around the house

this week we've been busy trying to make our new house look like home. in addition to the hammocks, below are some other decorations and necessities for life in the honduran country.

first is the banana holder outside the porch -- good for keeping the bananas off the kitchen floor. It's also nice to fry these guys up for a nice lunch or dinner (or both) side dish.

machete -- tool of choice for all honduran farmers. perfect for slicing oranges for breakfast or going "chapeando"...aka lawn mowing in the jungle. this past week we've been doing a lot of chopping around the property for general maintenance and also because we'll be planting some new crops in the next few months and need to make space. if you don't keep up with it the place kind of turns into jungle again. lots of rain, lots of mud but a guaranteed good time...and a chance to see tarantulas (check) and poisonous snakes (check) out in the fields. yikes!

also this week i {finally} bought some much needed boots. changed.my.life. now i don't have to wipe out on the trail to our house and/or wash my feet off every time before i go into the house. these things are pretty much on my feet every time i leave the porch. bring it on, rainy season.

with so many people living in the house, we found it to be much more functional to have people assigned to meals, dishes, and general clean-up. so far it has worked great and given everyone in the house a chance to contribute and feel responsible for the clean house and hot meals.

some of the christmas decorations -- including the charlie brown tree complete with gi-joes and paper snowflakes. also added to the wall are assorted animals drawings and princess characters -- love it! the girls had fun decorating and putting up the tree {that, yes, lights up}. 

we must not forget about the cows. here they are, just chillin out next to our main walking path. oh, and by the way...they eat cardboard and sweaters. makes us think twice before putting things out on the clothesline. 

other things we've been working on this week:

we've started music and computer classes for the kids who come to library time every monday, wednesday and friday. so far they've really enjoyed that in addition to the time they already have to come and hang out, read and of course play a game or two of futbol. 

some of the guys are working on putting an addition onto the existing library. this will help tremendously with storing all the music equipment and chairs for friday church services. 

a couple who came to visit last week spent a lot of time focusing on food processing here on the property -- including focus on the chickens, drying fruit and my favorite experiment...making chocolate. it's exciting to think about being able to feed a large number of people living on the property with food that is already growing here. 

for purely entertainment purposes, i've included two videos taken by Brayden, my best friend who happens to be one of the other volunteers working here {edited for a particular reader's satisfaction}. the first is a little workout session motivated by the unbelievably high tortilla intake count. the second is abi, the youngest sister, and another girl playing around with the camera...presh.