Leaving Tomorrow!

Hey everyone,

I decided to create this blog so that I can keep my friends and family updated during my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras. Internet access in Honduras is rare and sometimes unreliable, but I will try to keep this updated as much as I can. I'll post stories and pictures so that I can give all of you a better idea of what I'm up to. I haven’t even left yet, and it is already starting to get crazy, and there have been quite a few changes in my schedule.

For those of you who don't know, the President of Honduras was ousted yesterday in a military coup d'etat. President Zelaya was awaken by gunshots and detained by military troops. He was then brought to Costa Rica while the Honduran congress named a new President. Zelaya has been fighting for the past few weeks to change the constitution to allow the President to run for a second 4-year term (like we have here in the U.S.) The Supreme Court ruled against this new change, but Zelaya decided to keep fighting. His ousting came just a few hours before polls were supposed to open up for a constitutional referendum that Zelaya was pushing for.

So after months and months of waiting to go to Honduras, the plans have been drastically changed the day before I depart. As of right now, I plan to leave tomorrow, June 30th, for Miami, FL. In Miami, I will meet all the other volunteers that I will be training and working with down there. We will then get on a plane bright and early on Wednesday to go down to the Dominican Republic. We are going to stay in the DR for about 3 weeks while the conflict in Honduras is settled. We are going down to the Dominican Republic to get started on our training, which will initially focus mainly on language. After those 3 weeks, we will head over to Honduras to continue our training if it is safe to do so. I don’t know what city I will be in the DR or if I will be living with a host family or not. Hopefully everything works out, and until I know more it is just going to take a little bit of patience and flexibility. All I know now is that I’m really excited for this entire trip.

A lot of people have asked me what exactly I’m going to be doing down there. Well my project assignment is Protected Areas Management (PAM) and my main focus will be to increase knowledge of proper management and conservation of their national parks. Another set of duties includes promoting conservation and sustainable use of natural resources in the communities that live just outside of these national parks. I don’t know exactly what my project will be yet because I have to assess what my village needs the most. Past volunteers in my program have worked with water management and purification, small animal management, chicken coops, sustainable agriculture (esp with coffee), environmental education, natural resource management, use of biogas (which is made from latrines or pig stalls to make cooking fuel), ecotourism, marketing for crops, integrated pest management, and trash management.

I want to say thanks to all of my family and friends who have supported me in my decision to join the Peace Corps. I can’t wait to leave, but I know I’m going to miss all of you very much. Anyone is more than welcome to come down and visit me. If you do decide to come down I will be your own personal tour guide and translator (if I get good enough at Spanish). To contact me, you can either post on this blog, or email me at corky7987@gmail.com. Not sure about my address right now, so when I find that out I will post it here.

Ok, that’s long enough for my first post. Hopefully there will be more to come soon.

Peace,

Miles