Fireworks in La Ceiba aka Is It Over Yet?

I think it’s finally over….

I’m talking about Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and the standard method of celebrating with extreme amounts of fireworks.

Literally, the daily and nightly explosions begin at least two weeks before Dec. 25^th and I was foolish enough to believe that it would all end on Jan. 1^st.

It seemed that everyone had fireworks! Young boys, casually walking past friends and groups of young people, deliberately flicking lit lady finger style ones at their feet just to watch them startle and shriek.

I had an interesting (watch out for that Chinese curse pertaining to living in interesting times!) episode with one young man, probably about 10 years old, one afternoon. I had been hearing the intermittent pops and shrieks along my street and got curious as to who was doing what. So, off I headed to the pulperia and certainly got my question answered!

That young man walked past me, flicked a lady finger back at my feet and proceeded to snicker when I jumped back from it. Well, as they say, that’s when the fight started! I raised my voice, shaking my finger at him and told him in no uncertain terms (and reasonably decent Spanish) that it was unacceptable, dangerous and if he did it to me again I would slap his butt.

He was in almost complete shock, and no longer snickering at me, by the time I was done. It appeared to me that the shock resulted from the fact that someone would dare to chastise him for his behaviour and he just couldn’t believe it!

But back to the general issue of fireworks. Technically, fireworks are banned in La Ceiba but it’s rather apparent that there is zero enforcement of that bylaw. Not only did everyone have them but two days before Christmas there were three different vendors selling them on the sidewalk outside of Paiz, the biggest grocery store in El Centro.  They weren’t just displaying their wares, but making actual sales to adults, including myself.

Yes, yes, I know I’m not supposed to encourage sales, buy illegal goods or give them to my 13 year old friend (with his mother’s permission) and then turn around and complain about it…. Maybe I’ll justify my purchase in the interests of research?

There have been New Year’s Eve’s in the past whereby my street resembled an artillery firing range! Big ones, little ones, long strings of them twisting and careening down the road, massive detonations and even some of them becoming air born.

This past year wasn’t quite as bad but it was still a dangerous proposition walking home from my girlfriend’s and running the gauntlet fearing for my hearing, my vision and my long hair!

Yes, I think it’s finally over for this season since I haven’t heard any explosions for the last two nights, but I wouldn’t want to presume so for fear of jinxing myself! Now, where are my earplugs just in case?

Blessed be, Stephanie

Moose Sightings in La Ceiba

It appears that global warming and climate change have affected changes in wildlife populations in Central America with the reported sightings of moose in La Ceiba.

Additionally, there are verified reports of gross abuse of these moose which appear to have barely survived their long migration south.

In one sighting, the animal was fenced in with Walt Disney characters and appears to be gravely ill while in another sighting it is obvious that the moose was killed for its antlers.
Apparently Hondurans did not realize that moose are incapable of substituting for reindeer and suffer gross indignities and tragic death when forced to do so.

You know that this is just a farce folks but sometimes I’m just amazed by what I see while living here!

Yes, there was a large Christmas display put up at the San Juan bus depot, on a very busy avenue for all passers by to see which included dear old St. Nick and an entourage of cartoon characters, wooden toy soldiers and even a couple of very blue looking polar bears.

I’m left with the impression that someone thought that a moose was close enough in bearing to pose as one of Santa’s reindeer but my burning question is: Where did they get them?!?

The La Ceiba tourist trolley mounted moose head is what I find the most curious.
Do you see where someone has spray painted its nose yellow?
Is this for a pseudo headlight or is it masquerading as Rudolph, with his nose so bright?

Some questions will never be answered!

Blessed be, Stephanie

Water Company Updates

Life just gets even easier, the more time I spend here!

Last year I wrote a story about water companies, their call outs and the fact that they will deliver upstairs to my apartment – see here this link to refresh your memory.

http://musingsandmutteringsfromhonduras.blogspot.com/2010/02/water-delivery-timing-opps.html

Note: I am feeling quite clever in that I managed to figure out how to follow the instructions and ‘attach’ older articles with present updates. I wager there will be a few more of these to come!

Anyways, back to the story….

When I returned this past November I soon realized that there were a couple of new water companies servicing my barrio. I discovered this fact purely by hanging out on the patio and watching the world go by – nothing more clever than that – just basic curiosity!

