Well I feel as though I am finally settled here in Honduras and beginning to start to get into a routine, which is a very good thing. While I am in Honduras for the first three months of training I am staying with a host family that is very nice. I have my own room with a cable television, internet access through an Ethernet cord, and a double bed. I clearly got pretty lucky. The other fourteen trainees and I are staying in a community called Las Canadas, which is very close to Tegucigapla where we have been going for the past two days for orientation and training etc. In a normal week we will be taking classes from 7 to 4 in our community with a one hour break for lunch in our houses. On Fridays we will be going into headquarters in Tegus for training as well. So a typical day would be wake up around six and get in the shower, I am lucky enough to have a shower that has hot water and comes out of a shower head. Most of us have the shower and shower head but some of us have to take bucket showers with cold water none the less. I guess it is good for us to get used to it now because we most likely will not have as nice of accommodations in our host communities after training. After I shower I eat breakfast, which today was pancakes with honey, it was very good. We then meet at a restaurant in the community and some of our trainers pick us up for the 30ish minute drive to headquarters in Tegus. The ride there is very interesting, there are lots of motorcycles and dirt bikes along with school buses and cars. Let’s just say that the rules of the road are not really followed, I have yet to figure out how the stop lights work down here but I have yet to see an accident yet. I guess they are all very used to it and are pretty good drivers. Once we get to training the security officers check under our car for anything that is not supposed to be there. Once we are inside we start our training, this training is about culture, safety, and the language. We basically learn everything we need to know in order to survive while we are here. We even learned about the huge threat of rabbies while we are here, I guess Michael Scott was not wrong after all and I wish they had not bought the giant check so there would be more money for bat birth control. My biggest issues down here so far has been the language of course, but I am already improving a lot. Even as I sit here and type this I am thinking in Spanish which is a very good sign. We basically get one on one or very small group instruction in Spanish and there is not much if any talking in English which is really what we need. After all the training is done for the day we again pile back into the cars and head back to our community and arrive around five. At this time, we basically can do whatever we want. I have really tried to get to know my host family though my Spanish is not very good at all, my host mom is very patient and tries to help me out. I guess I should give you all a little bit of background on my host family. My host mom, named Raquel, is the daughter of the owner of the restaurant in the community and her two sisters also live in the same compound as us and the restaurant. Two other volunteers live with her sisters, so it is nice to have other volunteers so close. Raquel works as the director of an organization called Amor y Frutas (Love and Fruit) which is a group that works under the U.N. She told me that she had a visitor from the United States today and showed me some pictures even. (My host family has three tv’s, a laptop, a shower, a girl that helps out around the house, and hot water, so they seem to be pretty well off for Honduras standards.) My host mom has two sons, Diego and Rodrego. They are 6 and 4 respectably. On the sheet of information that I was given about my host family it says that there father is named Nerry however I have yet to see him so I am not sure exactly what the situation is there. I am a little afraid to ask because I am not sure if she is divorced, or what the story is exactly and as stated above, I am not sure I would even know how to ask in Spanish haha. Well I feel like I have a lot more to talk about but I am very tired and have to get up early in the morning again. I have just spent most of the night playing a racing game with Diego on the family’s laptop, even though I do not think I could understand all of it and I am not sure that he could understand what I was attempting to say you could tell that it did not matter to him and that was a really cool thing. There is a lot that is different in Honduras but there is also a lot that is the same as well and one of those things that is the same is that put simply, people still live here. I know that seems like an obvious statement and it should not have taken me a 2000 mile journey to come to that simple idea but it is amazing how you can communicate by simply smiling, laughing, and showing some love. I feel so blessed that I have been given this opportunity, I know that is will be a challenge but it will be more than worth it. Buenos Nochas todos!
P.S. Everyone here loves soccer and there are seriously channels that show soccer 24/7, I think I am going to fit in here just fine!
