March 31, 2007

Catholic Church in La Paz Typical street in La Paz This is a picture of me about an hour up the mountain from La Paz in an aldea called Tepanguare. We went there on Friday to learn how the health centers in the aldeas work with mothers to make sure their children are not malnourished. Every month the mothers are supposed to show up to a meeting to have their babies weighed. If the kids drop below a certain weight, the nurse will go to the family's home for some counseling on nutrition and general hygiene. This is an example of the chart that the mother brings each time she comes to weigh her baby. You can see the blue line is between the two black lines so this baby has maintaned a healthy weight since birth.
Weighing a baby in TepanguareTrying to figure out how this whole weight monitoring thing works
A random picture of a gallo and a gallina in the aldea up the mountain
Instead of having Spanish classes, me and two others who are in the advanced class have to work in the community. Below is a picture of us giving a charla (presentation) Friday afternoon on general hygiene, cleanliness, and diarhea to a group of mothers at a kindergarten. The kids of these mothers have been recognized as at risk for malnutrition.

March 28, 2007

Field Based Training continues

hello everyone, I apologize that the blog entries are getting more scarce. The days are pretty full and are going by faster than I expected. We have spent the last week working on a latrine project, and today i and 4 other volunteers built an improved stove for a lady in the campo. it has been good to spend the days outside, the improved stove is a good thing for people to have it reduces smoke in the house and burns more efficiently. some PAM (protected areas management) volunteers came to show us how to make them. we have also been putting two latrines in at a kindergarden nearby, and yes digging latrines sucks as bad as it sounds. especially in the dry clay soils here in the south. So now all the wat-san volunteers know how to build both the stoves and the latrines and when we are sent to our sites we will know how to start projects in these areas if we find a need for it in our communities. And if you ever wondered how long it takes 16 gringos to dig 2 latrines the answer is 4 days.......

what else...... the family stay is going well, my family turned a whole hog into chorizo (ground spiced pork) this afternoon, i miss the whole process, i come home for lunch and there is a carcass hanging in the back yard and when i get home it is cooked and in 5 pound bags. Spanish is progressing poco a poco (little by little) i am now at the point where i can get myself out of the stupid places i get into, but i still can{t hold an intelligent conversation........poco a poco.

oh and people don{t forget to email me lukeging....at....gmail.com (can{t find the at symbol on the computer, nor the apostrophe) i may not respomd due to time constraints but i like to here what is going on with folks at home.

Hasta Luego,
Luke

PS: Scroll down to read Annie´s entry on beliefs that many Hondurans have about pregnancy and babies.

Creencias

I find this very interesting so hopefully some of you do as well...

Many Hondurans believe in a few (if not all) of the following ¨creencias¨ regarding health. I hate to make generalizations but I think that the more rural and and the less education you have, the more you believe in these things. However, there are exceptions I´m sure. As volunteers we have to walk the fine line between dismissing their creencias altogether and, on the other extreme, not doing anything to change the possibly dangerous ones.

One creencia I´ve heard is called the ¨mollera hundida¨ which translates to ¨sunken spot¨ on a baby´s head. When any baby is really dehydrated, the soft spot on the top of their head will sink a bit. Because the relationship between dehydration and the sunken spot often doesn´t get made, things are done to try and get the soft spot to go back. One is that they push on the palate (roof of mouth) of the baby to try and pop-out the soft spot. OR, and even worse, they turn the baby upside down and smack the baby´s feet while it´s dangling there (very dangerous due to the shaking).

Another very dangerous creencia is that when a baby is born and doesn´t respond right away, a hen´s beak is put into the baby´s anus. The hen begins to suffocate and starts to move around a lot which sometimes does get the baby to respond (thus the continuation of the belief). If the hen dies, then the spirit of the hen enters the baby and the baby will live. You can imagine the infections a baby could get in it´s first few minutes of life by doing this.

Others, less dangerous, have to do with babies as well. The first one is that the sex of the baby is not determined by the male´s sperm but rather the moon. The other one is that if a pregnant woman sees an eclipse, the baby will have some sort of problem. The last one I´ve heard is that if a baby is really uncomfortable and moving around a lot, they say there are hairs on their spine that need to come out. To get them to come out, they put the mother´s breast milk on the baby´s back and supposedly the hairs come out which you then pull.

I was trying to think about any creencias we have in the US in regards to being pregnant, children, etc. so if anyone thinks of any, please post them under the comments to this blog.

