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July Update

Things have been a little crazy the past month or so.  Work has finally snuck up on me, even though at times, not seeming so productive.  It’s like fighting and uphill battle.  Many of the teachers here seem not too have too much of a vested interest in the community. Many of them are obviously do not take pride in their work or position.  Sadly it is easier to get the students to show up than the teachers.  Just recently they took like a week off during a “teacher’s” strike.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for unions and striking to get what you need or to repair injustices, but the teachers here are ridiculous about the things they strike for. As I start to work more, I start to see these sad truths right before my very own eyes.  I can work so hard in projects that they asked me to help with, only for them to drop the ball and leave me to doing it all by myself.  Most of the time if I know this will happen. I will not start a project because for in reality it will not be sustainable whatsoever.  What happens when I’m gone?  Who’s going to teach that class? Who’s going to perform that service? The answer, at least in my community, is no one.  But still, it happens.  Getting my community (with the exception of a very motivated few) to follow-through with their own projects and do the things that in reality only they can do for their community, is so hard.  I feel very bad for those motivated few.  It must be hard to stay hopeful that things can change and that they can complete projects. It seems more and more that my job is not so much a facilitator of projects or resource guide to possible funding sources and particular knowledge that may not exist in the community, but more of a motivator to keep things going as they start to progress.  I mean I cannot blame the people in my community for being like this too much.  There is an air of fatalism is this community, due to the many broken promises of help and resources from the Honduran and US governments, NGOs, mayors, donors in general, etc.  This is in addition to the fact that in Santa Maria there has been a volunteer (and sometimes two) here for over 20 years,  I do feel that this causes a feeling of helplessness, making people think that I cannot help my community by myself and that without outside help, nothing is possible.  At times it makes me question the role and overall helpfulness of Peace Corps.  Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that we can help in ways, but to spend over 20 years in a community is too much.  It makes people dependent instead of empowering them to be self-sustaining.  They really need to put a cap on years, in my opinion at no more than 10 years in a community.  That means no more than 5 volunteers total (if there is only 1 at all times, sometimes there are 2 or more volunteers in a community at a time.)  We have had over 12 volunteers in Santa Maria that I know of thus far.   Also another down-side of having so many people in a community is, I feel one reason that I am not welcomed more than I am is, because of there being so many volunteers here in the past, it decreases hospitality.  Hospitality is something very important to a volunteer’s happiness in their community.  Without this, one will always feel like an out-sider and generally out of place.  Integration in a community is very hard as is, especially with a lack of hospitality.  I know of volunteers who are in newer communities often are invited to free meals at locals’ houses or being invited to go on trips with the local people.  Personally, I have been invited to dinner less than 5 times and have never really been invited anywhere.  Maybe I’m just being a bit critical, or maybe I’m really seeing it all pretty clearly.  Who knows.

On to a happier note or at least to some a more interesting note, I want to talk a little about weird things that I have eaten here or have seen that other people eat here.  Keep in mind, for me things have to be pretty strange as opposed to a typical American.  Being from Appalachia, I have eaten and seen eaten many things that you will never see in most larger cities.  Some examples: pig’s feet, gizzards, cow tongues, animals’ innards in general, pies filled with strange things like rhubarb, zucchini bread, etc.  Here I have eaten: 1) fried bananas and plantains 2) cooked raisins in my rice  3) chicken feet  4) chicharrones (basically Honduran pork rinds, deep-fried pig-skin)  5)

mondongo soup (soup made from cow intestines)  6) pickled beets, peppers, carrots, onions, cabbage, radishes, and about any other vegetable  7) papaya jelly  8) pataste jelly (pataste is a type of squash)  9) nance juice (a disgusting and strong-smelling juice made of this little things that look like yellow grapes)  10) lychees and momones (types of fruit with hard outer skins that you have to cut open to suck on the seeds inside that are covered in pulp).  I’m sure there are more, but I can’t think of any right now.  I have really enjoyed most of those things, strangely.

If anyone happens to be curious about my health, here is an update:  I’m currently under treatment for med-resistant giardia (a type of water-born parasite with my unpleasant effects.)  I was in Tegucigalpa, the capital, for like 5 days while they ran a ton of blood and fecal tests.  In reality, all the tests said I was completely healthy.  But the debilitating stomach cramps, diarrhea, bloating, and burping up sulfur-smelling gas that I was suffering from every 5 days or so for about a month and a half, tells me different.  The prognosis is just their best guess, and after checking out webmd I really think that they are right and since taking the meds, I have been feeling much better.  Only 5 more days of treatment left.  Don’t get too worried, almost every volunteer or person who does a good deal of traveling ends up getting some sort of parasite at least once.  I chalk it up to it just being part of the experience.  I’ve only had dengue fever and giardia thus far.  Many other volunteers are not so lucky.

