Saturday, August 8, 2009


Photo used by permission La Gringa's Blogicito

Shout out to Honduras_Living

"Honduras Living is an unbiased (noncommercial) forum where people can find up to date information about immigrating to Honduras, residency procedures, hotels, restaurants, sites to visit, experiences, crime/safety, places to avoid, and life in Honduras in general. Additionally, the group's files and links sections will be very helpful to anyone wishing to learn more about living in Honduras." I had writer's block trying to express how helpful and informative HL is so I copied that from the welcome message on the group's homepage. Most of the members are originating from N. America or a few European and South Americans countries. The Honduran members seem to have lived outside of the country part of their lives. If this group were a tangible place on earth, it would be your favorite bar.

This group has helped my fiancee and I with the move to Honduras in numerous ways. We've posted countless inquiries that we wouldn't know where else to impose. This group has proved to be the most reliable source for accurate information in comparison to a consulate or embassy in the U.S. or locally. Members post about their hardships and remind you that it can always get worse, they also share the highlights of their lives here and remind you that Honduras is filled with beauty despite being one of the poorest countries in the Americas. The archives provide an extensive library of previous threads that may answer any of your Honduran born curiosities. You'll find cooking recipies, gardening tips, legal info, twitter like news updates, restaurant and hotel reviews and tons more. My only other sources for info before HL were this link to Canal 6's live streaming http://www.noti6.com/ and my mother. I did eventually begin reading the national newspapers but they are filled with inaccuracies. The latter wasn't so helpful considering she'd been back to Honduras in nearly 23 years and the former scared the life out of me with daily reports of kidnappings and violent crimes. This group is also well moderated to keep the folks in control and enable ease of browsing on terribly slow internet connections.

Since I don't contribute as much as I think I should, I've decided to give props with a label on my blog. I'll turn some of my HL posts into blog entries because I'm a lazy blogger like that. At some point, I'll also post some of my blogs in the group to give the Returning Catracho Report of things because I'm a lazy group member like that. I'm not really lazy, my HL post frequency is directly correlated to my work, no employment = lots of posts, employment = very little posts.

The first entry into this label will be a post questioning the cleaning and bathing procedures when you have doo doo water. I still don't know wxactly what was going on with the water, but named the condition after that came along with it. This incident occurred while residing on Tela, Atlantida. It's a nice place... To visit.

This is my post.
I thought I would just let the water run and it would clear up in a minute or two, but it's been nasty all day. Does this always happen after rainy days? How do people shower or wash clothes? Carlos M - Had to walk down the street for another 5 gallon


Response #1 It happens in a lot of places after a good rain. It can take 3-4 days to clear up. While it is like this you don't wash clothes and you either don't bathe or you get a large bottle of water and take a sponge bath. You can set up a rain barrel to catch clean water for hand washing some things. This is one of the trade-offs for living in paradise.

Response #2
I always imagined paradise haveing clean water.


Response #3

Or at least some water. We have none today. I knew I should have done the laundry yesterday. XX, at least the weather is paradisal today La Ceiba

This is what I meant about reminders that things can always get worse.

Response #4
Due to the rain, we went the entire month of October without running water. Wait thats a lie. They fixed the pipes once, on a Monday afternoon, (It had stopped raining for 2 or 3 days) and then Tuesday morning it began to rain again and we lost water by 9AM Tuesday morning. I think the entire month of October we had rain every day BUT those couple of days and a day or so at the beginning of the month. We didn't get running water back until November 3. At least I had a way to collect rain water for washing dishes and taking showers (ok bucket baths is probably a better term). The kids took showers in the rain, LOL. They loved it. The adventures of living in a 3rd world paradise, LOL.

Response #5

Build two pilas approx. chest high (as long as your over 5'5") first with a sloping bottom 4 feet at the bottom to 4 inches at the top (water level) go to a rocky stream and get 2" to 4" rocks with green slime on them. Keep them wet during transport. Put a drain in the bottom of the first pila for back flushing. Cruddy water goes into the deep end very slow (a diffuser would be nice) and Slowly moves to the shallow end through the rocks. Then into your second pila which is a slow sand bio-filter. then to your cistern. during really bad water times may need to clean the slow sand filter a couple of times a week but you will get water that is very low in turbidity...

Response #6 A simple little 5 micron filter takes care of that. It will be overwhelmed, then when the rain stops you change the filter the next day and it starts doing the job. Tela usually cuts off the water supply when it overflows the cistern filters on the mountain. When the water goes off, I usually cut all water to my house and leave the tap on for the garden (which is pre-filter) until I see it is working. When the brown gets to just a dirty tan, I start it back to the house. Usually no more than half a day without water.





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