camp, kids and mothers

I am not a Smother Mother. But still I get weepy every year when we drop our kids off at camp. Even though they are running ahead, clutching their sleeping bag that is already coming undone and barely remembering to hug me goodbye. It’s the worrying about the potential drowning, stinging, crying, falling, skinning, vomiting, missing, longing that gets to me. Last night I pictured Thomas, our youngest, lying alone in his bunk in the”shabin” at Pioneer Camp, round brown eyes peeking out of the top of his sleeping bag, wondering who is going to rub his back and sing him the Doxology, which I do every single night.

When we dropped him off, the last Stiller to be handed over to a camp counsellor, he joined one other little guy who had already arrived. He was waving wildly to us as we walked up the hill towards the shabin (which is something between a cabin and a tent and bear bait all wrapped into one sleeping headquarters) I think his name was Jordan and he was decked out in camouflage and told us immediately that his grandfather is a sniper with the SWAT team and he has a BB gun at home. Thomas, not being immune to the lure of a good BB gun and being a lover of all things to do with swords and fighting and the glory of boydom, seemed intrigued. I know they love it. I know they will be fine. But I’m still calling home from the cottage once an hour to check for life-altering messages on our home phone.

My one camp experience as a kid involved a small United Church camp in Nova Scotia. What I remember most is liking some boy who didn’t notice me. I remember our counsellor with a mop of brown hair asking us our astrological signs and drawing us pictures. I came home with a pencil sketch of something to do with Scorpio. I remember getting in trouble for marking up another camper’s legs with permanent marker. The “why” behind that particular act of treachery escapes me. I remember being pretty ambivalent about whether or not I went back. My kids, however, plan their year around a week at Pioneer camp. And I know their joy in all things Camp has nothing to do with them growing away from me, and everything to do with them growing in the way in which they should go. And this is a very good thing.

little kids and me and jujubes

I think that Sophie came and threw herself into my arms because of the Highland Fling/Napleon Dynamite dance I did on her front lawn early this year. I had gone to Shelley’s house for a visit. Shelley is Brent’s cousin but she should really belong to me. Sophie was standing in the front window, waiting, like little kids like to do, so for a few minutes only she and I knew I had arrived. I danced for her on her front yard in Markham and she really liked that. So, when she arrived at the annual Stiller reunion this past weekend she came running. And I really liked that.

Before I had my own kids I hadn’t really talked to a whole lot of them, if you don’t count my brief stint as my sister’s nanny when her son was born. I had just arrived home from Colombia and was jobless, and kindof shiftless come to think of it, and my hair was a rat’s nest or so my mother liked to say, so my sister hired me to babysit. I did that for five months until I got even more shiftless and took the train across Canada. And I really liked that too.

My sister is actually kind of my mentor in relating to small children who are not her own. I really like them, but she really, really likes them. So, on some days, when maybe I’ve had a big bowl of bitchies for breakfast and I’m not really in the mood to chat about webkins or whatever, I look down at my WWMD (What Would Miriam Do) bracelet and think of what she would talk about with a new little friend. This bracelet should be used mostly in relation to relating to small children and used with extreme caution in other decisions like how to drive and maybe some other stuff. But she does greatly inspire me in this particular area. She loves kids and they love her.

I had a warm cousin conversation this weekend with another mother of young children. Her little girl loves to be with her Aunt Cindy because Cindy takes her out for suishi and is The Candy Lady. And this is a really beautiful thing about families, and suishi and candies for that matter. That inspires me to be consistently warm and cuddly and generous in spirit and jujubes with the shorter among us. It feels good to be liked by them.

