Hi from FBT at Santa Cruz de Yohoa!

Hey everyone :)

I just arrived today to my new home for the next month. This morning I packed about half of my things and said goodbye to my Siguatepeque family at about 7 a.m. Both my sisters cried when they said goodbye, and made me promise to write to them. What a great family!

We all climbed on the bus, both the water/san and health groups, and passed the following hour by reading a copy of the Onion someone had been sent and voting on who we think is the hottest: Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Zeta Jones, Halle Berry (my pick), Angelina Jolie, and Katie Holmes - I believe Halle and Angelina won.

On the way we passed the beautiful Lake Yohoa. It's like the Great Lake of Honduras, huge and blue. The area surrounding my town is much greener and more tropical than Siguat, and not as dry and dusty. It's also a lot hotter. A little farther at about 9:30 a.m. we arrived in Santa Cruz, and the health people got off (the Water people continued to Santa Barbara for their FBT). Santa Cruz has about 10,000 people in the center and then several thousand surrounding it, so it's a lot smaller than Siguat. There's nothing like a subtle community entry. 20 gringos got off the bus, gathered their mountain of belongings, walked a block to the central park, and sat there looking lost and confused until our host families came and found us. We totally blended.

A lady came up to us and after some chatting I figured out that the lady who was supposed to take me in had totally forgotten about our arrival because her son had just won the candidacy for mayor the day before in the Honduran primaries and had been really busy campaigning and stuff. She also owns a grocery store. So she didn't have my room prepared and for some reason it was going to take 5 days (I think she mentioned something about painting) so she sent her sister to come and get me. So I walked less than a block from the central park (it's awesome how close I am to everything!) and met my temporary family and saw my temporary room, which is very nice. There is a 2 year old girl, a 9 year old boy, their mom, and then their mom's parents, who own the house. My room is nice with a double bed, a fan, a television with remote, and dresser. I think my temporary host mom cooks and sells her food. While I hung out a bunch of good looking Honduran guys visited, I think they are cousins, and one sort of resembles David Duchovny. Of course they were thrilled to find an American chick sitting there and Duchovny practiced his English with me, even though our families are only supposed to speak Spanish to us.

After lunch we all met up and discussed general info about Santa Cruz and what we will be doing here the next month. As part of our assignment today we split off into pairs and roamed around the town noting where things are so we could make one big map. It was fun talking to people and getting to know the town (and yay, there's a Kobbs here too, which is the best ice cream shop ever!). I live about 5 buildings from internet - hooray! This place is also hilly, and my thighs are sore from playing soccer yesterday in Siguat (I wasn't half bad Chris!) so even though I am closer to stuff I will be raising the heart beat every day.

So to sum things up, I'm living with a family temporarily and they have a telephone but I forgot to get the number from them before I came to the internet cafe. So Mom, don't call the number I gave you just yet, I will let you know if and when I move in a couple days. Until then you can email me with your questions. Keep sending stuff to the original address for now :) Hopefully we'll still get mail at least once a week.

Well I will probably check my email more often these days. I love you all and hope all is well!