Once again it’s been awhile…what can I say, I’m a procrastinator by nature and with a blog there’s no deadline! We’ve of course been very busy as usual. Deyra’s English is steadily improving but she still can’t really have a conversation. She still generally talks to me in Spanish but seems to talk to everyone else in English. She is making more of an effort now, perhaps because of the little incident we had right before New Year’s Eve.

Deyra had asked if she could eat with some friends from Nicaragua. I said fine and asked her to call me during the day and tell me when and where she needed to be picked up since she did not know beforehand (she was already in Reedley volunteering during the day). She never called and I finally called her at 4:00 or so. Deyra still reported to know nothing and was very vague. She asked me if “las chicas” could spend the night because they couldn’t stay in the dorms and I told her that she needed to give more notice if she wanted someone to spend the night (we’re working on not asking for things at the very last minute). To make a long story shorter, Deyra never called me, I got mad and called her around 6:00, a host mom explained that some girls from another SEED program were coming and when/where Deyra needed to be picked up.

Needless to say, I was a little upset about Deyra’s lack of communication. We had spoken in Spanish the entire time so she really had no excuses. Both Kevin and I talked to her about it the next day and explained that she needs to tell us what is going on (like that people were coming from out of town, I thought that it was just local kids and that she wanted them to spend the night) ahead of time. I also talked to her about spending all of her time in her room and never speaking English. Deyra told me that she spent all of her time in Nicaragua in her room (in a one room house with at least five other people?) and that she didn’t know that it was weird.

Our little talk seemed to have worked because Deyra spent the rest of Christmas vacation hanging out with us in the living room. She even went to our friends Jon and Sarah’s house with us for New Year’s Eve and stayed up late talking to people. Deyra now asks us to take her places well in advance of the night before like she used to and comes with us when we go out.

Deyra on New Year's Eve

One of the other host parents had all of the first year students over at the beginning of January and they all made gingerbread houses. Deyra really enjoyed this and had her house on display for weeks. Every time a candy would fall off, she would stick it back on until we finally told her it had to go before it started decomposing.

I was gone a couple of weekends ago and she asked Kevin is she could have a friend over. Of course, three friends came but they had a good time. Kevin was a very good dad and taught them to play Yahtzee, made them fresh squeezed orange juice, and watched a movie with them. He said that they had a photo shoot complete with the cats and a stuffed bear!

Deyra with two of the girls that came over

Deyra is taking a couple of animal science classes and came home the other day talking about what a good day she had. She told me that she got to draw blood from a cow’s tale and that it was something she had never done before. She seems to be enjoying her classes for the most part. She’s taking aerobics and volleyball for PE and is having a little trouble with those, especially volleyball. Deyra almost dropped it, but decided to hang in there. She’s never had to take a real PE class before and says that they are hard and she is tired afterwards.

Next up: Deyra gets a computer!

I think that Deyra’s first Christmas in the U.S. was a success! We made sure that she had the complete Christmas experience as Christmas is my favorite time of year. We took her to Zoolights, which is where the zoo is lit up and decorated at night. Many of the animals were sleeping but she got to see a few including the giraffes. She was very impressed and said that she’d only seen animals like that in books before. I’ll have to take her to the zoo during the day so that she can see all of the animals!

Zoolights!

We also went to Christmas Tree Lane, two miles of houses that go all out decorating for Christmas each year. Deyra really seemed to like all the lights and took a lot of pictures. She said that she had never seen anything like that in her life. Many of the houses have themes and wooden cutouts and decorations in addition to the lights. It’s pretty impressive to me so I can only imagine what it was like to Deyra.

Christmas Tree Lane

A week before Christmas, we went to Kevin’s Uncle and Aunt’s house to make beerocks like his grandparents used to do. Deyra learned how to make them and helped out. She also helped with the puzzle (she doesn’t quite have the hang of those yet) and participated in the “As Seen on T.V.” gift exchange. She got the hang of the stealing gifts idea pretty quickly. Unfortunately, her gifts got stolen numerous times and she ended up with a pet hair brush. She got a kick of watching us use it on the cats but won’t get much use out of it herself.

Deyra making beerocks

A couple of days before Christmas a friend’s mom gave Deyra a bunch of her daughter’s old clothes. Literally, we brought home two garbage bags full! I had Deyra pick out some things that she wanted and try them on and model them for me to make sure they fit. Turns out she has gained a little weight and a lot of them did not fit. Deyra said that there are three other girls who are her size or smaller in her group so we are going to give the rest of the clothes to them. It was like early Christmas as she almost doubled her wardrobe! I was even inspired to get rid of some of my own clothes, something I never do!

Que monton de ropa

My family celebrated Christmas Eve at my house this year because my grandmother, my mom’s mother, passed away a couple of days before Christmas and we didn’t want my mom to have to do anything. Deyra told me that she wanted to make suspiros and asked for sugar, egg whites, and a spoon. She then spent the next hour beating them into meringue. I had given her a whisk but had I realized what she planned to do, I would have given her the hand mixer. I can’t believe that she spent an hour whisking eggs and sugar into meringue! To make things worse, nobody really ate them so it was like she wasted all that effort.

Family picture

Christmas in my family is a little different than the traditional Christmas. We always eats Italian food on Christmas Eve because my grandmother is Italian and that is what we grew up doing. We had tons of food including lasagna and rigatoni and then opened presents. I think that Deyra was a bit overwhelmed at first because there were so many presents. We take turns opening one present at a time and she seemed unsure of what to do at first. By the end, she was ripping them open when it came her turn. She got a lot of clothes, books, games, and even an MP3player!

A gingerbread man from Grandma Marty

We went to the candlelight church service at 11:00 PM on Christmas Eve and I think Deyra was pretty tired. She ran to bed when we got home. We then got up at 7:00 AM the next morning to open stockings. Santa was good to her and she got lots of her favorite food, candy. We ate breakfast and then headed off to church and after that to Kevin’s parent’s house. Deyra got more presents including a sterling silver necklace and bracelet and pineapple lotion from our nephew who smelled every single one to make sure he got her the best scent!

We spent the day with Kevin’s family and I know Deyra was exhausted (I sure was and even took a nap!). She played games with us for a little while and then kind of disappeared to the living room. She said that she had a good time and liked all of her Christmas presents. I asked Deyra what Christmas is like for her in Nicaragua and she said that they eat a lot on the 24th and her family goes to church. She said that she had never received a Christmas present before so no wonder she was overwhelmed!

Deyra and I baking cookies

Once again, I have been slow in my blogging…I’m not very good at it. Deyra had her first Thanksgiving with us, sadly I don’t have any pictures, but it went well. My family came over to our house for Thanksgiving and Deyra helped me out in the kitchen and learned the names of a lot of veggies. Deyra liked the Macy’s parade so much that she turned it on in her room even though it was on in the living room. After some encouraging, she came out and watched with me. She tried all the food and said that she liked it all. We all took turns saying what we were thankful for and Deyra said, “for my family here”, it was sweet.

Deyra with Erika and Robert at Kevin's Birthday Party

Thanksgiving night, Kevin and I headed to LA for a reunion with our Peace Corps family (the others who were in Catacamas with us). Deyra stayed with my mom and had only one problem. Apparently my mom told her that she was going to get firewood on Saturday and that they had to pick Laurie up first. She pointed to the wood and Deyra said that she understood. When they got to Laurie’s house (she lives next door to us), Deyra jumped out of the car, said “thanks for everything”, and ran inside. My mom and Laurie were really confused and assumed that when Deyra heard “Laurie’s house” she figured that she could go home. Deyra had wanted to stay home alone but we told her that she needed to stay with someone so she could practice her English. My mom and Laurie did not want to make her go back to my mom’s if she didn’t want to so they just left her.

Needless to say, I was a little angry when I found out what Deyra had done. I had explained to her in English and Spanish how long/what days she was staying at my mom’s and how she would get home. When I asked Deyra what happened, she said that my mom told her they were going to Laurie’s so she just went home. I explained to her that this was not what she was supposed to do and she apologized and said that she did not understand. I took the TV out of her room since all she does is watch Spanish TV and not practice English. She was ok with that. Everyone is pretty sure that she understood and just saw it as a way to stay at our house alone like she wanted.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Christmas is very different in Nicaragua than it is in the U.S. and Deyra is learning about our traditions. She helped me decorate the Christmas tree (she put all of the ball ornaments in one area and I had to redo it later) and went to a Christmas parade with us. I keep trying to get her to make a Christmas list but she is reluctant. I think that she does not want to seem greedy. I finally explained to her last night that people don’t have to buy her all of the things on the list, it is just a guide. That seemed to do the trick and she said that she would make one today.

Reedley College Float at the Parade

We went out of town last weekend and Deyra stayed with our friend, Grace, who goes to our church. Grace has had numerous SEED students in the past and was more than willing to have Deyra stay with her. According to Deyra, they had fun; she spoke in English and learned to play the piano. Grace was much more descriptive and said that they went to Walmart, a Mary Kay party, helped out at a parent’s night out babysitting event, went to adult Sunday School, and she taught Deyra to play a song on the piano. It sounds like the opposite of what Deyra is like at our house. She apparently went everywhere that Grace suggested (she always chooses to stay home with us if given the choice), did not stay in her room, and spoke English (her only option with Grace). I think that she probably felt like she had to participate since she does not know Grace that well like she did with us when she first arrived. As soon as we came home, she started talking in Spanish again and didn’t want to go anywhere with us...baby steps.

Even without the TV in her room, Deyra still spends the majority of her time in there. We always invite her to watch TV with us (well, the rare times that we watch TV), and I have told her that she can watch TV in the living room whenever she wants. We often see her just staring at the ceiling in her room. For some reason she prefers to be alone in her room. As a result, her English is not improving very much. It is still impossible to have an actual conversation with her, and she still generally answers us in Spanish. We have started saying, “What, I don’t understand” when she talks to us in Spanish. Hopefully Christmas break and not being around Spanish speaking people all the time will help.

Our Christmas Card Picture

Up next: Deyra has finals, Deyra’s first Christmas

Deyra has been busy! The entire group of SEED students in her cycle went to Yosemite National Park a few weeks ago. Each student was supposed to bring a lunch and while this sounded simple to me, Deyra had no idea what to do. She was just going to bring a soda and some grapes but I said no way. I taught her how to make a sandwich and we went through all the “portable” food that we had until she found things that she liked. At the end she said, “Wow, that was so easy but I had no idea where to even start.” Funny the things we take for granted. She had a good time at Yosemite, but was very tired the next day. In her words, “we climbed a giant rock and it took two hours and we didn’t get to stop very much”. Laurie’s boyfriend, Russell, gave her an old digital camera that he was not using so she took that with her to document her trip. (Sorry I don’t have any of the pictures.)

Kevin and I took Deyra to the Big Fresno Fair a couple of weeks ago. When we lived in Texas, we went to the Texas State Fair and were really excited because we were sure it would be the best fair around…wrong. It was a very disappointing experience and we realized that the Fresno Fair is actually better. So it’s a pretty cool fair and Deyra was impressed. We ate cinnamon rolls (the best in the world!), saw all the animals and exhibits, and even took her on the ferris wheel. She was a little leery of the rides at first but seemed to enjoy the ferris wheel. Kevin and I went on a pirate ship that went upside down and she declined that one. She watched us and when we hung upside down the first time, I saw her cover her mouth and I am sure she was saying, “Dios mío!”. She thought that we were crazy!

Deyra and I on the ferris wheel

Deyra also got to experience her first Halloween! I explained the whole concept to her (and the more I told her, the more I realized that it is really weird that we dress little kids up and send them door to door asking for candy) and told her that we were taking her to a haunted forest/hayride. This was really hard to explain, even in Spanish, and I’m pretty sure she thought that we were crazy. We went to the haunted forest with a group of friends and she (and our friend Laura) got really scared on the hayride while the rest of us were laughing. Then came the forest…Laura said that they were holding onto each other and screaming the entire time. They both came sprinting out screaming but Deyra said that she had fun and that it was something that she never imagined!

A couple days before Halloween I picked Deyra up from school and we were driving home talking about what she had learned that day. She told me that she learned about “Holy Week” which I thought was a really strange thing to learn about in October. She tried to explain what she had learned to me in English and it came out, “kids, candy, 31st”. I was super confused and she switched to Spanish and explained Halloween. When she realized the mistake that she made she laughed a lot and still likes to talk about how she confused Halloween with Holy Week!

Deyra carving her pumpkin

Laurie, Deyra, and I carved pumpkins on Halloween and I am pretty sure Deyra once again thought that we were crazy when I explained the concept to her. Laurie had a book of face designs that you just poke holes in and then cut along the holes. Deyra chose one because it was “easy” and actually enjoyed the whole process. She really liked when we put candles in the pumpkins so that they glowed. Afterwards, Laurie and I dressed up to go to a friend’s house and Deyra was so excited when she saw our costumes that she started jumping up and down squealing, “picture, picture!”. She took a picture of us on her camera so she would remember our costumes. She said that she liked Halloween because you get candy and she likes candy!

Our beautiful pumpkins!

Deyra has started speaking more English and while it is far from perfect, she has definitely improved! I can understand her most of the time and get the gist of what she is trying to say. We like to talk about how much she has improved and she always says, “When I come no English, now much English”. Her writing is even better than her speaking!

Fall finally arrived and the days have been much colder. Usually with lows in the high 30s or low 40s and highs in the 60s or sometimes 50s. Needless to say, Deyra is freezing. She told us that she has never been anywhere this cold and that her fingers almost froze. There is usually ice on Kevin’s windshield and she could not believe that was even possible. I took her to buy a jacket and she came back with two that were exactly the same. I asked her why she was getting two and she said, “don’t I need two?” I explained the concept of jackets to her and that she could wear the same one everyday over her other clothes or if she wanted, get two different jackets. She chose to just get one and usually doesn’t even wear it even though she says that she is freezing. We’ll see how she fares once it gets colder and foggy.

Up next: Deyra does community service and Deyra’s first Thanksgiving!

So it’s been awhile since I last wrote, one would think I would be better at blogging in the US where I have constant internet access. Too bad I have zero free time now, lots of internet but no time to write, the opposite of Honduras where I had lots of time to write and no internet. I’ll try to get better…

So a lot has happened in the last month. We took Deyra to Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park to see the big trees”, aka the giant sequoias. For anyone who has never seen them (and even those who have), they are super impressive. They are the largest trees in the world by volume and are just huge. Deyra was really impressed and we walked through a trail and saw a lot of them. We stayed at Kevin’s parents’ cabin and it was a little chilly. Deyra asked us if that was what winter was like and when we said that winter is much colder she said, “Dios mío, me voy a morir!” We had a cold front come through a couple of weeks later and she told us that she was freezing (I was still wearing skirts) and that there is no place in her country where it gets that cold. Winter is going to be a challenge for her!

Deyra with a "big tree"

Deyra stayed home alone for the weekend while we went to Oregon. My sister and her boyfriend live next door so they checked on her and she could go to them if she had problems. Deyra did fine alone, the house was still in one piece when we returned. She talked on the phone a lot, (I looked at our phone log online and she literally spent an entire day talking on the phone!) and ate eggs since that is the only thing she knows how to cook. I keep telling her to come help me cook so she can learn but she almost always goes straight to her room when she comes home and shuts herself in with the TV (in the future I will not put a TV in the exchange student’s room).

While we were gone, the SEED students had a carwash fundraiser. Laurie took Derya and was one of the first people to get their car washed. She said that it was kind of comical and obvious that the students did not know what they were doing. According to Laurie, they just got soapy sponges and started washing a car without wetting it first. The owner of the car gave them a lesson and told them that washing a car without getting it wet first was like rubbing sandpaper on the paint. Deyra said that she had fun and was happy because she sold all five of her tickets.

The SEED students had a cultural day a couple of weeks ago where they showcased traditional dances from their countries. They had spent months practicing and some were amazing. The students from the Dominican Republic did a fabulous meringue number. The students had two performances, a practice for the host families, and a performance the next day for the entire college. The day of their practice run, many of the second year students found an extra credit English opportunity and were not present at the performance. As a result, some of the remaining students learned the dances that day and stood in. One student was in at least four dances and was amazing! Due to the restructuring and learning the dances in a day, the performances were a little shaky but it was really fun. Many of the students dressed in traditional attire and it was interesting to see clothes from the different countries. Deyra was upset because a couple of weeks before the performance they found out that a couple of the other groups were doing the same moves as them. They made up a new dance even though they had been practicing for weeks. Luckily it went well.

The Nicaraguan Group dancing

Deyra also participated in a parade a couple of weeks ago. Every year Reedley has a big celebration called the “Fiesta” with food booths, games, and a parade. The SEED students had a float with a Wizzard of Oz theme. Deyra kept telling us she was going to be a duende or dwarf/elf. I tried explaining the movie to her and what a munchkin is, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to watch the movie before the parade so she was a little confused. We were once again out of town, (I know, we’re terrible parents) for our anniversary this time, (five years, time flies!) so we missed the parade. She said that she ended up being a person from Emerald City and just wore jeans and a green shirt. Deyra said that they had a lot of fun and their float won first place! I wish we could have seen it.

Deyra seems to be adjusting to life in the US. When she first arrived she was very careful not to waste any water when washing dishes. She would put a little bit in a bowl and then transfer it from dish to dish to rinse them (much like we did in Honduras when our water went out and we had to bring buckets in). I noticed the other day that she now lets the water run full blast the whole time without trying to conserve it. She is now a wasteful American like the rest of us! She also spends hours in front of the TV in her room which is funny because she did not even have electricity before coming to the US. How quickly we adapt!

I am uncertain how much English Deyra has learned. She pretty much refuses to talk to us in English. When I ask her questions in English she either gives me a blank stare or answers in Spanish. I keep telling her that she needs to practice and come out of her room and talk to us more but it doesn’t seem to be sinking in. Hopefully she starts practicing more, I guess I can always refuse to speak in Spanish and see what happens!

Deyra has lived with us for a month now! It’s been a really fun time for the most part. We did have one incident where she was an hour late when my sister picked her up from school… I kept calling her and telling her to go “right now” and she kept telling me that she was on her way (she was really hanging out with her friends). Needless to say, I was angry and sternly told her that she better never do that again. She almost cried and Kevin made me apologize (even though I didn’t really do anything wrong) and it was all better. She is always very prompt now!

A couple of weeks ago, we took Deyra and one of her friends to a water park for the day. Her friend is a second year student in the same program who is from a town very close to Deyra’s hometown. Neither of them had ever been to a water park before. The night before Deyra had refused to get on a large trampoline because she was scared, but she went down almost all of the slides! I thought that the girls were going to have heart attacks a couple of times but they said that they had a good time. Deyra told us that she never imagined that there could be places like that, not even in her dreams!

Last Friday was Deyra’s birthday and we threw her a party and invited her fellow classmates. I sent an e-mail to the host parents assuming that this would be the best method for getting RSVPs…wrong! Ten RSVPed, seven of those came, and eleven others showed up! Luckily we had tons of food so it didn’t matter. They ate, danced, sang birthday songs, and Deyra got more presents than she ever has in her life! (I may have gone a little overboard…) She got a lot of warm clothes since she does not have any, calling cards, and lots of sweets. We had forgotten how dressed up people in Honduras got for parties, and these kids were the same. It looked like they were going to the prom (my sister said that she could tell which students had already been here a year because they were not as dressed up) and I think they really enjoyed the chance to get dressed up and spend time together outside of school!

