So if you want to find these hot springs just download the points in your GPS and follow the route. Or just go past Villa Verde to the last houses before you get to Celaque and ask how to get their. It was less than an hour hike from Villa Verde. On the same trail is the warm springs, aguas tibias, that Fronnie owns, she has developed it a little bit.

View Natural Hot Springs Trail in a larger map

The organization that I (Bert) work with is called Funlesol. They are a local honduran "non-profit" organization that works here in Lempira Honduras. They were started in 2006 in connection with Solidaridad Internacional to try and keep the non-profit project management local and more sustainable.

They survived and continued to work after the Honduran governmental problems of 2009. They are the counterpart organization for several international NGO's including Heifer and Dipuacion de Jaen.

The boss of Funlesol is making a 3 week trip to Spain to try and find funding organizations for some of the projects Kalin and I have worked on. I put together this website (blog) before he leaves so that they have a website, you should find some more information about some of the projects Kalin and I have worked on.

Funlesol.blogspot.com

Bert

Kalin and I took another trip to Erandique Lempira. It is a tiny town 2 hours down a bouncy dirt road from San Juan Lempira. It is one of the few places in world where Opals are mined.

More Information on Erandique and its Opals from a former Peace Corps Volunteer.

So Kalin and I, ya conocimos las famosas vendidores de Opals, Juan and Sister Riena. She offered to walk with us out to the Tablon Mines. Once There Kalin was able to dig up her own opals (see pictures below).

In addition we were able to witness how the holes are dug; by hand, and with a little help from dynamite:

warning video is explosive:

So two weeks ago Kalin, Kalin's Counterpart, and I spent 4 days and 3 nights in a village called Suyatal.

It is located in the municipality of San Sebastian on the other side of the mountain of Celaque from Gracias.

Kalin has uploaded all of your pictures from this trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Kalin123/20101015?feat=directlink

The villages that we go to that do not have potable water are usually hard to get to. If you have Google Earth installed I recommend turning on the terrain function and follow the tour of this path just to arrive at the Catholic Church where we stayed. We were able to find a ride around Celaque on paved roads to the town Corquin Copan. From there is a well maintained dirt road to Belen Guacho Ocotopeque. From there begins the following Google Earth trip: In Car, In Bestia, (Horseback). The next day Kalin hiked another 3 miles up the mountain in the direction of the Cordillera de Celaque.

The purpose of the trip was to teach a Kalin's Counterpart, a young Honduran Engineer named Henry, how to do a topographic study for a water system. Currently Kalin is teaching him how to do the Design of the water system from the topographic data.

Overall it was a pretty good village trip, complete with going to sleep by 7:30 pm every night, Fresh homemade tortillas and Coffee every meal, bathing with wet wipes, hiking an average of 10 miles a day, a pretty sweet neck-tie shaped 75 foot waterfall, and two hour and half horseback rides.

So the day after the funeral Kalin and I wen to a wedding. It was between the oldest son of the Missionary Family that lives near Gracias and his new Honduran Bride. The wedding was very different from the all Honduran wedding we went to last year. The ceremony was all in Spanish and they announced the entire wedding party as they came down isle. They had a preacher do the message part of the ceremony, they did however do one thing we had never seen that people told us was a Honduran Custom: they tied the couple together with decorated rope (see first photo).

Our neighbors are the owners of the house we live in, they have a son who is about our age. The mother of his grandmother died last week. She was 102 years old. She had been living with the family. This is one of the things about Honduran Culture that I really like: there are no retirement homes or nursing homes here, when a family member becomes old or sick the family takes care of them in their own house. The funeral is not an event it is a process. First even before she died, when her condition was "grave," the family had visitors and extended family came in to town. Friends and extended family cooked and shopped for the immediate family as they stayed by the bedside of the great-grandmother. When she did pass away at 10:00 on Wednesday night, the family stayed up all night with her. This is the custom in Honduras to always stay awake and stay with the loved one until she/he is buried. When we tried to explain the what we do in the States, their question was "you just leave them alone?" So the next day was the visitation part of the funeral. All day people come by the house and bring flowers or candles. Large candles were continuously burned until she was carried to funeral part of the funeral. The entire house was full of least 50 different people all day as people would come in and out and give their condolences. The body was placed in the center of the main room with the candles and flowers and people all around. We brought a plant and sat with the family a good while. They were planning on doing the funeral part of the funeral in the evening but a grandson had been trying to fly back from the States and had not arrived yet. So they decided to wait until the next morning. Which meant that the entire family was going to stay up all night to be with their loved one.

