Uyuca and parrots

What a happy weekend! Our American friends, the Packs, invited us to spend Friday and Saturday at “the Chalet” with them, and we were so glad we did. The Chalet is a rustic cabin owned by Zamorano University up on Mount Uyuca, about a 20 minute drive from our house. (Remember to pronouce all the vowels: u = oooo, a = ahh.) Zamorano is in charge of caring for a certain part of the national forest reserve on the mountain. The reserve is humid forest and cloud forest at about 1600-2000m (5200-6500 ft) above sea level. This is where the clouds sit and rest at the top of the mountain for much of the days.

At the very (bumpy) end of the road up Mt. Uyuca, you come to the Zamorano property, which includes a home for Angel, the caretaker, garden plots for raising cut flowers (the sale of which reportedly helps funds the property), and two cabins for guests and meetings. The grounds are well-manicured in a simple, almost Japanese style, with benches placed under just the right trees and wide open views of the Honduran mountains (and junked-car lot). It was a refreshing, peaceful, clean, beautiful, paradisical place to spend the weekend.

The rustic cabin was clean and pleasant. The rustic-ness meant exposed wiring going up the wall from the light switches to the overhead lights and no interior sheet rock or covering for the studs in the walls. The studs just make up part of the decoration. It does have an electric stove and fridge and spring water, which was really cold and drinkable from the faucet. We loved the change in temperature we noticed when we reached high elevation. Good blankets were essential for the night. (Thankfully, the Packs had some extras. We didn't really bring any blankets with us to tropical Honduras!)

Friday night we enjoyed a campfire together, with a Dutch oven dinner, guitar sing-along, Honduran folk songs sung by Angel and his family, s'mores and hot chocolate. (The s'mores were an especial treat, as graham crackers are an oddity here, and marshmallows are not so common, either.) Our children and the Packs' have gotten along so wonderfully. We are going to miss their company when they leave this Thursday to move to Ecuador. Our brief overlap of time together in Honduras, though ironic, has been the perfect way for us to ease into this new country.

Saturday morning started early. By 8:30 we started off on a great hike that took us through starkly different ecosystems. We hiked about 3 hours, making a loop that alternated through dry and and then dripping forests. The hike was technical and tricky at times, but everyone plugged along happily and safely. Some of the trail was slippery with dead, slimy leaves and mud; sometimes it was rocky and dry. One part of the trail was only about a foot wide, with a cliff about 900 feet down to the left and the side of the mountain about 100 feet up on the right. It was dry at this point (no mud) because it was just over the ridge. Upon turning up and onto the other side of the ridge, the climate changed in about 5 feet, as if we passed through a door into another space that was totally dripping wet and filled with epiphytes, ferns and bromeliads—we were in the cloud forest.

Stuart was really in heaven with all the cool plants—he marveled at the tree fern forests. These tree ferns got to about 25' tall, so really, really neat! He has always wanted to walk through one of those and had the chance to do it several times on the hike.
He also marveled at hornworts, which he has taught about every year, but never seen, since they mostly are in tropical areas and aren't very common, though here they were everywhere. The moss and ferns were spectacular as were the orchids, bromeliads, and much that was quintessential jungle.

After a lunch of scones and scrambled eggs and a brief clean-up, we said good-bye to the Chalet and drove home though a gentle drizzle. We'll definitely return sometime.

Last Sunday, Stuart was called as 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency at Church. He is excited to work with the Branch President and the other counselor Reiniery (sic) Ortiz, who also works at Zamorano in the same area as Stuart.

The hundredth day of school was this past week. There was a celebration at the school and it was great for everyone, especially for Aspen. She went for a granita to the Espresso Americano, which is a little walk away from the school. She got blackberry (mora) flavor. A granita is just crushed ice (granitas) with flavoring, usually also with coffee. She was excited. She also got some kind of yummy cookie there...all for about 38 Lps. ($1.97). With the change we bought a big branch of bananas that we ate for about 3 days. It was 12 Lps (and 19.1 Lps. = $1).

