Garlic bread.............. :-)

Well last week at work has been a new low. As I said before there is no work for me to do yet till my Spanish improves and sitting around in an office surfing the internet is not really helping improve that situation. However Carlota has been really supportive and we went to speak to ICYE yesterday. They suggested for the next 2 months or so I spend 3 days a week at my project here and 2 days a week in another project. That way I will be doing more activities to keep me motivated and my Spanish should improve quicker, so that after that I will have enough to keep me busy full time in CEM-H! So you ready to hear what the other project is? If you know me at all you´re probably going to choke with shock…. Its working in a school for blind children!!! And what’s even more surprising is that I’m unbelievably excited about it! A few months ago I was so adamant I did not want to work with children! I will have to eat my words! We´ll see. Unfortunately they wont so it’s a good job I don’t know that phrase in Spanish as I might offend!!! Ooops!

Despite having a bad bad week, I had fun Wednesday evening and had an awesome weekend. Walter my ICYE contact took me to his friends house to watch the Honduras V Costa Rica football match on Wednesday. Their house is HUGE and we watched the game on a projector on the roof under the stars – It was amazing, and I even watched a bit of the match! ,-)

On Saturday I went to stay with Hayley´s family, another volunteer from England. Her family are crazy and have quite a strange living arrangement – there are 3 women eand several children but they call all the children ´hijos´ and the children call all the women ´mama´ and each other ´brother´ and ´sister´. Anyway they were a lot of fun and we sat and chatted for hours. Then suddenly it was announced that we were going out so we had to get changed and ready in like 5minutes! We all hop in the car- beers in hand – and go to this restaurant/karaoke/disco called El Corral. Hayley´s cousins joined us later, they could speak English and told us all the stuff our mums never would…very useful! The whole time everyone was drinking and smoking a lot (the children were not there)…I still cannot believe they drove home! So 3am in Honduras…hadnt seen that hour here before then. Oh apart from one night when there was a big moth in my room and I had to stuff tissues in my ears to calm my irrational fear that it would crawl in my ear to lay its eggs – that was a late one yes.

Then on Sunday Carlota took me and her cousin to a town ´Ojojona´. Where there were dancers with traditional music, latino meringue and salsa etc but also Garifuna, an indigenous group living on the north coast of Honduras.

Anyway I will let you know how the new project goes soon. Yey!

Highlight of the week: Drive-through banking!!

life, work and spanish

So its officially 4 weeks ago tomorrow that I arrived. Thats 4 weeks closer to coming home! I know I shouldn't be thinking like that but I've had a tough few days recently and its nice to know this fact. I am however feeling more positive today so dont worry about me!

First some sad news...

• I finally went to eat at TGI Fridays! but then afterwards I felt soooooo ill, and I didnt even go for the chocolate brownie! Will I ever feel the same about this restaurant again? sniff :-(
• My first few days at my work (CEM-H) have been tough. Its hard to start a new job with new people anyway but because of the language barrier its twice as hard and there isn't really anything I can do yet (hence why i'm writing this at 9.40am on a wednesday). in addition the culture here is very much everyone does their own thing and no-one goes out of thier way to introduce you to others, find work for you to do or even explain what they are doing. You can see why I have wanted to pack it all in and come home. However its better now because i have spoken with the other volunteer, whos from Finland, and she has filled me with confidence. She agrees that theres not much to do at first but she mentioned several projects that I would definately like to get involved in and where I can even use my degree! For example the women in prison make craft items but they need help selling them so that they can get money to pay for legal help etc. Also the website here isn't working so thats another area I may be able to help. Basically if I want to make the most out of my time here I have to be very proactive, seek out work and tell my contact what I want to do. So for now, I am content to just to little jobs here and there and work on my Spanish because I know its not going to be like this for the whole time! phew!

Then some good news...

