Alice and I flew in last night on the first flight that left Honduras since Monday. Any other airline and we'd still be sitting in a hotel in Teg. Thanks Continental airlines for getting me home.

We can be contacted through our parents, or email (drew.gillispie@gmail.com).

I plan on wrapping this blog up in some way, so this isn't the last entry you will ever see, but I wanted everyone to know that were home safely.

Thanks,

Drew

(Some of my III Ciclo comun kids)

About 8 months ago, Drew and I were asked to teach English classes in a nearby pueblo called San Juancito. We had worked at the high school before doing project citizen, and I had always wanted to see if I could teach ESL and saw it as an opportunity to learn, teach the kids about my culture, and have as a major project my last few months. (The teachers that gave me free rides to class, about a 3o minute drive from my town) Drew went to DC for knee surgery and I started the classes. Ok, so I had five classes, my biggest class had 52 kids and my smallest about 18. I had some books to use as guides but made my own curriculum, quizzes, homework assignments and tests. At first it was overwhelming but it kept me busy while Drew was gone. When he came back, he helped me make tests, create a system to record the grades, and even came to a few classes. With each month it got easier, though there was one day I walked out of my class of 52 kids and told them I may not come back. I gave them another shot, they calmed down, they are 12-13 but good kids, think 6th grade in the states….. (a few of my 53 kiddos in I Ciclo comun)

This last two months was hard due to the “coup” or golpe de estado, or change of government or whatever you want to call it. We missed about half the classes. So, I just finished up with three of the five classes, all ciclo comun or middle school grades. I wrapped it up with colors, numbers and clothing, fun yet functional things to know. The second to last week we did a cultural day where they had to present on several cultural themes of Honduras, and I did a presentation for them about Oklahoma (and used some of those great postcards people had sent me for my collection!). It was tons of fun and a learning experience for both me and the students.

Today was the last day of classes. It was also dia de la bandera, flag day, so it started off with some presentations by the teachers and students, including hanging the flag, a poem and a rap about Honduras among others.

(Doing a regeatton rap to celebrate Honduran patriotism)

Afterwards, it was time for the final test. Since I feel kids in this country don’t get enough creativity, I drew people in bright clothes and they had to write on their test papers the clothing type and color. I had also made them do homework over the past few weeks including cutting out things in the primary colors and drawing rainbows, as well as silly numbers games such as bingo to put learning back into a fun environment. After the tests, I got pictures taken with most of the kids, got a cake and a song and several hugs. (Taking the final exam, and afterwards, enjoying my goodbye cake!)

It was an amazing, if not exhausting and learning experience. I learned I can teach and manage several youth at once, they learned a bit more of English, a little about US culture, and hopefully I made a positive impression on them. They sure made one on me. So much so, that I convinced the youth development project to place a new volunteer there when I leave….hope they drive them as crazy as they did me, yet also touch their heart.

My favorite class, who I also did Project Citizen with, II Ciclo Comun

I haven't posted any pictures recently, and since we are wrapping up our Peace Corps service soon, I figured I should get to it. The last two years, we have had an anual "Recycling Fair" in our town that Drew andI participated in putting on. This year my mom got to be there for the event, which included several sculptures made with recyclable materials, the motorcycle being our favorite. Anything that promotes environmental awareness in Honduras is a great thing, since the country is plagued by bad habits including throwing trash out of cars and buses, dirtying water supplies, not using trash cans or having trash service, or burning trash containing hazardous materials. I've seen little old ladies to young kids just throw their trash along the road, without a second thought. These fairs have been fun ways to improve "conocimiento" or awareness, use creativity, and get the community talking about how to better take care of our mountain town. Instead of using disposable plates and cups, community groups sold foods such as tamales that didn't need it, or used real cups to serve homemade juices using local fruits. They had music and traditional dancing, and activities for kids and adults alike. Also, local groups sold products made with recycled and natural materials such as the chip bag woven purses, bags made of leftover materials from t-shirt factories, and baskets using pine needles. It was fun to have my mom there to see the event, and see my community promoting such a good cause.

I helped someone today. It cost me $5. I neither taught a man to fish nor gave him a fish, but rather, I bought him a fishing pole. I suppose the cause was worthy of my $5, but I'm still struck by doing what I did. I don’t give money nor lend it here. It is a bad policy. One 5-year-old gets a nickel and the following day your front yard looks like recess at the kindergarten. Adults are better, but not always. If someone comes by asking for money, it is usually just the town drunk looking for food or more drink. Sometimes people come by asking for money for food, but rarely appreciate a couple bananas and a best of luck. A middle aged man came by on a Sunday, probably 40 years old, but looked 60 with front teeth completely MIA. Thus, he was immediately twice as hard to understand as anyone else in the world who has front teeth. Alice is outside with the dog and shouts for me. She informs me there is a man asking for me. This happens occasionally, but not often. She thinks I worked with him. I’m hoping to walk out and find one of the people from my stove community smiling at me so I could invite him in for a coffee and discuss unimportant matters to pass the day. I don’t recognize the face. This doesn’t mean I don’t know the person. He has the look of a man weathered by 25 years of working in the sun. The skin on his face looks like leather and his eyes droop. He’s wearing a blue checked shirt like a Kansas farmer from the 40’s, and khakis that look ironed, but stained more times than I can immediately count. He starts talking to me like we’ve known each other for years. I assume he must know me since people from the country here won’t even say hi, let alone will they start a conversation. He’s saying something, but I am missing most of it, partially because I can’t figure out why I know him and I am concentrating on that and partially because the man has no teeth and mumbles. Eventually I give up on trying to figure it out and start listening full time; hoping clues in conversation will give something up. It’s not long before I figure out what the man wants. He used to have some steady work and the people he worked for would lend him a machete. He’d work for them most of the time, and when he had a day off, he could use the borrowed machete for work. The people recently moved and he’s out of work and he’s out of a machete. He wants me to give him one. Usually this would have been the end of the conversation, but the community I did stoves with was so nice to me, even though I was doing work for them for free, I still feel like I owe them any help I can offer. I am not going to give money to anyone. If 2 years of my time can’t help, my money can’t either, but he man had me curious and I didn’t want to ask outright why he came to me specifically. I didn’t know what to do. I was in a situation where under certain conditions I would want to help, while under others, I would tell the man I was sorry, but I couldn’t help. Regardless, I had no idea what to do. I had to up the stakes. I tell him I don’t have any money, but he can pass by my office Wednesday morning and I’d try to work something out for him. I had no idea what the something was going to be. He thanks me, tells me a little more about himself, and thanks me again. He is from a village, but not the one I thought. He has no idea who I am, he just stumbled upon me. I don’t know why he chose my house, but he did. Luckily I’m already in a position to put off decision making, so I don’t worry too much. He would likely not pass by my office and I would not have to make any further decisions. I forget about the conversation for the most part. Tuesday night it occurs to me that he may come by, and my plan is to refer him to the microfinance organization in his area, that would lend him enough to buy a machete without much question. The $5 he needs is not a ton of money for them to lend a first time borrower. Of course I wouldn’t be writing this if he didn’t show up. I try to determine a few things before I carry out my plan. I ask him if knows my name, and he does not. I am not surprised. I figured he didn’t. Now I want to determine that he did not come to my house because I am an American. People who beg from me from for that reason annoy me to no end. They see my skin and assume I am rich. In comparison to most people here, I could be rich, but I put those dreams aside to work here for a few years. He passes that test too. He was asking everyone. He actually passed a test I didn’t know I was giving too. He wasn’t begging for money. He had asked every house up the street from me, but as soon as I told him I would try to work something out for him, he stopped asking. It made me feel better about him. I don’t entirely know why. Perhaps it was just because he didn’t take any pleasure from asking for things, and he didn’t ask any more people than he needed to. He just had a need and as soon as it was filled, he was done with that. His answers confirmed a variety of assumptions I had made. He was the sole worker from his family, and he had a wife and kids. He’d worked outside his entire life. School and dental care were far from his reach. I couldn’t get a hold of the people from the microfinance organization and at this point I was starting to realize I didn’t want to. I wanted to help him find work. I don’t know what made me think about it except I was at the office, but a year ago the group I work with planted some trees, and they are responsible for keeping the grass around it trimmed, at least until the trees are established and water competition between the trees and other plants is a non-issue. I ask the person from the office when the last time the grass had been cut. She thinks I am about to complain at her, so she tells me it had been 2 weeks (this means it’s probably been 2 months), but also acknowledges that it needs to be done again. Usually the kids from the high school do it, but with school being so random right now, the kids are hard to locate and usually busy. If we wait for them, it will be another month. So I decided that while I had no hope of providing permanent employment to the man, I did get a chance to see if he was serious about being willing to work for the machete. I propose to him that I will gladly buy him a new machete and sharpening stone (about $5.50) if he would agree to chop the grass around the trees (using a machete to chop grass is a standard job around here, and the $5.50 is about a normal wage, though that depends on if the person is using a using a borrowed machete (about $3 a day) or has thier own (about $5 a day)). I kinda expected the guy to realize I was not going to give him money, and I was going to give him a crappy job to get his machete, and he would going to groan and say he’d rather just have some money and leave. But I was surprised by him again. He didn’t get upset. He got really excited. So, I went and bought him a machete and something to sharpen it with, and the lady from the office told him that our group would pay him another $5 when he was done (she heard his story too, and also felt the guy was pretty genuine). She took him to the trees, and he is there chopping grass now. After reading this over again, the whole story seems like I am a stingy guy working in the wrong field of work, but this is the dilemma of a Peace Corps volunteer. We’re not a funding organization; we don’t have money for projects. We really only offer our knowledge. Every time we consider giving a handout we have to remind ourselves what happens when you give a mouse a cookie. When we do go out of our way to help an individual the whole thing can go one of two ways. We can feel like I did today, like I didn’t do all that much, but rather just put him on the right track, or we can feel taken advantage of. It is a tough call every time. In the long run being ripped off for $5 isn’t awful, but in the short run, it’s my food budget for 2 or 3 meals. I can’t help everyone who needs it, and when I do help someone, the only outcome I want is to feel like it was worth it. In this case the man already knew how to fish, but poverty stole his fishing pole, and I happen to be in a position to replace it. Now he can find work on his own. I wouldn’t be surprised to find him outside my house again, but this time I expect he would offer to cut my lawn for a few bucks. I admit openly it was a hard decision to make, and I may have made a mistake, but I feel pretty good about things anyways. I’m curious… In my position how would you react? What would you have done? In the end, was giving the machete the right thing to do? Or does the whole moral conundrum make no sense to you?

So Drew and I took our final vacation this weekend. We only went away for four days, off to the north coast to enjoy the beach one last time. We have a volunteer friend there, so we had a place to stay right on the beach for free.

We headed out before 5am and got a lucky taxi ride for just a bit more than the bus with a guy heading into the capital to work. We caught a 5:45am bus and thought luck was with us. The trip went smoothly and we made it near the coast and were only about 3 hrs from our destination, after travelling about 4 hrs. Then. the bus stopped. And stayed stopped. People got off, there was a hot dog cart man, people selling bags of water. We were about a kilometer away from a roadblock protesting the new government. (Below is a pick of one of the roadblocks this weekend, I didn't take it but it illustrates it well) It was hot and sticky, and it was only 11:30. We texted peace corps and let them know where we were and waited it out, hoping it wouldn't last too long. After an hr and a half, i convinced drew to go with me to the hot dog cart, I was starving since we hadn't eaten all day. The dog I received was covered with mustard and ketchup, then fresh cut cabbage, more mustard, ketchup, some white sauce, and parmesan cheese. I skipped on the onions in beet juice and vinager. I added some hot sauce for kicks. It actually tasted really good, which was either my hunger or I am adapting to the strange food combinations....

Soon after we heard the roadblock was to be over about 1pm. It also started to sprinkle which helps. Sure enough, about 1:30 we started moving along again, but in a slower paced line all the way to our final destination. We finally made it to our friend's house around 5:30, about the time we had left that morning and we were famished and worn out. We ate some fish and shrimp, had a beer, and slept quite well.

Next day we got to enjoy the beach alone, though the water was a bit choppy. It was still the ocean and we enjoyed the sunshine and balmy weather. Our host made some amazing food and we enjoyed the evening and relaxed.

Our third day, we were joined by a group of other volunteers also wanting to get out of site and enjoy the beach. We were quickly cramped into a single bed between the two of us, but it wasn't too bad. I started to develop a bad throat cold the night before, but found some medicine. We went out to the beach again but this time I guess I didn't do as well on the sunscreen. I got a bit burned on the shoulders and back, and was feeling dehydrated. We headed back and all cooked up burgers, I made pasta salad, there was gauc and chips and hummus and it felt like hanging out in the states. After dinner though my stomach decided it was revolting against me, my shoulders burned, and my throat had caused me to lose my voice. I was quickly becoming aware that my body was falling apart on me. OH, I forget to mention I was also battling a month-long foot fungal infection (I finally got an appt for that with a specialist after the creams I had gotten from the PC doc's just weren't working). Anyway, I was a bit surprised it was possible to have four different things wrong with you at once, none so serious that you would feel that bad, but all together is overwhelming. I said goodnight to the party and went to bed early.

Our day headed back we got a bit of luck again. The beach loooked beautiful as we headed out, and then when we got to the highway the first bus that passed we could take was a bus directly to Tegus, and it was a relatively new and nice bus at that. We sat back and cruised into Tegus late afternoon. Again hungry, but feeling proud of the good time we made on the road, we treated ourselves to Chili's that's by our bus station home before heading back to site. It was DElicious. I actually was able to finish all my food (my idea of normal food size portions has thankfully shrunk to reasonable in this country, but sometimes American sized is just right). I got home , found my puppy alive and happy to see us, and was in bed by 8:30.

Whew. So, that's been life for us. I tried to work today, but classes were cancelled again, for some unknown I am sure not necessary reason. I have only had class with that school once since the whole political "situation", and they have only been in session a collected wk and a half since that, so I have about given up on them. The other two schools I work with have faired much better and hopefully I will be able to finish my projects with them before we leave. September 25th, it's almost here!!!

There is a bit of a crisis going on in the country right now and I still can't really talk about it. Fortunately, I can still explain my work and the like.

Actually, that won’t take much time at all. The crisis hit and I’ve been on staycation. Since the capital is the epicenter of the current goings on (or was until recently) I’ve not really been able to travel anywhere. We have one backdoor route we can take to visit a friend, but what would be an hour drive turns into between 3 and 5 hours depending on how often the bus stops, which is a lot. For July 4th Alice and I ignored this slight inconvenience and made the trip to a barbeque another volunteer had. It was a little weird having a barbeque and not having to cook all the food as I have become quite accustomed to doing, but it was also kinda nice.

Anyways, back to staycation. Alice and I work mostly in schools, and this month school has had 3 official days of class, which sucks for both us and our students. This means any work we had obligated ourselves to is at a standstill, and if we take on new work we risk not being able to finish the new work or the old work. We’re taking advantage of our free time by doing things like making tasty soup, reading, and watching seasons of the office a friend lent to us. Sometimes we go for walks just to go for walks. I like to think this is like a short preview of what retirement is like, except I still have the vision and clarity of mind to really enjoy it.

The good news is that things are getting closer to normal. The three official days were Monday to Wednesday of this week, and some schools went ahead and had class yesterday too, though not all teachers or students showed up.

The best news I have is that my interns showed up. One of the local high schools has a focus on tourism, and since I really wanted to develop a website for my town that would be sustainable, I had classes with 2 students and then as their required internship they are making a webpage. They are getting pretty good at it. Their biggest barrier is the language, since HTML and CSS both rely on an English vocabulary, but they are starting to recognize important words faster and be able to change the properties. So far we have a main page, an example for a restaurant and they are working on an artisan shop. They like to use colors I don’t love, but it will be very eye catching, which is good. Overall, the point is that they understand web design and we get some more publicity for my town, which could really use a few extra tourists right now.

So that’s all I really have to say. I figure I should try to spice this whole thing up with some pictures, but I don’t really have many great new pictures. I am going to search my hard drive now for something interesting.

Okay, I can't get the pictures to upload.... Sorry. Sadly this will be just another boring pictureless blog.

We are doing well here in Honduras, and since we are bored and in limbo as we wait to see what will happen over the next few days, I figured I'd post some pictures from our recent activities.

In May we were lucky to have Drew's parents come visit. We took them to Roatan Bay Island, Copan Ruins and our site in a ten-day whirlwind adventure.Here John and I are sailing in a bit of rain after snorkeling on one of the best reef locations in the world.

My favorite activity was while we were in Copan Ruins. We went to a bird park where they rescue tropical birds. The small fee to enter the park helps maintain the park, and they had birds in almost every color. They also have a coffee farm near the park and you can buy fresh beans and enjoy a hot cup of java after the tour. They also let you hold some of the birds and see them up close, and they are quite friendly. One liked me so much it nibbled at my shirt and then poo'd on my shoulder, all while cooing in my ear. My shirt was orange, I guess I looked like tasty fruit. I couldn't get the pictures to move to correspond with the text, but I know you all can figure it all out. We are currently under a national curfew and not allowed to leave our sites except for emergencies, but we are safe and doing well. Our town is very quiet, schools are out, so we are mostly bored and working on job applications. We've been cooking a lot and trying to hang out with our friends here ,just in case. We are avoiding large crowds, keeping our opinions to ourselves, and hoping that in the next days things get better and life goes back to normal, whatever normal may be! Keep us in your thoughts, and I will try to post some more pretty pictures over the next few days.

Commenting publically on the current situation is something I reasonablely cannot do, but I assure you all Peace Corps is taking good care to assure the safety of all volunteers, and none of us have experienced any danger. We are calmly passing the time in our sites until the situation is resolved. I just wish school wasn't cancelled, since that is interupting my work. These things happen though. Thank you all for your concern.

Drew and Alice

A picture update since we haven't written in awhile.........

We didn't go anywhere this year for Easter week, but we did get to enjoy some time in the pool with some Honduran friends. The weather was great all week, and we enjoyed just having time off as the country shut down for 5 days.

On Good Friday, I got to see the processions and even sat in the service on Sunday, though it was very crowded and hard to hear. I did get holy water splashed on me , and it was fun to see the cultural traditions that surround this week.

Drew had fun entertaining the neighborhood kids and the dogs, I came home to find a house full of balls, bats, fake swords and more , and a very exhausted bassett and Drew.

These were the processions on Palm Sunday and were very festive.

Blogging is far easier in the United States. Okay, not blogging so much as posting blogs. Life here is pretty good and my mood is finally coming back to normal. Being in the States for so long and then coming back was just long enough to hit the cusp of re-entry style culture shock, and then return and get a pretty big hit when I was readjusting to life here. Though for the record, culture shock isn't really a great word. I wasn't really shocked by the United States and nothing in Honduras can really shock me any more. I hope. I think it's more of culture fatigue. I find myself more prone to use the words "good god, not this again" as opposed to "oh my god what was that". You all see the difference, right? 

Easter week, or as Alice calls it, spring break, was last week, and I did as little as possible. School is out and the entire country is on vacation or doesn't leave thier house, so I followed suit and enjoyed a bit of down time with my dog. I didn't work, but I didn't go anywhere either.

Work since I have been back has been half busy. School is back in session which means we're teaching english at 2 schools, and starting in May or so we'll be doing civic ed in 3. We're also going to do some leadership classes and hopefully some "don't do drugs" talks.  

Stoves are on hold, partially becuase I can no longer walk 5 hours a day as was required, but also becuase the materials I waited for 3 months for are still not around. I doubt I will really do much more with this, since I can no longer be a daily part of the project and becuase my counter-parts decided they needed masons to build them, which is stupid and wrong.

Instead of stoves I am teaching web design class to 2 kids who will eventually do a website for my city. My brother told me my cute little mountain town is the 6th largest tourism draw to Honduras. Kinda makes me feel like we need a website, and instead of just talking about it, I actually have kids working on. They are seniors in high school and they are glad to be working with me. We'll see how it goes.

A good friend of mine has a gallery at the nation identity museum. The gallery is based on one series he did, called an Angel with AIDS. I have only seen the guide since the stupid museum was closed on Monday, but I assure you all, I will love it.

To close, I offer the following question: Has the entire US gone insane? I get a very small slice of news here. Pretty much I get yahoo! news and fark.com. If one of those 2 outlets doesn't cover it, I am prone to miss a story. But between myspace, yahoo, facebook, and this blog it seems you've all forgotten that tea bagging is a very dangerous and risky undertaking. (The blog was the only one to even hint at knowing the true dangers of unprotected tea baggery). A friend of my brothers actually broke a water bed trying to tea bag a sleeping friend. I assure you, the secret service will shortly begin looking into all threats to "tea bag" the president. I also heard there were women tea baggers. How is this even possible? I mean, I am all for womens rights, but anatomy is anatomy. 

This update was brought to you by the letter B. Because by myself boredom brings blogs.

Well, I'm back. I got in just before noon and the overly concerned medical staff had a driver waiting. Alice practically broke down the barrier to hug me. It was all very nice. I greatly appreciate all of the support offered during my time in the states, but i am back where I belong for the time.

