happy early thanksgiving

Hi everyone -

  I hope the holidays have started treating y'all well.  Here in Honduras it really wasn't starting to feel like the season until Sunday.  A cold front has come through.  Right now in the valley it is not freezing, but in the mountain, where it is almost 3000 asl, IT IS ABSOLUTELY FREEZING.  For the past few nights I have slept in my Northface fleece in my 32 degree sleeping bag with socks and gloves on and I'm still cold.  The actually temperature, so I'm told, is only about 15 degrees C (about 60 F) but with the wind that whips through the mountains, I swear its below freezing.  The first night the front came through I woke up and thought I was in the middle of a hurricane, and when I got out of bed it actually did resemble the aftermath, all the trees had their leaves ripped off.  Anyway that was Sunday, and here it is Wednesday and still no let up.  This unexpected weather has presented several problems in my daily routine.  On top of the water coming straight from the stream cold, now its freezing, so bathing has turned into a nightmare.  I boil water but still, the shower is outside with the windchill, its just absolutely absurd.  Alright I'm done complaining.

   I came into town today to have a meeting with the engineer from the NGO IHCAFE, who I finally tracked down after almost three months of searching and waiting for him.  It turns out too that its a different guy and the other has left.  But he seems to be very interested in my assistance and projects so hopefully this will be a fruitful partnership, but if not, just as well.  Tomorrow morning I'm taking the bus into the capital for a Thanksgiving dinner with friends.  TGIF's said they would do a turkey dinner for us, we got a room reserved and are just going to hang out and watch football.  I wanted to stay and watch the UGA GT game but I think I'm going to try and come back to site Sat morning.

   The schools have let out for the year, until February.  And now they are having their graduation ceremonies, Saturday is SI's kinder graduation so I'm going to try and make it back for that.  Wednesday is our 6th and 9th grade graduation.  I was invited to the 9th grade graduation by a family\boy in SI.  I'm not really sure what all it entails, but I know there is a lot of eating involved.  I'll take pictures and let everyone know more in depth what exactly is involved in this celebration!

   Its hard for me to believe, but I've been in country almost 6 months and in site for 3.  Right now I have started planing what projects we will be doing for the years to come.  It looks like the first large project will be a formal plan on the watershed.  Included in this will be the reforestation of the watershed, but herein lies the first problem.  A man in our community owns the land and is not willing to sell it.  If this is any indicator of the problems to come I can't wait.  I'm starting now to get maps and wiping the polvo off the GPS so we can do all of this legally.  Another organization came to SI to talk to us about giving us funding for this project, but the lady said we needed to own the land first, she also said we needed to reforest where our PVC tubes are laid, so, that's another issue.  But the monies would be helpful because there are many houses in my community that do not have potable water, although the current stream does not have the capacity to sustain the entire community, so looking for more water and building the system are two large and expensive tasks.  Also educating the community on the importance of the watershed and what exactly one is will be included in this plan because right now no one, aside from the water board, understands exactly how they effect their own water system. 

   More projects will follow but for right now, this is my main focus.  Though tomorrow it might very well change, who knows.  I'm trying to get everything on a time line so we can have a solid work plan but Hondurans are not planners, as I've been told and have come to find out for myself. 

   Almost forgot, I was walking back from soccer field the other day and saw a coral snake in the road, and then two days ago I was walking to some one's house and saw another greenish\blackish snake and then yesterday I woke up and there was a scorpion on my wall in my room.  I didn't have any idea how to say scorpion in Spanish so I looked it up in the dictionary and walked to the living room and said to Antonio, um there's a...pause...escoporion in my room...Antonio gets up and walks into my room and looks up at the wall and says ohh yeah, it is and then smashes the thing with a broom handle on the wall.  Apparently they are not lethal here but pica duro (carry a fierce bite), someone told me she was bit as a kid and her whole arm hurt for 2 days.

    Well that's about it I believe.  Hope all is well and I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow.

 

PC Amor,

Bridget

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Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084