Angie Miner

When you were just a child, what did you dream of?  Do you remember how you saw the world?  Do you still carry the memory of how you envisioned yourself?  What career held your passion when you were still so young and the whole world was possible.  What image pressed your mind when the words “to be” raced through your ears for the future path you could choose?  What sparked that happy smile when you thought of an ending to the phrase “I am ______”?  Perhaps you pictured yourself as a doctor, an astronaut, a fireman, or a policeman.  Maybe you wanted to paint beautiful pictures, explore the wonders of the world, protect your country, or find cures to deadly diseases.  Whatever passion it was that called your heart, do you remember why?  What was it about this particular path in life that made you so dearly desire it?  This aspect of what you could give or gain, could it be fulfilled by your dreamed-of life?  Did you want to help people, be famous, or just live your life as wild and free as possible?  Do you remember who you idolized as a child?  What person or figure led a life that you found fascinating?   Which aspects of this life were the ones that so entranced your mind and spurred the beat of your heart? 

Do you remember this path your heart desired as a child?  Do you follow it today or still yearn for it deep in some repressed area of your soul?  Where did life take you?  Perhaps as your mind grew, pieces of the outside world fell upon you to break your dreams with the sickle words of ‘impossible’, ‘unrealistic’, and ‘impractical’.  Then during the years of confusion and eminent choosing, you decided whether these words would break you with their clouded foreshadowing, or build you as you pitted yourself against their pessimistic taunts to test the strength of your own resolve.  You see the twists and turns of the path your feet have made and here you stand at a result of it all, for better or for worse.  

As you take in the surroundings of where you are, of who you are, what do you see?  Did you become the person you had wanted to be?  Are you now a person you want to be?  If the ever so imminent death was standing at your door, ready to knock and call you away this very night, could you leave with satisfaction knowing that you lived in the best way that you could?  Could you be happy knowing that you have been given the gift of a life that lasted for all the years that you have walked this earth, with the opportunity to impact in some great or small way everything that you touched?  Did you learn what is truly important in life?  Do you feel the richness of love, the happiness in unconditional friendships, the purpose in belief, the wonder of the natural world, the joy of giving, and the rightness of doing what is just?  Have you yet discovered the emptiness of money, the curse of materialism, the ache of greed, and the pain of hatred?  Are you satisfied with the way you spent your fleeting and fragile life?  Or, when you open that door and find that you stand at the end of your existence, will you fall to your knees and cry out in grief as you realize that your opportunity has passed and you have wasted it all.  Will you accept with humbleness that you can live no more to do and change and be upon this earth, or will you plead and beg for just a little more time to go back and set things right, perhaps to live for just a few short days as the person you always promised yourself you would be. 

But perhaps luck is still with you and on this night death chooses to pass by your door to knock upon another.  Maybe your time to live in this world will continue for another day, a week, a year, several decades, there’s really no way to know.  But this moment you do know.  This time now you do have and every second of your life is a choice.  What will you do and say in these every seconds to come?  Have you truly yet lived or are you still waiting for some distant day to awaken from the coma of the everyday life you still dwell in.  This is your life, are you who you want to be? 

Strolling on a path one day I began to climb a hill to a house.  A strange sound sighed through the air and wandered into my ears.  It was like a low whistling of the wind vibrating through the air.  A crooning that inflated and died like the gusts of a playful breeze.  Cresting the hill I suddenly realize its instrument.  A few youths had happened upon an old cassette tape.  They had pulled out the liquidy black ribbon of tape and strewn it across a yard.  It ran from tree to post to rock to tree until it resembled a vast midnight web of a spider.  The children were laughing and running amongst the glistening lines, tightening some areas and loosening others.

I asked what they were doing.  Nothing, they told me.  We are just playing. 

