And then it got cold

So when you think of Central America what is one of the first things that comes to mind, for me it was nice warm weather…and guess what I got, freezing cold weather with lots of rain and lots of mud. I almost didn’t bring my beanie, I almost didn’t bring my winter gloves, whoa I am so glad that I brought them both now! It is hard to work in such cold weather, personally I just want to stay in bed all day, but I can only do that every other day unfortunately J

In about 3 weeks I am going to finally be moving into my own house, I am paying 8 months of rent in advance so they fix the house up a bit and give it some real windows as opposed to wooden ones. Also they are going to make me a sink. The house is really small, its basically 1 room separated into 2 small rooms, and then the bathroom which is also minute. It is not so bad though, I wouldn’t have cared so much about the wooden windows if there was electricity here, but seeing as there is not I like to let light into the house as much as possible and the wooden windows just aren’t good for that.

I went to a Halloween party last weekend and dressed up like a churro bag (which is the potato chip bag that you see everywhere on the streets). The get together was probably the best thing I have done for myself since I got to site…life was getting stressful, lonely and boring here, but I got to spend time, talk and hear about other peoples experiences and it helped me to realize I am not the only one living and experiencing this change in life. It was all really enlightening and stress relieving for me, in fact I think they should make a little getaway like that MANDATORY for all volunteers about a month into site. That way they don’t get too stressed out/depressed and decided to terminate their Peace Corps service early, which is quite frankly not uncommon. Now that I am back in site I feel rejuvenated and really ready to start working again.

Right now I am working on a variety of different projects, the schools are letting out, however I might try to open up a community center/library type place 3 days a week in the school to give kids a chance to have access to books and a safe environment to play/draw/write/read, or whatever. I still need to talk about this with the school director however to see if she is on board. Also I am probably going to be working with Trees for the future and try and bring from trees or seeds into site to build a nursery and seed beds so we can plant trees in the area/take part in reforestation here in the protected area that is Mount Santa Barbara. Apart from these things I am working with different groups and going to different meetings from time to time to offer support and pretty soon I am going to start working on an environmental education plan for next year.

I miss everyone at home, however I have a really GREAT friend base here in Honduras of other volunteers and people in my community that make me feel good and are always willing to talk and help. I am not really sure what I am going to do for thanksgiving, however I think I would be very very lucky if I got to eat a nice cooked pumpkin pie with turkey, stuffing and a nice cranberry sauce. That’s all I got for now, keep in touch…

Tristan