Day 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290
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Day 276 - Thursday, August 1, 2002
We spent the day hanging out with Jennifer and David. For lunch we went to a local restaurant and had enchiladas. We did a little reading, walked around the town, and in the evening played scrabble. The scrabble game was different how Jen and I play. When Jen and I play we allow use of the dictionary, help each other spell words, and are pretty laid back. Jennifer and David play by the rules, which was a big change for us, but fun none the less.
For dinner we made banana cake and had chips and salsa as we were still pretty full from lunch.
Day 277 - Friday, August 2, 2002
We left on the 7 AM bus to Tegucigalpa this morning and arrived around 11:30 AM. We were pretty tired from traveling and decided to stayed at the Maya the night before heading back down to Choluteca. We had a nice lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant, and on the way back to the hotel bought a piece of German Chocolate cake for dessert. Because we had our laptop and the Maya has free internet dial up access from the rooms we spent most of the night online chatting with friends and sending email.
Day 278 - Saturday, August 3, 2002
We got up this morning and did Yahoo chat with Jennifer's parents. We left in the early afternoon to catch the bus to Choluteca. Before leaving Jen bought us a couple of gyro sandwiches for lunch from a local Greek restaurant that makes really good food.
Once we reached Choluteca we stayed with Raj and Nina, who are another couple that are pregnant and closing out their service August 20th.
For dinner we had pizza on pita bread.
Day 279 - Sunday, August 4, 2002
We went to mass this morning and then headed home to Concepción de Maria. We managed to get on the wrong bus as the ride took almost 4 hour, was very dirty, and very dusty. We were actually on the right bus there was just a lot of cargo and a very slow driver.
We rested when we got home (Jen took a 4 hour nap) as we were exhausted from traveling. It was nice to be home in our little cement hut.
Day 280 - Monday, August 5, 2002
After being gone for so long we worked most of the day dusting and cleaning the house to remove the critters and dust that had accumulated while we were gone.
For dinner we had home made Pizza and afterwards went for a nice walk.
Day 281 - Tuesday, August 6, 2002
Jen spent the morning doing laundry. Recently we have been hiring a local woman to do our laundry, but she doesn't always come when we ask her to so Jen got to wash cloths this morning. I went to Choluteca to do the shopping for what we would need over the next couple of weeks, and to buy a propane tank for our gas stove. The ride down was quick and only took about 2 hours, but the ride back up was painfully slow and we seemed to not only creep along at a snails pace, but stop at every conceivable location along the way. The ride home took 4 1/2 hours.
When I got back Jen had left over pizza for me for lunch, and we spent about 4 hours walking around talking to neighbors and people we work with to let them know we are back in town and begin planning the next round of projects.
Day 282 - Wednesday, August 7, 2002
We worked on our Spanish for a couple hours today and went to the high school to work out a plan for giving advanced computer classes to the teachers. We also went to the library to invite the librarian to take part in the training as well.
Day 283 - Thursday, August 8, 2002
We went to Choluteca today on the 2:30 PM bus and stayed with Raj and Nina for the night. I was asked to come to the training center to give an assertiveness training and assist on a diversity panel. The ride on the bus took about 3 hours and we met up with John, Raj, Nina, and Michelle around 6 PM after having a liquado and chatting for a while.
We had dinner at the pupusaria ladies house (her name is Reina). She made us nachos, pupusas, and baleadas. Nina had mac and cheese as she is pregnant and has been able to eat a very wide variety of foods.
After dinner we showed everyone Jennifer Creative Memories scrapbook and a video we had put together as a going away present for Nina and Raj.
Day 284 - Friday, August 9, 2002
We traveled to Teguz at 6am today. Once there we ran errands, had lunch at La Creparia (where we enjoyed chicken filled crepes in a white sauce and a yummy dessert crepe). In the afternoon I met with 7 other volunteers and a trainer from the training center where we discussed the diversity training for the following day. I was participating on the panel as married people are considered a "minority" here in Peace Corps and because of that our experiences are different.
In the evening Jennifer and I went to the National Theatre Manual Bonilla to see a concert pianist from Japan perform. We stayed the night at the Maya.