Also for all those who would like to see me, there is hope that it is possible before my October 2009 end of service date.  Thanks to my amazing parents and home church, I will be fortunate to go back to Ohio for a visit this September for 2 weeks, Sept 15^th to the 29^th.  My tentative itinerary is this:  Monday late evening, Sept 15^th, arrive in Columbus and stay overnight with a friend.  Tuesday morning, September 16^th, go home to Jackson in time for the Apple Festival and spend time seeing my family and friends while enjoying my town’s festivities. Wednesday, Sept 17^th-Tuesday Sept 23rd or Wednesday. Sept 24^th spend the time in Jackson.  In addition to seeing family and friends and enjoying the Apple Festival, solicit for donations from churches, rotary clubs, business organizations, friends, and other clubs and groups for my community.  There are a few things that would really help my projects here that are near impossible to find here in Honduras.  Tuesday Sept 23rd or Wednesday Sept 24^th arrive back in Columbus, to visit my many friends, old employers, agencies that I worked at, advisors, etc.  Monday morning, Sept 29^th fly back to Honduras.  I know it is early and there are still like 2 months before my trip, due to lack of a good source of communication, I need to organize things asap.  I need to know who will be in the area of Columbus and/or Jackson and wants me to visit or wants to donate some things and what you can give.  Also I need to figure out how I am getting to and from the Columbus airport.  In addition, I will be completely broke due to Honduran money being 1/19^th the value of the American dollar and that I get paid a measly amount.  For these reasons, when I am in Columbus, I need to find people who would not mind to house and/or feed me.  If you think you can do any of those things, respond this email and let me know.

Donations that I will be seeking: left-handed youth baseball gloves, baseball glove lacing kit, tennis balls, whiffle balls and whiffle bats, an American football (youth-size if possible), Frisbees, dodgeballs or 4-square balls, assorted vegetable and fruit seeds, games especially ones like Uno and other card games, just anything really that kids would like.   Keep in mind that if things are used, that is just as good as long as it is in decent shape.

Right now in the US you all are sweating it out and living in air conditioning because for the most part I bet it’s pretty sweltering.  I long for that.  Right now I’m in the midst of the rainy season and it’s been absolutely horrible.  It’s been raining almost every day, all day which makes one miserable every time you step outside.  It’s very hard for me to have baseball practice or anything else outside when it is so muddy.  Working is what gets me through the day, gives me a feeling of self-accomplishment, and in general just fights the boredom that I experience living in such a tiny place.  Now I find myself going to bed around 9:30 like some sort of 50 year old man.  I am very much an outdoors person, and I hate to be confined inside, so this Seattle-esque weather is really cramping my lifestyle and thus affecting my mood.  I do believe that is one of the major reasons that I am looking towards moving to the Southwest of the US when all is said and done.  My mood is entirely too affected by the weather, so I need a place with less rain, fog, and snow and more sun and warmer weather.

Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but one of my main past-times is working in my garden.  Right now I have been really enjoying the “fruits” of my labors.  Eating the black beans, green beans, lettuce, cucumbers, radishes and soon to be tomatoes, peppers, and carrots makes me proud of my work and makes me feel like I’m doing something right when a lot of my projects don’t seem to be flourishing as such.  I have a couple stranger things I do when I’m bored as well.  Besides that things normal Americans do when they are bored (clean house, wash clothes, gardening and yard maintenance, eating, playing with kids, sports, etc,) I find myself looking for roaches to kill (which are rather large here) and leaving them to be eaten by the ants, reading in my hammock, hanging out with the mute kid, looking for trash in my yard (and there always is because my neighbors burn their trash and it floats over and in general people throw there trash on the ground and the wind sweeps it over to my yard), sharpening my machete and cooking knife, looking for good animal poop for my compost pile, tasting random “fruits” that I find growing around my barrio, petting donkeys and horses, and a I’m sure a few more weird habits that I have picked up but cannot remember right now.

