This year we expect the Personeria Juridica to be signed by the Country’s Secretary of Health any day now legitimizing the Fundacion Senor San Jose as a legal entity.

This year a new building for the Fundacion Senor San Jose with space for thirty-two children will be constructed.

This year I expect to write a Small Project Assistance (SPA) grant to remodel the Health Clinic (CESAMO) in a mountain aldea called Concepcion de Soluteca.

This year I will be coordinating the installation of a permanent, everyday 24/7 water system for the Hogar Materno where the peasant ladies from the mountain aldeas come to stay before they are ready to deliver their babies.

This year I will intensify my participation in the Centro de Atencion Integral (CAI), the clinic that administers to HIV positive patients and their families and to those with AIDS.  My goal is to establish a counseling (consejeria) service for the patients themselves to form a self-support group (Grupo de Auto Apoyo) (GAA) that provides them the knowledge and cumulative strength to combat the everpresent stigma, discrimination and rejection that accompany the collective community ignorance concerning this infection.  And of course to ultimately educate the community, if not into an attitude of acceptance, at least into one of tolerance.

This year I will continue to teach my three English classes geared to the three different levels of my students.

This year I will continue to integrate myself into the La Paz municipio community.  Every day I learn something new.  Every day I continue to grow.  Every day I continue to live life to the fullest amongst my contrapartes and my friends.  Every day is an adventure.

The holiday season is especially meant for children, good food and excellent company.  All of which I immersed myself into with indulgent pleasure yesterday.  Surrounded by happy, healthy, well-fed little kids brings a special joy to my heart and makes me yearn for my own grandchildren so very far away celebrating in their own homes with family and friends.  I miss you all very much.  The pictures above take me back to my own boyhood, celebrating with my extended family in similar Hispanic fashion: Tamales steaming on an open fire,  laughter, everyone busy preparing food, gossiping, cooking and eating.  The kids all underfoot.  This special scene is repeated all over Spanish-Speaking America.  Hundreds of millions of families sharing a common bond and an ancient heritage veiled in the indigenous mists of time. 

I returned from Tegus today.  The workshop in Valle de Angeles (in a beautiful mountainous scenic area 30″ from Tegucigalpa) went very well.  Yesterday, Friday, after the workshop I had a dental appointment for a sore molar in an upper gum in my mouth that had been bleeding for a couple of months when I brushed my teeth.  Turned out I had a periodontal abscess and the doc did minor surgery on my mouth, scraped out all the swollen infected gunk with pick, drill and scalpel (Debridement & Curettage) and put 4 stitches in the gum; have to return to Tegus next Friday to have the stitches taken out.  Afterward I’m traveling directly to La Ceiba from there for a week’s vacation.  Not only that, after my dental appt I consulted a Dermatologist for a bunch of bug bites on my back that were driving me crazy from the itching.  Turns out the bed I slept in at the upscale hotel where we had the workshop housed voracious insects that fed on me the three nights I was there.  Don’t know why they preferred my back.  Yesterday was a busy Friday afternoon indeed.  So I’m back in La Paz with a ton of meds to treat my gum surgery and my bug-bitten back.  But it sure is good to be home.  No matter how humble there is no place like home.  Thanks Dr. Nazar!  Thanks Dr. Morales!!  Thanks Peace Corps for the prompt response to my ills!!!

The governor of the Departamento de La Paz was there; as were several city luminaries and many students from the school of nursing and other students who belong to Comvida, as well as hospital staff, and medical staff from the Region Sanitaria.  Escorted by the policia and bomberos with sirens blasting the desfilo garnered much attention as it made its way from Parque Morazan to the Parque Central across from the alcaldia.  At the mesa principal were gathered speakers who spoke of the ravages of AIDS.  Honduras is the Central American country with the greatest number of HIV positive cases.  I recently began working with the doctor who prescribes medications to the HIV positive patients in La Paz.  I provide the consejeria, with the goal of establishing a support group for patients and families ignorant of the disease process.  Our CAI (Centro de Atencion Integral) clinic is only three months old.  We have a long ways to go.  Next week I’m taking one volunteer staff Honduran and one HIV positive person to a Peace Corps sponsored workshop focused on micro businesses for Persons Living With HIV/AIDS.  I finish my pictorial with a pic of our beautiful central park designed by a Peace Corps Volunteer and a pic of the two-month-old son, Iverson, of one of my companeras who works with Jovenes Sin Fronteras, another Peace Corps-founded national group staffed by Hondurans who make a difference in their community.  Iverson is the symbol of a new, enlightened future for Honduras.

