also got a HUGE turkey for Christmas dinner (it is still alive and in their backyard getting nice and fat for the big day!). I don´t know what exactly we will do for Christmas, but we bought some lights and a little tree decoration. I am hoping to have some of my volunteer friends come down and stay with us for a couple of days.

Not much new has been happening - we are just teaching classes three days week trying to get the kids done so they can have a little summer break, too. Christeen is leaving on December 2. We will definitly miss her, but we are not only ready to move into her house, but we are ready to make Colomoncagua our town! We are having a big despedida (going away party) for her and getting a giant (hopefully delicious) cake. Good cake is pretty rare here so I am hoping for the best. I would make one, but we don´t have an oven. My host family has a crazy giant oven thing, but it uses wood and I am so not about to experiment with that!

Chritmas Dinner:

November 1st, 2007 - From Brian

Hi everyone. It has been a few weeks since our last entry. Things are going well. It hasn’t rained in almost two weeks, so all of our clean, wet clothes are dry. Our walls have also almost completely dried up. It is pretty hot out on some days, but nothing too bad. Everyone keeps telling us that the weather will stay ‘cool’ like this for November, but then in December it really starts to get hot.

We’ve been keeping busy. We tried to join a gym……that’s one thing. But seriously, we have completely taken over 7th grade with the EDUCATODOS program. They were really behind when we got here, so the kids decided that they want to start coming three days a week, instead of two, so they can finish sooner and start their summer break. Right now the program in our site is pretty dependent on us and Peace Corps. We have a few ideas that we are going to try to implement next year to make it more sustainable. They are also re-writing some of the books, so we hope to get involved in the management of it as well.

The Riecken committee apparently found someone who is willing to sell some land in town for 150,000 lemps. They gave a presentation today to the municipal corporation (they, along with the mayor, set the budget for next year) to try to get the money to buy it. I am not sure how that went, but I think we are going to go see the land shortly. The committee hasn’t been that organized of late, and as of yesterday it looked like nobody was willing to sell the land. We’ll see if this helps.

I have continued working with the UMA (Unidad Media Ambiente; that is the environmental office in the municipality, and its only 1 person who works there because they don’t have the money to pay others. His name is Josue) recently. We went to the colegio (high school) to give some charlas (presentations or talks) to some kids about trash. Sounds exciting! But the trash is a big problem here, and in Honduras as well. People just toss their trash into the streets or wherever. It gets dumped in the hills and the forests. Next year, Josue, Jessica and I want to work with the colegio and escuelas to start a trash program and maybe start to fix the problem. I did go visit the local dump last weekend with some members of an environmental group that I have been working with. It is brand new, and they are worried that it is too close to one of the local water sources. It was pretty ugly, but I guess all dumps are. There are a few photos of it posted. That is Justo (pronounced Husto) in one of the pictures. He led us on a hike afterwards. He knows the area very well and is a nice guy.

We (I mean more Jess than I) have been making tortillas pretty regularly now. She learned how to make the dough and is pretty good at it. Neither of us can flatten them by hand, so we use the torteria. If you don’t make them perfect, which I never do, you get laughed at. We use the tortillas to make pupusas. They are kind of like quesadillas, except you put the cheese in the middle of the tortilla dough, and cook it all together. They are good.

We have been getting along with our host family very well. Our host dad took us to go look at a house for rent the other day (which we decided won’t work), and when we got back our host mom told us we could stay for as long as we want…..paying rent of course (I don’t know if our host dad liked the idea that much!). The original plan when we moved in was that we had to be out by December because they have family coming to visit a lot for the holidays. IF we want to stay, the visitors can all just use the other rooms. A very nice gesture. Our host mom will probably be a bit sad when Jess moves out. She loves to watch her make food and just talk as well. We’ll probably miss them a bit too, but it will be nice to have our own place. We have pretty much decided that we are going to move into Christine’s house, and we’ll probably make the move at the end of the month.

Last week one of the local teachers asked Jessica to come to her class and teach an arts and crafts activity (called manualidades in Spanish) to her third graders (all girls). We went to do that this morning. I tagged along for moral support and to do some painting. We mixed paint with water in plastic cups. They used straws to drop some of the paint on their papers and then other straws to blow it around and make random designs. It went very well. They loved the activity and made a ton of paintings. We are posting a bunch of pictures from it. We got 9 paintings, 3 pens, two stickers as gifts from the students. We want to put together a program next year where we teach kids about different artists, and cultures and then have them replicate a painting by that artist (kind of like Meet the Masters). One of Peace Corps goals is to teach people about our culture and others worldwide. Wish us luck with that. School ends for the summer next week and will start back up in February, so we have some time to work on it.

