Happy New Years everyone!!!

So while I have a minute waiting for the doctor's to see me (I have some weird allergy/ rash...what's new) I thought I would put some pictures up here from my holiday season. I went to visit friends and then went to the North Coast-Honduras' little bit of heaven situated right on the Caribbean sea!

So work is slowly plodding along-it's coffee season right now which means it's rainy and cold and town is pretty much deserted during the day as the people are all out in the coffee farms picking the coffee berries. But I'm working on another solar panel grant with my counterpart. We need enough energy to power a technological classroom (about ten computers, printers, etc. and an antenna for internet!!!). And my women's group is doing really well. We had the artesania fair, which went really well. We didn't sell as much as expected but the women learned what did sell well (and now are focusing on producing that) and learned all about sales. And I got some fantastic jewelry for myself (a birthday present to me!!).

So while I have time, I'll breifly describe the photos. This is all the delicious food we made on Christmas Eve. We took it up to this hill overlooking the town for a sunset watching feast. It was really nice, except we only brought one headlamp for the walk down the mountain and thus I took quite a tumble (literally rolled down the mountain).

And here are some shots of me and the ladies!

And here's my friend in front of the oldest bridge in town. It's named after an American President-can you guess which one??

And this is that same friend-Nicole-dealing with the chicken we later cooked in the toaster oven. We had to do all the cooking either in a toaster oven or on a two burner stove. It was quite amazing what we actually accomplished.

And here's all the girls out on the town at the local Karoke Bar. I think we ended up singing some Beyonce and SeanPaul-it didn't go over very well but everyone laughed at the silly gringas.

And here we are in a really cool little town near the El Salvador border-everywhere is painted with these amazing paintings.

And this is us out on New Years in Tela!

And this is the beautiful!!!! caribbean ocean off the coast of Tela. There are all sorts of little Keys out there and we took a day trip out to a private island! I wish I could have a private island! There were pristine beaches, cool shells and coral, and amazing snorkeling. Definitely made me want to get my scuba certification-something I plan to do this spring!

And here's me with some of my other lovely lady friends-Laura and Rachel.

And some gorgeous sunsets! I wanna go back!!!!!!!!!!!

So that's the abbreviated update on my life. Hopefully this allergy will clear up and I can go back to site and see my puppy. Who happens to be in heat, which is probably one of the worst things to deal with (dogs fighting all around my house, keeping lola under house arrest, and the sinking feeling that despite all my efforts she's probably pregnant!). Hopefully everyone had as an amazing holiady season as I did. Now that I have less than a year left, I'm really trying to get out and see every part of the country. Although that's tricky, seeing how now is when I have the most work. But everything is definitely worth it!

Besos para todos!

PS come visit Honduras!!!

I admit, I really am not very good at this whole blog thing. I realize that it's been more than six months since my last entry, but at least I'm making the effort now. And that's the important thing.

So about my life-I've actually been really busy lately. I have several things going on which makes the time go by quicker. My biggest project is still hydropower-right now we're working on writing the grant. We're also trying to take a field trip to another community to see hydropower plant in action-exciting!! We also have to do a survey of the whole community-basically counting all the houses and collecting all the identification numbers of the people. There are officially 601 people in San Marcos, counting myself (that number has actually probably gone up since it seems the women here are always pregnant). So below is a picture of us women making the trip around town counting people.

That's my mountain in the backdrop. It's been super rainy lately and I haven't seen the top of the mountain in ages. Actually, Honduras has been hit pretty badly recently by some tropical storms. Fortunately, the worst thing in my town was the overwhelming amount of mud, but in other places, there were landslides, deaths, and the loss of crops. People are still recovering.

This is a nice shot of the rainbow after the rain over my neighbor's tin roof.

So back to work...I also helped the school build some EcoFogones (wood burning stoves that are made more ecological by putting in tiles so they heat up better and thus require less wood). I actually did this with some trainees that came to visit me. It was nice-having something to do while I was there so I didn't seem like a total slacker. So here's the finished product.