The day after the party, Kevin and I went to San Francisco to a Fresno State game and left Deyra at home. Before we left she said that she wanted to do laundry and I had her show me that she knew how to use everything. She called during the game saying that her clothes did not wash and I referred her to my sister who lives next door to us. Laurie fixed the problem for the time being but the breaker blew at some point leaving the clothes in a washer full of water. Deyra had no idea what to do so she just took them out and put them in the dryer. The blown breaker caused the dryer to spin but without heat. When we returned at 1:00 AM, the dryer was still running because it was set to detect dampness, not time! It had probably been running for at least four hours! And her fancy party dress was in there tinted blue because she washed it with dark jeans because she didn’t want to do two loads with a small amount of clothes. It’s amazing the things and knowledge of them that we take for granted!

I was talking to Deyra last week and I asked her what she was told to her about the U.S.: food, culture, what to expect before she arrived. She told me that the coordinators in Nicaragua told her that the U.S. was pretty and the people were nice. They told her nothing about the culture, food, or what to expect. I cannot imagine how scary that must have been for her leaving home for the first time and going to a country that she knew nothing about where she did not speak the language. She is a very brave girl.

Deyra told me that she never imagined that there would be so much stuff. Buildings, roads, food, stores, etc. She’s handling it all very well and is learning English at a rapid pace. Last night I helped her with her homework and she had written two paragraphs in English that I corrected for her. I was impressed at how well she spelled words (I have trouble spelling without spell-check!), and at her vocabulary. Because she knows that we speak Spanish, she tends to talk to us mostly in Spanish so I cannot gage how much she knows. I now know that she knows a lot!

Next up: Deyra goes to the “big trees”, has a car wash, and spends the weekend alone!

Due to popular request, we have decided to restart our blog. As many of you know, we recently became host parents to an 18-year-old girl from Nicaragua. She came here with a group of students in a program through Georgetown University called the SEED program. My project in Peace Corps actually worked with high schools in Honduras to try to find students to apply for these scholarships. I never actually did anything with it because I did not work with high school students but I had friends who did. The students come for two years and attend a community college. They spend the first nine months living with a host family and the remainder of the time living in the dorms. They study English extensively as well as general education requirements, and here, agriculture. At the end of the program the students all return to their countries of origin where they are supposed to do a project that they devised in school to better the community.

We talked to the last group of SEED students about ways in which they could work with Peace Corps volunteers upon returning home while we were back home visiting from Honduras. The director of the program contacted us for this cycle to see if we would like to be host parents. After much thought on the matter (9 months is a long time), we decided to give it a try.

Our new daughter (that’s right, we’re parents now!), Deyra, arrived with a group of 18 other students from Central America, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. She does not speak more than a few words of English and came from a very poor area of Nicaragua. Deyra has been amazing so far! I’m sure it must have been so scary for her to come to a country where everything is totally different from what she knows and she does not speak the language at all. She has six brothers and sisters and lived in a tiny house in the campo without electricity. Prior to the application process for this program, which required her to travel to the capital; she had never left her house for more than a day trip.

So far it has been really awesome getting to watch her adapt and witness so many entirely new things. She had never heard of a microwave, internet, McDonald’s, so many types of food, and numerous other things. She did not know how to open the car door! She’s handled everything really well and stays very calm. We took her to Walmart and she was blown away but all she said was, “Es muy grande y hay de todo.” (It’s really big and they have everything.). She is super sweet and wants to help as much as she can. I was working in the yard Saturday and she came out, got on her hands and knees, and started raking leaves with her hand because “it would look better if the leaves were raked”. Needless to say, I gave her a rake!

Deyra’s been a trooper at trying new foods. I asked her what she normally eats and she said rice, beans, tortillas, and cheese. Needless to say, we don’t eat very many of those things, especially in ways that she is accustomed to. She tried pizza for the first time, pancakes, English muffins, blueberries, and countless other things. One of the most common dishes in Nicaragua is Gallo Pinto which is rice and beans mixed together with some onion and pepper. We had eaten it before in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and loved it. I asked Deyra if she would teach me how to make and it she said of course and got really excited. We went shopping and picked out all the ingredients and made it last night. It was fun and I think it helped her to feel a little more at home. She was impressed at how quickly beans cook on a stove versus a fire, and very surprised that we don’t use lard, or even really oil to cook many things. She had never heard of cooking rice just by boiling it (I had this argument with one of my English classes in Honduras and one man told me it was impossible to cook rice without frying it first), and is surprised that we rarely eat tortillas, instead eating lots of bread!

We have found out that after eight months, our Spanish is getting a little rusty but we had lots of practice over the weekend! One of the goals of the program is for the students to learn English so we will be speaking to Deyra in English but right now there is not really a point as she would not understand anything. She is anxious to learn and we bought her a white board and she tells us words and phrases in Spanish that she wants to learn and we write them in English. She has been learning really quickly and loves to practice. Names have been hard for her, especially Shannon, but she’s doing better than most people in Honduras did with my name! She asked me to write our names, the cats’ names, and the names of my sister and her boyfriend so she could practice them and she did not want to come to dinner until she had learned them!

The entire SEED group Ciclo 2011

Deyra's room

Shannon, Kate, and Deyra drying tomatoes

Up next: Deyra gets in trouble, goes to a water park, and has a birthday party.

We got really lucky in Cusco and found a trip to Machu Picchu the first afternoon, yay for low season. We did a four day, three night ¨jungle trek¨. The first day we were driven to the top of a mountain at about 4,300 meters nestled in the fog. We then put on helmets and gloves and mounted our not so great mountain bikes. We rode down a steep mountain road and it was really fun! Shannon, much to our surprise, loved riding super fast down the mountain and kept leaving Kevin behind (until she crashed that is). The first 45 kilometers were paved and nice, not too much traffic. The worst parts were the water that ran over the road which we had to ride through numerous times. We stopped and ate lunch and then continued on a really crappy road. They were doing road construction and it was one lane dirt, gravel, and rocks. We were riding along when a car came behind us and started honking to pass. Shannon tried to get over to the side and rode into some rocks. In slow motion, her bike pitched forward and she hung suspended in the air for what seemed like an eternity before flying over the handle bars, not letting go until the bike crashed on top of her. Needless to say she was quite cut up and bleeding all over. We had to wait for the guide and then the van that was following us to clean her up. All that they had was alcohol which the guide poured over her wounds. Someone else had baby wipes so she was able to clean herself up and stop the bleeding. She ripped her shorts and was covered in cuts and bruises on her left side but luckily nothing more serious happened. The whole bike ride was 65 kilometers but we probably only went about 60 and then rode the last few kms in the car as Shannon was in no shape to bike more. We then drove to the ever so exciting town of Santa María which was dusty and ugly. We stayed there and ate dinner and rested our weary bones.

Day two was the best day (besides Machu Picchu of course) and we hiked 22 kms through the mountains. It rained the first half but we walked through beautiful scenery with breathtaking views of the valley below. We walked on parts of the Inka Trail and actually climbed pretty high. Much of the trail was right along the side of a cliff and our guide acutually fell off, luckily not too far but it was a little scary. We stopped at a hotspring pool towards the end of the day and relaxed for a little while before the uphill climb to the town of Santa Teresa. The town is really growing due to the influx of tourism and most of the streets were paved or in the process of being paved and a lot of things were being built. The town itself was in a beautiful setting with snowcapped peaks on one side and a valley and more awesome mountains on the other. We spent the night there in a small hostal.

Day three started with a terrible hike along a dirt road in the hot sun surrounded by nothing but dust and rocks. We walked passed two impressive waterfalls (impressive until we found out they were manmade) to hidroelectrica where they are still working on a giant hydroelectric plant (hence the waterfalls). From there we walked along train tracks to the town of Aguas Calientes. The trail was surrounded by lush forest and stunning mountains so it was a nicer walk. After about 18 kms of walking, we arrived in Aguas Calientes which is a town built entirely for tourism as it is at the base of Machu Picchu and the only place to stay. It was actually pretty nice but all restuarants and hotels. We stayed the night there before our climb to Machu Picchu.

Day four started at 4:00 AM with a walk to the bridge at the base of the stairs to Machu Picchu. We then climbed over 3,000 stairs to get to the actual ruins. Only one person beat us up and we made it in about 35 minutes so we were pretty happy with ourselves (we did knock a few people off the mountain in our rush up but not too many). We had a tour of the ruins and then climbed Waynapicchu (more stairs) above the ruins. We would have had a great view if it hadn´t been so cloudy. A couple of times the clouds parted and we caught glimpes of the ruins. It was a pretty steep climb and at parts it seemed inevitable that we would fall down the steep, narrow stairs and be lost forever. We also walked up to the ¨sun gate¨ where we had a magnificent view of the ruins below us. It is really impressive how big (area wise) they are and how well made they are. Walking through them is impressive but seeing the whole thing from above is just incredible. The actual site is also amazing as it is on a fairly high mountain (2,400 meters) surrounded by even higher jagged mountains. It was incredibly beautiful. We then decided to walk back down the stairs as we decided taking a bus was for weanies. We had a few hours to kill before our train so we met up with some of the people in our group for some much needed food after hours of hiking.

We had a million problems with our guide which put a little bit of a damper on the trip. Needless to say, there are tons of tourist agencies and as a result quality begins to suffer. Our guide was knowledgeable but not very friendly and never explained anything to us (like the plans for the day) unless we specifically asked him. By the end of the trip everyone was pretty unhappy with him and ready to mutiny. We also had problems with the tour agency not sending our tickets for Machu Picchu or the train back. We finally got our tickets around 9:00 P.M. the night before we went up (of course we wanted to go to bed by 8:00 to get up at 3:30). This happened to most of the people in our group and we had all gone through different agencies (even one recommended by lonely planet). We never actually got our train tickets. Our guide told us to meet him the afternoon when we got back from the ruins to get them. They still were not there and he told us to come back later and worse case scenario we would go to the train station with our passports and they could look them up. What he did not tell us was that he was leaving in half an hour back to Cusco so he wasn´t there when we went back and nobody could help us. Luckily they were very helpful at the train station but it just made us resent our guide even more. He also decided to take only a third of our group on the tour of the actual ruins and sent the rest of us with another guide and even more people and our group ended up having 15 and his 5...we really loved him by the end.

All in all it was a good trip. We had a really good group to make up for our guide and we had a lot of fun. Machu Picchu is so amazing and definitely worth the trip!

So we´ve done a lot since we last wrote. We went to the not so exciting town of Latacunga where we met our friends Dan and Emily and celebrated Kev´s birthday with some pizza and beer. After perusing the impressive (and really cheap) Saturday market, we headed to the tiny indigenous village of Quilotoa. It is located at the top of an extinct volcano and there is a beautiful green lake in the crater. The elevation is approximately 4,000 meters and it was super cold. So cold that we had to have a fire in the little stove in our room in order to not freeze to death! It was nice to be cold after two years of summer. We stayed at a little family owned hostal that was run by a Quichua family. It was interesting talking to them and learning a little about their customs. Spanish is their second language which sometimes made communicating difficult as we spoke better Spanish than some of the people. We hiked part-way around the lake with Dan and Emily and went to the even tinier village of Ponce where they live. We met a lot of people and they were all so nice and polite. The little kids all shook our hands, something we never saw in Honduras. It was nice to see a totally different kind of Ecuador and get some nice hiking in.

From Quilotoa we went to Baños, a town in southern Ecuador. It is a very touristy town with the main attractions being hotsprings and outdoor adventures like rafting, bike riding, and hiking. We rented bikes and rode down ¨la ruta de las cascadas¨. It was mostly downhill much to Shannon´s delight since every uphill almost killed her. We rode about 12 miles past lots of waterfalls and even took a cable car across a canyon and over a waterfall. We ended our ride in Río Verde at Cascada Pailón del Diablo. We hiked down to the impressive waterfall which we could view from a series of balconies built into the cliff. We were close enough to get wet and were able to walk behind it after climbing/crawling through a crack in the cliff. It was pretty cool.

We then headed to the colonial city of Cuenca where we checked out all the old churches and buildings. At this point we have been to so many colonial towns that they all start to look the same so we didn´t spend much time in Cuenca. One of the best parts was the bus ride to Cuenca. We rode right through the middle of the Andes and it was beautiful! The mountains were so tall and the valleys so deep. Everything was very green and the mountains were covered with farms that made them look like patchwork quilts. It was a breathtaking journey and we even saw a beautiful sunset over the mountains.

After Cuenca, we headed to Perú. It took us a day and countless buses and cabs just to get to the border. It was one of the most complicated borders as we had to get off the bus about 4 kilometers outside of town and the actual border to go through customs. The bus driver forgot to let us off and we ended up having to go back once we got to town (after Shannon yelled at him he let us go back for free). We then had to take a taxi to the border and another to the Peruvian customs located 4 kms on the other side. It was ridiculous. We actually ended up getting so frustrated at slow, not so friendly people that we got out of a bus refusing to pay because the driver was so slow and wouldn´t tell us how much it cost or whether we would make it to the next town in time to catch our next bus. Shannon kind of lost it and yelled at him too (Latin America is wearing on us). We finally made it to our bus right before it left and spent 21 hours on it to get to Lima. We then spent another 21 hours on a bus to Cusco. It was a really long three days but at least the buses were comfortable and we made it in one piece! The drive through all of northwestern Perú was desert, desert, and more desert. We went through lots of mountains from Lima to Cusco but they were not nearly as green and beautiful as the ones in Ecuador.

We spent nine days in Las Islas Galápagos and it was amazing. Words really cannot describe all we saw and did. We went to nine different islands and a couple of islets and saw almost all of the animals that are there at this time. It was surprisingly cold (really windy) and the water was freezing (20 degrees C, think California water). We spent seven days on a sailboat and two days on the main island, Santa Cruz. The animals are not at all afraid of people and we could walk right up to them and they would either ignore us or just look at us. Baby sea lions would come up to us and try to touch us. We saw many different types of birds including frigates with their red pouches puffed up, blue footed boobies doing mating dances, baby albatrosses that are super fat and fluffy, giant pelicans, and so many others. Many of the birds had eggs and babies and they didn´t even blink an eye as we walked right up to them. It was awesome! We did a lot of snorkeling (Shannon had to wear two wetsuits and was still freezing) and got to swim with sea lions! They are so playful and would swim so close to us they almost touched us. They imitated our movements and did flips and jumps. Kevin really enjoyed this and spent extra time swimming with them (until the guide made him get out because a large male was swiftly approaching). The sea lions liked Kevin so much that they followed him out of the water wanting to play more! We also saw tons of green sea turtles (the highlight was when a sea lion swam behind one pushing it around), lots of white-tipped reef sharks (and Shannon didn´t even freak out), starfish, penguins, many types of rays, and even some bombs that the U.S. army left behind. We saw all the different types of island habitats ranging from lava to forest to desert. It was the dry season so many of the islands looked dead as the trees and plants were dormant. It never rained on us so we had good luck! We also went to the highlands and saw the giant Galapagos tortoises. They are so big and gentle. They just eat, sleep, and lay in pools of water. We even saw some dolphins that followed our boat putting on a fabulous show complete with jumps and flips. Our last day we spent scuba diving at Gordon Rocks, the premier place to see hammerhead sharks. We were not supposed to go there as Shannon is terrified of sharks and did not want to swim with hammerheads but we had some trouble with the law and plans changed. Apparently there are only three diving agencies in Galapagos that have licenses to dive, they got these licenses by taking a course, the last of which was offered in 2002. The other agencies have business permits and usually there is no problem but sometimes the park authorities decide that only the three agencies with licenses can go out. This just happened to be one of those days. We left at 5:00 AM to try to avoid problems but got stopped at the park checkpoint and were told that we could not go and had to go back. We spent about three hours trying to get around this and finally took a bus which was not checked. The rangers were not smart and let the car with all the equipment through so we just met them at the boat and headed out. We had to go to a different location though. It was an amazing two dives! The visibility was pretty good and we saw tons of fish including huge schools of barracuda, mullets, yellow fin tuna, and of course hammerheads among other things. Shannon was so scared to see the sharks that she cried but after the first time was not quite as scared and even swam towards them (keeping plenty of other people in between her and the sharks of course). Kevin was really excited to see hammerheads and glad that he got to see lots of them. It was definitely a great experience and very different than any of the other dives we had done. All in all, it was an awesome trip and the highlight of our travels so far! Now off to see our friends Dan and Emily who were in Peace Corps with us and now live in Ecuador.

At first glance, Cali seemed like a big ugly city but once we explored a little it got better! We walked all around the first day and saw all the churches and old buildings. We also went to a giant mall to people watch. Supposedly the most beautiful women and the plastic surgery capital are in Cali but we saw neither. We did eat some yummy vegetarian food (there were a ton of vegetarian restaurants which made Shannon happy) and went to a zoo. The Cali zoo is supposedly the largest zoo in South America and it was cool. We saw a lot of different animals including a bird that kept landing on Kevin´s head and bit Shannon when she tried to get it off! We also took some salsa classes at our hotel. The first day was a little hard but the second day was definitely better and we learned a bit and had fun! We were sad that we didn´t get to meet up with our friend from Cali but she was busy with a project so next time. After Cali, we went to Pasto, a town near the Ecuador border. It was a lot larger and more modern than we had thought it would be. We walked around and saw the really cool churches and the next day headed to Túquerres to hike to Laguna Verde, a green lagoon in the crater of a volcano. Everyone in Pasto told us it was very easy to get to but those were lies, and we ended up hiring a very expensive taxi (even after Shannon´s mad bargaining skills) to take us up the mountain to the trail. The hike was a bit hard mainly because of the altitude. The highest point was about 4,000 meters (the highest Shannon had ever been). The walk back up from the laguna involved about a million stairs and a steep climb that nearly killed Shannon! The laguna was really pretty though, super green with lots of bubbles. We originally thought the volcano was extinct but it turned out to be active. It smelled strongly of sulfer and some of the bubbles going into the lake heated the water to a nice temperature. On our way down after walking forever, we finally caught a ride with a SUV going down. We stood on the back bumper and held on to the luggage racks...quite a ride! We then headed to Las Lajas to see the Santuario de Las Lajas. It is a church built into the side of a gorge with a river running under it. It is an amazing sight, just for the location alone and the church is impressive as well. We are pretty sure that we were the only ones staying in the entire town and finding dinner was hard since everything was closed! The next day we headed into Ecuador and had the easiest border crossing ever! We went to Otavalo, a small town about three hours from the border known for its Saturday market. We happened to arrive on a Saturday and we treated to the best/most impressive market we have ever seen! There were beautiful fruits and vegetables including real blackberries which we haven´t seen for two years! They also had tons of crafts and of course clothes and scarves made from Alpaca. It was really a sight especially with all the local people dressed in their traditional outfits! We are now in Quito and have been all over admiring the buildings and churches in the old town. Quito is a huge city and the highest capital in the western hemisphere with an elevation of 2,850 meters. Right now they are having a three day holiday so the city is rather dead. Tomorrow we head to Galápagos to see amazing animals!

