Diary of a Ducha ("Doo sha" Spanish for shower)

Day One: Moved into the apartment today. Don Stephan has fixed the water so I now have water in the bathroom sink, the toilet, the shower (not much water pressure though) and in one of two faucets in the kitchen sink. Much better than my last morning here when I had two hours to close up the apartment, wash dishes, shower and get to the airport by 7:30 am. After shrieking down the stairs (found out that he does understand some English!) he delivered 4, 5 gallon buckets of water to the apartment and I did everything with buckets and a kettle.

Day Three: I’m just so grateful that the suicide shower is working, now that I thought to flip the breaker for it. Finally have hot water after two days of cold showers during the rainy season.

Day Forty Three: I realize that I’ve gotten used to the lack of water pressure in the shower. I’ve also learned that when I wash my waist length hair, it takes almost half an hour and I’m wondering just how much water the roof top cistern holds. Mind you, I don’t think I’m actually using much, the water just dribbles and spits while I scrub and rinse but it sure takes a fair amount of time!

Day Forty Four: I’ve become somewhat eccentric about living alone. Every time I turn on the shower water, I’m pleasantly surprised and when I reach up to turn it off, I always say “thank you, thank you” in both languages. Hmm, at least it’s some form of practising Spanish….

Day Forty Five: I think the shower is getting tired. There appears to be even less water pressure and therefore less water coming out of the suicide shower head.

Day Forty Six: The shower head is definitely getting somewhat useless. The holes that used to deliver water (only half of them ever delivered !) are now sort of dribbling out across the showerhead and joining together to make a “splatting” kind of trickle. Hmm, I do hope it manages to fix itself.

Day Forty Seven: It got cold again today so I turned on the water and then the suicide shower heater only to wind up scalding myself when I stuck my hand under the dribbling splat. It appears that the heater is working fine but with the lack of water being delivered, the heat is not dispersed. Put ice cubes on my hand and washed at the sink.

Day Forty Eight: The shower is definitely sick. Damn. The dribbling splats have now decreased to mere occasional drops. It took almost 5 minutes to collect a handful of water (I was hoping it would increase if I just left it running!). Washed in the sink again; good news is that the bathroom floor is clean once I mopped up all the water.

Day Forty Nine: I spoke with Dona Lucy this afternoon and told her that I had no water in the shower though the rest of the apartment was still working fine. She’s very sympathetic and said she would tell Don Stephan.

Day Fifty: Filled both my buckets in the kitchen sink, added boiling water from the kettle to make it tepid and “bucket washed” in the shower stall. Worked out okay and didn’t have to clean the bathroom floor again.

Day Fifty One: Finally saw Don Stephan today. I told him I had a problem with the apartment because there was no water in the shower. He responded immediately with enthusiastic sympathy and says he’ll have a look at it tomorrow. Bucket washed in the shower stall.

Day Fifty Two: It’s Sunday. Maybe that’s why Don Stephan didn’t come to look at the shower; but I didn’t think he was a member of Dona Lucy’s church group. Oh well, I suppose it’s still a day of rest for him. Bucket washed. The bedroom floor is now clean since I spilled one bucket en route to shower stall.

Day Fifty Three: (Politely!) accosted Don Stephan when he came upstairs this morning. I repeated the issue with the shower and no water. More sympathetic promises of assistance; he ignored my raised eye brows. Bucket washed.

Day Fifty Four: Bucket washed. Had an early appointment in town but just as I was leaving Don Stephan arrived to look at the shower. Turned on the tap, nothing dribbled or splatted or leaked out of the shower head. Oh, he now understands I have a problem with the water, hooray! I’m losing my sense of humour, was late for my appointment.

Day Fifty Five: Glondy, my Honduran girlfriend came over while I was filling the buckets in the sink. She thought I was going to wash floors. HA! I explained about the shower problem and got more sympathy. I’m starting to dislike sympathy and my sense of humour is sorely lacking. Spoke briefly with Dona Lucy; by my translation it appears to be a problem with the pump. Great, but why is there still water every where else in the house? Don Stephan saw me filling water buckets in the kitchen sink and went back down the stairs muttering “agua, agua” to himself. My morning greetings to him are becoming somewhat surly.

