La Gringa's Blogicito

Rhinoceros beetle

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:59:00 +0000

Big beetle - a rhino?

I thought this might be a rhinoceros beetle based on its size. It would have to be a female since it doesn't have the distinctive rhino horns, but there are so many varieties and most of the photos are male so I gave up trying to determine which type it might be. It could be one called a coconut rhinoceros beetle. Once again, I insisted on sparing the life of our wildlife and maybe shouldn't have. Coconut rhinoceros beetles can kill the coconut palms! Great.

Check out the size of the horns on these rhinoceros beetles!

I ran across this ad while researching this beetle. For $5.60 you can buy a bag of 2 or 3 cooked rhinoceros beetles, lightly seasoned with soy sauce, lemon grass, and garlic. Yumm. Before you rush out to order a bag, one of the reviewers says that they are super crunchy but have not much flavor.

What happened here?

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:05:00 +0000

Moving?

What happened here?

What's this?

Heavy spring cleaning?

Floor polishing?

Did you have a flood?

Painting?

Are you moving?

Read on and weep...

One morning I was sitting at my desk, listlessly flipping through the newspaper as I drank my coffee, waiting for that magic caffeine jolt, when El Jefe said, "So, I was thinking, why don't you go visit Steve and Laura in San Pedro?"

My fingers stopped in mid-air. I paused, lifted my head to look at him, narrowing my eyes suspiciously: "What happened?" I knew there was a reason for this and it couldn't be good.

"I was just thinking that you haven't seen them in a long time," he said with a smile.

"What HAPPENED?"

He paused for a second, and then obviously realizing that he couldn't keep me from finding out, even if I immediately went upstairs to pack, which I wasn't going to do. "The floor in the hallway lifted up. We're going to have to take out all the tile and bust the concrete beneath it."

"The hallway?"
"Yep, and the breakfast area, too."
"I knew the breakfast area was loose, but the hallway?! It was fine yesterday!"

He tries to protect me from these sorts of things. Oh, well. We have now removed and replaced close to half of the ceramic in the house and I'm resigned to sooner or later having to remove, bust out the floors, replace the tile in the entire house.

Thankfully, El Jefe has the system down pat now. He's figured out how to maintain the dust level to the absolute minimum which I really appreciate. The areas to be worked on are wet down each night so we get mud instead of dust. The reason that the concrete floors have to be busted out is explained in another article. It's just too painful to talk about again. These photos should suffice.

The boxes were to stop the rubble
from flying everywhere

We filled 3 or 4 of those boxes with concrete rubble

Even after replacing the laundry room with a new, different tile to preserve the precious few tiles for those that get broken during the removal process, our supply of 'extras' is dangerously low again. The tile we used is no longer available. If the tiles continue to lift up, someday soon we'll be faced with either using an unmatched tile (oh, the horror of that thought!) or busting out a whole room somewhere and replacing it with a different tile to use the old ones as replacements in other rooms (another pretty horrifying thought).

I've written about this before, so if you want to share my pain, check out these articles. Don't miss the video so you can share what I listen to eight hours a days for days on end while the concrete floor is being busted out and the reason why J suggested a 'vacation' for me.

The day my floor exploded

Exploding floor, part 2

I discovered that I didn't write about our other floor eruptions. There was the 2012 episode, when most of the loooong front hallway popped up. Here is a photo from that time.

The year before was when the laundry room floor, parts of the hallway, and the guest bath lifted, I was too sad to write about it or take photos that time, but every year gets a little easier.

Right in the middle of the house
where we had to walk through it 10 times a day

Bust too deep and you have to pour
new concrete and wait for it to dry

Collateral damage

Some tiles just wouldn't come out...
probably next year!

The job is done for now so I can write about it without sniffling. It only took about three weeks. Walls have been dusted and everything is moved back to its proper place. This time, the worker got the concrete busting done pretty fast, but he broke four tiles, chipped several others, and the tile installer broke another one. We don't sweep our floors here - we shovel them!

We don't sweep; we shovel

Simple shopping

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:15:00 +0000

My (not so new anymore) new chair – comfy!

This is another one of those old articles that never got posted. I think this one is a couple of years old.

A few months ago, we made our annual pilgrimage to the big city, San Pedro Sula, thus single handedly improving the economy of Honduras with all of our purchases. ;-)

We always plan to go more often but don't seem to make it for some reason — mostly because a day trip is a real ordeal (about 3 hours each way on a life-threatening highway) and finding someone reliable to stay overnight and take care of the house and animals isn't easy. [The last time we went to SPS, we just missed a tornado, I think. There were fallen trees all over the highway.]

San Pedro Sula, the second largest city and industrial capital of Honduras, gets a bad rap in my opinion. We love it and would go much more often if it wasn't such a long trip. The traffic is kind of bad, but the city is laid out in such a orderly manner that we hardly ever get lost, unlike Tegucigalpa, where we have spent more time lost than not.

I love Diunsa, which is sort of like a Target without the clothes. They even deliver free to La Ceiba. We also stock up at Pricesmart when we can make it there. One incredible bargain was 2 pounds of Cheddar cheese for about L.200 (about US $10.50), compared to the latest we bought in La Ceiba which was 1 pound for about L.250 (about US $13)! I think that price was a mistake, but that's what they charged us.

In the way of grocery stores, I really love Los Andes. I found almost everything on my list plus a lot more that wasn't on my list, even a few things that PriceSmart didn't have. Los Andes has an incredible variety, even by US grocery store standards. They have cuts of meat that I actually recognize. The only thing we didn't find was hand wipes. They had baby wipes and butt wipes, granite wipes, kitchen wipes, bathroom wipes, bleach wipes, glass wipes, yadda yadda yadda, but no plain hand wipes. Maybe next time. [I haven't even been back to see Los Andes new gigantic super store yet!]

Of course, one disadvantage to all this variety is the decisions, decisions, decisions. For example, in La Ceiba, on rare occasions in recent years, I've found sun-dried tomatoes in a jar. Oh boy! I'll buy those. I might even buy two if the expiration date is far enough off. Los Andes had whole, julienned, and diced. They had tomatoes with basil and without. They had different brands and different sizes. Oh, no! Which is the better? Should I get the big one or the medium one? Sliced or whole? With or without? They must have had 30 different types of rice! Up until a few years ago in La Ceiba, you would have never known that more than one type of rice even existed. The first time I brought home wild rice, Arexy thought something had gone terribly, terribly wrong with the rice.

(There is more risotto in our future. Anyone have a favorite recipe to share? Oh, and remind me to tell Arexy not to fry up the precious arborio rice to go with the beans!)

The funny thing is that rather than feeling at home with the bigger and better variety, I felt a little overwhelmed. I realized that grocery shopping is much simpler in La Ceiba, except for sometimes having to go to 2 or 3 or 4 stores and completing a shopping list in one trip is a virtual impossibility because the stores are always out of something, sometimes even the things that are produced in Honduras, like sugar or our brand of coffee.

Still, there are areas of Honduras where the shopping is even simpler. A fellow blogger once noted that in Gracias, Lempira, if the grocery store has ground meat, for example, the only question is "buy it?" or "don't buy it?". No decisions about regular, low fat, chuck, or supreme there. They have what they have and you buy it or you don't.

It was a fun and successful trip. Do you want to hear what we bought? No, that would probably be boring. I will say that my renewed enthusiasm for cooking has caused El Jefe to say that we need to go back more often.

2013 La Ceiba Gran Carnaval International Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:00:00 +0000

Queen of the Feria Isidra
Images: La Prensa, Honduras

I have a little more information about La Ceiba's 41st annual Gran Carnaval Internacional.

Saturday, May 11, was the coronation of Hydee Samantha Flores Gavarrete as the reina (queen) of the Feria Isidra. That is her in the photo above. There is also a queen of the Carnaval as well as two princesses, shown below.

Here is the 2013 schedule

May 15: Carnavalito mercado San Isidro
May 17: Carnavalito Colonia Kawas
May 18: Carnavalito Barrio Solares Nuevos
May 19: Carnavalito Colonia Pizzati
May 20: Carnavalito Sierra Pina
May 21: Carnavalito Mall Mega Plaza
May 22: Carnavalito Barrio La Gloria
May 23: Carnavalito Paseo de los Ceibeños
May 24: Carnavalito Barrio La Isla
May 25: Parade and Gran Carnaval International

I couldn't find anything saying what time the parade will start. :-{

A principal attraction of the Gran Carnaval is the musical shows along San Isidro. This year, Elvis Crespo will be giving a free 90-minute concert on Calle 9 sometime after 10 pm. I couldn't find out what other bands will be participating. :-{ Maybe there will more information later this week.

The municipal tourism folks say that they have some fresh ideas for this year's carnaval and say we should expect some surprises. The parade will include floats from Mexico, Taiwan, and Cayman Islands, among many others. Security will be provided by at least two police on each corner during the parade assisted by soldiers. Street vendors will not be permitted in the Central Park this year so that tourists can enjoy the park and to avoid the accumulation of trash from the trinket and clothing vendors.

Businessmen hope that the carnival will help to improve the local economy but complain about the lack of promotion done by the city or the Ministry of Tourism. The tourism folks are predicting 500,000 tourists, but honestly, I don't see how this could be possible unless 99% of them are staying with family. The population of La Ceiba is only around 150,000 and I'd be surprised if there are many more than about 2,000 hotel rooms here. They must be counting day visitors who come to see the parade. Even with that, I just don't find that number credible.

La Gringa can't kill a chicken

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:36:00 +0000

Three chicks out and one to go

Once again we have baby chicks. When these hens get broody, they go off and hide somewhere to sit on their eggs. I was beginning to think that something was eating our chickens until one hen showed up with four chicks and another showed up a few days later with one chick. I don't know what we will do with them.

We disappointingly only get eggs for a few months at a time. It's a conspiracy. The rest of the time, at least one of the hens is broody and the other hens cooperate by giving that hen our eggs! I also think that some of our hens are just getting too old to lay reliably. By the way, we still have one of our original hens, 7-year-old Conchita, and Pancho is doing well, though we have one other rooster who the hens seem to prefer now.

This reminded me of an old article that I wrote a few years ago but never got posted, so I pulled it out, dusted it off, and here it is:

People eat chicken. And in order to eat one, someone has to kill one. I just don't want to be that person and I can't see that ever changing. (Please ignore the moldy walls. They are clean now.)

I know I'm being hypocritical because I eat chicken. Lots of it, though I prefer boneless breasts because that smooth slab of meat doesn't remind me quite so much of my pets as a raw whole chicken does. I've recognized the similarity when I pick up one of my pet chickens. Hmm, here's the thigh, here's the wing, and, yes, that neck feels just like the one that comes in a plastic bag in the frozen chicken's gut.

I was just never around a farm or farm animals, ever. All my animals were furry and fuzzy or feathery and had names. They had funerals when they died, not recipes. I have given excess roosters to people who I know plan to eat them. I just try not to think about it. I don't feel toooo guilty because I know that those people need the food.

While I was showing El Jefe old-wives' tale methods of determining the sex of baby chicks, I realized how pointless that was, except out of curiosity. What was I going to do if they were all roosters? Wring their necks? Hah! That would be the day. I would just try to find homes for them.

I've also nursed chickens that probably should have been put down. I just couldn't do it so I did what I could to make the hen comfortable. There was Pancho who lived in a laundry basket in our closet for a couple of weeks until he could walk again. In one case, I keep a hen in a cardboard box in my studio for seven months.

She became weak, was falling over, and couldn't stand up. I researched her symptoms and decided that she had Marek's, a very common disease among chickens. There is no treatment for it. Chickens usually either develop a natural immunity or die from it or. I had to feed her by hand for a couple of weeks and eventually she got stronger. She could stand and walk again, though not as strongly as a normal bird. But she was also blinded by the disease.

