Natural Disaster Awareness Training

Dear friends, family, and whoever else is reading this blog,

I'm setting a new record for the speed of my blog posts. Going through all of the effort to actually write a blog post generally dictates that I ought to write it about something, however. Herein lies the problem. I don't have anything specific about which to write, or at least nothing is really ringing a bell.


I think I'll talk about my experiences with how Honduran institutions operate.

The largest source of my interactions with the Honduran government are typically somehow associated with the school, La Escuela San Pedro (St. Peter's School).
We're currently in the process of government-offered (mandated? I'm not sure) natural disaster training.
These meetings are scheduled to start at 8 am and run until 4 pm, and they happen during the school day, so we've obviously gotta cancel school.
A typical day in disaster awareness training:
8: arrival to the school.
~8:40: arrival of the government group
8:50: The European Union and some organization in Norway have kindly offered to sponsor these events. As a result, we'll focus on getting comfortable in our seats while several posters are pasted up on the walls.
9:00: It's time for the icebreakers!
9:20: Okay, let's go ahead and turn on the projector and get down to the real gig. Assuming there's electricity (60-40 shot), we're going to open with the all-important faith-based motivational powerpoint.
9:30: We're splitting up into groups now to discuss the possible natural disasters we might experience while living in Honduras.
9:50: A debate has now been brought to the table: a tsunami is or is not a viable possible natural disaster here in the bay?
10:00: Let's assume that it is. Given that, we've got documentation saying that in the event of a tsunami, we'll have about two hours of warning... or wait, this other thing says 20 minutes. Well I guess that concluded whether or not there's a possibility of tsunamis. Good. Let's move on.
10:15: Great, well, it's been quite a while since we started now, so let's go ahead and have the merienda (snack).
10:45: Okay guys, let's go ahead and make and then give our presentations on the possible disasters available in the area. Group 1, you guys can start. Okay group 2, you guys, although you've got the exact same list, should probably go up and present as well. Let's take a pause to paste those presentations to the wall as well.


I'm really excited about this post, so I'm going to continue it later, but for the time being, you get the gist, and I gotta run.

- Kevin

Hanging with the Teens

As always, it has been an absurd amount of time since my last blog update. I think I've finally come to peace with that. Perhaps keeping a more well-updated blog would be more conducive to donations and providing prospective Finca applicants with a better sense of the experience beforehand, but there's also something to be said for living the experience in the present. I don't often have enough time to make the trek required to get to the internet, and as someone living in rural Honduras, I think that's alright. If I'm really living in solidarity with my Honduran neighbors, the less-fortunate of those neighbors have access to the internet even less often than I do.

About a week ago I realized that three weeks after returning to Honduras from my vacation I had yet to make it to the internet. I also checked a statistic that Google keeps for you on how often I checked my email when I was in the states. I averaged 12 times a day. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I'm very bad about self-moderation and the internet, so I find that living in a place that makes it kind of difficult to use the internet is a very good thing for me. I was thinking recently about the way I spent my free time in the states or in Honduras, and I can't help feeling that the way I spend it down here is closer to how God intended us to live... or at the very least is much healthier for me. Reading, spending time with kids, living the life that's currently around me, and occasionally maybe even having the presence of mind to reflect on my life as I'm living it... those sorts of activities seem to be much more conducive to personal growth than television and the internet. I really do have it good down here.

Anyway, the main reason I sat down at the computer this morning was to give a bit of a spotlight to Fase II (Phase II) of the Finca, so after that long digression I'm actually going to get down to it.

Probably substantially less well-known than the farm itself, Fase II is essentially the point at which our kids, some of whom have spent nearly their entire lives at the Finca, have the opportunity to go to high school in La Ceiba, a much bigger city with better academic resources than Trujillo can offer. They live in La Ceiba in a boys' and a girls' apartment under the supervision of two of our second-year long-term volunteers, Sara and David. It serves as the place in which they transition from Finca kids under constant supervision into a self-sufficient Honduran young adults.

Right now I'm sitting in a Burger King/Church's Chicken in La Ceiba, about thirty feet from the apartments. I just purchased a Biscuit Helado (a Church's Chicken biscuit covered in Strawberry syrup and with two scoops of ice cream on the sides) for 29L (lempira) or approximately $1.45. I borrowed the aforementioned Sara's computer and am taking advantage of the opportunity to pay 29 limps for the use of the free wifi provided by the place for as long as I'd like rather than going somewhere else to pay 28L per hour for internet that doesn't come with a Biscuit Helado. This is absolutely the better deal.

