Green Mangoes and Manzanitas del Rio

Buenos Dias a todos, I´ve got more of a schedule now, and we´re in our own place which feels good. I´m really enjoying my Saturday hikes with the kids from the children´s home ( Hogar de Niños). Recently I enlisted the schoolbus driver ( a local) as a guide. We hiked for nigh on 3 hours.The kids were pretty worn out at the end but revived when we came across a tree loaded with green mangoes. Soon they were scampering up the tree, shaking branches, and scrambling for the fallen fruit. We returned home laden with mangoes, stuffed in pockets, t-shirts, and even plastic sacks salvaged from the roadside. The hikers were generous and shared their haul with the other kids. Even when green, mangoes are good. People here eat them with salt and lime and chili sauce. Next week I took a different group out, they were talking mangoes from the start. Things turned out different, this time we discovered parroqueet feathers, slid down hillsides covered with pine needles, and ran into a tree of manzanitas del rio ( little river apples). These taste a little like apples with a hint of some kind of spice. I don´t know what we´ll find this next Saturday. I just hope the ice cream man doesn´t find me again. How can I say ¨no¨ to 15 hungry children?

The latest health talks to the kids have been ¨Who Do You Talk to When You´re Upset¨ and ¨Making Sure We Have a Healthy Environment- Taking Care of the Earth¨. the adult talks have been ¨Depression- Danger Signs and How to Help a Friend¨ and ¨Keeping Your Joints and Your Back Healthy¨. It is getting easier. I´ve started asking for feedback, I need the correction and encouragement to keep at it.

Our place is feeling more like home. I got the hot water working, hooray! It´s kind of an on demand electric water heating shower-head. We got a hot plate and yesterday I made crepes and french toast. I´ve got a bike to keep up my exercise, but so far most of my sweating has been over flat tires.

Some of you may have heard about the earthquake down here. 7.1 on the Richter Scale just off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. We felt it here. It was like we were in a boat. We could hear water splashing in the toilet. It wrecked a lot of the dock in the major port of Puerto Cortez as well as a major highway bridge to the North coast. 6-7 people died. I´m planning a ¨What To Do in an Earthquake¨ talk for the kids. I´m going to try to translate some of this blog into Spanish. It´ll be good practice and I know I´ve got some Latino friends I´d like to keep informed. Til later, Gil.