The summer has quickly come to an end.  One can feel the plants and animals preparing for the rainy season.  Man included, as vegetables and the staple, maíz

, are harvested and another planting of beans is underway.  The heat has only diminished slightly, and I still usually arrive to school in the mornings completely soaked in sweat.  But it has begun to rain more consistently in the afternoons, and clouds offer us welcome protection from the intensity of the sun.  Recently, I've been focusing my energy on the community library project and community members were elected to different positions on a committee that will be imperative to the project's success.  Last month, myself and a few high school students here in El Pital got together as many kids from the town as we could for the first evening storytime at the high school, where the library is planned to take root.  After opening the gathering with a few newly-learned Spanish sing alongs, Kensy and Durkis, two of the high school students, shared storytelling responsibilities while a couple of parents and I sat with the group of about 40 kids to keep the peace, if you will.  The idea is that this becomes a more regular thing, along with other activities, so that in people's minds the space is not just where books are kept, but also where communal learning takes place.  Next week we will have the second installment!  

As far as the library is concerned, I am also working on a grant proposal for this project so that in the next couple of years there are some funds to continue to develop the space into something extraordinary, something that will truly bring about change in the way the community sees learning, and the opportunities which it provides.  I'm also just starting to compile all my notes and data which I collected throughout this year while visiting the 22 schools in the cuenca and interviewing teachers and directors.  Before I leave in December, I will have a report that, aside from providing demographic and statistical data, will also contain my descriptions and impressions of each school, as well as my suggestions for the best way to tackle the most common needs.

Most importantly, my relationships with people here continue to develop into what I hope will be lasting friendships.  I know that I have not learned everything that people here can teach me, nor have I shared all I wish to share with them.

                The last time I wrote, President Mel Zelaya had just been thrown out of Honduras and the country went into chaos. Today as I am writing, Mel Zelaya managed to sneak back into the country and once again there is major political unrest. I know in July when all this started the schools were closed for almost a month and students were robbed of class time hindering even more their already minimal education.  Currently there has only been a two day curfew, completely halting any activity in the country including businesses and schools. It is definitely a strange feeling to know that I can potentially be arrested for walking down the street to work in the morning.  I am just hoping this conflict gets resolved quickly and the schools do not close for a month again. If these students do not have the opportunity to finish their classes, many will move onto the next grade being cheated of any actual education for this year.

            As for life in El Pital things always seem to stay pretty tranquilo. Rob, the co-director of Un Mundo, and I have been working with two families to finish our pilot project for the composting toilets. I mentioned in my last blog that Elly and I went to do a site visit where another organization had introduced composting toilets. It was then that we decided this would be a great project to bring to the Cuenca, where we live. The project has been moving slower than expected due to the first big problem of the wrong toilet seats being delivered. A composting toilet separates the feces from the urine allowing the feces to change into compost with the help of ash or woodchips. In order to separate the two, a special toilet seat with a hole for the feces and another for the urine is required, which was not what we received after the first delivery. That hindered us for a couple weeks, but as of now the two chambers for the toilets are complete. Now it is the responsibility of the families to finish the top half of the toilets, which includes the walls to the bathroom and the roof. We decided to have the families finish the top half of the bathroom alone, to give them more responsibility and ownership over the bathrooms, so it is not seen as just a gift.  As soon as the families have a chance to finish the top half our first two pilot toilets for our composting toilets will be complete. It is really exciting to know that two composting toilets have been introduced to this area. El Pital and all of La Cuenca Cangrejal is surrounded by lush rainforest, so the importance of the protecting the environment is always on our minds when implementing projects.

As for my other projects I held a women’s group meeting this month in which we discussed the idea of recycling and the economic and environmental benefits of such a concept. In order to represent the idea of reusing we used old plastic bags fused together to make smaller tote bags. The women each designed their own bag of different colors and designs, and they were able to physically see in action the meaning of ‘ones mans’ trash is another mans’ treasure’.

The month of July has quickly come and gone. A lot has happened since I have last written my blog, which was only 2 months ago. In June, Elly and I held our second women’s group meeting. We decided to hold a cooking class with all the women. Our recipes were for Gazpacho, pizza and oatmeal pancakes. It went well for the most part, except the pizzas took a lot longer to cook than one could have guessed. All in all I think the women really enjoyed the class and they are all really excited that they now know how to cook a pizza. Really though, who doesn’t love pizza? Having the women’s group meetings are really interesting also because I can see the relationships amongst the women and how they work together as a group. I am definitely getting a better understanding of each individual woman and community dynamics. I have also had the chance to meet new faces and get to know better the women I already knew, so I love it. I wasn’t able to attend the third meeting but Rob and Elly made an awesome presentation on bee harvesting nad honey products. I hope the next meeting in August goes as well as the other meetings have been.