Blind chickens don't fare too well in food hunting so I continued to keep her and feed and water her in the box. I had to teach her how to find her food bowls. I hoped that as she recovered more fully, her vision would come back, but it was not to be. After a few weeks, I began to put her outside the studio window where she would spend her days. She would get around a little and peck a little bit. She seemed content to be outside, though occasionally the dogs would give her a hard time and I'd have to go out to rescue her. The other chickens ignored her and didn't bother her as sometimes happens with a weak animal.

I'd bring her in late every afternoon to spend the night safely in her box. If I was late, she would cluck to remind me when it was time to come inside. A couple of times, I forgot completely until after dark and had to enlist Chloe the Rottweiler's help in tracking her down in the dark. Chloe was an amazing chicken tracker.

Except for being blind and more dependent upon me than most chickens are, she seemed content with her life. She ate with gusto and let me know when she wanted more or was irritated by anything else.

Thankfully, El Jefe understood my feelings, though it was kind of embarrassing to explain to visitors who noticed a chicken in a box in the studio. Gringos would understand. Hondureños, not so much. Finally after about seven months, Carmen started to decline and lost interest in eating. A few days later, Carmen flew up to chicken heaven.

I suppose it was silly and pointless to continue to care for her so long. There just wasn't anything else I could do. If she had seemed to be in pain or lacked interest in food or life, I still couldn't have killed her myself but I might have asked someone else to do it. I think she was satisfied to be a house chicken for her last months.

Don't get the wrong idea: I have full respect for people who raise animals for food. They are probably a lot smarter than me because who knows what sorts of unhealthy 'additives' I'm getting in my store-bought, unidentifiable chicken breasts. I'm just a wuss and could no more eat one of my chickens than I could eat one of my chihuahuas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more chicken stories and lots of chicken videos, see the Chicken topic.

Tribute to a fallen police officer - Edgardo Galdámez

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:56:00 +0000

Edgardo Galdámez Vásquez

Yesterday afternoon I was reading "El precio de ser policía en Honduras" (The price of being a police officer in Honduras) on Proceso Digital. The article states that an average of 5.4 Honduran police officers are murdered every month and that violence has taken the lives of 130 police in the past two years. Based on what has come to light in the past two years regarding police corruption, when we read about police murders, we can't help but wonder, "Was he killed because he was involved in illegal activities with the wrong people or was it because he couldn't be bought or intimidated?"

Countrywide, Honduras' murder rate is about 85.5 per 100,000 compared to a worldwide average of about 8 per 100,000. Considering that there are only about 14,000 Honduran police, 65 murders per year puts their murder rate at 464.3 per 100,000. And that means that a Honduran police officer is 58 times more likely to be murdered than the average world citizen. Not good odds, especially considering that most of the police make at or close to minimum wage, the equivalent of about US $350 per month, from which they have to buy their own uniforms, boots, and even bullets.

The article went on to discuss the Thursday murder of the Chief of Vehicle Robbery Section of the DNIC (criminal investigation unit), Edgardo Ulises Galdámez Vásquez. He was also a trainer at the police academy and in the field offices. Galdámez was assassinated in the usual paid assassin fashion, by two men on a motorcycle. By all accounts that I read, he was one of the good guys. Proceso Digital wrote that he was considered to be an honest official with a clean service record.

Shortly after that, I received an email from a reader confirming that Edgardo Galdámez was a good, honest man. The reader is involved with training police in Central America and other countries and for security reasons, I've chosen to not mention her name. I'll call her Karen.

Nothing I could write could compare to the power of Karen's own words, so I present them to you here:

Querida Gringa,

Edgardo Galdámez Vásquez

I just learned about the murder of a colleague in Honduras. A great police offer, 41-year old Edgardo Galdámez, was gunned down on Thursday evening in Tegucigalpa. Edgardo and I worked side-by-side as instructors in Tegus, San Pedro and La Ceiba just a few months ago.

Please consider posting a blog about this terrible loss. Having personally known him, I can assure you that I care not because he was a police officer, but because he was one of the best and brightest in Honduras. He was honest to a fault. He struggled to professionalize the police force in Honduras.

In spite of what he called "rampant corruption", he was very successful in teaching many techniques of crime scene investigation. I can only hope that the best of those techniques are now being utilized to punish his murderers. If anything, it would make his life and his struggle so much more meaningful.

In the US, when an officer is killed, even if it's not "in the line of duty," all his/her fellow police officers wear a black armband reading the Latin inscription "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit". This means "no one harms me with impunity". This attitude is crucial to maintain and support the rule of law. Because the death of any human is a tragedy that can destroy an entire family, even a whole community. But the murder of a police officer is a crime against all the citizens, as our safety depends on his/her protection and service.

I did not meet his family, but if you read the comments section of the newspaper post, you will see a comment apparently made by his widow. I say apparently, as I cannot confirm the identity of the author.

Edgardo and I, together with another colleague who will remain unnamed to protect her safety, collaborated in a national effort to instruct rank-and-file police officers about how to treat a crime scene in a professional manner. We also had participants from the Ministerio Público and the press.

Edgardo had a fascinating knowledge about ballistics, as well as the protection and correct processing of a crime scene. He was a champion of the rule of law and the importance of correctly processing a crime scene to ensure that the criminals were caught, prosecuted and punished. He would say to the training participants, "We can catch the right criminal, but without processing, cataloging and preserving the evidence, there is no conviction. Without a conviction, there is no punishment. Impunity engenders corruption because with it there is no rule of law."

Edgardo developed dozens of mock crime scenes to train police officers and investigators in all of Honduras. He selected participants at random to play the roles of passerby, victim, police officer, investigator, reporters and family members. He demonstrated how to be stern, yet compassionate with family members who tried to get close to murder victims. He would tell of a time when the family members of a murder victim in a small village, not only impeded the investigation, but even chased the handful of law-enforcement representatives out of the village. Out-numbered and out-gunned, they had no option but to leave town without investigating.

He was adamant about using the correct terminology for everything. That's how many learned the term "tanatocronodiagnóstico", a scientifically accurate word to name the "time of death". He would pop-quiz participants and everyone would laugh at the first futile attempts of some trainees to utter such a mouthful.

He was passionate, gentle, and honest. And dead serious about his work. No one would have ever guessed he would play the victim at an actual crime scene. We still can't believe it. May he rest in peace, wherever he is. As for the rest of his colleagues, I beg them to to investigate this case so scrupulously that it would make him proud.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The comment from Edgardo's widow referred to above was this:

El era mi esposo, no saben el dolor tan grande que ha causado a mi hijo, a mi, y al resto de la familia, pido justicia y que Dios bendiga a los asesinos de la muerte de mi esposo, dañaron mi vida y la de mi hijo, no es justo que los delincuentes estén dejando tantas viudas e hijos huérfanos por unos miserables pesos, pido oración por todos los hondureños, especialmente por las esposas e hijos de los policías que día a día arriesgan su vida por defender a la de los demás.

Translation:

He was my husband You don't know the great pain that this has caused my son, me, and the rest of the family. I ask for justice and that God bless those assassins of the death of my husband. This has damaged my life and that of my son. It is not right that the criminals are leaving so many widows and orphaned children, especially for the wives and children of police that day after day risk their life to defend that of others.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Every year in Honduras, hundreds of thousands of wives, mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, and friends suffer this pain and the further indignant pain of being impotent to see that justice will be done. In the vast majority of cases, justice will not be done in Honduras.

La Ceiba Gran Carnaval is May 25, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:32:00 +0000

La Ceiba Gran Carnival
Image: La Prensa, Honduras

Thanks to a reader who asked the Municipal Tourism folks, I found out that my guess was right. The final big celebration and parade will be on Saturday, May 25, 2013.

I emailed a few days ago to ask for a schedule of events during the two weeks leading up to parade day. If I'm able to get it, I'll report it here. My guess is that it hasn't been finalized yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I ran across this article written shortly after last year's carnival, A 40 años del Carnaval de La Ceiba, by Guillermo Anderson, a singer, songwriter, and musician, one of Honduras' most famous. He believes that the carnival has lost its personality and identity. As a Ceibeño, he misses the focus on the Garífuna music and punta dance. He seems particularly bothered by the political use of the carnival and thinks that political floats in the parade should be prohibited and some esthetic standards should be required for all floats. With this being an election year, I'm sure we'll see lots of politicians this year. His article is in Spanish but translates reasonably well using Google Translate if you don't read Spanish.

If you aren't familiar with Guillermo Anderson's music, you can preview his Costa y Calor selections here and check out all of his CDs here.

Weather: dreary with smoke

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Thu, 02 May 2013 05:43:00 +0000

Dreary?

The weather websites are coming up with some interesting tags these days. Sunny, cloudy, rain, snow: I'm sure they get tired of those. I was on a Honduras website and noticed a weather widget predicting "smoke".

We do have a smoky season in Honduras. It usually only lasts about a week. I still haven't figured it out and never remember year to year exactly when it was. It's widely believed to be at the time when the sugar cane farmers burn their fields. The clouds of smoke go up and usually hang over Honduras for a week or more. But the sugar cane folks always deny that they are at fault, so who knows? All I know is that it is real and it's uncomfortable, especially causing problems for those with respiratory issues.

After seeing that, I wondered if my blog weather widget was also reporting "smoke". I took a look and saw that odd report shown in the photo at top: "Dreary". What an odd thing to say. I think of dreary in respect to rain, maybe drizzle, heavy clouds, and that sort of thing. Dark and dreary. Dreary and depressed. Hot and dreary? It just doesn't fit.

What it should say and should have said for the past week or two is "Hotter than hell" because that is what we've been experiencing. Even people in high altitude Tegucigalpa who have balmy weather compared to La Ceiba have been moaning about the heat. It hasn't helped that La Prensa keeps publishing articles warning us that the hottest days are yet to come. Is that possible? Can it really get any hotter than it is? They say it has something to do with the position of the sun.

It also hasn't helped that Tegus, San Pedro, and La Ceiba have had numerous power outages during this hot weather. We rarely use our air conditioner and never during the day, but existing without fans can be miserable. Luckily, we have been just outside the range of the power outages several times. I'm sure our time is coming though.

Did you notice the "real feel"? 115°F (46°C)! This proves my point that it's not the temperature, it's the humidity! I come from Dallas, Texas. We loved 88°F and didn't even blink about the heat until it got to be around the 105°F range (41°C). I remember experiencing 114°F (46°C) and a full month when the daily high was over 100°F (38°C) every single day. But Dallas has no humidity to speak of so the 'feel' is more like opening an oven door, not immersing yourself in a boiling caldron.

My super-sized sweating tea mug

It is so hot that I work up a sweat just strolling to the kitchen to replenish the ice in my insulated mug of no-longer-iced tea. By the end of the day, I'm pretty sure that I'm drinking iced water, not tea. Speaking of sweating: even my antique insulated mug sweats like crazy. It's not supposed to do that!

The sky has been a little hazy today. I keep hoping that means that rain is coming, not that it is the beginning of smoke season. My sore throat is telling me otherwise. I miss rainy season!

Has it been hot where you are?

I don't know the dates of the 2013 La Ceiba Carnival, do you?

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Wed, 01 May 2013 03:16:00 +0000

La Ceiba's Carnival parade

Update: The final big celebration and parade are scheduled for May 25, 2013. I'll post the schedule of events if and when I can get it.

When is the La Ceiba Carnival? That question pops up every year and every year I make fruitless attempts to find an answer including emailing the municipal tourism office. Oh, I know that Wikipedia used to say that it is the third week of May, but that has been corrected to "the third or fourth week of May". Besides, it is a two week event, though most people are referring to the last big day of the parade and all night partying when they speak of 'the carnival'.

