From the Depths 12 Oct 2008 02:21 pm
Guava Jelly
It seems I have let yet another month pass without update. I am quite bad at keeping up with this. On the other hand it should make for a more detailed entry.
September 26th was our swearing in date. It was quite a day. I must say I felt proud swearing to defend the constitution and all that jazz. Training was fun and unforgettable but I am very pleased to be a legitimate volunteer now. After our swearing in we had the chance to celebrate at the ambassador´s house in Tegucigalpa. It was a nice send off to many friends I will not get to see for a long time.
The next day I arrived in San Marcos de Colon to begin my two years of service. I´ve spent the past two weeks more or less getting to know the town, the people, and the surrounding area. All of which are beautiful. The protected area is called La Montaña de la Botija (The mountain of hidden treasure) and it is gorgeous. It has magnificent pine forests than remind me a lot of the mountains of North Carolina. It has tropical dry forests. It has white faced monkeys. It has anteaters (which they call ant eating bears). And Nicaragua is only a few hours walk to the south or east. Not that I can go there anytime soon of course. Nonetheless it´s still cool.
I´ve even starting working on a few things as well. I´ve been doing some good work in coordination with the Oficina Municipal de la Mujer, writing up reports and such. I helped out in a jelly making session with a women’s group. I picked the guavas myself and I must say it turned out pretty tasty in the end. In addition, a few days ago I gave a workshop on gender equality to a newly formed women’s goup in a little town called Las Delicias in the protected area. I think it went pretty well overall and it feels good to have accmoplishedsomething concrete. Little by little I´m getting to know all the schools in the area but unfortunately the school year will end next month and won´t start back up again until February. So my main project of environmental education will have to stay in the planning stages for the near future.
I briefly mentioned my host family last post and how nice they are but I neglected to mention anything about the food. In short, the food is amazing. By far the best I have had in my short time in Honduras. Best of all they have Mexican avocado trees growing in their yard and I eat one just about everyday. They are almost too delicious to describe. I also eat a fair amount of delectable locally grown honey.
In summation, if you couldn’talready tell by how many superlative adjectives I have used, my life here is wonderful and I am living it up. I do, however, miss everyone back in the United States. And new to this post, I miss all of my fellow H13 volunteers now scattered across Honduras. A special mention to my friends Kevin and Shannon roughing it up in Catacamas, the second best PAM site around. Hang in there guys.