Week Two: Not Sick Yet!

Saludos mis amores- todo esta bien en Honduras!

I’ve been spending my days at training, which consists of about 4 hours of Spanish, cultural and peace corps related topics (safety and security, health, regulations and policies…), and the technical component (for me, is Youth Development, but also within our training class we have Municipal Development and Protected Areas Management). We had language interviews last week, and based on that we were placed in small classes; I am “advanced-medium” (in the highest class) which shocked me, and is a bit intimidating but it will actually work out to my advantage because our class, instead of spending the time like a normal class, is going to do “mini projects” during Field Based Training. That means, basically, that we do a community project (like we will be doing as volunteers) which will be such good practice. Also. i have quite a bit of outside homework for right now (current event stuff, investigations, etc).

What is “field based training”? Well, after our three weeks in Zarabanda are over, we move to a different community, with a different host family, for 7 weeks. All the Youth Development Volunteers will be in one places, while MD in another, and PAM in another. We will be spending part of that time having language classes (preparing our projects), and the other part doing hands on work in the community related to our field. I am psyched! As I get more details about different areas of YD I will let you know… all I know right now is that there is a high need for volunteers in the education system- about 2 years ago Honduras changed its curriculum, and teachers have had a hard time adapting.

I have become a celebrity amongst the kids in my family here… They love to follow me, play games with me, and basically watch my every move. It’s a lot. But I feel important! Hahaha. Its amazing to me how creative these kids are. They have next to nothing, in regards to material possessions, but they find things to do all day long. We spent HOURS one night playing silly little games like Simon Dice (simon says) and guessing words (one would think of a word, tell everyone except one person, and we all try to describe the word to the person who does know so he/she can guess… perfect for me to practice Spanish!).

This weekend I painted various toe nails (not just the kids, a few of the women wanted it too!!), learned how to make tortillas, discovered that we not only have roosters and chickens and dogs here, but pigs and a PARROT! Sadly, Rosita the parrot is very old and no longer talks. In fact she hardly moves. My host mom is into herbal medicine, so one of the little girls and I helped her bag up some herbs (tea?) that she sells (its suppose to alleviate gas).

Fact for today: only 21% of the honduran population completes 12th grade.

I went to church tonight with my host grandma and one of the little girls, and i got a shout out from the pastor! ¨ah! tenemos una cara nueva! como se llama! bienvenida! que dios te bendiga para siempre!¨" hahaha it was fun!

we havent had running water for 2 days.

oh and about the pictures, i dont really know how to give them individul lables... but if you have questions, ask! if you click on them they get bigger i think.

I love and miss you all, hope all is well!