Honduras

Its Done. It's O.v.e.r.

2008-04-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

I left my site for the very last and final time today! EE! I got gifted a lot of eggs and the electricity was out while i packed!

Missing Menonite

2008-03-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

One of the Menonite boys went missing a couple of days ago while swimming in a river with some others by El Salvador. I have been out of my site translating for a medical bragade. I heard some people saying that they heard on the news that a gringo from Erandique was burried. I`m hoping the rumors are mistaken. Its so sad.

I have about a month left in Erandique. I`ll be heading out of my site for good April 12 early in the morning! EEee!! 2 YEARS! Then I`ll be on my way south to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. See everyone in early August!

Wash Your Hands

2008-02-13T11:30:00.001-08:00

This is a video of my volunteer friend singing a song she made up getting kids to wash their hands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtnIbgm9O9w#

Close of Service Survey

2008-02-06T10:05:00.001-08:00

Site: Concepción de Maria, Choluteca and the dookie, Erandique, Lempira
Sector: Health
Nicknames: BBRRAYAA, Carolina, Fe
Biggest accomplishment: getting a bolo(drunk) in my site to pronounce my name correctly
Biggest regret:not keeping in touch with a good friend from my first site or not getting pregnant with a cute brown baby
Biggest fear during Peace Corps: that every time I yelled back at a piropo(cat call) it would be my last time
Defining Peace Corps moment: too hard to pick just 1. Although, it felt really great to be the first gringa at a school in an aldea a half hour ride through marshy maddness. Then giving an awesome AIDS charla and playing basketball in, litterally, the middle of no where. It was pretty awesome.
Things you will miss most: never ever feeling rushed, eternal summer, and the baleada delivery child
Worst illness: getting my period 3 times in 1 month
Biggest freak-out: when a friend from the states was visiting and almost exploded sickness all over the bus
Most useful things I brought: crocs
Least useful thing I brought: green high heels....oh wait that was Anita
Favorite activity when bored: recyling my garbage by de-cu-paging my fridge
Weirdest thing I did when bored: became a hoola-hoop grand master
Favorite CD/song during service: that GD ¨Jamaican¨ song....it makes you so happy ya gotta do the pointer finger dance to it
Favorite book(s) during service: Jitterbug Perfume, The Autobiography of Malcom X, Memiors of a Beatnik
Favorite Honduran fashion: the li´l girls running around in fancy poofy prom dresses
Worst jalón:(hitch hike) the one I just had the other day with a giant pig head and its remaining parts shoved into bags. I avoided the blood by balancing on a tire and the edge-kinda like doing yoga on a surf board for 2 hrs.
Favorite food: baleadas. Hands down the baleadas.
Worst thing I ate: cups of water with floating dead ants
Untrue fact told to you as undeniable truth: they can´t fix that part of the road because every time they do a dwende (troll) comes and ruins it.
You know you’ve been in Honduras too long when…: you say thanks to a piropo(cat call) and mean it
I never thought I would…: learn godforsaken, praise the loyd, spanish
When I grow up I want to be…: a city gal
If I had to do it all over again I…: would do it all over again
Favorite Piropo:(cat call) ¨I can´t beleive you came from my rib!¨,algo asi
Favorite Aralen dream: I wasn´t on Aralen but I did have a really awesome dream that Sean and I were eating soup out of a pila(well). Sean got pissed because there was a monkey bouncing around in our soup. He avoided the broth as to not get contaminated by the monkey. Luckily, not too much later, the monkey hopped on the back of a colorful walking fish outside the pila.
Most bizarre intercultural exchange: I just read an article about ¨Tan addicts¨...thats pretty bizarre
Favorite Ropa Americana T-shirt: ¨I´m the big sister¨worn by a li´l boy
Favorite animal story: Ana´s singing, ¨mee mee mee meee¨, burro story
Worst habit acquired: coca cola...perfect for hangovers and after long runs!
Thing you missed most from the US:.family, friends, not being the slightest bit physically uncomfortable...ever...
Thing you missed least from the US: everything being black and white-having no gray area
Favorite location in Honduras: eating lots of candy then sitting on my outside stoop
Things you’d wish you had known when you signed up: free Newsweeks
Best advice for Honduras 12:. If you´re miserable, leave. Don´t stay around and make everyone elses life miserable

Additional comments: I had the best site!

¿Cuanto queso?

2008-01-26T09:41:00.001-08:00

My deary dear friend from college(USA!) Ms. Lauren Lipps came to visit!! Other than a few minor set backs (illnesses...I´ll leave it at that) we had a great time! We did everything from watching Luaren try and wash her hands at my house, to death bus rides and hikes to raging rivers of lava and waterfalls, to visiting descendents of escaped slave villages raging with hurricanes and AIDS, to meditation-yoga retreats on the coast of, voted, one of the worlds most beautiful lakes surrounded by 5 or so volcanos. Amazing! Just an average day and run on sentence for a PC volunteer. ;)

Interestingly enough (I´ll leave all mixed emotions at that) those average days are about to come to an end in 84 days plus travel! We had our Close Of Service conference a week ago and that was the last time our group of 35 would be together down from the 50 we started out with. I´m now hurrying around to take one last mental picture.- I don´t wanna miss a thing!

My Thanksgiving Dinner

2007-12-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

fried plantains and a piece of bread with katchup.........aaaaaaalright its a chicken burger!

What I do Every Saturday Morning

2007-11-17T16:14:00.001-08:00

Everyone from the surrounding villages comes to sell their goods at the market! This is where I can buy my not-so-wide-variety of fruits and vegatables for the week! I love it, it just throws their culture in your face and is always like walking through a crowded labrynth.

Fresh meat! Fresh meat! You want fresh meat?

Want onions? I give you good price.

18days of Bliss

2007-11-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

I just got back to my site yesterday after being gone for 18days. Even though I have lived here, in Erandique, a year its still a li´l weird to come back. Who is this Braya Fe Carolina Carson?

First I went to Santa Rosa (http://groups.msn.com/HONDURAS---SANTAROSAPEOPLE) with a Honduran friend of mine to visit her sister and her dirty STI giving boyfriend and his family. Even though she is probably my best friend in Erandique, I can´t help but feel that part of her took me there to show me off. Having a gringa friend really gives some status.....which is silly.....but hey I´m beautiful and rich!

Next, I went to my friend Ana Maria Hallman Garcia´s site(http://www.maplandia.com/honduras/copan/corquin/). She threw me a kinda early-surprize-birthday-bondfire. We machetted everything in her back yard and burned it up! Chocolate Fudge Cake!!

Then I went to my abstinence manual group meeting for a few days in Cabañas where Sarah Anne Jablonski Guagliardo lives. Followed by the imfamous Halloween party in Copan Ruinas!! I was a mermaid.

Finally,off to Guatemala (http://www.antiguaguatemala.info/English/, http://www.guate360.com/galeria/categories.php?cat_id=92) for my birthday!! I love Guatemala! They actually still have culture (like 23 different languages, and wear traditional clothing), volcanos, beautiful mayan ruins, and tourists. I love it better than Honduras for its beauty....but being a gringa there I would always be treated like a tourist......unlike in Honduras where they don´t know to rip off gringos and assume I speak spanish becuase no tourists ever come here. Honduras is my baby. :)

So in total I slept in 11 differnt places in 18days! I´ll put up Guatemala pictures when my friend sends ém too me! Only 159 days to soak up everything I can from Honduras!! EEE!!!

