my new home for the next two years.

i finnaly made it! i arrived the 1st of the month in la union, catacamas, olancho. it is a small town of about 100 peopl located about 30 minutes from a town of 30,000, catacamas. the town is very poor and the only real economy is agriculture which is almost more for sustance than profit. but the people are extremely nice and helpful. the town is surrounded by beautiful mountains and a national park. there is a national park called the caves of talgua right near my site where the oldest human remains in central america were found. there is a nice american style lodge and guest center in this part. further up there are smaller villages and the farms where most people work. i plan to live in this village whith no electricty bt surrounded by majestic views. my counterpart lives there and he is unbelievable. the other day he caught a snake and in the process got but. he told me the snake was poisonois because his hand was numb but did not make a big deal about it, turns out the snake was very poisonous according to a snake book.
for the next three months i am supposed to get to know the community and think of and plan projects. so right now i am going house to house meetting peopel and have a town hall meeting scheduled for later today, which i am a little nervous for. i have about 10 cups of coffee or soda a day as everyone offers me a cup when i come visit.i have also been playing a lot of soccer, we bet 50 cents eacha nd the winners get their money back as well as, you guessed it a free soda. there was also a small fiesta the other night, which was like a high school dance, but it was a lot of fun.
i have been living witha host family wjo have been great, they arre really jolly and show me around, take me on hikes ¨spear¨fishing and have been feeding me tons of beans rice and of course tortillas.
I plan on doing a number of projects in the community. such as improving agriculture practices, building bridges, school that ¨fell¨down , paths, work on water shed problems, enviro ed, clean up the community and also strat mini businesses like crafts, start a coop and get them certified organically as well as other projects like improves stoves and latrines. i hope to accomplish some of these goals but know it will be a long and hard proccess. i also feart hat some may be hard or impossible to accomplish as they require alot of funding which is hard to come by as well as community participation. i am optomistic and hope that i will be able to realize a few of these projects in the future, yet i know it is almost impossible to do them all.
the last few days have been quite trying as i have left all my friends from training and have been in a new place. yet i am making new friends althought he cultural driffirence have made it hard to completely relate to people and not have people feeling the smae theings i am feeling, like the other volunteers. yet there is another peace corper, juancito close by which is great and we met the other volunteer around the area who all seem really nice. i am very happy and feeling more and more comfortable everyday. i also cant wait for the soccer game tomorrow whcih we plan to watch on a giant projected screen. missing you all but having a great time

love
josue

ps ¡GO HONDURAS!