My sitemate Annie and I began to work together in August, when we visited a nearby town to give a talk about HIV. The town was extremely small--only 35 houses total--but were very welcoming. About 15 people attended the talk, but about 50 showed up at a later workshop, which is awesome. Here is me on the walk from the town to the road where we got the bus.

Later, Annie was wrapping up a health orientation class at the Estancia. At the closing celebration, the students performed a play about the stigma surrounding people who have HIV and the misconceptions about HIV transmission. It was really cute and definitely showed a lot about what the students had learned in the course. Here is the doctor examining the patient who will later be diagnosed with AIDS. The makeshift hat is because the patient has had a fever and is cold.

It's not a project, but in September the students and teachers had a birthday celebration for me, complete with a Barney pinata!

Danli is nicknamed Ciudad de las Colinas because it lies in a valley among many hills. Here is a picture of Danli and several pictures of the Laguna de San Julian, a man-made lake outside the city which I had the pleasure of visiting in August with some friends.

In the morning, horses came right up to where we were waiting for our ride.

Here are the stands. 7 schools attended, 6 singers/groups performed from 6 of the schools.

The Estancia kids were presented.

The winning group (1 singer with 4 dancers) did an encore at the end and the kids from their school crowded the stage. It was adorable. Please note the decorations. These took about a week to make!

The last few days leading up to the fundraiser were very trying but the actual event was fun and a success. The kids who attended loved it, and I think our students had a great time too. I'm still not sure what the final money count is (actually I think we need to go to schools and collect some of it...) but I think we earned less than we had hoped. Many factors contributed to this, including a teacher strike, but way too much was done last-minute. I learned a lot by collaborating for an event like this. I am not sure that I would do it again, unless a lot of factors were to change.

At this point in time, I feel that the Estancia does not have enough support in the community. In order to carry out the fundraiser, we split up work among a handful of people that could have easily been split up into committees of parents and teachers in another kind of school. Our donors are not very involved and I think a lot of them do not know how the project is run, exactly where their money goes, and exactly why were are so desparate for it. We need more donors, and I think we need more supportive donors, but it is hard to raise interest in the project with such a limited staff. I want to help educate the donors, but that would be another great big project. Any new ideas we have and want to carry out makes more work for us, and we are already stretched very thin. I say "we," but I am talking more about my coworkers than myself.

On Friday in a meeting my Peace Corps project manager was giving us a pep-talk and was saying that we really need to think long-term about how we are affecting these children's lives in order to stay motivated. In that moment I realized that I have been prepared for this--I know that I may not be here to see the results of my work. I have chosen to work really hard for two years in the hope that I can make a difference. This cannot be said of my coworkers. They clearly know their job is hard--this much is shared among us. The big difference is that I am "giving up" (some might say) two years of my life to do this, but some of them have already been working hard at this same project for four years, with not much sign of improvement. Needless to say, the motivation is not always there for all of us all the time, and I think I need to be more aware that just like I have my downs, my coworkers are going to have them too. Given such a group, pulling off events like the one we had last week was a challenge, and not one I am motivated to try again anytime soon.

http://www.plant-trees.org/projects/honduras.htm

Trees for the Future was started by a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 80's. My host sister from Santa Lucia just informed me that it existed, and right here in Honduras! Almost all the volunteers listed on the Honduras part of the webpage were in my training class but live very far away so I have seen them rarely (if at all) since training, so it was nice to get a little picture into what they are doing.

Don't worry I am not going to try to reel you all into donating, but it seems like a pretty cool organization that people should know about. I hope that reading the page about the project in Honduras can give you a better idea than I could about the country's ecological troubles.

Updates will come next week about the singing contest. As of this moment, we have 635 students attending to watch their classmates compete. These tickets are worth about 6,000 lempiras. The goal is to raise 10,000 lempiras, equal to a little over $500.

1 Year In-Country It's so hard to believe that I've been in Honduras for a year now and in Danli for almost 10 months. The time has flown by. Instead of thinking about what I should have done differently—that I should have done more, for example, in my first year, I am trying to look at my time optimistically. I still have a year and two months to accomplish all that I hoped to accomplish here, including another school year. In a few months I will have to write a one-year report detailing my accomplishments so for now I'll save listing them. Here are some of the things I hope to accomplish at the Estancia in my second year:

-A library of donated books has been constructed and organized. Students have started to check-out books during recess but I would like to start an after-school story hour in order to promote a love of reading and encourage the students to check-out books.