Just recently I attended an “Indian” competition.  Basically it’s like a pageant where students strut their stuff in Native costumes and the person with the best style, most authentic dress, and speaking ability wins.  They had me be one of the judges.  It was such an interesting and funny experience.  Apparently this happens all of Honduras.  Pageants are pretty popular here.  They also have a “high school girlfriend and boyfriend” pageant every year.  It’s so strange to me that they have this sort of beauty contest within the confines of the school system.  I feel it could make or break someone’s ego.  All and all it was an awesome experience and I am very mad that I forgot to bring my camera to the event.  Sorry guys, I flubbed again.

Currently Listening Esta Es Mi Vida By Jesse & Joy Ya No Quiero see related

Wow, I'm getting really bad at this whole update thing, partly because it's always a struggle to use the computer here.  The computer which I use as my "office" (something that every Peace Corps volunteer is supposed to have) somehow is always in use by someone when I need it the most, even though it is supposed to be off limits to every besides me and the library youth group members called Zona X.  seeing as the Zona X is pretty defunct right now, I should be the only one using it.  I'll be honest, when I say that I get quite annoyed when I really need to get something done for my boss or project I'm working on and I can't even use "my office" because some random person who is not supposed to be on it is using it.  But according to many other volunteers, thus are the daily frustrations of the average Peace Corps volunteer.  Anyways I'm back after several beckonings to update and several attempts to do so, in hope of actually finishing and update to give you a morsel of my sometimes juicy life.

Right now, here is just a quick run-down of what I have been up to since the last time I update.  After the last time I updated, I finally started doing a little work.  We, the Youth Development Volunteers as a whole (my training group as well as the other Youth Development group that came before me), all came together for a sort of continuing education workshop called Reconnect.  In this workshops which took about 4 days we share the projects we have done that have been successful as well as the ones that have pretty much floundered in hopes of helping out the other people in our group who are thinking about doing the same thing.  Helpful at times, but like most trainings, it has it is very dull at moments.  I really know that I need to get used to coping with such boredom, because I know in any future job that I may hold that I have this awaiting me.  Anyways it was nice to see all my friends from my training group as well as meeting some of the older volunteers that I already knew.  Men are greatly outnumbered in Youth Development with a ratio of like 6 guys as compared to like 30 women.  It's crazy.  I feel like I'm in my Social work classes again.  After everything we were laden down with more how-to manuals and materials and sent on our way.  Keep in mind that all this took place in the same location where my original training went on, which means that was where our first host families lived.   I unlike many other volunteers absolutely loved my first host family because they always spoil me.  The two kids are older and educated so I always have a lot to talk with them about and my host mom, Mama Maria, is like one of those ideal grandmothers who are always making you eat way too much amazing food and remembers everything you like and don't like.  This family gave me the first ever feeling of being spoiled in my entire life.  I grew up with a big family.  It's kind of hard to make 5 kids feel spoiled, especially when both sets of grandparents have almost 20 grandkids a piece, so you don't even get too much help from them.  Anyways so I arrived to Santa Lucia about 2 days early, just to get spoiled and hang out at the local feria (festival) that was happening at the time.  So I get spoiled and also get to enjoy probably one of the best ferias in Honduras, what more could I ask out of life.  Santa Lucia is a richer town because it is something like a suburb of the capital city, Tegucigalpa.  Because of having more money, they can bring in better entertainment.  Both nights there were live bands.  The second night it was a punta band.  Punta is this sort of Afro-Central American music that has an accompanying sort of booty-shaking dance.  Since being here I have learned this dance.  Anyways during the concert my Honduran friend convinced me to go on stage with him to dance with the punta dancer (with punta bands, there is always a dancer).  So my friend, Rosmel, and I got on the stage (the man knows people) and danced with her in front of everyone.  It was pretty hilarious and everyone was laughing.  Anyways after all the fun there in Santa Lucia, I had to finally come back to my little village because finally what I was waiting on was finally starting to happen, school finally was coming back into session.  So right now I am just preparing for helping out there in teaching and facilitating programs, working with the Peace Corps diversity group called COLORS on helping train the incoming volunteer group, coaching my baseball team again for the tournament at the end of next month, and a lot of other random side projects.  I finally am staring to feel like I am doing something.

