Slow working

I was just reading my blogs, and realized that I haven't updated everyone about how work is going lately. The truth is, work is not getting much different, and projects are going very, very slowly. That is how it works most of the time in the peace corps, especially in rural Honduras.

Remember the Community Supported Agriculture project I was trying to work on with the coffee cooperative in my site? Well, I kept having to push and push them, and they kept putting their answer off, so I finally discarded working with them, and have started to work on the project with my women's group. None of the women actually grow any of the fruit that they would be selling to Tegucigulpa, which makes it much more complicated for them, and a lot more work, but they are ten times more willing and motivated than the coffee farmers ever were. We have had a few meetings to discuss the details and logistics, and I finally gave the woman who is buying the fruits a go in order to start the process. It's a sure go! We won't sell our first bunch of fruits for another couple of weeks, but I am excited to see how it goes. No matter what, it will be a very good learning experience for the women, in terms of how to organize products, and work with a fixed customer (which is what they would be doing if they are able to sell to a supermarket). I also recently talked with an NGO that supports women's groups all over Honduras in terms of training, motivation, and financial support. They plan on coming down within the next month in order to talk to the women, to see if they can help us at all.

My english classes are winding down. We actually have final exams next Saturday! I think many of the kids have learned a lot, and although I'm extremely relieved to finally have my Saturdays open again, I'm a little disappointed at the thought of ending classes, and saying goodbye to so many good, sweet students.

The coffee cooperative is busy as usual. I have recently been helping them with the fair trade certification process. A big part of that is keeping accounts of the money that comes in an out of the cooperative monthly. So I plan on starting to help them with that in the future, although I know it will be a HUGE endeavour, seeing as they have a large history of money records that they've never really organized before. I also am starting to help the look more actively for market in the states, by making panthlets in english and possibly a coffee video.

These are all the current projects I'm working on. I also have some that have been milling around in my brain, but have decided not to share them with anyone until they are a sure go. I will let you know when they are more developed!