Playing.  I understood.  It was more than just simple play, they were creating.  What they had done was harnessed the voice of the wind.  Like an orchestra of strings.  The breezes, strong and weak, slid, twisted, and pulled at the ribbons of tape.  The friction emitted low sounds of whistles and moans carried by the breeze.  A wind instrument in the truest sense of the word.  Something beautiful.  The music flowed and changed with every mood of the wind and adjustment of the lines.  Standing in the middle felt like a dream.  Black waves glistened and danced in an ocean of shade and light.  Close your eyes, the music was there all around you.  I could feel it as it tickled my skin and vibrated through my ears.  The wind was joyful.  The youths then picked up dead branches with leaves and began shaking them in the air and scraping them along the ground.  They whistled through their teeth and flapped plastic bags in the wind.  A concert complete with a variety of instruments.  Their laughter only added to the atmosphere.

After a while the children began to disassemble the lines.  They took them down one by one and let go of their branches and plastic bags.

We want to play soccer now, they tell me.  Soccer it is then little children.  Go and play and enjoy the diverse richness that is this world.

School.  It runs from 8am to 1pm during the weekdays.  In between breaks children receive about 4 to 4½ hours of classes everyday, as long as there is not a holiday, teacher strike, or other meeting or event to cut the day short or cancel it altogether.  The high school graduation rate is low.  Students drop out all the time for reasons of work, economic hardships, or simply because they decide they do not like school and their parents don’t encourage them much to continue.  Toward the end of the year there usually forms a tutoring group of a couple of volunteers who want to help children who are struggling in school so they can pass the grade.  These volunteers generally are composed of a few older students and perhaps a concerned mother or two.  I decided to tag along to a couple of tutoring sessions to help out some of the kids. 

Within the schools memorization is the most common learning tool.  Students are asked to memorize facts and numbers so they can repeat them on the tests.  Ensuring the understanding of the reasoning behind the concepts is sometimes neglected.  At the tutoring session the children each had workbooks.  The object of the session was to help them each fill out their workbooks.  I watched the tutors for a little bit helping out the younger students.  For a question that asked a student to come up with sentences describing a passage they had read the tutor would say or write out the sentences on a separate sheet of paper and have the students copy it into their workbook. For a mathematics problem they would refer to the multiplication or addition charts and show the students how to look for the correct numbers on the chart to find the correct answer.

I was not particularly fond of these approaches and decided to move in and help a young child who seemed to be having difficulties.  I explained his first assignment.  He needed to copy a word that was written at the top of the page five times on the lines below.  He took his time and copied each of the letters down and did a good job.  Next I asked him to read the word he wrote.  He stared down at his hands and refused to speak.  Perhaps he was shy.  The next page was math- multiplication.  Not wanting to rely on the charts I attempted to encourage him to figure out the answer to a simple multiplication problem.  3×4= what? Say there are 4 people and each person has 3 apples.  How many apples are there in all?  Blank stare.  Let’s count.  The first person has 3 apples, so that’s 3.  The second person also has 3 apples.  What is 3+3?  He gives me an annoyed look.  Finger counting.  7? No, let’s try again.  I count with him.  6.  I guide him through every step of the problem.  The answer is 12.  Write the number 12 here.  Nothing.  Twelve, it’s a 1 and a 2 together.  Like this. 1…2….12.  Okay next one.  He is getting annoyed, I feel like he is not really ready for multiplication as he is still struggling with addition.  But we have to move on.  I decide to use the multiplication chart.  I do not like this method, but time is not our friend.  I show him how to match the numbers to the chart to find the one that is missing.  I must show him for every number. 

The next page is sentences.  He must come up with four sentences and write them down.  I ask him what he would like to write and he just looks at me expectantly.  I ask him what his favorite food is and he tells me it is fruit.  Write something about that.  What should I write?  He is frustrated that I don’t just tell him.  I give in for the first one, an example I tell myself.  How about “Fruit is my favorite food.”  He nods. 

Okay write that down on the first line.    He is frustrated and wants me to write it out so he can copy it.

You can do this, just start with the first word, write “Fruit”.

The pencil is poised, the stare is blank.

Do you know what letter ‘fruit’ starts with? It starts with the letter “F”.

Nothing.

Do you remember what the letter F looks like?  Like this.  I point to an F in a word on the page. 

