Day 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351
352 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365
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Day 335 - Tuesday, October 1, 2002
We continued our S.C.U.B.A. classes this morning with more videos, some discussion and a written test. We moved into the water in the afternoon and got our first taste of breathing under water. It was really fun, but not quite what I expected. I think it is harder to learn with equipment that is not "just right" for you. For example I had a mask that wouldn't stay clear. I think mom and Jennifer had the same problem with their masks. The surf was also very rough and since we were so close to the shore line every wave pushed us closer to the shore.
For dinner we ventured further into the heart of the island and went to "Rick's American Cafe" where I had some of the best pork ribs. Jen and Mom weren't all that impressed with the food, but I liked the ambiance too. The patio we ate on was built about 60 feet off the ground and had a tree house feel to it. Rick, the owner, came by and even shared the company of his pet parrot with us.
Day 336 - Wednesday, October 2, 2002
We spent the afternoon in the water working on more skills in about 10 feet of water. We spent about 2 hours in the water. About an hour into it Mom expressed some concerns and finally decided that S.C.U.B.A. diving wasn't for her and she would rather sit on the beach and read. Jennifer expressed some similar concerns, but stuck to it so as not to disappoint me.
We had a quick lunch at the Argentinean Grill of hamburgers and French fries and then headed back to the dive shop so we could head out to the reef to do our first open water dive. The boat ride out was a little rocky and Jen's nerves along with her tendency toward motion sickness made the ride out and suiting up pretty uncomfortable for her. She was fine once we were in the water, but I wasn't sure if we were going to get that far.
As we descended to 30 feet into a sandy patch between the coral I couldn't help but smile at how beautifully cool the sensation and the view was, which was counter productive as every time I did water seeped into my mask. We stayed on the bottom for 40 minutes 10 minutes on skills like flooding our masks and breathing off our partner's air supply, then went exploring the coral shelf. We saw all kinds of exotic fish, coral, and other marine life. Jen and I were simply amazed.
For dinner we went to the "Monkey Bar" where we had lasagna. The "Monkey Bar's" claim to fame are seats hanging around the bar. The lasagna was pretty good, but different as it had no red sauce or cheese.
Day 337 - Thursday, October 3, 2002
We went to the dive shop this morning and watched more videos and talked some more about what we were going to be doing that afternoon. In the afternoon we went out on the boat for a deeper water dive and then our last dive to 60 feet, where we would practice more skills and get a better look around.
The seas were much calmer and we had Jennifer all suited up before we got out to the dive site which made for a faster water entry as well as a less upset stomach on her part. She was also excited about going today which calmed her nerves a bit. I was excited to be going to 60 feet, although in the end it isn't all that different than going to 40 feet. We had a bright sunny day and the coral and fish were again incredible. We made two dive completing our course in the water, then headed back to shore to take our final written test. The written exam went well and by 5:30 were certified divers.
For dinner we went to the Argentinean grill, which we decided was the best restaurant in the area after walking up and down the shore for almost an hour looking for a good place to eat. We feasted on Shrimp and Lobster and recounted our exciting times underwater.
Day 338 - Friday, October 4, 2002
We returned to Teguz this afternoon after a morning of frenzied souvenir shopping by Jennifer and Mom. After landing in Teguz we hopped into a taxi, went to the Peace Corps Office to get our "mountain cloths", and then went to a bus stop to wait for a bus that would take us into the mountains where we would be spending the weekend. Everything went incredibly smoothly with the only real hitch coming with the bus. It was packed by the time we got on it and Jen was the only one to get a seat. The people were so nice an a guy gave up his seat for Mom who was content to stand in the isle with me, so Jennifer took the seat. The two and a half hour trip took us through Valle de Angeles and then on to our destination, San Juancito, which is located at the base of a large mountain where the national park is located.
We got off the bus and went to a local "restaurant" where the woman there walkie-talkied the German guy at the top of the mountain to come down and pick us up. The "German guy" whose name is Jörg, came down in his truck (the only one on the mountain) and gave us ride up to his bed and breakfast in the mountains. We settled in while Jörg fixed us a wonderful dinner of homemade Pizza, wine, and lemon grass tea. After dinner wee enjoyed a breath taking view of the valley at night. We went to bed early where mom finished her 5th book on the trip.
