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Day 215 - Saturday, June 1, 2002
I hung out most of the day today and worked on some minor stuff for the website. I plan on uploading a whole new look for the website and hope to launch it this weekend if I can get a solid connection.
Day 216 - Sunday, June 2, 2002
Matt, Molly, and I went out to dinner today. Everything has been kind of quiet here.
Day 217 - Monday, June 3, 2002
I went into the Peace Corps office this morning to check in and call Jennifer. I talked to her on the phone and she sounded kind of lonely. We are dong better than before, but this is still pretty difficult. I ran into Jennifer's director who invited me to go the Economic Development conference which is taking place this week. It sounds interesting and I am looking for some information on cooperatives and savings and loan set ups.
Day 218 - Tuesday, June 4, 2002
I left this afternoon with some other economic development volunteers for Lago Yajoa in the central part of Honduras. The drive there was very nice and the scenery was beautiful. We arrived just before dark and checked into our room.
In the evening we had a little get together party and some people were dancing the disco in the basement of the hotel.
The weather is relatively dreary with frequent rains, but it is cool and comfortable.
Day 219 - Wednesday, June 5, 2002
It looks like the conference is going to be focused on developing a new project plan for Economic Development in Peace Corps Honduras. This is not exactly what I was hoping for, but the social aspect of it is nice. It is also nice to review the procedure for coming up with a project plan. We did this a month or so ago at another training on Project Development and Management. So it will be a good review.
I spent the evening hanging out with some of the guys from our training group. We watched movies in our room.
Day 220 - Thursday, June 6, 2002
We finalized the work on the project plans. I managed to catch a cold and had to skip the last half of the day as I wasn't feeling well and just wanted to rest for a while.
In the evening we had a BBQ on the patio by the pool at the hotel. The food was very good and it was fun to chat with people. The last end of the evening we spent watching movies again in our room.
Day 221 - Friday, June 7, 2002
I headed out this morning back to Teguz with two other volunteers. We arrived in the early afternoon and I hung out at the Peace Corps office before calling Matt to hook up again.
Day 222 - Saturday, June 8, 2002
We went out to Matt's new house this afternoon to check out some of the problems he's been having and to install a new switch for the electric lock on his gate. We didn't buy enough wire, so I wasn't able to finish that.
In the evening we went to dinner to discuss a training Molly and I are doing for a group of volunteer professional librarians that are going to volunteer 3 weeks of their time to help the new libraries in Honduras. The have a short training and then head out to the 5 libraries that the Riecken foundation has set up. Molly and I will be doing a training on what it is like to live in the rural areas of Honduras. We are going to shove everything we learned in 3 months into a 2 hour training.
Day 223 - Sunday, June 9, 2002
I went to church this morning, made some copies for the training we have this afternoon and had lunch at McDonalds.
The training went really well and I think we provided the volunteers with a lot of information they had about the country and the life they will be living for the next 3 weeks. After the training we went out to dinner at El Patio, which was a very nice restaurant that serves local dishes.
Day 224 - Monday, June 10, 2002
I talked to Jennifer this morning. She is in MN recovering from her surgery for a week. She said that she is stressed with being home. We hadn't planned on worrying about things at home until we returned in another year. I miss her deeply. I went out to send her some mail and check in at the Peace Corps office.
Day 225 - Tuesday, June 11, 2002
I was able to talk to Jennifer on Yahoo chat for quite a while this evening it was very nice to connect with her for an extended period of time.
Day 226 - Wednesday, June 12, 2002
I went out to Yuscaran with Matt this morning after running some errors. It is a nice little town and I had a conversation with a guy at the radio station there. He seemed really nice and even gave me a cup of coffee.
We returned to Teguz around 5 pm and went out for dinner.
Day 227 - Thursday, June 13, 2002
I'm headed back to Concepción de Maria today. Matt is giving me a ride as he wants to get away for the weekend and has to bring Arlee, the new librarian, to Concepción where he will be working for the next 3 weeks on improving the library. This should be interesting to see how everything works out. I think he will really help put some great ideas in the heads of the people in Concepción about what they can do in the library.
Jennifer is heading back to DC today and should be home by the end of the month.
Day 228 - Friday, June 14, 2002
Today was my first day back in my site after being gone for 2 weeks. It felt to good to be home, everything is so familiar here. Matt and I visited the high school in the morning. They hadn't paid their phone bill on time so I wasn't able to access the internet. I'm going to try using the neighbors phone later.
I talked to Jennifer later in the afternoon. She had called to tell me had arrived in D.C. and was OK.
Day 229 - Saturday, June 15, 2002
I spent the morning in Madrugales with the librarians, Matt, and the new volunteer from the library foundation, Arlee. Who will be spending the next 3 weeks in Concepción. There was a fair there for the coffee growers and we went to do a promotion for the library. The food was pretty good and they had a live band that wasn't half bad either.
