I will be serving as a Protected Areas Management Volunteer with the Peace Corps in Honduras from June 2010 to September 2012. I will also be conducting research for my MS in Forestry from MTU.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Christmas in Honduras!

Christmas is officially here in Catacamas, Olancho. Today is the last day of classes at the university, and I get two whole weeks free of the university grind!!! I plan to read a lot of articles about three-wattled bellbirds, harvest coffee in the mountains, drink a fair amount of rom-po-po, have an awesome house-warming party, visit my old homestay family, go spulunking around the Lago, and go swimming up on the North Coast. Two weeks suddenly feels way too short to accomplish all of those activities. Being a "volunteer," I suppose I could choose not to return to work on January 2nd with the other professors...but we definitely won't be ready to open our biological education program in the Sierra de Agalta  National Park in Februrary if I don't start working then.

It's been a couple months since I posted an update on here...which I think signifies that life has become a little more normal and a lot busier. My university counterparts like to work 60 or 70 hour a week...which I find insane, especially for Honduras. I try to keep it to a solid 40 (since I'm just a volunteer and all, and someday I want to start my master's research). Next year's activities should be a bit more diverse and a bit more fun, however.

In February, we start the PEB school year, and I'll be traveling out to the aldeas, teaching biology to 4th-6th graders, IDing birds, catching insects, trapping bats, collecting bones...all those fun biology activities that everyone loves! We are also going to be making a science center here at the university, where we are hoping to bring kids from the surrounding communities to learn about nature!

Next year will also be the first year of our newly formed student club ECO-UNA, which I'm advising in part. We will be doing some slaugherhouse cleanup activities, biological monitoring, mist netting, tree planting, etc.

Ooh, and don't forget that we are planning the first ever Congreso Nacional de la Sociedad Mesoamericana para La Biologia y La Conservacion here in Honduras at the university. That will be happening in May, and we will be bringing in biologist, ecologists, and conservationists from all over the country to share their research and experiences!

Anyhows, that's a brief update from here in Catacamas. Hope you all have an awesome Christmas filled with snowboarding, starbucks eggnog lattes, icicles, snowmen, fir trees...and all those other things I will never see in Central America.

Love!

Ruth

Friday, November 5, 2010

birds seen today

On my way out to the farm this morning I saw the following:

White-tailed Kite
Roadside Hawk (2)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (3)
Crested Caracara (3)
Turquoise-browed Motmot
Northern Waterthrush
American Redstart
Spot-breasted Oriole
Blue-grey Tanager

and all the super common birds that aren't worth mentioning

Thursday, October 28, 2010

and then i jumped into quick sand....

So this week I went up to the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve to help out with our biological education program. The lady in charge up there was going to give two all day presentations to 100 kids, all by herself...so of course I offered to go stay up there with her for a week in the mountains :) I felt pretty good about everything at first, I was communicating with the kids, I hadn't spoken English for a whole week, I only had one night of terrible diarrhea. Then, as we were walking out to a river (with 4 teachers and 100 students) we came to a drop off. In front of the drop off was what appeared to be a baked, muddy river bottom. The little kids were hopping down there and running across the cracked, dried mud, and I figured everything was peachy down there in the bottom. So, I jumped from the bank and instantly sank up to my waist. Turns out, in Honduras (and probably everywhere else) mud that looks dried and cracked is probably okay to walk across. Mud that looks smooth and pretty will suck you in up to your waist. So, there I was, stuck in the mud, trying to laugh at myself, when I discovered I couldn't get out. I couldn't move at all. Every time I tried to get one leg out, my other leg sank down farther. So I flung my body at the bank, trying to get some leverage, and after a few minutes of pulling, I was free. At this point those 4 teachers had made it up to the muddy section. They stood up there on the bank saying things like "pero, era illogico, mira el lodo es blando, que estuvo pensando." At which point I realized I had sunk in their estimation from gringa biologist to idiot gringa who can't walk down a path in the campo without almost dying. For the rest of the day I stunk like nasty pond water and was covered in mud. hahaha. yes, the model of the professional image the peace corps keeps telling us we need to maintain.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

One month at site

Hello! I have been here in Catacamas for just over a month now. I´ve been running around like crazy trying to get to know everyone and figure out what work ops I have. I just wrote an update for my bosses, and I´ll attach it. It´s in Spanish, but I´ll use google translate to attach an english copy too. Cheers everyone! Hope you´re all doing well. 
_________________________________________________________________________

Hola!


