Time in the good ole` US of A

Alot has happened since the last time I was on here. I will do my best not to leave anything out.

First and foremost Erin and Ryan got married and it was a beautiful wedding. I was honored to be a part of it and it also gave me a great reason to go home for awhile and visit everyone. So I went home August 7 and was supposed to return on the 14th to Honduras. My stay of one week turned into almost 2 months. The day before returning I woke up and couldn´t walk on my right leg, I went to the doctor and come to find out had a superficial blood clot. Because of this traveling was out of the question. I was finally medically cleared on the 20th of September and returned to Honduras on the 21st!!!

Since I have been back I have been given a site mate. Her name is Ana, she´s from Missouri but has lived all over, and she is working with Youth Development. I am excited to have another volunteer in Morazán and hope that we are able to colaborate with our projects.

Things with my house are a continuous work in progress. I have decided to stay in the same house and hoping to be able to have all of the modifications required by Peace Corps, for security purposes, finished soon.

Work is finally starting to come in thankfully. I am going to start working in six communities helping with the nutrition programs and giving talks to parents about some of the better ways to help get nutrients to their childrens diets. I am looking forward to this program and it appears as though this six communities will be my responsibility solo. I have also been teaching english once a week at one of the World Vision offices. I must say it is not my favorite thing to do, but after the class starts I have alot of fun, its just all of the preparation that is no fun at all, and I never thought it would be so hard to teach a language that I am fluent in. It looks as though we might be starting an HIV/AIDS support group also, but that is a very very slow process and I am not sure if it will really take off or not during my time here.

Ok I think I might be done with the update, it didn´t even take as long as I thought it would. I hope everyone is well on the homefront. I am sure the weather there is alot better than here. We are in the middle of the rainy season so just about everyday it rains atleast once. Unfortunately I happen to live in one of the few humid areas in Honduras and because of that the rain doesn´t tend to help with the sweat. I sweat non-stop here. I bought an inside thermometer for my house while I was in the states and I have it in my kitchen, one of the coolest spots in my house, and it amazes me that I still have not seen it get below 75 and that is at the coolest time of the day. The funny part is that I am completely comftorable when it is 75 in my house to me that is cool and I look forward to it. Another volunteer told me that October and November are supposed to be the worst months for hurricanes and that people in her town said that we should expect 5 more before the season is over. Oh yeah and supposedly the department of Yoro is the only one in the country that has earthquakes!! Oh what luck I have. I have actually not felt anything although there are other parts of this area that have had a couple of house fall to the ground.

That is all for me right now. I love you all, keep me posted.

Almost at the 6 month mark!!!

It's been about a month since I last updated this site. Honestly alot has happened in a month so I will do my best to give a brief overview.

In the beginning of July I moved into my own place, which was wonderful! Its a cute little house with 2 bedrooms a bathroom, kitchen, dining area and living room.... definately not the exact thought of a peace corps volunteers life. Slowly but surely I have been filling it with the necesities. There is a lot more to go, but I will get there.

This month I also started working with a 5th grade class in one of the aldeas near by. I am giving classes once a week for an hour about self esteem, good decision making, sex education. A few weeks ago proved to be quite a challenge.... funny story: the teacher decided since I was there he would be able to go to the doctors, well he left me with 50 fifth graders and lets just say as soon as he left all hell broke loose. They all started going crazy. Between the fighting, screaming, running, etc... I thought I was going to have a nervous break down. I began screaming and when that had no affect I tried the opposite, I told them I would wait for everyone to quite down before we started.. well that never happened either, so I dismissed everyone early and I returned to Morazan to cool down. This was not an experience I hope to relive in the near future.

Another project that I have started helping with is distributing medical supplies in the local aldeas with one of the ladies I work with. This has proven to be very rewarding as well as sad. I have been able to see first hand a little of the poverty in this country and the amount of help that is truly needed. Many children are malnurished ( not sure if I spelled that right) and deprived of the basic necesities.. we see alot of childeren with skin problems from bathing in the rivers, the little things that each one of us takes for granted is what is most needed here.