I remember one year Ceiba's tourism office set up the dates about a month in advance....and then changed them at the last minute to start a week later. I felt sorry for anyone who had already arranged their vacation and bought plane tickets based on the previous calendar of events. Similarly, the big parade itself can be delayed for hours and hours due to disorganization or waiting on some dignitary to arrive.

Here are a few sites that I checked:

Honduras.com has the 2009 schedule

Honduras Tips gives the dates, but no year. The article isn't dated. It seems to be the 2012 schedule.

Hola Ceibita mentions the carnival but doesn't give the dates.

Let's go Honduras, a Ministry of Tourism website, doesn't even mention that there is a carnaval in La Ceiba. The main Ministerio de Tourismo website was no help either.

The official Ceiba tourism website, Visita La Ceiba, also doesn't mention that a Ceiba Carnaval exists.

The former official carnaval website has been turned into a dating website! "Meet here the most beautiful single Honduran girls!" I won't give the link, but if you accidentally find it, I believe that the schedule given is totally wrong as it gives the final parade date as a Thursday. The big parade is ALWAYS on a Saturday.

So, your guess is as good as mine. My guess for 2013 based on prior years is May 11 through 25, with the parade and big carnaval night being on Saturday, May 25.

Does anyone KNOW when the 2013 La Ceiba Carnaval is scheduled?

About the La Ceiba Carnival

If you like a wild party, you'll probably like La Ceiba's carnaval. The daytime parade is enjoyable, but increasingly has drawn crime and violence, probably due in no small part to the amount of drinking going on. La Ceiba's main street, San Isidro, is lined with bandstands and shows at night during the week or weeks leading up to the final big day when there is a band performing every block or so in the center of town.

The El Sauce neighborhood, which used to have one of the biggest neighborhood carnavalitos, has dropped out this year due to robberies and violence. El Jefe says that the amount of trash and bodily wastes and vomit left behind after the neighborhood carnivalitos was enough to make any patronato (neighborhood association) think hard about the decision.

El Jefe told me that Pizza Hut and Burger King, among others, just close down on that last day of carnaval due to the horrendous things done to their restrooms. They used to have a guard at the door and another "bathroom guard" to limit use of the bathrooms to customers, but it was to no avail.

But, hey, to each his own! If you like to party, you'll probably like La Ceiba's Carnival. If you aren't a partier, there is great local live television coverage of the parade on TV.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For older Carnaval related articles, see here.

No rice with potatoes!

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:40:00 +0000

Rice and potatoes?

"You're ordering rice and potatoes?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Because you just don't. You don't eat rice with potatoes. That's two starches. It's not allowed!"

"Whatever. It's good. You should try it."

Honduran chicken pastelito

Actually, I have tried it. There is no way around it. Yummy pastelitos (fried meat pies) often come with rice and potatoes inside. So do many tamales, including the ones I make.

I don't know about the rest of Honduras, but arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) served with ensalada de papas (potato salad) is the most common party food around this part of the country. It's inexpensive (not much pollo in that rice!), relatively easy to make in vast quantities to serve a crowd, and very filling, especially when served with two slices of plain white Bimbo bread (think Wonder bread). Both dishes are good. I just wish they weren't served together. I am a bread snob, though, and have to pass on the Bimbo bread.

"What is it with gringos and eating rice with potatoes?"

"Okay, I was taught that you should eat a meat, a veggie, a starch (though probably not so much anymore with all the no-carb people), and maybe a salad – extra veggies are okay, but never two starches. You don't eat rice with potatoes, or potatoes with pasta, or pasta with rice. If the soup has potatoes in it, you don't put rice in it. If it has rice, you don't put potatoes. If it has noodles, you don't put rice or potatoes. Got it? That's just the way it is. It's a law. The law of gringo eating."

Where's the bastimento?

Conversely, my Catracho wants his bastimento. As an example, he said that he could have a plate of spaghetti with a side of rice and would still need a bastimento to go with it.

Guineos and yuca

'Bastimento' can basically be described as something starchy to fill you up. In La Ceiba, that is generally boiled guineos (bananas), boiled or fried platanos (plantains) or yuca (a potato-like root vegetable), or tortillas, either corn or flour, most often corn. Bread will serve in a pinch. Rice doesn't count as a bastimento, neither do potatoes, even though they are starchy and will fill you up.

But wait! After doing some fact checking with El Jefe, it turns out that french fries are a bastimento, but potato salad is not. Other types of potatoes may be allowed as a substitute, but never potato salad. Never. It's not a bastimento for some unfathomable reason. Apparently adding mayo to potatoes removes it's bastimento status.

"I have to look at my plate and convince myself that mashed potatoes or baked potato is a bastimento. Then I am satisfied that I have a complete meal."

I found out that potato salad doesn't count one time when we had the whole family over. We made pinchos (both chicken and beef kabobs with chiles and onions). I had about 10 pounds each of beef, chicken, potato salad and cole slaw. We started with about 6 dozen deviled egg halves and a pot of homemade bean, cheese, and chorizo anafre (bean and sausage dip) with tortilla chips and ended with two different desserts. My meal was found lacking because there was no bastimento. :-{

Corn tortillas - si! bastimento

I learned my lesson. The next time, I asked my sister-in-law if she could make the tortillas. I can make them, but just couldn't imagine the time it would take to make a mountain of tortillas with all the other cooking I was doing. So she kindly brought about 50 tortillas. My mother-in-law ate two and I sent all the rest of the tortillas home with everyone else. Go figure.

And the Catracho rule? No guineos with tortillas! I once suggested that we have fried tajadas with our baleadas. The looks I got from him and Arexy! You would have thought I suggested we fry up one of the chihuahuas for lunch.

"You can't eat platanos with tortillas. It's the law."

Honduras' Gag Law

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:09:00 +0000

President Pepe Lobo, "What's the worry? It's for democracy!"

President Lobo is pushing hard for a 'gag' law that would seriously curtail freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Honduras, in emulation of what Hugo Chávez accomplished in Venezuela. Under this proposed gag law, media sources speaking critically of the government could face fines in the millions and even loss of their license under what the press is calling confiscatory measures. The proposed law is said to call for a censure committee and to also give the President discretionary rights to regulate all media, including deciding what is information and what is not, who is granted frequencies and who is not, as well as the final discretion to revoke or confiscate media as he sees fit. While the law will apply to online news sources, it's unclear whether it could be also applied to personal blogs.

While Lobo claims there is no intent to previously censor any news or confiscate private property, fines for violating the new rules range from 3% to 5% of gross annual income! The penalty for repeat violations can mean license revocation. Self-censorship among reporters is already a huge problem in Honduras where dozens of radio, television, and print journalists have been murdered in the past 10 years and where lucrative government advertising contracts can make or break a radio or television station and likely has a major effect on the slant given to the news.

Armando Villanueva
image: La Prensa, Honduras

Just yesterday, Armando Villanueva who hosts a popular political talk show on Canal 10 denounced that his life had been threatened by the sister of the current attorney general who has been under fire in the media and was 'suspended' by congress for lack of results and corruption within the Ministerio Publico.

The law is touted as a means to "democratize" radio and television communications. In Honduras as in most countries in the world, television and radio licenses are limited to those who have the money to pay for them. The stated goal of the law to provide 33% of frequencies to community groups, such as indigenous groups, women, and other social groups, 33% to the private sector and 34% to the public (government) sector. The government already has two full time television propaganda stations and says that they need many more. The law will also affect print media as well as digital news. Television commercials for the government are already as frequent as Tigo (cell phone company) commercials on some channels.

The draft law cites several articles of the constitution, including the right of the government to intervene in the name of public and social interests. Unfortunately, it also quotes article 76 which gives the "right to honor" which has been interpreted in the penal code (yes, penal code, not civil laws) to mean that anything said or published which offends the honor of anyone is a crime, even if it is true. Truth is not a defense to the calumnia laws. You can see how this could hamstring any discussion of corrupt or inept officials. It already does. Those who dare to publicly denounce corruption rarely ever mention any names.

Another worrisome area of potential abuse is the government's claimed responsibility to protect national security, public order, health, and public morals. 'National security' has been used to withhold important information from the public regarding police purification, so news sources which have leaked the shockingly disappointing facts and figures could be heavily fined for doing so under the new law.

Presidential security
image: El Heraldo, Honduras

Who decides what 'public morals' consist of? This government has already shown itself highly intolerant of any religious activities which don't closely fit the Catholic or Evangelical ideology. For the last many years, presidents have threatened to take action against media which report crimes, saying that it demoralizes the public. Lobo has even claimed that the news media (international media included) have lied about the statistics and sensationalized the crime situation. Perhaps when you have 48 bodyguards, the crime situation appears a little different than it does to the average person.

Many organizations within and outside the country have spoken out against this proposal very strongly, including the US government and the President of Honduras Supreme Court. [all links are to articles in Spanish unless otherwise noted] SIP (Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa) lamented the political and disciplinary character of the reform, and pointed out that several countries, such as Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, have been using the 'democratization' of media as justification to impose control over independent media and impose state monopolies. Yesterday, a UN representative declared that the proposed law violates freedom of expression and even the OAS has expressed its concerns.

Just like former President Zelaya [see this and this in English for a few examples], Lobo has been complaining and pushing against the media for years. [See this article in English] He gets particularly angry about articles about crime, whether they are written within or from outside the country. Lobo says this law will not be stopped.

Will this unconstitutional law pass congress?

According to one congressman, bribes of L.500,000 are being paid to suplantes (substitute congressmen who can vote in the absence of their congressman) and L.250,000 to the opposition congressmen, apparently for being absent the day of the vote.

If true, where does that money come from? Honduras was and still is drowning in debt. For the past several months, numerous sectors of government employees have gone without pay. Government debts, including payments to municipalities, were going unpaid. Government contractors have shut down their work for lack of payment. Providers of even such things as insulin and dialysis equipment refused to provide any more services until they were paid. Virtually nothing is being done to actually, you know, improve infrastructure or provide any of those services that those tens of thousands of government workers are paid to provide. So if the government had no money, where is this bribe money coming from?

Could it be from the recent Honduran US$500 million 7.5% bond issue? I thought it was bad enough that 1) the funds received would be used to pay current expenses, 2) that the interest rate was a ridiculous 7.5%, and 3) that future governments will be paying this debt for 2012-2013 expenses with devalued lempiras for the next 20 years. But to think that they would use this bond money to bribe congressmen to pass an unconstitutional law curtailing freedom of the press? Incredible. Another explanation could be, as many including congressmen claim, that the congress is controlled by narco money.

Well, now there you have it! There I go again. I can't help myself. Exactly why I worry that 'they' might want to kick me out of the country.

Whew! I'm legal again

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:09:00 +0000

Just got back with my shiny new annual Honduran residency card so I'm legal again (still) for another year. Here, let me give you a laugh at my expense:

There is no time limit on Honduras residency once it is granted, but you do have to go renew your residency card and prove that you still meet the requirements every year or five years, depending on the type of residency. Every single year, my stomach ties itself in knots when that time comes around. I'm sure that when I present my old card at the extranjero (foreigners') desk for renewal, I'll find that there is a migratory alert out for me and they'll give me 24 hours to get outta Dodge. "Oh, you are that gringa with the blog? Ahah! We've been looking for you!"

This is totally irrational, I know. Or I think I know. Or I think that it probably is. That's what El Jefe tells me anyway. He wouldn't say this, but I think that he thinks this fear is idiotic. And it probably is. Or maybe it is. I hope it is.

He says, "You write the truth and it isn't even as bad as what most Hondurans say."