He write the letter F.

Okay now the second letter is ‘r’. 

Nothing.

I then realize why he is so frustrated with me.  He doesn’t know the letters or numbers.  They are merely symbols on a page that he is asked to copy.  How can he be expected to write a sentence if he doesn’t know what the symbols mean on a page.  Just get him to fill out the workbook they tell me.  That’s all he needs to do.  Is that really so much to ask?

Nature, the environment.  It is all around us, twisted and entwined in every aspect of our lives.  It is the wind blowing through the trees and tickling your skin with a fresh cool breeze.  It is the soil, soft and moist, and brimming with a thousand lives beneath your feet.  It trickles down from above to spur new growth and quench scorched tongues.  It beams through canopies of leaves and filters through curtained windows to warm away the coldness of the night.  It soars through the sky, lopes across the earth, and splashes through the rivers.  It brings life and death to every creature that draws breath, to every cell that ever claimed to live.  It is gentle and dangerous, nurturing and unforgiving, powerful and the very essence and component of all that is alive and not.

It cannot be broken, cannot be tamed or domesticated.  It is wild.  It is free.  You can plant a seed in a pot but you cannot tell it how to grow.  Its branches will reach out for their own destinies and its flowers will grow to their own individual splendor.  A dog, though trained into submission, will not bow to your every request.  Its mind will follow its own path; its paws will bound to a beat only it can hear.  You can do what you like with nature, cut it down, dam it up, pave it over, hunt it out, modify its genes, pollute it, monoculture it, cage it, or whatever else may suit your fancy but it will never be yours.  It will never swoon to your every whim nor follow the path you so meticulously carve.  It will rebel.  You cannot know every secret and power that it possesses because it is like a complex creature, alive with breath and composed of a billion beings each with their own part to play, and whose story changes with every tread of a foot.

You can fool yourself into believing that it is only a necessity of an uncivilized world, a thing that can be replaced with modernized technologies and human intellect.  But you would be blind.  What is technology without power.  Where is power without the sun, the wind, the water, and the existence of a million organisms now and forever past.   What is a human without food grown from the earth, fed by the countless organisms that make and break the nutrients and materials of the soil.  What is life without the air, recycled by generations of respirating leaves covering the landscape, and the water, rejuvenated by the vast network of ever seeking roots.   What is existence without the companionship and fascination of a million different forms of life so very unlike our own and yet so interconnected with every breath we take.

And so I begin a program of environmental education in the school of my community.  I will teach to these new generations of young people the importance of the natural world around us, the reasons we have to protect that which gives us life, and the things we must do to adapt to the ever growing demands of the changing world around us.  Perhaps some will listen, possibly a few will take interest, and with a little bit luck maybe one or two will develop enough passion to take up a stance and change the world around them for the better throughout the course of their lives.  It only takes a single drop to start a ripple that grows and spreads across the water.  There is only to shake the leaf to which the drop clings before it dries away and disappears.

I am sitting in the window seat of a bus.  It is late morning and the sun beating down, reflecting off the concrete and creating an oven-like atmosphere.  It is an average day of the week and I am early so I must wait for some time until the bus will depart.  The streets are busy with commerce.  Vendors are hawking out their wares as customers finger items and barter prices.  A young woman balances a basket on her head filled with sweets and candies.  She walks around chanting a monotone phrase that streams from her mouth as though it has been said so many times that the words have lost all meaning.  “Gum five (Lempiras) candy….gum five candy…”  She pauses when someone looks her way for more than a second and repeats her line with slightly more enthusiasm, “Gum? Candy? Five lempiras,” and she shows off her merchandise.  The would-be-customer merely glances at the basket with a bored gaze and keeps moving.  Another woman approaches down the sidewalk.  A tired looking mother with a young child.  She is heavily burdened with the days shopping, mostly just vegetables and rice for her family.  She doesn’t appear to have much money, her clothes are old and worn just like her child’s.  The kid is about 3 year old and has ragged hair and a big belly but his arms and legs are skinny.  The boy sees the lady with the sweets and begs his mother for one.  With hardly a hesitation she pulls out five lempiras and buys a piece candy for her son.  They move on.  The woman with the candy boards the bus and walks down the aisle and back announcing her merchandise, pausing every now and then to wave an item in front of  a passenger’s nose as though to tempt them into buying.  She sells a few items and then gets off the bus and goes on her way.