Day 339 - Saturday, October 5, 2002
We got up really early to watch the sunrise from our desk. It was beautiful and totally worth getting up early for, but we all went back to bed and slept for another couple of hour to try to recover from our travels. We had a wonderful breakfast of toast, homemade jams, cream cheese, cheese, and coffee. Around noon we started off into the park for a trek up to the waterfall. The trip there was beautiful and we took our time stopping to admire the view on our way to the waterfall. It was really incredible to be in the cloud forest, walking through the thick vegetation, and stopping to looked at various plants and flowers. See update letter #23 for more details of this vacation. The trip took a total of four and a half hours, we walked about 6 miles, and got wet on the way home as it started raining about 45 minutes before we got back.
For dinner we had homemade vegetable soup that Jörg made from vegetables that he had hand picked from his garden.
Day 340 - Sunday, October 6, 2002
We left after another wonderful breakfast and had Jörg drive us down to Valle de Angeles. In Valle we checked into another B&B and then went into the town center to go to Mass. We were a little late for Mass and due to the local fair going on in town we got stuck without anywhere to sit. After Mass we went to a local restaurant and had "anafre" which is refried beans with cheese melted into them with fried tortilla chips prepared in a traditional "anafre" or grill (as it is translated) which is a clay pot that is heated underneath with small pieces of charcoal. After our "snack" we went next door and had ice cream.
I tagged along while Mom and Jennifer did some shopping in the local art shops looking for souvenirs. We also stopped by and visited with a local teacher who trains the local woodcrafters on how to make local wooden art pieces. We had commissioned him a month earlier to make us a large carved wooden box, which was absolutely beautiful, and was ready to send home with Mom.
We spent the evening finding a way to get the chest up to the B&B and buying supplied to package it up for the trip home. After exhausting ourselves looking for a car, one of our friends offered up her nephew's back as a means of transporting this large trunk up hill to the B&B. Jen and I were extremely nervous about him dropping it and breaking it, but he was strong as a mule and hiked it up to the B&B with out a problem on his shoulder.
Day 341 - Monday, October 7, 2002
We headed back down to Tegucigalpa this morning. I met one of the B&B owner's neighbors, Mr. Lee, who I paid to transport me and the trunk down to Teguz while Jennifer and Mom took the bus. Mr. Lee was a very interesting person in that he was a Chinese immigrant who moved to the us 25 years ago, lived in the U.S. 21 years and then moved to Honduras in protest of the liberal direction the country has taken. He now owns a hotel, a Honduran bride, and a 24 month old child. He is very happy here. He has a small Toyota Corolla and we were just barely able to fit the trunk in the back seat.
Once we all arrived at the Peace Corps office, Jen and Mom arrived shortly after I did, we packaged up the trunk and some gift we were sending home, helped mom pack all her stuff up, and packed another large suitcase to send home stuff we were finished using here in Honduras and still wanted to have when we got back to the states.
We checked into the Maya hotel, then headed off to eat lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. After lunch we went to the mall briefly to check out the movies and decided that we could just go back to the hotel and watch TV. with the same effect since the movie selection had nothing interesting.
We spent the evening talking about our trip and went to be kind of early still pretty exhausted from our walk two days earlier.
Day 342 - Tuesday, October 8, 2002
We packed all our bags, the trunk, and ourselves into a van (taxi) and headed to the air port. After some problems with checking in the luggage (the trunk was too big, too heavy, and a third piece of luggage), we checked in our bags and were singing a happy tune. There were several moments when we weren't sure if we were going to be able to send the trunk and it's contents at all.
When mom was safe and sound in the terminal waiting for her plane, we headed out to the bus station to try to make it back to Concepción by the end of the day. We hopped on a bus to Choluteca and made it there about an hour before the last bus for Concepción leaves. While Jen went and looked for some lost packages that seem to have been eaten by the Honduran mail system, I went to our local "liquado" shop to order us a couple of baleadas and a couple of liquados.
After a quick snack we got the last bus to Concepción and endured the 3 hour ride back which seemed painfully slow for some reason and arrived home at 7 PM, we had left Teguz at around 12:30 pm.
