A Ficus is a Ficus is a Ficus....

I've lived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for about 10 months now and there's something that I've noticed that I want to share with you. When I lived in Texas, I used to look at a shrubs that were pruned into shapes and just wonder what possesses someone to turn a perfectly beautiful plant into a triangle, a ball or even (the worst) a group of balls. Well, I'm here to tell you that they absolutely LOVE to prune the Ficus trees and/or shrubs here!!! The sky is the limit when it comes to just what these lovely plants are shaped to resemble.

Here we have a lovely example of a...well, an exclamation mark? Maybe an egg? Perhaps it's a round ball that got out of hand.

On we go down the street and we come across this lovely row of oddly shaped boxy specimens. I can't wait to see what they do with them if they get too big for their spaces! Here's an example of artistic freedom and have yet to figure out just what the pruner had in mind when he connected the 2 trees. Is it 2 ducks kissing?? I really have no clue.

And then we have this really cool example of pruning a lovely tree into a basket, with a handle even! However, note that the garage door is directly behind the opening of the handle. It's my guess that the owner of this house got tired of not being able to see if a car was coming as he pulled out of his property and decided to kill 2 birds with one stone...make the tree a basket and then look through the handle!!

These next 2 trees (and I use that term loosely) are down the street from my house and I pass them every day. About every other day there is a man on a ladder pruning pruning pruning! Not one stray leaf is left by the time he's done. Anyone want to guess what this shape is called? These are about 15 feet tall....massive!

OK....I've saved the best for last. Well, at least the last of what I have photos of. I'm sure there are so many more works of art out there for me to photograph. I took this picture through the window of my car as I was driving. A guard sits outside the house directly across the street...with a very long 'gun' with a long barrel and a short handle. If I can stop someday and take a better picture, I will. Anyway, here it is...my current #1 pick for Honduran Creativity in Ficus Sculpture!!! It's a tree...shaped like a HOUSE!!

Next time....Houses built in the shape of trees!!!

Twenty Five Things About Me

25 Things About Me You Probably Don't Know

1. For 7 years I held a license to carry a concealed handgun in Texas.
2. I’m allergic to Penicillin and Cipro. Good thing I’m healthy.
3. I once hit a fantastic golf shot onto the green to within 4 feet of the cup from 190 yards out in front of Ben Hogan.
4. I got Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon’’s autographs when they were filming Some Like It Hot. Wish I still had them.
5. When I got my divorce after 25 years of marriage, I took my maiden name back.
6. My first job while in high school was gift wrapping Christmas presents at the local department store, spending every dime of my pay on my Mom's presents.
7. I was caught shoplifting Barbie clothes when I was 8. Never did it again.
8. As a child, I had a blast trying to catch grunion on the beach in Coronado.
9. I have over 257 different Nolan Ryan baseball cards. I went to Cooperstown when he was inducted in to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
10. I don’t have a favorite food.
11. On my first trip to Kauai, I did the helicopter tour. Best $135 I ever spent.
12. Toughest interview in my life was the one for my State Dept job.
13. I have too many "Best Day of My Life" to list.
14. The day I hated being a grown up most was the day I had to put my cat, Brandy, to sleep.
15. I have experienced love at first sight and it’s magnificent.
16. No one believes me when they find out how old I am.
17. One day, I WILL live near my grandchildren.
18. I’m bilingual and love to keep it a secret sometimes and listen to what they are saying about me.
19. The thing(s) I’m the most proud of is what great adults my children are.
20. I will never try oysters or escargot.
21. When I was 6 years old, I entered a contest to name the San Diego Zoo’s new moose. I sent in “Foghorn” and won a Shirley Temple doll.
22. I have climbed up to the flame in the Statue of Liberty.
23. I’m writing a book…the outline is nearly done.
24. I would love to earn a living at photography.
25. I do want to be married again…who wants to grow old alone?
    

Change...Some Good, Some Not So Good

I’ve now been in Honduras for a couple of days over 8 months and I’ve noticed some changes in myself. Some are subtle changes. Some are quite striking. Some are good and some quite possibly could get me in trouble when I return to the states!

