Time flies while standing still

Hard to believe that the date of 7 months in Honduras is approaching when the days seem to drag on so much sometimes. Some days I dread the prospect of the same old thing all over again, waiting for the hours to pass, yet the weeks seem to go by fairly quickly, and the months even faster. In fact I can´t believe it has been more than a month since I have written anything. Sorry about that; here is a little bit about what has been going on.

I just recently found out that I am now a complete wimp. I just got a package that my aunt sent for Christmas (it was amazing by the way, thanks a lot!!!) that contained a thermometer so I could finally know what the actual temperature is instead of guessing like it was an impossible question on the SAT´s. Long story short, I now unfortunately know that I tenga frio (feel like I´m freezing) when the temperature hits 60 and have to throw the jacket on when it gets close to 65. I´m not sure what I´m going to do when I finish my service here and have to return to the frigid states. I might have to retire to Florida early or find some way to stick around in Honduras if I´m not burnt out at that point. I have one last minute attempt, a hail mary pass if you will, to salvage my dignity though. I have lost a lot of weight and am probably approaching 0 percent body fat, and I would also hazard a guess that my metabolism has slowed since I obviously have not been hitting the gym as much. Therefore without the natural cold defenses it makes sense that I would be more susceptible, right?

Some of you might be interested to know that I treated myself to gift this Christmas. I picked up a new set of wheels for 500; a 2002 Bacini Desierto. Don´t recognize the make and model? That would be because it is of course a used bike and obviously the price is in the local Lempiras since I don´t even come close to seeing 500 dollars in a month. The bike needs some work (and I probably got ripped off to tell the truth) but I now have something to do in my free time when I save up enough to buy the replacement parts. The best part is that it will cut my travel time to get to the bus stop almost in half.

I was invited to my first wedding here in Honduras that took place right after Christmas. It was kind of a bittersweet event because it meant that one of the most motivated young females in my community would be leaving, making promoting gender equality issues even more difficult. The wedding and recpetion were incredible. I would have thought I was in the states except that everything was in Spanish, and that the fact that besides the groom and the males actually in the wedding I was the only one wearing a tie (I´ve always been told you can never overdress right? And I felt the need to use the tie I brought down for the swearing in ceremony at least once more during my two years here to justfy it occuping space in my suitcase on the way here). My Spanish must be improving because I was able to recognize a lot of the traditional wedding phrases.

I took some time off to go to Lago de Yajoa, the largest lake in Honduras, with some friends for New Years. After the Christmas that wasn´t christmas (at least by the standards that I am used to, for example the Christmas Eve Jugada de gallos (cock fight)) it was good to take a break and just relax, and share experiences with fellow volunteers in the same, but different, situations. I came back feeling refreshed from the beatiful scenery, and optimistic that things are looking up in this new year. And thankfully I was not able to see Penn State lose the Rose Bowl.

Some of you already know, but there was no celebrating for my birthday this year. I´ll just say that I spent a lot of time getting close with the latrine to the point that it almost became my new best friend. I´m better now, so don´t worry, but this will probably go down in the books as at least one of my worst birthdays ever. One of my new year´s resolutions was to be more optimistic, so at least it is for certain that next year will be better.

WORK UPDATE: Not much progress with the water project. It continues to be overshadowed by the rural electrification project which seems that much closer every day due to the chisme (gossip) that runs through the community. It is starting to seem like a real possibility that I might see street lights in my community before I leave for good. I still have no news from the property owner about whether the debt is paid off, or going to be, so it has been hard for me to get motivated to work on something that might never get off the ground. Some members of another NGO that has funds for gravity water system construction visited my community the other day and hopefully injected a bit of motivation into the community members. The visitors brought up the point that it would be much better to capture a spring (less risk of contamination and a hell of a lot cheaper if it has enough flow to supply the community) than to construct a dam, which is a great idea, but the property owner does not want to sell or donate the spring source (probably just wants a pondside property) and the other potential source was already scratched due to a disagreement (quite agravated from what I hear) between community members. I hope to get the Junta de Agua together sometime this coming month to discuss options, and maybe to discuss their roles and responsibilites and potential training opportunites, so we can stop esperando con brazos cruzados (waiting around with our arms crossed). I also have decided to attempt to start up a school garden project when classes begin again (hopefully in February if the rumored teacher strike does not happen) so that it will not feel so much like I have nothing to do at times.

adios muchachos