Happy Customer

After seeing the ads for years and doing some online research, I decided to make the big jump. It was time for a new thumb. My previous thumb was becoming a little embarrassing, you know, with all the new thumbs out there and all. The nail on the old one came out a little crooked, and looked a little stained. Thumb Joint 1 (TJ1) creaked just a tiny bit in the mornings and TJ2 has never quite performed as well as the slick, flexible ones that some friends have. Plus, it was just getting kind of boring. The general look was outdated, and some of the freckles had lost their crisp lines; they barely looked like smudges anymore. I had never gotten a new one. I’d waited 26 years, I deserve this.

I decided on a ThumJam 5S. It’s the newest, fastest, smoothest thumb out there, and I haven’t regretted my choice for one second. The reviews say that its TJ1 flex time is 5 milliseconds faster than Original Thumbs, and TJ2 range of motion up to 1.5 degrees greater than the first several versions. I really think that I can almost feel the difference. Though, I think my favorite feature is the color-selectable nail. By pressing a hidden button at the base of the cuticle, you can cycle through 8 colors in 15 shades. I know that you can paint older models, but this is so much more convenient. I don’t know how I lived without this feature before. There’s no going back now! Another huge benefit is that ThumJam manufactures all of their products in an eco-friendly factory in Ethiopia (strictly self-monitored by ThumJam’s internal human rights team in order to avoid any possible abuses of their most valuable asset, their employees). All of their thumbs are manufactured from 100% natural, organic sources: all certified not to be stolen from the illicit Blood Thumb Black Market.

I know that some people would propose that Original Thumbs are completely sufficient, and there’s no need for replacement. However I think that my modern audience would agree that these Luddite arguments hold no water in today’s high-tech world. With personal efficiency increasing daily, those without Updated Thumbs will surely be left by the wayside as the rest of us gain valuable seconds of productivity with our super-capable appendices. I truly hope that these misinformed naysayers understand the seriousness of their decisions. These archaic opinions put themselves and their families at the risk of social ostracism and even financial ruin as they fail to keep up with the pace of progress.

Surely there were other ways to spend the money, but since the actual procedure was at 50% off for this month, it seemed like it was the right time. Besides, it seems to me that most major world issues are under control. Poverty is surely almost gone, I know that personally I never see any signs of it. I drive nearly 40 miles on that new interstate to get to work and see only nice cars. As humanity, I think we’ve moved beyond issues of suffering onto issues of progress. If we don’t focus on efficiency and innovation, we’ll surely become stagnant. I have my new thumb installed, integrated, and functioning for less than $4500, and with the basic maintenance plan, I’m only paying $110 monthly. Even if societal issues still existed, surely that amount wouldn’t make a difference. This was not just a purchase. It was an investment. Essential to progress, for the good of society.

So, here I am, another happy customer.

Rainwater Continued...

Rain is still a very big deal for us. Every facet of our life is affected by it. The condition of the roads, the water in our shower, sinks, toilet, and pila, the health of our garden, the sustenance for our animals, the ability to speak in our own home. Our cistern is continually filled by it's abundance here. We just found a scholarly work detailing that in our area we receive ~125 inches of rain a year. It is a lot of water.

We put together a little video below to show a few quick scenes during a typical nightly rainfall.

 

What you just saw may seem pretty trivial, if not boring, but for us, it is what keeps us alive (for that matter it's what keeps all of us alive). Rain on the roof, falling in the lettuce and cucumbers, drenching the rooster, going through the filters and into the cistern, and into the pila. Rain is a constant blessing for us, a way that we see God work nearly every day. Every time that the noise starts up on the roof, I breathe out a little prayer of thanks and relief. At the same time,  you can't help but think about places like Sub-Saharan Africa where they receive next to no rainfall and live in similar conditions. I can't even imagine. We all need to be so grateful every time we see the drops start up. In the States, we might be a little more isolated from it under insulated roofs, using running, purified water systems, but that doesn't mean that we need it any less. The fact that clean water falls from the sky is nothing less than a miracle. What a design.

Food pumps.

We have this amazing stuff growing in our yard, moringa. It is an extremely nutritious small tree, high in vitamins, high in protein. We planted it in our yard last year and eat it off and on. The raw leaves have a very unique, strong flavor -- a bit of clover mixed with tabasco. Not entirely unpleasant, but definitely an acquired taste. Or in the words of many, many Honduran friends, "It tastes like a weed." Not an inaccurate appraisal.