Day 285 - Saturday, August 10, 2002
We left early for the training center. The session on cultural diversity went well and I ended up leading most of it. The assertiveness training on the other hand was a flop and only 3 people showed up.
Jennifer got on a bus to Valle de Angeles, went shopping, and visited our host family from training. When I arrived I said hello to everyone and Jennifer and I went out to look at all the treasures she had found.
It was nice to see our host family, but shortly after I arrived the mom left to go visit her sister and the dad left to go out. Dinner and the children were (once again) left to us. The mom arrived home around 9 PM and her husband came in around 3 AM. We got the impression that this wasn't all that uncommon for them to leave the kids (ages 3,8,10) alone in the house for long periods of time. The mom made several hints at the fact that she doesn't really care for her life here in Honduras with her family and wants to get away. It is very sad as the children are suffering terribly and crave positive attention from someone. The clung to me the entire time I was there.
Day 286 - Sunday, August 11, 2002
We went to Mass this morning and took Allison, Jorge, and Gerardo with us. Afterwards, we went to the local market near the hospital, took the kids home, and ran to catch the bus to Teguz. Before we left the kids were begging us to stay another day.
Jorge the 8 year old had wanted to go to one of the local stores on the way back from the market. He came back with a batman notepad. I thought it kind of odd that he would buy something like that with his money as he prefers to buy candy with his money, but the big surprise came when we were leaving. Jorge came up to me and gave me the notepad and told me it was a gift from him to me. It was very sweet and he was so cute about it. I only hope that my future son loves me as much as Jorge does; he would play with me all day long if he could.
We then got on a bus in Teguz to take us to Choluteca where we met up with John and Bryan. We had pizza for dinner and later met up with Raj and Nina at the pupusaria where we played UNO. We slept on John's floor and showed John and Bryan our scrapbook and a couple of videos we have made.
Day 287 - Monday, August 12, 2002
We went back to Conception this afternoon after running errands in Choluteca. Our errands consisted of shopping for fresh fruits, going to the post office to check for packages and going to an internet cafe to check and send email. We have been fortunate at the last few internet cafes we have found in Choluteca as they allow us to connect using our laptop. Making it possible to send and receive large volumes of mail.
When we arrived in Concepción we found the town fair had decided to start 2 days earlier and had been going on for 2 days already. A surprise to us since when we left 5 days ago everyone told us it started today.
We relaxed most of the day as we were pretty tired from traveling.
Day 288 - Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Still tired from traveling we slept in the morning. It would be really easy to get into the habit of sleeping till 9 or 10 AM if we weren't diligent. The day after traveling is usually the exception and we need to sleep in to let our bodies recover from the long, bumpy bus rides.
The town fair was still going on today and will be until Thursday evening. In the afternoon we went to a bull riding contest. In the evening we went into the town center to see the "giant woman" and the three rides that the carnival people that rove Honduras had set up.
It was interesting to see all the activity and "fun" going on in a town center that is usually void of any activity other than the selling of fruits and vegetables and the coming and going of busses. I suppose it's not all that different than driving through the quiet streets of a MN town and then going to the county fair.
Day 289 - Wednesday, August 14, 2002
We went to the "Muestra Cultural" (Cultural Demonstration) this morning. There were several speakers, dancers, and musicians who performed. It was interesting, however the planning and execution was rather poorly done. Jennifer and I spoke at length as to the need for a better organized person running the whole thing. Overall things went OK, but there is much room for improvement especially in the area of technical and timing matters. Jen and I were in agreement that they needed a coordinator to keep everything on track. It was obvious after the first two hours that the kids who were made to stand out in front were getting tired and the special guests were getting board.
In the afternoon I went to see more bull riding after being promised that today's show was going to be even more exciting. It was the same, but afforded me the opportunity to take some more photos.
In the evening we attended the crowning of the queen of the fair who just happened to be one of my students from my computer class. She asked me when I showed up if I would take video of her procession. Some how she got it in her head that I would do a much better job than her sister would. This worked out rather well as the procession ended in the dance hall with the first dance of the queen of the fair along with the princess and others. Since I was videoing Jennifer and I didn't have pay the $10.00/couple cover charge, and expensive proposition. We danced for about an hour and a half and then headed home. I could have danced longer, but the music was so loud I would feel it resonating in my chest and head and it just wasn't all that fun.
