Picture It . . . . Honduras 2001 (Part 2)

As you know, Kim and Jonathan Hall recently moved to Honduras. The Sowers family knows what a huge transition that is. In a show of solidarity, Trish is sharing some of her memories of her family’s early days in Honduras. This is part two of two-parter, in which Trish is reminiscing about learning how to live in the small island town of Savanna Bight. So, picture it… It’s still Honduras, 2001!

Meatless Monday Sounds Pretty Good!

Each of the two grocery stores in Savanna Bight did have frozen food sections--if you count a solitary chest freezer as a frozen food section. The food was tossed in willy-nilly and the shopper got to dig through to see the available frozen meat options. Generally speaking, the options were: whole chickens (possibly including gizzards and feet) or ground beef. The meat was a little expensive, due to transport costs.

For the Sowers family, in 2001, the cheap meat option was fresh fish. People would go out fishing each day, gut it, scale it, and sell it for $1 a pound. The fish came in a wide variety and Trish became well versed in preparing them. She found that bonito fish are best used by boiling them, picking the meat from the bones, and using it like tuna. When it comes to snapper, Trish advocates frying it. And then there’s barracuda…

Trish assured me that barracuda is delicious. There’s just one little problem! Barracuda eat smaller fish. Sometimes smaller fish nibble on coral. Some kinds of coral are poisonous to people. Do you see where this is going? Yes, it is possible to get “barracuda poisoning,” which is painful and potentially dangerous. For that reason, the Sowers family was not inclined to partake of barracuda. The islanders had their own method of dealing with the risks. They put some of the raw barracuda meat on the ground to see if ants ate it. Supposedly, ants won’t eat the poisonous stuff. There was an island joke that you could also give it to someone you don’t like. If that person doesn’t get sick, the barracuda is safe.

Fresh Meat! Get It Before It’s Hot!

There was a thriving door-to-door business. When someone butchered a cow or hog, the owner would load up a wheelbarrow with fresh meat! As Trish said, “It didn’t look like much! It wasn’t exactly on those little styrofoam trays, but you grabbed it!”

Several of the ladies in town operated home baking businesses. The women baked and their children went door-to-door selling. One of the delivery girls was a friend of the Sowers kids. She sold cinnamon buns and a sort of key lime pie. When the girl arrived at the Sowers’ house, she knocked on the front door. If no one answered, she went around to the back and yelled until someone heard. Now, that’s service!

You never knew when salesman might show up, so Trish wasn’t always home when one arrived. She told her kids that if someone came around selling fish, they should always buy some. Sometimes the fish was fresh. Other times, it was frozen. One day, when Trish arrived home from an errand, the kids told her they had purchased five pounds of frozen fish. They had put it in the sink to thaw, so they could eat it for dinner. Trish was thrilled and went to check on the thawing fish. What the kids didn’t know was that they had purchased five pounds of half a giant fish head! It’s not that someone was trying to take advantage of the gringos. Fish head was considered a delicacy by the islanders. It was not considered a delicacy by the Sowerses, so Trish shared their good fortune with a neighbor!

Eat Your Bruised Vegetables!

Once a week, a boat arrived in the main town of Low Cay with a selection of fruits and vegetables. There were no roads in the area, so, on produce day, Trish took a ferry to Low Cay to purchase the week’s fruits and veggies. While there, she could also stop off at one of the better grocery stores. One of the stores even had a real live refrigerator section! It was there that the Sowers family discovered the “worst cheddar cheese that has ever been created”. It looked delicious, but even the cheese-loving Sowers children couldn’t eat the tasteless, rubbery cheese. Once in a while, when they visited the mainland, they would bring back mozzarella to make homemade pizza or lasagna.

The produce from the boat had lived a rough life and the voyage took a toll! When you purchased fresh produce, you would plan on having a salad the first day. You might possibly be able to have a salad on day two. After that, it was cooked veggies. When the produce ran out (or went bad after a few days), it was back to the canned stuff until the next boat got there. Frozen veggies weren’t an option. To this day, a limited variety of frozen fruits and veggies can only be bought in a big city. They aren’t available in Gracias.

A Word to the Hall Family

Hall family, we look forward to hearing about your adventures as you adjust to full-time life in Honduras! May you make so many many wonderful memories that you one day find yourself saying, “Picture it… Honduras 2019!”

 - posted by Christi

Picture It . . . . Honduras, 2001 (Part 1)

Did you ever watch “The Golden Girls”? If so, do you remember how Sophia used to start her reminiscences of the good ol’ days by saying something like, “Picture it… Sicily 1922”? Now, I’m not comparing my dear friend, Trish, to Sophia from “The Golden Girls,” but our latest conversation did sort of smack of something you might expect from someone who wears support hose and uses words like “whippersnappers”. Again, I’m not actually saying those things about Trish. Because if she’s a Golden Girl, I’m a Golden Girl, and we’re just not going down that road. Anyhoo…

As you probably know, Kim and Jonathan Hall moved to Honduras on Dec. 31st. It’s an exciting time and we are enjoying getting to hear about Kim’s experiences as her family adjusts to their new adventure. Hearing Kim’s stories has prompted Trish to reflect on her own early days in Honduras. So, picture it… Honduras 2001.

