It is really beautiful when it rains and I love the sound of it.
As long as it doesn't rain so much that it prevents the bus from going to town on Saturdays I won't complain :)
Showing posts with label Honduras. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Honduras. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Rainy season
We are in the rainy season here in Honduras. And it is definitely called that for a reason. So much rain! One of the first Spanish phrases I learned here was mucha lluvia - a lot of rain!
It is really beautiful when it rains and I love the sound of it.
As long as it doesn't rain so much that it prevents the bus from going to town on Saturdays I won't complain :)
It is really beautiful when it rains and I love the sound of it.
As long as it doesn't rain so much that it prevents the bus from going to town on Saturdays I won't complain :)
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Our Honduran Home
For our 3 months in Honduras we are living on the compound of Hospital Loma de Luz. Loma de Luz is a part of the Cornerstone Foundation which also operates a school and a children's home. You can read more about their ministry here - http://www.crstone.org/
I am still learning about the school and children's center and one day soon (as soon as it stops raining so I can walk over!) I want to visit the children's center.
Where we are living there is one entrance and it is gated and guarded. When you come in you can go straight to the hospital or turn right up the hill to the residences. There is a building they call staff housing, which is basically short term housing, like a motel, with a common room and big kitchen. They have books and games to borrow and a screened in porch with hammocks.
Then in our building there are three, three bedroom apartments.
Further up the hill are the long term missionaries with families mostly and they have houses and AMAZING views of the Caribbean!
Our house here is even bigger than our condo in Fort Myers and we aren't even using the bedroom upstairs at all. It is nice and has everything we need, but it doesn't come without a few quirks. Our favorite of which is the bathroom with 3 doors. :)
It is surrounded by gorgeous flowers and basically the jungle on 3 sides. I love it!
We have a front porch swing and a back porch with a baby swing and hammock. I could live on the porch if I could get Houston to stop trying to fall off and throw everything we own over the railing.
Thankfully one of the families that lived here before us put up this chicken wire above the railing to prevent kids from climbing and falling!
So this is it, home for now :)
I am still learning about the school and children's center and one day soon (as soon as it stops raining so I can walk over!) I want to visit the children's center.
Where we are living there is one entrance and it is gated and guarded. When you come in you can go straight to the hospital or turn right up the hill to the residences. There is a building they call staff housing, which is basically short term housing, like a motel, with a common room and big kitchen. They have books and games to borrow and a screened in porch with hammocks.
Then in our building there are three, three bedroom apartments.
Further up the hill are the long term missionaries with families mostly and they have houses and AMAZING views of the Caribbean!
Our house here is even bigger than our condo in Fort Myers and we aren't even using the bedroom upstairs at all. It is nice and has everything we need, but it doesn't come without a few quirks. Our favorite of which is the bathroom with 3 doors. :)
It is surrounded by gorgeous flowers and basically the jungle on 3 sides. I love it!
We have a front porch swing and a back porch with a baby swing and hammock. I could live on the porch if I could get Houston to stop trying to fall off and throw everything we own over the railing.
Thankfully one of the families that lived here before us put up this chicken wire above the railing to prevent kids from climbing and falling!
The living room - which serves as a basketball court and wrestling ring as well
we bought this in Ceiba for a couple dollars our first trip to the city.
a little art to make it feel homey
the living room ceiling and the upstairs room we do not use. There is also a 3rd bathroom up there.
Leo and Houston's room
Our bedroom
The bathroom with 3 doors. One leads to Leo and Houston's room, one goes to the room with the shower, and one leads to the living room area. The best part is none of these doors close very well because they have all swollen with humidity, haha!
And finally we have the laundry room. My least favorite room. There are holes around the washer pipes that lead to a storage area under the building that mice and rats could and maybe did very easily climb up into our house. Last week in La Ceiba I bought steel wool pads and we stuffed the holes and since then haven't seen any traces of rodents in the apartment! I really hope that solves the issue...
Also the dryer doesn't work. Its rusty I'm sure from the constant humidity. It's rough on metal!
So this is it, home for now :)
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Honduras 4 days in
Hola!
Yep, that was super cheesy and I'm pretty sure how every single person who has ever blogged from a Spanish speaking country has begun a blog post. I'm just trying to be in the club. Really that's about as good as my Spanish gets. I'm trying... maybe in 3 months I'll be able to say something, but I'm not holding my breath.