Our natural gas tank for our stove finally ran out last night. It lasted about 1 month of cooking a lot each day. Boiling beans, rice, making eggs, heating tortillas, cooking bread in the oven a number of times. So we like it and think we should get a gas stove connected to a tank to use at home in the US. It is really great. It's about the size of an old-fashioned milk can. We'll haul it back to the market for a refill of gas.

The 6th grade class that Jack is in has planned for some big activity for the 6th graders. The original agreement in September was that each student would pay Lps. 600 each month for the entire school year. That means that by the end of the year, each student would have saved Lps 5400 for some activity. (For quick calculation just divide that by about 20, or if you're hardcore look up the exchange rate, which hovers around 19.1 Lps/dollar. It is about $280.) Then they'd pool the money of the 12 6th graders to charter a bus, drive to La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast, stay in a hotel and go to the beach for a weekend. La Ceiba is 7 hours one way. Some discussion is underway as to what the actual event will be as that seemed a little excessive for a 6th grade graduation fiesta to some, but not all.

Abraham was chosen from among the children in his class to take home Mr. Osito and have a fun week with him. Mr. Osito is a large (Abe's size) stuffed bear. He is to return him this Friday after doing something cool with the bear and documenting it in a notebook that came home with the bear. We haven't done anything cool yet with the bear, but Abe has a week to do something cool. Maybe go swimming or play Indians or ride with it in a Mototaxi! We'll see.

The children have been playing Indians this week. They've made a fire pit, hunted deer and buffalo, picked berries, collected buffalo chips, made axes and knives and bows and arrows. Henry discovered he could make sparks by hitting two rocks together. He is a “true descendant of Nephi.”

Guayabas are yummy and a very unusual flavor. Kind of like lemon mixed with pear, with the texture of a very ripe pear, but then again a bit more spongey.

Abe made fingerpuppets and dreamed of becoming a fingerpuppet vendor, at the price of $5 per puppet. He gave one puppet (for free) to each member of the family.

Henry: Lately parrots have been coming by our house. Right now I am hearing the parrots in our big tree. They are mostly green with red under their wings. They have yellow beaks. They are about as big as a pigeon, but a bit more skinny. They look like a pirate's parrot on his shoulder.

A Very Tropical Birthday and the Terceros

How do you spend a birthday in Honduras? How about a morning swim under coconut palms, watching the sky turn blue above the mango grove? Then you might enjoy a breakfast of pancakes topped with mango puree, a lunch of beans and fried platanos, and eventually a dinner of pupusas. But watch out—that pickled cabbage salad ("cortido" (sic) for those wanting to be official) that tops your pupusa has some pretty hot peppers hiding in it! (Ranae was rather debilitated by one.) Ranae's cake was chocolate with mango frosting (from the puree) and slices of fresh starfruit to garnish it. We had a festive dance after dinner, and then off to bed. It was a very happy Honduran birthday.

We enjoyed hosting Hermano and Hermana Tercero for lunch Sunday afternoon. They are the Honduran version of Stuart's parents—good people who have lived life well and are committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They married when she was 15 and he 19; now they are about 70. After lunch we drove them almost home; we couldn't drive them all the way to their house because the road doesn't go there. We had to drop them off at the start of their foot trail, which takes them on a half-hour hike to their remote mountain home. Each Sunday they walk to church for just over two hours. They appreciate a ride back (as far as possible) because the walk back is undeniably uphill. They invited to us to come see their home when we have the time for the hike. They raise all their own food (meat, eggs, produce, and grain), go to sleep and rise with the sun. We loved their good company! We look forward to taking them up on their offer.

Stuart and the children are settling into the routine of school and work, though Abraham's days are very long, according to him. Preschool starts at 7:30 and goes until 12:00. But this week, he is saying he likes it.

Abraham did take a day off to play Indians. He made a knife from some rocks here (mainly basaltic rocks) and worked on smoothing out a stick. He made a firepit and did some other things that Ranae can tell about later. In short, his day was full and fun and what a 5-year old should be able to do all day.

The mango is finishing flowering and the little mangos are forming. I am excited. They won't be ready until April or May, so plan your visits accordingly. It is also one of the early varieties, so if you come in June or July, there'll still be mangoes.

Since we're by Copan....

