here be treasure! yar!!

I think I have the greatest state-side support system ever. First my girlfriend and a couple friends from UNC Chapel Hill sent me like 4 bags of trail mix and a book and some candy and some other stuff that means a lot to me, now my parents and some family friends sent me what I think is the treasure they're looking for in Stevenson's Treasure Island, which I'm reading right now. Long John Silver and crew better wind up in Honduras, cuz I think I got their treasure before them.

Here's an inventory: (I write stuff when it means a lot to me, even if what I write is kinda dry.)

Trail mix:
5 bags fruit and nut mix off the shelf,
2 bags homemade trail mix (made with love)
4 bags off the shelf dried fruit
1 sm. bag dry roasted almonds
1 sm. bag dry roasted cashews
1 lg. can Planters mixed nuts
1 med. can mixed nuts (no peanuts!)
1 med. can cashews
1 med. bag cheddar sesame crackers for mixin

Fruit and nuts and cracker bits will be mixed and eaten as trail mix later. Yum! I will not go without lunch during a day-long aldea expedition ever again!

Clothing:
1 quality, genuine leather belt. no frills, nothing can go wrong
1 white linen long sleeve shirt (long sleeve to protect against El Sol)
1 magical white nylon outdoorsman shirt, tons of amazing features
1 white stretch cotton-spandex long sleeve shirt
2 pair olive green cargo pants

Misc:
1.5 lb bag organic raw cane sugar
3 organic chewy fruit strips (munchies! heck yeah!)
8 packs malt crackers with peanut butter, 6 cracker sammiches each
11 oz. bag Werther's Original hard candies
1 portable lunch with crackers, canned tuna fish, peaches and a cookie!
1 lg. jar of peanut butter
6 single serving peanut butter cups, 15g protein each!
100 men's daily multivitamins
1 stone cross pendant
1 rainbow WWJD bracelet. my chick loves rainbow!
2 burt's bees chapsticks, made to protect against sun (yay!) and snow (hahaaaahaaha, heh, ah, that's rich)

Canned goods:
2 lg. mandarin oranges
1 lg. sliced peaches
1 sm. vienna sausages
1 med. pineapple chunks
2 sm. mandarin oranges
4 sm. peaches
4 sm. mixed fruit
2 med. chicken breast
3 single serving chicken breast
3 single serving tuna in water (its gross in oil)

Wounded in action:
2 sm. can mandarin oranges
1 lg. can pineapple chunks
2 sm. cans with gaping holes i tossed at the post office (presumed dead)

We learned an important lesson today, men. It appears to be a good idea to put canned goods in a ziploc bag or two when shipping them to Honduras. They tend to rupture and leak orange and pineapple juice everywhere. Thankfully I could wash off the sticky from all the other cans and bags, and the cans that broke bad were not in the same box as the clothing. I was pretty crazy happy today opening these packages. I might have giggled, but if there were no witnesses, it didn't happen.

I think the 3 remaining wounded cans can be salvaged. They were promptly put in the fridge. I ate one of the mandarins...I'll wait 2 days to see what happens. I imagine they should be ok...seal was broken, but no bugs could get inside. No mold. Inside of the can was mottled and not attractive...but no metal flecks on the oranges. Anyone wanna save me from my own desire not to waste food?

Thank you all!






Also, I gave my first charla today. Another volunteer buddy from Health working in a nearby aldea asked me to back him up for a Water and Sanitation interactive presentation he was helping his counterpart agency with, and basically wanted me there for credibility. I was reluctant as I don't like public speaking, but I said ok, I could talk about water purification techniques (boil it, add chlorine, or use UV radiation from the sun on plastic bottles of water for a day). He'd then talk about the various diseases you get when you don't do what I say.

So I had no information other than that up until yesterday. He called and said we'd be part of a day-long shindig, with probably an hour to use just us. He said he wasn't preparing anything special, so I didn't either. I stayed up til midnight, working an hour and a half on copying info out of a manual onto notecards for myself. Correct, I did not prepare a lot.

He calls me at 7:30 am the next morning, this morning, and says he's crazy sick. Bad fever, totally not going to make our date. But he still would like me to show up for the sake of his counterpart, who still needed a Peace Corps WatSanner there to nod at things he says and maybe provide more off-the-cuff info. I grumbled. Probably too much. But said ok.

So I get to the aldea late a) because the bus was slow, b) because I got off too early. So his counterpart had to hunt me down in town and take me to the final destination. Got there, we huddled for about 10 minutes and got to it. They all did their thing, and I got up to do mine. They had stepped on my toes severely, talking about 2/3 of my purification techniques and defining all the basics I planned to talk about. Greeeeaat. But I told 'em I was gonna do a quick recap. Talked about solar disinfection for a good 10 minutes, I think. Got a lot of questions, I was definitely the expert when it came to that technique. They didn't stump me, I understood enough of what was said to make intelligent answers, and asked some of my own questions about the situation in the aldea and what they could do to deal with their water. I thought it went pretty well.

What else? I hiked around a lot again... took pictures which I'll put on facebook. Today was a pretty good day, all things considered. I think I performed reasonably well, though apparently I left the other guys hanging with a ton of time to kill afterwards. Meh, they handled it well and didn't give me any instructions beforehand.

Adam says he owes me. I see free ice cream in my future.