So, we arrived in Honduras on Wednesday and today is only Sunday but we have crammed so much into these past few days.
Long journeys down crazy dirt roads full of pot holes, hiking up a mountain, walking along the beach, attending a Spanish church, walking across scary hanging bridges, and Lee has begun working in the hosptial...
We are definitely in the jungle. It is crazy.
We've had so many different encounters with animals.
Our first morning here I woke up to the sound of howler monkeys yelling in the trees outside our bedroom window. It was terrifying. We've since seen the actual monkeys and heard them yell at cars driving by from our back porch and it's still just as scary.
Our first day I saw tarantula under our porch stairs. In the span of about 90 seconds I watched toucans jump around in the trees, a weird squirrel thing run up a tree, and a giant lizard ran from me.
On our trips to and from La Ceiba we've been stopped several times because of cows crossing the roads and all along the way you can see cows, horses, chickens, ducks, and pigs.
But the worst. by far. the worst animal encounter was waking up this morning to find that one of the bananas I had left laying on the counter of our kitchen had been devoured by some creature. I'm still not over it. I couldn't bring myself to dispose of it and had to wait for Lee to wake up to inspect the kitchen. We're assuming it was a mouse/rat. I can barely even type that.
I would consider myself a pretty brave person. There are a lot of things that I can do, including holding snakes and tarantulas and moving to Central America with my 2 little children.... but I might actually have a phobia of rodents. I've been so jumpy all day knocking on doors and making loud noises before I enter rooms. I'm terrified to open the cabinets in the kitchen and all I can think about is once I go to sleep some thing is going to be roaming my house and touching all my stuff. Don't even get me started with Leo and Houston sleeping in their own room....
So honestly, pray for me. Pray we catch it or it ran off and I never have to see it or any other mammal in the house for the next 3 months.
Okay so other reactions from my first few days - it is humid. Like everything is damp and I can hear the mold growing damp. The sun was even out for a few days and it still felt damp and sticky. We're in the raining season so I only expect more of the same. The plus side is it hasn't been too hot! I'm actually typing this laying in bed and wearing one of Lee's long sleeved shirts! I'll do a post soon about our house here, but we are not using air conditioning. There is a unit in the bedroom but we haven't turned it on because it's pretty cool in the evenings and we have ceiling fans and a couple other fans.
I guess I went over the bad stuff first. Truthfully, I am really happy with our decision to come and am really loving it here! We have a front porch with a swing and a back porch with a hammock. I could probably live on the porch! Leo and Houston love it too! Leo and I have been spending some time in the afternoons cuddling in the hammock while Houston naps and practicing our Spanish.
I'll do a post soon about Lee's experience working in the hospital. It's going to be interesting!
It is crazy beautiful here. So lush and green and I love looking out and seeing mountains. Leo is having fun and making new friends everywhere he goes.
Tomorrow will be kind of like our first real day in our new routine. Lee has to work and I'll be free to do whatever we want for the entire day. If it's not raining I plan on hiking up the mountain again to visit the kids and their nanny's to practice my Spanish!
Our days have been starting around 5:30am. Surprisingly I have been awake before the boys! Daylight is basically 5:30am - 5:30pm and it's been an adjustment to get used to. Houston has been getting up around 5:30 and going to bed around 6:30 with Leo waking up and going to bed slightly later. I've even been getting in bed around 9pm, which is super unusual for me!
There are a lot of other families here so I think it's going to be fun to get to spend time with other people in a similar situation as us, although they are here for the long term and we are only in it for 3 months! There is a Thanksgiving potluck planned and I'm sure something special for Christmas. I'm looking forward to it and already planning my dishes to take for Thanksgiving because I'll need to be on the lookout for supplies in advance!
So once a week on Saturday a school bus comes and picks up a group from the compound and drives us about an hour and half to La Ceiba to shop. I'll do a more detailed post soon, but I was pleasantly surprised with our first trip into the city this week! We even ate at a Pizza Hut! and I found Goldfish at a store!
I feel like singing the Mary Tyler Moore theme song - we're gonna make it after all!