English classes have begun.. :( I put it off as long as possible but it was inevitable. I have only had one class but it is going to be a once a week project.

Last weekend I got sick and ended up in the hospital for 2 nights. Turns out I had a bacterial infections. Not fun at all... puking uncontrollably on top of diarrhea (spell check). I am better at this point.

I have also had a security scare. A man got into my house and was hiding in my kitchen. Still don't know how he got in or how long he was there for. Apparently he is known in the town as the peeping Tom. I screamed when I saw him and he took off running. I called friends and they came to my rescue along with neighbors. And that brings us to the present. I am in Teguc (the capital) and have talked with the country director along with head of security, who also came to my site for two days to go over everything. I was given many options and have decided to stay in my site because I have truly grown to call it home. I plan on changing houses just for the sake of not having to reenact the event every time I enter the house. Peace Corps has been absolutely wonderful through everything. I do not want anyone to worry, I know that is a hard thing to do, but I really am well and am just thankful that nothing else happened.

I will be coming home Aug 7-14 so if anyone wants to see me let me know because I want to do as much as possible in this short period.

I believe you are all filled in on my life thus far!!!

WORK

So it appears as though I might end up doing something here after all. Everything is definately a process here and finding work is no exception. I am going to start working with a 5th grade class next friday and this week I started going to the aldeas (small communities) to help with the weighing of children and distribution of medicine. From this I think I am going to get alot more work, because there appears to be a real need for education of nutrition and hygene.

I am taking it all one day at a time. Every day is completely different in terms of my emotions. But I am pushing through it and the people that I work with have been great in supporting me. I move into my own place this weekend. This will be another big change for me, it is going to be great I know but going to take alot of getting used to because I only know how to live with families in this country.

I am good, I love you all and appreciate all the support that you have given me.

Countdown

Went to Tela this past weekend to see what I have been missing not living on the beach. Well it started out crazy with me missing my bus so I had to wait most of the day and then went to Ceiba with a girl from the office. I spent the night in her house and the next morning went to Tela to meet my friend that lives near by. We hung out on the beach and then had lunch on a restaurant on right there on the beach, after about a half an hour a guy strolled by on a bike and stole my friends wallet. She started running after him, but didn´t have any luck, from there we went to the police station. When all this was over we just hung out like bums, went to dinner and then went to bed early. The next day we hung out on the beach for a few hours until the heat was just unbearable and I decided to head back early to Morazan... What an adventure!!

So far my time in Honduras has consisted of:

*1 bus ride where a child puked on me

* billions of tortillas

*7 books, 5 of which were in May and the other 2 in June (didn´t read during training)

*2 trips to Pizza Hut

*1 trip to Tela

*3 packages that were sent to me but that I still have not received

*1 year 10 months and a few days till I move back to the states... that is not exact but close enough

and I know there is much more but I have had a brain freeze...

The heat is incredible here and that is not in a good way. I wish I had a thermometer (or whatever that thing is called that tells you the temperature) to know exactly what I was dealing with here. Sweating has become my favorite past time. ITS HOT HERE. I don´t think it gets this hot in the states. I´m really not exaggerating.

JUST NOT THE SAME

Almost 2 months now since arriving in my site. Everyday is different, some good, some bad. There is not a moment that goes by that I am not asking myself what in the heck am I doing here. That is not to say that I am regreting my decision to be here or that I want to go home, all I am saying is, wow this is a different experience.

I am in the process of finding a place to live and it is turning out to be quite a task. I am working with World Vision as of right now, but it is more like I spend alot of time in the offices with not so much work. The phrase poco a poca comes to mind right now, which signifies, little by little. It is such a hard thing to be patient and realize that everything is a process. I am still trying to adapt to certain parts of the lifestyle; like how you are to say hello to every person that you pass on the street or you appear rude, when you go to someones house you stay for hours just talking, and of course time is of no importance here. In the states we are so used to everything being on time and having a schedule, that just does not translate here.

