Cabañas, Copan

At last! This evening Peace Corps announced our sites. I will be living in a small town right outside of the Ruinas de Copan.This guy is practically my neighbor: Copan is the western most province in Honduras, and my site is quite close to the border of Guatemala. By my calculations, it will probably be a shorter trip to Guatemala City than to Tegucigalpa. Which obviously means more traveling for me! I don´t have very much information right now, other than that I will be working in maternal and child health and nutrition. My community counterparts are the Ministry of Health clinic and a local women´s health group. I will be visiting my site this weekend and hope to take lots of pictures! My boss says that it is absolutely beautiful. I really couldn´t be happier.

Field Based Training

For the past month or so I have been living in a city in the Department of Comayagua by the name of Siguatepeque for Field Based Training (FBT). During FBT the three Peace Corps projects (Health, Business, and Water and Sanitation) separately travel to different cities to receive more intensive technical training. I’m not sure what I was expecting but Siguatepeque is different, to say the least. True, it is much larger than Santa Lucia, with much more entertainment opportunities including a mall, two movie theaters and numerous restaurants. But it is also dusty, loud and polluted. Training has also been stressful. The days are longer and we have little time to socialize after school as most of us live quite far away from one another. It’s also difficult being away from trainees from the other projects.

On a more positive note, the weather is fantastic here- hot as hell during the day (which I LOVE) and cooler during the night. We´ve also had the opportunity to take trips on the weekends - to places such as the Cascada de Pulhapanzak (below), Las Cuevas de Taulabe (above), and the Lago de Yojoa. The days are flying by, and it’s hard to believe that training is almost over.