October 26, 2007

5 am wake-up calls by hail marys?????

Ok, it happened again and now it’s happened enough that it’s blog worthy. Truthfully, the first time it happened it was blog worthy because it was odd that it happened once…now that it’s happened around 10 times, it’s just plain outrageous!

Here in Danlí (in our neighborhood) there are several things that could wake you up before you’re ready to get up:

1. Fighting dogs
2. Loud roosters
3. Honking taxis
4. A neighbor playing really bad 80s music
5. Cohetes (loud “boom” firecrackers)
6. Someone driving a truck around with a speaker or two in the bed doing some sort of advertisement (this has happened both really early in the morning at 4:30 am and really late at night around midnight)

Fortunately, of the six things listed above, Luke and I are now able to sleep through numbers 1-5 quite consistently. However, about three weeks ago we had to add a number 7 to the list. Before I explain to you what number 7 is, I have to explain something about churches here in Honduras and more specifically, in Danlí.

I think Luke mentioned in another blog that Hondurans are evangelical, Mormon, or catholic. Churches here seem to have the attitude that louder is better and almost all church services (evangelical anyway) employ the use of speakers, microphones, and a synthesizer (you can imagine how this sounds). For some reason, the catholic church here in town must have felt that they were getting “out-sung” by their fellow evangelicals and decided to purchase a few speakers and start parading around at 5 am singing, praying and doing “hail-Mary’s” with a loudspeaker. This is also usually accompanied with or prefaced by ringing church bells. We have told recent visitors about number 7 when they stay here and they laugh and think it’s funny but the next morning once they’ve been woken up by it are angry and amazed that this actually takes place.

It’s 5:30 am right now on a Friday morning and I was, once again, woken up by a hail-Mary this morning. Luke opened the portón one time to get a look at what exactly was going on and described it as something you’d see in a parade…a guy driving a truck super slow with a speaker followed by a guy with a microphone and then a bunch of people following the truck singing along. You’d think they’d hit different areas of Danlí to assure that everyone hears their good news but unfortunately they pass back and forth on our street at least 4 times a week now anywhere between 4:45 and 5:45 am. I’m looking forward to our upcoming trip to get out of Danlí for a week! :)

October 22, 2007

Aguacates!

We´ve found avocados of every size and shape here (who knew that the Mexican avocado wasn´t the only kind??). Below is a pic of me at the dinner table with toasted flour tortillas and avocado (I also love to eat them plain with salt). The really tiny avocado only had about two spoonfuls in each half and the big one was too big to eat at once.




I´m also including a pic of Luke sucking ¨chupando¨an orange. The oranges here (surprise!) are actually yellowish green and absolutely delicious. They have a thick shell so I buy them from a lady who uses this metal thing to peel the rind. You then cut the orange in half and suck out the pulp and juice. (Take note of the hanging shelves in the background that Luke built for our books!)

October 15, 2007

Smells like pumpkin spice...

Hello from Honduras! Fall is in full swing at home…rustling leaves, afternoon football games, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice lattés (ok that’s sort of a joke but I do miss the occasional lateé)…it’s funny how what Luke and I talk about often has to do with what we’d be doing at home during a particular season of the year. Luckily here the weather has been very “fall-like” (for Honduras). Since last Sunday, there has been a low front hovering over southern Honduras bringing us cool and rainy days (lower 70s) and even cooler nights. Luke and I both love it. After seeing the hot sun every day during dry season and then usually for part of the day during the rainy season (late June-December) it’s nice to have a string of cool days where the sun doesn’t even peak through! We sat outside the other night and had to put on sweaters!

Our good friends Dory and Jarod sent us a package a few weeks ago that contained several delicious beers from the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins (where we were living before moving to Honduras). And since we have been reminiscing about fall weather we thought we’d blog about what sipping those beers reminded us of….

- Car camping along the Poudre river
- Sitting outside our garage on summer weekend nights with the dog and grilling
- Hanging with Sally and Jason in Denver (Luke’s sister & brother-in-law)
- CSU Rams football games (we usually lost but oh well!)
- The New Belgium brewery tour (ok, we only when on the actual “tour” once but frequented the place after work and when visitors came for the free samples)
- Hanging out with our friends Dory and Jarod
- Going out to eat downtown Fort Collins
- Picnicking up on the Horsetooth Reservoir
- $1 New Belgium drafts on Tuesday nights or during Colorado Avalanche hockey games at a divey (but very delicious) Italian restaurant on Prospect
- Friday nights at home just Luke and I and Moose listening to music and cooking something tasty

We definitely miss Fort Collins and our friends and family (and of course, our dog Moose). The homesickness (thank goodness) isn’t a constant feeling …more of sometimes surprisingly powerful wave that comes on a bad day, after looking at a picture, hearing from family or being reminded of something from home.