For example, I am now a maniac on the road. I’ve come to realize that in order to survive while in the confines of your vehicle you need to take charge. You need to be assertive. You need to have nerves of steel. In short, you need to be a little crazy. If you show any weakness whatsoever, they (all the other crazy drivers on the road) will take advantage of you and crush you. I’ve lost all of the courtesy that I once showed when driving in Texas. If you are nice and let one car cut in front of you, you will incur the wrath of all of the cars behind you. You’ll also quickly realize that you weren’t just allowing that one car to cut in front of you or cross the street, but now there are 10 or 15 others, forming an unbreakable chain. It looks like their bumpers are glued together! Safety in numbers! CHARGE! So, there you sit, a line of cars crossing in front of you, the 40 or so cars behind you leaning on their horns (yea, that will sure make me plow through the car in front of me!), and everyone at a standstill because no one will yield to anyone else. And let’s not forget about the 12 motorcycles that have now seen a weak spot in the line of traffic and are virtually wiggling their way between cars to move forward. As a result, I’ve learned to only wave a car in front of me when I can clearly see there are no more behind him and there are not too many cars behind me. It is definitely survival of the most aggressive here in Tegucigalpa.

Something else that has changed about me is that I find I’m no longer a late night snacker. I used to love to snack after dinner was over. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t sleeping as well as when I first got here. I mentioned it to someone and they asked me if I ate late at night. I confessed my habit of getting a “little something” in the evenings. They told me that at this altitude, sometimes your digestion doesn’t happen as fast as you’d like so consequently, you lay in bed with a full stomach for hours. Your brain is overseeing your digestion and won’t rest until it’s done! Once I stopped heading for the kitchen late at night, I started sleeping better. I should have realized that long ago since many years ago, I lived in Mexico City and we always ate our big meal at 2:00 PM and at night had a small meal. Same reason…

I’ve also found that I have become a true volunteer. At the Embassy, I volunteer for whatever function or committee that comes along. Of course, it’s great for your EER (annual evaluation) but just getting out from behind my desk to go to meetings or realizing that I might have fun with a certain committee has made life better. I think this is the year of volunteering, or so I’ve heard on TV. You should consider it. What’s one afternoon or evening out of your life spent helping someone? Habitat for Humanity could really use some help. The local soup kitchen or even school might have some work that a good volunteer could do. Think of the good feeling you’d have during that one day a week that you helped someone else. I heard on CNN the other night that there’s a website set up and you can enter your zip code and it shows all the people/organizations who could use a hand in your area. If you’re smart in something…math, English, a foreign language…contact a high school and see if you can tutor some student. Imagine the welcoming smile from them (and their parents) when they find out you won’t charge $50 an hour!

Seriously…volunteering is a good thing. Give it a shot!

My, How My Garden Does Grow!

I thought it was time to post an update on how my garden was doing. When I moved in, there was very little in either the front or back garden areas. That just wasn't going to work for me because I'm a real visual kind of person and I like looking at pretty things. So I would buy plants, mostly small, and have Jesus, my gardener, plant them for me. As much as I love working in the garden, the economy is such that employing gardeners and maids is such a help to the economy and...who am I to buck the system?? When he would go with me to the nursery, I would pick out some plants and he would say, "No quieres mas grande?" (don't you want it larger?) I would shake my head and tell him he would make sure they grew to be large in no time at all! Well, this whole process started in mid August and I'm here to tell you that living on the equator is wonderful for gardens!!

Here are some pictures of the back yard, before and after shots.

This is the before shot. There was really only a large Bougainvillea and a Bird of Paradise and an ugly shrub on the left. Note that there were no flower beds at all. I'm not sure why, but it seems that everyone has a drain in the middle of their yards (the square black thing in the lawn).

