Tegucigalpa

We arrived here in Teguc last night after a completely MISERABLE day. 

It all started off well and good.  Marco and I got up and got ready, then we got the kids up and got them ready...

We went over to Abuelas.... Abuela and Ana were ready...

We waited for the taxi...

We got in the taxi and headed to Santa Rosa...

Maria threw up twice in the taxi on the way to Santa Rosa....

We got to the bus depot at 7.  The 7:30 bus to Teguc was full, so we got tickets for the 8:30.

We got some breakfast while we waited, changed some diapers, ran in cirlces...

Loaded the bus, which is an experience all in itself.  I'm glad that we had Abuela and Ana with us or things could have been.... different.  The bus had people on it who arrived from a different location up near the border of Guatemala.  Which was all well and good, but I didn't know that it was... oversold... thank goodness for Ana and Abuela or else we would have been standing!!  ICK, especially with a toddler and a baby. 

Now things up until this point have been pretty good.... 

We get started going down the road....

Make it about 30-45 minutes down the road and we stop.

The bus is broken.

They don't know how long it will take to fix, but they are working on it...

30 minutes pass.

1 hour passes.

1 1/2 hour passes...

Another bus comes... if we want to go on it, standing room only, we're free to, but they're only going to San Pedro Sula.  

We wait some more... and more ... 

Another bus comes, again standing room only.

We wait some more.... and more....

A third bus comes, we decide to try it out.  We get on the bus, it's packed, kind of like the busses that go from Lepaera to Santa Rosa.  We keep going further and further back, someone offered me their seat (bless them).  Both kids are super cranky, tired and hungry, and crying.... a lot.  

Marco then proceeds to tell me to get off the bus, which is a much better idea than staying on this bus for 2 1/2 more hours... so we squeeze between people all the way to the front and off the bus.  

Maria is now having a major meltdown.  

They've decided that we'll wait for a bus that's going back, we'll get our money back, and go home.

We wait, and wait, and wait some more.

Then miraculously our bus is fixed.

There are only 12 people that did not catch one of the other busses.

Even Cooper got a seat this time around.

The bus trip was much better after that.

We bought some platano chips, bread, and sodas from the people that enter/exit the bus in the small towns.

We made a short stop in San Pedro Sula and continued on.

We didn't get into Teguc until 8:30.  What was supposed to be an 8 or 9 hour trip turned out to be 12 hours.... 14 hours from the time we left home.  Not exactly fun.  I'm not looking forward to returning.

It's good to be here.... Ana goes to school here, she started up again today.

Karla also lives, works, & goes to school here. 

(Karla is Luis Gustavo's Mom)

Maria has been super excited to see Luis Gustavo again.

We'll be here for a few days...

We have to take care of some immigration drama.

Which I'll let you all know about later.

I'll get some pictures soon too.

South-West Corner

This is the south west corner of Abuela's house.  This is the outside of the kitchen.  Normally I wouldn't even bother to comment on the outside corner of a house but there are some interesting things to point out here.

There is the chimney.... notice it ends well below the roof line (definitely not to code, oh wait, there is no code here)  The chimney was replaced just before Christmas... before that there was just a hole and a lot of the smoke would stay inside the house.  

Then there is the window that is more like a mini-door in the middle of the wall.  This one actually has a door that shuts.... a lot of houses have openings with fabric hanging, no glass, no wood.

Do you see the hose coming under the gate and then t-ing off to send a shoot into the building.... yeah, that's our water line.  It's going to the sink in the kitchen right there... and it goes up behind the little papaya tree (there are about 5 little papaya trees growing around the patio right now) along the back patio into Abuela's bathroom, and then into our house.  There is also a line that run to the pila (where the water is held for doing laundry).

To the left of the water pipe going into the house is another pipe coming out of the house... that is the water from the sink.  It drains into that concrete thing, and then goes down the gray pipe to the back of the property and drains into an empty lot there....(Just fyi. I don't know, and I'm not going to ask where our black water goes... I'd rather be blissfully ignorant)

Oatmeal & Lumberyards

I swept and mopped the floor three times today.  Once after this:

We had oatmeal for breakfast.  Cooper and I shared and Maria had her own.  Cooper and I finished up and I went to go wash our bowl, Maria decided that she was finished and put her bowl on the floor. 

Cooper decided that today was the day he wanted to start crawling, made his way over to the bowl and proceeded to make a HUGE mess.

Today I am a little frustrated... not with mopping the floor 3 times, but with this small town in Honduras. 