More Classic TV References

When the Sowers family moved to Honduras, they didn’t start out in Gracias. Instead, their first home was on an island, called Guanaja, in the tiny town of Savannah Bight. Because I’m pretty sure you can never have too many classic TV references in one post, it wasn’t exactly “Fantasy Island”--unless it’s your fantasy to live in a place where grocery shopping is just a step or two above life on the “Little House on the Prairie”. (Classic television count--THREE!)

At least on the prairie, folks grew their own food. In Savannah Bight, almost no food was grown. The food was brought on boats, which would scarcely be worth mentioning if those boats had been equipped with refrigeration! To quote Trish, “The cold foods were a bit suspect.”

Trish went on to describe a little of what she saw and it’s safe to say she is the master of understatements! “The cold foods were a bit suspect” translates to: You might show up to a boat where the deck was covered with blood and previously-frozen chicken carcasses sort of slow roasting in the sun as they awaited delivery to the grocery store freezer. Other details have been omitted to protect the squeamish.

Trish Pasteur

Milk was not transported--which after hearing about the chicken was probably for the best. Milk options in the grocery store were: 1) powdered milk, or 2) that weird, unrefrigerated milk with a crazy long shelf-life. Let it be known that the Sowers children were unimpressed by those options. Fortunately, they discovered a small ranch, outside of town, that had milk cows. Several times a week a boy of about ten would ride a donkey from the ranch to the area where the Sowerses lived. He came bearing repurposed bleach bottles full of milk. Rope was strung through the handles, with a bottle hanging over each side of the donkey. When the unconventional milk man arrived, a family member would take an empty container out to purchase a gallon of milk.

Photo from www.dirt-to-dinner.com

Because they didn’t have a death wish, Trish would then pasteurize the newly purchased, donkey-delivered milk. Apparently pasteurization is more difficult than Louis Pasteur might have led us to believe. Trish was not particularly adept at the process. In case you ever find yourself buying raw milk sold in bleach bottles and delivered by a beast of burden, you might want to brush up on the process. You have two options: 1) Bring the milk to 145 degrees and hold it there for thirty minutes, or 2) bring the milk to 161 degrees and then immediately remove it from heat. As a mother of six, Trish was not fond of the watched pot method. She opted for the higher heat, option 2 method. While she never truly honed her pasteurization skills, she was pretty good at making accidental cottage cheese!

It’s difficult to sum up those early adventures in one blogpost. Stay tuned for more memories from Trish!

 - posted by Christi

An excerpt from my book-to-be

For years, my friends have been suggesting that I write a book, about our family's adventures in Honduras. Recently I've been taking this suggestion a bit more seriously, and I even have some sections of a potential book written in draft form. Here is one such section. I would very much appreciate your honest appraisal . . . What do you think? 

February 2001

“Are you Mr Sowers?” asked the breathless airline employee, who rushed up to us in the main terminal with a worried look on her face. “You and your family need to get back on the plane! It's time to board!”

I hadn't expected to be tracked down in the airport in San Pedro Sula. I thought the plane would simply leave without us, when we didn't return after our layover. We were new to Central America, however, so my expectations were fairly meaningless at that point.

We'd been planning our move to Guanaja, an island off the north coast of Honduras, for months. The most direct travel route involved a flight from Miami to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, followed by a short flight on a smaller plane to the port city of La Ceiba, then a very brief but exciting trip on a very small plane to the airstrip on the island itself, and finally a ride in a small, open motor boat from the air strip to the city of Savannah Bight. Like most missionaries, our budget was very tight. Allen spent time searching for the best ticket prices for our large family, but the expense to fly to the airport in San Pedro Sula was daunting. Allen grew up on the mission field in Southeast Asia, and outside-the-box thinking and problem solving are among his best skills. He decided to check on the prices of airfare to other cities, even those in surrounding countries, thinking that we might save enough money on the flights to make the time and inconvenience of adding a bus trip to our itinerary worthwhile.

He found that San Pedro Sula was one of the more expensive destination cities in the area. The other international airport in Honduras, located in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, wasn't any better. However, flying to the city of San Salvador, in neighboring El Salvador, cost much less. Investigating further, Allen discovered a very reasonable flight to San Salvador that had a several hour layover in . . . San Pedro Sula, Honduras!

