Allen & Marcel Volunteer in Honduras

  Allen has a lot of projects at our home in Lakebay and I knew it would not take long for him to find projects needing his attention during our year in Honduras. In addition to his regular maintenance job on the ranch, Allen has been fixing a lot of things in our volunteer house San Vicente. One of the first things he did was replace our showerhead which was spraying water everywhere but down. First he tried to clean it, but when that didn’t work, he replaced it. He bought two additional shower heads and two other lucky volunteer rooms got theirs replaced also. It is likely that he will purchase five more before the year is up so that all eight of the rooms used for the long-term volunteers will be replaced.   New Shower Faucet He has also fixed many doors that were sticking or not hanging straight. He fixed one of the outside doors so well that it now swings shut with the wind which is great for security but not desirable when we actually want to leave it open temporaril...

  Some of our expected activities for this week were to host a breakfast for Chef Max and the kitchen staff Tuesday morning and give a presentation on sponsorship for the visiting brigade Tuesday evening. We did not have anything special scheduled for Wednesday, but Thursday we were to clean the volunteer house (San Vicente) for new volunteers arriving on Friday and Saturday. As is normal here, there were a lot of last-minute changes. On Monday we found out that Chef Max (who picked the date and time for the Tuesday morning breakfast) would still be on vacation Tuesday. He was due to be back Wednesday and confirmed that the breakfast should be Wednesday morning. On Tuesday afternoon, the contact for hosting the brigades asked if the presentation could be moved to Friday. Allen and I are flexible anyway and have learned that flexibility is a must here in Honduras.   Hosting Chef Max and the Kitchen Crew for Breakfast The biggest change in plans came on Wednesday morning. Af...

  The NPH Honduras volunteers got the first week of January off because of all the extra activities in December. When we found out about this “bonus” time a few months ago, Allen and I decided to go to Guatemala. One of the volunteers had just returned from vacation there and his description was all we needed to add it to our list of places we needed to visit. We made flight arrangements in October to fly out on January 1 and return January 7 making the most of our free time. Avianca air cancelled our outgoing flight a few weeks later and the next best arrangement was to fly out early a day later. This flight also got cancelled and we were left with a flight out late on January 2. In our normal retired life, we would not be too unhappy with the cancellations, but now with our limited vacation, a lost day seemed like a lot. With only 4 full days, we decided to spend the entire time at Lake Atitlan. Lake Atitlan from a Viewpoint We arrived to Guatemala City late the first night and s...

  The week between Christmas and New Year’s is a slow work week. There are no brigades of doctors for One World Surgery, school is not in session, and many other employees take vacation. Allen and I were not sure what this meant for our work schedule since there are many letters from Padrinos over the holidays (my job) and maintenance is always needed (Allen’s job). However, we found that we also had a light work week which was a good thing as we needed to practice A LOT for the 20 minute dance performance that the volunteers were expected to give on New Year’s Eve. Backdrop for the Dance Performance Luckily we have quite a number of talented volunteers! We each suggested some song/dance routines from the internet and together formed a pretty good program. The “girls” (all are young women except Allen and I) led the effort, decided on the order, explained and simplified choreography, trained us, pulled the audio together, and decided costumes and props. We had at least 2 hour pract...