In the development world, moringa has been praised for years a vital tool as a nutritional supplement in poor, tropical areas. Originally from Africa, it grows extremely quickly in the correct environment. We planted ours from seed last July. As of January, the tallest was 8' tall. I cut it off at the 6' mark only to turn around and cut off the additional 12' feet of growth over the past 6 months. It doesn't grow like a weed, it spanks weeds in the growth department. Weeds grow like moringa.

Needless to say, these things are magical, natural nutrient pumps. You stick a seed in the ground and it goes to work turning air, water, and dirt into vitamins and protein in the form of green leaves. As mentioned above, it isn't our favorite thing to eat, however, we still mix it into soups, rice dishes, and others as a supplement. Used in this way, moringa has incredible potential to improve the diets here in rural Honduras. However, I have another personally preferred use for it.

As good as moringa is at transforming the elements into a usable form, there is another champion in this area. Our little friend, the humble chicken, is also a magic worker. Chickens are meat wizards. You can throw anything into their pen and they go to work, transforming your waste into delicious, tasty meat. Not only that, the females literally lay meat drops in a box every day. It is a miracle. If you feed your chickens highly nutritious things, they grow even faster and lay even more eggs. Enter moringa.

You see, chickens clearly don't care about flavor. So, they don't care that moringa leaves have a little whang to them. All they care is that there's abundant food. The only thing that I care about is that they love it and it means that we'll be eating more meat as a result. Chickens + Moringa = More food for the gringos.

Snapshots

I know that it has been a while since we've posted pictures, and the truth is that we haven't been taking many. However, I thought we'd throw up a few to give you a little visual insight into our last couple of months. Enjoy.

 

Clear Water. As of this week, we´re filtering the water that enters into the cistern. Once the water fills the prewash tank (on the right), the water now flows through a gravel/sand filter. The water enters the top of the tank then immediately passes through a screen, then gravel larger than 1", then pea gravel, then sand. At the bottom is a screened exit with large rock and pea gravel, from there it passes directly to the cistern. This should catch the remainder of the dirt that hits the roof during storms here. We'll see if it keeps the cistern cleaner. We're gone through a couple of strong storms now and the design has capacity to handle them. We'll clean the cistern this week to see if there's a noticeable difference in water quality.

 

True Development. The biggest news of these past couple of months is that Mountain Dew is now distributed in Honduras, and it's delicious (with cane sugar, not that yucky corn stuff). The can is even cooler than in the States, it's black with the new logo. Needless to say, I'm participating in this new cultural activity. So far, the majority of our acquaintances like Manteen Du, they're just lacking my passion. I'll continue in the evangelism though, in the hopes to win a few...

"Hau ar ju?" When the Ambassador students were in Las Lomitas, we had a "language exchange" with them. Lots of ladies showed up, but the sight of a bunch of young white women proved too much for the guys. They all hung around to watch them come out, but only one guy participated. I've ridden the bunch of sissies pretty hard on that one. Overall, it was a productive time and the teens of Las Lomitas had a great chance to try out they're language skills.

Yummy. This is a passion flower, which is what proceeds a passion fruit. These crazy flowers cover an even crazier vine. I was told by Hondurans that these vines grow like crazy, but they say a lot of things, so I paid them little heed. So, I planted three. After six months of waiting, they all of a sudden exploded into growth, and now my very life is threatened by their ever-encroaching presence. Needless to say, we're going to be making a lot of passion fruit juice. Good thing we like it.

Yummy? Our neighbors brought us a new meal. Chicken feet. No, it's not a joke. 

Authority figure. Without soliciting outside opinions, Fredy decided to cut off the bottom half of his goatee. This did not go unnoticed. When asked about why he invited this caterpillar to reside on his upper lip, he replied "It gives me a increased appearance of authority." I told him that was nice, but then took the low road and mocked him for two weeks. I'm happy to report that he has now shaved it off and the goatee is making a return.

  

Animals that aren't for eating. The dog is now starting to guard the house, and the cat eats all-comers in the house. They're performing their desired function. However, the cat enjoys using herself as a living shield against all attempts at reading, and the dog likes scaring the poop out of the chickens (not a difficult task, but still unwelcome).

 

Animals that are for eating. This is a close-up of one of currently-living, delicious-looking chickens. They really are beautiful creatures. But, as with all tasty animals, it's what's on the inside that counts.

Real professionals. We're indebted to the help we've received from Katie and Nick Mueller. These two are a couple that also happen to be a couple of engineers. Kate designed the purification system in Caliche, and her husband recently accompanied her on a fact-finding trip to analyze several potential projects: water purification in La Concepcion, water in Las Lomitas, and a sewage project in La Cuesta. This couple worked so very hard and accomplished a great deal. Thanks from us and the Moustached Wonder.