After leaving lovely Medellín we headed to the small coffee and trout farming (we had trout for the first time, kinda like salmon) town of Salento. The town itself is pretty nice but most foreign tourists come here to take a hike in the Valle de Cocora to see the famous wax palms of the area, the largest palm trees in the world that grow up to 60 meters tall (almost 200 feet). We had to take a jeep to the town of Cocora and then started hiking up the valley through mostly cattle ranches. We could see some wax palms growing up the sides of the narrow valley. We evntually walked into the national park up the steep muddy trail to about 2900 meters through cloud forest and then proceeded to walk back to Cocora along a dirt road that meandered through the wax palms themselves and was actually the highlight of the walk. The jeep ride back got crowded and Kevin ended up standing on the back bumper with six other people holding on underneath a tarp becuase it was raining. It was a little crowded back there and his arm was very tired from holding on to the jeep on all of the curves after we made it back. We left Salento the next day and took a nine hour bus trip to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia with 8.5 million inhabitants, one of which we knew from Peace Corps Honduras. We stayed in or around Bogota for five nights, leaving on the sixth. Bogotá is a huge sprawling city that reminded us of LA except it was in a valley. We rode up to Monserrate, a hill on the valley wall, to see the massive expanse of Bogotá. The views are pretty good, unfortunately one of the many rainstorms started forming just before we went so part of the city was obscured by clouds and rain. We walked around La Candelaría, the colonial barrio of Bogotá, to see the old churches, museums and the giant Plaza de Bolívar that is home to hundreds of pigeons. The gold museum in the city center is pretty impressive as well. We also went to La Casa de Moneda which houses a few museums, one on the printing of money and one on Fernando Botero, Shannon´s new favorite artist, who draws and sculpts funny looking fat things from animals to people. Over the weekend we made a side trip to the salt cathedral of Zipaquirá, Villa de Leyva and Tunja. The salt cathedral was an impressive cathedral (the second one built as the first one is now closed) carved underground in the salt mines that produce 95% of the salt consumed in the country. Cathedral might be a little misleading as there is no actual cathedral but the inside of the mine is carved with carvings depicting the stations of the cross, and they even hold mass inside of it. It was something totally different than anything we have seen before. After the salt cathedral we went to Villa de Leyva, one of the most bautiful colonial villages in Colombia. It was a very quaint, very colonial town that also had one of the largest plazas in South America. We also had some very tasty passionfruit cheesecake there, the best cheesecake we have had in a very long time. We really liked Villa de Leyva with its colonial style houses and cobblestone streets. The next morning we went to the regional capital of Boyacá, Tunja. Tunja is known for its colonial architecture, elegant mansions adorned with some of the most unique artwork in South America, and mudejar art in its churches. One of the churches was very impressive with all of the designs and art on the walls and ceilings and was hard to imagine all of the work that went into its intricate details. We also took a tour of the mansion that had belonged to the founder of Tunja. It was built in the mid 16th century and shortly after was painted with scenes from floor all the way to cover the ceiling. After the owner died, his wife remarried and the new man had the house painted over and no one even knew of the paintings until recently when a roof collapsed and exposed ceiling paintings. Since then, they have carefully uncovered many of the original wall and ceiling paintings. Impressive! Our last night in Bogotá we went to one of the nicest parts of town with our friend John and his girlfriend and went to a microbrewery and Kevin got to have some good beer, even a dark one! He was happy about that. Then we back to John´s place where we stayed the whole time and ate some pasta and left at about 10 p.m. to take a 13 hour bus to Cali.

After Taganga, we traveled on a bus for 16 hours to get to Medellin, the former stomping grounds of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Arriving into the city, we were really impressed with the city of 3.5 million residents lying on the valley floor and slowly creeping up the edges of the mountains. After finding a hostal to drop off our things for a few nights we walked around the central part of the city, admiring the old churches and buildings intermixed with the modern skyscrapers. Medellin is a very modern city. They have invested heavily into improving the city since the Escobar days, and it shows. They have built the only public transportation rail line, Metro, in Colombia and it is cheap and efficient. We loved it. Since building the rail line they have added two cable lines with gondolas to go up the sides of the valley to serve the poorer areas as well. One ticket of about 75 cents gets you anywhere you want to go within the system. They also have buses that serve the outlying areas to connect them to the metro stations. It is really quite awesome.

Over the next few days we walked a lot and rode the metro a lot to see Medellin. Our hostal was a few blocks away from the villa Olimpica. That place was huge. Besides the soccer stadium serving one of the pro teams, they have tracks, volleyball and basketball stadiums, six pools, chess, ping pong, skate park, and on and on. In other areas of Medellin we visited the free botanical garden, various parks and squares including one that is full of towers of lights and looks pretty awesome lit up at night as well as a park where you are encouraged to kick off your shoes and relax. We also decided to go paragliding while in Medellin. Shannon was terrified at first but Kevin really wanted to go, plus it is cheap in Colombia about half of what it costs in the United States or less. We took a bus high onto the valley wall that had great views of the city and there we strapped on our harnesses and hooked up with our pilots and parachutes and ran off into the wind to glide back down into the valley in silence. It was amazing and we both loved it. Shannon even said she would do it again.

We made a couple of day trips outside of Medellin as well. One day we went to a town called Santa Fe de Antioquia which is a small colonial town that is known for its tamarind candy among other things. We strolled around the city admiring its colonial look and many churches (of course). We headed toward a bridge outside of town that was one of the first suspension bridges built in South America and walked and walked to only realize we ended up going the wrong direction. (We blame Lonely Plant). So we didn't want to walk back and ended up on a bus back to Medellin. We also went to the town of El Penol which has a 200 meter high granite monolith near the edge of a lake. They have built a 649 step staircase into a fissure that allows visitors to climb to the top for some amazing views. From there we went to another town close by called Guatape which is known for its fresco-like adornments of the traditional houses that have brightly painted bas-relief depictions of people, animals and shapes that cover the bottoms of the houses. They were very interesting and fun to look at. The town has also become a weekend getaway for the residents of Medellin and is almost like a festival atmosphere on weekends with plenty of alcohol flowing. Colombians seem to really like their alcohol and beer is sold everywhere. While in Guatape, we took advantage of their 600 meter long zip line that goes over the lake. It was fun.

We really loved Medellin but had to keep moving on to see other sights. Next up: Salento and Bogota.

Before we left Cartagena, we went to a ¨mud volcano¨. It was like a small volcano but instead of lava, it was filled with mud. We climbed stairs to the top of it and then submerged ourselves in the mud pit. It was really interesting as the mud was really thick but liquid and it was hard to sink down very far. After we had played around and were covered in mud, we went to the nearby lagoon and washed ourselves off. It was a very different experience but super cool. Now our skin is nice and mineraly! We spent our fourth anniversary traveling to Taganga. We stayed in a nicer place and went to dinner and had some yummy passion fruit daiquiris. It was a nice, semi-relaxing day. We are in Taganga now, on the Carribean Coast of Colombia and just completed a three day scuba ¨safari¨ which included our advanced certification. It was all in Spanish too so it was good practice for us. We stayed two nights in hammocks on a deserted beach and dove during the days. It was an awesome experience! There were ten of us that went and three of us in our course. All of the others were Israeli and Shannon was the only female. It was interesting to learn more about Israel. The course consisted of eight dives which we did over three days. We had to do a navegation dive where we had to use a compass to go in a line and back, make a square, a triangle, and go to a rocky point and back. We got to do that dive totally alone without our instructor and it was cool since it was the first time we were on our own. We also did a night dive which was really awesome! Shannon was of course really scared to do it as she doesn´t like to be in the water when she cannot see, but once she was in the water she realized that it was not scary at all. Everything is totally different at night as you use a flashlight which shows you the real colors of all the fish and the coral. These colors are not always visible during the day because the deeper you go, the less light there is. The first color to go is red so it was cool to see all the red fish and coral at night that look black during the day. The corals are also open at night and not during the day so a lot of them looked like little flowers. Crabs, eels, and lobsters also come out at night so we saw a lot more of those as well. The company we went with has a coral station where they are growing some of the types of corals that are the most endangered so they can replant them. We got to go there and help clean off the nets and corals (really hard when there is current and you are trying to stay still underwater). It was cool to be able to see this and help a little. All in all the trip was amazing! It was a lot different than our previous diving as the water was not as clear and there was a current, but it was interesting to see different things. Now we´re off to Medellín and the zona cafetería.

We did it, 27 months of Peace Corps in Honduras! We officially finished on September 24! It was definitely sad saying goodbye to friends both Honduran and Peace Corps but it was time and we were both ready to move on. It was definitely a great experience and we are glad that we did it. Was it what we expected? Of course not but we feel that we got a lot out of it and learned a lot about ourselves, Honduras, and of course lots of Spanish all the while helping people the most we could. We both drastically improved our Spanish levels and that is something that we really wanted to get out of this experience. We started at Novice High and Kevin ended at Intermediate High and Shannon at Advanced Mid. And we feel fairly comfortable conversing and can do everything that we need to. After a week in Tegucigalpa seeing doctors and dentists (we went two years without any worms or stomach problems!) we headed out on a ¨luxury¨ bus to Panama to begin our three months of travel in South America. We spent a night in Nicaragua, 8 hours in Costa Rica walking around, and a night on the bus and finally arrived in Panama after three days on a bus.

Panama City was amazing! After two years without seeing a big city it was very impressive (Shannon now realizes that after two years of no development she loves it). We didn´t realize how big it is and how many sky scrappers there are. We went to the canal (not that exciting because we were not able to see any ships go through) and walked all over the city. It was weird being able to walk around with a camera and not be afraid of being robbed! We then headed to Portobelo which is a tiny town on the Caribbean side of Panama. We took a 5 day sailing trip to Colombia and spent three days at the San Blas Islands, gorgeous white sand deserted islands off the coast of Panama. It was a great trip, our captain and chef were awesome and we got to see a ton of fish while snorkeling among the islands. Kevin saw a Nurse Shark but luckily Shannon missed that one! It was a great way to get to Colombia and we arrived in Cartagena as the sun was rising.

We are now in Cartagena, a quaint colonial town set on a bay. The entire city is surrounded by old walls that protected it and there is a lot to see and do. It is very developed and also a shock to us as we haven´t been any place like this in quite some time. It is a good start to our Colombian adventure. Next up, scuba diving in Taganga!

So we have been very busy traveling lately (we know, hard life) first with Shannon’s mom and sister which was awesome! They came to our site for about a week and Shannon showed them the sites (Kevin had dengue for the second time and was stuck at home). She also took them to a school while she did her dental hygiene class so that they could see what a Honduran School was like. Needless to say, they now appreciate schools in the U.S. much more. Some of the teachers from Shannon’s English class to our house and brought traditional Honduran food for her mom and sister to try and we had a little fiesta. It was a good cultural exchange and we had fun. Then we went to the only lake in Honduras and to Copan to see the Mayan ruins (not as cool the second time) and even got a flat tire along the way. Luckily Kev could change it and as we found out, it is really cheap to repair tires here ($6 for two including labor). After Copan we headed to the North Coast and of course got another flat tire. This time a nice man with a gun in the back of his pants helped us change it. On the North Coast we stayed in Parque Nacional Pico Bonito which was just beautiful. We were in the middle of the jungle right by a river. We went snorkeling at Cayos Cochinos, a chain of islands off the coast which was awesome! Beautiful, crystal clear water and tons of fish. We ate some fried fish and randomly ran into a group of students from the university where Kevin works (small world). Kevin, Shannon, and Laurie went white water rafting on the río cangrejal which was a great experience. Kevin and Laurie fell out but Shannon hung on tight! After all this fun we had to drive all the way back to Catacamas to pick up the kitties for their journey to the U.S. They rode to Tegucigalpa sitting on Shannon’s lap (a 4 hour trip) and were actually good for the remaining 30 hours of their journey (thanks Mom and Laurie!). Now they are living it up in the U.S. and all our neighbors are jealous that we took our cats home and not them!

After Shannon’s mom and sister left we headed to the island of Utila off the north coast of Honduras. We spent about a week there getting our NAUI scuba certification. It was an awesome experience and Shannon wasn’t even scared. The course was really thorough, we started out skin diving (basically snorkeling and learning how to dive down) and slowly proceeded to scuba. We were on the second largest reef in the world and we saw a lot of cool fish and even some eels (no sharks which made Shannon very happy). The only problem we had was when Shannon getting stung by a jellyfish. We were at the end of a dive going back to the boat and she got stung on her wrist first (since her monkey arms were not fully covered by the wetsuit). Then as she was getting back on the boat she put her regulator in (following the rules like the obedient person she is) and there was a tentacle hanging from it which stung her lip and tongue. We’re assuming the poison went straight into her body via the nerves in her tongue and she had a super allergic reaction. Her back started spasing and it felt like someone was breaking the bones in it. The boat had to take her back to the shore and they took her to our room. She was in more pain than she had ever been in and they gave her muscle relaxers and anti-histamines which kicked in about an hour later. Kevin still had another dive to do so she made him go and he called our site-mate who happened to be there too and she came and took care of Shannon (best site-mate ever). Luckily Shannon survived with only a swollen lip and a rash all over her leg and arm (that took over a month and some steroids to disappear). She even went back the next day for some more diving! All in all, it was a great trip and we are now scuba certified!

Our last trip was to Nicaragua. We spent 10 days there and had a lot of fun, but overall it was like a nicer version of Honduras with volcanoes and tourism. We went to Granada which is a quaint colonial town with cobblestone streets. We took a day trip from there to Masaya Volcano about an hour away. We got to the volcano in the late afternoon and went to the top (a short walk from the parking lot) and were able to see the smoke and three of the five craters. We then walked to the old craters (two more) that are now dormant and had a view of the lagoon and town below. We then went to a bat cave where we had a billion zillion bats flying around us. Lastly we went to the top of the crater once it got dark to see the lava glow but it was pouring at that time so all we saw was a little red glow and tons of smoke. It was a fun trip though. From Granada we went to La Isla de Omotepe, a small island in the middle of Lake Cocibolca. We spent a day hiking Volcano Maderas, a dormant volcano with a crater lake at the top. It had been raining a lot so the lake was really full and muddy but it was a nice hike and we saw a few white faced monkeys and howler monkeys so that was awesome! We planned on going to some beaches on the island but rumor had it that they were all flooded due to the rains so we ended up leaving early and heading for Leon. Leon is a large but quaint town that saw a lot of fighting during the Contra Wars (read about them and how badly the U.S. treated Nicaragua) but has now recovered and is quite touristy. We explored the city and its many churches and went to some awesome volcanoes too. We went to the volcanoes with a great non-profit group, Quetzaltrekkers, which uses the money earned to support programs to get kids off the streets. We went to Volcano Telica which was a long, but easy hike to the top of an active volcano. We got there around noon and it started raining but we were still able to see down the deep crater to the bottom. We threw rocks down and listened to them crash. It was very smoky and sulfury but really cool looking. It was all rocks at the top with no vegetation. The next day we went volcano boarding down the youngest and most active volcano in Nicaragua, Volcano Cerro Negro. We hiked up and got to walk through the crater which looked like a war zone with huge hunks of broken rocks, tons of smoke, and the ground was hot to the touch. We then put on these fluorescent yellow mechanic suits, sat on this little board, and sledded down the lava rock covered hill. It sounds a lot scarier than it was, the first time we went pretty slowly; Shannon actually stopped a couple of times she was going so slowly. The second time we went a lot faster but Shannon still got passed by Kevin and another guy (we decided that the heavier you are the faster you go). It was really fun and pretty too. After that we headed back to Honduras with a stop in Estelí where we went on a tour of a cigar factory which was actually pretty interesting. We took the tour (and had to be translators for the people who didn’t speak Spanish) and got to see the whole process. We found out that there is not really much difference between cigars (even the really expensive ones and Cubans) and all cigars there were $1! The workers were allowed to smoke the cigars as they worked and one guy was puffing away on a huge one (Kevin took a picture with him). At the end of the tour we all got a cigar that we smoked in the cigar storage room (weird right?). It was a cool experience.

On our way back to Catacamas we stopped to visit our friend Patrick in the quaint little town of San Marcos de Colón right on the Honduran side of the border. It was nice and cool there and we could finally finish our on-going competition of who had the better house, Patrick or us (we won). It was relaxing and a good end to our trip.

So as you’ve probably gathered from our previous entries, the public schools here are pretty bad. In fact, we cannot really imagine a way to make them worse. To be a kindergarten teacher, you only have to finish eighth grade, to be an elementary school teacher you have to finish high school (with a “major” in teaching), and to be a high school teacher you are supposed to have a bachelor’s degree (no credential), but we have met plenty of high school teachers without a degree. It seems like there are never classes for a variety of reasons: strike (there are many possible reasons for this), a funeral (could be for a parent of a child, teacher, or any other person known or unknown), some kind of event (in the school, in the community), due to inclement weather, or for a variety of other reasons. The school day is supposed to be five hours long (7:00 or 7:30 A.M. to 12:00 or 12:30 P.M. or 12:00 or 12:30 to 5:00 or 5:30) but this hardly ever happens. In most schools that we have been to classes usually start at least half an hour late and get out half an hour early. Plus, there is usually an hour of snack/recess instead of the allotted 20 to 30 minutes. If a teacher does not show up for whatever reason there are no substitute teachers, the kids just go home. Needless to say, the kids don’t learn a whole lot. It is very depressing.

Teachers have no supplies (paper, pencils, chalk, markers) unless they buy them with their own money. School is free but parents have to buy uniforms and school supplies. Thus, some of the really poor children do not go to school because it is too expensive. Teachers have to make everything for their classrooms out of construction paper that they buy themselves. They often “laminate” things they want to keep nice by wrapping them in clear tape. One certainly learns to be resourceful spending time in Honduran schools! Often times there are not enough desks/tables or chairs and there are never enough textbooks. It is almost impossible to find storybooks in schools as these are very expensive and not sold in most places. The playgrounds do not usually have anything to play on, maybe some painted, half-buried tires to crawl through. Flower beds (if there are any) are lined with half buried soda bottles and plants are planted in old tires. .

Shannon has been doing a lot of observations for her English classes in order to see how the teachers are teaching English in their classes. She has had some interesting experiences. The first one went badly. Shannon got up early to catch a 6:00 A.M. bus and the teacher never got on. When she called the teacher, she told her that she had another engagement and wouldn’t be able to make it (mind you she is a teacher and this is her job) but that she had left a message for Shannon on her voicemail. Turns out she had the wrong number so there was no message. Shannon had to stay on the bus an hour until they passed a bus going in the opposite direction to which she could hop on.

Another one of the observations involved both of us (Shannon was told it would be dangerous to go alone) walking uphill (literally no flat or downhill parts) for about three miles. After walking an hour uphill in the heat and humidity (yes it is already hot at 6:00 A.M.) and stopping to ask directions about a million times, we finally made it dripping in sweat. The school was two rooms for six grades with only one teacher. He had a helper, a “muchacha”, who is not qualified to teach and who the municipality pays L1,000 per month (about $50). Minimum wage is L5,500 per month so this is certainly not legal. The teacher is trying to get the Ministry of Education to provide another qualified teacher for the school but has not had any luck yet. Although he was the only teacher and could only be with half of the kids at a time, the kids were extremely well-behaved. They all participated, listened quietly (a miracle here), and really seemed to want to learn. It was amazing!

Another school Shannon went to had three teachers for six grades. Each class has two grades but unlike combination classes in the U.S., they are not grouped by age/grade. First and fifth grade are together, second and fourth, and third and sixth. The different grades sit on different sides of the classroom and one group works on an activity while the teacher works with the other group. Usually the group working on the activity messes around and yells a lot. In this particular school, one teacher was pretty good and controlled her classroom well, one was ok, and one was terrible. In the terrible class the side of the class not learning English was yelling, wrestling, throwing things, and one boy was sitting with his bare feet on his desk blowing nonstop on a whistle! Shannon could barely hear let alone concentrate. The teacher did nothing to control them and when she finally could not take it anymore, she sent the kids not learning English home (it was 10:30). The rest of the kids got out an hour early to make goals for the soccer games they were having the next day (classes were cancelled of course). This involved kids ranging from 9-12 years old running around with machetes chopping giant branches to the correct lengths (a little bit of math perhaps?). It was a madhouse with more machetes than Shannon had ever seen and all manned by children! Luckily nobody got hurt, even though many of the machetes were thrown through the air at other kids, and all the branches were cut.

Moral of the story, if you are ever feeling bored or a little too happy and optimistic, go to almost any public school in Honduras and all of that will change. It makes schools in the U.S. look like shining specimens of gold and makes us so sad for all these Honduran children who are not getting the quality education they deserve.