Ya he estado en Catacamas por un mes, y creo que tengo que mandarles un reportaje chichito acerca de mis actividades de este mes y el plan futuro. En general, yo enfoqué este mes en la actividad de conocer los profesores de la universidad y los proyectos que ya existen allí. También, yo traté a involúcrame en las comunidades de Ben y Josh.


Específicamente, yo realicé las actividades siguientes. Enseñé un modulo para 28 estudiantes de el departamento de recursos naturales a la UNA, como parte del clase Extensión Comunitario. Yo di 7 clases por 3 horas, cada uno. Facilité discursos sobre problemas ambientales en las comunidades de los estudiantes, sus sugerencias para mejorarlos, y las dificultades en cómo tratar a cambiar las acciones de adultos. Trabajamos también en la finca ecología que la universidad tiene. Estamos construyendo un jardín botánico como parte de la finca con plantas de una comunidad Pech de Culmí. Fui una vez a esa comunidad, Subirana, para traer plantas para el jardín.


Otra actividad de la universidad era recoger información sobre las escuelas y comunidades en la zona amortiguamiento de la Sierra de Agalta. La universidad tiene un programa de educación biológica en Culmí, enfocado en la zona amortiguamiento del Rio Platano. Este programa tiene dos años de éxito, y los fundadores quieren darnos dinero para empezar una copia del programa en la Sierra de Agalta. Estamos escribiendo una propuesta ahora para que recibamos fundos de empezar en el enero. Entonces, por esta tarea, yo fui a Talgua por una semana, y viajé con Josh y Calixto a 7 comunidades en la zona amortiguamiento. Conocí a todos los maestros de esas escuelas, y junté la información y datos acerca de las escuelas en un reportaje, que yo mandé a mi contraparte. También, formamos una lista de todas las otras escuelas en la zona, y voy a buscar data sobre esas en la distrital esta semana.


En Las Jaguas, Ben y yo empezamos un grupo de mujeres jóvenes. Tenemos tipo 20 mujeres involucradas, y tenemos reuniones todos los sábados a las 2. Yo he ido a las reuniones y he apoyado planificarlas con las lideras. Este mes, hemos formado una junta directiva, hecho pizzas, y formado un equipo de futbol. Estamos planificando una rifa para que ganemos dinero suficiente para tomar una gira turística-educativa, posiblemente en las cuevas de Talgua. También estamos planificando un proyecto de reforestación en la microcuenca atrás de la comunidad. Las mujeres quieren sembrar árboles y conocer mejor la fuente de agua. Benjamín probablemente va a darles más info sobre el grupo ya que es su proyecto más que mío.


En mi último proyecto, yo he trabajado con tres profesores de la UNA para planificar un mini proyecto de reforestación. Vamos a realizarlo esta semana y la próxima. Tenemos un vivero forestal de arboles nativos en la UNA. El encargado quiere usar las plantas para dar espacio para que sembremos arboles nuevos con los estudiantes. He visitado 3 comunidades (Guanaja, La Union, y Las Jaguas) y tengo dos escuelas y un grupo de mujeres que estén listos para sembrar los arboles. Ya tenemos el espacio y el permiso sembrarlos y la UNA va darnos las plantas gratis. También, una comunidad más contactó la UNA para pedir arboles. Entones vamos a llevar entre 100 y 300 arbolitos a cada una de estas 4 comunidades. Los estudiantes de la clase Extensión Comunitaria van a dar una charla a cada grupo sobre la importancia de reforestación y la manera para plantar y mantener los arbolitos. Después, los estudiantes van a trabajar juntos con los grupos para plantar los arbolitos. Estoy tratando a conseguir las herramientas y el transporte ahorita. Pero si todo sigue el plan, debemos terminar esta actividad en dos semanas.


Pues, esto es más o menos todo que he hecho desde yo vine. Pensado en el futuro, me gustaría estar muy involucrada en el programa que estamos formando en la Sierra de Agalta. Hasta ahora, no había nadie de la universidad enfocado en este parque, mientras tenemos bastantes personas trabajando en el Rio Plátano. Por eso, creo que puedo estar de más valor en la Sierra de Agalta que en el Rio Plátano. También, el acceso es mejor en la Sierra de Agalta y no tendría que depender tanto en el transporte de la universidad. También, me gustaría continuar trabajar con nuestra finca ecológica. Yo di una charlita sobre las oportunidades para capacitar pequeño productores en el regional safety and security meeting. Varios voluntarios quieren traer grupos a la finca para recibir capacitación en producción orgánica y abono.


