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Day 427 - Wednesday, January 1, 2003
We spent another day at Matt's house today as the busses were not running. We went to the mall again and saw the second "Lord of the Rings" movie. It was pretty good I liked it a lot, but Jennifer was not all that enthused. She said when the next one comes out maybe I could go see it with my brother since we will be back in the U.S. I said that would be fine. Although the mall was open not too many other thing were. We really wanted to go get sushi, but it was closed so we settled for Italian. Which was mediocre at best and overpriced for the portions and quality.
In the evening we played "Canasta Caliente" a new game we got for Christmas. Which was fun and has started another rivalry between Jennifer and I. We turned in fairly early and got ready for the long journey home that we would start tomorrow.
Day 428 - Thursday, January 2, 2003
We left at around 11:00 am to catch the "direct" bus to Concepción. We had worried that busses would be full, but ours was pretty empty and only really filled up right outside of Choluteca and then emptied out in Choluteca, which was nice as we didn't have to endure anyone's butt in our face for the journey. I've been on some busses where I've had people sitting on my shoulder as they are stacked almost two by two in the isle. We were fortunate in this as the ride went more quickly and there were less people.
We arrived home around 7:20 pm and were met by our neighbors who were super happy to see us. Since we didn't have access to a phone we weren't able to talk to them and tell them we were going to be coming a couple of days later that planned. We had left one of our pagers with them when we left and had sent them a page, but that is not the most reliable way to communicate as sometimes the pages don't go through or are unreadable.
We settled in and went to bed early as the days travels had worn us out.
Day 429 - Friday, January 3, 2003
We slept in this morning, got up ate breakfast and started the all day task of cleaning the house and unpacking. It is amazing how much ground you can lose to the spiders, cockroaches, and other insects when you are gone for a week or so. It is a never ending battle for territory and today was all out war killing anything with more than two legs that managed to make its way into the house while we were gone, mostly spiders and crickets.
Before sunset we went for a short walk.
In the evening we played a game of Canasta with the kids to introduce them to it and spent some time reading to relax.
Day 430 - Saturday, January 4, 2003
We got up and went for a walk this morning then went out visiting friends and spent most of the day in the house resting, reading and relaxing. For dinner we went to a neighbors house and got caught up on all the town news and filled her in on what we had been up to in the states.
Day 431 - Sunday, January 5, 2003
We exercised this morning then went to church, read and did email in the afternoon, then went over to our neighbors house again for dinner one more time with her and her sister, Sandra and Ruth. Sandra has had a rotisserie machine since she got married like 5 years ago and wanted to try it out, but didn't know how to use it. We volunteered a long time ago to show her how it works. So we went over only to find that she was missing an important part that makes the whole works move round and round inside. I fashioned a makeshift part out of a bottle cap and we had rotisserie chicken for dinner. I don't think it cooked quiet long enough and there weren't enough spices applied, namely salt, before we cooked it. We will try again another day and let it cook to a nice dark brown next time.
Day 432 - Monday, January 6, 2003
Back into the grind. We got up early and went for a walk this morning, then did our sit up routine. The whole exercise thing is getting old. I feel like my body is falling apart. I have pain in my feet, one of my ankles, occasionally my knee, and sometimes in my wrists. I'm getting old. I keep hoping that if I keep working out it will get better, but it doesn't. I don't look forward to being 70 and realizing that all the abuse my body took in my teenage years and 20's was just a pretext for walkers and wheel chairs in my old age.
Jennifer worked with her English club and I taught computer classes to the cooperative employees in the afternoon.
Day 433 - Tuesday, January 7, 2003
Another day to exercise. I am now our personal trainer and we have to work out 5 times a week with breaks on Wednesdays and Sundays. We both gained weight with our trips to the states and would like to try to get rid of the weight plus look to the future and develop a little healthier view of food. We have lived the last year with limited food and money resources; so when we got to the land of milk and honey where holiday dinners consisted of more food than we could imagine it was difficult not to over indulge and eat all our stomachs could hold. So now we are on a more strict diet, which means much of the goodies and snacks we brought back from the states will be shared with friends and neighbors to cut down on the temptation to eat to our hearts content.