-Continue my English class with the upper grades and instill in the students a love of language learning; promote higher education.

-Conduct tutoring sessions as needed and have an after-school homework club.

-Read with students one-on-one and have some start journal writing. Aside from the Estancia I would still like to start the English class for teachers in Danli. I have put a lot of work into developing the 2nd manual for the program and hope to be involved in a conference for teachers and volunteers participating in the program. I could be more effective, however, if I were actually teaching the course and could use that experience to improve the manuals and the program. In my personal life I would like to read more and watch less TV. I have been a little better about reading the news online and reading the international Newsweeks that I receive every few months. I still feel somewhat disconnected, however, to things that are going on in the US. A lot of my peers are talking about how hard it will be to get a job when we go back, but I am hoping that my degrees and my experience here will help me. Right now I'm reading a book on communication in the classrroom, and I hope that I can learn strategies to improve my interaction with the students at the Estancia and prepare me for situations I might encounter later in my teaching caree.

There has been a lot of drama at the Estancia lately which I will try to sum up. To gloss over everything, we have a new teacher for the lower grades (the upper grades' teacher is thankfully still with us) and a new cook. I haven't gotten to know the new teacher very well but she seems to be working well with the students and has been very cooperative on Estancia projects. The new cook is fantastic. She is an older woman with lot of life experience. She responds very well to the children and has been a natural authority figure. In addition, she worked at a nursing home for years, so she has experience cooking for many people. All this has made the transition very easy. One aspect of the Estancia administration that has not been going very well is the budget. Basically, the price of everything has gone up. Food is more expensive than it used to be, but we have struggled even more with the increasing cost of electricity. Mostly we use a lot of electricity to pump water into the school from the underground water tank. We have started to conserve a lot more electricity and our bill was cut in half last month. Needless to say, money has been a struggle. At the beginning of the school year in February, the school administrator and I had discussed possibilities for the year and a possible field trip the children's science museum in Tegucigalpa. A few years ago, the Estancia had a singing contest to raise money and we decided to do a second one. The idea is that each school in Danli will have one participating act in the contest and buy tickets for students to come and cheer on their classmates. We will sell drinks and snacks to raise more money. The goal is to raise about $500 to cover the costs of the field trip: renting a bus, admission, and a fast food meal for each student. If we are able to raise more money, we will probably keep it on hold for when we are short on money or put it towards a larger purchase, such as a new computer. The big event is about two weeks away, so I will definitely post pictures afterward.

My parents came down to Honduras two weeks ago for a visit to one of Honduras's Bay Islands, Roatan. The Bay Islands are famous for their coral reef which reaches right up to the shore of Roatan. We were able to snorkel a lot and got to see many species of fish, which my dad and brother catalogued in a notebook. It was so nice to be with my family again after six months. I was able to share a lot about my experience with them, and also catch up a little bit on their lives.

For Arbor Day, the 3-6th grade teacher organized a day of planting trees. We planted several banana and plantain trees from seedlings. The plantain trees are already growing (a month and a half later). In addition, the teacher led the school in making a beautiful bulletin board. She drew the design with pencil and then the students took turns coloring in the design. The older students wrote poems about Arbor Day. I read a book about trees to the younger students and we discussed the importance of trees in our lives. Then each student drew a picture and wrote a sentence or two about trees. Here is a pretty recent picture of all the students on Arbor Day. It is only missing four new students and one student who had missed class that day.

Mother's Day was quite a different cultural experience here in Honduras. In my experience in the US, it is typical to celebrate only mothers very close to you: your mom, your grandmothers, and maybe a godmother or other symbolic maternal figure. Here, Mother's Day is a commercial extravaganza much like Valentine's Day in the US. Not only do you need to get YOUR mom a gift, you need to get something for every woman you know who is a mother. Fake flowers and vases are a typical gift.

But to be honest, the holiday goes much beyond the commercial aspect. Women are very much the backbone of Honduran society. Even when Honduran mom's work, they are still in charge of the (many) children and all the meals for the family. There is of course the exception of families who are able to afford help, but in general it is mother is still the organizer of all activities in the home. Mother's Day is the day when all of their hard work can be recognized.