• Last Saturday I went with some of the girls at work to watch them do the live radio show that the charity has every week. It was really exciting I've never seen anything like that before. Obviously I didnt understand any of it, but whatever. It also impressed me that these girls are my age and younger and they dont even seem nervous - I would be.
• In the evening my ICYE contact took me to the cinema to see Yes Man, Johannes another volunteer came too. I should say here that yes my boyfriend does know I went with two guys. Then we went to a bar for drinks. It was so nice to speak english for a while and to do something with people my age.
• On sunday I went to the fair in Suyapa, its a religious thing supposedly but I saw no evidence of this. It reminded me very much of the New Mexico state fair I went to in 2007. There were fairground rides, stalls selling everything from jewellery to CD's to food, about 100 horses and 50 cows. It was alot of fun, I want to go to it in the evening because they have live music but its finished now. Its back in November I believe so if i make it that long here I will definitelty have to go and take my camera too!
• I am starting to understand more of 'Los Simpsons' but it still annoys me that the voices are all wrong!

And finally some random news...

• We have a dog in our back yard, I have only found this out in the last week..um how i'm not sure. its very quiet, in my defence. Its also called Spot! not particularly latino.
• In cafe's here, people drink coffee through a straw! (and the amount of sugar they add is shocking! - they find it shocking I dont want any sugar, there must be something wrong with me!)

Hopefully next time I will be blogging from home, Carlota is looking to get internet at the moment! yey!

Hasta pronto

The calm before the storm

A new month and a new stage in my time here, spanish classes have finished and I start work tomorrow so today is a weird day of nothing. The other volunteers not staying in Tegus have set off to Copan and San Pedro Sula or wherever they are working and its all very quite here. I feel nervous and lonely but thats normal at this stage I think. It doesn´t help that everyone back home seems to be going on holiday at the moment, they should be sat at home missing me!!

I had an interesting trip to the south coast last weekend, I wouldn´t say that it was entirely positive but then we managed to get there and back without getting mugged so perhaps that makes it a success? The stress began on friday afternoon on the way to the coach stop, out of the three taxis that took us, mine was the one that dropped us off at the wrong coach stop!!! grrrrr!!!! So picture this, I´m with a French girl and an Austrian girl, neither of whom speak English and communication between them is difficult too. So we cant understand each other, we dont know where we are or where we have to be and we are clearly lost tourists asking to be mugged!!! *insert swear word here*. Somehow through broken spanish directions and phone conversations with the others we managed to make it to the right place and on time, phew!
When we board the coach however things improve. It´s a smart air conditioned, comfortable and spotless coach. Plus we get refreshments brought to us as local street sellers come in offering mango, sweets, drinks, icecreams, tortillas and other unidentifiable food stuff.
2 hours later we arrived in very very hot San Lorenzo, a small sleepy fishing town on the coast which did not look particularly affluent or touristy. In fact I think we were the only white people they had seen in a long time judging on the attention we generated. We found the hotel we´d booked but when we looked at the rooms...um I think not! Mutant ants all over the beds and a shower coated in mould. We had to try and explain to the owners we were not staying which was really hard as they looked genuinely upset, but a lack of paperwork = no obligation so what could they do?
We found a nicer hotel down the road and stayed there. We went out to eat to a nice bar/restaurant and I tried the local beer ´Salva Vida´ - it definitely helped the salty chicken meal go down. We also ordered something ICYE had told us to try ´curiles´or something ugghhh, we later found out they were some kind of shellfish that are still alive when you eat them. Thanks ICYE! I went to bed after but some of the others stayed out and found the only club in the town which happened to be of the exotic variety - the girls were less than impressed.
The next day we managed to find the right transport to get to the Island and spent most of the afternoon on the beach. Jenny found a nice hammock to read her book in but I could not really relax. I was worried how we´d get home and more importantly where was I going to pee?? The toilets looked like they were out of a horror film!! Fortunately two of the girls decided to stay the night so I could use thier toilet. I would never have stayed on the island though it just was too edgy I cant decribe it, plus they had no electricity so they would have had to go to bed really early. On the way back I finally relaxed becuase I knew Tegus and I was pleased to get back to some familiarity and to my home which I know is safe. Maybe Tegucigalpa is not so bad after all.