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Last Friday night marked an important milestone for me: My thirtieth consecutive night in my apartment in Copan.

Now, this may seem like I am trying to commemorate the fact that a whole month has already passed since I moved to Honduras, and in some ways, I am.  However, more notably, this is probably the first time since… well… probably 2005 that I have spent that many consecutive nights in one place.

Sure, I was relatively settled in my short time in Bolivia with Peace Corps, but I still made weekend trips to the city every couple of weeks to go to the market and the bank.  Working at Adventure Links in Virginia, I was no more settled, constantly going out into the field on overnight programs.  And we all know that the life of a Dragons instructor is anything but stationary. Thirty straight days in the same bed! Incredible!

So, what will I do to celebrate this important milestone?! Get out of town, of course! This weekend is a holiday weekend (Thursday and Friday off from school) because of Honduran Independence Day (which is tomorrow, September 15th).  I’ll be heading to Guatemala to hopefully meet up with some friends and take in the beautiful Lago Atitlan.

We have officially finished four weeks of school (OK, this week was just a two day week.  Tomorrow is the Independence Day Parade, for which the school band is currently practicing outside of my classroom window… Thursday and Friday are off).

So far, things are going quite well at Mayatan.  Last Friday was the “Day of the Child”, so the primary school kids got to have a party in their classrooms.  All of the secondary school classes traveled to aldeas around Copan and brought pinatas, cake, food and games to help the children celebrate.  It was pretty neat to see the “city kids” out in the campo helping out less privileged kids on their special day.

Classes are going well, despite the distraction by this week’s events.

Life in Copan is all around lovely.  Please enjoy the following pictures of life in and around Copan Ruinas.

This is the view from my apartment window. It reminds me quite a lot of the view from my room in La Palma.

Kitchen in my lovely little studio apartment. Heretofore lovingly referred to as my "shoe box".

Dining/Muti-use area of my shoe box.

Bedroom, Closet and Balcony(!) of my shoe box.

Sometimes more than just the students show up for class.

It's not so bad waking up at 5:30am for work with views like this...

Awesome adaptation.

Exploring a local canyon.

View from my balcony. Rainbow compliments of the rainy season.

Some 9th grade girls hold a hula hoop contest for the children of Carrizal on "Dia del nino"

9th Grade boys help participants prepare for "Pin the tail on the donkey".

Beautiful children of Carrizal

Caterpillar. No joke. Look closely.

My friend, and co-teacher Sarah, on a hike outside of Copan.

Yours truly.

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