The Reaction

I know that many of you who donated money to help send Stephanie to school are anxiously awaiting the news of "how did she react???" I wanted to wait a few days to share the reaction because honestly, it was a few days of reacting.

Last Tuesday afternoon, (which was right in the middle of our busiest week ever -- maybe second only to the week we got married and moved to Honduras) we sat down with Belkis and told her that we had a surprise for her. She and I had talked at length in the past few months about the weaknesses of the public school system, and how she had hoped to move Stephanie to a private school next year. I told Belkis that thanks to our friends and family, and even a few new friends we've never met, Stephanie had a scholarship waiting for her that would pay for the first year of school at a private, well-run school.

Belkis was astounded. She was silent, but I could see her hands shaking. This was a really big deal to her. I told her that it would be great if we could spend the final 2 days we had in La Ceiba working out some of the details, like which school she would attend, when she would begin, etc.

Now, to explain a bit about Belkis, she is a strong woman who keeps her deepest emotions carefully guarded. While I was a blubbering mess last week saying goodbye to everyone, Belkis was extra quiet. This was already a very emotional week for her, as she was saying goodbye to a family and a baby that meant a great deal to her. After I explained all I could about the scholarship, she said thank you and that she'd start thinking about it, and that this was a very big gift. She went home that day, and we were left wondering how she really felt about the news.

On Wednesday, Belkis came to take care of Zeke in my classroom for a few hours in the morning. She and I had the opportunity to talk at length. She told me that she was very very appreciative of the scholarship, but she had a couple concerns. You see, some of the better bilingual schools in La Ceiba run their school year from August to May, and other private schools follow the typical Honduran school calendar which runs from January to November. Belkis was concerned that we were going to place the condition that Stephanie be pulled from her current school mid-year. Most parents understand how this could be disruptive to a child's social and emotional well being, so I told her that if she was more comfortable waiting for the current school year to end, we understood and could work with that. This was the short-term concern.

Then, there was her long-term concern. Since we left Honduras, Belkis is looking for new employment and currently does not have a stable job to guarantee she could continue to support Stephanie's education after the first year. Her concern is that Stephanie would be given this wonderful opportunity for one year, but what happens after that? After a great deal of thought and consideration on our part, Tom and I told Belkis that it would be our goal and commitment to help Stephanie for the next 4 years. We don't exactly know what we'll do, or how we'll do it, but it is our goal and plan.

By Thursday, we had set up an "appointment" for Belkis to meet and discuss some school options with our school's guidance counselor. The guidance counselor already administers several scholarships for children at various schools around La Ceiba, and she had several ideas for Belkis, and was also able to help address some of the concerns Belkis had.

At the end of the day Thursday, Belkis sat us down and this is a rough translation of what she said...

"First of all I want to say thank you. You don't understand what a big gesture this is to me. It is incredible. You and your friends and family are very generous and we have been blessed by God to be given this opportunity. I don't know what my future holds, but after talking with [the guidance counselor] today, I believe it will all work out. I don't want to pull Stephanie out of her current school in the middle of this school year (right now or within the next two months) because we need a little time to find the right school and make a plan. But your generosity is overwhelming, so thank you and thank God for this blessing and gift."

Then we had to say some very difficult goodbyes. It was an emotionally overwhelming evening, but we left it with Belkis that we would be in touch regularly until Stephanie started school. The scholarship will be left in Stephanie's name in an scholarship account administered by our school's guidance counselor. We've put a time limit of one year for this money to begin to be used. Belkis knows that she's got the time she needs to help Stephanie adjust to her new education, and we can all rest assured that the money will be put to good use for Stephanie's education.

So again, from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU.

Goodbye Honduras

Our bags are packed, we've said our goodbyes, and it's time to go. Tomorrow morning we leave this country and begin our new chapter in life. While we are truly sad to leave so many special people (and one very special dog) back here in Honduras, we are looking forward to the next great adventure.

Tomorrow we'll be traveling all day and landing in Omaha, Nebraska- our new hometown in the evening.