I am sitting on the couch I've resided on for nearly a month, waiting for Alice to call, and I thought I should mention to the world my fate seems secure. I should be back in Honduras within a couple weeks. No one has made any promises, but my speedy recovery means I could be back as early as a week from Saturday. As with any medical situation there are conditions and concerns, but the good news is I will be back in Honduras in no time. 

On another note, Thanks to Stephanie for being my first follower. I follow 13 different blogs, and hers was previously left off the list and she was the only one who took the time to "follow my blog". All you lazy folk should do the same. The more people who follow the blog, the less likely I am to ignore it for long periods of time assuming that no one is reading it.

Well, my sister in law is in the shower, and my nephew's butt just made a terrible noise, so I think Uncle Drew has some nasty work to do.  I hope your day is filled with less stink than mine.

E. Hippie

As you guys know, Drew is in the states recovering from ACL reconstruction surgery. Unfortunately, Peace Corps doesn't pay for spouses to be with their husband or wife unless it is an emergency situation. However I am very greatful for the great medical service they are giving Drew throughout this process. So, what have I been up to these first two weeks he has been gone? I was lucky enough to have my dad come visit!

He came to keep me company for a few days so I didn't have to be alone the whole time Drew is gone. We started off the trip by going to the Harley Davidson shop in the capital, Tegucigalpa. We bought 24 shirts for his harley riders group, from sizes medium to 2xL. Sorry Dad, they don't have 3x or 4x here, people just aren't that big in Honduras! It was fun to pick out all the shirts, and the owner gave us two free as well. Dad presented him with a HOG flag from his Tulsa group and he promised to put it on display. After that, I introduced him to my eccentric group of Honduran friends and we had a couple of Honduran brews and a typical bean and cheese snack. The next day, the people I work with took us out to eat pupusas, kinda like cheese filled cornmeal pancakes. In the morning I took him to the small poor puebo where I teach my young ladies an alternative ed version of primary, and he got to see some of the work I do.

That evening we ate "plato tipico" and relaxed. Next, I took him to the beautiful Lago Yojoa where we enjoyed the beautiful lake scenery and saw numerous types of birds. We sat on the large patio overlooking the lake and enjoyed food and drinks. Our second day there, we headed off on an adventure. We took the local old school bus to the closest town, where we switched to a nicer, more modern bus to the exit for a nearby waterfall. We took about a 15 minute walk to the village where the waterfall is located. The waterfall itself is quite impressive and we were able to see it from above and below. They have a zipline over the waterfall ,but at about 50 meters down, there was no convincing Dad or I to do it. Plus, you can walk under the waterfall, literally thru the water ,but after seeing how big and strong it was we opted not on that as well. In the states, they'd never let you do either, so at least Honduras offers a bit more adventure for the strong hearted. We headed back via walking and bus to the local town and caught a "tuk tuk" or what we call mototaxis, small 4stroke engine carts that will take you around locally, and headed to another village where they have a brewery owned by an Oregonean ex-pat. The food and brew was fresh and delicious, dad tried the porter and I went with mango. We were able to get a ride afterwards all the way to the hotel with a few other ex-pats that were dining there as well. The next day we headed back to my site in the mountains and relaxed from our trip. The final day we got up early, made coffee and eggs, and took one last walk around my town before heading off to the airport. It was such a wonderful gift to have him here, have the company, but also show my Dad how I live and work. He was impressed with my pila, aka washing machine, and how in a lot of ways, Honduras isn't too much different than when he was in Central America 20 years ago. But some things have changed too for the better, and the people were just as friendly and welcoming as he remembered them being in the past. He was a great sport, took all types of wonderful Honduran transportation, dealt with the lack of water in the house most of the time, and the slight smell of mold in my house from the continuiosly damp environment. And, most importantly we had a great time.

Now, it's back to work and try to keep busy and sane until Drew comes home. Will keep you all updated on how life goes!

Well, all updates as promised.

I had ACL reconstruction Tuesday and all went well. The surgeon was great, though giving anyone directions while on pain meds is a mistake. I already messed up once and changed the dressing, when I should have just layered more band aids on top. I've had a few instances of pain, but for the most part I'm not doing to bad. Feel free to send well wishes, I'm feeling a bit like a bum, since I am pretty much a resident of my brother's couch.

All shall be well, and I don't question I'll be able to make it back to Honduras within my time limit.

Drew

I'm not sure anyone reads this who isn't in my imediate contact loop, and judging from the overwhelming response to my previous 4 posts, I'm guessing no one wanted to read 20 pages of babble. I'll keep it short.

Stoves were still on hold last I checked, but knee surgery is on. I'm in DC for an unspecified time, following Surgery on Tuesday. I'm expeted to do some long hard PT and get back to Honduras just in time (after 45 days of being medically evacuated, Peace Corps is forced to seperate a volunteer).

I'm planning on doing some web design while I'm here, but I seem to be missing all my design files, but I'm going to try anyhow using what I have.

I'll update regularly since I am in the world of technology. Anyone in the Capital should contact me and buy me coffee. I like coffee and it is always nice to see friendly faces.

E. Hippie

To be honest there is not too much to put here, especially since if you read the other 3 updates you’ve already read 17 pages worth of my ramblings, but like I said in the beginning, I want these stories to be preserved. On a side note, that is such a great feeling. I never wanted to write about what I was doing when I worked at the pet store or the video store. Now, I want to have the memories in tact as much as possible. It is so nice to really truly enjoy what you are doing.

Alice asked me to include day of the mages. Day of the mages is considered to be the last day of the Christmas season here and falls on January 6th. It commemorates the day Jesus was given the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. We had planned on passing new years day with our host family from training, but unfortunately our host dad had to work that day and our plans got moved to the 6th of January, or day or the mages.

Our host family celebrates the holiday every year as the proper day of gift giving, but we didn’t know as such yet. We thought we were invited over for a quiet evening to chat and catch up. We showed up fairly early, since we were cooking. We had told them we would teach them how to cook a turkey (since very few people here have ever had a roasted turkey it almost always goes over well, even if you ruin it). To be nice we also brought stuff to make a salad and mashed potatoes for what we thought was going to be 6 people.

When we got there the first thing we noticed was that the house had an addition. We had stopped by when they started added a second level to the house, but over the last 6 months they had managed to completely finish it. Our host parents moved upstairs and one of our brothers took their old room instead of being in the unattached bedroom outside. The new upstairs had a den for their computer and a deck with a hammock. I laid in the hammock with the most incredible view for two hours until the sun started to set and started hurting my eyes.

Alice had been busy preparing the turkey and informed me the tiny 8 pound turkey was meant to feed 18 people that night. Our salad and potatoes weren’t going to make it either, but our host Mom added some lettuce to the salad and had a few extra potatoes, so in the end we had just enough for everybody to have a small plate and most people really enjoyed all the food. Gravy was hard to make since the drippings contained almost no grease at all. I think our little 8 pound-er was a marathon runner, but no one noticed it wasn’t quite right, since none of them had ever eaten turkey with gravy before.

Before dinner we all crowded in the kitchen for the blessing, and while I always thought the kitchen was small, it only seemed to get smaller as more people crammed in. They wanted the picture to commemorate the event to have the food in it, so they had to pass the camera around the room and take 4 pictures in order to make sure everyone was in at least on of the pictures.

After dinner everyone who got to the house after we did wanted to see the finished addition, so everyone went upstairs. My host brother turned on some music and they had quite the dance party. Everyone made sure the little kids were dancing and then the feeling was contagious. I had to hide downstairs to avoid getting the fever.

The night was a great experience and we met all of our host family’s extended family. They were all nice and accepting and everyone thanked us for cooking repeatedly. At moments like that we feel like we have family here and it makes spending so much time away from out real families far easier.

My Mom and Dad took us on a cruise in January. This sounds like a really good way to go through culture shock, but in the end I never really had a hard time. It was interesting to learn the people who work on the ship actually make more money than I do. It was funny when I ran in to a Honduran from La Cieba. It was strange when my brother took me to the casino and I won what I make in a month. Overall, I think I miss my family more than I really care about culture, since as long as I was around them I never got uncomfortable. Also, the rock boat is awesome. Seeing that much live music made up for the fact I’ve not see anything better than street mariachis in a long time.

I don’t know what is going to happen yet, but my knee is not in good condition. It was diagnosed as having a partial rupture of the ACL and a partial rupture of the meniscus. It sounds like I need surgery, and I may spend some time in the states for that. Peace Corps will allow me to be in the US for up to 45 days for the operation and recovery, but after that I have to go back to country or go back to Tulsa. Most people my age take about 3 or 4 weeks for a decent recovery and then I just can’t play sports for 9 months. I am hoping it all turns out well, but we’ll keep everyone updated. Nothing is for sure yet though; I may just get a new brace that gives me better support and get the surgery in September.

Work is slow currently, since I cleared my schedule to build stoves and now my materials are delayed. I may get the materials the exact same time I go for surgery, so in that case Alice will have to help organize. Poor Alice gets dumped with my work since I am hurt. Wish I could help her out, but there really isn’t much I can do about any of it.

That concludes our little game of catch-up. Including this last one and without pictures, you poor folk have now been subjected to nearly 19 pages of me talking. Now let’s hear from you. Let me know what is going on in your life or at least leave a comment with your thoughts. I assure you will all hear an update about my knee and work as soon as I have one.

Please, continue reading. This subject is almost certainly more interesting than you think. Or not. On second thought, do whatever you want.

A while back my host mom wrote a proposal to build improved stoves in 5 communities vital to water production in our area. Since maintaining the number of trees and reforesting already depleted areas is vital to the continued production of water the point of the project was to reduce the primary reason for cutting trees: firewood. In a community of 50 houses, 45 depend entirely on firewood. Only three don’t use firewood at all, and when the power goes out (and it does, sometimes for long spans of time), they have to depend on neighbors for food.

When she was writing the proposal, she had no idea how to execute the construction and I’d heard of many Peace Corps volunteers leading projects like this and I figured this was a good time to pitch in. If I didn’t lead the project, it easily could have fallen through the cracks. This happens a surprisingly often. A project gets approved, then it never gets done and the money gets returned to the funding organization. I liked the idea of immediately reducing deforestation, improving community health, and reducing pollution.

The benefits of stoves can be exaggerated pretty easily. The materials I have claim 15 benefits, some of which are “it gets really hot”. When condensed into two concepts, however, the benefits couldn’t be any clearer. First, traditional stoves are basically a sheet of metal balanced on a few bricks or cinder blocks and then three walls are built with adobe, and for some reason it is then painted white. I don’t know why yet, but every single traditional wood burning stove is painted white. This is a highly inefficient design. There is no insulation or anything in the design focusing the energy toward the cooking surface. With the addition of a simple firebox people can leave their stove lit all day (to cook beans) and still save 50-60% of their firewood. If they don’t leave it lit all day the savings increase. This immediately saves trees from being cut down, and saves people time or money depending on if they buy or cut firewood. It also reduces the amount of wood each house is burning and the pollution cause by that burning. Second, the traditional stoves almost never have a properly functioning chimney. Some don’t have chimneys at all and the smoke pours back out of the mouth of the chimney. Some have chimneys, but people normally can’t afford enough metal tubing to reach the roof, so they put a hole through their adobe wall and install the chimney at a 30 degree angle. Since the tubing is usually not tubing at all, but rather a rolled up piece of sheet metal, the smoke usually escapes through the crack in mass quantity. The effectiveness of these make-shift chimneys can usually be measured in 2 ways. First, do I hack and cough immediately after entering their house, and second, is their ceiling black and is their an inch of soot on the ceiling? In houses without a chimney I always hack and cough. In houses with angled chimneys it is usually foggy, but I can breathe okay, but the ceiling is always black as night and coated in a layer of soot. Obviously, the smoke is having some lasting effects on the health of pretty much everyone. This is made more obvious since after I spend a day constructing I usually have black boogers for a day or two.

Construction is easy and fun. To build one stove takes between 3 and 8 hours, depending on a variety of circumstances. We start by building a smoke chamber out of bricks and cement blocks, attaching everything using freshly mixed mud. Then we build the outside walls, add in the firebox, and build the mouth of the stove. Next we cut a hole in the roof and put the chimney in. Then we put the cooking surface on and cover the whole thing in concrete to seal it.

I say we since everyone builds stoves with a partner. One person prepares the surface while the other mixes mud. One cuts the hole in the roof while one pushes the chimney through. One cuts bricks to the right size while the other installs them. One does something while the other plays with the local kids. If there are three people, one member can distract the kids most of the day. My partner has always been Don Julio. Don is a term of respect added in Latin America to anyone who you feel deserves respect, which is basically every adult without another title. I am sometimes Don Andres, and sometimes just Andres and sometimes Licensiado Andres, which is the title for someone with a college education. Also used are professor, doctor, engineer, and probably some others. Respect is important. Don Julio always takes the lead between us, but this is because he is a detail person and a micromanager. We work together better when he is in the lead. When I am leading, he tends to stare at everything I do curiously, then he will take the brick I am about to place and turns it around, despite the fact there is no discernable difference between the sides. So, I let him lead. It makes him happier and more relaxed. It also leaves me free to play with the little kids, so really, win-win.

All too often when people see poverty in Latin America, it is from the highway on the way to the beach, and all the houses look the same. They all have the same cheap adobe construction, the same cheap metal roofs. All seem to have the same old clothes on identical clothes lines. Even with that description most people already have the picture in their head. While occasionally I see similarities amongst the house I work in, I find that such a generalization misses so many great things about not only the people, but also the vast differences amongst the houses.

Most houses are pretty simple, concrete covering adobe, or just adobe. The roofs are almost always metal laminate. Paint is usually bright, since if someone can afford it they want it to change the feel of the house. A large quantity will have 2 or 3 rooms. 1 room is always the kitchen. The second room is the living room. When there are only 2 rooms, people sleep in the living room. When there are three, they usually have a bedroom. Tile floors are rare and a major symbol of wealth in a village. Most are dirt or concrete floors. Everyone decorates their house and they will do it with anything they have. I see a large quantity of dirty stuffed animals Americans would toss aside, but have been kept and treasured for the memories they bring. In the states, a product that comes with a sticker is usually ignored, or the sticker is given to a child. This is not true in these small villages. Much of the time, a sticker can be in English and it will still have a place of honor on the wall, since it brings color to an otherwise drab house. Calendars are quality decoration and will be up for years after the usefulness expires. The decorations in the houses eventually start to feel like a complete life story. Everything is there: the only family photo ever taken, next to the stuffed animal given during courting, and even the sticker that came with the baby’s first can of powdered milk. Nothing is left out for being tacky or dirty. Professional decorators don’t come and sanitize everything and limit certain colors. While this is a very romantic notion, I will admit, it is usually not very pretty, but every house feels lived in. Every house feels like the people inside are making the best of what they have.

If the houses are interesting, the people are incredible. I love walking to the community in the morning before all the men have gone of to “chopear” (to chop, meaning to clear land for agriculture). Almost everyone knows my name and is happy to great me as I walk up. If I get the timing perfectly I can be invited to coffee at 3 different houses before I finally make it to Don Julio’s house. I always ask how everyone is doing and how their family is. They always ask me how the stoves are coming, where I am building that day and joke that I am becoming a craftsman. Sometimes people will ask me about other things, like the micro-finance organization or what Alice is doing. I have never been met with hostility and no one has ever asked me for money. It is like living in another world. I finally get to Don Julio’s place an hour and a half after I left my house, unless I talked to more people than normal, then sometimes it can be longer. I try to get to his house at 8. Then he tells me where we are headed to and we start walking, sometimes another half hour. When we get to where we are constructing the people are always very receptive and excited. They know how much this will help them.

I suppose I can’t really generalize any other parts of each family they are all different. Sometimes I get to houses and can’t really tell where one generation ends and the next one starts. Family planning could be much better executed in the country-side of Honduras. Don Julio makes about $6 a day, but supports himself, his wife, 4 of his own kids and one of his uncle’s children. I went to one house where there were 14 people living in the house and it seemed like they had 3 kids under ten, 3 kids under 20, 4 people under 30, and 4 around 40. I couldn’t tell where one generation started or another stopped, and I wondered how it affects a kid to sleep in a room with 5 other people crammed in.

Sometimes when I am working I see evidence the people had previously been very successful. I went in one house that has a fridge, microwave, and a stove/oven combo. I was confused why they needed the wood burning stove, so I asked Don Julio. He told me there was no electricity there. Now, even more confused I asked why they would buy so many appliances if they were effectively only enormous paper weights. That’s when he taught me how truly ineffective government can be. They had electricity, but not since 1998. Hurricane Mitch destroyed the lines and after the main parts of the city got electricity, the NGOs and foreign governments stopped caring. The Hurricane also took out a couple major coffee farms which were major sources of employment. The coffee farms have mostly been replanted, but no one gets paid as much as they used to, and the appliances will continue to sit until the power company that is run by the government decides to rebuild the lines. Problem is that particular line really affects only 8 houses, but the line will cost a couple thousand dollars. It will be a long time before anyone cares, especially since similar projects can bring electricity to more people cheaper. Until then, the family will continue to hold onto the appliances, hoping that they will eventually get to use them again. They don’t even seem to notice that the appliances are there except when they are cleaning. Despite their uselessness, there was not a spot of dust on any of it. When they cooked my lunch they just use the stove outside. Thanks to my project they at least get to cook inside again.

I had a pretty unique experience when I had another gringo in the mountains helping me. He was sent to me by one of my bosses and was working on community service for his frat in the states. Charles was 19, and was happy to do something unique for his community service. The first day we went into the mountains I made him walk just like I do, and he agrees. It is a long walk.

The first day we just taught him the process and he was amazed by the stoves we were replacing. He had lived in Africa and where he lived people cooked on open fires all the time, but would build the open fires outside. He was surprised how much smoke people would just inhale. He was also impressed that the design for the stove came from a local.

The second day he had his Mom give us a ride up the mountain and it still took 45 minutes. The roads aren’t really made for vehicles to go more than 15 miles per hour. When we got to the house the second day the kids were especially active and playful, so after we got the initial 2 hours of work done he was put in charge or distracting them while Julio and I finished everything up.

His job expanded when a neighbor came by and started asking him hundreds of questions about everything. About an hour into his job as entertainer the kids decided they wanted to learn English, so they got him a pad of paper and a pen and had him start writing words for them to practice. Another 20 minutes later we noticed the neighbor gentleman had gotten hold of the notebook and was writing something with a very serious look. After we notice, one of the kids starts reading it to us, but the guy gets embarrassed and covers the page after we hear “dear friend”. The note, in the end, was something I’m still not sure how to react to. Writing here is not something taken lightly. Kids don’t write each other notes (instead they usually just talk during class) because notes can be taken very seriously. Finally he presents Charles his note that basically explains he is sincere about wanting to be Charles’ friend and the gentleman would appreciate not being forgotten and wants Charles to visit his ranch as soon as possible.

As the day went on the gentleman continued talking to Charles and eventually his real intentions started to show. He wanted to go to the US, and he wanted Charles to give him a job (despite the fact Charles himself was happily unemployed for his years at university). Now having someone ask a North American to take them to the US is pretty normal. I get it weekly from a restaurant owner (who is an awesome guy) who wants to visit his kids, but doesn’t have the visa or the money. He is always joking, but if I took him seriously, he would never decline the offer. I am certain to always keep the conversation joking, since I really like the guy, and I don’t want him to be disappointed when I don’t take him to the states (because I am not going to).

The situation with Charles showed different signals than the usual situation. I can usually blow off any similar request and make it joking, and Charles was trying hard to get back to that sort of feeling, but the guy was earnest and seemed increasingly desperate as time went on. Charles displayed good humor, but he was glad to leave an hour later when the stove was finished. The whole situation was really weird. I’ve never had such a situation happen to me, but I also do a better job blending. I never wear shorts and when I am constructing stoves, I wear my work pants which are covered in mud and a white t-shirt. Charles was wearing a decent shirt and shorts. His accent is also much more obvious (mine is still pretty obvious, but I have a year of practice).

In the end though it is hard to say why he was put in the tough situation while I have always avoided it. Perhaps because Charles was merely on vacation and I am a resident of Honduras. Perhaps my community integration pays off in ways I didn’t expect. Or perhaps he was just playing openly with kids and the guy thought Charles would be easier to convince. The guy made Charles write him a note back, and then the guy asked me to do it. I refused while Charles didn’t. I said I can’t write in Spanish, which in that area of the world is normal for adults. Charles did it thinking it would get the guy off his back a little. Coming from the most privileged nation is something all Americans should all celebrate and never forget. During high school I was a bit of a critic of all things American, but only after having done something like this do I realize that despite all of the flaws, America has obviously done a great deal correctly. Since the whole situation was odd, I think the real reason Charles got asked is because he comes off more like a gringo than me. Regardless, it was the first real reminder I had in a long time that I am still an outsider. I definitely sympathized more with Charles than the neighbor, and I felt bad that he was being harassed about a job on his vacation and I couldn’t really stop it.

We are nearly done with the first community at 39/50, but a long way away from the 250 to complete the project. I am still short a lot of material to start the next community, but I’ll be happy to do it when I get them. In the next community I’ll have a new work partner, and maybe I’ll get to build the walls instead of mix dirt and water, but either way I don’t care. A friend of mine is inviting me to participate in a brigade to build latrines in a couple months and I can’t wait. Latrines are awesome too, but for more obvious reasons.