And now here is the after shot! This doesn't really show how really pretty it is. With photography, unless you're a real professional, it's hard to capture the real beauty of the subject, whether it's plants, a sunset or a child. But I'm trying! All the 'little' plants that I bought are growing like weeds and the garden is filling in beautifully. There are roses, Mexican sage, dusty miller, Bird of Paradise (4 cuz I love them), vincas in a gorgeous orange, hibiscus, ginger, tropical orange flowers, begonias, gerber daisies, candle flowers, rosemary and basil, and some beautiful red and pink flowers. There's more but that's all I can remember! And since I'm working on my photography skills, my garden is my best subject. I would love to drive around shooting local people and sights, but I'm afraid I wouldn't get back home with my camera.

This is a view from my dining room, looking out into the back garden in August. I was getting ready for my first dinner party and thought it was a pretty picture...Sally's Guatemalan place mats, the Ginger flowers I bought for about $2.00 and my 'lovely' back yard.

Here's the same shot, taken yesterday (11/15/08). As you can see, I really like flowers on my dining room table! What can I say...my grandmother had a wonderful garden and I remember, as a child, getting lost in it, exploring for flowers and critters. Thanks Gram, for instilling in me to appreciate the natural beauty around us!

This is a view taken from the back of the yard toward the house. Again, it doesn't really capture how pretty it is.

I love close up shots, so here are a few of the flowers in my garden. This blue flower, I am told, is Mexican Sage. The flower, stems and leaves feel like velvet. It's beautiful!

I'm not sure just what this little flower is, but I love them! I have them in a bright orange and yellow, planted around the garden. The hummingbirds love them!

I love this shot taken from the table on the veranda. I've never been a big fan of orange but for some reason, it works here. These vincas are growing like crazy. I had to cut them back about 2 weeks ago because they were beginning to cover the red hibiscus behind them.

And the lovely gerber daisy. Not sure how I got white...maybe the plant looked so healthy that I didn't care what color it was!
So, that's the back yard. The front is not bad either, as you can see here. It too, began as pretty much the climbing plants in the right hand corner and 2 overgrown bougainvilleas that were moved. Roses, vincas, bird of paradise and other flowering plants are now on the way to making this a lovely spot to see when you enter my front gate!! Here are the before and after shots of the front.

Before....and after.
Better, huh?

I realize that if you have no interest in gardening, this post will probably rank pretty low on your list of favorites. But when you live in a third world country and your home is, literally, your castle, an important thing is to surround yourself with things that make you happy. Flowers make me happy and sitting at the table on my back patio in the morning, drinking a cup of coffee and watching the hummingbirds make their rounds...that's my little escape. Fortunately, plants grow very fast here. The time span of the before and after pictures is from mid-August to mid November...3 months. It will be hard to leave this garden in 16 months or so!

By the way, I post lots of my photographs on a site called JPGMAG. To see them, go to www.jpgmag.com/people/DebiD.

New England Beauty

New England in the Fall is a beautiful thing. I was in Washington DC October 11-16 for a reunion of my high school friends. Unfortunately, most of the spectacular color was gone…except for 2 trees at the home of my teacher, who was so gracious and let me stay with her and her husband. One tree was glorious in yellow and the other was absolutely beautiful in all its red. If you’ve never been to New England in late September-early October, you really are missing out on one of the most beautiful areas of our country. I’ve made the trip during ‘leaf peeping’ season several times and am still in awe of the beauty. My eyes are treated to such beauty at every turn.

The tree with the red leaves is included in the registry in Chevy Chase, Maryland so you know it’s special! Sherry, my teacher, told me that people often stop to take photographs of it and school children stop to collect leaves for their classrooms.

By the time I left, the vivid red had turned to a dark rust and the leaves began falling…and falling and falling. The front lawn was a carpet of color, a mixture of greens, reds, browns, yellows, pinks, beiges….it was beautiful!

The only way I could have gotten a picture of the entire tree was to cross Connecticut Avenue and I didn't want to do that. You'll just have to take my word for it that these 2 trees were a magnificent sight!

Maybe one day I'll be able to visit this area every year and enjoy the beauty. One thing is for sure...this was definitely not my last visit there!

The Rain In My Living Room

Last weekend was definitely not one of the better weekends since I arrived in Tegucigalpa the end of May.