So, next time we blog, it will be Karine and Tom in Nebraska!

Adios Honduras!

Odds and Ends: exploding air-conditioners, ect.

For those of you who have already contributed to the scholarship fund and are saying to yourselves, come on guys, talk about something besides sending a deserving and extremely cute little girl to a school where the teachers actually teach.

For those of you who have not yet contributed to send a very charming and utterly adorable little girl to a school where the teachers actually teach please consider doing so today. It will feel good. And you’ll be changing someone’s life. With ten dollars.

Here’s what is going on with us:

**We will be parting ways with our household goods next Monday.

**The air-conditioner in our room started spewing water at us last night at about ten. The water was very cold. We turned it off and thought maybe we’ll just suffer through the heat because our ceiling fan is squeaky. Ten minutes later I turned the ceiling fan on. Ten minutes after that I squirted it’s innards down with WD-40. Except I used too much. And the spinning fan started spraying lubricant all over the bed and Karine and some of it landed on my bald head. And it still squeaked. So we moved our mattress into the living room and slept for about four minutes before Zeke woke up crying and every dog in the neighborhood too. It was pretty fun.

**We’re going to miss our students when we leave. Karine says she’s going to miss working in a professional environment while she’s home with the twins and Zeke. I said I am a professional environment.

**I applied for a job over the weekend, but my application was rejected because my undergraduate degree is in English rather than communications. I always thought communications was a major for English majors who couldn’t write. Guess I was wrong. It’s a major for English majors who can’t write and want to get jobs.

What we've been doing (while we weren't blogging)

So, our family was kind of sick for a couple weeks, and then we took a few more days to catch up and get back to normal. Though we weren't blogging like we normally would, we still had a few outings and activities. As always, we documented them with pictures.

Zeke was a pig for Halloween. Except he was sick on Halloween and the day after. I had sewed Zeke this adorable little pig costume, complete with ears and a tail, and I was so bummed when he didn't get to wear it for Halloweekend. Tom's class at school had read "Alice in Wonderland" and he was having a special tea party for them at school in the library after Halloween. The kids dressed up in costumes, and I brought Zeke in his piggy costume. The reason this was appropriate was that the baby in "Alice" is named Pig. Zeke was quite the hit!
Then it was National Build-A-Fort-In-Your-Living-Room weekend. I built this fort in our living room for Ruby and Zeke. Both enjoyed crawling in and out and having a special place to play.


Last weekend, we went mini-golfing at La Ceiba's brand-new mini golf course! Zeke loved his first game of mini golf at La Rana Mini Golf here in La Ceiba. It's a great family-friendly activity, and they have a trampoline too!



One of the unique things about living in Honduras is that sometimes you see things in places you just don't expect. While we were golfing, we looked up and over the wall into the next lot. In the sky, we saw this bathroom. The house surrounding the bathroom is long gone. All that is left is a bathroom in the sky- weird, huh!

Speaking of bathrooms... Since we moved down here 2 and a half years ago, I've really missed bathtubs. Most homes in La Ceiba do not have bathtubs, including ours. Recently, I've begun to think about what it would take to make this dream come true. We rent our house, so we're not really looking to do any remodeling projects on our own dime. This would be a pretty big project, because our house does not have hot water either. We currently use electric shower heads to heat the water right before it comes out, giving us a warm shower. If we had a bathtub, we'd need a small hot water heater too.



So, I've been pricing it out, thinking about putting a proposal together for our landlord. I found this bathtub at Ace Hardware, and I think it would it would fit in the existing space without knocking down any walls or anything major.

We've also been out to eat at a couple of beach places in the past 2 weeks. Last weekend, we went to Guapo's on the beach for lunch. Here are the guys enjoying the view.


Finally, on Thursday night, we went out to the Quinta Real hotel on the beach in La Ceiba. Zeke and I went for a little walk/photo shoot on the beach.
When we came back, Tom had hired these mariachi guys to serenade us. Zeke loved the musicians, and I think they loved him too.


