Feliz Ano Nuevo!!!

Happy New Years everyone!!!
So while I have a minute waiting for the doctor's to see me (I have some weird allergy/ rash...what's new) I thought I would put some pictures up here from my holiday season. I went to visit friends and then went to the North Coast-Honduras' little bit of heaven situated right on the Caribbean sea!
So work is slowly plodding along-it's coffee season right now which means it's rainy and cold and town is pretty much deserted during the day as the people are all out in the coffee farms picking the coffee berries. But I'm working on another solar panel grant with my counterpart. We need enough energy to power a technological classroom (about ten computers, printers, etc. and an antenna for internet!!!). And my women's group is doing really well. We had the artesania fair, which went really well. We didn't sell as much as expected but the women learned what did sell well (and now are focusing on producing that) and learned all about sales. And I got some fantastic jewelry for myself (a birthday present to me!!).
So while I have time, I'll breifly describe the photos. This is all the delicious food we made on Christmas Eve. We took it up to this hill overlooking the town for a sunset watching feast. It was really nice, except we only brought one headlamp for the walk down the mountain and thus I took quite a tumble (literally rolled down the mountain).

And here are some shots of me and the ladies!








And here's my friend in front of the oldest bridge in town. It's named after an American President-can you guess which one??

And this is that same friend-Nicole-dealing with the chicken we later cooked in the toaster oven. We had to do all the cooking either in a toaster oven or on a two burner stove. It was quite amazing what we actually accomplished.

And here's all the girls out on the town at the local Karoke Bar. I think we ended up singing some Beyonce and SeanPaul-it didn't go over very well but everyone laughed at the silly gringas.


And here we are in a really cool little town near the El Salvador border-everywhere is painted with these amazing paintings.


And this is us out on New Years in Tela!




And this is the beautiful!!!! caribbean ocean off the coast of Tela. There are all sorts of little Keys out there and we took a day trip out to a private island! I wish I could have a private island! There were pristine beaches, cool shells and coral, and amazing snorkeling. Definitely made me want to get my scuba certification-something I plan to do this spring!



And here's me with some of my other lovely lady friends-Laura and Rachel.

And some gorgeous sunsets! I wanna go back!!!!!!!!!!!


So that's the abbreviated update on my life. Hopefully this allergy will clear up and I can go back to site and see my puppy. Who happens to be in heat, which is probably one of the worst things to deal with (dogs fighting all around my house, keeping lola under house arrest, and the sinking feeling that despite all my efforts she's probably pregnant!). Hopefully everyone had as an amazing holiady season as I did. Now that I have less than a year left, I'm really trying to get out and see every part of the country. Although that's tricky, seeing how now is when I have the most work. But everything is definitely worth it!
Besos para todos!
PS come visit Honduras!!!

Happy Halloween!

I admit, I really am not very good at this whole blog thing. I realize that it's been more than six months since my last entry, but at least I'm making the effort now. And that's the important thing.
So about my life-I've actually been really busy lately. I have several things going on which makes the time go by quicker. My biggest project is still hydropower-right now we're working on writing the grant. We're also trying to take a field trip to another community to see hydropower plant in action-exciting!! We also have to do a survey of the whole community-basically counting all the houses and collecting all the identification numbers of the people. There are officially 601 people in San Marcos, counting myself (that number has actually probably gone up since it seems the women here are always pregnant). So below is a picture of us women making the trip around town counting people.



That's my mountain in the backdrop. It's been super rainy lately and I haven't seen the top of the mountain in ages. Actually, Honduras has been hit pretty badly recently by some tropical storms. Fortunately, the worst thing in my town was the overwhelming amount of mud, but in other places, there were landslides, deaths, and the loss of crops. People are still recovering.
This is a nice shot of the rainbow after the rain over my neighbor's tin roof.



So back to work...I also helped the school build some EcoFogones (wood burning stoves that are made more ecological by putting in tiles so they heat up better and thus require less wood). I actually did this with some trainees that came to visit me. It was nice-having something to do while I was there so I didn't seem like a total slacker. So here's the finished product.



And I've been working with my women's group, Mujeres de Valor, to produce crafts that they can then sell either in Guaimaca, or in Tegucigalpa. So far we've learned how to crochet hats and bags, and weave hammocks. And I've been planning an Artisan fair at the embassy where Peace Corps volunteers will take their women's group to sell their product. We're inviting all the owners of local souvenir shops so hopefully the women will be able to find a permanent place to sell their wears.

And I've been experiencing the cultural wonders of Honduras, and more specifically San Marcos. At the beginning of September we had our feria (Feria Infantil-Creciendo Feliz), which was about five days of celebrating the children of the town. We had games every day and yummy food. Good Times!