Day 343 - Wednesday, October 9, 2002
We spent the day recovering from our travels, relaxing and talking about how we were both really home sick today. Being back in our site is kind of overwhelming and it is really difficult to be here today. This seems to happen whenever we come back from traveling outside our site. It is not that we don't like it here it is just that the transition from being "modern" Roatan or Tegucigalpa to being in Concepción is really difficult. We spent most of the day relaxing and reading.
Day 344 - Thursday, October 10, 2002
Still recovering today and thinking about just going home. I'm in a funk like never before and today is a really hard day to be living here. I feel like I just want to get on with our lives. I realize however that this is my life and if I move through it too quickly I'll be old and dead wishing I had lived life more fully.
Jen and I played scrabble and I finally won, the turning point of the game being when I spelled the word "returned" using all 7 of my letter for an extra 50 points.
Day 345 - Friday, October 11, 2002
We are still not fully recovered or adjusted to being back in our house. We made home made chicken soup with a soup starter Jen's mom had sent us. The soup was very good and we even used a green pumpkin that I had growing in the garden.
While Fema, our laundry lady, did our laundry by hand for three hours (we had a lot of laundry and paid her 3 times the normal rate which was equal to about $3.75 U.S.), we cleaned out our bedroom. For the last few weeks before my mom came Jennifer has been getting bit at night by some kind of mite. So we took everything out of the bed room, fumigated, set the mattresses out in the sun (which is supposed to kill or drive the little buggers our), swept, and laundered all our sheets. We'll see if this drives them out. For good measure we sprayed the mattress and box spring with bug repellent as well.
Day 346 - Saturday, October 12, 2002
Today was our Month-A-Versary. I cut Jen some fresh flowers from the garden while she made us bbq'd meatballs and mashed potatoes with fried green pumpkin slivers. It was all very good.
In the afternoon we went swimming in the river with the neighbor kids, and went to Mass.
In the evening we had a game night and invited the neighbor kids over to play "memory" and "UNO". This was particularly exciting for me as 3 as three of the adult from the family joined us as well. We have noticed that the parents and adults do not really play with the kids here. We are trying to introduce and gently push the idea that family social time is important and maybe start some traditions that will carry on after we have left. We made three batches of pop corn and a gallon of tang to feed our 10 visitors.
Day 347 - Sunday, October 13, 2002
We were invited to go to the Evangelical church this morning with our neighbors. We went since we were able to go to Mass the night before and were curious to see what their services were like. It was interesting and pretty much along the line I thought it would be. There was lots of singing although it appears they are need of someone with a little musical background to lead and play the music as the piano player didn't know any of the songs and the one or two he did he had to stop playing because the song leader wouldn't take the notes he gave her.
We also went to keep everyone on their toes. By 3 pm Matt came by to visit and had already hear that we were switching churches and giving up our Catholic faith. I told Jennifer next week we could visit the Baptist church and keep them all guessing. One of the things about living in a small town is that everyone seems to know what is going on, where you go, who you visit with, and what you do our side of your house, and even if they don't know for sure they will make up a story so they sound like they do.
In the afternoon Jen made chocolate chip cookies.
We had an unexpected guest show up in the late afternoon. A distraught father (actually the kids uncle) came by looking to see if we would speak to his son (nephew) and try to figure out with him. After picking him up at the police station his dad brought him by our house. Douglas is 15 years old, in the 5th grade, and like to run away to places like Nicaragua, Choluteca, Tegucigalpa, and San Pedro Sula; some of the most dangerous areas of the country. We talked to Douglas for about an hour and a half and introduced him to "UNO" which we played while we talked. Douglas's mom ran off the U.S. several years ago leaving him and his 4 siblings (who are scattered all over Honduras) here to fend for themselves. Douglas lives with his uncle, who brought him over, who is at his wit's end trying to understand why this teenage boy keeps leaving town with no warning. His uncle told us that Douglas will just up and leave at the drop of a hat with what ever he has on his back, with no money, even no shoes.
It was apparent when talking to Douglas that there were several factor involved in his sudden flights. He seems to have some kind of learning disability and gets tremors when he tries to write anything. Although he is 15 years old he is still in 5th grade, he seems to have some emotional issues with his mom being gone, and in general seems to suffer from a lack of self esteem.
