Well, it has become official that I am the worst blogger of all time so anyone hoping to recieve consistent up to date information is out of luck. Everything is going pretty well here. The work is coming just slowly. I am still working with the local production groups and now we have moved into specific details of business plans. I have also been teaching English to my soccer team as well as a computer class to the colegio. I think that the work is going to start to pick up because I am really starting to feel comfortable in my community. I am figuring out who are the best people to work with and who I can go to with help and support for my projects. There is a possiblity of bringing a library to town through a foundation which provides all building materials and labor. The mayor's office only would have to pay for a librarian and the monthly internet. Still very much in the planning stages but I am excited about the opportunity. I also have the opportunity to start up a baseball team in my town which I will start working towards more in the next couple of months.
So I am on a soccer team in my town and it is amazing. We have practice Tuesday through Friday and then play a game every Sunday. The games are either in Reitoca or in the surrounding communities. My first game we rode in a truck for an hour, walked for 45 minutes and then to finally get to the field the last step was wading across a river. It was awesome, lots of work to just play one game but it was definately one of those times when I realized how incredible this experience is. So I am actually in pretty good shape again, which is pretty sweet. The official weight loss is around 23-25 lbs. depending on the day. I am still living with the host family because they are awesome and I am very comfortable there. I have plans to move out within the next couple of months but I am in no real hurry to be out before November. Anyways, sorry for the long delay but everything is going great and I feel incredibly lucky to be here. I love everyone back home and I definately miss you all a ton. E-mail if you have any questions or whatever.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Update
Hope everyone is doing good back home and I’m sure people are getting ready for the summer to come around. I am just getting ready to start up my second winter of the year in Reitoca. Here there are pretty much just two seasons, summer and winter, in summer it is…a little toasty, and winter is also know as the rainy season. However, I am actually looking forward to the rain coming up because with the rain comes much cooler days and nights. It has started to rain off and on and I guess a tropical storm just passed over but it was not too bad. The rain here is really impressive though, not like anything we have back in Oregon. The lightning is bright and intense but it is the thunder that really amazes me. It can absolutely shake the walls and has made me jump more than once with its surprising force. It is nice and refreshing though and so far during every storm I have spent time outside in the hammock under cover listening to it all happening.
Well, I guess that was my reflective portion or whatever, I have been in site about a little over a month now and everything is coming along. My family here is great, and the hammocks are as amazing as ever. I have been going into the office everyday and I am in the process of trying to piece together how things work in the town along with getting crash courses in Spanish. One of my counterparts and I gave a lecture about basic accounting principles to two processing groups last week which was very interesting. I am also in the process of beginning to develop a business plan with a group from a nearby community who make soap, shampoo, and conditioner out of aloe. That’s pretty much the update on the business side of things.
The Spanish is coming paso a paso, step by step, and there is nothing to do except keep practicing. I really do not have a lot to say but I was heading to the internet for this month so I thought I would write something down. Any specific questions shoot them to me in an e-mail and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Hope Shasta was amazing and again to all those graduating best of luck I wish I could be there to celebrate with you all. Try and give me a future plan as it comes around to all the young bucks joining the “real world.”
Well, I guess that was my reflective portion or whatever, I have been in site about a little over a month now and everything is coming along. My family here is great, and the hammocks are as amazing as ever. I have been going into the office everyday and I am in the process of trying to piece together how things work in the town along with getting crash courses in Spanish. One of my counterparts and I gave a lecture about basic accounting principles to two processing groups last week which was very interesting. I am also in the process of beginning to develop a business plan with a group from a nearby community who make soap, shampoo, and conditioner out of aloe. That’s pretty much the update on the business side of things.
The Spanish is coming paso a paso, step by step, and there is nothing to do except keep practicing. I really do not have a lot to say but I was heading to the internet for this month so I thought I would write something down. Any specific questions shoot them to me in an e-mail and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Hope Shasta was amazing and again to all those graduating best of luck I wish I could be there to celebrate with you all. Try and give me a future plan as it comes around to all the young bucks joining the “real world.”
Friday, May 16, 2008
Site/ Job information
Hey so this whole blog thing apparently isn't something that I am good at keeping up on. Sorry for the long delay but I am going to try and give a brief overview of what is going on and what has happened over the last couple of months.
