Finishing up July

Hello All,

Hope all is well in your life. However, if you are reading this blog you are probably wondering what is happening in mine...so...for the most part I have been working on the farm up in San Francisco with Mario as well as teaching english classes in the afternoon. All though we stay plenty busy with planting new crops, making trips to gardens in the little villages around San Francisco and preparing for our english classes, life is tranquilo.






Last weekend though, Mario and I went down to the capital, Tegucigalpa, for the graduation of Mario's sister, Janet. It reminded me a lot of my graduation from Cal Poly. We had a great time and I got to meet some of Mario's family who live in the big city.

Like I said, we have making trips to little villages outside of San Francisco. This past week we went to one, Collolar, which required going over some small mountains. I felt like Greg Mortenson in Three Cups of Tea.

We worked at a school's garden. The students enjoyed playing with the rototiller.

here is the kind of work we do.

Another cool thing that happened in SF was Dia del Lempira (i think that is what it is called), which is what equates to day of the indigenous people. We visited the high school to see what was going on. The had built huts out of palm trees...

Had really authentic outfits. I thought I saw a student wearing a real leopard skin.

And then they had the students doing folk dances while the whole student body watched...really cool. That is something different about Honduras and the States. When Hondurans set about decorating for a festival or show they go all out.

Sadly, this was also the last week of working on the farm with Mario and the Primos (litterally primos = cousins, but it is what many friends call each other). So we decided to have a big lunch on Friday with the Primos. Here is Osman cooking up some espagueti (spaghetti).



Here we are with the farm cook, Lustenia.
Saturday was also Manuel's birthday, so we had a double celebration. The cake in the foreground was carrot cake (pastel de zanahoria) with carrots from the farm....delicious.

After lunch, Rigo busted out the guitar and sang songs... "cumpleanos feliz...."



Also, this week was the last week of Mario and my english course...so we had to celebrate for that too. (Having all these great lunches is tough work, but someone has to do it). Here is my section of the english students: (clockwise from me) little boy in green = i don't know, he was the nephew of Karla, to the right of him was Karolina, then Karla, Carlos Reine and finally Karen.

Here is my section with Mario's section. Great group of students. I think the class was very successful.

All in all, my time working up in San Francisco has been great. The Primos taught me about how laughter can make hard work seem less painful, and the english course taught me about how teaching can be enjoyable (something that is, for me, hard to realize during the regular school year when you have discipline issues, report cards, etc.)

Esto es todo por ahora (that's all for now). Tomorrow I am off to Belize. Will be back in a week, with lots of pictures and more stories.

Hasta luego (until later).

Farm Life

Hola a Todos, (hello everyone)


I wanted to give people a sense of what life for me is like during these vacation months. Currently, I am working on a farm in the next town north of Juticalpa, se llama (called) San Francisco de la Paz.


the farm, called Hogar del Nino (home of the child)

One of the things I have been able to learn about is growing platanos (plantains).

Here are the guys I am working with, (right to left) me, Mario, Olsman, Rigo and Manuel. Great group of guys. Also to note, the Coke on the table, you will hardly find a meal without soda included. They drink it like water down here.

Days consist of making beds of earth for planting. Here is Olsman showing off his beds ready for planting squash.

Or pulling weeds with Mario and Olsman in the carrot area.

My older brother wanted a blog section that included creepy, crawly things. Well, I haven't encountered any snakes or giant spiders on the farm lately, but this is I have found. Un sapo (frog).

and the ants are everywhere.

you have to be careful with them because they bite hard. here's my finger without an ant bite...

and with an ant bite

however valle la pena (it is worth it)....squash

and pineapple.

Sometimes we don't stay on the farm, but instead go out to the surrounding villages and help families or communities make their own gardens. Here is one from last week. This was a really cool experience. Here is one of the community members breaking ground.

Then irrigation ditches had to be made.

Next was forming the beds. You can see that not just the men were working, but also the children and women...everyone was involved...people were laughing and helping each other .... it was great!



then we smoothed the tops of the beds

put in the irrigation hoses

and planted yucca...an incredible plant....all you need to do to grow it is chop a piece off the trunk of a tree, stick it in the ground and in a 6 months you are ready to harvest

Here were are after the garden was finished. With everyone working we took a piece of dirt covered with weeds and made it into a beautiful garden in about 4 hours. Great experience.

After farming in the morning and early afternoon, Mario and I are doing tutoring a couple days every week as well as giving an English class in the afternoon. Here are Mario and I with the other tutors in San Francisco.

It is a long day, but this is what the drive back to Juticalpa everyday looks like.

On the weekends we try and take it easy. Here is a day in the central park where people like to just hangout...

talk

and watch the turtles (yes they have turtles in their central park)
All in all life it good.

Hasta proximo vez...paz (until next time...peace).