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Blog: From Jessica

September 29, 2007

I don’t know when I will have a chance to post this, but I am writing it on September 29, 2007 at around 7pm. Thursday September 27, 2007 was our swearing in ceremony for the Peace Corps. It was at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa. There were a lot of Honduran press, three Honduran speakers, Trudy Jaycox (the country director of PC Honduras), the US ambassador Charles Ford, and most of the PC staff in Honduras. The ceremony went really well – Brian gave a GREAT speech – IN SPANISH! Apparently the ceremony was on the news that day – our host padre saw Brian give his speech!

After the short ceremony we had a pretty good lunch and then went to the ambassador’s house to swim in the pool, play tennis, and play volleyball. After we got back to Santa Lucia we all spent some time with our families and then had a party at a comedor – for just us! The day (and night) were very relaxing and a lot of fun, but also filled with some sadness because we all left for our sites on Friday. I am going to try to post some pictures of the swearing in ceremony, the ambassador’s house, our Santa Lucia family, and the party.

Yesterday (Friday), was our last day in Santa Lucia. We left around 9am for La Esperanza – which didn’t give us much time to spend with our family. Our family wrote us a really nice card and gave us Honduras T-shirts! I was about to cry, but I held it in. I am really going to miss them! They are just a wonderful family and I feel so lucky to have been placed with them. We were invited back for Christmas and I hope to make it out to them for the holiday.

There are 6 new PC volunteers moving to the department of Intibucá. All of us are going to be about an hour or two away from each other or 4 hours away from the city of La Esperanza. Currently there are 4 PC volunteers already living in La Esperanza. The 6 of us were planning on staying the night in La Esperanza with some of the other volunteers because we were not going to make it there on time to catch our buses to each of our sites. We were really lucky – on the bus to La Esperanza we ran into one of the volunteers who lives in La Esperanza! 3 of us got off the bus with her to go to her place and the other three were met by another volunteer and stayed with him. We all met up for dinner at a “Mexican” restaurant in town. The power was out so we ate by candlelight! The food was really good – we actually got chips and salsa (they don’t really do tortilla chips here)!

Today we got up and headed into town to go to the bank – most of us don’t have banks in our sites so we have to get our money in the bigger cities – our “big” city is La Esperanza. Spent a few quick minutes at the internet café and then we were off! We got our bus at 10:30 and arrived in Colomoncagua at around 3pm. It takes a little over four hours to get to our site on a pretty rough dirt road. I was not comfortable and do not plan on going to La Esperanza too often – although I do like it there!

We got to our house, unpacked a bit and then went to find some food (since our host family is not cooking for us). We ate at this little café/comedor and had really delicious chicken. Usually when you eat at a comedor here they don’t have menus. You just have to ask them what they have or just sit down and hope you get something good! They usually only make one kind of main meal for lunch/dinner and then sometimes they have a few other miscellaneous things you can order. We walked around town for a little while and now we are back in our room – trying to unpack a little and figure out what to do for the next two years! Wow…

More things that we would like – the list can go on forever:

General School Supplies – for classes that we will teach
Febreeze – it smells here or I smell (please put in a large zip lock baggie – it might explode :))
Day Planner – one for me and one for brian
Wall Calendar – one with pictures of something
Stain Remover Pads/Pens
Lint Roller
Toothbrushes – soft bristle
Mac 3 refill razors – para Brian
Ear Plugs – roosters don’t just roost in the morning
Candy
Tea
Granola bars – chocolate chip, peanut butter
Chili powder
Freeze dried soy meat
Sun flower seeds
Fruit leather – yum the kind from trader joe’s is superb! Thanks Steph!
Trail Mix and Nuts – my fave!
Pasta sauce mixes
Graham Crackers
Macaroni and Cheese – oh my gosh this tastes even better in Honduras! Do as Stef did – please open it and put the contents in a plastic zip bag.
Wasabi Peas from Trader Joes – holy cow, Steph! I am addicted!
Cheeze-its
Yeast packets
Seeds – tomato, green beans, various herbs, etc.
Playing cards and other card games
Hair spray – non aerosol
Candles
Chocolate Chips
Shirts/t-shirts - both Brian and I
PICTURES!! Of YOU!

We decided not to get a PO Box this year because it is expensive (you have to buy a full year, but the year ends in a couple of months – so we will wait). We will probably get one in January. So if you really want to send us stuff  – please send them to the Peace Corps. We are now official Volunteers so you don’t have to write ‘Aspirante’ anymore!