While I'm here at the internet, Arturo and Angel David, the two current inhabitants of the boys' apartment, are off to Pais (the Walmart-owned supermercado), to purchase food for the coming week. Afterwards they're headed to el mercado (the market) to buy cheese and then back to the apartments to make corn tortillas with which we'll be making mexican enchiladas for lunch.

I've been in La Ceiba since yesterday morning, on a trip to:

(1) Finally receive the card that shows that I'm a resident of Honduras (so I don't have to either leave the country every 90 days or apply for 30 day extensions)

(2) Drive back with Erin Lucia (Erin Bradley) to Trujillo (we're not allowed to travel alone and the person with whom she would have otherwise be traveling, Harrison, is staying in La Ceiba for the week to stay in the boys' apartment while David is on vacation in the states)

(3) See off three wonderful summer Finca missionaries, Jamie, Carolyn and Krista, who stopped in for the summer to fill in gaping holes left by long-term missionaries who've vacation in the states. These three awesome members of our community more than filled those roles! If you happen to be reading this and know any of them, please thank them for us!

(4) Hang out with Arturo, Angel David, Marina, Nolvia, and Nelly, the five teenage Finca kids living in La Ceiba.

Speaking of hanging out with Arturo and Angel David, I ought to go. They guessed they'd be done with the tortillas about 12:30 and it's already 12:50 pm. I'd need to head up there so that we can get started on the enchiladas... if not, we may not have enough time to finish both Risk and Settlers of Catan today. I knew we should've started Risk yesterday after Monopoly instead of playing ping pong on the kitchen table!

A Brief Visit Home

Disclaimer: This blog post was published in April of 2014. I started to write this blog post about 10 months ago, but since I never finished and it seems strange to me to go back and fill in where I didn't complete what I'd wanted to say, I'm just going to hit publish and rely on google's tool that allows me to pick a time and date for when it should've been published.


Hola! I'm back in the states for a brief vacation!

For Hondurans, the school year runs from February to November.

You may be wondering how those two statements are compatible. Never fear, I'm about to tell you about it.


For those of us (the missionaries) who are teachers, it turns out that pretty much the only time available to go on vacation is during the school year.

That sounds vaguely oxymoronic, but well, here I'd like to give a shout out to the University of Notre Dame's International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP), a spectacular program run by those wonderful people at the Center for Social Concerns. The ISSLP pairs ND students up with international service organizations for a summer. We're one of those organizations, and we're quite grateful to welcome two rising ND juniors(?), James and Carolyn, to the Finca for the summer.

One of those two lucky individuals is currently down in Honduras trying to decipher my extensive and probably convoluted (but hopefully completely clear) lesson plans, and is well into his or her second week of covering my classes. Thank you kind and good sir or ma'am! You are a gentleperson and a teacher of scholars.


Going on vacation means stepping away from a project that I've been heavily involved in for nearly a year. I live where I work, and as the place is quite different from the states, my thoughts on my experiences down there can often feel very much like a dream. However, stepping away can give one a different and perhaps, better, perspective.

I won't go into terrible detail on all of my thoughts regarding the Finca, primarily because most of you would be bored. As a result, I'm pulling the ol' switcheroo and changing up entirely the direction it seemed I was going. I'll instead make two lists, one of the things that I really missed and/or talked about incessantly while at the Finca, and things that I miss about the Finca now that I'm back in the states. I'll try and hit all the cliches on the head.

List #1: Things I Missed (or at least thought I did) From The States
1. Shakes (half off after 8 pm)
2. Mexican food (sounds silly but true)
3. Hot (or even mildly warm) showers (First one in ten months!)
4. My pre-finca friends (this one's accurate)
5. The ability to watch a movie whenever I so desired (turns out I don't care that much about most movies anymore)
6.



I'm back in the United States for about a month! If you'd like to talk to me during that time, feel free to shoot me an email! I'm sure if you'd like to talk to me, chances are pretty decent I'd like to talk to you as well!

Oatmeal Candy Cane Cookies

I've been unofficially reprimanded about my blog. Not by the Finca, of course, but by friends. Yes, you. You crazy people out there, with your unlimited access to the internet. I'm trying, I swear!

Having said that, one of the complaints was entirely justified. It was pointed out to me that it might be nice if the kids made it into the posts occasionally. Well said.

Taking that into consideration, first I´m going to explain what a pila is:

A pila is basically the Honduran sink. It has a relatively deep section of standing water on the left for use when we don´t have water (about 30% of the time), and a pana (basically a plastic bowl) with which to draw that water. Because we use this water to watch our dishes, we try and make sure it stays as clean as possible... aka, we don´t put anything besides the pana into it.


