I opened up my email the day before yesterday and found a really nice email from a gringa who says her novio (Mexicano) will be coming back home from Mexico for the first time in about three years or longer ... I can't remember, but it was a looooong time.This chica is very worried about the food situation in particular and was asking for any types of resources I could send her. What better resour
La Gringa's Toasted Coconut Ice CreamWe are going to start at the very beginning. We started with this:Here in La Ceiba, Honduras, fresh coconut juice is sold in the shell with a straw like you see here. (Ten lempiras or about 50 US cents.) El Jefe brought this home for me the other day. To be perfectly honest, I'm not wild about the coconut liquid. It's okay, but a coconut picked too young for th
When will I have time?This is only part of the materialIf you've been a Blogicito reader for awhile, you can probably tell that I don't struggle for ideas to write articles about. Just the opposite. As a gringa having spent most of my life in a different culture, everything in Honduras is interesting, novel, and sometimes shocking to me. I have many interests and I have an (usually strong) opinion
An old style wooden house converted to a storeLove the bright colors. It caught my eye! I had my first day out of the house today since I went to the emergency room on June 15th. Can you believe it? I put a lot of camouflage makeup on my forehead and did a special "do" with bangs to cover my burned looking forehead.View of the church from Parque CentralUnfortunately, my passenger side window would
Yeah, now I know that I will, but these are some notes that I started before my vision got so bad that I gave up trying to blog. Swollen, misshapen head. Swollen, red, and watery eyes. One eye was completely swollen shut and the other one could only be open about halfway with great effort. My eyes were and still are sensitive to light.Crusty, oozing, scabby skin and scalp.Headache.Fever.Weakness,
Suzanne, from At Home with the Farmer's wife and her photo blog The Farmer's Wife, sent me this cartoon to cheer me up. It worked! It's not often that you see Honduras and chihuahuas mentioned in cartoons.By the way, Hondurans (and other Hispanic nationalities) don't like being mistaken for Mexicans. There is a lot of national rivalry there.My brain is exploding with things I want to tell you abou
Lots of the blogicito readers have visited Honduras or even live here now. Every now and then I hear privately from someone with a really interesting tale to tell. So, I started thinking wouldn't it be great to hear more from some of those people?Maybe you'd like to tell about your trip to Honduras, you lived here for awhile or live here now, or maybe you are Honduran and know more of the inside s
Anteriormente habíamos visto que los gringos "no" son idiotas, no obstante, este video es capaz de retorcer hasta la mente del intelectual más prodigio del mundo y hacerlo cambiar de parecer.Que dios se apiade de nosotros y nos libere de los gringos acéfalos.Visto en la única neurona de los mal llamados americanos.
Honduran NewsHonduran Newspapers (español) - Check out the Google Toolbar translator if you don't read Spanish.Honduras This Week Online - English-language weekly newspaperRevistazo.com (español) - Excellent independent Honduran online newspaper. Upside down world - Latin America in English and SpanishTropical GardeningGardening by the Moon - Lots of info on moon phase gardening. Calendars available for sale.ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, includes information on organic farming, livestock and poultry raising, pest control, and much more. Available in Spanish, too.ECHO - Contains a wealth of information on small farm tropical agriculture.Miscellaneous Helpful SitesCIA Factbook about Honduras - Facts regarding government, population, economy, geography, you n
Un viejo árabe vivía en Idaho, Estados Unidos, desde hacía 40 años.Quería plantar papas en su jardín, pero arar la tierra ya era un trabajo muy pesado para él.Su único hijo, Ahmed, estaba estudiando en Francia.Entonces el anciano decide mandarle un e-mail explicándole el problema: *- Querido Ahmed: Me siento mal porque no voy a poder plantar mis papas este año.Estoy muy viejo para arar las parcelas.Si tu estuvieras aquí, se que voltearías la tierra por mí.Que Alá esté contigo. **Te quiere, tu papá.*Al día siguiente recibe la contestación de su hijo: *- Querido papá: Por todo lo que más quieras, NO revuelvas la tierra deljardín. Ahí es donde tengo escondido aquello. *Te quiere, Ahmed. **A eso de las cuatro de la madrugada, aparecen la Policía local, Agentes del FB
A mediados del siglo XVI, en toda Francia las celebraciones de Año Nuevo comenzaban el 25 de marzo y terminaban una semana después, el 1 de abril. En 1564, por medio del decreto de Roussillon, el rey decretó la adopción del calendario gregoriano y el Año Nuevo se trasladó al 1 de enero. La leyenda sugiere que muchos franceses opuestos al cambio o que simplemente lo olvidaron siguieron intercambiando regalos y festejando en la semana que concluía el 1 de abril. Los bromistas decidieron ridiculizarlos entregando regalos absurdos y convidando a fiestas inexistentes, y así nació la tradición de hacer bromas el primer día de abril.Asi esta celebración se extendió por le mundo occidental, y EE.UU adoptó la fecha, conocida como el April Fool's DayAlgunas paginas que se unieron a la