Felix Shmelix

2007-09-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Felix came and went with only so much of a spit of rain on the ground. (its already rainy season, theres supposed to be rain!) My dead great great great chain smoking grandmother with asma(sp?) could have blown harder than the wind Felix gave. That was my first hurricane....but I guess I shouldn´t have expected much, Hurricane Mitch of ´98 that ripped apart the whole country didn´t even touch Erandique...its invinsible! I think we haveta worry more about earth quakes here. Hopefully something exciting happens! ;)

The New Kids on the Block

2007-08-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

I don´t hear much about whats going on in the news, but I can tell by all the new people showing up in town that immigration laws in the United States of America have become stricter. Hondurans seem to think that they´re being targeted over other Latin American countires, but I can´t see why that would be? I wonder what airline they use to deport people? Do they get a group discount?

CARE is a program here in Erandique, as well as in surrounding areas, that has been helping to give food and educational programs. Its funding, from what I hear, comes from USAID? Their funds will be completely cut-off next month and my neighbors will nolonger receive food help and helpful educational programs. Is it becuase more money is being used for the war in Iraq?

This is a shout out to Emma my sick friend that was going to come visit me in Honduras....and I guess all you germ-a-phobes there in the United States of America:

Antibacterial Soap
¨These products are not mere folly-they are dangerous. They contain trace amounts of compounds that can hurt bacteria, but the doses are so low and mild that they affect only the most sensitive germs. So... these substances clear just the weakest bacteria on your hands...reducing competition so the pathogenic strains with higher lecels of resistance can flourish.¨ (p208, The New Killer Diseases by Elinor Levy and Mark Fischetti) AKA YOU´RE ALL GONNA DIE! muuuuuuuuuhahahahaha

Defining Peace Corps Moment.....kinda

2007-08-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

First and foremost my dearest deary friend Meredith Sue J. Simpson came to Honduras to visit me!!!

My first outsider to see my honduras-side! It was crazy fun....and it was also great to see a glimpse of the ¨real world¨ here in Honduras. She pointed out all the silly little things and was tickled by things I have looooong become accustomed too (18months)....for example...drinking out of bags and seeing pigs and chickens running through the streets. A week after she left I went WAM BAM back to the United States of America to Mickey and Sara´s wedding!!! And directly after that....cold and alone back into my mountain village. Quite the system overload after being thrown all over the place and getting glimpses of so many differnt worlds.

We had feria, fair, here in Eran-doooooookie celebrating the death of the beloved hero Lempira. He, supposedly, single handedly fought the Spanish outta Honduras. The Spaniards were trying to take over their land and make the pobre Hondurans their slaves. I live in the department called Lempira....supposedly he died here....I¨ve seen 2 of his famous resting places.

The other day I walked past a group of 3 Honduran men. Of course, they all called out the usual ¨mi amor¨, my love bladdiblah and I continued to walk ignoring their calls....afterall my beauty is obvious...I*m nolonger surprised when people tell me. Then one of the chauvenists called out and started to talk to me about a project. I was distant and answered his questions with a slight shake of my head. Finally, I agreed to give some school teachers a first-aid class, ¨but only if he would not call me his love because I am not his love¨. He thought a second, stuck up his thumbs and said ¨cheque pues¨, alright cool. !!!!! No laughs, no kissy noises, just an alright. He listened to what I said and agreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed! It was amazing!! For one second I was actually, maybe, a person.

Ok if that one doesn´t get ya maybe this one will. My best friend in my site, Irma, has a horrible horrible boyfriend. Hes the father of her baby, never gives her money for child support, plus cheats on her all the time even giving her an STD (STI nowadays)...luckily it wasn´t AIDS! Anyway I always told her that I don´t understand why Honduran women let the men treat them that way and I would ask her what would happen if you cheated on him? I would also try to remind her that hes not her boss, but her boyfriend..... Anyway, maybe sometimes people just need a differnt way of looking at things but she told me yesterday how she started sticking up for herself!! She started commenting on how hot some guys were on t.v. and when he asked her what the $%·& she was doing she said, ¨if he could do it she could do it.¨ Then he told her she couldn´t go to the store to pick up beans in her shorts and that she had to change before going out. She said she was gonna go anyway! I know it may seem little, but just the way she told me the story, so firm and so proud! I just laughed I was so happy......Unfortunatly later, after thinking about our conversation and her new found strength...I remembered that the number one nonillness related cuase of death in Honduras is spousal abuse....

huge bloody flappity pulsing vag hole!

2007-05-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Every time I feel the slightest tingle of ¨oh I´ve done and learned everything there is for me to do and learn in this country¨BAM! Something amazing happens. I wittnessed a live birth last night! It was the craziest thing I ever saw! All the blood! The placenta was HUGE and alien-like! The baby was covered in what looked like Crisco. Huge balls and an ity bity penis. The doctor and the nurse weren´t mean to the woman, but weren´t exactly nice either. They just chatted it up among themselves, and there just happened to be a woman giving birth in the room. Man OH man...the nervousness on the womans face...she couldn´t even look one of us in the eye...she was too busy looking at her fear of the PAIN. They don´t give anything for pain! Nothing! It must not be that bad if these women have a dozen kids each...it can´t be that bad....right? ;) I was just amazed at how fast it went. BAM! Push! BAM! Baby!....and a li´l bit of poo. NOTHING for the pain! I saw a human for the first 5 minutes of its life. I wonder if they´ll ever find out a gringa was in there with them while they were born? They didn´t even use a sucky nose cleaner thing or give the baby a bath.....what a night....I was shocked and silenced...my friend was like ¨Braaya Braayaa say something¨

Powdered Milk and Sowing String

2007-05-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

The other week we had Mid-Term Health exams. Since I´ve been here a year they check and make sure everythings ok. One girl went home because of reoccuring headaches. (thats #9 out of 40 something my Peace Corps group started with a year ago). Meanwhile, I got a flu shot, went to the dentist, and pooped in a cup.

Back in my site I asked for toothbrushes from Colgate and handed them out to the Kindergarden after showing them how to brush their teeth.

For those of you who don´t know, I drink powdered milk. Being as I don´t own a cow- I get to buy it powdered from the local ¨store¨. I´m trying to figure out the mystery behind the spools of thread found at the bottom of my powdered milk box. Is that something Hondurans take for granted? Do they assume to open their powdered milk box and get their sowing thread? Like kids do when grabbing a toy out of the bottom of a cereal box?

I´m learning a lot about illegal immagration. My friend, who I do Tae-Bo with everyday, is thinking about going to work in Spain. I guess they say its about $5000 dollars to pay someone to take you into the United States illegally and about $1,000-2,000 to get to Spain, on a plane, and you only need to pay for your visa in the airport. My friend was also telling me that illegal immigrants make more money than Honduran doctors....why not go mojado, immigrate? Almost every Honduran I meet has at least one family member in the States illegally sending money back to their family in Honduras.

337 days left in Honduras. People from my town are already starting to claim my stuff.

35 days til I go home for Michael and Sara´s Jewish wedding!! mom....or should i say betsy?- sesame seed begal with light veggie cream cheese

14 days til my BBFFL Meredith comes to visit! My first outside visitor!

OOO checkout Spirit Airlines to/from Guatemala City!! $150 roundtrip! Cheapcheapcheap!! Its going to be flying to San Pedro Sula, Honduras soon!!

