Food.  Will has been obsessed with the heat, and I am obsessed with food.  When you go into the grocery store, at first glance it appears to be well-stocked.  Then you realize that the produce is terrible and that there is half an aisle just devoted just to lard.  Some days there is good meat, and some days there isn’t any at all.  You have to pay a lot for US products, like $5 for a box of Cheerios, and $1 for a box of macaroni and cheese (about 35 cents in the US), but I pay it because I can’t find any good alternatives.  I bought a cheap mac and cheese one time, but it was full of bugs. The cheese is horrible, the yogurt is runny, and the bread absorbs the horrible smell of the grocery store.  The milk tastes different and I have to load it up with chocolate powder to get the girls to drink it.  They are very few other sources of calcium for them though (we all take vitamins daily).  I go to the fruit market, which sounds picturesque, but in reality it is hot, very dusty, and full of flies. And even in Dole Fruit land, it can be hard to find good bananas and pineapples.   Fresh vegetables are in short supply, but we can get green beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes regularly.  There are no frozen vegetables.  We can get canned (Shur Fine brand!), but I try not to.  There is an American import store, where you can get US products, but they only deal in non-perishables.  We did get a big box of US laundry detergent when the girls began to break out in rashes.  Someone told us that the local detergent is very harsh, and sure enough the rashes went away when we changed to a US product.   

We do have someone to help with the cooking, which is very nice, but we are having some trouble finding things that she cooks that we all like.  On the plus side, we have recently found a place that sells great roasted chickens for take out, and a good pizza place, also for take out only, run by a Frenchman named Jean Claude. 

Water management.  We cannot drink the water at all.  We have to use bottled water for everything, including brushing teeth.  We buy it in 5 gallon bottles and then fill a dispenser we have on the kitchen counter.  We use this water for drinking, for ice, for coffee, etc.  I will use tap water sometimes, like to boil pasta.  Last week, some algae began to form in the dispenser, even though I had just cleaned it out.  The danger of the tap water is amoebas, which mess up your digestive system.  Will has not had a problem yet.  Sadie and Hannah had initial problems, but none recently.  I have had the most trouble of all of us, although I hear that your system begins to get acclimated, and this will be less of a problem as time goes on.  So I have to keep bottles of water filled in the refrigerator so we have cold water, and bottles filled and put in the freezer to take with us when we go out for the day somewhere.   

Banks.  I have to go to the bank all the time.  That is where I have to pay all utility bills and also the monthly school tuition.  You don’t just write a check and mail it.  Nothing gets mailed around here at all.  We receive our electric and phone bills when someone comes by and throws them over our gate onto our driveway.  The cell phone company actually puts the bill in an envelope, but the others are just on pieces of paper that could easily blow away.  Then to pay the bill I have to go to the bank, except for the cell phone which has to paid at their offices downtown where driving is hazardous and parking is impossible.  The water bill has to be paid at a specific bank and I finally figured out which branch is the least crowded.  The electric and phone bills supposedly can be paid at any bank.  The first time I had to pay them I went to the mall where there are several branch banks, and picked the least crowded.  I paid the bills in a small amount of time and was happy.  The next time I went to the same bank and was told I couldn’t pay my electric bill there.  At the third bank I tried I was finally able to pay it.  Then I went to pay the school tuition.  I had also done this once before.  You have to go to a specific bank, and we pay in US dollars from our US account.  The first time, I had to make the check out to the bank, as it says to do in the instructions that come with the tuition payment voucher book.  The second time, I made the check out to the bank again.  This time the teller was all consternated and had to go speak to a manager, etc.  This time I had to make out the check to Standard Fruit (Dole), since they run the school.  Just when you think you know what you are doing, they change the rules. I am sure all will be different again next time.

Rainy Season.  I think that the rainy season has officially begun, since we are in the hurricane season.  However, we hear that it does not reach full force until October.  We have had more rain lately and I think I can safely predict that I will not like the rainy season.  It rains hard, none of this drizzly stuff.  It pours.  The streets flood and water comes up from the sewers which is quite gross.  We have to walk thru this water in order to open our gate and get into our driveway. Last night we had such a flood that our street looked like a river and the water came under our gate and started coming up our driveway.  Fortunately we live slightly uphill from the street.  I looked all over for boots to keep in the car so I could open the gate on a rainy day without putting my feet in the muck.  You would think that rain boots would be readily available in a place that gets 10 feet of rain a year, but that is not the case.  I finally found some at the hardware store.  They come up to my knees and are a few sizes too big, but they will fit the bill. 

Birds.  I am not a birder, but we wake up to some wonderful bird sounds.  It gets light around 5 am (Honduras does not observe Daylight Savings Time), and the birds are just chirping away.  I don’t know anything about birds, but I know I am hearing some birds I have not heard before, and I love waking up to them.  I need to get a Central American bird guide.

Heat.  I am happy in a hot climate.  We did just get some a/c units.  We got a big one for the downstairs, but it is noisy and Will is not happy with it.  We also got one for our bedroom.  I don’t use them, since I don’t like going from an a/c room to a non a/c room.  However, if any of you come to visit, know that we have a/c if you find it necessary.  The past few days have been very comfortable.  There has been a little cloud cover which keeps the temperatures down and there is usually a nice breeze.  I find the climate quite tolerable.  However, see “rainy season” above.  I may be changing my mind soon.

Beach.  We are living in a town located right smack on the Caribbean Sea.  It is about a mile or so from our house.  However, we cannot swim here.  The town dumps its sewage into the water so the water is filthy.  It is literally brown.  The sand is also brown and covered with trash.  The waterfront is the seediest part of town, where the ladies of the evening hang out, etc. and it is dangerous at night.  It is such a potential gold mine though, it is hard to understand why the government does not do more to encourage investment in tourism.  The beachfront could be great, but as it stands now we have to drive about 20 minutes to get just a so-so beach.