Glad to be back to blogging- stay tuned for more!

New Furniture

We've had our eye on this special type of Guatemalan hand-carved furniture for the past 3 years. Several of our friends have had different types of this furniture around their homes and we've always admired it. Each year, a couple of guys arrive in La Ceiba and park along the side of the road selling their furniture for just a week or two. The style is characterized by thick carving in heavy pieces of cypress wood. The pieces are then finished- not with a normal wood stain, but with shoe polish. The effect is a unique, ornately carved piece of furniture.


We had heard rumors that it was possible to bargain for a good deal, but for the past 2 years have had no luck locating these guys. Finally, for the past two weeks, we've noticed the guys were camped out in their truck selling their wares on the side of the road, just a 3 minute walk from our front door. Yesterday we pulled out all the stops and bought all of our dream pieces. Two hours later, the big truck parked in front of our house and unloaded our purchases. We now have grown-up matching furniture, all for a very affordable price.


How affordable can 8 pieces of beautifully hand carved furniture be, you might ask? Well, individually, the asking price came to about $700 for everything we dreamed of buying. Tom's bargaining skills (and the fact that the men are packing up and leaving town tomorrow) brought the price down to $425. Now I know this may sound like a lot to spend on a random afternoon whim (Merry Christmas, Tom!), but here's what we bought:

6 foot tall bookshelf,
3.5 foot tall accent bookshelf
giant cabinet-type thing (we'll use for our stereo and board games)
hope chest/trunk
2 matching end/accent tables
large picture frame


AND the best thing of all...
this awesome rocking horse! (to be tied up with a red bow and put under the Christmas tree for Zeke- don't tell him!)


It seems like people living abroad should try to think about going light on the furniture, since you have to move it around. Luckily, our employer is in the big banana boat business, and we get free shipping for our household goods when we're on our way out of here someday. What a fun day!

¡Vamos Honduras!

Tonight is a big night for Honduras. The national Honduras team is playing against the U.S. national team. The U.S. is pretty much guaranteed a spot in the 2010 World Cup. However, Honduras is fighting to win it's place in the World Cup for the first time since 1982, and it seems like we have a good chance! Tonight we're cheering for Honduras- the little country that could!


The game is in San Pedro Sula, a 2 hour trip from our house. Since our little Catrachito (little Honduran boy) doesn't care for thousands of screaming fans near him, we're going to watch the game from home. Here's a short video of Zeke practicing his cheer for tonight.

The whole family is decked out for the evening and we're going to eat a boatload of appetizers for dinner. It's a real party!

Family Update

Ezekiel is now almost 7 months old! He likes to sit up, and can play pretty well without toppling over too easily. He also loves standing in his exersaucer and johnny jump-up. Zeke's little legs are getting quite strong! At his 6 month checkup, Zeke weighed in at 17.6 pounds- a healthy weight and right in the 55th percentile for his age.

Developmentally, Zeke is doing great. He can roll over both ways, but chooses to stay put unless there's a toy or a dog that he really wants to get. He's not crawling yet, but seems anxious for takeoff. We're prepared for it any day now. Still no teeth or hair. Good things come to those who wait!

Yesterday, we bought Zeke a highchair. He's been a great eater at mealtimes, enjoying all sorts of fruits, vegetables, oats, and rice. We're excited for Zeke to become a part of our family dinner table experience.

Tom has been extra busy the past few weeks because his job at school has changed significantly. Due to some movement within our school staff, a position opened up in the middle school, and Tom is now a teacher! He loves teaching 7th and 8th grade English and Math. He's the homeroom teacher for 8th graders so he gets to spend a little extra time with those kids. Each middle and high school teacher is also responsible for teaching an elective class. Tom has enthusiastically been teaching his weightlifting elective every Tuesday and Thursday to a small group of guys. Between his weightlifting class, and running 3 times a week, I think my husband is going to be one of the most fit guys around town pretty soon!

