hn17.

my ass hurts. in fact, its not just my ass, but my whole body, back, thighs, knees. I feel like i spent all day doing squats and lifts and all sorts of exercises. no instead, i just rode 30 k on horseback. i didn't think that sitting on something as soft as a fuzzy horse could be so painful. but when the bastard starts trotting/galloping/whatever it is that you call it when they run, the spinal column of the horse smacks you right between the thighs, and after an hour and a half, you start to feel it. after three hours everything goes numb, until a little while later, you find yourself not being able to sit or stand or lie down. the worst part, is that I loved it, and I'm gonna do it again in two weeks. and maybe every two weeks after that. the experience was wonderful. not only did i get to experience where i live in a completely new manner, but I felt connected to the land. in a car, in the back of a pickup, even walking, the landscape seems foreign, unreachable. you feel as though you are moving through a hollywood backdrop, a world that has little to nothing to do with you. but mounted on a horse the size of a semi, it's different. the horse responds to the countours of the land, and you are forced to as well. luckily, on the return leg of the journey, muñeco, the horse, didn't have enough energy to run, so we took it slow, and the trip seemed completely different. it was almost as though i made a loop, rather than returning the same way i came. and although i couldn't sit last night to play uno, i could not be happier.

pictures are up.

hn16.

i walked almost ten kilometers today, in a lame attempt to hitchhike to my community from the nearby town. apparently people do not really drive around at 9 am on sunday here, they're all in church or on their way there, which means out of my community and not in. the walk started out easy, but as the incline increased, and i started climbing past 1200 meters, it got a little tough. im definitely out of shape, and am in desperate need of a daily workout. however, the walk did give me time to reflect, think, and ponder on how everything is going. i was thinking i may have jumped in too deep for my first two weeks as a volunteer, and maybe i should give myself some space from the work load. you know, ease myself in. and then i realized that i work best in such an environment, high activity, constant occupiededness (having trouble with synonyms lately) , and stress. i like it. and i like that i may have three projects happening at the same time within the first two months of service. i just have to make sure that they don't fail. and i guess that's my greatest fear. that no matter how little or how much i do, that wont end up mattering because the projects will not succeed. but i can't live like that, so for now, ill just keep on truckin, or whatever it is that i do.

hn15.

i watched a one armed man carry 50 kg sacks of cement today. i did too, but for me it was a struggle, and for him, it seemed just like any other task. he did it with a smile, and even cracked a joke about his disability. i couldn't believe it. you know, farmers here are tough, and not just ford tough, more like sherman tank tough. they work from 7 am to five, with a small lunch break, with little help from contracted workers. there are some, that will chop a whole field in one day, employing only a machete. i don't know if any of you have experience with this, but its not a walk in the park by a long shot. i've done it, and there is little fun to be had. in fact, if you look back about ten entries, you can find my complaints about the process. on a different note, i came to a realization today, that has been a long time in the making. hondurans are an exteremely diverse people, and not just culturally, but in their physical appearance. yeah, skin color varies significantly from a gringo white, to a dark shade of brown, with a small population of garifuna, black hondurans, in the north. but its not just in the skin that most of the physical diversity resides. its in the different mixtures that can be found. there are dark hondurans, with bright blue eyes, and light brown curly hair. there are white white white hondurans, whiter than me, that have all the other characteristics of a pure catracho. but that's where i make my mistake. there is no pure catracho, or at least, they all are. this country is just as much a nation of mutts as the states are, if not more. there is no shame here in mixed couples. its kind of nice, no?

hn14.

you know, its funny how the smallest things can try one's patience. and not to a small extent where you can just shake it off and move on, but full out final exam quality patience testing at its best. i had that experience today, and it was quite a challenge, but i think i survived. in fact, i'm better for it, because now, same time tomorrow i can resume my herculean task and keep on keeping on. seguir a delante. i spent over six hours today cutting out a stencil for my job, a stencil which will serve as the standard for 41 signs which will be placed around the community in certified farms for the upcoming inspection. yeah, i know i've written about the signs once already, maybe twice, but frankly, thats what my life is about right now, so deal with it. i now have an immense amount of respect for those people around the world that spend their days cutting out little letters with a little knife out of cardboard. where ever you are, you champions of miniature stencil letters, i salute you. three cheers, a low bow, and whatever else i can do. it sucks. whats worse, is that this is the first day, probably of three, that i will have to spend cutting out these fuckers. and even worse than that, is once i start painting, there's a chance that the size of the letters will be too small, and the paint will run, and the whole thing will get completely ruined. so, let's hope against hope, wish against wish, want against...oh whatever, you get it. cross your fingers. but back to my original point, about stress release. today i found mine. and you know, it didn't include beer, grass, or video games like in the states. simply put, i rode a horse. and for the first time, longer than for just five minutes and only around the cooperative. today i took that beast down to the nearby river. we trotted, cantered, and even almost galloped, but i got kinda frightened for my rear end, as it was being severely battered by the motions of the animal, so i took it down a notch. together we almost made it out of the community, but as we were about to cross the border with the next village, a truck went by, and the horse decided that it would be exciting to chase after it. at first i couldn't help but laugh, but i soon realized that i had lost control, so i pulled it aside and gave it a stern talking to. i think it got the point.

side note

i've been reading through some of my recent posts, and it seems that my english is suffering from the lack of practice. words get repeated, grammar falters, and frankly, the quality of writing is far from top-notch. well i'll tell you all this, don't judge me. most of it is train of thought, so quality is not the first thing on my mind. and, i figure that one day years from now, i can sit down, organize all of these entries along with those that i can't post, and maybe publish something. don't laugh, i'm serious.

hn13.