We do our dishes in the sink in the bathroom because our kitchen doesn't have one yet.  We have a sink, but no counter.  In December Marco visited the guy in town who builds things and asked him how much it would cost to build a counter, gave him a description of what he wanted and specifications.  He said 2000 lempiras, but he wouldn't be able to get to it until January.  Today when Marco went back to check on things, he said he could do it but it would cost 3000 lempiras.  Now, that's not a ton of money, but it's more than we had budgeted for the project. Now this isn't the first time that the price of something has gone up on us.... which in itself is frustrating.  Marco could and would totally build it himself if it weren't for the lack of supplies here.  There isn't a lumber yard you can go to and as for a sheet of plywood.... we're thinking that plywood MIGHT be available in Santa Rosa, but not here.... and since we don't have a car and transporting a sheet of plywood on the bus is.... unlikely.  So for now we wait... maybe the guy will go back down... maybe he won't.  I've washed the dishes in the bathroom sink for 3 months now, and while not ideal, I guess I can do it for 3 more.

Playing Outside

I enjoy spending time in the backyard, but I don't want to hold Cooper every minute that we are out there.

There is no way that I'm just going to put him down on the ground... it's dirt, mixed with animal icky's, and he hasn't past the "lets put everything in my mouth" phase yet.

So yesterday Marco came up with this solution.

... and it works wonderfully.  We can all hang out outside a little easier now.  I don't have to worry about Cooper getting into the plants or eating dirt...  

And Maria (being the bossy little girl that she is) likes to help Cooper go where she wants him to go.

Spaghetti for Lunch

We had spaghetti for lunch yesterday.  The kids always enjoy spaghetti.

There is no "spaghetti sauce" (as in marinara) here. At least I have not been able to find it.

Abuela makes her own, which is nothing like marinara...

She mixes ketchup with crema and a little mustard.  It tastes a little bit like fry sauce

Cooper is starting to eat by himself.  Most people I've met, have their baby sit on their lap and then feed them from their plate.  We've been doing that for the most part, but lately Cooper is more interested in climbing and trying to grab my plate, so we busted out the chair and he's rather enjoying feeding himself. 

He gets the food everywhere.  On the floor, in his hair, and loves to wipe his tray with his hands and clears all the food off.... maybe that's why people feed their kids, less wasted food.

He certainly is enjoying himself, and learning good skills..... so I'll take the wasted food and extra mess.

Santa Rosa with Ana

Last Monday Ana, Cooper and I headed out to Santa Rosa to go appliance shopping. 

Here is a picture of the street that we went shopping on.... this is down a way from the Occidental store.

Here is Ana, Marco's sister, holding Cooper...
She's pretty cool.  (I think all of Marco's sisters are absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!)
Ana is studying to be a doctor in Tegucigalpa.
I love her sense of style.  Check out her funky ring... it kept Cooper pretty entertained on the bus.

 Here is a pic of Coop... I love the silly face that he is making here.

Here is the bus depot in Santa Rosa de Copan.  As of right now I couldn't negociate this myself, but I think with a couple more experiences I'd be able to.

This is one of the many people that sell food on the buses.  This particular lady is selling burros, which is a plate with a little rice, a tortilla (handmade corn), and a piece of meat.  There are others selling chips, or soda, or candies.

 

The ground here is pretty fertile  A lady I know who spent some time here told be before I came down that people will take a branch off a tree and put it in the ground to make a fence and it will grow into another tree. Here is one fence....

 And here is another....I took this picture in the bus heading from Santa Rosa to Lepaera.

 Here are a few pictures of the scenery as we were in the bus.

Laundry

This is the pila.  It is where the laundry is washed, but it also holds a lot of extra water just in case the water is turned off for a little too long.

There is a spicket attached to a hose which goes into the great big tub that Maria would LOVE to go swimming in.  The there is the table with a recessed area in it with the grate for washing the clothes.... and there is a pipe that drains the water out into another concrete container that has a pipe draining it to the back of the property.

Maria loves (play) washing the clothes.  

(if you look closely you'll notice that she got into the nail polish... not only did she get her fingers, but she also got her arms and cheeks)

Here Maria is with Cristina... Maria pretending that she's doing the washing and Cristina actually doing the washing.  Cristina is a great sport about the whole thing.  Maria will steal the soap and splash her with water and she has a good time with it.

I have only washed things by hand once.... and those things were cloth diapers (we think the kids might be allergic to something in the diapers here.... they both -Maria more so- have spots/rashes that appeared right around the same time that we ran out of the diapers that we brought with us.).  Not exactly fun to wash, but the level of difficulty was not hard... would hate to was the jeans, or sheets by hand.....

