I don't know if it is the time of year or our upcoming Reconnect meeting, but it seems as though many volunteers in my group (Honduras 13) with about eight months to go are reflecting on both past experiences, setting goals for their remaining service, and planning for life after Peace Corps. I am no different.

I both ended last year and began this year with an amazing trip home to the States and really the only thing you need to know is that in two weeks: I celebrated Christmas in Albuquerque, witnessed my parents renew their vows after 25 years of marriage, stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, played Blackjack in Vegas with my sister, and celebrated New Year's with friends in Tempe. It was a wonderful whirlwind.

Jake showing off his new Shades in Vegas Sneaky Molly peeking at her Presents

Returning back to Honduras is always challenging after a vacation and this trip was no different. There are these feelings of disconnect and frustration. However, my feelings were vanquished by translating over four days for a medical brigade from the states. I had translated for this brigade last year so I already felt comfortable already with the schedule and most of the people. The brigade consisted of a group of doctors and other volunteers (mostly) from a Episcopalian church in Louisiana. We traveled to four different communities over four days offering basic consultations and medicine.

It was amazing to see the difference in myself from the year before. Last year, I had only been out of training three months and I spent the entire time translating with a spanish-English dictionary. But the changes weren't just in the growth of my language abilities. I now feel more confident as a volunteer, more settled in Honduras, and at peace with my life here. Last January, everything in my life felt like a struggle. I was anxious to find work and to "integrate" into my community. I hoped to make friends with the other volunteers in Santa Barbara and consistently sought their advice. I was bored and worried about being bored. I felt as though I should be out "doing" something and not just drinking coffee and hanging out. And although I am often still presented with frustrating circumstances or boredom, I have learned to accept these circumstances as part of my Peace Corps experience. Working in the brigade really forced me to notice how confident and relaxed I have become in my role as a volunteer. On the flip-side, I also noticed in myself more cynicism. Living in a developing country, it is really hard not to get frustrated with the operations of the government, corruption, workings of Non-governmental agencies, and sometimes, the very actions of people around you. However, cynicism just breeds more dissatisfaction and pushes out hope for improvements and change and every time I notice such cynicism in myself, I will continue to try to fight it off even if I have to sit all day in my hammock to do so.

Additionally, the brigade coming from a religious organization prayed every morning and evening before meals asking the Lord to bless the day and drawing to mind their commitment to service. I was inspired by both their faith and their actions. Every member of the group treated all of us with kindness, respect, and good humor. And the prayer and reflection each day, drew to my mind why I joined to Peace Corps in the first place. Beyond the experience of travel and learning some Spanish, I was called to serve. I was called to leave behind what was comfortable and safe, to help where I could and to be in right relationship with God's people. It was really a blessing to volunteer with this brigade for the week and I left feeling more motivated and committed for the rest of my service.

We have our Project Workshop next week. There are six projects in Honduras of which three arrive every six months or so. Municipal Development arrives in July for Training, has swear-in in September, and Project Workshop in February (this schedule applies to Youth Development and Protected Areas Management also). So MuniD, Hondu 13 will be reunited for the last time as a group until our Close of Service conference in June! We will all give small presentations on a theme of our choice that will (hopefully) be useful for the new group of Municipal Development volunteers (H-15).

In the next month, I will resume teaching English to Honduran teachers, working with the youth group through the library, and trying to ensure that kids are drinking clean/purified water in school! I am already planning my next travel excursion and looking forward to some possible visitors. Consider this your open invitation to visit and experience the true Honduran experience.

Well, to finish up. I have come far in the last year. I had some challenging experiences and I, like many people in Honduras and around the world, are looking forward to a New Year!

(As a side note, I found a dead lizard in my pila the other day. I fished it out and now it is decaying outside my house in the dirt. Sometimes, I feel like my life is a science experiment.)

Peace out.

Wrapping up a Year My life has been incredibly crazy and eventful the last few months, leaving me once again with an amazing excuse for why I haven’t updated my blog. October was a month of great accomplishments and many amazing travels. After the first year in Peace Corps, volunteers travel to their home base to receive what is called Midterm Meds. As Honduras has one of the largest numbers of volunteers, the group is divided even smaller into projects for these appointments. That means that, I am a Hondu13 Municipal Development Volunteer and I had my meds in October (just over a year in country) in the third week (following both the PAM and Youth Volunteers). In out infinite wisdom, we decided to take advantage of the fact that Peace Corps would be paying for some of our travel costs and planned a trip for the weekend before MuniD meds and after Youth. Amanpala is an island off the western coast of Honduras, snuggled between Nicaragua and El Salvador. We had just about twenty people in a comfortable hotel/home right on the beach and spent an amazing couple days in the sunshine and water, eating fish(I ate something else), and enjoying the platica(chatting). So all of us MuniDers ended up in Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) a few days later to be poked and prodded. It all started with an early morning check-in with the Peace Corps Medical Officers (PCMOs) to discuss any current problems or concerns and then a full day of riding around to different appointments. I personally saw the PCMO, the Dentist, the Orthopedists, and got fitted to have lenses replaced in my glasses. You can only imagine how tiring this all was. But on the upside, we ended up hitting the Honduras Maya (big fancy hotel) for Happy Hour and then a local restaurant for some amazing food. I had an Eggplant sandwich with mozzarella cheese. We all felt very fancy indeed sitting around with our cocktails. The next few weeks were just as hectic. I had my regional security meeting where our Security Officer and Country Director (the big cheese) meet with all the volunteers in a region to discuss current security concerns and to remind us not to be lax in our own safety and security precautions. Overall not very fun but always nice to spend a night with a few other volunteers and eat food paid for by PC. Halloween is the only event held in Honduras and planned by Volunteers in which all volunteers are invited to attend. Every year, Volunteers flock to Copan Ruinas one of the largest tourist sites in Honduras for a few nights of revelry and costumed fun. I decided to skip seeing the Mayan Ruins that attract so many tourists for a later date when I could really take the time to enjoy and instead spent a day at the Bird Park which was a really incredible experience. The birds were all very beautiful and the setting very scenic and relaxing. The most memorable part of the weekend had to be Halloween night itself. You would never believe the creativity that can be shown when there are not Halloween stores or Hobby Lobbies to present you with an easy Halloween costume. Many people either made their own or paid a member of their community to sew them a costume from scratch. There were pirates (me, not creative but I was tired from all my adventures sue me), a bar maid, a Pulperia (the local type of store which sells everything from eggs to chips), a nun (the pulperia’s husband), two ears of corn, a Mayan virgin sacrifice, a Balloon Boy (which none of us got because we don’t watch CNN), packman and two ghosts, Violet and Willy Wonka, Selena and her Backup guitarist, the devil, and many many more. I just walked around saying, WOW. Or, “that is sooo amazing.” There is this strange phenomenon being the Gringa in Honduras, and really being an obvious foreigner in a country. It’s what is called the “fish bowl” effect. Any obvious example is someone just staring at you because you are obviously different looking for everyone else or because you are doing something different than what everyone else does. One example is when I am sitting on my couch in the front of my house (much like I am right now) and someone walks up to my screen door and because they can’t see me watching them, presses their face up to the screen, cupping their hands around their eyes to block out the light. Now when I catch an adult doing this they usually run away embarrassed but when it’s a kid, sometimes they will just sit there and watch me. I will usually let this go on until the minute that my very feeling of discomfort overwhelms my cultural sensitivity, and I say, “Que Quiere?” (what do you want?) which is then usually followed by, “Nada” (nothing). And I respond with, “pues, no soy animal en una zoologica, vayase” (well, I am not an animal in a zoo, get out of here). Not very nice but effective. I have gone off on this tangent to explain “fish bowl” sensation in order that you can understand one of the strange things that happens at Halloween. The Halloween costume celebration takes place at a bar in Cupan Ruinas as many as (seriously, someone just pressed their face to my door….) 150 volunteers attend. And as the party goes on Honduras load their families up into cars and drive past the bar to view the Mayhem. I definitely understand their interest if hundreds of gringos came to my town to celebrate some holiday that was completely foreign to me, I might drive by and we were all in costume! It doesn’t change the fact that part of me felt uncomfortable, part of my wished for the anonymity of home where dressing up in costume on the 31st of October is not only normal but somewhat encouraged. Overall, the fun outweighed any awkwardness. All in all, October was an amazing month. I had some great adventures but also finished up some great projects. I have been teaching English to teachers since last April and we finally wrapped up the first week of October with all my teachers receiving passing grades sufficient to receive a Peace Corps Diploma and an official certificate from the Ministerio de Educacion de Honduras. We will be having a small graduation ceremony this week and I hope it will be a celebration to all their hard work. I am also looking forward to continuing with the same class next year for the second tier of the course and starting back at level one with some new interested teachers. Up next in Blog land, teaching computers to someone of has never touched a keyboard, Thanksgiving, elections (maybe some Peace in Honduras), and getting ready to go home for Christmas! As always, pictures are on facebook or my Picasa account. The ones from Amanpala are amazing! B

