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