yay obama!

It’s been a while since I last wrote, so let’s see. All the people who were evacuated have now returned to their houses, so that’s good. School lets out in about a week so I want to start a sport club and an environmental club to do with the kids during vacations. Coffee season is starting, the coffee berries are turning red and ready to pick. So during break, a lot of kids will be busy picking coffee. We had some super cold days last week, but the past 4 days or so have been really warm and sunny. It’s weird how the weather changes so drastically.

My friend from college, Ashlee, was here this past week visiting. She speaks Spanish well, so it was nice introducing her to all my friends in town. We spent time in my town and then for Halloween we went to a big party that volunteers have every year in the town of Copan Ruins, which is a touristy town near Mayan ruins. It was my first time there, and I really liked it. It’s clean, pretty, and has lots of good restaurants.

There was live music both nights and a costume party one night. There were some pretty good costumes. I was a nance tree. Nances are this little yellow fruit that is absolutely disgusting. It looks similar to a cherry, but it’s yellow and has a putrid smell, and gross taste and texture. They only grow in Honduras, as far as I know. Pretty much every volunteer hates them, and Hondurans are always trying to give us nances or nance juice. Once I was at a teacher’s house and she gave me nance juice, and I didn’t want to be rude, so I tried drinking it, but I couldn’t do it, it’s a gag reflex. So I thought a nance tree would be a scary costume. Anyway, the party was fun. We didn’t actually visit the ruins, because it’s kind of expensive to enter, but hopefully I’ll be able to go back before I leave.

Ashlee flew in and out of El Salvador, so we went to San Salvador the day before her flight. San Salvador is so nice; I was really surprised. It has nice malls and stores, and I think it’s just all around nicer than either of the big cities in Honduras. I definitely enjoyed going to the nice malls.

We were able to watch the elections on US channels, in English, so that was good. Watching Obama win just made me so extremely happy. And I’m reading Dreams from My Father right now, wish just makes me respect him even more. When he wrote that book, he didn’t have presidential aspirations, so it’s a very honest book. He’s had such an interesting life.

I saw Obama speak at Georgetown University in October 2006, my senior year. He was giving a talk about fossil fuel possibilities and I took the day off of my internship at the Sierra Club to go see him speak. I remember it was a beautiful fall day, and I walked to Georgetown from my apartment. He was such a good speaker and I thought then that some day this man could be President, and I’m seeing him speak right now. I didn’t think he’d be President so soon! Everyone here is really happy he won. People in El Salvador and in Honduras have been congratulating me on Obama winning and saying how happy they are about it. It’s such an exciting time to be an American. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so patriotic.

In other news, we think my duck, Paco, is actually a girl. So I´m thinking up a new name. Also, our town library now has a webpage up if you want to check it out. It´s in Spanish and it stills needs some work, but it´s something. There are some good pictures under the ‘Galeria de Imagenes’ tab. Here´s the link: http://www.bibliotecasanpedro.es.tl/
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