Los Andes and El Mochito, homes away from home

The above are the names of 2 of the smaller aldeas(villages) that are part of my town´s municipality. We will be working in both of them once school starts and this weekend we got to visit both to take a look. Los andes is about 1 and a half miles straight up the mountain we live at the base of. The only way to get there is in the back of trucks. None of our crappy school buses can go that high. Once you get to the village you turn and look back down and can see nothing but clouds. Its the strangest thing to be above the sky and looking down at it. Its not even explainable. Anyhow, I saw the school Ill be working in, and then we celebrated Laticia´s birthday! She lives in Los Andes as a PC PAM volunteer, which means she works with farmers to help better their crops. We went to a cabbage farm and also hiked through tons of coffee.

El Mochito: This town is pretty close to us and alot of the people in Las Vegas work there. It´s higher up the mountain by about 20 minutes. There are mines in this town and so many people are imployed by them. They mine things like zinc, garnet, uranium, silver, quartz, and supposedly gold. This is probably why there are roughly 20 armed gaurds with machine guns surrounding it every time we pass by. They smile and wave, and we do the same.

ok, gotta go,

love, Crystal

Mailing address

We´ve had a couple people ask about it and so here it is. And thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has sent us presents, cards, letters, postcards, photos and everything else. They are all hanging in our living room!

Anyways, here is our mailing address in our village:

Crystal or Jeremy Simon
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Las Vegas, Santa Barbara
HONDURAS
America Central

And packages can still be sent to our Tegucigalpa address which is located in one of our first posts under ADDY INFORMATION.

Thanks again!

Crystal and Simon

Don´t be afraid, Gringo

The above is the title of a book by an indigious woman from Honduras, where she explains the plight of Honduras and how the influence of the United States has dramatically influenced the course of History in Honduras and in the Latin American Sphere in general. Its a interesting read, but i´m using it to breach the term gringo for today´s blog-o-information. The term ¨gringo¨or ¨gringa¨for you ladies out there, is used here to reference North Americans within the area of Latin America, or in general, anyone who has European ancestry. The term was developed during the Mexican War, where people of Mexico encouraged the U.S. Army, with their green combat fatiges to go, or quite simply, ¨Green, Go!¨hence, Gringo. US influence has spread far beyond Mexico, and hence, so has the term gringo. Gringo is used now in a more antiseptic sense, and generally is translated to¨¨north american¨or ¨foreigner¨. I have been on a quest of empowerment with ¨Gringo¨, often using it in reference to myself or to make jokes, simular tactics that have been used to negate the influence of other negitive terms by other groups of people. However, we have Honduran friends that will not use it, as they feel that it is still disrespectful.
I guess in many ways, its a defense mechanism for the people of latin america who encounter so much N.American cultural influence on a daily basis, and not always for the better: food, clothes, music, movies, tv, etc; to create sepperation between their past and traditions and the modern face of Latin America today.
P.S. My Amazon.com wish list is almost ready, for anyone that maybe wants to send us some books, just drop an email or message on here and i can sent it to you. Thanks!
Simon

Wanna have a nice paid vacation? Ok, but you have to be sick the whole time.

So this weekend, Simon and I were lucky enough to have a conference in Tegucigalpa (the capital) for the Reicken library coming to Las Vegas starting this month. Travel expenses were paid, along with most food and our hotel room. In the middle of the conference, roughly noon, I started to feel ill. I was a trooper and continued with the conference and my friends and hardly said a word about it.

In the evening, everyone from our group was planning to go to the Bamboo club in town. It was a 100 lemp cover and free drinks all night. Initially, we planned to go and have fun, too. An hour before everyone left is when I was officially sick.

On a happy note, I gave our friend that owns a little store in our site a kitten last week and they LOVE it! Our neighbor has about 20 dogs and 20 cats at all times, so they were happy to get rid of the little kitten, which I like to call "little gatito." It follows her around like a little puppy. Also, this week we should be getting a new fence around our house.....hopefully.

hope all well at home!

love, Crystal

With the good, there´s the bad...but usually its good.

The holidays are over. We had a wonderful time in La Ceiba last week. It was a well deserved vacation of speaking English, eating fresh sea food, and laying on the beach. We hiked Pico Bonito, a tropical rain forest reserve with waterfalls, swimming holes of turquoise blue, and wildlife teeming from the canopys. We heard howler monkeys in their original habitat, and we boated the Caribbean sea. I swam with angel fish and almost stepped on a hermit crab. The high point was when simon got stung by a stingray. Don´t worry, he´s ok! Just a little swelling on his stomach, nothing serious.

We´ve started English classes and they are pretty successful so far. I´m not really excited about teaching English, but the people in my class are very willing and wanting to learn, so I´m not going to stop them. They want to learn a foreign language for the same reasons as me, so I can hardly deny them of that. Beisbol starts next week! This I am excited for. The kids are so happy about it!

I play alot of cards. If anyone wants to send me some Sudoku puzzles, or a cribbage board, I would be grateful. Our house has tons of 'animalitos' (these are unknown animals larger than bugs, but smaller than dogs, basically) in the ceiling that pitterpatter all night long. I think they are bats and rats. Also, lately Ive been having a hard time sleeping. Partly because of the noise from Chickens and dogs, and partly because Ive been having a difficult time coping with G´s death and that my friends are all at home and I can´t do alot for them. Considering G signed the paper to get me here in the first place is upseting, but Im hoping to do some fun work with the drumline in the village at the top of our mountain, Los Andes. Maybe we can play a song for the opening of our new library in May. G would have loved that.

All in all, things are good. Its going to start getting hot soon. Starting in March, we can have visitors, so start looking for tickets! Its really relaxing here, tranquillo, as they say. I hear of a rumour that there are tickets to Roatan and San Pedro airports for 300-400 dollars out of Atlanta through Delta air. Ill keep everyone posted if I find anything.

peace and pineapple, Crystal