Rich Coast and Love Bread

2007-04-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

It all sarted Wed. the 4th (Having been delayed a few days because of a ¨full¨bus). Sarah Ann Jablonski Guagliardo, Ana Maria Garcia Hallman, and I set off on our 18hr treck from Tegucigalpa to San Jose, Costa Rica. During our ride in the King Quality Bus, which doesn´t mean high quality, we met a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Costa Rica (ptch) on her way back from El Salvador. She told us what she had learned about El Sal´s civil war and how the states gave money for weapons, and helped train El Sal´s military to kill people by cutting them from the stomach up with one swift lash of a mashetee.

After what seemed like days, and having started to go a little crazy, we arrived in Costa Rica. It took 18hrs, which is time equivolant to driving from Ohio to New Orleans, but distance equivilant to driving from Ohio to Illinois.

This is what happens after a long bus ride.

Its amazing that Costa Rica is considered part of Central America. Its lucious, has paved roads, beautiful people, and green. Have you seen Jurassic Park?-filmed there! The change from Honduras could even be noticed in simple street dogs. Instead of bones and flapity nipples, these dogs were FAT and groomed!

In San Jose, Ana´s family friend picked us up and took us to their house, in the middle of colorfully decorated houses in a quaint subburb of San Jose. There was no garbage on the ground and people were actually jogging for exorcize. It reminde me of Chile or Spain, but with more of a ¨jungle¨feel. Oh yeah, even found veggie burgers at the grocery store!

After spending a few days looking around the city and taking a trip up to the canyon of a big volcano we went to a Talapia farm which the family friends owned. I ate fish....it still had a head and eyes.

I ate this....and liked it!

After that we went to Puerto Viejo, a beachy touristy town followed by islands off the coast of Panama! I love Panama! We met so many people from all over the world. From 3 Israelies trying to drink 100 beers each in 4 days to get their picture on the wall of the Hostel, to a squabily french dude that only spoke Spanish. We had a Halloween party and I was R2D2. The water on these beaches was so amazingly beautifully clear, like nothing I thought really existed. It reminded me of a pair of aqua-lime contacts I had in High School.

Now I´m back in my site, the rainy season has begun again, and the electricitys out. Maybe it´ll be back tomorrow?

That was yesterday. Today is a holiday in more way than one. Today is the exact day that I have completed one year as a volunteer. I have exactly one year left...its an interesting feeling.

The word for ¨¨handcuffs¨¨ in spanish is the same word for ¨¨wife¨¨

A volunteer was just murdered in the Philipinees. Thats number 3 volunteer death since I´ve been a volunteer. Avg. 3 a year?

Oh God!! I've killed again!

2007-03-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

"I woke up this mornign, my head was still fuzzy. I couldn't remember what had happened until I saw the blood on my hands. I couldn't remember how bad it had gotten until I looked in the mirror and saw the streaks of blood I had painted around my eyes, war-paint style. Then I knew...it had happened again. Oh dear god in heaven have mercy, I've killed again.

The fog is begining to clear from my mind. I wish it wouldn't these memories are too much to bear. The screams of pain, the pleas for mercy that I ignored, oh how they echo in the dank cavern of my skull.

This is what happens every time I drink a wine spritzer. My alcohol tolerance is terrible, and unlike those lucky few who just get sick and pass out, I murder when I'm drunk. "-boy in photo

This is what happens if you leave macaroni on your stove for 5 minutes. Those are ants.

A pipe broke in my house and started spraying and shooting water everywhere. I ran down the stairs to get my neighbors, falling all the way down. Then my door shut and I got locked out.

:) Holy week break I'm going to Panama and Coasta Rica!!!

Updated my photo page!

Oh yeah I also do work...The other week I gave a talk to the pregnant women that meet once a month here in the clinic. I talked about the different types of birth control. I started out by asking them how many kids they wanted....none of them had an answer, they had never thought of it before or thought that they couldn´t control for things like that! ¨Whatever god wants¨is a response you often here.....

This next week after the Sait Patty´s day Pub Crawl I´ll be doing a Health Week in a bilingual school in Thanks City (Gracias). I´ve also been teaching english in the kindergarden and I´ll be getting free toothbrushes from Colgate to give out at the schools.

I just gave a talk to the new trainees that have come in about stress management. They say at this time in your service (12-14months) people start to come down from the honeymoon and realize that they have an entire year still left....I´ve been too busy to notice...lets hope it stays that way! ;)

i hate the new blogger

2007-02-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

why did it change?? i´m sitting here in some 3rd world country spending my presious time trying to figure out this bloody godforsaken new blogger. thats right mr. blogger man i´m talk to you! i hate it! anyway here are some pictures i was trying to add into my previous entry but couldn´t....

me at the carribean beach on the exotic north coast of honduras...see that in the background there? yep thats ocean!

just a few ideas to keep in mind when trying to write a manual about being abstinent.

Oh yeah we´ll be working on the abstinence manual again in Tegucigalpa...in the Hotel Marriot... for 4 days! suckas! Marriot. 4 days. Tegucigalpa. Marriot.

you can take the man out of honduras but not the honduras out of the man

2007-01-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

My new title is dedicated to a 60 something year old honduran man that I recently met. He has been living in the states for the past 10 years, has a gringa wife, and a son about my age. I randomly commented in his presence that I wanted to have a baby and he said with a old dieing fat pervery look on his face, ¨I can help with that.¨

Well things have been crazy since I´ve been back...less than a month? Wow the USA seems lifetimes ago! Love you guys, miss you!

Thanks to George W. Bush I am now in a group of 3 other volunteers writing a manual on how to teach Abstinence. He has recently put a lot of funding into its promotion. Excitingly enough, the new group of volunteers come Feb. 14th and we´ll help out in training the newbies on our manual.

People always ask me, ¨So what is it you do on an average day in Honduras?¨. Well....one day I thought I was going to go and help vaccinate old people and I found myself ontop of a mountain, with views of some lakes in El Salvador, singing with menonites all dressed in their garb, to our lord and savior Jesus H. Christ. There were even guys parts, girls parts, and harmony! Another day I thought I was going to go to a funeral of a school teacher that died in Tegus....ya know just to see what a Honduran one is like...I saw a pig get sloughtered and watched its skin and fat get peeled off instead.

Speaking of death. My one year anniversary is coming up! One year in country! We are all going to celebrate in Trujillo- a beachy town on the north coast, carribean sea-suckas. Those of you who know Left Eye from the music group TLC-this is where she got into her car accident and DIED!! eee!!! Dont worry I´ll take pictures!!

Chickens! How to kill a chicken!!! good eats!

2006-12-21T06:10:00.000-08:00

1. Bring fresh chicken home from market.

2. Hang chicken up by legs and twist neck.

3. Cut still living chickens neck with machetee

4. Later dump boiling water and still flapping chicken.

5. Pluck feathers.

6. Burn of hairs.

7. Cut dead head off.

8. Pull out insides.

9. Buen provecho!

Serves: fam of 5

opals

2006-12-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

theres a lot of opals here. its even mentioned in the guide book. waitwait first i would like to say i´m wearing a short skirt and a tank top and its DECEMBER. ok opals. my friend and i went with this lady to see opal mines today (she lied and says they only exist here in erandique...hondurans lie a lot). i thought it would be all caves and stalagmites, but nope, it was just a field of rocks. the lady had a lazy eye though.

have i mentioned that we come from a very individualist culture and honduras is a collective culture. i consider myself a pretty social person but this is getting a li´l rediculous! i eat...walk 5 steps... talk...talk ...bondbond ...social...bond. ..walk..eat...bond. ..talktalk... chatchat... bond.... exhausted and haven´t even spread the word of the condom! they think its crazy that we don´t know our neighbors names. and when i tell them i´ve never seen the inside of my neighbors houses they flip. system overload.

i´m going to a midwife training all next week. cool huh? you know they don´t give anything for pain here. nothing. nada. zip. we have a birthing clinic here. when the women from the surrounding communities are about to pop they stay here until theyre ready to press the baby out. the previous volunteer saw something like 28 births. i can´t wait!

