Who You Goin’ Call? Bat Busters! Yes, coming to you live from La Ceiba is a tested and proven bat catcher. Twice I’ve gotten up in the middle of the night because of strange sounds only to find live bats floundering on the floor in one of the girl’s rooms. I fearlessly toss a Tupperware container at them from 10 feet and eventually am able to capture the 5 inch monsters. For some reason neither was able to fly, and setting them outside might be why our semi-pet iguana keeps hanging around. You’d think that we’d try to find out where they are coming in from, but that is where you’d be wrong. Somehow, once you live here for awhile you don’t want to know too much. Hard to explain, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one. 

The rainy season, and the ten feet of rain it brings, will begin in a month or so. Right now we are in the thunder and lightening season, but very little rain. The empty field across from our house was on fire two nights ago and the sky looked like it could have poured and put it out at any minute, but it didn’t. It’s surprising how loud a fire can be. If you had just arrived when this was happening you’d have been surprised that it didn’t rain, because it looked so threatening. But what was the real surprise of the evening was that the local fire department showed up. They use a 1950’s vintage fire truck presumably donated by the Boston Fire Department (according to the lettering on the cab) and it managed to put it out handily. There aren’t any fire hydrants in the city, but the truck carried enough water for this blaze. A street separates the field from our house and while we didn’t feel threatened, it was reassuring to see La Ceiba’s finest and Boston’s dilapidated show up like that. This was the second time in two months the field has been on fire. The first time we just watched as ash flew through our open windows and covered everything with smelly soot. This time we knew to close the windows (a twist of sorts on burn me once stupid you…). The night watchman next door thinks it’s some kids setting the fires for fun. Makes sense. Just about everyone is poor here and there are very few activities for kids. Setting a large, probably harmless, fire is cheap and good for a hour or so of diversion. 

Staying with the fire/smoke theme, another plus about living here is that very few people smoke. Restaurants rarely have non-smoking sections because they aren’t needed. I assume it’s because no one has money, but that could be one of those seemingly reasonable cultural assumptions that has nothing to do with reality. Regardless, it’s a pleasure to go days without smelling cigarettes.

 This summer Ellen and the girls spent five weeks at our home in Cape Cod. I joined them for the last couple. Before vacation we’d spent the past four months dealing with quite a bit of stress that resulted from selling our home and most of our belongings, making the move and finding and setting up our home here. Ellen and I felt like it was the most difficult time of our life and the timing of the vacation was fortuitous. My family was able to join us for a few days which was great fun, and it’s always great to be in a part of the world where people think 84 is hot and not the daily low.

Sadie and Hannah start school on Monday. Ellen and I are thrilled, but they are understandably apprehensive. Surprisingly, Sadie more so than Hannah. I look forward to Ellen working part time with me at Adelante. She’ll be responsible for writing grant proposals. Of the $2,000,000,000 given to charities each year in the US only about 3% makes it overseas so unfortunately there aren’t a lot of prospects, but Ellen will do a good job finding them.

I’m getting more comfortable about what the job entails. This year a couple of foundations are giving us hundreds of thousands in low interest loans, but in return we are obligated to raising $200,000.  This is about twice as much as the Foundation has ever raised, but this year we have hopes of reaching this goal thanks to some very generous Rotary Clubs and another private foundation (our predecessor Kim gets all the credit for this). In October I’ll go from New York to Los Angeles for two to three weeks attending fund raisers our supporters organize. If those events don’t raise enough money, then we’ll have to do some serious arm twisting (yes, my friends that means you!) and find new fundraising hosts for events in December. Hopefully that won’t come to pass, but the goal must be met.

Often I look around and think how great it is to be here. La Ceiba isn’t where we would have picked to live, but there are lots of worse places. So far, the biggest adjustment to living here remains the issue of having so much more than almost everyone else. I tried to write about this before on this website,  but it’s difficult to articulate.  There is a lot of guilt and denial involved, as well as a sense of wonder of why me? Why am I the guy driving a car and not the guy cutting grass with a machete for $2.50 a day?

On Tuesday while spending the day in the field I met a new client. She is a single mother with five school age kids – none of whom she can afford to send to school. She sells bananas in a banana abundant country and only has $11 to spend on groceries a week to feed her family of six. True, things are cheaper here, but they are not that cheap. You want to just give her a handful of money to end her suffering for a day or even a week, but you can’t. You go back home to a nice hot meal and bright future and hope/pray that she can take advantage of Adelante’s loan and education programs to work her way out of poverty like hundreds of other women before her. But then you worry if she has what it takes to do that.

I hope you have had a great summer. Write when you can. By the way, we have a new mailing address: P.O. Box 442, La Ceiba, Atlantida, Honduras. If you are writing to Ellen, please fib and address her as Ellen English Bullard or Ellen Bullard – not sure just Ellen English would get delivered.

Hasta luego,

Will