Saturday, the sky opened up and a deluge of rain pounded the city. At about 7:30 PM, I was sitting at my dining room table, listening to a DVD of Jeff Foxworthy, a truly funny guy. If you ever need a good laugh, buy one of his CDs…worth the few dollars. Anyway, back to my evening. I could hear the rain coming down in buckets outside. I got up to go in the kitchen and was washing something at the sink and when I turned the water off, oddly enough, I could still hear water running. I walked into the living room and apparently the roof had a weak spot because it was literally pouring in my living room! In just 5 minutes, my living room went from nice and dry to Niagara Falls of Tegucigalpa!! It was coming down the walls, over the edge of the upstairs loft, was already running down the stairs from upstairs…it was coming in from so many different places, I didn’t know what to do first! I quickly moved the furniture away from the waterfall (and I do mean waterfall…it was coming down from upstairs in a sheet of water 10 feet wide!). I then ran upstairs and nearly slipped and fell on my butt. Never try to run on wet ceramic tile! The stairs were already flooded, the water was running down each step to the step below. Water was running down the walls in about 6 places and dripping from the stair-stepped corners at the tops of the walls. My stereo…it was soaked! I grabbed it and threw it in my bedroom, moved my gorgeous picture of the ocean off the wall since it was about 6 inches from a waterfall, and grabbed 3 pictures I bought in Hawaii that I JUST had framed…one is ruined, the other 2 seem OK. I then called Bryan, one of the security officers I work with, and told him I was in trouble. He called the embassy GSO person on call and told him to get here quick. Bryan came over with towels and by that time, the rain and indoor waterfall had slowed down. But not before the carpet in the living room was soaked in one corner and one of my tall plants collapsed from the sheer force of the water coming down on it from upstairs. It just snapped. GSO finally got here and of course, told us there was nothing that could be done tonight. He also told me that another American had 12” of water in his house from this storm. It looked like the rain was letting up, but you never know. I sent Bryan back home and I rung out the towels as best I could, rolling them up and placing them on the floor, just in case it started up again during the night. Before I went to bed, I went in to my office to make sure I had turned off my desk computer and was pleasantly surprised to see my desk covered in water! UGH! I quickly unplugged everything and moved it to…jeez, where was it safe??? I went back downstairs and got some large trash bags. I put the CPU and monitor in a bag and put them in the bathroom. Don’t ask me why…I just figured it was safe there. I had to take the glass off my desktop because the water had gotten underneath and was just sitting on the wood. The carpet was all wet underneath the desk. I finally got things squared away in this room and decided to do a sweep of the house once more. I half expected to see a puddle on my bed but no…it was dry. I found no more water and fell into bed.

On Monday, the owner of the house came by and had his man go up on the roof. They found all the drains stopped up and cleaned them out. He said that would fix the problem. However, I have no idea how clogged drains would cause leaks in the roof at the tallest point. Oh well, we’ll see. The next time it rains really hard will tell if he really did fix the problem. Something tells me it wasn’t the drains but I’m not the expert.

One thing’s for sure…when I leave for El Salvador and Washington DC next week for 10 days, I’ll have big sheets of plastic covering my furniture and my computers will be in plastic bags!!

A Weekend Away From Tegus

Two weekends ago, I took my first weekend trip since arriving in Tegucigalpa about 4 months ago. The language instructor at the Embassy sponsored the trip and about 12 of us signed up to head north to the coast, to a little town called Tela. It's a great little place with a beautiful beach and islands off the coast.

On the way down, I made quite a few observations. We were in a chartered bus and I decided to NOT read as did so many, but instead, to just look out the window at the life that was flying by as we drove along.

• I saw lots of crosses by the side of the road. This didn't surprise me since this is a pretty dangerous road. Honduras is very mountainous and this 2 lane road winds in and out of the mountains and the people who live here have no concept of the dangers of passing on blind curves. It's no surprise that there are so many deaths on the highways. Even old hand-me-down orange school buses from the U.S., filled with people, pass on curves. They just expect any oncoming traffic to move over. But it's not always the case. On our way back, we came upon an accident that must have just happened. A bus was across both lanes, crashed into the side of the mountain. On the other side of it was a small white car with a man laying in the road...obviously dead. That's another thing...they never cover the victims. It's all about sensationalism here. On the television news, as well as all the newspapers, it's like a contest to see who can show the most dead bodies.