March 25, 2007

First week of Field-Based Training

We had some interesting Tech sessions last week. One of those was going over a program called ¨In Charge of my Life¨ that volunteers can do with young people in their communities. It is basic education about HIV/AIDS, STIs, and safe sex with another component focused on leadership. Peace Corps has been using the program (developed by a married couple) for the last few years with lots of success.

On Wednesday afternoon, we had 3 commerical sex workers (the more politically correct name for prostitutes) come and talk to use about their work. A PCV (leaving soon), along with a Honduran woman with a degree in social work or something smiliar, worked with CSWs, educating them on keeping themselves healthy and HIV-free. He said it´s ridiculous to try and get them to change professions because they won´t make the same amount of money (or even close) doing anything else. They started a program where they train CSWs in HIV/AIDS, condom use, etc. and then the CSWs, as facilitators, go and teach what they learned among their circle of friends (other CSWs). We learned some interesting thing about CSWs in Honduras. The first of those things being that they are three types. Ones who work in nightclubs, ones who work in brothels and ones who work strictly with American men. For those of you who didn´t know, there is a US military base here in Honduras and they keep the ¨gringeras¨ well employed. ( Gringeras is the nickname for the CSWs that work with ¨gringos¨or Americans). They told us that American guys are the worst when it comes to agreeing to wear condoms. There is also a population of government contractors from a big firm (to reamin nameless but I´m sure you can figure it out) here in Honduras and according to the CSWs we spoke to, they are also really good clients. It was all very disturbing.

We spent all day Thursday doing a Men´s Health Workshop (material that was again recently developed by Peace Corps volunteers). Men´s Health is geared toward educating men on HIV/AIDS, STIs, and safe-sex practices. The volunteers who do a lot of work with Men´s Health frequently give ¨charlas¨ (informal presentations) in cantinas (bars), in the park, in prisions, on military bases, and with police and firemen. After Thursday´s training, they split us trainees up into 4 groups of 5 and we had to prepare a charla to give the following day (Friday morning) to Honduran men training to be policemen at an academy in La Paz. We arrived on Friday morning to the academy and the 4 groups split up and each had an audience of 25 young men between the ages of 18 and 23. Our charla included lots of dinamicas (like ice-breakers or games) and participation. A lot of them have never seen a condom and have never received any formal education on HIV/AIDS (proven evident by the fact that a lot of them belived mosquitos can give you HIV). I got some good pics so I´ll try and post a few of those soon. We even included an activity with bananas and condoms where they each got to practice putting one on. It was a great experience for us trainees and great practice in charla-giving.

Luke came to La Paz on Saturday around noon and we had a good time here. It definitely wasn´t enough time to spend together (only 24 hours) but luckily Field-Based Training is only for another month. It took him about 3 1/2 hours to get from La Paz back to his site.

March 21, 2007

La Paz

A hello from La Paz. I arrived here safely on Sunday and met my new family. My host parents are older, the dad is 67 and the mom is 56. They have four boys and only the youngest (25) still lives at home. My host dad owns a Ferrertería which is like a general hardware store and my host mom is a retired elementary school teacher who now owns a Mini Super (like an all-purpose store) right next to their house. So she is in out and of the house all day. She can tell when someone is at the store because they’ll yell her name. This store, like most small stores, doesn’t have a door where people can come in and browse - just a window that she sells things through. If you ask you can go in and browse but for the most part people know what they want and just ask for it.

I have been eating well, smaller portions that at my last home but that’s a good thing! I had to ask for more coffee today at breakfast because one cup just wasn’t doing it. I also asked her if I could have a cup at lunch too. She is more than happy to accommodate me. She told me last night that they want to give me the best and be ¨my family away from home¨. My favorite thing so far is the fresh squeezed juice she gives me everyday at lunch. I told her I don’t like much sugar so it’s basically just pure juice. I had blackberry juice on Monday and cantaloupe juice yesterday. My room is really nice and big and I have cable tv which is a plus. I actually learn a lot from watching Spanish tv or English tv with Spanish subtitles. The bathroom I share with my host brother is so-so (lets just say I have to get used to critters in there like ants and cockroaches). In my bedroom, thank god, I haven’t seen any critters. My host dad calls the ants ¨animalitos¨ which translates as ¨small animals¨ so that gives you an idea how big they are!