About three weeks ago we had our Close of Service Conference with Peace Corps. Everyone who came to Honduras in our group (Honduras 13) who is still a volunteer was at this conference. Forty-one of the original fifty-one volunteers of our group were there. Those are actually pretty good numbers too. This was the only time since training that we have all been in the same place at the same time and Shannon hadn’t seen a couple of people since training so it was an exciting time to see everyone together again for the last time. About half of us are staying until September 24th, our actual close of service date, and we will get to see those people again. Others, who have plans to go back to school or teach or for whatever reason want to leave early have up to a month before that date to close their service with no penalties. We spent three days talking about what we have done here, how we can make training and service better and most importantly how to go about our futures. We had a lot of fun with everybody and had a good time but we also had to say a lot of good byes to people we will not see again here in Honduras – how sad. After the conference, it seemed as if we were already done but then we got back to Catacamas and realized we still have three months left so we got back to work. We are trying to finish all of our projects, not starting new ones, so we can finish everything before we go as neither of us is being replaced by new volunteers. It looks like we should be able to do that.

Other news: We visited another volunteer’s (Ryan) site and got to see our cats’ two sisters who now live there. They were doing very well and loved seeing us too. We also got to see a hammock bridge that Ryan helped build for his community which is pretty awesome. The Friday after we got back to our house, Shannon went to grab a bag and noticed a snake coiled up in the corner of the kitchen. Kevin went to get the camera and snapped a couple of pictures as the snake started moving. Not knowing if it was poisonous or not, we did not want to grab it and it went behind the oven and we couldn’t get it out. So, hoping it was not venomous, we eventually went to bed and didn’t see it again. Then, while cleaning Sunday morning, Kevin found about two inches of its tail by the front door that we assumed the cats had bitten off but still no sign of the snake. Shannon thought the cats had eaten it but Kevin was sure there would have been signs of part of the snake somewhere. Monday morning, after coming back from running, Kevin went in to take a shower, like most Honduran things, the shower doors do not fit right into the frame and the snake was coming out of the shower into the bathroom. We opened the back door and shooed it out, noticing that it was missing the end of its tail. We never saw it again but Kevin did look it up and found that it was a Northern Cat-Eyed Snake and is very docile and non-venomous. If only we had known that beforehand we could have just grabbed it and saved it some misery. One of our cats did have a sore that started oozing puss on his chest after that so maybe the snake did turn violent as it was getting its tail bitten off. We will never know.

We tried to hike the tallest mountain in Olancho two weekends ago. We have been wanting to do it the whole time we have been here and now that time is running out we are trying to squeeze this three day trip in. Unfortunately, it rained so much the night before that the river that we’d have to cross three times was impassable and we were unable to go. We have rescheduled it for another weekend and hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen again. It has been raining almost every afternoon now which also means our water turns brown and we often don’t have any running water in the morning and resort to showering by bucket or the other alternative of just not showering.

We invited all the volunteers in our department, along with some others, over for the 4th of July last weekend, which we celebrated on the third by finding ridiculous used “patriotic” clothing to wear. We had over 15 people at our house that night and had tons of food to eat and had a great time.

Dengue has also been hitting a lot of people in our site and around the country including our site-mate Elisabeth. Dengue is not fun. She barely had enough energy to pick up a glass of water and take a drink. This lasts for about a week. We took turns helping her out, taking her to the medical facility and cooking her food. Kevin didn’t mind as he went over every day to watch the World Cup games anyway. Now that the World Cup is over, he is really sad and was pretty devastated after the Netherlands lost. He had been rooting for them since before the World Cup even started. Maybe in four years. He even has a shirt he can wear in four years supporting the Netherlands, although it is in Spanish.

This past Friday and Saturday we went to Tegucigalpa to help do two training events with the brand new group of volunteers (trainees) that just came to Honduras three weeks ago. Friday afternoon we were on a panel to talk about safety and security since between the two of us we have been robbed, witnessed murders, had stuff stolen from our back yard, been bitten by a dog, etc. It’s always a fun time when you get to scare the new trainees. The next day was the fun day where we got to talk about the different Peace Corps support groups and do activities to really get to know the new trainees. We also had plenty of time for questions from the new trainees about what life is really like as a volunteer without any PC staff around. We can get some pretty interesting questions and it is pretty fun. We remember this activity very well from when we were in training and how exciting it was to finally get to talk to actual volunteers and ask them questions.

Unlike the U.S., the World Cup, or Mundial, is huge in Honduras. Soccer is the main sport played here and everyone plays it. When Honduras qualified for the World Cup everyone went crazy celebrating and the next day was declared a holiday! This is the first time in 28 years that they have qualified and it meant a lot to the people. Everyone kept asking us if the people in the U.S. were excited that the U.S. had also qualified and were shocked when we said that a lot of people probably had no idea. That is just crazy to them since it is such a big deal here. That said, it was an awesome experience to be here for the World Cup. In the months leading up to the event, there were signs, banners, store windows painted, and World Cup paraphernalia everywhere. Even the movie theaters participated with World Cup trivia on the screen before the movie.

The first game Honduras played in the World Cup against Chile started at 5:30 A.M. but that didn’t deter anyone from watching. We were in Tegucigalpa and got absolutely no sleep because there was a party outside of our room and they were playing the World Cup songs (you may not know this but there are two World Cup songs, one by Shakira and the other by K’nann and David Bisbal) and a Honduran artist Polache over and over again. We finally got up at 3:00 A.M., put our Honduras jerseys on and headed to T.G.I.F. with a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers to watch the game. Fridays stayed open all night and when we got there at 4:30 there were quite a few people. By the time the game started it was full and they were bringing out more chairs. Needless to say, Honduras lost and everyone was sad but they still cheered. It was a great experience because everyone was so into the game.

For the second Honduras game against Spain, we were staying with a friend in a small town. We went to his host family’s house for lunch and to watch the game. It was a bad game and super hot and Shannon fell asleep after eating lunch. The Honduran men present gave her a yellow card for sleeping during the game. Needless to say, Honduras lost again but it was another good experience watching the game at someone’s house and talking about it with them.

We watched the third game against Switzerland at our site-mate’s house since we no longer have cable (Kev actually goes over there for every game even the ones at 5:30 A.M.). Honduras finally played a lot better in that game but was still unable to score a goal and ended up tying 0-0. Honduras controlled the game and had plenty of scoring opportunities but was just not able to put the ball in the back of the net. We could hear shouts from the neighboring houses when a bad call was made and when the power went out for a few seconds.

So Honduras left the World Cup without having scored a goal but they left proud to have made it that far. People still wear their Honduras jerseys and they wear them proudly knowing that they proved to the world that they are a force to be reckoned with and vowing that they will be back in four years and this time will score lots of goals!

So it has been a little while since we have written. Kev’s parents came to visit for a week and we showed them the exciting sites of Catacamas and went to Tela, on the north coast, where we all got sunburned snorkeling (Shannon’s first sunburn in years, she was sad). We got to see some monkeys at a natural reserve and lots of plants at botanical gardens. Our almost site-mate Josh’s parents came right after Kevin’s parents so we got to meet them and spend some time with them as well. They accompanied Shannon and Josh to their English class and the teachers were super confused by their South African accents. It was good for them to hear something besides U.S.A. accents.

Shannon marched in a caminata pacífica (peaceful walk) last week with her counterparts. It was the second annual parade in which 10 schools and 5 high schools from the prevention program they do participated. It was a lot bigger than last year and was a lot of fun and of course Shannon is famous now because she was on TV.

We both attended the inauguration ceremony for the veterinary school that will be starting next year at the university where Kevin works. It was a huge event and people came from other countries as well as various ambassadors and diplomats. This will be the first veterinary school in Honduras so it is really exciting. The closest schools right now are in Nicaragua and Guatemala so having one in Honduras will be a great advantage for all of the young students who wish to study veterinary medicine. There is also much need here as many people treat their “pets” terribly and have no idea how to take care of them. It is very uncommon to spay and especially neuter animals (hence the millions of stray dogs and cats that run wild) so hopefully the school will focus on educating people about the advantages of this as well.

We celebrated biodiversity day a couple of weeks ago. The university hosted a big program put on by GTZ, a German organization, and we went on a trip to a town a couple of hours away to learn about biodiversity. We participated in a bird and plant count (Shannon almost died of boredom) where the vice mayor of the town was one of the guides and was extremely knowledgeable about birds. He impressed us by being able to identify all different types of birds just by listening to their calls. He also knew their names in English, Spanish, and their scientific names. We also got to see an endangered tree, Teocinte, which is endemic to the area and nowhere else in Honduras or the world. The Maya used it a lot during their reign and it the agency is trying to get people to protect and preserve it. We went to a local town pretty far into the campo (we had to ford a couple good sized rivers to get there) and saw the pine trees they planted as part of a reforestation project. It was a long day but we learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people. Go biodiversity!

Today we had some excitement when we went for a run at 5:30 in the morning. We got the to field where we normally run and saw special forces police officers everywhere crouching in bushes and surrounding about a block of houses. They were wearing bullet proof vests, helmets, and carrying semi-automatic weapons, something you don’t see everyday. A women who usually walks told us that they were trying to capture someone and that it was probably drug related so we should use the other entrance (on the side of the field away from them). We weren’t sure if it was safe to run but she assured us it was fine. Everyone else was going about their normal business, running, driving, and even walking through the mobs of police. So we ran as normal and after about 30 minutes they all stood up and it seemed like they were calling off the operation. It was weird. Later, our safety and security officer called to tell us that the DEA was running “operations” in Olancho this week. We assume this was part of it.

It rained a lot last weekend due to the storm Agatha. We heard that there were problems in Catacamas with flooding and bridges washing out and that the mayor had called a state of emergency. However, we didn’t see any of this and nobody could tell us where it was happening so we’re assuming everything was fine in most parts. Some other parts of the country were pretty hard hit so we were lucky we just had lots of rain (but don’t worry, if there had been an emergency Shannon recently went to the annual emergency zone coordinator meeting and is well prepared should there be an emergency). It tried to rain cats and dogs, but all it could muster up was a dead baby kitten on our patio. We’re still not sure where it came from, Kevin thinks that this evil stray cat that eats our cats’ food had babies but Shannon doesn’t think it was pregnant. A ver… Now we are just battling the terrible heat and humidity and trying not to melt (impossible).

We have been working hard since our last post and trip to La Moskitia. Shannon continues working with her English classes, Colgate program, HIV/AIDS, helping with Kevin’s swimming team, presentations, and many other random things. Kevin has been focusing on his swimming team as well as helping with English in the university and will start working with a class next week to hopefully start a recycling program at the university. We both went to Tegucigalpa this past Saturday with the athletes from the university that participated in the third annual JUDUCA (Juegos Deportivos Universitarios de Centroamérica). Eight countries and 19 universities were present at the games. It was the first time our university took teams to this event and we were represented in soccer, indoor soccer, basketball, swimming, track, tae kwan do, and chess. It was the first time many of these athletes had participated in a competition like this.

The Universidad Nacionál de Agricultura is set up so the students take classes about four hours a day and work about four hours a day on the university land. It is a hands-on approach to learning as well as regular classroom learning. After their time allotted to eat their three meals, study, and do anything else they need to do, they don’t have much free time. The students call it jail, and it kind of is like a jail. Everyone lives on campus, no one can leave without permission, and they are not allowed to have tattoos, piercings (for males), long hair (for males), drink alcohol, smoke, or fight. They get strikes for missing class, doing badly in classes, or getting caught breaking the rules. If they get too many strikes, or fail a class, they get kicked out of the university.

The universities we competed against were much more like universities at home. You can take classes when you want and then do whatever you want in your free time. They have real sports teams set up like universities at home. The swimmers were told from the very beginning that they would probably not win at this competition and would probably face competitors who had swum their whole lives. They wanted to go ahead and do it so we put in about two months of practice starting from learning to breathe in freestyle as well as learning all of the other strokes and they advanced a lot (at the beginning Shannon could beat all of them and by the end they could all beat her in 50 yards). Minus Easter week and the time we spent back home in March, they really only had 5 full weeks of practice. Needless to say, having never swam competitively in their lives and barely knowing how to swim when we started, we went to the competition with low expectations. When we arrived at the pool, the other teams were wearing their warm-up suits with their school names and had flags from their schools and we knew that these teams were for real. We were standing there in jeans and polo shirts. Our team dove off blocks for the first time in their lives the morning the meet started and we bought suits and goggles at eight o’clock the night before!

Our guys swam hard but we still finished last in almost every event we swam. One of our swimmers had the only false start of the meet, not that the meet was run super well but that is another story and Kevin is still upset about that. Afterwards, they all asked if we were still going to practice and were excited to continue swimming. So, we will. The next JUDUCA is in two years in Guatemala. The four swimmers we took are all freshman or sophomores and can practice, without our help, for two more years and keep improving. We will help them until we leave and continue to teach people to swim and how to improve their techniques if they already know how. The other teams from our university did just about as well as the swimmers but we did get one bronze medal in tae kwon do and the chess players were still competing when we left with the hopes to medal.

Our swimmers learned a lot from this experience and it is something they will never forget. We all went to the opening ceremonies and were introduced like in the Olympics where the teams walk in after the name of the country. Shannon and Kevin got to walk in the front with the University president and other professors who were there. Kevin got to give out medals to the swimmers as he was the only representative for the university at the swimming closing ceremonies. He also got the best seat, right next to the JUDUCA queen. Shannon and Kevin got free food and lodging for a few days and got to see parts of Tegucigalpa they had never seen. We got to bond with the students and learn a lot of slang! We also went to a playoff soccer game for one of the major teams in the capital with most of the athletes from the university which was a lot of fun. Our first soccer game in Honduras, unfortunately not the national team but better than nothing. Overall, this was an awesome experience for everyone that will never be forgotten.

Almost another month has passed since our last post due to varying circumstances. We went home on an unplanned trip after Kevin’s grandmother passed away in March. It was under sad circumstances that we returned home but we were glad to be able to spend time with our family and friends.

The weekend before we went home we participated in a training activity with the new group of volunteers who are currently in training. We represented the married couples support group, one of five support groups that PC Honduras offered. We got to talk about what each of the groups did as well as any other questions the trainees may have had. It was a good 4 hours of interaction with the new group and we think they learned and enjoyed it as well. It was almost two years ago when we were in their positions wondering just what Honduras had in store for us in the future and were full of questions about PC life that were answered on the same activity day.

After being spoiled at home with whatever food we wanted, we flew back overnight to Honduras, caught a ride most of the way home from some nice people we met on the plane, finally got home that night to clean some cat messes that had been created while we were gone and packed our stuff to get ready for our planned vacation to La Moskitia, the wildlands of Central America. If you didn’t read the last blog, it is the largest intact forest in Central America and we went right into the middle of it. It was a lovely nine day trip that we will never forget. We took a plane in and then traveled around in dugout boats on lagoons and rivers until the last day when we rode a vehicle out on the beach. The first day was spent in the Savannah where we saw some huge cranes, caimans, water buffalo and other animals. Day two involved going to more of a beach community and a cultural night of dancing with the locals. Day three was the long, six hour boat ride up river to the community of Las Marias. Day four we went farther upriver and took a short walk in the jungle and saw some ancient petroglyphs. Days five, six, and seven were a camping trip/hike into the jungle and climbing Pico Dama (you cant get up the top rock face but can hike up until that point). During the trip, two types of monkeys, many birds, snakes, lizards and other animals were spotted. We also had to climb up roots ( really fun for Shannon and her broken toe) and use branches at some points to get up the trail. On the hike out we saw wild hog marks and jaguar poop as well. Day eight was back down the river to another beach community where we learned to fish like the locals although only one person caught one (Yay Ana!). We refreshed ourselves with coconut juice and soda and got ready to start our adventure home at three in the morning. Two hours by boat, three and a half hours in the back of a truck on the beach and dusty roads with 14 people packed in the bed. Some waiting, then many more hours on a bus that kept stopping and making us mad. We finally made it home at about seven that night only to find the cats had peed on our bed and we had to clean it off before we could go to sleep. What a trip!

All in all, it was a fabulous trip and a great chance to see a different part of Honduras. All the people speak the local language of Miskito and do not learn Spanish until they enter school. Most speak Miskito in their houses as well and only use Spanish when speaking to non-Miskito people. They were no cars and only a few motorcycles in most of the communities which meant no dust! Everything was green and beautiful and the people were very welcoming. We didn’t feel like we were in Honduras anymore. Now it is back to the real world of dust and heat…

Almost a month has passed since our last blog entry. My, how time flies. We will be living back in the States before you know it. School has started back up and we are both working on several things now. Shannon has started working on the drug and alcohol prevention program with her counterpart, has started her English class to teachers again, and started teaching young kids about dental care through the Colgate program once again. She is also going to be helping a volunteer nearby do English classes for teachers near his community. Kevin has taken it upon himself to coach a new swim team at the university that really needs some help. It started with six guys and after two days of helping them out has grown to eleven. Only one of them knows all four competitive strokes. If they could swim with their heads down, they were doing well. After two days, they look a lot better but still have a long ways to go and the one and only meet is April 23, a little over a month away, but who’s counting, right? Supposedly they are going to get some swim equipment this weekend, like goggles, kickboards, stopwatches and other necessities. The English lab and program are now in full effect at the university as well where every professor and student will have to take English. We both go to the new English club every Friday night at the university to do fun English learning activities like sing songs, play games or watch movies. We recently recorded a cd with three other volunteers pronouncing English words to go along with the third level of the English course that Shannon teaches with the school teachers. That was a lot of fun but we are glad it is over. We were hoping to be able to watch the Olympics but unfortunately, no channel that we have carried it so missed out on all the winter action in Vancouver . This week, Shannon went to Tegucigalpa to meet the new group of volunteers that just arrived in country to talk to them about safety and security, Kevin already go to do that once after we were robbed and now Shannon gets to go after witnessing a murder and being robbed. Then, we both go this weekend to talk to the new group about the married couples support group. The end of this month, Easter Week, we will be going to La Moskitia for a nine day trip into a UNESCO world heritage site and the Rio Platano Biosphere, the largest intact tract of forest in Central America where we will try to avoid being eaten by crocodiles (and mosquitoes, although it is not named after an abundance of mosquitoes) and see some of the most pristine forest in the world and the animals and plants that live in them.

We have been traveling a lot lately since the public schools have not started yet and we had a lot of free time. We went to Marcala, located in the southwest, to visit some other volunteers and had a great time. Marcala is known for coffee (too bad neither of us drink it), and it nestled in the mountains. It is cooler there and there are lots of pine trees instead of the jungle we live near. We had a nice, relaxing time eating lots of great food made by Rachel and hiking a little in the mountains. It was just what we needed and a nice break for Shannon from always hosting people. For once she got to relax!

After that we came home for a couple of days and then headed off to Trujillo. Trujillo is located on the north coast and is where Christopher Columbus supposedly landed when he discovered Honduras. It is a small, quaint town with beautiful white sand beaches and crystal clear water. We had MARV, the married couple group, and met up with the other married couples there. We stayed right on the beach in a hotel owned by a New Zealander and had a great time. The water in Trujillo has phosphorescent phyto plankton which was amazing! We went swimming at night and every time that you moved the water looked like it was glowing! The only bad part was the sand flies and mosquitoes. Shannon had over 100 bites when we got home and was pretty miserable. The road from Catacamas to Trujillo is also pretty terrible. Distance wise it is not a long trip but it took 9 hours because the road is dirt and filled with potholes. Needless to say, we were covered with dirt (literally our hair looked gray) when we arrived. We went home on the 4:30 AM bus and the dust wasn’t quite as bad but the trip was still terrible. Our original plan was to hitchhike because it is much faster and less dusty but right before we left a town on the way had a series of 10 murders in a week so hitchhiking in that area was forbidden and the volunteers there were temporarily removed. Peace Corps actually put that road off limits the day after we got back but luckily we made it in time otherwise we would have had to go all the way around Honduras and our trip would have taken two days!

