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!

Living in Interesting Times

Welcome to the second installment of “Be Careful What You Ask For”…

Yet again I had great intentions for the day. Yet again, those plans were completely destroyed by 8am. I’m now considering refusing to make any sort of plan until at least noon of the day!

Today’s adventure was to taxi the full laundry bags over to the coin laundry in Miramar, washing and drying the entire mess and returning home to hang fresh curtains, make up the bed with non-paint splattered covers and having fresh clothes to wear once again. The sun is shining after last night’s 12 hour storm and before this afternoon’s regular 3pm showers and I wanted to get out for a walk on the beach while it was warm enough. That just isn’t going to happen today…..

Ken taught me the rule of thumb of only planning one adventure per day, with the caveat that the original plan would rarely be achieved, yet alone smoothly. I know I’ve been a little too enthusiastic about my intended activities but overall, I’ve been successful with getting chores completed, business dealt with and mundane realities of living (like cooking) accomplished. It’s time to return to the original adage of one plan per day, with the additional rider of not every day.

My original house painter returned this morning. I’ll politely refer to him as Mr. Paint Man, as I’m not feeling respectful enough to inquire his proper name. This is the same gentleman who waylaid my plan Christmas Eve day plans of cooking and visiting and generally having a very pleasant, companionable day and also resulted in my resorting to hard physical scrubbing of floors and furniture instead.

I made certain that I showed (yet again!) Dona Lucy the exploding paint in the bathroom and the paint chips gently sifting down upon my bed and repeated my request that this be redone and correctly, please. Well, he’s been out on the patio for 3 hours now, scrapping and painting merrily, complete with the cigarette hanging from his mouth as he crept along the patio railing painting over his head. Thus I’ve had to keep the window louvers shut tight to slow down the rate that it flies into the apartment and also preventing fresh air coming in as well.

I honestly believe that Mr. Paint Man is a respectful, genial individual but given the fact that I have been living in a renovation nightmare for a week now, complete with filthy paint-splattered floors and spackled screens that glow brightly in the evening dark, I am exacting my revenge.

First it was the fact that he suffered terrible confusion when he heard two very different voices speaking while knowing that I was the only person here. I was on video link with my husband in Canada at the time and explained we were talking through the computer. Then it was the fact that he has been listening to me talk out loud, with various levels of volume to the computer while I scribble this note, complete with bursts of laughter and giggling. Lastly, I doubt the gentleman has ever heard of, yet alone experienced, Janis Joplin blaring at high volume but this is my revenge!








He has just completed the patio so before he could leave I very gently apologized for having a problem and proceeded to show him areas that needed re-doing. He is a delightful man but given the water saturated roof area, all I can reasonably expect is that he scrape a slightly bigger area, repaint it and make his exit.


There’s always a way to make the best of a bad situation and my approach generally involves a fair amount of rather twisted humour though not at the other person’s expense. I may be living in interesting times, but Mr. Paint Man will not forget his little adventures of dealing with the “poco loco gringa”!

Feliz Navidad aka Be Careful What You Ask For

My apartment is on the top floor of a private house and has been suffering from a leaky roof for a number of years now. On occasion another piece of tin is hauled up and secured into place, thus constituting a repair. The result of that sort of repair is the fact that the ceiling leaks water in two out of three rooms and has permeated the entire ceiling with water.

I had noticed rather drastic topographical changes in the surface of the paint while I was here last season but when I returned in November, the situation was no longer to be avoided. Black mould had established itself in various locations and the paint was literally throwing itself from the ceiling in sheets, chunks, chips and gently floating minute particles. Dishes in the drying rack had to be covered from the white mist of paint; preparing food consisted of towels covering everything while I leaned over the chopping board to prevent the paint from landing. Sweeping floors entailed sweeping all ceilings first; bedtime involved brushing the paint off of pillows and bedspread and morning wakeup included brushing paint chips out of my hair.

I really like Dona Lucy and her husband Stephan; we’ve known each other for five years now and they have always treated me like a (slightly odd) member of the family. I also dislike any form of confrontation but the snapping point for me was the day that paint landed on my laptop while I was working. The paint is white but I literally saw red at that moment!

What ensued was a gentle but firm conversation with their daughter, pointing out various areas and the resulting messes and clearly stating that I loved the apartment, did not want to make problems for the family but something had to be done before my husband arrived in February. I will “stretch” the truth when necessary and made it clear that no matter how much I loved living here, if my husband saw this he wouldn’t allow me to stay here any longer. In truth, my partner is my equal in decision making, but “male dominance and control of money” is a common attitude here and I chose to put the blame on him.

Well, shortly after that I was informed by both elders that I would be getting both a new roof and a new paint job for the apartment within the next few weeks. I was ecstatic and rather exuberant in my appreciation for their efforts and considered the situation dealt with.

A couple days later I was woken at 6am by the screeching sounds of tin being hauled, flung and dragged upon the patio and roof. Not a pleasant way to waken but I reassured myself that the new roof was happening and that would be worth tolerating the noise. It rained at 7:30 am, (a brief but amazing deluge) all work stopped and simply did not start again that day or any other.

