Everything

7/7
Heeeeeey chochachos!
Greetings from Washington, D.C.! I'm currently in my room, sitting as close to the air conditioner as possible without actually teetering on TOP of it, gazing out the window at what I am sure are ample sight-seeing opportunities I am more or less pointedly ignoring (unless you count wandering to the bookstore today to buy The Audacity of Hope). I saw the Pentagon as we flew in last night, and I think that's good enough (it's much smaller than I thought it would be). I mean, why go all the way to the White House just to bug a guy? Let's not and say we did!

So I arrived last night, quite sweaty from the humidity and the efforts I exuded from speaking Spanish the whole flight over. I plopped down next to a young girl about my age, and pulled out a book I'm currently reading, entitled "La Compugenio," which is a Betsy Byer's novel for sixth graders that's been translated into spanish ("The Computer Genius"). She immediately looked at me and asked me, in Spanish, why I was reading in Spanish. Flustered, I blurted out "I'm going to Honduras!" and then clarified that I was doing that in a couple days, and was on my way to get all trained up in D.C. She was from Argentina, and was really nice and quite hilarious. We chatted the whole way and it was a great way to practice my Spanish after letting that particular muscle atrophy for the past year.

I got into my hotel and promptly met my roommate, a really nice girl named Vanessa, who hails from San Diego. We were part of a handful of West Coast kids who had to arrive a day early. Today was pretty relaxed--we had to sign in and turn in all our registration forms and what-have-you by about 2pm, then we had the first parts of Staging (orientation) until dinnertime. We covered some safety stuff today, as well as apprehensions and aspirations. It's INSANELY tough getting 50 different people straight--I think everyone is named Katie and from Ohio--but I figure I'll get it in the end. If not, I can always go with the old "heeey, buddy!" standby. That and a enthusiastic high-five usually conceals the fact I don't know who I'm speaking to.

We've also received some info about what will, in fact, actually happen to us upon arrival in Honduras. We'll be greeting by olive-skinned cabana boys, given coconut frond skirts, mango rum smoothies, and fed grapes by three-toed sloths while ushered to the balmy, sandy beaches of tropical Honduras. Sun screen is free there, and the street dogs are made of chocolate!

7/8
SYYYYKE!! Actually, it's the rainy season in Honduras, which means cooler, especially in the mountains, which is where our first three weeks of training will occur. In a couple hours (we gotta get up at 2:30am, holy moly), we'll fly into San Pedro Sula, and then take buses to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Once there, we'll get transported to some town I forget that starts with a Z (Zapato? let's go with that). We'll stay with a host family for three weeks during our Core Training period, which has a lot to do with customs, language, and other general items (which street dogs are and are not made of candy, etc). After those three weeks, we'll split into one of three groups: Youth Development (me!), Municipal Development, and Protected Areas Management. Each group will go to a different region, where we'll have six weeks of Field-Based Training--basically they'll try to arm us with the skills needed for our specific jobs in Honduras. Finally, we'll return to the Z-town for two more weeks of post-field-based training, reunited with our first host families. After those 11 weeks (good math, guys!), I will hopefully be sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).

7/9
The past couple days have been mega busy, but fun. I rather like orientations...all the ice breakers, the awkward start-up conversations regarding states of origin and a lot of nodding and "oh, cool!"s....yeeees, this is the meat of my awkward conversational stew upon which I feed. I don't know why I like it, but I do. I've really liked getting to know the folks, too...though it's been overwhelming at times and I feel like I don't know anyone very well yet.

We've spent a lot of time talking about the philosophy of the Peace Corps, talking about why we want to do it, what we want to accomplish, what we stand for and how to own the experience and the opportunities we'll have. I feel a great degree of clarity about my decision to volunteer, something I think I was sort of faking before--I didn't know exactly why I wanted to go overseas for two years to volunteer in a developing nation, I just wanted to...but now, after hashing it out over pitchers of water in air-conditioned hotel conference rooms for two days, I actually get and can verbalize what I was feeling before. We're all neighbors in a global community, we're all humans, we all deserve the same opportunities, but by chance and luck, that's not how it is. I'm incredibly fortunate and I want to help people, especially young children with their lives ahead of them, do everything they can to better their own lives. I don't want to level the playing field--or rather, I can't--but if some people can do certain things to improve their chances, whether it be to go to 8th grade, not get hooked on huffing glue, or just have a positive role model of what a woman can do, then I feel like my presence is justified. The cultural exchange aspect enthralls me, too...all horizons will be broadened, and that brings everyone closer together. The Peace Corps inaugural ambitions of world peace and friendship may be idealistic, but are just as, if not more relevant today as they were in '61, and I really feel like I'm an advocate for something beautiful and real and relevant.

On a less sappy note, they call diarrhea "splatter-foot." Good thing Chacos are hella water-proof!! I'll be blissfully far from any Internet or phones for a couple weeks, if not more than a month, so if you don't hear from me for a while, don't fret. I'm probably saving babies and rinsing off my ankles somewhere, while simultaneously coaching a soccer team, starting an HIV prevention workshop, curing cholera, and bandaging a street dog's broken leg with strips torn from the shirt off my back.

I love love love you all...I promise to be safe and make good choices, as I'm sure all of you will too. Please write me letters if you want to, and I will do the same...seriously, it'll be just like the dark ages, all havin' to write in short-hand so the enemy spies don't find out where our secret HQ is, all sealin' the envelope with earwax and the family crest...badass. Again, my address for letters is:
Hayley Kercher, PCT
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Aparto Postal 3158
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
America Central

Bus leaves in 2 hours...okay bye!
Love,
Hayley