Most of you have probably heard the shocking news by now, but here are a few articles. A few weeks ago there was an incident with a female volunteer in Honduras getting caught in a gun fight on a bus. She is safe at home in America now, after successful surgery in her leg. After that incident, everyone was told that their vacation plans were being re-evaluated because possibly it would be too dangerous to travel to some of the places people were planning to go. I was not ever given a definite answer as to whether I could still travel to Utila Island, one of the Bay Islands, with Cole over New Years so I had been planning to still go. Then last Tuesday I received a text from PC saying there was an urgent email including Standfast. No volunteers are allowed to leave their sites at all, until we all meet up in Tegucigalpa on January 12 for a country-wide PC meeting. After the 3/4 day long meeting, all volunteers will be sent back to their homes in America with ALL of their belongings. We will remain there on Administrative Hold for a minimum of 30 days while PC/Washington reviews the situation in Honduras and decides if any volunteers can return to their service here. They have already made it very clear that not all volunteers will be allowed to return because part of their revision will include down-sizing and drastically changing the entire program. If we can't return to Honduras, then we can opt out of PC through Interrupted Service meaning the reason was beyond our control, or we can try to be placed in another country and re-start our 27 month service. So right now, we are all waiting. Waiting to go to Tegucigalpa, waiting to go back to America, waiting to hear if we can ever come back to Honduras... lots of waiting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/americas/peace-corps-cuts-back-in-honduras-guatemala-and-el-salvador.html
http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1932
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16300070
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