And I've been working with my women's group, Mujeres de Valor, to produce crafts that they can then sell either in Guaimaca, or in Tegucigalpa. So far we've learned how to crochet hats and bags, and weave hammocks. And I've been planning an Artisan fair at the embassy where Peace Corps volunteers will take their women's group to sell their product. We're inviting all the owners of local souvenir shops so hopefully the women will be able to find a permanent place to sell their wears.

And I've been experiencing the cultural wonders of Honduras, and more specifically San Marcos. At the beginning of September we had our feria (Feria Infantil-Creciendo Feliz), which was about five days of celebrating the children of the town. We had games every day and yummy food. Good Times!

There was also a costume competition for the town's pets and being the good citizen that I am, I dressed Lola up (I guess she was dressed up as me, since she wore my clothing). She won third place!!

People also dressed in traditional clothing and put on performances. The dancers are from Guaimaca and were actually quite good.

These lovely ladies are the contestants in the beauty competition and they had to dressup like indias! It was pretty cute.

And I've been doing some traveling! Went to Guatemala with my brother and it was lots of fun. We went to Tikal (the Mayan ruins) and they were amazing!

I've been pretty healthy too. Just another round of Dengue when I got back from Guatemala (at least I think it was dengue, it's hard to diagnose, but I had something that made me feel pretty horrible). I got stung by a scorpion-it was on a blanket I gathered up (I later found it and smashed it, pictured below).

And here are some pictures of my dog, Lovely/Loca Lola. The first she's with her boyfriend, a local dog she loves to play with. And the second is her in the house-she sleeps in a really weird position!

And these are of my favorite little kid, Rasel. He's gotten to the age when he loves to pose for photographs-it's pretty cute!.

So that's my life. I actually just got back from Halloween in Copan Ruinas and have some awesome pictures of that, but without my cord to connect my camera I'll have to wait for another day. I really will try this time!

Hope all is well-take care!

Hello all-

Here are some pics from the last chapter of my life. Spent some time in my site-had a trainee come visit me which was cool since I got to show off my site-and then headed north for a week of relaxation at the beach during semana santa. ENJOY

This is a picture of the school with the newly installed solar panel! And the computers are supposed to be arriving sometime in the next couple of weeks. And then we will have a functioning computer lab. There is bouganvilla like that all over my town-it´s great!

Picture of me with my host siblings on top of the water tank. The trainee I had is from the Water and Sanitation project, so I showed her everything to do with water in my site.

And this is a picture taken from my host families house of the center of town. It was really sunny, but you can still make out everything. I live now in the center of town, but you can imagine the hike I had to do everyday while living with the family.

And this is a picture with the trainee, my host dad, and siblings at the water source. We had to walk about two miles up into the reserve but the water up there is amazingly clean. I drank right from the stream and haven´t gotten sick yet.

Another picture at the ¨Fuente de Agua¨ of the siblings and my host dad. It´s really pretty there. Like we were in the middle of the rain forest. And they say that was what all of San Marcos used to look like before the deforestation began.

A pìc of my host family. On the right is my host dad´s father and in the middle is his grandmother. She´s 84 and has great great grandchildren. Before honduras, I had never even met people with great grandchildren. It´s crazy!

My host dad and his sister at my host cousins Quinciniera! It was a fun party. My host dad is the only boy in a family with 5 women and they have all taken me into their families. This is the youngest-Bea- and she lives in San Marcos too. She just had a baby.

The birthday girl-Diana-with her look a like pinata!

And her getting frosting spread all over her face after we sang happy birthday!

So after all the fun at the quinciniera, I went to Trujillo to spend Semana Santa. This is the biggest holiday in Honduras and everyone leaves the inner parts of the country to go to the beaches to swim and relax. In addition, everyone eats fish the whole week-no meat is allowed. So I decided to go to Trujillo with some of my PC friends and experience the fun of the caribbean coast!

Some BEAUTIFUL sunsets from my hotel.

Friends at the beach enjoying the sunset and some cold beer!