Obviously, it occurred to Allen that we could purchase tickets on the flight to San Salvador, and simply not get back on the plane after the layover in San Pedro Sula. He called the airline and asked them about the ramifications of planning our trip in this manner. The answer was encouraging. He was told that all additional legs of our trip which had been reserved would automatically be cancelled, and that our checked luggage would continue on to San Salvador without us – but that was all that would happen.

As a result, we started off for Honduras with our five children, ranging in age from four to thirteen, all carrying the maximum allowance in carry-on luggage (and with no checked bags) . . . headed to a city which was only part-way to our destination, without pre-arranged plans or tickets for the rest of our trip.

A few hours after “missing” our flight to San Salvador, we boarded a plane from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. We arrived too late in the day for additional travel, so we headed to the Hotel Ceiba for the night. I remember that night so well! After a ride in an absolutely antique elevator, we found ourselves in a room which could barely fit our family, with some of the younger ones sleeping on blankets on the floor between the three beds. The bathroom was rudimentary, the bathroom door stuck badly in its frame, the distance between the foot of the bed and the opposite wall of the room was about 20 inches, and the security chain on the entry door was rather insecurely screwed into place. It was obvious that a single hard kick would render our room accessible to any random “bad guys” who might be lurking about seeking to prey on a wide-eyed young gringo family. I didn't voice my fears, preferring the children share Allen's confident outlook on things, but I didn't sleep well that night at all, and I did wonder if we had been wise to choose such a run-down, decrepit-looking hotel. 

In retrospect, I am amused by my initial impression of the Hotel Ceiba. About four years later, Allen spent 5 months working in the US, while I handled the family and ministry obligations in our rustic home on Guanaja without him. Upon his return, Allen recognized that his tired wife urgently needed a bit of R & R, so he sent me off, alone, for a few lovely days of solitude and luxury . . . at that same hotel in La Ceiba where we had spent our first night in Honduras. I reclined blissfully on the lovely crisp sheets, enjoyed cable TV, air conditioning, the soft, bright white towels in the clean, tiled bathroom, the hot showers - and I felt so spoiled!

Apparently, my expectations regarding hotel accommodations had dropped significantly during those intervening years. But - back to the story of our trip . . .

The next morning, Allen called the airport from the hotel, for information regarding flights to Guanaja. He was told that the only flight to the island that day would be boarding in half an hour. We packed in an instant (we had very little luggage with us, after all), and were soon crammed into a small, hatchback taxi – eight of us, including the driver – headed to the airport “in a hurry.” For the record, it might not be best to tell a taxi driver in Honduras that you are in a hurry, unless it is absolutely necessary. None of this would faze us now, but that was our first full day in Honduras as a family, and piling my children into the beat up vehicle, with very little tread on the tires and no seat belts, would probably have been enough to put me on edge, without the dodging about through traffic, the high-speed turns which smashed everyone in the backseat into the doors on either side of the car multiple times, and the sudden swing into the empty far right lane to stop at an intersection, so that the moment the light turned green the driver could hurriedly turn left, across several lanes of traffic, saving us precious moments in our quest to catch that flight!

The plane ride to Guanaja was, in comparison, anticlimactic.

The airstrip on the island, at that time, was paved with a thin layer of asphalt, and marred by many small potholes and ominous looking, long, deep scrape marks. Situated right at sea level, the short strip was flanked by overgrown fields on both sides, had open water at either end, a small mountain rising almost directly beside the airstrip on one side, and, just a short distance away on the other side, another mountain, across a small man-made canal. This combination of sea and mountains creates gusty winds which can make landing on Guanaja exciting and dangerous. On our arrival trip, however, the flight and landing were thankfully without incident.

The airport on the island of Guanaja

We disembarked from the tiny plane, collected our bags as they were pulled out of the cargo hold, and then walked along a narrow dirt path through the high weeds to a largely rotten wooden dock near the airstrip. At the dock Allen hired a motorboat and driver – officially a “water taxi,” though there were no markings to differentiate it from a private vehicle – and we were on the last leg of our journey to the village of Savannah Bight . . . our new home!

We love an "uneventful" trip. This one wasn't.

Hurricane Wilma - a category 5 storm which almost hit the island of Guanaja, off the north coast of Honduras, in 2005. The red circle indicates the location of Guanaja.
I was there!

I just realized that we are about to complete ten years of living and working in Gracias Lempira, Honduras! This got me thinking back to when we moved from the island to the mainland.

It was . . . eventful . . . 

In late 2005, we were in the process of moving our household and ministry from the island of Guanaja, off the north coast of Honduras, to the city of Gracias, deep in the mountains of western Honduras. Allen had traveled to the mainland of Honduras to manage the arrival of a container of donations (our first time shipping an entire container) which was due to arrive shortly. He had to rent a house in Gracias to have a place for the unloading!

Meanwhile, I stayed on the island and packed up all of our household goods, which would be moved by boat. We lived, at that time, on the third story of a wood-framed building, located right on the beach.