Mimos is the fourth company and deliveries are made at fairly regular times during the day and week, though I’m not quite certain just when anymore. Occasionally I’ll hear their call out of “Meee Moooo” but they generally don’t bother with too much broadcasting. The driver doubles as a delivery man, there are no fancy uniforms or big trucks but they get the job done with their small pickup truck and even smaller sign on the tailgate.

 Agua Diamante is the most recent company in La Ceiba and runs an even smaller outfit. There is one lone man, no obvious uniform, on a bicycle “truck” that he peddles slowly but surely through the barrio. There’s no call out that I’ve noticed; mind you how could he peddling that weight?

Prices for water have risen this year, ranging from 31Lps for Aguazul (supposedly the most trusted company) to as low as 20Lps for Mimos and Agua Diamante with the other two companies ranging around 27Lps, which all include delivery up my steep little stairwell.

Yes, I’m suspicious as to how the new companies can be so much cheaper but it’s obvious they have less overhead and fewer workers so possibly that’s the reason. Other than that I don’t want to think of the obvious answer – that it could be filtered tap water. I haven’t been sick, I’m not particular about brands for anything and I’m every so appreciative of having it delivered to me!

So there are now five companies serving us, six days a week instead of three previously, all of them deliver and now I don’t have to fuss about getting water in time so as not to run out over the weekends. Simply put, one of the basic necessities of life has become so much easier to accomplish!

Blessed be, Stephanie

Sambo Creek: January 11th Play Day at the Beach

The sign of a good day is just how grubby, sun soaked and exhausted you are at the end of it! My friend Larry and I just couldn’t stay in town yesterday so took ourselves off to Sambo Creek on the pretext of having lunch and wound up having a delightful day of exploring, beach walking, sea shell gathering and soaking up brilliant sunshine.  

First of all, you get a chicken bus from the San Juan depot and for 14Lps (about 70 cents) you board a retired North American school bus and begin the journey. Sambo Creek is about 16 km east of La Ceiba but it’ll take you about 40 minutes to get there as the bus stops at various locations within the city, then numerous times along the highway to collect workers, families and school children for delivery all along the way and into Corozal (another Garifuna village on the Caribbean Sea).

You turn off the highway and narrowly squeak through tiny one lane roads, paved and dirt wondering when, not if, the driver will clip a building and are dropped off at one of the ‘depot’ points. Nothing is labelled so you just look for a kiosk where folks are gathered and start your wanderings from there.

This is a small Garifuna village set directly along the Caribbean Sea which features various small restaurants and is especially known for tours to Cayos Cochinos which you can see in the distance. I’m planning a day trip to Cayos sometime soon, so will tell you more about them when I actually do it.

There are a couple of fresh water creeks that come down from the mountains to empty into the sea and provide ample opportunity for laundry and bathing for everyone. Bath time for the kids involves an extended period of sheer play time for everyone; splashing, floating, swimming and just generally having a whole lot of fun.

                                                                               If you want to walk the beach west of the village, you have to cross the outlet so it’s off with the shoes (or flip flops for me) and in you go. The first shock of the cold water is just that but soon feels simply delicious after the hot sands and sun. Even knee deep the current is strong so I tend to slowly feel my way across to avoid falling over and soaking my camera – who cares about the clothes, they’ll dry fast enough!

The beaches here are surprisingly clean compared to La Ceiba; folks do clean up the plastic that washes ashore and there is an amazing amount of seashells simply everywhere. I’m a ‘water baby’ (a Cancer, the crab, by the Zodiac) and just can’t resist the call of the waves and sand. There’s no greater hardship for me than to walk the beach for exercise and NOT stopping to pick up seashells!   

We wandered along paths between houses and through yards, making our greetings as we passed folks wondering who these crazy gringos were and where we were going.

We crossed trestle bridges and once I heard the sound of children splashing and shrieking with glee, we veered off the road bed and down a path through the bush to find yet another swimming hole crowded with kids and folks doing yet more laundry in the distance.

We stopped at pulperias for cold bags of water and sodas, ate our lunch of grilled fresh fish at a small hotel next to the disco (closed thankfully!) and slowly made our way back to the bus kiosk just in time to catch the 3:20 back to La Ceiba.

End of the day results:  filthy with beach sand and salt spray; possessor of a huge handful of sea shells; belly full of fish, rice and beans and plateno; tired legs and sleepy eyes; sun crinkled skin and lots of photos.

Conclusion: An excellent play day at the beach! Wish you could have joined me but hope the photos and story will warm up your day for you Northerners in Canada!

Blessed be, Stephanie

Starting All Over Again

Greetings again people!

