The Depths

Alright, so only a month and half has passed since my last communique visa vi this blog, so I´m getting better at this. Right?

What happened in January you wonder? My counterpart and I spent a week in the neighboring municipality building a red de mujeres, a group of woman to support the creation of a woman´s municipal office like the one we have here in San Marcos. I feel like it went over pretty well actually and many of the women were excited to get out there and spread the word and demand from their politicos that this office be created. After I got back I was sick for a few days and at first I thought I had Dengue and could be a certified third-worlder, but alas it was only some kind of bacterial infection. Oh well, one day.

The improved stove project that I mentioned in the last update continues, although still in the planning stages. However, we did just submit all the info for the project to the NGO that will be in charge of the whole thing so hopefully the process will pick up soon. In addition I might have a latrine project going on in one of the communities in the protected area. We had an initial meeting but its still way early on. Vamos a ver what happens with that. At the end of the month we had our Protected Areas Management “reconnect”, which was a meeting of all the PAM volunteers for a few days to discuss what we are working on and collaborate on plans for the future. All in all it was a good opportunity to catch up with my buds from all over  H-ville.

After reconnect I took a trip with two PAM amigas of mine to check out the lovely land of Nicaragua. We had an amazing time. Its a super beautiful country, at least the parts we visited. The landscapes, the history, the people, all beautiful. We actually ended up meeting a lot of Peace Corps Nicaragua volunteers as well which was very cool, although most of the conversations were something like “whoa you eat beans and tortillas every day! so do I!” I won´t go into too much detail about the whole trip because this blog is about Honduras, but if you have the chance I highly recommend checking out Nicaragua. And don´t worry, its totally gringo friendly right now. Not even the most hardcore Sandinista will reject US dollars coming into his country.

But now I am back in Honduras, and glad to be back. I actually missed it a good deal in Nicaragua. And in some very good news, the teachers of the San Marcos area have decided not to strike and there will be school this week. So finally I can get started on my main project here.

In these times of economic turmoil and uncertainty you can at least assure yourself that your friend Patrick is doing just fine.

But he does miss you all.