Days Under The Sun

Boy it is hot here today. I feel like I'm sitting in an oven. A concrete oven with windows and doors. We still don't have curtains on the windows. I would think having them would probably keep the temp down in the house a little. Let's see what the temp is reading right now...Okay, It's reading at 90°F but the the "realfeel" is 99°F. There is a storm brewing for tonight and I say - bring it on! I love the coolness the rain brings. I also find that I enjoy the overcast rainy days too. I get a million more things done and have more energy because the sun isn't cooking me or the house. Poor Papa is out in the sun most of the day and it really is draining for him.

So it's been a lazy day for me. I went for a walk this morning with the kids and by 8am I was drenched in sweat. I've been trying to get more exercise and I figure the sun comes up here at 5:30 am so the earlier I get moving in the morning, the more I get done before the heat of the day starts. It seems that once I have lunch ready around noon I can't seem to bring myself to work much until at least 3pm. It's just too hot inside and outside. Anyway...exercise. I miss the health club. I miss my nice super air conditioned climate with these sweet studios where I would go for my various fitness classes. I'd drop Brother Sprout off at their super fun daycare center and off I'd go. I'm a "class groupie" as I was called by a certain personal trainer from the old health club. I just am not that self motivated to go through all the fancy equipment by myself with only me and my MP3 player. If there are other people, it's fun and it induces an aerobic heart rate while working some muscles too - I love it! One of my favorite classes was this hip-hop class. Sister Sprout and I would go together Tuesday nights and she would sit in the back of the class and dance and watch a bunch of us strut our stuff to some serious sweat inducing music. Yeah, that picture is NOT me- I'm way more babe-o-licious. Ha!

Yardwork
So what else is new around here. Let's see...we are growing some grass in our yard. Papa hired this fella that has been working around the colonia to fix up a section of our front yard with nice grass. He showed up one day with a bunch of tools and started streaming off a lot of spanish. Hondurans speak fast and they cut off words a lot so I was not understanding much of what he was saying. Even after I said "No hablo espanol" and "no inteindo" he kept going and going. Then Sister Sprout came out to find out what was going on and he starts to rattle off to her. She looked just about a dazed as I did. I finally go and get my cell phone to call Papa. I hand the phone to the man and he didn't seem to know what to do. Maybe he doesn't use phones very much and probably never a cell phone. I decided to just turn the speaker phone on and Papa started to talk. He seemed a bit startled that he could talk that way. Turned out that he wanted to tell us that he was going to work in our yard, but not until the following week because he got another job he needed to get done first.

Here is the first part of the work. The laborious job of digging up the ground. There was so much construction material and concrete pieces and he dug it all up with a pick ax and hauled it away in a wheel barrel. All that was left was dirt and a lot of little rocks. This was day one. Once the ground was leveled the next day was spent collecting pieces of good grass. I'm not sure where he was getting the good grass cuttings from. Maybe other yards he had worked on?

Well he showed up with a big bag of cuttings the next day and had his daughter with him to help plant. She is 12 years old. Obviously not in school. She seemed so sweet with a fresh face and quiet demeanor. I noticed too that her toenails were painted pink. I love her pony tail too. Still just a girl, but out working with her father to help sustain the family. The mother works too, but I did not see her working in our yard. They worked a long day planting grass. Once all the grass was planted, she kicked off her shoes and gave the grass a good long water. At the end of the day, Papa paid them, gave them a pound of meat and I gave the girl a popsicle for the road. Now it is up to us to water the grass at least twice a day and they will be back from time to time to weed. Hopefully in a few months we'll have nice soft and spongy green grass (I miss MN grass). I've been out there myself picking weeds. I actually like yard work and might have even done this job myself had I had the tools. This wasn't too much different than some landscaping and concrete work I had done in my old house in MN. I probably wouldn't be out there between 11-3pm though.

Watering duties have been given to Sister Sprout most mornings but Brother Sprout loves pitching in and helping. Here is photo of him after Papa drenched him in water for fun. Brother didn't seem to care one bit. He just loves using the hose.

Our First Guests

We officially hosted out first guests in Honduras. Can you believe it? My friend Jen and her co-worker/friend, Kevin arrived in San Pedro Sula 5 days after me and the kids got here. As soon as that was, I enjoyed having the company from "home". They stayed for a few nights and then were off to Tela for a few days and then the island of Utila for about a week of diving. The top photos are from a restaurant we took them to in Puerto Cortes that is right on the beach and also has a pool where the kids enjoyed swimming. Jen and Kevin are teachers in Nevada so with the summers off they took the opportunity to do some traveling. Jen spoke pretty much no spanish when she arrived, and by the time she left she was giving it a good try with the words she picked up along the way. Way to go Jen!
Kevin spoke spanish enough to get them through the tough times and getting them from here to there. I wouldn't recommend traveling to Honduras unless you know a fair to good amount of spanish or else I would think it could be quite the headache otherwise and possibly a little dangerous.

