jeronimoooo

at a catholic peace march

i took a lot of great pics of the peace march but so far only two will load up. i´ll try and get some more up later.

so, my adivinanzas were incorrect entirely. i´ll be more than likely heading to san jeronimo, comayagua for two years.





here is the information that i know for sure, followed by why i believe i´m going to san jeronimo. (by the way, they know where we are all going, and they tell us that they only give us a lot of clues because there´s a slight chance our sites might change and because they don´t want us to be thinking about anything else. which has the opposite effect.)





i will be replacing a ¨fabulous, super volunteer¨because i have chispa. i am expecting this to be great and challenging. it´s good overall for me however because the higher the expectations are of me the better i perform, and whereas most people inherit or start 3 or 4 counterpart-projects, i´ll be inheriting about 6 or 7.





my first counterpart is a kindergarten, with about 90 students. the teachers here are very open-minded and really want new creative ways of working with the kids, which is a reason why they think i´ll be good here what with experience in early childhood education.





a reiken library will be another counterpart. this is supposedly one of the best in the region. they want to do a lot with afterschool programs, early stimulation and literacy, youth groups, etc. they are open every day from 8am to 6pm, and almost all of the staff are volunteers.





educatodos is another large program i will be inheriting. they meet next to the library and they are open mondays and fridays. it is a program for people who want to finish school but have a very hard time due to learning challenges and challenges with time and money. they listen to classes on the radio and meet once a week. this will be directly related to TEAM, Teaching English and Methodology. because honduras has recently required teachers to teach english, the peace corps is working with TEAM here to help teach the teachers english to make the system of english teaching more productive, since teachers would honestly rather have the english speakers come in and teach the classes for them. rather than this, the pcv has an english class for teachers once a week and grades them, etc. and then reviews their performance in the classroom.





i will also have two primary schools as counterparts, one very close and one about an hour and a half away in an aldea. both of these schools have requested creativity projects to help stimulate the creative process in their student population. i am supposed to be doing a lot of creative writing & art projects. i am so excited about all of this.





now for the best part :)





i´m inheriting a baseball team! apparently the girl i am replacing made a mistake by not finding someone else to help her coach the team, but that will be one of my jobs. i am so very excited about all of my counterparts, especially this one, because apparently they´re pretty good and went to the finals a couple of years ago.
my bosses told me that during december and january, their summer vacation, it is going to be very hard for me because i will be seeing a lot of very young children going to cut coffee early in the morning, and that in order to make good activities for the kids when they´re done, i´ll need to be very sympathetic and go with them to cut coffee a few times so to make a better understanding of what they go through. i´m supposedly going to have a very hard time not questioning the parents, and instead being very culturally sensitive because there is a reason that the kids are having to go to cut coffee.

i will be in a small town. this is what i am surprised about. the small town however, is very close to a couple of big cities.

there are no paved roads in my town, but there is a paved road going to the closest cities, and they´re very reliable and the buses are very frequent.

one of my friends here read all of this and said, ýou´re going to san jeronimo.´the volunteer she visited was the girl in san jeronimo, and apparently all of the projects i am inheriting are projects that she had, along with everything matching up right down to the coffee cutting, weather (hot), situations within projects, descriptions of the town, etc.

needless to say, i am relieved to be going somewhere other than the south, though it will still be hot. i will be at the bottom of comayagua mountain, which is supposedly very beautiful.

i´ll be close to a lot of other volunteers, but not too close. so, i´ll be forced to speak spanish. which is great. my host family will be just a man and woman because the kids are off studying, but this means i´ll have my own room and bathroom again, which is fabulous. i will live with that family for two months after swearing in.

it´s 20 lemps for an hour on the computer and i´ve got about 5 minutes left, so i´m going to write some more tomorrow. things are going fabulously, and i get to eat hamburguesas para almuerzo today. yay!

by the way licuados of fresas bananos and granola are freaking delicious.


i miss you guys.