Nearing the end of FBT

We are nearing the end of our field based training here in Cantarranas, which is a good thing because we are all pretty exhausted by this process. Next week we will rejoin the other groups - Youth Development and Protected Area Management - back at our original training center, up in the mountains. We will also finally get our work site asignments for the next two years. This has been a topic of much speculation for weeks now. We have had a few hints, but next week we will finally learn where we are going, what our projects will be, and what agencies we will be working with for the next two years. To a significant degree, our future will be revealed, although it will certainly be quite different than what we expect.

By all accounts from the volunteers we have met here, training will be worst part of our experience. We definitely have had some ups and some low periods, but at this point it looks like we will make it. On some level, we have been a little disappointed by some of this training process. They have tried to cover too many topics and to give us too many experiences for us to get much in any real depth. We have also not made the progress in Spanish that we had optimistically hoped for. But we have learned quite a lot about Honduras, its local governmental processes, and the issues that they are confronting. We also have made significant improvements in our ability to communicate in Spanish, although we are by no means fluent at this point. We would be able to function quite well now as tourists, and we hope to continue to make improvements to the point that we can really communicate before too long.

We have had a few opportunities to travel in our area and continue to be impressed by how beautiful this country really is. It has also been a very comfortable place for us to live thus far. We are looking forward to what comes next.

Que les vaya bien.