What a pig sty! I actually cleaned it up a little for the photoI've been working on setting up my new Toshiba laptop (Yay!). What a nightmare − not the computer, but the process (Boo!). It has been six long years since I've done this and it not only feels like I am starting back over again learning about computers but I'm also learning how to type again. Seriously, though I put myself through the first few years of school by typing, I think I'm going to have to pull out Mavis Teaches Typing − the keyboard feels that different.I haven't had wireless before and it seems to be having a problem downloading all those big updates. I've tried to update McAfee at least 10 times and I'm just about ready to give up and go back to the free Zone Alarm and AVG Antivirus programs.The laptop feels so
La Prensa, February 27, 2008Early on in our life in Honduras, we subscribed to La Prensa newspaper. It was relatively inexpensive and a great way for me to practice reading Spanish as well as learn more about Honduras. If I remember, the first years were somewhere around L.1,200 or L.1,400 (which using the exchange rates at that time was around US $70-80 per year).The home delivery service is actually very good. There was a deliverer one year who never delivered newspapers on holidays but I think that he was fired. Just like in Dallas, if you call early about a non-delivery day, someone will usually bring the newspaper out to you. When we've called, we usually ask them to just bring it the next day, as gas is so expensive and it will still be news to us tomorrow. ;-)Shortly after we moved
La Gringa's Herbed Wheat Bread(No time to get my rooster video 'musicified' and uploaded today so it's going to be another recipe day.)This is a recipe that I make to fool myself into thinking that I'm eating rye bread. Heheh! I haven't ever found rye flour in La Ceiba so this is as close as I can get. It's a lazy recipe, using the bread maker for making the dough. I always shape and bake the loaves and rolls by hand, though. It just isn't as good baked in the bread maker. If you don't use a bread maker, just use your normal procedures for mixing, kneading, and rising the dough. If you want to bake it in the bread maker, cut the recipe in half as this recipe will overflow your machine.La Gringa's Herbed Wheat BreadMakes 2 free form loaves2 1/4 cups water2 cups whole wheat flour4 cups unble
La Gringa's new broomReally scraping the bottom of the blogging barrel here, huh? And, no, it isn't to fly off on either. :-) It just goes to show that even the most mundane things can be a different experience here in Honduras.I just thought you might be interested in Honduras' answer to the Fuller Brush Man of the U.S. 1950's.These men walk around colonias (neighborhoods) selling an assortment of brooms, brushes, and other household cleaning tools. It is an incredible load. Sometimes you can barely see the man underneath the products and since all the handles are wood, I imagine that it is quite heavy.I have been complaining about my broom. I keep one broom for outside and one for inside, but somehow, Frank always got a hold of my inside broom and used it to 'scrape' the sidewalks, causi
Chipotle butternut squash soup with herbed wheat breadCalabaza is the general Spanish word for winter squash. Butternut squash are called ayote here in La Ceiba, but apparently other types of squash are also called ayote as well.Just after we moved into the house here in La Ceiba, Honduras, and before we started landscaping, we had a bumper crop of butternut squash. We had some huge compost piles working in the back yard and as a result of tossing in our kitchen scraps, the compost piles sprouted chiles, tomatoes, papaya trees, and butternut squash. It might have been my best garden ever. ;-) The vines, as squash vines will do, tried to take over the earth. We ended up with probably 100 squash. We gave some to family and the few workers we had a the time, gave some to Carlos to sell at the
La Gringa's new comforter coverHere is something else that I just finished recently − a comforter cover. It turned out well, but I'm not sure how practical it will be. I bought the fabric a long time ago in a rush in the U.S. and out of desperation because I was running out of time and couldn't find anything that would coordinate with a purple bedroom.The fabric is a little heavy and has to be dry cleaned. It doesn't wrinkle quite as badly as I was afraid it would after unpacking it from storage after so much time, but El Jefe has a habit of kicking and wadding the comforter up at his feet during the night. I'm actually thinking of doing another 'summer' bed cover of some sort, since we only use the down comforter four months or so out of the year. Most of the year, a sheet is all that y
Do you see those red lights glowing?!La Gringa is happy today! El Jefe's mother recommended a repairman, technically not the Maytag repairman, but supposedly a good one. I was leery but El Jefe said that he had had a lot of training, even having been to Tegucigalpa for some special training. As it was getting difficult to even walk through the laundry room by this point, he borrowed a car and drove to El Porvenir to pick up the guy. Why was I leery? Based on a long line of experiences of which I'll tell you a few. Once we had our car in a shop in San Pedro (highly recommended by a friend) for three months, bought $300 of parts, and after numerous phone calls and trips to San Pedro, finally had to take it back in exactly the same shape it was in to start with.El Jefe's old car spent most of one year in the shop trying to repair an oil leak that required pulling the engine out of the car. Generally, when it begins to look hopeless, we take back whatever is being repaired and take it s