So Kalin and I thought we would visit with them and stay up as long as we could. So we spent the night talking with the family about their grandmother, how life was in Gracias 50 years ago, how life was 90 years ago. About the time when they had didn't use the currency of Lempiras that they have now; they used something that sounded like "unnas." We told ghost stories and drank pepsi with rum, and later on as the Grandson from the states arrived pepsi with vodka with the family. Kalin helped serve food and talked with the women of the family. The kids of the family were allowed to stay up as long as they could. Most of them were still awake when we got two sleepy around 1:45 am.

The next day was the funeral. The entire procession began at the house as they carried the casket in the back of a decorated truck from the house about 8 blocks to the main catholic church. The procession walked along with the truck to the church. In the church seemed like more of a mass then a funeral service; as the Great-grandmother was mentioned and talked about but the service was not focused on her, the standard parts of the mass: standard songs, standard readings, the Lord's Supper, all took place which to me put the focus on God. From there the entire procession walked the 10 blocks to the Cemetery. There was no service at grave site just a member or two form the family thanking all of the people for coming and being so supportive and then a spontaneous song about Jesus started by one the older Ladies as the buried her. The graves as you can see from the picture below are usually quite decorative and rarely are very deep. To the left of where she was buried you can see one of many little houses constructed over the grave sites. Her grave however was a modest concrete enclosure. It did not end there, though the family and us included all went home for nap. That evening and for the next nine evenings they are having memorial services at their house. I think the ninth one will be at the grave site. The memorial services that I saw were all well attended, and similar with candles and flowers.

We invited the mayor over for dinner one day last month, which was a good idea at first, but we didn't have any money left, however we managed to make some macoroni and cheese and green beans and chicken. Here is a photo from that night.

Kalin and I have now been in Honduras for over year and half now, and of all the places we have worked the most remote has been the two unique villages of Montana Verde. For this reason I was very surprised to an article about human rights violations involving two of the nicest guys we have worked with: Leonardo and Marcelino Miranda. Apparently

"Marcelino and Leonardo Miranda were arrested on January 8, 2003, in a military-style midnight attack on their community and were tortured -- severely beaten, burned with cigarettes, forced to carry heavy loads hung by the neck, and partially asphyxiated by repeated submersion underwater -- by many of 28 police and special forces agents involved"

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/honduras/Verde2.html

As if that was not enough they were arrested for false charges of assault, murder, etc.

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/honduras/Verde.html

Marcelino spent two years in prison, and his brother was there longer, there are reports of them being beaten in prison. They were released before their 29 year sentence.

www.rightsaction.org/newsletters/RA.NL.september%202003.USA.pdf

I think the first article I linked gives more of background of why the police would target these guys located so far away from the rest of honduran infrastructure.

So we finished the designs for the two water systems for the villages of Planes and Vertientes of Montana Verde in December, but since Kalin and her counterpart organization have ran into various problems getting funding for the project. At first the problems were due to the fact that community owned the land ( which I didn't think was that big of a deal). Other problems have been the mayor that initiated the project did not get reelected, the organization that was originally in charge of the funding seems to be falling apart.

Each water system including Dam, Conduction Line, Tank, and lines to every house will cost roughly $100,000. The 84 houses in Vertientes and 92 in Planes, which is about 500 people who live in each community. So it will take an initial investment of $200 per person to have potable water for the next 20 years. However, in a community, where people don't make money, they barter and in live a communal system, $200 is more than they would make in a lifetime.

It is just strange to read about people we have met and know pretty well in an article about human rights, when you know the people involved, when you have sat and eaten at their table, it makes the problems real. They are not just names; they have families and houses and live peacefully up on a beautiful mountain.

Marcelino is good, generous. guy, he cares and acts for his community.

Marcelino was our main contact for the Montana Verde Project, here he is with Kalin carrying our topographic equipment (45lbs) up the 3 hour hike up hill to the villages.

Here I am with Leonardo we were hiking in the rain the source of water.