            The bus is beginning to fill up.  People are standing in the aisles.  The overhead shelf is full of bags and purchases of the day.  A chicken squawks angrily somewhere near the back but it is quickly repositioned and hushed.  Another woman comes into view on the streets.  She is carrying bags of potato chips and chicharones.  Behind her trails a young boy of about 7 years.  He has a big plastic bag slung over his shoulder filled with bags of water.  He walks a little crookedly, leaning to one side to counter the heavy weight of the water and keep his balance.  Their chant is similar to that of the woman with the candy except this woman says, “chips five chicharones….chips five chicharones” and the boys just repeats, “water water cold water”.  It is late morning on a week day.  This boy should be in school.  They board the bus.  There are many people on the bus now but that does not daunt them in the least.  They push past the people as they shout their chants all down the aisle.  Another man boards the bus.  He is carrying a large bag.  He stands at the front of the bus and shouts to get everyone’s attention.  Out of his bag he pulls a small oblong box and a package of red pills.  He begins shouting a well versed speech on the amazing benefits of the medicine he sells.  The pills are for pain and will also take away any fever that a person might get.  In the box is a syringe to be injected for problems with the nerves.  He also has some special vitamin medicine that promises to make your growing child smarter and perform better in school that he will give as a gift to the first five people who buy both a syringe and a packet of pills.  He walks up and down the aisle pushing products into people’s hands so they can read the packaging and consider the wares.  The woman and the boy selling chips and water push past him as they leave the bus.  The man returns down the aisle collecting whatever products the recipients decide not to purchase and leaves the bus.

            Almost immediately after two young girls board the bus.  Both are in the region of 9 or 10 years old.  They should also be in school but instead they work here in the city streets.  They sell chopped up mangos soaked in chili sauce and bags of peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes.  The bus driver boards the bus and honks a couple times as a last call to anyone still idly chatting on the streets.  A few more people quickly board the bus and squish into the aisle.  The engine roars to life and the bus begins to move forward.  It slows slightly as two men get on.  One remains on the steps by the door and the other feels his way down the aisle a few rows and leans against the side of a seat.  He has a fiddle.  It is old, poorly made, and has only three strings remaining.  I look at his face and it is somewhat contorted with what looks like a permanent grimace.  I realize that he is blind.  He begins to play the fiddle and for what he has to work with on a crowded and moving bus he isn’t too bad.  The two girls selling mangos and vegetables wheedle their way through the crowd and get off about two blocks away from where the bus started.  One begins to walk down the street and the other hangs back to board another bus.  Cities are dangerous and they are very young.  I wish they would not separate.  The blind man finishes his song and he and his friend start moving down the aisle handing out slips of paper.  They hand me one.  It has a pretty picture of a cross on it with a few verses of scripture.  When they reach the back of the bus they turn back.  The blind man holds out his hat and people drop in change.  He thanks each one and blesses them.  His friend collects the slips of paper so they can be used again.  Those who donate can keep the paper if they wish.  The bus reaches the city limits and stops so the blind man and his friend can get off.  They quickly catch another bus heading in the opposite direction to begin again.  Crammed against the window on this overcrowded bus I continue to watch out the window as we continue down the long and dusty road to our own destination.

