US soil

Yesterday, I got to visit the US, well, US soil at least. We went to the US embassy yesterday for Swear-in. Yes, I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. Ridiculous that I have been here for nearly 3 months and it is just now official. The swearing in ceremony felt a little like high school graduation but ended up being rather anti-climatic. We were fed, met the embassador and spent some time swimming, playing volleyball, tennis and basketball at his house, then headed back to say pack and goodbye to our Santa Lucia families.

I am in a strange reality here. During the ceremony yesterday, I watched a camera guy scroll through his ipod in his Chuck Taylors and fro-ed hair held back by his sunglasses. I wanted to take a photo but didn't have the opportunity. He could have been sitting on cement steps in Seattle, chilling, listening to mp3s, instead of in the emabassy in Honduras. Sometimes, this place doesn't feel much different from life in the states, very modern. "Normal." Other times it feels like a strange combo of the 1800's and 1945, a whole other world. When I see a campesino with his oxen hauling the day's work, or a mother cutting the lawn with a machete, a 4 kids on an old bicycle (yes, 4 boys on 1 bike), it just doesn't feel the same. I am living in a strange reality where everyone has a cell phone but they mow the soccer field by hand (occasionally). Technology exists here but they seem to have picked and chosen which amenities the use. You can buy an microwave and a blender but cook food over a fire. I still don't get it but I'm learning...
much love to all

I have a home!

I suppose I should apologize for a few things. First, I know it's been awhile. I even told some of you that I was going to update this a few days ago. I tried, but I couldn't log on. Reliable is not a word I would use to describe the internet here. Secondly, I am sorry (partially in advance) for spelling errors. Switching back to English is still pretty easy, especially since (until Friday) I get to speak it fairly regularly. My spelling on the other hand, suffers from the language change.

The news: I have a home! I will be living in Talanga, Fransisco Morazán, Honduras. It is about 2 hours (I think) by bus northeast of Tegus, the capital. It's a big town as far as Peace Corps sites go. Size is very relative. When the biggest city in the country only has about 1 million people and average is probably closer to 5,000, my town of 15,000-20,000 people is huge! I just returned from visiting my site and meeting my host family and counterparts. Yes, I have ANOTHER host family, this will be number three, but hopefully the last. My counterparts are the people I will be working most closely with. They vary by site and project. My main contacts are a colegio (sort of like a high school but usually more like 7th grade on), two escuelas (elementary schools) and the Community Development department of the Alcaldia (the mayors office). I will also be helping one of the teachers coach a baseball team. I think the kids are 8-12 years old or so. As for specific projects, that remains to be seen and develop as I get to know the community.
Talanga: Since the town is fairly large, I should have access to most amenities. Yes, there is interent (I can even use it for free in the alcaldia). There is a decent size market, soccer field, and plenty of buses to Tegus and other surrounding towns. To be honest, the town itself is pretty ugly and the roads are horendous. All dirt (mud at this time of year), filled with potholes which would be better described as canals and narrow like all the roads in the country. Although surrounded by mountains, the main part of town is in a valley so it is fairly flat and some of the aldeas (surrounding communities that fall under the jurisdiction of Talanga) are subject to regular flooding. I actually got to witness this during my visit as torrential rains fell every day I was there. The aldea populations are generally poorer than their more urban counterparts and it is humbling to see how they deal with and accept these regular disturbances in their lives.
Speaking of humbling... on September 15, Honduras' Independence day, there was a small earthquake. If I remember correctly, it was about a 3.5. When I arrived in Talanga on Thursday, the town was in the middle of a marathon to collect clothing and food donations. I spent my first afternoon sorting the clothes for men, women, and children. It was really nice to have something to actually do after following one of my counterparts around like a puppy all day. Friday, we drove 2 hours north to deliver the donations. We took 2 dump-truck size loads and several pick-ups. A few of the pick-ups started empty but as we journied north, people were waiting on the sides of the roads with more to give. We picked up more clothes and more people. By the time we arrived, all the trucks were full. It was incredible to see so may people, many of whom by our standards have little themselves, helping another community. We drove through Porvenir to Marale. The town of Marale was not greatly affected but the people who live in the surrounding mountains. Farmers, pregnant mothers with their hands already full of children, more chidren, all helping each other. As we handed out clothes in the Catholic church, perched on a hill in Marale, I saw some of the most beautiful people I have seen in my life. The youngs girls looked so innocent and naive. Their eyes almos seemed transparent, like someone you read about in a descriptive novel, not something you actually see in real life. There is one man I hope I never forget. I first saw him squeezing through the crowd, away from the mayor´s wife with the first bag of clothes. He ducked and weaved through children and mothers, trying to get to his macheti. He reached his macheti by the door, did the same weaving and ducking under children´s arms to get back to the bag of clothes so he could cut the string holding it closed. After the bag was opened, he helped others, not waiting to recieve anything for himself. It was so selfless, from someone who has so little.

Thursday, we go to the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa to be sworn in and become official "volunteers". Friday, I move to Talanga "permanently". I am excited for training to be over and to settle into a community, to stop feeling like a guest. I am rather distraught with the end of training at the same time. I have made a few good friends over the last 2 1/2 months and I am very sad to separate from them. Most of my good friends here will be living on the west side of the country. I know it isn´t that big of a country, but it´s a good 10-12 hours from Tegus to their sites because the roads are so bad and the routes so indirect. Mountains might have a little something to do with that.