(See below for another blog I posted today on our work update)

Work & Leisure

Several of you got the following paragraphs in an email (these are updated) but for those who didn’t, here is an update on what we’ve been up to work-wise.

Luke is currently working on putting together a class on how to survey for the “técnicos” at his counterpart organization. Técnicos are basically guys with construction experience but no real education. The técnicos at his counterpart organization are in charge of overseeing the water systems that the communities put in (construction supervision), hygiene, health, watershed management, and environmental education, preliminary surveys, etc. However, their surveying skills could use some improvement. He feels that this would definitely be sustainable and something he will enjoy doing.

Luke has also started teaching math several hours a week to 3rd-6th graders at the school for street kids (the one I blogged about). The school year ends in a month and they’re only on page 15 of their math books (in other words, they’re WAY far behind). This can be attributed to the kids having some learning difficulties but mainly because the teachers don’t do much to push the kids or “teach” them in my opinion. Even though the school year ends and the teachers stop coming, these kids still show up at the school everyday Nov-February (months of vacation) so he’s hoping he can work with them through those months and catch them up for next year.
Starting in January or February, Luke’s counterpart organization will be starting new water system projects in 7-10 communities that are very isolated (like the one in my blog about the trip to the campo). We’re planning to commit 3-5 days every month staying overnight in these communities. Luke would work with the guys in the community and oversee the construction of the water system (also do surveying and the water system designing) and I would work with the nurse from the local health center (if there is one) or with community volunteers on health education. We’re looking forward to this. Luke’s counterpart organization gives us money to cover the transportation, lodging and food for us while we’re working in these communities so we don’t have to worry about that.

I’m currently finishing up working with the 210 5th graders (6 classes) that I started working with in June. We finished up all the sex ed charlas last week (they went way better than expected) and started HIV/AIDS prevention this week. I gave them a preliminary test just to get an idea of what 5th graders in Honduras know about HIV/AIDS and it was really surprising…many still think it can be transferred through mosquitoes and saliva, some think there is a cure, that you can’t get it after having sex just one, etc. I’m going to give them the same test again after 3 hours of charlas. Before the school year ends, I need to make my decisions about who I’m going to ask (5 from each class) to be in my youth groups that I’m going to form starting next school year (in April). The focus of the youth groups will be leadership and community service.

I recently applied for and received a small community grant to work with the People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) support group here in Danlí. There are about 30 people who come regularly to meet once a month. We’re going to do two sessions, covering topics like reproductive health in PLWHA, sexual health, dealing with stress and depression, and adherence to medication. One of the workshops is this month and another one is in November.

Other than work, Luke and I spend a lot of time reading, cooking, and watching movies on our computer (thank goodness for DVD rippers!). Our garden didn’t work out so well the first time (lack of good soil) so we’ve been busy lately organizing the re-plant (getting fertilizer, weeding, etc.). Of all the flowers I planted, only 3 zinnias came up but they sure are pretty! It’s been cool lately so we’re going to try and plant lettuce and spinach. We ate a lot of leafy greens in the States and here the only lettuce you can find is iceberg and occasionally some weird tasting spinach at the market. We have a trip planned to the west at the beginning of November to visit some friends of ours (a married couple) in Santa Rosa de Copan. For Thanksgiving (it makes me sad to think about spending this holiday here in Honduras) the volunteers in our state are getting together for meal. It’s hard to believe that when we get back from the States in January we’ll be just a month shy of having been in Honduras for a whole year. I wouldn’t say the time is going fast necessarily, but it definitely is moving along.

October 4, 2007

Side note to last blog

An addition to my latest blog (see below)…I realized that I should explain better what “community” in the mountains of Honduras means. Normally, when we think of a small town or a community we think of a cluster of houses more or less close to each other. Here a “community” (aldea) usually consists of houses scattered along a road or trail. Rarely are two houses right next to each other. In the community we visited last week, there are about 40 houses included in the community but if you drive along the dirt road that hugs the mountainside, you might actually only see 10 of those houses. Most are either up or down from the road, hidden among the trees or coffee plants (about 8 feet when they’re mature). This definitely makes doing house-to-house visits more difficult and more of a workout!