I heard this news report while I was working today. It is from The World.

We are nearby the area where the Mayans lived for a long time. So the idea of 2012 world ending has been interesting to me; to wonder what they think of it all.

This article tell something of that.

http://www.theworld.org/2012/01/guatemala-looking-to-cash-on-2012-doomsday-theory/

technical difficulties

I had a few technical difficulties with internet access here so we didn't post anything on Sunday or Monday.

I will get the full post up later on Tuesday.

Last week was a good week for us and the children are doing well in school.

It has been cloudy and pleasant the last few days and since they finally burned all of the sugar cane fields, the smoke is a less constant.

The ATM hasn't worked for a week so we are trying to make sure to conserve our cash. The credit card machine at the little grocery store is also not working. So to get food, we have to go to Tegucigalpa which is about 40 minutes along a winding road.

More to post later

New School, Big Flames, Morning Swim
Aspen: I started school. I am in 2nd grade. I am learning stuff I already learned. My teacher is Miss Fanny. There are 21 students including me. It is the biggest class in the school. My best friend in my class in Honduras is Déborah. This week I saw a guatusa (/watusa/). [It is a small mammal (rodentia!) that looks like a teeny capybara. Bigger than a rabbit, but not by much.]
On New Year's Eve, I liked the spinning butterflies that threw sparks everywhere. I had library and music and I really liked them. I also like computers.

Abraham: I saw them burning sugar cane fields. I also started pre-school this week, was sick two days and got a new reading buddy named Luis. I also had my birthday which was good. I had a Mr. T pinata filled with good candy in it. I had PE and played with some balls. The first day of school, Abe came home and said it was good. The second day he came home and said it wasn't good.... “It was too LONG!” School here starts at 7:30 am and for Abe ends at 12. For everyone else it ends at 2:45. So for Abe, that long from the beginning was a long day for newly 5 year old.

Jack: I started school and am in 6th grade. It is rather sad. [I used to be in 7th grade in the US and is taking a semester of 6th grade so he can learn Spanish. Otherwise he'd have to go to Tegucigalpa for school that would cost a LOT of US$.]
There are 12 people in my class, including me. Their names are: Luis, Doc*, Isaac, Nancy, Freddy, Mauricio, Christian, Denzel, Marian, Victoria*, Roberta, and Me*. My teacher, Mr. Andrew*, is from Wisconsin. In Music class, we (my class) are learning to play “I'm Yours.” I play Futbol at recess, and I usually play goalie. I don't have much homework. My closest friends are Christian, Doc, Isaac, Luis, and Mauricio. Me gusta mi Escuelita.
On our way to Honduras, I lost one of my church shoes. I have to wear my Adidas Sambas to church.
*A star indicates that they are a gringo.

Stuart: We are becoming Honduran Residents. Then we can stay here past the 90 day tourist visa. That will be kind of fun. We'll have to get IDs. I have never been a 'resident' of another country so that will be kind of cool. I want to be able to keep my ID when we get back just in case. I will be initiating a long-term ecological monitoring project with about 50 species of woody plants (trees and shrubs). We will be recording their phenology (timing of bud break, flowering, etc) for the next 20 years. That means that I will have to hike around campus (about 16,000 acres) looking for the tree/shrub species to label and track over the next while. I am excited, though I didn't bring any boots....though I was impressed several times to do so...and didn't find the room to pack them.

We have been buying food at the Zamorano store here. They produce a lot of food, as an Ag school and then sell a lot of it. A large part of the student's education is summed up in “Aprender haciendo” which is on a lot of the Zamorano products. It means “Learning by doing” or “learn by doing”. So the students have classes in the AM and work on the Univeristy “industries” during the afternoon or at other times. So much of the produce, dairy and meat and other things they produce are made with student labor. It is pretty amazing all the material they produce.
One product of interest is the giant zanahorias (carrots) that we buy in the store. They are the largest carrots I have ever seen, and they are very good.
Each day, though we don't take pictures of it all, we see some cool new insect, bird or plant. Ranae just discovered Lemon grass and used it in a FABULOUS tom ka gai Thai soup last night. It was a hit.

