Mud and More Mud!

I had previously mentioned in a brief update as to the extent to which it had become very muddy here, and unfortunately it has gotten much worse since I last spoke of it. In fact we have been having trouble getting in and out even with four wheel drive. The ruts in the road have become quite deep and much, much muddier. And unfortunately to go along with all of the wet that we have been having, we have been cold. I know what you are thinking, "Cold, what is wrong with this boy? Doesn't he know that he lives in Honduras?". Yes believe you me, I am aware of where I live, and yet it is still cold. In fact I am wearing a sweater right now, and my fingers are quite chilly as I type this. It is bizarre indeed since it feels as though it should be winter but looks as though it is the middle of tropical summer. Anyway back to the mud....I thought I would post some pics of our driveway. I took these about a week ago, so they don't show how bad it is now. Just imagine way more mud, and deeper ruts. In fact one set of ruts was so deep that I had to go dig out the space between them with a pickaxe because the truck was rubbing and threatening to high center. (Before you truck nuts out there jump on me and say it is all about tire placement, just put your wheels up on the high spot. I have to stop you and say it is not possible because the road is hedged on the sides with coffee plants and trees which don't give enough room to do this. Its ruts or nothing.) So here is a set of pictures of Chris and I driving from the main road to our house.





All this mud has been why I haven't been able to ride the bike to the University, it just isn't possible. It is also why our buying a vehicle here has been hard, we need 4x4, they are in high demand here, and thus prices are high. Oh well "asi es" (Spanish version of Cest la vie)

By popular demand

I said I would do it and alas I shall. I am posting a pic of my sweet ride, the Bacini of hope, glory, and cheap Chinese manufacturing. Leah took this this morning just before we all left for work, as you can see I am still partaking of and enjoying my morning cup of coffee. In the other picture you can see the fenders I made out of pepsi bottles.(I was mocked by a couple of locals for making these, though they said it was a good idea they thought that it was very funny. Sadly though the Bacini is becoming less wondrous, because well it rains here all the time, and riding in the rain is not bad, but when it is a rainforest downpour, it can be a bit tricky. Mix in with that the lack of pavement here, and then you get grips of mud. And though the Bacini is glorious it doesn't have four wheel drive, though I am looking into hooking up a turbo. And there have also been some recent security/safety issues with me and the bike, whereby I needed to get a ride rather than ride my bike. But under the right circumstances and during the summer, non-rainy season, I think once again the Bacini shall reveal her full glory.

Some Real Info

I will admit that the last blog was kinda odd, in that we told you that we were having problems with the internet and uploading pictures to the internet, and then we turned around put up some pictures with that notice. The reason for this is that it just so happened that at the moment I was posting that message the internet got really fast (it often fluctuates up and down like most everything else here, electricity, water pressure, etc...)and I decided to seize the moment and throw up some pictures even though we had just finished saying that we couldn't. Anyways now that that has been said, Here are some more pictures (the internet is being very cooperative as of late). As many of you know I am teaching English in a University here in Pena Blanca, I am there for one hour a day Monday - Thursday and my class ranges from about 10-25 students depending on what I can only assume are their moods in the morning or the weather (many of my students come in from surrounding towns and when it is raining hard they usually do not come - Hondurans don't like to go out in the rain and also the mud can make it impossible to get into and out of many small towns). This is a picture taken on just such a day, as you can see by the small amount of students. Things are going well with my students, I am finally learning all of their names, and they are getting into the swing of how I run my classroom. I think that some students were anticipating that I would run it at a Latin tempo (read: very relaxed and somewhat unorganized), and now they have found that I expect them to be ready for class EVERYday as well as studying on their own, since we only have class 4 hours a week. Many of them have caught on and are progressing very quickly with their English. Well it looks like the internet is beginning to ebb the other direction so I will have to cut it off here, perhaps more if the internet speed swings back.....

The first photo is of the view from the hill behind where we are living, the second is of Leah with our class.

Internet

Well seeing as we have been in Honduras a month and have yet to post a blog, I feel that the first entry should be to explain why it has taken so long. In a nutshell, we have quite limited access to the internet. The house in which we are currently living is only a stone's throw away from Chris and Maria Rivera (the couple who started the church we came to help with) and while they have wireless internet either the signal is too weak to receive at our house or our computer, being older, is not strong enough to receive the signal. Now if we sit outside of the Rivera's we can connect to the internet, but there are 2 problems with this. One, mosquitoes. Enough said about that. Two, because the computer is older the battery does not last long enough to respond to emails or post blogs, you have to be sitting next to a plug in order to work for en extended period of time. The internet is also quite slow, so that when we do connect it takes a long time to upload pictures, or even for our email to load. There is also the problem that it only works when it isn't raining, which is rare here during this time of year. As you see that we have finally posted a blog, we have some rather makeshift solutions in place in order to accomplish this task. We are praying for a better solution so that we can also post pictures and update more frequently. We really want to post pictures and blog more often so that you can see and in some way be a part of what is going on here in Honduras, so please bear with us as we try to make this happen.