Okay, eso es todo. Gracias por todo su apoyo. Y también gracias por leer este reportaje en español. Espero que los errores no estén tan grandes y todo esté claro. Por favor, hábleme de cualquier duda que tenga sobre mis actividades.


Saludes!


Ruth
___________________________________________________________________________

I've been in Catacamas for a month, and I think I have to send a little report about my activities this month and my future plans. In general, I focused this month on the activity to meet university professors and projects that already exist there. Also, I tried to involve myself in the communities of Ben and Josh.

Specifically, I conducted the following activities. I taught a module to 28 students of the department of natural resources at the university, as part of the Community Extension class. I gave 7 classes for 3 hours each. I facilitated discourses on environmental problems in communities of students, their suggestions for improvements, and the difficulties in trying to change the actions of adults. We also work on the ecological farm that the university has. We are building a botanical garden as part of the farm with plants in a Pech community. I went once to the community, Subirana, to bring plants for the garden.


Another activity at the university was to gather information about the schools and communities in the buffer zone of the Sierra de Agalta. The university has a biological education program in Culmí, focused on the buffer zone of Rio Platano. This program has two years of success, and the founders want to give us money to start a copy of the program in the Sierra de Agalta. We are writing a proposal now before we get started farms in January. So for this task, I went to Talgua for a week, and traveled with Josh and Callisto to 7 communities in the buffer zone. I met all the teachers in those schools, and I gathered the information and data about schools in an interview, which I sent my counterpart. Also, we form a list of all the other schools in the area, and I will seek data on those in the district office this week.


In Las Jaguas, Ben and I started a group of young women. Around 20 women were involved, and we have meetings every Saturday at 2. I've gone to meetings and I have planned with the leaders. This month, we formed a board of directors, made pizzas, and formed a football team. We are planning a raffle to get enough money to take a tourist or educational tour, possibly in the caves of Talgua. We are also planning a reforestation project in the watershed back to the community. The women want to plant trees and learn more about the source of water.


In my last project I worked with three teachers to plan a mini reforestation project. We will do it this week and next. We have a nursery of native trees in the UNA. The manager wants to use plants to make room to plant trees further with students. I visited 3 communities (Guanaja, La Union, and Las Jaguas) and I have two schools and a group of women who are ready to plant trees. We have the space and permission to plant them and the university will give us the plants for free. Also, a larger community contacted us to request trees. We are going to take between 100 and 300 trees to each of these 4 communities. The extension class will give each group a talk about the importance of reforestation and how to plant and maintain trees. Then, students will work together with groups to plant trees. I'm trying to get the tools and transport right now. But if all goes to plan, we will finish this activity in two weeks.


Well, this is more or less everything I've done since I came. Thinking about the future, I want to be very involved in the program we are forming in the Sierra de Agalta. So far, no one from the university has focused on the park, while we have tons of people working in the Rio Platano. So I think I can be of more use in the Sierra de Agalta than in the Rio Platano. Also, access is better in the Sierra de Agalta and I should not have to depend much on the transport of the university. Also, I would like to continue working with our organic farm. I gave a Charlita on training opportunities for small producers in the safety and regional security meeting. Several volunteers want to bring groups to the farm for training in organic farming and composting.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Whew...first week at sight completed

Alright, since I updated last time I have successfully sworn in at the US embassy. I'm a real Peace Corps Volunteer now!!! The last few weeks of training were great. I'm sad to leave all the awesome friends I made, but it's time! This is what we came here for.

So, I have been assigned to work with the Agricultural University in the wild department of Olancho. As the locals say "Olancho, donde entra lo que quiere y sale lo que puede." --where enter those who want to, but leave those who can-- With only three PCV's from my group in the entire department, I thought it might feel a little lonely, but I have two awesome PAM volunteers right up the mountain, and it's my job to go visit them, get to know their sights, and involve university students in extension work up there. Pretty awesome job description.

