Rule #2--Be flexible

Sorry I haven't done any writing this time.  I got REALLY sick and as a result, just didn't feel like it (so sue me). The team did just fine.  There were 16 teens and 5 adults, besides Tom and I.  The first thing we were suppose to do was go to a couple of orphanages and love on the kids.  The orphan situation down here is just plain sad.  Basically, children cannot be adopted. Period. So, abandoned children are placed in government run orphanages and the government doesn't staff them or fund them.  They are dirty, crowded, bleak and depressing.  The kids will share a twin bed or there might be 3 babies to a crib.  There are separate rooms for the mentally and physically handicapped children and in some cases, teenagers confined to a crib.  Yes, I said a crib.  Anyway, the workers of the orphanages decided to go on strike, which meant we could not get in.  It was sad for the team, but even sadder for the children that wouldn't get loved for a day.

Anyway, instead of the orphanage, we went on to the worksite a day early. There were two vans and a box truck traveling 2 hours into the mountains.  Once we got there, the Honduran driver of the box truck casually told us his brakes were out and we would need to get the truck fixed.  What exactly did that mean; the brakes are out? After an animated conversation of tarzan spanish, it was determined the brakes were COMPLETELY out.  He had driven two hours with no brakes, up and down mountain roads. Hmmmmm, guess there is something to be said about driving a standard shift vehicle. Glad the clutch worked.

The work project was to start the foundation of a new home for the pastor and his family. Typically, when we do houses, the local people have the foundation already dug and we swoop in and start laying block.  This, of course, would not be typical.  The teens got to finish digging the foundation. Remember, no machinery here.  They used a pick axe and shovels. The first day the teens tried to show how awesome and how hard they could work.  They lasted the first day.  They quickly realized you gotta pace your self. The kids worked hard (for kids) and the adults worked real hard.

In May, the pastor's wife had (what she thought would be) reconstruction surgery as she is a breast cancer survivor.  The doctor butchered her.  He cut her from the lower back all the way up her side and across her breast.  And it was infected.  She thought she was going in for an implant and she came out with a doctor that tried to make an implant from her own tissue, which is why she had such a humongous scar across her entire body. There happened to be a medical brigade(nothing "happens" by chance) working at the local hospital so we took her there and a doctor from Tennessee operated on her to remove the infection.  He couldn't believe what had been done to her.  He did the best he could and told her he would be back in September to finish the job.  He opened her up and is going to leave the large area open and her daughter must clean it every day until he comes back.  It is pretty gross.  She still has some infection there, but hopefully by the time the doctor comes back, it will be gone and he can close up the area.

She was typically our cook, but this time, she was not able to because of her surgery, so she had 3 other women cooking for us.  The food was ok, but not as awesome as before.  We had A LOT of refried beans and tortillas.  You can imagine how well that went over with a bunch of teenagers.

Then I got sick.  Boy, did I get sick.  It is kind of funny now, but at the time, no one was laughing.  I kept passing out while on the toilet (too much info, right?!) Tom had to hold me there, trying to get me to wake up.  He admits he was very worried at the time.  Once I did wake up, I had to puke.  Note to self.  When staying at a hotel, make sure the trash can doesn't have holes in it when you "gotta do what you gotta do."  Poor Tom.  That's all I got to say.  Poor Tom.  He got me back into bed.  I yell, "I'm hot!!!". Tom puts a fan on me; directly on me.  He goes back to try and clean up the bathroom.  I yell, "I need a wash cloth."  He brings me one.  Poor Tom. He goes back to the bathroom. Remember, this is not your typical hotel you would find in the US of A.  It is clean, but you get one tiny roll of toilet paper, and two hand towels you are suppose to use for a bath towel. Poor Tom.  Two days later, I emerged from my room.  Poor Tom.  He had to run the team all by himself.  He did get one of the adults to drive my van so everyone could get to the worksite.

Then Tom got it. Poor Tom.  I had taken 2 tylenol PMs and was out for the night.  I had also put my earplugs in so I could sleep.  Apparently Tom was "doing what he had to do" several times in the bathroom and I completely slept through it.  Didn't hear a thing. Poor Tom.  Then it was his turn to stay back and rest while I took the team.  We made it through.

Since we couldn't go to any orphanages, we stayed and worked an extra day.  On the way back to the campground, we did stop at a government run daycare and played with kiddos there for the morning.  I took some incredible pictures of the children and couldn't wait to get them posted on facebook.  One of the adults was going to print the one of the little boy she was bonding with and have it framed.  They got erased. sigh.......

Oh, I forgot to tell you we had to rent a van in order to get everyone from point A to point B.  This was the most "used" van we have rented. When you rent the van they take a diagram of the van and mark any dents or scratches. You would have thought the van had chickenpox when they were done. Every morning we had to push the van and pop the crutch to get it to start. I also forgot to tell you the day we went to the airport to get the team, The Honduran pastor driving the box truck kinda hit the van we rented.  Yep.  Hit the van and lifted it up. We stopped him and we slowly backed away.  In Honduras, everyone (except rental van companies) do not care about little things like that. Oh well, it is what it is. Tom looked the van over and if it caused any damage it was not noticeable compared with all the other dents and scratches (thank you Lord). Another Honduran from the church we were working on was using our truck to pick up the cement block we needed. He hit a car with it. He was absent the rest of the day while he fixed and painted the car he hit. Try that in the USA.

