Los Naranjos – Laurie Apgar Chandler

The time is flying by like you cannot believe. I need weeks, not days, here. I’m loving the sunny days and torrential rains, all the Spanish, the super group of people who happened (?) to be here this week, the hummingbirds, the flowers, my cabin hammock, I could go on…

One of my new friends, Jennie from Sweden, generously shared this amazing photo that she captured during her travels in Central America. There are 42 species of hummingbirds in Honduras and I have been hoping to see one of the species with a long curved beak. Yesterday I lay in my hammock watching one bird alight on the same perch over and over. To my amateur eye, it looked much like this one.

Today I said farewell to my Vancouver friends Jerry and Isabel and went to visit José, the pastor, and his wife Patty. We had so much fun sorting through some of the children’s clothes that I brought, delighting in the fact that they could be purchased in the U.S. for only a tiny fraction of the cost of used American clothing purchased here.

Being welcomed into the home of friends so very far away, to sit visiting over local coffee in another language adds a dimension my time here that is as rewarding or more than the putdoor adventures.

Two local girls in their new outfits. Most of the clothing I brought was purchased 3 items for a dollar at an outgrown shop in our Maine town. Patty says clothing would cost about ten times more here.

José kindly went with me to the larger nearby town of Peña Blanca to exchange more dollars for lempiras at the hardware store. This is not done at banks, where there are always armed guards and only bank customers can even enter the building. This town housed the public library that we have been supporting and which sadly is no more.

The owners of the hardware store no longer are donating space for the public library, which used to live here. The book collection has been donated to a girls home and school in the same town.

This is my last evening in Los Naranjos and then I will be traveling to Santa Barbara tomorrow to visit my sponsored child Fredy and his family. Farewell, D&D Brewery and Lodge, D&D Adventures, and all my friends here. Hasta la próxima vez con la ayuda de Dios.