The day following our horseback riding and canopy adventure our plan was to head off to the beach. The hotel gave us a ride back to Liberia and they told us to wait at the corner for a bus. Fortunately we looked around and saw a sign that said bus stop, since Costa Rica actually seems to have assigned stops. In Honduras any where you can flag down the bus is a bus stop and any where you want to get off is okay. This is great since we can walk a block down our hill and wait at the corner near the mini-market and wave down the bus and then once we get to the capital we just ask to get off in front of our office. It delays the bus sometimes and prevents any sort of schedule on a great number of routes, but when we need the luxury to get off when we want and not be forced to take a taxi it is quite nice. Costa Rica is not like that. They have schedules, bus stops, and the driver takes your money as you get on. In some ways it makes more sense, but for all the people who have to get off at the stop in their town and then walk 8 blocks back to their house despite the fact the bus passes their street, that sucks.

While waiting at our luxury covered bus stop I noticed a guy with a bicycle with a cooler strapped to it. In Honduras this usually means the person is selling something, generally ice cream and I didn’t notice what he was yelling, so I assumed it was nothing I really wanted. A few minutes later we found another advantage to the Honduran bus system when the first bus passed. Costa Ricans don’t paint the destination of every bus on the front and instead display signs to inform people where the bus is going. This would seem to make little difference, but it seems the drivers don’t like to change them so most of the buses that passed said Liberia (the name of the town we were in) despite the fact they were obviously leaving Liberia. This means the idiot tourists have to shout at every driver to find out where they are going. Honduras wins point that for sure. Every bus has the 2 cities the bus runs between in the largest possible letters without blocking the drivers view. No shouting. After 2 buses passes the man with the cooler got harassed by some kids and opened his cooler to sell them: Coconuts. He had a machete and hacked off just enough of the top you could shove a straw through the white fruit and sip the cool milk out. Then when the milk is finished, you could give it back to him and he’d slice it in half and cut out the fruit. It was awesome, so I bought one. I don’t think most adults enjoy this as much as I did, since he gave me a funny look, but I really didn’t care.

Finally, we shouted at a driver and he shouted back “Playa Tamarindo” which is exactly where we going, so we got on. We were the only ones with luggage. For most of the journey we were one of few tourists on the bus, which is strange since the bus system there is clean, efficient and comfortable. The bus looked like a normal city bus from the states, not a used school bus. There were a few gringos on and off, which I’ve never seen outside of a luxury bus in Honduras, but not as many as I would expect.

The ride was nearly 2 hours, but Alice and Carmen saw a monkey through the window. I wasn’t sitting with them since the only other open seat was in the back of the bus, so later it inspired the following conversation:

Carmen: We saw a monkey

Alice: Yeah, it was cool

Drew: Really? That’s awesome. I’ve never seen wildlife from a bus in Honduras.

Carmen: That’s because the wildlife there isn’t as well protected.

Drew: They have a pretty decent national park system in Honduras, no worse than Costa Rica’s.

Carmen: That’s true, but how many buses go through national parks?

Drew: I guess none, but there should be some animals.

Carmen: You’re forgetting Honduran eating habits. Hondurans talk a lot about what wildlife there used to be in an area, and usually follow that up with, “but it was so delicious”.

Drew: I don’t know.

At first I thought Carmen was making things up, but since then I’ve confirmed with other Peace Corps volunteers that Hondurans will often tell them what animals used to be in the area, and in what manner they were eaten, though most only talk about the black iguana. So really I doubt Honduras was ever a paradise for monkeys and like animals, but Honduras really do love to eat what ever small critter they can find. One girl in our group went from omnivore to herbivore the day she saw her host family kill an armadillo in the water tank where she had previously gotten water to brush her teeth. After that she used bottled water and will refuse any meat offered to her.

Finding our hotel was harder than planned. The map was a few years old and only half the businesses still existed, so we were slightly off on our estimate on when to get off and we had to stay on the bus until it turned around and pay another dime per person to get back into the center of town. When we got off it still took us a minute to find it, but this should have been more obvious from the name of the hotel: Harry’s Escondite or in English: Hidden Harry’s. Harry’s place is hard to describe as is Harry himself. Harry is a balding man who still wears his hair long like a proper surfer, was born in Indonesia, but was a citizen of North America, and is now applying to be a Costa Rican resident. He obviously arrived on the beach long before most, since he still remembers the day of supermarket price gouging and when most food was local. He has four or five cabins and he always occupies one, though it rotates depending on customers’ requests. When we visited he also had 2 cabins rented out on a monthly basis. One to a Canadian fisherman who works 4 months a year (the fishing season) and the other 8 months seems to travel around. The other was rented to a British competitive sailor turned photographer and general entrepreneur. While we were there the British gentleman was voted to be the executive producer of a short film they planned on taking to film festivals. This is the kind of people he seems to attract all the time, so the place never seems like it would get dull. Our cabin had a queen bed and a sort of sofa bed. It was hard to describe since it didn’t look terribly comfortable for either purpose, but it was Carmen’s bed and she seemed to think it was perfectly comfortable and there were plenty of other places to sit, so I never really used it to be a better judge. It came fully equipped with a TV, DVD player, a small collection of DVDs, a stereo, gas stove, oven, dishes, basic condiments and a full sized fridge with a freezer. The water in Costa Rica is potable and the place had a two knob shower (see next paragraph for a rambling explanation of that phrase). He also had a washing machine and dryer we could use for free (we washed everything we brought and contemplated washing them again, just cause we could). Outside there was a gas grill we could use and a pool. Our Christmas was beginning to feel a lot more like a Fourth of July barbeque, but we were okay with that. Finally, Harry keeps a collection of surf boards and a couple of bikes guests can to use for free. While it is obvious he doesn’t maintain the grounds like a 5 start hotel, and he could care less about changing your sheets, the place feels like staying at a friend’s house in Costa Rica. The place is worth every penny as long as you take advantage of all the features, and we did.

There are three types of shower in Latin America (excluding bucket baths, which are also quite common), though you may not know it. The first is a cold water shower and has only one knob in the bathroom. A room with this sort of shower should never cost more than a few bucks a night. The second is another type of one knob shower where the showerhead has an electric heating element in it that, depending on the water pressure and voltage either makes the water scalding or a little warm or doesn’t really do much. The third is the standard in America and has two knobs one being attached to a hot water heater. There is a fourth type in Europe, and probably additional types all over the world, but in Latin America 2 knobs mean ultimate luxury.

That night we went down to the beach for the sunset and ended up staying for dinner. On the way back to the hotel we picked up some groceries including Italian sausage and bratwurst, both things we hadn’t eaten for over a year. The next day was Christmas Eve. Breakfast was eggs and Italian sausage and lunch was a bratwurst barbeque. In between lunch and dinner we went down and bummed around the beach. Sadly, the waves are usually large and crashing, making for some fantastic surfing, but the waves just weren’t there, so we bummed around the beach and played in the sand. Okay, I played in the sand, the girls worked on their tans. That afternoon we tried to work out our return to Honduras and found out it was going to be a two-day trip. Fortunately we had planned for the possibility of that, but it cut out 8 hours at the beach. Then we shopped around and discovered Costa Rica is expensive. We ended up buying very little, since 90% of the products could be found in Honduras and at much cheaper prices and the other 10% was obscenely expensive. That night we considered three different dinner plans before deciding on fish soup. Fish soup from a shack on the beach is always great and this was no exception.

For Christmas breakfast I made Alice her favorite, biscuits and gravy. That was the only part of Christmas that felt like Christmas. There weren’t even Christmas movies on TV. I suppose in some ways it made passing Christmas without any family easier, but really it felt like Christmas was cancelled, and we had a Fourth of July redo.

We walked down to the beach and stopped to look at a few more shops hoping we could get some presents for people. We didn’t really find anything, but we eventually walked down to the beach. We got to the beach and I saw a few people surfing. The waves still weren’t breaking very well, but there was about 20 meters where a person could stand up and I wanted to be one of the ridiculous if only to say I surfed on Christmas. I turned around and went to get one of the boards at the hotel and the girls found themselves some fruity drinks. Walking with a long board in the wind sucks, but I made it just fine. How did surfing go? Well, let me show you the pictures, as I can describe it, but it will never be as awesome as the visual.

So, here I am on surfboard in the ocean. I’ve surfed once before and loved it. Carmen just had a 30 minute turn and told me to take as long as I want. I start off away from the crowd, but no waves are coming. I can see a few people on my left having some luck.

I was slightly nervous about the crowd, but I decide to go that way anyways. Now I am closer to the middle of a pack of about 15. I decided to take some time before I start so I sit on my board and watch the surf students. Basically, the lay on the board and instead of paddling the instructor pushes them right before the wave and shouts “pop up”. Now I have a slightly good idea about what I should be doing and it’s simple: paddle, then pop.

Finally, the right wave comes at the right time, I paddle, but I don’t quite pop. This is not a huge surprise, since I don’t do a lot of popping in my everyday life, but I at least get my knee under me. I stand up the rest of the way for about 2 seconds, which is about how long I stood up the entire first time I went surfing. I am ecstatic. Notice the guy on my right in the picture pops correctly, so he is already fully standing. I looked like that half a second later. Sadly, the camera takes a couple seconds before another shot can be taken, and Alice doesn’t get another chance. I’ve already wiped out, and this is the next picture.

You’ll notice that everyone has wiped out at this point. And the people on both sides of me are looking at me. Was I that awesome? Well, no, and lets face it, we already knew that, but in case you can’t see it in that last picture, lets zoom in!

I think they were looking at me because I shrieked like a little girl when the guy next to and slightly behind me fell of backwards and sent his board into the side of my head like a missile. Thanks to the time it takes the camera Alice caught the timing perfect. The board literally bounced backwards off my head following the impact, so she got the perfect evidence. Thanks for the reload time, camera. Instead of the awesome picture of me standing up, the world is forever left with me getting nailed in the head. The impact hit my ear so hard it opened up a little cut that bled for nearly 5 hours and there is still a scar. Don’t get me wrong; this didn’t discourage me from spending another 2 hours surfing (though I was dazed for the first 30 minutes or so), but it made me very aware of the people around me all the time. Lesson learned.

After the surfing we went to a local sushi restaurant and had a great lunch. Afterwards, Carmen took the board and got some more time in on the ocean before what little waves there were stopped completely. When we left the beach Alice, Carmen and I agreed it was a great day, but not even vaguely Christmas. I took the short way since I was carrying the board, and Carmen and Alice stopped by a restaurant we’d been referred to for a great dinner. The reservation was for 8 that night since it was a nice place and most people thought to make their reservation the day before. The girls got themselves made up and I watched some TV. Then we ran by a chic little joint for a cocktail before we went to our reservation. The food was great, but Alice’s fish was more memorable than my I don’t remember. Following dinner, the plan was to go out dancing, but not one of us had the energy. Instead we headed back to Harry’s to pay the tab and prepare for the following day’s journey. We had to get to Managua the next day and judging from how long the line at the border was when we left we wanted to be sure to get there early. The only 2 early buses out of Tamarindo left at 6:00 and 9:00. To be safe we agreed to go at 6:00. That night we ran into what I will call my reason to hate paypal, but thanks to my parents we got it taken care of. I will never use paypal if there is another option. Sorry for the 1am wake up Mom and Dad, but thanks. It won’t happen again.

Five am is a terrible time of the day. If you are up that late, it may have some redeeming value, but in the morning it is something I can live with, but will never like. We got on a bus to Liberia without problem, and onto another to the border. Costa Rica’s border with Nicaragua is the craziest of all the borders I’ve ever crossed. El Salvador-Honduras was the easiest, but I was only going for a swim and ended up in El Salvador, I swam back without a problem also. Costa Rica has so many perpetual tourists that cross the border and the return the next day they make everyone get an exit stamp. So, I had to exit Costa Rica, get inspected, and then be admitted to Nicaragua. The fence makes it feel like I was escaping from jail; since the entrance to Nicaragua was a place someone cut a chain link fence and bent it open.

We had no reason to get up so early after all. The day after Christmas is not a big tourism day. We got a bus to Managua by 11:00 and were in Managua before 2. We hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so after we found a disgusting but only $6-a-night hotel we asked for and received directions to a local mall. It was walking distance, but I would never walk it again. The street, the people, the buildings all made me uncomfortable. We were forced to walk in front of a group of 12 guys who all thought they needed to yell at Carmen and Alice. Usually I make a face or say something, but I didn’t want push my luck. They let us pass with only a verbal assault on my good taste. Inside the mall was like the inside of every mall in the world, so we could relax in comparison to the walk over. We grabbed some fast food and then went to a movie.

After the movie I had one of the most memorable experiences of my life, though I doubt even after I tell you the story you’ll understand why. We decided to have dinner at the food court, since our trip to the internet café didn’t uncover and American style restaurants in the city. (Like TGI Fridays, Chili’s, or Applebee’s, that sort of thing is a traveler’s heaven. The food is exactly what you expect every time and the service is American style, which is exactly what a gringo wants sometimes, and they always have the best drinks available and sometimes a happy hour.) Anyways, food court food sounded like the next best thing, but none of it looked appealing. We walked around 4 times until we decided we would eat at the Middle Eastern place. As soon as we walked in the place seemed different than anywhere I’ve ever been. The painting on the wall was an obviously a Middle Eastern teacher smoking from a hookah with a student looking on in admiration. The walls were dark, and a fruity smell mixed with the smalls of shish-kabobs from the kitchen. They had a special edition of the best Nicaraguan brew, so we ordered a round and a couple plates. While we waited on our food I noticed the light fixtures were little LED lights shining onto colored glass balls being held in the fixture by an inverted tripod. The bar winded through the tiny space and was made of real wood. Everything matched. It all looked like an oasis of Middle Eastern culture. Well, everything except the music. They had on some disco mix and looking around I discovered it was all coming from the TV which was showing the videos. Everything from the Village People to the Bee Gees to early Blondie played. Strangely, even that seemed to fit in. The restaurant’s bar and 3 tables we’re packed and there were people just standing, singing along to American music from the 60’s and having a drink. The whole thing was surreal. The owners were Iraqi and seemed completely indifferent to Americans, which was also great. Too many times I’ve heard the horror stories of the extreme hate, or the extreme awkwardness of the love. After a while we noticed the scent changed and finally we discovered the source or the smell. A couple of young Nicaraguans had ordered a hookah. Carmen and I asked for one and we enjoyed the smooth charcoal smoke filtered through the sweet lemon tobacco for an hour before we went to leave. Outside the restaurant we were immediately reminded we were in Latin America by a howling teenage girl singing Mall karaoke in the food court. We left as fast as possible and took a cab instead of braving the trip back on foot.

From there, the vacation was basically over. We got up really early again and caught the bus back to Tegus. Carmen got lucky and the bus crossed the border in the South of Honduras and she got to get off in Choluteca, which is about 20 minutes from where she lives. We got home 2 hours later.

You may have noticed many things have been compared to Honduras. I guess this is a product of living in Honduras for so long. Often Americans compare things to the US and I feel like they aren’t really comparing apples to apples. While Honduras as a reference point makes for a good comparison in Central America, the fact none of us could escape comparing everything really wore me down after a while. The question was never: is this food good, but instead: is this food better than Honduran food. I never did that to Honduras and that was probably for the best. At the end of the whole vacation I decided I would try to give every country a fair chance from then on, so I don’t miss things. In the end my vacation had a moral. Ugh.

Occasionally I find myself preparing to blog and realize, I have too much to say, but the events in question happened long enough ago the amusing parts are slowly being forgotten. How terrible to lose such stories. I look at things I wrote at the beginning of my service and I read them like they are completely new, having forgotten half the details that made them interesting in the first place. Pardon the length of today’s post, but hopefully it will make up for virtual silence for 2 months, and keep these stories alive. I plan on doing a few more posts in the coming days since I am in a lull in service and want to write these before they lose their character.

Costa Rica was a good place to spend Christmas, while spending it only with my wife and one friend was somewhat sad, we made the best out of it. We started off our trip with double bad luck and no alarm waking us up to get a ride into Teguc despite having set 2 alarms. Alice gets a phone call from our ride and before my eyes are even open I am running into the guest room where we keep our clothes (we have no closet, so we just pile clean laundry on the guest bed), forgetting completely there is a guest in there (who is also coming). I suppose I could have been smoother, but instead I turned on the lights waking her up and reminding myself she was there, and I was in my underwear. I quickly go to the pile of clothes on the ground and pick up the first pair of pants and start to unfold them and hurry them on when our female guest looks at me and asks me if I really intend to wear her pants. I rummage around and finally find the clean pants Alice had left intentionally on top of the pile. We thankfully still made our bus.

Our bus was direct, but still took us 12 hours. 12 hours in a bus is not fun, but that aside it was a very nice bus ride. The major bus lines have a special deal with the border crossings to get through faster, so what could have been a 4 hours border crossing was only thirty minutes. After some time standing in front of burger king, the hotel shuttle showed up to take us to the national park and only 15 or so hours after leaving we were in our hotel room. We all decided to stop by the restaurant for a night cap to kick off our vacation officially and we ran into a few hotel staff members and a small group of gringos doing the same thing, while all were watching a soccer match. I finally realized why the ride hadn't wanted to pick us up when they told me the game was the Costa Rican league finals. After the game we made polite conversation with the other gringos, two young ladies also on vacation for the holidays. They told us a surprising story about their adventures the previous day. They had contracted the horse guide to take them to natural hot mud pits that were cool enough that people could give themselves a faux-spa treatment, but they encountered a stream that was acting much like a raging river due to some recent rain. The guide initially told them they couldn't cross, but after some thought he decided that if he helped each girl with the horse they would probably have no problems. So the guide dismounted his horse and got on the horse with the first girl and they started across. They made it halfway before the horse lost its footing and fell. The guide immediately caught the young lady and pulled her out of the water unhurt. The guide had managed to bang up his leg really well, but didn't have time to think about it before he needed to recover the horse before it drowned. He raced to find the horse stuck underneath a log that he managed to move just enough to get the horse out and onto the shore. To make things worse the horse had come up on the opposite bank and now it had to re-cross. This time the horse crossed without anyone on it and it made it just fine, but the horse's reluctance was obvious. At the end of the story the girl who had been on the horse hugged the guy next to her, who by this point I could identify as the guide, just by looking at his bruised legs. At this point it was obvious this quiet national park had a lot of adventure, but I had heard my warning. Safety first.

So the next morning we are all awake by 7 despite our plans to sleep in, but no one was moving very quickly. We had a quick breakfast that was not too unlike a Honduran breakfast. Eggs and a side of beans and rice. Then the girls spent an hour reading while I explored the hotel grounds. I found a little side path and started to take it until it got too muddy. When I got back to the hotel the girls were finally about ready to go on a hike.

We put on our hiking clothes, which was tennis shoes, jeans and a t-shirt for all of us (these clothes actually double as our "nice" clothes, "travel" clothes, "beach" clothes, "casual" clothes, and pretty much everything else, but it is important to know we were not exactly in ideal hiking outfits). We go to the front office of the hotel to work out how we are going to get to the park, and the guy tells us he'll make us a map and take us to the trailhead. He explains that we are about 3 kilometers from the entrance to the national park, but there are a variety of thing we can see within 5 kilometers of the entrance. The numbers should have seemed daunting, but at the time our enthusiasm pushed us forward without question.

We walked to the trailhead and had our first sign of how the day was going to go. The trail was pure mud and it was obvious almost no one went on foot. Most people instead paid the money for the horse. Being Peace Corps volunteers none of us wanted to pay, but we all knew that none of us had an additional pair of shoes when the ones we were wearing turned into mud balls. We looked at the front desk officer, who saw our concern and but told us, “You are going to get muddy, don’t even waste your time trying not to.” The first hill was the worst. It was nothing but mud, but we still wasted our time trying to stay as clean and dry as possible with a fair amount of luck. The forest was like no forest I’ve ever hiked before. There were hardly any pines or maples or anything else that seemed familiar, even in Honduras, but the unfamiliarity was nice. It kept me excited about walking, an activity that on its own offers very little amusement. It took over 20 minutes to get up the first hill, in part because of the trail, in part because of the incline.

The first stream we crossed was calm and only about 2 feet across. It hardly reminded me of the scary story recounted to us the evening before. The next stream had a little bridge and I wondered how far off the beaten path the mud pits were, since so far there were no raging rapids, nor any sign of them.

We finally got to the entrance and had a bit of luck. The park ranger had run out of foreigner tickets and could only sell us the ones for nationals, which cost about 20% of what we expected to pay. I’m not sure that there is any logic at all to that, but I’ll take 80% savings over logic any day.

The park looked a lot like the walk to the park, since a large portion of the walk is also a protected area, but the park’s trails were slightly better maintained, not as muddy, and not over run by horse tracks. We decide to skip the hummingbird trail and head as fast as we could to the hot springs, which sounded like the best way to spend an afternoon on vacation. We ran into another stream, this one nearly 8 feet across, but we managed to jump from rock to rock to cross and keep our feet dry. If I were able to see the future, I would have just walked right through the stream. That was the last easy to cross stream we would see all day until we turned around and headed back.

