M, D and L visit: Village Gallery

Dad workin away under our champa under Lindsay's supervision...he sure kept busy with my long list of projects during his time here!  Managed to fix our lights, hand a backsplash above our stove, hang and cut curtain rods in the whole house, drill holes in the cement walls for our pictures and shelves, put wooden frames around the doors, screens in a couple windows, play around with our faucets and showers, and paint our microwave shelf.  All in 3 days!

On the last day of their visit, we went on a walking tour of the village and to visit the house of my friend, Sandy.  In her backyard, Sandy asked my family if they wanted to try coconut water, so her brother, Victor, slipped off his flip flops and just climbed up their tree!  He held on with his arms at the top and kicked off coconuts...quite amazing to watch.

Sandy's little sister, Cristy, and Sandy, holding her niece (one of the cute twins from earlier blog pictures!)...Mom was really looking forward to meeting the twins all week -- they are quite the cuties.

Victor whacking the tops of the coconuts to make a hole to drink the water...Dad and Lindsay were the only ones to finish -- I think they have over 16 ounces of water inside!  Then, when the water was finished, Sandy gave us each a spoon to scrape out the inside coconut goop -- it's not my favorite, but it's very clean and readily available throughout the village.  

Life in the village is much more laid back and relaxed than city life -- people here rarely take one hour bus ride down the mountain to go to the nearest large city, La Ceiba, to buy groceries, because they are practically self-sustaining up here.  There are small stores, called bodegas, where you can buy things like soda, chips, flour, corn for the chickens, candy, and other basics, but otherwise the people grow their own food and raise their own livestock.  They are very resourceful with what they cultivate from the land here, but their diets generally do not include many vegetables.  A typical Honduran diet mainly consists of: chicken, either fried, baked or in soup, root vegetables like yucca, fried bananas or plantains, white rice, and red beans.  They also have lots of oranges, pineapple, and banana trees up here -- and mango season is just around the corner!  I can't wait!!