I have been thoroughly enjoying school so far this year too. I've got a really sweet class of 4th graders, and now that it's my 3rd year at our school, I feel like I really understand what I'm doing. I recently acquired a new cookbook from my friend Erin. The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is awesome! A couple nights per week, I've been trying out some new recipes- meatloaf, chicken piccata, and omelets have been some recent hits. It's strange that for the past 4 years, we have tried and tried to make omelets, and never had success. I get this great illustrated cookbook with all sorts of helpful hints, and they turn out wonderfully! I'd recommend this book to anyone.

Ruby will be celebrating her 2 year birthday on August 26. Our goal is to find her the best dog bone in La Ceiba by Wednesday. Our dog has been handling all the transitions in the past few months really well. She had 2 dog/housesitters this summer, a new nanny in the house (and her whole family- but that's a story for later), a baby that has started grabbing at her in glee, and another new nanny. Ruby takes it all in stride. Tom has also been working with her off-leash a bit more. Tom and Ruby sometimes take late-night walks around the neighborhood without a leash. Ruby loves the freedom, and Tom loves that his dog is well-trained enough to not run away.

And the nanny... Some of our readers may have heard about our nanny drama. I'll keep it brief, but the young, enthusiastic girl we hired to care for Zeke turned out to be a different person than we thought she was.
Some of the surprises included: stealing two of Zeke's keepsake baptism gifts from grandparents (one of which she took to her family's home), lying about many things, watching tv all day long while leaving Zeke alone, packing our food in our tupperware containers to give her family members through the gate, inviting her dad in for gourmet lunches in our kitchen, having friends over to watch tv, and inviting her whole family to our house in the daytime to cook up lunch for her whole family. Every day, she would go under my bed, take out my straightening and curling irons, use them and my makeup and lotions.

Because of some carelessness on her part, we started to discover the stealing and lying last Friday. When she came clean and confessed to stealing the keepsakes, crying and begging forgiveness, we decided that maybe this could be a real turning point for a young girl. Everybody makes mistakes, and this could be a real opportunity for change. Except that 3 days later, Tom stopped home in the middle of the school day to find a baby (not ours) wandering around our house in a diaper, the stereo and tv blaring, her mom cooking up a storm in our kitchen (and later taking it all with her) and Zeke all alone in his crib- wide awake. Tom fired her on the spot, for violating one of our biggest house rules- no visitors! She and her family and friends were out of our house within 10 minutes.

Fortunately, thanks to the outpouring of help and suggestions from our friends and coworkers here, we had 5 great leads by the next day. We interviewed 5 women- all with experience and strong recommendations, and we hired a real winner. I think Zeke will be much happier with his new nanny, Belkis. She's an experienced mom who is musical, intelligent, and best of all- has a professional reputation of being honest and trustworthy. She doesn't live with us, but bikes from her own nearby neighborhood. She had her first day on Friday, and we have high hopes this time. And now, for a happy thought- watch this cutie in his new high chair!

As for what's going on here in Honduras politically, things seem pretty normal in La Ceiba. I don't claim to understand all of it, and I don't care to turn this into a political blog. Our own lives here in Honduras have been fairly normal. We're not trying to say that we don't care about people whose lives have been changed and affected by the events. It's just that this blog is about Karine and Tom (and Zeke and Ruby too) in Honduras- our lives and the stuff that happens right here in our little home. We've been a little slow on the blogging this month, but will try to get back on it!

Hey! We're on TV!

Earthquake in Honduras

We don't know a great deal about earthquakes, but we do know that we just had an earthquake here in La Ceiba, Honduras. Tom was on his way to the bathroom and I was fast asleep when our concrete house started to wiggle. It was moving enough that it woke me up from a deep sleep. We judge that it was a 9.5 on the Richter scale, but this is coming from a couple Midwestern North Americans. We could hear a low rumble out in the streets and the framed photos on our walls were swinging back and forth. We'll try to find out where the epicenter was later this morning. We'll do this by comparing stories with our neighbors. I'm pretty sure the epicenter was in our house. We had well over 30 seconds of sustained shaking. Wow.

