Recently the New York Times, BBC and The Washington Post have run articles commenting on the Peace Corps pulling out of Honduras. More specifically the Post wrote an article on Honduras calling it the Murder Capital of the world. It was odd because I had been telling my mother about all the reasons why violence has escalated recently, largely due to the 18,000 or so deportees each year from the US, many of them are involved in gangs and the drug trade. A lot of deportees that I met from my town were caught because of racial profiling (i.e. Police scooping up Hispanics) or because they were doing some kind of criminal activity, the latter being the more concurrent theme in my town. My town however was only filled with a couple marijuana dealers or idiots that walked around in street with a gun, to be shocked to find out that in the US (ha unlike in Honduras) this is not normal. (Unless in Texas, jk). Anyways all this publicity saddens me, and makes me feel like puchica Honduras cant get a break. It makes me sad for all the towns, the small rural towns that are not really affected by the violence, that may lose funding for peace corps projects and their volunteers that were actually helping to make small changes.

In my grad school class we discussed humanitarian work and humanitarian privilege.The people receiving help are always victims and suffering, they are trapped in their world and cannot leave. However the humanitarian can leave when things get hairy, it can jump into one world and into another, leaving the old world only hope that the people and friends they have left behind will be ok. I personally feel this privilege and has been one of the hardest things I have dealt with since I have been back. I hate that I can not do more and while my life is moving ahead, I feel like things are just getting worse in Honduras. I agreed with this article and found it an interesting critique of the Post Article. I also thought it a bit odd to run a front page article and not discuss how the Honduran population in DC has been affected, since there is an extremely high rate of them living in the area. Anyways, Honduras is always in my thoughts and I really hope things get better and that change is on its way.

http://www.hondurasweekly.com/the-washington-post-article-201112284641/

My friend stuffed ballons in her 34 lmp bathing suit straight from the 80s

The view from our hostel

With my amazing H11 friends who are leaving me, Jen Lucey and Brianna Bailey

The sunset from our hostel

here in honduras we have a birthday party about every weekend. This is just our first one. All of these kids are part of my host family. they come to my house every sat and sun.

Its D

Here are some shots outside my house. The sunsets here are incredible. Which I love. Probably because we are so close to the Pacific and it is so hot.

Here is a picture of my host grandmother Mita, making tamalitos de elote. She picks the corn out and then makes it into a paste. She is 83 years old, chain smokes and is hilarious. Next is my counterpart Margarita. She was calling for the "garson" to come take her bags. We were at the nicest hotel in Choluteca for a regional women's meeting. Next is my backyard or patio. And this is my glorious stove or fogon, which literally means bonfire. And that is where i wash my clothes. :)

This is Alejandra the 1 yr old i lived with in Santa Rita. Probably is the best dancer i have ever seen at this age. This is her dancing to reggeaton. notice the hand. Below is Valle de Angeles where we watched the indepedence day parade sept 15. Pretty much most of Central America celebrates this day from their independence from Spain. Ale was rocking her eye wear. Thats my host mother Tina holding her.

This is the group of kids that lived with me in Santa Rita during our training sessions for 6 weeks. Top left: Hailey from CA or as the Hondurans call her hija de sol (child of the sun) shes in youth development or YD, Patrick who is in Protected Areas Management or PAM, Christan from NOVA whose in my group! municipal development we call it Muni-D, Brenna from AZ shes in Muni-D, Ana from CA Muni-D, Justin from TN whose in PAM, Jessica from SD Muni-D, Susannah PAM, (girl who left 3rd week), Bug from AL in YD and myself.

One of my favorites, Ryan from Austin, TX. Later that day I broke his nose during an intense game of volleyball. My soccer reflexes came in and I kicked his face as he was diving to spike the ball. This all went down at the US ambassadors house in Tegus. But don´t you worry we signed a waiver before entering the premises.

Above: Me and Jessica Dillworth, at our goodbye party on the edge of a cliff. Also sporting our new Peace Corps shirts as you can see with all the MUNI-D girls at the Peace Corps office.

Below is a bunch of us at our goodbye party and Kate and Maggie (PAM) and I.

Below: Erick getting his groove on with an anciana. She looked British with that cap. Erik´s from DC in Muni-D and also in the south with me.

Lastly with Chad our future Senator. He wore a Honduran and American flag pin to our swearing in ceremony. Chad´s from Maine and is a Muni-Der like me.

So everyone had been joking for weeks that I was going to NAM! Otherwise known as Namasigüe, Choluteca, Honduras. But I enjoyed the Vietnam reference as well. I finally decided to do a blog because Jessica Dillworth can no longer put up pictures of my beautiful face, and well I thought I´d try to be technological.

So a little information on Namasigüe. In the center of town also called casco urbano there are 3,500 people. Pretty much the same size of my high school. There are about 6 or more towns called aldeas further away making the population close to 25,000 people. The major crops they have down here are cashews as well as shrimp farms. I am about an hour away by car (bus is a completely different story) to the gulf where there are beaches. It is probably one of the hottest regions in all of Honduras because there are less mountains and less trees. In the center of the country there are a lot of pine trees and it looks weirdly like PA. well kinda.

My projects? Currently I am working with the oficina de mujer and oficina de joventud which means with women and children. I am involved in a youth group of young professionals and they have great ideas. Just some of them: they want to do a campaign to clean the town including recycling, family gardens and water purification education. Also a clothing and toy drive for xmas, women and men´s soccer tournaments, cultural fairs with traditional dances and so much more. I feel grateful for having met this group because they really have their stuff together. Their main goal is to re-do the park that they currently have because it used mainly now as a dog corral. The mayor painted it all red and white to show his political party's colors and half of it has faded, not to mention not all of the town is from his party. What they want to do is re-do it so there is shade and a larger plaza to have ferias or fairs and a mulit-use basketball-soccer-volleyball court for the children. And of course, with lights so they can play when its dark. Many kids do not have any place to go at night so they end up just hanging around in the streets. Anywyas this is all in progress and I´m really excited.

In the pictures uploaded: the map of Honduras and of the World are community projects we did while i was living in Cantarranas for 6 weeks for my training. These maps are now permanetly in the schools as a learning tool. The picture of the city is Tegucigalpa (called Tegus here) and is from the US ambassadors house where we had a post graduation party after being sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. The one of me is at the embassy. Notice the orange flowered trees there everywhere here and i love them.