Our Second Annual Dia de Gracias feast at the orphanage met with exuberant success.  This is the second turkey holocaust (3 birds) for me at my assigned post and will not be the last.  Fifteen PCVs joined with me to help cook, prepare and serve a traditional feast to 40 folks who included the fifteen resident children at the Hogar San Jose, three Cuban doctors, two German foreign exchange students, two visiting norteamericanos and several Honduran friends in an afternoon of giving thanks for our blessings by joining together to share a meal.  We gathered together as family grateful for the eternal unity of the human spirit no matter in which country one lives.  As the carver of fowl for 40 persons I was unfortunately not able to take as many pics as I wanted.  I say this feast will not be my last in Honduras because I have decided to extend my service for another year until May 2012.  There is much unfinished work upon which I will elaborate in subsequent posts.  Thank you Grandfather for allowing me to be here amongst friends whom I will never forget.

When I received my first carton of seeds from Mel Hansen last year I thought to myself that it was certainly a boon, however I lived in La Paz, La Paz in the Comayagua Valley whose name the invading Spaniards had first given it was Valle de Piedras (Valley of Rocks) for a reason.  My first planting was plagued not only with the numerous rocks I had to dig out of the soil but with donated chickens that ran wild and ate all the canteloupes and watermelons (three watermelons miraculously survived and were duly consumed).  We also harvested corn and beans.  After we penned up the chickens someone this year donated a couple of rabbits.  I planted anew but the cute, furry bunnies ate all the nascent squash plants except the one that you can see above in the rocky soil: I had to resort to fencing the poor thing in until we finally got rid of the rabbits.  Our only other crop that has survived were the radishes that the nun planted in a washtub elevated on a 50-gallon drum above critters and kids.  Kids; our most enduring obstacle.  This is after all their home and one can’t be yelling at 2, 3 and 4-year-old kids for playing in the dirt amongst the plantings.  As can be seen above I have cleared three new areas after considerable labor and have planted sun flowers, green beans, more radishes, carrots, onions and jalapeno peppers!  Another large area not seen has a crop of corn planted.  I continue to clear garden spots: Thank you Mel Hansen and the Stockton, California Rotary Club for the donated seeds!!  Mel’s group donates seeds to Peace Corps Volunteers all over the world whose goal is to help native folk plant gardens and raise crops for healthy nutritious meals and better health.  A worthy endeavor indeed.  Happy Thanksgiving, Mel!!!

Asked to stand as padrino (godfather) for the baptism of five abandoned children who live at the Hogar San Jose, I said ‘yes.’  My experience with the medical brigade had fizzled for a number of reasons, one of which was that I got sick.  I am only now regaining my voice.  So, in a croaky whisper I told Sor Edith that yes I would be happy to sponsor the children: she would be godmother.  The majority of the children’s baptismal pictures are taken in Edith’s element; the church.  The children were so happy and excited to be baptized, all dressed up and being the central part of the church’s ancient rites.  I was raised a Catholic but years of studying the history of centuries-long realities of religious warfare, lies, corruption and hypocrisy have made me a confirmed atheist.  That, however, does not stop me from respecting the spiritual beliefs of others, whether they be muslim, buddhist, animist, quaker, hindu, christian, or whatever motivates the beholder to believe in a spiritual savior.  That is their business, just as my beliefs are my business.  When I attended the mandatory three-hour orientation for parents (no parents for our kids) and padrinos Friday night I relived the mysteries of the church that were imbued in my own childhood rife with ignorance.  No matter, everyone in attendance, some 120, believed fervently in their religion.  I participated with their joy.  But knowing what I know of the world and of the history of mankind and our evolution, I could only wonder at the tremendous supernatural effort successfully perpetrated by the church on so many people over the centuries.  Political parties could learn from that deep and thorough soul-grasping indoctrination; perhaps they have.  Nonetheless, Saturday morning was a stimulating experience that unfolded seamlessly as a 2,000-year-old pageant little changed over the centuries.  And today I enjoyed participating in the ritual and I will do my best to help these children progress along a spiritual path of their choosing, whatever it may turn out to be.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the full moon.  Back home it’s cool in the evenings, even cold standing there looking up at the autumn sky, shivering, watching that beautiful full moon inch its way across the starry blackness.  The summer crops in the surrounding fields have been harvested, everyone waiting expectantly for winter snow and the holiday season.  Here in tropical Honduras there are only two seasons:  summer and winter.  The rainy period ended on October 9th.  It rained every day from May until October ninth.  But in my new life, tomorrow I’m invited to a “Full Moon” party at the doctor’s house with whom I work.  The six new Cuban doctors will be there, as well as other friends with whom I share life in my community.  We’re building a fogata, a huge bonfire to celebrate the beginning of the end of the year.  Sunday morning I’ll be joining the 80-strong Virginia Hospital Center Medical Brigade in Comayagua about half an hour away from La Paz to participate in a week-long medical intervention for citizens unable to pay the cost of medical treatments and surgery, somewhat like in the States, a supposedly First World country, with their lack of medical care for their own many poor unfortunate citizens unable to pay for basic preventative health care.  I will post pics of my adventure when I return on Halloween: the Day of the Dead in Latin America, an ancient annual celebration of life honoring those gone to the other side. 

