Little Boy Mocking Bird

Brother this morning starting saying a word he's been hearing a lot lately.

"Hola!"

Melinda, a girl we have come clean was at the house this morning. Brother walked into the room where she was and clear as a bell said "Hola". At first we thought it was so cute, but then he didn't stop. It was like listening to a talking bird who wouldn't shut-up. I realized he thought Melinda's name was "hola" so I tried to tell him her name and he even repeated back to me as a question in 2 year old speak, "ey-inda?". I assured him her name was indeed Melinda and then he said, "no - hola".

I tried to get a good video, but it was when I walked out of the room that he would start to squawk loudly.

A Hard Lesson Learned

Sometimes bad news can really suck the good mood out of you like a punch in the stomach. As much as you wish you could get the happy mood back...it's gone for the day.

Today started out as a great Saturday. Papa has had a good business week and knowing we made it through another month paying our bills with maybe a little extra feels good. The bad news came sometime around lunch when Papa got a call from Rolando, a client of his who is also a friend. Brother Sprout loves it when he comes over and spends a lot of time hanging out with the boys talking business. I could tell the minute Papa got on the phone that something was not right. When he hung up, I asked what was up. Rolando was robbed at gunpoint outside a small store. Rule number one - don't keep all your money in one place. A lesson learned too late for Rolando.

Rolando came over to talk and him and Papa ran an errand together. Papa is really good at putting perspective on things and I'm sure he needed a little encouragement after that kind of blow. I can't talk to Rolando much due to the language barrier, but he seems like a good guy. Him and his wife just had a baby a few weeks ago. His wife needed a c-section and it got infected and needed a second surgery to treat the infection. He lost a few days of work and I'm sure they have some medical expenses with all that. Now this.

Anyway, I know the good mood will come back, but today I feel sad that this happened to a friend and there is nothing that can be done for him.

A Trip Back In Time - The Family Ranch - San Buenaventura

I've heard that life in Honduras is like going back in time. I've seen it in little ways, such as the way people run businesses (door to door vendors, etc). I will pass a horse and cart multiple times driving down one road. I have also been walking down a street and can hear people pecking away on typewriters and on that same street there are internet cafes and bootleg CD's and DVD's for sale. Life here seems to be a mix of new and old. There is quite a bit of technology here, but yet it's common to lose power and/or water on any given day for who knows what reason without warning. The mail system is pretty much non-existent. Our bills reach us by a delivery person who brings it right to our house. How'd you like life with no junk mail? Not much of that here.

The other weekend we took a trip to a smaller town called San Buenaventura. A town about an hour from us here in San Pedro Sula. I really like it there. It's at a higher elevation so the weather is a bit cooler and the flora is spectacular. Papa's grandma lives there along with some aunts and uncles. They own some land where they raise dairy cows. At 2pm it is the 2nd milking time of the day so we took a field trip and walked from the house to where they were milking the cows. My battery on my camera was dieing and I'm afraid I didn't get very good shots but I'll share with you what I got anyway. I'd turn on the camera and take a photo as fast as I could before it would shut off.

First we took off on foot. It's about a ten minute walk from the house down a road and through grazing pastures. Watch out for the cow poo! Brother road on the shoulders of another family friend, Victor who owns some land next to Papa's uncle's. He has a masters in finance but for now works the family ranch and one day all the land he works will be his.


Walking down the road it overlooks a tilapia fish farm. Tilapia is a favorite fish here and a large export too. There is a lake about a 1/2 hour away that is chock full of fish and lots and lots of tilapia. As far as I know, there is no fishing restrictions on the lake and it is year round fishing. One interesting thing is that here in Honduras they take the fish heads and guts and turn it into bio-fuel. You can run your car on fish heads!! Read an article about it here.

Here we came to where they milk the cows. Yes, there is lots and lots of cow dung all over and it has a very fragrant farm smell. We got used to it quickly but at first Sister wasn't sure how to walk in the dirt/poo all over. Soon she was in it like everyone else. They use a small wooden T shaped stool to sit on and draw the milk into a bucket then pour it through a strainer and into a holding container. You can see the filter and container on the far left hiding behind the blue bucket. They fill those containers up and bring them to a local holding place where all local dairy ranchers keep their milk stored then sold. I'm told the milk is mostly used for cheeses. Papa's uncle is the one who manages all this for the local ranchers in town. The family also brings their cows to the fair and recently 2 of Papa's uncle's cows won some prises. He is trying to increase his count of Jersey cows. They give the best and most abundant milk.
I felt like I was back on a farm from 50 years ago. At least by the way they did things. Sister loved it and can't wait to go back but she says she has to bring boots with next time. Not her nice white tennis shoes.


The way they do things here is the mother cows keep their calves with them for the better part of a year. When it's time to milk, they tie up the mama cow's hind legs, let the calf nurse for a minute or two to get the milk flow going and then they take the calf off and tie it up next to their mama to eat some yummy cow feed. With both happily eating they wipe the mama's teats off and begin to milk the cows. No machines, no rubber gloves, no disinfectant sprays or lotions. Just old fashioned hand milking.

A Moth For Dinner

We have lots of geckos here. We have tiny little ones and some that are medium size. These little guys are brave too. They will take a flying leap to get away and they move fast! They come out at night to feed on bugs attracted to the house lights. Every time Brother sees one he yelps in excitement, "Mommy, mommy!! Gee-ko". Here we saw one on the kitchen window screen catch a moth. What a catch for this little guy. It looks like he was working hard for his dinner.



