June 1, 2004  

Yesterday while walking to work I had the strangest sensation: things felt normal. For the first day in four weeks there wasn’t a pressing issue related to settling in. No need to hunt for a household item, we had sufficient food and bottled water in the house, and the girls were starting to get out to do things. We even have internet service at home and home delivery of the local newspaper. I was just an ordinary middle age guy walking to work. The umbrella I use every time I walk anywhere was losing the battle with the morning sun, but all in all it felt great. Hot but great. 

So since I’ve been delinquent in keeping you up to date here is a quick recap. Ellen and the girls arrived May 2. They were supposed to have arrived May 1 and it was nerve racking at the time, but in a way in was a good send off. When things don’t operate as efficiently as we’d like here we can always remember their trip down here to recall that things don’t always work perfectly in the States either. 

The first week we stayed in a local hotel while looking for a rental house. It was a nice hotel, but we were cramped in one room and the girls didn’t have enough personal space. They let us know that each night as they argued over who was “hogging” the bed as if it was the Gaza strip. After about a week they both had some soakers and wailed that they wanted to go home, but after a couple of nights of that they got it out of their systems and things were fine.

Having been here for two weeks before they arrived, I had a short list of homes to look at and Ellen and I quickly settled on one. It’s not great, but it’s about what we expected. It is a two story duplex with three bedrooms and two and half baths (when you visit the girls are going to double up so you’ll have your own room). Like most houses it has bars on all the windows and, like many homes, razor wire on the top of the perimeter wall. Our house lacks the wire on the front fence, and as much as we’ll hate to have to look at it out our front window, putting it up is the prudent thing to do. At least until we get a dog or possibly a night watchman.

With the house in hand it was time to Go Shopping! I married probably one of the few people who dislikes shopping as much as I. We quickly came to understand why US expats here have dreams of shopping in a Target.  There is a just about everything you could want here, or in San Pedro Sula which is about 3 hours away, but you have to go to lots of smallish stores to find things. One store has shower curtains, but is out of shower curtain rings sort of thing. Plus the act of making a purchase is a little different. When you purchase anything electrical an employee is going to take the device out of the box, test it, then repack it back up (and this isn’t known as the land of fast movers). Partly that’s because the quality of most things here is so incredibly poor. The pedestal fans we purchased new were actually three years old. Apparently Honduras gets whatever doesn’t sell in China or Hong Kong. (Interestingly people love anything made in the USA. Lots of products will have a US flag on their packaging to suggest the were made in the US, but if you read the fine print it turns out they are distributed by a US firm but produced elsewhere).  Another reason for testing things is that most stores don’t offer a return or exchange policy. Also, when you purchase dishes or any item that has more than one piece the store will open to count to make sure it’s all there. When you are in your 20’s in the Peace Corps these kinds of things are interesting, but at this age they lose some of the charm.

One very good development in the settling in process is that we now have Maura come in the afternoons to clean and cook for us. Maura has worked for the past four years for our American employers here so we knew she was a good worker and a very good cook. We weren’t sure we were going to hire someone when we got here, but the amount of dust that comes in the windows requires that the house be cleaned daily. Ellen and I are excited that if we play our cards right we wont’ have to cook for a long time!

The girls took the entrance exam on May 10 and have been admitted to Mazapan School. That was expected, but in a land of many surprises still good news. If you haven’t already done so, sometime check out www.mazpanschool.org. The more we hear about the school the more we are convinced that the girls are going to love it. Understandably, they don’t share this perspective.

Work is going well, but I still only have a clue of what I’m doing. Unfortunately, Ellen hasn’t been able to start working yet as she needs to stay home with the girls. Starting today I’m going to go out into the field with the credit officers on a regular basis to see micro-finance up close and get to know it as well as possible. We have a good deal of donors who come through and one of my jobs will be to take them out to meet clients. I think I’ll enjoy this aspect of the job the most. My predecessor says the success stories never stop inspiring you. My Spanish still has a long way to go, but hopefully I’ll understand the majority of what is said.

All in all things are going well for us here. People have been very kind and we are making some friends. The countryside is very pretty and the city of La Ceiba itself has its charms. For me, but not for Ellen or the girls, the heat and humidity has been the biggest adjustment. It’s 84 – 88 when we go to bed, but with a cold shower and a fan it doesn’t seem too bad. One morning it was 82 when we woke up and honestly I was a bit chilly.  We’ll probably give up the fight and purchase some ac units, but one of the nicest things about living here is waking up listening to all the tropical birds. You birders would be in heaven here.

Take care,

Will