When we got back, our friend Elizabeth came to visit for Shannon’s birthday. Shannon had a great birthday filled with lots of food (good food is hard to come by here)! Kevin and Elizabeth made her breakfast of cheesy vegetable eggs with potatoes, our site mate Biffy made her gourmet pizzas for lunch, we ate some anafre and papas bravas for dinner, and Kevin made her jello cake for dessert! She did not have to lift a finger all day and it was the perfect birthday! Our next door neighbor that used to harass Shannon found out that it was her birthday and the next week threw her a party at our house (sadly Kevin missed it because he was at his project reconnect). He brought a cake that said “Feliz Cumpleaños Shanen” which is the best anyone has spelled her name without seeing it written beforehand. He also brought tons of drinks, a couple of friends, and a boombox with tons of music! It was the strangest night, but fun too!

Shannon’s birthday was also inauguration day. The new president took office without problems and the ex-president finally left the Brazilian Embassy and went to the Dominican Republic. We also have a new mayor in Catacamas which means that most of the workers in the municipality will also change (very productive we know). Hopefully things continue to get better here and the economy and tourism picks back up.

Sadly (and gladly) our retirement is coming to an end as schools are starting next week. Shannon has already been preparing for the new year and it looks like she will be pretty busy working with some of the teachers who graduated from her English class last year. Time to become productive again…

It’s been awhile since we have written but we have been busy! We went to California for Christmas and although it was a short trip (only one week), we had a great time and got to see a lot of people and eat a lot of great food! We got to play in the snow with our nephew and, of course, see our cat Spike. We brought back so much food with us to Honduras that the guys in customs laughed at us! We were only back for one night and then we headed up to the North Coast to spend New Years there with a few friends. We stayed in Tela right on the beach and rang the New Year in watching fireworks on the roof of our hotel. It was very tranquilo and nice. We also went to a nearby Garífuna village. Garífuna are an ethnic group in Honduras and they are predominantly black and live along the North Coast. They have preserved their native language although many speak Spanish and even English as well. It was nice to be in such a cultural location and to eat some of their traditional food like riceandbeans (made with coconut milk) and pan de coco. We stayed right on the beach and had a nice relaxing time.

There are still no classes at the public schools and the University has been out for Christmas break but we have still managed to keep busy. We took a trip up the mountain to a small village where we are trying to help build a school. They had raised money and spent a month building a school but then (we have heard various versions) someone took off with the money and the rains came and destroyed the structure that was made of dirt blocks. One of the new volunteers lives close to this village so he organized this meeting (we had one months ago where we made a budget) and about 20 people came. This village, La Florida, is nestled pretty far up in the mountains (there is only one village higher up). To get there we took a bus for an hour, walked a half hour to our friend’s house, and then hiked 1.5 hours (fast) uphill. There are no cars, not even a road. The other volunteer had the great idea of building the school out of compacted dirt which is much cheaper and supposed to be much stronger. Needless to say, the community members were very skeptical of building a school out of dirt. After a long discussion where we brought up topics of cost (a traditional building will cost about $3,500 versus maybe $1000 for the dirt one) and availability of workers (anyone can work on the dirt school whereas a specialist is needed for the traditional) we finally came to an agreement. They were worried about earthquakes and floods and how a dirt school would hold up in such disasters. We finally agreed to build a small structure first so they can see how it works and if they like it, go on to build the school. Right now it is still coffee season and pretty much everyone in this town is cutting coffee so we plan to wait until mid-February to begin when they will be done and have more time. We had to meet on a Sunday at 4 PM (of course it didn’t start until closer to 5) and then hike back down in the dark because it was the only time they weren’t working. Hopefully this will all work out and a school will be built out of compacted dirt and the community could then continue to build structures in this manner and save money and have safe buildings that will last a long time!

We also helped one of the volunteers in Juticalpa, about an hour away, with training for the bilingual school he helped create. We talked about safety and security, dealing with unwanted attention, and working in schools. It was really interesting to meet these people who had only been here a few days and hear their perspectives on Honduras. It reminded us of our own training so very long ago!

A couple of nights ago, one of our cats brought a present for us into the house. Normally this means a cockroach, maybe a gecko, and at first glance Shannon figuredt it was a cockroach. When she looked at it a little better she realized it was a young snake. It seemed to be dead but we weren’t sure if it was venomous or not. It was red with black on it and seemed similar to what could be a young coral snake. When Kevin took pictures of it the yellow really stood out on it as well. Once we got the cats away and Kevin tried to pick it up it moved and we were then sure it was alive. Not knowing if it was poisonous or not, Shannon wanted Kevin to kill it but Kevin, being the snake lover that he is, did not want to kill an innocent snake so he collected it in a bag and took it to an empty lot and let it go. It will probably be caught and killed by someone or run over by a car anyway but he did his part to save it. When he went to the university he looked up the snake and found out it was a Platanera/Viboro de Sangre (Red Woodsnake or Red Coffeesnake in English) and is definitely not poisonous and is perhaps the most common snake around the area but living in the city we don’t see too many snakes.

The weather is a lot cooler (sometimes even cold especially in the mornings and nights) and we are loving it. It is supposedly due to a cold front but we hope that it will stay and make things a little more bearable. Up next: Trujillo and the MARV meeting.

Alright, this is going to be a long one so hang in there! To pick up where we left off, after Tikal in Guatemala we headed across the border to Belize. It was weird because right as we crossed the border everything switched to English and miles. Most of the people close to the border still spoke Spanish but on the first bus we took, Shannon automatically talked to the bus ayudante in Spanish and he said “Solo hablo inglés” which was weird since we have never taken a bus in English. We stayed two nights in San Ignacio, not too far from the border. About an hour from San Ignacio is this really awesome cave called the ATM Cave. It was the site of Mayan ceremonies and it quite an experience. We were not going to go at first because it is quite expensive but everyone told us it was the thing to do so we did. We had a really small group, just us and a Canadian guy so that made the experience even better. The trip started out with a drive to the jungle. Then we walked about a mile (crossing a river numerous times) to the entrance of the cave. It was beautiful and we had to swim to enter the cave. We wore helmets with headlamps on them and had to hike/swim about a half a mile through the cave. Our guide was awesome and really went the extra mile. At one point he had us turn our lights off and he told us the story of the Mayan underworld…it had seven levels and it all started with darkness and the sound of water. We then put our hands on the shoulder of the person in front of us and walked for about 10 minutes in the dark, sometimes up to our waists in water. It was such an awesome experience and all we could see was darkness and hear the sound of water. We ended up in a couple of giant rooms full of Mayan artifacts and bones, 90-some percent of which have never been moved. We were able to walk right up to the artifacts and a clumsy person (luckily Shannon was in an unusually un-clumsy mood) could have fallen and smashed them. It was such an amazing experience that we would never have been able to have in the U.S. where there would have been walls and fences around everything!

From San Ignacio we headed to Placencia which is a beautiful white sand beach. We spent the day swimming and eating delicious food (they had gelato!). We planned to stay another night and spend a day snorkeling around the cays but it rained all morning the next day so our trip got cancelled and we decided to press on. We did, randomly, run into a girl on the beach that was in Shannon’s dorm freshman year of college. It had been years since we had seen her, what a small world! Belize was extremely beautiful and we were sad that we were not able to spend more time there. It did not seem like Central America, more like the Caribbean. The food was totally different without tortillas (thank goodness) and more seafood and coconut flavors. It was a nice change of pace and we hope to go back since we were not able to meet up with Shannon’s friend from when she studied abroad.

We took a boat across the ocean from Punta Gorda in the south of Belize back to Guatemala. On the boat we met this really nice girl who happened to live in the city we were going to. She invited us to stay at her house which overlooked the bay. We had a nice, relaxing night in Livingston which is one of the few Garifuna communities in Guatemala. Most of the people there are black and the food is different, more fish and things cooked with coconut. They also have an alligator pit in the central park…a little different for sure!

From Livingston we took a boat down the Rio Dulce. It was a nice trip and we stopped at a traditional village where they sold crafts and also at a hot spring. We then headed to an area where there are a lot of Stelas (really tall Mayan statues) and spent an hour or so looking at them. It is really amazing how tall and intricate they are! Then we headed to the border town of Esquipulas where the famous “Black Jesus” is housed in the Cathedral there. We got in late and got ripped off on the worst room in the history of the world. It was so tiny that the bed barely fit, no towels or toilet paper (we didn’t even know that was possible), no toilet seats in the shared bathroom, and not even a sink, just a pila. It was definitely the worst hotel we have ever stayed in! We saw the Black Jesus in the morning and it was an interesting experience. As the church service was going on, there was a line of people in the front of the church waiting to see Jesus. We probably waited in line for about half an hour. Everyone would walk up and kneel down to pray or take pictures and then walk backwards out of the area until the Jesus was out of sight. It was definitely something that we had never experienced before.

We crossed the border on Kevin’s birthday and then spent the entire day traveling. We stayed at our friend Hillary’s and she saved Kev’s birthday by making him dinner and a little cake complete with candles! We then headed back to Catacamas the next day and finally arrived around 5:00 PM. It was a lot of traveling and we were exhausted when we got back but it was a good trip. We were surprised that we were actually happy to get back.

The week after we got back we both had our one year site visits with our bosses from Peace Corps. They talked to our counterparts and people in the community to see how we are doing and they both went really well. Shannon did almost her entire visit in Spanish and was told that her Spanish has really improved so that was nice (Kevin did not talk much in Spanish in his so he couldn’t get complimented but his Spanish has improved too).

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving at our house with about 20 people. Shannon spent the entire day in the kitchen and now feels that if she can make a Thanksgiving dinner for that many people in Honduras, it will be a piece of cake in the U.S.! Kevin made the turkey and everyone really enjoyed all of the food. We had enough to feed an army and everyone had leftovers the next day. All in all, it was a huge success and a lot of fun!

Sunday, were the elections for president and all of the mayors of the different municipalities. There were no problems and a new president was elected. Pretty much all departments elected someone from the National Party and the president is from that party as well. It seems that everyone wanted a change. That means that everyone in our mayor’s office will be out in January and an entire new crew will come in. This will be weird for Shannon as two of her counterparts work for the municipality. It should be interesting. The new president takes office January 27, 2010 (Shannon’s birthday) and we are hopeful that it will be a smooth transition.

So we’ve been gone for awhile and it was great! We started out with Halloween in Copan in the West of Honduras. It is kind of a Peace Corps Volunteer tradition to have a big party in Copan every Halloween. There was a costume parade and contest and there were some great homemade costumes! Kevin was a basketball player (last minute ropa Americana) and Shannon was going to be a bottle of “D’Olancho” chile but she left her costume (that she spent hours making) on the bus. Needless to say, she was pretty mad, but one of her friends saved the day and helped her to create a “forest fairy” costume. It was not the best costume but not too bad on a couple of hours notice.

After Halloween we headed off with four of our friends to Guatemala. We first went to Antigua which is a very quaint town with cobble stone streets and brightly colored buildings. It is also very touristy and there seemed to be more gringos than Guatemalans. We hiked up an active volcano near Antigua and got to walk right up to the lava! It was a very unique experience. Kevin rented a stick that we were able to stick into the lava and make flame balls. It was so hot next to the lava that you could only stay a few seconds before your skin started to hurt. On our way down, the volcano became more active and huge flaming rocks started tumbling down. Everyone had to leave quickly and in the commotion our friend Elizabeth stepped on a loose rock and slipped and fell. Lava rock is extremely sharp and she ended up cutting herself up pretty badly with blood running down her leg. Luckily she was ok and Shannon, surprisingly, was able to clean her wounds for her.

We left Antigua and headed for El Lago de Atitlan and the community of Santiago de Atitlan. It is a pretty big lake with three volcanoes surrounding it. Santiago de Atitlan is a quaint little Mayan community on a hill overlooking the lake. We took a little boat across the lake and toured the city. We met a young boy (he wasn’t sure if he was 10 or 12 so he settled on 11) and for a small fee (about 75 US cents each) he showed us all the places of interest in the town. Spanish was his second language that he had only learned in school so it was really interesting to talk to him because he had an accent and made the same types of mistakes that we make. He was hilarious and took us to see Maximon (pronounced Mashimon by the locals) who is a Mayan God that is housed in a different house each year. He is a small wooden statue that is covered in silk scarves and ties and people have to pay 2 Quetzales (about 25 cents) to see Maximon and 10 more to take a picture of him. It is also recommended to give him gifts of guaro (really gross alcohol) or other alcohol and cigarettes. It was interesting to see and our little guide was hilarious!

From El Lago de Atitlan we went to Quetzaltano (Xela) which is the second largest city in Guatemala. It doesn’t seem that big as it is spread out. The architecture is very different from that in the rest of Guatemala as much of it was made by Germans and it has a more European style. There were a lot of columns and it really felt like we were in Europe. There was a really cool theater there that was all wooden inside and looked like something out of the Wild West. We had a great time walking around and seeing all of the interesting buildings. We also took a little trip to a nearby village to see the “craziest church in Central America”. It is brightly painted on the outside, orange, red, and yellow with designs, and even has some neon signs on the inside. It was quite interesting.

From Xela we took two buses (one overnight) to Flores to see the ruins of Tikal. Somewhere along the trip our friend Elizabeth’s bag, along with two others, “fell” off the bus. The bus driver kept changing his story and poor Elizabeth had to spend the entire day with the other two girls in the bus station. The bus company ended up giving them each $350 so that was much better than we expected. One of the girls was from Argentina and with her perfect Spanish and feistiness was able to argue well which probably helped. We spent that day exploring the little island of Flores which was pretty small and quaint.

The next day we headed off early (4:30 AM) to Tikal to see the awesome Mayan temples. Tikal is located in the middle of the jungle and is amazing! You are still able to climb to the top of most of the temples and from the tops of the tallest ones you can just see pure jungle with a few temple tops poking up. We spent six hours there and really could have spent an entire day. We also saw Coatis, a capybara, and white faced and howler monkeys. It was great and amazing to think that Mayans so many hundreds of years ago created these giant pyramids that are still standing today.

Ok, that is enough for one blog. Next week: Belize and Guatemala part 2!

Links to our pics from the trip:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1557094747&k=ZZ12YWS3QYTFY1LCXE4ZY5PQV3CC4U4F&oid=1279383752479

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1557094747&k=ZZ12YWS3QYTFY1LCXE4ZY5PQV3CC4ZZM&oid=1263973129523

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1557094747&k=ZZ12YWS3QYTFY1LCXE4ZY5PQV3CC4ZWB&oid=1305764123017

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1557094747&k=ZZ12YWS3QYTFY1LCXE4ZY5PQV3CC4U2C&oid=1251308437021

Those of you that have traveled in developing countries such as Honduras (and we don’t mean only the tourist spots that are like extensions of the US) have probably noticed that bathrooms are not the same. First of all, finding a public bathroom can be hard or downright impossible. If you do find one, you might realize that you have to pay to use it or at least pay to get toilet paper.

Here in Honduras, it is the same. When you go to a mall or nice shopping center in the big cities, you will find nice public bathrooms, and you can usually use them for free (and they may even have toilet paper). Outside of those and chain restaurants like McDonalds, bathroom quality tends to deteriorate at a fast rate. For example, the bus station we use to go to and from Tegucigalpa and Catacamas. It is considered a nice bus here in Honduras and is a direct bus with one stop in between (the buses do not have bathrooms either). But use the bathroom in the bus station and you will find that it is pretty gross compared to our standards in the US. There are toilets and a big urinal for the guys but no running water. You flush the toilet by pouring a bucket of water down it which you retrieve from a giant barrel located in the bathroom. If you have never done this, it actually works quite well but the cleanliness of the bathroom is pretty bad, even though they seem to be mopping it nonstop. Oh, and bring your own toilet paper, chances are that the bathroom will not have any but don’t worry, they usually sell some nearby if you get desperate.

We don’t have any numbers on this but less than half the population in Honduras probably has a flush toilet with running water. The next step is having a normal toilet that you pour a bucket of water down after using it, in or outside your house. One step lower and you have the standard latrine with a hole in the ground and a hole up above to do your thing in, an outhouse basically. After that, there are fields, streets, parks, and wherever else you need to relieve yourself. There are many poor subsistence farmers and families that either don’t have toilets or don’t have somewhere to go in the fields so people just go wherever and whenever nature calls. Well, that and cow dung are two of the main problems with water quality here in Honduras. In a country with a lot of rain, all that excrement just washes into the rivers that towns get their water from. Sounds enticing, doesn’t it? But we will save that for another day and continue on.

The first time you see someone peeing in the street in broad daylight is somewhat shocking. Then after the fourth of fifth time you get used to it. It is not uncommon at all to see a car pulled over to the side of the road with a guy just peeing out in the open by his car, some people go behind on the tire or are a little more discreet but they don’t have rest stops here so you go wherever you need to. When Kevin went with the University students on a trip, the bus just pulled over and all the guys got out and basically lined up and peed on the side of the road. That is completely normal here. If a cop saw someone do that in the States, you could very well be cited and even charged as a sex offender, not good (you don’t want to end up on that website that tracks where sex offenders live just for peeing in public, do you?). This happens in the city too, not just in the country. The workers that come to get stuff from next to our house for the hardware store pee on the truck tires on the street in front of our house and we live in the middle of the city.

Now, peeing on the street in the open for guys isn’t a big thing. It’s not too often that you see a woman doing it. One way to avoid using the bathroom is to avoid drinking (Shannon does this every time we take a long trip). Hondurans, in general, don’t drink a lot of water. Most think gringos are weird for drinking so much water. We don’t know why, maybe because drinking water costs money or maybe its because there aren’t bathrooms to use but even people who are well off and can afford all the water they could possible want don’t drink very much water even though water is cheap. Our five gallon jug is just 65 cents. A liter bag of water is only 10-15 cents.

So far we have only talked about peeing in public. Other volunteers have told us about seeing people pooping in public but so far we had been able to avoid seeing that. That is until this morning. We went on our usual Monday morning run in the multi-sports complex/park, aka a giant grass field that we run around. On one of our laps around the field we could see a guy squatting just to the side of our path. It sure looked like his pants were down and as we got closer, sure enough, he was taking a dump on the ground about ten feet away from us. He didn’t seem worried about it and he didn’t seem to be drunk or on drugs either, just answering nature’s call in front of anybody who happened to walk by. I mean, couldn’t he have at least gone behind a tree or something or in a hole in the ground? The weirdest part might be how we reacted to that after living here a year. True, it was something we had not witnessed before but it almost seemed normal anyway. We just ran on by like normal and laughed and talked about how that was the first time we had seen that here. Hey, it all comes down to this: whey you gotta go, you gotta go.

On a side note, we are off to the Copan Ruins this weekend for Halloween, then to Guatemala and Belize for two weeks for some much needed vacation! Updates coming soon!

If you have ever been outside the US and really soaked in the culture of another country, you probably learned that soccer is a huge sport. It is, after all, the most popular sport in the world. Living in the US, soccer is fourth, fifth or even sixth place among the most popular team sports (depending on who you ask). Ask a random person on the street to tell you the name of a player on the US men’s soccer team and they probably couldn’t. Ask them if the US men's team has qualified for the world cup and chances are they wont be able to tell you that either. Well, not so in other countries and Honduras is no exception. Soccer is huge here. It is easy to play and all you need is a ball to kick around. Any ball will do. Most kids use plastic balls on the street. Soccer balls like we are used to seeing in the states are rare here but you don’t need one of those to hone your skills as a youngster. Proof: Honduras with a population of 8 million people has a national team that is almost as good as the United States’ team, who has a population of over 300 million people (that is almost 40 times the population of Honduras!).