Kalin in her "typical" dress I'm not sure why there was a Sun god in the parade but here is Kalin with her accesories.

Kalin and Lempira

There is a big Fair in Gracias every 20th of July where they commemorate a local native indian hero Lempira who never surrendered to the spanish and was assassinated during treaty talks. In this fair there were several parades and Kalin was in one of them.This week was the most culturally busy week in Gracias. There were art shows, poetry reading, symphony, and a reenactment of the assassination of Lempira in the middle of the municipal park. There were several beauty pageants throughout the week to crown the India Bonita.

This particular parade Kalin was in with work partners (the technical unit of the 5 municipalities).

On May 15 we completed one year in Site; so we invited our work partners to our house for a party.There was Karaoke, food and fun. I threatened one of the guys I work that his karaoke might end up on the internet for the whole world to see.

We also got invited to our neighboors birthday party. He turned 6 years old. It was a very big fiesta.

So a couple of weeks ago we went back to visit our host family when we lived in Pespire Choluteca. We had forgotten just how hot it is there; and it reminded us how lucky we are to live in cool Gracias Lempira.

So I met a guy the other day in a village, and we talking about development in general. And he, without explaining it, refered to Electricity arriving to a Village as "corruption." Later he explained that the electricity is not necessarily the problem, but the normally the first thing a family buys after a light is a Television. Though the introduction of lights also drastically change the social aspect of the village, television does the most damage. Not only do the constant commercials educate the people that they don't have what they need to be happy. But the programs themselves, like telenovelas, preach several types of mistruths.

I met another guy who never referred to his town or Honduras in general as being a "poor" place. He would say there are abundant natural resources and that he feels rich to have a familly that loves him and a community that supports him.

2 thoughts that got me thinking.

-Beto

These are our friends we climbed Celaque with. We didn't go all the way to the top this time.

Our puppy went hiking with us!

This is the village where I worked this week. It's name is Amol, which I'm not sure what it means. When I asked the people here, they said I chinese person gave them the name, trying to say "Amor". Who knows. Conditions were pretty good, while the rest of the country was having record highs, the temperature was kind of chilly every day with a lot of cloud cover. It rained two of the three nights I stayed there. The first night I shared a room with the lady that cooked my food and her granddaughter. She warned me before we fell asleep that she snores. hehe. The next two nights I had a room by myself with a bed that was just a little bit shorter than me. This village was about 4 hours from where I live. Three hours in car and 1 hour in horseback. There are about 20 houses here and there is no electricity, but there are latrines! I finished the topo study for the water system while I was there, so I'll be working on the design this week!

The lady in the top row was Maria, the one that cooked for me. The little window that you see behind the group was the window to my bedroom.

Kalin is currently in an Aldea (kind of like suburb) of San Sabastian right now working on the

topographic survey for the design of a potable water system. This is her meeting with the community

to assess their needs.

The first time I have been able to use Google Earth to help design a water system was in Palos Blancos an Aldea of El Progresso. Here is one of the houses, they remind me of beach houses because they are all on stilts. Here is the kml file of Palos Blancos.

Our Cousin Rob Johnson came to visit us during Holy week this year. We made a quick trip to the North Coast where we stayed just a couple of days in small Garifuna Village. This picture is taken from an excursion we went on at a national park penisula where saw howler monkeys.

This is Rob enjoying the freshly caught freshly fried fish.

Just before Rob got there we had a visit from the new Volunteers who will soon be arriving at their sites. Kalin took the opportunity to give a charla to some elementary school students on how to protect your water source and surrounding microshed.

Our one remaining site-mate left in April (we may get new one(s) soon), we had her despedida (going away party) and our local castle. The piñata was yellow dinosuar named Anna.

So one of the many things Rob did with us was to hike to the "punto mas alto de Honduras" of the Mountain Celaque.

The highest point in Honduras 2,849 meters, 9345 ft. We started our hike around 1200 meters or 3,930 ft.

Which if your counting is just over on mile up in the vertical direction. We started around 6 in the am and

were off the mountain by 6 at night.

Our town took part in the tradition of making murals/carpets from sawdust in which hours later they are walked apon by a large prosession of people singing and observing the stations of the cross. This particular photo is taken in front of a church close to our house-we heard this particular mural was done by local famous artist Mito Galeano.