What happens when all the lights go out? When the electricity fades away and the darkness seeps into every corner of your world? The land falls silent, movement ceases, and you stare up in awe at a world that has existed since beyond the ages but is now near forgotten in the progressing fluorescence of mankind. A trillion sparkling points of light are shattered across the sky in a breathtaking glimpse of a universe of worlds outside of our own. Suddenly the biggest person, the strongest power on the planet becomes just a speck in space and time. In the glow of the countless sparks of light a connection is felt, a timeless bond is suddenly realized that spans across all the generations. Of all the beings that ever existed in this world, how many, in the darkest hours of the night, have gazed up at these same ageless stars and became entranced in their endless eternity. So many there are, and so very many more that escape the vision of the creatures of this earth. How each one is a star like or unlike our own, with or without other heavenly bodies that are drawn by the radiating gravity into a sacred dance of time. How many of these dances have sparked an existence, have created a cell, have inspired a life? And perhaps not just one simple life that burned briefly and died like an ember without flame, but that grew and learned to give life anew so that when its existence failed another could carry on the torch. Is there another whose time and circumstances created a flame strong enough for its beings to become more than just formless masses but to actually realize thought and consciousness of its own self. Is there another who stares out with awe at this moment at the light beaming out from our star and wonders the same thing?

Well its official. I have been in Honduras for over 7 months and have completed one fourth of my 27 month term of service here. Granted three months of that time I was in training, but the time duration remains as such. Where the rest of the time went I do not know. I feel like I have been fairly busy the majority of my time in site yet looking about me I see little constructive results of my efforts. However it is true that things move slowly here, sometimes it takes a while to get a ball rolling. I see a lot of opportunities birthing which is great but we shall see what the survival rate will be once things start growing. A few of my activities in the works or prospecting include environmental education in the school, teaching teachers english so they can teach the students, a tree nursery to reforest a watershed area, a local women’s group starting a bread making business to earn extra income, and home vegitable gardens so people can grow more of their own nutritious food. I have other ideas in mind for the more distant future that include projects to bring new latrines and better fagones (mud-brick wood burning stoves) to the community but for this I am waiting for census results and other things to take place first.

Other than that, I am still living with my host family as my possible future place of residence is still in need of repairs. I live with a good family so I am not too itchy to move out and I am still on the lookout for a better place to become available as my supposed future residence has a rather inconvenient location which I am liking less and less as time moves on. Well that about sums up the general status of my situation here for now. I am getting ready to take on the next three quarters of my service to see what kind of impact I can actually make in my time here. Step by step our trail blazes on.

Happy New Year! It’s the year 2009. Wow, where has the time gone? I remember back when the song ‘Party Like it’s 1999′ first came out. It seems like that was only just a few years ago but a decade has gone past. My entire life only consists of just a little over two decades. Oh how the time does fly the older you get. Why is that? Is it because as each day passes the recurring themes of life cease to be novel and interesting but instead become the tedious repetitions of daily life that start to blur and compact together to pass the time until something new happens? As a child I remember how slow time did run. A week of vacation felt like a month, a year was like ten, and a decade seemed like an eternity. I remember thinking as a child how it seemed I would never reach the age of twenty because it was so far off like a whole other world. Now at 22 I realize that I have indeed entered this other world and it shall soon fly by quickly as 30 soon approaches. As a child, there are so many new things to experience. Each day brings about a whole world of wonders to fill each passing moment. A bird soaring on the wind or an insect crawling through the grass becomes a fascination of lives that exist all around us and yet are so unlike our own. I still like to stop and watch these little moments occur throughout the daily life. It is always familiar but never the same. Still they pass by so quickly.

Here in Honduras they have an interesting way of bringing in the New Year. In the final days of the year it is traditional to create a life-size human figure out of old clothes, sticks, or whatever types of materials that a person has available. The figure is placed on a porch or in some out of the way spot and watches the comings and goings of the people in their daily lives of these festive days, but its time is limited. Its life is a representation of the year that is ending and all that had passed and happened. Then in the final twilight of the old year, on the eve of the new, a fire is lit. Up in flames goes the human figure. A fiery death that reduces to ashes all that was there before. The death of the old year. Things that happened are over and done. But out of the ashes spring the life of a new year. A new day births and a chance to once again start over and try again. Fireworks are sparked and many a poor bottle is blasted to bits in celebration of this new year. Music is played and dancing ensues, aided of course by the occasional spirited drink and feasts of food. And so the year 2009 has been welcomed into existence, this marking of time gone by and still yet to come. What will we do with this new year of time? What events will be brought forth to make this year remembered in the history books or in the hearts and memories individuals across the world. What waves will we make whose backlashes will be felt generations from now or what seeds will we plant that will feed the time of our children’s children. The choices we make now affect us, the people around us, and every one else in or yet to be in the world in some small way or another. It is up to you to decide what kind of affect you will have on the world. What kind of memory will you leave?

