Hello there, can't believe it's been so long since I last emailed you!
Just more proof that the La Esperanza time hoover gets stronger the more time you spend here.

Actually, that must be true because although I haven't written for a while, I have very little
to tell  you!

It's now my last week here, I've been to the Save the Children office and said goodbye and they
said they were very pleased with my work and that my children have learned a lot of English, it
may be standard guff but it happens to be true so I'm quite proud.

I also had to say goodbye to my Spanish Teacher Ceyda who is lovely and that was actually a bit
upsetting!

I've got this afternoon to do some shopping - got to get presents for my family - and then the
usual trip to the pub - they must be quite disappointed with this lot of volunteers, hardly any
of us drink during the week, so it'll be cokes all round.

I've asked around and other people have noticed a strange phenomenon that I thought was just me,
pepsi and coca-cola actually taste better out here. I 'm not sure if you need hot weather to
make them seem more refreshing or if it's just the fact that all the water tastes of sterilising
tablets but the pepsi is fantastic, it would never be my drink of choice at home.

Last weekend was a bit of a disaster, Georgina, Zoe and I sat around for hours trying to find
somewhere to go that looked interesting, remember that they have been here 5 months so they've
been to most places.

We settled on a place called Santa Barbara, lonely planet said it had a cinema, a cathedral,
swimming pool, a castle on a hill and local craft co-operatives where you could buy hand-woven
stuff.

sounds ok we thought.

We set off at 7 on Saturday morning and got there in 3 easy hitches (and free too!) to find that
the guidebook hadn't mentioned one thing... it was absolutely boiling, we weren't in the
mountains any more. Still, we wandered around and found the cinema, it was tiny but had an english film showing at
7pm, not bad.

Then we found a hotel and got a room.
Then we all fell asleep for an hour because it was so hot.

Feeling a bit more refreshed, we went back out. The cathedral was more like a basic Honduran
church really and it was closed. We've got at least 5 here in La Esperanza at least as good.
then we went to get something to eat and were accosted by a very nice old man who seemed to be
the self appointed tourist information centre for Santa Barbara. He thought I didn't speak
Spanish and kept saying words for me to repeat like 'tortilla' and 'fresco' then complimenting
me on my wonderful accent! we finally managed to get away by promising that if we thought of any
more questions we'd go back and find him again!

then we wandered around town for a bit, we couldn't find any handicrafts at all, just a load
more North American plastic tat. Although I was quite surprised to find a shop that sold new
clothes. I'd forgotten that they existed. They were still in the bizarre 80s fashions that are
so popular out here though.

at 7 we went to the cinema to find that they'd decided to watch Mexican football instead of the
film. Not too impressed with that we decided to go get some tea.

We found a nice restaurant-bar near to our hotel and ordered 3 meals... or tried to. the waiter
was incredibly dense, there were 3 of us and we each ordered a drink and the same meal each. It
took him 5 attempts to write it down correctly and then he brought the wrong drinks anyway.
Still, the food was good.

It was getting dark now so we thought we'd go find a better bar.
There were no other bars. One place called 'le club' looked promising but was padlocked, there
was also a disco but peering through the door showed us that there were no people in there, some
christmas tree-type lights and very cheesy 80s music.

We walked around the entire town looking for somewhere and that was it. There were loads of
people out but they were just sitting on their doorsteps or standing on street corners.

We walked around for about half an hour listening to them blowing us kisses, shoutin g' I love
you' 'hermosa' (beautiful) and 'hey baby' then we decided that there was nothing else for it and
went back to the stupid barman.

We tried to order drinks, he said they had pepsi or 7up. We said that we wanted 1 rum and coke
and 2 beers. He said that he didn't know what rum was. We repeated it and added 'bacardi' for
good measure. He said that they dodn't have any then disappeared. A waitress came over, we asked
her and she said they had 3 types of rum, she took our order and we finally got our drinks.

Then the barman started dancing in the middle of the dance floor. Remember that we are the only
people there. He was gyrating away obviously thinking he was the sexiest thing since ricki
martin.

Finally he fell over, trying to do a sort of hip-thrusting limbo type move. Our laughter was
enough to make him leave.

We stayed for a few more drinks then paid - he seemed to make the prices up on the spot- and
went to our room.

not the most exciting Saturday in the world!

Sunday was a bit better, we hitched to see the castle on the hill. It was actually a ruined
house but it was still quite cool, stood against dramatic rolling hills with pine forests and
banana trees.

Later on we went to the swimming pools, they were totally mad, full of teenagers just swimming
in their clothes, about a hundred people were there and there was a dancefloor with a really
loud disco and hammocks - I relaxed in a hammock in the sun whilst the others swam. It wasn't
bad.

We hitched home easily again and got home just in time for tea.

But at least we can say that we've been somewhere that the other volunteers haven't!

I can't believe I've managed to write so much about so little!

tomorrow I'm at school in the morning and then I'll try and pack most of my stuff in the
afternoon, Thursday is my last day at school and the teachers are taking Richard and me out for
a meal at 5pm then at 8pm I'm meeting everyone for goodbye drinks and to get them to sign my
poncho - you'l be impressed with it when I get home! then on Friday I'll finish packing and I
have to make shepherd's pie for Olga, I thought I'd got out of it but yesterday she reminded me-
damn.

Then on Saturday I'm off. I'm not 100% sure when I'm expected at Utila, or who's going to meet
me, or where I'm staying or even what project I'm doing but it'll be fine!

I'm going to email the project co-ordinator next and ask her for some info.

well. That's stretched my news as far as possible, hope you're doing well, I'll write when I
find a computer on Utila.