At the Estancia we made a bulletin board and a program of performances to celebrate the day with the students' mothers. The students in the picture are reciting an acrostic poem. Only about half of the mothers made it to the celebration which was disappointing but not surprising. I presented both of the teachers and the administrator received Mother's Day gifts on behalf of the students.

Last week I went to a national conference for English teachers in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Most of the teachers there worked for bilingual schools in the capital, but several worked for language centers and schools outside Tegucigalpa. This made me the exception.

Many of the sessions were on topics that I am very familiar with from my education classes at the University of Virginia, such as differentiation, foreign language teaching methods, multiple intelligences, etc. Others were more focused on teaching English globally and how teaching culture is related to that. Many of the presenters were

I tried to do a mix of attending sessions with familiar and unfamiliar topics. My favorite session was called "Teaching English Plus Cultural Differences." The presenter discussed a few major ways in which Honduran culture is different from US culture, and how elements of that can and should be explored in the English language classroom. A few of the cultural differences she described were things that it took me a while to understand. For example, language in the US tends to be low-context. In the US, people typically mean exactly what they say. For instance, if I were invited to a party and couldn't go, I would tell the host that I couldn't go. In Honduras, the person invited would explain that she would do "everything possible to make it to the party." Hondurans would understand this to mean that she wouldn't show up, while an outsider from the US (like me) might be surprised to not see her at the party. This would have been great to know in training!

This presentation in particular sticks out in my mind because not only did the speaker discuss very interesting and relevant themes, she then prompted the audience to come up with ways to incorporate this concept in the classroom. For example, each Honduran letter (including business letters) begins with a paragraph of greetings, stating how the writer hopes that the reader is doing well and in good health, etc. Therefore, in an English classroom, students should learn to write a letter in the US style rather than just translate Spanish to English.

Overall the conference was a good experience. It felt great to be hearing all the education buzz-words again. In addition, I got a lot of ideas about some topics that might be helpful to share with the next Youth Development training group, who will come in July.

In other news, the TEAM (Teaching English and Methodology) manual I have been working on has finally been printed. It is beautiful! I am, however, planning to spend time working on it already for next year so that changes can be ready well in advance of the due date.

"Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger"

This New York Times article is about how rising food prices has made it even more difficult for the poor to have access to the food they need to survive. The problem of rising food prices is an issue here too. Two weeks ago, several organizations organized a national strike. The protesters requested that the government not raise the price of public services. Another concern is that while the price of food has been increasing, salaries have not been raised to offset the higher cost of living. Yesterday was Labor Day and there were demonstrations as well. Thankfully the situation here is not yet at the level of desperation in the countries described in the article.

Another issue is that it costs a lot of money to attend school. Fortunately the students at my school have all of their costs paid for, but often they eat very little or nothing for dinner and on weekends. The situation is better for those who have parents that work, but even then things can be very hard at home. Some parents work but not consistently and find it hard to pay for thing like having their children´s teeth pulled. The staff at the school has not had a salary increase since the school was founded three years ago.

One of Tara´s main projects at the Estancia was developing games and activities for the kids to do that involved the world map. Over two years ago, Tara had training in Danli, and with a small group of trainees, led the children in painting a world map on the wall of the school.

This year, she developed a board game for the children to play (one game for each continent). After studying the map with the children (beginning with the difference between a country and a continent), she developed a scavenger hunt for the children with the ultimate prize being something very close to my heart: ice cream. The kids had a great time and it was a very creative idea on her part. (I am pictured above with my team).

The second big activity Tara did with the kids was a geography bee. Tara told the students the name of the continent and the country, and they had to point to it on the map. They did great, and several first graders made it to round two.

After going through all the easy cards and making it to the challenge round, these were the four winners! All of them are in third and fourth grade. The student who won beat everyone by identifying Germany on the map.

The winners got to get a liquado (fruit milkshake), read books, and play at a local ice cream shop. Afterwards they got to go to Tara´s house.

I went to Nicaragua about a month ago for Holy Week. Sorry the pictures are so late. I´ve been in the midst of a move and planning a conference for about 100 people. More on those to come! For now, here are pictures from the trip.