Well, the last couple months of training pretty much flew by and there isn't really a whole lot to talk about on that front. But now I am officially a Peace Corps volunteer, we had our swearing in ceremony at the U.S. Embassy here on May 2, 2008 and it was pretty sweet. It is a huge relief to be done with training and finally have the title of PCV, Peace Corps Volunteer.
So I am going to be living and working in a town called Reitoca which is in the south of the department Fancisco Morazan. It is around 1 1/2 down the main Pan America highway and then 1 1/2 to 2 hours off the main road on what is an interesting trip. It is a town with around 2000 people in the urban area and about 10,000 more in the surrounding 7 aldeas, small towns included in the municipality of Reitoca. It is a nice town but pretty hot so the old nickname is pretty much holding strong from the time I wake up to when I go to bed. But the family I live with is super nice and I have a hammock in the living room where I relax after work...pretty sweet.
My main counterpart is with Save the Children Honduras but I will also be doing a lot of work with the local Colegio, or high school, among possibilities for other projects. My focus is helping small microempresas in Reitoca and the surrounding Aldeas with marketing support such as promotion, presentation and distribution. I will also be helping teach basic acccounting skills and how to utilize the information from basic accounting methods. I started a marketing research study with the Colegio last week to investigate to possibility of having something like a farmers market, feria verde, weekly in Reitoca. I am pretty interested to get more information about that because it could be a great opportunity for local agriculture producers to sell their products. The high school also recently recieved about 20 new computers so I am going to try and offer some technical support/classes in that area. On the job front I am pretty excited because I feel like there are a lot of opportunities for me to do some good work here.
My language much improved from when I arrived in Country but it is still not where it needs to be. I understand most everything when people are talking to me but when I speak a lot of times I lack the vocabulary I am looking for. But language just takes time and practice and I definately will have plenty of both. Overall, this experience so far has been full of challenges but very fun and I am still very excited for the next two years.
Oh, but I do not have internet in my site so the blog updates and replys to e-mails will be sporadic because the closest internet is a 2 hour bus ride away. I will try around once a month but I kind of enjoy being out of contact and doing my own thing. Anyways I still love you all and for all the friends getting ready to graduate live it up, congratulations and no one die at Shasta.
David
Well, the last couple months of training pretty much flew by and there isn't really a whole lot to talk about on that front. But now I am officially a Peace Corps volunteer, we had our swearing in ceremony at the U.S. Embassy here on May 2, 2008 and it was pretty sweet. It is a huge relief to be done with training and finally have the title of PCV, Peace Corps Volunteer.
So I am going to be living and working in a town called Reitoca which is in the south of the department Fancisco Morazan. It is around 1 1/2 down the main Pan America highway and then 1 1/2 to 2 hours off the main road on what is an interesting trip. It is a town with around 2000 people in the urban area and about 10,000 more in the surrounding 7 aldeas, small towns included in the municipality of Reitoca. It is a nice town but pretty hot so the old nickname is pretty much holding strong from the time I wake up to when I go to bed. But the family I live with is super nice and I have a hammock in the living room where I relax after work...pretty sweet.
My main counterpart is with Save the Children Honduras but I will also be doing a lot of work with the local Colegio, or high school, among possibilities for other projects. My focus is helping small microempresas in Reitoca and the surrounding Aldeas with marketing support such as promotion, presentation and distribution. I will also be helping teach basic acccounting skills and how to utilize the information from basic accounting methods. I started a marketing research study with the Colegio last week to investigate to possibility of having something like a farmers market, feria verde, weekly in Reitoca. I am pretty interested to get more information about that because it could be a great opportunity for local agriculture producers to sell their products. The high school also recently recieved about 20 new computers so I am going to try and offer some technical support/classes in that area. On the job front I am pretty excited because I feel like there are a lot of opportunities for me to do some good work here.
My language much improved from when I arrived in Country but it is still not where it needs to be. I understand most everything when people are talking to me but when I speak a lot of times I lack the vocabulary I am looking for. But language just takes time and practice and I definately will have plenty of both. Overall, this experience so far has been full of challenges but very fun and I am still very excited for the next two years.
