Em and I on the beach

The family and happy couple

Good morning. It’s early and I’m in the capital city of Tegucigalpa finishing up my close of service medical examinations. Over the last month I’ve been in Teguc twice (doubling the amount of times I’ve been here over the past two years) to sign papers and get poked and prodded by doctors and dentists. They’re just making sure I’m in more or less the same condition as when I came down here. Other than a ring on my finger and a few missing pounds I’m pretty much the same, physically anyway. As I mentioned it’s early, I can’t sleep past 530 am in any kind of a city anymore. Cruz Alta is so quiet and the only sounds in the morning are roosters, birds, and an occasional ranchera song turned up too loud. I can’t sleep with the sound of engines with bad mufflers or with no mufflers at all, the constant honking horns, and the shrieking of touchy car alarms. If I could be stealthy and had any mechanical ability at all I’d sneak through the city in the middle of the night, disconnecting car horns and alarms, guaranteeing one morning of solid sleep.

I wasn’t paying attention and let a lot of things happen without writing much down. So here I am in July, I just went to my brother’s wedding, I am now married myself, and I have 3 days left of my Peace Corps service. Whew, that’s a lot to cover on a bad cup of coffee and not enough sleep. Here goes. At the end of May Emily and I met up in Tucson to go to my brother’s wedding. The whole thing was beautiful, elegant, and huge. The ceremony was held at a country club outside of Tucson and was very black tie. We wined and dined over six or so courses and had our choice of four bars (including an ice sculpture that they poured martinis down) and several hours devours bars, sushi, lamb chops, the works. I’m pretty sure it was the most well-dressed crowd I’ve ever rubbed shoulders with. But you get a little free booze in the rich people and they’ll make asses of them selves on the dance floor the same as anybody else. Very very cool.

Emily and I were married on June 21st on the island of Utila in Honduras. It was an amazing week. Everything went off without a hitch (something unheard of in Honduras). The wedding ceremony was beautiful; our good friend Connie performed the nuptials. Emily, Connie, and I sat down and wrote our ceremony together using a book of prayer as a guide so it was very personal. Our ceremony took place at the Jade Seahorse, a hotel on Utila that is completely covered in mosaic and glass art. There is nothing normal about the Seahorse everything on the place is a work of art, down to the toilet paper holders in the bathrooms. We were joined by around 50 of our family members and close friends. I’ll post a few pictures here and if anyone is interested in seeing more of them send me an email and I’ll get you the link.

I only have three days left as a Peace Corps Volunteer. This Friday I am flying out of San Pedro Sula to Indianapolis to meet up with Emily. We have another reception in Indiana in July and then we’ll be traveling across country to Idaho for yet another reception. After that we’ll be going to Pullman where I’ll finish up my Master’s work and Em will be working as a school counselor in Troy, Idaho. I’ll try and post some pics of our cross country trip soon. Love to all --Joe