This is the view of Granada and it Cathedral from the tower on another church. Thanks to Erin for the picture!

Another church in Granada.

Granada is on Lake Nicaragua. In the lake, there are a lot of little islands. We toured the islands on a boat. Some islands were so small that people buy them and put houses on them. The yellow house had a Maryland flag in the front.

We stopped at one island where monkeys boarded the boat to look for food. Here´s Erin and a monkey getting friendly with her. Don´t worry, I didn´t touch any of them!

On the way back home from Granada we stopped in a town that is known for it´s artisan market. After a lot of looking for it, we found it. Here´s one of the stands in that market. Notice the preserved frogs.

While waiting for any bus to leave, vendors usually board the bus or try to sell things through the window. This woman was selling watermelon.

Today the Estancia family said goodbye to Tara, a Danli business volunteer, who has just completed two years of service in Danli. Tara had training in Danli, during which she and some friends lead the Estancia students in painting a world map on the wall of the school. Tara was later assigned to Danli for her two years of service and has been visiting the Estancia weekly in addition to her other committments as a business volunteer. She has done several projects with the students involving the map, and some of them now can name more countries than me! She created a few scavenger hunts for the children which were fun and helped me think about more ways to be creative when working with them.

For Tara´s despedida, we gave her a book (above) from pages that the students had drawn and written on. Each student also made her a little heart with sayings on it and their name, and then each took turns giving their "heart" to Tara. We then played a game in which each student popped a balloon and had to perform the task decided by the piece of paper inside. My favorite was the ranchera (country) song a few of them sang to her. Afterwards, we had pepsi and baleadas (flour tortillas with beans and chicken or sour cream).

Students waiting in line for baleadas

(left: Students eating baleadas at Tara´s farewell)

I am sad to see Tara go but there is some good coming out of it...I´m moving into her apartment next weekend! The apartment is in a more central location, which will be very convenient, and it has two bedrooms and bathrooms which is another step up. I am mainly moving because there is a mold problem in the house I currently rent that has been giving me health problems. There is very little ventilation, and the few windows face the dirt road, letting in more dust and giving me more sinus problems. The new place is on the second floor (more privacy) and on a paved road (less dust), so once again, will be a huge improvement.

Okay off to home for the weekend. I hope you enjoyed the update and please be patient with me as I try to make writing on the blog a better habit.

Thank you to my friend Erin who took the above pictures!

Wow do I have several updates from that last entry! For one, we did get a second teacher to work with first and second grade and she is great. She has even been a principal at one time so she knows what she´s doing. I have also found that she is pretty perceptive about the children, quickly noting that the 9 students in first grade all have very distinct abilities and life experiences.

In addition to all the great benefits of having another teacher (namely the kids being on-task), the estancia also received a ton of donations. Monday a group of people from the Police Department brought cake and gift boxes for each child. Not only did the gift boxes contain lots of toys edible goodies, each contained a physical education uniform for each student! All of the shirts and trackpants had the logo of the Estancia on them. I should take a picture--it´s pretty cool for such a small school in Honduras.

Tuesday we finally received the school supplies and uniforms from a scholarship we had applied for. Basically, the rotary club of Danli started a scholarship program last year to give poorer students the uniforms and school supplies that they would need to go to their neighborhood school (see last entry). Because all of the children at the Estancia share this need, the rotary club agreed to let our administration apply for the scholarships for each student (as opposed to each family applying individually). It´s a great scholarship which is designed to follow the students from year-to-year, as long as the students keep their grades up. So we finally got the scholarship, and with it came 30 backpacks STUFFED with school supplies based on grade level. For now, each student has what their teacher requested that they have, and we will continue handing out the supplies as the year goes on. The sixth graders are the only ones who are using their backpacks right now but if they use them wisely (i.e. don´t steal things), the younger grades will get a chance too.

This week we are starting a behavior point system. Each day the students can win up to 5 points each and will have an opportunity to buy extra school supplies and toys at the end of every week. I mention school supplies because the students have everything they need at the school, but if they want to color at home for fun, for example, they would have to buy crayons or colored pencils and a little notebook. I am really hoping that it works. The teachers are being very supportive so far of this new system so I hope that it does work in the long run.

