Honduras Day 2: 17 June 2014

Today, we got up at 7:30 and ate breakfast.  It was a little bit disgusting and one of the foods just looked like vomit so I just ate a banana and watermelon.  Can you tell I’m a picky eater?  I don’t really trust the water here so I went into the hotel shop and bought a huge gatorade for a dollar.  Totally worth it.

After breakfast, we went to Fray Lozaro, the community where we’re volunteering.  They gave us a presentation on basic hygiene and the typical hygienic issues that the Hondurans have, and we toured the area a bit.

The school

An example of the stoves we’d be making

There were chickens somewhere in these people’s back yards, though I can’t see any now.

Then we toured the three houses that we’ll be working in.  There were dogs running around everywhere.  It was hard to tell if most of them were pets or strays; they were allowed in the houses but were obviously starving and mistreated.  One family had a parrot named Rosita, but she was better cared for.  It was a little awkward just walking into their homes, but they all really wanted us there, so that helped.  They will all need a concrete floor, a shower, a toilet, a septic system, and a water storage system. We’ll be building those over the next three days.

The view from House #2

Hammocks served as beds in some houses.

A metal barrel holding the family’s water supply

Rosita the Parrot

Building materials for House #1’s sanitary station

The hole for House #1’s septic system

After meeting the families, we toured the Water Brigade’s site.  It was a long way up the trail, so about five other people and I jumped in the back of the pickup truck carrying our water supply. Then there was an even smaller trail that the truck couldn’t fit up that we had to hike.  Water Brigade was basically digging a trench to put in a pipe that will bring water down the hill to six or seven families, out of about 130 in the community. The community must be really spread out because I didn’t see anywhere near that many homes.  They had a well at the top of the hill where we ate lunch.  A family came up to get water while we were there.  The two little boys were SO cute.

The walk up to the Water Brigades’ site

The community well

A family coming to get water

A cutie who we’d be seeing throughout the week

We saw a herd of cows on the way back to the bus

And we saw more chickens!

Then we walked back down to the bus and left to go to a nearby town.  We had a standard bathroom-in-an-underdeveloped-country experience: just a tiny toilet bowl, not flushing, no toilet paper, no sink.  I won’t go into detail, but it had a lot of the girl squirming.  I’m glad I read up about Honduras ahead of time, and I brought a bunch of tissues and hand sanitizer.  This was behind a little shop with a TV and a bunch of local men watching the World Cup.  We all got ice cream and stayed there for a while.  There was nowhere left to sit by the time I came back from the bathroom, and I’m not much for soccer, so I went across the street to sit in the park with a few other girls.  We were supposed to go to a market and a museum, but apparently the museum was closed.  I don’t know what ever happened to the market though.  Then we went to the church across the street, as planned.  Our program coordinator’s parents were married there, and one of the girls from Fray Lozaro was baptized there.  We looked around for about ten minutes, and then came back to the compound in San Lorenzo.

Sitting in the park

The church

I still don’t trust the water here, so I used a no-rinse shampoo shower cap, rinsed in the shower real quick, then used no-rinse bathing wipes.  The rest of the night was pretty low-key.  We had a quick meeting discussing all the projects we’ll be building throughout the week.  After that, I played cards with a couple of the other girls and Facebook messaged my mom and my boyfriend, then went to bed early.

Also, sorry some of these pictures are small; for some reason I can’t make them any bigger!

-C&C

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Honduras Day 1: 16 June 2014

I spent all morning flying.  My flight from LAX left at around midnight.  My mom was still in California from helping me move out of my dorm, so she took my first flight with me to Houston, so it wasn’t so bad.  Then from Houston, she went back home, and I went to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.  (NOTE: After my week long trip to Honduras, I still have no idea how to pronounce that.  All I know is it’s said FAST!)  I had to make sure she got on her connection alright because she had never flown by herself before; funny, because I’ve been flying by myself pretty regularly since I was 17.  It was good to spend some final time with her before I left.

The actual flying wasn’t too bad.  I slept for basically the entirety of both flights.  When I woke up landing in Honduras, I realized I had slept through the flight attendants handing out the customs and immigration forms.  The person sitting next to me was nice enough to grab me one and put it in my seat-back pocket, but I had no pen to fill it out with, and we were already landing before I could ask.