During what was to have been our last week on the island, Hurricane Wilma formed, and headed straight toward us. This article states that Hurricane Wilma was the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin!!! I did not know that until just now, LOL.)

The kids and I evacuated to a low concrete motel, which was still under construction at that time, located a few blocks from our home. We were seriously concerned that our house would be blown down, so I didn't feel safe staying there with the children, and without Allen.

The power went out early on as the weather ramped up, so we had no communications, and we were only able to get reports on the progress of the storm by asking the people around us who had special marine radios.

The eye of the storm was headed directly toward our island - which had been hit about ten years before by Hurricane Mitch, another category 5 storm - and the sense of panic was pervasive! At the last minute, the storm made a sudden turn to the north, and the major force of the storm missed the island and hit the Yucatan Peninsula instead.

The photo above shows the storm, and the red circle indicates our location during the storm. As you might imagine, it was a pretty scary time!

The strong sideways winds of the approaching storm pushed the rain between the boards of the wood siding of our house, so lots of things in the house got wet. Once the storm had passed, I had to dry everything out before finishing the packing. I had plenty of time, though, because all of the cargo boats were behind schedule, since they'd had to stay off the sea while the storm was affecting our weather, and our trip to the mainland, on a cargo boat, was delayed for a week.

Allen came back to the island after the storm passed, thinking we would still travel on schedule that weekend and he would handle the loading of our boxes and furniture onto the boat. When he found out about the delay in our departure, he really couldn't hang around on the island for the week (because of the container issues he needed to deal with - and we didn't have phones on the island, so he couldn't do much work from there) . . . anyway, we decided that he would return and continue the work on the mainland, and I would dry out the stuff that had gotten wet and finish packing, then I would oversee the loading of the boat (I had Russell with me, who was about 17 at the time, and another young man (a family friend and intern) who was about 19, so we figured we could handle it.

The departure day came, our goods were loaded without incident, and the only major decision left to be made was whether we would travel on the cargo boat with our stuff, or if we would travel by plane, and meet the boat over on the coast.

It was a beautiful, clear day. I asked friends who had traveled on the cargo ship at other times, about the trip, and they encouraged me to take the boat. They said it was a lovely trip, and so enjoyable! The boat travels through the night . . . and the stars . . . the cool breezes . . . it all sounded enchanting! Since it was also the logistically easier option (Allen wouldn't have to drive to the airport to pick us up, because we would arrive at the dock along with our things), that's the way we decided to go.

We left our village, Savannah Bight, on the Lady Carminda, at around 3 in the afternoon. The boat docked for a number of hours at the main city on the island, before departing around dusk. During those hours, the weather changed . . .

We ended up crossing the sea during Tropical Storm/Hurricane Beta. I'm not sure where it was in its formation, at the date and time we crossed - I knew nothing about it as I was planning the trip! We were, mostly likely, in very little actual danger, but by the end of that horrendous crossing (which normally took about 6 hours, but took us more than 11 hours, because of the rough seas), death looked like a happy release from our suffering.

I have never in my life seen so many people vomit. At no time in my life have I been more grateful to have no sense of smell.

But we made it to the coast intact. Allen picked us up and drove us to the home of our friends Bill and Jessica, who were living in La Ceiba at the time. Some of us crashed in their beds for a few hours of sleep, while Allen and the older kids went back to the dock to unload our furniture and boxes from the ship and load them into a big truck.

When that was completed we all piled into a van, along with our two large dogs, and headed up to Gracias - a drive of about 6 to 8 hours.

I recounted some parts of this story (some bits that were not included here) earlier on this blog, at a time when we were moving between houses within the city of Gracias. Here's a link to that post, "The Last Time I Moved Without My Husband," if you're interested in more of the story - like the part where the islanders had closed their airport, as a protest, by hauling wrecked boats onto the landing strip, when we needed to fly in. LOL

Let's talk about Russell

The shock absorber on my Land Cruiser is broken. Can you fix it before I have to drive to town this afternoon?

I don't understand this note from Ben's school. Would you translate it for me?

What's the Spanish word for "air compressor?"

Is there a place in town where I can buy shoelaces?

Why is the bank closed today? Do you know why there were serenades at dawn this morning?

What's the name of the pastor running the feeding center in El Derumbo? Do we need to purchase more Bibles for the store? What's it going to cost to drive to the airport and back? We need to write an announcement about the Pastor Training Conference, to be read on the radio next week. Oh no - another flat tire. . .

Time for the puppies to get a round of shots. The water pipes on the roof are leaking. The refrigerator is making a funny noise. Someone needs to run a load of trash to the dump. There's a snake in the shower!

The solver of so many of our problems, and the answerer of our questions is named Russell! And this isn't even a new thing - it has been amazingly handy to have Russell around, for such a long time now!

