La Boda

That means "the wedding". I went to see my friend Josh get married this weekend, at a medium-sized town near his site just a little bit northeast of Tegucigalpa (this is the same Josh who I'm going to be working alongside to help the Protected Areas Management staff do the training for the new PAM volunteers that arrive July 11). For awhile now he's been engaged to a Honduran teacher in his site named Urania and they sent out invitations to their wedding the last time everyone in our training group was together; at the COS conference in Tela last month. I think maybe over half the invitees showed up, but a lot of people didn't.... lameasses!

It was a nice wedding. They brought down a bilingual Catholic priest from the states who did the ceremony in both English and Spanish (but mostly Spanish), along with a full regular catholic mass. He did it pretty quickly though and he was an excellent guy to boot. When I first got into Guaimaca I went looking for Josh and ran into the priest instead, who immediately offered me help finding a place to stay for the night (the reason I was looking for Josh) with some of the groups of people who were there and then he gave me a diet soda. When he said he was the father I thought "But Josh said his dad had a beard...." Then later, I was like oooohhhhhhhh....... right.

After the wedding was the reception (I guess this is standard procedure) with cake, food, some beer brought down from the states (YAY JOSH'S PARENTS!!!), and of course dancing. I tell you what, that is something I will miss greatly about this country... the dancing at every justifiable occasion and sometimes just around the house. When I was an awkward middle schooler mainly looking for a way to make myself invisible at homecoming dances I never imagined I'd get to like it this much. Later, I found out about a miracle drug for my problem commonly known as BEER. Having broken the barrier though, now I just like to dance whenever. :)

After the reception, we got a ride up to the site of Lindsay Galpin, another PAM volunteer who lives close to Guaimaca, in the back of a big covered bread truck. There was an old guy picking bolero tunes on his guitar and singing in that classic warbly voice all the way along as we zoomed through the misty night. At Lindsay's it was your standard Volunteer Gathering, sitting around and visiting, but really at this point any occasion to hang out with those guys is great since all of them will be leaving kind of soon (August 12 or before). In them - the members of my peace corps training group - I've certainly found some of the best friends I could have hoped for.

That was last night, so today I went back to Choluteca and here I am. I did miss a day of Maestro en Casa classes because of the wedding, but I found someone to cover for me who I know to be capable and I left a good set of materials for her to keep them busy with, so I'm not too worried. Unfortunately, the program on the whole has been kind of staggering because of personal issues between the current director of the school (who gives us permission to do classes there) and the retired former director (who happens to be the director of Maestro en Casa in Agua Fría). It's some pretty silly crap that's been going on since the Maestro en Casa program was started here almost three years ago, but it could honestly sink the program and I've already had to play the idiot and mediate between these two people who are both too proud to put aside their differences for the good of 70 students. These are not issues I like to even think about much because they don't merit the mental energy I'd waste worrying about them, but I DO want my students to graduate this year.

As far as other news goes, there really isn't much. We still haven't finished the FORCUENCAS proposal, which is starting to worry me because of the time frame issue. It'll get done, but if we don't hurry up things could get pushed back. Sam and I are now officially planning a trip around central america after I finish, and it is going to eclipse every other trip ever done in the history of mankind with its epic awesomeness. Totally.

Love you all.

Gabe