Muchos Ciudades (Many Cities)

Since the last time we spoke, I have traveled a lot! Today, we went to three cities in one day. By we I mean my mom (Dona Nora), dad (Don Erasmo), my mom's sister (Dona Luz), her husband (Don Ramiro), and another volunteer that is with my mom's sister (Kristin). First, we went to Tegucigalpa to get cellphones. It's very complicated, like in the U.S. There are three major cell phone companies here-Tigo, Claro and Digicel. I got Claro because it's cheaper and it has pretty good service. Tigo is very expensive and it's more expensive to call to the U.S. So, Claro is good. After that, we went to Valle de Angeles to eat. The food was SO good! We had like an apple pie thing (half moon shapes fried tortilla) with potatoes and meat inside and cheese and cabbage on top. That's very common here...cheese and cabbage on many things! After that, we went to Santa Lucia, which is beautiful! It has a little lake in the city and cobble stone streets. There, we had coffee, tea, and pan dulce (sweet bread). We have coffee, tea and sweet bread SO much! Everytime you go to someone's house and during the day in my house, we just have bread and coffee and tea and talk. It's a good time to brush up on the Spanish! However, I think I like the bread demasiado (too much) and I drink so many sweet things here. We always have juice, sodas (rarely), tea, and coffee. Of course, I don't drink coffee, but I drink tea a lot here. It's good, but it's not so good for my teeth or my sugar intake especially since I drank only water in the U.S. But, I will try to limit my amounts and I brush and floss well. :)

Also, today we have a "Day of Cultures" in the PC (Peace Corps) where we learned about different cultures in Honduras (Mayans, Lincas, Mestizos, Peche, Garifunas, Bay Islanders, etc.). We went around to different "stations" and learned about the culture, tried the food, and sometimes did the culural dances. It was fun!

Also, I must mention that two days ago when I went to Santa Lucia I had the best "ice cream" (they have a different name for it) ever! It was coconut ice cream with coconut chunks inside and it was only 6 lempiras, which is pretty good! :) Anyways, I should stop eating so many sweets.

So, about my project. I'm in Youth Development and it's very important in Honduras because there are SO many youth (1/2 the population) and Honduras doesn't do much with them. There aren't many places for them to play so they end up playing in the streets...which is of course dangerous. AND, there are many gangs and street children, so they def. need our support. That's all the information I have for now...more to come.

P.S. I do have a cell phone number, but I won't put it on the internet because of crazies. However, I will solicit it upon request via e-mail or Facebook message. Also, please dial 011504 and then the number to call internationally from the U.S. :)

Talk with you soon (Hasta Luego),
Victoria