Henry: This week we started school. I have a nice teacher. I already have a lot of friends. The first hour on the first day was kind of scary, but then I started getting friends, and it was good. We have to wear uniforms. The uniforms are blue jeans and a white polo shirt with the school name on it. On PE days we wear blue sweat pants and a t-shirt with the school name on it. We have an art teacher, a music teacher, a Spanish teacher, and a PE teacher. We play soccer at recess, and I don’t have as much math homework as at my old school.

The building is made of stone and we eat outside every day at picnic tables. There are a lot of palm trees, and I’ve heard a lot of different kinds of birds. The children’s family maids bring them lunch instead of bringing their own lunches to school. We do not have a maid yet.

We have seen a lot of smoke because down the highway (our road) there are big sugar cane fields that they burn. The flames are probably 40 feet tall, so we can probably see the flames from our house. They burn the sugar cane fields to get all the leaves off the sugar cane so they can harvest it easily. One day we were driving down the road and we saw gigantic clouds of black smoke coming from somewhere up ahead. We started driving towards it, and once we got there we saw a big field that was on fire, and the flames were really tall. We were just across the road from it. There were guys standing right next to the flames with blow torches and gas cans to catch the cane on fire. Soon the fire went away because all the dry leaves were burned up. Yesterday we saw big trucks hauling away all the sugar cane, and the fields were totally empty. The truck was filled till it was about to overflow with sugar cane sticks.

We have been going to our American friends’ house on campus. We play on their trampoline and in their tree house. Sometimes in their back yard we see these little animals called watusas. They look like an oversized rabbit with short brown fur and short ears, kind of like a miniature capybara. You should look these animals up.

There are many people here named Fanny.
Today we had a power outage. It only lasted for about 20 minutes, though.
Me gusta Honduras!

Calla: ghjicviv9l88’ Hi6
[Henry said "This place is paradise," as we sat in the cool of the evening near the mango trees, palms and blushing sunset; Calla then said, "Yes, It's parrot eyes."]


Ranae: That almost-at-the-equator sun beats down fiercely, and I have taken to wearing my hat every time I go out. Still, the breezes are pleasant and the mornings are cool, the tropical vistas are lush, and our little mountain valley is as beautiful a valley as I have ever seen. My heart is settling in.

Friday was my day to break through to a feeling of being fully happy here. There has been good food, good friends, simple hours, and a wonderful school where the children have been warmly welcomed. Stuart has work that will feel more like a hobby; I have appreciated the opportunity to spend many hours with Emmy Pack, who has filled me in on details of Honduran life and invited us to several fun activities. However, my experience has felt a bit restrictive. I cannot drive our vehicle (hopefully I’ll eventually get on the list of insured drivers for the university), cannot speak the language, cannot walk anywhere, and—till Friday—hadn’t figured out a good plan for consistent exercise for me, which is a key to contentment and sanity. But Stuart is attentive, and Friday morning we started a new routine. He’ll take the children to school (they start at 7:30) and Calla will tag along. I’ll slip over to our
landlord’s pool and swim laps for half an hour. Friday and Saturday, it worked like a charm. Ah! My perspective was refreshed, my body invigorated, my spirits lifted, my mind cleared. For me, the final piece was put in place, and I can be very happy here.

I want to figure out about using fresh coconut milk. I might need to buy a machete to open them, but the roadside fruit stand has tables full of the yellow fruits. Wouldn’t that be delicious with chicken and rice? Why buy canned?

back online

I have just been approved for internet access at the University. This means that I can post, check my email and communicate with other people at the Univ. which has been difficult.
For a few times, I sat in front of someone's house and used their wireless from my vehicle. I felt a little strange doing that.

But we have been blessed to have met the Pack family that is shortly moving to Ecuador. They have let us use their internet, which has allowed us to post previously. They have 5 daughters in the same range as our 5 children. Kind of cool! Plus they know all about the area and have been showing us around and teaching us about life in Honduras.

With their 7 in Church and our 7 in Church, we two families make up about 20-25% of the membership of the total branch (Rama Zamorano if you want to check it out on the "Meetinghouse Locator at lds.org) and the vast majority of the Primary.

