Nov 12

this is an entry i typed weeks ago but never had a chance to post, so i`m posting it now.

12 november

I haven’t written in a while because I have had much positive to say, but now I have some interesting things to write about.
Last week the kittens were born, and there are 2 males and 1 female. They are so cute and tiny. I’ve never seen kittens right after they were born, they’re like mice. The boys are white with orangish-brown spots and the girl is grey and black striped. I’m going to name mine Mateo Miguel Fernando. They have to stay with their mother for a while still; they haven’t even opened their eyes yet.

More work-related, we finally had the biodigestor latrine workshop this weekend. A volunteer who has built a lot of them traveled here on Saturday to teach us how to do it, and another volunteer who lives near me came to see it. It was nice having them here and showing them where I live. The project is basically a large tunnel of thick plastic lining, of several meters length, to hold the waste, and the gases go up a pvc pipe to the stove. The waste goes into one end of the tunnel, the gas goes up through a tube in the top, and runs to the cook stove. The bacteria dies in the plastic lining, and the remaining waste liquid that comes out can be used to fertilize a garden or a fish pond. It’s pretty simple. To start the gases working, you have to pour in five buckets of a mixture of manure and water every day. It should start producing gas after a month, and produces about 6 hours of gas a day to cook from. The plastic we had was smaller than what they normally use, so ours will only produce about 3 hours a day of gas. It’s a free source of fuel for cooking, and saves a good deal of fire wood.

The next step is to get people interested in the project, write a proposal, and submit for funding. Peace Corps provides funds up to $6,000 to volunteers to do small projects like this, so I’m probably going to apply to that fund. It can take up to 6 months or more to get funding, so this is really something for next year.

The volunteer who came to do the workshop is a really interesting guy. He has already been here over two years, because he extended for a few months, and when he finishes his service at the end of the year, he will stay in Honduras to work with an NGO here. He got married to a Honduran in June, I think she is his counterpart’s daughter. When he got to Honduras, he didn’t know any Spanish, just a few words, and now he speaks like a Honduran. He even tells stories like a Honduran. He has tons of stories, I learned a lot.

Also, he got his Master’s in forest science, and he knows the name of every plant, tree, and fruit in English and Spanish. It’s really amazing. We walked all around the farm and he and my counterpart talked about plants. I’ve never heard so much about plants in my life. I could probably take a semester class in botany and not learn as much as I did from him in two days. The quantity of fruit varieties in just the area behind the house is overwhelming. There are little fruits that look just like tangerines, but they are lemons, and taste just as sour as any yellow lemon. And there are lemons and oranges that are bigger than grapefruits. And there is a huge tree of passion fruit, which grow really big. And a fruit that tastes like a squash, but it grows from a tree, and they hang down almost on vines. And most of the fruit falls to the ground and rots. That just begins the strange fruits growing here. On the property here, there are probably like 10 varieties of oranges growing. No bananas, because it’s not hot enough, but there are platanos (plantains), some of which can be eaten raw, and some which are harder and have to be cooked. There are 50 varieties of platanos in the country.

In other projects, we are supposed to give training to the rural micro banks, sometime this week, hopefully. Last week there was another meeting at the mayor’s office about the women’s bank but only 8 women showed up, and only 2 were the same from the week before. So I don’t know what’s going to happen with that. School is over, so I’m looking for some kind of youth group or something that I can work with and give charlas to. I also want to get some funding to get Christmas presents for really needy kids so we can have a Christmas party for them and hand out presents. That’s about all for now.