Florida Visit, Part II

This has really been a productive trip.  The basic medical check ups were good, although I may have to make a quick trip back in a couple of months to finish up some procedures.  We have been to WalMart, Walgreen's, and Home Depot.  Coming up tomorrow is CVS, and yes, the Salvation Army Store.

We bought fans for the upstairs of the new house, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and paint samples.  Tomorrow we get the hot water heater. We bought razors, shampoo and conditioners, hair color, clothes, and as many other things we can't get in Honduras as possible.  Throw in canning lids and rings, doggie treats, spices, OTC meds, napkins, and much, much more.

We have had a wonderful time with our children and the Grandbrat; we visited Macho Man's former boss, Don Armando; and my sister comes tomorrow.  I had a chance to talk to my brother this morning.  We had a very good lunch today in little Havana with the two girls.  The only problem with Latin restaurants is they put too much food on the plate, and it is so good you clean your plate (Gro-o-o-o-an).

Tomorrow we are going to figure out what we need to ship and what we have to take in the plane.  We definitely will ship more than we carry.  We went by Rapido Cargo today, and they will send someone to pick the boxes at my daughter's house, ship them to Puerto Cortes, process them through Customs, and deliver them to our door in Trujillo, all for $.70/lb.  How is that for service?

We have had five days filled with love.  The companionship and family closeness has been inspiring.  There has been no bad weather.  We have had no accidents.

We are blessed.

Florida Visit, Part I

We finally got to Ft Lauderdale yesterday at about 6 AM, only to find our US phone has been deactivated, so we had no way to call and let the family know we were on the ground.  Thank goodness they figured it out and came to get us.  I am really glad because it was so cold you could see your breath.

Last night I got to snuggle with the Grandbrat while we watched a movie on TV.  I haven't done that in a long time and it was so familiar and so wonderful.  She's not the little darling she was, but she has grown up to be an outstanding, beautiful teenage girl who will continue to blossom into a beautiful, outstanding woman.  And, no, I'm not the least bit prejudiced.

We went to Mass this morning and it was so nice to hear Mass said in English again.  I can follow the Mass in Trujillo, but not as well as here in the States.

Today is my 24th wedding anniversary and the children took us to 15th Street Fisheries, my favorite waterfront restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale.  It had warmed up enough we could sit outside and enjoy the free boat show that goes up and down the intercoastal everyday; everything from dinghies to mega-yachts and even the occasional water taxi.

Tomorrow we start shopping, going to the doctor, going to get our taxes done, and some other running around.  It will be a little hectic for a couple of days, but then we can slow down and draw a deep breath.

We have a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs, clothes on our bodies, and family who loves us.  What more could we want?

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



The Trusses Are Up, the Roof is Next

The trusses, ceiling joists, etc. are up!!!  Hooray!! Hurrah!!!

These are the ceiling joists and trusses before



These are  the ceiling joists and trusses after 









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MM calls this wood San Juan Chin.  It is a very hard, dense wood that termites do not attack.  That is very important here in the tropics.  Termites can destroy a property in a very short time-space.  Once this wood dries you cannot nail it without drilling a hole first.



This is the roof system from the ground

If you are wondering why so many pictures of the trusses, it is because I am so very, very proud of my little Honduran Honey  Bun and Marvin and Jose. These are not prefab, machine-made structural components.   Macho Man is a Master Carpenter, but all his adult experience has been on cruise ships and yachts, not houses.  Marvin and Jose are getting a lot of OJT.  The three of them have constructed the roof support system with a carpenter's square, fishing line, hammers and nails, and a table saw.  Yet, look how precise it is all  put together, how perfectly aligned it is.  It is truly magnificent.  It is a work of art. 



This is my new roof, before.  The after pictures will come next week.  My BIL is going to try to come next week and bring some helpers.  If they come it will certainly speed things up

.

These are my door and window frames, and even my doors.  Part of this may even become part of the ceiling.  The wood is Rosita.  It  has a beautiful grain.  It is another dense,  heavy hardwood.  Once you get a nail into it, you can't take it back out.  It is also too hard for termites to chew. 

This house is truly a house built out of love.  To me, not even the Taj Mahal is more beautiful.  The best part is that when it is finished, the house is paid for.  It cannot be foreclosed on.  It cannot be repossessed.  It is ours.  Thank you, Macho Man.

We are blessed. 

We Are About Ready to Dry It In

I haven't written anything lately about our construction because we lost a lot of time due to two weeks  rain and then the holidays.  Macho Man was doing some work, along with Marvelous Marvin and another of the faithful crew building forms for yet more bigas and columns and the molds to go over the windows and doors on the second floor; and pouring concrete whenever there was a break in the rain.  Things are going on well enough that you can began to separate the different rooms.  



Marvin is carrying cement through the back door to fill in the short biga on the left.  The forms for the other two have not yet been put up.  This holds up the roof over the portico.  The ends of rebar that are sticking out of the biga in the background will eventually be bent down and attach the roof to the biga.  The octagonal wooden form on the left is where MM will have to break through the wall to make a window in the half bath.  Okay, so I forgot to plan a window  there.  Who cares?  ;-P  We're fixing it, aren't we? 

