Trujillo Pet Project

We have a real problem here in Trujillo with animals, especially pets, not getting proper veterinary care, and some no care at all.  Some of this is due to lack of knowledge; some is due neglect, and some is due to poverty.  Add to that the fact that we have no local veterinarian, and you can see that this is exponential in scope.

It is for this reason that the Trujillo Pet Project was born.  This is the brainchild of my friend, Jackie Lozinski.  I am fortunate enough that she asked me to be in on the ground level. Jackie is a young woman who, in another life, was a Canadian Animal Welfare Investigator.. Her main concern in that life was the enforcement of animal cruelty laws.  She has a deep love of animals, as do I, and as do many of the expats here in the area, American and Canadian.

We are not a rescue project, as such.  None of us really have the facilities to foster animals. Our main concern is health care.  We want to focus on providing low cost health care, especially spaying and neutering, vaccinations, and regular vet visits.  Another goal is educating the young people on the importance of  taking care of their pets as if they are members of the family.

Here in my own neighborhood of Buenos Aires we have dogs who know which families put out left overs, and even what time they are usually put out.  They make the rounds from house to house; and if they they don't find food at one house, they just go on to the next. Some of these dogs are feral.  Others have owners who apparently don't feed them.  

They are tick infested, flea infested, and are many are mangy.  Some are so skinny you can count their ribs.  Venereal cancer is very prevalent. Venereal cancer is easy to treat and to stop in its tracks.  If you spay the female, she will not go into season and will not accept a male.  This stops the cycle of disease. This is one reason spaying and neutering are so important. These are the animals we want to reach.

We are lucky enough to have the support of Dr. Eugenio Calderon, a vet in La Ceiba.  He has been gracious enough to let us into his office to measure his exam tables and his operating table, take pictures and measurements, and advise us on several things we need to know.  He has also said that after he has a new vet in his office he will consider coming to Trujillo once a month to hold a veterinary clinic for general care, and to spay and neuter as needed.   

We have been blessed with the addition to our list of supporters of Dr. Claudio Mayorga and his group from Nicaragua, who are coming next month for a meeting to see if they can help us in meeting some of our goals.  They will add us to a list of missions they perform every year by going to poorly served areas and providing low cost or free spay/neuter clinic.  I am really dreaming that we might get someone from his group   to move to Trujillo and open a practice.

We are having our first vaccination clinic on September 15 in the park in downtown Trujillo. It is Honduran Independence Day, and we will set up a dining fly and give 5-in-1 vaccinations for L50 (about USD $2.50).  This will not include rabies vaccine, because the government provides that free of charge.  This is the shot for distemper, parvo, etc.  Our first neuter/spay clinic will be sometime after the start of the new year, probably in January

Here comes the pitch, and don't say I didn't warn you there would be one.  We need to raise about $1,500 between now and the first of the year.  We need about $500 of that over the next couple of months so we can buy the materials to build the exam tables and operating tables.  If you can donate as little as $5.00, that will go a long way toward providing care for a deserving animal.  You can donate to me on PayPal by using my email address, stonewondercloud@live.com.  As soon as we can get a web page up and running I will have a PayPal button you can click on that will take you directly to PayPal.

Please visit our FB page Trujillo Pet Project , and like our page if you haven't already.

Casa de Sueños - Quick Update

A friend reminded me yesterday that I had not posted anything about the house since October, and he was right, October 22nd to be exact.  It's not that there was nothing to post.  Things were just going so slow that you could not really see the day-to-day progress.

Then everything seemed to just happen all at once.  It had been MY goal to move in before Christmas Eve.  Note the emphasis on the word MY.  Macho Man didn't want to pin moving to a definite date, but I decided I wanted to have Christmas in my own house.  So, I just started packing things up and getting ready to go.

Well, I was ready, MM said he was ready, but the house, not so much.  We moved in with the kitchen sink set up on concrete blocks, but we do have hot water. The windows have no glass in them, just screens and security bars.  So what's new?  We haven't had actual windows in over two years.  We have two functioning bathrooms, as far as toilets go,  and the shower and tub are working in the master bath, but no bathroom sinks in place.  Okay, so I am using the kitchen sink to wash my face and brush my teeth. 