We talked to Douglas' uncle and talked about some of the options they had for dealing with his sudden flights, as well as the need to talk about Douglas' feelings about his mom being gone. At this point in time I don't know what else we could do for him other than mentor him. He seems like a nice enough kids, but pretty badly scared from his mother abandoning him.
Day 348 - Monday, October 14, 2002
I got up at 4:30 am to work on this journal, which I have gotten behind on with the recent vacation, but I am almost caught up. Jen and I went for a walk at around 6 am. We worked on Update Letter #23, which took most of the morning and went to the cooperative in the afternoon.
Going to the cooperative was very exciting as we had left them with several goals before we left for vacation. Some of those had been accomplished and others were in the process of being finished. The employees really seem to be excited about some of the changes that we have been making as they have noticed an increase in sales and an easier environment to work in. We have noticed that several products that were tucked away, that we had set up displays for, were almost gone and things seemed to be selling more quickly now that there are displays and that the shelves are more organized. One item in particular, a metal grinder for corn, meat, and other items, was an item that they had told me didn't sell very well and sold maybe three or four a year. I couldn't understand this as everyone has to grind their corn and some people walk hours to town with their corn to pay someone else to grind it for them. I had set up a display of six of these in an obvious spot where lot of people would see them, and in the last three weeks they have sold five of the six.
We were also excited to hear that Jennifer counter part, Venancio, is now the director of the entire cooperative. This is a great change as he is very organized, has great business sense, and will be wonderful to work with. It has been exciting to see the changes made and those happening. They also told us they are in the process of buying a register, a computer, and better lights for product displays (all suggestions we had made for improvement a couple of months ago).
In the evening Matt stopped by to chat and told us he would be leaving in the morning.
Day 349 - Tuesday, October 15, 2002
We went to the high school this morning to check in with our English classes and talk to the new English teacher. The school hired a new teacher and she seems really nice and excited to work, but she doesn't have a degree or a teaching certificate. Which I guess isn't such a big deal as Jen and I don't having teaching certificate either. We went over what we had learned, passed out the tests the kids took before we left, and told them we would be there one day a week to help them with pronunciation and other English questions.
In the afternoon we went to the cooperative to work on displaying products and a plan for getting rid of stuff that never sells to make room for products people want. The told us that since we reorganized the store sales are up. We were pretty excited to hear that. A great example of this was some had grinder they had in stock, but kept hidden away. I figured everyone and their brother would want one, since one of the daily or weekly chores of some people or their kids is to walk into town and get a large bowl of corn ground up so they can make tortillas. They have to pay someone to do this and there are several stores in town that have electric grinders. If they had a hand grinder in their house they could do it themselves, save the money they spend, and have more time as some of them are walking one or two hours just to get to town. I had asked how many of them they sold in the last year and they said maybe 2 or 3. I just figured they were too expensive for people. I had created a display that prominently displayed the grinder and with in the two weeks while we were gone they had sold 5 of the 6 they had in stock. The next few weeks will be spent on the importance of product display, sales, and promotion.
While Jennifer continued to work in the cooperative I met with Douglas and we went to the library to play UNO and chat. He was pretty happy today and seemed content on staying in town. Jen and I have decided that he will be the focus of some of our attention here as we feel called to be mentors for this young lost man. He had a great time playing cards and as luck would have it our neighbors were at the library as well so we had a half a dozen other kids to play with as well, which made it much more fun.
After the library Jen and I had Spanish tutoring at Ruth's house. We studied and talked and afterwards she fed us eggs and ham with bean and tortillas. It was nice that after such a long day we didn't have to worry about making dinner.
When we got home I worked on the web site a bit, made our new favorite drink, lemon grass tea, and then worked a half hour on the new Spanish tapes that we purchased to continue our learning.
Day 350 - Wednesday, October 16, 2002
We went to the high school again this morning, for all the good the effort of getting out of bed was, and managed to teach one of our four classes due to a civic act involving singing and a talent show of some sort. After this apparently the director of the school said they would only have two more classes so all our student who always have three classes which is one more in this time frame of the day left. Now this wouldn't be so bad except I went to their classroom and told them that we were having class and we would be starting in a few minutes and not to leave.