"Yeah, but they are Hondurans and they can't get kicked out."

Honduran immigration laws

I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about US immigration laws. And I've found that most Hondurans know next to nothing about Honduran immigration laws. Why should they? They were born here and don't need to know anything about them.

The Honduras constitution (Capítulo II) states that foreign residents have the same civil rights as Honduran citizens, with some exceptions like you can't vote and you can't 'desarollar actividades politicas' (develop/carry out political activities). I don't consider writing a blog as a political activity.

I don't promote political activities and I'm not involved with any political parties or candidates. I don't tell anyone who they should vote for, or to protest in the streets, or to start a revolution. Most of what I write about is already public knowledge within the country but often has not been reported in English or in the international media. I believe that the constitution gives me the right to express my opinions. But this government has shown no respect for the constitution and they could interpret 'political activities' any way that suits them at the moment.

I know Honduras is not like Mexico, where – or so I've heard anyway – expat bloggers who write critically of the government are invited to leave the country – pronto! It hasn't been true of anyone I know in Honduras, but I have received lots of warnings from Honduran friends who worry about my safety. Maybe there haven't been many foreign resident bloggers who have written critically of the government or in as much detail as I have. Well, hey, come to think of it, there aren't any expats and very few Hondurans writing like me that I know of. I think that self-censorship abounds in most Honduran blogs for many different and valid reasons. I'll admit that I self-censor, too. Writing about some things could result in retaliation at best and at worst, put our lives in danger.

A decade or so ago, there was Miguel de Arriba, who was deported to Spain after 13 years in Honduras for his outspoken opinions about corruption expressed on his website. The reason was given that Honduran law prohibits foreigners from "referring to internal politics". I know absolutely that the immigration law says no such thing and the constitution only vaguely refers to "developing political activities", not "referring to political activities". Salvadoran Padre Andrés Tamayo was deported a few years ago after many years in Honduras, but he was actively out in the streets promoting political protests which got violent and he publicly called for boycotting elections.

Then there was Costa Rican Federico Álvarez [in English], 34 year resident of Honduras who had been previously honored with presidential and congressional awards. He lost his citizenship in 2010 and was threatened with deportation because of his critical opinion pieces in the newspapers. This was blamed on paperwork errors, but Federico had been warned to tone it down by friends of the president. He was allowed to maintain his residency and is still here with his Honduran wife and his Honduran children and grandchildren, but he quit writing for awhile and may have self-censored his criticism of the government. During that time, the Secretaria del Interior y Población stated that there were five others being deported. No further information came out about that.

I told El Jefe that I read that Miguel de Arriba was escorted to the airport and wasn't even allowed to tell his wife goodbye! "Isn't that terrible?!"

"Oh, just like they do in the US", he pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, uh, yeah, I guess that is just like the US," I said sheepishly. Recovering quickly, I retorted, "....but wait, that's for entering the country illegally, not for speaking your mind! I'm legal! I have documents! I have a right to free speech!"

But President Lobo is in the process of drastically changing what free speech means in Honduras. See my next article on Honduras' proposed Gag Law.

The next day

The nice lady at immigration who takes care of extranjeros told me to come back the next morning for my card. Oh, whoopee! I had another whole night and morning to worry that when she entered the renewal of the card in the system, a migratory alert would pop up: Warning! Warning! Detain this person and call the authorities!

As it turned out, she had the card waiting for me the next day. Before she gave it to me, I had to be fingerprinted again for the umpteenth time. Then she asked me to verify several bits of information that they have had in the system for the last 12 years. Hmmm. Is she stalling until the armed immigration agents show up to apprehend me? Finally satisfied, she asked me to sign the book and handed my card over with a smile.

I practically skipped out the door.

El Jefe: "Feel better now?"

Me: "Yes!....until next year."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, let's be honest here. Do any of you immigrants to this country or any other country get a little queasy when you have to renew your documents? Does anyone else worry, that for paperwork error or any other reason, you could be kicked out of your adopted country? Is it just me and my active imagination?

Trading Places

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Cartoon courtesy of CartoonChurch.com

I have contaminated my Catracho with gringo thinking. I've created a monster. I admitted several years ago that I have the US American 'complaint gene'. Americans tend to think that anything that doesn't "make sense" or isn't "fair" must be rectified! And we tend to think that all we need to do is to point that out for justice to be done. Unfortunately, the complaint gene is not appreciated so much in Honduras.

El Jefe is a pretty laid back guy. He accepts that nothing is going to be quick and easy, that the store is probably not going to have what we need, and that the repairman will probably not show up when he is supposed to. He still takes all that in stride. He is Honduran, after all.

But living in the US for awhile has given him a different perspective as it has for many returning Catrachos. That is compounded by years of reading the Blogicito and listening to my opinions. Lately he sometimes has been taking it to the extreme. He has a personal mission to teach customer service in La Ceiba. He chides clerks and waiters when they are rude or do stupid things. He tells them how they should have answered a question from a customer and even goes so far as to remind them that if they don't treat the customers right, the customers will go somewhere else, the store or restaurant might close, and they would be out of a job and then WHAT?! Jobs are hard to find in La Ceiba.

If they don't have a product they used to have, he gives them a lecture in inventory control and asks them how they expect to make money if they don't have the things that people want to buy.

Even I, the gringa, thinks that he goes too far sometimes. This isn't the USA. I might give him a nudge with my elbow, an alarmed look, or simply slink a little bit away, you know, as if I'm not really with HIM. You know, they way HE used to do with me when, shocked at some horrible customer service event, I would make a spectacle of myself demanding that yes, I should receive the item I just paid for and that if they don't have it, no, they don't get to keep my money and make me buy something else that I don't want or need.

Recently I bought a blouse at Carrion at the mall. The first day I wore it, part of the side seam ripped open. "We need to go take this back right now!" declared J. "I'm not taking it back," said me. "It's easy to fix a seam and I probably did it climbing into the truck." "No, we need to take it back." "Please! I don't want to go through the hassle of trying to take it back!" Grumble, grumble, he retorted.

(Credit where credit is due: I have to say that the girl who helped me at Carrion was wonderful! She was my personal assistant for the whole time I was there and insisted on seeing everything I tried on. "Me encanta!" "Que bonita!" she would exclaim after seeing me twirl in the new duds. I'll be looking for her the next time I go.)

He's not the only one I see that way. Sometimes I'm confused by Hondurans who come into a store or other business griping loudly about something and being unnecessarily rude to the employees. I wonder how it is that they get action when my reasonable complaints didn't. Maybe it has to do with the caste system. Maybe I just don't dress well enough or carry an expensive enough cell phone.

This personality change is quite the turn from 2001 when I wanted to take back a 2-month-old stove to San Pedro that had rusted. At that time, he thought it was crazy to even try and only grudgingly agreed to take the bottom drawer back to show them. Eventually I got my new stove but what a hassle! For a stove it was worth it the aggravation, but for a blouse? Not for the new, Honduranized gringa. I know when to pick my battles now.

El Jefe hates corruption as much as I do. After reading the newspaper or watching the news, he'll say, "Why don't they do xxxxx or xxxxx to put a stop to it?" "Because this is Honduras?", the now mellowed gringa meekly offers. Talk about trading places! I couldn't count the number of times over the years that he answered my frustrated questions with that even more frustrating answer.

I don't know if he makes a difference or not, but we can always hope. By the way, you might find this 2010 article has some helpful Honduran consumer tips:

Cultural differences: Consumer complaints

What is your best or worse consumer experience in Honduras? Please share it with us in the comment section!

Thank you, Blogicito Readers

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:11:00 +0000

Heliconia psittacorum

Thank you, Blogicito Readers, for all of the congratulations you've sent recently! I spent all morning one day replying to everyone who wrote. I really appreciate your readership.

Pink ginger - smells so good!

On a similar note, I was so encouraged by the avalanche of email and comments I received on my return to the blogosphere a few months ago! I was absolutely floored when I opened my email the morning after my first come-back article. I meant to write this thank you much earlier and then got sidetracked. I wasn't able to reply to all the emails and I apologize for that but I wanted to let the readers know how very much I appreciate all of your comments. I'm so happy that you are still out there. Thank goodness for the Feedburner email updates or you'd probably never know I was back to blogging again. I wouldn't have blamed you if you gave up on me.

Mussaenda philippica
Flower almost as big as the plant

Speaking of the Feedburner email updates, if you signed up to receive the Blogicito by email but haven't been receiving it, it is because you didn't complete the process. Feedburner requires a response to the confirmation email to prevent spammers from adding email addresses without the person's permission. It's for your protection, so click the link in their email to complete the final step of the subscription process.

I had forgotten how much time it takes to research, find or take photos, edit and arrange photos in blog articles, etc. Blogger has a new system that I had to get used to all over again, particularly the uploading and arranging of photos. It was supposed to be easier, but for me and the way I like to display photos, it's actually more time consuming (originally I typed 'confuming' — a Freudian slip for consuming and confusing).

Neomarica longifolia - Yellow Walking Iris
Learn more at My Dry Tropics Garden

Sometimes it takes as long to upload and arrange the photos as it does it write the article. Why does selecting "center" not center a photo? Why does moving one photo to the right change the next photos to the center? Jeesh! I'm not near the Google fan that I was a few years ago. Too many Google changes lately don't seem for the better to me. Oh, well, we have to have those photos, don't we?

I'd like to encourage all of you to leave the occasional comment on the Blogicito website if you are inspired to comment about an article. Don't be shy! While I appreciate all the private emails, it gets to be time consuming to have so many private conversations going on. Almost 950 people get the Blogicito by email. Of course, not all write to me but still, there is only one of me to answer. ;-) I don't always have time to respond to everyone and that makes me feel guilty!

Looking out the window

Often seeing input from other readers makes the conversation more interesting and helpful for everyone. To make that easier for those reading from the email update, there is a comment link at the bottom of each email which will take you to the comment form on the Blogicito. You may need to display images in the email to see the link. I hope you'll try it. You can post comments anonymously or use a screen name on the blog. Once you set up an account (no one but me sees your email address), Disqus will remember you for future comments.

Reader comments are the fuel that keeps the blogger fire burning! Your comments mean a lot to me.

5.5 Earthquake in Honduras

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:03:00 +0000

5.5 Honduras earthquake, 1:14 pm, April 10, 2013
Image courtesy USGS

Oooooh! We just felt an earthquake in La Ceiba. It lasted several seconds and based on my memory of 2009 when we had so many, I'd guess that it was at least a 5.5. The stuff on top of my desk was rattling like crazy. At first I just sat there experiencing it, but when it didn't pass after a few seconds, I decided it was time to get out of the house. I saw Arexy paused like a statute on the terraza steps. Before I could get outside, it stopped.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote that and then I had to go chat with everyone around me. El Jefe was driving on the highway and did not feel it. Our Honduras Living group was getting messages from expats in La Ceiba, San Pedro, Roatán, Tegucigalpa, La Lima (Cortés), Danlí (El Paraíso) who all felt it. Two people who were in Trujillo and the island of Guanaja did not feel it.

Not to brag – well, maybe a little! – I guesstimated 5.5 right after it happened. The USGS is now showing it as a 5.5 on the Richter scale. I tracked all of those 2009 earthquakes and since I blogged about most of them, I guess my memory is working pretty well. I had never experienced an earthquake before moving to Honduras and they made a big impression on me, especially the 7.3 quake that had us running through the dark to get out of the house.

The USGS earthquake website gives the epicenter as 5 km. (3 miles) south of San Juan Pueblo and about 36 km (22 miles) southeast of Tela, Honduras. San Juan Pueblo is roughly halfway on the highway between La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula. We were checking the television, but not much was known at the time about damages. I just checked again, and Canal 3 is saying that there are no reports of damage so far. I guess Honduras was lucky again. We'll no doubt get more details on the 5pm news.