I recall when we lived on Guanaja, and missionary friends of ours had experienced a break-in. To improve security at their home, they wanted to nail some boards up, in a decorative pattern, over an area that had previously only had a screen. This job required the workman to squeeze into a very small space in a gable over their front door. Russell was approximately 11 years old at the time, and already quite proficient with a hammer. Because of his success with this repair project, we took to calling him "The Compact Carpenter."

He's no longer able to fit into such small spaces, but his other abilities - including his total fluency in Spanish and his deep cultural understanding of life in Honduras - have made him invaluable to us. In fact, we find ourselves gradually transitioning toward a future in which Russell will be leading the ministry here, and we'll be helping him!

Thanks Russell, for all you do!!!!!!

And because she is totally part of the team, you should really know that Russell's wife, Iris, handles the day-to-day running of the Bible bookstore, and the regular distribution of food for the feeding centers. Thanks Iris, for all you do, too!!!!!


If you'd be interested in supporting Russell and Iris, in their missionary work, here is the info you need:

To Donate by Mail, send checks to:

The Foundation

PO Box 560233

Orlando, Florida 32856-0233

- Make check payable to "The Foundation" -

- Be sure to write "preferenced for Russell Sowers" on an enclosed paper -

To Donate Online:

     Click on THIS LINK to donate online using credit card, debit card, or automatic monthly donations from your bank account. Make sure that you choose "Missionary Support" from the drop down menu, and type in "Russell Sowers" in the box requesting "additional specifics on how to use the gift."

- If additional instructions or information are needed for donating online, 

please don't hesitate to call The Foundation for Missions, at 407-730-3364.

Another Hondu-versary!

11 years ago, on the last day of February (it was the 28th that year), the Sowers family arrived in Honduras, for what we expected to be a two to three year stay. We spent that first night in the city of La Ceiba, and caught a flight the next morning to our destination - the island of Guanaja. The kids were 13, 11, 9, 6, and 4. Gus turned 7 on our first day on Guanaja.

Obviously, things didn't go exactly as we'd planned: all these years later we're still in Honduras, though no longer on Guanaja. Yesterday I helped Gus sign up for Selective Service, as he's turning 18 tomorrow.

Now four of my children are officially adults, and Allen and I are figuring out what it will look like to grow old and retire in Honduras. We're not done working or raising a family - not by a long shot - but as we set up our lives on our property in the mountains outside the city of Gracias, we're trying to think about longevity, and how to arrange things so that we can continue to live and work here as we become less . . . well, less young. LOL

The last time I moved without my husband . . .

Just for fun, I thought I'd share a chunk of one of our newsletters from about three years ago. This letter related the adventure we had the last time I attempted to move without Allen's help! Hopefully during this move, when we are just moving a few blocks from our current house, we will not encounter anything this exciting!

Thanks so much for your prayers - they were sorely needed these past weeks! Our family is now settling into our new home in Gracias, but getting here has involved an incredible series of trials and adventures!

In mid-September we visited Gracias (after attending the annual missionary conference in the nearby city of Siguatepeque) to locate a house to rent. Although houses which will work for our large family are scarce here, we did find a nice little house on the edge of town. It will be "cozy," but it will work for us as we search for land upon which to build our permanent house.

After locating the house, Trish and the kids were excited to head back to the island, say our goodbyes, and finish our packing. We returned to the coastal city of La Ceiba, from which we fly to the islands. Unknown to us, however, while we were off in the mountains, there had been turmoil on the island. The airlines had raised their prices, so the islanders staged a "strike" (in the states, we would call this a protest), dragging old boats and other debris onto the airstrip to disrupt the airline business, as a show of their displeasure. For a time there were no flights to Guanaja, until the government stepped in to resolve the situation. The resolution kept the higher ticket prices, but decreased the number of flights from about 6 each day to 6 each week! As a result, it became necessary to reserve tickets a week or more in advance. Not knowing this ahead of time, we were stuck waiting a week on the coast before we could actually fly back to the island to pack. Fortunately for us, our good friends the N----s, (from our home church in Maryland) are now living in La Ceiba, and they managed to put us up (or put up with us?) for the week we were stranded in their city.

Finally though, Trish and the kids flew to the island, and began the work of packing our personal belongings, stowing the ministry items, and making the Community Center building secure for the time it will be vacant. The weather had been exceptionally rainy during our month away, and our computer was hesitant to boot up when we returned. We found that if we kept the computer plugged in and powered up, with fans running on it, it would eventually dry out enough to start up. Unfortunately, the power was out a significant amount of that first week, so we had only occasional access to the internet for information and communications. It was during this time that Hurricane Wilma made a sneaky advance upon the island of Guanaja!

