Big Life Changes

So, I know it has been a while, again, since I have written. Since the last time I posted, a whole lot has changed. I am married for one! Yes, no longer Ms. Morgan Montgomery but Mrs. Morgan Montgomery Suazo...insanity! My family came for almost two weeks and we had a blast touring a little bit of Honduras. From the North cost (tela) the the amazing waterfalls of pulapanzak. Then I got married on August 2nd and it was definitely a wedding in Honduras...no electricty all day, the lawyer a little tipsy upon arrival, and rain. But it was absolutely beautiful and I am so happy. We then took my family to the airport and headed off on our honeymoon in La Ceiba. We went to Cayos Cochinos and it was incredible! We are going back the very first chance we get! So yeah, big changes. Now I must go back to work as school starts in a week....fifth graders at ebh watch out!

Life in Comayagua

Hey Everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I have posted, life is pretty crazy. We are now officially on Summer Vacation from school and I am sort of glad to say that I am now relieved of my brief experiencce of teaching 2nd grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade. It was interesting to say the least. It was a good experience and introduction into the school and I feel that I am more than ready to have my own class from start to finish next year. I am going to be teaching 5th grade, that is if they dont change it on me. I really like my house and the people I live with, it is definitely a change from Peace Corps life to here. I have a washer, hot water, more space, internet in my house. So yeah, living the good life down here in Honduras. Other news, I am getting married to my honduran boyfriend, Roque Suazo, in August!! I am very excited and looking forward to seeing my family and having this celebration. So lots of big changes in my life right now and loving it all! I hope that this finds all of you well and I will post more later! Feel free to email me. Hasta Pronto!

Trading in the Peace Corps Hat

Hey everyone!
How are you all? I know it has been a little while since I havewritten to you and given you updates. So here it goes. There havebeen some major changes in my life in the past week or so. I havetaken a job teaching at one of the top bilingual schools in Honduras.What does that mean, I will be finishing of the year (they are on theamerican system) working in comayagua teaching 2nd grade. Then nextyear (yes I am staying on another year here in Honduras) I will beteaching 5th grade. In terms of peace corps I have to resign becausewe are not permited to have a job and be a volunteer. It was a harddecision but the conclusion I came to is my commitment is not with thepeace corps organization but instead with the community and I am stillgoing to continue to work in the community during my time while I amteaching at the school. Therefore I am taking a new step in my lifeand I am super excited about it. It will be a new and differentexperience that I am so happy to try and be a part of. So that isthe new change in my life. I will be starting my new job on the 14thof April (yes very soon) and I cannot wait.
Other than new job, new home, new phase in my life, everything isgoing really well. I am doing very well. Things with my boyfriendare excellent and I could not be happier, I adore him and it is such ahealthy relationship. Yes, you could even say I am glowing. HEHE. Soyeah, I will update all of you with my new address, I will have thesame phone, and I send more updates when the dust settles from thischange.
I miss you all and hope that life is treating you well.

Things here are going well. I am back to work now. I teaching 6th grade English, will start teaching teachers English, startingparenting schools, and of course the constant headache that is thelibrary and then there is always baseball. I also might startteaching English to first graders in the mornings; we will see howthings go. It is nice to have work again, it makes the days go byfaster and I feel productive (which we both know is definitelysomething important for me). I am also tutoring a 7yr old (daughterof a good friend of mine) in the evenings, so it is nice. Then ofcourse, the weekends are dedicated to seeing my boy.

We have a regional baseball qualifying tournament at the end of March and I am just now starting to train a whole new group of kids...so we will se if we will be ready to compete by then. The weather here is finally getting nice, and by nice I mean sunny all of the time. We are headed straight into summer at this point and it is going to start getting really hot really soon...I am happy.

I am officially done with service in this September...I cannot believe it honestly. I am however, trying to stay on in Honduras for a while longer either with peace corps or working for a bilingual school in comayagua. So that is where things are at the moment....

Other than that, everything is same old same old, life is good and getting expensive here (they just took the subsidies off of the price of gas and diesel so the prices are going to soar which means that everything-food, transportation,produce, other products-is going to get more expensive which is not really a good thing for this country at this point...but what are you going to do??

Well, gotta get going, I have to get back to site to teach english today, but I will try and write more later and write more frequently!