La Prensa is reporting that Tela lost power and telecommunications but that there was no damage reported. Jocon, Yoro y Olanchito reported fissures in some buildings and homes. La Prensa also gives a whole page of earthquake safety tips.

The following map indicates the "Did you feel it?" reports received by the USGS. I always encourage people to report what they felt. You can do that with the DYFI online form. I think it helps the USGS refine their data.


The blue bubbles represent reports of feeling the quake. Courtesy USGS Earthquake website Click to enlarge

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Question: Are there any earthquake experts out there who can explain why the depth is almost always given as 10 km? Just curious.

David is back!

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:59:00 +0000

Identities obscured

David and Delmy came to visit today. What a shock that was! I was so happy and relieved. I was really thinking the worst had happened. He got back home last night, courtesy of the US government. They sent him to San Pedro Sula, where he says the plane was met by Honduran Immigration who gave them something to eat and drink and money for a bus ticket to La Ceiba. I didn't think that Honduras did that. I thought it was a private organization that I've read about many times in the news, but he thought that it was the government.

He was captured when on his way from McAllen to Houston with about 20 other people and a coyote. The coyote and a few of the others got away. They had been walking from 6 am to 6 pm for four days through the countryside with a guide. A pregnant El Salvadoran was with them. Her leg swelled up with so much walking until she couldn't walk anymore. Two other men started carrying her. That slowed them down and he thinks that was part of the reason they were caught. He also said that some farmers saw them and probably reported them.

I'm not sure exactly where he was detained. I told him I had been checking the ICE detainee locator and that he never showed up on it. He said he was transferred two or three times. Each time the guards would come and tell him, "Get ready. You're leaving." He would think they were sending him home but instead, he would be transferred to another prison. What a let down.

I'm just amazed that he was able to come home so soon. I've read complaints (from Hondurans) that sometimes Hondurans languish in US detention centers for months waiting for the Honduran Consulate to prepare whatever paperwork it is that they have to prepare for the deportation to be processed. In fact, I met a woman a few years ago who that happened to. She was in a detention center for six months, but she said that they treated her well and that the food was good. David, who is now an expert on the US, says that the facilities used to be better but the government cut funding.

He told us that he'll have to come back to visit us five times to give us all the episodes of this telenovela (soap opera). He did tell us a lot, much of it confirmed what I've read recently about the journey, the coyotes, the narcos, the danger. He was robbed by a Mexican police of 300 pesos, all the money he had left, in return for allowing him to ride a bus through Mexico. On that one bus, he said there were about 25 people heading north. At the next stop, however, more police were waiting to be paid and he had nothing left. The police were demanding 400 pesos from each immigrant. One other immigrant offered to give 100 pesos for David and the police accepted it and let him continue. That was kind – of the other immigrant, I mean.

He also rode a train for part of the journey. He said there were about 500 other immigrants on that one train alone! The 'independents' rode on top of the train. Those with coyotes got to ride inside. That was before the coyote, so David rode on top of the train.

During the journey, he found out that he would never be able to cross the border without a coyote. His brother paid US $800 to a coyote for him and was supposed to pay another $1,700 when David arrived. David ended up having to wait 8 days in Reynosa, Mexico, about 20 minutes from the border. Reynosa has a cottage industry of people who are paid by the coyotes to put up the immigrants while they wait. He stayed with a single woman who shared her food with him. Apparently the narco groups, the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel control all the crossings. He said that the coyotes and the narcos are one and the same and that some of the Zetas are Hondurans.

I don't know how much of this is true and how much are rumors that he picked up, but he said that the immigrants are crossed Monday through Friday and on Sundays, the narcos move the drugs across. He also said that there are people waiting on the other side (US side) and if the immigrants didn't come through with an 'authorized' coyote or with the appropriate narco group, they are extorted again, or kidnapped, or killed.

He complained a lot about the food. In the jail or detention center or wherever he was, they didn't get much food and it wasn't good. He said that the inmates who worked (cleaning the prison or working in the kitchen) were paid US $1 day but the advantage was that they received four meals instead of one. Those people shared the extra food with David and others. The strangest thing of all was that the detainees were served sweet beans, like baked beans, I'm guessing. How strange is that? I don't understand that at all since regular beans are so cheap and so easy to make. Oh, I know it isn't supposed to be a hotel but it still seems strange to me. He said they would also get a slice of bread and some mashed potatoes with no salt. In another place they were given a hamburger for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

David has lost some weight but otherwise he is the same old David. He says that he won't try it again. Thank goodness! That was the first thing that I asked him.

Delmy has gotten a part time job at a US fast food restaurant. She said that she works 7 am-noon, six days a week and makes L.800-something a week. That's about US $40 a week! So she works 5 hours a day for about the same price as the cost of one combo, not super-sized. Can you see why people want to leave? She had a frightening experience while David was gone. One night two men tried to get into her house. She was alone with three children and was scared to death. She and the kids went to stay with her mother after that.

I told him that I wrote about him, that many people were very worried about him, and that some were even trying to find him in the system. He was surprised. Thank you all for writing, offering help, and your moral support.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Related articles:

March 16: Saying goodbye to another friend
March 17: Where is David?
March 19: More sequestered Hondurans in the US
March 25: No news is not good news

Pizza grilling tips

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 05:12:00 +0000

Makes me want to go make one right now!

See You must try grilled pizza for my basic grilled pizza instructions and then read on.

It is so much easier to figure new things out if you first see it done, no? That is always true for me. Thankfully in the internet age you can do that!

YouTube has some videos on grilling pizza that you might find helpful, especially for seeing what your cooked dough should look like. Steve Raichlen shows the appropriate enthusiasm for grilled pizza. (Ignore the lake of olive oil in which he stretches the dough – you really don't need that! A small amount of flour or oil on a pastry board will do.) This video by BBQ Pit Boys makes me laugh – a real man's guide to making grilled pizza (notice he uses a small machete to cut it). He tops the pizza dough before cooking, but I still suggest using the two step method of cooking the top first. BBQMyWay has another manly-man video – listen to the crackle! It's true. Ours crackles like that when we cut it. It is a beautiful sound.

Click to enlarge these photos

If you don't have an outdoor grill, check out Laura Vitale's video on grilling pizza on a stove-top grill. If you are a homemade pizza virgin, Laura has another video that goes through the whole dough making, sauce, and baking process. Don't let making dough intimidate you. Pizza dough is much more forgiving than bread dough.

If you prefer Spanish, here's a video for you. This one includes preparing the dough. YouTube has other pizza a la parrilla videos in Spanish, too.

For the grill, I recommend the two-step process rather than topping the raw dough at the beginning as some videos show. I think that you'll get a much crisper, more evenly cooked crust using the cook-turn-top-cook method. I also think it is easier for the beginner.

Watch a few of these videos and you'll see that there are no hard and fast rules for grilling pizza. It is an art, not a science.

El Jefe's tips

In discussing all of this with El Jefe, since he is the main pizza chef here, he pointed out that there are a lot of variables. Differences between grills is a big one. Another big variable is the thickness of the dough. He said that a thin crust will burn a lot faster than a thicker one, so you may need to use a slightly lower temperature if your crust is very thin.

Square - for a change. Isn't it a beauty?

We haven't found it necessary to oil the grill grates or the dough disk before grilling, but you might want to oil your grates the first time if you aren't sure whether or not it will stick. Do make sure the grates are clean, though, as any bits of crud from your last barbecue will stick to the dough.

He also told me about other temperature adjustments he sometimes makes, but since that might only apply to those who have the same kind of grill that we do, I have another idea for beginners.

Make a small extra disk of dough from your same dough batch, stretched or rolled out to the same thickness as your pizza dough. Use that to test your grill temperature and cooking time. In the beginning, El Jefe oiled the grates before putting the dough on the grill but after a time he discovered that our well-used grill has developed a nice, shiny, non-stick coating from lots of use so he doesn't do that anymore. If your test crust sticks too badly, you can either oil the grates or oil the bottom of the dough before placing it on the grill. If it cooks too fast or too slow, adjust your grill temperature accordingly.

Keep it cool

One bit of advice from me is that a slightly firmer dough is easier to handle on the grill, though a soft dough is not impossible after you get some experience. If you live in a hot, humid tropical climate with an un-airconditioned kitchen, keep your dough cool after shaping. Cover it with a barely damp towel and/or plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge if you can't get it on the grill right away. The dough will be easier to handle when cool. We find this particularly true for doughs containing sourdough starter.

More tips on grilling pizza

Here are some quick tips Chef Jefe and I (the dough lady) can give you based on our experiences:

Tip #1 - Don't let the shaped dough stick to your peel or baking sheet. Use lots of corn meal, semolina flour, or regular flour on your transfer device. On smaller pizzas or if the dough is being fussy, sometimes we just pick the untopped disk up from the pastry board with our hands and drop it onto the grill. Use care if you try that.

Tip #2 - Don't go too big. Until you get the hang of manipulating the dough onto the grill, two medium to small pizzas are much easier to handle than one big one. Similarly, don't go too heavy on the toppings.

Tip #3 - Give it a rest. If you are having trouble rolling or stretching your dough, give it a rest for 5 or 10 minutes and then continue shaping. Dough springing back is a sure sign that the gluten needs to rest again. Be sure to cover it with a damp towel or plastic wrap so that it doesn't dry out during its nap.

Honduras-shaped pizza (not intentional)

Tip #4 - Live with less than perfect circles. When the dough slides off the peel to the grill, it tends to stick to the hot grates of the grill and get somewhat misshapen. Unless you are very lucky, you won't be able to push/pull it back into shape before the dough sets. Just remember, if it isn't a perfectly round Pizza Hut pizza, it is a 'rustic' or 'artisan' pizza which makes it even more valued.

Be prepared

Tip #5 - Be prepared. Have all of the toppings ingredients and implements ready to go grillside before you put the dough on the grill. There really is no time to go searching for something in the kitchen once you have put the dough on the grill.

Tip #6 - Don't go anywhere. Your dough should only need about 2 to 4 minutes on the first side. If it takes longer, that means that your grill was not hot enough. Grills are not as accurately temperature controlled as an oven, especially if it is a charcoal grill. The crust will miraculously tell you when it is ready to turn: if the dough sticks to the grates, it isn't ready so don't force it. As the dough cooks, the grates will release the dough so it's easy to check the bottom for doneness.

Tip #7 - Know your hot spots. If your grill has hot spots, be sure to avoid them if possible. Rotate the pizza once on each side so your crust cooks evenly and doesn't have burned spots. You can rotate more often, but remember that every time the grill is opened, it will be losing heat.

Tip #8 - Import your pizza flour from Italy and use only San Marzano tomatoes, which grow on the volcanic plains to the south of Mount Vesuvius, and mozzarella di bufala Campana, made with the milk from water buffalo raised in a semi-wild state in the marshlands of Campania. -- Just kidding! (That is actual advice that I read somewhere.)

Grilled meat-lovers pizza
Can you tell who was manning the meatball bowl?

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I want all my friends to try grilled pizza! I highly recommend it. I'm pretty sure that once you've tried pizza on the grill, you'll never go back either. I'd love to hear your experience if you try it. Please come back here to tell us about it. And if you have any questions that you think that El Jefe or I might answer, please feel free to ask away in the comment section below.

You must try grilled pizza

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 05:10:00 +0000

Grilled Pizza - It couldn't be better

Grilled pizza? Who knew? Not me. I didn't see how it was possible to bake a pizza on a barbecue grill. Wouldn't the dough fall through the grates? Wouldn't it burn to a crisp? In looking for the perfect pizza dough (more on that below), I kept running across people raving about grilled pizza. Apparently it is the next best thing to having your own wood fired brick pizza oven.

