HALF A YEAR!

Hurrah! We’ve been in Honduras a half a year! Has it gone quickly? Well…both Luke and I agree the weeks go quick but the months go really slow.

This blog centers around our home but it’s sort of random so I apologize if it’s difficult to follow!

We got a package from home with my spices so now we can cook just about everything! We’re lucky to be in Danlí because you can find pretty much any ingredient or food item that you want (within reason). In Danlí you can’t find good cheeses (nothing gourmet and no mozzarella, feta, cheddar, colby, etc.); other dairy products like cottage cheese, sour cream, buttermilk; or whole grains: bread, rice, flour, etc. We’re planning a trip to Tegus to celebrate our anniversary and birthdays soon so we hope to pick up some of those coveted food items we can’t find here. We’re starting to feel like our house is a home…especially now that we have a couch to sit on in the living room. I took some updated pics of our house so send us an email if you want to see them!

Luke has been working feverishly in the yard lately trying to get it ready to plant a garden. My mom and grandma and Luke’s mom have sent us seeds so we’re excited to get our garden going! The soil in our front yard is pretty decent but Luke has to dig up the grass that is growing in it and then sift out the roots and rocks. We bought some fertilizer and have been using that in the rows where we plant. We have a compost pile that we started as soon as we moved in (a little over a month ago) but it’s not quite ready to use as fertilizer. Maybe for the next planting. Yesterday we got a few rows of things planted: flowers that grow to 4 ½ feet tall in front of the oh-so-pretty cinder block wall that surrounds our house, basil, chives, and radishes. We hope to plant more flowers, sweet corn, green beans and cucumbers today. Luke found a good manual in the PC office about when to plant things in Honduras which has been a help since the weather is a bit different here than what we’re used to in the States! It’s rainy season now and cooler than during dry season but still not quite cool enough to plant things like spinach. We’ll have to wait until Octoberish to do the cooler weather veggies. We’re going to try and plant a row of lettuce to see if it grows or if it still gets too hot during the day.

I’ve been trying to keep track of what fruits are in season when since we got here. Right now passion fruit is definitely in season. Our neighbors have a big tree that hangs over into our yard above our shed. For the past few weeks we’ll hear a loud bang when a fruit falls of the tree, hits the shed, the rolls off the roof. In the morning through afternoon, you can smell the sweet scent of maracuyá (passion fruit) in our yard. It’s a weird fruit…not something you can eat easily…but it makes an excellent juice. Other fruits right now that are in season are nance (a small yellow fruit that I think is disgusting), something called marmones (I believe) and a fruit that has a red spiny shell (sort of looks like a big strawberry) that you crack open and eat what’s inside (I have no idea what it’s called). Tamarindo (tamarind in English) has been in season for what seems like quite awhile. It grows in brown, fuzzy pod-like things and inside the pod are seeds with fruit surrounding them. This also makes an excellent juice – one of Luke and I’s favorite. Luckily there is a juice place only a few blocks from our house that sells fresh squeezed juice for only 8 Lempira – 40 American cents.

Remember the good old days when soda/pop was sold in glass bottles? Well here in Honduras you can still buy soda in glass bottles and the good thing about the bottles is that they are recycled unlike the plastic ones. Anyway Luke and I both love Coca-Cola Light (tastes very similar to Coke Zero in the States) so we decided to ask the owner of the pulpería (small family-owned store that sells beverages, junk-food, sometimes fruit and veggies, etc. that you’ll find on every street) if she could order us a case of Coca Light in bottles from the Coke guy next time he came. She did and we got our case of Coca Light in bottles. When we’re finished with the case, we just have to take the empty bottles back and get a new case. Each soda (about 12 oz) costs about 28 American cents.