There are no kitchen cabinets  or bathroom vanities, but that's not new either.  The baths in the condo have a mirror over the sink, but no vanity; and the kitchen has no cabinets or counter space, just one shelf over the stove and one over the sink.  Here I have a big pantry.and for the present a full sheet of plywood set up on two sawhorses. doubles as counter space and kitchen island.

I have plenty of room to work in, so I did.  We had our first Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) at  Casa de Sueños, and not one person complained about the kitchen not being finished.  We just ate and had a good time.  Nobody fussed because there are no doors in the master bathroom, just a shower curtain over the opening.  Nobody went into the bedroom when someone else was in there.  

We did have a Christmas tree, the first in two years, and Christmas decorations.  Two of the nieces helped me decorate, and they did a great job. I almost hate to take it down after the 6th. Christmas trees in Latin countries stay up until after Three Kings Day, or Epiphany.  New Year's Eve the family here in Trujillo came up and spent a little while.  The balcony is a great place to congregate.  It is big enough for all  ages to find a place and enjoy each other while still being together.  Ditto for my birthday yesterday.  The only thing missing was the family from Tocoa.

Now it is time to get back to business.  Right now my living room and bedroom look like the storeroom at Goodwill or the Salvation Army Store.  We have boxes everywhere, and the answer to  "Where is _________?" is still, "In a box somewhere.".  The good news is, by tomorrow afternoon everything will be out of the condo and into the house.  Then Friday we will spend the day cleaning the condo so we can return the keys.

So, family and friends, we are in the new house, and it is ours.  It might still be a work in progress, but it is our work in progress.  Best of all, it took us two years to get here, but there is no mortgage, IT IS OURS!.

Oh. where are the pictures?  In the camera.  Where is the camera?  All together now....The camera is in a box, somewhere.  When I find it there will be a new profile picture.  It will be the view from our balcony.

We are truly blessed.

Just What Does a Cold Front Mean?

Yesterday when I got up, it was cold..  Well, it was cold for us, about 70 F. with a WCF of about 60 F.  I was going to write something fluffy, like about how I could wear one of my bulky sweaters, which I did.  About how I was wearing sock and shoes and not flip flops, which was true. About putting an afghan on the bed and letting Chico sleep with us, which we did.  Then I got serious and decided to write about a cold front means in Central America.

A cold front combined with a tropical depression, combined with the rainy season in Central America means rain, lots and lots of rain.  It has been raining for 8 days, and is suppose to continue over the weekend.  One community in Honduras reported 36" of rain in 24 hours.  That is roughly a quarter of the normal rainfall for the year on the North Coast falling in one day.  Here in Trujillo we had a tourist who died yesterday when a flash flood hit the car she was in, washing her out to sea.  Her body was found today on the other side of the bay near the port.

The Rio Cristales (Crystal River) is normally a fairly benign river.  It is where most of our water come from.  A couple of weeks ago we crossing the river and noted it was almost dried up, explaining why we had no water pressure.   This was Rio Cristales yesterday

                                                           Courtesy Trujillo Noticias

                                                         Courtesy Trujillo Noticias

If you remember, last year the main bridge between Trujillo and the rest of the world was washed away.  It just reopened  last month.  Puente La Burra spans the Rio Aguan and in  normal times it looks like this.

                                                         Courtesy Trujillo Noticias

Yesterday it looked like this.

                                                          Courtesy Trujillo Noticias

The Mayor of Trujillo was out yesterday surveying the situation at La Burra, and this is what he found.  The road leading up to the bridge apparently was not built on an adequate substrata, and is washing away.  Remember this was just opened last month.

                                                         Courtesy Trujillo Noticias

                                                          Courtesy Trujillo Noticias

In the rest of the country a cold front/tropical depression looks like this:

                                                            Courtesy La Prensa HN

A family's home is destroyed.

                                                                                         Courtesy La Prensa HN

A road falls into a ravine, cutting off the countryside from food and other supplies.  These people will have to walk pig trails to get to work, school, or just to buy food.

                                                            Courtesy La Prensa HN

Communities are cut off with bridges washed away, and who knows when this bridge will be replaced.

                                                                                          Courtesy El Heraldo HN

An official from COPECO, the Honduran equivalent of FEMA, on horseback assessing the damage in an area in southern Honduras.  The man in the canoe is delivering potable water, food and baby diapers.  

                                                            Courtesy La Prensa HN

Unlike FEMA, COPECO uses whatever works to get food and other supplies to victims in a timely manner.