I posted some pics of my house on my picasa account! Things at hoem have been improving as people in town continue to lend me furniture and other household items. Recently, I have had more than a few run-ins with creepy crawlers in the middle of the night. Frogs in the bathroom, tarantula in the kitchen, and a scorpian in my bed. Also, I had ants try to take over but some raid and a broom took care of most of them.

Recently, things have been comfortably busy. I have some work and am looking forward to some trips I have planned in October.

So as always, Peace, Love, and Avocados,

Brenna

Check it out!

http://picasaweb.google.com/brenna.gormley/MiCasaEsSuCasa?authkey=Gv1sRgCJLXgcnZ6K-dZg#

Months of Training Survived: 3

Parasites (identified): 1

Earthquakes: 1

Books Read: 25*

Packages Received: 6 (amazing!)

Golpes de Estado (Cout d’etat): 1

Attempts by Zelaya to Re-enter the Country by force: 2

Frogs found in Toilet: 2

Times Faucet Left on and House flooded: 3

Islands Visited: 4

Bones Broken: 0

Jalons: 10*

Trips Home: 1

Tortillas Eaten: 303*

Friends made: Many

Friends and Family Missed: Too Many

Months left in Service:12

*approximations or best guess

Last weekend, I traveled to the beautiful Colonial town of Santa Rosa de Copan for an event called, “Noche de Los Fumadores” or Night of the Smokers. The event is a promotion for Honduras’ cigar industry and takes place during Santa Rosa’s yearly Feria and with the cost of admission we received a box of cigars, a samply of coffee, a small handy tote bag, and food and drinks for the evening. There were presentations of cigar rolling as well as a short concert by the Honduran singer Guillermo Anderson. The night was semi-formal and it was nice to see all the volunteers dressed up for the night, leaving at home their Northface gear and chakos. For many of us it was the first time we had been so shiny since the swearing-in ceremony (I literally had to dust of my high heels). There were more than 60 volunteers in attendance and we were a third of everyone at Noche. I met a bunch of new volunteers and hung out with some old favorites.

Saturday I spent exploring town and sampling coffee which was one the many things going on for the feria. Santa Rosa is really a very nice town with little cafés and restaurants as well as those great cobblestone streets. As volunteers, we reveled in the luxury while at the same time mocking Santa Rosa as Fresa (Fancy) especially after seeing the mani-pedi someone had treated herself too.

As always pics are on the picassa site or facebook.

Continuing to live the dream,

Brenna

Hey friends!

It’s been a while since I have blogged but I am going to try to get back into keeping everyone up to date.

The last month or so has been challenging as I have tried to find may way through the many challenges resulting from the “coup d’état” that occurred in the last week of June. President Mel Zelaya was evicted from Honduras by the Congress and Supreme Court for attempting to hold a survey regarding changes to the constitution over explicit court orders that such a survey was illegal under the constitution. Although some people spend time trying to find fault in the whole mess, to me what is most important at this point is finding a workable solution. Many, many problems have resulted from Zelaya’s deportation. The teacher’s union which grew to incredible strength under Zelaya continues to support him. Most participants in rallies and marches have been teachers or other leaders in the education system. There have also been many strike days which has resulted in missed school days. I can say confidently that the children in my municipality have had more days without school than with school in the last two months. Also, the change in government has left many municipalities without funding as well as many projects. For example, the construction and paving of the dirt road to my site has stopped. Also as NGO’s have left Honduras and many other nations have cut off funding, many social projects are temporarily stopped or canceled. What this means in the Volunteer community is that for many weeks, many of our projects or job were affected and are just recently seeing a return to a small bit of normalcy. I would really need pages and pages to describe well the political situation, the diverse opinions of my Honduran friends and neighbors, and the feelings of uncertainly and frustration that we have all felt in the last months. I am sorry I can’t do real justice to the topic, but it seems really overwhelming a goal.

Instead, let me say that I am both safe and happy in Honduras. I am trying to continue with my work as best as I can while drawing on the positivity and strength of other volunteers as a relief from work related frustrations.

