A Gringa No Brasil

Just a quick update to say how excited I am to visit the States in three days! Yay! I'm SO looking forward to visiting with everyone, eating all of the foods I've been missing, having consistent running water again, and getting a break from mosquito bites :)

Since this is my first post for the month of May, I figured I should throw in a brief life update as well instead of just gushing about my upcoming vacation. I just submitted my first safety and security incident report. While unrealistic, I was really hoping that I would be one of those few volunteers that finishes their two years of service with out any incidents. Unfortunately, I'm not that lucky. Someone stole a pair of my underwear off my clothesline the other day. Sketchy, right? I washed all of my laundry on Saturday morning, and then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon in the house cleaning and cooking (like any good Honduran woman haha). By late afternoon I went out back again to take down the now dry laundry, and realized that a pair of underwear was missing. I thought maybe it got tangled up in my sheets or that maybe I imagined washing them, but I scoured the whole house and they were nowhere to be found. Since the back/outdoor part of my house is all walled in, it has to have been my neighbors that took it. The clothesline is attached to a nail in the wall that separates our two houses, and since the wall is a bit low, all they would have to do is reach over and grab it. I was a little uncomfortable with the low wall when I moved in, but when I asked the landlord about putting up another row of bricks or barbed wire, he said he knew the neighbors and that it was perfectly safe. Apparently not. Instead it's perfectly creepy. I haven't asked them about it because it's not like it's something super expensive to replace, and I'd rather avoid the awkward confrontation.

In other (less scandalous) news, last month I attended a Peace Corps workshop for Project Citizen, which is a program designed to incorporate civic education into the high school system. I've been working with a Spanish teacher from one of the high schools to get this program up and running in her class. Essentially, the kids will be working in groups to address problems in their community. They need to research the problem, how it affects the local community, and find out if there are any laws that concern it. Then they propose a new policy or changes to the current laws in order to help solve the problem. The project is wrapped up with a report and presentation in front of the mayor and municipal staff. Also, there's a chance for the best group to be invited to a national competition in Tegucigalpa. Now that we have all of the prep work done, the teacher and I will be starting the project with the class tomorrow. I'll be working with a class of 30 students around the age of 16. Let's hope this works out better than my attempt at teaching English...