Honduran Snowman

Sometimes, you just have to make your own fun!

I’m a northern gal, where the snow has been on the ground for 6 weeks (or more!) by the time the official first day of winter arrives and though I no longer welcome cold weather there are some things that I do miss.

Tobogganing down the hill on our main road, stamping out messages in the snow for others to find , discovering various footprints left behind by passing four legged friends large and small and building snowmen (and other assorted snow creatures!).

The fridge finally had to be defrosted, as the freezer door no longer opened and this is a job that I particularly dislike. Mind you I’m not happy about doing any form of housework because no matter how good a job you do, it just doesn’t stay done.

Well, one of my silly notions struck, I grabbed a spoon and scooped out some of the ice and here’s the result of my own foolishness. Happy Solstice everyone!

It's a Lovely Day in the Neighbourhood

This is something that I tried to post on Dec. 15th. It appears that Blogger and I are having issues with each other and I haven't decided just what the problem is - me or it!


It’s just amazing what a little bit of sunshine can do!

After the weeks of cold weather and the severe flooding rain just four days ago, our little piece of paradise has decided to let the sun shine once more, bringing comfortable warmth and renewed hope to everyone.

The barrio (neighbourhood) is busy and noisy again with folks working on home repairs, children and dogs running merrily amok and the enterprising vendors cruising the streets once more.

There were three men, carrying a couple of ornate mirrors, a large carved rocking chair and even a five drawer chest on a dolly, who came through our street earlier today trying to sell their furniture door to door. There were a couple of hand cart vegetable sellers calling out their wares, a yard man (complete with his gum boots and machete) going gate to gate looking for work and at the beginning of the video you can hear the man selling shrimp, calling out “camarones, camarones”.

It’s the small minutiae of life that amuses and entertains me so readily and now that the blue skies and sunshine are back, it’s so very easy to be happy here again.

A very different Christmas

I’m not a fan of the commercial aspects of the Christmas season, nor am I a practising Christian so there isn’t a religious element for myself but being here in La Ceiba for the past few weeks has opened my eyes, with reactions ranging from appalled shock, some amazement and sheer endearment at other moments.

Firstly, I’m from the north where the snow starts sometime near the end of October and by the time mid December slips up on me, there’s lots of snow on the ground. We go out on our own land and bring home a (used to be) live tree to decorate with a treasured assortment of momentos that have been created and saved over the years. Every year I buy a sacrificial poinsettia plant that might last the two or three weeks of the “holidays” as long as someone else cares for it. I swear if I look at them, they die!

I send out family based newsletters that encapsulate the lives of our family (including the four legged members); some years I create photo collections to share as gifts with family and most years I turn into a combination of “mad scientist” and “assembly line baker” and produce enough shortbread, fancy cookies and squares to induce a diabetic shock just by passing through my kitchen.

This year, my decision to return to Honduras (before January) came somewhat abruptly and in the two weeks before departure, I managed to finish off the newsletter and print photos and get “care packages” into the mail by November 21st. This is a complete time record for me! I always have great intentions but then life interferes with my silly plans and mail outs have been as late as Dec. 17th in the past.

Well, now I’m in Honduras. Admittedly there isn’t any snow but with the extended rainy season still grasping us by whatever she can reach, it’s been cold, grey and damp. I am both perturbed and amazed at the level of “decorating for the season” that occurs both commercially and domestically, for those who can afford to do so, of course.

One of my top ten most appalling scenes is the golden Coca Cola Christmas tree on the main floor of the MegaPlaza Mall, with a very close second being the stunning proliferation of multi coloured and flashing strings of lights found everywhere. Maybe I’m the Grinch for thinking that with the cost of electrical power, the money could be spent elsewhere or maybe I still believe the old wives tales of strobe lights causing seizures but I’ve developed the nasty habit of wincing when confronted with them!

Another pet peeve is the plastic (usually bent in a few places!) trees that are for sale everywhere and the fact that the majority of decorative signs are in English rather than Spanish. I know Walmart is universal, but English isn’t the only language in the world! (Yes, Virginia, we have a Walmart in La Ceiba – it’s called Paiz)

During my walks around El Centro I have seen the excessive glut of commercial decorative efforts. One place has a Santa in a box (that pops endlessly up and down) with an 8’ tall Frosty the Snowman and hand waving Santa standing guard. There are plastic trees in colours ranging from green, gold, pink, silver and white (complete with the seizure inducing flashing lights!) that range in size from 12inches to 12 feet in height. The clerks at the Paiz wear red Santa hats as part of their uniform and absolutely everyone has something “Christmasy” to sell.

Now that there’s only 10 shopping days left, I’m finding vendors setting up on street corners with their own variety of Christmas oriented gee gaws for sale. Bastante! Enough!

So with that sentiment in mind, enjoy the accompanying photos.

I know my girlfriend thinks I’m being a difficult Canadian because I refuse to jump on the commercial bandwagon and decorate my own little place. So I bought a box of tissues (complete with a Disney Christmas motif), put it out on the table and informed her that “there, I’ve done my decorating for the holiday season!” Thankfully, she’s a sweetheart and just laughed at my humour!