One sad update is that the new family of four that I mentioned in the last entry has stopped coming to the school after only about two weeks. They moved to a nearby town and have to come by bus. I don´t know the details about why they moved, but I think it had to do with affordable housing and maybe a job opportunity for the mom. After they moved they still came to the Estancia occasionally with the exception of the eldest boy who stayed in town with his grandmother so that he could keep going to school. I just saw him on the street and he told me that his 3 siblings were no longer going to go to the school. Even though I didn´t know the students that well, I am really disappointed because the mom had literally begged us to have her students come to the school and seemed really committed to their education. Now it seems that education doesn´t matter much to her anymore, but maybe moving seemed to be her only solution to the problem of how she was going to feed her kids.

The Honduran school year begins sometime in February, so the Estancia has been a lot more lively than the past few months. During January, the last month of school vacation, I introduced the students to some board games and puzzles that my parents had brought from the states. At first the puzzles especially were very hard for the students and they needed a lot of help, but after time they came to love all of the games. They now love to teach each other and sometimes choose to play a game over having recess in the hot mid-day sun.

This school year the Estancia administrator had proposed that we limit the number of students to about 20 students in order to give them more individualized care and to ease discipline problems. Little by little the number kept growing, and now we are nearing 30 students.

Three years ago when the program started, the school administrator (who at the time was involved through college internship/field placement) went around town and rounded up students who did not go to school, and many who had never been to school. To go to school in the US, each students needs to go to school prepared with school supplies and a lunch every day (or gets the lunch through government assistance). In Honduras, each student needs not only school supplies, but a uniform as well (complete with appropriate shoes). The costs of the uniform and school supplies for a few kids can add up to the monthly wages of a blue collar worker (cleaning people, cooks). So if a family can’t provide the school supplies and uniform to their children, the kids don’t get to go to school. In some situations these children even work, selling food or trinkets, shining shoes, or even begging. The Estancia is a public school that serves children who might not otherwise be able to go to school.

Recently a woman went by the school, after the roster had been turned into the district school office, and asked us to accept her four children. The daughter, 14, was the only one who had ever been to school (presumably because the parents could only afford to send one child). The three sons, ages 7, 9, and 11, had never been in school and would be in first grade together. We accepted them, leaving us with a very full school. There are other cases that we decided not to accept because the families did not demonstrate enough need. This case, however, seemed worth trying to raise the necessary funds to feed four more students.

In addition to the growing number of students, we are facing a teacher shortage. We only have one teacher for about 30 kids grades K-6. Monday I have a meeting with the superintendent, but this problem has existed as long as the project, so I am not too hopeful. There are many reasons why the district hesitates to give us teachers. For one, money. We are not the only school that merits an additional teacher. On Tuesday I visited a school in the mountains that had 50 students per teacher and classroom. In Danli, there is an excess of qualified teachers, but not enough money to pay them to work. Teaching is a very highly-paid profession here, so it is hard to find money in the budget to pay more teachers. A second reason is rumors. Teachers hear that the Estancia is chaos, that the students are rough children brought in from the streets of Danli. This is true in a way, it is a “hard school”, but the teachers would benefit from having fewer students whom they could truly get to know and influence on a very personal level. A third reason is rumors; rumors that the Estancia has money from the states and that the school doesn’t need the community’s support (financially and in terms of service/outreach). The neighborhood sees me go there almost ever day and sees the medical brigades that come about twice a year, and they assume that the school isn’t needy at all.

Well there is hope yet. I have the upcoming meeting with the superintendent to look forward to, and our treasurer is currently seeking more funds from the mayor. The city hall helped start the program a few years ago but has not once increased their support despite inflation. Hopefully there will be enough money for the staff to get a few raises and maybe even an additional staff member to compensate for the fact that I will not be able to work their full-time. The last PC Volunteer at the Estancia was there every day and had a shift, but I cannot do that because of other commitments and continued PC support in that way will not help the program become sustainable.

1. Blog More

I’m not exactly getting off to a great start here, seeing as my first entry of the New Year is being posted in March. I really do want to write on the blog more, it’s just hard to get started after so long. It’s always tough to sum up my life here and even more so after several months of not writing. But here goes.

