Doctor's Visit and School Fair

I've done really well healthwise until now, but have now succumbed to another dose of bronchitis which I suppose comes with the colder weather we've been experiencing.  It's been getting down to 21`C at night.  'Oh, no!'  I can hear the Tasmanians crying.  ( facetiously of course!)   Still something good and interesting always comes out of all problems.   I was taken to the doctor's last night at a clinic called El Buen Samaritan.

Vanessa was very kind, borrowed her brother's car and drove me into Tela.   The clinic is lovely and clean and reminded me of the doctor's surgery in the early 60's in Tasmania.   It's was all clean and bright and open, no televisions and brochures to make more money for the drug companies and the female doctor was so sweet.   The nurse took my blood pressure with an antique machine while the rubber pressure bulb using for inflating the band around my arm kept coming off.  Finally she managed to get a reading, which of course was very good.  

The doctor was wearing a pink apron with pictures of Marilyn Munoe all over it in keeping with the era.  She diagnosed a throat infection and a lung infection by looking down my throat with a good flashlight and using the stethoscope decided I had laryngitis. Not much money in pathology testing here!    I had to have one injection which was bought from the chemist outside and given in my buttock by the nurse.   ( It was a clean needle and syringe, I promise.)  I was also prescribed some antibiotics and some more cough medicine, the same as I had before which had no effect whatsoever.

I'm not feeling much different today but coughing much less.  I just can't talk much with such a crackly voice.

We are having an Honduran travel expo at school.  It's being called 'Feria', which means festival to make, firstly, the school look good and then the Hondurans love their country, second.   Any presentation like this involves total neglect of all school discipline, everyone is encouraged to make as much noise as they can and more, including the teachers.   All normal routines go out the window. 

I've had to sit in with the Spanish teacher who spent 2 whole 40 minute Spanish sessions organising the food for the day which the children are going to eat while the boys yelled, slid around the room, made paper planes and giggled.  My evil looks did nothing to change the situation and the boys just continued their behaviour.   Every now and then I would hear my name being mentioned and the kids would tell me what I had to do in the artline, but I couldn't do anything because there are no materials to use.   The children have to go out and buy whatever we need with money they get from home.

We are into the second week of preparations now, the first week was only noisy in the Spanish lesson, now it's noisy everywhere in the school and all lessons have ceased.   I was only at school on Monday when it rained all afternoon, Tuesday, I went to school and found I had a new student, a boy who's been deported from USA.    When the other boys were poking each other with umbrellas and running around the room and I could hardly get a sound out of my throat first thing in the day, I decided it was time to go home. 

Glenn came home early on Tuesday and Wednesday to keep and eye on me and today, it's been decided there's no school for the children while the staff continue preparing for the fair. The children take all their work home and get their parents to do it better. Glenn and I just couldn't get any information on what we had to do with the children for the fair and the more questions we asked the more we got ignored or fobbed off with very unhelpful answers.   We're definitely in the way.  It's really hard and stressful for us to stand back and watch the Honduran teachers work their butts off while we do nothing.

Tomorrow is the big day, starting at 7 am, finishing at 1 pm.  It's going to be a big event with the local television channel coming to photograph the students being tourist guides in their classroom dressed in traditional clothes.   I do hope all the hard work makes it a great success for the school.

Punto Izopo

We decided to have a quiet weekend in Tela.   We wanted to go on a boat ride to the beautiful beach of Punta Sal but as there was the possibility of a hurricane and rough seas we decided to go kayaking in a mangrove swamp at Punto Izopo.    Our guide Mark proved to be great fun and full of jokes as soon as he picked us up in his mini bus for our tour.   We were the only people in the group.   Fortunately the mini bus was a four wheel drive because the road was really rough.     The guide kept apologizing because the had to walk part of the way because the bridge was down.  It didn't worry us and added to the adventure. We walked passed a huge mansion and a half finished high wall.   The owner of this 'beach house' is now being challenged in the Supreme Court by the Garifunas, the indigenous people in the area for stealing their land. 

Tracey's the fit walker in front.

                                                                     

 These two Garifuna girls  rowed us across the river in a very leaky rowing boat for a small fee.  

Next we stopped at a hut belonging to the National Park where we saw a photo of Jeannette Kawas, ( the name of our school).   She is famous for saving the large national park, Puntal Sal to the east of Tela from developers, who wanted to clear the forest and  build holiday apartments   Sadly, she was murdered before she got a chance to see the results.  Kawas was a friend of the owner of our school, Graciela Bueso.

This was beautiful calm river, the starting point of Glenn and my first kayak trip in 42 years of marriage!

Tracey shared her kayak with Mark, a very experienced kayaker.

We got a really close look at this baby alligator and then another one further into the swamp.   As Mark said, 'Where there are babies, the mother will be waiting close by.'   He also gave Glenn and I careful instructions on how to paddle under branches and not sway to the side.  He warned us how the kayaks can flip over so easily.

                                                            

We followed Mark into narrow streams where the water was so black you couldn't see the bottom.   Mark told us how he'd watched a jaguar come right out onto the edge of a branch of one of the mangrove trees and the English tourist he was with didn't even have a camera with her.   I was so glad I had my small camera with me tied to my bouyancy vest so I wouldn't lose it and could get so many good photos.  It was amazingly beautiful and peaceful and so quiet with only the sounds of the paddles and birds.

Here we are getting really good with the paddling.  Mike then told us we had to go under a branch that was less than a metre above the water.  He went first with Tracey showing us how to do it without leaning to the side. I leaned back as far as I could and then....

...disaster struck!   The kayak flipped, I went in first and Glenn next.   All I could see was blackness.    Tracey didn't care.   All she did was take photos!

Here's the offending log we had to slide under.

The mangrove roots made a good resting point.  Here I am soaking wet, but warm.    The water was so black you couldn't see a thing.   I lost my hat which I didn't like, my prescription sunglasses stayed on my head, my cheap watch survived the drowning but my camera, inside my vest was saturated and hasn't worked since.   I got some lovely photos which were still on the memory card.   Luckily the aligators were too well fed by the bass which we frequently saw jumping out of the water.    Mark told us only  3 of his customers had ever flipped into the water.   

We finished off the day at a little Garfina village, Triumfo del Sol by the beach where we had a fish lunch  and  were entertained by these delightful children.  There were no hurricanes all day and it didn't even rain, but it was great adventure.  And Glenn and I are still talking to each other.