It’s much hotter here in La Paz than it was in Santa Lucia. I am sleeping fine until about 6 am when the live-in-maid takes the covers off the bird cages and they all start singing/taking. They have several birds and one parrot that talks REALLY loudly in the morning. I guess I’ll have to get used to it!

Training is going fine so far. We have Spanish classes and tech training and that pretty much fills up our day. There are three of us in the health group in the advanced Spanish class so we only have formal class once per week and the other four days we are supposed to go out into the community and try and give presentations and work with the health sector to figure out how things work here. Yesterday Connor and I went to the local health center and talked with the director of the center and the director of all the health centers in the area and got some names of people. This morning we went to the Hogar Materno which is place where poor women come from places far away as they approach their due date. They don’t have any facilities in their communities so it is a place where they can be fed and sheltered until they give birth at the hospital here in La Paz. Very interesting. We scheduled a charla (presentation) in a few weeks that we’ll give to the mothers-to-be there on nutrition of her and the baby after birth and we’ll also talk about hygiene and sicknesses the baby can get (like respiratory infections). I’ll keep you all updated on all the different projects we’ll be working on. It’s hard because we have to go out into the community on our own, make the contacts, and basically figure out how to spend our time since we don’t have Spanish classes. I suppose it’s good practice though for when we’re have our own communities to work in.

Ok, sorry that got a little long! Hope everyone is doing well! Scroll down to see Luke´s recent entry from his site at Sabanagrande.

March 19, 2007

hola

hey everyone,
sorry we have not updated teh blog in awhile. We are currently in field based training in two seperate spots and things are going pretty well....sorry if spelling and punctuation are pretty bad in this blog the computer i am using isn´t the best and i don´t want to go back and fix all the keystrokes the keyboard misses.
the host famliy thing is going better this time as i am accustomed to it now, the first day here was a little tough as there were about 30 people in the house on weekends (i got here sunday at noon), but weekdays it is just me and the host mom and an assortment of relatives whom i have not yet identified and don´t live in the house. the host dad apparently works far away ans statys there all week. the food is pretty good too as i am getting used to it and the family sells meat out of there house on weekends along with nacatamales which are some sort of gigantic tamale. I will take pictures of the housesome day when everyone is gone and post them. we surveyed some today and it was good we did a whole survey with an abney level, and i think it will turn out ok. there were 5 of us and two locals to help with cutting stakes. and it was mostly just a test run on making folks familiar with surveying here, there will be a volunteer stationed here that will finish the survey and hopefully build a water system for some pretty rural houses. it was nice to see an old lady who was really glad to see us surveying because right now her family has to haul water quite a ways to there home. I talked to annie on thew phone and she seems to have a pretty good setup with her new host family, i will let her blog about it when she gets time.

hasta luego,
Luke

March 14, 2007

Honduran beverages

A very random blog I know! When you are done reading this, scroll down to see a pic of the beach from last weekend.

Coffee –

Luke and I have been drinking coffee with breakfast and dinner (and sometimes at the cafeteria at the training center too.) As of yet, neither Luke nor I have had any difficulty sleeping. I assume this is probably due to the new environment, speaking Spanish a lot (mentally exhausting) and the fact that we walk a good hour a day and break a sweat both there and back due to the hills. To make coffee our host mom puts water on the stove and just puts the coffee grinds right into the water. Just when it starts to boil, she dips out the coffee/water mixture with a cup and runs it through a filter (a cloth, cone-shaped one) into a thermos. They don’t buy the coffee in the bean form but I saw the package the ground beans came in and it is from a Honduran coffee farm. Its weird but it’s actually sort of difficult to find good coffee even in a country that produces a lot…they would rather export it all and make more money than risk selling in here in Lempiras. The Hondurans drink their coffee with a lot of sugar – more like a cup of sugar with a little coffee. We had to clear that up right away with our host family that we prefer it black! Some people drink it with milk but most just with sugar.

Water –

We don’t drink water from the tap. It’s not safe because it’s not treated like our city water that we’re used to is. So the only water we can drink is bottled water (they sell it in giant plastic jugs here). This gets sort of complicated because water that is consumed in any from must be treated whether it’s ice, etc. Sort of difficult when you’re living with a family and have no control over what you eat/drink and also difficult when you go out to eat because you can never really be sure. Boiling the tap water is ok as long as it’s for 5+ minutes or you can add 3 drops of chlorine per liter.

