Hazards.....Hot Springs....and Hospitals!

What a weekend we've just had, oh my!! It's been great but not your run of the mill weekend it has to be said. The up-shot being we are still alive - hurray!! There are times in life when you know God is looking out for you, and this was one! I'll have to tell it in order so it is going to become diary like, try to read through to the end.....
Friday night.....
On Friday, Amanda and I went up to Dave and Esther's to start our house sitting duties (oh so hard!)As we were up at the camp and close to Sue's she invited us to a BBQ she was having with various people. They have had a group of 4 young lads from Chicago here working on the high ropes, so they were there. Along with Megan (new teacher), Jorge (works at camp when not at uni), Juan (camp and studying, the same as Jorge!), Ana (Ken's new PA, great Honduran girl). We had an excellent night full of laughter and humour - and good food! It was a great night - a good start to a relaxing weekend!

Saturday.....
The day started off with a much needed lie in, it is so peaceful up at the camp surrounded by trees and hills. Bliss. My car is doing really well, but the bald tyres at the back were crying out to be changed. So having asked Jorge where the best place for tyres was I set off with Sue (translation and support) to the garage. It was not to be as simple - or as cheap a I had anticipated! So, I wanted the new tyres at the front and the front ones put to the back (aren't you glad you are reading this?!) After discovering it was not that straight forward and the rims needed changing and you couldn't just swap the tyres, a different man came and took my tyres away to change them over. So....our first young man - smiley chap - took one look at my brakes when he took the tyres off and said they were highly dangerous and shold be changed as he couldn't see how they had been working! He took the brake pads off and they were paper thin - literally!! So, somehow I'd been getting around without crashing!! He seemed very surprised I hadn't had an accident?! At that point -and seeing the brake pads -so were Sue and I!!?? Thank you God number 1! So, the nice young man said he could change my brakes for me. Obviously they didn't have them in stock (being a tyre shop) so he got on his bike and went to buy some for me! Smiling goes such a long way here! Keep reading....

This was all taking a while so Sue and I went for a wander along the busy highway. We found some garden nurseries and so went browsing for plants - I do love doing that! When we got back, the brakes were done and the greasy underdog man (a garage is a strange place to watch hierarchy in the workplace) was fixing the last back tyre. So whilst waiting I may have been smiling at the mechanic (couldn't speak to him and didn't want to be rude!) and he became suddenly quite helpful. He looked under the bonnet and started checking everything for me. He looked at the water for the windscreen and saw it was empty, his helpful friend came along and spat in it "it's not empty now!" Nice! Anyway, he went and found water for that, checked power steering fluid etc and then looked at the radiator. How it had not burnt I dont know as there was no water in it! I apparently need to start checking my car every weekend as I forget that being in a hot country things in a hot engine evaporate very quickly. (This is an exciting blog eh?! Just wait..!)So he sorted that for me and then decided to take out the emergency extra water tank for the radiator and clean it before filling it - nice chap! So I was set to go. Slightly poorer but happy! The bushings on my car have gone too (apparently) and so feeling lucky that I was still alive I thanked my mechanical friend, assured him I would get it sorted this week (which I shall by the way dad!)I drove back with Sue feeling very pleased with my new tyres and brakes - feeling the difference immediately.

That evening we met up with Quinton, Jessa and Olivia for dinner in town, it was great to see them and swap stories (the projectile poo being my favourite story to share obviously!) as we haven't seen most of them since before Christmas. An eventful and pleasing day I'd say! (Keep reading if you can..!)

