One could say that Honduras is not exactly Ohio…
If our return to Honduras has reminded me – it is of the
tremendous adaptability and resilience of the human being. I remember when Fall
fell down on top of us in Ohio last year. My body had the peace of half a
decade without transitioning into a true cold season. It seemed like once the
cold had oozed into my hands, head, and feet that only fire itself could thaw
me out – then eventually my body remembered that this could be normal and the
internal thermostat cranked back up – only in time for us to move back here.
Slowly but surely, my thermostat has reset itself again,
90 degrees feels less like a 190 degrees now – although I still wish the sun
would back off a bit. Out of the month + we have been here, we have had only a
few days of relief lower than 94-98. It’s all up in our business at 4:30A –
anxious to get caught up with the wet blanket affectionately known in Honduras
as “air.” Around 7:30A, humidity and temperature meet up for a midmorning
coffee chat at around 85 before the sun stands up and heads up to get the real
work done. Eliana has long-forgotten what clothes feel like and sweats through
a 30-minute nap before getting back to being awake and hot – smile on her face
sometimes. My straw hat seems like it is constantly smoldering, threatening to
burst into flames at any moment and scorch my bald head even worse that the
rays beating down on it. Stacey turns towards the freezer – our dearest friend
– and plops the ice cubes into the liquid of the hour.
The sun isn’t the only thing with an obnoxious streak.
I’d forgotten that our cat really, really, really likes to eat and is willing
to risk anything to get just a little more food. His hungry meow is a hideous
low yowl, like some demonic raccoon – relentless and brain-gratingly effective.
When that doesn’t work, he is fond of chomping at our legs and then sprinting
off to his food bowl before whatever we just chucked at him reaches its target.
Now he has some new tricks.
Let me just stop for a moment to say this thing is
well-fed, not fat, but certainly the thickest cat in the Republica. There’s no
reason for him to be so persistent. This is malice – plain and simple.
The meowing begins ferociously and relentlessly in the
middle of the night when he’s managed to stow away for the night. That earns
him no food, but an unceremonious toss out the door onto the dog. So – he’s
wisely stopped that now and moved onto something even better. At about four in
the morning, he starts making rounds from
window to window, with his ridiculous siren yowling away. He’ll park it for about 5 minutes at
each window – trying to figure out where we are. Once he locates us, he slips
into Park, puts on the emergency brake, and lays on the horn. We’re all
eventually learning to sleep through that now – not that this is stopping him
at all. Two mornings ago, he revealed his secret weapon – the aerial assault.
At five in the morning, I got up for my morning routine only to hear some foul-hearted creature
stalking me on our tin roof. I thought I was imagining it. Then last night,
I went out at about 8PM to separate out the baby goats for the night. As I
stepped outside, I heard a familiar – yet weak – meow. It shakily repeated a
few times. I couldn’t see him. The weakness in his yowler suggested that he was
ill or hurt, and for some reason, instead of glee I felt sympathy. Then I
figured it out. Dear God, I’ve parked the
car on him! Nope. The weakness was only the result of distance from the
source. I flipped the flashlight up to see two giant yellow eyes smiling back
from the roof. This morning, I heard him slip onto the roof above our room from
the mango tree, walk across the house and camp out. When I got moving, he
started to wander about – soundtrack on repeat. Once everyone was up in moving
in the girl’s room, it sounded like he was going to come through the roof.
A truce of some sort is going to have to be made soon.
Outside of the relentless demon cat, the sun’s uncomfortable
proximity, and an exhausted baby without a discernable biological ability for
longer than 30 min. naps, we’re doing alright. Things have truly been extremely
busy, and we’re trying to axe those things that aren’t of super-high priority
and determine what will both allow us to survive and be effective. I think that
we’re beginning to see that path, and we appreciate your prayers as we attempt
to navigate our way to the trailhead of FAM O’ FOUR + HN.
I’m going to try to get a comprehensive update of life
around the house and HTH sometime over the next week. Thanks to all of you who
have reached out. We love to hear from those we love and are grateful for your
communication. Those that haven’t. Drop us a line (good ol’ fashioned e-mail is
preferred). Let us know what is going on in your lives – we’d love to know.
Grace and peace to you all.