Licuados –

Licuados are extremely common here (you can find them just about anywhere from the street to a restaurant) and really delicious. Basically it is really cold milk (or partially frozen milk that comes in bags), sugar, fruit (papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberry, pineapple, or banana) and oatmeal or granola if you want all blended together in a blender until frothy. I usually get a banana and strawberry licuado but have had a cantaloupe one and really liked it to. I’m a fan!

Tea –

So they don’t really have a lot of store-bought options for tea which is probably due to the fact that they’re really good at making homemade tea. I haven’t quite learned how to yet but my host mom makes a really delicious cinnamon tea and says she makes a good pineapple tea with the left-over scraps after cutting up a pineapple.

The beach

Luke and I on the beach last weekend on the northwest coast

March 12, 2007

We made it safely to the northwest corner of Honduras over the weekend and back to Santa Lucia. It’s actually not that far away, just takes a long time to get there due to all the bus and taxi transfers. We left Cuyamel (the site of the current volunteers we visited) at 7 am and made it back to SL at 4 pm.

On Thursday we got to San Pedro Sula around 1ish and the volunteers met us there. They took Luke and I to get cell phones and something to eat. Luke also bought some swim trunks and a pair of flip flops (both things he forgot to bring). We then headed to Puerto Cortes (on the coast) then transferred to another bus to get to Cuyamel.

Cuyamel is a small town (about 7,000) about an hour walking distance south from the beach. The roads in their town are all sand roads and there isn’t much to do in their town so they usually go to Puerto Cortes or to San Pedro if they need lots of groceries or want to see a movie. They have a really nice house which made me excited to get our house someday (not until July will we move into our own house). They have 2 bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, livingroom, 1 bathroom, 2 patios and a nice yard (with a banana, papaya, and avocado tree!).

We ate Thursday night at their house and spent Friday during the day checking out what they do for work. I went with the female volunteer who works in health around town to the nutrition center, the maternal and child center, and the health center. Every volunteer gets what they call a counterpart who is generally an NGO (non-governmental organization). The counterpart is usually the one who requested a volunteer to begin with and who the volunteers “works for” during their service. I’ve heard that some people are lucky and get really good counterparts who they work closely with during their entire service and others who only see them occasionally. The health volunteer that I visited worked with a Spanish NGO from the Basque country although all but one of their employees are Honduran. Counterparts are good for orienting you to your site, helping you find work, giving you transportation (in most cases they have a vehicle), etc.


Friday night we went out for seafood in a Garífuna community on the coast about 15 minutes from Cuyamel. I don’t know a lot about the Garífunas except that they were Africans who were taken as salves and brought to/shipwrecked on a Caribbean island until the English kicked them out. They ended up settling on the north shore of Honduras in the late 1700s/early 1800s and there are still very large communities of Garífuna there. Anyway, Luke had shrimp soup (made with a coconut broth) and I had garlic shrimp – both very tasty.

Saturday we made it to the beach. The north west shores of Honduras are not very developed so a tourist looking for a Caribbean beach vacation might be disappointed. This is probably why most beach tourists to Honduras go to the Bay islands just north of Honduras to do snorkeling, diving, etc. Needless to say, it was great to get a day at the beach. The water was a nice temp and the sun was pretty hot. We didn’t take a lot of pics but we’ll hopefully get a few posted soon. Saturday evening we returned to Cuyamel, ate dinner and went to bed so we could get up at 6 am on Sunday to get traveling back to Santa Lucia.

One more week here in SL then the three tech groups split up and we all head to our respective Field-Based Training sites for 5 ½ weeks. During this training we have lots of tech training and more language training (the Peace Corps staff travels with us) and we do a lot of hands on training in the community. For each PC Honduras group, the Filed Based Training is in a different location so that the trainees can practice their skills where needed in the community. The health group is going to a bigger pueblo and Luke’s Wat/San group is going to a really small pueblo so on weekends, he’ll travel to my site and PC pays for us to stay in a hotel since our tech groups are split up. Shouldn’t be too bad. It will be nice to get some time away from our hosts families on the weekends.


Hola, as you could probably tell the above was written by Annie, but now this is Luke, i am at the cafe posting what annie wrote last night and maybe adding a little.

so the visit was good, long journey, but a good thing to do. so i visited a fuente (spring) that is being developed into a water source. It appeared to be a clean reliable source of water, a good thing for the community. everybody needs clean water.