Day Fifty Six: Glondy came over early, at 7am so I asked if I could go to her house to wash my stinking, greasy, filthy hair. No problem, come over whenever you want! Perfect! Rounded up all my shower stuff, got tidied and headed for the door. ENEE had a planned power outage for 8am that morning. Bucket washed. I’m now considering getting a crew cut again; note to self – stay away from the scissors.

Day Fifty Seven: When I came home from town yesterday there was a length of plastic water pipe lying on the patio floor. Ah, progress! Today, the pipe made it up onto the roof by 8am. It’s now 3pm and there has been no further action. Glondy hasn’t been home all day and her house is locked. Bucket washed. French braided the obscenely filthy hair. It now feels like a horse’s tail. I have absolutely no sense of humour.

Day Fifty Eight: Refused to answer Dona Lucy when she saw me leaving for Glondy’s with my towel over my shoulder. I’m no longer a cheerful tenant. I think she is aware of my lack of humour now. Don Stephan no longer comes upstairs to exchange morning greetings. The pipe is still on the roof. Glondy’s shower head does not work so used the faucet and bucket routine. Finally have clean hair.

Day Sixty Two: I haven’t seen Don Stephan in three days. Still no shower water.

Day Sixty Three: Came home with two bags of clean laundry. Don Stephan has forgotten that I hate him and because he is such a gentleman, carried the bags upstairs for me. I promptly informed him that I had no water in the shower, before he escaped. Surprised shock and abject sympathy when I turned on the tap and absolutely nothing came out. Some amusing physical contortions while he made it clear that the pipe appeared to be choked i.e. plugged with sediment. Sincere promises to fix it tomorrow. I’ll believe that when I see it!

Day Sixty Four: Terrible noises from the roof while video conferencing with Hubbie; refused to investigate said noises. Shortly thereafter Don Stephan arrived asking if I had any water at all. Slight moment of complete horror on my part – what did he do up there?! I now have not only water in the shower head but increased water pressure throughout the whole apartment!

Just shy of two full weeks without water in the shower is not really that big a deal; if you’re going to live in Honduras you must, absolutely must, be able to roll with the punches and find ways to compensate. This includes anything to do with household mechanics, shopping for basic supplies, dealing with taxis or transit and those times when you require supposedly “special” services. Remember the time the post office ran out of stamps? A sense of humour is the only appropriate survival technique!

I Should Have Brought My Wool Socks....

This morning my apartment registered a staggering temperature of 67F (19.5C) at 8:00am.

When I went to bed last night it was a cool 70F. After spending the early evening fetchingly garbed in socks, blue jeans, layers of tee shirts and a toasty bath towel, I decided to finally break down and close all of the window louvers in the hopes that the apartment would warm up during the night. It didn't.

The good news is that there has been no rain in almost 24 hours and the stiff WNW breeze from yesterday did stop. The sun has been trying to peek out from the dark clouds hovering against the mountains, but sadly isn’t producing much in the way of actual heat.

I’m starting to wonder just where it is that I am trying to live.

We had reached amazing lows in the high 60’sF in late November during the rainy season which is also Honduras’ version of winter but it is now nearing the end of January and spring is supposed to be happening here.

After attempting to avoid reality, I finally broke down and checked into the La Ceiba airport weather report and have now given up hope. The good news is that there is only a 20% to 30% chance of rain over the next few days; the bad news is tomorrow will be just as cool running from a low of 16C to a high (huh?!) of 24C with very gradual improvement until the end of the weekend.

Today’s adventures will be either purchasing a wool sweater and yet another pair of socks or checking the bus depot and the travel agent and escaping to Costa Rica, once I check the weather reports. I checked, it doesn’t look any better than here, so it’s off to buy a sweater for me.

To all my Canadian friends and family, I’m not asking for sympathy, nor am I willing to hear your comments about the weather in your neck of the woods. It’s supposed to be freezing up north! Next year, I am definitely bringing my wool socks to Honduras….

Dona Doesn't Giggle Anymore

Life is full of small adventures that occur when you least expect them, and some days before I’m even out of bed.