December 24th started well with me in the kitchen by 7am creating “pudding” pies for my 10 year old friend, boiling a chicken and various vegetables for soup stock and thoroughly enjoying myself with my plans for the day.

That plan was completely waylaid by 8am.

The painting man arrived, complete with step stool, paint and assorted tools and I was informed that he was going to paint the apartment right now. In the course of the next four hours, every moveable piece of furniture was shoved out onto the patio, my computer was secured in its travel case and the propane stove disconnected.

I could hear him scrapping ceilings in the bathroom and bedroom while I packed up the main room. I could hear him moving my bed back and forth, his step stool screeching across the ceramic tiles and kept reassuring myself that all was well with his work.

I resorted to cleaning the bathroom while he worked in the main room. I swear the majority of the paint never got near the ceiling when I saw the evidence of smears and streaks dribbling down the tiled walls and the sprayed splatter of white paint that covered the floor.

I have stated clearly that I do not like housework but I also firmly believe that if you’re going to do something, do it right. I’m also not very mobile or flexible anymore so getting down on hands and knees is an orchestrated procedure. I was a fetching sight with my bucket of cleaning water, mop up rags and scratch pad in hand, kneeling on a sacrificial pillow and scrubbing every square inch of floor to remove the copious amounts of paint.

Dona Lucy is a rather mischievous woman and took grand delight in telling me that the new paint was my Christmas present. That was early in the morning when my sense of humour was still partially intact. She returned at 1pm to deliver me a plate of hot food and when she stuck her head into the bedroom to tell me it was on the table for me, I didn’t even bother trying to get up from the floor and quietly thanked her for the meal. I resorted to muttering obscenities under my breath, vigorously scouring the floor, entertaining thoughts of “Happy Ho Ho” to you while keeping my temper in check and managed to get half of the bedroom finished by 3pm.

That’s when I realized it was getting quite dark. The afternoon rains were about to arrive and I dashed about rescuing belongings from the patio before they got soaked. Finally by 5pm I had everything indoors, regardless of the state of the floors and was collapsed in my chair when my 10 year old friend arrived.

I had been expected at their house at 4pm and he was sent to check on me. During our conversation I learned that all the children were waiting to open their presents and would not be given permission to do so until I arrived. With abject apologies I assured him that I would shower, get dressed and get over to his house as soon as possible.

To be honest, the last thing I wanted to deal with at that point was any semblance of holiday cheer, small children or noise, but I dutifully arrived by 5 pm with a happy face pasted on and proceeded to make myself enjoy the evening. Thankfully I really enjoy the family and with judicious applications of rum and tamales, I had a thoroughly pleasant evening.

Christmas Day did not evoke any semblance of peace and serenity as the first thing I saw upon waking was peeling paint on the ceiling above me. When I removed the pillow from my face, it was still there. Shortly afterwards, after dragging my very sore body from my bed (remember the hands and knees scrubbing and furniture moving?) I realized the bathroom ceiling paint had simply erupted with chunks of paint hanging down, a fine mist of particulate matter drifting down and encasing not only my hairbrush but toothbrush as well.





I haven’t believed in Santa for a number of decades but at this point in time I swear I will be very, very careful about what I ask for in the future.

PS Anyone know a good roofer and professional house painter?

My First Honduran Christmas

This has been my “first” Christmas to be celebrated in Honduras and overall, it’s been a very pleasant learning experience. Originally, I was somewhat appalled at the level of commercialization of this religious holiday, with excessive store displays, huge amounts of various decorations, presents and other assorted stuff available to purchase and the sense of urgency for buying and selling throughout the city of La Ceiba.

Thankfully, there were other much more positive aspects of the season that I discovered. There was an early evening when the hymns from a church service came floating through the air into the apartment and there were the sounds of stereos playing familiar Christmas tunes in both English and Spanish. Admittedly, “Frosty the Snowman” doesn’t work for me in either language but I was totally enamoured with “The First Noel” in the soft sounds of Spanish.

It seems to me that a Honduran Christmas is primarily celebrated on the evening before, complete with presents for children, food, refreshments and family gatherings lasting long, long into the night. The decorations have been up, set out and plugged in for weeks beforehand; fireworks of all sizes and explosive qualities are set off literally 24 hours a day for a least a week before and non religious folks celebrate by the sharing of food (tamales are a favourite) with all friends and family. Thus my Christmas Eve was spent with my family here, with friends and neighbours joining us to dance outside on the patio, enjoy small boccas and drinks and lots of laughter, music and general fun for all ages.

Christmas Day was a quiet day, with me sleeping in from the night before and then indulging myself in lots of cooking, as I’d invited the family to my place for Boxing Day dinner. There was time for making an ever increasing list of the reasons why I’m thankful to be alive, to be here in La Ceiba and blessed with the companionship of caring people (here and elsewhere!) in my life. There was time for visits with my girlfriend and her house guest, time for a walk on the beach (before the afternoon deluge!) and a lovely lazy evening curled up with a good story book.

Wishing you all blessings of peace, joy and love in your lives, and still making my “thank you’s”, Stephanie