Next Trip to Montana Verde

These fotos are from our latest trip to Montana verde.
In this one we happy we still thought horses were going to come
to give us a ride up the mountain. (they didn't come) We walked
up the mountain 12-15 kilometers with equipment. Sad day.



Our difficult walk made this girl sad.



But coffee makes Kalin happy.


This is Justin and his family. He lives at about 2000 meters above sea level.
His house is too high to be included with the rest of the town to get water. But
he has been one of the most helpful people during the studies.

Honduran Wedding

So we got the chance to go to a wedding a couple of weeks ago. The girl who go married is Kalin's name twin, Kelin, pronounced the same here. She is the sister in law of my counterpart. The wedding was interesting- two guys from the municipalidad came and read the laws regarding marriage as they signed their papers as they sat at the dinner table. Her father did escort her into the room and and had some words for his new son-in-law. So we ate good food, had good cake and there was dancing too. It was good time

More from green mountain!

This is Anita, cooking for us at night by firelight.

This is the kitchen of a lady named Mariana. She lives in the 2nd to highest house in the community, so we're going to be putting the tank near her house.

A little critter a honduran man caught.

This is the lady's house that was carrying the firewood.

Sights from the campo

These guys are moliendo (grinding?) sugar cane to get the juice out. The oxen turn the wooden thingy and the man in the middle sticks the cane in, and you can see the juice coming out. They later boil the juice all day, and then it solidifies into what they call, dulce. This is pure brown sugar. It's pretty yummy in coffee.

I'm crossing a deep river on the horsey in the rain!

Ana and her friend are carrying firewood to the house to cook for us.

This is Julia. She told me she was ugly when I asked her if I could take a picture with her, but look how cute she is!!

Montaña Verde

So Bert and I have been working on a pretty cool project lately in a pretty poor and inaccessible village. To get there, we drive for 1 and a half hours on a dirt road, and then continue on horseback for three hours. There isn't electricity, water, or letrines of any sort here. So we have quite an experience. While we're there, they cook us food and we stayed in Ana's house. She is a 28 year old single woman who still lives with her parents, but has her own house. Her dad is a pastor at the evangelical church. This is her house. The door on the left is the kitchen and the door on the right is the bedroom. We shared a twin sized bed to sleep on, but it was ok cause it was really cold.

This is where the community will get their water from. These guys are the guys that helped us on our survey.

Bert's first horse back ride!!

Anita's kitchen. On the right hand side of the picture is the stove they cook on. Its a firewood stove. In the middle of the picture on the table there is a rock on top of a stone. She uses that to crush her beans with. She sewed the clothes she's wearing.

Highlights since last time

Wednesday morning I arise and get dressed. I take my shirt off the hanger, put it on. Ow somethings poking me... Try to get it out, OW hurting worse! OW it stung my finger!! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF! AHHH HUGE SCORPION FELL OUT OF MY SHIRT!!! OH my gosh are scorpions poisonous in Honduras?? Quick, take picture before it gets away so doctors know what kind of anti venom to use. CAN´T die alone!! Crap, no minutes on my phone. Can´t confirm scorpions aren´t poisonous. Getting shakey, its the poison. Must find Honduran before I die so they can take me to the dr. THE SCORPIONS STILL ALIVE!! KILL IT WITH THE SHOE!! Take a picture of dead scorpion. Go to neighbors crying. PHEW scorpions aren´t poisonous here. Stop crying. Neighbor gets me some cream, calls the doctor, and tells me to get vinadril. (She writes it down for me so I can take it to the pharmacy, benadryl). Death avoided. Thanks sweet neighbor.

Yesterday: My civil liberties have been restored! I now have again my freedom of movement, I can´t get arrested and detained indefinitely for no reason, and I can now meet in groups of 20 or more without a permit! PARTY TIME!

I've got to see toucans every day this week! They make me so happy!!

I visited a village that´s been having trouble with their five year old water system. They´re only getting water one day a week!

I finished design number 2!


Before

After

On top of the tank!

TOUCAN!!

Honduran Politics

So Monday the Previous/Ousted President mysteriously appeared in the capital city and has taken refuge in the Brazilian Embassy. This caused a nationwide curfew for all day tuesday and yesterday night. Currently the curfew has been lifted as their are various marches and demonstrations in Tegucigalpa. However, everything is calm and safe in our sleepy little town.

We will keep you up to date if any thing extra ordinary happens

Beto

Life in the Campo

So Last week Kalin and I spent two nights and three days out in a village doing

a topostudy. The "aldea" consisted of 49 houses that had no potable water system.

Some house had rigged hoses from nearby creeks to provide water other houses

had no water at all. They also had no electricity. The first night

was the night of the Honduran-Mexico (que barbaridad) soccer game which we were able to

watch on a 9 inch black and white tv powered by a car battery. The pictures show

the house we stayed in, and some of the family- they were great and super

gracious providing us with delicious food - homemade tortilllas from corn

grown nearby that they grind up, beans grown nearby, coffee grown there, and

a homemade cheese. They treated us like Kings even making us their special

chicken soup. I got the chance to play soccer with them- they play everyday

for an hour and half. Kalin returned one more day and finished the entire study

in four days, she is currently working on the design.

Beto

70's Ropa Americana Party!

These are our costumes...

This is our super awesome site mate, Anna. She is a health volunteer, and she likes playing dutch blitz with us (aka NERTS!).

HUGE FURRY SPIDER OUTSIDE OF OUR ROOM!!

I think we named this one humming bird/crab falls.

More Celaque!

CELAQUE!

So we finally climbed the highest mountain in Honduras. We started at 7:00 am at an elevation of 1400 meters and got to the top at 2:30 pm at 2849 meters. We got back to our moto taxi at 7:00 dead tired and sore. We had to go the last hour of our hike in the dark and the rain so it was a little scary. So even though we had to rush our hike, it was really fun and well worth it. Here are some pictures of the famous cloud forest.


This is us on top of the mountain! You can almost see Gracias in the background, but the clouds were coming quickly!

Cool looking mushrooms

Cloud forest!!

Back in Honduras!

We got back to Honduras today after our nice vacation :) I wanted to show pictures of the capital, because it is covered in grafitti. These pictures are just a few I took in one taxi ride. I've never seen so much grafitti in my life. The majority of the graffitti appears to be pro ex president. "Fuera golpista" is one of the most common phrases. This means get out coup, doesn't sound as good in English.

I was impressed with this graffitti. This is a picture of a dominoes, but I cropped out the rest so you could see the pictures. Someone actually made stamps or something, because these little pictures were everywhere!