Highlights since my last post include:

An amazing trip home! I spent twelve short days home in Albuquerque and included a short jaunt to Arizona. I had just enough time to catch up with family and some friends. I feel like the whole thing went so fast, I wish I could do it all again at a slower pace. I loved seeing my grandparents and it was the first time I had seen my brother in over a year. He is now a good deal taller than I am but still not quite as good looking. My grandparents are in good health and it was nice to be able to sit and chat as well as eat some famous humpty dumpty eggs. I would have loved to see more friends but the trip to Arizona was so short and I was kind of overwhelmed at the prospect of having to say hi and goodbye all over again. So, if I didn’t get a chance to see you it doesn’t mean you aren’t in my thoughts and prayers.

Cayos Cuchinos! After a tough couple of weeks transitioning back into Honduras from the US of A, we had a great Municipal Development (and the otros) reunion on the North Coast. We spent a great few days together and I always feel recharged and ready to take all the world after such events. We also went to Cayos Cuchinos a group of islands off the coast with crystal clear water and an elusive dolphin and turtle population. We all went home pretty sun burnt but I have amazing pics posted on both facebook and my picassa account.

YO MEREZCO Graduation: After more than five months, I have wrapped up my Yo Merezco Class. Yo Merezco is a program designed by Honduran Health Volunteers to teach young girls abstinence to prevent juvenile pregranancies and the resulting social problems. Additionally, we discussed the cost of raising a child, gender, menstruation, anatomy, and self esteem. It was a really difficult class as many of the girls have low level critical thinking skills and a lot of embarrassment about discussing these personal topics. I was really proud of the girls who completed the course and had consistent attendance as we met outside of normal class time and they were not required to be there. I received funding from the Christian Children’s Fund which I believe is changing its name to just “The Children’s Fund” to hold a nice graduation. We invited all their parents as well as local community leaders and each girl received a diploma and after, we celebrated with tacos and cake. It was a great time had by all and I was left with the feeling that if at least one of those girls feels a greater self-worth and chooses not to have sex or waits until they are ready to take on the responsibilities of their actions, than I have made a small difference during my service.

I have posted pictures of my trip home, the graduation, and the trip to Cayos on the web and I would be happy to have everyone check them out! Also, the new blog goal is a short entry once a week discussing something relevant to my Peace Corps experience, event, thought, book I have read, whatever. So, check back in and leave me a comment so that I don’t feel like I am writing for myself.

Live life abundantly!

Brenna

In May, El Nispero celebrated its founding anniversary, of how many years I can’t quiet remember and there is also the debate of whether they celebrate from the colonial population or from Honduran independence. For those who haven’t been tuned in. El Nispero, the municipality, has a population of about seven thousand of which 3,500 live in the city center, casco urbano. There are seven aldeas of which I work in one primarily, Santa Cruz. The day began with a parade through town and then many speeches made by Alcalde and other community leaders. There was also a gift given to EL Nispero’s oldest living mother, as the anniversary was celebrated the day before Mother’s Day. Later in the day, the community members sold comida typical, typical Honduran Foods, from chumpas, small shade structures. By late afternoon though, the main event started. If you need to know anything about El Nispero it is that we grow beans, corn, and coffee. Additionally, women make beautiful mats from tule, a straw like pant. This patate is made in both in both its natural coloring and died. Also, women often form the tule into folders, place mats, bags, and hot plates. So going back to the main event, there was what I guess would be translated into a fashion show in which every participant wore a dress made from and representing El Nispero and its agricultural produce. And this event is taken very seriously. Judges are brought in from Santa Barbara to judge the three different ages groups, kindergarten, elementary/middle school and high school. Additionally, each girl has to make a speech about her gown. Just check out these pics to see the hard work that all the mothers put into this event and you will see some spectacular art work!

Isn't she pretty?

I went home that night, after nearly being hit by a firework that was clearly not set off by a professional, fried crispy from the sun and totally happy!I will put more pics on my picassa account if you would like to see more of the great dresses.

Wishing you all Peace, Love, and Avocados,

B

Pues in the the spirit of Steph's recent blog, I have decided to make my own list. and though many things will be amazingly the same from worlds away, I think my list is a little different.

Things I miss from Home:

-Peanut M&Ms

-Carpet

-Washing Machines and Dryers (You really can't recreate the hot towels out of the dryer feeling,)

-Cheese

-Dark Chocolate

-Waking up with a cup of Coffee and the morning News and Music Videos

-Having super awesome Roommates (Living alone is not all it's cracked up to be)

-Going to Gym

- Friends and Family (especially that feeling that you can do something totally weird like break down crying for no reason and have someone who loves you anyways.)

Things I Love from Honduras:

-Jalons (Sitting in the bed of a truck on a sunny day with your friends is an inexplicable experience)

-Choco Bananas (Chocolate Covered Frozen Bananas, Best Ice Cream replacement ever, and it's fruit so it's healthy, right?)

-Coffee drying in the sun

-Little kids running home from the Kinder with their umbrellas.

-Walking around with an Umbrella

-Knowing all my neighbors and having them watch my house when I am not around

-Helpfulness, I can always find someone to carry my big water jug to the house

-The Honduran Hand Flick, moving your hand from palms downs to up, like what? what's up? how are you?

-My Hammock

-Watching World Cup Qualifying Soccer games with people who all really care.

- Hot homemade tortillas

-Doing Yoga in my underwear cause it's to hot to otherwise

Changes for better and for worse:

-My complete lack of table manners, I won't be able to eat in public when I go home

-My stomache, will it ever be the same?

-A growing appreciation for the United States, I don't think I felt like an American until I left.

-Assuming every man is trying to hit on me and really, most of them are. "Adios, Brenna, mi amor." And I am pretty sure I had some guy proposing marriage at the last Baile. Although now, men shouting at me in the streets makes me irritated and annoyed, I think I will go home and when I walk by I group of guys and they don't say anything, I'll think, "what? You don't like this?"

-Being accustomed to chickens and pigs everywhere including restaurants, homes, and in the streets. I will now think nothing of finding a hair in my lunch.

Hello Folks out there in Computer land!

So although Semana Santa is now weeks in the past, I have yet to give you some insight into my amazing travel experiences. During Semana Santa in Honduras, as in most of Central America and other places in the world, time is taken to travel, visit friends, and head to your local swimming hole. I took the oppotunity to visit my good friend Jessica on the north coast early in the week and me and some of my closests 10-15 friends slept on her living room floor in high fashion on blow up mattresses. We took in the sun and beach during the day (me more than others) and hung out and played pictionary in the evenings.

For the end of the week, we all traveled down to Comayagua. Comayagua sits in about the center of Honduras and was the orginal capital of the country. It really is a beautiful city. It very much has the reminents of its colonial past complete with small windy streets, beautifully preserved cathedral, adn large central square.

This is my first picture so stay with me...