Meatball pizza - click to enlarge

El Jefe thought I was kidding when I suggested we try it. "Pizza on the grill? Are you sure?" "No, but let's try it anyway." We are converts now. I don't think I would ever bake a pizza in the oven again. There is just no comparison of the taste and texture of a grilled pizza versus home oven baked or even pizza chain pizza. Really. You just have to try it to see for yourself. Another interesting thing is that I've always liked thick crust pizzas, but now I prefer a crispy thinner crust.

I'm not going to give a pizza dough recipe. There are so many recipes out there that claim to be the 'perfect' dough so just try some and see what suits your fancy. One that I like is the recipe that came with my Zojirushi bread maker, but I've tried several different recipes and they all turned out great on the grill, each a little different in taste and texture. I sometimes set aside a portion of dough from my sourdough bread recipes to use as pizza crust. If I come up with a recipe that stands out over the others, I'll post it. In the meantime, I'm enjoying experimenting with different dough recipes. I've read that in the US, you can buy prepared pizza dough in a bag at the grocery stores and that it is good, too. The one thing you won't want to use is a pre-baked crust.

Almost as fast as take-out pizza

Most pizza dough recipes make two crusts or more, or a larger pizza than we need for two of us, so after the first rise, I freeze the extra dough in disks in resealable sandwich baggies sprayed with a little cooking spray inside. Then I put those bags into in a freezer bag. Just pull out a baggie of dough and let it thaw in the fridge overnight if you have time or leave it on the counter at room temperature for spur of the moment pizza. For the size we use (usually about 10-12 oz. of dough), it usually thaws within a couple of hours. I get panicky when my pizza dough stash gets down to one ball.

Thawing the frozen stuff

You can also store any extra dough in the fridge for three days or maybe up to a week some say. Refrigerating the dough for at least a day or two adds to the depth of flavor. If you do that, be sure to oil the dough and wrap it well so that it doesn't dry out. Freezing the dough doesn't alter its quality at all. Don't get too carried away though. Plan on using the frozen dough within a month or two for best results, especially if you are in a country with frequent power outages.

Tomatoes, onions, garlic mostly

Speaking of freezer stashes, we've gotten so organized that we really can have pizza at the spur of the moment with freezer stashed pizza-sized batches of dough, sauce, pepperoni, meat balls, and grated cheeses (mozzarella and parmesan). I like to buy the big sticks of pepperoni and slice it with my Cuisinart. I think it is much cheaper that way.

Quick whiz with the hand blender

I've made pizza sauce with a base of tomato puree, canned spaghetti sauce, fresh tomatoes, canned diced tomatoes, and every combination of those ingredients that I've had on hand. I usually saute garlic and onions, add Italian seasoning and a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper. Some people just use sieved canned tomatoes. It's all good. Depending upon your tomato source, you might want to add a teaspoon or two of sugar to combat the acidity. You will want a thick sauce so it doesn't make the crust soggy. Of course, you can make it really easy by buying prepared pizza sauce in a jar. It is even available in the major cities in Honduras, but it is more economical to make your own.

Ready to freeze

I usually make a large batch of sauce and freeze it in pizza sized amounts for quick pizzas. I pour serving-sized portions into custard cups and then freeze them. When the sauce is frozen, I dump the frozen disks into a freezer bag. When you are ready to make pizza, pull out what you need and put it back into a custard cup to thaw. With some preplanning, you can literally make your own pizza in the time it would take to have one delivered.

General guide to grilling pizzas

Just as a general guide to grilling pizzas, I'll outline the steps that we use. First, our grill is an infrared heat grill. It loses heat VERY quickly when the lid is opened. Your grill may behave totally differently and you may need more or less time. I don't have any experience grilling pizza on a charcoal grill, but I do know that you want hot coals, not flames, and that you probably need to build the fire on one side and leave one side 'cool'. The thickness of your pizza (both of the dough and the amount of toppings) will also affect the time needed.

Second, we don't have a pizza baking stone so we are cooking the dough directly on the grill grates. Baking stones work great if you have one, but of course, the pizza will brown without the grill marks. If you have access to a big comal over a wood burning fire, that would be perfect, too. Cooking the dough is not that different from cooking tortillas.

Pizza toppings ready to go

One of the keys to a good grilled pizza is to be organized. Prepare all of your topping ingredients and put them in little bowls (or big ones!) on a tray that you can carry outside. El Jefe keeps a small plastic squirt bottle (formerly for soy sauce) filled with oil for all of his grilling. It's much easier to get the quantity you need that way and you don't have to worry about dropping the bottle. Also put a brush for the olive oil, a big spoon to spread the pizza sauce, and tongs or a spatula on the tray. If your grill doesn't have a shelf, pull up a table or chair on which you can put the tray.

Preheat the grill on one side to its highest setting (15 minutes on our infrared gas grill). El Jefe usually turns the temperature down a notch at this point (from 'preheat' to 'sear' or medium-high). Slide the dough from the pizza peel or the back of a baking sheet directly onto the hot grates. Close the lid and grill for 2 to 4 minutes. If possible, peek in from an opening in the back to keep an eye on the dough's progress rather than opening the lid to check. When it is ready to turn, the top will not be browned but will show some 'firming up' and will look drier than the dough originally looked. You may see some big bubbles in the dough and that's okay. The bottom should be lightly browned with some nice dark brown grill marks.

Pick up the partially cooked dough with the peel, a big spatula, or your fingers (be careful!). Flip the crust over onto the "off" side of the grill and brush the top (formerly the bottom) with olive oil. The olive oil helps to prevent the sauce from making your dough soggy. Top with sauce and your other ingredients. We like to put a little cheese under the toppings and more on top of the toppings to 'glue' them down. Work quickly so that your grill doesn't cool off too much. Slide the topped pizza back over to the direct heat side and close the lid.

Cannot get a good photo at night!

If you are making more than one pizza or your grill doesn't have more than one heat zone, you may find it more convenient to remove the crust to a pizza pan, a flat edged baking sheet, or a pizza peel, to top it at the table and then return it to the grill. We did that when we had a pizza party for nine people. We needed to keep the assembly line going and maintain the grill hot by keeping the lid closed, and, most importantly, we didn't want the kids to burn themselves on the grill while they were topping their pizzas. Kids love to make their own pizzas!

After topping the pizza, return it to the hot side of the grill and grill for another 2 to 4 minutes until the cheese is fully melted and the bottom of the crust is nicely browned. I love those grill marks on the crust! If the crust seems to be cooking too fast (overbrowning or grill marks too dark) turn the temperature down just a little. The second side could take a couple of minutes longer depending upon how much heat your grill lost during the topping and how thick your pizza is.

Farewell

Goodbye Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Toto's (our only choices in La Ceiba). It was nice knowing you before I discovered homemade grilled pizza. I doubt I'll ever see you again. Farewell. Sorry, but I have a better pizza than you!

Is my excitement contagious? Are you itching to try it? Before you jump in, please check out the next article, in which I'll give you some more tips and resources to boost your self-confidence and make you drool for grilled pizza.

Pepperoni and peppers pizza

Blog of the Month Award

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:28:00 +0000

La Gringa's Blogicito was selected as Expat Blog of the Month for April by Expat-Blog.com. This is the first time a Honduran blog was selected. Yay! I appreciate the honor. You can read my interview here if you are interested.

Welcome to the visitors from the Expat Blog website. I hope you'll be back to visit again.

Good Honduran Honey

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 03:57:00 +0000

Miel Coapíhl (Coapíhl Honey)

As you may remember, I make homemade yogurt* and I generally sweeten it with honey. I've been trying some different brands of honey and recently found one that is really good. The label mentioned that it is made in Siguatepeque, Comayagua, and that they had a website.

(Those are some hard words, aren't they? See-guah-teh-peck-ay, Ko-my-aug-wah. The map below shows its location in Honduras. Click to enlarge.)

I checked out the Coapíhl website (in Spanish) and found out that it is a cooperative of around 100 small producers, including women. Coapíhl (Cooperativa Apícola Pionera de Honduras Limitada) was originally established in 1977. They began exporting products to Europe in 1985 and to the US in 2007.

Coapíhl offers technical assistance and free training to its associates, including training in how to make the equipment needed for apiculture (bee keeping).

With support from Heifer International Project HPI, the co-op has helped their associates to increase their productivity, improve their income, and help their families. Apicultue is often a family activity in which the entire family is involved.

Check out this heartwarming success story at Heifer's website. It brought tears to my eyes and it will to you also.

If you see Coapíhl 100% Miel de Abejas (Bee Honey) in your grocery store, try it out. I think you'll like it. If you don't see it, maybe you could ask your grocer if they can get it. You'll be helping Hondurans to help themselves.

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*Does anyone know if Yogurt starter (culture) is available anywhere in Honduras?

No news is not good news

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:08:00 +0000

Many readers are looking for an update on our friend David and I'm disappointed to say that there has been no word as to his whereabouts. I've received a lot of emails from readers in the US offering to assist David, to help him to make contact with immigrant organizations, and even offers of jobs. Thank you all very much for caring. One reader even made a deposit to Delmy's bank account to help her and the kids out for another week or so. We've also made another transfer to her account.

Not knowing where he is is extremely distressing, because I know that if it was humanly possible, he would have called his wife Delmy to let her know that he was okay. He would know that she would be frantic with worry. I am, too! Since he hasn't called, I wonder if he was robbed, if his cell phone was confiscated by authorities, if he is just somewhere where he can't charge it, or if something worse has happened. ICE inmates are allowed to make calls, but only if they have money in their 'account' to do so. Would a fellow detainee lend him money to call home? I think someone would be that kind if it is allowed, don't you?

I continue to check ICE's online detainee locator and David is not listed. If he was detained shortly after crossing the border as we were told, that would have been almost three weeks ago. I suppose he could be listed under another name. We could transfer some money to his account if we knew his detainee number, but obviously since we can't find him listed, we can't find his number.

David believed that he would be working and sending money home by now. He also told us that he had arranged to sell his motorcycle before he left. The buyer who was supposed to buy it apparently never came up with the money, so Delmy doesn't have the funds that were expected to tide her over. El Jefe may offer to try to help her to sell it.

More Texas illegal immigrant news

La Prensa had a story about six immigrants being killed in Texas. I looked for US articles to see if they gave more information.

On March 20, Kingsville, Texas police were chasing a truck when its driver turned into the entrance road of a US Naval Air Station. When the driver accelerated past the first gate guard without stopping, a pop-up barrier was activated to stop the truck. The truck, believed to have reached 70 mph, crashed into the barrier, immediately killing six and injuring nine. Emergency teams had to use hydraulic rescue tools to remove the victims from the wreck. A seventh victim, a woman, died later in the hospital. The driver, a suspected coyote, survived and was taken to a military hospital. Since this happened around midnight, it is suspected that the driver didn't even know he had turned into the entrance road of a military base. The guards can't be blamed because, for all they knew, this could have been a terrorist attack on the Naval Air Station.

KiiiTV3.com South Texas, Corpus Christi, Coastal Bend

Final denial barrier, Kingsville NAS

KIII TV has a video (embedded above) of the operation of this "final denial barrier", showing it crushing a huge truck. In this case, it was a pickup truck with 10 people in the cab of the truck and another five under a tarp in the pickup bed. The force of the impact was so great that it broke a natural gas line and a water line and severed an electrical cable. The people in the bed of the truck were thrown through the cab. This photo was provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

ICE later reported that people in the truck were from Guatemala and Honduras. No names were given in any of the many articles about this incident.

