Working Hard

Hello! We are in Catacamas--about 45 minutes from the community we are working in. We came into town for the afternoon to do email, get ice cream, and see the booming metropolis of Catacamas. We, of course got here in the back of a couple of pick up trucks.

We`ve been in our community for almost a week. we are staying in an empty house--apparently the owners moved to the city. When we arrived there were lots of people there to welcome us, as well as streamers, balloons, and signs. We have a wonderful group of women from the town who cook for us and do our laundry. They taught us how to wash clothes (you rub them over these concrete washboards) and hopefully we will learn how to make tortillas soon.

The town we are in is very rural--we were all picturing more of a town, but the houses are pretty spread apart. Nonetheless there are always people around--sometimes we´ll have 40 people or more hanging out on our porch. They are very eager to learn English and hear about what life is like in Canada, and we are just as eager to practice our Spanish and ask them questions about what life is like here.

We are here in the dry season--which means it´s REALLY hot. Apparently the rainy season should start about when we are leaving and everything turns bright green--that would be quite the scene.

As for the work we´ve been doing...it´s hard work! we start working at 6 a.m. and work until 11. After that it´s too hot to work. We dig ditches for all of that time (well, and we take lots of breaks). The pick axe and the shovel are our new companions (I don´t know if I´d call them friends yet). The Hondurans work circles around us--this morning we even had some young teenage girls in skirts out there pick axing!

Jon and I thought that to be good leaders we shouldn´t expect the team to do anything we wouldn´t do. So, we led the way in getting sick. Not wanting to be left behind most of the rest of the team followed within a day. We´re all doing much better and are almost done with the round of antibiotics we got from an American doctor who lives here. We´re praying for no relapses because it was no fun!

We´ve gone to church 3 times in the week we´ve been in the community-quite a different experience. And eveery time they want us to sing for them, and i they´ll get us to preach at some point.

Other than that, we are trying to get used to the food (I have discovered the beauty of ketchup), trying to enjoy the latrine, loving our form of showering (no sarcasm), and getting along just fine with no electicity--they actualluy hooked up a generator and turn on a string of lights for us for about 2 hours each night.

We hope alll is well at home. Happy mothers day to our moms and adopted moms.

Jon and Julianne

sorry about any typos--this keyboard is hard to use.