We took a quick side trip to a waterfall and we caught our first glimpse of what the young lady was referring to when she said rapids, but there was nothing to imply we ever had to cross such insanity. The waterfall was large, and had 2 actual falls divided by a large rock. There were trails all along the sides so you could go to the top or the bottom and see it from what ever angle you wanted. If the water wasn’t so cold there were all sorts of fun that could be had. After walking back to the main trail from the side trip we decided we should go straight to the hot springs so we could spend as much time as we wanted there and if we had time we could side trip on the way back.

We reached another stream crossing, but as we approached it we saw a sign that said it was actually a river crossing. Having spent too much time playing Oregon trail, we all discuss our river fjord-ing options. We can just cross, de-shoe and sock and hike up our pants, we can go upstream and look for a bridge or series of rocks, or we can turn around. We decided we had walked too far to turn around, and the rocks upstream looked promising, so we walked 50 meters upstream and crosses, still managing to stay somewhat dry and clean.

30 minutes later we were at another river and had the same decision making process. This time there were no promising looking rocks, but the river had gone wide in this area so there was almost no current and the water was crystal clear, so the girls decided to remove their shoes and socks and hike up their pants. I tried to hike up my pants, but they wouldn’t stay, and I decided this was a good opportunity to finally just clean off my shoes, so I barreled across with absolutely no grace, but a high level of effectiveness. Especially since the rocks in the water ended up only looking smooth I eventually found myself serving as a guide and steady shoulder for the ladies.

After having crossed multiple streams, walked at least 7 kilometers up-hill and fjord-ed 4 streams when we finally got the stream we should have turned around at, but we were all too determined to just get to the hot springs. Okay, Carmen and I were determined. Alice was completely happy to make the smarter if less adventurous decision, and turn around. We saw the only other people we had seen all day cross, and while it didn’t look easy, it looked possible, and I won’t be out done by a German 8-year-old, even if he was carried by his father. After we decided as a group to cross, Alice’s reluctance was still obvious. We searched first for a series of rocks we could cross, but after no luck we looked for the widest spot in the river where the water would be shallow and the current less strong. Sadly all of our searches ended in no advantages so we decided to just go slowly, one person at a time. I, being both the stupidest and most willing to take the risk, walked across. The rapids that had downed a horse 2 days before didn’t manage to knock me over, and both the girls made it across just fine as well. Alice crossed the fastest; making it obvious she was not a fan of standing in a rather strong current. The fun part about the whole thing was that at this point we were soaked up to our waist. All that time the girls had spent trying to keep their jeans dry was suddenly undone, and we still had to go back to where we started.

After the last river it was only another kilometer to the hot springs, but when we arrived there were two problems. First, the hot water was only slightly warmer than the cold streams we had been crossing. Second, the German family that crossed ahead of us was already in the water. After a short discussion we decided we were not interested in spending an hour in cold water with 8 other people. We had been informed about a second hot spring not advertised by the national park and we had directions to it provided by our hotel. The guy had told us that after heavy rain, the park hot spring is often cold, but the secret hot spring had a better bathing pool that rain didn’t affect as much. He even made it sound like it was relatively close, just take a second trail that’s not on the map, cross a stream and take a right. We headed back to the turn off to look for the trail.

We ended up walking all the way back to the stream only a crazy person would cross and we knew we had missed the turn. We decided not to cross again quite yet because we knew that would mark the end of the days walk and a complete failure as far as hot springs were concerned. We did a u-turn and kept looking for it. We found the right trail but discovered the guy who drew our map and gave us directions was unaware of scale. He showed the trail directly off the main trail, when it was actually about a half kilometer farther down a side trail. All we were missing was a right turn after crossing a stream. After we crossed a stream and walked a while it occurred to me we were going to cross at least 4 more streams and he had never specified which one. We crossed the first stream and there was no trail. We crossed the second stream and there was a trail that seemingly leads no where. It actually looked like it then immediately wanted us to cross back over the stream, but that didn’t make sense. Surely that would have been mentioned in the directions. So we continued on. There was no trail after the 3rd or 4th stream either, and Alice had the “I’m not turning around to go look for this” look on her face, and I was unwilling to lead her on further chases involving a wild goose.

The rest of the trail was in terrible condition and I started to realize it was because we were walking on the horse path and horses are not as concerned with mud as we were. The only person to fall because of it was me, but I knew there were plenty of places to clean myself off, so I didn’t worry about it. We got back to the ranger station and asked the ranger and he informed us we were about 75 meters from the second hot spring. We had turned around right before the spring.

The hike was effectively over; Alice had made that very clear. I decided I should check out a couple nearby attractions so I talked Carmen into doing a quick walk down the hummingbird trail (no hummingbirds present) and to the watering ponds that are great for watching wildlife and birds (which were also not present). Then we all hiked back down to the hotel, muddy, tired, and ready for dinner and a brew.

There was of course no working hot water, so Carmen went and used the shower at another room and Alice and I just took slightly cold showers. I had originally planned on also showering in another room, but I had gotten in the shower with my clothes on to clean the mud off and just decided I might as well shower.

We ate dinner at the hotel, since there were no other options and the prices were fair. We ordered a round of cold ones to help us relax from our nearly 7 hour hike when we were gravely informed that there was no beer, and no beer coming until the next day. The order had gotten mixed up and there was simply none to be had. In our state of exhaustion we were obviously disappointed and asked why their driver couldn’t go, but since all the guests that day had already been picked up, he had already gone home. Finally, they tell us that if we really want, one of the employees will take one of us to a local place where we can buy a few cans of suds. After dinner I got escorted just outside of the hotel to a house where a party is obviously raging inside and I was informed this is where all the locals come to sing karaoke and relax after spending a hard day working in the fields. We have similar establishments in Honduras and the general rule is to avoid them. They are the places where the idiots hack each other with machetes over minor conflicts. They are never safe for women or children, and gringos would do best to avoid them. I was immediately put on edge. We haven’t even made it inside the fence when I can hear a terrible waling coming from inside that can only be karaoke sung by a man who has not been informed singing and screaming are different animals. I start to get more observant, making sure my money is in multiple places and I am on guard, just in case.

Then, the real strangeness starts. Three kids come running outside and the people on the porch are a mix of men and women, chatting calmly and ignoring the clamor coming from inside. Kids continue to play games that look like tag and nothing seems dangerous at all. We’re 20 meters from going in the house when a 5 foot tall leathery skinned woman comes waddling out like she’s spent too many years on a horse. She’s carrying a flashlight and a wadded up grocery bag and her face says she knows what you’re thinking. She has exactly the kind of scowl I would expect from someone who owns a rural watering hole the world over. Walter, my companion from the hotel, stops us and says she’s the owner of the place and we should ask her if she’ll sell us some beer. Sometimes when the house is crowded she’ll only sell to regulars, which thankfully, Walter is, but she’ll know the goods are for us, since Walter will never get anything to go. There is a quick exchange between them and it sounds like she’s running low, but she has back up supplies at an uncles place down the road. She always makes sure to never have too much on hand in case people take things and forget to pay when she is doing something else. That way, she can never be out too much money. I’m starting to relax since I am still watching every person around me and no one has even noticed I’m a gringo yet and they all seem completely comfortable. This would never happen in Honduras. I avoid such establishments by at least 100 meters, since the drunks in Honduras seem to sense a gringo in the area and take great pleasure in the minor harassment of one. Usually it’s just a barrage of questions about taking the person to the states, but at its worst it can be anything from a man hugging you and crying to downright dangerous situations. Here, there is no one that drunk, and they seem quite content to have more people there to share in the party.

The exchange ends and the owner agreed to sell me a couple, but first she has to run down the street for backup supplies. Walter says he can stick around for me, but I am enjoying watching everything and Walter seems to be keeping an eye on me. We hang out for a minute and Walter knows pretty much everyone who goes in and out and there seem to be a fair number of people going in and out. One of them stops to chat and my accent gives me away and I get a few questions about where I am from, but not as many as I expected. The topic turns to language and the man keeps trying to get me to guess what he is saying in some local dialect. I have no idea, so I make a few things up, and he thinks that’s great. He never tells me what he says, but keeps making me guess for 5 minutes when the owner waddles back. Her flashlight is out of batteries. She gets a second and goes back.

The guy decides we need to sing, and doesn’t seem to understand that we do not need to sing. I tell him I’ll sing when the owner gets back, he seems satisfied and goes in to pick out the perfect song. I talk to Walter for a while longer and I like him more and more. He’s a decent guy with a college education from Costa Rica and works near the park so he can help with conservation efforts. He was the one who actually built most of the canopy tour I am considering going on the following day. Inside I can hear my new friend start to scream and I realize I don’t need to worry about actually singing with him, since no one could hear my anyways. The owner finally returns with a full sack a few minutes later and Walter starts trying to get things taken care of for me. No one ever buys more than one drink at a time, so she can’t figure out how much it will cost. She makes Walter find her calculator and then makes him figure it out for her. Finally, thirty minutes after the start of my adventure I am going back to the hotel. I get back and the girls ask what took so long. To tell them what happened takes nearly as long as the whole adventure took and they decide that it was totally worth the time spent. I agree. It was interesting. We decide the next day we want to do the canopy tour and we’d like to see the other half of the national park but we’d prefer to see it from the back of a horse. This time I send the girls to office to take care of things. They come back 5 minutes later and inform me that the national park will be closed the next day. How can they close dirt trails? That just doesn’t seem right to me. The girls go back to negotiate a way in and they come back a while later and Walter, inspired by our recent trip has agreed to take us to the second half of the park. The guy at the desk seems satisfies when we tell him we will do the canopy tour and then Walter is going to be our guide. He doesn’t ask where Walter is taking us, and we don’t offer. Walter, being a lover of nature, wants us to get a chance to see anything, and if we came to his national park, we’ll see whatever part of it we want. The front desk guy is obviously worried that if we get kicked out of the park we’ll not want to pay. So, we’re not sure what is going to come the next morning, since we assume Walter and the desk guy will eventually talk it over, but we just go to bed.

Canopy tours are awesome. When we first arrived, I guessed it would be scary, as Alice and I both loathe heights and Carmen hints she’s not such a fan either. They gear us up and I get concerned that perhaps we booked the wrong tour, but from the minute I was dangling from the pulley I knew I had made the right decision. Alice’s smile after the first run implied she liked it just as much. I’ve been through no comparable experience in my life. I assumed that the point was to see wildlife and trees from a new perspective. While that is interesting, the truth is, it is just a lot of fun to fly from one tree to another. There isn’t a lot else to say about the whole experience since it all happens very fast, but somehow the clock has moved rather dramatically. I highly recommend it to all mildly adventurous travelers.

During our canopy adventure it became quite apparent the guy from behind the desk had no clue where Walter was actually taking us, but every time he mentioned the places we were going to see it sounded nothing like what Walter had told us, so we just agreed readily anytime he asked. (The desk guy and Walter are the canopy guides). Yes, yes, we’ll be happy to see the hot springs we missed yesterday. I finally got to ask Walter and he told me he had just told the desk guy we would be in the park, and since only half the park was technically open, the desk guy had done all the assumptions on his own. Walter was confident the rangers could care less about where in the park we were as long as we didn’t get hurt.

The upper half of the park is a long long walk, or a long horseback ride away. There is a lot more interesting things to see and tons more wildlife. We saw monkeys, iguanas, birds, butterflies and more monkeys. I’ve never seen wild monkeys before and it was a treat. We saw an orange lake, boiling mud, a boiling lake, hot springs, waterfalls, and beautiful views of Costa Rica. The second half of the park was far more interesting than the one we hiked the day before and the rangers never saw us. The desk guy has no clue we ever went and Walter got a fair sized tip. On the way back down Walter even took us to the hot spring we missed the day before and we got to relax for a half hour before we went back.

That night after dinner we just hung out with the staff. We learned that they get a decent wage from the hotel, far better than somewhere in Honduras would pay, but the pay still sucked. They work for 2 weeks and then get 3 days off, or they can work for a month and get all six at the same time. They work 14 hour days and most guests don’t usually want to hang out with the employees. They showed us their rooms, which were small, but private. Sometimes when there are no guests in the hotel they get to do the canopy tour or sometimes they go on horseback rides. Walter likes to spend his time developing new paths in the national park and looking for hidden attractions. All of them seem happy enough to work there, but all of them also seem to aspire to work someplace better in the future. Sometimes I miss aspirations while I am in Honduras. Too many people seem to just be trying to survive, or they have what they want and they never try to better themselves or their community. Many Hondurans are not like that, and to say the entire country is would be offensive, but most Hondurans agree they are very relaxed people, sometimes too relaxed. Sometimes being able to go with the flow has really saved them. While most of Central America has warred internally and externally Honduras almost never participated. They have never had a civil war. Sadly, that attitude has also cost the country opportunities. I suppose in the end I appreciate Honduras for what it is and Costa Rica for what it is. The people in the streets of Costa Rica are not nearly as nice as Hondurans. The people of Honduras don’t seem to like risk. Which probably means I will always find work trying to change that mind set of Honduras and Costa Rica will always be nice to find some privacy.

            During the presidential primaries (I know everyone is trying to forget them, sorry for bringing them up, but I’m using this story to jump into another one actually worth hearing about) and the debates on foreign policy, I remember hearing too often about sticks and carrots. Sticks, I assume, represented America’s ability to punish nations working against us, and carrots the ability to reward. The whole analogy basically turning our foreign policy debates into a good representation of how political leaders would likely govern world politics or a kindergarten class. If you don’t remember said banter it may be that I invented it in my head, as I all too often do. If that is the case, I apologize to said former candidates. Painfully, every candidate spent too much time talking about sticks and carrots, but it brought up a couple of mental images. The most obvious is the cartoon image of a Bugs Bunny encouraging a rather stubborn animal using a carrot that’s been attached to the end of a long stick with a string. On the basis of that imagery, I’d like to introduce a series of questions: What is the most stubborn animal you can think of?Does that animal eat carrots?Would a carrot on the end of a stick encourage that animal to move quickly? Even move at all?If that method does not work, what method would work?  Now, I recently had a chance to witness a study done to answer all of the above questions, and I’d like to share those answers with you, and perhaps at the same time we can figure out some of the greatest foreign policy questions we’ve ever been faced with.First, I would like to credit Joel, a Hondu12 health volunteer, for coming up with the idea for this experiment and properly carrying it out. I owe hours of laughter to him and his fellow scientific colleagues for their time, effort, and invaluable intellect.Second, I’d like to thank Ana, Hondu13 Muni-D, for organizing the event that made it all possible. Without her, one of my favorite events could have easily fallen to the wayside.Now, without any further delay, I’d like to begin answering the questions. So, what is the most stubborn animal? I personally believe it is the donkey, which means when experimenting with hybrid sports and stubbornness it is the ideal candidate. Say for instance, you are a fan of equestrian sports, but you’re curious what challenges would develop if you were forced to ride an animal that wasn’t the least bit interested in cooperation, then the introduction of the donkey would be priceless in said research.Someone was in just this dilemma when they developed the greatest up and coming sport, Donkey Polo. What is donkey polo? It is a lot like polo, only with donkeys, and on a cement court that has been enclosed. It is polo’s indoor soccer. Then, multiply that by Honduras. Instead of highly traditional equipment and uniforms played by rich people on expensive horses, it is broom sticks with blocks of wood loosely screwed on for mallets and a plastic soccer ball played on a rented donkey. After breaking too many broomsticks, mop sticks can be used, as long as the mop head is removed first. Uniforms don’t exist. A player’s team is only determined by their nationality. American Peace Corps volunteers make up one team, and Catrachos the other (catrachos has two meanings, Hondurans or a traditional food and though we would likely fair better against tortilla chips and beans, we play against Hondurans).This was our 12th meeting, and the history of victory so far was Peace Corps 0-11. Having decided our biggest disadvantage was our ability to control the speed and direction of said donkeys, we then needed to discover the answers to questions 2-4 above. Question 2 was simple. Does a donkey eat carrots? Indeed it does. Though the emotion for carrots seemed less than expected, Joel maintained high hopes.This year’s match had been designed around two things: Liquor and family friendliness. I don’t know either. Just go with it for now. Previous events had been criticized for not including local children enough, since most of the riders are at least 14 years old, so this year the event organizers decided to also include piñatas and traditional games at various times throughout the event. Also new this year was a sponsor. The fine people at the Yuscaran Aguardiente (also known as guaro) factory sponsored the event in full, involving everything from donkey rental fees to candy. The only thing they didn’t provide: guaro. Thank goodness it is only 50 cents for 1/8 liter, or half liters will run $1.50. While I appreciate the fine folk at the factory for their blessing, I would also like to note that guaro is awful. The liquor is made from cane sugar and water and is best known for the ability to turn an average street into a bed for people with poor self-control, especially during fairs. The town, while the home of production, has passed laws forbidding its sale within town. The point being to assure the factories presence wouldn’t create a public threat. Of course it can still be found, but admittedly it is harder.The event was kicked off by a donkey parade, where participants rode donkeys around the central park and an announcement was made to follow the donkeys back to the court. The court was located on the grounds of the old high school which is the new youth center. This added complication pervious events avoided: stairs. Three stairs to be exact, but still three more stairs than the average donkey has used. Multiple donkeys chose to end their cooperation for the day on those steps. Luckily, the donkey I had ridden through the park was in a rather cooperative mood, and he didn’t seem to mind them. I rode him all the way in. Then we had the piñatas. Specifically, piñatas shaped like liquor bottles and donkeys. The kids loved them, but I was antsy to play. My donkey was cooperating relatively well, and so far I had only need to kick him like a horse, and he would go. He wasn’t running, but he was moving and could be steered, so I was ready.I played defense because defense is always where there is more action on our team. Turns out, people who ride donkeys since childhood have a slight advantage over people who often are riding their first donkey ever. This is when I ran into my first cooperation issue. My donkey liked me, but was afraid of other donkeys. This poses a challenge to potential defenders such as me. If I arrive first, things are okay, but if someone else has the ball, my donkey insisted on keeping a safe distance. Finally, I grew frustrated and started trying to get my donkey to run to arrive first. The best method to get a donkey to run seemed to be slapping its hind quarters and kicking it simultaneously. Finally I was making progress, though the scoreboard already showed 2-0 and I was not winning. I hit the ball a few times and made a decent run for a goal but I was blocked last second when my donkey stopped, afraid of the goalie donkey. Fortunately, a team mate’s donkey was smacked by an opposing player during the drive and we were given a penalty. We still missed. A minute later it was 3-0 and I was closing in on the ball for a defensive stop and my donkey caught site of an opposing player and stopped again. I was so close to the ball I thought I could reach out and hit it. I was right… kinda. In my attempt to hit the ball I overextended my balance and while I still hit the ball, I also toppled off my increasingly less cooperative friend. I hopped back on and went to chase the ball and when I smacked the donkey’s hind quarter to motivate him I noticed it hurt more than usual. I looked at my fingers and the tips of three fingers already looked like blueberries. Falling off a donkey is a little rough on the fingers, especially when determined to still hit the ball. From then on, my donkey could walk when he wanted to. I got him to trot back to the defensive side and spent the remainder of the quarter semi successfully defending or being taunted by local children about how bad we were. Thanks to those children, I am planning to set up a TV in the local grade school to watch the United States – Honduras World Cup qualifier, and every time the US scores I will do a victory dance NFL players can only dream about. The quarter ended with a lucky shot by a teammate and I dismounted the donkey losing 4-1.The experiment was scheduled for the third quarter, so I had some time to find a seat and relax. After the first quarter there was a traditional game, which involved sticking a spoon in your mouth, putting an egg on the spoon, and racing down the court and back, the first person to return wins. Third place was won by a volunteer, and that was likely our biggest victory of the day.Second quarter went much like the first. Score wise it went exactly like the first. We got in a lucky shot, and they got 4 slightly more intentional goals. The second quarter was pretty much ended when one of the donkeys felt rather amorous towards another, and decided to make the relation physical while people were still attempting to ride both donkeys. The person on the top donkey fell off backwards, but the young lady on the bottom donkey was not a very good planner, and had worn a skirt. Skirts make quick donkey dismounts impossible, or at least tricky. She went the high road and stayed on the donkey, getting caught up in the closest thing to a donkey three-way I hope I ever see. Luckily for her, the donkey was pulled off rather quickly.Between the 2nd and 3rd quarters was another game. This one involved two people leaning in toward each other and placing an egg between the bridges of their noses. Then the mariachis start, and the two people have to dance until the egg falls. The last couple to let the egg drop wins. I kept waiting for two people to smash the egg in an attempt to keep it from falling, but sadly I still have to wonder what that would look like, since I didn’t get to see it.The third quarter took forever to start. Not literally, but when someone is looking forward to something so awesome, it can be hard to wait. Finally I saw Joel enter the court and look around for a moment. He picked his donkey, one with a fuller harness on the head, so he could tuck the stick in and still play with both hands.So, does a carrot on a stick entice the donkey into moving and being more cooperative? Sadly, it does not. It does not run or even move until traditional methods are used to motivate the stubborn creature. While honey may outdo lemon in the friend department, kicks (and presumably hits with sticks) most definitely work better than carrots to motivate a donkey.The third quarter ended our lucky streak, and while the Hondurans scored 3 more, we ended up no better off. The carrot experiment was successful in teaching us all donkey don’t care about anything, but sadly our learning pretty much ended there. Dogs, on the other hand are far easier motivate. Actually, to motivate a dog to run, all you have to do is hit around a plastic soccer ball. This was rather apparent when a rather clean looking dog ran onto the field, stole the playing ball and escaped quickly back out the door. He would have gotten away, but he made a wrong turn and cornered himself. The ball was recovered, but still needed to be replaced as it was sadly misshapen by the dog’s mouth. It was quickly replaced for the 4th and final quarter.The fourth quarter is always when first time donkey riders get the courage to play, and when the donkeys are tired. The donkey stops moving entirely, and while the Hondurans effortlessly dash around the court, the Americans start to play like foosball, hoping the ball comes near, but not moving very much. The game ended a respectable 11-2 and Peace Corps is officially 0-12.Finally, as all good writers do, I have to cleverly relate my ending to my introduction. Has this experiment taught us anything about foreign policy? Should we use more sticks than carrots and get our international donkey to run? My answer to both of these questions is a definite no. We should not treat our friends and enemies like animals, nor should we address complicated situations in such simplistic terms. Such views lead to diplomacy by way of renaming popular breakfast items (see also: Freedom toast; Rose of the profit Mohamed). We must use caution before the world collective renames American cheese, and Kraft is known afterwards as infidel cheese the world round. That’s right, diplomacy and donkey polo, hand in hand. The story is quite finished, but I would like to take this time for a few updates. My MRIwas reread by a doctor in Washington and my diagnosis has changed. They determined my ACLwas only partially ruptured, however my meniscus also has a tear. I will eventually need surgery, but for now I am being treated with a knee immobilizing brace and physical therapy. If the condition worsens I will by visiting Washington DC for surgery. If it maintains I will get the surgery in September. My stoves are coming along slowly and I won’t complete my first two communities before Christmas as I had hoped. Actually, I am at 2 of 250, but materials finally got delivered yesterday and I hope that number to increase rapidly in the coming week. Alice and I will be going to Costa Rica for Christmas where we are spending 3 days in a national park with a volcano and 3 days on the beach. This is my first time to travel Central America since I got here and I am feeling pretty lucky. Alice’s students have officially graduated 4th grade and are moving onto 5th. She is on track to graduate them from elementary school before we leave next September which will vastly improve their ability to find work. We have finally finished our supply of both beef jerky and macaroni and cheese. While I love Kraft, I highly encourage well wishers to also include the occasional Velveeta shells and cheese or Lipton-Knorr pasta side. Variety is much appreciated.

