Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Here are a few pictures to show the people I'm working with, the beautiful resources I'm helping to conserve, and some of the negative effects of making a living.

So up until now—a paragraph summary: I arrived in Houston, TX late on June 20th for a briefing with 57 other volunteers who were headed to Honduras. One the 22nd, we flew to Tegucigalpa and moved in with host families near Valle de Angeles, about 30 minutes from Tegus. We received language, security, and health classes for a month before dividing into training for each of our three projects. We in Protected Areas Management went to La Cuesta, a small two-road town northeast of Comayagua (the original capital of Honduras), where we lived with a second host family and trained on watershed management (building latrines to trap fecal matter, reducing agrochemicals, planting grasses and trees that reduce erosion and filter contaminants), forest management (reforestation ideas, improved wood-cooking stoves to reduce use of firewood, and fire regimes), as well as waste management. After two months, we returned to our first host families near Valle de Angeles where we had a final week of lectures on crime, disease, depression and other threats we may encounter. We also had our final language interviews to assure we could communicate on our own. To close training, at the US Embassy we swore in to service (became actual volunteers), the same day we met with our job counterparts who'd traveled to meet us. The following day we traveled with our counterparts to our respective sites where we'd be working for the next two years.

Now, I'm in Sinacar, trying to figure out what it is exactly a volunteer is supposed to be doing. After the school year let out, I have been spending much of my time doing manual labor in the coffee and bean fields. This is not a sustainable effort, but it helps to build confidence with the community and to understand what practices the farmers are using.

The big news, I am now living solo in my own rented house (I'll put up photos next time). The host family where I was living uses their house for de-kerneling corn, and storing beans, so they had hinted since I moved in that after my first two months there was an empty house nearby (PC volunteers have to live with a host family for the first two months in their sites to encourage integration). And empty it was. I borrowed a bed, a dresser, a few plastic patio tables, three plastic patio chairs, and a broom when I first moved in. And now after going in on a gas stove and a few shelves, I can survive pretty well. Not to mention, the other volunteers who donated a hammock, a solar shower, a few boxes of mac and cheese, tea, among other goodies.

I think the solar panel that my mom sent me has arrived in the PC office, so when I get that, hopefully I will have more time on my cpu to write emails and blog updates. Until then, peace out.