More sunsets and a view of Trujillo (our hotel was 7 k outside of the town), which is set against the backdrop of a national park. It kinda reminds me of capetown.

My friends Kyler, Bryce and Wes, along with Elliot, a little british boy who made friends with our group.

The silly boys being silly. They don´t get to see eachother as often as they would like and get a little crazy when together.

A REALLY BIG shell I found at the beach! One day there was a crazy storm with huge waves and lots of rain (not great for the tan I was working on) but then afterwards, the beach was full of amazing shells! This one was as big as my head!

Some pictures of La Loca Lola (my perrita). The first she´s with my host families puppy-she likes staying at their house since they have three other dogs and there is always the cat to chase. She´s a trouble maker, but I love her. I don´t know what I´d do if she wasn´t there at night for me to talk to...I´d probably just talk to myself! She´s growing but i don´t think she´ll be that big.

In the second one she´s in my front yard with a baseball i gave her, hoping she would chew that instead of my shoes-no such luck!

Lastly, my host mom with my siblings! I just can´t resist taking pictures of the baby-he´s so cute!

Ok all done-need to do real work now. I´m trying to a hydropower project in my town (i´m really excited about it!) for the school and at least the central area. So I need to find some funding! Hope all is well in the states-I´m going to be there in less than two months for la boda de mi hermano and I can´t wait!

Cuidense y besos para todos!

besos

So I´ve decided (a belated New Years Resolution) to do a better job with this whole blog thing. Especially for pictures since sending them via email doesn´t always work-sorry if I clogged up anyone´s inbox. So this is just alittle view into my life recently. I´m really going to try and do this more-maybe twice a month?

This is a picture of the banana bunch that was chopped down out of my yard. Despite my best efforts (eating them every five minutes, giving them away, etc.) I could finish the whole bunch before it went bad. There´s another one about to ripen in my year, which I´m excited about! I love all the fresh fruit and veggies here. The other day i bought 15 tomatos for 5 lempiras which is like 10 cents. It´s great. And the papayas are in season as well as the pineapple. And mango season is starting soon which I´m really excited about!

And if you look closely you can see the giant spider on the wall next to the bunch-that´s pretty average pic of my fellow inhabitants. Gross i know but i´m getting used to it. And the spiders are better than the scorpions.

So these are pine needle baskets that my host grandmother makes and for which Í´ve just found a market. So I´m going to be sending them to Copan to this great shop where they will be sold to willing gringos and other travelers bringing dolares.

If anyone would like one, I will be bringing some back in May for my brother´s wedding and would be happy to take an order.

My host cousins-Ronald, Norman y Dariana. They are pretty cute. And it´s impossible to take just one picture of kids here. I have five pictures of these three in different poses just from one day. The kids here are great!

A Sunset picture from my front yard.

And this is a picture of my rose! When my parents came, I convinced them to stop a nursery to by flowers for my yard. And the rose took off right away! I don´t have a green thumb but i didn´t kill it which is great (and also speaks to the great soil here in Honduras)!

PLAYER OF THE GAME!! Silly boys...at the annual meeting for all PAM volunteers here in Honduras, we got a little carried away with our after hours´games.

A beautiful view from a hike we took during this meeting! In it, you can see Lago Yajoa, the biggest lake here in Honduras. The picture at the top of the page is also from the same hike about fifteen minutes after this one was taken-the weather here is crazy but without it, there wouldn´t be the great green forests!

Another pretty view of the lake!

A picture of all the hikers/PAMers.

The treat at the end of the hike! This beautiful waterfall! One of the guys went swimming in the crystal clear pool at the bottom.

This is a silly picture of my friend Bryce, being stupid and hungover in the grocery store.

Something one would only see in Honduras-a VW bug hauling fire wood and gas on top of the car. I just had to take a picture. This was taken as I was sitting by the side of the road waiting for a bus to come-I spend a lot of time waiting for buses and on buses.

And lastly a pitcure of myself-my friend cut my hair and gave me bangs, which I like. It´s nice to have something new!

