Wow! Our week is really blowing by fast. Thursday already. After I posted on Monday we had a big time power outage and we lost electricity from about 5:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. So Judy and I spent the evening huddled together reading our books by a hurricane lamp at the kitchen table. I really felt like I was the main character in "Little House on the Prairie" except that we didn't have to worry about blizzards or the "ague" (what the heck was that anyway?). After about an hour Judy reminded me that I brought a headlamp (duh) and so I could use that for myself and Judy got the whole lamp for herself for the rest of the evening. We decided we didn't want to start cooking in the dark so we went for "takeout" at a little restaurant across the street. The restaurant was basically a storefront with a stove but we ordered and enjoyed some really tasty "baleadas" which are tortillas filled with beans, cheese and eggs, which I guess would make them "breakfast burritos" in the states. Very tasty. $1 apiece. Dinner for 2: $2.00.
Tuesday morning we headed back to the Center for "work" which consisted of using watercolors with the kids and showing them all about the primary colors and making the secondary colors. Again, picture us 2 old ladies sitting on a hard tile floor surrounded by 10 little kids with paint boxes and cups of water making rainbows. It was great but all this sitting on the floor is kinda hard on my aching back and neck. We try to finangle a chair when possible without making it appear that we are dumping a 6 year old out of it! The rest of the day was a variety of reading books with the kids, helping the high school kids with homework and some English teaching by Maria. All good.
In the evening we again enjoyed a beautiful sunset with our beverage of choice (Maria: iced coffee and Judy: a Pepsi which they pronounce here as if it had an X like "Pexi") Movie night was "Michael Clayton" on HBO. We are always catching ourselves feeling like we are in a time warp when we are watching satellite TV in a place where the roads are nothing but mud. Which reminds me that the highlight of the day was the Road Grader going by and smoothing out all the ruts and filling in all the potholes!
Wednesday we had a power outage again for most of the morning so the computers at the Center (and the lights) were out but we could still read and paint. For lunch we joined a couple of other Americans from Florida who are working on a new water system for La Colonia here in Sandy Bay. La Colonia is a lovely word for a horrible slum of 3,000 people (half of them under 18 years old) that is across the road from us. It is a sprawling, filthy, crowded shanty town that, prior to getting 3 wells dug and water piped to multiple locations was literally a poisonous pit with children dying constantly from lack of sanitation and clean water. Now that the water system is in this group is trying to collaborate with several other groups on the island (including PIER Partners in Education Roatan which is who we work for) to set up a community center there to improve education and provide a soccer field, etc... Very interesting and it would be a total miracle to have something like that available for all the families and kids.
After our lunch together, Henry took us on a "tour" of La Colonia to see the water system and the situation. Unbelievably desperate. But every little step provides huge benefits so it is worth considering a project that would give so much to so many people.
Not much else is happening. Time at the Center is familiar and we know most of the kids and even see them around on the streets with their families and they are so happy to see us. We feel like rock stars. Pretty good for 50-some year old housewives! Tonight we will go to the weekly "Crab Races" at the resort which provides the funding for the Center and many of the other visiting Americans (who are considering the funding for the Community Center) will also be there. So we do have a social life, in case you were worried.
Our time here is winding down and it feels sad to think about not coming back next week when it starts all over again. We shall see what the future holds for next year and what else will be happenin' next year....
love to all,
Maria and Judy
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