Kalin got her put in tight braids while we were on the North Coast this is what happened when she took them out.

Kalin left and spent her first nights out in the Village by herself doing a water study for this town.They currently have no potable water and very few have latrines.

We got a new puppy to protect our house. His name is Pecas or Freckles or Pecoso.

So a couple of weekends ago Kalin and I went to Pena Blanca to visit our friend Tara Oates, who is a bi-lengual teacher there.

We went and saw the really big falls there that sound something like pullyapantsup falls.

So two weekends ago we decided to go Hike la Montaña de Puca with some freinds. It is other mountain

(other than Celaque) that creates the valley in which Gracias Lempira exists.

We took the desvio to Azomada and drove to highest house we could find. We parked the car there

and then hiked up about 3 and half hours to the peak. I am going to include a link to the GPS points we took:

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=879258&filename=20100222141251-4b830163a51dc4.06710856.kmz

The top was clear and you could have seen quite far (if not for the swirling clouds).

So this past week we went to La Labor Ocotepeque, the site of our friend Xiah, to do a training on how to use the total station for topographic studies. Xiah taught about GPS and mapping, Kalin taught a math review, and together we showed the students how to use the Total Station (a automatic theodolite that the communities near Labor bought). The students were two selected jovenes "young folk" from each community. Overall I feel like things went real well. Xiah will be testing the students in the coming week to see if they can be hired by the communities to do the studies (in the past only highly paid topographers or peace corps volunteers have been doing). So in conclusion I feel good about being a part of an activity that seems to meet the sustainability goals of peace corps. The workshop was four days long on friday went to a waterfall.

The view from the top of the mountain!

We found a grapefruit/lemon tree on top of the mountain!

So, after being in the capital all week for doctor appointments, we got to go to Trujillo for a MARV meeting. MARV stands for MARried Volunteers, and is a support group for all the married people in Peace Corps. Trujillo is a beautiful town on the North Coast complete with bay, mountains, hot springs, rivers, and much much more. From the capital, it was a 12 hour bus ride. Our first night we ate dinner, met with the other couples, watched some locals sing and dance, and went swimming! At night you can see the phytoplankton in the water when you swish around, because they light up! It was pretty. For the rest of our time we hiked to some cascades nearby and played in the river, we walked along the bay for a couple hours, we hiked to the top of a mountain near the bay, and played on the beach. Enjoy the pics!

Bert rock hopping upstream.

Beach!

MARV group!

This is a dead monkey we found on the trail on the way up the mountain. We think it may have gotten electrocuted.

So thanks to Delta's 175 dollar tickets, we got to visit the United States of Awesome this Christmas. I never knew how much I appreciated the U.S., and enjoyed tons of things I always took for granted. These are some of the highlights of our glorious trip:

1. Seeing all our fam! It had been 10 months, the longest I've gone without seeing mi familia in person. Grandma and Papa, Denise (tia) and David (tio), Noelle and Marcelle (Primas), Sharon (tia), Rachel and Benjamin (primos) all came to see us. Also we got to see everyone on Bert's side, (including Jim and Kit and Rob and Lucy Kate (sobrina) and William (sobrino)! Oh yeah and I met Julien! (see the pic below)

2. Tons of water pressure! My parents got a new shower with two shower heads, and I definitely turned them both on me, it was amazing! I could shampoo my hair and turn around and never get cold! ps you can drink the shower water without getting sick!

3. Flushing toilet paper - Although I accidentally forgot a couple times and tossed the paper in the trash can

4. Chick fil A! We ran in the airport in atlanta to get a sandwich for dinner during our layover.

5. Carrabas - We went out with the fam to eat and I got my favorite - chicken bryan. A chicken topped with the most delicious melt in your mouth goat cheese ever. Also complemented with sun dried tomatoes and mashed potatoes.

6. Krispy Kreme - HOT NOW!

7. Walmart - I loved it before, but I love it more now than ever (keep your anti walmart comments to yourself until you live in a country with zero food options). We spent most of our time just walking around gawking at the possibility of things that we could buy.

8. Friends! We got to see Marie and Eric (played settlers with them), Nicole drove down to see me, met up with Megan, Meghan, Karen, and Brittany. My friends are the best.

