Valentines

The first photo was taken on our deck. The second is a view of Half Moon Bay from our table at the Argentinian Grill where we had dinner last night. Great dinner - lobster and filet mignon!! And very reasonable, too. It was a lovely night. After dinner, we strolled on the beach and down through West End before going home. Nice.

Yo quiero una cracker?

We encountered these beautiful parrots at one of the open markets yesterday. This vendor had set up "shop" outside a building along the street and had mostly clothing for sale. We bought red beans here - they were the nicest beans we saw anywhere - for 16 lemp or 80 cents per pound. I loved the second bird with the blue around his head and tips of feathers. He also had some pink/red under his wings and tail feathers. He was a bit more shy than the yellow-naped parrot who climbed onto Debi's hand.

We went to the movie night at church last night and saw Fireproof. Fantastic movie!! I cannot say enough good things about this film. Great action, good acting, wonderful storyline about a firefighter who's marriage is on the rocks, and it delivers a tremendous message of hope. If you have not yet seen it, I encourage you to do so. Even the kids seemed engaged by it.

The church is a good place to take in a movie - they serve free popcorn and punch! They draw a pretty good crowd, too. There were several Spanish-speaking people from the colonia (movie had sub-titles, so if they could read, they were ok), a new mission team who had just arrived, and many of the church regulars attended. Towards the end of the movie, Don was getting bitten on the legs by mosquitoes or something, so the minute the movie was over, he hopped up and said "I'm getting out of here - they're eating me alive!" And he wasn't kidding, he had lots of bites. He said "I hope these aren't the malaria carriers". Yeah, me too. This morning, the bites had nearly all disappeared!

I'm so happy to report that my sis is back home and doing well following her cardiac cath and stent placements on Thurs. Thank you all for your prayers on her behalf.

Market Day

The narrow "street" through the market

Traffic jam on that narrow street

After the jam cleared

Debi buying 8 oranges for 10 lemp (50 cents!)

One of the meat shops in the market

One of the nicer vegetable vendors in the market

I was sitting on the deck this morning, checking e-mail, enjoying the delightful breeze, when my new friend, Debi, stopped by to see if I wanted to go explore the markets in Coxen Hole with her. Yes!! I was ready in a flash. She drove - brave woman. Traffic was quite heavy on Thicket, the road entering the Hole and when we got to Main St., we saw the problem - Main was blocked off for some reason and everyone had to turn right. We soon learned that they were setting up for a carnival for tonight. We parked along the street and walked back, stopping to talk to people along the way, like the fish vendors.

The top picture show the narrow alley-way type of road that runs through the market. The cars were so backed up because that was also blocked off at Main. Some of them finally backed up - not an easy feat. Some of them must have eased out behind the barracade because the street finally became relatively empty (photo 3).

We popped into the little shops lining the street, just to see what they sold. The very first shop we entered sells fabric! Just what I had been wondering about. They sell all sorts of sewing notions. Good to know. I need to make a dust ruffle for the guest room bed.

The next shop carried an eclectic assortment of things from nail polish, curly lightbulbs, hair scrunchies, to heavy pad locks.

At the end of the block, we entered a big building - the Mercado Municipale, kind of like a Soulard Market for you St. Louis readers. Lots of little shops and stalls inside selling clothing, shoes, toiletries, and mainly, fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. The fourth photo is Debi buying her bargain oranges. There were 3 meat vendors, like the one in the 5th photo. They have more meat in the freezers behind this man. Sometimes, they'll have a side of beef hanging from a hook in front of these stands. This man was shooing away the flies (not too many!). His meat looked more thawed out than the vendor next to him. Good prices: 35 lemp per pound for T-bone or rib eye steaks ($1.50!!) We are both slightly apprehensive about buying here, although many gringos swear it is excellent meat.

The last photo is another vegetable vendor section and they had really nice looking produce and great prices. I bought broccoli, cabbage, jalapenos, peanuts, corn, cucumber, green tomatoes, mangos for about 100 lemp or $5.00! Out on the street, I bought 2 pounds of fresh jumbo shrimp for $9.00 and 4 pounds of red beans for less than $3.40.

Good shopping!

Driving to French Harbor

The road to French Harbor

Roadside markets in Mt. Pleasant

Street scene in Mt. Pleasant

Pulperia (market) in Mt. Pleasant

Walking along the road in Mt. Pleasant - corrugated wall around construction site of new mall - yes, mall!

These are not the greatest photos; they were taken from the car as we drove to French Harbor yesterday. Thought you might enjoy seeing some of the sights along the way.

Our trip was only partially successful. We stopped at the bank in Coxen Hole where I (proudly) withdrew money from our account. I was all ready with the Spanish lingo and then got a teller who spoke good English. Oh well. I was ready. Lots of traffic on the road - very large cruise ship in port.

The main purpose of our trip to French Harbor was to see our insurance agent to renew our car insurance. Well, it turns out that we have been uninsured all this time, unbeknownst to us. Arlie sent us an e-mail way back in September saying that the company needed more information on how the car came to be in Roatan. We never got that e-mail. Don noticed that they had sent it to the wrong address - had put an "s" in place of a "5". Now we must go back to Dennis, from whom we bought the car, and see if he has any other paperwork from his purchase of the Rav4. If we can't find out when and how the car came to the island (a requirement because apparently a number of stolen cars wind up being sold on the island), then Arlie will apply to another company for us. So we must drive carefully, and trust me, we do, all the time!

From Arlie's office we went to Eldon's to grocery shop and found almost everything on my list!! Wow! Even good salad dressing that had not passed the expiration date. Woo hoo. And soft margarine - lots of it. Amazing.