I wrote the article below more than a year ago, and just never posted it because it sounded so gloomy. A recent discussion on our Honduras Living group about "the biggest culture shock" reminded me of this and I decided to go ahead and put it out there for your perusal:EpiphanyI had an epiphany last night. I woke up in the middle of the night, wide awake for no apparent reason. I had this thought: "I lost my innocence in Honduras. That's why I'm not happy here."No, I don't mean "that" kind of innocence. Haha.I mean that I lost my trust in people. My expectation that most people generally do the right thing. My certainty that most people are honest. My belief that people can and should be trusted until they give a reason not to be. My faith in "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."But the things I have seen and experienced in Honduras have shaken all of those beliefs and left a kind of empty feeling behind.Now, don't get me wrong. I was no wide-eyed innocent. I was alw
The bridge to El Porvenir, HondurasWhen we very first moved to Honduras in 2001, we stayed with El Jefe's mother for about a month in El Porvenir, a small town outside of La Ceiba with dusty, gravel streets.I don't want to clutter up this article with all the details of our arrival and how I broke down and cried in the airport before I had even set foot on Honduran soil, and how awful government dealings were, how many wasted trips to Tegucigalpa and Puerto Cortés were made, how the Houston Honduran Consulate had given us BAD INFORMATION ABOUT EVERYTHING, and HOW INEPT AND CORRUPT THE ADUANA WAS IN PUERTO CORTÉS, but suffice it to say, I was going through major, triple by-pass culture shock. El Jefe's mother is a super nice lady and her house is nice, but you know how unrelaxed you can feel living in someone else's house, especially someone you've only spent a few hours with a few times before. This was made even worse by not being able to communicate with her and say all those
The Nursery Alice, published 1890Image from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, WikipediaAlice: But I don't want to go among mad people.The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can't help that.We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.Alice: How do you know I'm mad?The Cheshire Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have come here.Sometimes I do feel that I am Alice in Wonderland and that I have come to a world where nothing makes sense to my way of thinking. I often have to double check myself with El Jefe, the Honduran, to find out if it's me or someone else who isn't making sense. (It isn't always me!)Often when I go off on a tirade about irresponsibility and poor decisions in a blog article, someone will usually comment that that is the Honduran culture, I need to get used to it, and I need to assimilate and be like Hondurans are.Uh, okay. Does that mean that I get to be irresponsible, too? Apparently not, as I was heartily chastised yesterday morning by Nora, my housekeeper.(Yes, I decided to
Mmmmm. Tasty!Wow, I made some yummy bread last night if I do say so myself.I used to have a zillion bread recipes but lost ALL of my recipes when I lost my hard drive a few years ago. Long story − my fault, but with extenuating circumstances.Anyway, I wrote down a few recipes before the hard drive crashed because my printer wasn't working at the time and one of those bread recipes that I use most often is a modified 'Bill's Favorite Italian Bread' that I got from an internet recipe group long ago. Sorry, Bill, I can't give you proper credit because the information was lost. Last night, I had the urge to do something different so I opened up the spice cabinet and added a bunch of herbs to the recipe. First of all, I haven't had rye bread for 6 years − :-( − so I thought that if I added a bunch of caraway seeds, I could pretend it was rye. ;-) Then I just started looking around and dumped a bunch of other things in there, too. The results were fantabulous so I thought I woul
Photo: El Heraldo and not from today You know what I always say: There is never a shortage of blogging material in Honduras. I was sitting here today thinking about what to blog about and, as usual, got sidetracked into other more interesting things. Finally I looked at a bunch of drafted articles for which I need more information or photos. Sometimes those drafts just get so old that I end up deleting them. Then I started looking at my recent photos for inspiration ('recent' is a misnomer because some of them go back to February!). I have a ton of chicken photos and videos but that is going to take more time to put together than I have today. Still stumped, the phone rang. It was El Jefe warning me that there had been a allanamiento in our neighborhood just a couple of blocks from here. Allanamiento means a burglary or unlawful entry, but is also the term used for when the police raid and tear apart your house, presumably with a warrant. He wanted to let me know because they have
Look at the size of that needle!Today was another first for me.Chloe the Rottweiler is way past due for her shots and we don't have a car in which to take her to the veterinarian. Yesterday we took the little chihuahua pups in to the vet for their vaccinations. We have a pet travel bag so it was no problem taking them in the taxi, but what taxi driver would allow us to load a Rottweiler into the back seat? Yeah, right.I explained our dilemma to the vet and asked if he thought we could give her the shots. He explained very briefly how to do it and off we went.I think it is not that uncommon for many Hondurans to give their animals shots because you can buy what you need at an agropecuaria (farm feed store). Not so with this gringa! I don't even like to watch. The vet laughs at me when I'm holding the dog for him crying "Eeew! Ouch! Oh, no!". The rabies shot was ready to go but the other vaccination came in two bottles. I was supposed to mix the powder with the liquid. At first, I tho
