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Hello family and friends! I hope this holiday season is enjoyable for all. I am finally feeling some of the Christmas cheer here as my village has started to have “posadas” every night to celebrate Mary & Joseph going to Bethlehem. People meet up at a community member’s house and read part of the gospel, discuss it, and then eat cookies. Since there are no Santas on street corners and not very many nativity seasons on people’s front yards, the posadas have finally made me feel like Christmas is coming! (Grinch reference intended).

Here are some work and life updates from Honduras:

1. I am continuing work with the coffee co-op on a project with my sitemate and fellow PCV, Carrie. We are working to create a “guidebook” for the cooperative about their farmers and their coffee. This is intended as a marketing tool to help find direct trade markets in the US/Europe. Currently, the cooperative exclusively sells to intermediaries based on the NYSE market price rather than strictly on a quality basis. However, our cooperative has producers with very high quality (some specialty coffee, some strictly high growth) coffee. Our goal is to train the cooperative on how to find new markets, how to test for quality (cupping) at the cooperative, and develop a greater diversity of income (organice fertilizer making, cocoa production).

2. I also recently participated in the annual bird counting event at the Botanical Gardens of Lancetilla near Tela on the North Coast. This event was really fun and several other PCVs participated. We were divided into groups and then set out with a bird expert to monitor the diversity and quantity of bird species in our respective parks. Aimee and I went to Punta Izopo (near the Garifuna village of Triunfo de la Cruz) and were able to spot some awesome Frigate birds, Bujajas, semipalmated plovers, and crocodiles (among other things!). After birding, we spent some time in the Garifuna village (a black ethnic group that populates the North Coast of Honduras), went swimming, and enjoyed the beautiful botanical gardens of Lancetilla.

3. I working on lesson plans for my environmental/outdoor education classes that I will be giving next school year (starts in mid-late Feb) for the 3rd-6th grade. Most of the time during the school day, the kids share a classroom with another level and have to copy information from books. My goal is to have the kids do outdoor activities based on in-class lessons (ex. mammals, watershed, pollution, ecosystems, etc.).

4. And pretty soon I am going to be working on my tan with my family because they are coming to visit me (and the beach…not sure which is the greater motivation-me or the beach-knowing that it is FREEZING in Chicago).

Finally, I am starting to compost coffee pulp with worms next week and I can’t wait

I hope all is well. I miss you all dearly. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!