Six days a week and I feel Splenda
I guess I should have done my research. Toncotin Tegucigala airport is notorious for its short landing strip and the fact it’s right in the middle of the city. It’s the second shortest landing strip of any international airport. They don’t do night landings there for a good reason. I also read today that a couple nearby streets are closed off when a big plane lands, just in case the plane should overshoot the runway.
There happened to be a huge group of college students on my plane who were going for a week long mission trip. The girl at the end of the row was seriously freaking out, while the guy next to me hovered uncomfortably close and recorded the whole thing on his video-camera (I had the window seat). I couldn’t see any landing strip, much less an airport. All I saw were rooftops from shacks in every direction. Everyone clapped when we landed, which is a pretty common practice among Latinos, but this was different, I think everyone was overjoyed at the fact we didn’t wipe out any villages on our approach.
My current residence is a hospital room and my daily sustenance is 3 hospital meals. It’s really not bad, I have cable and hot water, and internet on one side of the hospital. I’m also learning the versatility of refried beans. I have them at least twice a day. Sometimes for breakfast with corn tortillas, or with rice, or in between a wheat tortilla, or a refried bean and cheese sandwich, I have to admit, the last one wasn’t that great. But I am eating a lot of fruit, that’s always good. Two girls from Argentina are due to arrive in a few weeks, and then all three of us will be moving to a hospital owned house on a hill. They highly suggested I didn’t move in until my roommates arrived, they thought I might be scared. I scoffed at them and told them I wasn’t scared, I lived in Sao Tome with rats and crabs crawling on my room. But then I saw the house. I think I’ll wait until they get here. It’s kinda dark, big and secluded, and most importantly, I have an over active imagination. I’m sure living with them will improve my Spanish, I’m doing okay, but my grammar seriously sucks. There was a little 8 year-old girl that did the children’s story at church on Sabbath, and I was jealous of her speaking skills. And listening to everything in Spanish, much less speaking it all the time is really exhausting, my brain is on over-drive from all this concentration.
So last night while I was checking my email in the hall this dude asked where I was from and we got to talking. It ends up that he’s staying at the hospital and keeping his sickly grandfather company. He then proceeds to tell me that he has snuck into U.S illegally, twice, just for kicks and giggles. At first I think he’s pulling my chain, but apparently he’s not. The second time, he got caught and deported. Now they have his name on record and he can’t go back legally for 10 years, and until he sends an apology. Do you know how many people risk their lives to enter the U.S for more legitimate reasons than to “have an adventure”?
Today I got to see something new: what 6:30 AM on a Sunday morning looks like. I can’t remember the last time I saw that. Here in Honduras people work 6 days a week. I wept bitterly when I discovered this. Okay, not really, but I was disappointed . I saw all my hopes and dreams of exploring the country on the weekends shattered before me like crushed eggshells. I’ll have to do some negotiating, maybe one free weekend a month? Dare I suggest 2?
In other, more important news, they have Splenda in this country! I was taken to the main mall in Teguc (pronounced teh-goose, short for Tegucigalpa) on Friday afternoon because I had to exchange money and I got to hang out with 2 teenage girls with perfect English. They kept singing along to Lady Gaga songs in the car, it was funny, they knew every word. This mall is like the nicest one in the country, and it had really expensive American stores and numerous coffee shops, I felt like I was in L.A. I saw two upper-class Honduran women sipping their espresso’s and dumping in Splenda. So when I run out of my stash, I can buy some here! It’s kinds sad how happy that made me. This is not the Honduras I was expecting, not the Honduras I saw 4 years ago. But then again, it was one place in the whole country, one small segment of the entire population. Don’t worry people, I’m not living it up here, I’m sure I’ll have another refried bean concoction tomorrow.
-tuna, over and out.
There happened to be a huge group of college students on my plane who were going for a week long mission trip. The girl at the end of the row was seriously freaking out, while the guy next to me hovered uncomfortably close and recorded the whole thing on his video-camera (I had the window seat). I couldn’t see any landing strip, much less an airport. All I saw were rooftops from shacks in every direction. Everyone clapped when we landed, which is a pretty common practice among Latinos, but this was different, I think everyone was overjoyed at the fact we didn’t wipe out any villages on our approach.
My current residence is a hospital room and my daily sustenance is 3 hospital meals. It’s really not bad, I have cable and hot water, and internet on one side of the hospital. I’m also learning the versatility of refried beans. I have them at least twice a day. Sometimes for breakfast with corn tortillas, or with rice, or in between a wheat tortilla, or a refried bean and cheese sandwich, I have to admit, the last one wasn’t that great. But I am eating a lot of fruit, that’s always good. Two girls from Argentina are due to arrive in a few weeks, and then all three of us will be moving to a hospital owned house on a hill. They highly suggested I didn’t move in until my roommates arrived, they thought I might be scared. I scoffed at them and told them I wasn’t scared, I lived in Sao Tome with rats and crabs crawling on my room. But then I saw the house. I think I’ll wait until they get here. It’s kinda dark, big and secluded, and most importantly, I have an over active imagination. I’m sure living with them will improve my Spanish, I’m doing okay, but my grammar seriously sucks. There was a little 8 year-old girl that did the children’s story at church on Sabbath, and I was jealous of her speaking skills. And listening to everything in Spanish, much less speaking it all the time is really exhausting, my brain is on over-drive from all this concentration.
So last night while I was checking my email in the hall this dude asked where I was from and we got to talking. It ends up that he’s staying at the hospital and keeping his sickly grandfather company. He then proceeds to tell me that he has snuck into U.S illegally, twice, just for kicks and giggles. At first I think he’s pulling my chain, but apparently he’s not. The second time, he got caught and deported. Now they have his name on record and he can’t go back legally for 10 years, and until he sends an apology. Do you know how many people risk their lives to enter the U.S for more legitimate reasons than to “have an adventure”?
Today I got to see something new: what 6:30 AM on a Sunday morning looks like. I can’t remember the last time I saw that. Here in Honduras people work 6 days a week. I wept bitterly when I discovered this. Okay, not really, but I was disappointed . I saw all my hopes and dreams of exploring the country on the weekends shattered before me like crushed eggshells. I’ll have to do some negotiating, maybe one free weekend a month? Dare I suggest 2?
In other, more important news, they have Splenda in this country! I was taken to the main mall in Teguc (pronounced teh-goose, short for Tegucigalpa) on Friday afternoon because I had to exchange money and I got to hang out with 2 teenage girls with perfect English. They kept singing along to Lady Gaga songs in the car, it was funny, they knew every word. This mall is like the nicest one in the country, and it had really expensive American stores and numerous coffee shops, I felt like I was in L.A. I saw two upper-class Honduran women sipping their espresso’s and dumping in Splenda. So when I run out of my stash, I can buy some here! It’s kinds sad how happy that made me. This is not the Honduras I was expecting, not the Honduras I saw 4 years ago. But then again, it was one place in the whole country, one small segment of the entire population. Don’t worry people, I’m not living it up here, I’m sure I’ll have another refried bean concoction tomorrow.
-tuna, over and out.
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