Baby coconutsWe are excited! In another 6-9 months, we may have some cocos (coconuts). We planted two coconut palms about 3 years ago. Before that they lived in a couple of 5 gallon buckets for more than a year.The one palm is doing very well and has two fruiting branches. Both plants are supposed to be dwarf coconut palms. That is a good thing as I wouldn't relish the idea of climbing to the top of a palm tree to knock the coconuts out.The other palm has had a problem forever with a black sooty mold. It's also infested with fire ants which makes it very painful to trim or try to spray it. As you can see from this photo, the fruiting branch shriveled up and died. :(I need to learn more about coconuts. Supposedly we have one each of green and yellow coconuts. I thought all coconuts were brown − that is the way they looked in the grocery store. What do I know about cocos?!I love the way it looks like the bottom of the palm is wrapped in burlap. It looks so much like fabric and it is
Haylock'sHaylock's is my favorite store in La Ceiba. It is just sooo nice. They sell furniture, kitchen stuff, household items, linens, and lots of pretty doodads. It's only been open about a year and a half. The first time I walked in the store, I actually got tears in my eyes. :-) Reminded me of home.Their motto on the outside of the store is "Atención, Calidad, Precio" (Attention, Quality, Price). They do have better quality things than many stores and the prices seem good to me, especially considering the importation costs. The service is great and the employees are nice and helpful.Just recently we bought a table and mirror for the entrada (entryway). Since we don't have a car, we asked if they could deliver. No problemo! It was late on a Saturday, so I didn't even ask when they would deliver the table. I figured it would be Monday or Tuesday. We weren't home more than an hour and boom! There they were with the table.The owner Karen speaks English fluently and will even do
Gross National Income per capita for Mexico and Central AmericaMost of these countries are showing a good steady growth. Not so for Honduras and Nicaragua. (Click to enlarge.)La Gringa loves statistics and even more so in a graphic format!I found an interesting site today, Reuters Foundation AlertNet. The site has an interactive page where you can compare humanitarian statistics in graph format for up to nine countries. Most of the stats can only be compared for the years 2000 to 2004, but hopefully they will update it to include more recent years.I selected Mexico and the seven Central American countries to compare. When you select a graph on the Reuters site, you can mouse over the bars to see the actual numbers. You won't be able to do that with these images and you'll probably need to click to open them larger in a new window.Here are a few interesting charts:Landline phones − Wow! Look at Costa Rica:Cell phone use − no surprise here:Internet use is exploding, especially Cost
Google only counts to 1,000 and then says "What's the point?"I can't keep up with my favorite blogs even reading with Google Reader. I have more than 300 blogs arranged in folders like Honduras, Central America, Chickens, Cooking, Gardening, Technology, and then, so it will be at the top, "aaa-favorites." One by one aaa-favorites has increased to about 40 blogs and I can barely even get through those. I've found that I tend to read the blogs which are updated less frequently. I don't know if it makes any sense or not, but I look at the list, see a blog that has one or two new entries, and think "Oh, I can catch up on that one." Maybe it speaks to my sense of "neatness" as in that blog is "checked off" the list, completed! At least for a time. On the other hand, I look at the ones with 30 entries and just feel overwhelmed. One disadvantage to reading on Google Reader is that I'm less likely to click through to the blog to make a comment. When I do click through, though, I think
La Ceiba prison yard, HondurasReally!Well .... not exactly "goes" to prison.Well .... not exactly inside either, but up to the guard watchtower. That is as close as I want to go.We were walking along the street past the prison (maybe it is more like the jail − you know for short term or pre-trial stays − I'm not real sure and don't plan to find out).I took a photo of the wall with the razor wire on top and started imagining how my lame post would go: "This is the prison wall." Big deal.Then I noticed the guard up in the watch tower waving at me, like "take my picture!"I took a photo, but he was pretty far away and in the shade. He came out a little ways and I took another.He was asking me how it came out and motioning, "show it to me." Apparently, he couldn't come down the stairs − 'cuz he had to guard and all − so I went up.I got a couple of better shots which he wants me to print out for him so I guess I'll be going back to prison soon to deliver the photos. Nice looking
Usually when a blogger blogs about another blogger it's to help promote a blog, but I really want people to pray for La Gringa in Honduras (La Gringa's Blogicito) because Hurricane Felix is headed her way. At last glance Hurricane Felix has been upgraded to a category 5!La Gringa has posted maps and weather updates on her blog to give everyone an idea of what's going on. Thank God. I left a comment on her blog mentioning that September the 4th is my birthday so maybe I can just wish Hurricane Felix away. I sure hope so because this one may be a bad one.Last Christmas my family and I took a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. One day I went to the local Big K-Mart to get some floaties so the kids could swim at the hotel and I spoke with a really nice guy in the toy department. Somehow our conversation twisted from floaties to hurricanes.When I told him that we lived near Charleston, South Carolina ... he remembered Hurricane Hugo. We learned that when we hear of a hurrican