Day 290 - Thursday, August 15, 2002
We spent the morning cleaning, preparing food, and revising our schedule for the volunteers who would be arriving today to visit with us. One of the parts of Peace Corps training is for volunteers who are in training to visit volunteers who have been living in the country for a while to get an idea of what volunteer life is like and what they have to look forward to during their service.
Around 4:30 PM Stan and Lisa arrived. We sat and talked for a while about Peace Corps life and got to know each other better. Around 6 PM we went out for dinner at a small restaurant (someone's house with 2 tables some chairs whose menu consists of tacos and fried chicken). The tacos (a rolled up fried corn tortilla filled with chicken and topped with a thousand island dressing type sauce and diced cabbage) were really good. Stan and I both had two while Jennifer and Lisa had one each.
After dinner we looked at photos from our last year of service on the computer and also took a look a the "Costa Rica Video" that Jennifer and I put together after our trip to Costa Rica. We also looked at the going away video that we made for Raj and Nina (two volunteers who we became friends with and who leave to go home on August 20th, 2002).
We talked for a while and then went to bed.
Day 291 - Friday, August 16, 2002
Jen and I got up at 6:30 AM and went for a walk. When we got home we started breakfast and made French toast for our visitors. After breakfast we cleaned up and went to the library where Jennifer had planned an activity with some younger kids to make books on friendship. The kids had not shown up yet and weren't expected until around 11 AM, so we had an hour to burn.
In that hour we went to the high school where we introduced them to some of the teachers that we work with, showed them the computer lab (Stan is a computer guy too), talked about our course curriculum, and discussed some of the rewards and difficulties of teaching in a high school in Honduras. On the way back to the library we took the "Indiana Jones Bridge" to show them what we have to cross when the water gets to high to use the regular bridge.
We returned to the library where most of the kids had shown up. Jennifer lead the making of the friendship books while Stan and Lisa looked over some of the books in the library and I took photos of everything. While we were doing all this our friend Bryan from Triunfo (a neighboring municipality about 2 hours away) showed up on his bicycle. Bryan had called me a few days ago and asked if I had information on teaching computer classes. I had told him I did and that he should come to Concepción to visit.
After the making of the books we went back to the house and had a lunch of baleadas, chips, salsa and watermelon. After lunch we relaxed, I took Bryan up to make a phone call, and Jennifer and Stan learned how to play the card game "Phase 10" while Lisa took a nap. When Bryan and I got back we all played a 2 1/2 hour game of "Phase 10".
We rested for a while after that we started dinner. We had spaghetti with cheesy bread.
After dinner we watched "Office Space" on DVD and went to bed. Stan and Lisa had their own room and Bryan slept on our floor.
Day 292 - Saturday, August 17, 2002
This morning we made scrambled eggs with onion, tomato, garlic cheese, and jalapeño mixed in. We also had coffee and toast. It was very good (I made it).
We talked a little more about Peace Corps and gave them directions on how to get back to the capital, as well as some direction on how to get around the department capitol (Choluteca) where they would be staying for the evening before heading off to Teguz. We showed them photos of their trip. Jen cleaned up while they played backgammon and waited for the bus.
Brian had left at 3AM to make a 6AM meeting that he had with someone from the mayors office.
They got off on the bus at 11 AM. Jennifer and I spent the rest of the afternoon resting. We have decided that having company is a lot of work. Just keeping enough cold drinking water in the house for everyone is a challenge. We only have one shot for water in the early part of the morning and if we miss it we have to wait until the next day.
Once nice surprise was two young girls who came by selling fresh shrimp that had just been shipped up from Nicaragua. We bought a pound of shrimp, still in the shell, for 20 lempiras (about $1.16 in U.S.).