We studied Spanish this morning and in the afternoon taught computer classes to the cooperative employees. In the evening I read and played with our neighbors new dog Violeta II, who replaced our original Violeta that died about a half a year ago. Our new Violeta is a German Shepherd/Boxer mix and very feisty. I've taught her how to fetch a stick, which is more training than most any other dog in town has. I just have to work on training the children in the family not to kick her every chance they get. One of the neighbor cousins has figured out that to get her to fetch the stick you have to scratch her ears when she comes back. He's a good kid and it is fun to watch him play with the dog instead of trying to inflict harm on it.
Day 434 - Wednesday, January 8, 2003
Today is our break day so no exercise. We are trying to figure out why we are so tired here. I venture to guess it from the traveling the week before, but I really don't know. The grandma next door told us the wind that is now present day and night (sometimes with gusts up to 40-50 miles an hour makes people tired and want to sleep more. I just know that we are sleeping 9-12 hour and it is way too much.
Jen did a project in the library today with a group of kids making paper telescopes, while I met with the director of the cooperative to go over a work plan and try to contact someone in Tegucigalpa to buy the inventory program we need for the cooperative to do inventory control and point of sale.
We had lunch, bean and tortillas, and talked about the upcoming month which will be very interesting.
Day 435 - Thursday, January 9, 2003
We exercised with our neighbor Gloria this morning. She walks kind of slow so it just wasn't the same. She did get us up on time though and we were out of the house by 6:15 am.
We worked on Spanish most of the morning. I started on our Christmas video. We've been sorting photos and putting them in order so that we can make a video of our Christmas trip to the U.S.
For dinner we went to Sandra's house and bought "tostaditas" and "papusas" that one of her neighbors has been serving at night at her house. They were really good and I look forward to our next "special treat" so we can go there again to eat.
Day 436 - Friday, January 10, 2003
We got up early and walked to El Peñon to deliver some sheets to a family there that Jen's family sent down for them. We talked to the mom who was on her way down the mountain as we were going up. At the house we talked to her daughter who is in her early 20's. We saw them a while back as they walked by our house. We found out that only an hour after we saw her she gave birth to a still born son. They don't know what happened. My best guess would be malnutrition. They have been eating tortillas and salt for the last month. I felt pretty bad for her.
In the afternoon I worked on the Christmas Video a little more and then went to the cooperative to talk to Venancio about buying the computer program for inventory. After then it was off the library where we worked with a group of kids and started a 1000 piece puzzle. this was a bit of a challenge as they kept forcing the pieces together and "making" them fit.
Day 437 - Saturday, January 11, 2003
We went for a walk this morning to a community called Las Granadas where we visited with a family we had taken photos of a few months ago. Jen had been by this location a few days before and saw this same dozen or so kids peering down to see the "gringa". They don't live very far out of town, but foreigners don't have much reason to walk by this house since it is about 20 minutes outside of town. We returned a few days later with the cameras and luckily got the same reception. Today we went back to give the photo to the mother who had the largest number of kids in the group. All the kids pictured are either brothers and sister, aunts/uncles, or cousins; and this was only about 3/4 of them there were a bunch of little ones that were too shy to pose for us. When we returned today the mom's mother had died the day before. She was not at all put out or overwhelmed by our presence and invited us in for coffee despite the fact, unknown to us, that there was going to be a prayer service for her mother in about 10 minutes. We went into their adobe home and sat down in their plastic chairs and stuck up a conversation with her husband while she a few others busied themselves in the kitchen preparing some coffee and snacks for us. They gave us the normal sweet black coffee with some fresh muffins that I thought were really good. They told us about their son who went to the US about two year ago who they haven't heard from in about six months. He was living in Miami last they knew, and haven't received a letter from him in a long time. They said confidently that he was working and busy, but their tone and faces showed a concern that many who have relatives living or traveling illegally in/to the U.S.A.