This is the first time that I've ever answered reader email here on the blog, I guess because most questions haven't exactly been broad enough to include lots of people. I had some good ones this time though and decided to blog about them and give other people the opportunity to take a glimpse into the life of someone else and their issues, to share an experience or simply add their two cents ... so here goes!My first email question comes from a really sweet lady on the west coast who asked: I was wondering too what kindof prejudices you ran across? (Concerning dating a Mexican)I've had two really bad experiences, one in a restaurant when a man approached me out of the blue to ask me "What color are you?" and to tell me I should "be ashamed", and the other was about the same at a park.Oh! And then there was this guy at another restaurant shouting off his opinions about immigration and Mexicans with his friends. He was just being extremely loud about it and kept looking our way.I end
Hummingbird trapped in the houseAnother exciting day in La Gringa's house. We had the window screens open to capture a little more breeze. Later I heard a flapping noise. Going to investigate, I found this hummingbird desperately trying to get out the closed windows. I couldn't get a much better look at the hummingbird in person than is shown in the photo. The only thing I could see clearly was the brightly colored tail. I think it was a Rufous-tailed hummingbird, because, well, it had a reddish-brown tail and they are known to be in this area. Daniel from Hondubirding is probably cringing at my identification.I have to apologize for the quality of the video. First, there was the problem that the light was bright outside the windows. Then there was the problem of filming with one hand while rescuing with the other.Anyway, now if you ever have a hummingbird or any other type of bird trapped in your house, you'll know what to do. In a pinch, a broom can be used instead of
Wooden alphabet, Germes OnlineWhen I first saw Aaron's Your web alphabet article, I thought the point was to think of a site that you visit for each letter of the alphabet. Then I went to the Ed Kohler's original link and saw that you determine your list by typing each letter of the alphabet in your browser's address bar to see what your browser suggests to you. Ahh! More interesting, more fun, less subjective. I like that.So, here is what I found:a: Aaron's Pensieve blog, of courseb: Blogger, of course againc: Consejo Nacional Anticorrupción, National Anticorruption Council of Honduras, a wealth of very depressing information here.d: Dictionary.come: ETS Free Translationf: Feedburner, I highly recommend it, along with Fox Internet HTML converter, use it for finding HTML codes for special charactersg: Google, what else could it be? Search, Images, Reader, Alerts, Mail, Earth, Translate, I use it all! Not onl
My crutchesDid I ever tell you about when I broke my foot?I broke my foot a few years ago and was in a cast up to my knee for 6 weeks. The doctor told us to go to the public hospital to get some crutches but he didn't give me any advice about how to use them. I'm not very coordinated, as shown by breaking my foot going down three steps in my own home. I had a lot of trouble with the crutches, so El Jefe borrowed a wheel chair for me.We have a lot of stairs in our home and for the first four weeks, I just couldn't figure out how to get down them on crutches. Every time I stood at the top of the stairs, all I could picture was me tumbling headfirst down them. I did eventually figure it out and boy, did I feel stupid!I spent most of the time upstairs with the computer. We didn't have internet then, but I managed to edit and organize around 2,000 recipes that I had been saving for years and years. Later we lost our hard drive and I lost all that hard work because I was waiting to fini
Doble moral gringaEsta es una opinión muy particular. Pese al asombro y al dolor por tan execrable crimen y por ende tan bizarra experiencia, debo señalar que la WWE esa gala de hipocresía y doble discurso al desmarcarse totalmente de la carrera de Chris Benoit. Es evidente que su intención es estar lo más lejos posible de la imagen y el nombre de un asesino, de un criminal que asesinó terrible y premeditadamente a su esposa y menor hijo, a quienes al parecer golpeó en la cabeza y asfixio, respectivamente.La conducta de Benoit es inadmisible, criminal y deleznable. Y no sabemos desde cuándo se comportaba 'raro'. Hoy muchos podríamos decir que no actuaba igual. Incluso yo, puesto que no veía su fuerza característica en sus luchas y me preguntaba los motivos de la compañía para bajarle el dedo a un luchador de su calidad.Sin embargo, él era un actor al igual que los demás luchadores. Tratar de busear entre las posibilidades es factible pero nunca seguro. El punto es, nat
Thinking that I just don't have enough junk on my blog, I've added another guestbook. This one allows readers to not only leave a message, but upload a photo as well! Pretty cool, huh? The guestbook is at the bottom of this page. Click "sign my guestbook" and then fill in the blanks and click "browse" to select a photo from your computer to upload to my guestbook. It can be a photo of you, your garden, your pet, or whatever favorite thing you want to represent YOU. The photos will be visible to anyone looking at the guestbook.I think that will be fun! Is there anyone who doesn't have photos on their hard drive? If you don't, just pick a photo that you like from my blog. Right click on the photo and click "save image as" to save it to your desktop and then upload that photo. After it's uploaded, you can delete the photo from your desktop. As always, of course you don't have to use your real name, but anyone who signs as "anonymous" will be deleted. Surely you can make up a name
