Todo Dengue

2 posts in 2 days- I´d say that´s pretty... pretty... pretty good.

I realized that so far I have focused on a lot of the good parts of my experience as a Peace Corps Trainee. Just so you know that it’s not all fun and games, I want to use this post to talk about some of the things that have not been so great:

• Lack of freedom. Sometimes I feel like I´m in high school again, with long days of class and a mountian of rules. It will change a bit once I´m a volunteer but it´s been tough, especially with the freedom I enjoyed in the states.
• Town chisme, or gossip. The families in the towns talk to each other about everything, so everybody is going to know everything about you. This isn´t so bad as long as you behave (which I have done obviously) but sometimes things get made up and suddenly rumors are flying around. Think of it like the game of telephone.
• Cold showers. I´m sort of getting used to them but still every now and then I think of how nice a hot shower would be. I also have to take a bucket bath sometimes when the water isn´t running which is never very fun.
• Missing other little things that you take for granted in America. Being able to drive a car, the food, having internet all time. One of the things I miss most is being able to keep up with the latest music and download stuff that I like once I hear it. It may sound trivial but downloading new music (legally on iTunes of course)all the time was a big part of my life back in the states.
• Eating the same food all the time. Beans, eggs, and cheese that tastes like feet every night.
• Language barriers. It´s tougher to have the same sense of humor in Spanish that I do in English just because I have so much left to master of the language. I´m getting better but ever so slowly. I also still have a lot of trouble with my family because they speak so fast and they use a lot of cultural phrases that are not Spanish but instead only Hondurañan.
• Missing my family and friends! In the weeks leading up to the day I left I realized how many great people I had in my life and I haven´t forgotten it. I´m grateful to be able to keep up with people at least a little bit over the internet and phone. I am going to try and reunite with as many people as possible when I get back, whether that be sometime during my service or in 2 years when it´s completed.