Bienvenidos a El Porvenir Jessica!

You know it´s funny, over the last year I have been pondering where I would be living in Honduras and for some reason I never imagined it would be right on the Caribbean, but it is! This picture is about a 5 minute walk from the mayor´s office where I´ll be working a lot. My new home is about 20 kilometers west of La Ceiba, a large port city on the north coast. I had the opportunity to visit El Porvenir for four days and I have to tell you, I am totally psyched to officially begin my service, which will be on September 27, 2008. One of my counterparts, the mayor of El Porvenir picked me up in Zarabanda and we made the 6 hour drive together. When he said we were getting close I looked around and it looked just like something out of the book Where the Wild Things Are with huge palms towering over us. Next I saw, oh I don’t know, about a billion pineapples. El Porvenir is home to Standard Fruit Company, you know as in a little company called Dole. Needless to say there are acres and acres of pineapple fields just waiting to be shipped to you guys in the states, as one Honduran explained it. I was not able to get a picture yet of the pineapple fields, but do not worry, I have two years to get some great shots. This company serves as means of employment for many of the people in my site which is wonderful. So we were getting even closer and my new friend pulled up to this little stand that looked like the other corn stands I had seen in Honduras where you can get a piece of corn on the cob, but there was another little treat available too. I think he called them fritas, which literally translates to fried, and that they were. It was like cornbread which is heavenly anyway, but then fried crispy. Hmm, hmmm this place just keeps getting better and better. Well then of course we had worked up quite a thirst, so what do you do when you are thirsty in Honduras, why you drink coconut milk of course, and yes, you do it straight out a coconut. After we drank the milk, which was deliciously refreshing, the women selling them chopped them open and handed us a bent butter knife to scoop out the meat. Now I have never had fresh coconut, not this fresh, so it was fun for me. The flesh is sort of the texture of the white of a hard boiled egg, but a little more firm and the taste is subtle but scrumptious. What a great start to my first days, its like he knew the way to my heart was through my stomach. Has someone from home been talking to him??? Here´s picture of the restaurant my mayor runs. I had an amazing lunch there on Saturday, fried fish, plantains and coleslaw.

Here is a picture of the inside of the alcaldia I will be working with. I went there and met all of the staff and talked at length with the Community Development person about some of the projects they are working on. I got to take a field trip and see one, it was a tilapia farm. The government had given Hondurans funds to build such projects, projects that will create income for impoverished areas. An engineer and a couple of other concerned parties went out to the foot of Pico Bonitio (an unbelievable mountain, yes this is to my south and the Caribbean Sea is to my north, my new home is nestled in the middle, how luck am I!!!!) where a huge pit had been dug and thousands of little guppies were feeding. I didn’t understand a lot of what was said, but the engineer was happy with the progress and would report good things to the government. These are the types of things I am going to be involved with, great stuff. The other person I will be working with is from Canada and she does a lot with kids and health in the community. She has a beautiful home on the beach where I can work, someone pinch me!

As for my third and final host family, they are lovely. My host mother is Maritza, her husband is Don Jose and they have three children living at home, Onoria, Sandy and Oswaldo. Like my host family in Zarabanda I am the first American they have ever hosted (geez that´s a lot of pressure to make us all look good!). They are kind and spend lots of time together which is nice and relaxing. Yesterday for example we sat out in the back of the house and watched as a women tried to get her disobedient pigs to go home with her, they did not want to cooperate. Eventually she got them to go, squealing the whole way but she got em. Onoria works at the alcaldia with me and Sandy and Oswaldo are students. Don Jose works for Standard Fruit Company. They are kind family who I am looking forward to getting to know more.

So what is next? I will continue training until September 26 at which time we will be sworn in as volunteers. From there we will all go to our respective sites for our service. Wow, I have already been here for more than 2 months, it´s hard to believe. Stay posted for more pictures of my site and host family, I wasn´t able to get many on my short visit. Below are some random pics to tide you over. Thanks for checking in with me, I miss you all and think of you often. I will get you my new address just as soon as I figure it out, until then feel free to continue sending letters to the address in the second entry of my blog.

Here we are the day we found out which sites we were going to. They had a big party for us, it was great! The next one is of fisherman on the Caribbean. There there´s the forest of La Tigra, a mountain we climbed and hiked through a couple weeks ago. The other group picture is us at a birthday party for 2 of the Muni D girls. Finally there is a picture of my friend Elizabeth who was my roommate the very first night we were in DC. She is from Nashville and we bonded immediately. Her site is in a pine forest so I can´t wait to visit here there.