Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Some of my cooking expierments
So here is the mango cucumber salad/salsa I made, it was pretty good with the enchiladas.
My scones did not come out as well as I wanted but they are still good... and I had to chop the chocolate into chocolate chips...
I think I counted 23 people in the back of the truck but I think there were more...
Some people hike miles to go to church so they all try to get a ride back from Marvin in his little truck. It's crazy how many people fit in his truck...
Church in the jungle mountains
Saturday & Sunday
Saturday Dennis was coming in and I wanted to make sure that Cristina could focus as translator and participant with Dennis and Marvin, so I put my self in charge of cooking/ cleaning.
I actually started Friday night with making chicken stock/ chicken for my meals.
I also thought I would make some sweet breakfast bread forgeting Dennis is not eating bread. ¡Oops!
So I made scones and started making scones and chocolate chip cookies.
Keren one of the local girls who I have worked with came by bus from carizal to visit. She helped me make some pico de gallo.
I made everyone chicken quesadillas for lunch, all the while trying to get everything ready for dinner.
For dinner I made chicken pot pie. And the struggle is real trying to make food you have made tons of times in the US but no measuring cups oh an no internet to find out the different conversions. And things just don't cook like they should, I'm pretty sure they add something to the butter here even if they say it's from cows.
So my biscuits didn't really work well but they tasted fine.
Cristina, Marvin and Dennis were so into thier conversation. Keren, ariselly, and I ate and cleaned up waiting for them. I say and joined the conversation and eventually they looked up and asked how long till dinner and I told them it had been done for a while, I had made appetizers but they had had their conversation in the living room. Oh well snack food for the next couple days.
Sunday
I woke up early still exhausted from all this cooking, made eggs for everybody and started on lunch. I was making enchiladas. But the main problem is that there is no enchilada sauce at the stores, and we checked all of the supermercados. So I was experimenting. I found some chipotle paste and some tomatillo salsa. So I mixed some tomato paste, chipotle paste, chicken stock and some flour. I cooked it for a while and got the correct consistency I wanted. I then did the same with the green sauce just no tomatoe paste. It actually worked out well and everyone loved the enchiladas.
So after all this cooking was time To go to Valle(y) and San Antonio village churches. The drive to Valle was fun cause we were in Dennis's rental car that had great 4wheel drive.
When we got there the children were about to start the Sunday school it was amazing to see how the children take care of their bibles. Many of them had the Bible's wrapped in plastic with very few having them in plastic ziploc.
Marvin continues to feel sick, I keep telling him to rest but he has so much to do with his ministries. But he did find someone to preach for him, Milagros!
Milagros is a boy who has led worship for us over the pat few years and did attend the children's home back in the day. And he will be getting married ina couple of weeks! Well he did a great job preaching! He was very passionate and he preached biblically. He has grown into a great young man!
After Valle we drove to San Antonio for Pastor Carlos' church. Dennis was preaching here and as soon as the rain stopped the bugs came out. When we got there is when Pastor Carlos was installing the lightbulbs, they only install them for services cause there is no on and off switch and they want to preserve the lightbulbs. I happened to be sitting under a light and the bugs flew everywhere! As I continued to kill/ brush off the bugs I kept telling myself that nothing is as bad as the sausage fly incident of '07 in Kenya. But let's just say that there were a lot of dead bugs in my clothing when we got home that night.
Dennis did great preaching about ones calling. They had baby dedications aftwards done by Marvin, and it was great!
Afterwards we said good by to Milagros and gave him a wedding present, my old suitcase and some household items. He said his heart is content. :) i here village weddings are big and I am bummed I am missing it by a week!
Our way back was slow through the mountains with fog/mist and the rental cars lights did not work well. But we got home ok, all of our shoes covered in mud and our clothes in dead bugs.
It was a good long day and as we were sitting around the counter eating the lights went out, so we got to experience some more village life. Life with no electricity. I am so glad my flashlight from last years trip was still in my bag!
Prison and errands
Friday
Today we were a bit lazy getting started. But eventually we got going. Cristina is starting to get sick now. But we trek on...