So, for anyone paying attention to the world cup qualifying currently going on, the United States and Honduras are in the same qualifying pool that covers all countries in the western hemisphere from Panama north and the Caribbean. Six teams were left in the last qualifying round with the top three automatically qualifying for the World Cup. With two games left to play Honduras was sitting in third position with a home game against the US that was played last Saturday (unfortunately we were unable to attend this game due to US embassy rules). The US ended up winning an exciting game 3-2, while Honduras missed a potentially game-tying penalty shot (had this been a Mexican player, he might have had a 50/50 chance of getting shot after the game). With this win, the US qualified for the world cup and the loss allowed Costa Rica to jump ahead of Honduras into third place with their win over Trinidad and Tobago. This put Honduras in a tough position to qualify as their last game was a road game in El Salvador and Costa Rica traveled to the US to play a team that had already qualified. Honduras needed to win the game and needed the US to win or at least tie Costa Rica.

So, Wednesday night, about 99.9% of the people in Honduras (including myself) were watching either the US/Costa Rica game or the Honduras/El Salvador game or both as they were played at the same time. Watching the US game seemed disappointing as Costa Rica took a 2-0 lead at halftime. Things weren’t looking good for Honduras. Honduras was tied 0-0 at the half and took the go ahead goal in the 63rd minute. The US finally scored a goal in the 72nd minute, sparking some hope for the Honduran faithful. Honduras hung on to the one goal lead to end the game beating El Salvador 1-0 as the US game was still being played in stoppage time. The US was still trailing 2-1. Things were looking pretty grim for Honduras with only stoppage time to remaining. At the end, all hopes rested on a final corner kick in the final seconds of stoppage time for the US. Chances looked slim. After the kick, coming out of nowhere was a wide open Jonathon Bornstein to head the ball past the Costa Rican goalkeeper for the game tying goal, essentially ending the game and allowing Honduras to automatically qualify for the world cup. Hondurans went ecstatic. (Costa Rica will play a two game playoff with Uruguay in which the winner will qualify for the World Cup and the loser stays home.)

Honduras has not qualified for the World Cup since 1982. Obviously, to a small country (it is about the size of Tennesee) that loves soccer this is a huge deal and to qualify for the World Cup again after 28 years was cause for celebration. (It was also nice for the people of Honduras to unite and celebrate for a good cause after all the political turmoil that has taken place in the last four months.)

I was watching the game at a new pizza restaurant in Catacamas with my fellow gringo Peace Corps Volunteer Jarryd (Shannon was in Tegus) when everyone heard (or saw) the US tie Costa Rica and everyone in the city started screaming and within a couple of minutes there was a parade of cars driving down the main streets of Catacamas. There were so many cars that when we tried to cross the street we had to wait a couple of minutes before we were able to run across the one lane, one-way street without getting hit by a car or motorcycle. Eventually it got so backed up that the cars (mostly trucks full of people in the backs) were barely moving, if at all. Everyone was honking their horns, screaming and yelling and more and more people kept coming out to celebrate. People were riding around on top of truck cabs, buses, anywhere they could fit. Hondurans would see Jarryd and I and start chanting USA-USA…, shaking our hands, giving us high fives and saying things like - thank you (in English), we love USA, hermanos para siempre, etc., etc. Everyone in Catacamas was our friend that night. One random guy gave me a full on hug. Everywhere we went people started screaming at us, girls were blowing us kisses, people were buying us beers. It was as if Jarryd and I ourselves were responsible for making Honduras qualify for the World Cup and we were seen as the town, if not national, heroes. At one point we even jumped in the back of one of the pickups with some random people and rode around for a few minutes celebrating with them. It was such an awesome and fun night, the most fun I have had in Catacamas since I have been here and I doubt that anything will top it. For at least one night, everyone’s problems seemed to disappear and everyone was celebrating together. It was a special night indeed. Crazy, but special.

Article title from the Honduran newspaper La Prensa the next day:

"I love you so much Jonathan Bornstein"

To hear the Honduran broadcasters at the end of the game listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjOv0rJYyF8

Just keep in mind how important that goal was as you listen. He is saying that the US game is not over yet when they realize the US scored and you can understand the goal part. Then he says Honduras is in the World Cup…

We have been pretty busy the last few weeks. Last weekend we went to Lake Yojoa for a going away party for one of our good friends who decided to head back to the US a year early. It was our first good friend who had early terminated and it was sad to see him go. We’ve lost a couple of people from our training group in the past month. It’s always sad to see them go but we’re happy that they are doing what’s right for them. It was nice to relax at the lake for the weekend and spend time with friends that we hadn’t seen in awhile. Then Kevin went on to Tegucigalpa for his mid-service medical exams. He went to the dentist where he was told that he didn’t have any cavities but they did not even take x-rays so who knows… He was given a clean bill of health so that’s good. He came back the night of our anniversary and Shannon made a nice dinner. We have now been married three years!

We had our annual regional meeting last week where all of the volunteers from Olancho meet with the safety and security director of Peace Corps Honduras, the country director, and a nurse. It was an all day event and we both had to do presentations of what projects we have been doing. It was a long day but good to see everyone and we got to meet the two new volunteers in our area. It is the annual feria (fair) of Catacamas right now so we all went there after our regional meeting. It is pretty big with lots of booths, games, food, venders, and of course, rides. Last year we were afraid to go on the rides but this year we braved them. They are all just set atop wooden blocks and some have hand cranks to make them move, definitely not safe. The ferris wheel was actually scary…we thought they were supposed to be relaxing! It went really fast and was rickety and creaky but we survived it.

The political situation continues to be complicated as the ousted president is still in the Brazilian Embassy. Representatives of the two presidents have been meeting for “dialogue” but nothing has changed. The teachers found out last week that school is ending this coming Friday, the 16th. School is supposed to end at the end of November but since this is an election year it was well known that classes would end a little early like mid-November. Apparently they are ending a month earlier because the classrooms are needed for the elections. Nobody seems to understand why since the elections aren’t for another month and a half and they are on a Sunday… The teachers were also told that all kids have to pass which means that there are going to be a lot of kids next year who are behind. It is also a little crazy because this coming Monday is a holiday and Catacamas never has classes on Thursdays or Fridays so that leaves two days of classes for them to finish everything up. It also means that Shannon will, once again, not have anything to do.

On a happier note, the U.S. and Honduras played soccer against each other last night and the U.S. won! We had originally planned to go to the game but a week before the game the U.S. Embassy decided that it may not be safe for U.S. citizens to attend and prohibited any U.S. citizens who were affiliated with the “U.S. mission in Honduras” from attending. We were sad but had a few people over here instead and watched it on a projector on our wall. It was a good game and the U.S. is now qualified for the world cup! The downside is that Honduras will now have a hard time qualifying but they will at least be in the playoff spot to play the fifth place team from South America in a two game playoff to determine which one will qualify for the World Cup.

Shannon heads to Tegucigalpa this coming week for her mid-service medical exams and pretty soon we will head to Copan for Halloween and then on to Guatemala and Belize where we will explore Mayan ruins, climb active volcanoes and explore some Belizean beaches. Let the fun begin!

Today marks the day that we have one year left of service here in Honduras.

So things have gotten a little crazy here in the past couple of days… Before we talk about that, we’re going to talk about the things we have done in the past couple of weeks. Kevin finally finished his English class at the University. The majority of the kids even passed, although Shannon did have to take a test from a boy who was cheating and give him a zero. Kevin will not be teaching next semester but will be helping the new teacher out.

Our friend Calixto took us and our site-mate Elisabeth and her boyfriend to an awesome waterfall and the hike there was quite an adventure. To get there, we had to scale up three or four smaller waterfalls using rope (Calixto, of course, climbed without rope in order to tie the rope for us). At one point, Calixto put Elisabeth’s feet on top of his to help her scale down…he is quite amazing! It was a great experience and we were definitely sore the next day. The waterfall was beautiful as was the hike. We hiked rather high into the mountains where the water was fresh and pure (supposedly) and we drank straight from the creek. We haven’t gotten sick yet so the water must have been clean!

Kevin created a Peace Corps Honduras fantasy football league and at the last minute one of the guys had to drop out. Shannon and Elisabeth took his spot and have won both of their games so far. All of the guys are mad because Shannon and Elisabeth drafted players based on looks. The hot guys just seem to play better! This keeps us occupied during the weekends as we often have small parties to watch football and eat junk-food. Shannon has been cooking and baking a lot lately and made cinnamon rolls last weekend to eat while we watched the games. Kevin has also ventured into making homemade soda. He started by making a honey ginger ale from a recipe he found on the internet. It seemed a little watery with a very strong ginger aftertaste but it actually tastes good mixed with some lemonade (well, Shannon doesn’t really like it but others do). Next up, homemade cream soda. He plans on experimenting with many different flavors and recipes until he gets them just right.

A week and a half ago, we finally took our two male cats in to get neutered. Most male animals here in Honduras (and Latin America in general) do not get neutered. Many people believe that the animals get sad and/or lose their “manhood” when they get castrated but there are vets around that do the procedure. Plus, most animals here are not seen as pets like in the United States. They usually serve a purpose such as to catch mice or other unwanted animals and the majority of people do not buy packaged animal food for their animals. If they feed their animals, the feed them table scraps or they are left to scrounge through the garbage on the street. Here in the city, you can find packaged animal food, ours eat it, but it is still not super common. The vet did not put the cats to sleep, instead she gave them something to make them groggy and then used a local anesthesia. Shannon got to help by holding the cats in the air while the vet gave them the shots to drug them. After she was done with the surgery, she showed us their testicles and Baza’s were much larger even though he is the smaller cat (3 pounds versus Caramelo’s 4).

Things were just starting to get more normal around here. School had been sporadic for awhile as there was always some holiday, Dia del niño, dia del maestro, Independence Day…always some reason to miss class. Catacamas did not celebrate Independence Day which was kind of nice (very quiet without drums or fireworks) but very weird and sad at the same time since it is usually a big day filled with parades and activities, but they still cancelled classes for most of the week. This week classes were in session again and Shannon was happy to be working on Monday when Mel Zelaya, the ousted president, decided to come back and everything stopped. He is stationed inside the Brazilian embassy and troops are surrounding it and a van is supposedly parked out front playing the Honduran national anthem 24 hours a day. We are in the midst of a 50 hour curfew (nobody is supposed to leave their houses) which, according to the news, most people in Tegucigalpa seem to be obeying. Here, a lot of businesses and most schools are closed but people are still out and about. Needless to say, we are kind of bored. We were supposed to go to Tegucigalpa yesterday to talk to the married couples in training, but that got cancelled of course. This is the second time it has gotten cancelled due to political-related issues and it sucks. Hopefully things will get resolved soon but at least all is calm here in Catacamas.

First of, thanks for the comments and we will be looking forward to the postcards from the Great Smoky Mountains. Second, we are going to go ahead and leave the comment from “Rob” on here if you would like to read it and we are going to clarify a few things while we are at it. Also, we are not forcing anyone to read this so if you don’t like it, don’t read it.

The COLORS group is a biannual voluntary event that we can get up to 20 dollars per person reimbursed for travel, food and hotel costs. Twenty dollars may go much farther here than in the United States but that does not nearly cover our costs to go to the meeting. So, everyone who is there is doing it because they want to go. The idea of COLORS is to talk about and teach cultural awareness with a class of Honduran elementary school students. Rob makes a good point. Yes, some terms used in Spanish are considered endearing while the English translation would never be used in the United States. Blacky (negrita) was the example used in the blog post. No one we know would yell, “Hi Blacky” to a black person walking past them on the street in the U.S. Here, it is different. You can say negrita here but that doesn’t mean that all people to whom you say it appreciate it. In fact, a Honduran official just got removed from office for calling Obama “negrito”. I guess the Honduran government didn’t think the term was very endearing. In the class we talked to, we used the example gordito (fat). One kid said in front of us and the class that his family calls him gordito and that he does not like it. It might be an endearing term to his family but it was not to the boy in the class that was being called gordito. Another common thing here is calling all Asian people chino/china (Chinese). The locals have no problem with it but a Japanese person constantly being called chino, by acquaintances and strangers alike, might. Those are the issues we talk about, being aware of other cultures and some things that might be offensive to people of those other cultures. We are not trying to change them or “Americanize” them, just help them be aware of other cultures and their differences and we don’t think anything we have written in the blog has been racist or belittling against Hondurans in any way whatsoever.

The Religions Equality Meeting (REF) is a meeting solely for volunteers to get together and talk about their different beliefs in an open, friendly, and neutral environment completely amongst themselves. It is a fact that nearly 100% of the Honduran population consider themselves either Catholic or Evangelical and are in general much more religious than the average person from the United States. We ARE NOT religious missionaries and we ARE NOT here to promote our religious beliefs. But for many volunteers who have beliefs different from Catholics or Evangelicals (i.e. Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or atheist to name a few) it can be hard not to feel pressured to attend one of those churches by community members you live with. It can also be hard and awkward to freely express your own religious views when asked about them, something you have to experience to completely understand. So REF is here for volunteers to talk to other volunteers and more than anything it was an experience for all volunteers involved to learn about other religions and beliefs themselves.

Everything we put in this blog is fact of things we have seen, heard, or experienced here in Honduras. Of course everyone’s experience is different so what you read in our blog is what we have experienced. We do not put our religious or political views in this blog. We are not sure how saying the upcoming election is going to be interesting implies that we are anti-democratic; far from it. We have talked about the situation enough in the past and didn’t need to repeat ourselves again by adding more than the word interesting.

“Your ideology is diseased, and you don't have the intellectual curiosity or the will to heal the tremendous damage that your economic system and culture have created.” Rob, feel free to leave some advice or better yet send us some literature that you think we should read, our address is on the blogsite. Yes, the Peace Corps is funded by the US government but it is all free aid, mostly in the form of teaching and training that the local communities are seeking and have asked for a volunteer to live in their community. We are not forcing them to adopt North American ways and are not providing them loans that they will never be able to pay off. If you want to point fingers, look somewhere else to place blame. Also, you mention my economic system and culture. Why don’t you tell us what economic system and culture you live in instead of trashing other peoples who you don’t even know.

“And, please, as one of the most racist groups of humans on earth today, understand your own deeply internalized racism before you look down on darker-skinned Hondurans as coming up wanting in that area. Your comments are vile and lack insight” This just doesn’t make sense. Why would we volunteer two years of our life to go somewhere where we look down on the people? You seem to be generalizing and stereotyping here which is exactly what we talk about in the COLORS meeting. Maybe what we have written is not the most eloquent but you have taken what we have written and totally misconstrued what was said. And our comments are “vile and lack insight”? Keep in mind, this blog has no agenda, despite what you may think. This is a blog for our friends and family to keep up to date on what is going on in our lives. So, sorry if it lacks insight for you, Rob. It was left on public view for anyone who might care to read it. Of course questions/comments are always welcome.

So it’s been awhile since we’ve written and a lot has happened in the past month. There are four support groups in Peace Corps Honduras and we have been to the meetings for three of them in the past month! First we went to COLORS which is to promote racial equality and understanding. For this meeting we did a talk at a local school which went really well as the people here don’t really know much about racial equality and often call people “negrito” (blacky) and other racial slurs that most people do not appreciate. We then spent the night at our friend Ellie’s site which is where we did the talk. She lives right on the outskirts of a large protected area and her site is beautiful! We swam in her lagoon and enjoyed the coolness. Then Shannon went to a VOS (Volunteers Offering Support) meeting near Tegucigalpa in the protected area of La Tigra while Kevin went on home. People were chosen for these positions and trained to take calls from volunteers in need of support. She was also voted the communications officer for this group and is now in charge of a monthly newsletter as well as various other duties. It was a great training in the cool mountains and she felt refreshed and ready to tackle another year in Honduras. The next weekend we visited some volunteers in Olancho so Shannon could do her Emergency Zone visits and went to a cave north of where we live.

Two weeks ago we went to the town of Gracias in the department of Lempira way out on the west side of Honduras for the REF (Religious Equality Forum) meeting. It was very interesting to learn about everyone’s different religious beliefs as well as the pressures from Hondurans to attend their churches and adopt their religions. Most Hondurans are either Catholic or Evangelical and are not very understanding or accepting of other religions which can be frustrating for many volunteers. Next, we climbed Celaque, the tallest mountain in Honduras at 2,849 meters. It was not a very long hike but VERY steep and strenuous. At parts we had to hold on to roots to pull ourselves up. It was a fabulous hike and very interesting to see all of the different plants and changing ecosystems as we climbed in elevation. On the way up we took a different trail and climbed another mountain (we did not realize this ahead of time) that was about 2,300 meters! It was an awesome hike but we were a little sad when we realized that we were going down instead of up and that there loomed another mountain in front of us! But we did see our first Honduran deer, Honduras’ national symbol of their fauna, since we have been here. People always tell us there are deer in Honduras but for the most part they have been hunted to near extinction now we finally believe that they exist! We camped a little below the top at a basic campsite that had a little covered space for a tent and a primitive latrine. There was a tarantula but Shannon is getting much better and only freaked out a little. It was really cold at night and we nearly froze to death! It was much too wet to start a fire so we went to bed at 6:30! The next day we hiked the hour and a half to the top. The view was not great as there were lots of trees and clouds but it was worthwhile.

After conquering Celaque, we went to the quaint town of Santa Rosa de Copan. It is probably the nicest town we have been to in Honduras. The central park looked like it could be in the U.S. and we ate at a great Mexican restaurant and had delicious margaritas! It was nice to feel like we were back in civilization for a little while. Then we went a couple of hours farther to our friend Justin’s site. He used to live close to us in Olancho but was moved for security reasons. His site is tiny with less than 200 people and you have to hike up a mountain from the road to get there. It was very relaxing. We went from there about 30 minutes away to another site where the volunteer has done a bee project. Kevin is interested in starting one here so we looked at the hives and talked to the owner about the steps needed to start such a project. It was very interesting and the honey was delicious! It was nice and cool in the mountains and nice to be in smaller sites for a change.

We then went back to Gracias for the MARV (Married Volunteers) meeting. We are in charge of this group so we had set everything up. It was good to meet the new married couples and talk about things that affect us that other volunteers do not deal with. We went to the quaint little town of La Campa about an hour away where they make a lot of Lencan (an Indian tribe) pottery common to the region. We also took advantage of the hot springs in Gracias and enjoyed a night there. It was a nice vacation/break from the unbearable heat and humidity of Catacamas. It left us feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Things are relatively back to normal here in Catacamas. The university where Kevin works started back up about two weeks ago and the schools now have classes three days a week which is better than none. Thursdays and Fridays are still reserved for strikes and marches. A couple of days before we left on our trek a march passed by our house at about 8:00 PM. It was peaceful, pro-Mel with lots of motorcycles, cars honking, and people carrying candles. It lasted about 20 minutes and we were invited numerous times to join in (we of course said no). The schools in all of Honduras usually have large parades to celebrate Independence Day but this year none of the public schools in Catacamas are going to participate because they do not believe that they have independence right now. This is a big deal because Independence Day is huge here and the students spend months before preparing and practicing.

Campaigning for the upcoming elections began last Sunday and there are now trucks driving around playing Shannon’s least favorite song “El Chofer” with the words changed to the appropriate party (“viva el partido liberal/nacional/etc”). It’s quite annoying and we have two and a half months to enjoy it. The elections should be interesting as people are still upset about the coup. It will be an experience!