OK all done! Hope everyone is well and healthy (thankfully I´ve been really healthy lately-knock on wood!). Hopefully there will be lots more entries coming your way, so keep checking!

Besos para todos!

HOLA TODOS!!

Disculpame por favor! I know I haven't written or posted pictures in a really long time, but my access to internet plus my limited time with electricity has made it difficult to upload pictures or spend time writing. But now I'm in the Tegucigalpa office trying to write a grant (bringing a solar panel to the schools of two communities so we can later get computers) and am doing this while my partner adds up some figures.

So here are some photos of my life, some still in training and others as an official volunteer.

This is me (clearly) during training showing off the "fogone" (a wood burning stove made out of adobe) that we made for a family in Moroceli. We all got muddy but it was fun and cool to see how they are constructed, seeing how that's what my family uses all the time to cook.

My friend Liz and I holding up a banner we made for the Sept. 15th (Independence Day) parade in which we marched. It was a little awkward but fun to see the festivities (unfortunately being in the parade didn't allow me to take pics).

A view out of the window of my house in El Suyate. That's the burro that would brey every morning around three am-it was awesome. That's also my laundry drying on the barb wire fence-no wonder clothes fall apart a little quicker here!

This is the PAM (Protected Areas Management) team! Yes we all got matching t-shirts! The woman on the bottom left is my project manager who is awesome!

Another pic of the PAM team before swearing in at the Peace Corps office- everyone was surprised at our ability to dress up!

Here we are again after swearing in~Official Volunteers!!! The whole team from field based training is in the photo, including the spanish teachers and the two old and wise volunteers who helped us during training. (If you look closely, I have an odd grin on my face as I had just realized i had black bean in my teeth).

A cool pic of some of the guys jumping into the pool at the ambassador's house. We spent the afternoon there after swearing in, swimming, playing volleyball, and enjoying eachother's company before shipping off to all corners of Honduras. His house is gourgeous but unfortunately he wasn't there to hang with us. He's a cool guy though; at swearing in he told us that he thinks the Peace Corps is the US governments best organization!

A pretty view of Tegucigalpa on the bus ride back!

The PAM drinking team the night of swearing in-we definitely needed to celebrate!

My little host brother! This was on his first birthday! He's pretty cute and i spend a lot of time hanging out with him-he can kinda say my name now ("icia") which is cool.

I had some more photos of my new family and of my site but for some reason they don't want to download. So they will have to wait until next time. And there will be a next time soon!

But i gotta go now to catch my bus back to site-which is incredibly muddy and rainy and slightly cold (i never expected Honduras to be cold!). Hope everyone has a happy turkey day-i will really be missing the states next thursday!

Hasta Pronto!

Alicia

So here´s a recap of all the work I´ve done since being here in Field Based Training here in Moroceli. I would write more, but unfortunately I seem to have been struck by another illness (most likely Dengue) and have no energy. I can´t go to the hospital again because there is a huge strike in Tegucigalpa and no one can enter or leave the city, so I have to sit here and sweat it out (literally). The last two weeks have been pretty eventful, so I wanted to at least give everyone a little taste!

1. Went to the immigration office and am now an official resident of Honduras!

2. Got to go to the mall in Teguz and eat some wholesome american fast food and icecream...yum!

3. Went to another soccer game in another town close by-this time the guys were playing so we got to make fun of them like they made fun of us (unfortunately one of them scored so we couldn´t laugh very much).

4. Built to latrines in two afternoons! Learned how to mix cement, use a hoe, lay bricks, level a toilet seat, and mucho mas!

5. Spent a morning working with my host dad on the farm-when I say working i really mean he let me do only ten minutes of light labor because he didn´t want to hurt my soft hands. But I got to ride a horse there and back, which was fun and gave some entertainment to the town!

6. Built a family garden with the local elementary school-it´s amazing how well those ten year olds know how to use a machete!

