Lunar Eclipse

Last Thursday there was a total lunar eclipse that was visible in Copan. I tried some shots with my new camera. The first one worked OK as there was still light from the full moon but you can see that the moon is being covered in the second.

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Copan Garage

If the car needs inspecting here, then you simply drive it on two planks out over the edge of the hill.

I am sure there are different standards for health and safety here.

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Lunch at the school

Now that proper school has started, there is still fruit in the morning but at about 9.30 a bowl of rice and beans with tortillas is served. This is essentially the basic meal around here. There is a rota of mothers from the community who cook and the teachers or volunteers serve it up.

As always, there is one queue for the boys and another for the girls.

The children grab a space where they can outside to eat. The roaming dogs and chickens will pick up any food that is dropped which since they eat with their hands the animals do find pickings.

Cockfighting

Just outside Copan there is a building which I am told is used for cock fighting. It is certainly kept clean and looks to be in use.

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Boys being boys

I wanted to take a photo from the carcel(prison) in Copan which has at the top of a hill and has views over Copan. These two boys climbed up the tree so as to get themselves in and shouting foto foto!



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Mayan version of Angels.

I noticed that the Mayans also had their version of Charlie's Angels when we visited the ruins at Copan again.

We reckoned that it was Audra on the left, Elise in the middle and Lucy who has lost part of her head.

Sadly both Audra and Elise have returned to the States. I guess that is one of the problems staying a long time in one place, people come and go.

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Walking in the air.

While we were in La Ceiba, I was perfecting the act of walking in the air. I am ready to take on Snowman parts this Christmas.

Actually, we went White Water Rafting but I do not want you to think that I am having fun.

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Charlie's Angels

A group of us made the trip to La Ceiba for the weekend. As it was me and three girls, it was decided that they were my Angels. What do you think?

Lucy, Audra and Elise.

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Bigger class

Lucy and I have now completed our first week of teaching with all the kids. Our 23 kids are sharing a class room with two other grades who are at the other end, here you can see our class and Lucy with the others at the other end.



This is of Lucy reading out words from a text book for the kids to write down, the emphasis is on understanding the syllables. We are still finding our feet with the local teacher but generally it is going well. Erica wants the kids to do copying of lines for homework but both Lucy and I want to encourage the kids to be creative in their writing so we will try to change this next week. At the moment, we are revising with the kids the work they last year in the first grade.

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Prisoners in the dungeon

At school, there is a clear boy - girl split. At break, the girls do skipping and the boys play cards or play this game, there are different names around the world. Two teams and when a person is caught, he goes to the prison, here it is a tree. If there are more then they hold hands. They canbe freedby being tagged by a free person in their team so the other team post guards.

Here the captives are looking for rescue while a guard keeps watch.

Back to school party

It is traditional in Honduras for birthdays and other festivities to have a Pintada which is a doll which is filled with sweets. The birthday boy-girl hit the pintada until it splits open and sweets spill out. They think it is great fun. Note there are different one for boys and girls.

The lady on the right is Erica, who is the teacher for 2nd (our), 4th and 5th grade. We are all in the classroom behind the girls, we have one end with our 23 kids and the other two are at the other. There is only 15 of them combined.

Of course the tall person had an important job to make sure all the sweets fall out.

Shoeshine boy

When you sit in Central Plaza in Copan there is always something going on. Here I am getting my walking boots cleaned (they were so dusty) by a boy with a toothbrush and soapy water. He did a good job too and I am eating the local fast food, mango slices in a chilli sauce, yummy.

Jonathon

My homestay has several rooms. Recently Jonathon has been staying there while he did Spanish lessons before he left on a three month tour of Central America. He is an experienced traveller. It was good to spend some time with him even if he always did win the card games.



here is his blog:http://copan2mexico.blogspot.com

Pottery

I am currently sharing my homestay with Jonathon and we went to a local village for Pottery. Here are our efforts, not very good.


under a watchful eye. We had coffee made from beans picked in the garden, bread from maize from the garden and a banana picked from the tree.

Even the cat was not impressed. Guess which one is the teachers?

One she made earlier...
Jonathon leaves on Thursday for 3 days in Tela. He has been warned. He is spending the next four months travelling around Central America.
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Copan Car Wash

It is simple, you take the car to the river....



However you do need to pick your spot with care as 500 metres from here a 4 x 4 was being towed out which was entertainment for 30 minutes!

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Respect for the teacher

Lucy asked the kids for animal impressions so I had to join in, this is what happened when I did a horse.

The little Red Hen

Lucy and I decided that we would set ourselves a challenge! I had decided to follow the suggestion from Diane to make masks and then we decided that we should have a theme and then we decided to stage a play. Well, the kids were going to act out the story whilst Lucy read it. I was to be the "Stage manager"

It was a great success.