This is looking toward the west end of the great room.  This is the kitchen.  The door on the left goes out onto a corridor that goes to the balcony on the front of the house.  MM miscalculated the height of the windows so they now have another round of blocks to accommodate the counter space and the backslash.  The door on the extreme left, with the scaffolding over it, is the pantry.  I am so looking forward to pantry.  It will also have a place to put my pots and pans so that I don't have to lean over to try and wrestle a frying pan off a lower shelf in a base cabinet.  YEA!!!





This is the west end of the great room.  The square door on the right leads into the Master Bedroom.



This is the master bath.  The shower goes in this corner and the tub will be next that.  We do need to put two more layers of block in that window, or the neighbors will have a show whenever we take a shower.  Yes, this is another error, but we are not doing so bad when we have floor plans by someone who never drew a plan in her life and a man who has never build a house by himself.



This is the view looking through the back door to the front door.   No, no, I am not talking about Miss PittyPat.  She is looking at the view from the portico, her beloved mountains.  As I have said many times, it is all about the view in Trujillo.

We are going to Tocoa tomorrow to pick out lamina for the roof.

We are blessed.





We Are Blocked in By Angry Protesters

It has been raining  for several weeks now.  The campesinos have disrupted life in Colon while protesting  that a bridge that was washed out several weeks ago still has not been fixed.  They protest by taking over all the roads, including the back roads leading to a town, and cut off all traffic.  What causes this type of protest?  The campesinos feel, and rightly so, that this is the only way they will be heard.

Macho Man says there is  no gasoline in Trujillo.  That makes three days now and the taxistas are unable to pick up fares.  Buses cannot travel between here and Tocoa, the nearest town of any size.  It also means that no fresh produce was delivered  yesterday, so the produce market is pretty much empty.  The bread trucks cannot get through, so there is no bread.  The dairy delivery trucks......well, you get the picture.   MM just came from the market and the grocery store.  He says there is very little to be had, even rice and beans.  The citizens of Trujillo are angry.  They say the campesinos have kidnapped Trujillo and are holding her for ransom

There are semi's from Dole lined up for miles on either side of the road block.  If they are there too much longer you can expect to pay more for bananas, pineapple and other tropical fruits.  Dole uses Puerta Castilla as its biggest port in Central America, and the trucks headed this way are loaded with perishables.

The ambulance from our little hospital cannot get to Tocoa or La Ceiba and we have no ICU, orthopedic surgeons or other specialists, nor the ability to take care of trauma.  There is no CT scanner, no MRI, no NICU nor many other things you expect in a modern hospital.  There certainly is no air rescue. The government has promised in the past not to allow the campesinos to tie up the roads and take cities hostage, but the government knows this could get very ugly very quickly.  They are not doing anything right now because the Human Rights inspectors are coming tomorrow. 



Courtesy La Prensa
Campesinos blocking the road to Trujillo



Human Rights would love to report that Honduras abuses the rights of its citizens.  They will not report that soldiers and police officers are facing a large group of men armed with rifles, shotguns and machetes, along with big sticks and rocks, and have not made any type of aggressive move.

I don't know where this is going, but I hope it will be resolved peaceably.  That is not always the case. 

I will try to write about the construction and post some pictures this week end.

Please pray this will not end in bloodshed. 

We have food in the house.  We are blessed.'

Update:

This morning the Army and the National Police broke up the blockade.  It ended very peacefully, with the campesinos jusst walking away.  The government is going to set up a permanent  post at the entrance to the back road to prevent this from happening again.  That means that everyone going that way will be stopped, and if they don't like you, your car will be searched.  That's OK by me.  I would rather spend a few minutes telling the police who I am and where I live, than to have people blocking the road so that we cannot even get food into Trujillo.  The people here deserve better than that.

There was no bloodshed, so we are blessed.

I Believe in Angels

I believe in angels. I am sure they are sent to us by God to protect us, and sometimes they are sent to us by the prayers of others.  What happened last week  makes me believe in angels more than ever.

Last Sunday I found a white feather on the staircase going to the third floor.  We have no birds in the house.  We don't have feather dusters, feather pillows, or down comforters, so there is no logical reason for that feather to have been in the house.   I picked it up and said, "Thank you, Lord, for the gift of this angel" and then forgot about it.

Tuesday, Macho Man decided it was safe to take down the  2x4 supports to the form for the terrazzo, and then take down the 1 x12 boards that make up the form.  You can see pictures of those here.

MM did not like the way the crew was removing the supports, so he went over to show them a safer, better way to do this.  Well, it turned out to be a lesson in how not to take down supports.  All of the 2 x 4's and a lot of the 1 x 12's, which were studded with long nails, fell in on top of him, completely burying him underneath.    He says his first though was, "I am going to die, right here and now."  Then he thought, "No, I can't do that, not now."  Thank goodness he was in one of the smaller rooms.

Part of the crew started scrambling to dig him out, while others were running to the neighbors for help.  The neighbors turned out in full force with blankets, wet towels, ibuprofen, and anything else they could find to bring they thought would help.  These are people with little or nothing, but they will share what they have with those who have need.  Not only do I classify these as angels, but they truly live their Christianity. 

When  my sweet little Honduran Honeybun surfaced, the score was  boards = 0;  Macho Man = 1 split lip, 1 goose egg on his head, and 1 cut on his hand where one of the nails brushed him.  We both believe God's heavenly angels were there to cover him when the ceiling fell in, and God's earthly angels were there to get him out of what could have been a very serious situation.

Thank God for the angels, and if you are one of those who prays for us, please don't ever stop.

We are blessed