We headed to the bank and the market to get things before heading to the prison. The heavy rains started while we were at the market so we hung out at the market until the stopped. So this time we went to the prison we wouldn't have to slush through all the water. We had the Bible study at the prison out in their cooking area so only 5 of the ten girls attended but then there were two who were cooking so I hoped that they were listening also. I bought bananas for them all and the were they very appreciative. Unless their family rings them food their rations from the prison is beans and rice and corn for tortillas. The old lenca worman had another huge smile. She is funny but it's always nice seeing the big old smile even in the prison.
Our bible study was interrupted for a guard to put a guy in isolation. Because isolation used to just be by the woman's area but sense they enclosed it more it is in the women's prison area. If the guy want a to go to the bathroom he has to call out to the gaurds to let him out. It's just crazy.
After the prison we headed back to the store and closed up. And on to the next!
The town always seems bigger when when driving and traffic...
Thursday was a slow day. It was one of Cristina's employees day off so she had to be at the store all day. Currently the internet did not work at her house so going to her store did not seem so bad. It just made for a very long day.
After getting breakfast from the market, badeas I'm pretty sure that is not how they are spelled. Badeas are flour tortilla with beans eggs avocado and montaquilla which is a sweet sour cream. They are very good and after we ordered one of the workers had to go buy the avacados because many people do not pay extra for the eggs and avacados normally just beans and cheese.
I was able to communicate with my family and get some posting done.
Cristina's accountant came by and talked with me. He is very talkative but I am also able to understand his accent better than others.
Cristina needed to buy some high blood pressure medications for one of our village pastors, so we hiked down to downtown from her shop at the bus stop, by car it would have taken us 10 ish minutes maybe a bit more for parking and it took us about 8 minutes waking! It always seemed so far with traffic but I definitely have more mud on my clothes but we got down there and back quick so didn't leave ariselly by herself at he store.
When we got back from the pharmacy the nurse ariselly was there. We have worked with her in previous years at her clinic in San Antonio Valle, her clinic was a 2/ 2.5 hour drive from Las Esperanza and always had really muddy roads, sometimes the buses would not be able to handle them. She has now moved to a different clinic that is in need more. We gave her some of our medication that would be expiring and I gave her some medical supplies that my work had donated. She was very excited for the supplies from my work and the medications. I hope we will be able to do another brigade and go to the new village. We like to go wherever the need is the greatest.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Wednesday drive to the mountain!
On Wednesday we drove to a rural school where my friend Keren is now a teacher. It was in the same village as the church we went to on Sunday morning. Marvin is sick so we met up its pastor Edmond and he drove us. While we were driving we passed over a sketchy bridge. I always notice the bridges because I feel like they are going to break under the weight of me and the car/ bus. So when we came to another sketchy bridge I thought it was odd cause I didn't recognize it. And the road became very rough, very unlike it was on Sunday morning. I mentioned to Cristina that roads were very different, she agreed but we kept going thinking we will hit the school eventually, after driving for 30 minutes we should have hit the school but we kept climbing these 4x4 needed roads. And eventually we got signal and got a hold of keren and then we knew we were on the wrong mountain. So down we went then on to the school.
At the school I taught the children about their heart and I had them listen to their hearts with the extra stethoscopes I had. I then taught them about brushing their teeth, hygiene, and hand hygiene. Cristina had Keren translate which I talk a bit fast for her. :) she needs more English practice.
As we head back down the mountain I asked pastor Edmond what kind of things should I prepare the future teams with. He said all of his teams have been perfect... sigh.... but I eventually got some info out of him....
in the late afternoon Cristina and I went to her store. She has two employees Alex and ariselly . Alex helped out at the children's home the past several years so I know him by face and name... especially cause my Spanish is not the greatest. Ariselly is currently living with Cristina and Marvin so I see her everyday. When we got to the store we found out that the cell phones for Tigo had stopped working and the banks all closed early. This made Cristina feel a little better cause she thought her phone was broke.