• There is an upcoming election here. Nailed to the trees for miles and miles were the sidewall parts of tires with the candidates names painted around the black smooth part. I guess the budget for campaign signs on the highway is next to nothing. I even saw some signs that read "Jesus por Presidente." Wishful thinking, I'm sure, as the choices of candidates aren't good. So much corruption here...


• It's amazing how many buildings there are that are in varying stages of completion. Some are just shells with the concrete blocks going up one or 2 stories, with the steel rebar sticking up from the tops of the blocks. And they seem to just stop. Even in Tegucigalpa, you see buildings that seem to be complete for the first few stories, but there are those steel rebar sticking up. It's like...OK, we've run out of money for now...go ahead and occupy the bottom floors and we'll see you again when we get more money!!
  
• Cornfields are EVERYWHERE. Some are in perfect rows and seem to be cared for very well. Others are just random, with no plan at all. Since drugs are such a huge part of the economy here, I had to wonder if the cornfields hid other kinds of crops under their large leaves and tassles.


• Lots of people sell their fruits or vegetables on the side of the road. And when I say the 'side' of the road, I mean it! For examples, there were several selling what appeared to be oranges. They would stack them up in bags and they were so close to the side of the road, you could run them over if you weren't careful! And there would be 3 or 4 different places with these stacks yet I would rarely see anyone. They must have been safely behind a rock or tree and if you stopped, they would appear out of nowhere! The idea of placing these stacks of oranges or watermelons or whatever they were selling at short entervals was probably for a good reason. If you passed one and said to yourself "Darn, I'd love to buy some of those!" there would be another stack in about 100 yards!

OK, so much for my observations on the way to Tela. Once there, we had a great time. The rooms were very nice even though we didn't get in the newer section by the 2 swimming pools. We arrived at about 4:00 PM and after checking in, we were back on the bus to head for the Botanical Park of "Lancetilla." This was a gorgeous area with lots of lush greenery. I was a tiny bit disappointed that there weren't more tropical flowers but it was beautiful anyway. Here are a few pictures of Lancetilla:

Huge bamboo...sure makes me look small!!

At the beginning our our walking tour...me in the white pants.

These red palms were gorgeous...bright red trunks! I want some!

After our tour of this garden, we returned to the hotel and had dinner. Some went swimming in the pool. I had noticed the thatched roof bar down at the beach and headed for it! I watched the sunset and drank Margaritas! It doesn't get much better.

The Dolphin Bar The Sunset...ahhhhh!

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and headed for a boat trip. We were on our way to Punta Sal, the islands off the coast. It was a trip of about 45 minutes in open water...not quite the "Three Hour Tour" that Gilligan took, but as land became smaller and smaller, I began to wonder...at least we all had life preservers on! We hiked the island, saw beautiful trees and even talked to the monkeys that live on the island. We were supposed to do some snorkeling but the water was choppy and it wouldn't have been clear enough to see anything.

On our Way! Hiking

Back at the hotel, we had another great dinner and, yes, I was back at the little thatched hut bar called the Dolphin. There's nothing quite like an open air bar, a good margarita and a sunset. This was an all inclusive resort and the first margarita was really good...if you ordered it without tequila! The next one I ordered, I slipped the waitress 50.00 Lempiras and asked her to please have the bartender put some liquor in it this time. He did. :o)

Everyone had a great time and on the way back, I asked the bus driver to please stop at a pottery place I had seen on the way to Tela. I have this huge indoor planter in my house and some very very large terra cotta pots would look great. He did, I ran across the street, with our tour guide and one of the drivers and spent about $50 US and left with 4 gorgeous pots/urns/containers (whatever you call them). They look gorgeous in my house and will travel with me to my next post. Even if I don't have an indoor garden, they will look great in a garden and will remind me of my fun trip to Tela, Honduras!

Aren't they beautiful? The tallest is about 3 feet tall. The 4th is in the background with the plant in it. I love them!