Skipping Christmas

There is a wide range of people who read our blog – information-hungry Peace Corps hopefuls awaiting invitations and departure dates, former co-workers and acquaintances, random folks with an interest in Honduras, and of course our families and friends.  Those in the last category most likely already know the latest news but for those who don’t, here is a short summary.

Recently, there have been some major shake ups in Peace Corps Honduras that will affect not only David and I (and the other 156 volunteers in country) but also all of the projects we’ve been working on for the past 20 months.  In short, due to the rising incidents of violent crime in Central America, specifically Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, Peace Corps has decided to cancel incoming training classes to these three countries.  In addition, PC operations in Honduras are being suspended for the time being until the program can be reviewed and additional safety measures can be put into place.

While this program review is taking place, all 158 PC Honduras volunteers will be sent home to the States and placed under an Administrative Hold.  Currently, we are on Standfast (in Honduras) and must remain in our sites.   In about two weeks we will pack up all of our belongings, say goodbye to Trinidad, and head to a PC conference where staff from PC Washington will be present.  After the conference we will board a plane and head home to NC.

There is still hope that the newer volunteer classes may be allowed to return to Honduras to complete their service but nothing is for certain.  As for our training group (H16) who were scheduled to finish in April/May, this appears to be the end of the road.

This information began slowly trickling in while we were still on our work trip in Copán.  David and I did a lot of talking about the “what if’s” especially regarding our upcoming (at the time) trip home for Christmas.  After we found out that all volunteers were to be removed in mid-January, we made the difficult decision to cancel our trip home for Christmas.  Of course we wanted to be with our family and friends and had been looking forward to the trip for months but we felt it was important to spend our last few weeks in country settling our affairs and saying goodbye to our friends.

It never quite felt like Christmas to me, maybe it was the fact that we were still wearing shorts and t-shirts or that the mosquitoes were out like never before.  But we did get to enjoy the holiday lights and various decorated trees set up in town as well as a Christmas Eve tamale dinner with our closest friends.

Christmas "tree". Actually a metal teepee with Spanish moss all over it

There were no stockings this year but we did find some little stuffers around town – chocolate coins, sparklers, and some snap ‘n’ pops that were more like miniature explosives (which we found out after David “popped” one in the house).

Stocking stuffers

We will continue blogging including some more thoughts on our service as we draw near to its premature end.  Until then, we hope you all are thoroughly enjoying the Holiday season!