2. Read More

During my family’s visit to Honduras I enjoyed a vacation that was both busy and relaxing. Each of us finished multiple books on the trip, and I had a great time reading and talking about the books. So far I have finished The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Bel Canto. I’m almost done with Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which is told in brief reviews of the political histories of various countries. It is about real life conspiracies and government and corporate corruption. It’s fascinating, mostly because I’m surprised to learn how little I know about the history of international politics.

3. Be Healthier

This is actually going quite well. I have stopped eating lunch at the school because it was always way to filling, and often greasy. This means I’m eating a lot less meat, which has been a nice change for me. There are also a lot more students at the school right now, and I feel good that my portion of food will go to those who need it and appreciate it more than I do.

I have also been having severe allergy problems for the last few months and have concluded that it is due to the mold and lack of ventilation in my house. Sometime in April I will be moving to a smaller, nicer place in the town center. My new place won’t have an oven, so I am making a lot of cookies while I still can.

4. Travel

I don’t have any specific travel plans yet, but I do want to take better advantage of living abroad. I still haven’t traveled to most of Honduras, so little by little I hope to accomplish this resolution.

Hello readers,

I have a feeling that some future volunteers (arriving in Februrary) might find my site and be interested in a packing list. Here is my advice.

Once again, this is just my opinion and other volunteers might not have the same advice. Let me know if you have any questions by posting a comment.

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The packing list below is a good one, but I think it could use some revision: http://www.pccatrachos.com/living.htm

1) Bring stuff you will wear! I brought lots of khaki pants and collared shirts. While those were great for training, now that I am at site and working with kids every day these items get dirty quickly and are not very practical for every day use. Thin jeans are the best think I have brought and bought here so far. They don´t show as much dirt, are comfortable, and dry well in the sun. In addition, nice jeans can be acceptable professional wear, so they are versatile as well.

2) You have NO IDEA what your life here will be like until you get to site, particularly with regard to weather. So bring a little of everything and then you can buy more once you get here. Some of my friends live in sites where it is very cold, and others where it is very hot. So bring two long sleeve shirts but also a few tank tops (for women).

3) I WOULD bring: a few polo shirts and other comfortable but presentable blouses. Several pairs of jeans. Many pairs of socks and underwear. One nice outfit and shoes to match for swearing in. Ziplock bags--I brought a ton and now that I am living on my own am so glad that I carted them around for the first four months. Quick-drying towel--great for traveling.

4) I WOULD NOT bring: a radio, an iron, a tool set, or project specific books. These things are heavy and you could get them here. With regard to the books--you can´t yet be sure of your exact project so it would be hard to know what kind of book to bring. I am having my parents send the one book of my college career that I think is particularly relevant. Hiking boots are only necessary if you think you will wear them. Mine have come in handy a few times, but personally, for me, they were a waste of money. Bring stuff you would normally use and wear at home. I have used my sleeping bag but not my sleeping mat, most volunteers you visit will have a mat you can sleep on (kind of like a cot).

5) Luggage: I really think the best idea is to bring what you can carry. I brought a rolling suitcase and a backpack and that has worked fine. Mostly you will only have to transport everything a few times, but depending on where your host family lives in relation to the meeting point, you might have to carry or drag your things for walks up to 10 minutes. I also strongly recommend that you bring an extra duffle or gym bag so that you can transport new things you acquire during training. Trust me your things will not fit back into your suitcases at the end of training!

6) Language: DO NOT BRING A DICTIONARY unless you have one you are particularly attached to. PC will issue you one and other books that you can practice with. In my opinion you get plenty of language training here so I don´t know if it´s worth practicing up right now.

7) Laptop: By far the best thing I brought! Bring a surge protector, and a voltage adaptor if you can find one that´s cheap. I just bought one here. The laptop is useful for working on manuals and other sorts of work, as well as keeping track of pictures. You can also write emails and blogs on the computer and then use your USB to take them to the internet place. Bring more than one USB--these are often broken or lost so they are good to have. I had an old laptop that I brought--many laptops get sick here for various reasons, so I don´t know if I would bring a new one.

8) Insurance: I think Clements International is supposed to have the best plan.

Let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to comment with any questions you might have!

For my host grandpa's 90th birthday, we took him back to his village, a suburb of a town called Teupasenti. He had been living with the family in Danli for a period of time because he needed to be close to medical facilities. While I think he did like being at the house in Danli, he was thrilled to be back at his home in the country where he has a lot more freedom and fresh air.