Happy Holidays to all of our friends, may they pass how you want them to. Quickly or slowly, just make sure to enjoy them.E. Hippie

There's the carrot. But Mr.Donkey doesn't care.

Me, on a friendly Donkey.  

I was blessed to catch my first water-born parasite, probably about a month ago, called Giaria. It's a nasty little amigo, which a week or so after you get it gives you symptoms such as stomach bloating and pain (I like another friend's description, of like in the aliens movies the aliens are trying to escape and hatch, that I had a few in my stummy trying to do the same...), continual feeling the need to burp or fart to (in vain) try and relieve the stomach pressure (this is highly annoying if you actually are trying to get any work done), explosive diarrhea, and just general not feeling good. My parasite struck hard about every three days like clockwork, with the following symptoms, for about 4-8 hours. Then, it would mostly go away and I thought I was in the clear....I finally realized it wasn't just food poisoning and now I am on meds. Doc told me I shouldn't drink the water. DUH...of course I always drink bottled water and clean my veggies. But, I have had a weakness for "jugos naturales" or natural juices made from passion fruit, pineapple, mandarines, and many more. Alas, I feel this weakness probably gave me my stomach amigo. So, it's back to coke or coffee at restaurants for me.....que triste. I will just have to learn to make my own. The med, flagyl, is pretty icky too. Gives you a metallic taste in your mouth for awhile after taking it and makes ya feel a bit queasy. But, it is very effective, which is important. I would drink beer, since the water is all dangerous and stuff but supposedly until I am done with the meds that is a very bad idea. Vive Honduras!

In other news, Drew and I are going to Costa Rica for Christmas. We are going to a volcano national park and the beach. These nice thoughts are keeping me animated currently. I can almost feel the sun, the waves, the sand in my toes and a girly drink in my hand......with purified water of course, to aviod inviting any more amigos.

(Since blogger won't allow be to apply reactions to individual posts, I have to reset them everytime I change them. So, the results are in, Parasites:2 Healthy as a horse:0. This blog was apearantly parasitic. Expect every blog to have such an ending added.)

Normally, volunteers gather for holidays to celebrate and take some time to speak English. Last year, if you've been following our blog that long, you read about how Alice and I did just that. Our sitemate invited people from her training group and Alice and I cooked all day for 12 or so people to attack it with the fury of people who'd eat dirt if you covered it in enough gravy and called it Thanksgiving dinner. 

This year there were various gatherings and get-togethers in all corners of Honduras, but Alice and I once again opted to cook it all ourselves. Besides just liking our own cooking, I am currently very busy with various projects that I am trying to get to a midpoint before the country shuts down for the holidays in mid-December. After talking to a few friends here and there it sounded like it was going to be just Alice and I for dinner, and so we started recruiting Hondurans to celebrate with us. In the end, we ended up being 11, with food for 20. 

Cooking here is relatively easy, but cooking something specific gets more complicated. Say for instance, you want to make dinner, there are at least 5 options at any given time in local stores, however, if you would like to cook green bean casserole or stuffing, you are looking at a trip to Teguc to scower the city looking for ingredients. If you are determined to cook a full thanksgiving dinner, you should count on at least 3 different stops, and then plan on looking foolish on the bus back. With enough grocery bags it looks as if you could feed an entire village, you should plan on getting a fair amount of confused looks in a country where people shop weekly, sometimes daily. In all, we had to shop at 5 different places to get everything, 3 in the city and 2 back in site.

Alice put a fair amount of work trying to explain the holiday,why we celebrate and why we eat what we do. Some are easy. "Well, the native americans brought turkey when they saw the pilgrims didn't have enough food for everyone." Others aren't. "We eat greenbean casserole because the enterprising campbell's soup company has convinced us they had 'cream of mushroom soup' at the first thanksgiving, and we must continue cooking with it at least annually, but more often if possible."

Alice, after finishing her explanation, insisted that everyone give thanks for something before eating. I, of course, then explained that in the United States it was traditional to put all the food on the table, start passing the food around the table, putting portions onto your plate, when someone, usually an aunt of uncle in my family, suggests that before we eat we all say something we are thankful for and the whole table slouches just slightly and eyes thier plate carniverously while we wait for our turn to give thanks. I said thanks to Alice for continuing that tradition and promptly loaded my plate. The most memorable thanks came from my host brother, who had been watching us cook all day. He inhaled deeply as if ready to give a long speech, thanking everyone and everything from his parents to the moon when he said in a loud proud voice, "Thanks for the FOOD". 

Of course, we added some honduran touches. There is no such thing as breakfast sausage here, and for the stuffing that requires it, we used honduran chorizo and ground beef mixed, which turned out better than any other stuffing I've ever had, however, as I explained to my real Mom later in the evening, "You put enough gravy on anything, and its bound to come out tasting at least okay." We left our pepper at home and were were forced to replace it with especias in everything that needed pepper. Especias is Spanish for spices, and if you ask at any store what kinda of spices they have, they usually put a bottle of especias on the counter and look at you like "What do you mean, what kind?" We learned that outside of a few things like cinamon and cumin, you should just be prepared to use especias, because its what there is.

After Dinner we enjoyed a break, and then had pumpkin pie (the spice issue came up here too, I susbstituted nutmeg for cloves and something else, it still tasted pretty good). The evening came to an end around midnight when we all still felt slightly full and decided we should sleep.

What did I do today? Turkey and rice soup!

(please excuse my spelling. My spell check seems to be non-functioning today, and cut and paste is too much work). 

Felipe, a friend and incredible artist, with our dog/monkey Lizzy

3/5ths of our host family. Emilia, Balbina, and Basilio. Missing: timid older sister Elena and dad, David

Our friend Maria Jose. 

Our host brother continuing to show off his personality.

Me, having not shaved for 3 days because our house is having water issues, Alice, my always lovely wife, Otho, an American educated engineer and Themis (Dennis) the dalmation.

I always feel like I am falling behind on the blog, but in all actuality I probably have something to tell about once a month, every two weeks during good times.

As we have talked about on many occasions Alice and I have put a great deal of time and effort into a civic education project. One group of students we had present in front of a group of national policy makers in an attempt to get the ministry of education (that’s right, we have ministries here, not departments) to adopt this particular program into the national curriculum.

Well, we were nearing the end of the school year and we had to plan something both of our schools could participate in. And we did. And it went great. We ended up with 3 groups presenting: one on poverty, one on drug use, and a third on deforestation. The presentations impressed even my, since two of the groups did a final practice the day before and seemed kinda shaky, but they pulled it off in style.

Following the presentations, invited community leaders are given a chance to ask questions or offer comments. I must censor myself now, to avoid future consequences. One of our invited community leaders started talking, and I zoned in and out, concentrating more on what I was going to say next, when a comment got my attention. The person who had the floor was making some audience inappropriate comments and I was immediately confused. I suppose while the time and place of comments is important to me, some folk consider what they have to say so important they forget to censor themselves. Consider that your lesson of the day. Think twice before speaking in front of people about what you’re going to say.

After comments we had lunch with the students and gave them certificates. Alice and I were both a little sad to big goodbye to our students, but we have been invited to teach English next year and we probably will.

We went to the big Halloween celebration in Copan this year, and that was okay. It could have been far better, but I lost our camera and the next day ate something nasty on the way home and enjoyed a case of diarrhea while on an 8 hour bus ride home and the following two days.

I went to the South again and went swimming in a good old fashioned swimming hole. There isn’t really a story there, but I did it, and I like saying that.

Lately I’ve been in the beginning stages of an improved stove project. Most stoves here are three small brick walls with a cooking surface on top, which work fairly well, but eat firewood like cookie monster eats cookies. (That sesame street reference was in honor of my nephew, Nathan, who loves Elmo and Nemo. I am working on a Nemo reference.) One of my counterparts is in charge of community-based projects to benefit the water shed and the quality of life of the people living in it. So thanks to a German NGO we are building 250 improved stoves in 6 communities. The improvement is the addition of a firebox and a chimney which greatly reduces the usage of firewood and gets the smoke out of the house, which should greatly improve the health of the people cooking who currently work in a constant fog of smoke.

In other news, I hurt my knee and may end up being evacuated for knee surgery. I apparently have a ruptured ACL, which is, apparently, not good.

I will try to keep everyone updated on the stoves and my knee, but until then, just keep swimming. (I knew I could do it.)

This year´s rainy season has come in with a bang. It has rained every day for a month, and not your usually rainy season rain, but big long storms, filling the whole country with water. There´s not a road without puddles, lakes, streams in them. More interestingly, due to the massive amount of water this season, our mountain road seems to be falling apart. It started with nothing abnormal, such as mudslides into the road, rocks and dirt sliding down into the pavement. Inevitable and easy enough to fix within a day or two. However, two days ago, massive rains caused a stream to flood, which caused part of the road of one of the mountain curves to just fall off. There´s a hole in the side of the road, and they are worried about the whole road going down.

So, to take a bus to the capital, I have to get off about 50 feet from the spot, walk to the other side, and take another bus. They won´t let them pass until they figure out what to do.

I´d like to say this is the only place where the road wants to slide off the mountain, but on the other side of our site, the other exit, they have been working on a similar road problem for over a year....doesn´t build a lot of confidence, except, at least for now, the other side is still pasable by buses. It is interesting, because it is conditions like this, with the country saturated, that can cause a national disaster like the havoc reaked by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. It put the country back at least a decade. My biggest prayer right now is that the rain lets up a little bit and no more tropical depressions or hurricanes dump on the country for a few weeks. Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.....

I am standing in front of a roomful of people. I remind myself I did this to myself as I nervously watch my project manager finish her part of the speaking. I’m nervous because when she finishes, it’s my turn, then Alice. Alice has her part memorized because she hates being in front of people. I only practiced 3 or 4 times, but I was planning on just talking normally. I don’t know why I thought that I would be comfortable talking in Spanish in front of a group of 100 educators. I am half thankful that over half the invitees have skipped the second day of the meeting to participate in the teacher strikes that have shut down the public schools for the past 2 days. I speak Spanish like I’m 7. I’ve got a decent vocabulary and pronunciation, but I still haven’t had 8 years of grammar classes reminding me when to use preterit or imperfect. The group of people I am standing in front of is the national congress on civic education. This is a congress from the old definition, the one where it was just a meeting of concerned parties, not national law makers. Of course, this doesn’t make it much easier to talk to them. We are still trying to get them to adopt project citizen as part of the national curriculum, which means they might as well be lawmakers. They are the top authority. With over 200 invitees, only 120 showed the first day. Today is the second day and I guess there is somewhere between 80 and 110. I’ve never had to estimate numbers of people this high. I’ve never been expected to talk to this many people either. Not even in college. Along with my wife and boss, we also have eight of our students with us. They don’t know how good they’ve made us look. Even when they didn’t really have a clue what they were doing because we rushed them through 4 weeks of the program, they still made us look good by showing up at our whim. Instead of spending their afternoons and weekends relaxing or getting into trouble, they’ve spent 13 of the last 21 days in our office preparing for this presentation. I should mention it takes Alice and me at least 20 minutes to travel from their school to our office when we have direct transportation. It probably takes the students at least 35 minutes, but they show up consistently and don’t complain. The other 22 students in the class were only interested in doing work in class, which is more standard for students here. Anyways, I am watching them prepare in the last few moments before I say a few words and praying everything goes well for them when they present their work in a few minutes. My boss is finished and shoots me a look probably meant to say good luck, but I barely see it. She worked hard to be a part of this congress and the last thing I want to hear later is that everything went well until Drew spoke. I’m walking to the microphone. I have to adjust it. In my entire time here, I’ve met 2 Hondurans as tall as me, but never anyone taller. I am a giant amongst men here, but right now I feel my confidence somewhere around my feet. “Good morning” Yeah, I’m nervous, but at least I assigned the right gender to morning, should be all downhill from here. “First, I’d like to introduce my wife and co-worker, Alice.” I am getting more nervous, despite the flawless execution of my greeting and first sentence. I silently bask in the pleasure of having assigned the appropriate gender to both wife and co-worker. If nothing else, at least this group of highly educated Hondurans will I know I’m aware that my wife is a female. I am awesome. I continue on and tell people that we are Peace Corps volunteers in Valle de Angeles and we have a year left. Oddly enough, it is exactly one year to the day. I start into the meat of things and manage to execute a few decent sentences about how we started with project citizen in different school with another teacher, and now we are trying to expand it to 2 other schools. I find myself temporarily distracted while I am talking and lose my place. I have what I am going to say written down, but I hate such restrictions when talking in front of groups. I usually do make note cards, but today I’ve just printed off a paper, since what I have planned to say is less than a half sheet of paper. I look down at the paper and mumble “where am I?” The people laugh and I am immediately glad I screwed up. The students can now see it is not fatal to mess up and I am no longer hiding behind my rehearsed infallibility. I get through the second half of the paper much easier, even though I realize I left out a large chunk in the beginning. I pass the floor to Alice and I slink off the stage relieved. If I were a better husband I would have stood next to her for moral support, but the idea doesn’t occur to me until I’ve walked off. I guess I had been more nervous than I thought, because it takes a minute for the details to start becoming clear in my mind again. Alice is already into her speech and I am sitting off to the side next to my boss hoping Alice does a good job. She gets so nervous in front of groups, I start to get nervous for her. She tells about the school we are working in and the students. We tactfully leave out that the teacher has been terrible and only shown up 3 times in 13 weeks. Alice is talking about the students being nervous and she throws in that she is a bit nervous herself. This is a shock. Alice doesn’t add things in. Alice recites; it makes her more comfortable. The people reward her addition with a pleasant chuckle and she looks more at ease. She finishes up and passes the floor to the students. She did fantastically, and I remind myself I should mention that to her later, but I never do until she asks me about it later. My mind is already on my students. The eight kids are split up into pairs to represent the four parts of the presentation. The first part is pretty easy. The two girls have to explain the social problem they chose to study, give some background, and explain why they wanted to choose that problem. They chose deforestation and forest fires, and if you see a before and after picture of their community, it is pretty obvious what the background is and why they chose it. At the current rate, the trees and topsoil with both be gone in 5 years, along with the water they all depend on. The two girls look confident and intelligent. They are speaking from memory, but the information doesn’t sounds mechanically memorized. The second two girls have to explain the current public policy regarding the forest. They had to read 90 pages of the national forestry law to get the information they needed, and it took me and 2 other people at least 5 tries to explain the public policy concept. A law is public policy (most of the time), but a public policy is not always a law. Most groups have a public policy, and it may be the same as the law and it may not. The firemen are not policy makers, but they have a policy that pertains to the subject, so they need to be mentioned in an intelligent policy discussion, but you cannot propose a policy to them in hope they adopt it. Work in the community groups and their relation to public policy and the result was two baffled teen-aged girls. We finally got them where we needed them sometime two days before. The best part of all is you would never be able to tell the concept confused them even in the slightest. They make the second part flow as effortlessly as the first. The only complaint I have is that one of the girls seems to have spent too much time at a local evangelical church and is attempting to swallow the microphone between breaths, making her sounds a lot like she’s giving a sermon. While the content of the second part was the scariest, the scariest performers were the third group. We did not pick the students who were going to participate, and we were willing to give all of the students an equal chance. The two boys had honestly never done any presentations in front of people, let alone in front of well educated strangers. They are very accustomed to memorizing and reciting, and they were amazing at that, but while they were talking during practices it was painfully obvious they were reciting things word for word. They were the only two to practice during the day off we gave the students to relax. They were still feeling mechanical, but the improvement was visible. One was still really nervous about talking in front of people, so he requested a local preacher open up the church for him on a Thursday, so he could practice his part with a microphone. The other student comes from the community where Alice does her literacy classes on Sundays where the illiteracy rate is sky high. When he graduates next year he will be amongst the most educated men in his community. By the time they got to the microphone, I was no longer scared they were going to mess anything up. I was just scared they would freeze up and all their hard work would end with them being disappointed. They were in charge of describing the public policy the students had come up with to deal with deforestation in their community. The policy was to basically follow the law, which seems silly, but really needs to be said to the powers that be in the municipality. They were perfect, and seemed like they were as comfortable as everybody else on stage. When they finished, I closed my eyes for a second in relief, knowing that I would never forget that experience. The last pair of boys participated in community theatre during the fair, and we were not very concerned with their ability to talk in front of people. They hadn’t been either, and they probably had the most pauses because they hadn’t practiced as much as the other groups. The talked about their plan of action and it went smoothly. I was a little sad they had decided to talk from an outline, since this means every time they spoke it went a little different. Once, during practice they said the office for the municipal environmental office was smaller than the bathroom, and the person in it was not going to be taken seriously or be able to hold the meetings he needed in it. Honesty is not a valued in politics, and I think my boss mentioned he should change that part, but I would have loved to see him say that. I hope when the students do the presentations at the municipality he puts that back in. At the end we had told the students they needed a conclusion and we assumed that the last group was going to tack it on to the end, so when they announced the first girl was going to conclude, I was confused, and briefly, very worried.             She did fine, and was probably the best person to do it. She was confident and well rehearsed, and she remembered to thank all the necessary people. The students were all relieved as they walked off stage, half exhausted, half proud. They sat down and for a few minutes they were chatty, asking how they did, feeling relived, but as soon as the net presentation began, they were immediately respectful and quiet. Shortly after we have to usher them out so they can eat and Alice and I can get to our next activity. The new groups of volunteers were being sworn in, and we were invited. I am slightly disappointed I didn’t stay with the students to congratulate them over and over again, but Alice and I working on a plan to take them to the beach, where we will give them a free day to enjoy themselves. We’ll give them certificates and pictures of their performance, and hopefully, they will have half a clue how much we appreciate them.             As for the other 22 students in that class, and the 30 students in the other high school, we are waiting out a teachers’ strike that currently has schools nationwide shut down and unused. We only need a little time to really organize the community level event, but the students in the other groups aren’t quite ready. As soon as we get them there, we’ll let everyone know.

Ba-bababa-Ba-Ba-Boom!!

I woke up to the sounds of drums starting and the sounds of marching, sirens and people.

Drew, get up! We’re late, the parades are starting and we promised to be there…......we head into town and we show up to a town completely full of people. The streets where the parade will go is completely full on both sides, and the marching has started.

The cool thing about Independence Day here is that the kids are still in school. Each school participates, for the most part, with some kind of marching event. This is especially true for the elementary schools. This includes matching costumes, a flag guard, pom pom girls, people dressed in traditional costumes or representing different Honduran symbols, and much more. For the high schools, it is more of the same, but also including girls with batons and a marching band. Unlike the states, a marching band here includes drums, bass drum, cymbals and bell sets, there is not money for other types of instruments. But that does not stop the kids from pounding away great drum beats, swaying and dancing to the same beat as they march uniformly down the road. That’s the cool thing, they dance here as they march.