Another tropical depression is waiting off the coast to move in when this one leaves.

How were we directly affected?

The bodega is flooded, and the boxes are leaning precariously as the ones on the bottom get soaked.  We will have to repack, but that's okay, because we can use this opportunity to get rid of some stuff we don't really need and check for termite damage.

The rain keeps falling and is so loud at times we can't hear the TV, or each other.

There is no view from the balcony, or at least not the usual view.  That should be the sun shining off the bay.

We have a dry, warm place to sleep.  We have clean food and potable water.  We have electricity for now.  Chico thinks he is in heaven, because he can get on the bed, something that is usually a big no-no.

We are blessed!

We're Making Progress - Moving Day is Closer Every Day

We have reached a point where you can see progress.  I like to brag about the workmanship, because although it is exasperating to live with a perfectionist, it can be an asset when you are building the last house you will ever own.  You cannot imagine how happy it makes us to know  this house belongs to us, with no mortgage, no loan, no debt of any kind..

I guess the place to start is outside.  The railings and security bars are finally up on the balcony, and they are perfect.  Not quite 'N'awlins lace', but close enough to suit us.

This is the west side of the house from the road. It is late afternoon. The door on the balcony goes into the kitchen.  My sink will between the two windows.

The post in the foreground is for the fence.  For now it will be strung with barbed wire just to keep the neighbor's horses and cows out of the yard.  Jose and Marvin have plastered the colonnade, and it is ready to paint. The walls will have to wait 'til another time.

I took this picture to show how large the balcony really is.  The picture explains why the living room is small; we plan to do most of our living out here.  Since the temperature hardly ever gets below 72 degrees, it gives us a lot of outdoor living (read hammock) time.

You can see the security bars on the windows.  The frames of the windows are made of rosita.  Each of them have been planned, evened out, planed, shaped, and put together by hand.  Jose learns very quickly, so once Macho Man showed him how to rip the boards he was able to help a lot.  These frames are bolted into the concrete about 4 inches and the bars bolted into the frames.

This window is looking into the living room toward the portico door.  The picture shows more of the detail of the security bars.  Macho Man is working on the screens.  He is also working on the doors.  Once those are up, we will move in.  We can hang the windows  after we move in.

We supplied the wood and hired a carpenter to make the door from the kitchen to the balcony.  This is the natural color of the wood.  The tabs at the top of the door will be cut off before it is hung.  They are there so if the carpenter made the door too short you can layer in another piece of wood to snug up the fit.  I really like this door.

Lights on the balcony are in, and the wiring is in for the fans.  We have carriage lights at the front doors, upstairs and down. 

One of two hanging lamps we brought from Miramar.  Macho Man hung one at the back end of         the balcony on the east and west sides of.  This one provides light just outside the kitchen door; the other outside the master bath.

The ceilings are up.  We chose knotty pine rather than rosita or mahogany.  We want the house to be as light as possible and both the other woods get very dark as they age.  To me it is beautiful.

There over 600 boards, 1" x3" x10', in the ceiling. Each board  has been worked by hand, first to get it dry because it doesn't come kiln dried from the lumber yard. Then it has to be straightened and the tongues and grooves made. Jose and Marvin hand sanded and varnished each piece before it was hung.  MM showed Jose how to nail it into place, fitting the tongues and groves together. Jose and Marvin did a really good job while MM worked on something else.. 

The master bath.  The shower and tub surround are Macho Man's design.  If you look closely, all the grout lines and all the decorative tiles line up exactly.  There was a lot of effort put into this room.  The base cabinets and mirror still need to be installed and I need to paint it.

The grout lines in the tile from the balcony through the house,onto the rear portico, and down the back steps are all in one straight line.  I told you Macho Man is a perfectionist.

I am blessed. 

The Many Views From the New Balcony

Many of my Internet friends, high school friends, and relatives have asked me to show the view from the new balcony. This is just a small part of the pictures I have taken this year

The house faces to the NE.  The balcony is U-shaped and wraps around three sides of the house.  The front part of the balcony is 10' x 58'.  From there we have a panoramic view of Trujillo Bay, the peninsula leading to Puerto Castilla, where Dole owns a facility for shipping their fruits all over the word.  It is the deepest saltwater port in the Americas.  Just beyond there we can see a little slice of the Caribbean.  