In the afternoon we worked in the cooperative on creating more displays and working on a daily cleaning schedule to keep all the products that need to be stocked from becoming permanent fixtures on the floor instead of on the shelf. We have a couple of employees who have it in their minds that work means doing as little as possible.
In the evening we had dinner with my community partner to show him a list of the activities we have done since we came to town. We invited him over for dinner, gave him the list, and asked him what else we could be doing to advance Concepción de Maria. The dinner was planned a few weeks ago when we found out he was drafting a letter to Peace Corps asking for our removal from the town since we "don't do anything". He had called Jennifer's community partner, who works in the cooperative, and told him he needed his signature to send the letter. This was right around the time we were putting in about 60 hours a week most of which was spent in the cooperative. Jen's community partner told him to pound sand as he didn't agree with him and that we were in fact working very hard. I think we have won him over to our side and he seemed genuinely surprised at all the activities we are involved in. The long and short of his gripe is that he wants us to work with his non governmental organization that he runs and find funding for projects he want to do. I've told him several time I can assist with the search, but I can't just pull money out of the magic "gringo" hat so he can do his projects. I'm pretty sure he doesn't want us to leave any more, since he asked if he could come visit us when we return to the states.
Day 351 - Thursday, October 17, 2002
We went to El Peñon this morning and took Douglas with us. He was teaching assistant as we introduced the older kids to a world map and a map of the solar system and then assisted Jennifer with finger painting in the kindergartener room. He was helpful, and loves spending time with us. We told him we would be gone for a few days and he said he was going to miss us and wasn't sure what he was going to do. He just seems kind of lost. We told him to come by at 7:45 this morning and he showed up around 6:30, which was kind of a surprise since in true Honduran fashion he just walked right into the house, after which we had a little talk about how some American customs like knocking on the door traveled the 4000 miles from Minnesota with us and is a standing house rule.
We sent Douglas home after El Peñon and for lunch BBQ'd chicken on the grill with baked potatoes. Jen worked on email and I spent some time cutting fire wood for our grill. When the neighbors got home we roasted marshmallows over the grill. They all though it was really fun and want to do it again soon.
In the evening we prepared to go to Choluteca. I put the final touches on the website and turned in early as I was up at 4 AM again this morning.
Day 352 - Friday, October 18, 2002
We left on the 6:30 AM direct bus to Tegucigalpa this morning and arrived around 12 PM. We went to the Peace Corps office where we waited for about an hour before getting a ride to the ambassadors house for the swearing in ceremony of the new volunteers. The newest set of volunteers are 53 strong and will be stationed in the south of Honduras, which we were happy to hear since we will now have a few new neighbors.
After the swearing in party we went to dinner with a few of the people that we went through training with at an Italian restaurant called "Tres Fretelli". The food was ok and it was nice to see some of our friends from training. After dinner we met all the new volunteer and many of the people we went through training with at a local restaurant and had a small party to celebrate the new people making it through training and for us having completed one year of service. It was pretty fun and it was again nice to see people we went through training with.
Day 353 - Saturday, October 19, 2002
Having stayed up past our normal bedtime the night before we slept in until about 8:30 this morning. We had breakfast at a little French restaurant across the street from the hotel, ran some errands in town, and in the after noon we went to a Museum.
The National Historic Museum of Honduras is located in Tegucigalpa and is inside a large house that used to be owned by a woman and her husband who donated the land and house and created a trust to maintain the museum. It was interesting to see some of the historical points of Honduras and at the same time it was kind of sad to see that there seemed to be a lot of missing information. It is not like the U.S. where there are photos, drawings, artifacts, and such kept in excellent condition or restored. For example the presidential cars were on display, but were stored outside and were in kind of bad shape. We went to the museum with Matt and his roommate.
In the evening we went to the Peace Corps Honduras Country Director's house for dinner with two other married couples and were treated to grilled vegetables, chicken, pork, and other yummy treats. It was nice to go visit him and his family as they live in a beautiful house and prepared an incredible meal for us.
We went to Matt's house afterwards and spent the night there.