My apartment is on the second floor of a private house, which also includes a small pulperia (corner store) downstairs. The family consists of my landlords, Dona Lucy and Don Stephan and their adult daughter, though it’s hard to tell as there is a steady stream of adults, children, grandbabies and various other friends, customers and delivery people flowing in and out all day and early evening.

Dona Lucy is an older Honduran lady, not quite 5 feet tall with a lovely plump face, lively big brown eyes and dark wavy hair that she tries, (in vain some days) to keep under some semblance of control. She is a busy, hard working woman with a propensity for gossip, grins and generalized well-being.

Mornings start early in Honduras with the infamous 4:30 am chorus of barking dogs and crowing roosters, followed shortly by Don Stephan’s diesel bus firing up at 5:15 am. By 6:00 am it is full daylight and the pulperia has been a busy little centre of activity with children, youths and women coming in for their morning supplies, treats for school and other sundry items.

The phone rings off the hook, everyone who enters the patio or stops at the side gate calls out “Buenos!” to announce that they are there and Dona Lucy is in her element. She greets everyone in return, and there is the continuous babble of responses, requests, questions and tidbits of barrio and family gossip since they last saw each other. There is a flurry of bustling, joyful involvement of self with others, in greeting another morning that can be such an oddity for us solitary and self contained North Americans.

This morning I woke early, toasty warm under the fleece blanket and happily, because the rains had finally stopped. I curled up lazily in my bed, quietly listening to the morning begin downstairs. The dogs released their pent up vocal energies, the traffic started on the main road and I could hear the surging surf two blocks away. And just like clockwork, the bus fired up and drove off, the telephone started ringing off the hook and the voices began downstairs, with Dona Lucy the constantly chirruping, giggling metronome of the morning music.

As I laid there grinning sleepily, I realized something had changed. I could hear a man’s voice, rapid, sibilant and gaining in exuberance but I couldn’t hear Dona Lucy. No cascading giggles, no chirruping voice, no exclamations of surprise, simply silence -which is unheard of. Just as I was becoming concerned, with a quizzical frown on my forehead, the silence burst!

Laughter erupted from Dona Lucy, barrelling up through her round little body, chortling its way up her throat and bursting its way past her lips. She was trying to speak and the laughter simply overwhelmed her, increasing in volume and cascading upwards in sheer passionate joy! She started to gasp for air, with little shrieks of glee and you could almost feel the laughter rolling up and out of her. The man who was speaking cannot, and is laughing uncontrollably, slapping the counter top in glee!

The stairwell is echoing with laughter, the window slats seem to be shimmering with the sounds bursting through them and Dona Lucy is still building to the crescendo of raucous, uncontrolled, roaring delight and I am helpless.

I have no choice as I roll with glee under the covers, giggling, grinning and finally joining her in deep belly laughs that shake me from top to bottom. Finally, she slows, interrupting the gales of laughter, and regaining her breath begins to speak, still bubbling with small chortlings of glee; the man can finally speak again and I am left wiping tears of joy from my face.

Dona Lucy doesn’t giggle anymore…. She is a passionately erupting fountain of laughter that sweeps you along in the early morning dawn. What a wonderful beginning of a new day!

Gecko: The Moth Killer!

I have a personal passion for geckos and took a look at Wikipedia for some hard facts such as the following:

They are a small member of the Gekkonidae family, approximately 3” to 6” (7.5cm – 15cm) in length; somewhat aggressive, definitely prolific and (usually) nocturnal. They are frequently seen crawling up walls or across ceilings, in search of prey that are attracted to porch or interior lights. They prefer warm and humid climates and can be found almost world wide, given appropriate climatic conditions.

It was also stated that geckos had been introduced to a number of countries by being stowaways on sailing ships (clever!) and through discussions in Honduras Living I learned that Dr. Gene Ostmark (a highly respected scientist and human being) has been credited with the deliberate introduction of geckos to Honduras.

So much for the clinical data…

They are a delightfully useful creature to have around the house because they eat all kinds of insects, spiders and moths, as I discovered last night. They are also well known for their chirping call and are quite vocal in their conversations with other geckos.

I’ve gotten into the habit of verbally welcoming them to my home when I hear them and this morning was listening to one chirping away, well after daylight when it was supposed to be asleep. Maybe it was the one I saw last night with the moth, and it had a belly ache after such a large meal!