I promise I will post pictures soon. It just takes so long and most of the time they don´t upload at the cafe´s. I will do it from my site though. Until next time, I love and miss you!

Rachael and Matt, congrats on the wedding! Wish I could have been there.

How smart do you have to be to drown yourself?

Despite how this entry turns out, I am still enjoying my time here. Lately things have been a little more difficult. I have reached a point where I am a bit burnt out of 8 hours of training and Spanish classes every day and living in another families home. I have 3 1/2 weeks left in Cantaranas, then 1 more week until becoming an offical volunteer. Once that happens, I will finally go to my site and be able to settle in to life here. I think these feelings of frustration are compounded by other minor details. Although the food generally tastes pretty good, it is starting to catch up with me. Eating fried food 3 times a day, everyday and hot meals in 90 degree weather is slowing me down a bit. It´s now ¨normal¨ to have a slight stomach ache most of the day. Nother unbearable, but not my first choice either. There are a lost of things in this country that I don´t really understand, but above all, for the live of me, I can not figure out why the hell anyone would eat hot soup in 90 degree weather! I feel that I have been a pretty good sport about the food (I am definitely my father´s child there). I eat just about everything that is put in front of me. I finally had to put my foot down on the hot soup though. ¨Muy rico ¿si?¨¨The flavor is good, but I don´t like eating hot soup on hot days.¨ Luckily, my host family thought that was funny, and hasn´t served me soup since. I just don´t understand. It´s kind of like covering your baby with a blanket in the middle of summer, as you watch the seat drip down their cheek. Do you want to crawl in a down sleeping bag in the middle of a Sahara summer? No! So why not drink cold beverages and eat cold meals when it´s hot outside? It´s beyond me, but in another month, I will be able to cook for myself again.

I experienced one of my highest and lowest points here simultaneously last week. One of the volunteers who came to help with training is also from Washington (Monroe), since he will leave in December, he passed on a book about our beatiful state. Full page photos of the entire spectrum of WA, from Pike Place, to Mt. Baker, the San Juans, wheat fields in E WA, and the Wenatchee River. I was joking with Emily (probably my best friend here who happens to be from WA as well, go figure) about how the pictures were going to make me cry. I guess I shouldn´t joke about things like that because that led to my first tears since leaving SeaTac. It isn´t that I don´t miss you, and the beautiful place I call home, but let´s face it, I´ve never been a big crier. Granted, there were only about 3 tears, but it was a strange reality that I am really here.

In general, everything seems very surreal. It´s happening, and it´s incredible, but it all feels oddly normal and mundane (that is the surreal part). Sometimes I feel like I will wake up the next day with running water, and septic in which you can flush the toilet paper, or be able to ask what´s for breakfast without having to translate for myself first. While this life seems so strange, it is surprisingly difficult to picture life in the states. Everything seems so expensive and unnecessary. I don´t even want to know how I will react when I actually do return.

Onther type of surreal... Sometimes, hearing other people´s stories makes me appreciate the simplicity of my own living situation (when I don´t know what to say or how to say it, I just don´t talk to my family). Last week, we recieved a warning from a classmate, ¨Don´t touch the pila water!¨ (A pila is a large cement basin which is your water supply and generally has a rippled cement surface on which to wash clothes.) That warning basically means, don´t use the toilet and use purchased drinking water to wash your hands. I thought this was an odd warning but definitely one to heed. Later, we learned the story. The day before, we heard a ruckus as the resident chickens pecked at left over food on the dirty dishes. We didn´t think much of but felt for the girl who is staying there. Apparently, chickens on the pila is not uncommon and she is not happy about it. As it turns out, one of the chickens must have leaned too far and fell into the water. The American was lucky enough to find the drowned chicken later that evening. It gets better... The host mother removed the chicken from the pila and the following day, the host siblings used the same dead chicken water to bathe themselves. I will spare further details but I am thankful my family does not have chickens. Don´t worry, bathing in dead-chicken water isn´t normal behavior in Honduras, but there are strange people in every country. Our Honduran Spanish teacher seemd pretty disturbed the story and I believe someone talked to the family about water sanitation.

Like I said, despite how this entry may have turned out, I am still enjoying myself, for the most part. I am making a few good friends who will play an integral role in my sanity over the next two years. You guys would be amazed at how well I am learning to entertain myself. My new favorite spot- lying on the tile floor of my bedroom with my ipod, doing sit-ups. I spend a lot of time alone in my room and I have amazingly little to do. I read the last Harry Potter in 3 days and have read all of the books I brought with me. Just imagine how much I could have read if I LIKED to read!

I will try to update again next weekend but it depends when I make it to Valle to use the internet (yes, I am living in an internet-free town).
This week, I miss carpet, reduced-fat WheatThins, cold food and of course, good chocolate!

Oh, and if you want to send a postcard, letter, photos, or a small package (large envelope), I would LOVE it (the address is on facebook if you don´t have it, or you can ask)!