life is good. but where to start, in order to give a true image of what is going on around here. first of all, I'm working. which is awesome. and not training, or integrating (sorry PAM directors), but actually working. Yesterday i spent the day painting signs for the different coffee farms of the cooperative. Each farm is required to have signage posted which displays the rules and regulations that pertain to a certified Rainforest Alliance producer. Today, i built part of a latrine, fixed a broken water pipe, and did further research on the signs, regarding phrasing of the rules. Its amazing that this is part of the process of certification, but its almost impossible to find an exact list of the rules. What else. Well, first of all, my family is the shit. In fact, they remind me a lot of my russian family, at least the gershenson side. My host dad, or whatever, is very similar to my grandpa eugene, who sadly is no longer with us. His manerisms, humor, and general personality is like a mirror image. His borther-in-law, my uncle, is like my uncle volodya, especially when we play cards. And my host brothers, well theyre a lot like my cousins. A mixture, but still. Sometimes its creepy, how alike they are. If we were speaking russian and not spanish, i would feel like I was back in Moscow. Regardless, the family is awesome. We spend lots of time talking, sometimes about politics, farming, and anything really. They are super intelligent, and always thinkin outside the box. We play UNO a lot, which I never thought would be as exciting and awesome as it is. We spend about 2 hours a day playing, and no one ever gets tired of it. They've been playing non-stop for over a year now, and hopefully they'll play for at least two more. On a different note, yesterday I rode a horse, alone, for the first time in my life. It was sweet. Granted, it was only around the property of the cooperative, but still. At first when i got on, it tried to throw me off, but the owner took its reigns, and i whispered in its ear, and after that point i became its new best friend. We're supposed to go riding again on sunday, but I dont know if that will happen for now. Regardless, he's ready to lend me the horse whenever, so, I guess ill be riding. Sweet, no? As far as integration goes, I've met a large portion of the cooperative farmers, about 25 or so, and although i dont remember all of their names, im workin on it.

p.s. new photos are up peoples!

hn12.

i'm speechless. more importantly, i'm ecstatic, because it seems that i have been blessed with the greatest PC site in history. not only do i have every possible project available to me, but I have amazing couterparts, and a host family which has already rocked my socks. alright, where should i begin. i was sworn in yesterday, among cheers and applause at the american embassy. i even got a silly picture with Hugo, our ambassador to Honduras, which I will be posting as soon as my friend emails it to me. it was histerical. we then celebrated in Valle, again, awesome times filled with Imperial and pupusas. I arrived home and tried to sleep, but failed terribly. In the morning I said goodbye to my family and it ended up being much more emotional than i could have ever expected. My host father hugged me and said a prayer, and then remained on the road for about half an hour just to watch the bus go by again and wave. My host mom also gave me a hug and told me that I had to return and live with them again. I wanted to cry but my hangover and severe dehydration due to the night before prevented me from doing so. We got to Teguz by seven, and quickly got on the bus, which after 9 grueling hours dropped us in Cucuyagua. Now, cucuyagua is about an hour away from my site and luckily we were picked up by my host brother/other counterpart. Omar is his name, and he is one of the coolest hondurans i have met so far. In fact, the whole family is like that. His dad Omar is histerical. His brother Luis and cousin Tomas are extremely nice and welcoming. And his uncle Pedro is the shit. Before dinner, I got a chance to see the coffee cooperative where we spent a little while discussing prospective projects and it seems that not only will I be busy for some time, but its gonna be amazing working in this community. The diversity of projects is wide, everything from worm farming, to coffee certification, to GIS mapping, to women's group organizing, to environmental ed, to...well, the list goes on. Dinner with the family was great, accompanied by fresh squeezed orange juice, since we have a bunch of trees, YAY! And afterwards we spent the rest of the evening playing UNO, yeah thats right the card game, while cracking jokes and laughing. For about two hours. It was sweet. And tomorrow, breakfast is at 7 30, and not at 6, so for the first time in some time, I can sleep without having to get up at the ass crack of dawn. Again, AWESOME!

alright, now that i have internet i can maintain some sort of constant input into this whole blog business. today has been a day of wonder, filled with new people, potential projects, and lots of food. i spent the morning in a meeting with a bunch of local coffee producers and an NGO which is planning an eco tourism project in the area. their plan is to train 25 local farmers on eco tourism business practices, and then draw a crowd to the area. it seems awesome, but since our cooperative consists of more than 100 farmers, we might have to finish the rest of the training ourselves, and then possibly even do the whole thing locally. but no worries, since any cooperation leads to more success and at least we can work together to organize a plan of action/training schedule. after the meeting, we went to visit omar's grandfather. we were lucky enough to get to see his garden, which is filled with different species of ornamentals, vegetables, and fruit trees. afterwards, we shared a simple lunch and talked about the history of coffee farming in las capucas, which was more or less built from the ground up by the grandpa. it was very interesting. when we left, our plan was to catch a jalon towards home, but we got caught up talking to a local millionaire, who owns about 100 manzanas of coffee (i dont even know how many acres that is). He invited us into his home, and i got to see for the first time what luxurious life looks like in honduras. It was an eye opener, with beautiful marble floors, 10 rooms, bathrooms everywhere, a fireplace, and couches that you could melt in. he gave us some fresh pineapple juice, and we talked more about coffee, about organic production, fair trade, and the miserable pay that coffee workers receive per hour. quite informative. when we left, we were quite lucky to catch a ride with some locals, although sadly we left a bag of oranges in the back of the pickup. maybe we'll get them back. now, as i write this, my eyes droop with sleep but i am ready for another day and more work. its exactly what i wanted when i joined this corps of peace. heh.

p.s i posted some other pics in my latest picasa folder, they're old, but now that i have the webs, i can post more and more often. hopefully sometime next week ill be able to put up some photos from swearing in, if i can get them from friends.