In this first week, I've been getting to know the faculty in my department (natural resource management). I've been assisting with one of the university modulos where we've been developing a Pech botanical garden out on our demonstration organic farm. The Pech community we are working with is about three hours away, but I got to travel up there last Friday to help bring down more plants for the garden. It's in the beginning phases still, but we've put in about 120 native plants used by the community, and we'll eventually have it filled with 1500. The organic farm is also still in the beginning phases, but it's also my job to help them get established. We are trying right now to get the chickens, rabbits, and goats into pens so they stop eating our plants and start producing usable manure.

I've also started working with a women's group out in one of the aldeas with another PCV. We successfully had our first meeting, and I'll be going back out tomorrow to brainstorm ideas with the group's leaders. Spanish is coming along too. I was pretty intimidated to have to speak and teach here at the university, but the students and the faculty have been awesome and patient with my Spanish level. As always, I still believe the key learning Spanish is watching "Soy Tu Duena!" the best telenovela available in Honduras. Reading books in Spanish also might help, but watching the novela is certainly more fun and less work ;)

I was also excited to get a chance to go meet one of the local bird experts. He lives up the mountain in an area still forested (cuz he bought and protected it), where people still see white faced monkeys, jaguarundies, and tucans. I'll have to work my way up there as much as possible.

Alright friends, that's all for now. Stay tuned to see what happens next!

Love, Ruth

Friday, August 20, 2010

Week 8 of training...where it starts getting more fun :)


Hondurans love to dance. So do I. Our group of Peace Corps trainees danced the Waka Waka twice this week, and our community neighbors danced some slightly more traditional danzas in exchange. The Peace Corps likes to do cultural exchange events, so we took these opportunities to also share Red Rover, watermelon seed spitting, and the electric slide. Definitely the best parts of US culture :)



Images from Rio Negro, a small community near the top of Montaña Comayagua. We visited a women´s cooperative which makes purses out of chip bags and bracelts out of magazine paper. The co-op was super lucky to find a buyer in the US, and they now export all of their products. We also hiked up into the national park which is where the waterfall-fern tree picture came from. I saw a flock of 20 oropendulas there, and I was hoping to see a Tucan, but I never found one. The fruit in my hand is cardimum. One of the local coffee farms tried to diversify into spice production. They haven´t yet found a buyer in Honduras however.


Adios amigos. Hope you are all doing well where ever you currently find yourselves. Come visit me in Honduras soon!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

More exciting pictures!




Tree Planting Adventures: Last week we went to ESNACIFOR, the forestry school here in Honduras. We spent the morning planting two types of multi-use trees up on the deforested hillsides surrounding the school. The sapling here is a Nim tree, which repels mosquitoes, fixes nitrogen, and can be used for forage and firewood. The back side of the hill we are on had been replanted with trees three years earlier. This part of Honduras is pretty dry, so those trees were only about four feet tall. We planted our trees in the middle of the rainy season, so we are hoping for pretty good survival.







Family garden project: Part of our Field Based Training includes starting a family garden with at our homestay. Last Sunday the kids and I ran around the neighborhood to borrow a pick mattock and a hoe, tore up the front yard, and made three little raised beds. Tomorrow we are building a psuedo-fence out of spiny branches to keep the chicken out. We planted carrots, tomatoes, chiles, lettuce, and beans.


Other random adventures:
This was after I got caught on the mountain in a huge storm and collected charred firewood. Dirty and soaked.



The friend of my homestay brother shot a White-Vented Euphonia with a sling shot, and tried to make it his pet. Here it is in my hand going into shock. It died the next day :( 




Dona Angela bought one of our chickens this morning to make soup. I'm so glad she killed this one. He crowed right outside my window every morning starting at 4 am. Maybe now I'll get some more sleep :)



Saturday, July 31, 2010

Wow...PC training is Intensiana Jones

Our Protected Areas Management field based training is in full swing. In between giving presentations, visiting farms, planting trees, and going for hikes, I've been trying to study Spanish. I'm ashamed to admit I now have a favorite telenovela. It's called Soy Tu Duena (I'm your owner)...A girl sings "Soy tu duena," and then a whip cracks across the screen. Hahaha.

