A New Lake in the Neighborhood

 This newly created "lake" is directly across the road from our church. The recent heavy rains have filled this yard with water.

 Much more rain, and this water will spill over the road and into the missionary inn connected to our church and the pastor's apartment. He's already had mud flow in there once.

 That house is completely surrounded by water and mostly likely flooded inside as well. The "lake" site is for sale, in case you're interested.

The wall where that person is sitting is beside a creek that flows down from the colonia. It looks like a road, but isn't. It is mostly full of mud which also washed down, so the water had to find another outlet....and a lake was formed.

We saw all this as we drove up to French Harbor yesterday to see if the kitchen faucets had come in to Ace Hardware. No, and not only that, the few they had a week ago were gone. We had been assured by an employee 10 days ago that a boat would be in soon carrying all these out of stock faucets. We've learned that they will tell you anything, promise you that it will be in mañana, over and over again. We spoke to the manager yesterday who said a boat would not be in for another week and upon checking, that it would not be bringing the faucet we wanted, but he could special order it for us. He took our e-mail address and phone number to let us know when it does come in. Meanwhile, we're spontaneously blessed with hot water in the kitchen every now and then. We just never know when. Keeps life interesting anyway.

Feeling Soggy

We've been back on the island 3 weeks and 3 days. So far, we've had 19.6 inches of rain. Rainy season is definitely here.

 It's difficult to do laundry. My laundry closet is on this deck which was completely soaked. And those are my clothes lines running across the deck. I've been forced to use the dryer more often, and with electric rates being 7 times as high here compared to St. Louis, you can understand why I'm reluctant.

The view is still pretty, even during a rain. We have had some downpours where there was NO view beyond our deck railing.

Another frequent problem is power outages. We had the power go out five times yesterday and stay out for an hour or more each time. Sometimes it would just barely have come back on when it would go out again. Really hard on those appliances like refrigerators.

We learned that some of our church members who live up in the colonia have had problems. Pastor Chuck is most anxious for Larry and Susan to return from Canada so we can have a work crew to go make some repairs. Concepción's roof is leaking because the metal panels were not overlapped properly and were screwed down too tightly, allowing rain to run under them and into the house. Suyapa's new house that is being constructed of concrete blocks is being built too close to edge of a hill and is being badly eroded. A retaining wall needs to be built soon. I think Don, Chuck and Larry will be busy whenever they get a break in the weather.

I also learned that many of the women who come to church are complaining of the cold. They don't have sweaters or shawls to wrap around themselves. I don't know if they even have a light blanket to throw on their bed on cool nights. This is an easy problem for me to tackle. There are lots of second-hand shops in Coxen Hole where these items can be purchased.

 We love our sunsets here, and they seem extra special when the sun appears briefly at the end of rainy day.

Tales of Shopping

Shopping here is always an adventure, whether it's for food or household items. This week's adventure included both.

Meat. Never too sure about this one. The beef choices are limited, especially US beef (which is expensive), so we have been sampling the Honduran beef. It isn't as flavorful but is very lean, being from grass-fed cows and is reasonably priced. I found some stew meat, which looked good - nice color, and bought a package. We put the groceries in the car and started driving. I smelled something odd and wondered what that was. On the way home from French Harbor, we stopped at Coxen Hole. When we got back in the car there was a strong, unpleasant smell...like something dead. Now I was really wondering. As soon as we got home, I found the source - the stew meat. It looked good but smelled really, really bad. Now why didn't I notice that while still in the store. Not driving all the way back to return it, so I stuck it in the freezer until I decided what to do with it.

I've had better luck, usually, with hamburger. I can find Honduran ground beef for about $2.50/pound. I have gotten used to the taste and don't notice a difference when it's used in chili or spaghetti. This week I purchased 3 pounds of very nice looking (and smelling!) ground beef. (Sometimes the stores have none, so when you find it, you buy several.) Once home, we decided to have burgers for lunch, so I opened a package and tried pulling the meat out to make patties. Very strange stuff. Didn't want to release from the package, not sticky like glue, but more like clay or paté. It didn't want to form patties and stuck to the waxed paper. Extremely lean meat; absolutely no grease cooked out. One patty crumbled as I tried to flip it. The odd texture was apparent upon taking a bite, too. It tasted ok, but really didn't have much flavor and just had an odd feel in the mouth. I really wondered what we were eating. Thankfully, we felt just fine after eating it.

I considered taking the bad, frozen stew meat and the odd hamburger back to the store, but after reading an account of a boy who was shot by a guard while trying to exchange a stale loaf of bread, I decided to forget it. (That incident happened somewhere on the mainland, not on the island, so rest easy, Mother!)

Our other shopping tale concerns trying to buy a replacement kitchen faucet assembly. I had complained that I wasn't getting hot water and the water flow had really slowed down from the kitchen faucet. We have one of those small on-demand hot water heaters under our kitchen sink. Don said the water flow was insufficient to activate the water heater, so no hot water. He checked the water pressure coming into the house and it was really good, but something was limiting the flow from the faucet. He took the faucet apart, trying to increase the water flow, but without luck. Now it didn't want to shut off completely. He said we would just have to replace it.

Off to look for replacements. First stop, Serrano's Hardware in Coxen Hole. (This is the store that reminds us of Hood's - you never know what they will have. While in there, I found those foam squares that interlock to make exercise mats...perfect for my exercise ball and easier on the back than our tile floors!) They didn't have the right type faucets. The stores here don't carry big assortments like Lowe's or Home Depot; you have limited number to choose from. I have one of those sinks with four holes: one soap dispenser, one sprayer, two for water but operated by a single handle. Don wants me to replace it with one that has separate hot and cold water taps. We drove up to French Harbor to Ace Hardware. They were out of the reasonably priced ones that would work but expected a shipment within a week. We made another stop at another hardware store and they didn't have any that I liked that would work. None with sprayers. But, they were also expecting a shipment in soon. So, we'll be going back to French Harbor this week. In the meantime, we have to turn off the water just so, or it drips.