This tree is the neighbor's across the street.  Some night I am going over there with a chain saw andd cut the top out of that tree.;-D  The city is down below, but we cannot see it.

On the sides of the house the balcony is 4' x 38'.  Not very large but large enough to put chairs on, if you want to get away for a few minutes.


Here is the view from the from the west side.

;

The beginning of sunset.  You can't see it in this picture, but we can see the bay through the trees.  Not much, though, so I am considering a midnight chain saw raid here, too.

From the corridor

.
The neighbor was kind enough to leave the bougainvilla on my side of the fence.  The rest of the garden is his, but I enjoy it.

From the kitchen window

Now to the east.

Capiro, part of the Calentura-Capiro Nation Cloud Forest Park  This is the view from my bedroom window  and the corridor.  The trees in the foreground are mangoes, but not the kind I like.

From the corridor and my bedroom window.  I get teased about being able to pick mangoes from the corridor, and I can with one of those gadgets they make for picking fruit. 


And now the back portico.

Calentura with her head in the clouds.  The people say she has a headache when she looks like this.  Most of the time it means the clouds will drop down to about 2,000 feet and supply the moisture needed by the flora and fauna on the mountain.

Calentura without the the headache.  You can see how high this mountain really is.  No, I don't love this mountain. ;-0   I just like to look at it.    Because this is a national park it can't be built on or destroyed.

The leaves on the trees on our mountains don't change color in the fall, but that doesn't mean we don't have colors.  When the trees bloom they can be pink, red, orange, a pale greenish white, and even gold, like this.

We are blessed.

Another Update on La Casa de Sueños

We have reached several milestones on in construction since the last time I posted on the subject.  We have all but finished the painting.  I'm just waiting for a dry day to go do the trim outside.  Juan has started making the window frames.

Marvin and Jose have learned to cut ceramic tile and lay them.



 

Jose learned how to cut the tile to fit around the columns




The finished job on the balcony floor

The real owner of the house inspects the finished job on the balcony floor

The welder has designed the railings for the balcony and for the security bars over the windows.These railings don't come prefab. The welder has to puut together all the pieces so they fit the space exactly nd everything is on center.



We were very pleased with the design the welder produced.  The only change is that we want the paint changed from glossy to matte

This is a close up of the medalions.  This is a security bar, so the medalions are on every otherd upright.  On the balcony railings they are on every third upright.



This is approximately how the security bars on the windows will look

Today MM started laying the tile in the great room. 



We laid out almost the whole living room floor last night; played with  tile, and moved tile.  This pattern is too busy.  This pattern doesn't show off the decorative tiles.  At 7 PM we said, Eureka, this is it!!!!

We are blessed



We Have a Roof!!!!!

We have a roof!! It is such a great feeling.  To celebrate, we had the first, but not the last, barbecue on the balcony.  What a great day Sunday was!!

Macho Man, Pablo, Marvin, Jose, and two others actually started this project on Saturday, but it rained really hard and they didn't get much done.  Sunday morning we woke up to a glorious, bright, sunshiny day and back to work they went.  Here is what it looked like Saturday morning. 





The boards laying across the rafters are what the men are using for scaffolding.  Pablo, my brother-in- law, is the one in the Honduran Safety harness.  It consists of one heavy duty extension cord wrapped around the waist of one person, with another person holding on to the other end.  It works.  Pablo fell and would have hit the ground from about 25' feet up if he hadn't had it on.  OSHA would have shut this down a long time ago, if they had anything to say about it.

Sunday morning was so beautiful that the crew was working in overdrive.

 After the guys were a little over half way through, we fired up the grill and my sister-in-law Chena cooked us a stupendous barbecue.  We had chicken, beef, beans, tortillas, chips, and Pepsi.  My niece, Jeisy and my grand niece Nicole, were there to celebrate with us.

Chena is cooking tortillas on the grill, and heating up the beans   while Jeisy plays with Nicole.  If anyone went away hungry, it was their own fault

Then it was back to work.  The guys got all the lamina  up on the trusses and screwed down in a couple places.  MM, Jose and Marvelous Marvin have been up on the roof yesterday and today putting in more screws. They should  be finished by tomorrow.

We never could have done this job without all the help from MM's family and friends.  It almost felt like an old fashioned  barn raising.  They sure did eat a lot over three days, but it was worth it.  :>D

We are blessed