Sunday.....
So...we were going to join Ken and Sue and the teenage lads on a trip to the Hot Springs. Excitement levels were rising as we'd heard so much about it. I was obviously running late to go and pick up Noel and Mark and bring them to Sue's, when Ken called to say he would do it for me (gave me time to get ready!) Amanda had been ill all night from the food we ate and so it worked out perfectly. We went off and got petrol to save time later and as we were at Texaco I asked Amanda if she could look there for a wrench for the tyres in case one should blow, I had bought a jack recently and it just dawned on me I had nothing to actually take the tyres off with. But..there wasn't one there and so we left it at that. Everyone got together and I drove the 4 of us and 'new-girl Megan' in my car and Ken took the landrover with everyone else. I was following behind him for directions. As we started I became suddenly very insistent that we prayed before we travelled for safety and Noel dutifully obliged! So off we went with Ken driving at the speed of light and I was slightly slower to allow my lovely new brakes time to wear in. The road is incredibly windy down the mountain and so you have to be very aware of all the cars randomly overtaking you. So I opted for safety instead of trying to keep up as I would normally have done. As we were driving I started hearing some loud banging noises and the car was becoming very bumpy. Amanda soon heard it and we quickly discussed possiblities. I asked Noel and Mark to look out of their windows at the back to look to see if the tyres had blown. Noel thought the back looked flat and so we pulled over but it was fine so we moved on another hundred yards, but the sound was very loud now and the car very bumpy indeed! This time we stopped and all 5 piled out of the car and called Ken to come back and help! We looked at my smart new front tyres...they were coming off!!! The garage had not put the nuts back on properly - or in fact tightened them at all. We could pull them off with our hands whilst barely turning them! One more sharp corner down the mountain or another hundred yards and both my front tyres would have rolled down the hill in front of me! That prayer definitely worked! Then came the problem of the wrench to tighten them up - I dind't have one (yet had questioned it in the morning!?) So we stood there wondering what to use when a man emerged with a sack ....yes you've guessed it...a sack of wrenches! With 4 different sizes! We were on a highway coming down a mountain, not near a town and there was a random man with a sack of wrenches?!! You have to laugh!! Thank you God number 2...or possibly 3 as we were alive! Ken came and sorted out the tyres for us and then we drove on - he slowed down this time!
Trying to sort the tyres:

The road to the Hot Springs is fantastic - like offroad driving (hence the need for 4WD here!). We got there and it was like a paradise. Remote and untouched. The water bubbles up and you have to go over a rocky path through a steaming hot tunnel/cave to reach the river.





Now, to me it seemed slightly dangerous to go swimming, exploring in the water as you were unaware of where the boiling water was. You could tell most of the time by the steam outlets coming out of the rock or the fact the rocks themselves were blazing hot. But I am assured that upstream it is much safer, by the waterfall etc.
Some pics of the boiling water:

Sue and I stayed and read our books and the others all went rock jumping and exploring behind the waterfalls etc. There were gorgeous pools of warm water around me and so I was happy. The others floated around on the current and we awaited their stories. First being that Megan had been sucked down a small hole at the foot of the waterfall. Amanda is caught on video screaming that Megan had been sucked under. If I could get it on here I would! Luckily Megan got spat back up through a chute and all was ok. Noel, then got sucked into and fell down the waterfall. I was happy to be sat on a warm rock with a warm pool - grateful I was alive after all the antics with the car! Not shaken up at all - purely grateful!





So we had lunch and then Ken, Mark, Megan and Amanda went off to find warmer/hot water to swim in. Let's just say Amanda found it. She was walking in a pool of cold water when it turned into a boiling pool and she put both her feet in it. She did really well as she burnt both her feet with minor 2nd degree burns. She sat with her feet in the cold running water of the river for an hour and then we had to get her back up the rocky bank to the car. Her stubbornness came up trumps as she just walked straight up the mountain, screaming only occasionally, gripping Kens hand. At the car we filled the cool box with water, put her feet in it and we set off to the hospital!
As we went back along the offroad drive the water was splashing everywhere and so Amanda was desperately trying to shove more towels aeround her. At various intervals she stuck both her feet out of the window for the cool passing air!

We all turned up at the hospital where she was cleaned and bandaged by Dr Nazrala - very old, very wonderful, English speaking dr. Excellent sense of humour - you can tell by the picture:

A view on the way home:


What a day! Amanda is doing well and her feet are healing well. My car is going to the garage this week - although the wheels are now sorted!

2 more weeks at Dave and Esthers, what else can the week bring? Hopefully not too much! It is exam week this week, I have managed to get them written and I hope the kids do well.

