PICTURES!

My pictures are all online finally!

Check them out here:

\http://julieshondurastrip.shutterfly.com/

Rushing, waiting, and finally arriving

What a mess of a morning! Here was the original plan: leave Peña Blanca at 9:30, get to San Pedro with enough time to run into a store and then get to the airport with an hour (which they said was enough time and I was trusting them since they've done it many times before) to until I left. Well, things didn't go like that. I went over the to tech school at 8:00 and couldn't print or fax my boarding pass to myself (the printing failed, I couldn't find the button to turn the fax machine on and then I didn't know how to ask how to turn it on in Spanish). Then I realized that the $30 required departure tax from Honduras could only be paid in cash. I of course did not bring any bank cards with me and only had about $15 left (I did have a credit card though). So that meant we'd have to stop by a bank as well. I bolted back to the house around 8:45 and called Susan to tell her what was happening. I asked if we needed to leave a bit earlier and she agreed. However, she then told me that she told Dago to be at the house at 9:00 and she had to talk to the workers for like 15 minutes (which basically equates out to us leaving at 9:30 like we originally planned). I sat in the house and waited around 9:00 and once it got to be around 9:20 and still no one was there, Karl suggested we walk to the office to get them to call anyone who might be able help. As we walked there, I saw Susan outside the office and about 3 minutes later, I saw Dago drive in the gate. I got loaded up and then Susan went inside to talk to someone and Dago popped the hood to put water in the car. I almost had a heart attack because it was already past 9:30! We ended up getting out of the town around 9:40 and I took video of the bumps and curves driving out of Peña Blanca. It's pretty funny because the bumps were so massive that my camera does this big jump every time we went over one. It's fairly funny to watch. We ended up not having time to stop by a store (which I figured would happen) but it was ok since I bought two little bags of beans yesterday in town. And of course, we didn't have time to stop by a bank either. I ended up having to borrow L500 from Dago which I will either send back down to him or give to him when he comes to Dallas next month. As I was walking to the ticket counter, someone asked if I wanted my suitcase wrapped in plastic (it is a service at the airport). Too bad I couldn't say, "Why on earth would I" in Spanish! I got in line and was behind a group of like 12 people. I had another heart attack after I realized how slow the ticket counter people were moving and how they kept calling the elite members first. I stood in the same spot for 15 minutes. I got up to the counter around 11:10 (my flight was at 11:55) and I had to wait for her to print my ticket since there was some printer issue. Finally, I had my boarding pass and thought I was in the clear. I didn't have any time to look around the stores in the airport since I bolted upstairs to security. I paid my departure tax and then got in line for the security checkpoint. There was a line of about 15 people and it was moving slow because there was one metal detector for us all to go through (plus they had to stamp our departure tax receipt). I made it through and walked very fast to the gate and got on the plane. It ended up that there were only like 6 people on the plane so far. There's the Honduran pace of life again. People slowly filtered on from 11:30-11:50 and we took off on time. Fortunately, it wasn't completely full and the middle seat by me was empty. Unfortunately, I was sitting by someone who was either blind or just not very smart because he kept hitting my foot with the seatback pocket and not even acknowledging that he did that. There were quite a few Hondurans on the flight, some of which had never flown before and they didn't know where to put their bags or how to sit when the seatbelt sign is on (one guy got up and was standing in the aisle talking to his friend during our ascent). We had sandwiches for lunch and watched Music and Lyrics and then we landed. I went through immigration very quickly (lots of kiosks unlike my arrival in San Pedro Sula) and went to claim my bags. Then I cleared immigration, rechecked my bag and looked into getting into an earlier flight. The earlier flight was booked so I spent the next 3 hours or so meandering up and down the same terminal in Houston. I went to the bookstore a few times but didn't buy any books and I bought a piece of cookie cake since I had been craving something sweet for awhile. About 20 minutes before we were supposed to board, I grabbed a croissant sandwich that I could eat on the plane. We started to board around 6:45 pm and the flight attendants tried to hurry since apparently there were a lot of planes taking off and we didn't want to get stuck in line. Well, sure enough, we got stuck in line. At least 15 planes (and trust me, I'm not exaggerating) took off ahead of us as we just sat there in the middle of the runway. We finally got off 30 minutes later and managed to be only a few minutes late into Dallas. Then, my bag was already waiting for me which was nice but a bit weird. I quickly made it out of the airport and back home since Jacob was there to get me. I did a couple of loads of laundry late that night in order to eliminate any possible scabies transfer, hopped in the shower, and then laid down in my comfy bed feeling refreshed and not sticky for the first time in two weeks!

TOTAL number of Honduras pictures: 521

The last Honduras post :(

The ants come out when it rains and they are like twice the size of Texas fire ants. There was a massive downpour tonight that I got stuck in, fortunately with my raincoat though (even though my shorts got soaked). I actually woke up from a nap when the storm started since the thunder was so loud it was nearly shaking the house. I came back in around 7:30 and watched Lost in Translation on my laptop. I've seen it before and thought I could get more clarity the second time around (didn't happen though). Then Karl and I watched The Constant Gardener (another second timer for me) and just now, I'm beginning to get to know Karl a little better. Rather than being as weird as I thought, he has a sort of naïve idealism. I think he's kind of loosened up around me due to all our talks and I think I've also loosened up and settled into myself in general here, with everyone. I was very quiet when I first got here and now my energetic personality is beginning to come out. So next time, I should be able to start with the real me rather than end with the real me! It's midnight now and I'm off to sweaty bed. I'm pretty much all packed up. I just need to shower in the morning, pack up my mosquito net and my toiletries, send this last email, pack up my laptop, and then I'll be ready. So I say both goodnight and farewell from my last email/post in Honduras since the next I write will be from Houston prob. (if I have time after clearing customs) or from home!