Achote. These are seeds from the achote tree. These are used as coloring and flavoring in some local foods. These were at a local lady's house for grinding. Most commonly, it is used in a local food called "pastelitos," which are more or less empanadas everwhere else. Delicious stuff.

Birthday celebration. The tiniest neighbor in this picture (Abi) just celebrated her first birthday. She was the surprise birth in Las Lomitas last year. We'd been living next door to her mom for months and had no idea she was pregnant, we found out later she was hiding it. It was a pretty neat trick. As you can see though, she very, very real, and very, very cute.

Pretty flower. We decided to plant flowers in the yard. This is our first one. It's pretty.

"Big Sexy Man." 18 months after meeting him, Buddy has grown up quite a bit. He's still very helpful, but his recent interest in the ladies has reduced his frequency around the house. Turns out that there are things more interesting than gardens and big ugly gringos. However, he's still our biggest fan and helps us out in more ways than we can say. He's still a great kid. He's trying out his English more and more, including the title here.

Ghetto repair. The dry-rotted leather seal on our rainwater pump pooped out and increased our pumping time from 20 minutes to 60 minutes. We've got a new one on the way, but we've made a temporary one in the meantime that works alarmingly well. Stacey sewed me up a nice ring of old jean, then we cinched it into a crease with some nylon. From there, we covered it with hot wax and then melted it repeatedly to impregnate the material. Necessity is the great mother here.

Toys in the darkness. This is a 10 second time-lapse of a glowing worm's trail across our living room floor. At different times of the year, different fluorescent bugs make spectacular appearances. These quick little worms are my personal favorite. They glow dimly until you touch them, then they explode with a million little pinholes of light.

War. The battle with scorpions has gone high-tech. At some point, I remembered that scorpions glow under UV light. And glow they do. When we find a glowing dot, we don't play games; it gets nuked with Raid. No hidey holes for you, disgusting creatures of the night. We're on the offensive now. We will find you, and we will kill you.

Fight for the Light

It has been a long time since we've talked about the electricity project in Las Lomitas, but that doesn't mean that we haven't been working. We have been, just not in the traditional sense. No sweat, no blood, but plenty of crazy. For the past months, we've been chasing down every politician that will give us a meeting. So to update, after a long dead spell, we made a connection a with a powerful director within the national electric company, the ENEE in March. At his word, we informed some donors that made some very generous gifts to prepare ourselves to work starting in May. The donors came through, the director did not. No action was taken.

Soon thereafter, I was summoned by a neighbor to come meet the "mayor" who had just arrived in our little village. This confused me since I already know the mayor, but assumed it was I misunderstood the Spanish. I didn't. It was a mayor want-to-be from the other party trying to make friends with the Gringo. I thought, "It won't hurt to meet this new guy. Any connection is a welcome one." Soon after I shake his hand, he starts to promise about how the electricity project will arrive for free, that the people shouldn't work on this project, he would provide it all, just sit back and wait he says -- IT'S ON ITS WAY! He and the Gringo probably won't be friends after all. It was a really hot day, my stomach was a little off, and I had grown weary of political types abusing the people here. So, in as many words, I let him know that all help aimed for the good of the people here is welcome, but the help of lying selfish politicians not so much. That was a couple of months ago and people still joke with me about it.

Since then, we've been on the phone innumerable times with the Electrical Director Supreme, the Upright Infallible Congresswoman, and the Mayor. We've been in personal homes, offices near and far, and vehicles of all shapes, sizes, and numbers of functional tires. We wouldn't be doing this however, if there weren't two people with us every step of the way: Pastor Erick and community President Pablo. Together, these two represent the leadership of the community of Las Lomitas, and they have endured lie after lie after lie long before we arrived. As leaders, they've arrived home late from meetings, chased down lead after lead, and given up a great deal of personal money in transportation and days of work lost. Pablo faithfully meets with the community to encourage and unite them even after hope seems lost. But hope is not lost.

The community has decided that enough is enough, and we are right with them. As a community, we are shooting for a start date of August 20. Should we not have irrefutable evidence that the project will start in the imminent future, action will be taken. After meeting today with the Electrical Director Supreme and Mayor, it was decided that Pablo and I will be traveling to Tegucigalpa with the Mayor tomorrow in order to determine the truth about the project at the national headquarters of the ENEE. The Director will also meet us there, and the opposing party's congresswoman called upset informing us that she would also like to come. Tomorrow will dictate the future of electricity in Las Lomitas.

This is a perfect example of development as we often share. Yes, we could have pushed through and tried to do it alone (all with donor money) and fast (according to US timetable) but all of this true, lasting, personal and communal development would be lost.  Our goal is not the project, but the process. This is why we are passionate about "community development" and this is where we see God doing great things.