The reason we all went to Comayagua in droves such droves of gringos (I think there were up to twenty of us in just our hotel) was to see the famed alfmobras. We spent most of the day on Thursday visiting the 16th and 17th Century churches in Comayagua as well as the bell tower of the Cathedral, the Casa de Cultura, and the religious artifact museaum. The museaum unfortunatly burned down the next week adn I haven´t been able to find out how much of the history was lost (makes my heart just to think of it). Thursday evenign we all had dinner at a tacky Mexican food restaurant and caught the tail end of a a drama being performed for thousands in the Park of the Last Supper through Jesus´s arrest in the Garden. It was a day probably filled with more culture than I have had in a while!

Thursday evening, they begin making the alfmobras or carpets which are made from dide saw dust in intricate patterns and designs. Each alfombra is paid for by a group or family adn the design is their own, each different and unique. Thursday evenign there is a procession through the streets beginning around seven and nto ending until around ten, meaning that most carpets cannot be begun until sometime after that. All teams work through the night adn some barely finish before the Processional of the large platform carrying a statue of Jesus through the city lead by the Priest who stops every couple of blocks for one of the stations of the cross.

There are many theories about where this tradition comes from and I found a couple to put here:`There are several different theories regarding the history of the alfombras.

The Christian theory for carpet making appears to stem from the Bible itself. The Canonical Gospels describe how Jesus rode into Jerusalem, where people laid down their cloaks and small branches of trees.

Another theory is that local residents threw pine needles on the cobblestone streets to make it easier on the feet of the penitents carrying the floats (andas). Then later, some neighborhoods added flower petals. From there each street, wanting to outdo the other, started adding designs—until brilliantly colored sawdust alfombras became the norm.

Some say the custom of making carpets can be attributed to Spain and the Canary Islands. However, it is believed that in pre-Hispanic times Mayans made carpets for ceremonial reasons, which carried over to Holy Week celebrations. ´

`In many parts of Central America, the creation of alfombras is a typical Easter event. Alfombras are “carpets” made of brightly dyed sawdust that line the streets where Easter processions pass. These temporary decorations are said to have originated when carpenters used to spread sawdust on the streets to soften the path for the penitents who carry the heavy floats in the processions. Shortly after their construction, these intricately patterned carpets are trampled by people walking with the processions.The history of the carpets can also be traced back to the bible, where the Gospel describes how when Jesus rode into Jerusalem the people laid down their cloaks and tree branches in front of him.´

Overall, I would think that the alfombras lighten the load of the penitents who carry the large paltform through the city as well as symbolicaly cushioning the footsteps of Christ to the cross. And I think that the very destruction of the alfombras in so few hours after their creation is

really amazing.

When we forced the poor Hondurans to let us help!

So we all went to bed some time later andthen woke up at the crack of dawn to see the results. In the early morning light the alfombras practically glowed from their places gently laid in the street. Most group swere finsishing up last minute touches or sleeping along side their creations. We did see one guy who had done his own carpet by hand complete with chading and texture, no stencils. It was awesome! Around nine or so the processional started. A large platform carried by about twenty penitents complete with the traditional garb cone hats, maks, and robes. (If you´ve never seen it, much like you´d imagine someone from the KKK.) And they carry the platform very, very slowley, two shuffles forward, one shuffle back. And it most have been so hot in those dense red robes and masks. Unfortunalty, I didn´t get any pictures of the procession as my camera died right before. But I haev posted a monton more pics of the week on my picasa site as well as on facebook!http://picasaweb.google.com/brenna.gormley/SemanaSanta#Hope you enjoy!Lots of love,B

As you may or may not have heard I recently moved into my own house! It has been so refreshing to have my own space and a little bit more privacy after nearly eight months of living with host families. And although not all my experiences were negative, I now have to freedom to come and go as I please and not have to worry if I forgot to make my bed or if I’ll make it home to wash those dishes before my host mom does. My new house is huge. I have a small living area, a room which has been converted into my workout room, my bedroom, the storage room, and of course the kitchen, which is where I spend all my time as it has the hammock and all the food.

When my house first opened up and I was given a key, I rustled up one of my neighbors to help my clean. Now the neighbor I chose is a young girl about 14 who really takes care of her own house as her mother died a few years ago. She does most of the cooking and cleaning so I knew I had made a good choice. Hard worker? Check. Lots of experience? Check! When we arrive at the house with all the needed supplies, she immediately takes to the kitchen throwing water into all the cabinets and scrubbing down the countertops. I anxiously watch her technique but decide that she will use her own technique and I won’t interfere. So I take myself off to the storage cabinet which smells of old dust and dank. I immediately start cleaning cobwebs and cleaning out shelves. A few minutes later I pop my head out and my friend is pouring water all over the floor in the kitchen. Buckets of Water. And then she starts sweeping the water with my new broom. At this point I even bother to ask why she didn’t first seep and then use the broom and then it is explained to me that the mop would then get really dirty. I again go off to hide in the storage room telling my self that the floor is indeed really dusty and dirty and I am sure a Honduran knows better how to clean in Honduras than I do. Much like Stephanie’s family know how to clean her backpack than she ever will. So after a few minutes she starts sweeping the water down the stairs into the fall where I am assuming that she will sweep it down more stairs into the living room and out into the front door. But just as I have accepted my present situation, she gets a phone call from her brother and takes off for home promising to return soon, “Ya vengo.” Obviously, as you have guessed, she does not come back. I stand around for like and busying myself with other task when I finally accept that she isn’t coming back. I look at the floor, I have a river of dirty water in my kitchen in my hall, in some of the small rooms, and running into the living area. After a few moments of sheer frustration and even a visit from my neighbor’s muchacha (lady who works in the house and helps with cooking and cleaning, housekeeper) who offers to help, I stubbornly decide “well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” And I start throwing water and floors and take to sweeping it out the front door. It took at least an hour to finally get all the water out of the house and to be honest I am not completely convinced the floors were clean afterwards and not just wet. So, if you are ever in Honduras and someone offers to help you clean expect the unexpected and jump in and get your feet wet (maybe literally).

I have attached some pictures of my house, it’s a work in progress as I have almost no furniture but have recently inherited a host of kitchen supplies.