My host mom's siblings all had properties that connected together. There were plenty of live animals (see pig picture), and the kids all swam in a stream down the hill from the houses. It was beautiful and very fun. It was my last weekend living with my host family and it was nice to spend time with them before moving out. Picture of my house are coming soon!

Host mom, host grandpa, host aunt (she lives in the Tegus)

My host sister, Alondra, and my host brother, Axel. (yes, as in Axel Rose)

Alondra, with coke in a baby bottle. I think Hondurans are born with a love of sugar.

You should see them eat cornflakes.

Bathroom door with no doorknob after I was locked into the bathroom…I was in there for nearly an hour! After the doorknob was removed (which took quite a while), my host mom finally kicked in the door and I was released. She was great about it, not upset at all, just glad I made it out in one piece.

A clausura is a closing ceremony of sorts, and we had one at the Estancia about two weeks ago. The 6th graders were officially promoted to middle school (colegio), there were a few student performances, and some awards for academic excellence. The picture is of me giving the award to Emerson for being the highest achieving student in the 3rd-6th grade classroom. After the ceremony, we ate nacatamales, a traditional Christmas food. They are tamales that include meat, rice, and veggies. Usually they are made with pork (and sometimes even pork lard) but we used chicken in these. The day before the clausura I helped make them. It took all day, but it was fun to be part of the process. We also ate (and I helped make) torrejas, which are sort of like french toast that is then soaked in a sugary syrup. They are pretty good but a bit too sweet for me to eat more than one of them.

This clausura was a little different because it was Alex's last day with students as well. A lot of the children cried, and even one of the moms. Two weeks later, they are still asking about her but have also already developed a relationship with me. I can't even say I have big shoes to fill because I hope that my role at the school will be very different than hers was, and I have different goals for myself. The students have accepted this and been very welcoming to me, so I haven't felt bad at all during the transition. More than anything it makes me already sad that I will someday have to leave--and that even after five busy months of being in country, it still seems that I have not even begun my service.

Last week, my project manager, Sandra, came to Danli and met with me and my counterparts from the Estancia and the school district. First we went over my accomplishments from the first few months, then Sandra asked my counterparts to pretend that if I were Santa Claus, what would I accomplish with them in the upcoming year. This part of the meeting was definitely the most overwhelming, as it included not one, not two, but THREE different requests for English classes of various sorts. I, unlike many of my fellow volunteers, am not opposed to teaching English in site--in fact I think this mentality is one of the main reasons why I was placed in Danli as opposed to a different site. However, THREE different English classes, apart from all of my current and proposed work at the estancia, is enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed. Thankfully, the final part of the meeting was reorganizing these requests and highlighting which ideas would actually be feasible to do in the upcoming year. My current (possibly genius) plan is to do TEAM 1, the program for teaching English to teachers. Before I taught lessons to the teachers, however, I would do all the activities with students and staff at the Estancia to get practice and see which activities are successful. It will also give me a lot more credibility in leading the other class, because I will be able to speak from experience.

The last few weeks have been a little more low-key than when school was officially in session. Two of the three teachers still came to school daily after exams and did various things with the students such as Christmas arts and crafts. Other days, PCVs would come to the school and do activities with the students. Erin's science experiments have been a huge hit. She began with a unit on air and did a basic demonstrations while explaining and asking questions about the results. The students were definitely excited and ready to participate, and even remembered some of the discussions during the following class. Tara has been doing a unit on values with the students and several of the activities were particularly great. During the lesson on kindness, there was a bingo-like board of kind things the students could do. If they did a row of kind things, they would win candy. All of the kids (large and small) accomplished the goal and many even tried to cover the whole board! Another recent development has been the introduction of the card game "Uno." I am not kidding--two weeks after I first played it with them, it is still the current sought-after activity (even over watching movies!). Tuesday was the end of the year ceremony/6th grade promotion and Alex, the previous´s volunteer´s going away celebration. It merit´s a separate entry with pictures, so look forward to that coming soon!