In the late morning hours I played UNO with about 10 kids (we combined two decks and played with some rules I made up to keep the game more interesting), while Jennifer worked with a few other kids and the librarian (we were at the library) on a 1000 piece puzzle. We played for what felt like about five hours. I think it was probably more like 3 but it felt longer. I don't think I'll want to play UNO for a while.
In the afternoon we went to the evangelical church where we volunteer to lead a music class. We are hoping to expand it as an open invitation to all kids in the town and not just the evangelical kids. We are working on singing and some music theory.
After music lessons we went to Mass in town. It was nice and I am actually at a point in my Spanish now where I am understanding most of what is said. This is good since most of the homilies are not a direct message, but stings of metaphors and similes, and regionally associated stories.
In the evening Jen did creative memories and email. We also spent some time working on Spanish.
Day 438 - Sunday, January 12, 2003
We studied Spanish this morning. I spent most of the day reading a book a friend of mine gave me called "In the Hall of the Dragon King" by Stephen R. Lawhead. It is a trilogy and came highly recommended. It was just a little slow getting into it, but I have been sucked into the story and can't wait to see what will happen next. It is a contemporary fantasy novel about an ancient land and mystical time. It is out side the realm of most of the other stuff I have been reading since we got to Honduras so it is a nice change.
In the evening we went visiting people in town and had dinner over at Sandra's little "restaurant". Where we had fried corn tortillas with a special type of salsa that was really good. It was nice to get out and walk around the town at night. Unlike other Peace Corps sites, ours is very safe and there isn't much to worry about walking around at night. Everyone is out and everyone knows everyone. In other towns volunteers have to be pretty careful if they go out at night.
Day 439 - Monday, January 13, 2003
We have been trying to work out a way to buy computer program for the cooperative. It is an inventory program. We know that we want to buy it we just have to find a place to buy it. I miss the U.S.A. where I had 3 or 4 vendors competing against one another to sell me their programs, where I could find them on the internet, write and email, or better yet download a trial version of the program to make sure I wanted to use it. Here I had to go looking at the mall and other places to try to find someplace that had computerized inventory control and then ask them for the phone number of the people they bought it from, which lead me to the country distributor for the Monica program. I'm pretty happy about this as the one place we found it at sells only to venders (it's a wholesaler) and it was a thousand lempiras more than we will be able to buy it for. I've been trying call this guy for a while now, and yesterday I was finally able to connect with him.
I've been typing email this morning trying to communicate with Matt, who might meet with Venancio to tell them to meet with the guy that sells the inventory program so he can buy it.
In the evening we had computer classes and the early afternoon we met with the Alcalde who asked us for some assistance with a water project. They have purchased a plot of land in a neighboring municipality that has a natural wellspring that they want to use to pipe water about 13 km away to 6 different communities.
Day 440 - Tuesday, January 14, 2003
We found out today that the meeting we were planning on attending in Tegucigalpa on Friday has been canceled. We were looking forward to a few days out of our site, but I guess the country director got asked by the ambassador to attend some kind of function on the other side of the country and had to change our meeting. This has thrown us into a bit of a conundrum as we had been planning on doing some traveling after the meeting since we would be half way to our destination by traveling to Tegucigalpa, but now we have to re-plan everything. It is kind of frustrating as our whole schedule was planned around this meeting since we would have to leave Thursday to be there in the morning on Friday. Nothing ever goes "according to plan here".
We had computer classes in the evening with the cooperative employees.
Day 441 - Wednesday, January 15, 2003
I got up early this morning and took care of the daily chores of making water and preparing breakfast. I also made muffins for breakfast and beans for lunch and dinner over the next few days. Since today is our "day of rest" from exercising and we didn't really have much planned today, I let Jennifer sleep in and kept working. She was pretty happy when she got up and all the work was done and the house was clean. I thought I was going to wake her up for sure since it is hard to do much in the house without making any noise.