Love,

B

As today is my 23rd birthday, I am naturally reflecting on my last year and looking back as it really has been quite the year. I spent my last birthday at home with my family, living in Albuquerque and although I loved getting to spend some much needed quality time with my family and get to know better my cousins, I was working a job that I hated and waiting for time to pass more quickly. I received my Peace Corps acceptance letter in the first weeks of May and then walked at my ASU Honors Graduation. I then spent three glorious weeks touring Europe with my sister and Steph and it must be said we got lost only a few times and managed not to kill each other living in so close proximity. I saw London, Paris, Barcelona, and Rome and had the most amazing experience. When I got back to Albuquerque I had said my goodbyes to many of my friends and started preparing to leave. My mom was so great helping me pack. After a fabulous fourth, I boarded a plane to Washington where I had three days of Peace Corps Staging where we shown videos on “Unwanted Attention” and read the Peace Corps goals over and over. Lots of small group discussions and Charla paper. There were fifty of us at staging and I was so overwhelmed by the shear number of people. I was so lucky to have Jessica as my roommate and that we have made it this far still such good friends. And then I arrived in Honduras. I can’t believe so much as happened in the last year alone. My life has completely changed. I live in a small town in the middle of nowhere in my own house after having survived training and three host family experiences. I have made great friends both within the Peace Corps Community and in El Nispero. I can’t imagine what the next year will hold except to say that there will undoubtedly be lots of ups and downs. Hopefully, I will face each new obstacle with the lessons I have learned in the last year and have some amazing adventures! As well as a much needed trip home and maybe some delayed death by chocolate birthday cake!

Jen posted this on her blog and I thought it would be interesting with all the time Peace Corps has left me with to read and being a Lit minor how I would fare up. Keep in mind BBC believes most people have only read 6 of the 100. Check out where you stand too!

Look at the list and put an 'x' next those you have read.

x 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

x 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

x 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

x 6 The Bible

x 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

x 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

x 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

x 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

x 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

x 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

x 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

x 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

x 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

x 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

x 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

x 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

x 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

x 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (Does the pop-up version count?)

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

x 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

x 34 Emma - Jane Austen

x 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

x 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

x 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere

x 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

x 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

x 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

x 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

x 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

x 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

x 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

x 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

x 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

x 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

x 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

x 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Naboko

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X

x 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

x 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

x 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

x 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

x 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

x 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

x 80 Possession - AS Byatt

x 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

x 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

x 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

x 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

x 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I have some reading goals now! Wohoo!

As many have noticed my blog has been somewhat lacking entries for some time. I cannot tell a lie. I have no excuse. It may be for a while there that I was a little unhappy or later, a little two busy to write. After that I was so overwhelmed with all the writing I would have to catch up that I didn’t write anything which was also not very productive. I have there for decided to write a top ten list of my last two months in Honduras. 1.) I attended the REF Meeting in December which is one of the few Peace Corps support groups available. REF stands for Religious Equality Forum. We got together to discuss different points of view and also how to field questions in our sites where sometimes religious plurality is not seen as positive or interesting. The highlight of the whole meeting was when a tree fell onto our cabin and a board smacked me in the head. I proceeded to run outside and yell at the Hondurans standing around, “What the hell?” Yes, I yelled at them in English. I was in shock, give me a break. 2.) December was crazy. Not much work but lots of cultural learning. For example: I participated in the gift exchange at the municipality, “Amigos Secretos.” And this is how it went. The guy who chose me went first. They forced him to stand up and say something nice about me and then we took a picture together with the present. After that, he handed me the present and everyone watched me sit down. And then I thought to myself, “Do I open it now or are we going to wait until everyone has a gift?” My thoughts were interrupted by one of the ladies telling me it was my turn to give my gift. So this continued around the table, some nice words, the obligatory picture with said gift, and more passing. THEN, we all put our gifts aside to eat! Everyone took there presents home later to open up in secret. I have to tell you, as a selfish gift giver who likes to see the surprise, and displayed (sometimes fake) appreciation, it was a let down. However, I definitely learned a lot about Honduran culture and the act of gift giving. 3.) I threw a Christmas party for the youth group I am working with. Lots of silliness but overall, a great time. Especially since they kept insisting that they wanted to dance but actually meant that they wanted to watch me dance! 4.) Went to Roatan with the folks and my Aunt Cathy for a wonderful, beautiful, restful Caribbean vacation. I can’t really give justice to the great time had by all or the beauty of the island and its’ coral reef. 5.) In six months I have graduated from trainee, to baby volunteer, to full-fledged, full privilege having volunteer. I can now travel for personal reasons and visit my super, awesome volunteer buddies around Honduras. 6.) To celebrate, I visited Mark and Lauren (a married MuniD – Youth (wish I was MuniD) couple) in their new home in La Esperanza. La Esperanza is one of the highest points in Honduras and definitely one of the coldest. I wore a hat and many layers all weekend (even inside the house). La Esperanza has a really large Lenca population and really gives the town a different feeling then anywhere else I have been in Honduras. 7.) I watched inauguration coverage from my couch in Spanish. It was a really great day in American History and its amazing how more American I feel since joining the Peace Corps. 8.) I have recently become obsessed with people who post the “25 random things about Me” on Facebook. Its amazing hat you learn and the list is starting to feel a little random….. 9.) Last week was our yearly Reconnect meeting in which all the Municipal Development volunteers get together for a three day conference to share what we are working on and to hear updates from Peace Corps Staff. It was a great week. I love seeing all my friends together and meeting some new people. I was inspired by all the support we have been able to offer here in Honduras and I feel ready to tackle some new projects! 10.) I am officially moving into my own house this week! I hope to take some pictures and post them soon. It’s got three bedrooms, a living room, and a large kitchen. It’s more space then I know what to do with and hope that I can make it homey and loved. That’s it for now, signing off until next time (which will surely come faster than the last time)! B