Day 293 - Sunday, August 18, 2002
We got up and went for a walk this morning. We didn't go too far as we were both feeling really tired. I think I may be getting sick or something I haven't been feeling very well the last few days. It isn't anything particular; I've just been really tired and haven't had much energy. Jennifer thinks I have some rare disease and should go get blood work done. I think maybe I'm just ready for some rain or cooler weather.
We did some Spanish language work, had a breakfast of yogurt and toast, and went to church at 10AM. There was no Mass this morning just the speaker of the word. Which was ok. When we got home we read the marriage book for a while before I started lunch. Jennifer read to me as I pulled the heads off of the shrimp and shelled them.
Jen made rice and I sautéed the shrimp in a garlic butter sauce. I also cooked up some tomatoes so we would have a little color on our plates. The one pound of shrimp was a nice meal, but didn't like too much once we got it shelled. It was really good though being so fresh. The girls we bought it from said they sell it about every 2 weeks. So we are looking forward to their next visit.
After lunch we worked on Spanish for a while longer. Our goal is to finish the level 2 series before my mom comes to visit at the end of September. We are half way through now. Each tape is about an hour for each side there is also additional exercises at the end of each lesson that don't include the tapes. The tapes are a series that were put out by Barron's and were designed by the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Government. The are used to train foreign service officers. We have ordered levels 3&4 as they have been a great supplement to the Spanish tutoring we have been receiving and the day to day speaking we have been doing.
I worked on my Journal for a few hours while Jennifer worked out the menu for the next week as we are planning on having Megan and Ryan (another married couple in Peace Corps visit us on Wednesday. We are also having a party for the computer class that we taught. She is getting a big shopping list ready for me so I can go grocery shopping when I pass through Choluteca on my way home on Tuesday.
Day 294 - Monday, August 19, 2002
“Mr. Silvera goes to Teguz”
So after one year of service I finally got my tooth pulled, a bridge in place and with only a minimal amount of pain I was able to chew on the left side of my mouth. For more detail on this incident click here. After 3 weeks of blissful eating (I’ve discovered a new pleasure in tasting food on both sides of my mouth) a molar on the other side of my mouth that had a filling started to give way and part of the filling fell out. So a special trip to the capitol had to be scheduled, and on Monday I set out on a magnificent adventure.
The adventure started at 1:30 AM Monday morning when I got up. I had planned on getting up at 2 AM since the bus leaves at 2:30 AM, but my neighbor who was leaving on the same bus thoroughly convinced me that, even though I have taken the 2:30 four or five times now, that it has always left at 2 AM and we would should get up earlier. Since he doesn’t own an alarm clock it was my job to yell across the patio to his bedroom and make sure he was up. So I woke up, got ready, and went up to the bus stop around 2:20 where the bus arrived about 20 minutes later (since I can hear the bus leave from my house there was no need to go up there at 2 AM.
After a 6 hour bus ride I arrived in Tegucigalpa where I caught a cab to the Peace Corps Office. My dental appointment was at 10 AM so I had about an hour to take care of part of the long list of errands Jennifer gave me before I left. In the Peace Corps office I made copies, said “hi“ and “goodbye” to friends, checked in with the assistant country directory, and found I had won a photo contest. I had taken some photos for another couple and they had entered me in the contest). I filled out a voucher for 500 lempiras (about $29.00) and headed out to catch another cab to the dentist office. Seeing that I had a little extra time and knowing that the dentist is always late on Mondays I headed to the bank where a guy with a gun and a hand held metal detector told me to leave my backpack outside and waved his magic wand over my body looking for bazookas or some other implement of death I might use to rob the bank with. I just needed a copy of our bank statement since it has been receiving our monthly statements every other month.
After the bank I caught a cab to the dentist who told me my filling was bad and needed to be replaced. Novocain injected, filling replaced and I even got to watch 45 minutes of CNN on the T.V. he had installed on his ceiling; only the best for us Peace Corps Volunteers.
At 11 AM I caught another cab to the bus terminal in hopes of making it to Choluteca to do some shopping and catch the last bus back to Conception in one day; a feat never attempted or accomplished in the past by any previous volunteer in our site (at least that I know of).
