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.