A typical day in La Gringa's life

It's a good life

I awake to the cool breeze with the scent of jasmine blossoms wafting through the windows. After my personal maid brings my coffee and helps me to dress, the cook prepares my breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast and the newspaper, I go over the day's menu with cook.

While it is still cool in the morning, I stroll around the garden, giving the gardener instructions on what he needs to attend to today. I also point out the flowers I would like cut for my daily fresh flower arrangements. Rafael is completely converted to organic gardening and has thrown away his machete because he appreciates how much better everything looks when trimmed by hand. For fertilizer, his assistants collect fresh seaweed that has washed up along the shore.

While I'm strolling the grounds, Paula, the laundress, places all the freshly laundered and ironed clothing away so as not to disturb me. Paula is a gem and I feel that all of my designer clothing will last years longer with her caring for them by hand.

By then it is starting to warm up and I'm a little tired, so I lounge in the hammock and read while our other maid, Suyapa, prepares a fresh drink either with fruit picked from one of my many tropical fruit trees or iced tea with freshly picked lemons, lightly sweetened, just the way I like it.

Suitably refreshed, I then go to check my email and spend a few productive minutes on the internet in which I answer all of my email and update my blogicito with fascinating, timely articles. Before I know it, it's lunchtime!

Cook does a wonderful job preparing healthy, delicious, but low-fat meals always using seafood fresh from the ocean and fruits, vegetables, and herbs picked that very morning. I feel as if I am in a health spa every single day.

After lunch I usually like to swim for a while in our Olympic size pool. The cabana boy is very attentive and the very second that I get out of the pool, he has a fresh towel and a cold cocktail ready for me. No one makes a piña colada like Javier.

Some afternoons I go to town to shop in one of the many fine designer boutiques we have here in La Ceiba. I had to give up the Rolls because I thought it was just too pretentious for Honduras, but my driver has really grown to like the BMW.

La Ceiba is a small town, so every now and then, Bob, our helicopter pilot, flies us to San Pedro for more serious shopping. It is a bit of an extravagance to keep Bob on staff, so he doubles as guard to keep the riffraff away and to confiscate the annoying cell phones of all visitors.

Later in the afternoon, the housekeeper comes to tell me what she has accomplished today. Of course, her work is always impeccable. I never even have to check and her ability to schedule her work so that I am never disturbed is just beyond belief! Once, I did find a dust mote on my computer screen. She was severely chastised and I feel certain that it will never happen again.

Trying to assimilate into the Honduras culture as best I can, I generally like to take a siesta in the afternoon, just to show the staff that I am one of the people. Of course, in this heat, it is easier to doze off if Javier is gently fanning me with a fresh cut palm leaf.

Evenings are generally spent chatting on the terraza with another cool, refreshing drink. Rafael's staff have surrounded the terraza with citronella and other beautiful insect-repelling plants so we never have to worry about mosquito bites.

We generally go to bed early so that the staff can finish their work in peace on into the night. Occasionally we go to one of the many stimulating cultural events in town, but you know what that means! I'll have to sleep late the next morning and how on earth will I be able to get all my daily work done?

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And then I wake up and go make the coffee. ;-D


The pictures are real. The story? Well .... what do you think?