But I especially like little kids now because mine aren’t so little anymore. We can have conversations with our kids now. We can sit in an open air bar in Honduras and explain colonialism in Africa, or like today on the way home, Brent can give a primer on the Clash. These are good and necessary things to discuss with your children. But you still want to have time with kids like Sophie who wear their pigtails high on their heads and strange pink sunglasses and don’t care who thinks what about that. Because kids, amongst all their other countless blessings, remind you about things like putting your bare feet on the dashboard and eating twizzlers till you’re a little bit sick and that it’s actually quite enjoyable to moo like a cow.

cottage country

Spending June and July in Honduras does not prepare you for August in Ontario. Today I sat on our deck wrapped in an Afghan. I made it to the dock wearing a long sleeved shirt and khakis. When we finally hit the lake in our boat, I wore my eldest son’s American Eagle sweater. Tomorrow I will have to start disrobing a bit to more fully engage in Ontario Cottage Country Summer.

Our place is in the Kawarthas, on McGinnis Lake, one small lake in a system of seven or so. The big name lakes around here are Catchacoma and Beaver Lake, and our friendly little lake runs between the two. If we need supplies we can pick between Buckhorn and Bobcaygeon. Bobcaygeon is my favourite, and not just because it is immortalized in a song lyric, but it’s just fun to visit. Maybe that’s why it made it into the Tragically Hip’s music.

We’ve had our place since 1999 and since then it has more than doubled in size and quadrupled (is that a word?) in impact in our lives. We’ve seen next door neighbours come and go. The last to go were three families who shared ownership. They had a three foot high illuminated beer bottle light on their dock. Their boat was more like a trawler called Fish and Dip and all 15 of so of them could fit on it and swamp our dock as they pulled her into port. One night we sat in our cottage not able to hear each other speak because our neighbours were singing Philadelphia Freedom on their karaoke machine. On their dock. Late at night. Sometimes their roaches would float up to our dock. I would be tempted to fish them out, dry them out and light them up just to get through the day.

We tried everything. I handed over pecan pies. We took them water skiing. We waved merrily from our dock to theirs, thinking if we could only make friends then we could change them. A theory we all cling to even though it has never worked for anyone in the history of the human race. Anyway, now we have a lovely couple next door who go to bed before we do. This is a plus in cottage country.

Given our last six weeks of freedom in Honduras, I have to work from the cottage this month. It will involve a bit of commuting and a lot of dial-up. And dial-up in a high speed world takes you to the bottom of your impatient soul. It’s a bit like waiting for noisy neighbours to move out. It just does not happen quickly enough.

One of the first things we do, if we have rented out our cottage (which we have to do to pay the taxes) when we arrive is to reach for the guest book. I treat it like a journal and it’s been my joy that most of our renters do too. One couple recorded the wildlife they saw, including a baby raccoon. Which was ironic because on the way up Thomas asked if he could have a baby raccoon as a pet. I was exhausted by the whole conversation and said, if you can find one, you can keep it, thinking that no one ever actually sees a baby raccoon. Crap! 

Our last renters this season were two moms who came together with their young children. They recorded cannon ball competitions, funny dances, too much rain, plays and funny things their kids said. And that’s when I know that this place really is special, and not just to us. And I really, really like that.

four pairs of khakis

I was happy to see my Talk Nerdy to Me T-shirt, because I love that one and it makes me laugh. After six weeks in Honduras wearing one of three white t-shirts, I was ready for a change. But once again, after a stint in the developing world, I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we have. Even the pile of stuff we already had gathered to get rid of at the bottom of our basement stairs, the outgrown clothing, the dishes with that cute chili pepper pattern that I swore I needed, the car seat that we won’t ever use again (hallelujah!) is obnoxious.

Last night in one of those moments when you have so much to do that you can’t figure out what to do, and you’re kindof weepy tired, I pulled out all my pants to do the try-on-and-discard thing. Two years ago in Winnipeg I had stumbled upoun an outlet store selling khakis for a good price. I bought four pairs, all slightly different, but how different can khakis really be? That’s what makes them khakis. They’re just…khaki. It’s time to purge. Again.

