Begging for Mail and Birthday Fun in Honduras
September 1, 2001
Hello Everyone,
Yes, you are hearing from us one last time this week. We received so many fun replies to our last email. We discovered that many of you have some very interesting dentist stories. This was, in an odd sort of way, comforting to Shawn.
One of the biggest questions we received was regarding mail. Yes, we can still get mail. It will be delivered weekly to our sites. Letters or packages. So, please feel free to write. We love hearing from you. Mail appears to be taking about a week to get here for regular letters and about 2-4 weeks for packages. In earlier mailings we said that once we left training our mailing address would change. This is true; however, we can still pick up our mail addressed to the address below at the Peace Corps office, so send those letters. They often make our days much happier here.
- Address: PCT:
- Shawn and Jennifer Silvera
- Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
- Apartado Postal #3158
- Tegucigalpa, Honduras America Central
A big happy birthday to Molly Kavanaugh and Scot Bolland. Both turning the BIG 30 this month. Eat a piece of cake for us. We miss real frosting! We celebrated a birthday here last week and the frosting was a cross between melted marshmallows and crunchy sugar.
Ok, a Honduran Birthday...Two days ago we attended a neighbor boys 10th birthday celebration. We arrived a little late and missed the smashing of the piņata, which I heard didn't go too well as the birthday boy knocked it on the ground failing to break it open, but before they had a chance to recover it and hang it back up the wild little pack of children attacked the piņata and tore it open to get at the candy, causing some of the b-day boy's tears to flow. They then brought out the birthday cake. It was a very nice cake that they had made a special trip into the capitol for. It had white frosting with flowers and a toy school bus on the top. They placed a single candle in the center and we sang happy birthday. He blew out the candle and everyone cheered, and then re-lit the candle and told him they wanted a photograph, and that he needed to get his face closer to the cake. So he leaned down and blew out the candle again, only this time one aunt reached down and pulled the candle out of the cake while two others forced his sweaty little face into the top of the cake. Everyone thought this was just hilarious, except the birthday boy who looked like he was fighting back tears. Needless to say the PC volunteers at the party, myself included, were pretty shocked and intrigued by the whole situation. Can you imagine being 10 years old at your birthday party and having your aunts shove your face into the cake? The ins and outs of the culture are definitely an eye opener here.
Say a little prayer for us during the week of September 9th! We will be going to our permanent city to look for the house we will live in for the next two years. We are hoping to find something semi-comfortable (indoor plumbing would be a bonus but, we may be pushing it to wish for a phone line). Most of all we want something safe.
We will update you once we know.
Happy September!
Jen and Shawn Miguel
P.S. Just a silly little side note…on our way to the peace corps office to send this email, we were riding on the local bus with some other volunteers, some locals, and a chicken that parked itself in the middle of the aisle. It just sat there looking around sitting in the same spot. Shawn leaned over and asked its owner if the chicken had to pay to ride the bus. The owner found this pretty humorous, and replied with a confused look followed up with a laughing “no”.