Sadly with work comes several frustrations.  I'm excited to do work, but at times very anxious about having enough time to be able to do all of the things that  I want and all the things they want me to do.  I have so many ideas and seemingly so little time.  Thanks to the initial period of just building up confianza (trust) and the coffee harvest season, I only have about another year and a half left.  I know to some that seems like a long time, but to me, I know that progress here in Honduras is incredibly slow.  I also know that they have so many needs to be met and I want to somehow make a significant dent in it all.  Another great frustration is just attending meetings here.  There seemingly is no meeting etiquette and at times this drives me nuts.  I am an easily distracted person, and unless I am very passionate about something it is hard to keep my interest and attention focused.  When you have random dogs and people who aren't supposed to be in the room roaming around, people getting up and leaving whenever they feel like it, people text messaging and answering their cell phones and having full conversations right in front of you without excusing themselves from the table, everyone having side conversations that have nothing to do with the meeting, and so on, boy it is so hard to stay focused.  What can you do though, except learn to cope with it all, it's a custom here.  Another thing with meetings are they never start on time, typically they are almost always 1 hour late.  At that point people are scattered, so when the person you are really waiting on finally arrives then you have to go round up everyone and herd them back in the room.  This along with constant changes in scheduling days and times without even an hour's notice really makes having meetings just pandemonium.  But according to the other volunteers, thus is the life of a Peace Corps volunteer.  Supposedly everyone gets used to it.

Being in a small village definitely has some great positives to it.  Everyone always recognizes you and knows your name.  They show that they know your name by saying your name when they pass you on the road or see you in the various places here.  The funny thing is they never really have much to say afterwards.  I mean I take that as a greeting, like saying hello.  So I answer "Hey, what's up, how you doing?" (in Spanish of course) Afterwards they just look at you all puzzled and confused, not knowing what to say.  I get a good laugh out of it every time.  Another good thing about a small site is you know where everyone lives, so if you can't find someone when you look in their office or job, just go to their house and everyone will tell you where they are at.  There is no separation of work and home privacy here.  Also you build trust with people quicker, supposedly allowing you to have more success in your projects.   There are some bad things about small towns, which I have talked a little about before: gossip, lack of resources, and local politics and bureaucracy.  My village is like my hometown Jackson, Ohio, only run by two families.  Here, Hernandez and Argueta.  In Jackson, Evans and Stockmeister.  If you want to get anything down on a community-wide level, you better be good friend with the right people.  This, I hate.   Also you would think that living in a small town that friends would be easy to come by, but this is not really the case.  With the exception of my host family here and the kids on my baseball team (sad to say some of my best friends range from age 8 to 12), I have yet to find people I can really hang out with, that is, if there was a place to hang out here. Haha

Another interesting tidbit is how random people (when I'm not in my site) will come up and talk to me in English, sometimes not so great English, but at times pretty well.  People are so proud to be able to speak in English that when they see anyone who looks remotely American, they try it out.  I guess they perceive us all as super-friendly.  I've had some interesting conversations with the most random of people simply for the reason that they can recognize me as American.  I guess that's better than them asking me for money because "all Americans are rich."  Just like "all Salvadorians are rich."  It's funny how some of these people have learned English, some of them through t.v., some of them by listening to American music (bas 80s music and balladas, like Celine Dion are huge here), the lucky ones by attending Bilingual schools, and others because there are so many deported immigrants here.  I heard somewhere that about 250 Hondurans are deported from the US to hear each week.  Those guys love to tell me about the States and expect me to know their cousin that lives in Houston or some obscure town in North Carolina

I had some pictures that I'd like to add, but it's just not happening right now thanks to this dumb Internet cafe computer

  I haven´t written anything in a long time, but I decided i´m going to try to post me Peace Corps blogs here for whoever may want to read.  I know this won´t be like the heartfelt message I used to send out, but this is what i can do with limited time.  I´m not gonna let Xanga die, I´ll join forces with Dan and Alberta Lui to help it stay. haha. Here´s my last one I wrote

Okay guys and gals, I know it has seemed like forever since I have really updated, and as a result I have a ton of things to talk about, but I'm going to try to break this update up into at least a couple parts because I know my emails are already pretty long.  I even added a couple pictures to this one just because there were so many complaints about lack thereof.  A couple people even told me to not include pictures because they enjoyed the picture I painted with my words.  I fortuntately received a couple incredible gifts from my parents and good friends just in time for Christmas.  For this, I want to say thanks from the my core for the great packages, letters, and Christmas cards that I received from many of you and the several that I am sure is in the mail on the way to me right now.  You all have made me feel truly blessed during an otherwise lonesome time.  It was hard spending the holidays away like this, especially Christmas.  The encouraging mail weather it be electronic or material has been much more appeciated than you ever will know.  the lady at the post office always talks about how much i must be loved and missed from all the mail I receive, which leaves me absolutely beaming.

