Friday, June 10, 2011

... Sponsor a Chicken Project ...

Welcome to the "Sponsor a Chicken" Project for VBS! 

Thank you for taking the time to check this opportunity out to really make a direct impact on kids lives! Okay let me tell you a little about what you would be getting involved with! The children's home I volunteer at is looking to start a "chicken project" - where they would build 2 chicken coops like the one in the picture below. These hens would lay almost 40 eggs PER DAY! The three main staple foods for the kids at the home are rice, beans, and eggs - so this would save them a lot of money every week and provide extra food! Also, this project would teach the kids so many good lessons because they would be caring for the chickens - they will learn responsibility because they will be in charge of caring for them, feeding them, gathering eggs, packaging the eggs, and more! If you have ever taken a mission class or been on a mission trip you would know that as we are there to serve people, we also need to teach them and equip them to help themselves, so that they may provide for themselves and not rely on people to just come in and help them and provide for their every need. This is such a great opportunity to do that and to help them have a sense of pride as they are providing for one another! 

Soooooo - How can YOU help through attending Vacation Bible School, you ask?! We are asking kids to "Sponsor a chicken" - the ideal number is 40 hens and 2 roosters - and each hen costs $10 dollars. 

The photos below are from a "chicken project" started about 2 hours up into the mountains of Honduras in a village called "La Masica". They have about 4 coops and 80 hens laying eggs for their village. I visited there last year and could absolutely tell the impact this program has had on them. The kids and the adults were eager to walk me over to show me their coops and their chickens - they are very proud of them! They have been able to provide food their village through this program AND they take the eggs into a larger town to sale them to provide other things for the village! 






WHO would you be helping, you ask?! The children's home of Vida y Libertad (Life & Freedom) which has 40 amazing kids from ages 3 months - 18 years. These kids LOVE animals - they found a turtle recently and about 15 different times I was asked to go see the turtle they found. To have the opportunity to care for these chickens would be sooo exciting for them and give them such a sense of pride! Below are some photos of the kids...








Tuesday, June 7, 2011

...Punta Sal, Tela Weekend...

Since our time is quickly running out here in Honduras, we decided we needed to take advantage of EVERY weekend until we leave - so we decided within a few days that we wanted to head to the coast this past weekend. There is a nice beach about 2.5 hours away called Tela, with a great little hotel on the beach - Cesar Mariscos - with an infinity pool and jacuzzi on the roof ($20 each with bfast) - so 5 of us loaded up in our friend Katherine's (my first british friend, yessss) car Saturday morning for the coast! We arrived around noon, threw our bags in the room and immediately hit the beach, Steph and I had ridden in our bathing suits so we were more than ready! While swimming, the girls found a lost little sea creature that we had never seen before - turned out to be a nudibranch, which we had never heard of or seen before, we like to think we discovered it b/c there is nothing on google images matching what it looked like. So some Honduran guys of course went and got a plastic cup and caught it so the gringas could hold it. Candace dropped it and screamed like a small child, it was great and the guys thought it was hilarious when we asked them if it was a "pepino del mar" (sea cucumber) evidently that doesn't translate right, hahaha.





So after a few sandy hours on the beach we decided it was pool time and went to the jacuzzi and pool for a couple more hours and relaxed before dinner. We just wandered down the beach a little to a nice beach front rest. that had a lot of options. It was pretty good (Brisas del Mar) - then we wandered around the city a bit for ice cream but it was a little sketchy so we went back to our place for ice cream (why didn't we think of that in the first place?!) They told us they had ice cream but wouldn't take our order for about 10 mins - thats when we saw a guy slipping in through the back with a gallon of ice cream he had just went and bought for us, haha, and had chocolate sundays with pinapple/coconut and cherrys on top! The night we were there just happened to be the first night of the Tela Fair, yay for us, not. Directly below our window was a huge set up for the "Queen of Tela" contest happening that night. The music/screaming only lasted til 1am which could have been worse, but it was pretty funny, we watched from our window.






The next morning we got up, had breakfast and caught our tour to Punta Sal. It was $28 for the tour, the guide, the boat to/from, and snorkeling. It was an adventure from the beginning - the tide was too far down so we had to push our boat from the canal into the ocean as the waves would come high. Then a 45 min ride in the middle of the ocean in a small boat, and finally we arrived to the peninsula/island. On the way to the hiking spot our driver spoted a massive boa constrictor sun bathing on the rocks - so what does our tour guide do - what any normal person would do - jumped out onto the rocks from the boat and pulled it from its tail out so we could see it. We got some good pictures and looks at it as it snapped at him several times causing him to drop it - but he would pick it back up of course. Finally the huge snake got away and escaped into the water, which was great considering we would be snorkeling later - but it ended up crawling back up after about 5 mins.








