Honduras in Chaos

I have been very busy the past week. I have been giving a lot of charlas(lectures) to kids on different sorts of information. My favorite was definitely the 4 hour HIV speech. I was really nervous about it because it is a very taboo topic here and I was afraid the high school kids would be very standoffish. However, we did a few exercises to get them over their embarrassment and everything turned out great! They all had a blast and many of them said they learned how to use a condom for the first time even though they were most likely sexually active. A few of them even gained enough confidence with us to ask some good questions. When we were done they applauded for like 5 mins in a row. It was great! I also gave a savings and a health charla they wen´t very well too.
Also I had my last technical interview to tell my supervisors what type of things im interested in working in and site location that sort of thing, and the Muni D tech director said she knew where she was putting me and she dropped a few hints. I found out my site is near Tegucigalpa but not too close. it’s a smaller site, I am the first Municipal Development Volunteer there ever, and I am the first volunteer in a long time period. I also found out my projects will be everything I wanted! One of my counterparts is a women’s empowerment organization so I will be working with that. I will be helping to create a trash and recycling program and educating people of what to do. Also, I will be doing education in schools with varying topics. I am soo excited I really really wanted the women’s organization and trash collection projects those are two things I think are very important!
On a sadder note Honduras is kind of in chaos right now. The teachers are still on strike and its turning more and more political because the teachers are for Zelaya the president that was kicked out last year in the ¨coup.¨ So now not only are the teachers protesting but other political groups are joining them and Tegucigalpa is a mess right now. To add to that stress it won´t stop raining! Honduras has already had more rain this year than the average rainfall for an entire year. Now we have all kinds of tropical storms circling Honduras and it just keeps raining. Tegucigalpa keeps flooding and sinkholes are forming and killing people and there are crazy landslides. The entire Tegucigalpa region has been on red alert. My teacher also told me that shes in a less dangerous region for landslides and flooding but there are still high winds and her neighbor’s roof flew off the other day! Don´t worry about me I live in a safe area in Cantarranas, I am away from the river and runoff water path. However, others have not been so lucky. Friday was a very sad day. In the morning 5 very poor mud built houses were damaged by landslides and flooding. Luckily no one was hurt the families woke up when they felt their house shaking and ran outside, but they lost everything the one house and everything was completely destroyed. We went in the evening to talk to the people and see what we can do. We are going doing a food drive for the families and are going to work on trying to build trenches and walls to change the runoff patterns. Also, on Friday I watched a beloved dog die. It was so sad. Most Hondurans have a very different idea of what a pet is, to them its just an animal not a member of the family. However there is one house where I had classes where they had two cocker spaniels and they actually cared about their dogs and treated them very well. Unfortunately the one dog ate a poisoned rat and when we were over there baking brownies the dog started seizing and died a painful death. It was horrible to watch and the grandma and mom were both crying I felt so bad and it was such a sweet dog too. Hondurans really need to stop using poison to kill rats and to start using traps because I have heard of this kind of thing happening often.
On a happier note I am still having a lot of fun here and making many new friends.