It was super freaky. Now, we're both wide awake because we can hardly believe it! Ezekiel slept right through it all. Must have been his cuddly pjs.

***UPDATE***We just learned that the initial USGS measurement was 7.3 for the earthquake off the coast of Honduras. AND we're in a Tsunami watch! But NOAA doesn't believe that the earthquake was the type that typically would produce a tsunami. Just in case, they've issued a watch and would predict that the tsunami would make landfall around 8:45am. Wow.

USGS Info -- HERE

Carnival 2009

We have survived Carnival 2009! The party on our street lasted until about 4am on Thursday, and by 6am, the streets were being swept up and everyone was gone by 8am. (Thankfully, we did not have school on Friday!)
On Saturday, we went to our friends' house to watch the big parade in the afternoon. Our friends have an apartment with balconies overlooking San Isidro- the main street in town and also the name of our patron saint. We enjoyed watching the bands, dancers, and floats from above.


Our friend, Julie, was the dancing cowgirl in the back of the Sula Milk float.


People were throwing beads off the balconies across the street and it had a Mardi Gras feel.
Today, we're just resting up and taking it easy. Zeke is completely Carnivaled out.




Tom is making shrimp gumbo tonight. Food plays a pretty big role in our lives down here since we have to get creative and make everything pretty much from scratch. It's lots of fun though, and has provided us with many nights of entertainment and yummy dinners too! We're toying with the idea of creating an illustrated cookbook of our favorite recipes. Would anyone be interested in seeing this?

Our Honduran Birth Day, Part One

Dr. Fleisch speaks Spanish, German, Polish, Russian, and Chinese. He grew up in communist East Germany, where English was verboten. He traded communism and borscht for palm trees and tin-pot dictators sometime in the early seventies. He has been delivering babies here in La Ceiba, Honduras ever since. He is a springy old man who answers the telephone in his office with a crisp German salutation: “Hier Fleisch!” He owns the hospital, so he can answer the phone in whatever language suits him.

We will be forever indebted to the venerable Dr. Fleisch for the safe delivery of our son Ezekiel Lawrence. I’m going to describe the events of that day as I remember them. I’ll try to write as close to the facts as I can, because the plain simple truth is miraculous left alone. Forgive me if I accidentally, or on purpose, get fancy and mess the whole story up. It was emotional.

I left school early that Monday morning to meet Karine at Dr. Fleisch’s hospital, which is located next to the old customs building on the beach. It’s within spitting distance of the La Ceiba dock, where they used to load the banana boats bound for New Orleans. I left for the hospital thinking about our baby. My thoughts as I walked were buzzing, like usual, around the idea that EVERYTHING was about to change.

The guard who unlocked the gate that separates our beautiful campus from the rest of Honduras is someone I know fairly well. His name is Luis. I told him I was going to the doctor’s and that I was going to meet Karine there. He told me that the doctor was only an instrument of the Lord, and that the Lord would bring our little boy safely into the world.

It was about eight in the morning. I walked from school along the abandoned Standard Fruit Railroad tracks. My parents and grandparents probably ate bananas that were carried to cargo ships along these same tracks. I was just like one of those bananas now, except instead of going to the United States to be eaten, I was going to the hospital to see my wife.

It was a beautiful morning in La Ceiba. Garbage everywhere. Shop keepers were sweeping it into the streets. Stray dogs with various skin diseases nosed through the trash, looking for disgusting pieces of anything with nutritional value. This is commonplace. I didn’t dwell on my surroundings. I was too busy thinking about Dr. Fleisch, instrument of the Lord

Our All-American Baby

We call ourselves Americans. The term becomes problematic once you leave the confines of the nifty-fifty. It certainly has for us. We are proud to be from the United States. The problem with what we call ourselves here has more to do with nomenclature than love of country. America is a name shared by two continents. Nine-hundred million people live in the Americas. Only people from the United States call themselves Americans. The other Americans (Chileans, Mexicans, Brazilians) forgive us this curious bit of narcissism because we Americans are generally an engaging and friendly people. Also, because we share our heavy-metal, Coca-Cola, and Hannah Montana with the rest of the Americas.