I went to send email this morning and found out another meeting I was planning on going to, which I thought would be the day before our other meeting that was moved, is the week before the other meeting that was moved. So I tried organizing and changing around other plans via email. It is difficult since we have limited email access and everything and everybody is eight hours away Our plans seem to change daily. While I was doing that Jennifer was at the library working on an art project with some kids in the library.
Fema (I have to get a photo of her) came today to do our laundry. I went out and bought some new pieces of rope to hang the cloths on. the last two times she has lost a whole string of laundry on the ground and had to re rinse them, so I thought I would fix that problem. Also most of the lines we have are too high for her to reach so she has to use a stool to hang up the cloths. I hung them a little lower so she could reach them more easily as well. I like the whole air dry thing and think I will encourage Jen to do that when we have a house in the states.
Day 442 - Thursday, January 16, 2003
We went for a walk this morning which was nice. We are trying to maintain a routine to make the days and exercise go by more easily.
Douglas came over this afternoon and we confronted him about a pen that he had taken from us. Yesterday while Jennifer was at the library she noticed that he had a pen identical to one that Jennifer had brought home from Christmas vacation for scrap booking. She questioned him as to where he got it and he said his aunt from San Pedro Sula gave it to him. She thought that was very interesting since it is a scrap booking company that make the gel type pen. When she came home she checked the pen holder in our house only to find that ours was still in its place. She recounted to me that she thought Douglas had stolen the pen from us since it would be highly unlikely that one could find a pen like that here in Honduras. She was relieved that she was wrong until I recounted my story to her.
I had met Douglas in the street on my way back to the house. He seemed a little lost and was acting a little stranger that normal. I passed it off as him looking for a free glass of cold water and wanting someone to talk to. I invited him in to the house and asked what he needed. He said he just wanted a glass of water and then he was heading back to his house. His main pretext was that he wanted to know when we would coming to visit him and his family at their house. The whole conversation was a little odd and I sensed that something wasn’t right. While I was pouring his water he went over to our calendar, which just happen to be right above our pen holder, and was completely enthralled with the photos on the calendar. I thought it odd since he had seen it before and already commented on it before. When Jen came home and told me her story it all started to fall into place.
Jennifer and I discussed a strategy for extracting the truth and decided we would give him the benefit of the doubt since there was possibility that he had gotten his pen from his aunt as he had said. I told her we would hide the pen and then ask him if he would lend us his as we can’t find ours and need it for a project we were working on. I told her that if his pen had been mysteriously lost and he started glancing to the place where he would have returned it if he had taken it (the pen holder) then we would know he had done it, confront him, and talk about making good decision and being a good friend.
The plan went off with out a hitch. We told him we needed a pen like the one his aunt had given him as we had lost ours and needed it for a project we were working on. His had mysteriously disappeared in only a day or twos time. When we told him we couldn’t find ours he not only looked over at the jar of pens, but went over and looked through them trying to find the pen he had replaced the day before. All this sounds rather extreme for a cheap writing instrument, but it was the principal of the matter and it gave us a great opportunity to talk to Douglas about making decisions and how important some of those decisions can be. We told him that we were not mad at him and he was not going to get into any kind of trouble, but that honesty is one of the most important things to us and we wanted the truth. He admitted to having taken the pen. We talk about consequences and I explained to him that he is at a very important stage in his life and needs to decide if he is going to be a good guy or a bad guy. We concluded with a goal setting exercise that we told him we would review at lunch in a few days (we invited him over for lunch). He left a little shaken up, but for the better I believe.
In the after noon I finished my book "In the Hall of the Dragon King" by Stephen R. Lawhead. It is a great story and very well written. I really enjoyed reading it. Jen made more Creative Memory pages and was working on some pages she had volunteered to write for my mom.
Day 443 - Friday, January 17, 2003
We went for a walk this morning, after which I worked on the Christmas Video, a video slide show of our trip home for Christmas.