That is about it for now. Keep the emails coming. We love to hear from everyone.

Blog: From Jessica

October 10, 2007

I am writing this blog sitting in our room – which now has two leaks in it! It is strange because the leaks are inside the wall so the walls look really wet. Our room feels really damp and I am afraid of mold! It kind of smells, too.

I am drinking something that Hondurans drink fairly often. I don’t know what it is called. I have never heard of it until we came here – maybe you have? It is cold water, oats (we use Quaker Oats), and lots of sugar. I add cinnamon to mine. It doesn’t sound all that good, but I am kind of addicted to it. You should try making it. And when I say lots of sugar, I mean add lots and then add some more! They love sugar here…and salt!

Brian and I feel like we have had a fairly busy week! This past weekend we showed some girls from the colegio (high school) how to make recycled paper. It was not an easy process!! For one, it was my first time making recycled paper on my own. I learned how to make it once during training. So I wasn’t sure exactly what to do. We finally got all the materials (it took a couple of days!) and started to make the mold. We constructed the mold only to discover that we made it too big so it wouldn’t fit into our buckets of water. But we improvised and made the paper anyway. It came out really thick so it has taken a long time to dry. As of today, I am still not sure if it is dry! On Monday, we helped the girls again. I showed them how to make flowers using tissue paper. This went more smoothly and I think the girls were pleased (see the pics!).

Yesterday I learned how to make tortillas – sort of! My host madre and sister made the dough before they called me into the kitchen. So I think I missed a vital step in the tortilla making process. Anyway they tried to teach me how to make the tortillas by hand, but my hands and fingers just don’t go the way they’re supposed to. So then I just flattened the dough balls out in my hand, but apparently that is not the proper way to make them, plus they come out ugly - This is according to my host family. I thought they looked perfectly fine and they tasted just the same! But because they were so ugly my host mom got out her ‘torteria’ or the tortilla press. That was MUCH easier! I did make sure to tell them that I really want to know how to make the dough, but they just kind of giggled. Maybe I didn’t say it right…

Today we taught an English class……JUST right NOW three horses – two big ones and one baby – walked past our door! Nobody was leading them or riding them, they just moseyed past our front door…..Anyway, we taught an English class today. It went really well…Brian and I had a lot of fun and I think the class did as well. At first it was hard to get them to say the words out loud, but once they realized that we are struggling with Spanish they felt more at ease!

Then this afternoon, Riecken Library came to our site to give a presentation and talk about what the community needs to do in order to get a Riecken Library. Brian and I really hope this works out and we plan on doing a lot of work with the community and Riecken Library to try to get a library for our site. However, we can only do so much because The Riecken Foundation requires that the community form volunteer committees to work during the process of being chosen for a library, the building of the library, and the running of the library. Brian and I can be a support for these committees, but they have to be comprised solely of community members. We don’t count. This is because The Riecken Foundation wants it to be a community project – built by and for the community. This way the project is sustainable and can be run by the community. For more info www.riecken.org. The meeting was very interesting – we learned a lot about The Riecken Foundation and we got to know a lot more people from the community. Some people have formed a committee and we will be going to their meeting on Sunday. Riecken library is coming out for another visit sometime next week.

Since there are no clothes driers – my pants are reallllllly stretched out! It’s awful. And it has been raining quite a bit so Brian and I have a lot of clean, but wet clothes. Also the power has been out ALL day. I hope it comes back on either tonight or before we wake up tomorrow.

UPDATE on October 16, 2007:

Our power was out for over 24 hours, but it did finally come back on. It has been raining quite a bit so sometimes the power goes out, but only for a little while at a time.

We really wanted to go to La Esperanza last week, but because of all the rain there has been no buses running from our town to La Esperanza. The road to La Esperanza is a very windy dirt road – so it is probably better that the buses aren’t running. We do kind of feel trapped here!! It didn’t rain yesterday so I am hoping that it doesn’t rain today or tomorrow. That way the road will dry up a little and we can hopefully get to La Esperanza sometime this week. I really want to go there to go grocery shopping and to use the fast internet. The internet has not been working in our site (but hopefully today it is so I can post this!).