I always hope that our kids will come back and be equally overwhelmed by their stuff. I think the trick would be for me to come home a day early and get rid of stuff for them. That way they wouldn’t be so easily and quickly enchanted by the glory of their everything. I think they do get the fact that their bedrooms are bigger than some of the houses we saw. They are smitten anew with their bikes. They are exultant in repose in front of our too-big tv, and I have to say, I’m with them on that one. Leno was a treat.

I am full of inner pledges. I will skim the fat off this house. I will not buy another pair of khakis for a very long time. I will read my Bible more and Vanity Fair less. And when my kids are away at camp I will sneak home from the cottage and fill up cardboard boxes with stuff we can live without. Then, I’ll make up a story about a robber who only takes toys and khakis.

Thomas wept. Then he stopped.

Thomas wept. That’s because he was so afraid he would have to eat more cake. You see, on Thursday night we were invited to a meeting at the church. They told us it was to discuss how our churches could work together. The kids and me stayed home thinking that this wasn’t really for us. Then, Brent called and said Nelson was on his way back to get us because it was actually a surprise party for us. That’s when I had to comfort Thomas about the cake. We’ve never eaten so much cake in such a compressed period of time. His fears were unfounded though and we had a blast.

Honduran surprise parties are really loud. The group, that represented the church and the English class, had done the crouching in the dark thing once for Brent, then they did it again for the kids and I. We were preparing ourselves to “act surprised.” But we really were surprised by the half-ton of cut up paper that exploded from the net above the door (which they had cut themselves into teeny, tiny squares), the popping of dozens of balloons in our faces and the excitement level in the church, which our own quickly matched. It was really fun.

People gave warm speeches to thank us for coming. We gave warm speeches right back to thank them for having us. We ate chicken, rice and boiled vegetables. No cake. Then the kids there organized a “modeling” event with loud pounding music. Everyone had to take a turn sashaying their way down the centre aisle of the church to clapping and shouting. And I mean everyone. We found ourselves standing on the precipice of the biggest cultural abyss we had encountered yet. But, sometimes you’ve just got to lighten up and walk like a clown down the middle of a cheering church. So, that’s what we did.

Besides the little scuffle amongst the girls at the end of the night for prime picture taking positions beside Erik, all went well.

Staying six weeks really did create a connection. We have friends here now. I think it meant something to the church here that we came and stayed for so long. And it meant something to us, and for us.

This morning, Thomas crawled into bed beside me. It was one of those warm, tangled pile of a morning chats that is one of the reasons people in the know have children. We started to talk about Ontario peaches and maybe some strawberries and a big glass of cold milk that you actually want to drink. We made a date for Monday for an ice-cream cone at the Nutty Chocolatier on Queen St. in Port Perry.

pirates, beads and other things

Apparently, most pirates aren’t as lovable as Johnny Depp. Yesterday we went sailing on a catamaran owned by an Italian man named Ryan. Ryan has his own story to tell. His catamaran, bought with his retirement fund, was stolen by pirates last year. It was missing for months, then he had to spend a month in Belize proving it was his boat. He still looks over his shoulder.

He and his son took our family, two Italian couples and a couple of young Italian women who were clearly a bit distracting for Ryan’s son. You just wanted to cheer for the poor guy when he finally managed to hook us up to the buoy before our snorkeling. It took him a few attempts with his Dad barking instructions, and these things matter a lot, I presume, when you’re a young guy being watched by girls in teeny bikinis. It was painful to watch.

Our kids loved sitting on the netting on the front of the catamaran, especially when they were engulfed by rough waves as we pounded through the water. So rough we turned around and headed for a calm cove earlier than planned. Erik gave me his glasses to hold so he wouldn’t drop them. So, I dropped them overboard instead. After we anchored, our guide, Ryan’s son, led us snorkeling through another set of beautiful reefs. He did a little bit of Show-Off Snorkeling for the girls, shooting down to the ocean floor then drifting slowly back up. The effect was actually a bit frog-like, which probably wasn’t what he had been going for. But it was still fun to watch.