19 days!!!!!! i cannot believe it! 19. nine TEEN. i´m in the teens. i´m nervous. have i changed? have you all changed? its gonna be awkward. happy christmas? it still feels like summer! 10 months. thats a long time.

ohmigod! change my life! i have figured out how to put pictures with my blog entires. sweetsweet lordy. ohmigod. the world of technology is moving so fast!

from scalp fungus to being able to see my breath!

2006-11-20T08:45:00.000-08:00

dude it is cold here! just thinking people in the south are sweating and getting scalp fungus, and i´m freeeezing here! can see my breath! i cannot believe it! sooo different! i need to buy a whole new wardrobe because i cut off all my pants living in the south, and now look at me, i bet it could even snow!

i love it here. i have the best site. i really feel bad for every other volunteer because i live in the best place. i really do. nicest people, prettiest, best location, everything! i can´t figure out why i´m sooo happy here. maybe its because i feel more comfortable with the culture and the spanish? becuase i finally have my own place for the first time in my life and after living with honduran families for the past 9 months? or is it that erandique is just a really great place to live?

miss sociology major here got to take blood and do the li´l test to determine their blood type the other day. all fancy and mixing chemicals. its amazing the energy you get from sucking the blood out of someone!

for thanksgiving we´re celebrating in a ¨peace corps¨house on the west, by guatemala. a bunch of volunteers went together and are chiping in on a house in the city so they can go visit there on weekends and such. (i´m not a member, i just mooch) we´re going to make all the typical yummy treats...we´ll see how that goes....tortillas and thanksgiving refried beans anyone?

MENONITE UPDATE: Played volleyball with the MENONITES. Parents used to be AMISH but were kicked out because they said that they believed that they were going to heaven instead of only hoping they were going. so MENONITES are just people that weren´t good enough to be AMISH?

next week on MENONITE UPDATE: where is daddy MENONITE´s index finger?

photos of the most bestest site are up!

erandique! (thats where i live)

2006-11-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

welp i´ve been in my new site since thurday afternoon and i love it! my boss just came here and dropped me off in the middle of some honduran town all by myself and i was like ¨what? waaaaaaait dont we need to drive over there? youre leaving so soon?¨ luckily its soo beautiful and the weather is perfect cool springlike (i guess its supposed to be like this all year round). everyone in my town is so nice and social. i havent had the chance to make one meal for myself yet because everyone has been inviting me over to their houses. i´ve been double booked twice already! unfortunatly the friendly hospitality has already gotten me a li´l ill...i was voming all day yesterday...honduras diet. but of course my friendly neighbor took care of me all day topping it off witha shot in my butt.

theres a family of north american menonites living here too! MENONITES! those poor souls...i´m going to have them locked up for hours just answering my million questions. i mean they walk around with bonnets and skirts! BONNETS...MENONITES.

my good friend from training lives about an hour down the road from me and shes here right now visiting me! its so great i have friends.

oh yeah i have the cutest li´l colorful beautiful li´l apartment ever with a li´l pink couch and doors that lead to the roof of my neighbors where i hang my laundary.

this town is way bigger than my other one and this side of the country is way different. im getting a li´l bit of culture shock. i mean theres GRASS. and i actually sleep with clothes on and covered up with blankets. have i mentioned that theres natural hot springs near by? i´m only a few hours from ancient myan ruins, a few hours from the beautiful beachs on teh north coast. the west, where i´m living, is the most heavily populated peace corps area in honduras. um...i dont have cellphone service right now but theyre building an anteanna. oh my name is fay...but i still havent gotten used to it. ¨who are you talking about?¨¨what?¨öh me?¨

oh yeah...there was a rat the first night and i had to get my neighbors son to kill it. he said if i ever need any li´l animals killed he would take care of it.

on the road again...going places that i've never been before

2006-11-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

aaaaaaaaaalrighty kids. ok so it looks like i'm moving from the hotter than hot south to a cool mountain on the west near el salvador. my host dad has been sexually harrassing me (more than the average honduran male) and they decided it was a good idea for a move. i've been refreshing my spanish this week in santa lucia and someone is going to drive me to my site in the south (on my birthday) where i will let them know i am leaving and say my goodbyes. its gonna be a big shocker...they have no idea that i'm leaving...which is also going to be really sad because i'm not aloud to tell them why and i'm not aloud to tell them where i'm going...also i was thinking of changing my name from carolina to somehting else...any ideas...maybe my middle name??? oh yeah don't send me any more mail to the choluteca mail...i'll send a new address later...and maybe yet again...a new phone number.

i just got back from a great halloween party in the west near some ancient mayan ruins. it took me 13 hrs to get there by yellow school bus...which would be like traveling from akron ohio to dayton ohio...but plus 9hrs...or maybe from ohio to maine...are you getting this? anyway it was great fun, but my costume kinda sucked...i was a rain drop which required me to dress in all blue and spit on people...ok maybe not spit on people.

i'm going to the shakira concert in san salvador!

why i hate tania

2006-10-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

hey i just got back from a really fun yoga retreat for peace corps volunteers. we went to an self statainable organic farm. it was so pretty and peacefull.

i was accidentally in nicaragua the other day. i missed the bus to a little kids birthday party a couple of towns over so i decided to walk. along the way i got a hitch hike from a little kid on a bike and then 2 trucks. it was so much fun! then we were swimming in the river and someone told me i was in nicaragua! i walked 20 minutes into nicaragua and i found the closest volunteer to me! it was so weird seeing this random gringa walking to a small li'l dusty street.

why i hate tania

ok my friend tania's peace corps location is in a very touristy beach town on the north coast called ceiba.

part 1
after having climbed a mountain just to get the slightest li´l ray of cell signal: (to everyone in her phone book) ¨please save me from this never ending pit of bordem.¨

the first 2 responses:

sean: ¨I know, i kinda feel like dying sometimes¨
tania: ¨Come to ceiba. now going to roatan [island off the coast where movie stars and rich people have their houses] tomorrow all free. my friend has a yacht. staying till mon.¨

part 2

(us having a phone conversation)

me: (putting drops in her infected ears and rubbing cream on her arm after getting it stuck in a ceiling fan) "oh i'm just kinda upset because there aren't any houses in my site for me to live in....what?? i cant hear. my baterie is running out because the electricity has been out for 2 days."

tania: (laying on the white sandy beach drinking out of a cocanut) "well i was saying that last week i only made it do copan instead of guatemala, but now i'm thinking of going to cuba with my friend that owns the club bamboo...oh yeah did i tell you i just got internet in my house and i have a USA phone line?"