Day 354 - Sunday, October 20, 2002
We got up early and went to the Cathedral in the center of town for Mass. We had breakfast again at the French place and had little quiches and chocolate filled pastries. We then set out on our 6 1/2 hour bus ride home. After getting home we relaxed, read, and recuperated from the long bus ride.
Day 355 - Monday, October 21, 2002
There were no classes today as Saturday was a holiday. This something I have a hard time understanding, but if there is a holiday that falls on the weekend the teachers take Friday, Saturday or both days off of work because the holiday didn't fall on a weekday.
We went to the river with our neighbors and swam there, had lunch, and played with the kids. It was nice and refreshing.
In the afternoon I worked on the website. I was also happy to have received a letter from Jayne Woodburn from Delong Middle school in Eau Claire, WI who wrote to tell me that she wanted to work with us on a cultural/geography lesson with her kids. It will be nice to have so many little pen pals from the states writing.
Day 356 - Tuesday, October 22, 2002
We went for a walk with Ruth this morning as part of our weekly exercise routine. We have been trying to walk or do other kind of exercise at lease 4 time a week lately. We had classes and are team teaching with the new teacher to introduce new material and help with pronunciation of words.
In the afternoon we worked at the cooperative where I worked an older computer that wasn't working. I got it up and running and now just have to install an operating system and a few other thing and we can use it for our computer class that we will be starting at the cooperative next week.
Day 357 - Wednesday, October 23, 2002
The modem on my laptop has gone out and we feel like we are in lala land not being able to send or receive email or connect to the internet. We have really come to rely on our laptop for communication and such here. I drove four hours to Choluteca to connect to the internet using my Ethernet port instead, and to arrange for a new part to be shipped from Dell back in the U.S. All went fairly well except when I tried calling Dell back in the afternoon I wasn't able to use the voice over IP function on my computer as the network was running too slowly. We have a yahoo phone card that allows us to make phone calls inside the U.S. from our computer when it is connected to the internet at a reasonable rate, but you have to have a good connection to be able to use it. I used it earlier in the day and it worked well, but as the afternoon hours came everything slowed down. So I wasn't able to complete my call to Dell to have them send me the part I need.
I also went grocery shopping and checked the post office for mail. I had received a package from my friend Adam who sent me some books on Java scripting and a couple of CDs with books and software on it.
I got back on the bus and headed home around 2 pm where I had to stand about 1/2 the way as the bus was soooo full with people who had also gone grocery shopping that day.
Day 358 - Thursday, October 24, 2002
We traveled to El Peñon this morning to give a health talk to the children in the elementary school about the importance of washing their hand and how to do so properly. Each child was given a cartoon worksheet to help them remember how to wash their hands and keep track of how often they washed them and was also given a bar of soap as well. The community of El Peñon is very poor and they have so very little. Some of the children said they didn't have soap in their homes as it was not something they could afford.
Douglas went with us to El Peñon and was a good helper.
In the afternoon we visited the cooperative again to work on more inventory control methods and to continue to restore a computer that wasn't working there.
Day 359 - Friday, October 25, 2002
I'm feeling kind of sick today. My trip to Choluteca is coming back to me. I sucked up a lot of dust on the ride home and I think I am getting a sinus infection. In trying to complete my mission to replace the modem on my laptop I tried calling Dell using my phone card and was told that the 1-800 number I was using to call my phone card would not talk to the 1-800 number supplied by Dell because they were on different telephone networks and they block each other's phone calls. How this happens in the year 2002 I don't know.
I talk to Rafael Mayorga who told me I could use his computer to call and that he would download the software I needed to make the call.
In the evening we played games with the neighbors. We had invited Douglas to come over and play with us, but he never showed up and we started to wonder what happened to him since he is usually early for anything we invite him to. We were going to work on English for an hour and then play cards. We taught the neighbor girls a new game called "phase 10" which some of them got.
Day 360 - Saturday, October 26, 2002
I'm still not feeling very good today in fact I feel worse. I hate being sick! I laid in a hammock most of the day and read "Giants in the Earth" by O.E. Rovaag. A very interesting tale about Norwegian immigrant who settle in South Dakota. Jennifer has been very good to me and been taking good care of me since I am sick.