Jennifer made Chocolate cake for our neighbor girl, Michelle, before eating the delicious cake we went down to the river where the kids went swimming and we had a picnic with all of the family. It was a lot of fun. Jennifer and I practiced our photography skills while the kids went swimming.
The chocolate cake was a big hit and we are very excited to have the recipe. It is one of the best chocolate cakes we have had and we can buy all the ingredients here in Concepción de Maria, which is kind of a rare event for anything that tastes good.
Day 444 - Saturday, January 18, 2003
We went for a walk this morning, after which I worked on the Christmas video.
In the afternoon we held music classes at the Evangelical church. Jen worked on basic keyboarding with a group while I taught a group of 6 about guitar chords.
In the evening we went to Saundra's house and treated ourselves to tacos, baliadas, and fruit plates from the small diner she is running out of her front patio with some of the high school girls who are he neighbors. It was really good and they have some of the best food in town.
Day 445 - Sunday, January 19, 2003
We went to church this morning with Douglas. We gave him his own bible in Spanish that we pick up. He was pretty happy to have his own bible. He is a good kid and I just pray that God will watch over him when we leave, as it doesn’t seem like anyone else will. Afterwards we invited him over for lunch and talked about his goals for the future which revolve around finishing school and finding a way to get to the U.S.
We were able to get a connection to the internet at the high school and made use of it to update the web site and email. We studied Spanish in the late afternoon and in the evening we went to the library where they were holding a “Christmas Dinner” for the people who have been working in the library.
Day 446 - Monday, January 20, 2003
We went for a walk this morning, and studied Spanish. The software for the cooperative arrived today, but the person that I want to train how to install and maintain the system was gone today so we weren’t able to install it on any of the computers at the cooperative.
We visited with Matt, who brought the program down for us from Tegucigalpa. In the late afternoon we were invited to a neighbor’s house to sing for a prayer meeting. I thought it would be 10 minutes in and out it turned out to be about 2 hours as I, the only man in the room, sat with a group of women who took turns praying, singing, and telling stories. It was nice, but caught me off guard as I just thought we were going to sing and leave. The nice thing about it was that they made the chocolate cake we had made for Michelle’s birthday so I got yummy cake again this week too.
In the evening all of the people in our neighbors family crammed into our tiny house and we sang a Spanish song “Fotografia” by Juanez that we have been working on. They loved it and told us we sounded like the CD.
Day 447 - Tuesday, January 21, 2003
We went for a walk in the morning. I was able to get the MONICA program installed on several computers, including the computers in the lab at the high school to do our training.
In the evening we had Spanish classes with Ruth.
Day 448 - Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Jen went to Choluteca today to do some shopping and hang out with Ruth. I stayed in Concepción and worked on the inventory program. I’m working on setting up a training criteria and learning how to use the program. We had been communicating with the safety and security director at Peace Corps as I was supposed to be going to a safety and security meeting this weekend, but wasn’t put on the list. I was a little upset at this as we’d planned our work schedule around it this week. Oh well, we now have more time to get up to speed on the MONICA program. Jennifer ordered some rocking chairs for kids today that we are going to take home with us. They will be unfinished and un assemble so we will finish them and put them together when we get them home, if we get them home.
Jen did most of the work on ordering the chairs. In an effort to bargain, I told the wood worker they were too expensive. The rumor around town now it that is not going to make them as he thinks that Jennifer has ordered them with out my permission and doesn’t want to get into trouble with me. So I had to go over and tell him that we did indeed want the chairs.
I had our first class with the cooperative employee’s to introduce them to the new software they will soon be using to run their business. They just weren’t into it, had no energy, and weren’t listening very well. It was very frustrating as I got the feeling they really didn’t want to be there.
Day 449 - Thursday, January 23, 2003
I Worked on Monica Programming and set up several tutorials today. We had our second class with the MONICA program which went well. It really helps to have Jen in the class room. The employees seem to pay attention better with her there.