I just thank God for keeping us all safe. There have been so many opportunites where we should have ended up in a mess or an accident (Amanda aside! I thank God I'm alive!

The joys of living in Honduras!

Well done for reaching the end of this blog - it's an epic - I know I haven't got the stamina to read it back to check it makes sense!!! Please leave me a message if you read it, you don't need an account. I just love reading what people write!

By the way...thanks for the input people gave me on toast racks...the Brit Bashing continues!!!...

And a new term begins....

Well term has started again and I feel like I have been run over by a 10-ton truck - how can I be so tired after 3 days back at school?! Crazy! As much as I loved the holidays I do like being back with the children again. To my huge relief they didn't forget all their English over the holidays and so far this week has gone really well....I hope I'm not speaking too soon! I'm having great fun with the Grade 1's who are just lapping up the English and so somehow every lesson is turned into a game, which I enjoy as much as the kids do - nothing new there!

We have a new teacher who has started here and will be here until June. She is Canadian (yet another!)and will be working with Grades 1-6 doing both booster classes for those who are struggling and extra classes for the able pupils to stretch them. I am really pleased someone is going to come and help my Grade 1's and 2's as I have lots of very special needs in those classes and they just get overlooked in the system here. It is nice to have a new friendly face around too. Poor girl doesn't actually have anywhere to live yet, but she is staying with Ken and Sue in the meantime.

The new (well not so new but reinvented) sport in my house is Brit-bashing! How many ways can I be mocked for being British?! They have endless ways! The latest thing is the Toast Rack. Apparently Canadians have never heard of a toast rack, Megan read about it in a magazine and I am never going to hear the end of it!! Nowt wrong with a toast rack in my opinion!! I can hold my own that is for sure - though it does get very tiring sometimes....does anyone know of an English teacher who would like to come and work here next year? Actually, that's a serious offer, Esther is recruiting teachers for next year and is looking for qualified, Christian teachers. If you know of anyone just let me know!!

Here is a picture of my Grade 2's. We had been doing some work for a school in Canada who had send us a 'Flat Albert'- like a travelling Flat Stanley.....anyway..here is the photo we took:


On Friday Dave and Esther are off on a recruitment trip to Canada - trying to find more teachers for next year. It means that Amanda and I are going to house sit for them for 2 and a half weeks! It's not safe to leave houses empty here and so I am turning into a professional house sitter! As they are up at the camp they need someone with their own transport this time - hurray that's me! It will be good to stay somewhere out of the school for a while - I'm longing for my own house and this is the next best thing!

Well, I need to go and write some exams now - I can't put it off any longer! I hope you have all had a good start to 2008. Please keep in touch!

If you are reading my endless witterings that is my blog, please please do leave a comment, I love reading what people think and seeing who actually reads this. It's amazing how one small comment can cheer you up!

Costa Rica - Bull fights, rainforests, beaches and body surfing!!

Well, on the 27th December Amanda, Mark and myself caught a bus to Tegucigalpa and the airport and our Costa Rican adventure was about to start! What an amazing time I had, a week away from Honduras and life here - a much needed breath of fresh air.

One of the many things that stood out about Costa Rica to me was how developed it was compared to Honduras. The taxis all have meters (instead of bargaining a price) - and you pay for the taxi and split the cost between you instead of paying per person here; the houses all look far more 'modern' than here, the roads are tarmacked and don't have huge potholes in them, the cars all have number plates and aren't falling apart, the people are a different colour...so many things. It showed how very behind Honduras is and how underdeveloped. But...if CR can do it so can Honduras. They have worked out how to develop tourism and how to maximise on it.
I had spent days planning out the trip whilst Amanda spent time with her family and had booked hotels etc. Sue and Ken used to live in CR and so were able to proved us with links to places to stay and people in San Jose - the capital. So we arrived at San Jose airport and there was Romeo the taxi driver waiting for us with a huge sign with my name on it!! I was very excited at this! Ken used to work with a wonderful CR girl called Sillenia and she had arranged for us to be met at the airport and taken to the Guest House she runs. She was hilarious and without thinking we were chatting away to both her and Romeo in Spanish - apparently I can say more than I thought!! Good to know!