The conductor was dancing more than the band members........So in most municipalities (counties) in the central town there are the parades all morning, with people cheering and out with their families. As we’ve gotten to know more people we know more cute kids that are involved, so of course we have to take pictures of them, here they are looking way too cool in their uniforms.

I gotta say......I have a weakness for cute kids in uniforms......

Dillan, our work partner’s kid, and Antonio, our neighbor who loves to play with Lizzie

In the afternoon, there was live music in the park, people out eating, chatting, and spending time with their families. I thought, okay, that is probably it. But no, there was another round of marching and music that night! Much shorter, just one high school marched, but they put 100% into it and it was pretty fun, with the park all lit up and the drums pounding.Overall, I was impressed. It was a fun event, and I felt the sense of patriotism, good cheer, and cultural spirit in my town. It was very different than our Independence Day, no fireworks for sure, but they had us beat in their drum beats. So, feliz dia de independencia, 15 de Septiembre, Honduras!

Things have been busier than usual, and Alice and I have both recently sent out e-mails. Alice's email was rather important and if you missed it, I recomend you shoot her an email and let her know. Mine was just a story about a crazy day. Nothing important, but if you like stories and you didn't get it, let me know. 

In other news Alice and I have pretty much finished up our work with the new trainees. They find out thier sites today and Alice and I are going to tag along to find out who is going to be close. 

Our project citizen classes are both going well. One class has been selected to go to a national meeting of educators who are going to discuss the current situation concerning civic education where our students will present the information and answer question conerning the project. Our project manager is hoping we set a good example and encourage the country's educators as a whole to adopt it.

I've jumped head first into a tourism poject and I am working with the local chamber of commerce to help bring together a website project, a compost project, and research for tourism opportunities. Right now I am getting huge participation since I am offering to design a webpage, I just hope to sucker in a few people into the other projects at the same time.

Alice and I repeated the hike and today I will leave you with some pictures of the second adventure up the mountain. Mountain Basset seeing how easy the trail will be and preparing to bound up the hill.

The "bridge" over the ditch the dog wouldn't cross with me.

The dog openly mocking me by crossing the bridge quickly and easily with Alice.

What would have been a good picture if photography was a skill of mine.

The waterfall. The destination. The dog on the side of the hill showing off how she needs no trail.

Until the next time.

Drew

My life has often been a fight between my comfort with routine and my love for new things. Recently I have noticed what a negative effect routine can have on a Peace Corps volunteer. I have two basic schedules I follow without question or thought. The first, which gets followed three or four days a week involves me waking up early to an alarm at about 6 or 7 to race off to some obligation, like civic education classes, a training or a session with the new group of trainees. Then I either come home for lunch, or if I have more afternoon activities I grab a bite in the street and head to my afternoon activity. Then it is home for dinner and time to watch old TV shows on my computer (this month is season 1 and 2 of Seinfeld). The other daily routine I enjoy on the days when I am free in the morning involves waking up to a wet nose (the dog's, not the wife's) at 8ish, making breakfast then listening to three-day old pod casts that downloaded during a recent trip to the office. After a couple pod casts when my attention span is starting to run out, I find myself making lunch and proceeding with the afternoon as I would with the other routine.

The majority of my days here are quite productive, but I've found that since I usually have work, I've stopped doing new things. I live here like I would live anywhere else. What a wasted opportunity.

So yesterday I woke up following schedule B (pod casts, coffee, and toast with peanut butter), and decided that something was missing. The three previous days I had spent all my time working on various projects and here I was with a free day and I was going to waste it sitting in my house listening to pod casts I could easily put on my iPod and listen to anywhere. I remembered that one of the trainees had asked my a few weeks before if it were true there is a waterfall near where I live, and that reminded me nearly a year before I had gone with the previous volunteer on a hike to a waterfall nearby. The hike had taken us mostly on back roads built by the mining company that operated here some years ago (80ish years I think, but it is hard to say, since the forest here reclaims the old buildings so fast), but at some point we found ourselves following a trail about 50 meters from a waterfall. We were still too far away to see it, but the water had been too high to continue on the path, and we weren't in the mood that day for a swim. Alice and I turned around and vowed to ourselves to try again soon.

Nearly a year later my thirst for adventure finally returned.

Alice: You should shower before you come to the office.

Drew: I think I am going to take the morning off.

Alice: whatever, but you should still shower

Drew: no

Alice: what? you stink, you need to shower

Drew: I think I am going for a hike

Alice: Really? where to?

Drew: The waterfall. I think I am going to take the dog too. She was locked up all day yesterday and she could use the exercise.

Alice: Okay then, don't shower.

Drew: Wanna come?

Alice: No, I just finished taking a shower. I am feeling rather clean.

Drew: Alright, well, we're going.

Alice: Okay, well call me or whatever when you know when you'll back so we can eat lunch.

Drew: See you then.

(The shower was a big deal, since the day before we left before the water came on and we got home after it is was already off. I probably stuck like the farm we visted)

So me and my dog were going on a hike. I had been in the area before, so I knew it was fairly safe, and off I went. When we had gone there a year before and I din't remember the trail being particularly dangerous, since about 75% was old road. The road was washed out and mostly impassable in a car, but on foot it was still fairly easy, just muddy.

Locating which road exactly was another chore. I remember that I had made mental notes every time we turned, but since we had made some wrong turns the first time, my fuzzy year old mental notes didn't always take me on the right path. So to get up in the mountain took some time, but I managed to recognize wrong turns fairly quickly most of the time. The first time I messed up I had thought I had gone the wrong way, turned around, walked the other way for 10 minutes and realized the first way was correct. I was in no hurry, but the dog and I were both annoyed we had to walk back up a rather steep incline due to a fuzzy memory.

The second time I took the wrong road I encountered old mining ruins I had remembered and kept going. Turns out a lot of mining ruins look similar. I came to a ditch in the path that dropped about 5 feet and was about 5 feet across. There was a single log still crossing the gap, but the rest of the logs had fallen in the ditch and the ditch was home to a fair amount of flowing water. I looked at the dog and she looked at me. We were stuck. I could jump the gap, but not with the dog, and if I feel off the log with her in my arms I would definitely break something or her. She just gave me a look that said we had gone too far to turn around and I agreed, so I had no choice to think of something. I looked around for boards to lay across, and found some, but they were rotten and couldn't support my weight. After another minute or two of thinking I finally thought of the obvious. Since the ditch was only 5 feet across and 5 feet down, I climbed down onto the old broken bridge. Picked the dog up and set her down on the other side, then climbed up. (I should have brought a camera, and next time I will to improve this explanation). We walked a grand 30 feet before I realized I had gone to the wrong place. We had indeed gone to this place once before, but we had needed to turn around that time too. I had to repeat the whole process in reverse, but this time I managed to get myself covered in mud. So much so, it seemed silly to even try to rinse it off.

So I retraced my steps and finally found the right trail. The puppy and I were on our way we got to the same point we had to turn around the year before. It was at this point I realized bringing the dog with had been a mistake. The path along the stream to get to the waterfall was narrow and heavily inclined to the side, making falling off very easy. My fat basset baby was never going to make it. I didn't know what to do again. I was having problems following the narrow trail, which occasionally, didn't even resemble a trail, but rather a couple of places I could put my feet with nothing but a gap in between. I only have 2 legs, but they are long and offer me the ability to make large steps. This is how I learned I had the world’s only mountain basset. The dog was following with more grace than I could possibly have shown. I carefully stumbled across the gaps, while she gracefully galloped between them. Only once did she slip off into the water, and when she did, she offered me an annoyed look that said "look, if you would go a little faster I could have made it up that, now I am all wet and it is entirely your fault". So despite my myriad of attempts at self sabotage, me and my dog finally made it to the waterfall. I don't know if it was as awesome as I had expected, but I didn't care. I had made it and gotten out of my routine. The way there had taken about an hour and 45. I called Alice and told her I had made it and I would be back for lunch in about an hour and a fifteen. I remembered at this point I had brought my iPod and I gleefully walked home listening to my music. The way down the mountain only took 45 minutes, since I knew the way home much better than the way there.

So, today with a new outlook on what I should be doing with my free time I woke up, made some breakfast and started listening to a pod cast. I hate you routine, but You knew I couldn't stay away for long. I think even though I found myself stuck back where I was I still learned I need to enjoy the things around me more. In ten years I doubt I will be proud that I stayed so well informed about current events during my service, but rather I will be angry I didn't get out and do more. I need to do this everywhere. Even in the states I would sit at home or go to the same bar with the same people. I should have gone to the park or the movies or volunteering. I like being informed, but thanks to technology I can have it both ways. So, starting today, I am going to be better about doing things just because I always do them.

I am teaching elementary school in our most illiterate community. Most of you know I started with a basic literacy class that I developed myself and then adapted with some Peace Corps materials. However, as a couple months went by, I found that I have no training as a teacher and had problems developing efficient lessons. My lessons weren’t bad and I was teaching some important concepts, but it felt incomplete. I discovered a “class by CD” alternative education program called Educatodos that teaches 1-6th grade, as well as high school classes. Each grade has 4 CDs worth of lessons, and a book that follows along with each lesson. The materials provided include reading, writing, comprehension, history and math, and is very complete as far as learning. I started this program after three months of my own classes, which has now officially turned into a fourth grade class, first grade, and one nice young man who I teach individually 2nd grade. They listen to the tapes and I facilitate and check their assignments. My fourth grade class is GREAT, the five ladies (two around 13 years old, the other three in their early twenties) show up every week, do the assignments, and seem to have lots of fun. They are thrilled that I am doing this program for them and want to complete thru the 6th grade while I am here as a volunteer.

My first grade class was larger at first but has dwindled down to a mother in her 40’s and a man in his late 20’s. They show up almost every week and are very eager to learn. The lady always comes with her pre-teen daughter that supports and helps her through the lessons. She is smart and is learning quickly and can already look at words, divide them by sounds and then read them aloud. The young man has a much harder time and can barely recognize the letters of the alphabet but he has made progress and can write his own name now without help. He can also write the alphabet on his own and is much better with numbers than letters. He can recognize any number 1-100 and tell you what it is. This is much better than a few months ago, and as long as he continues to come, I will work with him till he can read and write basic words on his own.

Each week a few random kids come, belonging to one adult or another, and they are fun to play with and are seeing their family member in a learning environment. Hopefully they will get the opportunity to go to school and help make their parent’s economical situations better. Also, I teach a nice young man 2nd grade twice a week at my home. This community is about 30 minutes up the mountain by car (an hour or two walking), but luckily he works as a lawn man for the clinic about a block from my house in town and so we do the class twice a week after he gets off work. He was too advanced for one class and couldn’t keep up with the other, but it is fun to work one on one with someone.

This is the most humbling thing I have done here. While in some ways I wish I had more students in a community I know has a dire need, it is amazing to see the same students show up week after week to learn the basics of elementary school. Especially my fourth grade girls. They are young, fun, energetic, and could be doing a lot of other things on a Sunday morning but they really want to learn and have touched my heart. I started this after Christmas and will probably work in this community till I leave Honduras. I have one volunteer (the lady standing in the next photo) and she helps teach the classes with me. Also, she is facilitating a 6th grade class for her husband and a few other men in town in the evenings. Together, we are making a small difference in the educational level of the town, where more than 80% of the adults are illiterate.

We as Americans are so lucky with our educational system. For one, we have classes all day, where here it is just about 4-5 hours in the morning or afternoons. Also, the teachers here strike a lot, and sometimes for valid reasons, but the people that lose are the students. Literally last month the schools all over Honduras were on strike twice and resulted in a loss of about a week of classes, which makes a huge difference in the quality of education. I teach this alternative education program in a community church which has opened our doors to us to teach the class each week. We sit in the little blue church benches but it is so great to have a free place to use with electricity and the students feel comfortable going here more than the small elementary school in town they never actually attended the first time around. I found this project because, despite the blatant poverty in the community, there are several people who are really motivated to make their area’s situation better. They asked for my help when I attended their community meetings, and I saw it as something I could actually learn to do. So this is why, for me, this is what a Peace Corps project should be….you see a change you have helped make, the community shows up and wants the change, and you have a person or two who are willing to continue it after you leave.

So, I don't really have any reason to post most of the time, but I do anyways, and this is no different. I would like the refer all of you to "the talanga update" especially the later half of her latest entry and to "liz the pammer". Both of those blogs located in the right-hand column under "Other people rocking Honduras" have recently posted fantastic updates that do a very good job of describing a couple of complex experiences and emotions a lot of volunteers go through.

As of late work is more confusing than difficult. Work is occasionally difficult to find, but right now I nearly have too much work. I would like to narrow down my focus and hit one thing more effectively, but every time I am trying to do this I am getting vibes like people are feeling ignored in another area. Planning is becoming more formal in my counter-part's office and I am not enthused about more reports. Mostly because my written Spanish makes me cringe. I would rather just talk about when I am doing once a week. Hopefully the practice will improve my skillz.

August marks a few wondrous occasions. The sixth is Alice and I´s third anniversary. This means we will have celebrated our marriage two times here, and only once in the States. When we go home next September of our 4 years being married, over half will have been spent here. An interesting twist on the traditional marriage. Alice's birthday is also coming up on the 19th and she is pretty excited. I will be grilling and causing trouble while she celebrates with who ever shows up this time. (I say this since no matter who we invite only half of them show up, but another 5 people show up unexpectedly. I don't know how this works, but it happens consistently. I actually met people for the first time at my own birthday party.) If you are considering sending her something I'd like to make a few recommendations:

1. Do not send more Kraft Mac and cheese. We brought some and 3 packages containing more showed up shortly after. This means we probably have at least 30 packages. We need some time to work down the supply. Also, we currently have a ton of beef jerky. Probably won't need more till Christmas. Cheddar cheese based snack crackers are welcome (gold fish crackers/cheese nips).

2. We could use some new movies. I really want to see Juno, Alice will watch anything but a horror flick.

3. Things that will entertain us are always welcome. Creativity is encouraged.

4. Completely apart from Alice, I would really like a Macintosh laptop with MS office and adobe creative suite 3. You know, if you have a spare grand or two with nothing to do. My laptop here is becoming a constant source of frustration/amusement. On second though, don't actually buy me this, but know I spend more time at apple.com salivating than is healthy. One day when I have a real job I will probably spend more money at apple than is healthy.

I don't know why as of late I have felt the need to express myself in the form of a list, but I do. Life goes on.

A few quick updates. Alice and I are teaching project citizen two days a week in high schools a ways a way. Monday we catch a taxi out to an aldea (village that is not the municipal seed) about 15 minutes away and we teach about 16 students. Why 16? Because only half the class of 32 shows up consistently on Mondays. The teacher we are supposedly working with is probably half the reason why. She has yet to show up on a Monday to actually work with us. The kids who do show up are awesome and I am excited about working with them. Since they never have a teacher, we are going to work in some leadership themes and extend the program. Not sustainable work, but I could care less. I like motivated students and I like working with this group. Tuesday we go a little further away. We catch a ride 25 minutes to the town of San Jauncito (technically a part of Teg, but generally ignored by their municipal government). After our ride we walk up a dirt road for another 15 minutes to get to one of the coolest high schools ever. We are working with about 32 students, all of which show up regularly and a teacher that seems to like the program. The high school also offers the best shop class ever. They don't learn to make birdhouses and boxes. They learn how to build bookshelves, desks and cabinets. The equivalent of home ec actually learns how to sow blankets and clothes. Then all the stuff the two classes make gets sold at fairs to raise money for the school. Alice and I plan on getting a few new furnishings from the shop class.

We are working rather extensively with the new training group and we have spent about 2 days a week help teach some different parts of municipal development to the new group of trainees. Doing this makes me realize how complicated my project really is. I only work in about 1/3 of the areas we are encouraged to work in. The municipality we live in only has about 1/4 the offices it is supposed to have. I also realized how much more I know than I thought. I can do a reasonable lecture on community organizations, municipal structure, NGOs, and all sorts of other things that never affected my life before I came.

My current brain child is to start a tourism committee but this is proving to be more work than I expected. I just don't know what functions they should have and what sort of activities I should encourage. As of now I have three goals for them (awesome another list):

1. Promote activities keeping tourists here for more time. Too many people come to my town for lunch in a quiet mountain town and leave. This means usually only 1 business benefits (the restaurant) Maybe 2 (a craft shop). If someone stays for an overnight visit, that turns into more like 4 (the people who do the activity, a hotel, 2 restaurants, plus the possible craft shops and the nearby national park).

2. Develop a website. American tourists come by Valle de Angeles all the time, especially missionaries. A website would be a good way to raise money and attention.

3. Use their collective pressure to ensure the municipality provides appropriate services to make expanded tourism possible (grading the roads more often, more dependable trash service in more areas, water in more areas ect.)

I am hoping to expand these goals to more like 10 before I push for a first meeting.

Alice is continuing her literacy classes, but has added the option to participate in an education program that ends with a high school degree if people stick with the program. She works with about 3 different grades with a total of about 9 regulars and 6 irregulars.

We're doing other work as well. I still work at times with caja rurales, but another organization here has gotten some funding to expand these organizations and they have requirements that I was not interested in teaching. ( I was teaching the groups that they needed to make rules for credit and guarantees they were comfortable with, and if the rules work, go with them. The current group wants them to use some very specific requirements I think exclude people, hence is at odds to the whole idea. Also, they also are trying to get people to spend 3 or 4 weekdays in a row in training, which I cannot participate in, since I no longer have 3 or 4 weekdays in a row free until October).

Alice said I was going to post an update soon, so here I am. As Alice mentioned, I had the fever. I think she really did cover the main details pretty well and I will only add a couple of details in list form:

1. I hate getting IVs. My viens are thin and don't like to cooperate. It took 5 tries to place 2 IVs.

2. I bruise when an IV is placed correctly.

3. I bruise a lot when an IV is not placed correctly.

4. I don't like hospitals.

5. I cannot sleep well in hospitals.

6. If I am in the hospital for a fever, and I am discovered to be sweating at 2 in the morning, I could care less that my shirt is a little wet. Let me sleep.

7. If my blood pressure is slightly low becuase you wake me up to take it, it is not going to put me in better spirits if you wake me up on an hourly basis to check it again. Especially when the time period in question is between 12am and 7am.

8. If I don't have stomach issues, I don't want shots that fix stomach issues.

9. I don't really want shots at all.

10. I have medical allergies. Even if I told the admitting doctor about them, I will probably ask you about everything you try to hook up to my viens.

11. Failure to answer these questions will get you kicked out of my hospital room until you want to answer them.

12. I am not a good patient. I am not a patient patient.

13. I like hot food. Not eating cold food does not mean I have developed stomach issues. It means I don't like cold soup.

14. If I am so sick I need to be hospitalized, do not leave me in a hallway for an hour and a half.

15. I would rather go through the pain of another IV then have an old IV restarted by forcefully injecting saline to unclog it.

16. On second thought, I would actually prefer to just have the bag changed at a regular interval.

So, that is my latest trip to the local hospital. They diagnosed my correctly the first time, which was a nice change, but I larned I don't ever want to be hospitalized again if I can avoid it. I am contemplating talking to people at the office about my experience to find out if what I experienced was normal. I am betting it was, but I'd like to know.

So a new group of municipal development is being trained, and I am spending a lot of my free time helping my project trainer out. Alice and/or I stop by once a week to run a session and answer questions. The new group seems alright and they haven't lost anyone yet, and I hope they keep that up. My group has now lost 11 people, and we are well over average for the country. It is really sad losing that many people. Hopefully the new group keeps blogs so I can add them to people rocking Honduras.

That is all for now.

The Hippie

In Central America we have a fun little virus called Dengue. Oh, it's pretty awful actually. Some symptoms include: high fever (usually lasts a couple of days)

body aches and chills, especially head and eye aches

Body exhaustion, weekened immune system

and so forth......all of which Drew was unfortunate to come down with this weekend.

It is transmitted by mosquitos, and we just started our rainy season, so it is perfect breeding time for these bugs and the disease.

I won't talk too much about the hospital experience because I know Drew is looking forward to blogging about it. I think if Drew has to do another medical test or visit a clinic again anytime soon though, he may go crazy. Lets just say, they tend to overcheck some things and under pay attention to others. Lets just say it isn't like the states.....

However, i will give our little hospital in town one thing, it has the best hospital food I've ever seen. Maybe because it's adventist, and they run a daily bakery as well. Fresh bread and fruits, overall, not too bad.

Drew is now recovering and doing better, and I am wearing bug spray around the house so I don't accidently come down with the fever as well. Unfortunately, like with malaria, there is no preventitive medicines you can take, you just gotta hope you don't get bit by an infected mosquito. But good news for you in the states, it is non-exsistant there. And, people in town have been really supportive. Our counterpart came by the night Drew had to stay in the hospital and brought movies and music to listen too. Another work buddy gave us a ride home from the hospital the next day. We only live about 2 blocks from the hospital, but that is far when you're really sick. Since we live in the adventist neighborhood so close to the adventist hospital, all our neighbors knew he was sick and have sent their well-wishes for his quick recovery. It does help that people here are so friendly when you are sick, makes it a little easier.

This is just a quick update on our crazy past few days, hope all of you are in good health and doing well!