Things That Are Starting to Seem a Líl Silly

2006-10-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Having an eternal summer, time doesn´t seem to be passing as it used to with seasons. I´ve supposedly had summer for the past 9 months and will continue to have it for the next 18 months. I´m sitting here sweating my balls off and its OCTOBER. cannot believe it. in a month i´m going to have my very first summer birthday and in 75days i´ll be headed to the great ol´us of a. the thought of going home has made me nervous and excited, but also a few things have started to seem a li´l silly. for example,

1. seedless oranges
2. seedless grapes
3. water from a fosset
4. drinkable fosset water
5. lawn mowers
6. garages
7. raking leaves
8. recycling
9. 4 beef patty burger at burger king
10. garbage men
11. and, my personal favorite, the garage door opener

but then there are also a few things that used to seem a li´l silly that aren´t so silly anymore for example,

1. snot rockets (shooting snot out of your nose by covering one nostril...if you have any questions just ask meredith s. simpson)...done by everyone and anyone
2. earning L133 a day...or $6.50 (got a raise!)
3. having 60 yr old fat men, well....all men...and women, telling you how beautiful you are, all the time, and inviting you, total strangers, to fancy reunions.-you know they are fancy because everyone is drinking pop.
4. taking an hour to walk a block becuase you have to (get to) stop and talk to everyone....luckily my town is only a couple blocks in total!
5. lieing...a lot
6. hammocks in living rooms
7. reading at least 2.5 books a week
8. and finally, beans for breakfast

have you ever seen a pigs ¨¨huevos¨¨?

2006-09-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Twice a year a Peace Corps volunteer magazine comes out here in Honduras with articles written by volunteers. Heres one article that recently came out:

Cross-Cultural Experience Resembles Bi-polar Disorder
This PCV´s diary tells it all-David Stephenson

May 28th

¨¨I have never felt so part of life here. This morning Doña Gloria [invited me to her house to share the experience of making tortillas.] The soft glow of the [outside oven] illuminated the aging but beautiful features of her face. As she snatched a warm disc of cooked dough from my hand and replaced it with an old piece of white bread, I felt a joy rise in me; I was not a gringo, but a part of the community.

May 29th

It is possible that through the veins of my counterpart runs not life-sustaining blood but the black bile of unmitigated evil. The thick slime that courses through her capillaries irrigates each cell of her body with the backed-up sewage that leaves her heart and, instead of removing waste and providing oxygen, as blood does in the bodies of those vertebrates not spawned by Satan, this sinister substance takes each passing sexond as an opportunity to heap more and more bad will, corruption and dereliction on teh cells of her body.¨¨

its okay i still have my right arm

2006-09-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

well........i´m kinda in a rush, but i feel bad for not having updated in a while...well my odessey of the mind groups went to the tournement and we won 2 big trofeys for 1st and 2nd place! it was complete craziness and i think i put some pictures up before my camera cord broke?

after that...miss peace corps lite...spent 2 weeks outta her site...went to a adventura concert!....and now she is back and everyhting is exactly the same...oh yeah...her house still isnt done...even though 2 months ago they said it would be ready in 2 weeks.

coming back to her site she has been THROWN into tons of work. AIDSAIDSAIDS. they are planning on adding a new part to teh health center where they begin testin gpeople for AIDS. they want me to be the person they talk to, prepares them, before getting tested. theeeeeeeeeen i have to educate the whole town and surrounding towns about AIDS as well as organize a big shabang for the international day of HIV-AIDS december first. loooooooove it! time is going to go by so fast! only 92 days til i come home for christmas!

oh yes today i was on a chair getting down a map and forgot about the ceiling fan. almost cut of my entire right arm. its hard for me to be typing this right now even. i wish you could see it its soo funny looking.

ROOMMATE WANTED

2006-08-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Tired of riding around in cars or public transportation? Bored of taking hot showers every morning? Sick of looking forward to the freezing winter every single year of your life? Can´t seem to lose those last few pounds? Why not try the Honduras Diet?

Beautiful 3 room house with porch and exotic outside bath.· Electricity and phone are minimal, but sun and mountains are plentiful. Come and enjoy a pleasant, quaint town in the mountains. Come to Mary´s Conception. With a name like that its gotta be great!

·still under construction

What a crazy week! We had a fair in our town in honor of some great saint. So much fantastic stuff happened. First I met the only gay Honduran, and he has AIDS! Isn´t that great?! Then I watched people hang a duck from a rope and ride past it on horses until one of them ripped its head of! (It still flapped its wings, without its head). Next they entered the gringa in some contest where men try to shove a pen through a ring, haning from the same rope as the poor dead duck. There were several rings hanging, each with a different name on it...including my own. Whose ever ring the men slip their pen through win a kiss on the cheek from the lady and ride the princess through town . Of course my ring was goosed with in seconds. I had to take a death trip around a town paved with stones on a horse stirred by a crazy man. I peed my pants a little bit.

Next, I whittnessed (sp?) a cock fight and danced with a tall wooden woman through the streets. Todays a greased pig catch and a pole climbing contest!

··twitch twitch··· there are some pictures up...not all...can´t handle honduras technology...ok air in...ok air out...calm calm

Group saying hello

2006-08-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

video of my home :)

2006-07-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

dude, i have a scalp fungus!

2006-07-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

ladys and gents i have a scalp fungus!!! so cool!

i have been hanging out with jose, his family, and friends all weekend and it has been so much fun! they are all soo cool and love the gringa ;)

i got to walk around his nice house without any shoes on! throw toilet paper down the toilet! hot showers! tons of food! looooved it. i think i just might move in. ooo and i got to drive around in a car!

ooo and it was also funny because i would talk to everyone in english (because its easier) and they would all respond in spanish (because its easier for them) and we all understood and got along just fine. it was just funny. i felt like akshata in india talkin in her 90 million languages.

yipppie! back to the concepcion of the maria!

6 months! i've been here 6 months! that means i only get to live what i've lived 3 more times! i'm already starting to miss the people here!

some new pictures up! hopefully the churchie gringos send me more.

gringo fest 2006

2006-07-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

i have never seen so many white people in all my life! i guess now that summer has started the churchie gringos have decided to spread the word of our lord and savior jesus h. holy christ. there was a group at the church the other day giving away toys and candy...i felt like one of the li´l brown third world kids...they gave me oreos and i hid them in my shirt as i scurried away. i dont even want to talk about how many i´ve eaten already this morning....

the other group of gringos have been here for a week building a new water system. i went to help pick them up from the airport and when we arrived back in concepcion everyone had made signs, lit off fire crackers, and surrounded the car welcoming them....maaaaaaaan it was emotional. then their house was all decorated with balloons and music was blaring. my li´l hondurans were so sweeet and excited! i got tears in my eyes! the next day when we went to start digging to put in the pipes, people from the town that the gringos helped the year before all showed up and were digging. it was amazing. they said never before has another town helped out another one in such a way. gaaaaaaaaaawd break my heart.

i´ve been crazy busy working with this odessey of the mind thing every afternoon until night...theyre excited about going to tegus. we´re going to have a mini competition-practice against the parents of the town.

the highschoolers put on a play the other day...the title of it was ¨¨sueños mojados¨¨ which is translated to ¨¨wet dreams¨¨ baaaaaaaaahahaha! a few of them made up a dance routine to perform afterwards and they got me to dance with them...man oh man its the talk of the town. they got it on video and they like zooming in on my butt and putting it in slow motion. hilaaaaaaaarious.

mommy dearest in 160 something days i would like chocolate oatmeal cookies, grammies mac and cheese, spinach, and the li´l balls of health.

