I know it has been awhile since my last blog and I am sure many of you are wondering what exactly I have been up to since then. Almost two months ago I arrived to my site – Erandique, Lempira. As I mentioned earlier, Erandique is a small town in the western part of Honduras. Initially, it was somewhat of a difficult adjustment. When I first arrived I didn’t know anyone or anything about the town, and in addition to missing all of my friends and family back home I was really having a hard time adjusting to daily life without my fellow Peace Corps volunteers. After being together for three whole months letting go proved to be a bit harder than I had anticipated. Thankfully, after a rough three weeks or so I made some new friends here in Erandique and what lifesavers they have been!

As far as work goes, things were slow going to begin with, however they are beginning to pick up. Recently, I gave two talks to a group of 3rd year high school students studying Business Administration. One talk focused on customer service, a concept that doesn’t really exist here, and the other on workplace/professional conduct. I was a bit nervous to give the talks, just because I don’t have too much experience teaching high school students, much less in Spanish. Luckily, the kids were excellent and we had a great time. Hopefully they also learned a few things.

In addition to that I give computer classes two times a week at the local cooperative. The cooperative serves as a banking institution for the rural population. People come from numerous aldeas (small rural communities) to conduct their banking business. The cooperative offers them savings and loan services that they otherwise would not have access to as no formal banking institutions exist here in Erandique or in the surrounding municipalities. Recently, the board of directors of the cooperative purchased a laptop for each board member and I having been teaching them the basics of Word, Excel and how to use the internet. They are a great group of people and we have a lot fun during our classes.

Lastly, I have also been doing my best to support a group of women that run a small water purification and bottling business. This has proved to be my most challenging project as the women were never really trained in small business operation or management. They currently have no accounting or inventory control system in place and are quite disorganized. There is also quite a bit of internal conflict, which we are trying desperately to resolve at the moment. It’s a great business with a ton of potential to succeed, there is just much we need to do to get to that point. Right now, this seems to be a project that is likely to take my entire two years of service to complete.

Other than that life is pretty low-key here in Erandique. It is a physically beautiful place, tucked away in the mountains of the department of Lempira. The people are kind and welcoming, and it helps that they are not unaccustomed to Peace Corps volunteers – there have been at least 7 past volunteers that I am aware of. Although I do not have a site mate (a fellow Peace Corps volunteer that also lives in my community) I do have plenty of close friends nearby and visiting them is always a blast.

That is just about all for now. I miss everyone so much and I cannot wait for people to start visiting!

First of all, I apologize for not posting sooner, but internet access during FBT has not been that frequent. However, we are almost done with training and yesterday we were finally told where we will be during our two years of service! As you can imagine, yesterday was a very emotional and extremely exciting, yet nerve-wracking, day. I found out that I will be going to Erandique, Lempira, a community of about 11,500 people (2,000 in the urban center) in the western highlands of Honduras. From what I have read so far Erandique is an exceptionally beautiful colonial town in the mountains. The climate is cool and the majority of the people in Erandique practice subsistence farming and cattle ranching. The community is predominately of Lenca origin.

I will be working primarily with a mancomunidad, which is an association of municipalities, and a local cooperative. The mancomunidad consists of 7 local municipalities and I imagine that I wil be working with all of them at some point. My main responsibilities will be to provide training in the areas of accounting, marketing, commercialization and business plan creation to campesinos (farmers) and women´s groups. I will also be working secondarily with a local high school to strengthen their curricula so that the students receive more management, personal finance and business training.

Another very exciting thing about my site is that I will be staying with a family that has a large home and I will not only have my own room but my own bathroom, living room and small kitchen equipped with a small fridge and stove! The mini-apartment has its own entrance and has been home to two past volunteers, so I am hoping to inherit some useful things from them. I have no idea how I got so lucky, but I am beyond excited for next Saturday (the 15th) when we finally head to our sites!

That´s all for now, but I promise I will try to write more once I get settled into my site.

Hola a todos! As you know, H16 arrived safe and sound in Honduras a little over two weeks ago. Since then, the Peace Corps Honduras staff has kept us super busy with pre-service training (PST). We have been focusing on general Peace Corps information, language classes, and more recently, technical training. In about two weeks we will head to field-based training (FBT). Like most other trainees I cannot wait for FBT to begin! I know that I have a lot to learn before I can set off on my own as a volunteer.

As I said earlier, so far so good here in Honduras. My host family is awesome! I have a host dad, Jorge, a host mom, Wendy, a host sister Nicolle (18) and a host brother, Jared (10). They are a very close-knit family and they have been kind enough to include me in all of their activities. Last week we went to the mall in Teguz and it was great – I felt like I was back in the States. I am also extremely lucky to be only one of a handful of trainees that has internet access. I was definitely not expecting that one. I didn’t think that I would have contact with anyone for at least the first three weeks!

Tomorrow I will be visiting a volunteer in the field and I couldn’t be more excited. She lives and works in a Lenca community (the Lenca are one of Honduras’ many indigenous groups). I am extremely interested in working with indigenous groups, so I am hoping that this visit will be an amazing experience (and I am sure that it will be)!

Lastly, I got a cell phone last Saturday – yay! I finally feel like a real person again. It’s shocking that owning a cell phone can make you feel whole, but honestly, it does. In case you are interested in texting or calling, the number is 011 504 9554 2382 (I am not charged for incoming texts or phone calls). I would love to hear from you all, but I understand that is may be expensive to call or text from the states.

I hope that everyone is doing well back home! Until next time!

What an awesome weekend! This past Saturday, my dearest Auntie and Uncle braved the nasty winter weather to venture down to Alexandria for one final visit before I head to Honduras. We had a wonderful time, and although it was painfully sad to realize that it was the last time I would see them for some time, I felt immediately better once they began planning their November visit to Honduras, along with my mom. What an adventure that will be!

Now it's back to the mundane details involved with preparing to leave the country for 27 months - personal property insurance, power of attorney, suspending cell phone service and, probably the most painstaking task, packing - yikes! I am still struggling with that one, more specifically the 80 pound weight limit we must comply with.

I am also finding the idea that my last day at work will be February 17th, in just two weeks, completely surreal! As hard as it may be to believe, I am really going to miss my job and my colleagues. They have been such good friends to me during my time here and they have all been incredibly supportive of my newest endeavor. It's going to be interesting adjusting to life without seeing them everyday!

I can't believe it - just 35 days until I meet with the rest of H16 at our pre-departure orientation/staging in Miami! When I first received my invitation I felt as if February 23rd would never arrive, and now I feel like it's just around the corner and I still have much to do to prepare for the upcoming adventure. Most importantly, I desperately want to spend as much time as possible with my family and friends before I leave for two whole years! I also intend to eat as much of my favorite food as humanly possible before I head out, and now that I think about it, I am pretty sure that I began to fulfill that commitment several months ago (Mom, I believe you can back me up on that).

So, at this point, that is pretty much what my life consists of - family, friends and food, the best things in life. I created this blog as a way for us to stay in touch while I am away, and I hope that it will prove a great tool for doing just that. I have included on the right hand side of the page my mailing address for the first three months that I will be in Honduras. Once pre-service training has concluded I will be able to provide a permanent mailing address. I would love to receive anything and everything that you would like to send!

I hope that you will consider coming down to good 'ole Honduras for a visit at some point during my service. I would love to see you and to show you just what I am up to while I am there. It's never too early to start those travel plans ;-)