Those of you who follow these things may have noticed Wilma; a category 5 storm which was heading directly toward Guanaja, but was predicted to turn north before actually hitting the island. The storm did turn north, but not before coming within 110 miles of us! Trish and the kids evacuated the Community Center building (we were living in the upstairs of this 3 story tall wooden structure right on the beach at this time) for several days, staying in a small cement motel about a block away. After several days of severe wind and continuous rain - and very frequent prayers - the storm passed and the packing was able to continue. Although the house/Community Center was absolutely soaked, remarkably only one packed box got wet - a major blessing!

Because Hurricane Wilma disrupted the boat schedules, we found that we would be delayed an additional week on the island, before we could load our boxes, furniture, and dogs onto the Lady Carminda and send them to La Ceiba. During this final week on the island, unbelievably, we were threatened by yet another storm, Hurricane Beta! Thankfully, this storm didn't come close enough for us to experience much severe weather, but it was close enough to cause us to use some of our time making the "just in case" preparations, and it was certainly close enough to frazzle Trish's already strained nerves just a bit more! For the future, Trish has decided to declare a one hurricane per month limit for herself!

All of this severe weather had further reduced the number of flights to and from the island. As the date neared for the departure of the cargo boat, a decision had to be made - would we go as passengers on the boat, or hope to be able to get a flight? Sigh. Sadly, we chose the boat. At this point, Trish, Russell, Rachel, David, and Josiah (a family friend from Virginia who came down to help us move) were still on the island. Everything seemed fine as we loaded our stuff onto the town truck, had it hauled to the dock (6 truckloads), and wrestled the dogs into their crates.

But the weather turned foul, and our 6 - 8 hour boat trip actually lasted 11 very long and stormy hours! We left the island at 8pm, and sailed overnight. The cargo ship doesn't have berths for passengers, although the crew does pass out mats so people can lie on the floor. With the airline situation restricting travel so much, the boat was amazingly packed with people. As the weather got rougher (and rougher) we each had to make a choice - stay inside where it was stiflingly hot and dry, packed in like sardines and likely to be seasick, or stay on deck, soaked with rain and chilled through, but at least somewhat more likely to refrain from seasickness (or at least, having quick access to the rail, to feed the fishies). Trish and David chose to stay inside, the others stayed out all night. We have delared it a toss-up as to who had it worse . . . outside soaked and freezing, or inside dealing with the stale air and the smell of . . . um . . . the results of seasickness.

So, that's most of the story. We made it to La Ceiba safely. Somehow, in my newsletter, I neglected to relate how absolutely terrifying the trip was. I was sitting in the kitchen of the boat, and every now and then the cabinets would open and pots and pans would shower down, or the refrigerator would suddenly roll across the floor. I was praying continually for hours that our lives would be spared . . . but by the end of the trip I was too numb to care, and I just prayed that one way or another this nightmare would end!

Allen met us at the dock and took over as our stuff was unloaded from the boat and loaded into a big truck for the 6 hour drive up to Gracias. The kids and I crashed at our friends' house for a few hours, getting showers before finally getting some sleep. But by noon, we were in the van and heading on up the road to Gracias.

I'm thinking that our upcoming move ought to be a piece of cake. ;-D

A Historical Survey of Trish's Kitchens in Honduras

I showed a few pictures of my lovely (though small) kitchen in our current rental house to some friends who live in the states, and they commented that my kitchen was much nicer than they'd expected. This got me thinking about all the different kitchens I've had in Honduras. I don't have pictures of all of them (we've lived in 5 different houses in almost 8 years, and we're just about to move to house number 6), but I do have a few examples.

These first two pictures show our second house in Honduras (I don't seem to have any pictures of our first house), back when we lived on the island of Guanaja. It was a tiny house; as you can see, the kitchen, dining room, and living room are all one room. But it was a pretty nice kitchen, in terms of having enough counter space, and having actual, built-in cabinets.




Our final year living on the island, we lived in a building which had been built for a community center. The building had two stories, and the upstairs was intended for future expansion and classrooms. While we lived upstairs, we continued to run youth programs downstairs. Because we knew we'd just be there for a year, we put in the minimum necessities - one full bath, and a kitchen sink. All things considered, we managed to make it pretty comfortable. This was our roughest ever kitchen, but the views out the windows were unbeatable!






I don't have many pictures of our first kitchen in Gracias. It was an interesting kitchen, as it was in a fairly nice house, but it had no storage at all, very little counter space, and not enough floor space for both a refrigerator and stove. There was an island counter, built on top of a solid concrete half-wall (you can see David making cookies on the island), and another bit of counter near the sink (where Boo is making tamales). Fortunately, we still had all of our wire shelving from our previous kitchen, and we were able to make do. The space you can see behind David was really intended to be a dining area. Since we couldn't actually fit the entire family around a table in that space, and we couldn't fit the appliances into the half of the room intended for the kitchen, we just used both parts as the kitchen, and ate while sitting in the living room. We lived in that house for almost one year.