After spending a little time in Honduras, they took a 12 hour bus ride through Nicaragua to Costa Rica and had a few weeks of adventures there. Then they were back to San Pedro Sula to visit with us a little more. We debated on if they wanted to go to Belize or Copan with me and the kids. Since I had not been to see the property yet that Papa and I own there, and explaining what the town was all about, we decided we would go spend a few days in Copan. The only snafu was that Papa could drive us there, but couldn't stay since he had to work early Monday morning.

We spent the next 4 days being like this little kitty up on the roof chilling out. Spending time relaxing. Doing a little sight seeing and walking around town, talking to people and eating at some of the many restaurants there. There are many types of restaurants where you can find many good things to eat if you want to get away from typical Honduran food as well as many good tipico food as well. Jen was afraid of eating anything with strange meats or anything dairy for some reason. This is probably one reason she didn't get sick at all while on her month long vacation.

I love Copan. I really do. I don't know if it will ultimately end up being the place we build a house. Papa's business is doing too good in San Pedro Sula, which is the industrial capital of Honduras. But I daydream about living there one day. The days can be hot, don't get me wrong. But the nights are cool and AC really isn't needed. It can sometimes even be cold enough for sweaters. I actually wore makeup while there. At home in SPS, I have given up even attempting to put anything on other than sunscreen.

I was very nervous at first being in Copan without Papa. He's my security here in Honduras. I think I'm a fairly strong, independent person who can handle her own, but with the language barrier I start to feel pretty vulnerable. But I totally shocked myself because I actually know some spanish! When I was forced suddenly I had all these things to say. I could hardly believe it! It really was a boost in my confidence as far as my ability to learn the language.

Here are some photos from our getaway in Copan:

Brother Sprout chilling at Casa de Todo. He is trying to smile for the camera but it usually ends up being the funniest and cutest darn faces.

Jen, Sister Sprout and I took a horseback ride up to Hacienda San Lucas which is a restaurant/hotel/tourist destination worth visiting. We had a guide that walked with us all the way up holding Sister's horse. In fact, the first night we were in Copan, we ate at the same restaurant that the owner, Flavia Cueva was eating at and ended up having a long chat with her. She's a pretty cool lady and actually was a spanish teacher for like 30 years in the US and went back to her birthplace (Honduras) to pursue a dream of building the hacienda on some abandoned family land that overlooks the Mayan ruins.

Guess who's horse was the mama of that little foul? Yep - mine. My horse was also the matriarch and would not let any of the other horses take the lead. In fact...Jen's horse also wouldn't let Sister Sprout's horse go in front of hers. The pecking order I guess.

We took a foot tour from Hacienda San Lucas to a place called Los Sapos (the frogs). It is the birthing place of the Mayan women. It's an incredible place to visit. Looking at the rocks and thinking about those Mayan woman who birthed their babies there centuries and centuries ago with no drugs. Ugh.

This is a front view of the the birthing center. A serpent sculpture is the most noticeable. There are other animals carved, but they are hard to tell what they are. The women would have given birth on top of the serpent.

This photo is hard to tell what it is. If you saw it in person and could make out what's going on, it's pretty cool. It is a carving of a woman giving birth. There is a big round belly next to her hands. The blob under her hand would be the baby. You just have to see it in person.

On the way back to the Hacienda we walked past this fresh spring where the indigenous people come to do their laundry and bathe. A very tranquil spot. The air smells like flowers and earth here. In the dry season, the river is dry, but the fresh spring always runs.

Sister Sprout taking in the view and relaxing at Hacienda San Lucas

Brother Sprout at our hotel Calle Real near central park, but up a very steep hill.

Sister Sprout giving us a pretty smile. This patio area was really nice for the kids to be able to run around.

We took a tour of the butterfly gardens. Very beautiful. The owners are a husband and wife. They also have an orchid nursery with so many different kinds of orchids they are going to be published soon in a book and CD. The owners of the gardens collect and maintain the gardens (butterfly & orchid) and are very enthusiastic about their work. They also live on the land and I spent a lot of time talking about how he built his house. Pretty neat guy who has been living in Honduras for 14 years now.

