7 months in Honduras!

Last week I went to visit Erica in her pueblito of 300 people, up on a mountain in Comayagua! It was fun to see the difference between rural peace corps life and urban peace corps life…. both have their positives and negatives of course. Everyone in her community knows her, she walks around and gets invited in for a snack, and she has breathtaking views. Certainly not everyone in MY community knows me, I walk around and usually see familiar faces but don’t exactly go from house to house, but I have a lot of resources available, and my views are still pretty nice! It was really good to see her, though, and to get a taste of life out in the campo.

And now, I’m just getting back from Reconnect! Which is kind of like a right of passage for new volunteers I feel…. We’ve accomplished the first 5 months of service, and our “freshman” status is starting to wear off… of course we will still be the babies until the next training class comes….. but they come at the end of the month!

What is Reconnect? When PCVs from the same project get together for a weeklong workshop that includes partial training with Honduran counterparts, then the rest of the week is spent with the Youth Development team, including volunteers from the group that came in the year before us. The first part of the week focused on reading strategies for primary schools, including how to read stories (sounds basic to us but necessary for our work partners), fun activities to promote literacy, and overall how to get kids excited about reading. Then we went into dental hygiene, which we all already did in training, but it was more for our counterparts. After they left, we switched gears and spent the rest of the time sharing ideas and talking about projects. We met the new Country Director (each country has one, a US citizen that is, more or less, in charge of the Peace Corps program for that country)… I got really good vibes from her! She talked to us like co-workers, and really sent the message that we were all working for the same team. And we also met the other “senior” youthies, which was nice, they had a lot of wisdom to bestow upon us newbies.

I walked away from this workshop with a mobile library in a box that included 75 books, 2 puppets, and some games, 130 toothbruses and toothpastes, 24 english manuals, and a cute pink construction paper pig puppet I made!

It was absolutely wonderful to see the other YD volunteers though… we are such a diverse group, but they are my family here, and I couldn’t imagine getting through service without them. I am so lucky to have met such FABULOUS people, who are there for me even if I carry the whistle Juan Carlos gave us around my neck, and who will humor me by wearing “COMO ESTAN MUY BIEN” necklaces that I made for them out of paper.

And now I am working with my counterparts to come up with a plan for the next few months…there is a lot to do, and I have a lot of ideas…. Hopefully we can ponernos de acuerdo!

I also bought a hammock! And my landlord helped me put it up, and it’s a much more pleasurable experience to write a blog entry from a hammock than it is from a bench or a bed!

Sending all my love to snowy new england, miss you all!
love, lisa