OK, haven’t written in 6 months – sorry about that! Been super busy (which made a nice change from the first half of my year in Honduras). I changed projects at Christmas – I was working for an organisation called Casa Alianza, working with street children. Two problems: children really aren’t my thing (I did actually ask not to be put in a children’s project when I got here, but there we go…) and Casa Alianza is the most disorganised badly managed affair with the worst management-staff relations I’ve ever come across. I decided it was definitely time for me to move on the day they didn’t even tell me that the president of Honduras was coming to visit and I walked into work in my usual jeans-with-the-holes-at-the-knees and crappy shirt, found myself face to face with the first lady of Honduras. The latter is a bleach-blonde affair who likes posing with all the poor little kiddies in front of the cameras before she wipes her hands with disinfectant and gets the hell out of there. There’s also a rumour that she used to be a man, which when you look up close seems quite likely.
Started working at a new project after Christmas and everything about being in Honduras seemed so much brighter. After a very difficult Christmas (first away from family – it’s just not the same without having an argument with Mum about what Christmas special to watch), I was on the first bus on boxing day headed to the north coast. Spent 10 wonderful days on Utila – tropical island in the Caribbean – learning to scuba dive and generally enjoying being able to walk around at night by myself without fear of having my throat cut or having ‘gringo’ shouted at me every five seconds. Utila is basically West Indian islanders and Westerners – the only rule is to have a good time and let other people enjoy themselves. Came back and started to work with AICAT – an NGO that does computer training – supposedly for rural communities who can’t afford it but I spent my time training people at the Honduran Ministry for Education (smart clothes, name tags, coffee breaks and business cards – much more my thing). OK, so it sounds very impressive but AICAT’s really small, run by teachers at the local university who volunteer their spare time. The first day we ran a training session I thought I was just going to be assisting – until my boss, Virna, told me she wanted to see how good I was and that I was running the afternoon session. So there’s yours truly up in front of twenty middle-aged Honduran administrators blagging it in Spanish and much to everyone’s amusement getting the pronunciation wrong on one or two words which come out as rather colourful language instead! "It broke the ice," was all Virna said to me afterwards. The five months I’ve spent working with them has been wonderful; they assigned me my own laptop, what more can I say?
Anyway, have now finished work and am travelling at the moment. Currently in an internet café in Panajachel in Guatemala. We left Tegucigalpa last Friday, stopped off to see the Mayan ruins in Copán before crossing the border into Guatemala. Stayed in Guatemala City for a night (gets a very bad press, although after living in Tegus for a year anywhere looks safe by comparison), then another in Antigua. Antigua is the old Guatemalan capital – very pretty, very touristy, very expensive – would love to go back when I’ve got enough money not to be bitter about all the people who eat in expensive restaurants and think $4 is a fair price to see a 16th century convent cloister. After we ‘do’ Guatemala, going through Belize (but only for a few nights: ex-British colony equals British prices, and after living in Honduras for a year you get really, really tight) and then to southern Mexico region of Yucatán. After that will have been to all the countries in Central America and to Mexico (which is technically North America according to Central Americans). Went to El Salvador (borders the north of Honduras) for a week in March and spent a couple of weeks in Nicaragua (borders the south of Honduras) and Panamá (saw the canal) just a month ago. Also spent a couple of nights in the Costa Rican capital of San Josè on the way to Panamá.
Will be arriving back in good old Blighty on 6th August (already having lurid dreams about fish ‘n’ chips) to a new house - parents moved to Hockley (with an over-aspirated ‘h’) in Essex at the end of last year. Will be coming to visit people as soon as I have earned the money to pay the train fare – can’t wait to see people. Then starting an MSc conversion course in computer science at the University of York at the beginning of October (if all else fails, go back to uni!).
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