I've been thinking about this sort of thing because our son is going to be born any day now. He'll be a citizen of Honduras. Karine and I are technically resident aliens. He’ll also be a citizen of the United States. This, I guess, makes him a Honduran-American or an American-Honduran. But those terms don’t really make sense outside of the United States. Here, all Hondurans are American, because Honduras is part of America.

Or is Honduran-American a classification of race rather than nationality? Is he in fact a Polish-Irish-French-English-Swedish-Norwegian Honduran-American? It’s enough to make your head spin. Well, to his parents I guess he will just be Bonsai Tree. Or Thelonious. Or Trike Obama.

Circus Renato

We found the circus. I really liked the camels. I didn't think I would like the camels so much. Karine liked the motor bikes driving around in the Sphere of Death.


And, finally, the Sphere of Death. This took place about ten feet away from our faces.

The Greatest Show on Earth in Honduras.

Karine spotted an elephant on the back of a flat bed truck yesterday. This is unusual. The truck was following a tiny little car with all kinds of clowns sticking out the windows. There was also a truck with some tigers.

We're pretty sure the circus is in town. We love the circus.

Karine tried to follow the tiny clown car to find out where the circus was. But she couldn't waddle fast enough. There is a circus somewhere in La Ceiba. I just need to find it.

Stay tuned.

Sweet Deal

Tom took a bike ride up the river this morning and came back with a banana tree in his backpack. The great thing about living next to a rainforest is that there are millions of plants to take clippings of. Tom just wanted to give this one a new home in our front porch.

While he was re-potting, a kid around 10 years old came down the street selling cotton candy. People often walk down our street selling stuff: bananas, window screens, brooms, hammocks, fish, ice cream, and occasionally cotton candy. The boy saw Tom working out front, and this was the conversation (translated from Spanish) that I overheard from inside the house:

Cotton Candy Kid: Hey- buy some cotton candy from me.
Tom: No, Thanks.
CC Kid: Come on! Buy some. 10 Lempira (roughly 50 cents).
Tom: No, Thanks.
CC Kid: Why?
Tom: It's a little early in the morning for cotton candy.
CC Kid: You don't have to eat it now. You can save it for later.
Tom: (pauses, considering the kid's logic) Okay.
(Hands over 10 Lempira and takes his pink cotton candy).

Here's a picture of Tom, his new banana tree, and our faithful dog, Ruby.

Rainbow Man

This guy lives in our backyard. We call him Rainbow Man. He is industrious, organized and very quiet. We suspect that there are all kinds of deadly poisonous spiders here in Honduras. We hope he isn't one of them.

On Being a "Stay at Home"

Today was my first real day of staying at home while Tom went to work. I'm officially on maternity leave, though Baby Lew isn't expected for a couple more weeks. It was awesome! I really think I'm going to like being a stay-at-home. (I can't quite claim to be a stay-at-home-mom yet).

I started out with a couple cups of decaf coffee on the front porch, while the neighborhood loose dogs came by to visit Ruby at the gate. The neighborhood loose dogs are loose in the sense that they're not tied up. I'm not saying anything about their promiscuity, though I am glad that Ruby has been fixed. After that, I discovered that Facebook has some fun features like chatting! I chatted with a couple of high school friends and also with a couple La Ceiba friends.

Our maid arrived to do some cleaning around 11. We chatted about the holidays and our families for awhile. Since we were out of laundry soap, I strolled down the street to buy a 2 serving bag of soap so she could do laundry. After reading a few more blogs and sitting out on the porch again for awhile, I was ready for Tom to come home from his long day at the office.
Tom rolled in around 2 on his fancy wheels- his Schwinn mountain bike- and we caught up on the day's happenings at school. I wanted to hear about all I had missed!