Adios mis amigos!

Any plans?

I went out around 5:00 to see if people were going to get dinner yet and I saw Dago and Susan pulling into the office area with all the supplies they bought in San Pedro today. Them coming back that late also meant that the jeans never got distributed today either. I'm going to talk to Susan about it in the morning and email Anita tomorrow night to let her know that needs to be taken care of. Hopefully someone can take care of it and will get them to everyone who needs them, not just the construction workers. Poor Dago had to drive into San Pedro today and is going to have to drive again tomorrow. I feel like sometimes he has to pick up the slack from others, like do all the errands and what not. Even if he might not mind, it doesn't seem like that's his job and that it's fair to him.

We talked about when we were going to leave for the airport in the morning and I'm pretty leery since I've noticed a major pattern of running late. We're aiming at leaving around 9:30 so we can get into San Pedro around 10:30 (which gives me like 15 minutes to run into a store and then head to the airport to get there an hour before I leave). I'm not crazy about how rushed that seems so my underlying plan is to make sure everyone knows I'm ready around 8:00 in hopes that I can get us out early. I'm going to try to get baleadas around 9:00 and then leave. I'm going to head to the tech school around 8:00, print my boarding pass there, and then call Susan to basically hint that I'm all packed up and my stuff is waiting at the house (a wink, wink, let's get moving kind of statement). After we figured out the time, I got dinner (which was almost cold spaghetti, beans, rice, and tortillas) and then went to take better pictures of the new dorm construction. I was probably not supposed to go all in and up to the second floor but I did. The side that I think is finished was locked so I couldn't get any good shots of that. I did manage to get some good pictures of the unfinished rooms and bathrooms though.

Tutoring and sunburning

Karen came over to me again to help her with her math and phonics stuff. I think her mom got books from the states because it's all in English and that's why she brought it to me so I could kind of tell her what to do. I pulled up my numbers in Spanish just in case I forgot a few and all was good. While Karen was working, we lost power again in Peña Blanca but it was only for about 10 minutes this time. Plus, it started raining again. It looked like it was coming down hard but in reality, it was pretty light. Karen took my camera and started taking pictures of everything and then I managed to get it back from her and I headed out in the rain to get back home. Karl was there doing some work and left a few minutes before me on bike. When I got back home, I realized I have this massive sunburn on the back of my neck, which I kind of assumed I had earlier since it hurt when I scratched it. I guess it was from my whopping 15 minute walk around Peña Blanca. It's amazing that I'm just now getting burned after two weeks here. I guess I've been in the shade for the most part since there are trees everywhere.

Nectar

I'm eating baleadas again and I've just decided two things: 1) the queso baleadas are not as good (and it's not liquid queso, it's just regular cheese) and 2) when they aren't fresh, they're not as good either. I'm hanging around for Dago to get back from San Pedro so we can go give the clothes to the workers. By the way, I forgot to mention earlier that my two pouches of beans and pineapple nectar cost me L32. That's a whopping $1.60 for beans and a canned drink. Speaking of which, I think I might go back down and get a few more nectars. I'm pretty thirsty and I want juice flavor rather than just water

Just got two more nectars, pear and peach (melacotón). Both were pretty good.

C.E.A. is the school where the kids here go I think. I just saw Karen's shirt and kind of put two and two together.

I found my courage in Peña Blanca

It's still pretty humid outside (and I guess inside too) that some of my shirts I washed yesterday morning still aren't dry. I think I just have one more I'm waiting on before I'm done getting all my clothes back in my suitcase. I went to take a few more pictures around the campus (of the inside of the church, some paths, and the young children). Then I finally had some guts and walked into the main part of Peña Blanca to see some of the mini-super mercados BY MYSELF! I went into most of them down a side street and the main street and I bought two pouches of red beans (that would prob. taste so good on nachos) and a nectar de piña (pineapple nectar). I saw my guard buddy and I walked around one of the mercados with him. I had already gone in once before so one of the guys came up and asked me in English if I was looking for anything specific and just couldn't find it. On the way down there and back, I got the usual catcalls like guys yelling gringa at me or making kissing sounds my direction. I'm glad I had dark sunglasses on so I could privately roll my eyes at them without drawing anymore attention to what they were doing. There are lots of students around the town area since there are quite a few schools here. There's the tech school here, the Canada school and the C.E.A. (don't know what that stands for). Everyone wears uniforms and even though they're different depending on the school, mostly the boys wear black pants with the school shirt (collared) and girls wear black pleated skirts with the school shirt.

Haha, I just got into the tech school and the guys in the desk across from Dago's desk are watching a video online that goes to a Backstreet Boys song. It's pretty funny to walk in here and hear that playing in English and then to hear other people singing along!