I told her the same thing happened in the US when the fiber optics were accidentally snipped or stolen... after closing up shop we went by a store to buy more things for her shop. The people in that store are recognizing me now that I have been there every day this week...
It started raining this evening and it is glorious... except for the mud but falling asleep to rain is nice and the animals are a lot quieter when that happens. :)
Prayer: keep praying for health. Marvin is still sick, his mother told him he has dengue fever and I said no. But he is not doing everything I am telling him... a typical guy... I taught Cristina the words "man flu" she thought it was funny... :)
Went to prison again! I think it's the 3rd time...
Last time I visited this prison there was riot after we left. No riots this time but there have been some changes...
Tuesday afternoon we headed to prison the Cristina's biweekly bible study at women's section of the prison.
It started to rain heavily and Cristina says sometimes she waits in her car until the rain stops because it is hard for everyone to hear in the prison during the rain. We are not allowed to take our cell phones into the prison so I will have to explain everything and hope my words can give a good picture. As we walked rapidly from the truck we went to the market to buy the ladies bananas. Hoping the rain would lighten and instead it became heavier. We had to cross six inches of water just to get to the side of the street so my shoes were soaked. When we entered the prison the female guard was a bit unhappy because she would have to let us in. After I surrendered my passport and they searched my bible, we went back out side and around the side. The side entrance to get to women's sections. Since the last time I was there, which has been about 3 years there is a new fence around there kitchen area. Cristina says it was to separate the inmates from the guards as the guards dormitory is there on the left as you walk in. This makes sense because many of us brought up in the brigade we had in 2014 that the guard seemed really sweet on one of the inmates which we thought it was his daughter at first until we learned she was an inmate... lightbulb.... so as they unlock the gate, there three waterfalls from the ceiling, one was planned going straight into their water storage the other two were leaks from the ceiling. Because of these great waterfalls there was about 5 inches of standing water we must cross to get to the room where an old women is greeting us with a huge smile. We cross the water and enter a cell. The cell has two bunk beds and then a slab of wood for the third row of beds. Between the bed and the wall is not enough room for me to walk in straight on, i had to turn sideways and even then my head still hit stuff. I think the most room was in the bathroom. The cell I believe is a 8x8 cell and then a 4x4 bathroom. There was a 6inch tv playing the new jungle book. There are currently 10 female inmates in this cell. The floor in the cell was completely wet from the rain/ I'm sure something leaks, there was only room for one of the immates and Cristina to stand between the beds. The old cheerful lady stood in the door way of the bathroom. We proceeded to have bible study. Most of them participated and a few were able to read the passage from their own bible.
It was very nice and they thanked us several times for coming. One woman in there started crying because she believes she will die there. She has been struggling with diabetes and high blood pressure. She missed her court date because she was in the hospital with high blood sugar. She asked me what she can do because they are not giving her insulin like they were in the hospital. She doesn't have much control of her food she gets but we did go get her some cheese for instead of her plantains. And the Honduran diet is all carbs with a wee bit of beans. So we will RBI g her some stuff on Friday when we go. I told her to drink a lot of water, she says she does but it is from the sink. I told her needs to get excelencias which she says she tries but there is not exactly a lot of space to walk. I told her to go ahead and lift things if she can't walk, she liked that.
Of course when we left the rain had stopped and a lot of the standing water gone. We had to wait a bit for them to let us out, Cristina says that sometimes she waits longer to leave than to get in.
We have not had brigade there since 2014, I hope if we can get a team together do one next year.
Currently Pastor Marvin is sick so please send prayers his way!
Monday = shopping
Today Cristina and I went all over la esperanza shopping for her store and me shopping for things to make on the weekend. Which it is really hard to find enchilada sauce in Honduras or even canned chilies. So I will see how everything tastes on Saturday...all I will say is the amount of vegitables I got for $3 would have cost me $10 in the states. We eat a lot of vegitables here.
We also went to the bank were I could exchange my money. They are sticklers on the bills! They have to be in pristine shape or they get denied. So I exchanged some of my money and noticed that they put the big bank right next to the prison.. coincidence? I think not!
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