leaving for chile in like 12 days!!!!!!!!

mom i´m sending something home with the gringos tomorrow for you. you´ll LOVE it...i couldn´t sleep last night because i was so excited. :) hehe

bubye i´m going swimming in the river then we´re having a goodbye party for the gringos!

p.s. big gossip of the week: there was a WOMAN hanging out at the bar the other night...very scandoulous.

p.p.s. i´m going to see jose (my honduran friend from college) this weekend!! my first li´l piece of home here in honduras! :)

a note from cholutexas....haha get it...choluteca...cholutexas...haha

2006-06-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

i was sitting next to an ¨¨experienced¨¨ volunteer waiting for the bus. in mid conversation she throws up, then continues talking as if nothing happened.

remember a time when you had to P soooo bad and you couldn´t find a bathroom. you even started to warn the people around you that you were going to P your pants and they were just going to have to accept it....then finally out of the obyss appears a bathroom. great glorious bathroom!! ok remember how that P felt. perhaps even a P shiver. that flowing river of P that seemed to last for an eternity. well imagine all that, except, coming out of your butthole. diareah.

i visited a volunteer the other week that has a t.v., dvd player, air conditioning, and running water. there are even rumors of a volunteer out west with internet!

i´m going to chile for chile´s wedding in 26 days!!! i´m going home for christmas in less than 180 days!!!

i´m also getting, finally, my own house soon. i´ll have a land line too!!! (better than my appartment in massAACHEWsettes!! haha!)

you can see where i live!! click on the link to the right!

there´s a state on the north coast called, ¨¨thank you, god¨¨

2006-06-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

i´ve been living in my site for about a month now (4 months in honduras-whoa, the longest i´ve ever been outside of the usa) and i´m pretty much settled in.

i have 2 friends that i go on walks with regularly. theyre both around my age but, of course, they´re married with kids. one of them, at most, has a 6th grade education-its amazing how you can still relate...people are just people. i´ve started 2 oddessey (sp?) of the mind youth groups, and i´ve been working with this guy to help get a better water system-we crawled up and down the mountain, through bushes, barbed wire, and peoples yards measuring out the distance for the pipes-great fun! i have the greatest job. i get to do what i want whenever i want! i have so much free time-i read books all the time, i could even become a karate master if i wanted.

i´ve finally gotten used to sleeping under a mosquito net, scrubbing my laundary on a wash board, bathing with buckets of water, eating beans with corn tortillas, taking li´l yellow school buses over long distances (i just got of the 2 hr long bus ride from my site to use the internet in the city. it was an hour late. we had a time change 4 weeks ago and the buses, schools, and people are all still in the old time) i´m used to having bugs crawling on my eyeballs like the children in the ¨¨send money to africa¨¨ comercials (its raing season. we´ve got an amazing amount of frogs, mosquitos, lizards, and these wierd worms with a million legs) and i´m even used to eating pig intestines, but one thing i don´t think i´ll ever get used to is the guys here yelling and harrassing. the ¨¨machismo¨¨...i´ve tried ignoring it, i´ve tried yelling at them in spanish, yelling at them in english, i´ve shoved people, kicked a guy, and the other day even picked up a rock as if i was going to throw it at them. when i was in india i didn´t even notice it or care, but i guess consistantly over a long period of time it just eats away at your soul.

honduras isn´t poor. i mean its the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, but compared to india and a butt ton of other countries its not poor. there are volunteers here from the usa, cuba, japan, food sent from canada, and only god knows the number of missionaries, but its not poor. compared to india its nothing. people are living in houses, there aren´t a million people sleeping in the streets and walking (or scooting) around with weird, awkward deformities. theres not a million li´l babies with the big bellies, not a million adults pooing on the side of the road in big cities. honduras isnt what ya´ll are thinking. my friend i visited last weekend goes out to eat for every meal and does his laundary at a laundary mat. i have access to internet, phone, comfy bed, food, and tv whenever i want. so the point i´m getting at is COME VISIT!!!! :) its laaaaayed back, cheap, and its not like youre going to AFRICA its li´l ity bity honduras. beautiful beaches, ancient mayan ruins, cloud forests, tropical forests, marriot hotel, and a pizza hut just opened up in the south. come play!! :)

lightening bugs blink a lot faster here

2006-05-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

so i´m still continuing to have an amazing time....i keep waiting and waiting for this honeymoon stage to be over...i just can´t take the HAPPINESS anymore!... I LOVE EVERYONE! these peeps are so amazingly nice...everyone i meet just makes me want to be a better person.

i´ve been helping out at the center of health (health center?) weighing the sickies and such. i could officially get a job as one of those amusement park weight guessers.

for being such a small town theres definatly a lot of socializing going on. haven´t stopped yet! the nurses had an annaversary (sp?) party the other night. i showed up all those latinos on the dance floor. everyone was amazed-the gringas got the moooooooves.

another thing i love: cow. i was walking to a mother´s day party (HAPPY MOTHER¨S DAY!!...its a really huge holiday here) and i ran into a friend, dulce (sweet in english...bah!), and she told me that they were about to kill a cow at her house and if i would like to watch. now how could i turn down such an intersting offer? i got my glass of pop and sat on the sideline.

how to kill a cow
1.tie horns of cow to tree (shoo dogs away)
2. tie front 2 legs together, tie back 2 legs together
3. after tieing all legs together push cow to the ground on its side.
4. pull and tie cow head to tail (the cow is now suffering i was informed)
5. (get bucket handy) stab cow in the chest-neck region (this is where i squeeled) and catch blood in bucket
6. when blood stops flowing have someone pump the blood out by standing on its stomach (the cow is still alive at this point)
7. after draining much of the blood and the cows tounge is white and sticking out, untie the still living cows head from the tail (shoo the dogs away again this time from licking the oozing bleeding wound)
8. untie legs, cow dies after giving one last hardy thrust towards the licking savage dogs
9. begin the deskinning process. (i was surprised that underneath its only a little yellower and vainier than what we buy at the grocery store)

serves:1,000

pictures should be up soon!

a day in the life of carolina with a long i sound

2006-04-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

she awakes at 5 am to go for her morning run down the dirt ¨¨highway¨¨. people stare at her as she passes but she only stares back....afterall they are the ones with buckets on their heads.
later she returns to splash herself clean with a bucket of crisp, cool water which feels nice after the long hot run. she eats her already made breakfast of refried beans, eggs, fried banananas, and corn tortillas. she says no to the coffee and receives wide eyes and looks. after lunch she heads out with her counter part carrying coolers full of vacinations. they hitch a ride part of the way only breaking for a moment to throw a bag of trash out the window down a mountain. carolina laughs at even the thought of recycling. when they arrive to the dirty, run down school house a man yells through a megaphone in.....that language, calling people for their shots. they arrive and the white girl puts drops of the pollio vaccine and vitamin ´a´ in their mouths making all the little kids cry. later they walk back throuigh cobble stone streets, up and down dirt paths, through creaks and streams only to arrive to the prepared lunch of refried beans, eggs, fried bananas, and corn tortillas. afterwards carolina and her food baby lay down to take a mid day nap. she later awakes to the sound of her best friend, the 7 year old granddaughter tapping on the window....again speaking in .....that language. they eat frozen juice together and play games such as ¨guess the number i´m holding behind my back¨. after a few hours of that they sit under the mango tree in the backyard and eat the endless supply of the fruit fresh. a few more hours go by, carolina may read her book in....that language..., write in her journal, or perharps rearrange her room for the 3rd time that day. finally after a long day she sits down to her dinner of refried beans, eggs, fried banananas, and yes...corn tortillas. as she eats she realizes that she has had this meal before....but it doesn´t matter...its still good and she still craves it. she thinks there may be an addictive drug within the mixture? after goofing around with the family a bit and receiving a few staticie phone calls she lays down in her ¨¨casita¨¨ to sleep for the night. she awakes in the middle fo the night sweating her nonexistant balls off coming to realize that the electricity has gone out once again and her fan no longer functions. falling back into the heat coma she dreams of beans and banananas and corn tortillas.