We have seen sugar cane fields on fire and now that we have fast internet, I think we will be posting more pictures of what we are seeing. Maybe we'll post a video on YouTube too or some photos on Flickr or our PicasaWeb Albums. In the meantime, I have posted a few pictures from December in the posts below. Check them out.

Others will post later, now that we can get this material online! Woohoo!
Stuart

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Jan 1, 2012

Last night a friend stopped by to take nearly all of us to a traditional Honduran New Year’s Eve party. Stuart stayed home with Calla, who was already asleep by that time.
The tradition is to make an effigy (sort of like a scarecrow) to represent the old year and fill it with fireworks (mostly fire crackers) and other flammable material. For good measure, they also douse the figure with gasoline. They light it just around midnight and get out of the way! Many other fireworks are lit and it is a very festive, loud time. We read something about fireworks being illegal for normal people to have because so many children were burned at this time of year.

The fireworks were impressive!! Here are a few thoughts from those who saw it all first-hand.

Ranae: An unrestrained free-for-all with children holding flames and sparks zizzing through the crowd. It took me a while to decompress when we got back home, to ease my nerves.

Aspen: Awesome! I liked it a lot. I liked the color of the volcanoes and how they shot up.

Jack: There were these guys who were trying to shoot each other with Roman candles. They didn’t have very good aim. There was a little kid who was running around with lit fireworks. He was probably younger than Aspen (7 years old). It was awesome. We also ate soggy French toast [which is called Torrejas and is a traditional Honduran Christmas/Ano Nuevo food—the sogginess is syrup and it is pretty sweet, though not too bad and very wet.]

Abraham: A guy catched on fire that was a scarecrow. I held a sparkler.

Henry: They made a scarecrow and poured gasoline on it and stuffed it with fireworks and lit it on fire at 12 o’clock.

Stuart went to Teguc. to buy beds that will be delivered in about 10 days. Jack is going to make a video of the trip there…we hope to post it later, so you can get the flavor of driving in a very large, Central American city. We will be hooked up to internet this week sometime. In the meantime, our neighbors are generously sharing their connection.

One sad event was what happened to Calla (2 yrs) a few days ago. She was sitting, innocently as a two-year old can be, holding her doll and watching us run around during our nightly pre-dinner games. The wall was made of rocks, stacked up with a layer of cement on the top, where she was sitting. At that spot it was about 1.5 feet tall. Her dangling legs dislodged a rock that covered an ant house. Unbeknownst to everyone, including Calla, the ants swarmed out and up the wall where she was sitting. She cried out and we ran over and saw the HUGE number of ants on the way. Ranae was there first and took her off the wall and we tore off her diaper and skirt and brushed of the many ants. She had a lot of welts on the backs of her legs. As Ranae held and comforted her, she still had ants on her and one bit Ranae in the ear.

We administered first aid and she was fine a few hours later and is making a great recovery. Needless to say, we are certainly experiencing some of the huge range of ant diversity in the tropics.

Honduras is not known for its cheese.

December 31, 2011

We don’t drive much because we are not insured on our university-owned vehicle till January 5. So we brave the highway only as far as church, the mercado, and Zamorano’s campus. Today we took another auto tour of campus, made exciting because the children don’t have to stay buckled and we see lots of interesting animals and plants. The new creature of the day was a large rodent, what we think might be a cavi. We’ll have to look it up.

We buy a lot of our produce from the supermercado on campus. Zamorano is an agricultural school that follows the “learn by doing” model. The students are involved in all the farming, which includes hogs, chickens, goats, dairy cows, bananas, cacao, berries, and tropical fruits we don’t yet recognize. They grow, process, package, and sell the food. We bought a jar of their mango jam and another jam from a tropical fruit we don’t yet recognize. Their produce is organically grown and very clean.

However, their cheddar definitely isn’t made with the same recipe as Tillamook’s. It is super sharp, with overtones of blue-ness. As Stuart remarked, “Honduras is not known for its cheese.” It does taste great mixed in and melted with the refried red beans that come in a foil pouch. We’re thinking we’ll have to bring some of those pouches home. Buen provecho!