The Rains have paused...

The city of La Ceiba is sprawled out within a fair range of physical geography, with the Caribbean Sea on the north, Rio Cangrejal with its sandbars to the east, and numerous smaller rivers to the west. The southern side of the extended city spreads through hillsides that lead to the Cordillera Nombre de Dios mountain range.

In essence, La Ceiba is built on a flood plain and viewed from the air after heavy rains can be an impressive sight, with its outlying villages and plantations laid out on a grid-like pattern of cleared areas, raised roads and irrigation canals. I flew into La Ceiba once and witnessed the sight of miles and miles of murky brown water trapped between the slightly raised highway and borders of various trees.

It is quite stunning from a “bird’s eye” view but a horrible occurrence for those on the ground and struggling to cope with the after effects of such flooding. Food and commercial crops either washed away or simply submerged; no clean drinking water supplies, no access to services due to roads being either washed out or bridges closed in advance of washing out.

The rains are not stopping…… This started approximately 4:30 am yesterday and it’s now 27 hours later. The news coverage has been simply appalling with people waist deep in water, a woman and her children being picked up by a passing loader, a man in a boat in the middle of the street and the list just goes on and on…

The rain finally eased about 9am this morning and though the clouds are still terribly low and heavy, I did hear two flights coming in so there’s a presumption that the airport is open and thus hopefully the roads leading to and from it!

On my side of town, the northern Caribbean Sea side, life has pretty much settled back to normal. Normal for after heavy rains that is! Some flooded side streets, some amazingly angry roaring surf and everything soppy, over saturated wet with folks bundling up in whatever they can find to keep warm in the damp and cold breeze.



This part of La Ceiba is the original area and is actually the highest part of the town, though only meters from the open sea you wouldn’t believe it. Obviously there has been extreme flooding in Miramar, Guadalupe and other areas slightly further west but these have always been marginalized and lower lying areas to start with.

The extreme flooding that has occurred has been more to the south of the town – in the newer subdivisions and outlying areas whereby there has been extensive building and development without the necessary infrastructure of drainage, sewage, land stabilization and such. It is those areas where almost all of the video coverage is coming from and though some of those people may be somewhat more affluent, no one, absolutely no one can afford the costs to home, family and self that this disaster has caused.

I noticed that my tap water smelt slightly of sewage but I’m able to have drinking water delivered. I’m one of the fortunate ones.





I did get out today, along the shore barrios and truly there really isn’t much more than the usual amount of street flooding that normally occurs after any heavy rain. All of the El Centro was attempting to do business as usual, though with such poor weather, and just sheer cold!, there weren’t the numbers of folks that I normally see. I stopped and spoke with a few market vendors. One woman said her daughter had lost her house, another said her brother’s family had lost theirs, some injuries were mentioned but overall, my sense is that folks are simply exhausted.

They’re exhausted by the fear, the weather, the cold, the stress, the uncertainty of knowing if the rainy season will ever end; everyone has family or friends that have been horribly affected and yet it supposed to be Christmas so very soon.

I will assure you, my friends that I am perfectly safe, dry and secure but my heart is breaking for so many people here. I know that you’re dealing with hard or bad weather yourselves but at least you have a familial and social safety net to rely on when hardship happens to fall. What if everyone around you lost everything at the same time, what would you be able to do? That’s what a lot of folks are trying to deal with here.

Feliz navidad, amigos….


This video shows Playa Taty's Restaurant and La Quinta Real Hotel, two of the top end places in La Ceiba. The storm surge has been so powerful, so quickly that the debris is still coming in, yet alone being cleaned up.

If You're Afraid of Spiders, STOP!

WARNING: If you have arachnophobia , STOP right now!


I’m not generally squeamish about bugs and critters: doing laundry for little boys who forget to take their fishing worms out of their blue jean pockets (Thanks, Bro!) and gardening with little girls who want me to re-attach legs to a dead locusts ("Fix, Momma!") ensured that I wasn't going to be able to have issues about our smaller friends.

Okay, okay.... I will admit to doing my own version of the “cucaracha dance” when I discovered cockroaches in my beach-side motel room (complete with high pitched shrieks) but other than that and a small issue with large moths inside my northern home, I’m generally pretty calm and rather respectful in most ways for this world’s “other” creatures.

This philosophy has been seriously challenged the last couple of weeks in my apartment in La Ceiba.

The first episode with an extremely large (close to two inches in length!) spider occurred in the bathroom, late at night, and resulted in blood curdling screams! And a definite lack of sleep that night as it had moved much faster than I did, and vamoosed its way into the wooden door frame – complete with the loud clicking of its articulated legs.

The second episode turned out worse. I (somehow!) managed to stomp this specific spider but not completely, as it left three legs behind and kept on moving under the wall in the closet! I reassured myself that it couldn’t possibly live and calmed down enough to be able to sleep later that night.