muhahaha the adventure begins

2006-04-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

alrighty folks...i have missed my last bus to my site, but i have luckily met a nice family who offered to let me stay in their hammock (sp?) for tonight... :)

these last 2 weeks have been crazy. we were all back together taking our last bit of classes and soaking in the last bit of americans before we were pushed off into the middle of no where completely by ourselves (except i think i am the only one that hasnt made it to their site yet and im one of the few people who are actually living without other peace corps volunteers in their site yippie!!) (this guy keeps looking over my shoulder reading what i am typing...now a little girl...)

we got all dressed up and ´had our swearing in...then we all stayed at the marriot. ..........absolutly amazing........wow.........hot water SHOWERS........tv........drinkable fossit water......and, my personal favorite,.......we could flush tp down the toilets!!!!

i stayed at my friends joli and taras site in danli for the last 2 nights....they have a furnished house in the middle of a city....chumps i thought they signed up for peace corps?

alrighty kids....oh yes dont send mail to the address i sent....i think i´m going ot try and get a p.o.box. muah muah!

now it gets interesting!

2006-04-09T12:41:00.000-07:00

water: there is water almost every morning
sewage: no, but there are some septic tanks
electricity: yes, but unreliable, especially during the rainy season. (not rainy season and went out 2 of the 3 nights i was there)
phone: 36 regular phone lines in town.
internet: yes, but quality is poor.
banks:no
churches: 3

dadadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ill be living in Concepcion de Maria in the soooooooooooooooouth south south hottnesss of honduras-4 km from nicaragua! 1151 residents (including myself)!! Nov- Feb 85-105 degrees and in the rainy, humid season 68-90 degrees! yippie!

i´m about equally close to Managua, Nicaragua or San Salvador, El Salvador or Tegucigalpa, Honduras so look for the cheapest plane tickets from either city! come visit! soon! i´ll be living with the awesomest family the first 1-2 months or so until i find my own place. i´m the only whitey for an 1 and a half, but theres someone living in nicaragua 4 km away....i just have to meet them....pass the boarder illegally?

i´m going to be volunteering in the health center in my town until i get the language down pat....then from there....

i walked through Concepcion and all 2000 eyes were on my every move...what if i had a booger on my face? we passed out shoes to a neighboring town....i was sitting zoning in english right when they announced that the peace corps volunteer would like to make a speech.....news to me! they also announced my presences at the town kareoke....

i have a new address and i have a phone number of the house i´ll be living in starting the end of the month (right now more godforsaken training in santa lucia)- i´ll email it so i dont get rapped and murdered.

**number 1 spanish mess up of the month:
(my friend thought she was saying popcorn which is really similar to....)

My friend(to her whole honduran family): ¨do you like popcorn? i like popcorn except when it gets stuck in my teeth¨.

she was really saying a slang word for big penis.... BAAAAHHAHAHA!

p.s. my name has been changed to carolina (long i sound). i guess its easier to say?
p.p.s. we lost another one, that makes us down 3 in 2 months!

campy wampy

2006-04-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

i put some pictures up! waaaaaaaaaaho!

i just got back from this over night team building camp. sooooooo great. we did the canope (sp?) gliding thingy and people played guitar by the camp fire. (it reminded me of maine....add a million fire ants...and some bondedness...I guess we know we´re all in this for 2 years together) we also went to a naaaaaaaaatural sauna (who knew?) in a cave and sliding down natural water slides (don´t worry i´m a certified lifeguard). top 10 top 10 best days in honduras. i can´t believe i´m here.

we went to a baby weighing session the other day. they just put the babies in a li´l swingy thing naked-with poo pee and all. got to interview the mothers. it was at a one room school house and all of the women i talked to only made it to the 1st or 2nd grade. i was so surprised....i can´t even imagine...i want to know what they know.

(blue his house with a blue little window and everything is blue for him-music thats playing right now)

there was a dead guy on the corner a block away from my house the other day. my family didn´t know who he was or why he died. they just threw him in the back of a truck and took him away.

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY! WOOO

Pinapples don´t grow from trees!

2006-03-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I ran for 2 hours through Central America via the Pan American Highway-which stretches from Alaska to the southern tip of South America with a gap in Columbia. Afterwards we stretched in caves and cooled off in some waterfalls. The mist was blinding and we jumped off the rocks into li´l pools around it. I couldn´t stop smiling-ít was like when I bought my car times 10!

Earlier this week we built a mud brick stove in someones house. It helps the smoke from going inside the house reducing the risk of upper respitory infections. A cockroach crawled on my shoulder.

We also had people living with HIV-AIDS come and speak to us. It was the first time I was aware I was talking to somebody with AIDS. I´m not sure I can describe how that felt.

BANANAS! I´ve probably done about 95 condom demonstrations in teh past week. We went to a local school and taught them about HIV-AIDS. So much fun. I joke that I´m going to eat the condom afterwards and they just think its the funniest thing they´ve ever seen. We had a comercial sex worker come and talk to us and she did a condom demonstration with her mouth. En fuego!

-Chocolate brownies.....mac and cheese.....vegtables.....I will miss you....you have been good to me....R.I.P.

Photos!!----I lied........I can´t get them up......maybe in a couple of weeks when I´m in Teguc........I find out my site and what I´ll be doing on Tuesday! eeep!!

"I'm going to burn off your balls"(english)

2006-03-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

I'm sure ya'll already know this, but I keep forgetting to mention that I'm probably the drop dead sexiest person to walk to face of this earth. I mean everywhere I walk people do the "chachacha" sound, talk about my eyes, and tell me how beautiful I am. One guy, my personal favorite, said that he couldn't believe I came from his rib. BAH! Adam and Eve! Love it! p.s. My host sister asked if people with green eyes see green all the time.

I went with Joli (have I mentioned her? my 32 yr old BBFFL) and her host family to this aaaaaaaaaaaaamazing lake in, of course, the middle of the mountains. I took millions of pictures that I'll some day put up. We took a water boat ride, a tracktor (sp?) ride through a coffee plantation, and saw Jarrassic Park esc (have I seen too many movies?) water falls! It was so unbelievable. So green and mossy. I swear when ever I'm deing and gasping my last breath I just want to slide off the edge and fall with the water. I still can't get over the fact that I'm in Honduras (which means like a dip in the land underwater/ valley? p.s.) I wonder if you can buy A.D.D medicine over the counter here?