Anyhows, the highlight from my past two weeks:

I rode up to the mountains last weekend with the family of another PCT here. Her family had a coffee farm in the mountains up above our town. We rode up the mountain in their old pickup, which was shedding bits of the frame all the way up. The largest chunk of metal we pulled off was about the size of a futbol :) We finally made it up to their farm, which was an undefined patch of land that ran all the way up the the top of one mountain. Most coffee farmers live in the mountains so they can take care of the land, but since this family lives so far away, most of the coffee bushes were being shaded out by grass. We chopped down some of the grass, machete style, and then hacked down some ripe bananas to take home. When we made it back to the truck, which was parked at the closest campesinos house, the front tire was flat. The campesino family made us some delicious hand picked, hand roasted coffee while we changed the tire. Two of the guys living there started playing some ranchero music on little guitars. I tried to dance to it but everyone laughed at me. On our way back down the mountain, a huge storm broke right over us. We were instantly soaked. The road turned into a river. I was afraid we were going to slide off the mountain, but the truck did fine. The second we got ahead of the storm, the family decided it was a good idea to hop out of the truck and collect all the firewood we could find in the adjacent field. The field had just been burned, so all my clothes got covered with charcoal. At the bottom of the field was a pile of wood, neatly stacked, and probably waiting for the owner to come back and get it. But the family decided that was the easiest wood to get to, so they took some of that too. At this time the storm had caught up to us, so we hopped back in the truck and made it back to town right at the time it really started to rain (sideways).  All in all, a day well spent :)

That's all I've got time to recount right now.

Cheers!

Ruth

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Up Up and Away!

We are leaving the main training center tomorrow and heading off to a little aldea where us PAMers will have field based training. I´m going to be moving in with a new family. I haven´t met them yet but I heard there are five kids, two adults, and a little store all inside the house. Goodbye quiet life. I´m hoping that I´ll be so innundated with Spanish that my language skills will shoot through the roof! (or at least bump up a little bit)

This past week I traveled four hours north to the booming metropolis of Santa Barabara. After watching the final world cup game projected on the wall of a sketchy bar, I rode out to the campo with a real-life PCV. Her site was a bit bigger than most PAM sights, maybe 1-2,000 people living in the community. Some of the houses had running water and occational electricity, but the outlying houses were a little more simple. We visited a few families that didn´t have latrines and took pictures of their houses to put in a grant proposal that the PCV is working on.

We also brought some powered formula to a baby that was dying of malnutrition. The baby was 40 days old and seriously underweight. His legs looked like toothpicks, his stomach was sunken in, and his skin was a greyish color. While we were feeding the baby the formula, he stopped moving suddenly, and I thought he had died. Fortunately, we were able to get him to come back around. The situation was interesting and very sad. The mom is 40 years old, and isn´t producing any milk to feed the baby. They said they didn´t have any money to buy formula, but they had a huge stereo system in their house. With my level of Spanish, I definitely could have misinterpreted the situation, but the volunteer told me that the mom seemed totally unconcerned about the health of the baby. She already has four other children, and maybe keeping this new baby alive wasn´t a priority. Hope he makes it.

The volunteer and I talked a lot about the projects she has tried to start. She´s working on a trash collection service, since most of the trash goes into the river or is burned right now. In the next few months they will be starting a monthly collection service to take the trash into nearby Santa Barbara. The basurero is just an open air dump, but the community has decided it´s better to haul the trash their than to keep disperse it in the air and the water.

Okay, that´s all for the moment. Hope you all are doing well.

Cheers,

Ruth

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Pictures...as promised

 
Some sweet butterflies in La Tigra

 
Part of the garden at my homestay families house. That´s our little bathroom in the back.

 The view from our porch. Nice green hillsides. That´s a papaya plant in the foreground, but it´s a male, so no fruit from him.

 My homestay sister. When she´s not running around like crazy, she picks flowers for me.

 San Juancito. The enterance to La Tigra is through this town and up that misty hillside. It doesn´t look that steep here, but it´s just an illusion.

 Everyone in my project, Protected Areas Management, was stoked to see this sign. We just learned about the Zona Nucleo, which is the no impact zone above 1800 m. Everything above 1800 m in Honduras is declared cloud forest and under some sort of protection. Of course, there were still some houses up here and the forest was only about 30 years old. This area is the watershed for Teguz and the surrounding towns, so now it´s under stronger protection.