The volunteer i visited was working with the community on some issues that need to be resolved. mostly he was going to try and convince the community that they needed to charge more than 4 lempiras (20 cents) per month for a connection to the water system ¨(the town gets to vote on the tarrif). They had previously had a water system that doesn´t work because noone was taking proper care of it and charging 4 lemps a month does not pay to fix a water system, but now there system is broken and someone (foreignors/aid agency/church group/envirnonmental group....someone) has payed to build them a completely new one, and the volunteer was pointing out that he is going to have a hell of a time convincing the town they need to pay a higher tax for there new water system, they only payed 4 lemps prior and now they have a new one.

anyhow, I am learning that development work is a lot more complicated than I anticipated....... I would blog more about it, but I am afraid I would want to retract some statements in the future, as my opinions of what we do are changing.

Hope all is well in the North.... todo esta bien aqui

Cheque Leque,
Luke

March 7, 2007

Cool and rainy here

It’s blogging time again. Hope you all got a chance to read Luke’s most recent blog before this one – interesting stuff about the water sources for the town of Santa Lucia.

It’s been chilly here for the past few days. Highs in the mid-60s and rainy/foggy. I can’t seem to get warm. Luckily our showers are hot or else I think I’d be miserable. Apparently there was some flooding on the north coast but hopefully nothing that will impede our trip up there to visit the married couple PCVs on Thursday morning.

We had a good weekend, nothing too exciting. On Friday we met with other volunteers for a few beers and on Saturday we went to the town soccer game. It was a pretty intense game as the winners play in the final this coming Sunday which Luke and I are going to miss! And my host brother plays in it! Anyway, because it was so intense and because the one team had one off-sides penalty and one penalty for knocking down the goalie (both penalties occurred on points scored which were then taken away) several fights broke out which included some fans. We all got off our seats to watch the fight in the corner of the field and one PC trainee looked at another and said, “Hey, isn’t that your host dad fighting down there!?”. Sure enough, someone’s host dad was in the middle of the fighting. Ha. No injuries as far as I could tell.

Luckily this weekend we didn’t have to do our laundry. The lady that washes clothes for our host family washed Luke’s and I’s as well and we paid her 25 Lempiras which is a like $1.25. Totally worth it. Although may I remind you that our daily salary is 55 Lempiras each so we have to be careful about how we spend money and lately we’ve been spending it on buying bread from one of the PC trainee’s host mom who runs a bakery out of her house and makes delicious garlic, wheat, whole-grain, cheese, sweet cheese, carrot, cinnamon/raisin and banana breads. Twice a week, after training, Luke and I stop by her house and pick up piping hot fresh bread. Yum.

So I don’t understand it but apparently it’s summer here now even though Honduras is north of the Equator. They call their summer from January to May, then winter is from June to September when it’s rainy season and then from October to December it’s hurricane season which is apparently still winter.

We’ll be sure to blog soon after we get back from our trip to the coast and hope to have some good pictures to post. Take care everyone!

March 6, 2007

Hola

Hola a todos -

Hello all, Annie has been doing more “blogging” as of late, so if something I say is redundant forgive me. Training is going well; the language training is good… I get really frustrated at times but that is a part of learning I guess. The tech training is going well, I have a small advantage over other people having studied water resource engineering, but I think having studied a shovel may be more advantageous in a lot of the work we will be doing here. We visited the water system here in SL las Thursday, very interesting, they have some nice springs that supply the necessary flow during the wet season and a good well that supplements in the dry season (which I am told has been trending towards 8 months out of the year as opposed to 4 months of dry season years before). Friday we built some “bomba-flexi” pumps, which are basically relatively cheap and easy to make water pumps made with a few feet of galvanized iron and pvc pipe with some check valves made from miscellaneous pvc connections and two marbles and bike tubes for gaskets. They are neat, but marginally useful, a person could maybe pump 1 to 2 gallons per minute from a cistern to a storage tank above a house with the one I built, more if they did a really good job making the pump (which could be a lot of pumping).
We are generally going to estimate 20 – 25 gallons of water usage per day for folks in Honduras for drinking, bathing, washing, I don’t think flushing is in that estimate (you don’t flush the latrine). For reference estimates in the states for water use in the house are around 160 gallons per day per person, more in drier places and twice as much if you water your lawn. Not to say it is bad to use more water it keeps us clean, well hydrated and healthy, and in places like Iowa it rains a lot so it isn’t as if we have to worry about it (as long as the treatment plant/septic is working an your not breaking thermometers in the sink).