Sorry for that random, (not) unrelated diversion. Back to talking about getting kids into posts occasionally, here's a brief tale of some cookies:


The Scene:
The Missionary Household

The Characters:
Cati, age 7
Kimberly, age 9
Kevin #2 (also known as Kevincito or Kevincio), first year (aka inexperienced) missionary, with ganas (aka in the mood) to make his family's traditional Christmas cookies

(this probably sounds much more exiting in my head than it does on paper... I'm envisioning someone reading it in one of those voices from movie trailers)

A thought comes into young Kevin's head. "I'm going to continue the family tradition of making oatmeal candy cane cookies!" Such a simple thought.

Poor guy.

The Sala of the Missionary House, thirty minutes later.

There are now two young Casa Uno girls with Kevin, excited and eager to bake. As Kevin pulls out the supplies, the younger of the two, Cati, allows her eagerness to assist to overwhelm her. While our unsuspecting protagonist´s back is turned, our dear niña begins to spread manteca all over her hands in order to grease the mixing bowl (not explicitly necessary), a process she completes with surprising rapidity.

Suddenly overwhelmed by the uncleanliness of her hands and the recommendation of a surprised Kevin that perhaps she shouldn´t have started yet, she proceeds to the pila (see above if you weren´t paying attention) and dunks her hands into the (previously clean(ish)) water. When kindly albeit hurriedly requested to remove her hands from said location, she promptly complies, choosing instead to take the more sanitary route of grabbing an unclean cup out of the sink side and dunking it (along with her hand) into the pila, in order to obtain water with which to clean her hands.


Again caught unawares, Kevin fails to notice that behind this, Kimberly is managing to spread flour all over places that have no business having any flour spread over them, e.j. the floor, the benches, the table, and last but not least, Kimberly´s face. She also accidentally manages to get a bit into a measuring cup, so our adventurers toss that into the bowl and proceed adelante.

Cue other similar happenings for nearly two hours. Possible topics that might be discussed:

- Kimberly´s complete refusal to attempt to form the mix into bakeable items on the cookie sheets, coupled with Cati´s refusal to make her attempts look anything like candy canes ("Kevin, we´re going to bring the ones that look like candy canes back to Casa Uno. ¡You can have the ones that spell my name!").
- The disappearance of one of Kevin´s helpers and the sudden (coincidental) added ability of the hammock on the front porch to yell at him as he attempted to check on the fire in the outside oven.
- Cati´s assurances that they didn´t need to place a shovel in front of the oven to hold up the door of it, because she could do it herself, something she didn´t always remember she had agreed to do.
- Past missionary-cooking-with-Casa-Uno advice that stipulates the need to travel all the way back to Casa Uno with the girls or risk them arriving at their house with empty plates and perhaps slightly fuller stomachs. To their credit, rumors surrounding the cases of the missing cookies often conclude that they´re liable to give away a substantial number of cookies, not merely eat them all.

Anyway, copies of this book on tape (cause I´m really feeling like the voice with which it is read is key) should be available in stores near you in... shoot, I can´t think of a time period I could pick that would be humorous. Oh well.

Thanksgiving Update (right before Christmas!)

Dear Readers,

I'd like to take the time to update you on Thanksgiving... even though it's only a week before Christmas! I'm not even going to attempt to justify it either!

As the only people at the Finca that really have much of an interest in celebrating Thanksgiving (it's an American holiday after all!), the missionaries really take it upon themselves to go all out and make the day a fun one for all of us and 50 of our closest friends. Everyone split up and worked in teams on various different foods common to thanksgiving in the states; I elected the pie team. There were only two of us on the team and we had 18 pies to make, so initially it looked slightly intimidating. We'd established that we were going to make seven pumpkin, seven apple, and four pecan pies, and a buying trip to San Pedro Sula the week before insured that (nearly) all of our supplies arrived on time. Unfortunately, due to a translation mishap, that didn't include corn syrup for the pecan pies. We received regular maple syrup instead, so we decided to just mix a bunch of sugar and water on the stove instead. After about eight hours of pie-making the day before (when we finished all seven of our pumpkin pies) and perhaps eight hours the day of, we finished the last of the pecan pies right before we served the pies at the end of dinner. This wasn't without help, derived from several of the retirees and some of our past Finca volunteers that were visiting for the weekend.
My favorite part of the baking process was a stressful moment when our sugar and water mixture failed to actually turn into corn syrup. I just might've panicked and chosen to dump a whole bottle of maple syrup into the pecan pie mixture instead.
Fun fact: That works! As someone jokingly commented, they weren't sure whether they were going to be eating a thanksgiving dinner or a pancake breakfast, but other than the maple smell that filled the house right before the feast, it worked like a charm!