Before I start into part of this blog that actually motivated me to write the blog, I would like to start by saying: no more excuses. The website is up! Right now I only have the Spanish version up and 2 sections still need some work (activities and photos), but think of it like a rough draft. The english version is scheduled to luanch by Friday, asuming my life is not consumed with other work, as I am concerned it might be.

http://www.consejodecuenca.org/

The Beach! That is why I am writing and that is why you are reading! Honduras is home to multiple locations that make it world famous. The Mayan ruins, the untouched forest in the East, the oven-like conditions of the South, the mountains in the center, but if an American says they have been to Honduras, they probably went to Roatan (or were on a churh mission, or maybe a hippie). The bay island of Roatan is the largest in a chain of islands off the coast of Honduras and is a regular stop on Carnival Cruise ships.

I remember when I joined the Peace Corps I told one of my co-workers at the time I was going to Honduras. The conversation went like this:

Her: I've been to Honduras.Me: Really? Why?Her: Vacation. Did you know they spoke English in Honduras?Me: I don't think you went to Honduras. They speak Spanish. Maybe it was Belize?Her: No, it was Honduas, and everyone spoke EnglishMe: Where did you go?Her: HondurasMe: Yes we've established that, where in Honduras?Her: Oh! the islands!

Me: So wait, you never went on the mainland? and we're basing the language habits of the entire nation on an island smaller than downtown Tulsa?Her: Look, all I know is that the people on the cruise ship told us everyone would speak English and on our tour they did.Me: I don't suppose you're going to make me tell you why that was not even close to the actual lives of Hondurans?Her: I don't understand what you mean.Me: You have a customer in aquatics. Her: Where?Me: Just get out of the office.

So that is how I learned that Honduras had Bay Islands, and that I should go there if i wanted to potentially meet Americans completely clueless about Honduras.

My brother announced his visit some months ago, around February or March. I decided that I should take advantage of my brothers employment and go to the Islands. People with jobs can afford that sort of thing. He also wanted to see Copan, so we went thier first. Copan is cheap by american standards. 3 people can eat, have an appetizer and share a round of drinks for less than $25 at one of the nicer places. Sadly, I only had a half day in copan planned. We took an early morning bus to the ruins that arrived around lunch. After a good meal we headed to the ruins, stopped by the bus terminal for tickets, ate dinner and went to sleep. No party in Copan, but mostly because our bus left at 5:15 in the morning. The ruins are nice, but this was my second (and Alice's third) visit. The next day we traveled 12 hours. 2 Buses, a taxi, a ferry, another taxi and we finally arrived in time for dinner. We decided to go first to the restaurant Arco Iris. This place comes highly recomended by everyone, and it is good, but it should come with a warning.

Warning: all 3 of you just ordered an entree, any one of those entrees could feed all 3 of you.

We also established that the islands are NOT cheap. Dinner cost us nearly $70. This was the second best dinner I ate on the Islands, and it is worth it, but should be saved for the last night. On the way back to the hotel we saw a crab. I have never seen a wild crab. The odd thing to me was that no one was hunting it, and further, no restaurant served crab. That may be the only place a crab can live safely.

The next morning we set off and had no idea what to do. We figured we would head over to the famous beach. Beaches Rule. On our way there my brother discovered something that had previously not existed in my head. He found: A wild hermit crab. In my experience, hermit crabs are like genetically modified crops. They look normal, but you know it took some crazy person in a lab to come up with the idea. Now I still must assume it was instead a crazy person (like the pet rock guy) who decided to keep such a boring death-prone animal as a pet, since now I know they really do exist outside pet stores and plastic boxes in kids' rooms.

We did what all Peace Corps volunteers do when they don't know what they should be doing. We went for a walk guessing it would lead us toward excitement. It did. We ended up in West Bay on the beach. A glorious beach, full of wonderfully clear water and white sand with trees and hotels lining the frontier to the island. It was amazing. Now I will ruin your imagination with pictures.

When we got to the beach, it looked like the above picture. Every chair was taken for 400 meters of beautiful beach. It was wonderful, but crowded. Then we asked one of the people with the carnival towels what time they would have to be back on the boat. He told us at noon. After 11:30, it was a ghost town (beach). We had it all to ourselves.

Like this. It was wonderful. We got drinks from the beach bar, and did nothing productive all day. Just sat on the beach and got sun burnt.This is how the other end of the beach looked. Beutiful no matter where you're looking. After we got done on the beach we got some dinner and went back to the hotel. At about 10 at night we decided we needed to go for a swim. The hotel had a dock so we found the ladder coming off the side and climbed in. After swimming around a while I decided it was deep enough to begin jumping in. I know that this was a bad idea, but I did it anyways. I never did get hurt like I deserved, but I did get a great picture.I call this picture midnight cannonball, despite the fact it happened at about 10:30. I was soundly asleep by 11:00.The second day on the beach we decided to snorkel, and that was fun until I felt like I could smell the skin on my back burning. So after 2 hours we all decided a little shade could do us good, and we retired to the hotel for the day. The rest of the trip was traveling back to catch a plane, but it was worth all the travel. We all had a good time.

First, Alice would like everyone to note that she does her fair share in taking care of the puppy, and it is true. The only time the dog is 100% my problem is at night and recently the dog has taken to jumping on me and before I am awake nough to put her back in her hole, she is over licking Alice's face. She usually does this at 2 and then again at 4. Last week we took our dog to the vet to get her the last of her shots and get her fixed. Here is another amusing fact about dogs. It cost nearly $175 to get her fixed. In the states I know at least 3 clinics that do it for free. Now, to be honest I don't know if it is free for everyone, but I know I wouldn't have to pay cause I know the people that do the operation. With all the street dogs here I am suprised there are no groups working on this problem, no shelters, no animal control. During training we get the pre-exposure rabies shots and if we get bit by a dog the advice we get is to watch the dog and if it acts funny, get the post-exposure shots. In other words, if a street dog bites you, there is no follow up. The cops aren't going to come, there is no report to file, and there is no animal control to pick up dangerous dogs. Just, you know, keep an eye on it. The national government is currently doing a campaign to vaccinate all dogs, but the problem is, someone has to take the dog to the place where they are giving the shots, so if it is a family that doesn't care, even free shots aren't going to matter. Animals as a whole amuse me to no end in this country. We regularly are on buses that stop and wait from random livestock to cross the highway. The funny part is it is never a herd of cattle, or something you would expect to see in rural Kansas. It is always something like a single chiken, a mule, or a small child.

More later, As you can all probably tell, my website is not up yet, but there have been some delays that were not (entirely) my fault.

As most of you probably know, I worked far too long in a pet store before I left. It was during this time I realized that I do not really like animals. I love my dogs, and fish are nice, but I would rather eat a rat than own one. In some ways, I was really hoping to go to Ecuador where Guinea pigs are a traditional food, and people keeping them as pets are considered to be slightly off. While I was there I found one product to be a little strange: Frontline, and all the other monthly flea medications. With such strict animal control laws in the US, most dogs are not around other dogs and very rarely get fleas. I have had dogs my entire life and only twice can I recount a dog getting fleas. This lead me to believe that people who buy these monthly treatments at $200 for a year supply are somewhere between crazy and paranoid. Now, I look back and feel confused for a completely different reason.

For the very first time I have a dog that is not allowed to sleep on the bed with me, since we own a very small bed and a fairly large dog. Her proper "bed" is a couple of pillows in the corner of the room blocked in on the other sides by the bed and a piece of plywood. For months, this has been a great solution with a couple exceptions. Exception number 1. She thinks that being so close to the bed, means she really should be on the bed, and when she wakes up during the night she jumps on it. Though, to be technical, she rarely jumps on the bed. She actually jumps on me, since she sleeps on my side of the bed. This means 2 or 3 times a night, I wake up to a 35 pound dog stepping on my face, chest, or gut. Even I cannot sleep through that. Exception number 2. When the dog would fit in an oversized bucket, she would wake both parents up when she needed to go outside and potty. Now she may wake us both, but she concentrates on annoying me. That means every late night bathroom trip is my problem. (Newly discovered) Exception 3. Bugs. Dogs are loved here in Honduras, but in a very different way than I grew up with. Most people "own" a dog that they don't give food nor water and wanders through the street 100% of the time. Our neighbors are an exception. They love dogs in the "American" way and have 1 indoor dog and 2 outdoor dogs. One of their outdoor dogs was previously a street dog, that they adopted, and he likes to occasionally cruise the town. Our neighbors are also great, since they dog-sit for us anytime we have a meeting, but this means every parasite in the street eventually winds up in my house. This means when my dog came home with fleas last week I had a problem. With the dog sleeping alongside the bed, and since I didn’t have something to kill the buggers with, I learned that fleas are vacationers. They will get tired of the same old dog to chew on, hop up on the bed, give me a taste, decide that the dog really was where they belonged, and promptly return home.

So, frontline, good stuff. But what I don’t understand about frontline now is the cost. In the US a 3-month supply ran between $40 and $60, an average of $50. A similar supply here costs $18. Now, we know very well that the reason Human drugs are cheaper outside the States depends on a couple items, like Canada subsidizing their drugs, or looser regulations in Mexico. Now what confuses me is: do these things apply to dog drugs too? No normal Honduran is going to buy this stuff, so why change the price? It is only going to be people with too much money buying the product, and here, I actually need it, so why do I only pay 40% of the price here? I don’t get it, but I am happy.

Besides having fleas, I’ve kept pretty busy. While we were gone, we missed a civic education workshop, but we like the program and we are going to do it anyways. This week we finally got a schedule down so we can start that in 2 new communities. The high school we were already working with is about finished up and now we are working on scheduling the final presentations. The first experience was really good, so we are hoping for similar results in the other 2 areas. One of our schools requires a 30 minutes bus ride and a 45 minute walk, which I plan on recounting to my children one day. “When I was 24, I had to travel an hour and fifteen minutes to do a class, 45 minutes on foot, uphill both ways, and I did it because I wanted to. No one had to tell me to, I offered to do it and I loved it. So shut up and go to school.” This is why I don’t have kids.

Alice came back just in time for our “environmental fair” and the whole thing turned out pretty good. The day started and seemed very focused on the environment, with art made from recycled products everywhere and one young lady showing off her dress made from empty bags of chips. We definitely drew attention to ourselves. Next year I hope we talk a little more about the environment, but this year’s success made next year likely. The afternoon was entertaining. I don’t know how it relates to the environment, but we had a fair number of dancers come and show off, which got a huge crowd. I’ve got pictures of the art, but not the dancing. I liked the art better anyhow.

Sooner than later I am going to put up the website for a group I work with a lot. The next 2 days people have agreed to help me get everything straight. Once the Spanish version is up, I am going to do an English version. Then I am going to focus on a website for an artist.

My next major project I am hoping to do is form a tourism comittee, but I need support from some key people. If they agree to work together, I am going to do a website for them. If they don't agree, I'm gonna do something else.

It was an interesting two weeks that ended with me back in Honduras, and poor Alice awaiting medical clearance to travel. A little infection is all, but she couldn't get approved for travel. We're hoping to be reunited this Thursday so we can get back to work, and so I don't depend on the neighbor as a doggy sitter.

Our visit to the States was fantastic, made so mostly by lots of love and support from our friends. It was also really weird. Entire days felt like a dream, not a wonderful dream, just a portion of your life that seems imaginary. I realized that right now, I have no real home, and won't for a while. Honduras is where I live and work, but I will always be a foreigner here in some ways. Life in the United States moves on very fast, and some people had visibly left me behind. I get this feeling I will struggle with these issues my entire life, I love new things, and I can’t see this being my last experience abroad. The friends I still have in Tulsa showed a great deal of support, dealt with me being flakey and indecisive, and did so cheerfully. My old roommate didn’t mind at all I had parties at his house or that I never knocked before letting myself in. Luckily, neither did his new roommate. People showed up when they could, and one of my friends managed to go with me to OKC within the two weeks, even though we had planned to go but never went in 6 months before I left. Sadly, I found that I was less than dependable, due to my limited time and having become accustomed to a different culture, but I did my best. If someone feels left out, I am truely sorry.

I’ve never been hit by culture shock as bad as other people, but I did learn one very important lesson. When reentering a culture, try to surround yourself with people who at least claim to be normal. Places not to go should include the renaissance fair. I like the ren fair, but from here on, I know better than to go my first day back. At one point, I was fairly certain I had gone insane. Joel’s wedding was wonderful. Seeing Alice’s family was nice as well. My Dad came down from Iowa to hang out for a few days, and my Mom was there the whole time. Our Families are dependable, and lucky for us, they are all a little crazy too, so we fit in just as well as ever. For a change I have picture, so here are a few.

This is the waterfall we visitied with Shawn. It was wonderful. Sorry it took so long to get this picture up. I am just a bit lazy some days.So this picture is from a slightly different angle, and Shawn helps with the scale. As you can see, it is big.

This picture shows my wife very confused. She seems to have fallen aslep and mistaken our dog for a hat.

Thats my dad and me. He is still slightly taller than me, but he has been sliding into his feet for a few years now, so hopefully I will be taller before too long.

This picture is proof I did something right, as I am obviously married to the most beautiful woman in the world. And thats what I look like in a skirt.

It seems wrong to go to a wedding and not include a picture of the bride and groom, so here is is. Alice's brother and his new wife.So, I tried to solve the office internet problem with a router a bought, and nearly caused a repeat of the office printer problem, but I got it worked out. Now only one person is without internet, and I can fix this quickly with the right cable, or USB wireless modem. Either way, I did my part.Now I have to go eat lunch. I am certain you will all hear fom me again soon. I am getting good at this blog thing I think.

Drew and I are coming home to visit in about 4 days.

The week before my trip home has helped me remember how different living here really is from the states.

For example, the last two weeks, our water has been unreliable. I have taken a real shower twice in the last two weeks, the rest of the days I showered with a bucket and cold water. I have found, you just don’t get as clean…..all I could think about was a warm, two knob (one for hot and cold, not just one generic one), pressurized showerhead that I will use at least once a day every day I am home in the states for two weeks. And, washing dishes with warm water, being able to flush any hour of the day…ahh such luxuries. It was okay when we just had water during the day and not the night, but when the water stopped working as much during the day, things get a little rougher. Our pila(cement water tank) to store water for times when we don’t have it, is one of the smallest ones I have ever seen in Honduras. So, it doesn’t help out as much as it should….when we say water is life (agua is vida) it means more to me now than it did in the past.

This last week, (Drew) and I have been trying to catch up on laundry. As I was getting a bucket ready with bleach and detergent, I took a good look at our white socks. Well, I first noticed that they just aren’t that white anymore. They look a bit worn. (sarcasm) And some of the dirt stains won’t bleach out. Thank God they will soon be replaced by bags of new fluffy white cotton ones from some store in the states. Drew and I favorite jeans are past that “cool” worn in look and will go in the trash once they are replaced, or used in some recycling project. Drew’s clothes all hang off of him since his “Honduras weight loss program” and my shoes have been tested by mountainy dirt and cobblestone roads.

I was walking to work today and passed about 4 street dogs, a horse randomly tied up near the side of the road, a guy on a horse with a big bag of rice headed up the mountain, and kids playing in the park because the Honduras teachers are again on strike and classes are cancelled for today. The park though was in bloom as always, as if it is always constantly Spring in Valle de Angeles. Only here does that seem normal. In a few days, I will be taking highways to get everywhere, see more stoplights than there are in the whole country of Honduras, and have convenience on every corner. No one lets their dogs roam free and I only see horses when you get way out in the country. They aren’t used as a form of transportation. All the cars will be about 5-10 years newer and the people at least 20-50 pounds bigger. I have to tell you, I love both countries. I look forward to being home, I look forward to sharing what I have learned here, and look forward to telling people about the states when I get back to Honduras. After all, two of our three goals in Peace Corps are to teach Honduras about American culture and to teach Americans about what life is like in another country. And in both places, life is good, life is different, life is interesting. And after the locura of a two week see-everyone-you-can-eat-tons-of-food-buy-clothes-do-familiy-stuff-etc I am sure I will be ready to come back to Honduras, which in a strangley comforting way has become my home.

One of the things we focus on here in Honduras is sustainable development. In other words, the projects we start are supposed to outlive our time here in the big H. Usually, I do my best to train and explain rather than fix, but there is one problem with this: computers. First of all, computers require an entirely different Spanish. I don't know of anything else you update besides a computer and no other activity requires the use of the word "download". My attempt to explain that the internet uses cookies sounded like a mix between a "cookie monster" scene and a very confused 6-year-old. So, I can't depend on my usual ability to refrence other uses of a word when I am talking about a computer. When I gave a computer class some months ago I learned the basic basics like mouse and keyboard, but I have alot to learn. The good news is most things that pertain to a computer are in Spanglish, so router is still router, but it doesn't apply in all cases. I still get looked at funny when I say server-o or domain-o. Second, about 9 times out of 10 a computer stops working, there is no reasonable explanation that I know, and the only reason I an fix it is because I grew up with them. Computers reward abstract thinking coupled with experience, and that is not something I can teach.

For the most part, I avoid advanced computer topics by just fixing whatever the problem is and saying it shouldn't come back. Recently, I've started doing web programming and for the most part, I don't explain anything to anyone and life is easy. When someone asks a question I work my way through it with "I don't know how to explain this, but it works, do we have any coffee?" Hondurans and I both love coffee.

Today, one of the people Alice works with brought his laptop to the office ( I don't think this was preplanned, but if it was: I owe him) and said his anti-virus doesn't work.

"Why not?" I reply with a smile.

"The license is expired" He explains.

"Was this a free when you bought it?"

"For 90 days"

"It costs money now, okay? do you want to put free one or live without?"

"It is better to have one right?"

"Better? No, more safe? Yes. Sometimes the free ones are not good, but we can put one until you decide if you want to buy. I'll look to see how much money."

He reluctantly gave me his computer, and looking back on things I should have told him he just had to pay for one. When I turned on the computer I see he has 2 antiviruses already installed, one that costs $40 a year, and the other doesn't look like the publisher still supports it. I tell him he can pay $40 and he looks at me like, "are you an idiot? you said I could have one for free." So I am stuck. I have to help this guy. He doesn't work at our office, but he has to visit a few communities and he'll be back within an hour or so.

I get online and start to install antivir, the program my counterpart swears by. The best part: its in spanish, so once it is there, I don't have to provide constant support. I download it, which takes a short eternity, but I get it on there. I go to update the virus definitions and it gives me an error that the license is expired. How can the license be expired? I still haven't figured this out since the program is free, but I search online for a fix for and finally find one an hour later. It doesn't work either. Frustrated I uninstall and reinstall, apply the fix and try again. Turns out the fix (provided by the publisher) doesn't work, they are replacing the file with the exact same file, and niether one works. So I keep looking. and find the right file. and get it installed, and start the update of the virus definitions.

For a few moments I think I've won, and I am so happy I could dance. Then I notice the download has finished and I hit another error. One I don't understand, so I can figure out how to fix it. Something about an engine. I'm feeling pretty stupid cause I thought these stupid things ran on electricity.

So I uninstall it again, and restart, since restarting fixes everthing. What I hadn't noticed while I was doing everything else is the windows update was running, and had installed 45 updates.

At the very moment I am curseing at the fact it is installing 45 updates the man returns for his computer.

"When connected this computer to internet last time?"

"(something that sounds like 1 week)"

"1 week, very odd, many updates, needs lots of of time"

"no, not 1 week, never. It has never been connected to the internet."

"huh" (this isn't a word in Spanish, but I still use it)

"I can come back again, I have another visit"

"well, unless you want to wait 30 minutes, you should do that."

So he said he'd be back.

Another short eternity passes and I get to see the computer restart. Finally. And I do everything exactly like I did before, thinking that af I do it again, something will be magically different. Nothing turns out to be different I have to try another solution. So I look online and find someone as annoyed as me with the whole process with antivir and says he just gave up and put AVG. I think thats a fine idea as well, so I unstall the other virus scanner that never managed to download a single virus definition and start looking for AVG. Besides that fact it is twice as large, and thus takes four times as long to download, AVG works exactly as it says it would. Sadly, I am in the middle of installing it when he comes back again.

"is it ready?"

"no, the first one no work, had to find another, still waiting"

"why didn't it work?"

"well, I fixed one problem, and found another problem I didn't understand, so I don't know, but it didn't"

"you don't know?"

"no"

"I need to go back to teguc soon, how much longer?"

"if it works: 30 minutes, if it doesn't work: 3 or 4 days"

"I can work at the coffee shop for 30 minutes, if it doesn't work, don't do anything else."

"okay"

He leaves for a third time, and I can only assume he thinks I am messing with him. I am kinda wondering if my day would have been more fun if I had been messing with him. AVG works fine, first try, so I figure with my remaining time I should see if there are any more updates. The computer says there is one, but only one, so I install it and let the computer restart. The computer is now crawling from the update when he comes back. I tell him the antivirus is working and I think Windows is updated, but honestly i am almost certain that there are more updates. I tell him he needs to connect it to the internet every 2 weeks to install updates when tells me it isn't his computer. His friend lent it to him, but his friends is living in Taiwan, so it is his for now. I contemplate the fact I spent 5 hours fixing someone's friend's computer and decide I should ask more questions in the future.