I do apologize for having avoided, ignored and completely deserting the blog after the last entry in April of 2010. 

Originally, I was embarrassed by the amount of time that had gone by, as well as the fact that “Momma Went Shopping” was the last posting. Honest, I’m not really that shallow!

Then I went through the guilty phase of having folks ask me if I was going to continue with it and me making vague mutterings about getting back to it some day in the future.

Recently, I’ve decided that I need to do this for my own good reasons and that my life would be richer and happier if I just gave in, gave up the procrastination, and got on with it.

To paraphrase Jimmy Buffett and one of his tunes “Some of it’s been magic, some of it tragic but it’s been a good life all along”… This has been my life in general over the last 20 months.

I’ve made a few new friends here in La Ceiba, I’ve had wonderful times with my grandsons in Canada, I’ve started to learn about sailing and I’ve been able to keep my arthritic body under some semblance of maintained control. Those are the “magic” parts.

The tragic side involves ongoing arthritis deterioration, the usual aging process for all of us over 50, missing my grandsons growing up and the fact that my sailing buddy is now dealing with cancer.

Sometimes, life makes it difficult to make my thank you’s every morning and as many of us do in times of stress, I did withdraw.

But the good news is that I’m going to try this again! I do enjoy sharing stories of my living in La Ceiba, Honduras, and no matter how trivial the content, sometimes the photos tell the whole story. Maybe there will be more photos than written word as my brain seems to be out of practise; maybe briefer passages; maybe who knows what?

I simply don’t know what it’ll turn out to be and we’ll all learn as I reacquaint myself with the Muse.

                                                         Blessed be, Stephanie

Momma Went Shopping!

The heat can do strange things to a person’s mind and maybe I’ll blame this latest little adventure on mild heat exhaustion… I’m somewhat surprised with myself but know that my mid 20’s daughter will take great delight in hearing about her Momma’s shoe buying frenzy.

She is a delightfully feminine woman, with a serious fetish for shoes – brilliant red stilettos with swingy skirts, multi coloured sparkly flats with shorts and a camisole, high heeled leather boots with long legged denim jeans – you name it, she’s got just the right pair of shoes for any outfit. Now, don’t get the wrong impression – she’s also an intelligent, successful career woman and mother; we don’t have “bimbos” in our family!

La Ceiba is a woman’s shoe fetish paradise with the most outrageous creations offered in windows, shops, in the streets and in pickup trucks all over the town. I’ve seen everything imaginable from hideously high, brilliantly coloured heels, to rather sensible basic black or brown loafers to sandals that would confuse a carpet weaver with its assembly of laces and clips fastening them and flip flops of every colour of the rainbow and even with high heeled soles.

I’ve watched the young, and not so young, women stride, stagger, lurch or tippy toe about town wearing their stylish footwear and grimace to myself about the level of pain and/or damage they are doing to themselves and their feet all in the name of fashion.

I admit, in my 20’s I was rather typical and went for the high heels when truly dressing up but that was such a rare occurrence, certainly not more than half a dozen times a year, that I didn’t do any lasting harm. I spent a number of years working in construction trades and learned to love my steel toed leather work boots (especially after they started making them in small women’s sizes) and wore them constantly for work, hiking and just general walking around in a small northern town.

Now that I’ve been living in La Ceiba for a number of years, I’ve developed a habit for sturdy open toe sandals, both to accommodate miles of daily walking and a severely arthritic back. They aren’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, are purely utilitarian in purpose and I actually regard them as an orthopaedic assistance (trying to keep myself from hating the look of them so much!)

I have been needing to replace a worn out pair of sandals, stalling and procrastinating because I really hate shopping for clothes or shoes and had been half heartedly looking around town for a replacement pair. I snapped yesterday, girded my loins and forced myself out to the Mall in hopes that someone, somewhere, would have one single pair of flat, comfortable, walking sandals for me to purchase.

I honestly believe that the fashion police took pity on me…. Everywhere I went there were outrageous sales, a wide variety of flats and even some fun colours to choose from! I may not have found sensible sandals but I’ve got enough pairs of shoes (that I can walk comfortably in) to last me for hundreds of miles in my waunderings through La Ceiba. All in all, prices ranged from under $10 to a high off $30 (no discount on the sturdy walking shoes!) so I’m well set for quite some time for under $100 USF and most especially won’t have to face the ordeal of shoe shopping for quite some time to come!

I also admit that I won’t be wearing the red high heeled sandals for more than brief moments at a time, but simply couldn’t resist. Daughter will be proud of my “girl attack” and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that she’ll be “borrowing” them if I bring them back to Canada with me!