Day 230 - Sunday, June 16, 2002
I went to church this morning. Someone else did the "homily" section of the "Word of the Lord" service that we had. Since we don't have a priest in our town we only have Mass once a month. So every other Sunday we have the "speaker of the word". I spent most of the afternoon lost in the third book of the "Bourne Identity" series called "Bourne Ultimatum". It takes place like 13 years after "Bourne Identity". It is pretty good book.
Day 231 - Monday, June 17, 2002
I got half way to school and was told that most of my students had left as they didn't think I was coming today. I thought this was odd since I visited them on Friday and told them we would be having class. Oh well another day to read.
I had Spanish class in the evening, but wasn't all that excited about going.
Day 232 - Tuesday, June 18, 2002
We had class today, but might as well not have. The kids were on another planet. It was very frustrating. They don't work on any of the skills on their own and expect me to tell them every single step to take in order to follow along when many of the things we are doing are very basic and built on stuff they should be able to do second nature by now. I've got 4 or 5 students who actually get how to use a computer at this point. The others are just kind of along for the ride.
I finished by book this evening and started reading "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. Totally a girl book, but very interesting story.
Day 233 - Wednesday, June 19, 2002
Classes went even worse today and even my assistant, a Honduran, said the kids are "on another planet". I'm getting the impression that some of them just really don't want to be there and aren't all that interested in learning about how to put together a spreadsheet or type a professional letter. Oh well.
I finished "Redeeming Love" this evening. What a powerful book. I really liked it. It is an extraordinary love story. I highly recommend it.
Day 234 - Thursday, June 20, 2002
I talked to Jennifer this morning. She had an appointment with the doctor on Wednesday and he said she can come home now. I got a page from her after she talked to Peace Corps and she is flying in on Sunday. We're going to try to stay a bed and breakfast Sunday night. I'm really excited that she is coming home. I made her a "Welcome Home" banner and hung it up so she would see it when she walks into the door of the house. Only 3 more days...
Day 235 - Friday, June 21, 2002
I passed the time today and plan on leaving to go to Choluteca and spend the night with friends there before going to Teguz to pick up Jennifer.
Day 236 - Saturday, June 22, 2002
I went to Choluteca on the 11 am bus. I got to Raj and Nina's house around 3:30 pm and we went out for dinner at a friends house at around 6 pm. We spent most of the night hanging out in front of their Honduran friends house who had fed us dinner, playing basketball and soccer in the street. It was fun. On the way we stopped at the local "Pollo Loco" to get some beverages. While sitting on the front step of "Pollo Loco" (Crazy Chicken), a guy walked out of one of the neighboring bars and laid down in the middle of the main street of Choluteca. While cars swerved to avoid running over the "bolo" (drunk) someone from the bar came out and managed to drag him off the street by the collar of his sheet. Three minutes later he got up and walked into the middle of the street to sleep again. Cars continued to miss him with a few close calls. We joked about the level of depravity we had reached where a drunk in the middle of street at risk of being killed by a passing car, passed as our form of entertainment for the evening. We all agreed that perhaps we had been in the country too long. Two policemen wandered by the talk with someone they knew in a neighboring store. They tried hard to ignore the man laying in the middle of the street, and felt compelled to act only when a passing motorist reminded them what they were being paid for.
I spent the night on the floor (they have a nice mattress for visitors) of Raj and Nina's house.
Day 237 - Sunday, June 23, 2002
I got up at 5:30 am this morning, and went to mass at 6:30 am. It was a 2 1/2 hour mass and had to leave right after communion to get on a bus in time to get to the airport before noon. The bus ride was long and hard. I got on the first bus to Teguz, which was a mistake as it was a run down heap. About an hour into our journey one of the tires blew out. Luckily is was one of the dual tires in the back and we just kept going, but at a much slower pace. I got dropped off in front of the airport at around 12:15. Just in time to buy a cup of coffee before Jennifer came out of the airport.
Before I got to the airport (about an hour before). I started getting butterflies in my stomach like I used to get when we were dating. I was so excited to see her. She looked stunning when she stepped out of the airport! She had lost some weight and bought a new outfit just for me. She was the most beautiful woman all of the terminal (and all of Honduras as far as I am concerned), and she stood out like a full moon on a dark night. I was very happy to see her.
We went to a bed and breakfast in Teguz and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on all the things we had missed over the last 6 weeks. We had lunch at the Chinese restaurant where we had celebrated our 2nd Anniversary before she left and had a delicious beef and peapod dish. We also went to "Spiderman" with Raj and Nina, which I had been dying to see, but wanted to wait until Jen got back to see it together.
Day 238 - Monday, June 24, 2002
We slept in this morning and had breakfast at the bed and breakfast. We went to the Peace Corps office to check in. We went shopping for a gift for my sister's engagement part, which we will unfortunately miss. We went to mall in the afternoon and went to see "Star Wars" which had premiered in Honduras the week before. The lines for the movie were incredible. We got there just as the rush was coming in. We stood in line for 45 minutes to assure that we got good seats. There were two showings of "Star Wars" one in English with Spanish subtitles, and one in dubbed Spanish. We saw the one in English. The lines for both were very long. In Tegucigalpa there is a large population of educated people who speak Spanish and English. So I think it is a kind of status thing to go to the movie in English. Not to mention it is good practice for their English.
