Take Two

Thursday January 14th 2010 1:00pm

I apologize for not writing over the past month or so, but I feel as though this blog is mainly for my Honduras experiences. "But you got back to Honduras a week ago!" I know, I know. And not to give excuses, but I still don´t have a functioning computer at my apartment, and until late yesterday afternoon, we did not have internet in the office.

Rather than breaking down every day as I had been, I figure that it might be somewhat easier to sum up the past week.

After my plane from DC was late getting into Houston, I arrived at my gate only 10 minutes before take off for my international flight. Amazingly, they hadn´t closed the doors yet, and I was able to board. Unfortunately, I knew that the close shave on my passengerdom for my flight to Tegucigalpa probably meant that my baggage would be coming in on the next flight.

Amazingly enough, after I passed through customs, my baggage was drifting merrily along the belt waiting for me to pick it up. I quickly picked up my luggage, headed outside, hailed a taxi, and was home within minutes. I took most of the rest of the day to nap, unpack, and get readjusted.

The rest of the weekend was spent grocery shopping, reading, and being disappointed by the Bengals. I don´t even want to talk about it.

On Sunday night, I went over to Freddy´s for a little bit to play some video games with some of the guys, and we all caught up about our Christmas breaks.

Monday and Tuesday at work, we didn´t have internet. The organization hadn´t gotten some money that was supposed to be forwarded from some bank to a Honduran bank, and so once again, the employees were without paycheck and we were without internet or water.

We had a meeting, where Freddy urged everyone to use their vacation time. I thought it was an odd request, and found it even odder to see the fallen faces of my Honduran peers who would rather come to work than take their vacations. It wasn´t because they didn´t have paid vacations, because they did. Heidy later noticed the confusion on my face and came up to talk with me about it. She explained that most people here would rather be at work than at home for various reasons. For some, the office is in a better neighborhood. For others, they don´t get along with their families. Some don´t have access to internet in their communities, and being at work keeps them informed.

Heidy went on to explain that she hadn´t taken a vacation in three years, and was not looking forward to somehow using up the six weeks of vacation that she had accumulated. This attitude towards vacations is something that I don´t think that I will ever be able to fully comprehend.

Throughout the week, I still came to the office, though without internet, most of my work was crippled. I took the time to finish up some reading, and got through a few books that I had gotten for Christmas. I finished Three Cups of Tea, On Dangerous Ground, and The Broken Teaglass, all between Sunday night and Wednesday afternoon. I´m currently working my way through The God Delusion, which my grandad is letting me borrow. I make mental notes for my arguments to some of the points, but really really want to write in the margins. I kind of got used to that during my time at Bethany, and almost marked my grandad´s book up with some pretty permanent markers.

We have a group that is scheduled to come in a couple of weeks, and Felix Ortiz, (my boss from the US) is coming down with them. It will be good to see Felix again, and I´m very excited to work with my first group.

My time between now and then will largely be spent working with Marisela preparing for the group´s pending arrival.

It has been very different to come back here. I´m not sure how to articulate how it is different, or expand on those feelings, but I know that it is different.

Again, I apologize for not taking time to pound out an entry at an internet cafe, but I´m glad I got the chance to update today. Please feel free to comment, message me, or send me an email. I would love to hear about how your lives are going. Keep me up to date with the States.