During this time, the rest of the house was busy preparing the rolls, the turkey (s!), the stuffing, the green bean casserole, you name it. Basically everything that we wouldn't be able to have in Honduras that reminded you of Thanksgiving was there, and it only cost about $18 a missionary to buy enough supplies for all of the 60-ish people that came. I suppose that's kinda a lot for one meal, but when it's a once in a year deal, I'd say it was worth it.

During the baking process there was even a scheduled short break for an american flag football game mixed in... during which I played quarterback for one of the teams and scored the game losing touchdown on the last play! We lost 21-14 (or 3-2), but our team had the ball last. My stats included one passing touchdown (a pass of about 5 yards that my receiver (Harrison) did a great job to turn into 60) and one interception to go along with the trick play touchdown reception that ended the game.


I gotta run, so I can't talk about anything more at the present time, but Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas to y'all from the Finca!

So, it turns out that it is much more difficult than I originally thought to make it to a computer and write a blog post down here. En todos modos "down here" is no longer referring to my comfortable language school location of Antigua, Guatemala, but rather the Finca! Our trip to just outside of Trujillo, Honduras went quite smoothly, with very little to note. We briefly stopped in La Ceiba to visit Fase II, where the Finca kids who have graduated and matured enough attend high school. That was a cool introduction to what we have set up there... a look into the future of the kids I'll be working with on a more immediate basis.
[Here you might ask, "oh yeah, Kevin, you mentioned you'd be doing something but weren't sure what yet! What are you doing?" I might respond with: ]
Oh yeah! For those of you who don't already know (which is nearly everybody except my parents and siblings (in fact, it might actually be exactly everybody except for them)), I'll be teaching math and computer classes at the colegio for the coming year. The math classes will be seventh through ninth grades, while I'll be teaching computer classes to first through ninth.

So... this is silly, because I finally decided to type a blog post, but we're currently in the middle of rainy season, it's looking like it's going to rain like crazy on me, and I'm a ten minute walk away from the farm. Plus, I'm using somebody else's computer which I'll have to carry back in the rain if I don't leave real quick. So I'm only gonna say this much and ditch!

I hope all are well back in the states!

Que se vaya bien!

- Kevin

P.S. I have my address! Here it is:

Kevin Mader

Finca del Nino
Apartado Postal #110
Trujillo, Colon
Honduras, Central America
cough- SEND ME MAIL! -endcough
Just in case you get bored enough to send me some snail mail... which I would highly encourage, by the way. Since I have limited access to the internet, I'm going to make a deal with y'all. If you snail-mail me, I will definitely get back to you, because it means that you are committing to the same level of effort to keep in touch with me as I am with you, whereas correspondence via email is so difficult for us at times that I can't guarantee response to everyone. My apologies for this... it's just so hard to get to a computer (with internet) here.

Hey guys!

Remember that time when I had a blog that I was updating often?! Nope, neither do I.

Well never fear! Here I am, still alive and kicking nearly a month after my last post. In the last few weekends we´ve had quite a bit of excitement. What with a tornado knocking the entire city´s power out, the massive amount of rain we had that broke the pipes and left us without any water for an entire day (and then several more evenings that week), the eruption of the Volcan de Fuego (that´s "fire" for you really gringo peeps) over the past weekend (resulting in the evactuation of about 33,000 people) and the arrest of the mayor of Antigua yesterday morning on corruption charges (including stealing multiple million Quetzales from the government), we´ve had our fair share of both natural and unnatural excitement.

This weekend we are also celebrating Guatemala`s independence from España, a celebration the people of Guatemala take far more seriously than we do en los Estados Unidos (if you´re like me, you´re thinking, "Well obviously! Why would people from the US care about Guatemala`s independence?"). Today we participated in a 20 15 14 16(?) km (they kept changing the distance on us) run from a neighboring town that had a couple of double r`s in it (I had to ask the name of the town twelve times and still can´t remember) all the way back to Antigua (while at certain points carrying a torch). Maybe eventually I´ll find a picture of it?

I should also talk a lot about both the retreat the missionaries attended a couple weekends ago and our trip last weekend to Semuc Champey, Lanquin, and Coban, but I´m out of time at the moment... more on that later!