Here is the little red hen sweeping with her baby chick and three amigos.

Here is the miller with the corn on the floor ready to be milled.

Lucy reading the story...
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Adventures in Tela , botanical garden

On the Sunday, I took a taxi to the Botanical Garden. This is situated down a 2 km track from the main road about 4km out of Tela. This was a research centre into Bananas established in the 1920s for looking at new varieties and avoiding disease. The founder of the site also had the vision to establish other plants so there are many species of trees from all over the tropics. I had a guide Anna and it was a chance to practice my Spanish.


We had a very pleasant conversation walking around the grounds. There are many highly toxic trees there. There is one tree whose fruit contains cyanide when it is closed but is safe to eat and apparently popular in Jamaica when open (or the other way round as my spanish is not that good). Anyway the wife of the founder, ate a fruit and sadly died. She is buried in the grounds. A sobering thought that even the experts are not always right. I think I will pass on the next fungus foray!

After my tour, I then spent a pleasant time wandering around the grounds. I finished at 10.30 in plenty of time to get back to my hotel to check out and then to get a taxi to the bus station for 12.00.

By 10.50, no taxi had turned up, indeed there had not been any other visitor. I recalled that I had only seen two other groups while walking the grounds. Very peacful but clearly not the most popular place. So I went up the office and asked for the telephone number of a taxi firm as I was getting concerned. I was told to wait, there would be a taxi. I was not sure if they made a call. At about 11.10 I heard a car coming and as it came round the corner I could see that it was white which is the colour of taxis in Tela. But as it drove past, I could see that it was not a taxi. I waited a little longer and was about to set off walking when a 4x4 came by coming from within the grounds. I tentatively stuck out a thumb. It stopped. I said A Tela?. He said 20 Lempiras. I said Si. With great relief I got into the back seat which had a broken window that had been covered with brown plastic.

We set out along the track. I was doing the sums for the times in my head and thought that it would be alright. Suddenly an animal slightly larger than the size of a badger scuttled across the road. The guys in the front looked excited and produced a pistol and aimed at the animal. They stopped where it had ran across the road hoping to see it with pistol aimed.

At this point I realised that I was sitting in the back of a car and there were pistols being brandished in the front. I also remembered in the risk assessment that Charlotte gave when I arrived that hitchhiking was a definite no-no. Ooops I thought. Maybe not so OK. But all was alright. The car moved on and breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the main road.

Charlotte gave me a severe look when I got back to Copan.


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Adventures in Tela a beer on the beach

After my trouble with the buses to Tela, I found in the hotel room a magazine with all the bus times. Yippee. With this I worked out that I could get an executive back to Copan via San Pedro Sula but the change would be in their own exclusive terminus so no problem there. I went an bought the ticket on Saturday afternoon after I had got back from Punta Sud. At this point I thought I deserved a beer so I went to a bar on the beach. After I had got over the price (45 lempiras instead of 25 in Copan, there are 36 lempiras to the pound) I settled down to watch the sun disappear. I suddenly noticed a guy who was cleaning the beach (The ticket office was at a resort) running over the sand and shouting. I saw he was shouting at a girl say about 10 to 12 running into the sea with a rubber ring. I looked out to sea and everything seemed to be OK, there was nobody on their own or further out to sea.

The girl was about 100 to 120 metres away. There were also several groups of people in the water near the girl and I could see from the fact that the bathers in front of at the same distance from the sea were standing that the depth was at least OK for adults. So I concluded that the girl had taken the rubber ring to play with her friends and I sat back with my beer to watch the cleaner and other guy in a resort uniform pointing and remonstrating. After about 30 seconds a lady joined the two guys and there was some discussion. I was wondering how they were going to persuade the kids playing to return to the beach.

Eventually a couple of other people joined up and as always on a beach when something happens some other people joined over but they were all standing on the beach. I then saw a couple of guys step into the water and start pulling at a rope or something like that. I then started to think that maybe it was a little bit different. A large crowd started to gather and a group eventually emerged from the water. Now, I was thinking should I go over and join the crowd but gawping is not something I feel comfortable with. But on the other hand, the guys playing football on the beach were carrying on and the swimmers in the sea in front of me were splashing about so I stayed to finish my beer. A guy then come running over to the bar with some message and then another guy ran along the beach with his hands in front of him in a pushing down motion. A pickup truck then drove onto the beach and by now there were many people in the crowd. After about five minutes, the pickup drove past the bar. I could see there was a man lying in the back with another bather beside him. There were also two other guys in the back who I took to be from the resort. As the pickup went by the bather crouched by the man looked up at the bar. The image of the the fear in his eyes is seared into my memory. In the distance, you could hear the sirens.....


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