Christmas Crafts, El Rosario Parade and Site Announcements!!!!!!

WOW what an exciting update this will be!!!!!! But first note that tomorrow is the last day of field based training, we will head out Saturday morning to the capital to get our residency cards and then return to our original host families. I am beyond excited to see Lordes and the fam again! One week of wrap up training and friday afternoon we become Peace Corps Volunteers. The next day, we ship out to site!

BUT FIRST. We had the chance to teach everyone else in training about something we're really good at, or something we like a lot. Naturally, I chose MANUALIDADES DE NAVIDAD! o, Christmas Crafts! I was very excited to celebrate a little bit of the festivities so soon. I made reindeer, penguins, candy canes, stockings, a Christmas tree, an ornament and a hand print wreath! To give you an idea of the other things people shared, I learned a bit of self defense, how to make soy milk, cloud story telling, and the differences between the Catholic and Evangelical churches.

I finished up my story hour with a book about a little elephant that gets lost, and is adopted by a pig couple, and he thinks he is a pig too because they are round like him. Then we colored elephant heads! One of the teachers at the kinder is absolutely lovely, and was so sad I had to leave. She was so sad that she wanted to keep the elephant head model that I had made to remember me by. I was touched to leave it with her.

PARADE! OUR PARADE IN EL ROSARIO! It was our last day of our self directed projects, and we went out with a BAM in El Rosario. The parade included masks, instruments, songs, chants, dance, and snacks! The kids hugged us about 20 times before we left (the teachers did too). They were such a wonderful group to work with!

And finally....... SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!!! Wednesday was the big day! We had an intense powerpoint presentation...... For each site, first we saw a quote from that persons aspiration statement that he/she wrote after accepting their invitation to serve in Honduras. At that point, we couldn't really guess because everyone had pretty much forgotten what they had written. Then what popped up was the site that person was going to. And THAT point, we had a good idea, as we had narrowed down most people to one or two possible sites. And THEN their picture popped up!

I will be spending the next 2 years in Gracias, the capital of the department of Lempira. I was worried about a bigger site, but I am beyond excited. With a pen, i've already added an S to my ankle tattoo to say, Una poca de Gracias (instead of just, una poca de gracia). Its supposedly a quaint little colonial town about an hour from the Mayan ruins in Copan. They say its beautiful, and has hot springs! The climate is more fresco than the rest of the country.. which is PERFECT! Growing up in New England hasn't quite prepared me for a subtropical country. And fresco in no way means frio. I read somewhere that average temps are in the 60s.

I will have a few site mates as well. And I am thrilled about my counterparts... I am assigned to work with an infant center (children under 6) and a youth center. It looks like i've got my work cut out for me, and I am not sure where to begin, but I can't wait! The organizations have asked for things such as parent workshops, recreational activities, collaborating in structured activities for the kids, teaching english to teachers, sex ed/leadership workshops with the older kids in the youth center, reading activities, etc.

Regarding safety and security, ever since I found out I was going to a bigger site (which by the way, in the heart of Gracias there are only about 8,000- the 32,000 constitutes the outlaying aldeas as well) I have been tweaking out a bit. I even made an offer to Juan Carlos, PC-Honduras's safety and security guru, to be my roomate for the next two years in my site. BUT. Gracias a Dios, I read in the site booklet they gave us that there are limited security issues in my area... of course they exist, but it's a fairly safe place. And my host dad said that you never hear of anything bad happening in the department of Lempira on the news. YAY!!!!

I can't believe training is ending so soon... it really went by fast! And I have to say, the H17 Youth Development group is fabulous. It's weird to think we will all be separating next week, but now I have 18 people I can go visit when I need to breathe!

Miss you all, take care!
love, lisa