Hospital

2006-03-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

I´ve finally gotten the illeness!! I spent Thursday night in the hospital because I was throwing up everything. How exciting! I felt like I was in a movie having a flashback of some far off time and place. They rolled me down this dimmly lit green tile hallway. Babies were crying far off in the distance and there was a calm mormour (sp'?) of this forgien language all around me. I think I just ate something funny, but there was a scare that I had appendisitous (sp?). I got a shot in the butt, my blood drawn 4 times, an IV, an ultasound, an x-ray, and they tested #1 and #2. But alas I´m fine and enjoying my time roaming around the city. Oh I also got a throat infection. There isnt any pavement here so the streets just coat your throat and lungs with thick dust pancake mix. The first day I was here my host mom kept spitting like she was trying out for Titanic or something. I was so grossed out. aaaaaaaa sorry my friends are waiting to go walk around. I´ll write more soon bubye!!

¡¡Siguatepeque!!

2006-03-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

Hola!! I´m have moved on from my li´l town life onto bigger and better things. I´m in the city of Siguatepeque! (I had to ask the guy next to me how to spell it) We´re having Field Based Training here...which means all of the health volunteers, buisiness, and water sand peeps split up and go with their project groups to different sites to learn more about their projects. Am I making sense?

We just got here yesterday and we´ll be here for the next 5 weeks! I am sooooooooo happy. a city! Plus I have moved from the ghetto into a real house with a t.v., my own bathroom, warm shower, and an awesome family! I live with 2 parents, their 37 year old daughter (Betsy sister I think you´re part Honduran :) exotic), and her 2 kids 13 and 16. So fun theyre sooooooo nice and I´m their first volunteer that they´ve had and they ask me all these silly questions and comment on how ´peeps from the U.S. like to walk a lot and are so amused that I like coffee. When I ask what¨¨ because I don´t understand what my host mom is saying she just TALKS REALLY LOUD..its hilaaaaaaaaaaarious. I´m not deaf, just no speaky espanol.

A couple of weeks ago we had to go out and visit a currently serving volunteer to see what the life was like. I had so much fun. This girl was living in the middle of a city (not what we think...no tall buildings....but paved roads!) with another volunteer living in the same city. The person I was visiting just married a honduran a couple of weeks before. (I am seriously having problems with this english right now....I´m officially mute) We drank fresh cocanut milk off the tree and I got to use a mashetti (sp? the big knife-sword thingy)!!

Michael and Betsy thanks for the package love it!!! I almost cried when I saw the cliff bars! I´ll be able to write more now that I´m here. We have movie theatures and stores too!! hiphip!

Pig Intestines!!! Yum!

2006-02-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

I have officially eaten pig intestines....I guess its a typical soup here called Mondongo......I was imagining that I was on Fear Factor and shoveled the spongy pig juice down my pie hole. At first I had no idea what it was....my host mom just said it was pig....and then I asked why it was all spungy and tuby....then the adventure began.

I´m having a blaaaaaaaaast. But first I want to say small freakin world! My friend, Joli, and I got a ride with a guy to Teguc (where I am now) and he has family living in Amherst and Boston!!! I almost flipped my lid. Spanish and english wanted to come out at the exact same time and I think I just pooed my pants.

Oh focus...mmm I have been having 5 hours of spanish a day (intermediate) and 4 hours of health-aids-youth development. But right now I´m skipping health to use the internet :)

OOoooo we play a lot of ultimate frisbee on this field surrounded by mountain s(put a photo up) amaaaaaaaaaaazing! When I first went there I almost P`ed the sun was setting and clouds and greenery.aaaaaaaaaamazing.

Some of us went to La Tigra last weekend, a cloud forest. BEAUTFIUL. It felt like we were in Alicen Wonderland, The Princess Bride, and the Labrinth all at once. I couldnt freaking beleive it.......unfortunatly those photos arent up yet. I hiked so much I woke up with but pains in the middle of the night. On our way home the bus didnt show up and we had to cram 25 of us in the back of some random guys truck. The sun was shining and everything was beautiful. I felt like I was in Titanic...until we began to roll backwards down a hilll because of all our fattness and my friend fell out. I almost had a heart attack, I thought she was run over. But alas everything is alllllllright.

I guess they call HOnduras the ¨Club Med¨of Peace Corps becuase we´re way better off than all those chumps in Africa.

OOOooo some juice. Everyones getting the squirts execpt mee.....good thing I was eating all those tacos for breakfast before I came....because that moment on my lips is still on my hips. :) 2 people have dropped out already....one of them was my pretty good friend (after 14 days) and I had no clue she was thinking of going home (p.s. michael and sara it was katie!) and then POOF one day she was gone...no goodbyes...no nada....que triste...

I have li´l baby chickens and roosters that walk around my house.......hilarious.....I woke up to about 5 rooster crows (sp?) this morning. My honduran aunt owns the resurant next door and she had a birthday and mariachy (sp?) guys came and played and we all drank and danced. Funfun.

I put pictures up. Go look at ém!!

Bienvenidos a Honduras!

2006-02-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

I'm alive!!! and in Honduras!! Central America!! haha!! Ok....well I had 2 days training in D.C. Meeting the other 49 other Peace Corps Volunteers someone should have just handed me the troffie (sp?) or pedistool for being, hands down, the coolest person there.....of course I was judging them without having spoken to them--only by the way they dressed. After letting them talk to me I found out that they all are actually way cooler than I am. They all have already done so much. i.e. worked in a hospital in Ecuador or participated in exoctic Shamen rituals.......yadayadyayada.

We arrived in Honduras 2 days ago!! I know I've said this a million times but I am honestly afraid to blink because I know I'll miss something. It is BEAUTIFUL. BREATHTAKING. Nothing but hills and mountains. Everything is greeen and mossy and HOT. I just walk around giggling because I can't believe where I am....I'm probably known as the town skitzo (sp?). I'm also a little bipolar. Every so often it hits me that I'm going to be here for the next 2 years 2 months and 27 days of my life and I start twitching. One kid at training in D.C. wanted to use the money they gave us for food ($140!!! for 3 meals) and buy a plane ticket home....hes still here.........I like playing the game "Who's gonna drop out first?"

Oh it turns out I'm in Santa Lucia, which is a small town actually 12 km up the mountain from Tegucigalpa. I'm staying with the nicest host family ever (not counting spain of course)!!!! I have a host mama, dad, and 2 sisters 15 and 17. The house is like a li'l square motel. Theres an opening in the middle and then each room separates from that. i.e. I enter a door for the kitchen......then go back outside to go to the living room......and my room........and the bathroom is just outside. So exciting! So much to say my fingers can't type it!

-The coffee!!! AMAZING! Liquid coke! twitch twitch
-My spanish.....like a small downsindrome (sp?) child........but I'm waaaaaaaaay better off than some suckas and than I was in Spain.
-Food-so far so good! Recognize everything, like everyhting.
-Hills fantabulous! I'm going to have the best butt ever!
-Christmas in February!! They gave us so many goodies it was like christmas! I got a mosquito net, malaria pills (I'll tell you about my hallucinations later), 6 shots, sunscreen, vitamins, and lotion!!! My host mom calls my mosquito net my casita (little house).
-El bathroom. I guess youre not suppsoed to put your TP in the toilet because the pipes aren't that great and they'll get clogged.....so far every time, minus 2 extraordinary occasions, I have managed to throw the TP in the toilet and then proceeded to go fishing...

Hip Hip!!

DISclaimer

2006-01-16T22:49:00.000-08:00

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps."-Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook

Also, don't judge me as a person by my grammar or spelling mistakes........I'm probably just so overwhelmed by my thinking in SPANISH that I can't possibly think about simple, ity bity English...........baaaaaaaaaaaaaahahhahaha.......jealous? (french phlegmy accent)