We have pretty much officially taken over teaching English to the EDUCATODOS students. Brian and I both like working with the students so we are very excited to have something to do twice a week! I will probably start teaching the Health classes as well to the seventh graders. We have a lot to learn about the EDUCATODOS program so that will keep us busy for a while! We are hoping to go to a meeting for EDUCATODOS next week, but we have to talk to our project managers at Peace Corps about it because it is in Tegucigalpa.

Brian has been working with the Director of the Environmental Office from the municipality. Brian went with him yesterday to an aldea to check out a latrine project, but after several hours of trying to track down the guy that is running the project they came back to town (they never found the guy!). Brian has several other meetings set up with the guy to visit the aldeas around our site to check out various projects.

Today we don’t have anything to do!! It is pretty boring. Later today we are supposed to help the Riecken Committee get more people to join the committee. However, there was supposed to be a meeting on Sunday, but people never showed up and then another meeting yesterday, but again, no one showed up! It is so frustrating because they seem to really want the library, but they don’t really want to work for it. Apparently there are also some political conflicts – the mayor is of one political party and he has given money to some schools, but not others. The director of the school that he didn’t give money to is of a different political party and the director is also the president of the Riecken committee. So I guess there are some issues with different political parties in the committee and that the president feels like the mayor isn’t helping out with the library. But we talked to the mayor and he seems to really want the library and seems willing to help out by either buying the land for the library or by helping to buy the land for the library. It is all very confusing!

AND I finally learned how to make the dough for tortillas! YAY! And we learned how to make pupusas. There are basically tortillas with cheese inside - very yummy!

Blog: From Jessica

September 29, 2007

I don’t know when I will have a chance to post this, but I am writing it on September 29, 2007 at around 7pm. Thursday September 27, 2007 was our swearing in ceremony for the Peace Corps. It was at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa. There were a lot of Honduran press, three Honduran speakers, Trudy Jaycox (the country director of PC Honduras), the US ambassador Charles Ford, and most of the PC staff in Honduras. The ceremony went really well – Brian gave a GREAT speech – IN SPANISH! Apparently the ceremony was on the news that day – our host padre saw Brian give his speech!

After the short ceremony we had a pretty good lunch and then went to the ambassador’s house to swim in the pool, play tennis, and play volleyball. After we got back to Santa Lucia we all spent some time with our families and then had a party at a comedor – for just us! The day (and night) were very relaxing and a lot of fun, but also filled with some sadness because we all left for our sites on Friday. I am going to try to post some pictures of the swearing in ceremony, the ambassador’s house, our Santa Lucia family, and the party.

Yesterday (Friday), was our last day in Santa Lucia. We left around 9am for La Esperanza – which didn’t give us much time to spend with our family. Our family wrote us a really nice card and gave us Honduras T-shirts! I was about to cry, but I held it in. I am really going to miss them! They are just a wonderful family and I feel so lucky to have been placed with them. We were invited back for Christmas and I hope to make it out to them for the holiday.

There are 6 new PC volunteers moving to the department of Intibucá. All of us are going to be about an hour or two away from each other or 4 hours away from the city of La Esperanza. Currently there are 4 PC volunteers already living in La Esperanza. The 6 of us were planning on staying the night in La Esperanza with some of the other volunteers because we were not going to make it there on time to catch our buses to each of our sites. We were really lucky – on the bus to La Esperanza we ran into one of the volunteers who lives in La Esperanza! 3 of us got off the bus with her to go to her place and the other three were met by another volunteer and stayed with him. We all met up for dinner at a “Mexican” restaurant in town. The power was out so we ate by candlelight! The food was really good – we actually got chips and salsa (they don’t really do tortilla chips here)!

Today we got up and headed into town to go to the bank – most of us don’t have banks in our sites so we have to get our money in the bigger cities – our “big” city is La Esperanza. Spent a few quick minutes at the internet café and then we were off! We got our bus at 10:30 and arrived in Colomoncagua at around 3pm. It takes a little over four hours to get to our site on a pretty rough dirt road. I was not comfortable and do not plan on going to La Esperanza too often – although I do like it there!