Last Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), about ten volunteers from the region got together to have a deeelicious Thanksgiving feast here in Danli. Although no one else from my training group lives nearby, I´m really lucky to have fun and welcoming sitemates, so it was fun to be with them for the holiday. Everyone brought one or two things and we ended up with enough food to last for several meals. We had all the Thanksgiving traditional foods except for stuffing: turkey (20 lbs), mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, green salad (made by me but including fresh greens from the hosts' garden), cranberry sauce, squash, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and homemade rolls. Sadly there was no pre-turkey pasta--maybe that's a tradition I'll bring here next year. The day was pretty typical in that after dinner we played board games and took naps on the couch…No snow, and parades on TV--but we did joke about setting off fireworks as is the tradition here to do on national holidays.

I was definitely sad to not be with my family on this holiday, especially because we have kept the same tradition of going to Buffalo for so long. I did talk with my family and Aunt Jer and it sounded like it was a wonderful time. Here in Honduras they have a very traditional Christmas meal, so I tried to explain my homesickness for an unusual holiday by relating that aspect of the holiday. Truth be told while Christmas is always a great holiday, my family doesn't actually have any specific food we eat every year, and we celebrate with other families as well. So missing Thanksgiving for me really was hard because we have almost never strayed from our great tradition.

Life at the estancia has been a bit hectic with each day being very different from the next. The last few weeks of classes were filled with different visiting groups and several parties. There was first a despedida (going away party) for a woman who is going to be a nun. She volunteered at the school for a while, and now is moving to Columbia for two years as part of her preparation to become a nun. The following week, students from a local high school came and did a talk about drugs which was a little dry but had some really good messages that did get across. The students at the school often are very hungry for attention and love from adults but also from peers. One of the high school students’ main messages was that a friend who offers you drugs is not a friend because they are asking you to do harm to yourself. They were also very receptive to feedback and even said that they thought a few situational examples and case studies would have been helpful. So it was a good, well-intentioned talk, and I hope that none of our students get enticed into the lifestyle they were discussing.

Another group came and had a sort of end of the year party with the kids complete with food, cake, and a piñata! The girl in the picture is swinging the stick nowhere near the piñata--it was hilarious. One problem with this visit was that the group that came didn’t even introduce themselves to the students and gave them no explanation of why they were there. It was just instant fun and then they left without saying goodbye or anything. It was odd.

On the other hand, recently another group came and donated nonperishable goods which is a huge help and good use of money. Instead of just dropping the stuff off, they gave a small celebration and talked about where they were from, what they were donating, and why they had come. The problem for me was that when a man was talking about why they were interested in helping our project, he started saying very insulting things about the children, such as that their parents might not care for them as well as they should, and that the group had come to give them a little bit of happiness in their otherwise gloomy lives. Afterward he was talking to me within earshot of some students and telling me how great he thought it was to come to Honduras and work with children “like them.” I had to speak up, so I told him, “thank you, but just so you know they are all great children and I really enjoy working with them.” It is great that organizations in Danlí itself are willing and able to give support to the project (which is only three years old). It makes the project more sustainable than it would be if it relied more on outside donations, and in addition it is much better for the donors to be able to interact with the children whom they are benefiting. I do, however, have a huge problem with anyone, Honduran or outside, who insults the very people who they are trying to help. Knowing that the children have different needs than some students at other schools might have is one thing, but listing out what’s wrong with their lives is not helpful.

On another occasion, representatives from the Danlí office of human rights stopped by to discuss human rights with the students and again, have another party. We informed them of a group of siblings who had not come to school for a while and expressed our concern. They made a house visit with a lawyer, made some discoveries, and several government offices have gotten involved. I cannot go into details of the case, but suffice it to say that the past few weeks have been very busy and emotional aside from the day-to-day activities at the school. Exams have now ended and I am not where I had hoped to be in terms of planning activities for what I am calling “vacation school.” So far the kids have been working on the school garden, lead by an enthusiastic teacher. This week another volunteer is going to start science classes with small groups while I do something yet-to-be-determined with the other students. We’ll see!

An article my mom sent me had the statistic that remittances make up over A FOURTH of the Honduran Gross National Product and that Honduras has the highest growth rate of remittances in Central America. Something to think about. Nothing is really going on with the sports school right now because there are very few athletes who are even going to practice. This time in the year (end of school, exams, beginning of vacation) does not seem like the best time to start up anything new, but I do hope to get more involved at the beginning of next year.