9. Not itchy bed- I could sleep at night without panicking something was crawling on me.

10. Not being the center of attention in public - I realized in Walmart nobody stared at us, we were no longer in the minority! It's kind of traumatic to always be the focus of everyone's attention, but I've started dealing with it by pretending I'm famous, and this is just one of the consequences of leading a glamorous life style.

There are many more, but I can't think of them now. So we returned to Honduras with our suitcases full of goodies from the states, and luckily arrived back home with zero problemas.

One of the highlights of our christmas break was meeting my new nephew, Julien! He was definitely the cutest santa clause ever.

My family!

We also got to meet Kendra's doggy. She was kind of scared of the world, but very cute and not bothersome like most dogs can be...

The elections here, this past sunday, in our town were very tranquil.

Several political problems still exist.

One side says these were the cleanest elections in Honduran History-

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-11-30-honduras-election_N.htm

the other side says that up to 60% of the votes were fake.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8388057.stm

But, Here things are Peaceful.

Bert

These fotos are from our latest trip to Montana verde.

In this one we happy we still thought horses were going to come

to give us a ride up the mountain. (they didn't come) We walked

up the mountain 12-15 kilometers with equipment. Sad day.

Our difficult walk made this girl sad.

But coffee makes Kalin happy.

This is Justin and his family. He lives at about 2000 meters above sea level.

His house is too high to be included with the rest of the town to get water. But

he has been one of the most helpful people during the studies.

So we got the chance to go to a wedding a couple of weeks ago. The girl who go married is Kalin's name twin, Kelin, pronounced the same here. She is the sister in law of my counterpart. The wedding was interesting- two guys from the municipalidad came and read the laws regarding marriage as they signed their papers as they sat at the dinner table. Her father did escort her into the room and and had some words for his new son-in-law. So we ate good food, had good cake and there was dancing too. It was good time

This is Anita, cooking for us at night by firelight.

This is the kitchen of a lady named Mariana. She lives in the 2nd to highest house in the community, so we're going to be putting the tank near her house.

A little critter a honduran man caught.

This is the lady's house that was carrying the firewood.

These guys are moliendo (grinding?) sugar cane to get the juice out. The oxen turn the wooden thingy and the man in the middle sticks the cane in, and you can see the juice coming out. They later boil the juice all day, and then it solidifies into what they call, dulce. This is pure brown sugar. It's pretty yummy in coffee.

I'm crossing a deep river on the horsey in the rain!

Ana and her friend are carrying firewood to the house to cook for us.

This is Julia. She told me she was ugly when I asked her if I could take a picture with her, but look how cute she is!!

So Bert and I have been working on a pretty cool project lately in a pretty poor and inaccessible village. To get there, we drive for 1 and a half hours on a dirt road, and then continue on horseback for three hours. There isn't electricity, water, or letrines of any sort here. So we have quite an experience. While we're there, they cook us food and we stayed in Ana's house. She is a 28 year old single woman who still lives with her parents, but has her own house. Her dad is a pastor at the evangelical church. This is her house. The door on the left is the kitchen and the door on the right is the bedroom. We shared a twin sized bed to sleep on, but it was ok cause it was really cold.

This is where the community will get their water from. These guys are the guys that helped us on our survey.

Bert's first horse back ride!!

Anita's kitchen. On the right hand side of the picture is the stove they cook on. Its a firewood stove. In the middle of the picture on the table there is a rock on top of a stone. She uses that to crush her beans with. She sewed the clothes she's wearing.

Wednesday morning I arise and get dressed. I take my shirt off the hanger, put it on. Ow somethings poking me... Try to get it out, OW hurting worse! OW it stung my finger!! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF! AHHH HUGE SCORPION FELL OUT OF MY SHIRT!!! OH my gosh are scorpions poisonous in Honduras?? Quick, take picture before it gets away so doctors know what kind of anti venom to use. CAN´T die alone!! Crap, no minutes on my phone. Can´t confirm scorpions aren´t poisonous. Getting shakey, its the poison. Must find Honduran before I die so they can take me to the dr. THE SCORPIONS STILL ALIVE!! KILL IT WITH THE SHOE!! Take a picture of dead scorpion. Go to neighbors crying. PHEW scorpions aren´t poisonous here. Stop crying. Neighbor gets me some cream, calls the doctor, and tells me to get vinadril. (She writes it down for me so I can take it to the pharmacy, benadryl). Death avoided. Thanks sweet neighbor.

