Landslides won't bring us down.

We have a busy week ahead of us and the first day has already been crazy.  This morning we went out to San Juacito, a small pueblo about 35 minutes away.  The drive was gorgeous with incredible views of the valleys.  The roads in the area were not very good however, and even worse since it has poured every day for the past week.  But we made it safely to the Magic School.  This is a high school that specializes in the arts and we currently have a volunteer living and working in this site.  He is currently COSing (Close of Service) and leaves in early September so a trainee from my group will actually take over his site in September after we are sworn in as Volunteers.  We all think it will be Michelle, who specializes in art, or Chris, who specializes in music.  Anyway it had a nice atmosphere but we did not get to explore much since we are on a tight schedule.  Ronaldo, the Youth Development project manager, spent some time sharing workbooks with us that contain possible curriculums.  We were really there to watch David, the volunteer, conduct a class/session with his students.  It was supposed to begin at 10 but by 10:40 not even half the students were there.  This is a common frustration for volunteers becaus as we have been told repeatedly, Hondurans do not care much for calendars or appointments.  He finally began at 11 with the students who were present.  We were no able to see much since we needed to leave around 11:30 in order to make it back to our town by 12 when our lunch break starts.  Students in David's class were still arriving by the time we left.

It was interesting to see hm interact with the students and gives me hope that I will be fluentin Spanish one day!  The drive home was eventful. On the way there we had passed a bunch of rocks and boulders on the road at one point and later a crowd of people lining the rod.  Well upon our return, the crowd of people and cars milling in the road turned out to be  funeral crowd.  They were all gathering outside the house and since there are no road laws in existence, people and cars were all over the place.  A while after we passed that, we had to stop suddenly around a band in the road on the moutain because a bunh of men were standing there with shovels.  All around them were huge boulders, way more than what we had passed the first time.  As Ronaldo was asking about the hold up, more rocks and water came tumbling down across the road, scattering the men in all directions. We sat in the car for about 15 minutes, watching a landslide in progress.  It was fascinating but a ittle scary.  Finally an impatient truck behind us seized a moment and plowed through where the rocks were smallest.  The remaining cars followed suit and we made it home safely but late.  It was an unusual experience for me and made me think about how different my life will be here.  Different but rarely dull!