May 1 is my birthday, and we are planning to grill up some food on the 3rd. SHould be a good time. Pictures coming soon!

Now, I wouldn't ordinarily dedicate an entire post to a food, but I am making an exception, since I have recently had an interesting experience.

Soup is not something I would eat in the states. Ever. When asked about "soup or salad" the choice for me was really closer to "house or cesar" but here in the big H, people seem to love soup. When I first got to Valle de Angeles my counter-part took me all the way to the capitial to his brother's restaurant called "spoons" so we could have soup for lunch. That day, I was the only one who had soup. It was a veggie soup with a pleasant aroma, but the odd thing about it was: they served me nearly a half gallon of it. Now, I'll admit, my primary issue with soup is that it realy doesn't "eat like a meal" rather it just makes me wish I had ordered something else. For the first time in my life, I was forced to actually stop eating a soup from being so full.

Well, as it would turn out, that was not going to be my last odd experience with soup. Every Sunday, Valle de Angeles comes alive with "rica sopa de mondongo" which translates into rich cow stomach soup. Now it is not tripe, since tripe only has the thinnest sliver of lining and no muscle, but her in Honduras, we eat the whole thing, muscle and all. In my experience their are 2 types of mondongo soup"good" and "I would rather die than eat another bite of this" and there is no difference that can be seen. One must try (and pay for) the soup to know. After eating about 4 varieties, I now know where to go, and I thought my soup adventures were over, since while I eat more soup than I ever have in the past, nothing could be as absurd as mondongo.

Until I found out a friend of mine lived near a comedor that had "garobo" soup every Tuesday. Garobo used to be one of Honduras' most treasured animals: the black iguana. That is of course, until they started eating it. Now it is very close to extinction. Hondurans had a problem. They loved the sweet lizard meat, but couldn't continue eating it without destroying the remaining population. The conflict was solved by the introduction of another animal to the menu: the green iguana, which they found tasted exactly the same, and was plenitful. So the name stuck, but the animal changed. As soon as I found this out, I was doomed to eat it. I love new things and lizard was something I had never eaten. Yesterday, I made the 4 hour trip out to the dirty,dirty and I rode in the back of a truck for almost a full hour to make it in time for lunch, where I enjoyed the delicacy of girobo soup. The texture of the meat was like rubbery chicken and the taste sweet with a tang to it. I got 2 pieces of girobo in my soup, a leg and a large potion of tail. The soup also came with green bananas, potato, rice, potaste and some soft tortillas. Mine was gone in a minute despite the fact it was at least 90 degrees and I was eating hot soup in a room without air conditioning. The soup was refreshing and I will have it again. The only thing I want to know is if what I ate was green or black, since I have major issue eating endanged animals, but no problem at all eating iguanas. When I used to work at the pet store iguanas would always come in agressive and mean and many managed to hit me with thier little club tail or bite me. So this is a big old: I WIN to the animal kingdom.

I still haven't pulled all the pictures off my camera,

Until then.

So it has only been 2 weeks since my last post, which means that I am getting better about this. Sadly, it makes me realize I need to start writing things down, because I so many stories are being lost due to a bad memory.

So when I last left you hungry-for-more I was sick and contemplating going to a doctor, which I never did. Luckily I started to feel a lot better really fast, though it took nearly a week after I finished all the medication the doctor gave me, which makes me think the doctor probably had no clue what was wrong. Actually, I have had really bad luck with the doctors here, since most seem to be on the guess and check method of diagnosis, and I have yet to have an ailment correctly identified on the first shot. I suppose I will give the people here a few more trys, since I don't really have any other options.

So I started feeling better and my boss mentioned he wanted some web design done for various locations, but didn't elaborate, which was a problem, since the last time I did web design, I was 12 and I figured things had changed alot. Actually, things haven't changed all that much and thanks to a couple well organized open source programmers, I am getting pretty good at html and css. My first page I am leaving enough of the original code that I will leave his contact info and some credits in the code, but from here on I plan to code my own stuff. After I finish the page from the group I work with most of the time, I already have 5 others I'd like to do/ people want me to do, so I should get really good.

My organizaion recently decided to have an auditor help me with my caja rural stuff, but so far we have made no progress. Sadly, I think this is because no one wants to be audited, but hopefully we can come up with a plan. Our biggest problem is that there are very few people responsible for book keeping and managing the groups, and zero accountability.

We recently had another visitor, a friend of Alice that has been around forever and we went to the copan ruins and to do a rural tourism activity near by the ruins. Sadly I had to leave a day early to be back in time for a meeting that was cancelled 2 hours after it was supposed to start, so I travelled home a day early for nothing. Life eh?

To say that copan ruins are worth the trip is to point out the terribly obvious. Sadly, no picture can demonstrate how awesome it is, but I will put up a couple rather creepy pictures of me.

Now, you're probably thinking that isn't a creepy picture, but you're wrong. You'll notice the begginings of my double chin are gone, a fairly large section of my gut, and pretty much all of my hair. If that isn't creepy, I don't know what is.

This one isn't as creepy, since the background distracts your eyes from the above mention oddities, but you can see one of the smaller structure that is attached to a ball court (mayans were some of the first to play "ball" games, but the rules are vague and vary alot, so no one really explains it.) The tarp on the right is covering the longest mayan hieroglyph known that describes the rules of 4 different kings. I am standing on the top of the tallest pyramid at this site. This particular set of ruins has a lot of different structures. They actually seem to have built copan on top of an older city that is slowly being excavated.

So a few days later we went back to la tigre and this time we made it to the waterfall. The guidebook described the waterfall in a way I was kinda nervous to go, since it said that it "often dries up during the dry season" which we were in the middle of, but luckily, the guidebook didn't take into account the four inches of rain the national park had the night before. I will post pictures of that and more copan pictures when they are off my camera.

Until then

So, a few people reponded to my outcry for blog support, and the majority pretty much said to do whatever I want, so I suppose that is what i will do.

Valle de Angeles was, until recently, one of the few places in Honduras where we could rent DVDs instead of buying pirated DVDs, which means I have to wait for the official release and I only get to see movies that offer a Spanish Language audio track (about 1 in 3), but it also means I get to watch special features that can turn one movie into 5 hours of entertainment. Sadly, this store recently closed since it was cheaper to buy pirated disks than to rent real ones, and so I was pretty much every third customer.

I am telling you this story so I can tell you another story. The video store is about a 10 minute walk from our house, and Alice doesn't like to walk around at night since there aren't any street lights, so when we decided we were going to watch a movie, usually I would have to walk

there and back, which was boring and sucked. So I decided that everytime I had to walk all the way there by myself I would stop at a local comedor and have a snack.

So the people who owned the comedor started to get to know me, and the other regulars recognized me as the wierd guy who bought something small, ate quickly and left. About a month ago I wandered in and asked for a drink and a couple pupusas (like really thick tortillas stuffed with cheese) and I hear someone ask me in English where I was from. Now, this is a hard question, since "where are you from" is pretty open to interpretation. I am from Oklahoma, but to answer this way implies I am a standard tourist, which, I am not, so usually I answer I'm from here. Most people dislike this answer, since I speak with a heavy American English accent and my skin color makes people know this is not where I am "from" but rather where I live. Doing so makes me feel better, since it sounds like I have a more vested interest in the country. I especially hate being asked this question by tourists, since they almost seem confrontational when I tell them I am from here. It is like they have some desire to connect to you based on where you live. Before I even had a chance to look around and notice who said it, the person had already repeated thier query and I was forced to answer not knowing if I was talking to tourist or local.

"I live here" I stated, hoping the topic would be dead.

"No, but where are you from?" I hear as I discover I am talking to a local.

"I'm from Oklahoma" I am forced to reply. A Honduran would never let the topic go if I don't answer something.

"Oh, um, cool, I went to school in California" He responded.

Appearantly, he was hoping I was from somewhere more interesting. Sadly, Oklahoma is the best I got without lieing. So we went on to talk for a while and a few hours later I found out that I had met someone who just finished thier Doctorate in commercial law in Europe. He had also done his grad studies in California, and his pre-law here in Honduras. He speaks English, Spanish, French and Italian, and he has since become one of my best Honduras friends. The best part? His name is Fidel. Sadly he is not a very old Cuban dictator, but his name is still Fidel.

A few weeks later we had another volunteer visiting us, and we called Fidel to come hang out, and he said he would, but he got caught up with something else and never made it. The next day he felt bad and invited us to a BBQ, and I finally discovered a Honduran social network of young professionals. We met 6 Hondurans, all college educated, working in various capacities in the capital. We also met a young lady who is visiting for 8 from San Fransisco, but hails from Barcelona, and doesn't speak English. I wanted to ask her where she was from to see if she said SF or Spain, but she was a quiet person, and I didn't want to be annoying. One of the most interesting people I met was a young lady from the states, who works with an alternative education program for people who cannot attend normal school. This is a great contact, and she is helping us bring that program to one of our poor ag communities that doesn't get much educational support.

Sadly, the following day I got a call early in the morning asking me to help make sense of a mess in one of my cajas. I showed up and started reading thier books, and I realized, they had done all my trainings, but had never been motivated to actually apply what they learned, and the books were in awful condition. The most obvious problem was that most of the needed information wasn't there and what was didn't pass as legible. While I thought things were getting better, I learned that day that people were just telling me they were getting better, but not really changing much in some of the groups, so since then I have started working with my counter-part to ensure accountability. This was a hard lesson, but I was glad to learn this now instead of later.

People say that life in the Peace Corps can occasionally feel like a roller coaster, and the next day proved they were probably right. After having a great day, and then a bad day, the rollor coaster theory says I was due for a good day, so when I got another call early in the morning I was afraid the previous day was only the beggining of the down turn. Actually, it was Fidel who wanted to celebrate the second day of Easter week with a trip to the beach. Being in the central part of the country, it is really hard to visit the beach, since it requires 2 different bus rides, 3 if I want to go to a pretty beach, so a day trip is impossible. Luckily Fidel had a car, so we could go directly. The beach was a private beach, and probably the nicest beach in the south. We had a seafood soup for lunch and we made it home before dark. It was a great day.

A few days later, Karen came to visit. For details on her trip, read her descrition below. I think the most shocking thing during said trip was: That so much was shocking. Everything here seems pretty normal now, so all the dogs, chickens, horses, mules, donkeys, and cattle in the street seem like a walk to work. Appearantly this isn't true in the US. I suppose I forgot that. I also forgot that horses aren't a normal mode of transport to work, and that most people use trucks, not donkeys, to haul firewood. I also saw a toucan. That was cool, but said toucan did not gift me with fruit loops as I expected, rather he just looked at me and made a noise that sounds like a frog. It was wierd.

Sadly, instead of being able to go to Copan with Alice and Karen, I got sick, and I still seem to be holding onto said sickness. Hopefully, I'll be better in a few days, but if I'm not, I'll be going to the doctor again.

I am planning to take an online class this fall on web design, since I cannot do what I want with the knowledge i have, so if anyone has ever taken such a class somewhere and liked it, let me know.

Dallas to Tegoosygoosy

Security coming into Honduras was gimme your passport, lemme take your picture, see you later. Didn’t have to strip down like coming to the US. Drew was right outside the security gate – well, the old drew less 40 pounds and nearly all his hair!

I’m in HONDURAS! So where is Alice? At the McDonald’s upstairs. Her counterpart and his lovely family – two adorable kids, here’s one

My first fact on Honduras is that the children are soooo beautiful. I know children are beautiful everywhere but these little moon-faced kids are spectacular. You never want them to stop smiling.

Tegoose, as they call it, is pretty modern – the ride to Valle de Angeles took about 30 minutes. It was the first of several E-ticket rides here so far because of the Honduran drivers. Let’s just say rules of the rode are pretty much made up as you go along.

We arrive at Alice and Drew’s place and Jordan and his friend Summar were there. Jordan is another Peace Corps volunteer and he’s stationed in the south, Aramecina Valle where it’s really hot and dry and much more rustic than here. Alice and Drew really have it made in this place. It’s a tourist area and well developed.

We headed out to dinner at the center of the city, a lovely park area and joined a couple of friends for a couple of bottles of Chilean cabernet at a local bar. The park was decorated for Easter week including some sand paintings on the road. The buildings are typically concrete, brightly painted and the streets are cobbled with large stones and foot high curbs. It makes for an interesting walk home in the dark.

For appetizers we had anafre, a melted cheese and bean dip with homemade tortilla chips. Then, I got my first taste of pupusas! Anyone coming to my house for dinner from here on will be served pupusas. It’s a corn pancake stuffed with cheese, beans, or pork and served with pickled onions, cabbage and peppers. A little hot sauce on top and you’ve got yourself a mouthful of pure joy.

The weather is spectacular, low 80’s during the day and 60’s at night. The bar we were sitting in was open to the street and the view included a number of handsomely weathered cowboys on horseback and a few donkeys as well. The horses and donkeys have been a delight for me to see. They tie them up on the roadside to graze or the donkey is just loose and strolling around at his own leisure. On the topic of animals, another fast impression of the country is the vast number of street dogs – skinny hounds always on their way to somewhere, most certainly with food on their minds.

We ambled over to the local spaghetteria (yep, a Honduran Italian restaurant) for dinner, featuring a plato typico which translates into a traditional combo platter – rice, chorizo, beef and beans and a white cheese that was very much like feta but comes from a cow. It was delicioso. Just about the time the bill came, we were plunged into darkness when the electricity went out. It made the Good Friday procession passing by outside that much more beautiful with the candlelight. Here’s a couple of pics.

The first is Jesus in a glass coffin. The angels are life-sized. We walked home after dinner, something I’d love to be able to do more often at home. It had rained earlier in the day but the night was crystal clear and the air was lovely and fresh..

The next day we headed off to La Tigra National Park. Alice and Drew haggled with a mototaxi driver to take us up the mountain and at some points, 1st gear wasn’t low enough so he had to zigzag up the road. A mototaxi is your basic 3 wheeled Yamaha motorcycle with a top and rear seating. At some points, going down the steep road, I was looking hard for the roll bar.

We stayed at Cabana Mirador El Rosario, a bed and breakfast in the park run by a German couple – Monica and Jorge (Yorg). They built a spectacular two story home right into the steep hillside and added a separate two bedroom cabin with a porch sporting a breathtaking view of the valley and the mountains. This is a must-visit place. Monica and Jorge ensured a wonderful visit. Every detail was simply perfect.

We started our hike with the intention of reaching a waterfall about 3 hours away. I think, had Alice and Drew not been nice enough to let me set the pace, they would have made it before dark. It’s a fairly steep climb for the first hour or so. We did reach an overlook and here’s the view .

The next point of interest was a log bridge over a stream. We ventured further but at 1800 meters from the falls we figured we wouldn’t make it back before dark if we kept going. It was a wise decision since, when we arrived back at the B&B, every body part below the waist was aching from the climb. It was worth every step.

A couple of hammocks on the porch were perfect for watching the sun go down and sip white wine that Alice graciously brought along. Monica made a fabulous dinner, starting with a salad made of organic vegetables grown from Jorge’s garden and topped with a lovely yogurt and herb dressing. The entrée was rice served with green chili sauce and a vegetable enchilada finished over a wood fire oven in the dining room. We tried some of their homemade raspberry wine and it’s worth it.

Their dining room window looks out over the valley and the moon was red that evening. Here’s a crummy pic but you’ve got an imagination so use it and go ahhhhh, like we did. The meal ended with Jorge’s special lemon grass tea and some light sweet cakes.

We slept like the dead that night.

The breakfast was amazing – homemade jams and bread, cheddar cheese, tomatoes and cream cheese and peanut butter with the most delicious cup of coffee I’ve had in near memory. Monica even pre-heated the cream for our coffee which was delightful.

After breakfast, Jorge gave us a thorough tour of the gardens he’s terraced into the hillside. When they bought the property 10 years ago, it was nothing but barren scrub. They’ve planted over 100 trees, some oak, a lot of pine and added yucca and palm as well. His gardens are impressive, raspberries, some coffee beans, a lot of onions and tons of lettuce. His ongoing war is for his carrot crop but the rodents seem to be winning right now. We saw a Toucan Verde sitting in a tree and making a surprising sound much like a bullfrog. Jorge took us back down the mountain on the road which could be an e-ticket ride at Disneyland. Along the way, a Lesser Roadrunner tore across the road and into the brush.

After coming into town, we did a little shopping. The carved wood and veneers here are very nice and the prices are reasonable so I stocked up. So much so that the shop owner thanked Alice for bringing me in!

Off to the pupusaria we went for lunch. One of Alice’s coworkers joined us, Don Louis, and I got to practice a little extra Spanish, more listening than speaking though. Alice and Drew are both excellent at simultaneously holding a conversation and translating back and forth from English and Spanish. It’s very impressive.

The entertainment for the evening was meeting Fidel, a friend of Drew’s, a multi-lingual commercial lawyer and rabid soccer fan. We joined him in the back of a restaurant to watch the Olympic final qualifying round between Honduras and the US. It was being played in, of all places, Nashville, Tennessee. Honduras won so that was quite a treat since 90% of the fans in the stadium were Hondurans.We heading to Copan tomorrow.

I haven't written since I went to Olancho, so I figured it was time for a small update. First, Lizzie our puppy is getting big, and turning into a great dog! She's figured out the whole going outside to pee thing, and knows how to sit! Her favorite activity is laying and napping in our laps. Here's a picture update...

Workwise things have also been going well. I continue to work with Patronatos, which is like a neighborhood assocation with real ability in the municipality. We have decided that a great need in the community is literacy for adults, so I am going to teach a basic adult literacy class with a volunteer from the community starting this month. I am very excited, this is exactly the type of activity I feel good about doing as a Peace Corps volunteer, especially since there is a desire for it in this community.

I am also going to help them start Educatodos, another education program for youth and adults that want to complete their education but cannot do it in the normal school schedule. It is a program that has worked well throughout Honduras and is made up of volunteers who teach the classes in the communities. Peace Corps volunteers often help teach, which is something Drew and I are interested in doing.

I have also started working with a basic sanitation volunteer group that was started by the previous volunteer. I am doing trainings with them, community and latrine visits, and we hope to do mini-classes on health and sanitation in elementary schools. They are fun to work with and gets me out and about in the community. In our free time, Drew and I have been playing lots of card games and dice games. It is fun to actually socialize and not be so dependant on TV (which we don't have). I have taken up painting again, which is nice. Drew and I are going to have a visitor in March and then in April, so we are excited about that, having people from home!! It is going to be awesome, and we will get to take them to some of the sites that we haven't been to yet.

We have started putting up postcards sent from home, feel free to send us one to add to our collection! It is fun to have them around and they remind us of friends and family. Also, feel free to leave comments after reading our updates, we love hearing from other people and it is nice to know that people read and enjoy the blog! :-)

I am attempting to revive my blogging spirit after a month away. I wish I could better explain my absence, but unless you get my e-mails, I really can’t explain it without making a bad situation worse. I can only imagine what the involved parties would say if they had hard copies of my opinion. I now understand why before we are even in country the Peace Corps starts to tell us not to tell about some topics publicly.

I don’t have a lot to say about my work of late, since I am keeping up on projects I started and explained a while ago. Some communities are hard to keep up with than others, but I try to make contact with everyone regularly, and they seem to be happy knowing that I will follow-up on my own. Volunteer organizations don’t usually stay for two years, so it is taking some time for them to adjust to me.

I have recently trained one new micro-finance group (caja rural) and I get to train another one this month. I did 5 days worth of training in 2 days, which ended up being surprisingly short. This makes me nervous, but I feel like the training resources that had been developed before me were long and wordy. I almost feel like the organization that designed the training want it to take 10 days to better justify why they were getting paid so much to give the trainings. Being able to follow-up with them will make help me improve my training, since I will know what I did a good and bad job training.

This month was reconnect which is a meeting we have within our project groups 3 months after training. The nice part was the food; the bad part is there really is not a lot to do there. Lately, Peace Corps staff has relied more on our site, Valle de Angeles, to host events, so I was just glad that I didn’t have to stay in a hotel 6 blocks from where I live. I learned a fair amount about what the more senior municipal development volunteers have focused on during their time, and all the newbies gave a quick talk about what they want to do. A couple people from our group have really done a great job getting started. Others are finding that the people who requested them didn’t really think their ideas through, and are going to have to look for other sources of work.

My time before vacation is filling up, and I am getting better at filling up my free time. Recently some other volunteers have come to visit and we traded media files, so I now have over 10 gigs of new music. I am deleting a lot, but listening and organizing gives me something to do.

I do want to note I have learned how many people can comfortably stay at my house, and the answer is less than 14. The Super bowl was the Sunday before our reconnect and the Sunday after Youth development’s reconnect, so when word got out I was having a party, a whole lot of people showed up. The second night 3 people got a hotel room so they didn’t have to sleep on the floor again, but even after that we had a lot of people on our floor (especially since 3 more showed up, and so we really broke even on the number of people).

I also got my hair cut here for the second time. The first time was so bad, I decided to let another volunteer cut it, so I pretty much have a buzz cut. No pictures yet, since I am still adjusting, but I'll try to post some soon.

I suppose that’s all for now, I will try to keep an eye out for blog worthy stories.