Yesterday: My civil liberties have been restored! I now have again my freedom of movement, I can´t get arrested and detained indefinitely for no reason, and I can now meet in groups of 20 or more without a permit! PARTY TIME!

I've got to see toucans every day this week! They make me so happy!!

I visited a village that´s been having trouble with their five year old water system. They´re only getting water one day a week!

I finished design number 2!

Before

After

On top of the tank!

TOUCAN!!

So Monday the Previous/Ousted President mysteriously appeared in the capital city and has taken refuge in the Brazilian Embassy. This caused a nationwide curfew for all day tuesday and yesterday night. Currently the curfew has been lifted as their are various marches and demonstrations in Tegucigalpa. However, everything is calm and safe in our sleepy little town.

We will keep you up to date if any thing extra ordinary happens

Beto

So Last week Kalin and I spent two nights and three days out in a village doinga topostudy. The "aldea" consisted of 49 houses that had no potable water system.Some house had rigged hoses from nearby creeks to provide water other houseshad no water at all. They also had no electricity. The first night was the night of the Honduran-Mexico (que barbaridad) soccer game which we were able to watch on a 9 inch black and white tv powered by a car battery. The pictures showthe house we stayed in, and some of the family- they were great and supergracious providing us with delicious food - homemade tortilllas from corngrown nearby that they grind up, beans grown nearby, coffee grown there, and a homemade cheese. They treated us like Kings even making us their specialchicken soup. I got the chance to play soccer with them- they play everydayfor an hour and half. Kalin returned one more day and finished the entire studyin four days, she is currently working on the design.

Beto

These are our costumes...

This is our super awesome site mate, Anna. She is a health volunteer, and she likes playing dutch blitz with us (aka NERTS!).

HUGE FURRY SPIDER OUTSIDE OF OUR ROOM!!

I think we named this one humming bird/crab falls.

So we finally climbed the highest mountain in Honduras. We started at 7:00 am at an elevation of 1400 meters and got to the top at 2:30 pm at 2849 meters. We got back to our moto taxi at 7:00 dead tired and sore. We had to go the last hour of our hike in the dark and the rain so it was a little scary. So even though we had to rush our hike, it was really fun and well worth it. Here are some pictures of the famous cloud forest.

This is us on top of the mountain! You can almost see Gracias in the background, but the clouds were coming quickly! Cool looking mushrooms

Cloud forest!!

We got back to Honduras today after our nice vacation :) I wanted to show pictures of the capital, because it is covered in grafitti. These pictures are just a few I took in one taxi ride. I've never seen so much grafitti in my life. The majority of the graffitti appears to be pro ex president. "Fuera golpista" is one of the most common phrases. This means get out coup, doesn't sound as good in English.

I was impressed with this graffitti. This is a picture of a dominoes, but I cropped out the rest so you could see the pictures. Someone actually made stamps or something, because these little pictures were everywhere!

PANAMA CANAL!!

GORILLA ATTACK IN THE GIANT MALL!! (which had a Cinnabon)

We're about to get soaked!!

In the rainforest in the middle of the city!

This is Kalin in the Car after her surgery.

She showed amazing self control to watch the doctor bring

that scapel into her eyelid.

She is doing good now.

She will probably update more thoroughly later.

Bert

Hey guys! Bert and I are going to Panama Wednesday for my surgery!

This is a super ugly picture of my eye...just so you know how ugly I feel. Nicknames for my chalazion: hijo, ojon (huge eye)

Honduran causes for stys: Too much mantequilla (sour cream), I watched a dog pooping, Someone told me a secret and the secret passed from my ear to my eye, I touched a frog

Honduran methods for curing stys: Pass a cat tale over it, lick your finger get some friction and touch it to your eye, eat carrots, stick ear wax on my eye

So this blog comes from the capital! I am in the peace corps office using the internet. I finally got to come for my eye appointment! So I left yesterday at 5:30 a.m. and arrived here at about 2ish. We took a trip to the mall here and stumbled upon WALMART!!! You can't believe how excited I was to have options!! Here are some things that I bought that made me really happy:

Dr. Pepper!!

Dove dark chocolate!

Brownie mix

Hypoallergenic pillows!

A measuring cup!

