Week 2

Well, it’s nearing the end of our second week here at site, and I still only know one of my official counterparts.  Unfortunately, it’s the most informal one that doesn’t actually have paid staff.  They have an office in someone’s house that is never opened.  So, still waiting for work.  I’ve been hanging out with Jeff a lot at the Centro de Salud and trying to help him get things started with his work there, but I don’t want to do that too much—I don’t want them to create expectations of having me around all the time. 

The woman who came to pick me up on counterpart day isn’t actually one of my counterparts.  She works for the ICF (institucion de Conservacion Forestal), which all of my counterpart agencies work with directly and indirectly.  She’s the one who introduced me to the counterpart I do know, and is working on the other in her spare time.  

Our host mom is the assistant principal at the Colegio (high school), and it looks like we'll be able to start doing work there pretty soon, but as many of you know teaching is NOT what I like to do.  Vamos a ver.

We are trying not to spend all day in our house, but since we don’t really have work it’s kind of hard.  We got some disheartening news this week—Peace Corps Honduras has decided to close the sites in eastern Olancho (that’s our department).  This means that six people will be relocated, several of them are friends of ours from the volunteer visit.  We are still waiting to hear what this means for us.  As much as we like this site, we’d rather move now than be relocated in 8 months.  Also, one of the things I liked most about this particular site was the network of volunteers that exists in Olancho, and now half of that is gone--including our friends from Santa Maria de Real.