Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo

Hey everyone, it’s strange entering the holiday season knowing that I won’t be seeing you all or be having the normal end of the year traditions that I am so used to. I’ve never written holiday cards either, so this is another first for me, but I’m listening to Frank Sinatra, Mariah Carey, and Sufjan Stevens Christmas music and wrapping gifts so it’s beginning to look a little like Christmas. Many Peace Corps Volunteers say that Christmas is the hardest part of the Peace Corps, forget culture shock, work, strikes, political coups or Dengue fever, a Christmas alone can be the worst. Fortunately I am looking forward to all of the activities down here in Honduras and I have made many great relationships and have new families to spend the holidays with, it’ll be different.
Just a quick summary of the year of 2010 that is quickly ending: 10 months ago, in February, I took off from Seattle to serve my 27 months in the Peace Corps. I have been working with the health project down here whose main focus is on HIV/AIDS prevention/education and Maternal/infant survival. I am working and living in San Marcos, a small town in northwest Honduras and loving it. I work a lot in the villages around here, mostly with school kids and pregnant ladies…who saw that one coming? I also am playing the piano in the Catholic Church down here and playing soccer on a team. I also have a great Honduran girlfriend from Tegus named Katherine (pictured below). Next year should bring about more work, a youth project, infant nutrition project, a latrine project, and a new HIV/AIDS project, all of which I’m really excited about. For more info checkout my blog stuflu@blogspot.com.
It seems odd being almost Christmas and I’m sweating in my room with the fan on, even Seattle winters aren’t that mild. Around town you can see a couple of houses with lights up and a couple places with fake Christmas trees, definitely not the usual cheer I’m used to in the Northwest. Yesterday I did make our family Christmas classic teddy bear bread with my host family, they thought it was fun and a little weird…what else is new?
Hope all is well with you all, enjoy the holiday season, eat a candy cane for me and don’t complain about the cold weather too much.

Adios
-Stu