Last week in Tegucigalpa I noticed for the hundreth time how shabby the capital city looks.  When I was in Guatemala City last June I couldn’t help but notice the difference as I cruised through their wide, clean European-style boulevards on the way to the airport.  Many sidewalks in Tegus are broken and in wide disrepair so much that one has to walk looking down so as not to trip or fall into a hole (which I have done) and to avoid stepping into a pile of garbage.  Not every street, of course, but most, and some in even worse repair.  I have seen poorly kept streets in many cities in Europe, Latin America and the US where I have traveled, but I’m sad to say none on the scale of Tegucigalpa.  Even the taxi drivers who by memory drive me through the teeming city warren absent of street signs comment on the disrepair and tell me it’s the fault of corrupt politicians.  Yet the city continues to exert a metropolitan aura that pulls in the citizenry in spite of its plight.  On the other hand, the country’s building practices are better than any I have seen in the States.  I have never seen linoleum on a floor in Honduras, nor plastic shower stalls, or the flimsy plaster board of which most US homes are constructed.  Here concrete block and brick are used to construct homes and real tile to floor those houses.  My kitchen, bathrooms and floors are completely tiled, as are most homes in the country (I’m not a very good housekeeper, sorry).  Finally, I include a couple of pics of my Saturday morning English class; from which two of my students are missing but will be included in future postings.  Stay tuned….

I bobbed in the warm, blue-green Caribbean last Wednesday, the gentle swells lifting me, urging me toward sandy shore on a beautiful sunny late afternoon, the orange sun dipping behind palm trees.  Suddenly a good-sized fish jumped part-way out of the water in front of my three companions and me, startling everyone.  A second time it jumped; part-way out.  On the fish’s third dash into air right in front of me I saw that a small shark had hold of the tail in process of devouring its frantic twisting victim.  “A shark!” I yelled, eliciting an immediate response from my colleagues, one of whom swam and flopped and ran out of the water.  “It’s only a baby.”  The reply: “Yeah, but he has a mama.”  I had gone to La Ceiba on the North Coast for a few days to consult with former colleagues at the Hospital Regional Atlantida CAI clinic, the clinic that deals with HIV/AIDS patients.  We in La Paz opened our own CAI clinic two months ago and I was seeking advice on getting ours off the ground.  While there I also connected with colleagues in La Masica whom I promised to visit Friday morning.  Thursday was hot and tropical sweaty as usual and my meetings that day were very productive.  Friday morning as I was getting ready to board a bus for La Masica 45 minutes away, my Country Director called me on my cell.  You have to leave the North Coast ASAP, she said.  Hurricane Matthew is due to make landfall tonight in La Ceiba.  With much regret I left the gritty seaside city about 9:30 a.m. after I called my companions and explained the situation.  As our bus drove through Tela and passed San Pedro Sula the torrential rains began and we started our climb over the mountains.  I arrived home about 5 in the evening.  That night as I watched the television weather newscaster showing footage from La Ceiba of the same roiling, stormy Caribbean in which I had been happily swimming two days before I thought of that toothy, well-fed little shark.