Once more here is my contact info:  Phone number including international code: 011 504 9765 3552.  address:

Apartado postal #1542
la paz, la paz, honduras
centro america

There are still a couple more people who have been asking me about what I'd like to receive in packages.  Here's a list of thing I still need or would like alot: music, books, a football, Werther's originals or other caramel candies, cheez-its, trailmix, healthy snacks, an agenda or datebook, random maps, sticky tack, an audio cord that you can attach to a stereo from a mp3 player (they want me to teach some dance classes, so this is something I really need but next to impossible to find here), lotion aftershave, pictures of you all, *a book of learning to play guitar (i lost mine and would love another one), baseball glove lacer, left-handed gloves, Extra brand chewing gum, anything else that represents you all or random things that you think I'd like.         Like I have said before, do not feel pressured to send anything.  this list is for the people who are curious as to good things to send or have directly asked me.

About the pictures:  1) picture is from my favorite place to eat at.  They call them comedors here, which basically mean just a little place with a kicthen and a couple chairs.  2) and 3) Are random pictures of the Lake Yajoa where I met up with other volunteers for New year's celbration.  It's absolutely gorgeous there and the pictures really don't do it justice.  4)  A blurry picture of some of the people and the lodge area where the fiesta was.  5) Just a random picture that i hoped to emphasize the frustartion of waiting up to 1.5 hours for the food you ordered to come, when it does come haha.

Now some more in depth information:
  In my site, there in the coffee mountains of central western Honduras Christmas is not a very important event.  I found this very strange and slightly upsetting.  In the States, we all know Christmas (or the corresponding other religous holidays) is a very important holiday where all the family get together and is rich in cultural and familial traditions.  In my site (Santa Maria de La Paz), they threw no special celebration really, no special church services, and in general the gist of it was that they made a couple special foods: alot of different types of bread and a food called nacatamles that are rice, random veggies, and pork covered with cornmeal.  All of them are quite delicious and in afterthought I really wish that I would have taken pictures of them just to give you some sort of general idea of at least what it looks like.  I spent Christmas Eve and Day in my house, doing nothing really special, no Christmas special on tv or the radio, nada.  I've never been a big  Christmas person because Thanksgiving is the holiday I really loved, but boy I really wished I was in the States at that time.

New Year's on the other hand is a big thing here.  People love explosives here.  You can't really call them real fireworks because for the most part they are only noise-making explosives like firecrackers and bottle rockets.  People buy a ton of these around this time and set off  these things all day and night.  Some people even build these scarecrow-looking things and fill them full of explosives and light the scarecrow on fire.  It's really not very safe, but it sure is fun to watch when all the fireworks/explosives all go off around the same time.  Things are flying everywhere.  Being able to be with a bunch of the other volunteers made this a pretty special for me.  Back in the States, this holiday was never very important to me or my family so we rarely did anything too special, but here in Honduras, I need to make sure I see a group of other volunteers like once a month or so to maintain sanity.  Also even though I think that they are pretty bogus because no one really sticks to them for more than maybe a couple months, I have decided to make a New year's resolution to stop complaining as much.  I realize that I do this a lot or other people see me as complaining a lot.  It's easy to do a fair bit of complaining when you're used to having so much more or being able to do things so much easier or efficiently.  We'll see how long mine lasts.