I wandered over to Rafael's house and after 80 minutes on the internet my modem will be shipped on Monday to my parents house and then they will send it to us. I just hope this works.
Jennifer worked on a going away present for our neighbors of a small scrapbook.
Douglas' uncle stopped by to tell us that Douglas was missing. He disappeared yesterday and no one knows where he is. He stopped by to see if we knew where he was and if we saw him to send him home.
Day 361 - Sunday, October 27, 2002
We went to church this morning. I am still pretty sick, and don't have to energy to do much more than sit and type or read. We went to the Mayorga's after church and visited with Rafael, Azucena, and Rafa. They were very kind and let us use their phone to call my mom in the US, and even fed us lunch.
In the afternoon I worked on my Journal and the website. Douglas stopped by around dinner time to tell us he had been found. It turns out he was 1/2 hour away staying with an aunt in a neighboring community. We invited him in and decided to try out some of what we had learned from the book "How to make your children mind without loosing yours" by Dr. Kevin Lehman. The book focuses on a concept called reality discipline, or allowing children to experience the consequences of their action and not protecting them from them so that they learn their life lessons early. With Douglas we told him is he runs again and skips out on an English class again we just won't have them. He also inquired about learning the card game and I told frankly that we learned the new game on Friday and had he been here he would have learned the game too.
So far he really hasn't felt any consequences for his action and I'm not sure what consequences could be imposed on him as it stands, besides limiting activities with him when he decides to run off, however this is difficult and seems almost counter productive.
Day 362 - Monday, October 28, 2002
I had the next four days finished and they were exceptional, but the program crashed and I lost it all so now you get the short version. On Sunday we made a check list to keep us on task and to help us to complete all the tasks that we would like to finish for the day. We finished up the list today. Many of the items were simple things that would have gotten done weather we had put them on the list or not. We finished all of them by the end of the day and felt very productive.
The check list had things like:
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Sort photos (on the computer) |
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Do the Spanish Tape |
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Visit Sandra (friend in town) |
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Do individual bible readings |
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Sweep |
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Do Dishes |
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Visit Yami |
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Do sit-ups |
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Journal |
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Do monthly report for Peace Corps |
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Work on homework for English class |
We worked in the cooperative this afternoon and started teaching computer classes to 4 of the cooperative employees. We are starting out with how to use the mouse since many of them have never touched a computer before. We would like to improve the proficiency and comfort level with the people in the cooperative with computers as we hope to integrate a computerized inventory system into their
Day 363 - Tuesday, October 29, 2002
We got up early this morning and went for a walk with Ruth. Afterward we headed to the high school to help out with the English classes that we have been assisting with.
In the afternoon we taught computer classes at the cooperative. There are some promising students. We are working on how to use the mouse and some of the basic menu items with in the menus.
In the evening we had Spanish tutoring with Ruth.
Day 364 - Wednesday, October 30, 2002
We taught English classes this morning or at least tried to. The teachers were being paid today so they all wanted to leave early and go to Choluteca. We asked what time they would have classes until and were reassured that they would be teaching until at least 10:40 AM. We assumed this meant around 9 AM. At 8:30 about 1 hour into the actual school day we were informed that all the teachers would be leaving at 9 AM. The kids in the classes were unruly and didn't really want to be there since the teachers were leaving for the day soon anyway. We managed to visit all our classes and pass on the information that we wanted to, but we had to threaten to fail them in order for them to stick around.
In the afternoon we worked in the cooperative again teaching computer classes.
In the evening we had Spanish lessons with Ruth.
Day 365 - Thursday, October 31, 2002
I went to Choluteca today to do a little grocery shopping and send email. We had a few messages that we had to send and since our modem went out we had to go to Choluteca to do email. We had some errands to run like going to the post office and buying some book markers for my mom back in the states.
In the late morning we headed off to Triunfo which is one of our neighboring town where we worked with a medical brigade from Global Health Outreach translating for the doctors and dentist. Jen and I worked with the dental section translating for two dentists. It was great experience and I was really impressed with how well organized, well staffed, and dedicated the doctors and other medical staff were.
We stayed the evening at Brian's house, the Peace Corps volunteer who lived in El Triunfo.
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