3 weeks!

It’s our 3 week anniversary (but who’s counting?)! It does feel significant that we have been on a remote island that is extremely different than our home, for almost a month.

I start work next week and I am actually looking forward to it; plus a bit nervous. I still really have no idea what I am teaching and there has been very little contact from the school.

Lucia has been sick for the past 2 days with an ear infection and stomach pains. We took her to a clinic today that is part of a diving center and they saw us in 20 minutes and were able to give us an antibiotic, all for a price of $50 dollars. Lucia started feeling better yesterday but her ear has been in a lot of pain for 2-3 days.

We decided not to take a trip to Copan on the main land of Honduras. It would have been an 8 hour travel day and seemed too much to do. So, we will end our summer vacation (mine anyway) doing tourist things around the island: an adventure park with zip-lines and animals, a trip to the iguana farm, and if Lucia feels up for it, a snorkel tour around the island on a boat.

We miss home and our friends and family, though our new life here is starting to feel more and more like home.

Love,

Dan

Friends and Fish

July 25, 2013

Dan: Marino has made a friend with a local boy across the road! Ozni, is the grandson of Marcel. Marcel is Marino’s 5am fishing partner. It has been really wonderful to watch the 2 together and these type of relationships are one of the many reasons why we moved abroad. I’m not sure of Ozni’s financial status but it is certainly lower that ours. He lives with several cousins, a couple of uncles, Marcel and his Mom.

     Marino and Ozni have had a couple of full days playing together and Ozni now comes over to our house everyday after school. They have spent many hours hunting crabs and fishing, and Ozni has now been introduced to the land of Lego’s.  They have also played card games together which seems like a real novelty and joy to Ozni.

     Today it was his birthday and Marino wrapped up a stack of his Lego “Ninja” cards as well as a fishing hook. Ozni said it was the only present he got except for something from his Mom.

     Their relationship is bringing up all sorts of cultural things that are giving us a lot to talk about with Marino and Lucia. “Ozni doesn’t have very much but he sure seems happy.” The very first day Marino wanted to stay with Ozni at his house while we went out to do something. I had no good answer why he couldn’t other than one of us needed to go to his house first before that happened (we still have not made it to his house). I would imagine that it would be bringing questions up at Ozni’s house also: “why are the kids brown and the parents gringo’s?”

     Most importantly, it has been wonderful seeing Marino have a friend. When they are together it hard to tell which is the local boy and which is not. For the past 3 days Marino has made sure that we are home at 4:30pm to meet Ozni. 

                                       Marino caught his first fish!! It was a yellow snapper.

Crazy pictures

Marino: Hi guys I just wanted to send some pictures. 

Rainy day and pictures of our new "home"

Kim:

Rainy afternoon. It was a surprise to us, that during the dry season it doesn’t rain that much. We had maybe a whole week without rain and then 2 downpours today. No way to tell by looking at the weather either, all the days look the same! Just got to live it – what a motto right?

Things have improved, even though there are still tears about missing home and schemes to go live with grandparents.  Lucia had a playmate this week who leaves day after tomorrow and Marino is playing with the grandson of his fishing buddy, a local boy named Ozney (sp?) who is also 10 years old. A big relief for the kids to not have A#1 playmate be the parents (we get so boring!).                 

Dan has a stomach thing now and Marino got stung by an unknown thing in the ocean, so they are both napping. Lucia is reading in the hammock on our covered porch with our “adopted” dog Lassie at her feet. I am “blogging” – ha! I wanted to share some pics of the beautiful and amazing place we are staying in - our house and surroundings. 

We see sea turtles almost every day snorkeling and are still gathering mangos from right in front of our house. The bugs have not ceased, but our reactions seem to be calming down. Life is better at the beach! Early bedtimes for all and up with the sun between 5-6am. Dan still has 2 weeks until school starts and I’ll start my work when the kids start school. Next week we will be starting to volunteer to read to kids in a public school here once a week in English and we have plans to visit the butterfly garden too.

We love comments! Yes you!                                                                

Lucia and the bats

Lucia: Today I made a new friend. She is very nice. I went out to dinner with her family at a restaurant right next to us.

           

We went on an old boat that had a rope swing. It was very, very fun!       

There are 7 fruit bats right outside our door.  Ciao ciao.

Life is BETTER at the beach

Marino: This is the worse mosquito bite I got. My eye got swollen after it happened. I could not see very well. The mosquito bites and no-see-ums are not as bad.

I like fishing in the morning. I almost caught 1 fish today. I am fishing with string tied to a bottle with a weight and a hook on it.  I also use a lure. For bait I use crab and fish. I get it from a man called Marcell. He is an older man from Honduras. He is a fisherman. I bring him a mango everyday in return for the bait.   