So things are still very boring around here. We are now allowed to travel as long as we don't go through Tegucigalpa, the capital. Too bad we have to pass through there to go almost anywhere... Our friend Elizabeth lives on our side of Tegucugalpa and was able to visit us last week! We had a great time watching lots of movies and eating lots of junk food.

In the past five weeks there have been five days of classes at the public schools here and even less at the university. This is extremely frustrating as we both have little work to do and the kids are missing out on so many days of class which will not be made up. It's very discouraging. Most other places have resumed classes but since we live in the ousted president's hometown the strikes continue. Shannon's English classes have resumed, but many of the teachers from her level one class stopped coming in the four weeks that the schools were locked. Her class started at 30 people and now has about 10! There are still marches and roadblocks but they are getting less common. Zelaya, the ousted president, came into Honduras for about 20 minutes two weeks ago. He then went back to Nicaragua where he proceeded to camp out for a week or so. Needless to say, nothing came of it and he is supposedly going to resume talks. We really don't follow the news of the coup anymore because nothing happens. The new group of volunteers was finally able to make it here after three weeks in the Dominican Republic (lucky) and a week stuck in Miami (even luckier).

Some good news for Shannon, one of the German volunteers talked to our next door neighbor and convinced him to stop harassing Shannon every time she walked by. He apologized and said (in English) "friends?". This makes her life a lot better as she walks by his house numerous times each day and no longer has to hear, "Hello baby, No soy su bebe (mocking her because that is what she said to him)" and the other annoying comments he would always make. Now he says good morning which is much better.

We are hoping work picks up or we may go insane. Shannon has started doing crafts to pass the time and we both read a lot (Shannon read seven books in July!) and of course watch T.V.! Who knew that a coup d'etat could be so boring?

On Friday, July 17 I left with the 3rd year natural resources students, some faculty and guides in pipantes (large canoes made of one solid piece of wood) on a six day trip on the Patuca River down to the community of Wampusirpi and back upriver. The Patuca River forms one edge of the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve and is in the middle of what is called La Moskitia, the largest preserved primary forest in Central America. Basically we went to the middle of the jungle. A huge plus of going with the students was that all expenses were paid by the university and an NGO named Proyecto Corazon.

The first day involved leaving the house at 5:40 in the morning and meeting everyone at the university. Then we drove for 3-4 hours on dirt/mud roads to our departing point on Rio Cuyamel. We loaded up two pipantes with six days of food and tents and sleeping bags and the personal things of 19 people going on the trip. The first day involved a lot of getting in and out of the boats to walk around the rapids so we wouldn't tip over. It involved a lot of walking on land and through the water, often waist high or sometimes deeper. It started pouring that afternoon while we were in the boats and we all had ponchos but as we were so we already, no one even used them. We spent the first night at one of the boat conductors house at the junction with Rio Patuca. We unloaded both boats and in the morning we loaded everything into one much larger boat as Rio Patuca is a much larger river that can handle bigger boats. We spent a few hours in the boat going down river until we arrived at the small community of Krausirpi, where native Tawahkas live. There are several very small communities strung out along the river the entire way. That evening we went upriver to a small community to where some students from Tegucigalpa are conducting studies on local animals including Jaguars, fish, rats, and bats. That night we set up a bat catching net so see how it was done and caught two types of bat, one a vampire bat. Krausirpi had a gas generator that powered several houses with power for a few hours each night. Day three we went on downriver to Wampusirpi where, amazingly, they have a giant cell tower for Digicel, one of the cell phone companies here, and they even had internet. We walked around the town and talked to some local people and learned about the chocolate processing they did as the area's income relies a heavily on the large amounts of chocolate farms in the area as well as some ecotourism. We all stayed at a convent that night and headed back to Krausirpi the next afternoon were we stayed one more night. The fifth day we headed back to the junction of Rio Patuca and Rio Cuyamel again and camped on the beach this time. I also talked to some people who were panning for gold and even had gas powered machines to help them. The gold only comes in small flakes and never in nuggets and our boat driver pays for everything with gold. A boat comes by his place twice a month to deliver what he had requested the time before. There is no cell coverage there. In fact, about an hour drive out of Catacamas we lost cell coverage for the entire trip except for Wampusirpi. They also find very small rubies in the river, but too small to be worth anything. That night it poured and poured and we sat and talked and played volleyball in the river as we were already soaked anyway. I only listened as they were speaking Spanish of course. The river was warmer than the air and rain at that point and we finally got out and went to bed sometime well after dark. We had cup soup and tortillas with packets of refried beans to eat for dinner. The next morning we headed back up Rio Cuyamel and the river had dropped since we had come down and was about 70% of normal flow, which meant more rocks and hazards and slower going upriver. It took several hours and then several more to drive back to Catacamas and we finally made it back at about 8:30 when we stopped at the Texaco to have some fried chicken and french fries for dinner and, of course, Coke.

The trip was an awesome experience to go traveling by boat, the only form of transportation in the area until Wampusirpi which has a small airstrip, into the middle of the jungle. We saw Coati, monkeys, iguanas, crocodiles, wild makaws and other birds, frogs, insects and various types of trees and plants. I got to practice my spanish A LOT as everyone of course spoke Spanish. One facutly member speaks good English so he was able to help me out a lot when I needed it. In the communities we visited, many people speak 3 languages, Spanish which is taught in schools, Miskito and Tawahka, both native languages in the region. It was interesting to see how the people lived there and also to see how the outside world has drastically influenced the area. A giant cell tower in the middle of nowhere with internet. Coke, Pepsi, Tropical, Mirinda and other sodas. Wampusirpi had Schlitz Malt Liquor, I don't even see that in Catacamas, not that I want to. All types of chips and other normal Honduran snacks as well. Now I can only sit and wait until my next adventure begins.

So things are still not back to normal here. School was supposed to start this week and did in some places, just not here. Kids actually went to school Monday but the teachers refused to have classes. The university students at the university where Kevin works went on strike because they were afraid that the university was not going to have enough money to finish the school year (which is supposedly true). Then all but the external classes were canceled so the students could go to the marches in support of Zelaya. On Thursday we both went to Kevin's English class and it turned out to be the only class in the entire school that day because all the teachers went to the march. The students were mad but we decided that they needed to learn since they are the worst class ever. At least it gave us something to do! Shannon did an HIV/AIDS training last week at one of the private high schools since they still have classes. She was happy to be able to work and the training went really well. The kids gave great feedback, participated, and really seemed to enjoy it as well as learned something (their post-test scores were significantly higher than their pre-test scores).

On Monday Shannon had quite a disturbing experience that broke the monotony. She went to CEREPA thinking that she would be able to do her dental hygiene program because there were supposed to be classes, only to find out that a patient had come in Friday and died of a heart-attack early Sunday morning. It was decided that personnel from CEREPA should attend the funeral and Shannon was chosen as one of the people to go. She went with four of her co-workers and they had only been there for about five minutes when she heard a gunshot. This is pretty normal here and nobody really paid attention. She noticed that it seemed louder than normal so she looked and saw a man in a cowboy hat with a pistol walking behind another man. He shot the man two times in the back while she watched! She saw two blood spots begin to form on the man's chest and he started to fall. Chaos ensued and everyone started running and screaming. Her co-workers yelled "corra Shannon, corra" and she ran like the wind. They ran to a little store and took shelter. The police and ambulance came quickly but only stayed a few minutes as the shooter had fled the scene. The driver from CEREPA picked them up and the rest of the day was uneventful. The murderer was supposedly drunk and killed the other man over "cosas personales". He has since been arrested and sent to jail. Now the talk at CEREPA is how fast Shannon runs, how she witnessed a murder like in a "Hollywood movie", and how scared one of her co-workers was. She is surprisingly unaffected; we chalk it up to hearing about things like this all the time so it seems commonplace. She hopes to never witness a murder again!

Kevin got the opportunity to go with the university on a canoe trip through La Moskitia, a biological reserve. He left yesterday and will return Wednesday. It was all very last minute as the trip had been canceled and rescheduled very quickly. He was almost not able to go as all trips through this area require pre-approval from Peace Corps. Luckily our country director and the director of safety and security worked with him to get everything done last night. There is only one cell company that gets reception out there and his trip hinged on getting a chip from them for his phone. Shannon, like the good wife that she is, had to run around at 6:00 PM last night in the rain searching for a place that was still open that sold Digicel chips. Kevin was at a meeting at the university and was unable to do it himself. She had given up hope when she ran into some very nice men who called all their friends until they found a place. The trip was saved! She's just jealous that she couldn't go too!

So today is our one-year anniversary of arriving in Honduras and we usually write these things together, but I thought I would write my own today as I reflect on my year in Honduras.

I have had so many experiences that I could never have fathomed before coming such as learning to share my house (although not happily) with so many bugs and even spiders; not freaking out every time I see a spider (only if it is really big); washing my dishes and my body in dirty water after a rain and thinking that it is better than not having any water; getting used to the electricity and water disappearing, sometimes for days at a time; washing all of my clothes by hand; cooking; walking everywhere in the heat and humidity; getting harassed by EVERY man I walk past; eating my body weight in beans and realizing that I really like them (rice, however, I could do without); seeing children running around half-dressed, half-fed, and usually sans shoes and not thinking anything of it; talking about bowl movements all the time including at dinner; becoming accustomed to the smell of burning trash; liking beets; and eating whole fish with the fins and eyeballs (I didn't eat those parts but they were there looking at me).

I have also learned a lot of things in my year here. I now no longer take so many things for granted... good food (cheese), friends and family, being able to go places at night, being able to run alone, safety, having a decent/non-corrupt government, freedom of expression, all of the material things that we think are so important in the U.S. (washing machines, furniture, air conditioners, etc), and people who tell the truth to name a few.

I have also learned to get satisfaction in the small things in life: children yelling, "Hola Profe" and hugging me when I come to a school, an e-mail from home is great, a letter/postcard awesome, and a package the highlight of the month, home-cooked flour tortillas and beans made by a friend who knows that I love them, someone making me beans because they know that I don't eat meat, teaching a child something new, newly bathed cats meeting me at the door after a long day, the construction worker in my back yard who yelled at another construction worker for catcalling me, the freshness of newly mopped floors, spending time in the campo away from all the madness of the city, visiting other volunteers and catching up, and most importantly a phone call home.

Top 10 things I have learned here:

1. Do not judge a book by it's cover. There are so many people that I have met here that I never thought I would be friends with simply by the way they dressed or something that they said, who have turned out to be some of my best friends...now if only I can remember this when I get back to the U.S.

2. Speaking Spanish is exhausting and much harder than I had thought it would be!

3. Mantequilla (aka crema in the rest of the Spanish speaking world) is always bad no matter how many times I try it.

4. Washing clothes by had really isn't that bad...

5. No matter how much people complain about schools in the U.S., they could be much worse...

6. Putting birth control in the water may not be that bad of an idea...

7. Putting "fijase que" at the beginning of an excuse works every time! Also by saying "si Dios quiere" you can get out of any future situation. I mean, what if Dios didn't want me to go to that meeting?

8. I now understand why people of the same race/that speak the same language tend to hang out together. It's just so much easier to spend time with people with whom you can easily communicate without problems and share the same basic values.

9. Dinámicas (icebreakers) really make everything better.

10. ANY television program in English is usually better than one in Spanish.

It's so hard to believe that a year has passed. Overall that experience so far has been great, I have learned so many things and continue to learn new things everyday! So many of my expectations were wrong (I never thought that we would live in a city twice as big as Reedley, have electricity, let alone cable and internet in our house!) but I have learned to be a bit more flexible. We still have one year, two months, and fifteen days left (not that I'm counting down or anything) and these, too, will hopefully fly by and before you know it we'll be home! I'm sure I'll learn a lot more in our remaining time, hopefully improve my Spanish a lot, and have many more experiences that I will carry with me forever!

President Zelaya was unable to land today as the army blocked all of the runways at the international airports. His plane circled over the airport in Tegucigalpa but finally went to El Salvador instead. There are now a ton (the Venezuelan news station said 200,00 but we don't know if that is true) of pro-Zelaya supporters in Tegucigalpa at the airport. The news reported that the army opened gunfire on the protesters and that two were killed and various others wounded. We now have a curfew starting at 6:30 P.M. which was not announced until about 6:00 P.M. today. Needless to say, there are still a ton of people outside. Things are still calm here in Catacamas. Schools are supposed to resume tomorrow so hopefully life will return to kind of normal again. We are tired of doing nothing. Yesterday we had a Fourth of July party at our house and it was really fun. A ton of people came and we ate some good food, played some beer pong, and hung out. There were no fireworks but it was good to be with other people as we have been cooped up all week.

We are still fine. We have received many inquiries into our safety and well being and we are not in any immediate danger. Peace Corps keeps us updated (especially Shannon since she is Emergency Zone Coordinator and responsible for passing on messages to the other volunteers) and does not feel that there is any need to evacuate us. Peace Corps has gone through much worse things than this and we are confident that they have our best interests in mind. Things are pretty calm here. We are far away from the chaos and protests. There was a pro-Zelaya (the ousted president) protest here Monday and then the protesters took 10 buses to Tegucigalpa to join the protests there. On the way they were stopped at a military checkpoint and the tires of the buses were shot out so they were not able to continue. (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/03/honduras.video/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular#cnnSTCVideo) A couple of days ago protesters threw molotov cocktails at the antennas at the Radio America station as it is not a pro-Zelaya station. We don't think that anything really came of it and we aren't even sure where that station is located. We were not able to work all week as all public schools and the university were closed. It is kind of like a vacation only we are not really allowed to travel. We did have our first couch surfers, a french couple who are now living in Mexico but left due to the swine flu. They arrived here Wednesday and left early this morning hoping to go to Nicaragua if the borders are open. They were very nice and it was good for us to practice our Spanish as they spoke Spanish better than English. We took them to the caves and they made us a great french meal! We also finally got rid of the mother cat, Cornflake (Cornflay as they say here). We took her to Calixto, a man that Kevin works with in the mountains who wanted a cat to get rid of the mice. She behaved very well on the hour long bus ride there but ran away as soon as they let her out at their house. Hopefully she came back. Now we only have two cats and that is much better than the six we had at one time. Otherwise things are pretty quiet around here. We are glad to have internet as the news on T.V. here is very biased as many stations are not allowed to transmit and the ones that do are partially owned by the current president. We really only see pro-Micheletti protests on T.V. now. We are allowed to travel in our departments today for Fourth of July so we are having an Olancho party at our house and making lots of desserts, chili, and who knows what else. It should be a great time, especially since most of the volunteers have been cooped up in their small sites with nothing to do for the past week. We will continue to post updates as the political situation unravels. Zelaya says he will return to Honduras tomorrow (Sunday) but we will see what happens.

Most of you have probably heard about the current political situation in Honduras. If not, go to any news website and you can read lots about it. We are fine here in Catacamas. Basically, the military surrounded the president's house early yesterday morning and forcefully took him to Costa Rica where he was let go. There was no power in most of Honduras until noon yesterday and most radio and television communications were cut off. This happened right before his constitutional referendum vote was supposed to take place. The ballots were then collected by the army and the president of congress was sworn in as the new president of Honduras. This of course did not make many people happy, especially the president of Venezuela. Right now pretty much all political leaders outside of Honduras (and many people here) are refusing to recognize anyone but the old president as president of Honduras. We have no idea what will happen. A national curfew was imposed for last night and tonight and nobody is supposed to be outside from 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM. It was actually kind of nice last night because everything was closed up and quiet for the first time ever. It was kind of bizarre. It did anger Shannon because it meant that she could not go running since she goes at 5:30. There is a march supporting Mel (the ousted president) in Catacamas today which we will be staying away from. He is from Catacamas and has a house here so it is likely that he has a lot of supporters here. Peace Corps has kept us fairly well informed and be assured that if anything violent happens we will most likely be evacuated. Hopefully things will calm down soon and we can go back to normal life. Right now we are still not allowed to travel or leave our sites. Good thing we have everything we need here! We will keep you posted about the situation here.

Things have sure been interesting lately and probably will continue to get more interesting in the next several weeks/months. First off, we had a welcome party at our house last weekend for all of the volunteers in Olancho to get to know each other since we have four new volunteers in Olancho. It was a lot of fun and Shannon, of all people, was on the winning team of the beer pong tournament. She and Erick were unstoppable. It was pretty impressive since she had never played before. The Thursday before the party, we come home from a long day of work and tried to turn on the TV to get our daily dose of The O.C. and the outlet didn’t work. Weird. Then every time the refrigerator would kick on it would make some really weird sounds. Our electroducha also stopped working and later that night, so did the fridge. When we tried to plug in our fan that night to stay cool, it spun about 3 times as fast as normal and started to smell like smoke. We unplugged it. We contacted our landlord about the problem and they said someone would come out to fix it but no one came all day Friday so we had a clean out the freezer/fridge dinner party which was very nice. We were expecting about 15 people the next night for the welcome party and were getting nervous that we wouldn’t have a fridge to use. Saturday morning an electrician came out, after a call to the landlord again, and a wire coming into the house had burned in two making all of our outlets 220V instead of 110V like they should have been. Don’t ask me how that works but that’s what happened. The electrician fixed it and surprisingly everything worked after that except the voltage regulator that Shannon had been using with the computer with that got fried. Good thing she was using it or else the computer probably would have been fried. That would not have been cool. The party went well, all except one of the Olancho volunteers came and he was in the U.S. The theme was ropa Americana (think stores that sell clothes that the thrift stores in the U.S. couldn’t get rid of) and there were some great outfits! We have a pretty good group out here in the wild wild east!

Kevin tried making and ant trap out of yeast and honey with the idea being that the honey attracts them and the yeast explodes them. For three weeks we had trails of ants going to the “traps” in the kitchen but not really anywhere else in the house. He finally got rid of the traps and now there are still trails of ants in our kitchen and ants in the rest of the house too! Shannon doesn’t think that the traps worked but Kevin insists that there are less ants…if anyone knows a better remedy to kill ants let us know!

This week, we got a message from Peace Corps telling us we are on Stage two of a five stage alert system which means we are not allowed to leave our site this weekend. The message arrived with no explanation whatsoever. Interesting. Thanks for the info., we would like to know what is going on. (we did receive an email late Thursday night) Basically there is a struggle for power in Honduras and the president is trying to remain president after his term is up, blah blah blah, and they are having an illegal vote this weekend to see if the people want to vote on the November ballot to change the Constitution. Read this link if you want to know more: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/25/honduras.general/

So we heard a bunch of rumors that the Salvadoran army is going to come help our president because the Honduran army won’t support him and people going to the airport to burn the voting equipment that is being flown in from Venezuela, people getting shot at demonstrations and people buying tons of food and water at the stores and not leaving their houses for 3-4 days because they are afraid to go outside. Most of these are untrue but we are pretty sure people have been shot but that is normal anyway. So far, everything here in the hometown of the president is normal but we will see what happens come Sunday. We are planning a movie marathon and watching the US play Brazil in the Confederations Cup Championship game Sunday at 12:20 Mountain Time, that is assuming we have electricity as there are rumors of strikes and protests of workers including those running the electrical plants, not that the electricity is reliable anyway. We shall see and keep you informed (if we can).

Well, since the big earthquake a little over two weeks ago, we have had several aftershocks including the latest one registering 5.4 last Monday. We still have not felt any of them, however, but other people have. Almost all of them happened in the middle of the night though so I guess that would explain most of it. We have not heard of any damage caused by the aftershocks.