Another coyote story in Houston, Texas

In looking for that story, I also came across this March 21 story in Houston, Texas. As a Texas Motorist Assistance Officer pulled over to help a stalled truck, he noticed a large number of people inside the box truck. He looked to the driver and the driver took off running on foot. Police found 16 people from South and Central America who said they had been inside the truck for 18 hours without food or water. Police officers pooled their money and bought the immigrants food and water. They were later turned over to ICE. The driver was not found.

Again, there were no names given in the reports. Here are some quotes from one article:

"Local officials [of Kleberg and Brooks Counties in south Texas] say so many undocumented immigrants are dying in the area that they are running out of space to bury them.

"Deaths of illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are up 27 percent in the past year as border crossers use increasingly remote and dangerous areas, according to a report released this week by the National Foundation for American Policy, a Washington-based research group that is calling for a temporary worker program.

"Nationally, 477 illegal immigrants died at the border in 2012, compared to 375 in 2011, even though illegal immigration generally is down, the report said."

I'm glad that Delmy doesn't read the news.

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Related articles:

March 16: Saying goodbye to another friend
March 17: Where is David?
March 19: More sequestered Hondurans in the US

2012 La Ceiba, Honduras rainfall statistics

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:24:00 +0000

La Gringa's tropical-sized rain gauge
La Ceiba, Honduras

I haven't mentioned my rainfall statistics in a long time. I check my rain gauge every single day and have done this for 4-plus years! I keep a daily spreadsheet and update my La Ceiba rainfall tables on the Blogicito every now and then. Can you tell I was a former auditor? I like to keep track of those numbers.

I don't have one of those fancy electronic weather stations. I just do it with my tropical-size 24-inch (610 mm.) rain gauge and a ruler marked to the 16th of an inch. So don't expect that it will be accurate to a millimeter, but I think it is good enough for gardening or tourist purposes. I try to be accurate. If it is between marks, I estimate a 32nd of an inch. ;-)

Here is the 2012 update:

**Inches**
Month	2013	2012	2011	2010	2009	Average
Jan	23.06	3.50	25.75	30.56	20.13	19.98
Feb	2.56	8.94	8.88	16.63	9.13	10.89
March	13.25	3.96	2.62	20.88	4.38	7.96
April	0.00	0.56	0.00	4.38	7.25	3.05
May	0.00	7.69	0.69	3.75	4.06	4.05
June	0.00	6.00	6.12	6.88	2.75	5.44
July	0.00	10.63	9.12	12.13	8.00	9.97
Aug	0.00	14.13	7.38	8.75	14.25	11.13
Sept	0.00	8.72	9.75	19.0	4.13	10.40
Oct	0.00	14.13	21.81	12.63	16.50	16.27
Nov	0.00	19.98	17.00	17.63	25.00	19.90
Dec	0.00	6.81	16.13	13.31	12.19	12.11
Totals	25.62	105.04	125.25	166.50	127.75	131.14

You can find my monthly summaries of La Ceiba rainfall in centimeters from 2009 through February 2013 here.

La Ceiba had drought conditions again this year from about mid-March through June. The monthly totals are a little misleading because during that period we only had two days with any decent quantity of rain. Most of the rain days during that period were were 1/4 inch or less (6 mm.). January and December 2012 were also much lower than usual and you can see that the annual total was about 26 inches less (660 mm.) than the 4-year average. The highest rainfall day was August 2 with 5.25 inches (133 mm.) of rain, compared to a high of 9.5 inches (241 mm.) in 2011. The highest I've ever recorded was a whopping 16 inches (406 mm.) of rain on December 10, 2008.

The number of rain days per month for 2013 (and 2012) were: January 13 days (12), February 16 (7), March 12 (4), April 6 (0), May 9 (4), June 14 (7), July 21 (22), August 24 (11), September 15 (13), October 19 (18), November 25 (18), and December 12 (21), for a total of 186 days (137 in 2012). Don't let that scare you if you are planning a vacation. Many of these days were just a brief light afternoon sprinkle that dried up in 10 minutes.

Why do this?

I originally started tracking the rainfall because there are no official rain statistics for La Ceiba. I was mostly interested for gardening purposes since the climate is not like anything I was accustomed to. The airport doesn't keep an official record as most cities do. We would get what seemed like mountains of rain but the newspaper would report crazy things like that La Ceiba received 100 millimeters (3.94 inches) when I knew that we had received three times that amount. Other times they would talk about 15 millimeters (1/2 inch) when we had received several inches. I really think that they just make wild guesses, whoever 'they' is. If the numbers come from COPECO or the national weather service and they do have a rain gauge in La Ceiba, all I can say is that it must be under a tree.

Rainfall does vary from where we live to El Centro. Sometimes it will be pouring rain in El Centro but not at all here, or vice versa. In general, we seem to get a little more rain here, closer to the mountains, than in town. But we would never see the kind of differences that I'm seeing in my records compared to what is reported.

Even the temperatures for La Ceiba are not accurate. Temperature records are maintained at the airport, but they only keep track of them during the hours that the airport is open! The weather sites showed only the temperatures for 6 am to 9 pm most days. Similarly, there was no wind or humidity at night in La Ceiba, ever. I thought about trying to keep track of the temperatures, too, but that only lasted about a week. I'm not that obsessed.

Now the weather websites seem to be reporting more data, but I don't know where it is coming from. It's absolutely not realistic data. For example, AccuWeather shows that the average low temperature for the end of February and first part of March to be 59F in La Ceiba . No way! Absolutely no way. Since I've had my temperature gauge, the temperature, even on the coldest nights, has never fallen below 60F. Low 60's is extremely rare, like maybe once or twice per year. Even getting below 70s during the night is an occasion to be noted and results in hauling out my cozy afghan. I occasionally check my temperature gauge against the weather sites and it usually doesn't vary by more than a degree so I don't think that is the problem. All I can think is that they must be mistakenly using a Honduras country-wide average, not La Ceiba data.

Here's a good one: On March 13, we had a big rainstorm. I measured 6.75 inches (171 mm.) of rain. El Centro was flooded as usual. Accuweather shows 0.02 inches for that date! Give me a break! Wunderground reported 31 millimeters (1.22 inches). Weather.com doesn't give current rainfall data or historical average temperatures. It does include historical monthly rainfall averages, but for only 9 months of the year for some reason. I couldn't find where any of these websites cite their source of data for Honduras.

Kudos to the Honduras Meteorology Service because they predicted 150 mm. (5.91 inches) for the north coast in a special bulletin on March 11. However, their daily forecast for the 13th, issued on the 12th, projected 10-15 millimeters, which I don't understand at all. Right hand–left hand? Sometimes I think that they have confused millimeters and centimeters.

I think that the current weather reports and the forecasts on these websites are pretty reliable, but the historical data is not.

La Ceiba weather in general

A weather widget in the sidebar gives the current La Ceiba temperature and "real feel" (in the far right column, about 6 clicks down). You can also click the links in the widget to get the Accuweather forecast.

My monthly rainfall tables (in inches and centimeters) can be found anytime on this page or by clicking the link under the Accuweather widget. I keep a daily chart but usually only update this page at the end of the month.

How is the weather in La Ceiba? gives an overview of the weather in this part of the country and links to a good overview of Honduras weather — which despite what many websites imply, is not the same all over the country. "When is the rainy season?" cannot be answered without first asking "What part of the country?". Here is an overview from Countries of the World:

Although all of Honduras lies within the tropics, the climatic types of each of the three physiographic regions differ. The Caribbean lowlands have a tropical wet climate with consistently high temperatures and humidity, and rainfall fairly evenly distributed throughout the year. The Pacific lowlands have a tropical wet and dry climate with high temperatures but a distinct dry season from November through April. The interior highlands also have a distinct dry season, but, as is characteristic of a tropical highland climate, temperatures in this region decrease as elevation increases.

And to skim through everything I've written on weather (and earthquakes), check out the 'weather' topic. Some of the articles are pretty interesting, even exciting, but be warned that there are a lot of "it's too hot", it's too cold", "not enough rain", and "too much rain" articles. I've been trying to cut back on those. ;-D

More sequestered Hondurans in the US

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 07:25:00 +0000


Stash house Photo from the KRGV video

El Heraldo reported that 56 immigrants, including Hondurans, were rescued after being found locked in an abandoned house in San Juan, Texas. They had no food, water, electricity, or sanitary facilities and were forced to use cans and empty bottles in place of a toilet. The "stash house" was locked with chains and padlocks from the outside.

According to Valley Central news, there were 40 people in the house and that authorities arrested the female coyote, who had $4,000, her two small children, and five immigrants in her car at the time. They found two more immigrants in her home. After questioning, she led them to the stash house. This article includes video of some of the migrants, but I didn't see David.

San Juan (near McAllen) police said it was one of the worst stash houses that they've seen. This KRGV video shows more of the house. "It's not a condition that any human being should be living in. They (the human traffickers) will try to get as much fear and as much indignity to make them want to get out of here and pay the money to move on to where they want to go," Garcia said.

In searching for "stash house", I ran across this recent NY Times article about border security. It reports that the coyote price from Central America is now around $7,000. The article also includes a series of photos.

It pains me to read some of the reader comments on the NYT article. I don't think that I recognize the US anymore. How about this one:

"The only solution, unthinkable here, of course, is to do what the Soviets had done: deadly minefields near the border, watchtowers with border guards licensed to kill."

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Related articles:
March 16: Saying goodbye to another friend
March 17: Where is David?
March 25: No news is not good news

Where is David?

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 21:14:00 +0000

Delmy in happier days

David's wife Delmy and her son Christian came to visit Thursday morning about a month after David left.

I slept late on Thursday and when I came downstairs, El Jefe was on the front porch talking with Delmy. I was afraid that it wasn't a good sign. As I came out, El Jefe said that David had been captured after he crossed the border. Oh, no! I hugged Delmy not knowing what else to do.

I sat down to talk with her and El Jefe went back to work on his latest project. How are you? Fine. How are the kids? Fine. Are the children missing their dad? Yes. How is school? Fine. Are the teachers striking much? No. Etc. Etc. Hmmm. Why is it that El Jefe can chat with anyone for three hours and I can't get two words out of someone?

I wanted to talk to her alone as I thought maybe she didn't want to talk in front of Christian but the opportunity didn't arise. Has David called? "No, I called him and he was okay but now he doesn't answer his phone! I don't know where he is!" Then came a tumble of words, the gist of which was that David's brother in the US heard from a coyote that David had been detained after he crossed the US-Mexico border.

Coyotes

Coyote is the name for someone or group of someones who for a very high fee, help illegal immigrants to get across the border. Sometimes the coyotes escort them all the way from Honduras to the US in groups. They say that in the old days, the journey from Honduras would average 13-15 days, but now due to organized human traffickers, it can take 3 weeks or more. David left a month ago.

I've often heard the coyote fee can be as high as US $5,000. That always made me wonder: If someone had $5,000 saved up, why would they even need to go to the US? Most of the people who I know who have gone to the US would never have access to that amount of money. It's more than a year's pay for most Hondurans and more than two years' pay for many. The answer is that usually relatives in the US pay the fee, and the immigrant works to pay them back after he or she gets to the US. Actually, I started hearing the $5,000 figure many years ago so it could be much higher now.

Coyotes sometimes do what they say for the price they quoted. Other times they hold the immigrant hostage until they are paid or ask for more money in the end. Sometimes another coyote kidnaps the immigrant and forces the family to pay him (or her) as well. I'm sure that people in the US have read stories or seen television shows about the terrible things that have happened to many immigrants. A couple of years ago, a female Honduran coyote was arrested in the US. She had several Hondurans held hostage in a house in the US, waiting for her payments. So abuse of immigrants is not limited to Mexican coyotes.