That evening the 3 of us ventured out to the town, we were heading to the shopping mall - not something we have in Sigua! There were literally hundreds of people out and it turns out there was a Fiesta in town for Christmas/New Year. It was a giant carnival/funfair/party and so we jumped out of the taxi and went to explore. Low and behold there before us was a long queue and upon enquiring about it we found out there was to be a bull fight!!! Oh yes!! So a bull fight we went to!! At first it was fun and yet as we watched further it became apparent it really is just a 'bloodsport' and they just torment the poor creature. It wasn't a bull fight as we have all seen on TV..one man with a red flag and a bull....no...more like 150 men in a ring with a bull. It was crazy, all these young guys (and yes Mark did join in, but it wasn't exactly dangerous!)jump into the ring and try and get hte bull to chase them and then run away from it or jump out of the ring again. It was quite amusing at times and yes some did fall and get flipped up or rolled over by the bull (and then they get picked up and taken to the Red Cross booth!)But by and large the bulls were very confused by so many people and occasionally just stood there! We stayed a good long while and watched different bulls, bull rodeoing (riding)and different 'games' with the bull. I however, was quite taken by the uniform of the people working at the stadium and quite wanted the t-shirts they were wearing - with Torros and Tico's written on the back (Tico is the name of CR person and torro a bull, and some other Spanish writing I wont bore you with. Anyway, the nice older lady showing us to our seats was wearing a particularly nice red and black ong sleeved shirt and so we sent Mark off to see where we could buy one. Alas ...not for sale. But..I liked it! SO as we were leaving I went to said lady, gave her a hug and a smile and well, she went to someone else, who went ot their boss, who radio miked another person and next thing I know along comes a man with not 1 t-shirt for me but one for all of us. Alas not red but orange...but FREE! Obviously had to hug everyone at that point and he made us put them on there and then! At that point, the crowd all started shouting as they also wanted one and so we left quick smart!! So, although we didn't have a cameras for hte bull fight we did get a free t-shirt! And all for a smile!! You have to love it!!!

SO the next day, Amanda and I went off to Arenal and Mark went to climb a mountain (a 10 hour hike up - no thanks!) We went to Arenal Volcano, one of the 10 active volcanoes in the world. Our hotel had a perfect view, on a hill looking right at the lava side - perfect! Except...it was raining and cloudy the whole time and we saw nothing!! However, we met up with 2 other English girls at our hotel, who were lovely and we all went together to the Hanging Bridges. WoW! These were bridges (they looked like the ones on I'm a Celebrity get me out of here!) and went through the Rainforest. We had a 2 hour walk through the rainforest - in the rain- and crossed bridges that went through and above the rainforest canopy so we could look down upon it all. Truly truly amazing. Everything you expect a rainforest to be and more. The humidity was intense though even in the rain.












After a rainforest tour we caught another bus down to Manuel Antonio. This is a beach where the rainforest (part of the National Park) comes right down to the beach. Wow wow and wow again. What a place! White sand and rainforests! We went for a walk through this rainforest and the heat was intense. Blazing hot day and the humidity of the rainforest combined...wow! We saw monkeys (squirrel and white faced), iguanas, lizards, a raccoon type thing - agouti?, a large rodent type thing with legs - I forget the name, birds, views..WOW! Truly stunning. As we wondered past our hotel down the road a large iguana just crosses our path and as we sat on the beach in front of a large rock a large lizard just lay on the rock basking in the sun just behind us! Sadly for that I didn't have my camera with me. The weather wasn't amazing the whole time, cloudy and then in the evening s it rained. But we still got some colour and were able to swim in the sea - and get stung by a jelly fish?! I even did some body surfing! Have to laugh!

New Year's Eve was quite rainy so Amanda and went out to dinner and then watched movies on Cable TV on our beds! We then fell asleep and missed most things. We woke up to watch some of the fireworks. There were parties on the beach but the weather wasn't great and 2 white girls on their own probs wasn't too safe! Get ready for all these pics!....