I rely on Honduras' La Prensa website quite a bit to give a link to where I'm getting some of my information and to allow you to read more, if you read Spanish or care to translate it. Their Ediciones Anteriores (Back Issues) button has not been working for a few weeks. Not only that but their search button has disappeared completely from their website.How am I suppose to steal their photos, ahem, I mean help them to increase their circulation when they make it so hard on me? I don't always read the newspaper the same day, so if I find something interesting, I have to go to the back issues.I even tried to contact the webmaster to inform him of these problems using the "contáctenos" button. It gives me a form to fill out my name and city and the message but there is no submit button!Oh, La Prensa, are you listening? I'm your biggest fan, ¡de verdad! (It's true.) ¡Repara su sitio! (Fix your website!)Update: Since I first wrote this, the "contactenos" button now works so I sent an
If you live in a hot and humid climate like we do here in La Ceiba, Honduras, I think you are going to like my invention. It is incredible how much water can drip off of the OUTSIDE of a drinking glass in this climate. It drips on your clothes, your legs, your furniture, the floor. Even if you use a coaster, the water puddles up and runs all over the furniture.I guess that is why whenever I give a drink to a Honduran, they down it immediately and hand the glass back to me (cultural difference). I'm more of a sipper myself. I entertain myself for hours with a glass of iced tea, so the dripping was really a problem.The custom here in La Ceiba, both in restaurants and at home, is to wrap a napkin around the glass. This might work for a short time, if the tiniest, flimsiest napkins known to mankind weren't used. No kidding.These napkins are about as useful as as two squares of a one-ply toilet paper. People think they save money by buying the cheapest but the fact is the other night at a
Bernadette Peters as Annie OakleyIn the assimilation article, I mentioned "not blinking when a gun is fired in front of your house." This is an area in which I have failed to assimilate yet.For a few weeks, we were hearing gunshots, very close gunshots, nightly. At first it was making a nervous wreck out of me. After a while, I would just bring the dogs inside, try to go on with what I was doing, and ignore it. Not that it wasn't scaring me. It was more like when you hide your head under the covers, thinking the bogeyman won't find you there.Finally, on the verge of a nervous breakdown and thinking that it must be the guard at the construction near us shooting at raccoons or something, I asked (demanded) that El Jefe go talk to him. He did and was told that it was some well-to-do teens who visit another guard at another construction and enjoy shooting their dad's gun around the colonia. The guard didn't like it either.Moving down the road, El Jefe let the other guard know that it w
The small double doors to the left are for the migration office.There is no indication whatsoever that this is a government office.I just renewed my official Honduran residency card. Yes, I am a "legal." Although I'm sure it was a lot easier than it is for immigrants to the U.S., I'll have to say that getting this card took a lot of time, money, and effort so I really value it. Once a bank employee misplaced my card and suggested I come back the next day to see IF they found it. I sat down and said, "I'm not leaving until you find it."I don't know why this renewal always stresses me out, but it does. I guess it was the fact that the rules changed the first few times. I was never entirely sure where to go, or what documents they would ask for, or how many copies they would need. There's no website where you can go find out such things.And then there is always the chance that they'll spell my name or something wrong and it will take me 10-15 years to get it corrected, like some of
La Gringa's Mango Ice Cream − YummyThis recipe is for a 1 1/2 quart ice cream freezer. Makes 1 1/2 quarts of the most delicious ice cream imaginable.Ingredients:2 eggs1 cup sugar1 tsp. vanilla1 ripe mango2 cups heavy cream1-2 cups milkPeel and slice a medium size ripe mango. Place 1 1/2 cups of pieces in blender and puree until smooth. You should have around 1 cup puree, más o menos (more or less). If you use a large mango, dice part of it and top your finished ice cream with the mango pieces. Yum.Beat eggs with wire whisk (not electric mixer) for 2 minutes. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until sugar is well blended, about 1 minute more. Stir in vanilla, mango puree, and cream.Stir in enough milk to fill your container to the proper level (5 cups total for a 1 1/2 quart Cuisinart ice cream maker). Chill mixture thoroughly before placing it in the ice cream maker.Freeze ice cream according to your machine's directions. Enjoy!La Gringa's Papaya Ice Cream: Substitute appr
