Address! and a long update

Believe it or not, I have an address now. Its sweet too, it reveals how community and people oriented this country is. No numbers or anything, mail can be sent to Gracias (a 25k people town 30 min away) at

Michael Wiebe-Johnson
Voluntario con CASM
La Campa
Gracias, LEMPIRA
Honduras, C.A.

There are couple of Peace Corps people I work with who said that they´ve never really lost anything in the mail, not even packages. It just takes a while.

Anyway I´m in La Campa now! I´ve been here on my own for over a week and I´m getting used to the town, making some friends, and visiting a bunch of communities in the area which are generally about 40 minutes away (going really fast!) on pretty bumpy, hilly roads with the most gorgeous view I´ve ever seen.

My host family is really nice too. I have two brothers and three sisters here, but one sister is in University on the north coast, so I probably won´t see her for a while. Another sister is Elena, a Peace Corps worker who is finishing up her 3rd year here. Its nice to be able to hang out with her sometimes. The other siblings I know are pretty fun, its nice to be able to sit and talk with kids. My host dad is the pastor at the church in La Campa as well as a nurse. We have a medicine shop and a bakery in house. The bakery is part of what the Peace Corps worker at my house has been working on and the baked goods there are wonderful. My spanish is coming along, but its still not so easy sometimes. I just need to work on vocabulary....actually I think I need to work on grammar a lot too hahaha.

Village life is proving to be pretty nice. There are four or five little convenience store things with mostly packaged snacks and candy, but one sells Chocobananos (bananas with a coating of waxy chocolate on a stick) and another is a bakery. La Campa is laid out in a 4x4 square of rocky or dirt roads on the side of a hill looking at a pretty big rock wall. There is a sign painted high on the rock wall that says ´Bienvenidos a La Campa.´ The people here are happy about living in La Campa and they ask a lot how I´m liking it.

Travelling to the little tiny villages (communities) in the area is a lot of fun because people are so proud of the work they´ve done and and so happy to have visitors. At one house we saw the result of a whole lot of CASM work (my organization, Comision Acción Social Menonita). One project is where they put a chimeny onto the indoor cooking fire so that it burns less firewood, burns longer, and the smoke doesn´t cause respiratory illness for their kids. They had a grain silo for storing up for the less productive seasons too. This house also had a chicken pen for producing eggs and they were growing most of their food (even coffee!) for their own family´s consumption. Its great that they have the chance to enjoy the crops that they work so hard to grow. In other places they are building latrines and farming Tilapia fish.

It is so encouraging to see how community organizing and help with simple, practical projects has empowered them to be able to support their own families and take so much pide in the work that they do. I´ve heard of other projects with small scale hydroelectrics and natural gas capture from farm animals that I think would be really good to check out and could be benefitial for other communities in the area.

I´m getting used to being here. The adjustment to the food is a slow one, but I have faith. Thats all for now, internet access is sporadic, but at least it exists in La Campa so I´ll do my best to keep you updated. On the left you can see links for the other Honduras SALTers Rachel and Liz´s blogs. They are both very thoughtful and very awesome people, so you should check them out and leave them comments :) Thank you all for keeping me in your prayers!