Oh, but I do not have internet in my site so the blog updates and replys to e-mails will be sporadic because the closest internet is a 2 hour bus ride away. I will try around once a month but I kind of enjoy being out of contact and doing my own thing. Anyways I still love you all and for all the friends getting ready to graduate live it up, congratulations and no one die at Shasta.
David
Monday, March 3, 2008
Training in Santa Lucia
Hey sorry it has been a couple of weeks since my last post, I am going to try and keep this more updated but I have been a little busy and I do not want to spend my time in the internet cafe. Anyways everything is still going great training has been a lot of fun but spending bascially 8 hours in a classroom every day is starting to get a little old. But it is all necessary because we are getting a lot of important information.
As a business project we have actually gotten to go on a couple of pretty cool trips to surrounding areas. We went for a hike/team building activity in La Tigra national park and there were a lot of amazing vistas along with some sad stories about the history of the mining industry in Honduras. We have also visited some of the local businesses in Santa Lucia as well as neighboring Valle de Angeles to see what their businesses practices are and to basically get a sense of what kind of situtation we will be working with. Aside from the business trips it has been a steady dose of at least 4 hours of language classes a day, lots of vaccinations, safety issues and CORE training, which is basically learning about Honduran culture and issues beyond work related we will be dealing with. There have been various current volunteers in to talk to us about what the experience is like and while it is nice to hear from people who are out in the field the recurring trend is that every site and every situation is different. We will not find out which site we are assigned to until week 10 of the training or around the end of April.
Right now I am actually on a site visit to see a current PCV and kind of get a sense of what a day in the life of a volunteer might look like. The town is a community of around 2000 people and its called Ojos de Agua in the Comayagua district. It was around a 5 hour trip from Santa Lucia and the first time taking the public transportation on my own so it was a bit of an adventure. Two of us took a bus into Teguc grabbed a taxi to another bus station where we caught a bus to Comayagua, the city, where my buddy was meeting up with his volunteer. From there I took a cab to the busitos to La Libetad, basically a mini-van, then took another busito to Ojos de Agua. On the busito from La Libertad to Ojos de Agua I had the experience of crossing a hanging bridge, pretty terrifying the first time around. I met up with the volunteer, Brian another business volunteer, no problem and when went to a local chicked groups meeting last night.
Right now we are in his office, an NGO called Ayuda en Accion, and I return to Santa Lucia on Wednesday for 4 days before heading off to the second part of training, Field Based Training, which should be very interesting and much more interactive. The 3 projects are spliting up for FBT and we, the business project, are heading to a town called Ojojona for the next 5-6 weeks. Anyways Im starting to ramble and this is getting long I will try to update more often so this is not as long. Hope everyone is safe and happy, and to all the people about to enjoy spring term please live it up and send me stories.
Much Love
As a business project we have actually gotten to go on a couple of pretty cool trips to surrounding areas. We went for a hike/team building activity in La Tigra national park and there were a lot of amazing vistas along with some sad stories about the history of the mining industry in Honduras. We have also visited some of the local businesses in Santa Lucia as well as neighboring Valle de Angeles to see what their businesses practices are and to basically get a sense of what kind of situtation we will be working with. Aside from the business trips it has been a steady dose of at least 4 hours of language classes a day, lots of vaccinations, safety issues and CORE training, which is basically learning about Honduran culture and issues beyond work related we will be dealing with. There have been various current volunteers in to talk to us about what the experience is like and while it is nice to hear from people who are out in the field the recurring trend is that every site and every situation is different. We will not find out which site we are assigned to until week 10 of the training or around the end of April.
Right now I am actually on a site visit to see a current PCV and kind of get a sense of what a day in the life of a volunteer might look like. The town is a community of around 2000 people and its called Ojos de Agua in the Comayagua district. It was around a 5 hour trip from Santa Lucia and the first time taking the public transportation on my own so it was a bit of an adventure. Two of us took a bus into Teguc grabbed a taxi to another bus station where we caught a bus to Comayagua, the city, where my buddy was meeting up with his volunteer. From there I took a cab to the busitos to La Libetad, basically a mini-van, then took another busito to Ojos de Agua. On the busito from La Libertad to Ojos de Agua I had the experience of crossing a hanging bridge, pretty terrifying the first time around. I met up with the volunteer, Brian another business volunteer, no problem and when went to a local chicked groups meeting last night.