7. Went on a field trip to Hoya Grande where we spent the day with a local farmer constructing live and dead barriers. This included planting trees and beans, and making a 100 foot rock wall! We decided to go for beers (1 each so we don´t get a bad reputation) and baleadas (tortilla with beans and eggs...yum) after and they tasted so good!!!!

8. Taught fifth graders what international development is and how they can help-don´t think they took much in, but at least they paid attention.

9. Went to Danli (bigger city about 45 minutes away) for the festival de maiz (corn festival). This is third largest festival in Honduras and thus it took us about 2.5 hours to find a ride-all the buses were jammed pack. But once there, we had a great time, eating local food and catching up with the other training class who also came in for the festival. We even got to go to a supermarket, which was pretty awesome!

10. Was taught how to dance by my next door neighbor-basically i tried to dance while everyone else laughed at me.

11. Went to the farm again to pick corn which we used to make a local dish-it was quite a process!

12. Went to a cigar factory where I learned all about the process-it´s pretty intense!

ok gotta go-love to all-wish me luck with whatever illness this is I have!

besos-alice

I have officially been here in Honduras for five weeks!!! I can´t believe it-the time seems to fly by but at the same time I feel like I´ve been here for ages!

What´s new...? The biggest news I suppose is that I survived my first hospitalization-WOOHOO!! I had what we have affectionately named Lempira´s revenge-a nasty virus that gave me diarrhea and made me throw up anything i ingested. It wasn´t that serious but since I couldn´t keep anything down and the Peace corps doesn´t like to take chances in terms of health and safety, so I was taken to the hospital Tuesday afternoon. After hooking me up to several IVs and sticking me several times trying to draw blood, I was taken to my own room. The hospital was really nice, although I have been told that it is the nicest hospital in Honduras and since the PC gives them so much business, they treat us Volunteers pretty well. The director of the Hospital even came to visit me the next day to make sure I was enjoying my stay and that I liked the view from my room. I left around one that day, fully hidrated and feeling much better. The best part is that my host mom here can´t give me any fried food for a whole week!!! I love it but she´s having trouble finding anything to give me besides soup.

My family here in El Suyate is really great. They call me their hija and are very protective of me. In fact, they are a little over protective, but it´s nice to know they care. And the town is interesting-I´ve never lived in a town like this. The gossip is ridiculous-I think the whole town knew I was sick before I had even left my house. And I hear things about the other trainees hours before they tell me. It´s funny-we are beginning to feel like celebrities. Finally I know how Paris Hilton feels!!

We got to play soccer this past weekend with the girls team-Las Bambis-which was really fun!! A big dumptruck loaded us all up and took us to the next little town over-El Campo-where we played their women´s team. It was great-a lot of the town came out to watch so we had plenty of cheerleaders. I´m not gonna brag about my soccer skills but the other gringas did really well. The only problem was that when I would run along the side of the field, all the guys would yell ¨hola gringa, my love, i love you¨. Made me feel a little awkward and thus i decided to play on the other side of the field after half time.

So it´s been raining a lot hear. It´s great-it makes it a lot cooler and the trainees who are in the bigger town Moroceli can finally take a shower. The town hasn´t had water the whole time we´ve been here. There was a really big storm right before we came that broke the pipes and they still haven´t been fixed. So the kids in this town are beginning to smell a little rank-jk. My extended family, which is like half the town of El Suyate, has been filling the back of their pickup trucks with barrels of water to take to Moroceli to sell. Hopefully it will get fixed soon, although I´ve heard that a hurricane might hit Honduras next week, causing all sorts of problems.

All right gotta go...this has been kinda random, but it´s been a long week. I´ll try to upload some more pics next week. I´m gonna research some recipes now for some american food cuz we are going to cook for our families this weekend.

Hope to hear from you all!!!

xoxo-alicia

This is a picture outside my bedroom window-I think there are other houses down there but all I see are the banana plants.

This is mi casa-it´s down a little path off the main road. The clothes on the line aren´t mine, but let me tell you-washing clothes in a pila is hard work!