After Rina

We were very fortunate to have had little damage from Rina's winds and heavy rain. We lost  a lot of leaves and small branches from the Coral trees. We worked on cleaning those up and Don had to shovel some mud back up where it came from. We both noted, again, how bad the earth smells here after a rain. Wonder if that's because Roatan is a volcanic formation? Don also had to clean out some trenches at the base of our retaining wall. Yes, we could have hired someone to do that work, but after sitting around for a few days, Don was glad to have some physical labor to do.

The day after Rina passed by, we had beautiful blue skies and plenty of sunshine. We kept the breeze for another day before it died down to a dead calm. Yesterday was hot, humid and still until late in the day.  Thankfully, the winds returned, cooling us off again and bringing a little rain.

We do have beautiful sunsets here, especially after a storm.

Weathering The Storm

We're very thankful that Hurricane Rina has passed to the north and east of us. Roatan sits at 16.〫N and Rina is already at 17.4〫N. We are, however, getting plenty of wind here on the north side of the island, and we've already had about .7 inches of rain today, plus whatever blew in horizontally and missed the rain gauge. The little hummingbirds are having a tough time hanging on. It feels chilly at 71〫so Don has on his long pants and I'm wearing socks, but it's refreshing.

Too Much Pride?

                                                 This is my pride and joy: Pride of Barbados.

We were surprised at how much the Pride had grown during our 6 month absence. Right before we left in the spring, Don had cut the bush way back. We've been reluctant to trim it again because it is a haven for butterflies and hummingbirds. It does block our view, but only of the opposite hillside. With rainy season upon us, I suppose we'll have to start trimming before the Pride overruns us.

It's another cool (72 degrees), windy, rainy day. I'm watching the rain blow past the windows at 45 degree angles and then horizontally. Don is wearing a long-sleeved shirt (with shorts and barefeet) and we've just finished cups of hot tea. I'm thankful that we don't have to go anywhere today, but tonight is our pizza and card playing night with the Cowans, so we'll be out.

It's not often that it is easier to do something here than in the U.S., but we were able to renew the car registration yesterday in just a couple of minutes. Amazing. We purposely drove to the bank near French Harbor because it is usually less busy and some of the tellers speak English. It's an easy process here: no inspections, no proof of paid personal property tax( they don't even have such a tax), no proof of anything needed and no DMV. I simply handed the bank teller my registration card from 2010 and said I wanted to renew and handed her 1500 lempiras (about $70.) She printed out a new card for 2011, stamped it paid, had me write my cell phone number on her copy, and we were done!

Which reminds me of the fun I had in St. Louis, trying to renew my car registration before we left the country. It's not due until February, but I'm not going to be there then. I read on the DMV website that you can renew up to 6 months early, so I got my car inspected, found my paid personal property tax receipt and went to the DMV. And was turned down. Reason? I didn't have my 2011 paid tax receipt. "How can I have a 2011 receipt? Those bills don't come out until November, and I will already be gone." She shrugged, suggested that I go to the county government office and get a waiver or pay early. So I did. Nope, not possible to pay early; they don't know what the tax rate will be (really? it's only a month away). Waiver? Nope, not eligible. And my inspection certificate is only good for 60 days, despite what the paperwork says (120 days).

This leaves me with only two options: wait until I return next year and pay the fine, or have someone else take care of it for me. We'll try the second option, if I'm really lucky the personal property tax bill will come out early enough for it to get forwarded to California, paid, mailed, stamped paid and returned, and then put in the hands of our friend, Carl, before the car inspection expires at the end of November. Carl won't be able to get the car re-inspected because it is in Alabama. Carl suggested that it might be easier to just sell the car in Alabama. Puedes ser (could be).

So, sometimes life is easier down here.

Brown Bight

What a storm! Roatan has been hit with some kind of tropical storm. Yesterday morning, we woke to hard driving rain (which we knew had begun around midnight). At times the visibility from our deck was 0. At other times the rain was coming in horizontally. Our rain gauge measured 5.25 inches yesterday but probably missed all the horizontal rain. Everything on our big covered deck was drenched. The power was out all over the island. Ours was restored after about 4 hours, others were not so lucky.  No one went to school and many did not go to work. Three cruise ships came to the island and at least a couple of them were able to dock in Coxen Hole. Bob and Debi reported a good day at the Made in Roatan shop as tourists could do little else but shop.
         The above photo is of Gibson Bight as seen from our deck. It is brown due to all the run-off.

We had never seen the brown run-off extend so far out, even past the reef. You can see how the tree in the bottom right is still being blown by gale-force winds. These photos were taken after the rain stopped yesterday. The winds never stopped, and we had an additional half inch of rain last night. Looks like this storm will stick around all week.

We were sitting high and dry. Many people on the island were not so lucky. So many have lost their homes in the mud slides and fierce deluge of water flowing down the steep hills of the colonias. Many roads are closed due to mud slides, making it difficult to reach some of these families. Some homes along the beach have up to 3 feet of water in them. Embankments have given way, washing mud and debris inside buildings, including our church. The Toddler Ministry rooms are covered in mud as is the apartment next door. With the power out, they had no way to pump water and couldn't clean up.

Reports have trickled in from friends around the island. A children's center and some schools have been designated as evacuation centers for those families who have lost their homes. Those who were lucky enough to only have 3 feet of water in their homes have still lost what little they possessed.

The storm has not yet passed. There will be many more stories and much work to be done once it is over with many opportunities to help. Please be praying for these families.