Still Alive

So I just realized it has been almost 1 whole month since I last updated my blog. No need to worry though… I am alive and well (well being a loose term, as I have been sick for the last 8 days and have not really left my bed). But, since I can’t really do anything else, I’ll fill you all in on my life down in Central America.

The week following my birthday, we started our volunteer projects for PEILE – an organization that offers tons of free services to the communities, and travels the country building schools and hospitals for the communities most in need and most forgotten by the government. We got the chance to drive about an hour outside of Xela on a Wednesday morning for a “first brick laying ceremony” of a new school to be built in Los Pinales. The community only has a school for grades 1-5, and the children just stop going to school when they reach 6th grade. The whole ceremony was pretty cool, and they were really excited – they expect a 3 story school to be finished in 3 months.

The following weekend the group headed to Tilapita- a small black sand beach about 3 hours away from Xela for Jodi’s Bachelorette Party. (Jodi is a girl in the group who got engaged before she left and is getting married in Guatemala after spring break). Transportation is so extremely unreliable that we have come to double our ETA’s and end up being dead on: hence, by 3 hours, I actually mean 6 hours. We got the coast sweating- I have never felt weather that hot- especially after living comfortably at 60-70 degrees in Xela the past 2 months. Our accommodations were a pitfall. We stayed in a place called that was literally called Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which consisted of a large, one room square cabin with 4 full size beds. I came to find, however, that the beds were in fact made of wooden planks – use your imagination- they were NOT comfortable. On top of the wood factor, we shared each bed 3 ways, had to use covers to keep the mosquitoes away, and almost sweat to death in the 4 hours of “sleep” we got. Other than our shanty cottage- the beach was beautiful, really hot, and the food we ate at the hotel next door was phenomenal. On our way out, we drove through a mangrove – which unlike in the Dominican Republic- did NOT smell like rotten eggs… it was actually quite enjoyable.