These are all the staff members at the training center-they are all Hondurans and are all very kind-clearly looking out for our well being!

These are some of the guy trainees (we only have a few more and five of them are married-as i said before, the ratio isn´t in the girls favor), and Shirley, my friend who ended up leaving Saturday. Actually three more people have left, including the 74 year old guy. It´s sad to lose people from the group but i guess they needed to do what they felt was right.

These are some of the ladies-I´m there in the middle with a peace sign!

This is Bryce and Rachel in the back of the pickup truck we took in La Tigra. We left Santa Lucia around 7:30 Sunday morning, walking 2.5 km down to the main bus stop. There we had to wait 50 min for our bus that would take us to San Juancito, the little town at the base of the park. Once there, we hired a guy to take us up the hill to the entrance to the park-the other group didn´t know about this ride up and they spent two hours walking up the really steep hill (it was definitely worth the 200 Lempiras=10 bucks for all of us).

San Juancito from the back of the pickup truck

A pícture of the group minus me (Kyler,Rachel, Bryce and Dan)

A cool picture of the dense cloud forest we were walking through.

A really cool big tree we saw along the trail and of which we all took like 10 pictures.

A cool lizard we saw on the way down...don´t know what it is called but it´s pretty!

Pretty views of the valley.

This is a view from our local coffee shop...it looks over the valley and you can see the lights of Tegucigalpa at night! Definitely more picturesque than any Starbucks I´ve ever been to.

Ok that´s it for now...it takes forever to download the pictures at this place, so next time i won´t do it all in bulk. Not much other news-I went to Tegucigalpa this week for a visit to the market with my spanish class. It´s a pretty insane town with lots of traffic and even more people.

I gotta go now since it´s getting dark and I have tarea for tomorrow!

Bienvenidos a Honduras and congratulations to me!!! I’ve made it through my first week of Peace Corps training here in Santa Lucia, Honduras!!!!

I arrived in Tegucigalpa last Wednesday, beginning my three months of being a Peace Corps Trainee (called an aspirante). The landing at the airport here is crazy-because the city is surrounded by mountains, the runway here is extremely short (rumored to be the shortest in the world) and thus the landing was extremely rough-I think we bounced off the tarmac at least three times. But nevertheless, we made it safely and took our first steps in Honduras. Passing through customs, I got hit on for what I assume will be the first of many times by the custom official (he liked my eyes and apparent “sexy” smile). After collecting all my luggage (I admit, I overpacked) I was greeted by Peace Corps staff, a luggage truck, and a much welcomed snack. Once we were all accounted for (there are 47 of us trainees), we boarded a big yellow school bus (the standard bus here for all transportation) and headed towards Santa Lucia.

Santa Lucia is a small mountain town about 15k from Tegucigalpa (Teguc for short) and has hosted Peace Corps Honduras training for many years. When the trainees come, its kind of like tourist season for the pueblo as we are all anxious to spend our money at the internet café and the restaurants. So while here, we live with host families and attend 8 hours of training during the week days. I am living with the Rodriguez-Nunez family, which includes Olga and Miguel (the parents) and a lot of kids. Luis is the oldest (24) and doesn’t live at home; Pamela (14) is next and helps Olga to take care of all the others; Melissa is 9, Ondina is 7 and Gustavo is 5. Those are the kids who actually live here, but Miguel’s sister is here everyday and has two kids: Javier 8 and Cynthia 3. And there have been a couple other kids around here over the past week, but I haven’t figured out yet to whom they belong. So it’s pretty noisy around here during the day, but at least I have lots of willing playmates.