Then we were on a bus again back to San Jose. You'd think that going by bus for hours at a time (our shortest bus journey was 4 and a half hours) that I would have seen a lot of the country...I however slept for every journey! Amanda assures me it was beautiful!! Back in San Jose we met up with Mark again and shared stories - and made it to the mall. It was like going to a Shopping Mall in Brighton - better in fact. You'd never think you were in Central America.

Here we are on the plane home (neither plane journeys were full!)


Photo of Honduras through a dirty plane window:


Coming back to Honduras was a shock, realising just how behind our life here is, how 3rd world it really is. Quite a shock. We went straight to Sue and Kens where we stayed for 3 days dog sitting for them whilst they were away. It was great - we had a movie marathon and just stayed and watched films, making the most of their home comforts!
Now, however, I am back at home. Thinking how much of an empty shell our house is - despite fact it is hugely modernised compared to others! Tomorrow, Amanda and I are going to try and make it more homely?! I have been thinking about next year and where on earth I am going to live in this town. I think there is a possibility that I like the sound of. A gringo couple here are building a house next to Ken and Sue's new house but are going to the States for 6 months...and they need a house/dog sitter! Perfect! They think it is great too and so I am hoping it will all work out that I can live there Sept - Jan. We shall see.

I have just come back from town to finish adding photos to this blog and it is now that I am certain I am back in Honduras. Mark, Amanda and I went into town this afternoon to try and find some lamps for our bedrooms and to buy food and as we were driving down a bumpy road in town, an old lady (about 70, who was clearly not compus mentus - is that how you spell it?!) just lifts her dress and poos on the side of the road as we pass. Hiding nothing. Quite a sight really! Yes.... I am most definitely living in Honduras!

So...it is now 2008..I live in Honduras...school starts again on Monday. Let's see what this year is like! I hope you all have a great 2008. I have hundreds (literally) of photos of the rainforest and can't fit them all on here and so I shall have to find a way of putting them somewhere where you can all access them (other than Facebook!). Here is a link to a photo album with some of my pictures in..i hope it works!!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81513&l=1ae87&id=876635272

Christmas in Honduras.

Well, what a wonderful Christmas it was! The school carol concert went very well. Both Grades 1 and 2 excelled themselves and sang beautifully - I was very proud of them all! I was certainly glad when it was all over!
Here are some of my Grade 1's (not a great pic)

and here are the 2's..

Grade 3 (or 4) playing their carols on recorders.


The first day of the hols was great - everyone went away! Amanda went to meet her family on Roatan, Noel was in Canada and Mark went Kayaking down a river in Tela. Which meant I had the house to myself for 3 days - hurray!!! It took a while to get used to the peace and quiet but then I had a perfect few days of recovery from term. We all had space from each other in the house and I was able to get things done and relax. It also forced me to meet up with other friends I maybe don't see as often- Jessa, Deb etc. On the Sunday, Mark returned and we went to stay with Sue and the family for the Christmas period. It was good to be with the kids and be involved in traditional Christmas preparations. On Christmas Eve, the gringo's met up and we had a good Carol sing - I loved it. I was in charge of finding music to sing to and so with the aid of Itunes I found some Karaoke backing tacks - was hilarious! We then played a game with White elephant gift exchange - where the standard of presents was higher than I expected although I came away with placemats - useful I guess!?



Christmas Day came and was lovely. We had a Christmas breakfast and then present time. Sue was amazing - I ended up with lots of presents! She had bought some gorgeous things on her recent trip to Peru and I even got a Terry's Chocolate Orange! Sad to say I almost cried when I saw the chocolate orange as it reminded me of Christmas at home!!I also had some wonderful things Caroline had sent with Pete. Jessa joined us for lunch (a friend who teaches in another Bilingual school just out of town) as her housemates had all left for the holidays, and Dave and Esther joined us too with Dave's parents. We actually had a traditional Christmas lunch in the middle of Honduras?!




In the afternoon Sue had invited all their Honduran friends and neighbours and we saw lots more people. It was great! Boxing Day consisted of lazing around, watching movies and meeting Amanda's family who were visiting!

Then Thursday came and we were off to Costa Rica.....