Tomorrow will be the climax of a year and a half of running around. Should we manage to squeeze all of these egos into one room and ask the important questions, we may actually discover the truth. This has been an incredibly frustrating several months, but it is looking like action will soon happen. This flurry of action and emotion has done incredible things in the community though.

It is an election year here in Honduras, and the whole country is in a red vs. blue battle. Politicians feel overempowered and begin to crank up their aggressiveness, taking advantage of uneducated people in small villages and turning them on each for a color without meaning. Promises are made to keep the oppressed waiting while the politicians never take action.  Unfortunately this tactic has been highly effective in Las Lomitas, but on the flip-side has opened up a dialogue that presses for unity. The most powerful thing that can happen to unite a people is to give them a common enemy, and the emotion that the word "politico" inspires has recently become more powerful than a respective color. Using some red and blue colored water, we demonstrated the potential in a united community, a purple community. The idea that lasting change can only come from within the community is now beginning to take root. As faith in politicians fails, hope in the potential of a small community and recognition of worth in Christ is beginning to rise. We are crossing through a critical moment in this small community's history.

Our neighbors have been oppressed by lies for years now. Because of its size, no politician has considered Las Lomitas worth their time or effort and that sentiment is reflected in the people's self-esteem. They know that no-one cares. Part of our goal of being here has been to instigate development through relationship building and this has been a case study in its merits. Tomorrow I hope to see with my own eyes, a resolved leader from a tiny, rural Honduran town in the national capital, hours away from his home, meeting with leaders at the national level looking for truth to bring development to his people. 'To loose the chains of oppression, and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free.' That is our charge.

Independence

Well, I just saw today's date, and the last post date. This pretty well confirms my suspicion that I'm a lousy blogmaster. Sorry if anyone depends on these posts as a source of happiness. If you do, please find something else to keep you entertained.

Life has been busy, but we're doing well. Since I last updated, we've been through our first legitimate case of parasites. Fortunately they were giardia, not the wormy kind. So, we just ended up burping Hell's air freshener for a few days and seeing how fast we could liquify things and move them through our intestinal tract. (If traveler's diarrhea is a 1990 Mustang GT, then giardia puts us in a brand new Ferrari). But, we're back on our feet and off of the toilet; life is good.

The rain has started back up and the garden is planted out. So, that's nice. Nighttime temperatures have returned to sub-baking temperatures, and I seem to be sweating much more normal amounts. Our puppy is becoming Dog and beginning to do Dog things. Like get stupid muddy and then jumping on us. She's also proven her worth in identifying multiple toads and then barking until they can't hear.

We've also been hanging out with a group of students for the past couple weeks. The students from the ambassador students have bounced around, visited, hiked, lived, and vomited with us. We really hope that they'll be able to learn from what they've seen. We hope that Aubrey, Taylor, Genelle, Stephanie, Micah, Colleen, Chelsea, and Jesse follow their hearts, make hard decisions, and love hard. 

Happy 4th!

A helpful addition!

Stacey has been cooking on a little borrowed table with a 2 burner propane stove on top for almost 2 years.  The time came to make the step up.  Our home improvements for this year are a basic concrete kitchen counter we made ourselves with a few blocks and concrete and…. an oven!  It’s a 4 burner propane with a small oven underneath!  Since then we have enjoyed cakes, brownies, cookies, transparent pie, quiche, baked chicken, pizza, and much more!  Our diet has changed! 

As always, with the purpose of demonstrating Asset Based Community Development Stacey is now in business.  With a little sign out front she now sells cakes/bread to the village.  Two assets/resources she brings to the table are the knowledge of baking and now the material necessity of the oven.  She continues to give classes to small groups of teenage girls for them to learn and in the hope to eventually turn the ¨mico-business¨ over to them.

 

Perhaps you would be surprised that what you consider a “poor” village that has a hard enough time getting the meals on the table could buy a cake.  Since birthday gifts are non-existent a food like tamales or cake is about the only way these families do celebrate birthdays or special occasions like Mother’s Day.  Stacey cranked out 4 cakes on Mother’s day.  It’s also something several people/families can pitch in and enjoy together.  It turns out sharing a cake is a great and special joy for these people.  One of the first things the girls from the youth group shared they wanted to learn was how to bake.  You never know what you’re end up using in life, thank Momma Reeder for teaching Stacey baking skills!

Between eating & selling the vegetables from the garden, small meat production with rabbits, our chickens laying eggs and fattening up, and now selling the cakes we are making strides to model sustainable practices in our life and find our way to make a small income on our own.  What we make from veggies and cakes is nothing through U.S. eyes and will never pay for insurance/etc. but by rural Honduran standards, it’s something. 