Elly and I also went out to do a site visit in San Antonio de Cortez, to see composting toilets built by another organization. We will be starting our pilot for the composting toilet project in August, so that was a nice way to see what other organizations are doing. We were able to see 5 diffeannt building types for the construction. Some had only one chamber while others had 2, some were made of wood, some of brick, and others of concrete, so it was nice to be able to see different takes on the construction of the toilets. With the help of volunteers we have coming down in August we hope to build two composting toilets in La Lucinda. Our future plans are to extend this project to the upper valley where communities are more remote and there is a much larger need for proper sanitation.

As for my time here in El Pital, I have been very out of the loop recently. I went home for a long weekend to renew my visa and see my family, but that long weekend quickly turned into almost a month vacation. If some of you do not know, there was a military coup on June 30^th, in which the military physically removed the president Mel Zelaya from office and from the country. There was protesting in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, with various roadblocks throughout the country. Along with this, there was a curfew that allowed no one in the streets after a certain hour. Since I wasn’t sure of what was going to happen with the protesting and rioting I chose to wait a couple days before returning to Honduras. However one thing after another kept coming up, and as the days went by I started to think I would never return to Honduras. Luckily though, I have returned and I couldn’t be happier. Although to the outside world it seems like Honduras is in chaos and under no rule, things seem the same here in El Pital. The one big change however is that there has been no classes for the past couple weeks. It’s a shame for these students to miss so much school for such an extended period of time. A lot of these students are already behind for their age and this dilemma is certainly not helping.

As for my daily life in El Pital, it has been great. I am still living with Lourdes and Ramon. Ramon is currently finishing up an apartment below their house, which will soon be home for me and Elly. I am a little sad to not be living in the house with the family, but I think it will be better for both them and me. It will allow me to actually get work done when I am at home. As of now whenever I am in the house I am not able to do anything except play cards and chat, which really isn’t so bad.  The apartment will allow them to have a little more room in their house so Joseline can have her own room, which I am sure she’s excited about.

Here in the Cangrejal watershed, I continue to feel blessed to be a part of the creation of new relationships, of the search for new ways of approaching old problems, and to be able to learn from the people here while passing along to them some of the few things I have been taught. English classes up in the community of La Muralla continue to be the highlight of my time here, with each class resulting in a new world of ideas being opened up to both teacher and students. The students are on break for the week as I type this, and I am using the time away from teaching and carrying out my school assessments to really lay down the direction for the rest of the year. Considering that I only have two days a week with these students and that they are so young (1st thru 5th grade), my goals have more to do with them exploring new ways of learning and thinking than having a command of the English language. That being said, I really am amazed at how much these kids are retaining. Next week I will be joined by a few visiting volunteers to do some art projects on Tuesday and Thursday that will hopefully help us to learn vocabulary dealing with shapes and colors.

I have visited about half of the schools in the cuenca cangrejal and am starting to see some clear patterns. The most glaring issue to me is the inability of the municipalidad to encourage teachers to stay longer than a year or two in these schools where a teacher's understanding of each student's stage of development, family life, and strengths is so integral to their learning. There is also an incredible lack of resources and variety in learning/teaching methods. When I have visited all of the schools and sorted through all of the data and observations, I plan on writing a comprehensive report to share with anyone interested so that, in the future, Un Mundo and others can together help to expand the opportunities for children growing up in this area.

Next week I will be flying to Chicago to spend a week in the midwest. Aside from spending some time with my friends and family, I will be picking up books from a couple of book drives organized a few months back that will hopefully be a good addition to the community library that is starting to develop in El Pital. I will also be publicizing a benefit concert for Un Mundo's work in the cuenca that is going to be held on Thursday, June 25th in Madison, WI. My friends, the Madison-based funk and reggae band Chafo will be performing along with another good friend, Malian musician Tani Diakite and his Malian Blues Band. The following Saturday I will be attending a wedding to celebrate the union of two of my good friends in the northwoods of Wisconsin. Thinking of returning to the United States gives me mixed feelings of course, as I am really excited to see friends and family and for these wonderful events that will be happening, but I am not looking forward to being surrounded by the mindless consumption that can be so prevalent there, the effects of which the majority seldom ponders.

This Thursday I will be holding a meeting in El Pital to try and generate some excitement around the library and the formation of a group of people who will ideally become the leaders and guardians of this community space that has yet to be a reality. I am confident that, with the right people involved, this space can eventually become more than a room with books in it, and evolve into a place where community members of all ages can access ideas, information and resources that will ultimately help expand and open up community consciousness.