It’s back in the early times, when the land of America was still wild. Adventurous travelers looking for new places to call home wandered across the landscape. Others, already residing in the area, watched defensively as the immigrants continued to spread. Who really had the rights to claim or to share the bounties of the land? Who had the knowledge and the wisdom to use it at its best potential and therefore had the intrinsic right to do such? Well that just depends on who you ask. Thus, as mankind is so accustomed to doing, much fighting broke out everywhere with casualties falling across the board, including the all too forgotten or dismissed land, plants, and animals. The fighting over prideful claims to land and all that walked or grew upon it affected everyone and everything.

But there did come a time, a day or a moment perhaps, when something changed. Perhaps it was do to a mutual need, from hunger that tickled the bellies of all beings following harsh winters or unwise decisions, or a time of shared weariness, like two boxing opponents leaning against each other for support after much fighting has sapped their strength to stand alone. Whatever it was, something clicked into place, if only for a day or an afternoon. The two races of men stared each other down, and instead of looking past one another they suddenly found themselves seeing eye to eye. A connection bound them and a window of souls opened and they sat as equals among themselves and shared a meal of friendship that one could only have yearned to last if but just a little longer.

It was during this time of scarcity that an understanding and communal gratefulness emerged that is all too easily obscured during times of plenty. People were stripped of their riches, for what is fine cloth and jewelry really worth when the very essence of life sustaining food is but a scraping. It is only when you are stripped down to having so little that a real appreciation grows and a genuine gratefulness strengthens for the rich morsels of life that you hardly even noticed pass by you before.

Surprisingly these are also the moments something even greater begins to grow in the soul. When there is so little to be had, a kind of sentiment of mutual suffering connects beings on a different level. Suddenly you find that what was once a small meal for one person becomes a rich feast for a family or a group of friends, a single blanket big enough to wrap oneself in suddenly becomes so much warmer with a few extra bodies to share it, and the grateful smile on another person’s face transforms into something more precious than any item you would keep for yourself. It is interesting in the times you feel as though you have next to nothing that you find there is more than ever before to go around.

And so we founded a day of remembrance for this precious essence of humanity that is all too often forgotten. A day to give thanks for whatever little or much you do have, a day to remember how to come together and share a meal as a family of souls. If we each come to the table and bring a little to go around we soon find we have a feast richer in spirit and savor than any we could have devised on our own.

Take the hot, dusty, rainy climate of Honduras, the rugged lifestyle of a Peace Corps Protected Areas Management Volunteer, and portable technology meant for gentler conditions and lock them all in the same room for six months. When you open the door you may find that a small disaster has occurred, as between a lion and a goat you may find that one has inevitably eaten the other while the helpless mediator can only watch the horrible destruction in frustration. Or maybe when you open that door you will come to find that all have gotten along well and learned to be friends as they share in their mutual surroundings and sufferings and learn to benefit from one another. I would hope you would find the second, however my luck leaned more towards the first scenario. My laptop, perhaps at the stress and over-stimulation of its new environment or perhaps because old recurring illnesses or frailties were finally catching up, quickly grew weary and fell into a deep slumber. Attempts to awaken it resulted in cranky replies and groggy movements before sleep was renewed. But this slumber was more than just a light sleep and soon my poor friend fell into a much deeper coma. Doctors were called (yea thats you Blake!), consultations made, transplants were sent and it was prepared for surgery. Prospects sounded good though the practicing surgeon had little experience, the surgery should be simple enough; chances of revival were promising. The surgery began and things were going well with only a few unexpected complications arising. When the surgery was complete, the patient was sewed back up and the atmosphere was tense to see if recovery would be had. The patient was jabbed awake. But it was no use, the coma returned and the patients’ condition continued to deteriorate with all further efforts. It was a long and grueling process but the heart monitor toned the long and ominous ring of death. It was a sad sight. What was once so alive and strong was now quiet and dark. It was laid to rest with lament and anguish. But hope is not entirely dead, for the future continues to advance and it brings prospects still yet unknown. The body has been put in a state equivalent of cryogenic freezing. It is hoped that in the future knowledge will be learned and perhaps revival will be possible. So rest now dear friend, perhaps we shall yet frolic through the electric currents of circuits and waves together again one day.

