The Group From Memphis

Sunday February 22nd 2010 3:15pm

Last week began with some ridiculously poor planning, and ended up with one of the "group I'll never forget."

Saturday 13th

The group was flying into San Pedro Sula (SPS) which is roughly 6 hours away from Tegucigalpa, depending entirely on the traffic, and how long one gets stuck at the part of the cross country highway that is only one way. With the flight scheduled to arrive at 11:30, we planned to leave Tegucigalpa at 5am, and head straight from there, hoping that our early departure would save us from most of the traffic, and having to wait for very long at the one way part of the highway. I had repeatedly asked Marisela to make sure Rueben, our driver, and Elmer, who was going to drive a truck up to SPS and take all the luggage, but everyone's overnight bags back to Tegucigalpa. She assured me that everything was ready for the week.

I was down on the street waiting until 5:15 before I called Rueben, who was supposed to pick me up. Apparently, there had been a miscommunication between him and Elmer as to where they were meeting, and Rueben was going to pick up Marisela and then come pick me up. At 5:45, I called again to find out that Marisela wasn't ready yet. By 6:15, I was picked up, and perturbed, though I was sure the lack of sleep didn't help.

We stopped to get gas outside of the city, and I couldn't help but wonder why we didn't run in and grab a quick breakfast. When I asked, Marisela and Rueben kind of chuckled at the idea. "Its because we don't enjoy those kind of breakfasts. We'll stop later and have a sit down breakfast." I really wanted to slightly raise my voice and say, "Excuse me? We are already an hour late, and IF we make good time, then we might make it to the airport by the time they get through customs!" Instead, I remembered the Event-Oriented and not Time-Oriented schedule that Honduras runs on. I went ahead and got some breakfast snacks at the gas station, got back in the car, and slept most of the way to SPS.

The breakfast place where we stopped to eat was actually pretty quick, and I suppose we didn't lose very much time off of the road.

This was my first time at the SPS airport, and I found it very similar to the one in Tegucigalpa. It was very small, easy to get into and out of, and the parking lot was right next to the terminal. We arrived right on time for the flight to land, and waited for our group to arrive at 11:30am. And we waited. And waited. Marisela went up to a security guard after all of the passengers had left and it was close to 1:00pm. We were informed that there was still one group that hadn't quite gotten through yet due to some passport issues.

Half an hour later, the group of seven from the Memphis area emerged from the security area of the airport. There should have been eight. One of them, a former pastor from the church who had visited Honduras several times before hadn't renewed his passport, and it was set to expire in 30 days. How he got all the way to Honduras before someone caught that, I do not know. When security had finished with him and the group, armed guards marched him right onto a plane heading for New York City. I never met Tom.

There was another guy flying in from Miami, so Marisela checked his flight schedule while we were at the airport, and found that one of his flights had been delayed and wouldn't get in until 6pm. So, we took the group out to eat, and drove around part of the city for a little bit trying to kill time. We stopped in a mall, and I got to meet some of the group. There were four adults, all of whom had been to Honduras around six or seven times, and three teenagers. Colton was 13 and came only because his friend Joseph made him. Joseph was 14, and I'll be talking more about him later. Abby was 15, and it was her dad who couldn't come through into the country. She was pretty upset about it, and understandably so. In a very weird way, she reminded me of my favorite sister, Susan. She was tall, had a big dimple on one cheek, and had very similar mannerisms to Susan's.

We got back to the airport around 5:30ish, to find Robert, our last group member already waiting outside. Robert was Abby's uncle, and Tommy's brother and was sad to hear that he wouldn't be spending the week with his brother. Abby asked him how long he had been waiting outside, and it had only been about two and a half hours. Thats right. Two and a half hours. Marisela had checked with the wrong airline. Robert's plane got in right on time at 2:30pm. I felt so badly for him.

From the airport, we drove on to Copan Ruins, which was the diversion activity that the group had picked. The ruines are left over from the Mayan culture, and are about two hours west of SPS, and only about three km away from the Guatemalan border. On our way, Joseph made a lot of remarks, such as, "I hope I see someone get shot," or, "I wonder how many drug addicts there are here." One of the adults, Matt, who is Joseph's grandfather, explained to me about some of Joseph's rough upbringing. Throughout the week Joseph would make lude, homophobic, sexist, and rascist remarks, but Matt did a very good job of correct him, and the adults all let us know about how much better Joseph has been and the progress that he has made since moving in with Matt about a year and a half prior to the trip.

Our hotel looked very inviting to a group of people who had been up since the early hours of the morning, but food was apparently even more inviting than a bed to some of the group. So we headed out into the night in search for an open restaurant. After eating, we made it back to the hotel around midnight, and all passed out.


Sunday 14th

With breakfast at 8am, we were up early, and done eating by 9. We took until 10:00 to walk around the village of Copan, buying odd trinkets and souvenirs, before we headed over to the ruines themselves. This was my first trip to the ruines, and I loved them. The history, and the symbolism in alot of the architecture was incredible to me. I understand that it may not fascinate most people, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even got to use some of my Biblical Archaeology class to answer the questions from our tour guide. Acropolis means "high city". Most buildings have some sort of association with death if they face the west (sunset) and with life if they face the east (sunrise). Maybe this college thing will come in handy.

The rest of the day was spent riding back to Tegucigalpa. We left around 1:00, and got to Monte Carmelo around 9:00. From there, I had to drive Marisela into the city because she hadn't packed for the whole week.


Monday 15th

I woke up in my apartment at 6:00, and drove to pick up Marisela (who surprisingly was not ready yet) before heading up to Mounte Carmelo for breakfast with the group.