We also dined at TGIFridays which was splendid. Oh and the specialness of this trip to the capital is that one of my favorite people in Peace Corps has decided to end her service and go home, and I get to hang out with her for her final days in the country!!! So last night we went to a fancy place and all split a delicious margherita pizza! Today we ate at Mcdonalds :) And the results of my exam: my eye has a chalazion. His recommendation: surgery/lancing/cutting it open. However you want to call it. I don't know where this would take place, so we'll see! Also my family was very concerned that what I had was Chagas, a parasite that has almost no symptoms except eye swelling and it attacks your heart in about 10 or 20 years and you die. So, I had a blood test taken to put their worried minds at ease. I'll get the results soon! Oh also, about 5 volunteers on the north coast are getting moved to different cities because of an increase in drug trafficking. Eek! And there have been no more sitings of the crazy dogs that attacked me, they have been kept in their house. Kind of a disappointment because we've been ready to beat them with rocks every time we pass.

I just wanted to gripe - Today on the way to work I got attacked by three dogs. I was just minding my own business walking in the middle of the road far away from anybody's "territory" and three large dogs started barking at me. Usually if you ignore them, they forget about you, so I just ignored them and kept walking, but they got closer and so I started to run, and a dog bit my skirt and pulled me and I was freaking out and screaming and nobody was around. So just when I thought I was going to die and be mauled by 3 large dogs, my mototaxi in shining armor came along and gave the dogs a "chih. chih." and they backed off. I ran sobbing into the mototaxi until I was sure the dogs weren't going to eat me. Then I was so shaken (I feel stupid now) I cried til I got to work. Then about two hours later, my good old laptop decided to freeze on me and hasn't turned back on since. On top of all this I have about 100 mosquito bites all over me, they are particularly concentrated on my elbows. But I finally have an appointment for my eye on Tuesday and 3 of my favorite people in peace corps will be going with me so, yay! So tomorrow, Hot dogs, anyone?

Entonces, Life here is almost normal, aside from the fact that everyone is watching TV and or listening to news on the radio and that I'm not sure if the kids have had school to go to in a while, oh and our government mandated curfew - last night 6:30 pm. So seeing how I have internet i thought I would post some pictures to add some color to the blog.

This one from the US vs Honduras Game - Hoy si Papa

So the last couple of days here have been interesting... Starting Saturday, we were put on standfast, which means we can't leave our city. Sunday was the big day to vote on the "Cuarta Urna" which was a controversial topic. I'm still not really sure exactly what it was, I think it was a survey on whether or not the people would want to change the constitution so that the president could run two terms back to back. Right now the law says that they can only run one term. So the supreme court determined that it was illegal to have this vote, and the president continued anyways. Which leads to Sunday morning, he was arrested or taken away forcefully by armed men to Costa Rica. In his absence yesterday, the head of congress was named president, because he was next in line. So we weren't allowed to leave our residences yesterday, and we had a country wide curfew from 9pm to 6am. We also have the curfew again tonight, and we have instructions to not leave our site until tuesday. I had a doctors appointment scheduled in Tegucigalpa (the capital) for Wednesday and it looks like I'm not going to be able to go. I will have my sty for the rest of my life!! There was also a protest going on today downtown. We're just staying in our house and avoiding people! What an exciting life it is here!

Hi! So things that have been going on lately:

• We think we found a house in our price range! Peace corps gives a price limit for renting places. We could only find teeny one bedroom apartments, so this place is awesome. It has a big front yard with lots of fruit trees (you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a place with a yard). It has my 2 requirements of an avocado tree (its small) and a lime tree. It has 2 bedrooms, so we can have a place to keep our junk. It has a kitchen/living area that is currently open air which is really unique, but the lady is going to put up a door or screen so that it doesn't get broken in and keeps out the flies. It has a little old fashioned home made oven that her mother or grandmother made, so that's unique as well. It doesn't have a chimney though, so we probably won't use it. The one drawback to the house is that each room is accessible from outside, meaning there's no inside hallway. So when I walk to the bathroom i have to walk on the patio to get there. Oh another thing, about 4 or 5 houses in the area got robbed by the same person. They think the guy got in on the side wall, so they're making improvements to the house like putting bars on the windows, but they say that they can't put the safety wiring on the wall cause its made out adobe and it will fall since its the rainy season. It's in the historic district so there are laws about adobe walls i think. So we'll see what happens. We have a month to make changes. But anyways we're super excited about the house, it had all the requirements we wanted!!