I miss everyone like crazy and wish that you could share this experience with me because I can´t put it into words what it is truly like here. I am becoming very independent and at the same time realizing how much I need people in my life. Life is just nothing without people to share it with. I am really trying to make friends with the people around me, but trust is a hard thing within another culture that I still do not fully understand. Everything in time

1 Week Down

So I have been in my site going on 2 weeks now and gradually things are getting better. Last week was pretty hard for me in the beginning, I was on the verge of quitting just because everything was so new and the fact that I am the only "gringa" in the town doesn´t help much either. This past weekend was Mothers Day here. Unlike in the states it is a huge deal here. Kids get out of school on thursday and friday to celebrate the entire weekend. On Sunday I was awoken at 4:30am by youth from the local church singing to my host mother for Mothers Day. There are parades, parties and alot of food in celebration of the mothers here. And yesterday I went to the health center and ended up going to one of the aldeas (small small villages) in search of children that had yet to recieve their vacinations.

It was very sad the living conditions that I came across on this trip. Everyday I learn alittle more about how truly poor this country is. The picture that you see on tv are not exagerating about poverty. For along time I thought that I would like to live in a country like this for the rest of my life, but as of right now 2 years looks to be sufficient. I have come to realize how much I appreciate the life I have been blessed to have and after this journey comes to an end I think I will be more than happy being the person that supports other people in this effort to help others because it is just too much for me.

Ok so that speal just came off as though I hate it here, and that is not the case, it is just something that I am truly adjusting to at a slow rate and the more I become involved the hard it becomes. Don´t get me wrong, I am happy to be here and eager to help I am just starting to realize that this is not the life I envision for myself forever. These 2 years should be sufficient. Who knows in 6 months I might feel differently.

Until next time, I am getting better at keeping you all posted and I have also updated my photos there are like 300 new ones or something like that. Enjoy!!

Morazan, Yoro

Sorry that it has been so long since my last time I updated my site. My life has been a complete rollercoaster the last few weeks. So I´m going to start with where I left off!!

The tenth week of training we recieved our sites and I have been assigned to Morazan, Yora in the the northern part of Honduras. I went on my site visit Thursday 26 -Saturday 28. It was a bit overwhelming but a good chance to see a glimpse into my life for the next 2 years. After the site visits everyone returned to Santa Lucia for a closing of training. We all had to go through the immigration process and recieved our resident cards, we had our final spanish interviews and just reconnected with the other 2 groups. It was great to get a chance to catch up and hear all of the different stories people had to share. On Thursday the 3rd was the swearing in ceremony at the U.S. Embassy and after we all went to the Ambassador´s house to swim in his pool. All in all it was a good day with the exception that I lost my cell phone at the Embassy and had to go and buy another one. I talked with the ambassador after the ceremony and found out that he is from Dayton, Oh which I thought was very interesting. Me and my friend Molly ended up eating lunch with him and his wife just talking about the states and Honduras, it was nice to be able to talk to someone that was familiar with the area.

On Friday all of us began our journey to our sites. A few of us made a pit stop in the capitol for the night and than traveled on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon I arrived at my site. Since than my emotions have definately been up and down. My main counterpart here is World Vision and the Health Center. With World Vision I am going to be working in the promotion of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, honestly I am not sure as of now what that entails. Next Monday I am going to the health center to talk with them about what I can do to help them. Yesterday I walked around the town to know it a bit better and I also went to the local high school and saught out a teacher that can help me even more with my spanish. I am going back today so we can talk more today and set something up. I also went in search of a place to rent for myself. I came across one house but I am going to continue to look before I make my decision. I am not allowed to live on my own for 2 months so I have to time and I need to buy everything to furnish the house so I need to be very wise with my money!!

I think you are all up to date now!! I am going to make a serious effort to do better from here on out. I have access to computers in my office so it should be easier from here on out. Thank you so much to everyone that has sent me emails I love recieving messages. I am sorry that sometimes I can not respond to each message individually but I want you all to know that I am reading each and every one. Thank you all so much for your support and make sure that you continue to keep me updated.

By the way I have yet to recieve any type of package or letter in the mail. I am very dissappointed in you all!!! J/K.