The landing in Honduras is supposed to be pretty scary.  When I got to my program, one of the locals said it was considered the most dangerous airport in the world due to rough landings.  He asked if I landed okay because most Americans say that it was really rough and that they were terrified, but I didn’t think it was too bad, just a bit bumpy, but nothing extraordinary.  I’m not afraid of flying though.

After I landed, I searched desperately for a counter where I could fill out my forms.  I remembered seeing some in the past when I flew into Jamaica and a couple European countries.  Of course, now that I was flying alone internationally for the first time, there were no counters to be found.  Eventually I found these tiny table with a complaint book on it, so I stole the pen from there and filled out my forms really quick.  A lot of people came off the plane behind me and got in line ahead of me, but I still made it through immigration relatively quickly.  Customs was kind of a joke compared to the United States, but most other countries are more lax than the US.

I got out to the entrance where people were waiting for their loved ones to get off the plane and all, but I didn’t see anyone in a Global Brigades shirt like I was told I would.  Luckily, after I did a few laps around the room, I found someone.  He wasn’t the leader of my group, but he took me where I needed to be.

When I got there, there was only one other brigader there already.  We had to stand around and wait for a couple hours for other people to get in.  When the last people, the people from the UC Santa Cruz group, finally got there, I realized they were all on my flight.  They were in the back of the plane, sure, but I still have no idea how immigration and customs took them two hours longer than it took me.

After that, the program coordinator finally took us upstairs to get lunch.  We were still waiting for even more people so we still couldn’t leave the airport, but they were getting in so much later that they decided we needed to eat without them.  They didn’t have us buy any food.  Instead, they went across the street and got us four small-ish Little Ceasar’s pizzas to split among about 20 people.  Of course, since I had slept through both my flights, I had not eaten since the night before, and it was around 1 or 2 PM by this point, so I was STARVING.  After my first tiny slice, I was just sneaking more slices when no one was looking, so no one thought I was eating their share, even though I probably was.  I didn’t care; I was so tired and hungry that I was beginning to regret my decision to come (obviously that didn’t last; I was just cranky).

After we ate, we still had a couple hours to kill, so we walked around to a couple of the souvenir shops.  I bought a canvas painting and a little wooden box that said “HONDURAS” and had chickens on the front.  I didn’t want to have much to lug around for the rest of the trip.  Then we settled in at a bar, where I ordered my first legal beer!  Yeah, I took three sips and didn’t finish the rest; I’m not much for beer.  Bleh.  But the bar had wifi, so I was able to let everyone know I landed safely.

Finally, the last of the brigaders arrived and we could head out to the compound.  They took us outside where we had to walk aways past the airport parking lot to get to our bus.  Of course, tired hungry and cranky, I was less than thrilled to see we’d be spending the week in a school bus.  I tend to get really carsick (I’ve thrown up in school buses before) so I just took the empty seat closest to the front and prepared for the worst.  It actually wasn’t bad though.  I didn’t get carsick at all, and instead of regular school bus seats, the bus had more like coach bus seats, some of which reclined.  It was relatively comfy, and everyone was exhausted, so I think we were all asleep by the time we got the the compound, two hours away.  I stayed awake for the first hour looking out the window at everything.  It reminded me a lot of Jamaica, though slightly less tropical and with a lot less Rastafarians.  The driving was pretty similar as well: absolutely insane.  It reminded me of the Whose Line Is It Anyway? slogan… the rules were made up and the painted lines on the road didn’t matter.  Somehow, the driver got the school bus through two hours of rough terrain, steep mountains, and sharp corners.

After we got back to the hotel, not much happened.  We ate like horses, then came back to our rooms.  I checked in with everyone back home again, then went to bed.

-C&C

Thrift Store Roosters Makeover

Hiya!

 

I was busy today; I travelled out of the way for Annie Sloan paint, then went to a thrift shop, then went on a mini spree in Joann’s Fabric.  I got quite a few things, but my first project was to repaint the plaques that the roosters are mounted to.  I also threw in the mini-project of painting some little wooden picture frames while I had the paint out.

 

 

So I started out with all my stuff

Supplies:

Annie Sloan 1L Chalk Paint in Graphite

Rooster Pictures

Picture Frames

Tools:

Fine Grit Sandpaper

Painters’ Tape

Matte Mod Podge

Paintbrushes

 

 

 

So I know you’re not really supposed to prep your project when you use Annie Sloan paint, but the roosters were a little grimey, so I cleaned them and sanded the edges really lightly, just to get all the gunk off.  I left the little frames as is.

