Monday morning and ready to go again to a far away Sico, to the Colonia San Alonso. Everything what is needed is in my bag; camera, recorder for the interviews, vicks for the tick bites, some spray to get rid of the mosquitoes, good shoes, coffee and an attitude to survive. We are doubting whether we should go as the wheather cast has promised heavy rain. We (our driver Vidal and I) take the risk as we have loads of work to do there. The trip starts well and even the rivers are very shallow at this time of the year.
After about 7 hours of pumpy road we finally reach the Colonia San Alonso and its campesinos. It is wonderful to see these people again. Somehow I feel like going home. Again, German, Irma and their 6 children open their home to us. I do the round to see how the proyect is going, make interviews and finally I relax by the fire with the family. I am offered delicious coffee, rise, beans and tortillas. The children are getting more and more used to us visitors and everyone is laughing. Later our hosts tell that there are vampires around. The mother is peeling the beans and the girl holds a candle for her. German continues the story. Many nights the vampire has entered houses and has biten toes, legs and arms. So far no-one has been killed. We start to get uneasy. The light of the candle reflects shadows to the wall. Suddenly German screams and starts to run, we all agree to do the same. "A cocroach!" he laughs, "a cocroach jumped on my ear!". We all look at him silently and little by little we chuckle nerviously. The story continues and finally we understand that the vampire is a small bat. It is so small and fast that one can hardly see it. Yet it does bite hard. Finally we go to sleep and the family leaves one candle on so that the vampire wouldn´t enter. I check that there are no scorpios or other uninvited guests in my bed or nearby walls and we all fall asleep. At night I wake up and I follow how the candle starts to get smaller and smaller, finally there is only darkness. I try to cover myself better. Finally dreams win the fear and I fall asleep.
Next day we wake up at 5.30 am as is the habit in these communities. It has been raining strongly the whole night. We start to get worried. The family offers us some breakfast (some coffee, rise and beans) and they open the radio just for a moment as it wears out battery very fast. Tocoa is in a bad state as the river has floded badly and it has broke down the major bridge. We get even more worried for the sake of our friends. Luckily Manu is in Tegus so I know he is ok. We hear a message sent to us from the director of the foundation that we shouldn´t move. The rain might continue for 8 days and all north coast is flooding. We can´t send any message that we are fine as in Sico the mobile phones are useless. We analise the situation and as a good honduran would do we calm down and adjust to the situation. Colonia San Alonso is guite high in the mountains so the situation is calm. We drive until the first flooding river to see if anyone needs help. There is no-one except a dead cow. We go back and in the end we spend 4 days in this place. The good part is that this way we got to know better the family and the life of the campesinos. I also got a new friend, a small parrot, who almost learned to say "pusu". The days passed by little by little. I learned to prepare tortillas and how to use machete, a sword that they use for everything. They were days full of stories, laughter, closeness, rise, beans and coffee.
