One Oven Done - March 3

Sunday morning, the family arrived to build the Lorena Oven. We were two from our office so that made a crew of five. The man and I worked on mixing cement and so forth for the foundation. There is just no easy way to mix cement by hand. Once the support bricks were laid, we set up the form for the main bed of the oven. Cutting wet hardwood planks with a dull handsaw makes for a good workout.

As we worked, the ladies worked on mixing the adobe. A combination of horse manure, wood ash and clay was sieved and then mixed with water to make a gooey mixture just right for plastering with.

As soon as the base was formed and the cement poured, they began laying the fired bricks that make up the oven. The oven proper is made up of fired bricks and adobe. By one o’clock the finishing touches were being put on the whole thing and it was covered up to prevent spoilage by the on and off again rain.

By one thirty I was on my way to Tegucigalpa. The bus was late leaving San Pedro Sula so Manuel did not arrive until almost 4 p.m. Nevertheless, we made good time once we left Las Flores. We had hoped to arrive early enough to catch a movie in the big city but that didn’t happen. Instead we went to a restaurant for supper and got to bed in good time.

Our hotel room was nice and clean and, more importantly, around the corner and away from the noise and fumes of the buses starting up at 5 a.m. Lovely. It even had hot water in the shower as well so that was a real bonus. Considering how cold it has been the last few days that was most appreciated. Low teen temperatures are very cold when you have no place to go warm up. The washroom even featured lovely mauve fixtures with a padded, aquamarine green toilet seat.

In the morning, as we were having breakfast, a lady came in to ask for food. She quickly accepted the beans and cheese on my plate along with a tortilla. A reminder that underneath the facade of rich buildings and malls is an aching layer of pain and misery.

Our meeting went well on Monday morning and we came away cautiously optimistic that the funding will appear for the project. The man we saw is the final link in the chain and he was very positive about our ideas and hoped to have a reply to us in the next two weeks. Will see how that turns out.

As our bus warmed up, we had a host of hawkers coming up the aisles. Children’s toys, lovely wall hangings inscribed with a favourite Psalm, plates of food and, my favourite, a Rasta man, complete with braids, Ethiopian coloured knitted cap and pendant selling sticks of incense.

Manuel and I got off the bus about twenty kilometres from my turn off to check out a small fish farm we had seen from the bus window. It was most interesting. It featured nine tanks each holding about 1000 m3 of water. The man who was guarding the place showed us around and told us everything he could. A lovely set up with lots of potential. Each of the seven grow tanks will hold about 4000 or more tilapia so that is a lot of fish. The tanks were made of wire mesh lined with a hard black plastic. Very economical. The site will bare further study.

Today we had, in my opinion, the best sweet potato recipe yet. Sautéed onions, steamed leaves done in a yoghurt and peanut butter sauce. Everyone dug into that dish with a will. I promised the girls fourteen days of sweet potato leaves so will have to figure out some other ways of preparing them. Hopefully, in two months, many of the other greens we have planted will begin producing and we can have a variety of healthy (and good??) eating.

Talk to you later.
Bryan