Yep, that was super cheesy and I'm pretty sure how every single person who has ever blogged from a Spanish speaking country has begun a blog post. I'm just trying to be in the club. Really that's about as good as my Spanish gets. I'm trying... maybe in 3 months I'll be able to say something, but I'm not holding my breath.
So, we arrived in Honduras on Wednesday and today is only Sunday but we have crammed so much into these past few days.
Long journeys down crazy dirt roads full of pot holes, hiking up a mountain, walking along the beach, attending a Spanish church, walking across scary hanging bridges, and Lee has begun working in the hosptial...
We are definitely in the jungle. It is crazy.
We've had so many different encounters with animals.
Our first morning here I woke up to the sound of howler monkeys yelling in the trees outside our bedroom window. It was terrifying. We've since seen the actual monkeys and heard them yell at cars driving by from our back porch and it's still just as scary.
Our first day I saw tarantula under our porch stairs. In the span of about 90 seconds I watched toucans jump around in the trees, a weird squirrel thing run up a tree, and a giant lizard ran from me.
On our trips to and from La Ceiba we've been stopped several times because of cows crossing the roads and all along the way you can see cows, horses, chickens, ducks, and pigs.
But the worst. by far. the worst animal encounter was waking up this morning to find that one of the bananas I had left laying on the counter of our kitchen had been devoured by some creature. I'm still not over it. I couldn't bring myself to dispose of it and had to wait for Lee to wake up to inspect the kitchen. We're assuming it was a mouse/rat. I can barely even type that.
I would consider myself a pretty brave person. There are a lot of things that I can do, including holding snakes and tarantulas and moving to Central America with my 2 little children.... but I might actually have a phobia of rodents. I've been so jumpy all day knocking on doors and making loud noises before I enter rooms. I'm terrified to open the cabinets in the kitchen and all I can think about is once I go to sleep some thing is going to be roaming my house and touching all my stuff. Don't even get me started with Leo and Houston sleeping in their own room....
So honestly, pray for me. Pray we catch it or it ran off and I never have to see it or any other mammal in the house for the next 3 months.
Okay so other reactions from my first few days - it is humid. Like everything is damp and I can hear the mold growing damp. The sun was even out for a few days and it still felt damp and sticky. We're in the raining season so I only expect more of the same. The plus side is it hasn't been too hot! I'm actually typing this laying in bed and wearing one of Lee's long sleeved shirts! I'll do a post soon about our house here, but we are not using air conditioning. There is a unit in the bedroom but we haven't turned it on because it's pretty cool in the evenings and we have ceiling fans and a couple other fans.
I guess I went over the bad stuff first. Truthfully, I am really happy with our decision to come and am really loving it here! We have a front porch with a swing and a back porch with a hammock. I could probably live on the porch! Leo and Houston love it too! Leo and I have been spending some time in the afternoons cuddling in the hammock while Houston naps and practicing our Spanish.
I'll do a post soon about Lee's experience working in the hospital. It's going to be interesting!
It is crazy beautiful here. So lush and green and I love looking out and seeing mountains. Leo is having fun and making new friends everywhere he goes.
Tomorrow will be kind of like our first real day in our new routine. Lee has to work and I'll be free to do whatever we want for the entire day. If it's not raining I plan on hiking up the mountain again to visit the kids and their nanny's to practice my Spanish!
Our days have been starting around 5:30am. Surprisingly I have been awake before the boys! Daylight is basically 5:30am - 5:30pm and it's been an adjustment to get used to. Houston has been getting up around 5:30 and going to bed around 6:30 with Leo waking up and going to bed slightly later. I've even been getting in bed around 9pm, which is super unusual for me!
There are a lot of other families here so I think it's going to be fun to get to spend time with other people in a similar situation as us, although they are here for the long term and we are only in it for 3 months! There is a Thanksgiving potluck planned and I'm sure something special for Christmas. I'm looking forward to it and already planning my dishes to take for Thanksgiving because I'll need to be on the lookout for supplies in advance!
So once a week on Saturday a school bus comes and picks up a group from the compound and drives us about an hour and half to La Ceiba to shop. I'll do a more detailed post soon, but I was pleasantly surprised with our first trip into the city this week! We even ate at a Pizza Hut! and I found Goldfish at a store!
I feel like singing the Mary Tyler Moore theme song - we're gonna make it after all!
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