Finally, the pictures below show my current kitchen. Comparatively speaking, it's pretty nice, don't you think? This is also the first house where we've had a separate dining room.





This completes our tour of Trish's kitchens . . . for now. I wonder what the kitchen in house number 6 will look like . . .

Buried Treasure!

A few years ago, when we moved from the island of Guanaja, our computer died. It had loyally served us for several years in a non-computer-friendly climate, weathered a brush with Hurricane Wilma, a very rough ride on a cargo boat during a tropical storm, followed by a truck ride to Gracias . . . and somewhere along the way it gave up.

Because I'm fairly incompetent in all things computer, I didn't have backups for the information on that computer. Most regretted was the loss of many of our pictures from that phase of our lives.

We kept the hard drive from that computer, and on my recent trip to the states, Miguel, husband of my good friend Rose, was able to recover the pictures and documents for me! Here are some of my favorite pictures from that collection, all involving our son David.








Ain't he cute?

Preparing for our Re-entry

Of course, bags are being packed, cars rented, hotel rooms reserved, etc, in anticipation of the big trip half of our family will be making to the US. But there are other preparations we have to make, which you may not be aware of . . . things you wouldn't necessarily think about.

For instance, there is a word we have to remind ourselves not to use in the states. We picked up this word on Guanaja, and it is a perfectly useful word, which we utter regularly in both English and Spanish. The word is 'molest' ('molestar' in Spanish) and it means "to bother or annoy." On Guanaja, in English, this word is used quite frequently, in such applications as:

Woman at the door, wanting to borrow something, says, "Can I molest you for a minute?"

Little girl running from the boy who is teasing her, squeals, "He's molesting me!"

Me, to any of my sons, as they try to pick fights, "Stop molesting your sister!"

You get the idea. We started using the word, with this definition, on the island, and we have continued to use it as part of our English vocabulary in our home. It is, of course, reinforced by our use of the similar, very commonly used Spanish verb. In the states, we have to be very, very careful not to use this word, as we will certainly be misunderstood!

Another re-training involves our use of the bathroom. It is standard practice in Honduras (and most parts of Central America) to place your soiled toilet paper in the trash can, rather than in the toilet. This is because the plumbing here is not quite the same as in the US, and very frequently the toilets will clog when toilet paper is flushed.

In the North American homes we will be visiting, we can expect to find lovely, decorative trash receptacles in the powder rooms, which are NOT intended for holding soiled toilet paper - sometimes they don't even have plastic bag liners, as we ALWAYS have in our bathroom trash cans here. It is extremely hard to break such an ingrained habit as where you put your soiled toilet paper. We just aren't concentrating on cultural differences when using the facilities! So, we are talking about this now, and we will remind each other frequently over the course of our trip.

We don't do this next one frequently, but pointing with our lips is certainly done some of the time here, and it just doesn't work in the US, plus we will look weird doing it there! We also say hello to people we pass on the street here with a quick upward jerk of our chins, which I think, back in the states, would just make us look as if we'd developed a nervous tic! The kids and I will try to remind each other not to use these common signals, as we prepare ourselves for our visit.

This all reminds me of a story I heard, from one of my friends on the Sonlight Forums. It was about a family who worked for many years as missionaries in Africa. When they returned for a furlough to the US, the children were appalled to discover that their clothing was horribly unfashionable, and they were subjected to rude stares whenever they went out in public. Four years later, when they were preparing for another trip to the US, the children asked their grandparents to send them appropriate clothing in advance, so that they would 'fit in' during their visit. The family arrived in the US airport, adorned in their fashionable clothing, and the parents noticed that the family was still the object of much attention and staring as they passed through the crowds. Glancing behind them, the parents saw their fashionably attired children following them in single file, all carrying their suitcases balanced upon their heads!

Guanaja Photo Flashback

A good friend who has participated in several mission trips, both to Guanaja and here to Gracias, sent us these fun pictures. We don't know the exact dates they were taken, but probably it was in the first year or two that we lived on the island. We lived there from February 2001 until November of 2005.


See how hot and sweaty - and sunburned - we look? That's about how we looked, for five solid years. We never did adapt well to the heat on the north coast.

Russell, on the left, is now 18. He was approximately 12 in that picture. Kirstin was 14, and is now 20. Both of them now stand behind me when we line up for pictures! That's Rachel in front, she was about 10 then, and is now 16.

Kirstin just looked over my shoulder at this picture and said, "Wow, that isn't a very flattering photo of any of us!" She's right, but that is just what we looked like. The hair style for the girls was almost always pulled back into a high ponytail, with no layers or bangs to get into your eyes when boating. Wearing long hair down on your neck was too hot to be endured for long, and any kind of styling would just fall apart in the humidity. We all had to learn how to handle our hair all over again, when we moved to the mountains!