Discoveries

{we just figured out how to get the internet back up and running after a week - more on that later}

The kids are discovering new things....

Maria ..... sticking things up her nose...

earlier this week I had to pull out a little wad of tissue that she stuck up there.... I'm really hoping that she doesn't want to put any marbles up there.

Cooper - pulling himself up on objects... namely me.

and then fussing when he can't do it as quickly and efficiently as he'd like to.

Fruit Tree

This is a close up of a fruit tree that is in the back yard.  

Don't let it trick you though, those are NOT oranges.

They are like nothing I have ever tasted before, a cross between a mandarin and a lemon... more on the lemon side.  They are yummy, great to use with carne asada (grilled beef).

Non-market day

This is a 180 degree view of the view from our house on a non-market day.  To the left you go up the hill to lots of covered shopping areas, and down the hill (to the right) there are lots of vendors on the side of the road, all the way to the hammock and around both corners.  Right in front is where they sell rice and beans.  We live pretty much in the center of where all the action occurs.

The road out in front of our house is a dirt road... dirt and rocks.  I took the kids out in the stroller for a walk a few days ago and I have decided that the road is much too rocky for a stroller.  At first I didn't think so, but it is.

People here generally do not throw their trash in the garbage can.  There are a few around but they are not used much.  The neighbors here will sweep the garbage that is left in front of their homes into piles downhill from their places, and when the piles get large enough they will have a little fire.  

There's been talk for quite some time that they were going to pave the road (it would include putting in a sewer system), which would help eliminate the garbage in the road problem.  They've been talking about it for well over a year.  When I got here they said that it was going to happen in January, but I talked to Abuela yesterday and she said that they have spent money badly and no longer have the 9 million lempiras ( just less than 500,000 dollars) to get the job done.... so we'll have to suffer with the dust and garbage in the road for a while longer.

If you go straight up the hill in front of our house you get this view:

Marco's parents house is the blue/green one and ours is the tan one next door.  On the far side of our house is an empty lot with a metal roof and concrete floor.  Vendors us it during the market.  The rest of the time it sits vacant.  Maria and Orfito (Gerry) and a few other neighbor kids will run around sometimes.  In the field on the right that is fenced, wasn't fenced when I first got here.  The first market I went to it was open and there were a LOT of horses parked there (when I got to 27 I quit counting). I guess the owner didn't like that too much because he put the fence up shortly after we got here.  Now the neighborhood kids use it to play soccer.

The Package(s)

The day I left Washington I also left my medicine behind

My mom tried to get it to us in Houston (we had an overnight layover there) but it couldn't reach us before we left the hotel before dawn the next day.

So she sent it through the mail....  and apparently it's in Uruguay.

Which is no where near Honduras.

She insured it, but has to wait another 30 days before she can make a claim. (it's already been 2 months)

So with that gone, we began the search for a reliable way to get packages from the USA to Honduras.

In a relatively timely matter.

My Mom came across a company called Dip Shipping...

and look what arrived in the mail yesterday.

It only took 20 days.  They say between 10 & 12, but with the holidays and all I didn't expect them to get here that quickly.

But the most important thing.... IT GOT HERE!!!

It was full of all sorts of goodies. Most were inside a ziplock baggie, and the empty spaces were stuffed lovingly with paper towel (aka cloth diaper liners)

A few toys for the kids, cereal, brown sugar, spices, pancake mix, cloth diapers, spaghetti sauce, marshmallows, popcorn, hot chocolate, ziplock storage containers....

Here is Cooper enjoying his first ever marshmallow (they do have marshmallow's here, but they're different.

And then there was this.

Books for the kids.  All in Spanish (with a few that have both English and Spanish).  They were sent by our great friend Cindy.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!!  Have I ever mentioned that there is a library here in Lepaera... but there are NO childrens books in the library.  I brought about a dozen childrens books with us, so this more than doubles our collection!! 

Ferreteria

I just got back from the ferreteria (hardware store).

I was looking for paint.  To be more specific white, oil-based, semi-gloss paint.

 

When I got there the girl at the front counter asked what I was looking for....

I said piant.

She asked what color?

I said white.

She asked oil or water based.

I said oil.

She asked one of the stock boys to see if they had any....
They didn't even have to go look, they didn't.

They didn't have water based paint either, 

or any of the other things I was looking for...

Talk about discouraging.... 

We went to the only other ferreteria in town, and they weren't open.  1:00 pm on a Tuesday.  

Maybe they were closed for lunch.

Tio Jorge

This is tio Jorge, pronounced whore-hey but we call him George.