Kim: After looking at all the available places to live (in our price range and region), we have decided to stay in the same area we started in, but have moved to a different cabana. Lucia calls it our cabin. So we still have the beach and snorkeling and a pool, but are farther from the school than we had wanted. We do have 2 bedrooms and a loft area – very simple but so much nicer and more spacious than most of the locals live. It feels like Gilligan’s Island to me – with the different personalities represented, although we also have a rotation of tourists coming and going.

We have all calmed down a bit with more space and a nicer, cleaner place. The bugs are still biting, but our reactions are not as big (emotional and physical!). We are trying all available resources to repel the bugs (since many of you have asked!): B vitamins, garlic, sprays (homemade and otherwise), long clothes, fans, nets, and oil. Who knows what combination is working!

Today off our dock, we saw giant sea turtles feeding on the turtle grass and swimming. They are massive creatures that are so graceful and fast in the water. The boys like to scare them (ie try to swim to them) and I prefer to observe. We also saw a very large Moray Eel under a coral head trying to catch a fish. The sea life is amazing and I hope we continue to swim everyday. Marino and I swam with a school of about 200 blue fish for about 15 minutes last week which was magical.

The locals are friendly, the food plentiful but other than the fruit a bit dull, and the scenery and ocean incredible. We will adjust. Another family we met at Sundancer planned on coming for a month and then moving here, but they told us they were leaving early. Marino said “They would have gotten used to it if they had just stayed longer, like us!” From the mouth of babes. Breathe in, breathe out.

First Pictures

                                                    Houston Airport                                                          

                                                            Best and only friends...at the moment

                                                          Fishing from our dock on the 2nd day

                             What else does a girl do at a Caribbean island other than get her hair braided!
                       

                                                               

                                                        Snorkeling at West Bay. We had a vacation day today and hung out at one of the resorts with white sand, beach chairs, and a pool that we "used. Good food and all day and it ended with seeing crab races and fire jugglers at dusk.

Lucia

We enjoy eating mangos almost every day. There is a mango tree right next to our cabin. We like to go out and collect mangos then we peel them and eat them. I love living on a tropical island. I miss you all.            

We are Here, We are Here, We are Here (from Horton Hears a Who)

Lucia: Today we did our first snorkeling in the ocean with our full gear. (including fins)

It was fun. The other day we went swimming over coral reef with goggles. The coral reef was awesome!!!! It looked like tons of towns of fish.

     The bugs are a pain but I am still having fun. I miss all of you a lot. I hope you have a good time. Bye bye

Kim: Wow, today was the first day that was not really hard for our family. I think we were suffering from severe culture shock. Heat, humidity, numerous bug bites (mostly no see ‘ums), and missing the comforts of home. Spending a year in a place and not just a week or two had us all sort of panicked. “I can’t live here” was a constant refrain.

After one day of taking collectivo taxis and buses to get phones and internet service, we treated ourselves and rented a car for the week. Sort of essential we then realized to rent a place to live for the year! Lots of fighting kids while drove our air conditioned car to a wide variety of beach shacks, beautiful hill top homes, sterile cement apartments, houses on stilts and more. Hard to be having such a challenging time in such a beautiful place. We are staying now at Sundancer in a cabin that is more rustic than we had hoped for but it does have a pool and a short walk to a beach with a pier. We may rent a place here.

We have swum in the ocean and pool everyday. There is a reef right out from our place and abundant colorful fish are easy to see. Lots of sea grass, so there is no sandy bottom and we mainly enter the water from the dock. The kids are amazing in the water (thanks Ellen!) and have adapted to wearing snorkel gear very well. We are excited about snorkeling in the morning out to a place we have heard there are sea turtles! 

Dan: Kim has said it all above. I was one of the main culprits saying, “I can’t live here”. We arrived pretty emotionally exhausted and I think the idea that everything we were seeing and doing was for a year made things over-whelming. It feels like we have rounded one of many corners.

Tomorrow we hope to go swim to the reef off our dock and see turtles. A couple that we have seen regularly told us they have seen them every morning.

We got Marino some fishing gear and met a local man on the dock that gave him some bait and tips. Marino may go out and fish with him on his own tomorrow morning. This has helped Marino’s emotional state a lot!

When in doubt or when things get hard, go to the beach!

Pictures will follow.

5 days and counting!

Emotions are running high here at casa de luna rosa as we enter the final week! We are alternately excited, terrified, nervous, ecstatic, and tired. Marino and Lucia are doing just great given how unknown this all is. The final round of packing starts soon. Whew, here we go!
Kim