 Hillside houses up the valley from San Juancito. Yup, that´s a maize field above and below the house. There are some banana trees right above the house which appear to function as a barrier to erosion (keeping the house on the hillside and not in the valley bottom)

 A farmer planting maize. This is just a little down the valley from that last picture. Pretty tough work.

 We had a pretty major storm yesterday. The walls at the training center have holes in them so water can move from one level down to the next without breaking down the wall. 

Okay, that´s a brief summary of life in Honduras. I´m heading out tomorrow for a town four hours north of here. I´m going to be staying with a PAM volunteer for a few days to see what PC life is like first hand. I think she does quite a bit of environmental ed work with her community. I´ve been trying to think about all the possibilities for PAM work here in Honduras. Most people in my project end up in the aldeas (small villages) working on environemntal ed, latrine construction, improved stoves, hillside farming, erosion control, forest management, women´s groups, etc. Everything pretty much depends on the community you get placed in and what they want to accomplish. A few PAM volunteers have the opportunity to work on larger scale NGO networking and park managment, but those placements are pretty rare and sound extremely challenging. Right now I´m just trying to focus on my Spanish, which seriously needs some help. I feel like I´m getting worse, which is impossible, right? It´s tough cuz we go from Spanish at our homes to English in training. It´s hard to keep making the switch back and forth, but I´d better get used to it becuase that won´t be changing any time soon. 

Highlight of the week: Us PAMers built a small garden the other day. I found some black rasberries right next to our plot too! And I learned that we can buy horses at our sight! Burros are a bit cheaper, but pretty slow at carrying me up mountains.

Hasta luego!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Segunda Semana (sorry all for the uncreative titles)

Hola todos! I just got back from a trip to La Tigra National Park, where the access is limited, the trees are small, and the hike to the enterance takes over an hour. Luckily the guard gave us the resident discount, and we only had to pay one dollar to get in (the foriegner fee is 10 times that much). We hiked up to the first mirador where we could hear the singing and preaching of the local church all the way from the bottom of the valley. We were in the area for around five hours, and the church service was still going on when we left. Whew.

Life in Zarabanda is good. Peace Corps training involves a lot of sitting on uncomfy chairs and listening to presentations. One week to go till field based training starts. About 20 of us will be moving to a rural village to do some hillside farming and protected areas managment training. Unfortunately, I´ll have to descend out of the mountains for it, which means adios to my beloved pine trees and hello to some sweltering heat.

Yesterday´s adventures included some market negotiations in Tegucigalpa, in which I procured a used pair of running shoes and my very own cell phone! Why the hell did I leave my tenis shoes in Colorado?

I haven´t had time to upload any pics yet and internet access is super super limited. As is maybe half an hour every Sunday. But when I do, you can all see some sweet pics of contour farming, misty mountains, and the killer view out my front window :)

Thats all for now!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

La Segunda Dia

Hola todos,
It´s my second day in the country, and wow! Honduras is a million times more beautiful than I imagined. I´m in a dry mountain pine forest, not too hot, not too cold. My homestay family grows mangos, papayas, y un melon deliciosa! I tried to help making tortillas today, but mine came out with distinct finger prints. My homestay mom managed to fix most of them before we ate them for dinner. La comida...way better than I was lead to believe. I haven´t had so many home cooked meals since I left for college the first time. Que rico! Y el cafe...muy muy bien tambien. Entonces, everything pretty much rocks at the moment. I know...the typical Peace Corps depression is probably coming, but I am totally content to be happy for the moment.
Adios por el momento.

Oh, one last note, I woke up this morning to a donkey, a rooster, and several frogs all yelling wildly together. At 4 am.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Eight hours of staging events without food or sleep. Luckily, the Peace Corps gave us $120 to cover our "expenses." Pretty sure I didn't spend that much today, but thanks Peace Corps

Ha! One hour to spare before the flight. Everything fits in one little duffle bag! Unfortunately the duffle bag ripped apart when I tried to close it. Good thing I bought that little sewing kit!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Hello!

In three days I'll be leaving for Honduras. This blog is set up for friends, family, or anyone else interested in following my adventures in the Peace Corps. I'll be posting pictures and stories whenever I have internet access.

In the mean time, I'm frantically trying to pack and compile relevant research material.

My packing list thus far:
Two pairs of pants
Three shirts
One backpack

I might need to work on that. Instead I'm going rock climbing!