• SOCCER - There was a game of US versus Honduras and US won. It was kind of a bummer for the people we were watching it with, but at least people won't bother us about Honduras beating the US. We watched the game with people from our work. I watched the 1st half and during the second half I grilled meat with 2 other girls: my boss and a girl from spain who will be here a month. It was very yummy.

• Neighbors! So we found american neighbors who are missionaries here and they are awesome. They let us use their WIRELESS internet!! and they roast their own coffee beans and make expresso and lattes and they made us pancakes AND they play settlers of catan!! and they make their own yogurt!! I think we lucked out big time. They have english church once a month so we're gonna go on the 21st - yay!

• Hot springs! We got to go to the hot springs again! They are amazing every time!

• Bad news - I still have a stye on my eye. I've had it for about 6 weeks now. It won't go away no matter how many hot compresses I put on it. I got sick last week with tummy stuff but it was just a bacterial infection and I took pills and I'm better now. Bert got sick yesterday, but he's getting better.

• Good news - We found a scale this weekend: I have lost 17 pounds and Bert has lost 22 pounds. That is 39 pounds combined! YAY!! Now all our pants are falling down...

• Earthquake - We experienced our very first earthquake! Fortunately there is not bad news to go along with this section. We got woken up at 2:30, I was having a dream that we were on a very bumpy road and Bert was telling me he thought it was an earthquake. I said, "I think the bed is going to break" because it was squeaking like crazy. It kind of felt like we were on an ocean and getting bounced around by waves. Bert stuck his leg on the ground to get up and the floor was moving like a boat and so he stayed in the bed. After it stopped everybody was awake and we went to see if it was actually an earthquake. There wasn't any power and there weren't any cracks in the house. Everything looked like nothing happened except one container of cereal fell in the kitchen. Afterwards all the neighbors were in the street with flashlights to talk about what happened. Very very unusual. We found out later about 10 miles away about 25 houses fell. They were old and made out of adobe, but still that's a lot of houses. Also 2 kids died in our department. Thank God we are safe and alive.

Hey Folks,

So we have been here in site now for two weeks, and on the work side of things we have been quite busy figuring out the pile of work and figuring out a schedule and how we are going to divide up the work since it seems the projects are done sort of together in between our two counterpart organization. We have visited several water systems and talked to a couple of juntas de agua. It appears that Kalin and I are going to do our first topographic study of a small town, I think I am going to help her the first couple of days and then start my own topo study right next to the national park up and down a creek. On the non work side of things - we have met a missionary couple that lives really close to us and are real nice and let us use there wireless internet. We really like our family here they are super considerate. I get to play soccer with my host brother nearly every day with some other high school kids in our neighborhood. Today we are going to look for houses to rent closer than our current location. Well i am going go now Kalin may add some text later.

Paz,

Beto

We are officially Peace Corps Volunteers!!! We swore in Friday in the U.S. Embassy, and Saturday we left at 4:00 am to go our site for two years!! After dropping off a fellow volunteer along the way, we arrived at about 11:00am to our house. We are living with a christian family that has 2 parents, 3 girls, and 1 boy. The girls are 14, 11, and 3. The boy is 17. So we haven't got to see much of the town yet, but we walked around a little bit yesterday. We found a hotel that has free wireless internet and more americanized food, we found a canning store that has canned goods, popsicles and homemade wine, we found a couple grocery stores that have black pepper and cream cheese! (I thought I wasn't going to be able to find these in Honduras), we found our office where we're going to be working, and a museum, and a central park which is being remodeled. We still haven't gone to the market or the hot springs, but I'm sure we'll do that sooner than later. Our sisters are really sweet, and the dad loves to watch football so bert is super happy, and the son plays football, so I bet Bert will go play with him today. We also have two dogs here, Coco and Monet. The house is newish so its still partly under construction. The floors and walls are concrete. I think the dad said they would be putting tile on soon. We have a new bathroom in our room which is awesome. SOO it looks like we are going to have a great time here. Oh yeah we got pictures with the US ambassador and there was an article in the newspaper about us peace corps volunteers!