Owner: La Gringa's Blogicito URL:http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com Join Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:24:28 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Gardening and living in La Ceiba, Honduras. Neither are easy for this American woman. Site statistics:Click here
Blog content theft 1970-01-01 00:59:59 They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I found a case where it's more than imitation, it's downright content theft
. What would you say about a blog that consists 100% of someone else's articles? I stumbled upon this blog (no follow tag used) today. The entire blog is nothing but La Gringa's articles! Every single article is mine, word for word, with no link to my blog and no credit given to me as the author. I'm researching right now to try to figure out what I can do.I've seen my articles, or parts of them, on many blogs. Often they are spam blogs with a paragraph or so of an article and a zillion ads. Sometimes they provide a link to my blog, sometimes they don't. This is the first time that I've run across one that is completely my stuff. The odd thing is that there are no ads on this blog, so I really don't understand what the purpose is. Not to mention that the title has nothing to do with what I write about. I noticed that they strip out all the
Week one puppy update 1970-01-01 00:59:59 One week old chihuahua puppiesAren't they cute?! They weighed 5 ounces (.14 kg.) when they were born. Today, one week later, they weigh an incredible 11.5 to 13 ounces! (.33 to .37 kg.)They have more than doubled their weight in one week. The black one is the biggest in weight and length at 7 1/2 inches long (19 cm.). The rest are 7 inches long (17.8 cm.).We tried to line them up for the pictures. It was like trying to line up a bunch of worms.The pups don't have their eyes open yet. That should happen next week.Zoe is the best little mother. She's really doing an excellent job. She doesn't mind when we pick them up but she watches the whole time. If we carry one out of her sight, she follows, looking up at us just to make sure everything is okay.Zoe hardly ever leaves the box and when she does, you can be assured that they are all fast asleep.We haven't named them yet.Sorry for all the gushing about puppies. I'm telling you, if you were here, you would not be able to resist pick
Painting the house 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Colorful!I started this article not too long after I started my blog in July 2006. I was holding off posting it until the painting was finished and now I'm beginning to have my doubts about whether it ever will be!When we first started painting the outside of the house last summer after months of washing and patching the concrete and caulking the windows, the weather was great, but then the rains came. Everyday, every afternoon, it would rain to one extent or another. One day it came on so suddenly that the paint was washed right off the wall. That was supposed to be the dry season.Many days we could only get a half day of work done. We were under a lot of pressure to finish because rainy season was right around the corner. Once we finally had some dry weather, I worked 17 long days with only one day off and, boy, was I exhausted! Climbing ladders wears me out. Long ago we hired a 'professional' painter for the inside of the house. He was a pretty good painter (he learned in the Read more:Painting
Guns everywhere 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Photo La Prensa, HondurasEverywhere you look in Honduras, you'll see guns. It's kind of shocking at first. Tourists often comment on it. Armed guards are outside banks, grocery stores, other stores, gas stations, restaurants, government offices, hospitals, inside malls, on delivery trucks, you name it. I doubt if you could walk one block anywhere in downtown La Ceiba without seeing a gun. It's not just guards who have them. I've been surprised several times while talking to a contractor or delivery person to spy a revolver tucked into the waistband of his pants. Banks and even some restaurants use metal detectors or pat the men down before they enter to make sure they aren't 'packing.'Lots of people keep guns in their homes for protection. The wealthier people have armed guards outside their homes, some only at night, others 24 hours per day.Honduras just started registering guns about two years ago. They had an amnesty period where a gun could be registered without proving wher Read more:everywhere
Home building design tips for the tropics 1970-01-01 00:59:59 High ceilings and ceiling fans − it's a good thingI thought I would pass along some tips for those of you who will be building a house here in Honduras or elsewhere in the tropics. Some of the tips are from our architect, some we thought of when we were design