Right now we are in his office, an NGO called Ayuda en Accion, and I return to Santa Lucia on Wednesday for 4 days before heading off to the second part of training, Field Based Training, which should be very interesting and much more interactive. The 3 projects are spliting up for FBT and we, the business project, are heading to a town called Ojojona for the next 5-6 weeks. Anyways Im starting to ramble and this is getting long I will try to update more often so this is not as long. Hope everyone is safe and happy, and to all the people about to enjoy spring term please live it up and send me stories.
Much Love
Thursday, February 14, 2008
First days
I wrote something about my time in D.C. but the computer I am at does not have a place for a zip drive so it will be put up at a later date.
So I arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras yesterday around 2 pm here which made our flight approximately 2 hrs late but whatever. Due to the delay when we got into the training city of Santa Lucia, which is about half an hour outside Teguc, we went straight home with our host mothers. My host mother{s name is Francisca Elvir and she has been hosting volunteers since 1984. It was an akward first couple of minutes while we walked to her house because my spanish is definately not where is needs to be and her english is non existant but when we arrived at the house it became no problem. The reason is because her 3 granddaughters are 3 of the cutest little girls I have ever seen and all they wanted to do was try and talk to me along with a grandson named Kelvin who is a bit shy but super nice and helpful. I found out there are a total of 9 people living in my house and I make 10. Actually it is two houses connected but everyones time is spent in my host mothers house and it is very fun. I will definately improve my spanish by living in this household. There are also 2 sons of Franciscas and her daughter and her husband who account for 2 of the granddaughters and they are expecting another, but its awesome. Oh, and Franciscas business is an internet cafe so this is super convenient but I do not want to get spoiled so I do not plan on using it to much.
The training today was all basic orientation and some survival spanish. We get into the specific training classes starting tomorrow. Basically everything is awesome, its hard to believe a week ago I was sitting at home watching tv and today I just got back from playing a soccer game with kelvin and a bunch of Honduran kids followed but a homecooked meal. It is definately going to be hard work but I am looking forward to all of it.
Much love
So I arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras yesterday around 2 pm here which made our flight approximately 2 hrs late but whatever. Due to the delay when we got into the training city of Santa Lucia, which is about half an hour outside Teguc, we went straight home with our host mothers. My host mother{s name is Francisca Elvir and she has been hosting volunteers since 1984. It was an akward first couple of minutes while we walked to her house because my spanish is definately not where is needs to be and her english is non existant but when we arrived at the house it became no problem. The reason is because her 3 granddaughters are 3 of the cutest little girls I have ever seen and all they wanted to do was try and talk to me along with a grandson named Kelvin who is a bit shy but super nice and helpful. I found out there are a total of 9 people living in my house and I make 10. Actually it is two houses connected but everyones time is spent in my host mothers house and it is very fun. I will definately improve my spanish by living in this household. There are also 2 sons of Franciscas and her daughter and her husband who account for 2 of the granddaughters and they are expecting another, but its awesome. Oh, and Franciscas business is an internet cafe so this is super convenient but I do not want to get spoiled so I do not plan on using it to much.
The training today was all basic orientation and some survival spanish. We get into the specific training classes starting tomorrow. Basically everything is awesome, its hard to believe a week ago I was sitting at home watching tv and today I just got back from playing a soccer game with kelvin and a bunch of Honduran kids followed but a homecooked meal. It is definately going to be hard work but I am looking forward to all of it.
Much love
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Leaving
I'm sitting in the Portland Airport waiting to get on my flight to Chicago and then on to Washington DC. Last night was a little emotional and while I probably couldn't be more nervous for what is about to happen, I can't help but feel like this is the best decision I have ever made in my life. There is much more to come but for those who I won't be seeing over the next two years know that I am definately coming back with more stories and fun than any Friday night in the Euge. I love everyone who I'm leaving behind for the next two years but just know that this is the right thing for me right now.
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