Three days later, I discovered “Brown Buddy” alive and well on the bedroom ceiling and with a series of broom flailings, stomping, hyperventilation and the dreaded adrenaline, not only managed to kill it but also retrieved the remains to ensure its discontinued existence! Yes, in the midst of the shaking I did inform it that I was sorry but, quite frankly, it had to go!

So, anyone got any good bug books? I know spiders are supposed to be our friends thanks to their appetite for other small creatures but I’m having an issue about sharing space with these critters.


Hope you have a good sleep tonight!

Top and Bottom Views












And to think it lived for three days, sans legs!

Local TV Channel: Flooding in La Ceiba

Here are a series of photographs I took of the local TV channel pictures of the flooding in La Ceiba. Sorry for the poor quality but at least you can see what's really happening here!

I'll get out later today and gather my own series of photos, and hopefully video, to include in another post. And you thought I was sitting bare foot on the beach, tipping back a "cold one".

HA HA HA, I should have brought my Wellingtons!

This Is Rain!!!

The latest weather report stated that there was another cold front going to move in today and that there might be a minor amount of rain involved in its arrival. HAH! So much for technology!

This latest storm arrived about 4:30 this morning, with me lying in bed wondering what the noise was that had woken me. It took a few minutes for my brain cell matter to kick into gear and identify this particular noise and when I finally registered that it was rain, I lurched out of bed to close the bathroom window.

Too late, this storm had come from the north and the wind had driven the rain through the louvers to make a briskly flowing little stream that I spotted before slipping and sliding on the wet tiles. So there were a few minutes spent closing all of the windows and mopping up what had already arrived indoors. What a lovely way to start the morning!

It has been an unseasonably long and extremely damaging rainy season this past two months in Honduras and I’ve listened to reports (prior to this particular storm) of main highway closures, major roadway wash outs and towns like Trujillo being cut off from supplies and reliant upon air delivery of basic necessities like clean drinking water.

Even my own arrival here November 25th entailed a prolonged wait at San Pedro Sula airport, waiting for a van to drive us to La Ceiba, as its airport was closed that day (and evening!) due to weather. That particular 3 hour long, night drive also included the driver coaxing our van over the single lane (which was all that remained of the original bridge) after being allowed through by the federales stationed there.

I’ve talked and written about the torrential tropical rains that we get here in La Ceiba, in the past but truly this must have been the mother of all storms that arrived today. Heavy rains with individual reports of 25cm (10”) in the first 12 hours; horrendous thunder erupting immediately over the house over the course of 2 hours this morning and there is no end in sight.

I turned on the local news channel and watched the clips of whole barrios (neighbourhoods) being washed out complete with people standing or walking in thigh high waters, buildings collapsing, taxis with water up to the door windows and sewage canals overflowing throughout the whole city. There were pictures of parks with two and three feet of water running through them and there are reports of the bridges on the main highway leading to the airport and to Tela being closed, for fear of them washing out. Needless to say, there won’t be any flights arriving while this continues!

Everyone here is at the complete mercy of the weather. You can’t get around town, there’s no business for the market sellers or street vendors and the poorest people who live in the tin and wooden beach shanties in Miramar or other extremely impoverished areas are suffering grievously. I’m convinced that people may well die today because of the flooding as well as the fact that there will be a high increase in the number of infectious bronchial and contaminated water diseases over the next days and possibly weeks.

This is just another side to living in Paradise and in my estimation, only the toughest survive, sadly enough.

I've included a 10 second video so make sure your sound is a high volume to get the full effect of the rain on the tin roofs of my barrio. Now imagine this sound going on for hours and hours, all day and all night.....

Things Your Momma Taught You

Do you remember your Momma teaching you the adage: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”?

Well, that’s rather how I’ve been feeling about my sadly neglected blog postings this past seven months. It’s not that I’ve changed my mind about Honduras, not at all! Turning my back on this country and her people would be akin to removing a glorious part of my heart and soul and I wouldn’t want to live without the ongoing adventures that happen to me here.

My difficulty with maintaining the blog arose from health issues and a most unseasonably cold summer in northern Canada. I’ve been living with progressive osteoarthritis for ten years now and the past year has been one of the more difficult ones with regards to pain management and mobility issues. But my pain specialist has been very effective and I’m now on a 6 month wait list for a hip re-surfacing operation, so there is new hope in my life for being independently mobile again. (Maybe even without my funky Honduran walking stick!)

I returned to La Ceiba, Honduras, November 25th to escape from the cold and snow of a northern Canada winter and will be soaking up the heat for my cranky bones now that the rains appear to have ceased. The rain will be another topic for a posting; it’s the first time I’ve been here this time of year and it can be cruelly damp and cold!

I do NOT want my health issues to become either the focus of my own life or of my blog postings which is why I referred to the adage about keeping quiet if you can’t be positive.

Returning to my simple, selfish little life in La Ceiba has does wonders for renewing my soul and positive energy reserves, so that’s why I’m finally back to writing again. Be patient while I re-learn how to manage the posting and other details (I’m really not computer literate, so it’s almost as hard as learning Spanish!) and let me know what you think of my stories and writing style.

Grinning from ear to ear, Stephanie