beinvenidos a honduras!

hola familia y amigos!
this is the first time i have a couple of minutes to actually write on the blog. i still am not in a place where i can safely put my photos on the internet, but i will be soon, and i can´t wait for you be able to see some of the absolutely gorgeous scenery here.
we arrived late at night after traveling from san pedro sula into valle de angeles, where we stayed at a gorgeous little hotel with little cabanas and hammocks. it even had cable tv. my first breakfast was pancakes and watermelon, and the coffee here is amazing.
the second day we moved in with our host families. i absolutely love my host family. the mother is living and working in spain and so my ¨mother¨is actually only 22. she has a little baby gordita (it´s totally culturally acceptable to call someone fat here if they are fat!) who turned one on july 21st. i got to see a real authentic pinata birthday! i´ve also been to a few authentic honduran parties, with tons of dancing. it´s really a lively culture.
training has been fairly intense. every morning like clockwork i wake up at 5:30 and drink a cup of coffee with ¨pan¨(the bread here is really cookie). i talk a little with my mom while my water for my bathing heats up. she swats a few flies and we wash the dishes if the water is working, and sometimes we take the clothes in from the wire outside, if it´s going to rain.
i bathe crouched over most of the time. but at least the water is hot.
i walk up the hill to the pareda (bus stop) where our personal cuerpo de paz (peace corps) bus picks the folks that live in las canadas up at about 6:50 in the morning. then we all get to the training center in zarabanda where we hang out and talk a bit in english and wait for the coffee to be made (usually it´s not ready until after class starts) and then we have language class for 4 hours. i like my teacher but i am ready for a new teacher because my learning style needs a bit more action. i am learning spanish, and becoming more confident, but still not speaking quickly because when i do i make many more mistakes. my family says i am improving and my tutors told me that i´ve essentially already moved up a level. i technically have to improve one more level before i´m where i am required to be, but i´d really like to be on the intermedio alto or avancando bajo before the end of training, which is much closer to fluency.
my typical breakfast is corn flakes or delicious homemade pancakes. my typical lunch is some carne de vaco or cerda and arroz or frijoles. sometimes if i´m lucky i´ll get some veggies, usually tomatoes. i miss my fiber. they have only white bread cerca de mi casa.
my typical dinner is beans, platanos fritos (fried bananas) y frijoles (beans). occasionally if i´m lucky i´ll get aguacates, my favorite. it´s rare though because they only sell them in valle or santa lucia which is a somewhat difficult trip for my mom with her baby.
things i miss most?? family, friends, which didn´t really hit me until yesterday, but si, les falto mucho.
i miss my own food. i miss milk!!! my body is definitely confused as to why i am all of a sudden, after 23 years, missing my daily intake of milk. i could really use some skim milk!
that will be a while though--i´ll get used to the absence soon.
i don´t miss certain things so much, like driving or using the internet. we´ve been keeping to busy to worry about that.
there are some things i have noticed about honduras that have already helped me to appreciate america just a bit more---por ejemplo, los ninos (kids) here play with toy guns a lot more and the toy guns look a lot more like real guns. the roads are generally trashed because people here don´t throw their trash in trash cans. the beautiful outdoors are trash cans...
the kids are very well behaved and much more so than children in the u.s. however they have a real absense of ¨please¨and ¨thank yous¨! still getting used to that.
right now i´m in san antonio del norte visiting a current volunteer with another aspirante. we arrived yesterday via bus and had to go up to comayagua and back down because the buses don´t run from tegucigalpa into her town on sundays. we are in an air-conditioned office with high speed wireless internet and i wish i had my computer here but it´s not safe to travel with.
we are about to go and visit an escuela and watch some teaching take place. on the day we were all supposed to observe a school, there was a strike, and so we went to visit some PC health volunteers instead who were teaching some pregnancy prevention chalas (meetings, talks, presentations) to 10-14 year old girls. it´s amazing how many young girls have kids here. and it´s even more amazing how many don´t finish school because of it. and it´s amazing how expensive and unavailable schools are for certain families. also, you´re ¨required¨to go to school until the age of 13 however if your child discontinues, no action takes place.
we´ll be leaving here wednesday to travel back to zarabanda/etc. and then will be leaving the following sunday to go to talanga, where our field based training will take place for 5 weeks.
i´m still extremely happy and extremely excited. the girl we are visiting has a huge, beautiful living space with all kinds of animals running around. i have heard that there will be a peace corps volunteer in santa lucia, which is absolutely gorgeous and i´d really love to get that slot. i´m going to be expressing my desire soon! i am having a hard time deciding whether or not i´d like to be far away from the capital in a nice spacious place or near lots of things to do. however, the fact that i have visible tatoos i think might help me to be in a more open minded place. there are lots of peace corps organized support groups, especially for gay folks, relgious folks that aren´t catholic or evangelical (things are very black and white here when it comes to christianity), people of any color besides white (hondurans are generally shocked when they find out that not all americans have blonde hair and blue eyes) etc. i do so want hilary to come visit, (i hope you are reading this!), but it is generally not acceptable to be openly gay, ESPECIALLY for girls. however, my host mother is very liberal and open minded, and i´ve heard that many places are.
that´s about all for now, i could go on, but in talanga i´ll be able to use the internet at least once a week. i´ll be posting again soon with tons of photos.
miss you.