We got to our house, unpacked a bit and then went to find some food (since our host family is not cooking for us). We ate at this little café/comedor and had really delicious chicken. Usually when you eat at a comedor here they don’t have menus. You just have to ask them what they have or just sit down and hope you get something good! They usually only make one kind of main meal for lunch/dinner and then sometimes they have a few other miscellaneous things you can order. We walked around town for a little while and now we are back in our room – trying to unpack a little and figure out what to do for the next two years! Wow…

More things that we would like – the list can go on forever:

General School Supplies – for classes that we will teach

Febreeze – it smells here or I smell (please put in a large zip lock baggie – it might explode :))

Day Planner – one for me and one for brian

Wall Calendar – one with pictures of something

Stain Remover Pads/Pens

Lint Roller

Toothbrushes – soft bristle

Mac 3 refill razors – para Brian

Ear Plugs – roosters don’t just roost in the morning

Candy

Tea

Granola bars – chocolate chip, peanut butter

Chili powder

Freeze dried soy meat

Sun flower seeds

Fruit leather – yum the kind from trader joe’s is superb! Thanks Steph!

Trail Mix and Nuts – my fave!

Pasta sauce mixes

Graham Crackers

Macaroni and Cheese – oh my gosh this tastes even better in Honduras! Do as Stef did – please open it and put the contents in a plastic zip bag.

Wasabi Peas from Trader Joes – holy cow, Steph! I am addicted!

Cheeze-its

Yeast packets

Seeds – tomato, green beans, various herbs, etc.

Playing cards and other card games

Hair spray – non aerosol

Candles

Chocolate Chips

Shirts/t-shirts - both Brian and I

PICTURES!! Of YOU!

We decided not to get a PO Box this year because it is expensive (you have to buy a full year, but the year ends in a couple of months – so we will wait). We will probably get one in January. So if you really want to send us stuff  – please send them to the Peace Corps. We are now official Volunteers so you don’t have to write ‘Aspirante’ anymore!

This is complements of Tex. Play around with it if you want to see where we are.

http://www.maplandia.com/honduras/intibuca/colomoncagua/

Hi Everyone,

We received our site announcement yesterday. We will be spending our two years in the municipality of Colomoncagua, in the department (state) of Intibuca. It is really close to the El Salvador border. In matter of fact, our closest city is in El Salvador, and my Project Manager reccommended that we do shopping and stuff there. We are going to visit it on Thursday, so we should have much more information about it then. We leave our training sites this afternoon to go back to Santa Lucia. So after 6 long (sometimes short) weeks, Jess and I will finally be reunited. I am posting some pictures of the last few events here. One set will be of the independence day parades, another will be of the mini camping type trip that we went on, one of our favorite group hangout here in El Paraiso, and for Janice, a bunch of cows. I have seen a lot of them lately. Enjoy.

We miss you all and will follow up next week to give some info about our site.

Brian and Jess

Hi Everyone,We just completed our second to last full week of Field Based Training. We leave next Tuesday for Santa Lucia, and we´ll be reunited full time!! This week was kind of slow for both of us as far as our Tech training was concerned. We had Hurricane Felix come through (kind of) on Tuesday. That cancelled school for two days, Tuesday and Wednesday. Jess´charlas were canceled those two days, and mine was cancelled on Wednesday. My last two days of internet charlas were cancelled because the woman in charge of the computer center left on Thursday to register for classes, and decided not to come in on Friday. It was frustrating because this was something the community memebers wanted, but the lack of communication by some people caused it not to happen. I did get to visit an agriculture school early in the week and saw the biggest pigs I´ve ever seen in my life. I also went to a cigar factory in here town. It was very interesting to see the process for that and how they roll all of them by hand. I´ll post some pictures of those two. Jess wants everyone to know that she is alive, and here in El Paraiso with me this weekend. We went to visit a coffee field yesterday with my host mom, Jordan (the guy from the water park and other tamale trip) and some others. I had never seen a coffee plant until yesterday, so it was interesting. It was up in the mountains, and incredibly beautiful. The people had a corn field as well, so we made tamales again. Jess got some practice making them. This time we were spared having to pick the and shuck the corn, and really didn´t do much work making them. We did use a hand molino to grind them, which was a lot harder than the motor one I used last time. Again, I´ll get some pictures up probably tomorrow. Like I said, this is our last full week in these sites. Saturday the 15th is Honduran indepence day, and there will be lots of celebrations. It should be a fun day. Then on the 17th we get our final site announcements, so we´ll let everyone know when that happens. On the 18th, we head back to Santa Lucia and from there we only have just over a week of training left. These next few weeks should go by fast and be pretty exciting for us! Keep the posts and emails coming. We enjoy hearing from you all!Love,Brian and Jess