I have my own room here and my own bathroom, which is a luxury. I feel as though the family gave up a third of its sleeping quarters for me, but they are used to it, as they have hosted at least a dozen other trainees. I eat with the family for breakfast and dinner, and they bring me a hot lunch to the training center everyday (I’m definitely being spoiled-it will be a big shock when I have to go to my site and actually cook for myself). The food is really good-a lot of rice and beans, some meat, cheese, and amazing fruit. The other day I had a breakfast of fruit-Pineapple, watermelon, papaya and mango. I’ve also eaten quite a bit of plantain and even got to try yucca the other day. The only bad thing about the food is that the Hondurans like to fry just about everything-not so good for my intestines or my waistline. I even had fried bologna the other day (definitely not my favorite). But oh well things could be a lot worse-at least I have a hot shower in the mornings. Many of the volunteers have to take cold showers or even bucket showers. So I count myself lucky with my electroducha (affectionately called the “widow maker” by some- something about electricity and water mixing…).

Training is pretty interesting-we spend half the day in language classes and the other half in lectures (about development, Honduras, safety, etc.) We also break up into our project areas some-I’m in Protected Areas Management (PAM) and there is also Youth development and Municipal development. I’m still not exactly sure what I’ll be doing with PAM, but I’ll let you know when I find out. Anyway, we are learning quite a bit and in between classes I’m getting to know the other volunteers better. They are all really cool people from all different backgrounds. There are five married couples in the group (which dramatically reduces the eligible bachelors as there are only 14 guys), a guy named Larry who is at least 65, a lady named Cynthia who has lived in 7 different countries and decided to do the Peace Corps once her kids were grown, and a whole lot of others. Gradually I will introduce the others, but 46 is a lot. Unfortunately, I think one of my friends has decided that she isn’t cut out for these tough two years, and will probably go home. But I’m still trying to convince her not to.

Que mas…the other day a bunch of us trainees went down to the soccer field for a game of pickup soccer, which was a lot of fun. I admit, I didn’t do a whole lot more than run up and down the field, but I got a couple of good kicks in and at least it helped reduce the effect of all that fried food. The futbol field is in the most beautiful place: you have to walk to the bottom of one of the hills (not so pleasant to walk up after playing an hour of soccer as it’s about 20 minutes of steep uphill) where the field is in kind of a bowl of mountains. I’ll take my camera next time as I really don’t think my words can do it justice. I also went to the Catholic mass on Sunday with my sisters which was interesting.

Other than these few events, my days basically consist of waking up around 6:15, showering, cleaning my room, eating breakfast and leaving for “school”. Afterwards, I sometimes go to the internet café, or just come home and play with my siblings. The family watches a lot of TV so I’m up-to-date on most Spanish pop music (thanks to Pamela), Sponge Bon Square Pants, algunas telenovelas, and the news. After a dinner with the family and more TV, I go to bed and am usually asleep by 10 o’clock. Definitely a different lifestyle than college, but I guess that means I’m growing up.

That’s a pretty good summary for now. My computer battery is running out (I’ll send this tomorrow at the internet place) and it’s almost 9:30 (bedtime), so I’m going to sign off.

Here is my address if anyone is interested in sending some snail mail-it would be very much appreciated!!!

Alice Douglas

Cuerpo de Paz

Apdo. 3158

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Central America

Ok-until next time-besos para todos!!!

Xoxo-Alicia

So before leaving for two years of "roughing it" with the Peace Corps, I got to go to France with my mom and dad for a week of relaxation, good wine and food, and beautiful countryside.

I started in Aix-en-Provence, where I visited my friends Katie, Cassie, and Amy who have the good fortune to be living there for the summer. Although my bags didn't make it, I had two great days of touring, shopping and hitting all the cool local night spots. I even got to meet some locals, although they were forced to speak in english since my french skills are kind of rough.

After these two crazy days, I met my parents and my baggage at the airport and we headed to Montbrison, where are friends Kees and Renne have a beautiful house-our lodging for the next week. Situated on the side of a hill, we woke daily to a view of the valley full of lavender fields and grape vines.

We went into Marseille for a night to meet my dad who had a meeting there and toured around this crazy yet beautiful city.

The rest of the week was spent touring Provence, hitting up local markets to buy delicious fresh produce, fromage, bread, and olives. We even managed to visit a few churches, which made my dad tres happy.

All in all, it was a great trip and I feel fully rested to begin my adventures in Honduras!