We stopped at the public library in town. There is a nice children's section with lots of books. We spent some time reading the many spanish and bi-lingual books. Mama's got to work on her spanish too!

We have a regular taxi driver that we call while in Copan Ruinas. Hi Cesear! Aren't the taxi's cute? There are quite a few in town. It costs about US $.25 to go anywhere around town per person. More if you need to go outside of town.

Just wanted to share these big beautiful brown eyes! Thanks Sister for taking the photo.

Our Little Green Neighbors

I'd like to introduce you to our little green neighbors next door. We don't know their names yet because they are kind of shy. This picture only shows two of them, but there are three that live there. The other was maybe taking a little walk in the grass. I took the photos out the kitchen window because if you walk outside and they see you, they are gone. It's kind of funny if they get caught up towards the front of the house and their safe zone is in the back of the house and they take off running. Normally they kind of slither along the ground, but if they sense danger it's like they pick up their pants and run high tail as fast as they can.

They only come out for a few hours in the late morning when the sun hits their stomping ground and they need to warm their blood. I've seen one of them pouncing for a few bugs in the grass and still another doing some kind of lizard dance with his head - bobbing it up and down in a weird way. I know very little about lizards so I couldn't tell you what kind they are.

Brother Sprout loves these little guys and wishes he could catch one or at least get up close to have a better look, but they are elusive so we mostly watch them out the window. If we are in the back of the house and Brother is next to me, he will walk over to their "home" and call out "Lizards! Lizards! Where are you lizards?!" You have to imagine how it comes out of a two year olds mouth too. Only I would probably be able to understand what he is saying. It's the cutest thing. Here's some shots I took zoomed in:




If you were wondering, our neighbors built their house not that long ago and the back is kind of their left over spot of construction stuff.

The News Came To Our Colonia

A news crew taking residents' comments

There have been a few things going on around our colonia. On one of the first nights I was here, late at night a truck was driving around with a megaphone attached to the top and they were driving around letting everyone know that the water supply was at risk because the colonia's well water supply was about to be hooked up to the new colonia being built next to ours.

Maybe the worry is that the water supply will run low and then we will be rationed or run out at times? Or maybe that the water pressure would go way down and we would have to take showers under a slow trickle.

I'm not sure exactly, but lots of people were riled up about it. So yesterday they staged a protest of sorts as they were digging the hook-up lines. I think they might have even hooked things up yesterday. At least that is what they said they were going to do and that is why they wanted as many people out there protesting.

Mainly out of curiosity we walked up to see what was going on. I was a bit concerned because if it's going to create problems for our colonia's water supply, I wouldn't like to loose any water pressure. Can't another well be dug for the other colonia? As a side note - the woman in the striped shirt is our neighbor across the street and is a main person on the community board. If the water line was hooked up yesterday, I didn't notice any change in the water pressure, but there are no homes built there yet so there's no one to draw on "our" water supply.

We stopped and watched things for a little while. People running around and official people walking here and there and talking, talking and lots of people just standing there watching the commotion. I couldn't understand what the person was saying on the megaphone blaring from the truck. So we decided to walk to the park the next block over and play for a little bit. Here is what the park looks like:

Here is a shot of the park from the street.

The playground equiptment is old Little Tykes and old metal swings, monkey bars & a slide (not shown in this photo). Most of it wouldn't be found anywhere in a public park in the states now.

This downed tree section is actually the best playground equipment. The kids love to climb on this and if you sit on it and hold on someone can pull on the end and the whole thing moves up and down like a teeter-toter.

Sticks are also fun things to play with.

The Sprouts Celebrate the 4th of July

Our 4th of July cake

Aside from the sad news of my grandpa dieing early on Wednesday, we carried on with our 4th of July plans to make a cake and our American meal. We made a basic white cake with an egg white cream frosting. We were originally going to use strawberries and blueberries for the stripes and flag, but the grocery store Papa went to didn't have any. So we opted for food coloring and it turned out great! Yes, eating the frosting will turn your mouth red, but oh well. It was really good!

Sister had fun helping make everything. She dressed in her American theme clothes. This girl sure loves her homeland now! She also loves to help with the cooking now...when she is in the mood, that is.

This picture also shows our electric stove. Papa bought it used and it has a few paint touch-up spots, but it works great. I am still getting used to cooking with electric. I don't like it as much as cooking with gas. To hook up a gas stove we would have to buy tanks of fuel that would be stored in the cupboard to the left of the stove. There is no way that the tank could be stored outside and "piped" in. It just wouldn't have worked. Electricity is pretty expensive in Honduras. Maybe because so many people "steal" electricity or don't pay their bills it jacks up the price for us honest people who don't want to steal. Now Papa is concerned that the stove takes up too much electricity. Will it stay or will it go???

