Winter in Honduras

Hi there!

As I write this a torrential rain is coming down in Comayagua – thick sheets of water, like you were inside a car wash. We are working at the Camara de Comercio this Friday afternoon and I sure am glad to be inside. Javi, unfortunately, went to the post office to pick something up for a volunteer in a small town close to here – poor guy I hope he found somewhere dry! It is “winter” here in Honduras right now, which means it rains a lot but it definitely does not get colder. The tropics haven’t different definitions of seasons than we do in our temperate climate in the US. They have two seasons here – rainy season and dry season.

The rain has been coming down especially hard here this week. Tegucigalpa had some flooding (darn trash in the streets blocks the drainage) and a rush of water here in Comayagua swept through a home and washed away two young children in the river. They haven’t been found yet. On Wednesday in our host family house, it was raining so hard water started leaking from the ceiling in small streams forming puddles here and there in our room.

Here is a picture from La Prensa of what the rains did in Tegus Yesterday

Oh….Javi just made it back in. He sprung for a taxi to avoid the rain. He just took off his shirt to let it dry, and now he is sitting in the Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Director’s meeting room shirtless. Sweet!

The rain has also brought on a surge of nasty mosquitoes. They are relentless right now. I say that as one circles my feet and arms waiting for the moment I get too distracted to swat at him (wait…aren’t the mosquitoes that bite female?). Accordingly there has been an increase in dengue cases here and in El Salvador in recent weeks. Javi’s well fortified now that he is immune to “dengue clasico” but I better keep up the bug spray!

In other news things have been going great at work. On Tuesday we sat with the President of the Camara and the main administrator to discuss our ideas that came of our investigation into their new website. They loved our suggestions and have taken an active interest in moving on many of the things we talked about right away! In addition to improving some of the content and quality of information they provide, they were very interested in other ideas – such as highlighting an affiliate of the chamber once a month on the website and organizing networking opportunities such as “business over brunch” or a golf tournament. (There is a brand new golf course in town and the Prez is really big into golf so he liked that idea.) It feels good that our ideas have been so well received by them. We feel like we are of use to them here!

Our house situation has finally been settled – we are getting the place we really wanted! We will start cleaning the place soon and moving in very shortly. As soon as the place is in decent shape, we will post some photos.

Well, that mosquito I was talking about got me. Other than reapplying the repellent, we better get back to work.

Marcala Visit

So we made it out to Marcala (a small town a stone's throw from the El Salvador border) to celebrate Javi's 29th in style. Marcala was beautiful but didn't have much in the way of "entertainment." But of course, that is Honduran style, especially small town Honduran style, so we were prepared for that and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Saturday we went for a 5 hour hike in some mountains overlooking Marcala. The goal of the hike was to make it to a waterfall (which we never found) but the stroll through green hills, coffee fields, banana farms and pine trees made it all worth it. The photo below is Javi overlooking a coffee farm. Supposedly some of the best coffee in Honduras comes from this area, and when the temperature drops in the evening and the clouds roll in to hang over the forest, you can believe it.

This interesting character was another highlight of the hike. We first saw him as we were climbing the dirt road on the way to the elusive waterfall. He was sitting on a log in front of his farm, banana trees swaying in the wind behind him. He was like something out of a lonely planet book and I was overcome by the urge to take his photo. I'm glad we waited however because Javi snapped this one off after he offered us some of his home grown bananas. He told us he was 87 years old and when Javi said he just turned 29, he said he was just starting out in life. Looking inside his house was like stepping back in time 100 years - there was no electricity or running water.

Before we left town, some new friends of ours (an American couple living in Comayagua) made Javi a birthday dinner and baked him a cake. We were extremely grateful, especially for the cake since we still have no way to bake. They were also able to track down some Dr. Pepper and 2% milk (not 98% as you find a lot of out here). It was delicious!!!