The water on the surface was choppy and rough. But just under the surface all was serene, colourful and fascinating. I felt more in control when our heads were under the water and I could forget how far we were from the boat, and how rough the waves were. It’s best to just focus on the beauty. That is almost always true.

Last night Brent had his last Bible Survey class for the youth. He did the entire New Testament in one night. Which seems admirable. I feared for him that he would have to deal with yet another birthday cake, cut into huge slab like pieces like we have been contending with all week. But, thankfully not.

Holly had her hair braided this morning. We went to Wendy’s house. She is the wife of one of the students who took Brent’s preaching class. We sat on her porch, surrounded by kids coming and going and a puppy that gnawed on my foot most of the time. Wendy’s great grandmother was a Scottish woman who came to Roatan and fell in love. She had 11 daughters, one of whom was Wendy’s grandmother. She was a black woman with long, straight hair whose eyes got bluer the older she got. That became a family trait. Eyes that got bluer the closer you were to death. None of the kids ended up “clear” though. Clear means white.

Wendy’s cousin came half-way through and pitched in with the braiding. One of my favourite things is to sit around and listen to woman-talk. Of course, this depends on which women are doing the talking, but that goes without saying. These women talked about their kids, their husbands, slipped in and out of English and Spanish and other dialects. It was surface. Then it was deep. Then it was surface again. That’s usually how women do it. I joined in a bit when I could, otherwise, I just let the breeze drift over me and watched the waves in the distance. Holly is now a beaded, click-clacking wonder.

everything is better deep-fried

 

 

I am now an insider in the world of making Honduran tacos. These are not to be confused with Mexican tacos, ate raw-ish, by just stuffing the corn tortilla with the chicken mixture, rolling it up and eating it.

Honduran tacos take more time. There’s the boiling of the chicken, the shredding of the chicken, the frying of the chicken with other stuff, the making of the sauce, the boiling of the sauce, the bringing it all together, the stuffing, the rolling and then the snap, crackle, pop of deep frying them. Then the wonderful crunch of eating them. They crack, they drip. They satisfy. Everyone is very keen that I replicate them in Canada, when I quite often have 7 hours to dedicate to making supper. I’ll have to find the time. Maybe at the cottage. It’s worth it.  

That was Monday during the day. Monday night was the final English class. No one is fluent yet. I repeated an exercise I did a couple of weeks ago when we passed out pages ripped from a magazine and asked the students to create sentences to describe something in the picture.

This week, we used the Sky Mall catalogue we lifted from the airplane. I regretted this choice almost immediately. Because the Sky Mall catalogue is full of ridiculous things. Useless things. Things not seen anywhere else on the planet. Things that no one could describe in any language. Things like mini-staircases for your pet so they can climb up on your bed. Things like an inflatable Nuclear Globe for a “brave new world of water fun!”; advertisements for the Hollywood Cookie Diet and a Batman Swirling Emblem Ring alongside the Evenstar Pendant of Arwen, a robot radio and Big Foot, the Garden Yeti Sculpture designed for “startling realism.” I spent a lot of time circulating amongst the groups reassuring them that I was really only looking for statements like “That thing is black.” Then, after a really complicated lesson about the use of “a” “an” and “the” we wrapped things up and ate chips together. I don’t think I’m a natural teacher. Holly is though. I found myself working the audience a lot trying to get them to laugh, my default position.

Today, we had lunch in the West End. There were three green parrots yelling at us, other diners and generally causing a scene. One of them made a noise that sounded exactly like Russell’s laugh in Bill Cosby’s skit called My Brother Russell. Russell has his face smacked off of him by his father, because he laughs, with what we now know to be a parrot laugh. Thankfully, their mother picks his eyes and lips up off the floor and puts them back on. Which is what mothers tend to do.

eco-adventure

On Thursday morning we took the early-morning ferry from Roatan to La Ceiba, a city on the mainland. We packed lightly so everyone could carry their own backpacks through the market, and later the mall, that were on our very short list of things to do before we headed into the jungle. We made our way through the crowded stalls and tiny hut-stores that make up the centre of commerce in the centre of La Ceiba, the third-largest city in Honduras. It was Dunkin Donuts that really got the Stiller juices flowing however. Our kids are so Canadian they wanted a hot chocolate and a donut to give them a break from the slow swelter of outside.