Day 239 - Tuesday, June 25, 2002
We stayed the evening and the day at the bed and breakfast (Casaul). In the afternoon we wandered down into the center of town to send snail mail and find a museum. I had walked by the National art museum when my Spanish class had a field trip into the big city. During the trip my Spanish teacher told me that it was closed down and that no one here really goes to museums and such. We made our way to the art museum and were encouraged to find that it was open and in good repair. Most all of the art was post 1950's with a few pieces that had been installed as late as 2001. It was interesting. I am looking forward to visiting local museums when we get back to the states. I think that because the violent wars that were waged down here for so long that not too much of the history has been preserved.
After the Museum we went back to the B&B made sub sandwiches, listened to Spanish tapes that we are going to use to improve our Spanish, and then read from our Marriage book called "The Marriage Collection - Keys to Make Your Marriage Better" Edited by Fritz Ridenour. It is a conglomeration of 10 or so authors and excerpts from their marriage books. It seems pretty interesting so far and very comprehensive.
For dinner we went to the Italian restaurant, Tre Fritelli and had a pizza.
Day 240 - Wednesday, June 26, 2002
Today we just kind of hung out in our room. We were supposed to hook up with Matt and stay with him for the remaining day of the week and then drive down to Concepción with him on Friday. We had sandwiches for lunch again and read some more of our marriage book and listened to the Spanish tapes again.
Matt came by around 4 pm and picked us up which was nice with all the luggage we were carrying. We stayed at his house for the night and went to a new Italian restaurant called "Rojo, Verde, y Ajo" not too far from where we had dinner the evening before. The food was excellent and I am looking forward to going there again.
Day 241 - Thursday, June 27, 2002
Today we hung out at Matt's house, read our book a little more, did email, and went to McDonalds for lunch. We also went to the Peace Corps office and went grocery shopping. For dinner we had beagles that we had purchased from a local bakery with some jelly that we bought when we went grocery shopping. We watched TV in the evening with everyone else in the house and went to bed fairly early thinking that we were leaving early the next morning.
Day 242 - Friday, June 28, 2002
The ride back down to Concepción went much better than my initial the ride up to Teguz. We stopped in Choluteca for lunch (which later made us sick), we had liquados (a mixed fruit or milk blended like a milk shake), baleadas (a flour tortilla with beans and cheese), and enchiladas (a fried corn tortilla with cabbage). We also stopped at the grocery store and purchased some chicken for the coming weeks. Once in Concepción we went to work putting away the mountain of stuff Jen brought back with her.
It was nice to be back home in our own bed.
Day 243 - Saturday, June 29, 2002
Today we cleaned house, organized stuff, and went to meeting at the cooperative. The meeting consisted of us and Matt (the previous volunteer). We talked about ways to improve the control of inventory and introduced ourselves formally to the committee that leads the cooperative. We have been invited to come and help them improve their business as they are not making too much money right now and I think they are actually loosing money at this time. I find this incredible in that they are the larges store with in 3 hours of here and have such great potential. However the rumors we have heard is that the person currently running the cooperative is not qualified and is stealing product and possibly money from them. No one wants to fire him and yet they want help improving things. In the U.S. we would hunt down the problems and have him (the director) account for his practices. But, they don't do that here. No one is responsible for their own actions and anyone who dares call someone on their improprieties could very well find themselves at war with that person. I don't feel like going to war here. I'm poorly armed and my back up is unreliable.
It will interesting to see what happens with this meeting. At this time we have volunteered to help them come up with a computerized inventory system to keep track of sales and incoming stock.
Day 244 - Sunday, June 30, 2002
I got up and tried to go for a run this morning, but my feet just wouldn't go. My energy level was close to zero. I got out of town and tried to pick up the pace, but after 15 feet or so I felt like laying down and going back to sleep. I thought it quite odd since even when I am really tired I can usually still run.
We did inventory at the cooperative and I set up a Access database to track all the inventory. the next few months we will be working on a system to track all incoming and out going products to increase efficiency, decrease product waste, and improve how the business is run. My first run in with the director who is supposedly stealing was interesting. He seemed rather nervous that we were going to start tracking the inventory and told me that we would have to do it some other day. I told him he was wasting my time and to go talk to the guy that is on the board of directors. We entered the information and I was amazed to find out how disorganized everything was. Even with a computerized system it is going to be hard to keep track of the items them in inventory. The description and numbers they brought us were vague and Jennifer, who was working on the floor helping with the actual counting, told me they would sometime just guess how many there were.
As I finished entering the information I started to feel sick. We went home to rest and told them we would be back around 4PM. While at home I found that I had my first "real" case of diarrhea. I think it was probably from the cabbage we had eaten in Choluteca two days before. I sent Jennifer back to the cooperative to tell them I wouldn't be returning for the after noon as I was very sick. I realized that this explained why I was not able to run in the morning. I spent much of the evening going to the bathroom, trying to stay hydrated, and laying in bed or a hammock.
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