After a week of mixing concrete by hand, tying a ton of rebar columns and playing football/soccer, we left to go back to the campground.  The campground is located smack in the middle of sugarcane fields.  There is no road going back to it; just  a dirt "road" tractors from the sugar cane company have beaten down over time.  We are in the rainy season now.  The "road" was one long mud hole.  It was very interesting getting in and out of there. A truck delivering our drinking water got stuck coming back to us. Pastor Efrain called Tom and asked him to take the box truck and pull them out. Tom pulled the truck out of the campground to help and the truck driver told him ( at least Tom thinks he told him) "no way you can pull me out with that thing, we will both be stuck." Finally two tractors from the sugar cane field came by and pulled him out. We got our water, the truck left, and unfortunately he left two big ruts where he was stuck.

The "fun" day was going to the beach.  We took the group to Punta Sol, which is a national park in the middle of the Caribbean.  They had a lunch of fresh fish, rice and beans, and plantain chips.  Then they played in the Caribbean.  The boat ride over was 45 minutes and the kids were stoked during that ride.  We had a nice day for it and the day went quickly.  One more wake up and it was off to the airport.  We jump into the van and nothing.  So, out everyone goes and they push it to pop the clutch.  It wouldn't start.  They push from the front to back it up and do it again.  Nothing.  they do it again. Nothing.  It is like 100 degrees and just as humid and these guys are dressed to go home.  They are sweating.  They are pushing.  Nothing.  Tom gets jump cables (oh yeah, we have those here at the campground...) We are off to the airport.  I go with the kids to get them checked in and Tom takes the rental van back (I'm not an idiot, let him try and talk his way out of the damage).  We get the kids all checked in and fed.  We say our goodbyes and off they go.  When you return rentals here you must be very leery of them trying to charge you for previous damage. The van was so incredibly covered with mud from the "road" that if there were any new scratches or dents (we don't think there were) the woman couldn't tell (thank you Jesus for the fresh rain that night).

We're baaaaccccckkkkkkkk

After almost a 10 month forced hiatus, We have put our feet back onto Honduran soil. But, as with anything we do that concerns Honduras, it couldn't be a smooth sail.  We got to the airport this morning and boarded the plane without incident. After 3 hours of sleep, Tom and I were REALLY looking forward to sleeping all the way to Houston.  Since you don't get fed anymore, we wouldn't be awakened for anything. The flight attendants kept getting people to hurry as it was a full flight.  There is always one person on a plane that is a problem.  This flight was no exception to that rule.  A lady brings on a huge bulging suitcase and can't get it to fit into the upper compartment.  One male flight attendant tells her it wouldn't fit and she needed to check it.  She ignored him.  She tried it again. It didn't fit.  He told her again to check it.  She continued to ignore him.  There were two people from the landing crew at the front of the plane.  They were watching this and one of them gets tired of the scene and decides he is going to take charge and get the suitcase.  He goes down the aisle and talks to the woman.  She unzips her suitcase and starts taking things out and putting them on her seat, as the now two male employees are watching.  The second ground person at the front of the plane mutters something under his breath and walks sternly down the aisle, picks up the suitcase, without a word, and carries it off the plane.  Everyone needs a little humor at 6:00 in the morning.

Just as we were settling down for a 2 1/2 hour nap, the pilot comes on and states the computer wasn't working properly so they had called maintenance.  Our first thought was, "great another 20 minutes of sleep" and we both floated off into sleep land.  That lasted for about 5 minutes when the pilot came on again and stated it would take longer than they hoped.  Then, the pilot comes out of the cockpit and starts talking to the passengers, walking up and down the aisle.  That was our first real clue this was going to take a while.  The mistake they did make was allowing passengers to get off the plane to do whatever.  We only had 45 minutes between connections, so it didn't take a genius to figure out we would miss our connection. With sleep impossible at this point, I called United from my "approved cell phone" instead of getting off the plane and going to an agent.  I wish the others would have done that, too.  Of course, when all these people got off, the plane was ready to go and we didn't have all the people. So, we sat a little longer.  Everyone (or so they thought) had returned and the flight attendants counted the peeps and decided we were all there.  The walkway is pulled away and the engines are cranking up.  I was sitting by a window directing across from the agent that was operating the walkway.  I saw him look at us, then I saw him look to his left.  I saw the expression on his face go from relief to anger.  It was so funny to watch.  I turned to Tom and said, "I bet we left someone."  The agent grabs his walkie and screams into it.  I could almost hear him through the air space.  I looked at our flight attendants and they were frozen.  I looked back at the agent driving the walkway, and saw him throw down his walkie and reach for the controls to move the walkway back to the plane.  The engines were shut down.  I turned to Tom again, and said," I bet I know which passenger didn't come back."  and sure enough, on walks the same woman who had the luggage issue carrying a LOT of food, and actually eating a sandwich while she sauntered down the aisle to her seat..  It was so funny.

We landed in Houston and didn't have to rush to make the connection as the plane wasn't there. What we didn't realize was when Continental and United merged, they did not take away one of the flights to Honduras, so there were now two flights from United going into Honduras an hour apart.  We got on the second flight. Manuel was waiting for us with the biggest smile. We were home.