While walking back to the village during my Volunteer visit, these three young women came up to talk with us. They asked me to take their picture. After a few shots they grabbed each other's hands to stand in this circle. April 2011.
While serving in Peace Corps with my husband, Ron, we have great difficulty connecting to the internet because of the mountainous terrain. We are serving in a remote and very rural community in Jamaica, nestled near the Blue Mountain Peak. If and...
December 2009, Republic of Panama.
Ngäbe women wear colorful dresses with traditional designs. In communities like the one where I lived, they are made by hand and in a variety of colors. Shown in this image are a group of artisan women from my...
This is a picture of some of the 25 women who are learning to to make vinegar, wine vinegar, and herb-infused vinegar. The man in the picture is the agricultural agent who is teaching them. They come every week from all over the valley. They hope...
There were no book stores in Turkmenistan, only warehouses of textbooks. The culture of reading had left with the fall of the Soviet Union, but the desire to learn about a greater world and see images of life beyond their borders brought a full...
While there was almost no flat space large enough to play sports inside the community because of the hill rose from the water, a short canoe ride through the mangroves and up a river brought us to a cow pasture, which was large and flat enough to...
During our first 10 weeks in-country we lived with host families. It was a wonderful way to integrate and learn the culture, language and customs of the country. It was also a lot of fun living with a family again.
This photo shows myself playing...
Photo was taken in Honduras at 8:30am. This little boy was having breakfast in a pottery workshop. The freshly made clay pots surround him as he enjoys his bag of chips.
One of the most important economic activities in the community is fishing. The canoes that are used are trees that have been dug out and last about 5 to 10 years. This photo shows Federico and his daughter, Jessica, on their way back from...
From December to March the public schools of Panama close for summer vacation. Here in Ballena, summer vacation from school does not always mean freedom and fun. The kids are either put to work with the rest of the family in the farms or are bored...
At the 2011 LaCeiba Carnival in Honduras, there were quite a few representations of the Garifuna culture from the north coast. The procession of the carnival was loud and intense. Somehow this little girl was in her own world lost in the rhythm of...
This photo was taken in January 2011, on the top of the Santa María Volcano in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. January is the clearest (yet coldest!) month, so we decided to hike it then for the best visibility. We started out at 5 am in the pitch...
Nearly everyday, these boys (8-10 years old) pass in front of my house in Honduras asking for my plastic bottles and aluminum cans. The pain of living from Lempira to Lempira (the local currency) has long been accepted as normal.
This picture was taken during our pre-service training (PST) in Belize, April 2011. We are sitting on the steps of a "board house." Every night the girls would come over and say, "Miss Cat, you could tell us a story?"
This photo was taken during an advanced English class at an English immersion camp in Morocco. The students were participating in a spelling competition.
After completing three months at site, my first formal presentation was sharing the results of a community analysis. Using tools such as seasonal calendars, community maps and priority lists, community members participated by creating their own and...