The bus to Choluteca was very crowded and I was thankful that I arrived about 20 minutes before they left as there were about 15 people who had to stand in the isle for the 3 hour ride to Choluteca. In Cholu I took a cab to the photo developers shop to get some reprints made as gifts for our high school computer class whom we are having a party for on Friday. I pleaded with a wink and smile to the woman behind the counter and received a promise that the photos would be done in half an hour.
Another cab ride and I was at the grocery store, a man on a mission. With a list of items, drawn up by my detail oriented wife, I cruised through the isles and filled a shopping cart full of groceries in about 16 minutes. It then took 10 minutes to pack it all into the 3 backpack (a large one, a medium sized one, and a small one that is insulated for cold items). Another cab ride back to the photo developer and a couple of gracious "thank yous" for all the wonderful people who got my photos done in record time, and I was out the door walking down the street 5 blocks to the only place in town that we know has good cheese; fully loaded like a pack mule with my back packs and a plastic grocery bag I put the bread and chips in to keep from being crushed.
Cheese in hand (well in the backpack anyway) and I was off to the bus which, after a dusty, bumpy ride would deliver my in the heart of Conception de Maria at 7:20 PM, just in time to surprise Jennifer who wasn’t expecting me home until Tuesday afternoon.
Total Bus Time: 12 hours
Total Number of Taxis: 7
Total Number of Meals: 0
Kilometers Traveled: 600 (Approx)
Liters of water consumed: 2
All that just so I wouldn’t have to spend a night away from my lovely bride!
Day 295 - Tuesday, August 20, 2002
A day rest maybe....
We got up around 8 AM, made and made a special breakfast of Raisin Brand Crunch cereal with real commercial grade 2% milk that I had purchased the day before. The only milk available in our site it the stuff straight from the cow, which we haven't developed a taste for. A few chores out of the way (like watering the garden and making water), we headed to the high school to talk to them about taking over an English class that is not being taught as the teacher quit last week and also about finishing computer classes with the teachers to make them instructors in computer education.
A nice lunch of Tuna salad sandwiches and we were ready for our new Spanish tutor to come over and give us our first lesson. Ruth (Ruth is the one on the left in the blue shirt) is our old Spanish tutors sister and we are very excited to have her as a teacher. She can read and for a large part understand English, she just has a lot of trouble with pronunciation of the words. This is key in a Spanish teacher as she has a better understanding of how the two languages interact and a fuller understanding of how her own language fits together. Her Spanish is very articulated and she is very easy to understand.
After Spanish classes we headed to the Cooperative to talk about what we had in mind for the next 5 months. We hope to help them through a complete over haul of how they do things in the cooperative from inventory, to customer service, to how products are displayed, to how interest is calculated in the savings and loans department.
Day 296 - Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Jennifer headed to San Benito Viejo to do an art project with our neighbors class there. Our neighbor Gloria teaches in a small town about 45 minutes from Concepción, and Jennifer offered to come and do a special project with her class today. Leaving me to prepare the house for another Peace Corps couple who we are expecting the afternoon to come and visit us for a day or two.
I boiled water, made fresh guava juice, clean the bathroom, did dishes, made a cake, went shopping for watermelon and met with the teachers at the school regarding our final schedule for the teachers computer classes and the English classes we agreed to take over. The next 5 month are going to be pretty busy.
Megan arrived around 3 pm with out her husband Ryan. She was very nice and brought us wine and cheese, a real treat being that we don't buy either very often as they are kind of expensive; it was a nice surprise and a great treat.
Day 297 - Thursday, August 22, 2002
We got up this morning and made French toast for breakfast. It was a treat for Megan and we really enjoyed it as well. We chatted some more in the morning and Jen and her went to the Library to check it out.
We sent Megan home on the 11:00 bus. She was going to go to Tegucigalpa and meet her husband Ryan who wasn't able to come this time.
For some reason Megan's visit gave us permission to be lazy and for the rest of the day we just kind of laid around not doing anything other than read and type email.
Day 298 - Friday, August 23, 2002
We prepared our house and bought ingredients for pizza and cookies in preparation for the party that we threw for the seniors at the high school. We told them to be at the house at 12:00 to start cooking for the party at 6. Everyone showed up and we started mixing up pizza dough at 2:00 pm. This was ok, but Jennifer for a while didn't think they were coming at all and was wondering what she was going to do with the two big bags of flour we bought.