Day 450 - Friday, January 24, 2003
We went for a walk this morning. I purchased bar code pistols and a CD burner online for the cooperative . Jen’s parents will bring them down in three weeks when they come to visit.
We went to talk to the Alcalde (mayor) about a water project we are helping with, but he wasn't in his office.
We had classes again today. They are going really well; I think it was probably the cookies and soda we brought them
In the evening I worked on a presentation on computer use in the "campo" (country) for the upcoming business conference that we will be attending in the middle of February.
Day 451 - Saturday, January 25, 2003
We went for a walk and did sit ups this morning. Jen read most of the day and I worked on lesson plans for the cooperative. I also worked on the business presentation.
Day 452 - Sunday, January 26, 2003
We went to visit Douglas's family at their house in Maria de Centro, which is about a 20 minute walk up hill on the other side of the river. It is a nice little community and it blows my mind how close they are, but don’t have electricity. We went to a celebration at the local Catholic meeting area. There was no priest in Concepción this week. After the service we went to their house and had lunch. We played cards and took some photos of the family. It was very nice and encouraging to see Douglas’ dad/uncle taking such an interest in playing cards with his kids. We played four or five hands of UNO that took about 2 ½ hours.
Day 453 - Monday, January 27, 2003
We went for a walk and did sit ups this morning. I worked on the business presentation and some updates for the website. Jen had art classes and English classes in the library.
In the evening we had computer classes with the cooperative employees.
Day 454 - Tuesday, January 28, 2003
We packed for our trip to Guatemala and Copan this afternoon we leave tomorrow for Teguz, then up to Copan and on into Guatemala. I have a meeting with the volunteer advocacy council, and then we are going to Copan Ruinas to work with another couple who live out there and need some consulting done on a web site initiative they would like to start with some of their business people.
In the evening we had classes with the cooperative employees.
Day 455 - Wednesday, January 29, 2003
We left for Teguz early in the morning (6:30 am). After getting into town we headed up to Valle de Angeles and picked up a huge hand carved wooden chest that we ordered for my mom. We will be sending it home with Jennifer’s parents when they come down.
In the evening we stayed with Wilmer and Angelica who were great hosts. We bought some Chinese food and had a variable feast at their house. They gave us their bed which was very nice. We also played piano (keyboard) and sang for a couple of house which was very fun.
Since they don’t have a telephone Wilmer was not able to tell Angelica that we were coming over and staying the night. Her reaction was incredible. Instead of being mad that she didn’t know or annoyed that we were their, she reacted like we were long lost brothers or sisters who she hadn’t seen in years. She invited us in and was never anything other than gracious about our presence in her house.
Day 456 - Thursday, January 30, 2003
We stayed at the Maya tonight and ran errands. We had shrimp for lunch at a local seafood place near Peace Corps. In the evening we went to movie "Borne Identity" and met Wilmer and Angelica afterwards for Pizza at Papa Johns in the old mall in Tegucigalpa.
Day 457 - Friday, January 31, 2003
I had a Volunteer Advocacy Council meeting this morning. Jennifer came along and helped out with the meal which was Sushi. The meeting was good, but I felt like we wasted a lot of time talking in circles. I volunteered to be the speaker at the next meeting so that we could keep things moving and have a two hour meeting instead of a four hour meeting.
We are leaving for Guatemala tomorrow and found out that our work plan that allowed us to go was denied by the country directory. After the meeting we met with our project manager who helped us reshape it into the format that they wanted. We didn't really change of the project directives or our goals for the trip, we just put them into a different format. We were told the new plan would suffice and we cold go. For dinner we went to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner with 3 other married couples, but there was a soccer game playing and the restaurant was packed. After sitting around for a half our and not being seated we went to Tony Roma's where we were seated immediately and got to have ribs for dinner.
During dinner we talked to one couple who recounted an incident in which they were almost kidnapped by a gunman in a van about 4 blocks from where we were. They turned and ran away and were fine, but the incident called to mind how dangerous the city really is.
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