I believe that the last blog post I wrote was over six weeks ago when I first arrived in El Nispero. In the hopes that I haven’t lost my entire readership, I am going to attempt to describe what I have been up to lately. My first couple of weeks in El Nispero I attempted to adjust to my new schedule and daily routine. Coming from training which was so controlled and scheduled it was a chock to suddenly have some semblance of self-directed activity during the day. In those first couple of weeks I would wake up early get to the Municipality around eight and then sit and try to get the other employees to explain to me what they were working on or why they were filling out those papers or when they would be traveling next to an aldea that I could bum a ride to. My counterpart (the mayor or Alcalde) would ask me if I was making friends and if I was happy. I am not really sure I answered truthfully to either of those two questions. It was frustrating to not have anything really to do. I finally have caught on to many of the office rules and procedures though. The Alcalde is rarely in the office outside of Monday and Friday. The first time I wanted to talk to him I waited around for hours because as he is rarely in the office, when he is there is aline of people waiting to lodge a complaint or get married or share a taco with the Mayor. I have since learned not to wait in line but just to barge right in asking for a few minutes when he is free or just sitting down in his office waiting for his current meeting to finish. I have also learned not to sit around the office waiting for someone to ask for my help. I stop by the office almost daily and make meeting times with the employees to work on projects. If I arrive to work on something and they are not there, I call them and then leave if they are not working that day. Right now we are creating a PowerPoint presentation of the pictures of the over 200 families that have received supplies to better there homes in the last six months, things like concrete for flooring or tin for roofing. It really is a project that could be completed without me but I think I was asked to help because of my typing skills. One of the best things about the project is that we are including everyone’s names. This has been the most entertaining situation. Whomever I am working with tell me the name of the person and then I attempt to type it. In the U.S. the most Hispanic names are also names in Honduras, for example Juan, Migual, Hector, Maria. However, there seem to be a whole host of names here in which I can’t figure out there origin. Names like Maximilian and Belky and Hiedi (spelled Geydi). I seem to have the hardest time with names that sound completely different in Spanish but are a name I would easily recognize in English. And then it becomes one of those awful situations where they end up yelling the name at me and I just sit there and laugh. They think the volume in which they say it will help me understand. I try to explain that it is easier if I just copy it from he list but we have continued on in this reading the name aloud and I attempting to spell it correctly from the sound. Also, I am attempting to organize the office and encourage the staff to start backing up ay important documents onto cds. This hasn’t gone especially well as it is election season and all time seems to be devoted to this activity (more on elections later) My other main counterpart is Yoni (like Johnny) Ponce who is the President of the Board of Directors of the Reicken Library and works as an administrator at one of the High Schools (evidently he is my Mayor’s running mate and will be the new Vice Alcalde if the Mayor wins reelection next November, in which it seems my two counterparts will become one…..I am not thrilled at this prospect). The first month or so I spent most of my afternoons at the library, checking my email and hanging out with all the kids who came by to do their homework. I often helped with homework or just bothered the kids by trying to help when they would have preferred to just copy the answers from the one person who did the work. I have also been participating with and helping to lead the Zona X group on Saturdays. It’s a group of young adults between 13 and 19 years old that was developed by the Reicken Foundation to instill some characteristics and activities that are being left out in their formal education. Things like, creativity, critical thinking, group work, and community service. Right not we are preparing and studying how to do a debate. It has definitely been interesting. Last week, I had them right arguments for made up debate topics and trying to teach the form of an argument, critical thinking, listening skills, and clarity of voice stretched my Spanish skills to the limit. This week we read poetry out loud as a prep for speaking in front of a group and speaking clearly with some emotion. They really got into it and I had a great time listening to them read Spanish poetry. Also, we are working on developing a community service project. I am not really sure how big to let them go this first step. It was suggested that we could do a small multi-sport court as the Aldea of Santa Cruz doesn’t have one. I am just not sure where I would receive funding and I don’t want them to become discouraged on there first project. The library has really been one of the greatest tools I have to meet new people and feel like a part of the community, I always leave feeling like I had talked to people and found out some new information about the community. With school ending this week (the school year runs February to November/December) and elections and in my community November and December are coffee cutting season so many of the older kids and most of the community is out on the fincas, it has been really slow. I can’t seem to really start any new projects or find anyone with really any time to do so. I do have many ideas for the coming year and am beginning to see the needs of the community. Speaking of, If anyone has any ideas on how to start some kind of special education program or a basic support system or training for teachers in a community with few resources let me know. I am starting to do some research and there is a definite need but I am not quiet sure where to start. Well, I think that is enough for now. Although elections will be covered further as I have some amazing pictures and stories from attending rallies. I hope everyone is well and that you have a safe, and fun Thanksgiving! Watch the Macy’s Parade and think of me (maybe I will be able to catch some of it on Univision, you never know)! Much love.

A current Volunteer and I were recently discussing another Volunteer of little words. It was said that this volunteer of little words once asked the most profound statement What’s the longest you’ve ever Jaloned? To Jalon (pronounced ha – lon), is more commonly know in English as hitchhiking. The art of which I will probably be exploring throughout my service so I just wanted to explain the import term now. Obviously, being female my choice of Jalon will be limited and consist mostly of jalons in my site or with groups. Once coming back from Santa Barbara, in the pouring rain with a group of people from my town, about twelve people piled into the back of our truck to Jalon back to El Nispero. Did I mention it is pouring rain? So, this one woman hands us off her baby. A baby, baby. Maybe less than a year old. She just hands him to us three girls sitting in the back of the truck while she rides in the back. I saw her on the bus yesterday, and her baby still seems to be doing well regardless of the mother’s handing her off to strangers. But by far the most interesting story of a jalon actually occurred during my site visit three weeks ago in Santa Barbara. I can into Santa Barbara to travel back to Tegucigalpa to finish training with a group from my town. We arrived early and ahead of Jessica (who I would be traveling back with) and so after showing me where the bus was already parked, we went into a café for a breakfast baleada. Jessica called me about twenty minutes later and told me that she was now walking towards the bus. As I came out of the cafe, I said my departing words to my compatriots and turned the corner to the bus. Amazingly, bus not there! I am wearing my huge backpack and decide just t walk towards where the bus WAS sitting and investigate. I make it about a half a blok when a truck pulls up and a guy yells out the window to me, “Tegucigapla?” After some discussion I found out the bus had moved to avoid parade traffic and that the guy was in fact offering me a jalon to the bus and not all the way to Tegucigalpa (I could just imagine Juan Carlos our head of security’s face if I jaloned in the back of a truck of three hours on the major freeway). So I am in the back of this truck and the adrenaline is pumping, as I am praying we make it to the bus before it leaves. Additionally, I call Jessica, “So, I am in the back of a truck, seems the bus has moved from where it normally leaves from, save me a seat.” I would love to say that this will probably be the last time such a thing will happen but it seems that in Honduras you just need to roll with things as they come. It’s the Peace Corps’s favorite buzz word, FLEXIBILITY.

El Nispero, Santa Barbara

Hello All!

I have finally arrived to my site in El Nispero, Santa Barbara. I can’t believe that training and swear-in have all passed so quickly. During the time, training seemed to drag on and on and on….but it’s over! Yay! Now the real work begins.

Training ended last Friday with our swear-in ceremony. We all arrived early Friday morning to the Peace Corps Office in Tegucigalpa wearing our Sunday best. It was great to see everyone dressed up but it also had the feeling of 8th grade graduation or a High School awards ceremony as we all loaded into the school bus for one final time. After a tour of the Peace Corps Office and some minor housekeeping issues, we traveled to the U.S. Embassy Honduras in Tegucigalpa. The ceremony it self was nice and short and was presided over by our Host Country Director and a representative from the State Department. The newly sworn-in Ambassador to Honduras was in Washington and couldn’t be in attendance. The best parts of the whole thing was probably the amazing number of pictures we took of ourselves during the day (in front of the Honduran flag, now in front of the Peace Corps flag, ok…now with the Santa Rita crowd…) and the amazing taco bar. After our brief ceremony, we were once again loaded up into the bus and were off to the Ambassador’s house where we could use the pool, tennis courts, and sand volleyball court. And wouldn’t you know within five minutes of being there it began to rain. One of those crazy Honduran rains where it just pours and pours. It lasted all of half and hour and then everyone kinda split up to roam around. It only took about ten minutes after that for Ryan to break his nose diving into the leg of Emily out in the sand volleyball court. So our babysitter, one of the Peace Corps Technical Staff, had to haul him off to the hospital. Around five o’clock we load back on for the last time as a group of 49(48 minus Ryan) of Hondu-13. The majority of us went on to a local bar in Zarabanda owned by an ex-pat for some burgers and pizza. All in all in was a really great day!