We got to the hiking spot and started on the trail. On the trail we saw some really cool trees, weird bananas with seeds, and more. There was this bright blue crab that had eaten a poisonous plant on the island (which was used as a natural aphrodisiac), and was dying. Our guide said he wasn't suffering though - he was in a "bob marley" state - so we decided the crab had overdosed. We also saw the 2nd most venomous spider in honduras - and it was ALL around our heads as we walked down the trail. Our guide had to go in front in case there were any in the trail so he could tell us. We prolly saw over 20 of them on a 30 minute hike - it was NOT comforting. They were HUGE too, not cool. At the end of the hike we saw a 4 inch yellow spotted grasshopper and howler monkeys. Then on the way back to the island where we would eat lunch, we got to stop a little out from the beach and could snorkel back to the beach along the reef. It was great, we saw some cool worm/caterpillar things, queen angel fish, parrot fish, and more! When we got back to the island we had some typical garifuna food - fried fish, tajadas, red beans and coconut rice, and coconut milk straight from the coconut. After lunch we chilled on the beach a couple more hours, and took some funny pictures underwater. We kept trying to take a picture of us having a "tea party" (you know like you do when you are young in the pool), but some ppl had trouble sinking and staying down, haha. We really didnt wanna leave this beach, it was amazing, a little cove tucked away on this island with crystal clear blue water, snorkeling just right off the beach, the sand was even inclined for a comfortable laying spot!! ahh it was great! But we had to head back so we could get home before dark. The ride in the lancha back home was a little scary - there was a storm watch that had started so the waves were getting reallllly big and water was splashing in on us from the front and the sides - steph had to do yoga breathing at one point, haha. But we made it back alive and loaded up the car and headed back to sigwa. It was such an amazing weekend - all accomplished in  a day and a half and under $75 bucks, can't beat it! 





Monday, June 6, 2011

...must-do things before leaving Honduras...


The ones that have been bolded have been done! Photos below from the different events.... so far 19/28 - we got work to do!
  • Go to the zoo by the lake
  • Eat at Taco Bellys - best chimichangas EVER!
  • Visit the other side of the lake and see the damn
  • Go to Cayos Cochinos
  • Visit armory downtown
  • Go to the new grocery store - Los Olivos/La Colonia
  • Eat cu-bobs at Via Verde
  • Friday night movie in the Sigwa theatre
  • Go camping
  • Make coconut chicken
  • Rent futbolito court and play with teachers
  • Teguc - sushi and art museum
  • Play paintball with everyone
  • Football game in Sigwa stadium
  • Fish Tacos
  • Eat at Queen Burger
  • Have an all spanish night (movie and talking)
  • Visit Mennonite community - buy cheese/ice cream (maybe a bunny) hehe
  • Be coffee farmers for a day at Becky's coffee farm - 1/2 highlight
  • Jesus Statue in Teguc
  • Poker Night at the house
  • River @ Rhondas
  • Climb the tower at Providence
  • Make it through all 11 movies on our "Movies to Watch" list
  • Hike to the waterfall near sigwa
  • Punta Sal - monkeys & snorkleing
  • Make red beans & Coconut rice Tela style
  • Eat fish @ the lake after kids home on wednesday
Cayos Cochinos!
Jesus Statue in Teguc
When we visited the Mennonite Community,and bought Val
Coconut Chicken night!
Futbol match in the Sigwa stadium complete with fire bombs

Sushi in Teguc!
snorkeling in Punta Sal

Spanish Embassy Art Museum in Teguc
The Zoo

Picking coffee!

Hike to waterfall in Sigwa with small group peeps
futbolito with teachers





Wednesday, June 1, 2011

...cookin' with crisco...


Steph & I have tried to make it a point this year to cook new recipes together at least once a week. For some reason, we really like to cook here! Probably because we don't have anything else to do and it's a challenge because all the ingredients aren't available here :) It's been really fun, because I've never had a roommate who wanted to cook so much! We've made both recipes that she has grown up with and me too. In the past few weeks we have conquered, pizza with homemade dough (the BBQ chicken was the best), stir fry, fajitas, and friend apple pies. Pretty much everything was delicious! 


On another note, we have discovered a great dinner place. Its about 3 blocks away & on the side of the road ran by a bunch of women in front of their house. We went there Wednesday after the Kid's Home & had some delicious carne asada, beans, plaintain chips, gravy, repollo (cabbage) and chismol (pico de gallo), basically tipico! Because it was so good, we went back tonight- I had a flauta - flour tortilla with cheese/ham with lots of toppings and a baleada (beans, cream, cheese, avacado, and little chunks of beef & it was great! I love Honduran food and am going to miss it so much!

Of course we had to take pictures, so here it goes...





a whole chicken in the crock pot


coconut chicken

BBQ pulled pork

Moroccan Chicken

Tipico!

BBQ Pizza

Stir Fry

Pork Chops

Stir Fry





"Sin Nombre" (No name) - very typical - quesillo, ham, cheese, red sauce fried in a flour tortilla






sweet and sour meatballs