Home Sweet Honduras!

Hola! I have made it to Honduras in one piece. We arrived a few hours late yesterday, so went directly home with our families so we could eat dinner and go to sleep. My host family is wonderful. The parents are Carmen and Francis. Last night was Francis' birthday, so we had cake and he opened presents. Their children (my host brothers) are Luis and Carlos. They are 18 and 12. Luis attends the University in Tegucigalpa, and is really friendly, so I think that will be a big help with my Spanish. The whole family is outgoing and fun. The house is also great. I have a large room in the back that you get to by going outside and walking through a patio area. I also have my own bathroom in my room (this is rare, I am a lucky girl!) And the bathroom has a warm shower. I was also really surprised when my host brother turned on the TV and Mythbusters was on! Many of the families here have cable, and mine is no exception. My family has a lot of pets, most of which stay outside. They have 3 dogs, Lucky, Rocky, and Scott, 3 birds, 2 rabbits, and one cat named Tonvil that is currently sitting next to me on my bed as I write this. He is no Sofia, but is still a sweet cat. My family also has chickens, which are conveniently located under my bedroom window. One would think this would be a great wakeup call, but as a I found out last night, chickens never sleep. The food has also been good – all my favorite things, and it is a good thing that my house is a 20 minute uphill walk to the training center. Last night we had fried beans, tortilla, avocado, cheese, fried plantains, and some scrambled eggs. Today for lunch my house mother made me rice with fried onions, and something that tasted a lot like green bean casserole (yay!).

The training so far has been long. We're still in the introductory/housekeeping stage, so it is a lot of introductions and paperwork. Tomorrow we will have interviews to determine our Spanish proficiency and what class we should be in, and formal Spanish classes will start on Monday. We have also had one of many medical orientations, and tomorrow we get to start taking our malaria pills. Next week we start the vaccinations, but I know I already have had several, so hopeful I won't need to get all 14 of them.

We briefly split into our project groups today as well (water sanitation, business, and health) and discussed our objectives. Formal training for our projects will start on Monday as well. We will spend the next 3 weeks in Santa Lucia (where I am now) then we will be doing Field Based Training (FBT) for 6 weeks, so I will be living with another host family at the Health FBT site, La Paz. We have a few more weeks after that, and then we will be sworn in.

This has been a great experience so far, and I could not have asked for a better group of people or a more beautiful country. I'm sure during the next two years I'll doubt that statement at times, but right now, everything is great.