The story of my digital camera has a happier ending, for now anyways. Though not as young as it used to be and already showing signs of its age, my camera entered Honduras fairly strong despite its rough treatment. But it could only take such treatment for so long before it could no longer help but protest. A sleepiness of a different sort overtook this device and its eyelid shutter began to doze lazily when it should open spritely. Manual reprimands of this behavior seemed to well counter the problem but soon it was starting to show signs of vision failure and blurriness of eyesight. Impromptu cleanings were frequently administered but to seemingly no avail and the condition continued to deteriorate. Then one day, a strange incident occurred. On a tour through the beautiful Lake Yahoa area the eye must have caught sight of something quite amazing or miraculous (or atleast seemingly so through its blurred vision). Instead of snapping a picture of this miraculous scene it reacted in a way that a huge rockstar fan might when their lifetime idol finally shakes their hand- they refuse to wash it for fear of losing that touch of which they wish never to forget the feeling. In the case of my camera, it seemed to decide to refuse to retract its lens or even shut its eye or continue on with any other functions for fear of washing away the memory of whatever it saw. Attempts were made to reason with it and gentle and forceful convincing methods were applied but, like a stubborn child, it refused to budge its position despite what was good for it. As time wore on concern mounted up and the operating room was prepared. Surgery was thought to be a bit excessive but no other options were available and eyes that don’t shut tempt blindness. The patient was brought into the operating room and the tools took their turns. The camera watched as each one in turn attempted to penetrate its outer shell that was not designed to be penetrated by such tools. It laughed at the attempts but there was fear in its eye as its flesh was damaged. The frustrated doctor however did not wish to do any such harm and sent the patient back into quarantine to think about its self-destructive behavior. Finally after a few more days gentle attempts were made once again to convince the poor thing to act in its best interest. This time stubbornness subsided, as though realization hit that it was time to move on, and the lens in quiet resignation retreated back to its closed state and thus forward continued to function as though nothing had happened. Relieved by the change in its disposition, eye doctors were called (that’s you dad!) to figure out if the blurriness was permanent and if there was something that could be done to prevent further blindness. After a brief consultation a magical ‘eye’ cloth and solution were sent to attempt what ordinary cloths and foggy breath could not. What strange magic it is I do not know because the solution didn’t even get a chance to try as a simple wiping with the magic cloth completely cured all problems of uncleanliness and vision was restored to perfect sight! Wow what a miracle because without such a restoration the future of the picture stories on this blog website would have been in serious risk of quality loss or even early termination! But all is well that ends well right? And so now we plod on, me and my technological friends, through this amazing experience to work together and take on future excitements and challenges together. My only hope is that it will be a nice and long walk into the future before any of us once again stumbles or falls with or without the possibility of rising once again.

This blog is dedicated to a Mr. Blake Johnson whose hard work, highly generous spirit, and just plain awesomeness has made possible the continuation of this blogsite possible despite the many technological glitches and failures. He is a fixer of all things technological, a maintainer of websites and information, a generous giver and supporter, a great friend and awesome cousin, and the reason why I can continue writing to you all in the midst of my Honduran adventure. Thank you so very much Blake! I hope someday I can repay you for all your work and kindness. But for now I repay you with some long overdue blogs and pictures of which I have so much to catch up on. I apologize for the several month delay and that what I shall now and soon be posting will be out of chronological order, but at least they will be here! Peace!