Curfew merfew

Last week I left Talanga because FBT is finally over!! It was sad leaving my host family because I really liked them, but we had a little goodbye party with cake (which was then smashed in my face) and some little speeches which were very nice. The day we left was the Honduran Independence Day. Now, not that I would ever say anything negative about the Peace Corps but for real? Why in the world they planned to have us leave on a national day of celebration is beyond me. We all looked like asses carrying our suitcases across the parade route. None of our host families could understand why we were leaving on Independence Day and it did look super rude and unpatriotic for us to leave. Not to mention the fact that most of our families were participating in the parade in one form or another so we had to say goodbye that morning or the night before. But, that aside I did have a good last morning in Talanga. A bunch of other volunteers and I hiked up to the top of this huge hill really early in the morning (6:30) to get one last view of the town/photo op. One of these days I will get around to posting pictures…maybe. While hiking I managed to get nice and sunburned and then went home to have one last breakfast with the fam. Then my two host sisters and I went to watch the parade. Now, if you know me at all you know that I am not a huge fan of parades (I think the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade is boring and would rather watch the dog show or football). Not surprisingly, my dislike of parades crosses cultural boundaries. The parade consisted of about 10 schools. Each school had a drum line, 7 year olds dressed in something Brittney would be ashamed of, and a couple of kids in uniform. The parade lasted about 4 hours. I wont lie, I wanted to leave after about 4.5 minutes. But, I stuck it out, got a few good laughs with my host sister, and then headed home for lunch. Naturally when we got home, we turned on the local tv station to watch the very same parade, call me scrooge but I was still not amused. After lunch I prepared myself to make the 10 minute walk to where the bus was picking me and my belongings up. I was not looking forward to the journey as my suitcase weighs about 60 pounds (please note: I left another bag weighing about 30 in Zarabanda). I head outside and my host dad was like “No way! You cant drag that all the way to INFOP.” He then proceeds to put my suitcase on the seat of his vespa-esque “motorcycle.” He looked around for something to strap it to the moto but could only find one skinny little string. He tied it up as best he could and set off (at an astounding 5 miles an hour). Needless to say, this was hysterical to see and the moto was smoking a bit. Then he took a sharp turn onto the calle principal. Naturally, the suitcase started to fall off. He stopped in the middle of the road to rearrange and ended up looping one of his arms in a strap. This scared the beejesus out of me because I did not want to be known as the peace corps trainee that packed so much it ripped her host dad’s arm off. But, luckily, no limbs were lost and he made it to the training center unscathed. I walked up a few minutes behind him to a crowd of my fellow volunteers laughing and taking pictures of the situation. I will try to upload one asap (asap=as soon as I feel like it).

Ridiculous
(Note that Monse is holding an umbrella over me because she didn't want me to get even more burnt)

(It is now a couple days later.....)
Well, I am back in Zarabanda to complete my training. The three training groups are together again and it is nice and a little weird to be surrounded by so many gringos. Basically, we are just here to tie up all the loose ends and I am very glad that it is almost over because I am pretty tired of being trained.
Last Thursday I finally got my site placement! Woooo! I will be spending the next two years living in Colomoncagua (I was right). It is in the department of Intibuca and about 20 minutes north of El Salvador, so when you all come to visit, you can fly into San Salvador! Then I can meet you there and we can go to the beach, cheque?
Earlier this week I was really excited to finally finish training, get to my Colomoncagua, dump out my godforsaken suitcases, and get to work. However, because our training group has the worst luck ever, mel came back. So now, instead of celebrating the end of training and hanging out with everyone for the last time, we are all on lock down. Curfews are just as uncool at 23 as they were at 17. I am currently trying my best to ignore the 6 year old sitting at my feet attempting to entice me to play. Normally, I am not so coldhearted (aka am a sucker) and will play. However, after two days of playing “pING pONG tenIIIS,” being coached in gymnastics, and using a complex mathematical formula (aka counting ALL the dots and sorting them into random piles) to build an airplane out of dominos, I am rather kid-ed out. Seriously though, losing my mind a little. I am not sure how they plan on getting us sworn in and into our sites. I personally do not mind forgoing the swearing in process but I don’t think the government accepts IOU one oath of loyalty etc cards. I just hope we get it all worked out because this has been one epic training process. Anyway…I am really grumpy so I am going to wait for my normally bubbly and optimistic personality to return before I write anything else.

One bright spot: at lunch today the four year old was whining that she did not want to finish her food (typs) her mom said that if she didn’t finish it she was never going to get bigger and was going to be unhealthy, the six year old then pipes up and says “yea, that’s what happened to Michael Jackson.” That comment earned her one game of count the dots to build an airplane.