David had told us that he wasn't using a coyote and was going by himself. He said that going with a group of people wearing backpacks makes you more of a target in Mexico. He might have decided that he couldn't get across the border without help.

Kidnappings in Mexico

Back to Delmy: She seemed to be taking the whole thing stoically. That didn't surprise me because it's very common among Hondurans to just accept things, no matter how bad the situation. I asked her if she had read the news earlier this week about the 104 migrants, mostly Honduran, who had been rescued by the police in Mexico on March 7. She hadn't, so I went to find the article for her. As she started reading it, tears started falling down her cheeks. I felt terrible for bringing it up. I hugged her and assured her that those people were rescued so if David was with them, he would be home soon.

The original article stated that the police in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico (at the tip of the Texas border) had received reports about armed men violently unloading dozens of men and women into a house. Authorities found 104 migrants being sequestered in the house. They had been there for four days and the original reports stated that they had been mistreated and some were in bad health.

One Honduran told reporters that when riding the train, criminal groups wait near at least three different train stops through Mexico and demand $100 from each of the immigrants. He said that one boy who didn't want to pay was killed with a machete. If they don't have $100, they demand $300 from their US relatives. This sounds like a huge exaggeration but he claimed that 15,000 immigrants were being held captive in Coatzacoalcos in the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico, while the criminals wait for their payments. He said that some train guards also demand 200 or 300 pesos of the immigrants.

La Prensa had an article on these kidnappings on March 3. In that article, it was reported that when the migrants don't have the $100 to pay, their relatives in their original country or in the US are extorted for as much as $1,000 to $5,000 to secure the migrant's release. The article reported that one Honduran was shot and later decapitated when he tried to escape in October. These types of stories are reported every few months in the Honduras news, including one a few years ago in which 72 bodies, many of them Honduran, were discovered in the north of Mexico, presumed to have been murdered by human traffickers.

As an aside, this money from the US relatives must come through money transfer companies such as Western Union, so it seems that the Mexican authorities could track the criminals down and prosecute if they wanted to. 'Hunting' migrants appears to be a state sanctioned sport in Mexico.

The Mexican government later denied the original claims and announced that the 104 rescued migrants (97 Hondurans) were voluntarily staying at the house in Nuevo Laredo waiting for the coyotes to receive their payments and that they weren't mistreated. Mexico was deporting them and they should arrive to Honduras on a bus last Friday.

US Detention

One of the photos in the original article showed someone who looked like David. Delmy was convinced that it was him and cried some more because it was a photo of migrants lying by the railroad tracks and you couldn't tell if he was dead or alive. The person was dressed the same as David was when he left, but a later article listed all the names of the Hondurans. I had already checked for David's name and it wasn't there. I pointed out that if it was him, he would be home soon which cheered her up a little. I wasn't convinced though, since that didn't jive with the news that he had been detained in the US.

I told her that if he was detained by the US authorities, he would be safe and that they would send him back home. I didn't mention that it could take several months. More silent tears started falling at the mention of prison. I assured her that US prisons were not like the hell holes of Honduran prisons. I scrambled to think of anything I could to reassure her. I said that every prisoner has their own bed and that they feed them good food three times a day. US prisons have bathrooms and showers. "It's like a hotel!", I said encouragingly. She wasn't totally convinced, but luckily we have a worker right now who was deported last year. "Tell her what it's like, Ever!", I suggested. "Yeah, it is like a hotel. They have weights and games and cable TV. Really. There is a buffet at meals. Everything is clean. It's not like Honduras. In fact, one guy didn't want to leave. He said that his life was better in prison than it ever was in Honduras." We all laughed about that and she finally seemed convinced.

Desperate straits at home

I invited Delmy and Christian to have some baleadas. I noticed that although she usually eats like a bird, she ate both hefty baleadas. After eating, Christian wandered off to talk to El Jefe, and I shut the door. "So how are you really? Financially?" Delmy burst into tears. "David's brother is sending me some money but he can't do it until Friday and I won't be able to get it until Saturday. I have nothing to feed the children!" For the first time, she started sobbing. I said "Maybe this will help." and gave her L.1,000 (US $50). She started to promise to pay me back on Saturday, but I said, "No. This is a gift. I don't want you to pay me back." She was so grateful and I was just glad that I was in a position to help.

Since Delmy was so vague about what she had heard, El Jefe called David's brother in the US. His brother repeated that he had received a call from the coyote that David had crossed the border but was detained in "Macali", possibly a week before. That was all he knew. I deduced that he might have meant McAllen, in the south of Texas. Then I asked for some help on our Honduras Living group about how to find out if he was in custody and found that ICE has an online accessible registry!

Unfortunately, checking his name gave no results. I tried every combination of his two last names including with and without hyphens. Delmy and Christian watched every keystroke and groaned each time it came back to say "Your search resulted in zero results". I don't know how long a delay there might be in updating the data so I've been checking every day but it has been, we think, at least 10 days since he was said to be detained. It could be that the coyote was lying.

So here we are. We have no idea where David is or whether or not he is all right. Just imagine what Delmy is going through.

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Related articles:

March 16: Saying goodbye to another friend
March 19: More sequestered Hondurans in the US
March 25: No news is not good news

Saying goodbye to another friend

noreply@blogger.com (La Gringa) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 23:42:00 +0000

David and his family from a few years ago (Identity obscured)

We first met David about 11 years ago when he was working for the constructor who was building our house. David was an albañil (brick layer) who came in towards the latter part of the construction as his specialty was the concrete finishing work. Smooth walls! David is a pro. Our concrete walls are actually smoother than our sheet rock walls. In fact, if you didn't know that most of the walls are concrete, you probably wouldn't guess by looking at them.

David is ambitious and eager to learn. He always has a positive attitude. One thing we liked so much about David was that he was willing to try the crazy things that the gringa wanted done. (Not really crazy, but let's just say maybe not the Honduran way.) He wasn't only willing, but he was eager to learn new things. Only once he told me, "No hay de otra." (There is no other way.) I said, "Siempre hay otra manera." (There is always another way.) I think he took it to heart.

A few months after we met him, he came to our apartment to ask to borrow 1,200 lempiras to buy a bicycle (the common form of transportation for construction workers in this part of the country). His bike had fallen apart for the umpteenth time and couldn't be repaired any more. He was an honest, hard working, and sensible guy, but with a wife and small child, he wasn't able to save any money for anything. We lent him the money and he paid us back every week as promised.

When most of the construction was done, we kept David on for a few months to finish up several things. Later we contracted with him to build our muro (concrete wall around the property). He finished on time and on budget.

His wife had a baby girl during this time and they named her middle name after me! What an honor.

Occasionally he would bring up the idea of going to the US. I always tried to discourage him, partly because I don't believe in breaking laws and partly because I know that it often does not have the happy ending that immigrants think it will. I joked that the roads really are not paved with gold and more seriously told him that the cost of living was much higher there, that illegal immigrants are sometimes taken advantage of, and that the journey is very dangerous.

Over the years, we lost contact for a time. His old phone number didn't work anymore and he had moved. Finally a year or so ago, El Jefe ran into him in town and we reconnected. David came to visit a few times riding a motorcycle. He had moved up in the world. He was running construction projects building houses and was doing pretty well. He now had three children and his wife said that's it (no mas!). (She was pregnant with the third child in the photo at top.) I joked that the next time we saw him, he'd probably be driving a Prado (expensive Toyota pickup).

Then his motorcycle was stolen. Since he was paying for it on credit, he had insurance but still had to pay a hefty deductible. Soon after that he thought he saw it and recognized the guy driving it. I asked him if he went to the police, but I knew what the answer would be: No, it's too dangerous. The criminals could come after him or they might even be working for the police. That's life in Honduras, where you are as afraid of the police as you are the criminals.

Then David had an accident while he was driving his new motorcycle. He swerved to avoid being hit by a taxi and lost control of the motorcycle. The taxi driver continued on, leaving David lying by the side of the road with a badly damaged leg. That's also life in Honduras. We know four people who have been victims of hit and run drivers. Each was left lying injured by the road with no more care than if someone had hit a squirrel in the road. So now he had medical expenses, repair expenses, and couldn't work as much. Luckily he could still supervise his current construction project but couldn't do any work himself for awhile.

A few months ago we had a small job for him doing the wood ceiling on our upstairs terraza. He does some carpentry work, too, and did a great job on the ceiling. He came on the weekends to get it done. Later we invited the whole family over. We hadn't seen the little girl since that photo at top was taken. I was amazed when her mother told me that she couldn't even sleep the night before she was so excited about seeing the gringa lady she was named for!

David wants to build his own house and quit paying rent. He has a piece of land and the ability to build it but not the cash for the materials. It's not uncommon for people to not pay for work done and David, like many people we know, has been cheated or made to wait months to get his hard earned pay. Now the construction business is in a downturn here in La Ceiba. Finding new projects is getting harder and harder.

David dropped by one Monday morning in a surprise visit. I invited him to stay for lunch. I left him and El Jefe chatting while I went to work on lunch. Passing through the sala one time, J said to me, "David is here to say goodbye." "What!?" I exclaimed, though I already knew what he was going to say. He is going 'mojado' to the US, to try to make and save some money for three years so that he can build a house.

Beside the danger in doing so – many Hondurans have been killed or kidnapped in Mexico – and the risk of being arrested and put into prison in the US, all I could think of is his family. His wife has never worked. David wanted it that way. He feels that it is the man's job to take care of the family. His children are adorable, bright and outgoing, due in no small part, I'm sure, to having good parents and good solid church-going family situation. What will happen to them?

The kids acting silly for the camera

His oldest son is 12. He worships his dad and emulates him in so many ways. I'm sure that he will take over as the man of the house but what if he starts running with the wrong crowd or gets pressured into joining a gang? It happens everywhere. What if David can't find work or can't save enough to come back in three years? Christian would probably quit school to go to work to help his mom. What if Delmy and the children become just another impoverished and abandoned family? David believes that God will look out for him and his family and that going to the US is his only hope to be able to build a home.

During lunch, they were talking about how hard it is to get ahead in Honduras in even the most meager ways and about all the people they know who have left. J's nephew left a few months ago and saw one of his fellow traveler's die. The boy fell asleep and fell off the top of the train and was crushed to death under the wheels. "What a country this is when the only way to improve your life is to risk your life to leave it!, I said, just before I burst into tears to the surprise of everyone there, including me.

I don't know why this affected me so much but I was teary all afternoon. I guess it is because I believed that David and his family were doing okay. Not great. Probably not even comfortable by most standards, but okay for a family in Honduras. They gave me hope that if you worked hard and were enterprising and honest, that you could live a decent life. I've met many women whose boyfriends or husbands left with the same good intentions but eventually just abandoned their wife and the children left behind. I can't imagine that David would ever do that. He's too honorable a person, but just the separation for who knows how many years would be devastating for any family. It's just so depressing!

After lunch, David left to catch a bus to Guatemala. He left with only the clothes on his back and a little money in his pocket. He didn't even carry a backpack as a backpack sets the traveler up to be a target in Mexico from those criminals who make a living extorting thousands of dollars from the families of the mojados. Oh, he did carry a couple of my empanadas for his dinner.

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The other day there was a poll on television. "If you had the opportunity to emigrate to another country, would you?" When I last saw the results, 60% said they would leave.

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This happened about a month ago. I wrote this the day that David left but had second thoughts about posting it. I don't like to post about friends or family, but sometimes I get frustrated that there isn't much left to write about. Then Thursday we had a tearful visit from Delmy, David's wife, and I wanted to tell their story.

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Related articles:

March 17: Where is David?
March 19: More sequestered Hondurans in the US
March 25: No news is not good news