It's a good lifeI awake to the cool breeze with the scent of jasmine blossoms wafting through the windows. After my personal maid brings my coffee and helps me to dress, the cook prepares my breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast and the newspaper, I go over the day's menu with cook. While it is still cool in the morning, I stroll around the garden, giving the gardener instructions on what he needs to attend to today. I also point out the flowers I would like cut for my daily fresh flower arrangements. Rafael is completely converted to organic gardening and has thrown away his machete because he appreciates how much better everything looks when trimmed by hand. For fertilizer, his assistants collect fresh seaweed that has washed up along the shore.While I'm strolling the grounds, Paula, the laundress, places all the freshly laundered and ironed clothing away so as not to disturb me. Paula is a gem and I feel that all of my designer clothing will last years longer with her caring fo
My student "M" learning to crochetI've been teaching El Jefe's niece "M" to crochet. El Jefe has been hearing all about what a hard time she is having with a crochet project for school. M's mother doesn't crochet so she can't help. El Jefe's mother took M one weekend and apparently spent most of the weekend just trying to untangle a huge mass of knotted crochet thread. I've heard stories of her work mysteriously unraveling before her eyes with a lot of related crying and hand-wringing going on. I kept telling him that I could help her. I've been crocheting ever since my grandmother taught me when I was 9 years old. In general, I would make a terrible teacher as I don't have much patience, but I have successfully taught several people, including a couple of children, to crochet without anyone crying or hating me or anything. In fact, I taught one his other nieces to crochet in the U.S. Apparently her parents finally got desperate enough to bring her to the dreaded La Gringa
Every good website has a FAQ (Frequently asked questions), right? So here we go.How do I find stuff on your blog?I'm embarrassed to tell you how long I read blogs before I noticed that Blogger search box in the upper left corner! It really works. If you are looking for something specific, like, say Dijon mustard, you can search this blog by using the search box. Dijon mustard gives five articles − I'm obsessed!Another way to find what you're looking for is with the list of topics (categories) in the sidebar. If you came to this blog to read about food, for example, click on the topic in the sidebar and you'll get all of the articles related to that topic together on one or more pages.But I want to know something else!If there is something particular you are interested in about La Ceiba, don't hesitate to ask. New ideas are always welcome. If I know something about it or can easily find out (I'm basically lazy, you know), I'll be happy to write about it. Don't try to give me a
For those of you (50 of you! ♥ ) who receive La Gringa's Blogicito by email from Feedburner, I wanted to point out a new feature. At the end of each article, you will see a link to "comment." Clicking on that link will take you directly to the comment section on my blog for that particular article where you can read the other reader comments and/or make a new comment. Sometimes the email updates go out before there are any comments but if it is a topic of particular interest to you, you might want to check back later to see what others have said.While it is always nice to receive emails from La Gringa readers, posting your comments on my blog often spurs further conversation among the readers which is a good thing! I promise you that I do read all the comments and generally respond to all of them. So try it out! Click on "comment" below and drop me a line.Normally the articles look pretty much just like they do on the blog, but the last few articles which have had so many photos are
Apologies to the La Gringa's Blogicito newsletter subscribers. Blogger burped yesterday and sent out several old, old articles in the daily newsletter.Hopefully Blogger has gotten over its indigestion and will resume sending out the feed for only the most current article(s).If you have any problems with your newsletter subscription, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Ha ha! Tricked you again with that catchy title, didn't I?I ♥ Google (most of the time)I'm obsessed with Google. I love to see the searches that people make that lead them to my blog. It gives me ideas about what to write about. But lately I've been getting a lot of hits from people, umm, shall we say, "looking for love in all the wrong places."I can't tell you exactly − and you probably don't want to know anyway − because if I spell out what they are looking for, Google will add it to their database and then I'll get even more of those perverts visiting.I have been racking my brain to try to figure out why Google is sending them to my blogicito. I finally figured it out: I made the mistake of being a little too explicit about chicken facts and used the s_x word. Jeesh! Is that all it takes?Here is another search from today that I can't quite figure out, but it is funny:"robberies done with a shovel in 2007"I'm just trying to picture that....?I ♥ TechnoratiI'm also obs
Honduran milk snakeWhen the workers found this snake, it was already dead. They think that the chickens killed it. My little chickies? I'm not sure about that, but maybe. After more than two hours of research, I'm proud to give you the name: Tangerine Honduran milk snake, Lampropeltis triangulum hondurensis. Imagine that − finding a Honduran milk snake in Honduras.I was mainly interested in whether or not it was venomous. It wasn't. Everyone always wants to kill every snake they find. I'm trying to convince them that not all snakes are bad but I'm not having much success.We found two snakes last year that I still haven't been able to identify. They were well over six feet long (2 m.) and at least 2 inches in diameter (5 cm.), black with thin yellowish vee-shaped markings. One of them was hiding in our garage. Needless to say, these both met the fate of the machete without too much arguing from me.
