Leala in Honduras!

So I have visited my site, and am now in my last few days as a trainee.

It took me 10 hours to get to my site by bus from Tegus so that is something I am not looking forward to doing all the time. However, my site is pretty big, so I have plenty of resources abound like internet and supermarkets. I even have a site mate, who is a Water & Sanitation volunteer. He actually lives a block away from me, so I can see him pretty often. Also, there are other volunteers who live in Olanchito, and Adam, my health group buddy is going to be living about 30 minutes away from me. Once again, I will be living in a pulperia, so toilet paper and basic goods will always be available to me. I have a room in the backyard/gardin area of the house and my own bathroom right near it, so I do have a certain amount of privacy to myself. I do not think it would be right just yet for me to have visitors though, cause I don't know where I will house them. After july, or maybe june, you all are welcome to visit me. My city is closer to the North Coast which is the real beachy area, but it's still pretty hot and dry at my site. I hope to go to the North Coast & the Bay Islands sometime to get scuba diving certified. Haha, but I can't be playing all of the time.

Work work work. Because Olanchito is a bigger site, it also has more problems and more things that I can work with. I am replacing another health volunteer who finished her service in february. Apparently, she was an all-star volunteer, so right now I have some pretty big shoes to fill. Overall, I will be working in HIV/AIDS work, but the populations I will be working with are high school students, people living with HIV/AIDS in the city, and people in the health centers. There is also a plan in the future for me and Adam to do some work in prisons & with taxi driv ers along the lines of men's health. I am actually really excited about that. Don't worry peeps, I will be going to the prison with a doctor and a nurse and will mostly be working with the prisoners who are on good behavior. Overall, I am excited but nervous that I cannot live up to expectations. I just want to get started already so that I can get the anticipation over with.

On to sadder news, we lost another person today from the group, and more specifically from the health group. She was one of the peoples that I really wanted to get to know better, and she was going to be close to me on the North Coast. It was pretty sad, since it came out of nowhere and noone expected it. I was even talking to her when we were coming back from the site visits together. Sigh. My Orange County buddy is gone. Well, I wish you well in all that you do Crystal! And I hope that we keep in contact!

Well, it seems like ages ago that I was going through the application process and imagining what it would be like to be a volunteer. As of Friday, I will be one. I hope to have the persistance and determination and creativity to be a good one. Talk to you guys later, when I will really be a Peace Corps volunteer