Middletown Middies

As this second year away from our previous professional jobs in the States comes to a close we wanted to say “hello” to Stacey’s previous co-workers and students at Middletown where Stacey was a Spanish teacher for 3 years.  We do sport the Middie’s shirts down here from time to time.  Congrats especially to those graduating this 2013 who started with “Señorita Reeder” in 8^th grade Spanish and now 5 yrs. later are graduating high school.  Congratulations Seniors!

Hot.

Sometimes, a Honduran will say something that makes my hair stand up. For example, I was recently digging into a plate full of interesting-looking crabs with a great big Honduran in a restaurant located on a back waterway that smelled suspiciously like used diapers. The constructor of said restaurant clearly wasn't familiar with advanced construction equipment like bubble levels. About halfway through the plate of crustaceans, he looks at me, laughs and says. "We'll see how long this puts us in the bathroom." It's chuckle-worthy when a gringo says it; terrifying when a Honduran does.

However, sometimes a Honduran will say something that makes you feel feel justified about your suffering. For example, when you're weakened from aforementioned intestinal distress and so are all your neighbors. Instead of them saying, "You wimpy gringos," they say, "These are trots of historic proportions." And, when you're laying on a concrete floor trying to cool off, they raise their dripping heads and say. "Que insoportable." This is unbearable.

This may come as a surprise to you, but sometimes, in Central America, it gets really, really hot. Like, really hot. We're at the tail end right now of our "summer." Summer here is defined as the time of year that is very dry and (as already mentioned) very hot. In theory, this will end in the next few days as the nightly rains get cranked up again. More than ever, we're ready for the rain. Once we're swimming to get to the car, I'm sure that we won't want it anymore, but for now it sounds great.

When I walk out the door now, the animals inform me that it's too hot for the gringo to be outside. The chickens are squished under their coop trying to stay away out of the sun. The horse is scooted up against a scrawny tree in the shade. The dogs roll over miserably and glare at me like somehow it's my fault. The rabbits pant, probably near death, and the vultures take to the air as 180 lbs of white meat saunters out into the light. I know that earth passes closer to the sun during other days of the year, but every now I glance up to check to make sure that we're not actively falling into our closest star.

The sun, delightful fire that it is, also bakes everything. The good news is that the crap you just stepped in won't be sticking to you. The bad news is that all excrement in a 100 mile radius has been made into instant dust that will shortly try to get into your lungs and give you some kind of bizarre infection to confuse  doctors. Dirt (known the rest of the year as knee-deep mud) converted into its weaponized airborne form, assaults your eyes, nose and lungs everytime something moves. As our car approaches people walking along the dirt road, shirts come up to cover faces until the worst is over.

If you're thinking, well, at least you're not as muddy, you would be wrong. You see, the neat thing about floating dirt is that it adheres to anything wet or sticky--which would be you. Wipe your face with a light-colored towel in this situation, and you'll see what I'm talking about. From the moment you wake up on a hot day until the moment you wake up on a cool day several weeks later, you are sweating. Not just sweating, leaking water from every little pore on your body, which in the humid tropics, won't be evaporating anytime soon. Have you ever tossed a towel onto a spill and watched the water slowly spread to the edges? If you have, you can understand the function that our clothes have been performing over the past month. Ah, the romantic tropics.The good news is that some of the modern synthetic materials used in shirts today really do a great job of getting that sweat off you. The bad news is that today I'm wearing cotton, and it is an underperformer.

I promise I'm not trying to whine. I'm just trying to share the joy. The climate here is one of extremes. If it's not raining, it gets really hot. If it's not hot, it's raining... every night. And when in starts to rain during the day in November, it rains a long, long time, sometimes weeks without stopping. The huge blessing here is that the temperature here, in our area of Honduras, most of the year, is very bearable, especially up on our little hill. We're really, really grateful for that. We just got back from visiting Choluteca, about 8 hours from here in the southernmost tip of Honduras. Choluteca is close to the ocean and is at sea level. It is also the driest zone in Honduras. As you can imagine, the driest zone in Honduras, combined with an altitude of 0 ft. makes for a very warm town. I really did feel bad for the folks there. I can't imagine living with that kind of heat year round.

Sometimes, a Honduran will say something that is truly magical--something with the ability to lift your heart out of the depths of despair. For example, Alexandra (Fredy's wife) just walked into the room and said, "I just made some watermelon juice out of purified water, with ice made from purified water. Would you like some." Alexandra is a wonderful woman.