hn6.

entries from the past 2 weeks, although I have been writing less and less lately. I guess a lot has depended on my energy levels, which are significantly low lately. a mixture of our grueling training schedule, 7 30 am to 5 pm daily, and constant cacophony of pollo outside my bedroom window every night. actually, last night there were people creeping about outside my house, probably trying to rob the place, but luckily everything was locked, and they gave up quickly. maybe they saw my dad´s gun on the kitchen table and decided it was a safer bet to let it go. not worth dying for a few cheap appliances. i have also been maintaining my sanity with some russian candy my mom sent me, so thank mamchik, the stuff is like my new crack. if anyone has a chance to, go to a russian store in your neighborhood, and ask for batonchiki, or little loaves. they´re the shit. anyway, here are my most recent entries. enjoy. hope all is well with you peoples. cuidanse.

there is not much for me to write today, but i feel obligated to at least mention a little about what has happened during training in the last few days, as well as the occurances of last weekend. everything in PST has been going well, with lots of hands-on goodness. this week's focus is ecotourism, so we went into comayagua today to see how rio negro's campaign has been going (rio negro is where a volunteer has been working with locals on some eco-tourism projects, and where we will be going tomorrow to camp out and learn about the work). it seems that there are a lot of difficulties in advertizing such a project, however it was a good learning experience nonetheless. this weekend, a small group of us went to some natural pools with a large local family, where we went swimming, ate a sweet honduran meal, and more or less relaxed for a day. i jumped from a tree into a pool and luckily have a video to prove it, so you guys can watch whenever i get around to posting it on youtube or wherever. its sideways tho, so i dont know if i can fix that. anyway, so far, that's all i got. oh wait, on a different note, i got a haircut and a shave, honduran style, so once i get a few pictures of myself with my new doo, you guys can laugh it up. alright, ill write more when i got more to say. cheque.

again, i don't have muchas ganas to write right now, but i've been slacking lately, and well, its about time i sat down and wrote a lengthy one. first and foremost, news. this past wednesday, our group went camping in rio negro, where we spent the evening platicando with the natives, discussing all sorts of topics. thursday morning the local tourguides who have been in training with a PCV for some time, took us on the trail to the cascada, or waterfall. it was beautiful. the rainforest was lush, filled with a plethora of tree species, shrubs, ferns, and anything you could think of. the trail followed a river which acts as a water source for the whole comayagua valley, which includes my home town of la cuesta. we spent a long time walking, discussing the points of interest, but the pace was slow, and it frustrated me a little. i guess its necessary for a guide to hike at the pace of the slowest in the group, but ours was quite fit, and i think we could have moved quicker. its also possible that after years of hiking with mom and dad, i have been trained to move quickly up and down mountains, so maybe i was just out of place. regardless, the waterfall was amazing. we drank the water directly from the source, and to be honest, it was more refreshing and sweet than i could have imagined. its a shame that by the time it reaches the people in the valley, its full of ghiardia and parasites. pues, asi es la vida. we spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the procedure with the guides, giving pointers, constructive criticism mostly, trying to improve the overall experience. we all returned exstatic, if not for the experience, than just because we got to spent a night in the woods, away from the norms of tech training. friday was devoted to a cultural day, where our group presented american culture, whatever that is, to our host families and a large group of school children, while they presented their culture to us. it was an interesting experience, but overall i think it went well. i acted as master of ceremonies, along with my companera lucy, who did a much better job than me. regardless, it went off mostly without a hitch, the people were happy, and us voluteers got to try a bunch of honduran food. ah, finally, now i arrive at today. this morning, a group of us went to repair the damage that had occured to our stove, the one we built a few weeks back. apparently, we failed in certain aspects during the initial construction, and algunas partes did not work out, or broke. so, we went back and fixed it, good. now, hopefully, in three days when the whole thing dries, we can come back and see how it works out. hopefully, the clay mixture will hold, and the hornilla will heat up properly. at least we learned a lot from the experience, and now it looks a hell of a lot better than it did before. at three we played a game of soccer with the locals, which began well, and ended badly, with us losing 4 to 8. but i guess it happens. quedo mal, la marcadora era fea, pero, aprendimos mucho. i returned home, ate dinner with the fam, chopped some wood, and carried a 5 gallon jug of water, could be 6 or 7, dunno, from the nearby supermarket all the way to my house. it was all pretty exhausting.