After breakfast, we loaded up all of the luggage, and drove off to Talanga. The group drove with Rueben in the 15 passenger van, and I drove the luggage in La Batalla. Robert offered to ride over with me, and we had a good talk on our way over there. He didn't really know any of the people in the group, apart from his neice, before the trip, and we were able to relate throughout the week. Also throughout the week, Matt, and a few of the other adults kept assuring me that they would be the "most unforgettable group." To me, that is like someone saying, "I'm a funny person." If you truly are funny, there should be no need to say it.

When we got to Talanga, it took us all of the morning to get organized. After lunch, we headed out to begin the work. Paula and Deb, the two adult women from the group, worked with Marisela on painting some of the buildings. The rest of us headed out to where a chicken coup was being built. Matt, Greg (the other adult), and the kids used La Batalla to shuttle roughly 500 cement blocks to the work site. I stayed with Robert and served as a translator as we worked with Leno, the mason, and Fausto our security guard who apparently has a background in construction. The four of us set the foundation for the storage facility for the chicken coup.

My main job was cement mixing. Cement mixing in Honduras is done on the ground with shovels, dirt, rocks, an 80 lb bag of cement mixture, and an eyeballed amount of water. Its great.
We called it a day around 4:00, and I the kids from the group start a game of soccer with the kids from the technical schools, which had just let out. The kids got to see first hand how good Honduran youth were at soccer. That being said, they were all very impressed with how well Abby played (usually because girls don't get the chance to play that often, and she was able to hold her own against the boys). This of course was very upsetting to Joseph and Colton who lashed out with their own less than glamorous remarks, but they were quickly curtailed by Matt.
Dinner was delicious, and everyone showered and soon went to bed after that.


Tuesday 16th - Thursday 18th

The rest of the week was pretty much our version of Groundhog's Day. We got up, ate, went to work, ate, worked some more, played soccer, ate, showered, went to bed. Most of the week, I spent mixing mortar for laying the blocks. The building was 10 blocks by 10 blocks by 10 blocks. By the end of Thursday, we had finished most all of it, but were called in early to help celebrate Colton's birthday. The cooks had made him pizza and cake. Afterward, we all went out and enjoyed the thrills of a pinata.

Every night, a cerveza (beer) run was made, and the gentlemen spent their early evening polishing off 24 beers. Sometimes people played cards, or checkers, but the Hondurans never played with them. Robert usually took some initiative to find something to get into that was authentically Honduran, and was found one night in the kitchen, learning how to make pupusas with the cook. He didn't speak Spanish, she didn't speak English. It was really wonderful to see.


Friday 19th

After eating breakfast, the kids and the women went off to a local school to give away school supplies, while the guys stayed behind to put the finishing touches on the walls. By noon, everyone had finished what they had set out to do, and we got together to eat lunch. We spent the early afternoon packing, and then heading on to Valle de Angeles.

Robert and Abby rode with me in La Batalla, and we had a good time talking and enjoying the beauty of God's creation in Honduras.

As we pulled down the last little hill into a parking lot, the brakes gave way on La Batalla. Luckily we weren't going that fast, and I was able to steer us away from other cars before grabbing the emergency break to pull us to a stop.

Rueben took a look at the car and said that the engine had overheated from hauling all the luggage up and down the mountains in such an old car for over an hour. He explained that it had probably started boiling the brake fluid, which is then no longer brake fluid. I was pretty shaken up, but Abby and Robert didn't know anything about what had happened. To them, we parked slighly askew, and now Rueben and I were speaking very quickly and looking under the hood.

The group went ahead with Fausto and Marisela to begin their souvenire shopping. Rueben and I hung back and worked on the car. I went to the local gas station, got more brake fluid, and came back to find Rueben tinkering with the pedal, and some other stuff inside the engine that I could never hope to understand.

After some more work, and a few test runs, I became comfortable with driving it again, and set out on foot to join up with the group to help with their souvenir shopping.

We spent the whole afternoon bouncing back and forth between shops that are essentially identical before heading back to cars. I told the group about the brakes and our repair job, and they felt confident that we would be okay to drive back to Monte Carmelo.

Robert rode with me again, and we were able to drive through Tegucigalpa up to Monte Carmelo without problems. We beat the other car there by a few minutes, and helped to get dinner ready while we waited. By the time the other car arrived, everyone was hungry, and we headed straight to the dining hall.

We ate together, reflected on the week, and shared some of our favorite experiences. Immediately after dinner, I headed to bed, knowing that with early flights, we would have to be up around 5:30 to get ready and pack up the cars.


Saturday 20th

Everyone was awake early, packed and ready to go by 7:00. We headed off to the airport, and saw Robert off. With his earlier flight out of the way and the rest of the group already checked in, we decided to head over the the Bascillica Suyapa to squeeze in one last tourist activity before the group left.

They were back at the airport and through security by 11:30, and I was back in my apartment around the same time. I slept for the rest of the day.

By the end of the week it was obvious how much everyone had grown and changed. Especially Joseph. I'm not sure that they will be the most unforgettable group, but it will be a while before I ever experience another group quite like the group from Memphis.


Sunday 21st

Mostly, I spent yesterday resting and relaxing. I read, watched some TV, and played an Edgar Allen Poe computer game that my parents had gotten me for Christmas. It wasn't exactly what I had thought it would be, and I had beaten the whole thing in two hours. I also took some time to cook up a nice pizza for dinner. I caught some wierd show on Showtime called Spartacus. It was all in Spanish, but it was kind of entertaining.

Our next group is scheduled for the end of March, but I still haven't heard back from Global Ministries as to if and when I'll be heading back to Indianapolis for some evaluations, so I'm not sure I'll be here for the group. I hope that I will be. Groups are too few and far between.