La Ceiba is close to Pico Bonito National Park and Nombre de Dios national park. We were headed to a jungle lodge run by Omega Tours that operates just outside the park’s protected buffer zones. Our taxi picked us up at 2:00 from Wendy’s where the three amigos again fulfilled some gastronomic fantasies, this time involving hamburgers and fries.

The road to and through Pico Bonito is rough and rocky, but we’re used to that. It runs parallel to the winding Rio Congrejal river and through the deep green mountains that form cloud and rain forests (the difference between the two being altitude). The river itself is 20 miles long, from cloud forest to Caribbean. It supplies water to communities but also a growing source of eco-tourism to the area, which is what we had signed up for. Waterfalls feed parts of it, and you can see them tumbling down hundreds of feet up as you drive by the river. We would discover that this is even more breath-taking when you’re in a raft looking up, if you have a minute to look up that is! The Rio Congrejal forms the eastern boundary of the Pico Bonito Park. The Park itself has over 500 square kilometres of unexplored terrain. It is home to virgin rain forest, cloud forest as I mentioned, jaguars, tapirs, alligators, monkeys and over 275 different types of birds, at least 274 of which sang outside our screened in walls both mornings we were there.

We pulled into the Omega Jungle Lodge site and were welcomed by their handful of international guides. Omega Lodge is owned by a German couple, and the trips are hosted (these days) by guys from New Zealand, Britian, USA. Hector is the lovable bartender who gets dragged along to fill out the occasional raft. The white water rafting scene is full of young guys or older career guides who travel from place to place, living out the rafting season in one country after another. The lodge itself, and our room in particular, was breathtaking. You are in the jungle and it feels it. There is a constant soundtrack of screeching and birdcalls. Our room was two leveled with screen walls. You lay in bed and look out onto mountains, waterfalls, 30 foot high bamboo, mango forest, oranges and limes hanging heavy off trees. The restaurant was fabulous, under a grass roof and centered around a big bar and a small pool where you just naturally start talking with other visitors. Tropical rains hammered us almost the whole time we were swinging around in hammocks, which was great, because it absolutely thunders down and provides a beautiful noise buffer to three really loud Canadian kids who spent every minute we weren’t plummeting through river rapids playing in the pool.

Friday morning we met our river guides, Dave the kiwi and Jeff the Brit, by the helmets and life jackets. We got suited up and made the 5 minute walk down a slippery slope (yes, a slippery slope!) to our input place on the Rio Congrejal. There, the safety training turns you from a reasonably confident adventurer to a quivering wreck clinging to your guide, which is probably one of the main points. We learned how to take the position in the water if you fly out of the raft. Flat on your back, knees tucked up so you can bounce your feet off the boulders, mouth in a tight-teethed grin to keep the water out and head above water whenever possible is the key. We had to demonstrate we understood and could do this by floating through rapids from one guide who ordered us where to go in, to the other waiting a little further down with his rescue rope to haul us out when our Canadian winter swimming class training failed. Which it did.

Again, the bravery of our kids astonished and thrilled me. It’s not that they weren’t afraid. It’s that they did it anyway.

