Lauren's Peace Corps Experience in Honduras

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed and experiences described in this travelogue are mine personally. Nothing written here should be interpreted as official or unofficial Peace Corps literature or as sanctioned by the Peace Corps or the U.S. government. I have chosen to write about my experience online in order to update family and friends; I am earning no money whatsoever from this endeavor. Please do not copy or forward any of these contents without my permission.

Monday, July 17, 2006

4th of July and more

Hi everyone!

Sorry as usual about my lack of writing. I just always wanna give a good amount of time to writing a good entry that I put it off and off. And so now I have 15 minutes and decided to rush an entry instead of continue procrastinating.

Things have been great since my return from the states. I have been busy with the library project, going there at least 3 days a week to give some kind of workshop or talk - mostly painting, talking to the teachers about promoting reading and different related skills, and to students that are coming to the library for the first time. So far the library´s been a huge success. Kids come every day, tons of kids, to do research for homework or read a book. We don´t let them use the games or puzzles until they read for 15 minutes and report on what they read. I just splurged and bought off of Amazon the 4 harry potter books we lacked because they were attracting so many little readers and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, all in Spanish. If you feel generous, go order your favorite book, in Spanish, and send it to our library!

We celebrated the 4th of July last week and had an awesome time. About 40 volunteers, some from El Salvador and Guatemala, arrived in Gracias, Lempira to celebrate poolside in a nice hotel there. We went to the hotsprings the night before, and the whole day of the 4th hung out in our bathing suits, drinking cold beers, setting off little fireworks and firecrackers, playing with a greased watermelon in the pool and chicken fights, watching the World Cup semifinals, and ate "imported" hotdogs off the grill. It was so fun. I definitely had a rough day the next day though, since we had been going hard all day until 5 in the morning, and then I had to get on a bus in the morning to get back, ugh. But very worth it, it was a lot of fun and everyone said it woulda been hard to beat it even in the states.

Right now I am in Siguatepeque for an HIV AIDS workshop from an organization called Jovenes Sin Fronteras (Youth without Borders) funding by the Global Fund. We are working with community volunteers to educate 55,000 youth over the next 3 years all over Honduras about working to prevent HIV.

This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I´ll be helping another volunteer friend, Matt, give a workshop in my town to my youth group about First Aid. I´m really excited about it and hopefully the kids will learn a lot and will be able to use their skills if any emergency every arises.

Well that´s all I have time for right now. Send me an email you people! I´m still here, going strong. Love you!