ing our home, and a few we wish we had thought of. These are some basic tips to keep your home cool and dry − the major considerations in a tropical area. Although most of the tips are just common sense, those of us coming from colder, drier climates might not always realize their importance.Plan your house to take full advantage of the prevailing breeze. Designing the house so that your bedrooms receive the breeze is a good idea and may save you from using air conditioning many nights.Plan your design it so that you have good cross ventilation. A more open floor plan allows the air to circulate better throughout the house than closed off rooms.Heat rises, so high ceilings can make a big difference. Here in Honduras, it doesn Read more:Home building
, design tips
More on the mystery jet 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Mystery jet in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, photo La PrensaThe mysterious jet abandoned in the Tegucigalpa, Honduras airport on February 24, 2006, was officially auctioned on Tuesday, February 13, 2007, for $736,000. Part of the deal is that the government of Honduras will guarantee clear title to the 1968 Grumman Gulfstream Jet. So what happened on Wednesday, the day after the auction and almost one year after the jet first appeared in Honduras? The Honduras newspaper, La Prensa, received a letter from an independent Mexican reporter providing new information. La Prensa reported that the old but luxurious jet is collateral for a loan in Mexico. It was brought to Honduras to illegally change the registration papers in order to sell it to a third party.This new version was confirmed by the Honduran Fiscal General (Attorney General) who says that he has known this for awhile but hasn't revealed it publicly. The information was also confirmed by a former high level government official who ce
La Gringa saves a bird 1970-01-01 00:59:59 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 Read more:Gringa
Situation resolved without machetes 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The offending site that was stealing my blog articles seems to have been taken down and I'm very happy about that. It was really creepy to see my articles on this site. It didn't seem to be coming from the RSS feed because the articles were all jumbled in date order and some of my articles were almost 6 months old, while that blog was only around for two months. I did a lot of research about stolen content and it seems that for the most part, blog authors don't have a lot of recourse if the offender can't be shamed into taking his site down or the site administrator doesn't take action. I guess I was just lucky, or maybe enough of you flagged the blog that it got someone's attention.In doing the research, I read that a lot of people seem to think that if you put something on the internet, it's like a gift − fair game for anyone to steal. Others say that by publishing an RSS feed, you are explicitly giving permission for anyone to use your material. I don't think so! An RSS f
It's a boy! And another one! And another one! And another one! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Zoe and the four pupsThat's right, we have four baby boy chihuahuas, each weighing 5 ounces (142 grams). They seem healthy and strong and each began searching for milk within two or three minutes of being born. Zoe, the little mother, is doing fine. She's being a great little mother and didn't seem to have any problems with the births.Yesterday afternoon, Zoe wanted to go up to her bed and banged against the closed bedroom door to get my attention. I went upstairs to open the door for her and put her in the box we had prepared for her. She was acting pretty normal, though, so I assumed it would be a few hours away. I went out to feed the chickens. That was around 2:00 p.m.When I came in the back door about 10 minutes later, I heard a baby squeaking! I ran upstairs and Chloe the Rottweiler had the first puppy out on the floor and she and Joey were all excited about what they had found. Whoa! That was scary! They are both curious, but Chloe is actually trying to protect the pups from
Miracle Fruit, matasabor 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Miracle Fruit
, Sideroxylon dulcificum, from WikipediaMatasabor is the Honduran common name given to Sideroxylon dulcificum. In English, matasabor means kill the flavor. And that's just what this plant does. It's called Miracle Fruit in much of the world because of its magical power to make sour things taste sweet. The berry itself is not sweet and it doesn't make sweet things taste sweeter. A commenter sent me a link to plant called Miracle Fruit and asked if I had ever heard about it. Not only had I heard about it, but I have one! I had completely forgotten about it. Right now it is covered by elephant ears that have grown out of control. I think it needs more sun to produce the flowers and fruit. Wikipedia has a short article about Miracle Fruit, an exotic tropical plant native to West Africa. Attempts have been made to commercialize it for sweetening foods for diabetics but to date none have been successful. It is also used for masking the bitter taste of medicines. The effect
