A Week in Pictures

Sunday is our beach day with friends. We had a norther preparing to move in, so the sea was quite rough with 3-4 foot waves. No snorkeling, but we did get in the water and I got a few mouthfuls of salt water (and a bit of a sunburn).

The winds continued to pick up with great gusts and lots of rain on Monday and Tuesday, and then this magnificent double rainbow appeared. We could even see the purple stripe of the lower rainbow. I showed this photo to the women at the Spanish ladies Bible class and I learned that in Spanish, rainbow is arco iris.

The rain let up enough to allow me to go to both the bible study and the monthly ladies luncheon without getting wet. This is the view from the restaurant in Gravel Bay. The tide was very low, so you can see lots of turtle grass. Off in the distance you can see a cruise ship docked at the Port of Roatan in Coxen Hole. (click on the photos to see more detail.)

The restaurant, Port Side, is in this house perched up on top of this enormous rock. They actually cut a walkway through the rock to reach the stairway up to the restaurant. The monthly luncheons are growing in popularity. We had 32 women there (all the restaurant could accommodate) and 18 more who wanted to come. Good food and conversation. That's my friend, Debbie Lybrand, in the above photo.

Lots of rain brings lots of flowers and plant growth. Our assorted palm trees are shooting up! (Do click on this collage to enlarge it.)

Don and I tutored on Monday without Susan, and the kids were really wound up! They just wanted to get out and play soccer but it was pouring down rain so they played on the very wide deck of the mission inn (where our classroom is). Made it pretty noisy for Don who by then was helping Juan with physics.  I helped again on Friday and the kids were much calmer. They were all eager to share how well they were doing in school.  

 Susan and Tia started a teen girls' group at church recently. Today was my first time to help out. There were 16 girls. Susan's sister, Lynn, who is a nurse, brought a team down consisting of several nurses, a pharmacist, and chef who is training to be a nutritionist. They gave a presentation on nutrition, the importance of eating right and handed out these food charts to instruct the girls in a healthy diet. They were encouraging them to eat more fruits and vegetables. Good advice, but for many of these girls, they eat what their family can provide, usually rice and beans and not many veggies. Alvin did warn them about how bad it is to eat a lot of junk food and drink Coke (which they all love). Leidy looks up at me, grinning, and pointing to her thermos bottle, says "I have Coke!".

The nurses talked about the importance of frequent hand washing and demonstrated the proper technique which included singing the "happy birthday" song while washing. The length of the song is the length of time that should be spent washing. The girls thought that was pretty funny.

Tanya and Julisa are busy chopping zucchini. Chef Alvin invited the girls to come help chop up a variety of veggies and mangoes for a big salad. They enjoyed that.

Then they were invited to eat the fruits of their labor. Leidy has just stacked her tortilla with a spread of beans, chopped veggies and mangoes and is now getting some almonds sprinkled on top.

Most of the girls really liked this, but some of them didn't care for the almonds.

The team also passed trays of other cut up veggies for them to try. Most of them did not know what cauliflower or broccoli was and most didn't much like them either. They loved the carrots and cucumbers. I thought they would like the sweet red peppers, but Leidy and Greicy sure didn't. They also had little tuna salad sandwiches, and no one went home hungry, in fact, many of them took home some leftovers. 

The team is going to present this same information to the Spanish ladies Bible class on Tuesday. They haven't decided if they will do the meal again.