More about a gecko

Funny Looking Fruit

Brother Sprout has found a new fruit he likes. They are in season here in Honduras and you can find them sold on the streets and street markets. I haven't seen them at the super market though. The name of the fruit is pronounced sounding like "leeches" in English, as in the things that will suck your blood. I'm not sure what spelling they use here, but here are a few ways I found at Wikipedia:

The Lychee (Litchi chinensis), also spelled Litchi (the U.S. FDA spelling) or Laichi, is the sole member of the genus Litchi in the soapberry family Sapindaceae. It is a tropical fruit tree native to southern China. It is also found south to Indonesia and east to the Philippines.

Aren't they cute little things

You break them open and inside hides a tasty white fleshed fruit

There is a seed inside and you have to eat around that.
The taste is similar to a grape, I think.

Taking Out The Trash

This top photo is our neighbor's trash bin. Most people around here have them. They are built out of welded metal. Some of them get really fancy looking with bent and/or rolled wires. I would think if you are going to have a permanent metal thing in your front yard, why not make it look good- right? Even if it is to hold your trash. Some of them have tops, some don't. A lot of people use the plastic grocery store type bags for their trash. Brown paper grocery bags I have not seen once here.

The bottom picture is our trash that I’m a little embarrassed to show, but we are having trouble with our garbage lately because we don't have a garbage "cage" yet. The stray dogs that find their way into our colonia have discovered our tasty trash and we now are having to go out into the yard or the empty lot next to ours where the dogs have drug it to pick up and re-bag our torn open trash. Yuck!! We tried putting this wooden pallet on top to deter the dogs. Didn't work.

Garbage is picked up once a week. The garbage truck is a large hauling truck. You know the kind that has a back that rolls up. Usually there are 4 garbage men working. Two to grab the trash bags and throw them into the truck and another two working inside the back of the truck. Guess what the men inside the truck do? They pat down the trash to feel for recyclables. If they feel something, they will tear open the trash bag and dig through to find it and then throw it into another pile. The first week I was here I didn't know Honduras recycled. But why wouldn't they? There is a lot of money to be had cashing in recyclables. I've seen huge piles of empty plastic pop bottles in some yards around Honduras. I'm not sure what you get per pound or piece here for each type of recyclable. I read a Honduras blog post with a pretty cool incentive to recycle here.

On the road to Sister's school there is a large metal recycle place and I have seen trucks loaded up with every kind of scrap metal you can imagine. The wires used in fans or the spokes in bike tires. It's quite a sight when you see all that metal just hanging everywhere.

Anyway, I digress. Once I saw the garbage man tear open a bag of our trash with his bear hands to dig out a plastic bottle I cringed. It made me feel so bad! Now I separate all the recyclables into separate bags. I hope other people consider doing this too.

Now we just need to find someone to build us a garbage bin, cage, thingy.

Spots Continued & A Few Midweek Updates

Brother made it to the doctor. Turns out that he is having an allergic reaction to something environmental or to something he ate. We went back over his diet and realized there are two things he has eaten in the last few days that he doesn't usually eat and that is papaya and cantelope melon. The doctor gave us some antihistamine medicine. He'll take that for 5 days and then we'll see how he does. Still don't think we will be trying those two fruits anytime soon.

On another note. Sister was supposed to meet with a Spanish tutor today at 2pm. The tutor was a no show. I don't get that? This person is supposed to be a responsible teacher at a very nice bi-lingual school and yet...she can't pick up the phone and say she can't make it today.

We go to pick up Sister's school uniform and text books next week and then she will have an open house at the school to meet her teachers on the 19th. School starts August 21st. That means the summer is coming to an end. It's probably better too. We don't get out much and there just isn't much going on here. I would have liked to get out more, but it's been a struggle. Here's the deal....

Papa works about 5 1/2 - 6 days every week and there just isn't enough time in the evening before dark to get out and do much. He would have liked to take us out more on the weekends, but our car was stuck in the shop for a month longer than expected and then we couldn't get the registration papers for 2 weeks. It was very frustrating. We did take the car out a few times without the papers, but if we had gotten pulled over for any reason, which it is common in Honduras for police to pull you over to make sure the car isn't stolen, etc, it would have been a real headache. 1, because we would have had to bribe the cop or 2, if we didn't bribe the cop, then we would probably have the car taken and it would have been another huge headache to get it back.

I've driven a few times now too and am starting to learn my way around. Yay!!

Spots, Spots & More Spots

Anyone have a clue what the heck these hives, rash, bug bites could be from??? Brother has no fever, no loss of appetite, seems happy and playful. The spots don't seem to itch him. We thought it might be bed bugs he could have picked up while we were in Copan since he had brought his little blankie with him.

We took two days to fumigate his bed, clothes, toys and blankets & pillow. What the heck? He didn't sleep in his bed last night and still woke up with spots. Neither Sister, Papa nor I have anything. Could he still be reacting to bug bites? It's primarily on his stomach and wraps around his hips. He has a few spots on his legs and arms and a few brighter red spots on his face. We are bringing him to the doctor this afternoon because Papa and I are stumped. It will be Brother's first doctor visit in Honduras.