It has also been documented that geckos can “drop” off their tail when they are alarmed, and after reading that I’m feeling somewhat more reassured. I had moved a heavy plastic crate last week, which made a loud shrieking noise against the ceramic tiles and only then noticed one of my house geckos making its escape.


Its tail stayed on the floor, wriggling and writhing, and I was horrified at the thought of having accidentally hurt the poor creature. Now my thinking is that this would be a brilliant survival tactic, with leaving behind an edible, moving morsel for an aggressor while rapidly removing itself from the scene.


I’ve also witnessed the occasional one simply falling off of a ceiling or patio roof, landing with a splat and then being able to run off, so they appear to be pretty tough.

One thing that I deliberately do is to try and not use pesticides or more toxic cleaners in my apartment as I think geckos could be easily poisoned and I would much prefer having them living here to keep the bugs under control for me.

I was certainly surprised last night to find one climbing up the outside window screen and since the camera was within reach, I took a series of photos of the gecko killing the moth. They are incredibly fast moving and once they capture something large in their jaws, they clamp down and proceed to shake it while gulping more of the main body into its mouth. Just like a dog shaking a rat!

So, there’s a bit of information about one of the most interesting, and useful, creatures I’ve found here in Honduras.

PS Thought I was quite clever and made a movie of the photos I took. Blogger isn't clever as every time I tried to load the movie, the whole computer froze. Argh....

PPS Jan 14th I saw "Stubby" (the tailless one) and a larger gecko come out from behind the fridge, during the daytime. "Big Guy" caught a large house fly while I was watching so I'm quite pleased to have them as permanent house guests!

Neat tricks with Chicken Bones

This is a neat trick you can teach a child (of any age!) that is fast and easy, yet rather fascinating. Please don’t ask me for the scientific reason why it happens; all I know is that my father taught me and when I taught my 10 year old Honduran friend, he was rather impressed at the strange things I know how to do!

Next time you cook a whole chicken, simply save the breast bone (wish bone) intact, clean it and let it dry out thoroughly.

Drop it into enough white vinegar to cover it completely, cover it the container if you want and let it sit for 36 to 48 hours. Check it if you’re impatient and you’ll feel the difference as the bone get rubbery and squishy feeling. Kids love this!

Once it is completely softened, just tie it in a knot!

If you leave the bone out in the air, it will stiffen up again and the trick can be repeated. I’m not certain but think that if you left it in the vinegar long enough, it might just completely dissolve. This trick works with turkey bones, and probably other poultry wish bones as well. Have fun!

Ultimate Pudding Pie

Here’s a quick and easy dessert recipe called “Pudding Pie” that I’ve introduced to my Honduran family. I generally make this concoction and pour it into a graham cracker crust

but I’ve found that the pre-made ones are not always readily available in La Ceiba. It works just fine if poured into a pie plate or simply left in the bowl that you made it in.

I prefer to choose a combination of gelatine and yogurt that are similar to each other i.e. strawberry gelatine and strawberry yogurt. You can also decorate the finished pie with a similar flavoured or coloured cookie and prefer the wafer type ones.

Ingredients:

2 boxes of gelatine, 85 grams

1 cup boiling water

1 cup very cold water

1 pkg flavoured yogurt, 500 grams

Do not follow the gelatine package instructions! It will be too soft to re-set after adding the yogurt. Add the boiling water to the dry powder and stir until completely dissolved, then add the cold water and stir well.

Place in the refrigerator until partially set (maybe an hour?) and stir again. Simply check occasionally over the next couple hours with mixing it well, to keep it fluffy rather than flat set. Even if you forget it, just beat vigorously until fluffy looking.

Once the gelatine is fully set, gently stir in the whole package of yogurt until thoroughly mixed together. Now you can decant it into the graham cracker pie shell, an empty pie plate or simply keep it in the original mixing bowl and place back into the refrigerator until time to serve. If decorating with wafer cookies, simply add them just before serving as they get mushy if set in too early.

This is a reasonably healthy and delightfully light dessert that goes well with either summer meals (almost all the time here in Honduras!) or a heavier meal.

Enjoy!