Just say no to loans 1970-01-01 00:59:59 We have bought seven bicycles since we came to Honduras and none of them were for us. Three were gifts to sobrinos (nephews and nieces) and four were loans to employees. It seemed a good way to help out the employees. We were partly lucky and partly wise, and we were repaid for these loans.Other loans or advances on salaries haven't worked out so well. An old friend of El Jefe's asked for a loan of L.1,000 once to help his mother who was in a bad situation. I suggested that we just give him the money and forget about it. El Jefe didn't want to do that, so he made the loan. We never received even one lempira back. To me that shows a lack of honor. We would have been happy if he had even paid L.10 lempiras a week, just something to show that he valued our friendship and respected us. But .... nothing. One worker came to us on a payday almost in tears. His father was in the hospital. He needed to buy medicine for him. His pay wasn't enough. Could he have a loan of L.500? He was so sa
Five things you don't know about La Gringa 1970-01-01 00:59:59 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
Cultural differences: Greetings 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The Honduran greeting kiss is closer than the celebrity 'air kiss.'It's more like the Camilla and Charles kiss. ;-DHugs and kisses abound in Honduras culture. Women usually greet each other with a little hug and a kissing gesture on the cheek, even when meeting for the first time.Men who are relatives or close friends may greet women that way, too. Among each other, men will usually shake hands, sometimes accompanied by a hug and a pat on the back if they are friends or family. The same gestures are exchanged again when parting.Coming from a very non-demonstrative family, this was a little uncomfortable at first but I've grown to like it. Children meeting you for the first time will often say hello and then give you a big hug which is really sweet.Greetings
almost always begin with 'buenos dÃas' (good day) or 'buenas tardes' (good afternoon) or simply 'buenas.' Buenos dÃas is used until exactly noon at which time you switch to buenas tardes. Supposedly, buenas noches (go Read more:Cultural
, differences
, Cultural differences
Lemons or Limes? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Are these lemons or limes?When I first came to Honduras, I thought that we only had limes available here. El Jefe informed me that they were green lemons, not limes. I wondered why the lemons were picked green, but then I learned later why the lemons were green. Our lemons look much different than the large, thick-skinned, elliptical yellow fruits that you see in U.S. grocery stores. They are generally small, round, thin-skinned, and almost never have seeds. Sounds like limes, doesn't it? Actually, after awhile I began to wonder if I had just forgotten the difference between the taste of lemon and lime and wasn't even sure what I was using anymore.I couldn't understand why we couldn't find limes. Limes are very popular for many recipes of Central American and Caribbean countries and for some of my Tex-Mex recipes, limes are the thing and lemons just won't do. And for Margaritas? Limes!We asked at every vivero (plant nursery) if they had limas (limes). Most didn't even know what w
Sorry, no posts matched your criteria 1970-01-01 00:59:59 "Sorry, no posts
matched your criteria
, please try and search again."I've seen those words about 50 times today, and believe me, they are music to my ears.After having those stolen content problems last week, I set up a few Google Alerts. This is a case of using technology to fight those who are using technology to steal your work. Instead of me wasting my time searching for unauthorized use of my articles, I let Google do it for me. If you are a blog author, I recommend that you do this, too. I'm setting up an alert for every article now. Don't use your title, because they sometimes change the titles. Don't use your first paragraph because many spam blogs (splogs) use the first paragraph only and that would probably be considered "fair use" by copyright laws as long as they include a link to your site.I set up a Google Alert with one or two sentences from the second paragraph of an article, surrounded by quotation marks, and Google scours the internet looking for those exact sente
Operation Scissors 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The scissors strike! (All photos: La Prensa, Honduras)Honduran President Mel Zelaya has started Operación Tijera (Operation
Scissors). He says he is going to cut the electrical power to everyone who hasn't paid their bills, starting with the largest debtors. This is incredible and I'm starting to believe that he means business.After appointing four different heads to the national electric company, La ENEE, in a little over one year, he has apparently realized that "if you want a job done right, you just have to do it yourself." A week ago he took over the reins, spending, he says, six hours a day from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. trying to straighten out the mess.La ENEE loses approximately L. 3 billion per year (U.S. $158 million). They can't provide enough power for the entire country even though 30% of population doesn't even have electricity. La ENEE doesn't have money for badly needed improvements or even basic maintenance and there has been talk of rationing electricity. It's been sai