We realized that key to your survival, literally, is trusting your guide and listening and responding immediately to what they tell you to do. We loaded into our rafts. Brent and I in one with Jeff our guide, and Thomas. Holly, Erik, Hector the bartender and Dave the guide in the other. We were off, paddles in hands, ears open, butts perched on the side of the rafts ready to dip, weave, lean, paddle forwards or back, jump down, and “Take your Positions!!” whatever and whenever Jeff yelled at us to. We did it, and it was a blast, including tumbling down a six foot waterfall. These were class 3 and 4 rapids which may mean something to some of you. In my classification system it meant “Really Scary” to “Totally Terrifying” to “Where the Heck are my Children?” Our trip took a couple of hours and involved some optional jumbs off high cliffs into the river, which Hector was cajoled and teased into doing, Holly and Erik couldn’t wait to do and Thomas yearned to do…but we had to draw a line somewhere. For the last bit of our trip, in milder rapids, we jumped ship and floated down to our exit point. Even then, in less than two feet of water, you are still at the water’s mercy. It’s not over till you are standing on a rock.

Brent and I tried not to limp too much in front of the other guests for the rest of our trip. I felt like I needed a small crane to lift my right arm and he stretched a knee muscle that’s not all that stretchable. Thankfully, for the rest of the day, a glass of passon punch was the only thing I was lifting and Brent only needed to shuffle back and forth between the bar and my hammock to keep everybody happy. The kids? Well, they just played in that pool in the pounding rain and responded well to bribery. 

The next day, we caught the ferry back to Roatan. After you get settled in your chair, the staff hand out small plastic bags for you to vomit in during the trip. The ferry crashes through waves, heaving through the waters. Probably enough said on this segment of our trip, except to say that, if one person on the ferry loses it, there is a domino effect. We had to step over the body of a 50ish American guy laying on the floor of the ferry terminal trying to regain his equilibrium. We headed back to Las Palmas, turned on the air and caught a nap.

one huge pile of condoms

The biggest pile of condoms I have ever seen sit in a basket on Valerie Nelson’s desk. It’s a serve yourself situation here at Familias Saludables, a hole in the wall on the second floor of a canary yellow building on the main street of Coxen Hole in Roatan. Nelson moved here from Edmonton to begin a fight against one of the highest HIV and AIDS rates in the western hemisphere. That is one of the things Honduras is famous for. Within Honduras, this tiny island, 50km long, 4 km wide with 16,000 plus people, ranks second in infection rates.  

Six years ago Nelson found herself here for one month. She got sick and visited a local doctor. Nelson asked her about the AIDS situation. The doctor avoided the questions but then finally answered 5 to 11 to Nelson’s question about percentages. Then, Nelson realized the doctor meant 5 to 11 positive diagnosis a week, and that doesn’t even count the fishing boats which the doctor guessed had a 50% positive rate of infection. Add in cruise ships and rates always double anyway.

Nelson returned home and told her husband she wanted to do something about it. They moved down here then and began Familias Saludables, dedicated to reducing the maternal-infant transmission rate of HIV and AIDS.

As we talk, a three year old girl named Jennifer wanders in and out, climbs on Nelson’s lap, stands to have her black and white gingham dress admired, pats her own head, rocks on a toy. “This one, I didn’t think would make it,” says Nelson. Jennifer’s mother had to give birth to her baby in an alley outside the hospital. The hospital didn’t want her inside.

Nelson and her team of volunteers provide free testing, education and counselling, as many condoms as you could possibly use, and free infant formula to women who are positive. She can see the difference they are making. Their first year, 31 babies died. Last year, they lost one.

I’ve heard before that Roatan has an impossibly high rate of HIV and AIDS. Why? Nelson is unequivocal in her answer. “Everybody cheats on everybody. I will hold Roatan up to any country in the world, I have never seen people who cheat as much.” She’s done informal surveys on the street, and to the women she works with. One day, she stood outside in Coxen Hole and asked 100 men if they had ever cheated on their wives or girlfriends. Ninety-seven said yes. She asks every woman she counsels if there is any possibility their partner is sleeping with someone else. She’s never had anyone say no.