There was also a costume competition for the town's pets and being the good citizen that I am, I dressed Lola up (I guess she was dressed up as me, since she wore my clothing). She won third place!!



People also dressed in traditional clothing and put on performances. The dancers are from Guaimaca and were actually quite good.



These lovely ladies are the contestants in the beauty competition and they had to dressup like indias! It was pretty cute.



And I've been doing some traveling! Went to Guatemala with my brother and it was lots of fun. We went to Tikal (the Mayan ruins) and they were amazing!





I've been pretty healthy too. Just another round of Dengue when I got back from Guatemala (at least I think it was dengue, it's hard to diagnose, but I had something that made me feel pretty horrible). I got stung by a scorpion-it was on a blanket I gathered up (I later found it and smashed it, pictured below).



And here are some pictures of my dog, Lovely/Loca Lola. The first she's with her boyfriend, a local dog she loves to play with. And the second is her in the house-she sleeps in a really weird position!





And these are of my favorite little kid, Rasel. He's gotten to the age when he loves to pose for photographs-it's pretty cute!.





So that's my life. I actually just got back from Halloween in Copan Ruinas and have some awesome pictures of that, but without my cord to connect my camera I'll have to wait for another day. I really will try this time!
Hope all is well-take care!

Happy Semana Santa

Hello all-
Here are some pics from the last chapter of my life. Spent some time in my site-had a trainee come visit me which was cool since I got to show off my site-and then headed north for a week of relaxation at the beach during semana santa. ENJOY



This is a picture of the school with the newly installed solar panel! And the computers are supposed to be arriving sometime in the next couple of weeks. And then we will have a functioning computer lab. There is bouganvilla like that all over my town-it´s great!



Picture of me with my host siblings on top of the water tank. The trainee I had is from the Water and Sanitation project, so I showed her everything to do with water in my site.



And this is a picture taken from my host families house of the center of town. It was really sunny, but you can still make out everything. I live now in the center of town, but you can imagine the hike I had to do everyday while living with the family.



And this is a picture with the trainee, my host dad, and siblings at the water source. We had to walk about two miles up into the reserve but the water up there is amazingly clean. I drank right from the stream and haven´t gotten sick yet.



Another picture at the ¨Fuente de Agua¨ of the siblings and my host dad. It´s really pretty there. Like we were in the middle of the rain forest. And they say that was what all of San Marcos used to look like before the deforestation began.



A pìc of my host family. On the right is my host dad´s father and in the middle is his grandmother. She´s 84 and has great great grandchildren. Before honduras, I had never even met people with great grandchildren. It´s crazy!



My host dad and his sister at my host cousins Quinciniera! It was a fun party. My host dad is the only boy in a family with 5 women and they have all taken me into their families. This is the youngest-Bea- and she lives in San Marcos too. She just had a baby.





The birthday girl-Diana-with her look a like pinata!
And her getting frosting spread all over her face after we sang happy birthday!



So after all the fun at the quinciniera, I went to Trujillo to spend Semana Santa. This is the biggest holiday in Honduras and everyone leaves the inner parts of the country to go to the beaches to swim and relax. In addition, everyone eats fish the whole week-no meat is allowed. So I decided to go to Trujillo with some of my PC friends and experience the fun of the caribbean coast!




Some BEAUTIFUL sunsets from my hotel.



Friends at the beach enjoying the sunset and some cold beer!






More sunsets and a view of Trujillo (our hotel was 7 k outside of the town), which is set against the backdrop of a national park. It kinda reminds me of capetown.



My friends Kyler, Bryce and Wes, along with Elliot, a little british boy who made friends with our group.



The silly boys being silly. They don´t get to see eachother as often as they would like and get a little crazy when together.



A REALLY BIG shell I found at the beach! One day there was a crazy storm with huge waves and lots of rain (not great for the tan I was working on) but then afterwards, the beach was full of amazing shells! This one was as big as my head!



Some pictures of La Loca Lola (my perrita). The first she´s with my host families puppy-she likes staying at their house since they have three other dogs and there is always the cat to chase. She´s a trouble maker, but I love her. I don´t know what I´d do if she wasn´t there at night for me to talk to...I´d probably just talk to myself! She´s growing but i don´t think she´ll be that big.
In the second one she´s in my front yard with a baseball i gave her, hoping she would chew that instead of my shoes-no such luck!





Lastly, my host mom with my siblings! I just can´t resist taking pictures of the baby-he´s so cute!

Ok all done-need to do real work now. I´m trying to a hydropower project in my town (i´m really excited about it!) for the school and at least the central area. So I need to find some funding! Hope all is well in the states-I´m going to be there in less than two months for la boda de mi hermano and I can´t wait!
Cuidense y besos para todos!
besos