The next day Jessica and I loaded up on a bus for Santa Barbara, S.B. Santa Barbara is the capital city of my district and only about an hour bus ride from my site. It’s where I will go for groceries, including fresh fruits and vegetables, and other necessities I can’t get in my site. Jess and I met up there yesterday and her site-mate, Eli showed up this really great fried-chicken restaurant and a vegetarian restaurant ran by a group of 7th Day Adventist. The food was amazingly fresh and I ate a Veggie Burger for lunch. I know, a veggie burger in the middle of Honduras?? It was crazy. The only down sided is that the last bus comes back around 2pm so I need to get all my shopping done early in the day.

So, I am currently sitting on the couch in the home of my host family. I am living with a single woman who has grown children living San Pedro Sula. I heard they often come to visit but who knows what that means. The house is actually way above what I thought I would be living in. It has tile flooring, my own bathroom, and cable tv. Before you get to excited remember that this is Honduras and the cable consists of about 12 channels most of which are playing the local news in Spanish most of the time. My host mom has been gone since I arrived this week and I really have no idea when she is coming back. But I hope she does so soon because I am probably becoming to comfortable in her house. So far this week, I still really have no idea what I am going to be doing as a Peace Corps volunteer in this community. I have two counterparts one is the Alcalde (the mayor) and the other is the Reicken Library. The Reicken Library is this amazing library in a close Aldea named Santa Cruz built last December by the Reicken Foundation. The library has books, meeting space, and computers with FREE internet. Score! I will probably be working with them to teach computer classes as well as working with a youth group for teenagers that is supposed to inspire creativity and leadership skills. I really have no idea what I will be working on with the municipality but there definitely seems to be a lot of need here, especially in the Aldeas (rural areas that are within the boundaries of the municipality, a municipality is somewhat like a county). I was surprised to learn this morning that my Muni doesn’t have an office representing woman (OMM). This maybe something I can work on as the Office is required by the federal government under the laws pertaining to municipalities.

Well so far so good! I am looking forward to my time here and I can only hope that I will be successful and happy. Two pretty large orders, I know.

Hello my wonderful friends and family (who I am not sure actually read this thing):

So, majoy changes in my life in the last few weeks. And I am not quiet sure where to begin. About two weeks ago we had our grand site announcement party with my Field Based Training group (municipal development). It really was a great time because unlike the other two groups, most of us really had no idea where we were going to end up. I was convinced I was going to the South as my Training boss, Jorge had hinted at that a few weeks earlier but turns out there were some last minute changes and I will be heading to....EL NISPERO! El Nispero is a Municipality in the western side of Honduras in a Department called Santa Barbara. It´s very green and I have heard it is nice and cool around December and January. There are about 2,000 people living in teh city center (Casco Urbano) where the Muni office is and there are seven aldeas surrounding. So directly after the site announcement part we left to return to Zarabanda, met our counterparts and were off to our sights all within two days. It was a little crazy.

All in all my site visit was a little awful. I am hoping it is one of those things like, Bad dress rehearsal makes for great performance. After arriving in EL Nispero in the dark, I was dropped off at my new host family and all most immediatly went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night sick. It was awful, I was totally worthless. I got up the next morning and had to call my counterpart (The Alcalde Mayor of the town) and tell him I was sick and wouldnt be able to come in that morning. Knowing I needed water to rehidrate but not knowign what to do I just layed in bed. About an hour later a doctor show up at my house, my first house call ever. SHe fixed me right up and with her help adn some rehydration salts I was feeling better by the afternoon. I saw much of the Aldeas and the beautiful Reicken Library where I will eb doing some work over the next few days. Unfortunatly, my Alcalde went out of town and I didn`t really get a chance to meet with him and really have no idea what he would like me to accomplish for the next two years.

One of the things I have learned about myself in this whole process is that it takes me longer than I would have thought to deal with change and new things. I was pretty much freaked out when I returned from my site visit. But I think I was just emotional and homesick. I have soem new perspective and all though my service still seems daunting, I have a fresh perspective and some new motivation. Additionally, I recieved one amazing package from home this week and it really made me feel great!

In additional news, Stephanie leaves for Mozambique, Africa mere days after I swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. It´s quite a ride and I really hope she has an amazing time. This is my last week of training and I will have my final language interviews and then swearing in with the new Ambassador of Honduras.

I really will be better at this whole blog thing after getting to my sight when I have amazing amounts of time on my hands so if this wasn´t riveting and you were looking for pictures and more description of my new site, hold your horses.

Love and Kisses,

Brenna Joy

10 Days until I find out where my site will be for the next two years! I am pretty sure that I am going south which means hot and dry. Something new, right? Check back here a week from Tuesday for info!

Fuego en La Sangre (Fire in the Blood)

Al Diablo con Los Guapos (To the Devil with the Beautiful Ones)

The shower in the home of my host family has a showerhead and a nozzle in which to turn on water but I have never actually used it and instead, take bucket baths which are heated with water from a tea kettle to a temperature just above glacier. This morning while dumping such a bucket of water over my head, I realized that the nozzle for the shower has a little red dot on it. This red dot screams, “I am used for hot water!” It’s ironic that this dot for so long had such significance in my life and now such symbols are absolute and have lost all meaning because I know that if I indeed did turn that knob (and we happened to have water at that moment) the water would freezing and that sticking to my slightly warmer bucket bath is the way to go.

I am unsure of whether I have written a blog entry since we began Field Based Training just less than three weeks ago. I think I have finally adjusted to schedule and sleeping and food and all the other incidental things that had made my life a little more difficult since arriving. One of the major components of training with Peace Corps in Honduras is Field Based Training in which we have been divided into projects to complete more intensive technical training. During these five weeks we have the opportunity to work in our communities on individual and group projects that may be similar to work we will actually be completing in our sites. I am living in Cantarranas, a small city outside of Tegucigalpa and working in a nearby aldea, San Juansito. Cantarranas is pretty small but amazingly clean and everyone has been really nice and welcoming. The site doesn’t have internet but we often travel Valle de Angeles or Talanga on Saturdays to accomplish this.