I definitely think that I'm going to need some projects to get me through the next few weeks. Although playing on the internet was fun today for a few hours, I don't want to do that every day. I've got a few sewing projects and cooking ideas. I also need to pack a bag for the hospital at some point. That should keep me busy for a little while. Tom suggested I take up the hobby of pickling and canning. Hmmm... I'm open to other suggestions.

Our son putting his big toe into his nostril in utero

We went down to our local clinic and got ourselves a 4-D ultrasound after school today. Without a doubt its the best twenty bucks we have spent since we went out for lobsters last month. The toe goes into the nostril at about 9 seconds. Real rocket scientist, this guy.

Note that the Spanish word above his face is cara, not mono. An ultrasound in Spanish is really fun. Everything is -ito, -ito, ito.

Primary Elections in Honduras: No Booze!

Its can be difficult to determine what is illegal here in Honduras. Sometimes it seems like pretty much everything is legal. We're not sure if it is legal to drink beer while driving your car here, but we have seen plenty of people do it. I'm sure it it is legal to get completely wasted during a soccer match. But is it legal for a completely wasted guy to run into the street screaming and shooting his gun in the air after his team wins? It happens all the time.

After living here for a year, we finally discovered an alcohol law that is actually enforced. In Honduras, it is definitely illegal for restaurants, bars, grocery stores, and gas stations to sell alcohol for three days during the elections. Elections are Sunday. No wine, liquor, or beer can be sold on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.



So if you are thinking about popping down to Honduras for a cold Salva Vida, you're going to have to wait until Tuesday.

The Nanny Diaries

I know that from time to time, people wonder why the heck Tom and I live way down in Honduras. Aside from the 75 and sunny November days, there are some other major advantages for us to live here.

Throughout my life, I've experienced many different aspects of childcare. When I was growing up my mom took care of a couple neighbor kids in our home for awhile, and she later went on to license daycare homes in MN. Dinner topics could include the number of fire extinguishers in a house, or the quality of craft activities one home would provide for its charges. I did my fair share of babysitting as a teen (after reading 150 Babysitters Club books). For a year and half while I was in grad school, I worked as a nanny for two girls in a family's home. I've become sort of an expert on appropriate activities, healthy snacks, and required tasks of childcare.

The diaper is about to be on the other butt cheek now that I'm about to become a mother. Recently, a friend back home wrote to me about the challenge of finding a daycare home that met her needs. It turns out that it can be difficult to find someone with whom you can trust your child for several hours a day. In addition to that, a mother can only hope that their caregiver will instill the same values (and good grammar!) that they would receive at home. In the past few weeks, I've begun to think carefully about who will care for our little guy when I return to work.

I pulled the table below from the Minnesota Child Care Resources website.

Average Weekly Cost of Child Care

Below are some average ranges of weekly child care costs in Minnesota as of June 2008. Rates for part-time and drop-in care may be higher than those listed below.

Metro	Centers	Family Child Care
Infant	$286.00	$160.00
Toddler	$240.00	$150.00
Preschool	$212.00	$140.00
School-Age	$184.00	$125.00

I assume that this is pretty accurate and I know that the going rate for an in-home nanny is upwards of $400 per week. For the past few months, I've been researching child care options here in La Ceiba. While there are a few private centers in the area, the most common form of childcare is an in-home nanny. Many live in the home (or in small rooms attached/outside the home.) Others come only during the daytime. The average salary for a full-time nanny (not live-in) is about $25 per week/$100 per month. Yes- that's right. It's the going rate around here! A huge savings for a young couple on a budget!

We intend to find the best nanny in La Ceiba, and pay her an above-average salary to meet our above-average expectations. We've already interviewed (in Spanish) a woman that we've known for awhile from La Ceiba. She's a warm, caring, 50 something woman who would love to care for our little baby. If all goes as expected, I think she'll do a great job.

So that's one reason we like living here in Honduras. Ideally, I'd love to be able to stay home with our baby. Since that is not our plan for now, the second best option for us is having two income-earning parents and a loving nanny to care for our baby in the home. Anyone else want to move to Honduras???