Sister was very proud of the cake and her and Brother have enjoyed eating it the past few days. Maybe it's because of the humidity here, but the cake still tastes great and not dry at all!

We fired up the grill after Papa was done with work for the day. It was about the time of night when it's still light out, but the sun has stated to set. The neighborhood starts to come alive. Kids go out into the street to play and parents are outside enjoying the valley breezes, work in their yards or to play with the kids. We met two of the kids who live across the street. One little girl who is 12 and speaks English and she has a brother who is 8. They were outside running races up and down the street. We tried to get Sister to talk a little or get out there and play, but she was being shy. I hope one day she will feel more comfortable putting herself out there. I know she was interested in the kids, because she was concerned with what she was doing and how she looked. It's not like she wanted to be inside hiding, she just was standing on the sidelines watching the kids and the kids were watching her too. Hopefully one day they will all be playing together. Papa thought maybe sometime we could have a neighborhood " block party" so it would give all the kids a chance to get to know each other and the adults too. Papa spent a long time chatting with the neighbors which is great that we are getting to know our neighbors, but hard because I don't speak Spanish and after a quick greeting, there is not much else I can say. I'm working on that though...

Once the sun set, the food was finishing up on the grill and by then it was dark outside. The sun sets around 7pm here. In New York it would have been 10pm and they broadcast their fireworks on one of our cable channels. Beautiful fireworks set to music too. So we watched and sang along. Then I noticed up in the sky, that there were fireworks being set off downtown somewhere and we could see the fireworks from our front yard. Probably from one of the Americanized hotels. We all ran out and watched the little fireworks they were setting off. There was not a "grand finale" or anything, and the fireworks were on the lame side compared to what you see in the states but we whooped and hollered just the same.
After dinner we had cake and ice cream and watched a movie. It was as good as any 4th of July we could have had in the states.

Round Trip Tickets

Tomorrow is the scheduled flight home. We had to book round trip flights because without residency, especially with children, they would not let us out of the country without them. The price for round trip was really no different than one-way tickets anyway. Don't quite understand that one, but oh well. And as far as I know the airlines don't really question it if you are a no-show.

We have the residency paperwork that we need to stay and live over here, but it still needs to be processed and that has to be done in the capital city about 4 hours away by bus. We better get on that or before you know it we might end up having to pay a fine for overstaying the 90 day tourist visa.

So we made it two weeks here and I'm not running for States. I can tell there will be some challenges ahead. The heat is still wearing on me for example and then there is that language issue... and oh yeah, that driving thing (deep breath). I still don't feel like I know quite what I'm doing here. Sometimes the reality hits and it seems strange that outside the walls around our colonia is Honduras. Not that inside my colonia doesn't feel like Honduras, it's just a little different. Actually, I peek outside the walls just about every day. There are these little holes in the perimeter wall where you can peek through. Our house is along the wall and its maybe about 4 inches thick. I can see the main road that gets quite a bit of traffic, I can see shanty type homes built along the road and people walking & biking too. There is a big open field behind us (over the wall). I guess the land we now live on used to be cattle land and now here we sit with a bunch of neat colorful houses on it.

There has been some kind of construction going on behind the wall making lots of noise. I peeked through this afternoon and saw that a very large tree had been cut down and the roots exposed. This was a huge tree. I don't know why they wanted or needed to cut it down. Maybe they are going to make another neat, colorful colonia behind us?

Tomorrow is the 4th of July and we are planning on making a US flag cake and making an all American meal with corn on the cob, chips, something on the grill with buns and then having a family movie night. Looking forward to it. Wish we could find some sparklers at least, but in Honduras...fireworks are illegal and hard to find right now. (Christmas is a better time to find them I'm told) I'll see if I can get some photos taken. Hope everyone has a great 4th! The 4th is one of our family's favorite holidays.

How Hondurans Cut Grass

I took this video of two boys cutting our neighbors grass with my cell phone so I apologize for the grainy resolution. Papa hired them last week to cut our yard. They live in a little community along the road just down from our colonia. The income that these boys make will probably go to feed their families and from what Papa tells me, this kind of work makes them "a lot" of money for a short days work of about 300 limpiras ($15.80 US).

I've seen some people cutting grass with a weed-whacker type of thing. This looks a bit more back-breaking. The boys use a machete to chop the grass down