I use Bloglines to TRY to keep up with blogs that I like. Bloglines is not working though! Day after day it will show that there are no updates to a blog and then, BAM, 32 new posts all in one day. WTF? I'm thinking about trying out the new Google Reader. Right now I'm subscribed to 218 blogs. How do I have time to read that many blogs? Simple answer: I don't. I'm somewhere around 7,000 posts behind. Ha ha! I'm kidding myself. Actually, a few of them are the biggies, the technology ones that seem have about 50 posts a day. The truth is, I just feel like I should read those. I never actually do.Anyway, I'm cleaning house. Some of these blog have to go. I'm going to move some of them to a new category called "Probation." These blogs need to shape up or they are getting shipped out of my subscription list. Blogs that I hate, er, dislikeThere are just too many blogs to read and too little time to spend it TRYing to read blogs whose authors:use such a tiny font that I need a magnify
ScorpionScorpions, called escorpiones in Spanish (some Spanish words are so easy!), are very common here in Honduras. Once we found about 30 babies under some boxes we were storing inside the house. I've been surprised a few other times when moving something outside.Although not all scorpions are extremely poisonous, they scare me to death. Our veterinarian said that one scorpion sting would be enough to kill a chihuahua and I'm sure the same applies to a bantam chicken.El Jefe found and killed this one. He said it was about 3 inches long (7.6 cm.). However, it looks more like 5 or 6 inches to me (13-15 cm.) − easily the biggest I've seen.Here's a video so you can see how fast they move. Sorry, no special effects or music this time. I was in a hurry.
Yellow-winged TanagerI'm a nervous wreck. Four birds have crashed into my windows this afternoon. Two of them crashed into the window right beside me and I jumped out of my chair each time. It's amazing how a little tiny bird weighing a few ounces can sound like a grown man trying to break a door in.We used to have this problem often but I think the local birds have gotten smarter. We have tall windows and the sky is reflected in them. It is so sad. Apparently the birds can't tell the difference between the sky and its reflection.We didn't have windows when we first moved in (haha! − it's true) and I used to have to rescue the birds from inside the house. They would fly in and up to the ceiling and then get exhausted because they couldn't figure a way out. I have a loooong-handled brush thing to get cobwebs off the ceiling and I would stick it up by the birds. They would usually grab onto it and then I'd quickly walk to a window or door and let them loose outside. I rescued t
I use Bloglines to TRY to keep up with blogs that I like. Bloglines is not working though! Day after day it will show that there are no updates to a blog and then, BAM, 32 new posts all in one day. WTF? I'm thinking about trying out the new Google Reader. Right now I'm subscribed to 218 blogs. How do I have time to read that many blogs? Simple answer: I don't. I'm somewhere around 7,000 posts behind. Ha ha! I'm kidding myself. Actually, a few of them are the biggies, the technology ones that seem have about 50 posts a day. The truth is, I just feel like I should read those. I never actually do.Anyway, I'm cleaning house. Some of these blog have to go. I'm going to move some of them to a new category called "Probation." These blogs need to shape up or they are getting shipped out of my subscription list. Blogs that I hate, er, dislikeThere are just too many blogs to read and too little time to spend it TRYing to read blogs whose authors:use such a tiny font that I need a magnify
Yellow-winged TanagerI'm a nervous wreck. Four birds have crashed into my windows this afternoon. Two of them crashed into the window right beside me and I jumped out of my chair each time. It's amazing how a little tiny bird weighing a few ounces can sound like a grown man trying to break a door in.We used to have this problem often but I think the local birds have gotten smarter. We have tall windows and the sky is reflected in them. It is so sad. Apparently the birds can't tell the difference between the sky and its reflection.We didn't have windows when we first moved in (haha! − it's true) and I used to have to rescue the birds from inside the house. They would fly in and up to the ceiling and then get exhausted because they couldn't figure a way out. I have a loooong-handled brush thing to get cobwebs off the ceiling and I would stick it up by the birds. They would usually grab onto it and then I'd quickly walk to a window or door and let them loose outside. I rescued t
Tag! You're it!My (former) friend Mrs. Quad tagged me for a meme − Five things people don't know about you. I ignored it for as long as I could. I hate, err, dislike those things, so don't any of you even think about tagging me for another one. ;-)Since my life is so boring, I decided to put a 'theme' to my meme. I'm going to tell you about La Gringa's brushes with fame.When I was 5, I was on a children's TV show. During the cartoon break, the host picked me out of the audience to interview on camera. After my name and how old I was and a few other things, he asked what my father's name was. I answered, "I don't know." My mother was completely mortified. Apparently it sounded as if I didn't know who my father was. (I was only 5! I thought his name was 'Daddy.')I have a picture of myself with Al Gore when he was Vice President of the U.S. The problem is that it is The Most Horrible Picture of me that there has ever been. I've only showed it to two people in my entire