Take care!
Morgan

Recovering from Feria

Well, it is yet another month and the time continues to fly by. I cannot believe that it is already August and that next month is my one year anniversary here in my site-halfway through my service already. We just finished the Feria (a week long celebration of the town’s patron saint-Santa Ana). It was fun and crazy all at the same time. La Libertad, a very calm town with very little activity became a town busting with people from all of the aldeas and surrounding towns and dances every night. It was a lot of fun and I did a lot of dancing (I love to dance so it was very nice). Now the town is back to normal, and I am kind of relieved in a sense. Other than that, I am starting up baseball again and we have a very active team and a wonderful co-coach that a) knows how to play and b) wants to help and play so we have a lot of fun and the kids are learning very quickly. I am excited. I am continuing with my English classes, we have moved on to the past tense, so it is all good. The emergency committee is finally doing trainings and the community is very responsive so that is exciting as well. So things are going really well here. The raining season continues, it rained all day yesterday but it is still really hot here (the sun still comes out, yeah!!!!). Life continues to speed forward and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly this two years is going. Which means I guess I better start getting serious about what I am going to do when I am done here…I have no idea. It will come to me I am sure, I just haven’t got a clue right now. Well, I am going to get going to eat some lunch and clean a little bit before my baseball practice.

I hope this finds all of you well and happy. I miss all of you and think of you often.

Cuidense mucho!

Besos y abrazos por la distancia,

m

Aww the Storms!

Yep, that is right, we are in rainy season and thus the storms have begun. Usually, everyday around 5ish in the afternoon the rain starts. Sometimes it is just a light rain, sometimes it is just thunder and lightening, or like today, we have the works: torrential downpours, thunder and lightening. The storms are actually pretty incredible. It rains so hard that you can hardly see and if you get caught outside in one, well you have had your bath for the day-two seconds and you are drenched to the bone. The streets turn to rivers and lakes and the rivers start to rise (not always a good thing). The good thing is it is not cold; the bad thing is they do tend to cause a lot of problems and flooding here in Honduras. We also tend to lose power and our water turns a fun reddish-brown and contains more dirt than water (that is if they do not turn the water off). All in all it is pretty amazing. I never knew it could rain so hard for so long. Sometimes the showers last 5mins, sometimes hours. It is definitely an experience and I love storms so it makes me happy.

Well I am going to get going, before my computer battery dies and before we lose power (yes, we are having one of the bigger storms right now so I wont be surprised if we don’t lose power later). Hope all is well with everyone and I will update this again later. Take care and I miss you all!

m

Life Is Good

Life In Honduras…Continues….

Well, life here continues. Things are settling down after a month of non-stop travel and having my sister visit (which was amazing). I start work again this week which is exciting. I have my normal 6-10hrs of English this week but the more exciting thing is I am going to the aldeas to start the parenting school that I have been trying to start for the past 6months so that is very exciting. I will be training teachers and a few parents from 20 aldea communities to run this incredible parenting program that teaches parents about values, nutrition, the importance of school, self-esteem, etc. It is so incredible and has such a positive impact in the communities that are doing this. It also just gives the communities a designated time to get together and form stronger bonds and talk about things that normally just go by the wayside because they have never had this structured time to talk about these topics. It also provides information on how to talk to their kids about sensitive topics like HIV/AIDs, relationships, etc. that normally are not talked about. I am super excited. We shall see what comes of it. I remember when I was in training this was the one project that I did not really want to do, and now it is my main project and I cannot wait to see how it turns out. Not only that, but I will be training the new volunteers that arrive this week on this topic and in January, I will be, along with one other volunteer (a good friend of mine) presenting this program to the Ministry of Education of Honduras to see if they will take it on as a national project to better the lives of the people in their country!!!! How amazing is that???

On top of that, I finally had a meeting with ALL of my counterparts (first time since I have gotten to site) and we have work plans with all of the--Including a seminar and training with the emergency committee this weekend. My library continues to need help but that is nothing new and I am going to work really hard to try and get the youth group back on track. I am going to start training baseball again and I think that I am going to form two leagues (8-12 years and 13-20) so that everyone who wants to play can play. We are also supposedly starting a regional league in Comayagua in the coming year so that is pretty exciting and it is such a good thing for the kids. So, if it is not apparent, I am once again rejuvenated and really excited to be working and have so many ideas to start putting into action. I have had my rough spots, but maybe things will begin to turn around now. If nothing else, I know that I am in the right place doing the right thing and this experience has taught, continues to teach, and will teach me so much about myself and everything else. It is definitely changing who I am for the better. I love it so much and I am so glad to be here.

The feria de La Libertad starts on the 25^th is supposed to be a lot of fun. It is kind of like our county fair, only on a smaller scale (fewer people) and the whole town goes out everynight and there will be live music and dancing the whole week. It should be entertaining that is for sure. I missed it last year because I was still in training, but it is all good. I will be here this year and it will be fun. I will let you know how it goes.

I miss you all and hope that life is treating you well! Take care and when you get a chance drop me an email or letter to let me know how life is going for you!

Besos y abrazos por la distancia!

M