Relief From the Heat aka River Picnic Days

You know it’s hot when the locals comment on it, when the gringos (and others!) climb into story books under fans or air conditioners and whole Honduran families from grandmothers to babies take themselves out to the various rivers for the day.

I’m very fortunate and have been invited to go out to various river picnic sites with my own Honduran family here. One Sunday we went to the Quebrada Zacate and found the most amazing series of waterfalls after a long drive on a very rough trail, following a suspiciously dry creek bed. What a joy and blessing to be able to swim and splash and simply float in very cold water!

 

Another Sunday we went to a picnic site on the river just below Pico Benito Lodge and joined the fun with all the other families out relaxing and cooling off from the heat. At one point I brought a huge plastic container of watermelon slices down to the shallow pools and we wound up floating it from one person to the next as we sat in waist deep water, wiggling our toes, luxuriating in the deliciously cool, clean waters and seeing who could spit watermelon seeds the furthest!

That was also the very same day that the power went out at 6am, turning off my huge fan at the base of my bed – not a comfortable way to start the day as the temperature in the bedroom was still 34C even with the fan on overnight. We finally arrived home just before 6 pm that night, fully expecting the power to be turned on after the 12 hour scheduled maintenance shutdown. The apartment was sweltering, with no breeze and even the cold water shower wasn’t cold as the cistern had heated up to very warm temps during the day!

The power came on but very, very briefly – which was the ultimate in cruelty in my books! The fridge has been off all day, so even though I got a free defrost cycle out of it, there was nothing cold to drink! Sticky, soaked in sweat, feeling quite out of sorts about the heat (which never happens to me!) I decided to take my chair out front, on the second storey patio, to see if I could possibly coax a breeze in off the Caribbean.

No such luck. So I waited, swatting various bugs as they landed on me and listened to the silence of my barrio. Some folks had lit candles in their homes or patios, some folks were just out visiting in the complete darkness, the older teens were hanging out on the wall at the corner and everyone was simply waiting for relief.

I could see lights on the south side of La Ceiba, but our barrios of Miramar, Maestros and La Alambre were still completely darkened. There were no street lights, no house lights and only the occasional passing vehicle head lamps provided any illumination to our little corner of the world.

Simultaneously the lights came on and the cheering erupted! What a glorious relief to be able to turn on my fan, crank up my fridge and hope that the system could handle the surge! Now I truly understand why the locals cheer when the power comes back again….

Baby, It's HOT Out Here!

Oh, my goodness gracious – I think I’ve finally discovered what true summer weather is like in La Ceiba, Honduras….

Generally, I leave by the middle of April in order to go north and start preparing gardens for our cool 60 day growing season but this year I made up my mind to stay for La Ceiba’s Carnival held the third weekend in May. I’ve witnessed Semana Santa a number of times but have always heard about the outrageousness of Carnival and want to experience a small taste of it for myself. But I digress…

I’ve become accustomed to the apartment ranging from 30C to 35C during the days but got curious about what the temperatures were out in the full sun. As you can see from the photos this is extremely hot!

It’s the heat. It envelopes your body, leaving you with a most unattractively slippery persona and completely numbs your brain; your wrists stick to the keyboard, the mouse pad gets soaked and the laptop attempts to overheat and shut itself down. You shower innumerable times during the day to get the stickies off, change and wring out clothing countless times and loose all sense of motivation for the basics of life like cooking, eating, moving or carrying on a conversation.

The heat is indescribable if you haven’t lived in the tropics and survived it yourself. The world feels like it has slowed to an incredibly marginal pace, the noise levels drop to barely noticeable levels, the concrete streets radiate BTU’s and you feel like you are living in your own personal, body encompassing sauna no matter how loose or marginal your clothing is.

Yet life continues, with children going to school, women cooking, doing laundry and housework, buses running their routes, taxi’s cruising by, pulperias taking deliveries and making sales, vendors walking the streets selling goods and construction workers mixing concrete in the street. Surviving the heat is new to me and I’m very fortunate to have an extremely basic life style but I am amazed by the resilience of the locals. Life simply goes on, with folks seeming to take it in stride, albeit much more slowly than usual.    

There’s a lot to be learned about developing a level of acceptance and patience with reality if you’re going to be living here! But in the meantime, I’m going to make another jug of icy lemonade; hmm, maybe it’s 5:00 somewhere and the beer is cold now…..