 

Next I taped up the roosters with painters’ tape so I didn’t get any on the images.  If you have a steady hand and patience, you can probably go without it, but I have no patience, so painters’ tape it was.

 

Next the fun part: PAINT!

I gave them each three thin coats.  Two just seemed a little bit transparent in a couple little spots, and I wanted a nice, dark, solid color.  Annie Sloan’s Graphite isn’t perfectly black, more of a very dark slate color, but a beautiful and dark enough color for my purposes.  If you’re looking for a true black, I suggest seeing a sample of this paint in person before buying it.  It’s rather expensive to buy and then find out it wasn’t the color you were looking for.

 

After peeling the tape off (I get the best results peeling the tape off while the paint is still wet)…

 

I noticed that I maybe didn’t do the very best taping job because the edges weren’t perfectly straight.  They were straight enough to probably be okay and couldn’t be seen unless you were really looking for it, but I’m a perfectionist, so I had to touch it up.

I went in with a teeny tiny brush and painted all the way up to the edge of the image, again making sure I put enough paint on for that nice, solid color.

 

And voila!  Nice solid colored painted frames!

After letting the paint fully set, I’m going to go back over it with matte Mod Podge.  I love the chalky finish of the Chalk Paint, and I’d like to keep it as close to that as possible.  I am hoping it will also protect the rooster images (as they are printed on a thick glossy paper and can easily be scratched or ruined) without giving them a shiny sheen.  I don’t want to mess with the Annie Sloan wax quite yet, not on something that isn’t fully wood.

 

More thrift store makeovers to come!

 

-C&C

 

Weird Egg

First of all, sorry for my absence for the past month or so.  I was busy finishing up finals, then going to Honduras, and then I spent another couple weeks just enjoying being home and relaxing.

 

Anyway, my 16 week old Tetra Tint (she’s not officially named, but we’ve been calling her Rooster due to her large red comb, her larger size, and the fact that she’s more vocal and aggressive than the rest of the girls) laid her first egg on the 6th.  It was pretty small but completely normal.  Here is a picture:

Yes, my hands are pretty small themselves.

 

Everything’s great, right?  Well, now she has me scratching my head.  Today, three days later, she laid her second egg.  This one, not quite as normal.

Rooster’s weird egg

This egg was about the same size, but when I picked it up, it had this on it.  It was soft to the touch, and came off in one piece when I rinsed the egg off.  The egg underneath was slightly discolored, but in tact and otherwise normal; it was hard like a normal egg.  The discoloration probably could have been scrubbed away, but I know most people frown upon even rinsing their eggs, let alone scrubbing them, so I steered away from that.  I ended up hard boiling it and putting it in one of the nesting boxes in their new coop so they would lay there, though I’m sure it was perfectly edible.  There’s nothing wrong with Rooster and sometimes when hens start laying, their first eggs are a little unusual, so I guess it’s just one of those “weird eggs” one gets every once in a while.

However, I’m still extremely curious as to what this is, so if anyone has any idea, please let me know.  I’ve been asking around, but the only possible answer I’ve gotten is that maybe it’s a soft egg that didn’t form properly and got stuck to the regular egg.  That seems plausible, but if anyone has had this before or knows what it is, I’d love to hear about it.

 

My egg doesn’t seem to match any issues addressed in this article, but here is some information on egg quality problems:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/common-egg-quality-problems

 

Do you ever get any weird eggs from your hens?

 

-C&C

12 Hours from Summer

Currently writing my last paper as a first-year student at UCLA!  12 more hours until it’s officially summer.  I just hope I can stay up that long!  Things are coming together for my trip to Honduras next week.  More on that after I finish my essay!

-C&C

Color Run Utrecht

I’m about to buy my ticket for the Color Run in Utrecht in the Netherlands on September 13, 2014.  I’ll be studying abroad there this fall, and a bunch of us will be running.  Very excited! 🙂

http://thecolorrun.com/

-C&C

Hi there!

Hi there,

I am completely new to blogging, so forgive me if I am doing something wrong here.  I am currently busy with finals, but I plan to post about my DIY projects, attempted (and probably failed) recipes, my travels, and most importantly, my chickens!  I will start posting more once summer vacation picks up.

-C&C