Hasta luego,

Luke

March 3, 2007

Tostadas de pollo y guacamol

Dinner on Thursday night at home
(Scroll down to read previous blog about events of the week)

March 2, 2007

Week 2

Wow…this week went fast! We’ve been busy at training with Spanish classes (a total of 22 hours this week), more safety/security and health training, and technical training a few days this week. Friday morning my Salud (Health) group is going to a hospital in Teguc that specializes in maternal health so we get to visit the maternity ward and see a live birth (hopefully). If some of you are wondering why this blog is posted for Friday but I’m referring to Friday in the future, it’s because I’m currently writing this Thursday evening at home. (UPDATE - Í´m getting ready to publish this blog (Friday afternoon) so I´ve already been to the hospital this morning and I was able to see a live birth! The maternity ward is totally different here...the women who are just beginning labor are all together in one big room then as the progress they move to a different room, again with beds on both sides of the room (no privacy whatsoever) where they basically go through labor on their own, pushing included. Just before they´re about to actually give birth, they move the woman into another room. Luckily when our group of 5 went into the labor room, a women was just getting ready so we got to watch the whole thing).

I went to Teguc the first time on Wednesday with my Spanish class. It’s like any other large Latin American city – utter chaos. Between the cars, taxis, and buses (all honking uncontrollably), pollution, heat, uneven sidewalks, street vendors selling fruit, tortillas, watches, (basically you name it, they sell it), etc. it’s not the most pleasant experience you’ll have. We went to a market and bargained for some fruit and veggies, got to know where several bus stations are, and then saw the Peace Corps Honduras main office. Luke still hasn’t been to Teguc (I think they’re afraid to send intermediate level speakers to the “big city” still) but we’re going Friday evening after classes with our host dad to a market that is only open on Fridays and Saturdays and that sells fruit and veggies that come straight from the fields (very fresh).

Our host mom is going to be gone all weekend because she has a church retreat. She’s worried about what we’ll eat while she’s gone so her daughter-in-law is supposed to come over and cook meals for us. I probably could have managed but would rather have someone set the food down in front of me at this point….although twice this week I’ve came home early to help my host mom cook. I now actually have recipes for: tostadas de pollo o guacamol, las tortillas con quesillo, los pastelitos de papa, las baleadas, las enchiladas, los tacos, el anafre, las catrachas, and plátanos fritos. Obviously most of you have no idea what those things are but I can help you understand by telling you that the main ingredient in almost all of them is fried corn tortillas, beans, and a dry cheese they call queso seco. So far my favorite meal has been las tortillas con quesillo. You basically fry two corn tortillas, put some queso seco between the two fried tortillas, then top it off with what we know as pico de gallo salsa but what they call chismol – delicious. We’ve been eating lots of beans (which we both like), tortillas (both fried and regular), avocado, eggs, fresh fruit, and drinking LOTS of good coffee (we have it with breakfast and dinner). We made guacamole on Thursday night and along with onion, pepper, and salt, she added two hard boiled eggs to the mixture – strangely tasty. I think my host mom really likes when I cook with her as she’s eager to tell me how she does things and keeps telling Luke that he’s going to eat well when we’re living by ourselves because I’m learning quickly. One more thing about the food - they make burritos, enchiladas and tacos here but they are not like the Mexican or Tex-mex ones we know….I’ll explain those another day or if you’re lucky, one day I’ll cook for some of you! J

We found out today that not this weekend but the following, Luke and I are going to the northwest coast (about 5 ½ hours from here) to visit a married couple who are current volunteers (all trainees are doing a volunteer visit this weekend). The pueblo is practically on the beach and just a short drive from the Guatemala border. Although the bus ride will absolutely suck (I already explained how scary those rides are), we’re hoping it will be a nice little vacation and that the couple we’re visiting won’t mind taking us to the beach. We leave on Thursday morning and come back Sunday afternoon.

This weekend will be full of studying as Luke and I both have lots of homework from our Spanish classes. I plan to get up late Saturday morning, have breakfast, maybe meander into town just for the exercise, then come back and lie in the hammock and read all afternoon.

To all our friends and family - have a nice weekend! And thanks again to everyone who’s reading our blog and making comments – it keeps us writing!