The girls pressed, mixed and kneaded enough dough for six large pizzas and mixed up batter for about 3 dozen cookies, finishing their work at around 3:30pm.
At 6:45 everyone came back (we were supposed to start at 6:00 pm, but that is just they way it works here), we had most of the cookies cooked by the time they came and our 4 neighbor girls helped out immensely with the task of cooking everything in their Fagon.
The party went very well and all the pizza and cookies were eaten or taken home to share with families. During the party we danced, had a contest between the two classes to see who could build something to keep an egg from breaking when dropped onto the side walk, and just had a lot of fun. Everything was wrapped up at 10:00 PM and we spent about 30 minutes cleaning up the patio and went to bed.
Day 299 - Saturday, August 24, 2002
We got up early this morning and went for a walk. Jen went to the library and made books with a group of younger kids. This project stemmed from a book my mom sent us with copiable pages for making books. The stories or themes are in Spanish and focus on character development. The lesson this week was how to make friends and how to be a good friend. Jennifer had about 20 kids that came and paid one lempira to color, cut, and put their books together. The program has really caught on and Jennifer is constantly asked now when she is going to have another book making day at the library by the children.
Jennifer had to cut the session short as she had discovered that there was mass at the church in town. We usually only get a priest up this way to do mass once a week so to have a real mass out side of that schedule is a treat and something we like to take advantage of. She came home and got me and we went to mass. Which was really nice. It was done by a new young priest and the focus was on young people.
We were going to have Spanish tutoring with Ruth this afternoon, but the Mass kid of cut into our time with her and it was rescheduled for later in the afternoon.
Ruth was so nice she sent us some vegetable soup over for lunch. For desert we made a vanilla swirl cake.
We had Spanish classes later in the afternoon. In the evening we had a mini part for the neighbor girls that helped us with the party on Friday. We played UNO, made pop corn, and fried plantain chips. The grandmother from next door even came over and played with us. She really seemed to enjoy it and wants us to invite her over again in the future. We have been doing game nights about once a week for the neighbor girls.
Day 300 - Sunday, August 25, 2002
We just hung out at home today and took it easy. We spent quiet a bit of time reading the marriage book and did Spanish tapes.
Day 301 - Monday, August 26, 2002
We got up early and exercised this morning. We had cereal for breakfast.
We started teaching English classes today and I can already tell it’s going to be interesting. We had 4 classes scheduled and due to a long morning program we started our first class 45 minutes late, the second class was only 10 minutes long, and the third was cut short by 15 minutes by another teacher who held our class to take a test. The fourth class never happened as everyone got out of school early today because the oldest kids had a party to celebrate finishing their classroom work. Now they will go into the community (mostly the department capitol) and work in a business for practical experience in the business field. Two of them (there are 15 in total) will be working at the cooperative in town. On Thursday and Friday the teachers have planned on a strike to protest their low wages. The have one of the only organized labor unions in the country, and uses it regularly to perform work stoppages to protest their wages. As a result the kids only get about 4 days of school a week, which wouldn’t be terrible if they didn’t have classes for only 4 ½ hours a day. It going to be very interesting to see how this works.
After school we were invited to another party for the senior class we went for about 45 minutes and danced a little, then went home where I took a nap and Jen typed email.
We went to the cooperative to start working on a major overhaul project that we talked in detail to the directory board of the cooperative about. They promised us 3 people who would be able to help us with whatever we needed and when we got there no one seemed to know that we were coming. So we told them we would be back the next day to give a talk on customer service and went home.
We had a yummy chicken pasta that Jennifer whipped up for dinner, by candle light as the power had gone out.
Day 302 - Tuesday, August 27, 2002
I got up early this morning to get my journal up to date.
We taught English classes in the morning (due to the unexpected departure of a teacher at the high school we have agreed to teach English classes. It has been very interesting since in this week we will have taught 5 of our 14 classes due to interruption in the schedule and a two day strike by the teachers.
