Catching Up

Wow. It has been a month since I wrote. However, the number of readers writing to let me know that they missed the blog ... well, much like hearing good things about Obama on CNN.

On Tuesday, Muanuel, Chepe and I visited our most remote school in Las Delicias. When the road is not all that good, a seventeen kilometre trip can seem much longer. We drove through gorgeous valleys and constant vistas of verdant mountains and hazy horizons. Truly spectacular.

The village is on the edge of a forest reserve and at a higher altitude so the air was clear and fresh. Our host, the man who is working hard to provide this education opportunity to his village met us as we drove up to his house. We were invited inside and, after seeing the computers and so forth, sat down and visited.

This is the first Honduran home that I have been in which had books. It was incredible to see two small bookshelves filled with reading material for children, adults and reference. Obviously, we have a very good family to work with here.

After some time, the man invited us to see his garden area. He has several innovative things happening there. He is planting lablab (I think that is the name – he wasn’t sure) beans as a ground cover and green manure. He is also planting rows of Madriado, a nitrogen fixing tree which will fertilize the alleys between and provide a trellis for black pepper vines. It was so very exciting to see some of these practical, low cost ways of improving income potential being implemented.

On the return trip, I had Manuel take his first driving lesson. He was sweating profusely by the end of the journey. He did well although getting that foot to move between brake and accelerator was a challenge. No crunches though so all was well.

That afternoon, we drove to another location with some papaya seedlings. I drove too close to a projecting stone and it sliced my front tire. What a bang. I was so sure I had destroyed the truck. Phew. Only a tire. We were happy that it wasn’t raining, muddy and a busy road (well ... track). The spare was in good shape but lacking in air. There was enough to limp to the nearest tire place and get it filled. What a relief to make it there safely and without further damage.

Yesterday morning I replaced the two front tires. Had to double check that small things like the valve caps were replaced and my two old tires also in the truck. Sigh. I do hate little fiddles.

We are hoping to have another graduation in November and the list of potential grandaunts is being drawn up. That will be exciting to see some more progress being made.

Our Canadian intern, Natasha, has been doing a stellar job teaching English in various village locations. This week she is experiencing the other side of life in a foreign country. A bad meal on Sunday night did a number on her digestive system.

One of the seductive things in another country is to arrive at a nice location (in this case a tourist type lodge at the top of a mountain park road) and see something familiar on the menu. After a number of weeks of ‘local’ food, the temptation is to order a hamburger. However, all too often, that is the very thing which is prepared poorly. That is not a surprise. We all stumble when trying to cook something from another culture. I have been disappointed (or, as in Natasha’s case, negatively affected – politically correct statement there) on a number of occasions when I had hoped for a touch of ‘home’ and, instead, received a touch of something else.

On the brighter side. Friday I was given a lesson in cooking one type of Honduran soup. As I have mentioned before, soups here are fantastic. A friend showed me how to make seafood soup. It turned out to be fairly easy and I made my own batch on Monday. Everyone who tried it was impressed so I must have gotten the main points of the lesson. It has some nice spices and coconut milk along with a variety of vegetables so it is hard to go wrong with that.

The staff here at the school is making great strides at adding complementary material to the curriculum and creating forms so that we can begin registering and reporting on line. I sometimes feel a bit unnecessary as they forge ahead. It is so exciting to see them gain confidence and creativity.

The last thing to talk about. While in Canada, I received three Rapid Washers. These are a plunger type unit which washes clothes in a bucket. It washes much more thoroughly, quickly and with much less soap and water than by hand. It still is manual labour but much less. This week we had a demonstration/trial run with some clothes of mine. Then staff took them home to give them a work out. The reports so far are quite good. Julia, used it to whiten some of my things and it was amazing. I had thought some stuff was beyond help but it brought new life to those clothes. Hurrah. Since it is ‘mechanical’ maybe it can be cross gender as well. Hmmm – don’t get your hopes up too high.

TTYL
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