Show me the MONEY!

Hello All!

So, when my mom and sister were here at the end of May an airplane crashed in the capitol city, Tegucigalpa. I wouldn’t actually say the plane crashed, I mean it didn’t fall out of the sky, it ran off the runway. Apparently the runway at the Teguc airport is quite short. It went off the runway onto the street – killing two people in their car and three passengers from the plane (the pilot, co-pilot and a man that was president of the development bank of Central America). It was a Taca airline flight coming in from San Salvador, El Salvador – a very common flight for people travelling to Honduras from all over Central/South America and the United States.

I am passing no judgment on the intelligence of the president of Honduras (his nickname is Mel), but he said in a press release that he was closing the Tegucigalpa airport FOREVER. Just slightly ridiculous. Anyway, the airport in Teguc has been closed since to all commercial international (and I believe national) flights. I think small planes were still running. However, on Monday the airport was re-opened! But apparently only for this year and some of 2009 until they can build a new airport – yeah right. Mel’s grand idea was to have all commercial flights land in Palmerola, a US air force base under the Honduran flag in Comayagua. However, they vetoed that idea pretty fast as they do not have the infrastructure, nor the desire, to have commercial flights land there. Anyway, how can a large capital city not have an airport? I suppose that is what some people have been thinking – so the airport has been reopened, at least temporarily.

The closing of the airport caused quite a few issues as many Peace Corps volunteers had family or friends visiting who had flights leaving from Teguc. From what I have heard, everyone made it home pretty much on time. The flights were just changed to the San Pedro Sula airport where my mom and sister left from (and arrived at). The whole point of this story – Brian and I have been planning our visit home, but have been worrying about the airport closure. We are taking Maya with us and know that we can get her to Teguc and to the veterinarian there, but were very unsure about the same for San Pedro. However, we will now be leaving once again through Tegucigalpa. Hopefully!

And so, the meat of this blog (not really): we are planning on coming home December 18 to January 6. Yippee! We are SO excited!

Because you all have been so incredibly generous – I am going to ask you for more stuff. If you could please save old greeting cards (just the cover), scraps of fabric, colored paper, ribbon, and other craft items, old buttons, beads, popsicle sticks, etc for me to bring back with me to Honduras for various arts and crafts projects. A lot of these things are just not available to me in my site. We received a great box from Casey and Matt filled with tons of art stuff – the number one favorite item from the box……..PIPE CLEANERS!! Who knew? They just don’t have them here so the kids are totally enthralled by them! I swear I can make paper flowers attached to pipe cleaners for the rest of my Peace Corps service and the kids would just love me.

Currently, we are losing our battle with the mold. I win in one area, ie the fridge, and lose in another, my suitcase. However, our house is pretty much leak free so we are at least dry inside the main part of the house. Also, the rain has decided to come earlier in the day so our clothes are having some issues with drying. Anyone want to ship us a clothes dryer?? J

Brian and I have been fairly busy this month, I think I already mentioned that we started our creative projects campaign in another elementary school. The school is located in an aldea (a small town part of our municipality, but outside of our main town) called Llano Grande. It is about an hour walk from where we live, but so far we have been quite fortunate and while walking towards the aldea have been offered rides (as well as for the way back). I will be going to Teguc at the end of this month to help train the new volunteers and I will be teaching them all of our creative projects. We shared this campaign with some fellow Peace Corps volunteers in our region, as well as with our Country Director, Trudy, and all seemed to really like it. Our favorite part was that we think we impressed Trudy, yay!

Brian will be going to Teguc this month as well for a VAC meeting. He was elected by his fellow PCV Muni D peers to represent them at this quarterly meeting. His is basically an advocate for his peers to the higher ups in PC Honduras. I will also be going to Valle de Angeles for a workshop about teaching abstinence (as well as self esteem, menstruation, general sex ed, AIDS/HIV, empowerment, etc) to young girls. I will be taking with me a young woman from my site that is interested in health education and working with girls in a youth group setting. Then, from the 27th to the 30th Brian and I are having a PC married couple come to visit us. They are from the new training group and are going to be working the same sectors as Brian and I. We really loved our volunteer visit and hope that we can show them the same hospitality and kindness that our volunteers showed us.

The finale: Thank you to the donators (donors???? I don’t know what word to use here) that have so generously donated to our school project in El Almendro.

Nader and Theresa – The cutest couple in San Fran – possibly in all of California – only because Bri and I are currently in Honduras. :)
Mr. Darryl Gross, himself. Ladies, he’s single, (I think), generous, and good looking!
Ralph Alva - The one from Salt Lake City - or maybe the one from California...we´re not sure!
Chris Hageman - The surfer that can no longer surf...ladies, here is another one for you!
HPI, Hill Partnership, Inc. The BEST architecture firm in the world. Really you can check out their totally cool office in Newport.