Tomorrow he leaves.  He's going to Canada.  He applied for, and got a visa early last year and has been waiting for the call since.  He still has no idea where in Canada he will be located.  He'll find out more when he gets to Guatemala tomorrow.
I'm glad that Jorge has been her for the first two months of our stay here in Honduras.
Jorge is quiet, patient, kind, and loves my kids which makes him an instant winner in my books.
He will throw Maria up in the air or show her around the back yard.
He will take Cooper for walks and let him look at the animals as long as he wants to.
Cooper gets super excited to see Jorge... He is practically the only other person that Cooper willingly goes to
He will be missed, but here's to adventure!!

Pupusas

We have tortillas at pretty much every meal.  They are made by hand daily.

Pupusas are basically a stuffed corn tortilla.  

I tried getting the whole process in pictures, but my camera battery died before that happened.  

Basically you have maseca mixed with water.

 And quesillo, which is cheese that is kind of like mozzarella, but it doesn't have the stringiness that mozzarella does.

You take a small handful of maseca and pat it flat, take some quesillo, maybe a tablespoonish, and put that in the middle, fold your maseca up around the quesillo and then make it like you would make a tortilla.  It's ok if the cheese doesn't all stay in the middle.

Then you throw it on the stove.  Now, my griddle does not get hot enough to make these well.  It would do the job, but they wouldn't be as tasty as Abuelas.

We ate these with a salsa made up of tomato, cucumber, a little onion, salt and lemon juice, and a sauce that was watered down tomato paste (tomato sauce would work well, but we don't have that here) and some finely diced onions (the sauce was cooked)

Just in case you were wondering....

... every last one of them is still alive.

They're getting pretty cramped in their little cage, so Marco is going to build them a bigger home in the next week or two.

We're hoping that they're all females, we'd love to have fresh eggs every day, since we eat eggs at least once a day.

Maria & Cooper

Cooper doesn't wiggle nearly as much as Maria does when he sleeps. 

I've been trying to get a better night sleep lately.

Because of those two things we've moved Cooper to the love seat which is pushed up against the wall at the foot of Maria's bed.  

Maria loves Cooper.

Cooper sleeps in a little kidapotomus, which is a wrap thing that keeps his arms tight to his body.  If he doesn't sleep in that then when I go to move him from my arms to the bed he will wake up because his arms move.  It's very frustrating, thus the kidapotomus.

When Cooper wakes up Maria loves to go and undo him from his trap.  She undoes the velcro and sets his arms free.  Normally she asks to do this, but the past few days when they take their afternoon nap (which is starting to overlap-hallelujah) Maria will wake up before Cooper and crawl over into his bed and wake him up.  

This is how I found them yesterday.

Super Cool

Have you guys checked out Made by Joel.  

He's a stay at home dad/artist.

He does super cool "crafts" with his kids.

I would love to make a bunch of his Paper Owl Mobiles to hang up above the beds....

A box should (hopefully) be arriving in the mail tomorrow which I would love to make his Wall Hanging Box Aquarium

Yesterday we made the Cereal Box Marble Run.  If you're going to do this...the pictures show it but he doesn't say it..... cut a hole in the top of the cereal box to drop the marbles into, it makes it a little easier on those little two year old fingers.  Maria LOVED it. She kept trying to catch the marbles before they got to the bottom.  Ours (of course) didn't look nearly as pretty as his did. 

How do you get your bananas?

Tio Jorge was helping some friends out on their coffee farm and brought these home today. 

They'll ripen up in a few days and in the meantime we'll have fried green bananas, and then when they get ripe we'll have fried mashed banana's, along with eating fresh "raw" banana's.

2011 Resolution

This year my new years resolution is a little different than past years....

ok, maybe it's a lot different.

STYLE.

That's it.  I want to discover my style.  I have found that in a lot of different areas I tend to imitate people I think are cool.  I'll listen to certain a certain artist because they like it, but it's not exactly my thing, or I'll buy a certain shirt because someone had it on and I thought that it looked cute, to never wear it.

Now, imitation is the greatest form of flattery.... so I'm not going to stop, because really, I don't have the time or energy to come up with a million and one original ideas.  This also doesn't mean that I'm going to stop trying new things.... I think (most) everything new should be tried at least once.

I am going to figure out what style works for me, not only in apparel, or home decor, but also in teaching my kids, physical fitness, and spiritual growth (plus a few other areas).  A lot of things that I've been doing, I don't feel like they've been working for me as best as they could.... So I'm going to change things up, try new things, until hopefully I find it.  

STYLE.