Right here, I want to say that please don't think that I am bad-mouthing Hondurans or their culture because I love many aspects of it, but I am merely pointinng out a few things, making a couple observations.  The transportation system here, the buses, are a source of much anxiety and frustartion with me.  Imagine having to take slow yellow elementary school busses everywhere.  these are 1) severely and dangerously overcrowded with sometimes 3 people to a seat and people in the aisle to where you can barely move or stretch.  They make me feel like a giant too because I always feel so cramped and I am a head taller than many of the people here.  The drivers and their assistant, who are the ones who collect the money and help people get their stuff inside, seriously pack people in like sardines.  As you can imagine this is not only very uncomfortable, but bodily functions and odor are never pleasant.  Seems like a lot of people do not know of the concept of deodorant or plain just can't afford it as well.  Imagine being so tightly backed together, the body eat it creates, thus sweating and odor..ack.  It's a real good thing that I have a strong stomach.  2)  The drivers tend to be quite terrible and slam on the brakes sometimes leaving you flying if your unfortunate enough to have to stand the entire trip (it's 2.5 hours to go to the place where I have my mailbox.)  3) There is no such thing as etiquette on the bus, people will push an old lady out of the way to get a seat, board or deboard the bus quicker, or just to move about the bus.  There is no such thing as an orderly line, boy, this annoys me because I'm trying to be polite while other are quite willing to push you out of the moving bus just to get by.  4) On top of all these things, it doesn't help that the roads (even the highways at times are very windy and scary with sheer drops on each side).  I know on the road from my site to the highway (which is about 3 miles but takes about an hour to get to by bus) is extra scary.  This really doesn't help the fact that I'm already a little scared everytime I get in a car from some wrecks I've been in.  The road is all sediment/sandy rock, that goes down into the valley and back up another mountains all the while winding around the mountains with the drivers driving to fast, braking too hard on the mountains where one could easily see a bus sliding and rolling off the steep drop-offs.  Although I have to get out of my site at leats once every 2 weeks to maintains snaity and get groceries, I never look forward to the trip.  The bus also only goes once there and once back (6 am in the morning to leave, 12 pm to leave back to the site).  Fun Fun
  The site you see on the bus and on the hgihway on your way to and from wherever you're going are always interesting too. 1) People young and old have no problem chucking any trash out the window.  There's no such thing as being older and being a good example by teaching people and telling them not to litter here.  Everyone does it.  It irks me to no end.  2) There is no shame when it come to breastfeeding on the bus.  Keep in mind how crowded I said the bus was.  Women don't care here, they don't cover up at all as well.  This is such a taboo in the States but here, no women has a problem taking out here breat for all to see and feed her sometime much to old kids 9 at times the breastfeed up to age 5)  3) Sometime I see these pick-up trucks full of dead chickens passing us on the highway (by the way, people are very dangerous drivers in how they will pass you anywhere, on a blind curve or there's another car no more than 10 feet in front of you, it's doesn't matter).  Anyways once I say a truck full of dead chicken with 2 women sitting down in the mound of these dead chickens, their feathers flying everywhere, a few tied to the side of the truck flapping in the wind.  I couldn't stop laughing.  I found this absolutely hilarious.  I tried to take a picture, but I couldn't get a clear shot.

Racism:  I'd hope by now that all of you that know me even relatively well know that I am very passionate about combatting racism and discrimination and have been very involved in groups and movement to do this the past 4 years or so.  Well coming to Honduras, I was never thinking that i would find the same amount if more frontal racism here.  Sadly I guess it's universal.  Here as well, there is quite the racial stratification, the darker you are, the more you get hated on.  For all of you who are curious, Honduras is a pretty multicultural country.  People range from almost pastey white to ebony.  There are about 7 major Indigenous groups including the Lenca (the people in my site), Moskitos, Maya, and more.  Also their is a population of people descended from African slavery from back in the day, they are called the Garifuna.  They are the Black people of Honduras and mainly stick to the Carribean Coast for obvious reasons.  One day I was talking with my host family here about how I'd like to work with a more diverse group than just the Lenca, especially with the Garifuna because of my interest in the Carribean culture, my host brother makes a response that I will not forget.  He says to me, why would you want to work with them, they are theives and criminals in general.  I was just dumbfounded.  I felt like I was in the Montgomery, Alabama for a second.  Sadly this is not the only instance where I have heard comments like that.  Also I have heard similar comments like that about the Lenca people from an even lighter skinned group of people.  Boy, what a terrible world we live in.  On a lighter note, I have been chosen out of my training group to be respresentative for the diversity support group we have here in honduras for volunteers called COLORS.  I'm going to the capital this coming week along with some of the other reps to discuss what Peace Corps needs to do to combat scuh problems and how we can integrate it into our training.

I want to apologize for this update and how it may seem to lack the typical insightful observations and introspective views that I normally try to express to you all, but just know when I have normal access to the Internet I'll be back to my old for artistic writing ways.  I hate having to do updates rushed like this, but I gotta take what i can get right now.  Just know I have a lot of love for you all and that is why i wanna share my experience with you, even when it may not be in the writing style I'd like it to be the most.  Hope to here updates from some of you soon as well.  God Bless

Currently Listening Team Invasion Presents Keyshia Cole (Keisha Coles) see related