Washing clothes in the river 2007-03-02 02:45:00 Clothes drying on the rocks by the riverMost Honduran women wash their clothes by hand in a large pila (concrete sink) with a built-in scrub board. The wealthier and even the not-so-wealthy hire other women to do it for them. But many women don't have the luxury of a pila or sufficient water to wash clothes at home, so they wash their clothes in the river.Some women bring their own portable scrub board and some scrub their laundry on big river rocks. This is the type of soap that is used to hand wash clothes. FYI: I do my own laundry, most of it in a washing machine, but I do use the soap and washboard for some things. It works great.I've been wanting to do a series of "washing day" photos after we've had several days of rain but I keep forgetting. The weather has been nice lately, not much rain at all, and these pictures were taken on a Sunday, so there isn't a lot of laundry to be seen.At times, after a week of rain, it seems like the entire city of La Ceiba is covered with laund
Costus 2007-03-02 23:30:00 Costus speciosus (Crepe Ginger)Costus is a member of the Zingiberaceae (Ginger) family which is grown in tropical areas across the globe. It is often called 'Spiral Ginger' because the new stems grow in a spiral with the leaves on the outer side of the curve.The spear-shaped leaves are soft and hairy with a velvet-like feel to the underside. Just last year, the genus Costus was divided into four new genera based on study of DNA makeup of the plants.Costus speciosus (Crepe Ginger), now called Cheilocostus speciosus, grows a red cone-shaped 'head' (bract) at the top of the stalk from which one or two large white flowers emerge from the lower part.As each flower dies, another one will follow slightly higher up the bract for a period of up to a month after which the head browns and eventually falls off the plant.The plant is tall, 2-3 meters (6-10 ft.), and as new stalks emerge from rhizomes in the soil, it forms a dense clump, easily measuring 3-4 meters wide (10-13 ft.). The plant ca
Honduran Blog Network 2007-03-04 17:22:00 Some enterprising young Honduran
bloggers have set up a new website called Red Blogs Catrachos (Network of Honduran Blogs). This is a wonderful idea because it is really difficult to find Honduran blogs, especially those in the Spanish language. So many of the blog list sites are in English and many don't have blogs categorized by countries. Some like Globe of Blogs do. Global Voices does, but if you look at their front page, you won't even find Honduras unless you know to click on the plus sign in the upper left corner. The site is just evolving. They are adding more features to their website and more and more blogs as they find them. If you have a Honduran blog or know of someone who does, please contact Red Catracha at the email address on the site. I'm proud to say that La Gringa was invited to join, even though I'm not a Catracha verdadera (true Hondureña). I feel quite honored!Have I ever explained that Catracho is the slang word or nickname for Honduran? There is nothing
Road trip: El Naranjo, Honduras 2007-03-06 05:56:00 On the road to Jaruca, Atlantida, Honduras
Sunday we went on a road trip with our good buddy and fellow blogger Katrina. We headed up the dirt road alongside the Rio Cangrejal, destination Jaruca. Why Jaruca? Just because we have passed the road sign on the highway a million times. I'd never seen it and always wondered what it was like.Much of the road was built by cutting into the rock. Parts of the road have been washed away. The road follows the edge of the river for most of the trip. Some small waterfalls cross over the road.This river is a favorite place for families to go swimming on Sundays.It took us three hours for what should have been about an hour trip, because Katrina and I (mostly me) keep saying, "Stop the car!" or "Go back!" So we spent a good deal of time driving backwards to get a picture of something. I have so many pictures that I'll have to break them up into separate articles. This first article will be about El Naranjo
, Atlantida.We saw this truck along the road
Weather report and other chitchat 2007-03-07 16:38:00 WeatherWe've had a tropical rainstorm for two and a half days − the rain hasn't stopped in all that time. It's a little chilly − high 60's to low 70's F (20-23 C) with 96% humidity. That is called a frente frio (cold front) in Honduras. Apparently there must have been a problem somewhere west of us on the highway to San Pedro Sula because our newspaper didn't arrive until after 1 p.m. yesterday. It normally comes between 7 and 8 a.m.A bridge is out in Tocoa to the east and some 250 people have been evacuated. Most of the north coast of Honduras is experiencing flooding, schools have been closed, and many communities are cut off from the rest of the country because of flooded roads and damaged bridges. Another 24 hours of rain is expected. It's amazing what you get used to in this country.This is the photo I took of the Rio Danto a couple of weeks ago. The photo below is from yesterday's La Prensa.Rio Danto after one day of rain (La Prensa, Honduras) Falling treesA tree fel Read more:report
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