I am living with a small family of all women. I have a host grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. It’s definitely a family whose lives have been somewhat defined by the pull to leave Honduras for work outside. Liliana, my host mother’s daughter, is probably in her mid forties with three grown up boys and her husband has been living in the states for the last eighteen years. My host sister, Danielle, is eight years old and her mother works as a nanny in Spain while her father lives in a nearby Aldea with her brother. The family runs a small comedor, a two to three table restaurant, out of their home and Chabe has been serving food here for more that 35 years. These ladies work so hard, it’s amazing. The home is fun of animals. There are chickens, two dogs, a cat and occasionally I see frogs hopping around out back. One of my favorite things about living here is that every morning I wake up and Chabe is in the living room with candles lit in the corners of the room sitting in front of makeshift alters with pictures of Mary and Jesus and the Saints and she stands and says the rosary. What makes this whole scene truly unique is that throughout this whole process she has the radio blaring the local radio news station. I used to think that there was someone in the next house who was playing the radio so loudly but then I realized that it is coming from the next room!

I am working in San Juancito with one of my fellow volunteers, Eric, and we are attempting to help a group of the local leaders form a development plan for their community. It is either going to be a really great process and be really successful or no one will show up and it will be entire train wreck. I’m not yet sure which.

Major accomplishments for the week include: being really sick for the first time and getting through it alone and without having to go to the hospital for a nasty IV, getting more sleep and feeling more positive!, not killing my host sister when her cry baby doll started crying in the middle of the night and she didn’t notice for twenty minutes (I know those last two don’t really correlate well!), conducting an entire conversation with the woman at the local bank branch about how I lost my PIN number and what I need to get a new one.

Much LOVE

Yesterday during training, we had a session facilitated by a representative from the US State Department in Honduras regarding the economic situation in Honduras. It was the first time since arriving that I felt like I had concrete information regarding Honduras not regarding culture, food, or climate. The speaker was amazing; his information was straight to the point and his dry humor was very much appreciated by the group as a whole. So in thinking about the statistics we were given, for example the fact the 20% of Honduras’ GDP is made up of remittance money from the United States, I wanted to reflect on what I have seen here and how I have seen some of this statistical data in its real world setting during my first weeks here. In Honduras, everyone knows someone who is either in the U.S. working or has been deported from the U.S. or who is planning on spending the 7,000 US dollars it takes to pay a coyote to take you there. When you walk around even some of the poorest and toughest rural neighborhoods there are often a few houses that are a little bit bigger and have most of the modern conveniences, grand tile, televisions, glass windows, etc. Most of these homes are owned by either people who have family in the U.S. or people who have returned to Honduras from the U.S. The importance of remittance money as a hindrance to extreme poverty is astounding. The effect of 1 in 7 Hondurans living the US is affecting not only the economic structure of Honduras but also the social structure of families and communities. There are really too many affects for me to enumerated but just walking around some communities the lack of working age men is evident. It’s hard to judge someone for leaving their homes and trying to survive by finding something better in the U.S. There are a lot of arguments about what would happen if people either invested the funds sent from the U.S. or took the 7,000 dollars and instead of leaving Honduras invested it in something here. In all to me, it seems to be a mess that needs some serious attention and I am becoming more convinced that if you are willing to take 7,000 US dollars( 140,000 Limpira) to get to there, a wall might not stop you. Okay that officially ends my rant and rave for the day. In the future, I want to continue to think about how all the information from yesterday’s presentation really can be seen while I am here in Honduras. Issues of education, remittance funds, charity and aid are really only a few. But I might save that for the journal!

Top 5 Issues Discussed By Peace Corps Trainees, Hondu-13: (To be amended throughout Training) 5. Chisme(Gossip) Was our Country director really married to Chuck Norris? 4. Fairness and Validity of the Self-Created Point System Is it worth more points to almost throw up on a crowded bus or to be thrown up on? 3. What your host mom made you for breakfast/lunch? Trading and sharing is an often occurance. 2. Mud/Rain How to walk through the mud without falling down, getting stuck, or getting the jeans you just washed dirty. Is it going to rain? Do you think that the clothes you spent an hour washing in the pilla will ever dry? 1. Diarrhea and Hospital Visits Whose sick, who went to the hospital, who has a horrifying IV story from the hospital, involving needles, swelling, and blood.

If you would like to text me or call me, please just email me for the number! You can also text me for free at: tigo.com.hn

So I have been in Honduras less then two weeks and it definitly feels like I have been here for much much longer. After arrving in San Pedro Sula we took a 5 hour bus ride to Zarabanda where we are having al of our training activities. The days are pretty much the same for these first three weeks. Five hours of language classes in the morning followed by lunch followed by either CORE activities and classes which consist of safety, health and culture or classes within your specific proyecto. There are fifty volunteers in all, workign in three different areas: youth development, project areas management, and municipal development. I am really excited about the municipal work it seems like I will be doing and look forward to those classes the most. My spanish isn´t terrible but it is so frustrating to not be able to communicate accurately what I wish to say with my host family. I am living with a host family that is probably considered a middle class honduran family. THey have electricity and water and an oven and a tv with cable but they use a pilla)look it up) for washing and I take a bucket bath everymorning. There are hours of discussions amoungst peace corp trainees regarding two topics, the temp of your bucket water and the food your mom gave you for breakfast. Food has actually been a pleasant suprise. I don´t mind the rice and beans and tortillas adn I have had some other really great things. Today I had a juice made out of star fruit. My host family has been really great. I live with a young married couple and their daughter who is two. Ana, mi mama anfritona, is only 24. Our relationship is improving as my spanish improves. The nice thing is that they are really laidback and lowkey when I get back from school and I can just hangout and play with my hermanita. I lve in a community of about 20 homes called Santa Rita. There are eleven voluntarios living there so there definitly i smoe gossip that gets around the mamas about who eats what adn whose a vegetatian and who didn´t attend the welcome fiesta. MAJOR Drama. It is raining almost everyday adn yesterday the bus which takes us to school got stuck in the mud and we all had to try to push it out and felt very peacecorpy. We have developed amoungst ourselves a system of points where you acrue them for duing something which would be a hardcore or pc type of activity. So, pushing bus out of mud 2pcp, but watching hbo spanish -2pcp.

Okay! Soon I hope to post more things on my blog with pictures and crazy other tidbits about my specific training and food and culture and new friends. I also, -2pcp, have a cell phone which I will be using for my job and for the pc to get a hold of me ice. SO, you can call me anytime on the weekends or during the evenings free for me!