We went to the cooperative in the late afternoon and did a training on customer service to the people who work in the cooperative.
In the evening we had Spanish classes with Ruth.
Day 303 - Wednesday, August 28, 2002
We got up early this morning and went for a walk. Once back home we did laundry. I was running out of socks and coordinating with the lady that has been doing our laundry lately has been difficult. So, Jen and I spent two hours scrubbing and wringing out our dirty cloths. We actually have a pretty good system and I think we wash more quickly together than most Honduran laundry women. We got some pretty intense stares from he neighbor's laundry woman who said that "she'd never seen 'gringos' do their own laundry before." Thus, reiterating the idea that everyone here has the perception that all the white Americans have maids to do their laundry for them.
We didn't have too much to do today since the teachers are on strike we had planned on teaching classes today and tomorrow. We went to the cooperative for about two hours and got the run down on how the savings and loan section works. It was very interesting. People pay 34%-38% on their loans and the cooperative pays 12% on savings accounts. I'm thinking about setting up a retirement account here (he he). They are doing all their book keeping by hand and it will be interesting to see where we go with everything since there is only one computer available to do all their work on. I'm hoping that we can look into purchasing another computer and look into hiring someone to do computer work for them.
In the afternoon I read while Jen typed email. We hade pasta with a red meat sauce for lunch. With our internet connection back up and running we have been able to send and receive email on a more regular basis which has been nice as we feel more connected to other.
Day 304 - Thursday, August 29, 2002
The teachers strike was still on today so no classes. In the earlier part of the day we did our Spanish tapes.
In the afternoon we packed and read. For dinner we went out to eat at the one restaurant in town (they serve tacos and fried chicken).
In the evening we let the neighbors come down to the house and read an email sent by one of the daughters who lives in Venezuela. She has been sending photos and messages to us and we relay them to the family.
Day 305 - Friday, August 30, 2002
We left on the 6:30 am bus for Tegucigalpa today. The bus was very full as all the elementary school teachers were able to pick up their checks and had packed the bus full. I had to stand for the 2 hour bus ride to Choluteca where they all got off. We then traveled to Teguz.
In the afternoon Jennifer ran errands while I went to the dentist to get a filling fixed that he put in the week before. In the late afternoon we went to Valle de Angeles (where we stayed for training) to visit our host family and stay for the night.
While in Valle we took a look at some different local art items and purchased a trunk for our bedroom when we move back home. It is a hand carved wooden chest which would cost 5-8 time what we bought ours from. We plan on sending it back with my mom who is coming to visit in the end of September.
Unfortunate there are some major problems in with the family right now. In the evening the dad left to go out drinking and the mom told Jennifer all about the sorted affairs of their lives. Apparently a 17 year old girl's father came by the house today to confront the dad as to what he thought he was doing sleeping with his daughter. He (the dad of our host family) denies it, but the marriage is on the rocks and he has been drinking more and more lately. Erika said she isn't very happy and would leave if she had a job.
He came home at about 3 am and was slamming items around the house. Erika has told us that she has to fix him something to eat when he get home or he gets pretty angry. We kept the door locked and were happy be staying only one night.
Day 306 - Saturday, August 31, 2002
We left on the first bus in the morning back to Teguz.
Jen had meeting this morning for the volunteer support and advocacy council. They are the ones who are called when volunteers need emotional support; Jen is a member.
While Jennifer had her meeting I ran some errands picking up developed film, buying a cake and taking it to a restaurant we would be eating at later that night, and buying flowers for Jen as a surprise. (more about that in a minute)
We to lunch at Tony Roma's with Clair and Austin (another married couple). They are a really great couple and I wish that we lived closer to get to know them a little better.
After lunch we went grocery shopping and headed back to the Peace Corps office. We then caught a cab to Matt's house (a volunteer who used to live in our site). We then took Matt out to dinner for his birthday. Earlier in the day I had purchased a really good cake and taken it to the restaurant where they put it in the fridge and later served it with a burning candle on top for dessert. Since tomorrow is the 13 year anniversary for Jennifer and I of our first date and 3rd of our engagement I bought her a bunch of flowers.
We stayed the night at Matt's house.