2nd one... 3/7

3/7 So week 2 of over 110 is over now, it was a good one, but very busy. Lots of classes but it’s been good. Yesterday we went to class for 3 hours for a “cultural experience” which ended up being good, we learned about the 8 ethnic groups in Honduras and got to eat some really good (and some bad) food and drink so it was less like learning and more fun. Sorry that my English is sounding really bad, too much Spanish I guess. After that I went with Alysun, another volunteer (my “niece”) and her family to run some errands including getting bamboo and going to Valle de Angeles to do some adventuring, it’s more turistic there so we got some ice cream, looked at cell phones and met up with some other volunteers before riding the bus back home. Today I washed some clothes by hand and waited for them to dry for a while while I played with my 5x5 rubics cube. Then one of the volunteers came by my house and we walked to another volunteers house where we hung out for a while. It’s about 5 now and I’m deciding that I’m just going to relax and listen to some Coldplay and write some letters. I think I’m getting a phone on Monday, tomorrow after we have a sketchy exploring field trip to Teguz for class, theres about a 50% chance of getting mugged it seems from our security people. Hope everyone is doing good back home, hopefully I’ll post this soon…
-stu


The Market
3/8 So today some of us got to go to Teguz as learning trip to find out how to use the transit systems in Honduras and figure out how to buy stuff at the market. The plan wasn’t too elaborate, take a bus from the training site to Hospital San Filipe, from there take a cab to “mi esperanza” bus station meet up with our teacher and then take a cab to the market. It seems easy until you realize that we didn’t really establish any set plans on Friday and now on Monday we were supposed to figure it out even though we were coming from different places and didn’t have cell phones. The “plan” was to meet at the training center at 7:30 and then as a group take the bus downtown, this didn’t happen, no one else was to be found except one other trainee with whom I had talked to on Sunday to make sure we would go together, trying to find the bus stop wasn‘t hard though because the bus stops anywhere along the road between Valle de Angeles and Tegucigalpa whenever anyone wants to get on. So instead of 7 of us there were two gringos trying to cram onto the ‘chicken bus’ aka an old US school bus filled to the gills with people going to the city. We both were able to find seats fortunately before it got too full, I got to sit next to a super old, tiny man with a cowboy hat on, he was tough to understand but he was really nice, by the time everyone else got on the bus, filling every seat and the isle the old man and I got pretty close…literally squeezed together. He fortunately helped me find the right stop, which other people ended up missing, and he wished me the best of luck before I left. Since the rest of my group had left me, I and another volunteer from another group decided it would be best to get one taxi and go to one spot instead of taking separate cabs which we have heard can be sketchy. We finally met up with the group and managed to make it to the market without too much more confusion which was nice, it was your classic market with meat hanging all over the place but great variety of fruits and veggies, I got a bag of mangos and an avocado for my family. After the market we walked around downtown Teguz, saw the US embassy, the oldest Catholic church in the city which was beautifu, a Wendy’s, and finally the Honduras Peace Corps HQ. all in all it was a fun little trip that, like many things down here don’t go according to plan but end up being great.