Last week Kevin helped build two chicken coops as examples for the rest of the community to use to build their own in the future. A former Peace Corps volunteer came back with some of his family to participate in this project and it was a lot of fun and hopefully will last a long time to keep the chickens safe and more productive at laying eggs. During that time Shannon went to visit our friend Elizabeth in Minas de Oro. It is a small community located in the mountains, very different from Catacamas! It was much cooler up there and she had a great time. Elizabeth still lives with her host family so it was good Spanish practice. They basically have a Honduran mansion and it was a nice vacation! Shannon also went to Tegucigalpa for a rural baseball tournament sponsored by Peace Corps. Elizabeth’s team participated but lost in the first two rounds. The team from Tegucigalpa won but many thought it was not fair that they were invited since they are not rural and have many more resources and get to practice more. It was an interesting experience as baseball is not very big here. Hardly anyone came to watch, including the parents. The bus station was fuller than she had ever seen it before on her way back and she had to wait three and a half hours just for the bus to come then another four hours to Catacamas! Good thing she met a nice Honduran to pass the time with. While Shannon was gone, apparently the mosquitoes had nothing else to feed on and attacked Kevin’s feet something wicked. He’d never had bites that looked and itched like that before.

Today we went to talk to some community leaders about helping them get funding to build a new building for their school. We made a budget with a list of materials and costs plus a time line for getting the school built. We still need to check on prices of materials but we now have a rough estimate of what it will cost. The town is located a two hour walk from the end of the road and right now they have one room for all school kids, 60 total. They actually started building a new building last year when they ran into problems like someone leaving with a bunch of money and never returning to do the work and the project sort of fell apart from there and ended up basically washing away during the rains so now they must start all over again. We are hoping to help them secure some funds to finally get this thing built so the kids have some space to breathe while learning.

Well, apparently there was a very large earthquake just off the coast of Honduras that many people have asked us about. This happened May 28, 2:24 a.m. local time and was centered about 150 miles north of where we live. The quake registered at 7.1 on the Richter scale (although the USGS website has 7.3 listed). Unbelievably, this size of a quake only killed 6 people in a third world country. Luckily the epicenter was in the ocean and did not cause a tsunami as was feared at first. It did destroy some homes and a major bridge along the north coast outside of San Pedro Sula. Many people here in Catacamas woke up but neither of us felt it. Maybe the Northridge and Loma Prieta quakes desensitized us to large quakes or we have just been working so hard lately that we were exhausted. It supposedly shook the ground for over a minute. Many other Peace Corps volunteers felt it, especially those along the north coast, and for many of them it was their first earthquake. It was the biggest in Honduras recorded history and the last big one they had was in 1999 registering at 6.7. There have been 4 aftershocks of at least 4.5 magnitude since Thursday including one just on the Olancho border. We did not feel any of those either.

In other news, last week was natural resources week at the university and we attended a concert and a Bar-B-Que there. It was fun and a good cultural experience. It was also the 21st anniversary of CEREPA, the drug and alcohol center where Shannon works and the week was filled with activities. She participated in a peaceful march against drunk driving which was very interesting. We went to the quaint city of Yuscaran this past weekend to participate in the 13th annual donkey polo event during their feria del mango. This annual event pits Volunteers against the locals riding donkeys and trying to hit a plastic soccer ball with a stick into a small goal. The hardest part is trying to get the donkey to move, as Shannon found out early on in the game. Kevin's moved much easier but never wanted to turn to the right. We also didn't have saddles or even blankets to sit on and their backbones were not the most comfortable thing to sit on in the world. The locals fared much better as they basically had a professional donkey polo rider on their team. They ended up winning by a lot but we at least scored one goal (yay Haley!). It was fun but somewhat chaotic and we don't think the donkeys enjoyed it much. The local kids insisted on hitting and kicking the donkeys if they didn't move and it was terrible. At one point Shannon threatened to hit one of the kids (really good for a youth development volunteer)and they finally left her donkey alone! Shannon is now pretty sick (we're not sure why) so we are taking it easy this week.

May 18, 2009

Part I

It has been about a month since we last wrote but hey, we were in the US seeing many of you in person for more than half of that time so give us a break. We made it home finally, after a grueling day of flying and then spending the night in the cold, cold LA airport only a 50 minute flight away from home. It was a nice day, not humid or hot and we enjoyed relaxing and eating US food after a long time without it. To make a long story short, we saw a lot of people, ate a lot of food (I mean a lot of food), and most importantly of all we got to see Robert and Erika get married. Congrats to the newlyweds and thanks for taking us to the airport on our way out of town. The wedding was beautiful and a lot of fun.

Part II

Before we went home we went to Isla del Tigre, an island that is part of Honduras in the Gulf of Fonseca in the Pacific Ocean, with other married couples in PC Honduras. We spent our last weekend in Honduras there before going home so that was lots of fun. It is a nice little place with nice sandy beaches and warm water to swim in. We also hiked to the top of the dormant volcano where we could see Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. It was beautiful and we saw some amazing sunsets while staying there. (See photos). To get to and from the island you have to take a boat, which was fun. Apparently on weekends they have a swim to the island but sadly no one in our group participated in this. As a side note, the island is also featured on the back of the 2 Lempira Note here in Honduras.

Part III

We have been back in Catacamas now for 4 full days, getting back into the swing of things. The first night back, Shannon found a GIANT Wolf spider on our kitchen wall and made Kevin come kill it. The thing was huge, bigger than the palm of Kevin’s hand! Kevin wanted to take a picture of it but was afraid it would escape and Shannon would never forgive him for that (besides the fact that she probably wouldn’t have slept at all that night, fearing the spider would come get her in her sleep because what else would spiders do?). It has rained every night we have been home and the power has gone out every day since we have been home, including right now as we write this. Of course we started when the power was on but it left, tried to come back on, and left again. Now the air is still with no fan to blow the air around. When we left three weeks ago, everything was dead and the fields were being burned off for the planting of the new crops for when the rains come. Now, things are as green as they possibly could be and apparently it rained A LOT while we were gone, a month or so ahead of normal. It is nice when it rains because it cools things off but then it gets humid and sometimes the air gets really still and we don't like that. Work is coming along here. Shannon is continuing where she left of and Kevin starts his English class at the university on Thursday where he will teach Thursday and Friday mornings and they just started a new trimester so he will also be busier helping some other teachers with field activities. We also received a new volunteer here in Catacamas, a female business volunteer from California so that is exciting. We received 4 new volunteers in Olancho, all females, taking our total females here in Olancho from 2 to 5. Shannon was happy about that, and frankly so were some male volunteers in the area. That about sums it up for now as life continues on in the third world.

May 23, 2009

So, we have had problems with internet and have been too busy to get this darn blog post posted. It has continued to rain every night, except Thursday where it only rained in the afternoon and evening. A couple of nights it rained really hard and we found we have three leaks in our roof when it rains hard, leaving a puddle on the kitchen floor. When it rains that hard our street also turns into a river, a pretty awesome sight actually. Our back patio also floods and we have to sweep it off. Things are pretty much back to normal here. It was really hard to adjust at first and Shannon especially, was not very happy. We are getting used to living in a third world country again but still miss the U.S. We have been showing the new volunteer around and it is interesting to see her reactions as we were there 6 months ago. We have both been told that we look fatter which is true since we both gained about 5 pounds at home! The new kittens have grown a lot and we are looking for homes for them and hopefully getting the older ones fixed now that we have found a vet who performs that surgery. Today on the bus back from Juticalpa, a car passed us and we heard what sounded like gun shots. People on the bus said that they were shooting at cows but who knows…oh Olancho.

Last Friday, we went to visit a cave that Kevin already had visited but had not really explored the inside of. The cave does not have trails or lights inside it which made it a lot more fun to explore with our headlamps. There were three big rooms and one short tunnel in which Shannon supposedly saw a spider and got scared and ran away. She did continue to explore in the cave, just not in any small spaces. There were lots of sparkly rocks and some cool formations. It was the first time that either of us had explored a cave on our own without a guide, and it was awesome! After exploring the cave, we went out and swung on vines Tarzan style. It was really fun and we highly recommend it. We ended up going back the next day because more people wanted to see the cave and it was still awesome. We also had to retrieve the camera case that the cave stole from us. Luckily we got it back, without much of a struggle. This week we have been meeting with a Fullbright Specialist in linguistics who is helping us become great English teachers. This is especially helpful to Kevin as he will be teaching English at the university next semester. Kevin also went on another tour of the University (he learns something new every time) and milked a cow for the first time in his life and tried the fruit of the cashew tree as well as some juice. Not bad. Today, for the second time in 10 days we have enough water pressure to take a shower, without a bucket. Because it has been so dry, there isn't enough water and some days we only have it in the sinks and other days not at all. It is also the season to burn off the dead fields and we could barely see the mountains (that are really, really close)yesterday and today. It is kind of like being back at home but worse. It is also really hot here now and Shannon wants to die 500 times a day. Friday we are going to Isla Del Tigre and Amapala to hang out with other married couples in Peace Corps Honduras. Then to the glorious United States, we can hardly wait to see everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, once again it has been a while since we have last written on our blog. Almost three weeks this time. We have both done some traveling, together and separately, for work and for fun and we have done many things since the last post. There are four new links to photos at the top of the blog from this last week we spent traveling for Semana Santa (Holy Week) but first we will start where we left off. Shannon went to a week long workshop called Joven a Joven in Valle de Angeles, close to where we had our training. The workshop was for youth development volunteers and a community partner that they brought with them and focused on teaching youth skills to find a job such as interviewing and also how to choose a career that they like. During that time, Kevin stayed home and continued going to the university and he met up with Shannon in Tegucigalpa on the following Saturday where we spent two nights together there before Shannon left to Siguatepeque where she had a two day training meeting for the new emergency phone coordinators. Honduras is split up into E-zones where two people in each zone have special phones and receive important messages and relay them to the rest of the volunteers in their zone. This really would come into play for emergencies but we get messages about big road closures and things of that sort so we know where to avoid if we are traveling. As a result she has a new phone number 011-504-9965-4039, call her lots;). While Shannon was doing that, Kevin went to an exchange with the guides of the children's hands-on science museum located in Tegucigalpa. We mostly talked about environmental education stuff but it was a good cross cultural experience as well and it was nice to see such a nice museum where kids can learn in a such a poor country. We were planning on going to the Honduras/Mexico World Cup Qualifying game in San Pedro Sula that Wednesday but decided not too as it would be expensive and Honduras had not played very well their last two games but ended up winning (and dominating Mexico) 3-1. Go Honduras! Honduras now sits in third position just above Mexico. We came home that Wednesday and the university Kevin is working with hosted several professors from North Carlina State University's ag department so Kevin went with them Thursday up to the mountains where they talked to some local farmers and leaders and ate a home cooked meal and drank horchata made from scratch. They went on a walk to a large cave and then swung on vines like Tarzan (pictures coming soon). Friday, we both went with the NCSU people on a tour of Catacamas and then went to the university to have lunch and a meeting about how the two universities could cooperate together more in the future. Saturday we both went with many university workers and the NCSU peope to a nice lunch at a Tilapia place just outside of town. It was interesting to hear their views on Honduras and the university and students.

This past week was Semana Santa and we spend Monday at the beach of the coastal town of El Porvenir, near La Ceiba on the Caribbean Coast. It was a miserable trip up, we decided to go the "shorter, cheaper" way on a dirt road that was not really short or cheap. The bus we wanted never came so we took another that went approximately 20 miles per hour (if even that fast), was super crowded (at one point the two of us were sharing a seat big enough for only one person with a little girl who nobody would let sit down), so hot and dusty. We left our house at 4:30 AM and did not arrive in El Porvenir until 7:30 PM after 3 buses and and a rear-ending accident caused by a cow! We stayed with a volunteer who works there and had a lot of fun. Four of us went and watched UNC trounce MSU in the NCAA basketball final that night. Tuesday we went into La Ceiba and had a nice lunch and then tried to watch a movie but the theaters didn't open until night. Then came the rain, and boy did it pour. We left to Comayagua Wednesday morning while it was still raining. We got to Comayagua, ate at Wendy`s and then went to another volunteers site to spend the night about 30 minutes away. It was hot there. Thursday we returned to Comayagua and toured the religious museum and the bell tower of the cool looking cathedral (see pictures) and went through the Casa de Cultura. That night was when they started building the alfombras. They start between 9:00 and midnight and work all night to have them completed by 10:00 AM the next morning. Generally a family or an organization pays for the materials and friends and family make the alfombra.

Most of the alfombras are made of colored sawdust imported from Guatemala or El Salvador but some use other materials such as egg shells, rocks, glass, seeds, etc. in their designs. There were probably close to 50 alfombras this year. At around 10:00 Friday morning the small procession starts with children dressed as Jesus carrying crosses with crowns of thorns and fake blood, men wearing what look like KKK hoods, and people singing, and a band goes around the whole circuit of carpets, slowly destroying them one by one. So sad. All that hard work gone in a matter of minutes. But, it was beautiful to see and we highly recommend it to anyone in the area during Semana Santa. They do some amazing work. We finally returned home last Saturday and enjoyed a very low key Easter dinner on Sunday. It was nice to relax in our own home.

Next up: The island of La Tigra and the city of Amapala in the Pacific and then our trip back to California. Our Spanish will suffer.

So it's been awhile since we've written, I guess we've been busy! Shannon has been busy with a prevention program for sixth graders that focuses on self-esteem, plans for their futures, and learning about the harms of drugs and alcohol. She has been enjoying meeting lots of kids, but disappointed with the school system in general and the teachers. So far, all of the teachers have left when she and her counterpart arrive and they do not help out at all, and sometimes cannot be found at the end of the talk to come back to their classes. The kids also seem to spend more time at snack and recess than they do in the classroom. They wander in and out of the classroom as they like, generally not asking permission. Sometimes kids from other classes wander in. The classes are also huge, some as big as 50 kids! Last week she went to a class and during their snack, a group led by this girl in the shortest skirt ever, started practicing a dance routine that they were going to perform the following day at their father's day celebration. The dance involved lots of gyrating and grinding and was very scandalous, but just a normal dance here! Shannon is also busy with a dental hygiene program. Colgate donated the toothbrushes and toothpaste and she is working with three schools in first through third grade. She does the program in very poor areas and the children were so excited to receive their toothbrushes! It was almost like Christmas. She gives a talk about dental hygiene with the teacher each week and the kids have to brush their teeth everyday after their snack in school. This goes on for six months and they then receive another toothbrush to take home to continue their tooth brushing. It is a really great program and so important since many of the children do not have tooth brushes nor do they know anything about dental hygiene. Shannon also started her English classes. She has two classes of fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. There was almost a riot on her first day of class because 40 teachers showed up and she told them that she could only have 30 in the class. It turned out that there was a group from Juticalpa which is a half an hour away and she told them that they were not allowed to be in the class since they live too far away for her to do the two required observations of them teaching English. They were not too happy but after a call to her boss and a promise that they can request a youth volunteer for their town, they calmed down and class resumed. Shannon has also been doing self-esteem talks in two classes at a private school. These are Fridays during the last two periods of the day so it is a bit tricky since the kids have pretty much checked out...she has been doing learning activities since they respond better to these, but that can still be hard in a class of 50 high school kids! She also started helping our site-mate with a pregnant teenager class that she will be taking over when Kendra leaves. It is basically a group for women under the age of 20 who are pregnant. It meets once a month and a nurse talks about a health-related topic and we she talks about a topic such as self esteem or drugs. Kevin has been busy too! He and a group of university students went to the mountain community in which he works and taught the community members how to plant a family garden. This was quite a process organizing the community and making the garden. While he was there he held a baby monkey, most likely captured out of the jungle, and Shannon was very jealous! Kevin was also on a safety and security panel for the group of new Peace Corps trainees. He talked about our robbery and how to stay safe in Honduras. He also went to a town about 3 hours away called Nueva Palestina because a church from North Carolina is helping them to make sand water filters and other environmentally friendly things and the university is thinking about becoming involved as well. He met a lot of people including a blind man who in an incredible guitar player. Last week three of the new trainees came to visit our site-mates to see what volunteers actually do in their sites. It was interesting to talk to the new trainees and be able to offer some advice to ease their worries. We (well everyone but Shannon since she had to work), went to the nearby caves and walked around in the park, nice and relaxing. This weekend we had some more visitors and ate a lot of good food and relaxed...it will be nice to be visitor-free for a little while!

So, apparently we have not written a blog update in a couple of weeks. That either means we have been super busy or just don't care (pick the first one). Shannon has gone to lots of schools to talk about drug/alcohol prevention with 6th graders and everything is in place for it to begin with about 10 schools. She also gave a charla on drugs and alcohol to teachers at one of the private schools, the different types of drugs, signs and symptoms of use, and how to work with kids that you suspect are using. She has also begun a program through Colgate in which she will go to three different schools working with first, second, and third graders. She will help the teachers to organize weekly lessons on dental hygiene, how to avoid cavities, and similar topics. Colgate provides manuals, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap, and the children have to brush their teeth and wash their hands everyday after their snack for six months. After six months, they receive a new toothbrush to take home to continue their tooth brushing. This is really important as there are many children who have never used a toothbrush before and have rotten teeth. She is really excited and glad to have good counterparts that are also excited and willing to devote time to this project. Last weekend, Shannon and her friend Elizabeth went to visit their friend Hillary in Yaramela, La Paz, near the middle of Honduras. It was a girls only trip so Kevin was banned. It was great for her to see another site that is much smaller and less developed than Catacamas, as well as projects being done. They also went to Comayagua, which used to be the capital of Honduras, and has a giant cathedral. The town is smaller than the current capital, Tegucigalpa, but much cleaner and safer. The cathedral was beautiful and they also saw two other big churches (one of these three is supposedly the oldest church in Honduras but nobody seemed sure which one it was). They then went to Tegucigalpa for doctors appointments and ate lots of great American fast food that would not be nearly as appetizing in the U.S.. Shannon has since given up junkfood for Lent as she does every year. It is much harder here as junkfood, especially chips, cookies, and soda, is a staple for most people here. Kevin wasn't totally bored while Shannon was gone as he worked and visited The Las Cuevas de Talgua- The Cave of the Glowing Skulls. The tour takes you back 400 meters into the cave where there is a locked gate because they are still studying the human bones beyond it. But, there is a latter that climbs 11 meters and then there is a room that comes back over where you walked in the cave where they discovered a calcified human burial ground from about 400 A.D. The cacified remains "glow" when you look at them with lights. It is crazy to think ancient people went back that far into a cave climbed up over thirty feet to another room to bury their dead there, and they didn't even have flashlights!

This weekend we were busy in the mountains. On Saturday, we went with four students and one teacher from the University up to the community, La Flor de Cafe, that Kevin works in to talk about the family gardens that the university students will help him create in the community. It was a good trip and lots of plans were made. There are about 30 families that want to participate and most of them came to the meeting. After the meeting we went to the house of one of the families to look at their existing garden and they gave us lots of plants to take home. Most of them were cuttings that they said to just stick in the ground so who knows if they will live but we have our fingers crossed. Today, we went up to another mountain community, La Florida, to talk to the community about a fogon project that has been in the works for years. Unfortunately, the other two volunteers who tried to work on this project were both sent home early and it never got completed. The project will be creating more efficient wood burning stoves that have chimneys so the smoke does not stay in the house and use much less wood. We had quite a hike up a steep mountain to reach the community but it was definitely worth it. The community is located in the middle of the forest. A lot of the area right around the town has been cleared for agriculture but it is gorgeous nonetheless and has breathtakingly beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The people are extremely poor without electricity, or water in their houses, but very nice and generous (we ate so much food that we could barely walk back!). We had our first meal without silverware (tortillas work just as well as forks), and some really good lemongrass tea. It was a very long day but very rewarding. We also saw a rare species of toucan and several other bird species as well as Shannon's favorite animal - monkeys! White Faced Monkeys too be exact and later we heard Howler Monkeys off in the distance. It was an exciting, adventurous and eventful day and we look forward to having more like it.