I ask about the church. Do they have any impact? Nelson believes most of them are part of the problem. So far, according to Nelson, none of them have been part of the solution. “The people in the church don’t have the morals required to go in the right direction.” Nelson has not seen any proof, yet, that the church or some of its leaders, are any different from anyone else. I’m praying she is proved wrong really, really soon.

And the Church from other parts of the world are more interested in building orphanages that an island rich with extended families and caring communities does not need or want. They come here, says Nelson “to play with an orphan or they want to hold the hand of one person dying of AIDS. They want to have their experience.” Then they go home.

As we speak, Tracey wanders in from the street and plops down beside me. She is 16. I would have guessed much older. Nelson grabs a loot bag from behind her desk, one of those flimsy Happy Birthday ones we fill with dollar store treasures, and stuffs it full of condoms. She tosses it across the desk to Tracey. “Here brat!” she says. Tracey’s mom is dead. She’s been in and out again of a drug treatment centre, and in and out of the nightmare jail in Roatan. The cell that holds the women and children is 5 X 10 feet, the toilet is in perpetual overflow, and if you eat it’s because a relative dropped off some tortillas. Nelson has hope for Tracey even though she’s already seen her through a few false starts. As we talk, Tracey reaches over to touch my hair, plays with it for a minute, poses for a picture, toys with the loot bag in her hand.

It’s time for me to go. I have to meet Brent and the kids on the West End. They’re snorkeling today. I thank Nelson and take one more look around, trying to burn details in my mind. Nelson has a poster hanging off her crammed bookcase. “Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise. Risking more than others think is safe. And doing more than others think is necessary.”

I climb back down the creaky stairs to Coxen Hole’s jammed sidewalk to hail a taxi. It’s just a little bit hotter out here than it was in there. As we wind through Flower Bay, my taxi driver asks me “If Jesus came back today, would you be ready?”  very slowly, word by word, so I can understand. “I think so,” I say. “I hope so.” I suspect he charges me way too much for my drive. I just don’t have the energy to argue.

what I learned at supper

The other night Ton and Zilla, the Dutch couple who help run Las Palmas where we are staying, invited our family to their bed and breakfast for supper. Which sounds funny. Their place is an oasis just off the highway that runs from Coxen Hole to West End. Of course, just about every bit of property cut out off the thick trees and deep green that line that road is an oasis, it would be hard not to be. Ton and Zilla are in their late 40s (I’m guessing) and met on safari in Kenya. They spent a few years travelling around the world, and in the end, decided to stay in Roatan and build up a business. At least until they decide to leave.

This is what I learned:

1. When the moon is full, the planes you hear overhead during the night are drug planes dropping cocaine offshore. They use a friend of Ton’s house as a marker. He hears them coming and he hears them leaving.

2. If you come from away to live, you might last and you might not. Some people just can’t take the pace. Others live for it, or live because of it. Not sure if it would kill us or not.

3. If you can accomplish one thing in one day, be happy. The bank can take hours, but we already knew this.

4. Yes, the milk really does taste as bad as we thought.

5. Around 60% of the young women here are HIV positive.

6. There are families that live at the dump, gathering and returning the millions of plastic bottles, and making about 500 lempiras a month. That’s around $25.

7. There’s no sense hiring security guards. They’re not paid enough to risk their lives. They’ll drop their guns and walk away.

8. Therefore, you build walls and get dogs. The other thing I learned was that dogs, even ones that are mostly black labs, will bite children. Twice.  And then I learned that one of our children is exceptionally brave and resilient. But I already knew that.

9. If you treat the local people right, like Ton does when he hires them and pays them sufficiently, you will be respected, and therefore most likely protected.

10. When it rains, stay off the roads. All the oil that the vehicles have been leaking is released from the rain and the paved road becomes a slick deathtrap.

11. Outsiders who want to change everything and make it as efficient and productive as their homeland, will slowly, painfully and surely lose their minds. Those who have a bit of the wild in them, are a little extra free in their spirit, have some cash to spend and a dream to build, just might make it. They will definitely live an adventure in their attempt.