It really got warm yesterday and was very, very sunny. We drove down to West End to have a late lunch after all that running around, only to find a lot of cruise ship passengers there. More than I have ever seen in West End. And a lot of them were eating lunch - everywhere we went. What's up with that? Bad food on the cruise ship? Usually, they just wander around, checking out souvenirs, having a cold drink or ice cream, spending time on the beach. And service is always slow around here anyway, even without the place being busy. We finally gave up and came home to have lunch. I was getting too hungry, too hot, and too cranky (low blood sugar) to be patient.

Then we had our Spanish lessons with Leonor. She is very good. For homework, we each had to write out 5 phrases in English to learn in Spanish. She took 2 of the submissions, Don's and Snider's, and wrote each phrase on the board, one at a time, in Spanish. We had to write it, repeat it back to her, one at a time, then say it to each other, going around the table. She did this with each phrase and sometimes gave us alternate ways to say the same thing, and the correct way to answer. Very helpful. And we had to practice rolling those darn "r"s. I am not an auditory learner, so I really appreciate that she incorporates so many methods.

Merlin came down just before dark, bringing us a big slice of coconut bread and a big piece of yucca cake that she had baked that day. Muy delicioso!! The yucca cake reminds me of bread pudding, very moist and yummy. And the coconut bread was just fabulous. Don told me to go learn how she makes them (don't think she ever uses a recipe).

Anxiously (no, not anxiously - Phil. 4:6-7, be not anxious...), prayerfully awaiting the results of my sister's cardiac cath this morning. Say a prayer for her.

Double Wow!

This morning, after the rain, we were treated to an amazing full double rainbow - very vivid. It was so huge that I couldn't capture all of it in one shot, but thanks to the panoramic software that came with my new camera, I was able to stitch the bottom two photos into the one you see at the top! Pretty cool, huh? And if you double click on the photo, you'll be able to see a full screen shot.

This was also a very long-lasting rainbow. We noticed it just as I was finishing cooking our banana pancakes. I paused long enough to snap a few photos, then we came in and ate, cleared the table and parts of the rainbow were still visible! Incredible.

The rain has stopped, so I'm inspired to get some laundry done and hung up before we go to Debi and Bob's for lunch and cribbage lessons. I'm telling you, this retired life is rough...

We have a new Spanish teacher, Elinor, or Leonor in Spanish. She is the first grade teacher at the Sandy Bay Alternative School where we've been meeting at the end of the school day. She is replacing Esmerelda who had her plate too full to continue with us. We like Elinor. She is a native Honduran, grew up on the mainland and came to the island at age 5. She really worked us and gave us 9 personal information type questions to practice as homework, plus we are to write down 5 English phrases we want to learn in Spanish. Lots of class interaction. In 2 weeks, we will have an exam on all these questions - an oral exam. She is taking us to visit her mother who only speaks Spanish and we each have to ask her mother these questions! Now that's a practical exam. We are all much more serious about doing homework...

Subtle

Last night's sunset was rather subtle. Didn't think we would have one - the clouds had been pretty thick all day, we'd had almost 1/2 inch of rain, but late in the day, the clouds thought about breaking up, as in the top photo, showing a bit of blue sky, then decided against it. Then, just before sunset, this one little window opened up, in one spot only, along the horizon. It was very clear in that one place, clear enough for us to see Utila (11 miles away) through the trees (second photo), and gave us this subtle little sunset. Nothing splashy - just a bit of color in an otherwise gray sky.

We were blessed last night to be able to commune with our Life group back in St. Louis via Skype. We've been wanting to do this for ages, but something always upset those plans. We were ready, just in case, with a bit of bread (actually a cracker) and a little wine, and had the computer on and connected to Skype. We were so excited when the Deatons called and to be able to see our group gathered together at the Deatons house, even if the images did jump around a bit and freeze up from time to time. Our elder, Jim Zeller, had a prayer and then we communed together. We loved being able to actually see everyone - Randy and Margaret; Jim and Kathy; Gary and Carol, Carla, Gail! We love you all and miss you.

Perfect Muffins!

It was a cool, rainy morning and I had a hankering for oatmeal muffins. Seemed like a good time to fire up the new oven and test it out. Now that I understand the strange numbering system on the control knob, it is easier to shoot for a certain temperature. I overshot 400 degrees just a bit, backed it off a little and it was just right. I marked that position on the knob with a dot from the Sharpie marker. The muffins came out just right - no burned bottoms! I noticed another strange feature of all ovens sold here - just one oven shelf. We don't think anyone bakes much on this island - too hot much of the time, so I guess one shelf is sufficient.

The rain stopped just in time for us to go to church. Always nice. We were very sorry to hear that our preacher here at Son Rise, Chuck Laird, is very ill with both malaria and dengue fever. He could use all our prayers for a speedy and complete recovery. Fortunately, there are other preachers in our congregation, one recently retired, one former preacher who's now doing missionary work, and perhaps others, who can cover for him until he's well.

I suppose with all this rain, the mosquitoes are worse than usual. We really don't see many up on our hill - too windy most of the time. But this should be a wake-up call for us, don't get too lax about using insect repellent when out and about. We have noticed that there is frequently standing water around the church grounds and it is very near the beach, too.

After church, we went to Que Tal for lunch with Colin and Kellie - Kellie's idea. She wanted curry soup, but they didn't have any today, however, the black bean/jalapeno soup was very good. So was the spicy chicken wrap. Afterwards, we all went for a walk on the beach behind Lawson's Rock (a beautiful, swanky condo/villa development where Que Tal is also located). I was wishing I had brought my camera, even though it is a gray, cloudy day. There are lots of neat flat rocks along the beach and lots of tiny hermit crabs and other little creatures get washed up on and around the rocks. Makes for a fascinating walk. I know that when the sun is out, this is a very beautiful spot. I'll have to come back with the camera.