Ahhh, there's Boo at the beach. She looks like she's enjoying herself, doesn't she? Boo was only four when we moved to Honduras, so she doesn't remember living in the states. These beach shots always made people raise their eyebrows, when we talked about the hardships of living on the island. ;-D

The Fish Lady

When we lived on Guanaja, we had the opportunity to get to know a lot of 'characters.' The islanders are a lively bunch, and many of them tend to live like the grasshopper in Aesop's fable, playing today without worrying about tomorrow. This is a story of a woman we knew, from our very first year on the island.

At that time, we lived in a one story house, with large glass windows in all of the rooms. There wasn't even a gate on the yard, so people could just wander into our yard, and talk to us through the windows of any room of the house - and they did, all the time. For me, that lack of privacy was perhaps the hardest part of learning to live in Honduras.

The master bedroom was at the front of the house, with a large window facing the street. We slept, of course, with the windows open, as the house would have been like an oven with them shut. Even at night, there was often enough light to look into our windows, and see us in our beds.

One night around midnight, when our household had long since turned out the lights and gone to sleep, there came a knocking on the master bedroom window. It would have been obvious to any casual passerby that the household was asleep for the night. Allen got out of bed and went to talk with our visitor, still groggy from slumber.

At the window was a woman we called "The Fish Lady," because she would go out fishing close to the island in a small dory, and sell the fresh fish around town later that day. Many men did this, but not many women, so she stood out a bit. We had often bought fish from her before, and had on occasion loaned her enough money to buy gas for her boat. She would repay us in fish later in the day. So, she was a nice lady, although we knew she had a reputation for being a partier (which could just mean heavy drinking, or could include cocaine use, since that is readily available on the island).

The Fish Lady explained that she wanted to go out fishing the next morning, and she was asking us to loan her some money for gas. As this was midnight, Allen felt certain that her desire for money was not related to fishing. He hedged, asking her, "Is the gas station open at midnight?"

"Oh no, of course not!" she replied scornfully.

"Well then, why not come back in the morning and ask for the money then?" responded my brilliant (though sleepy) husband.

"Oh no," she cooed, "I wouldn't want to wake you up!"

Guanaja Flashbacks

Several times recently, when we have exchanged stories with new friends, they have mentioned the fact that our life here in Lempira seems tame compared with our 5 years on the island of Guanaja.

So, for fun, I thought I'd start a new category of posts: Guanaja Flashbacks. On a very strict schedule - determined by when I feel like it - I may (or may not) post some stories from our time on Guanaja.

For no particular reason, I was thinking today about the awesome beauty of the island. I love living here in the mountains of Lempira, but I have to admit that I believe Guanaja is the most stunningly beautiful place I will ever live. You'd think being surrounded by such indescribable scenery would bring out the poetic in a person. You might imagine that exotic and romantic names would be given to these intensely beautiful locales. But, you wouldn't actually find that to be true on Guanaja.

A map of Guanaja reads like . . . well, like a map. Most place names are the simplest and most obvious descriptive titles. For instance, there are several bights on the island (a bight is similar to a bay). There is the bight with a lot of mangroves . . . Mangrove Bight. There is the bight with some flat grassy land nearby . . . Savannah Bight. There is the bight on the northeast end of the island . . . Northeast Bight. There is also a bay with a sandy bottom . . . Sandy Bay.

We lived in Savannah Bight. Sometimes we would walk to the east end of the island, where you can visit the tiny village of East End. On the far end of the island, much too far to walk, you can also visit West End.

My personal favorite place name, though, is the name of the piece of flat land located between Savannah Bight and Mangrove Bight, which is used for ranching. Guanaja is a very small, very tall island, with little flat land, so this is a very unusual and valuable property. It is appropriately named . . . Big Flat.

Near Big Flat there is a large hill, with many marble-like rock protrusions. This hill has an ancient and spooky history. Island lore claimed it was a haunted place, and more recently archaeologists have declared that it was a site where Mayans conducted human sacrifices. Given this evocative history, you might expect more in the name than . . . Marble Hill.

Along the reef which surrounds most of the island, there are truly tiny islands, called cays. These are generally just an acre of so of land, owned by one individual. These jewel-like islands are dreamy tropical locations, gorgeous and isolated; white sand, turquoise blue sea, coral, and palm trees. Unbelievable. If any place on the island would inspire poetry, these cays would be the place. With few exceptions these are abruptly named for their owners. Mandy's Cay. Graham's Cay. Jones Cay. Etc. Several of the exceptions are Northeast Cay and Southwest Cay. Sigh.

This naming tendency is even historic. When Christopher Columbus visited Guanaja in 1502, he noted the abundance of tall pine trees growing on the mountains, and he name the island: Island of the Pines.