Making Stories

So we pick up with our intrepid adventurer getting over the flu on a pleasant Monday afternoon. At least it was pleasant for me, because I got to sit inside working on lesson plans while me fellow teachers had to be outside in the hot sun marching.

Why marching? Well as stated before we only had two days of school that week because of Dia del Niños, which is like Mothers Day but for students. At the start of this weekend is a big parade where all the schools march through the city to show their patriotic spirit. Despite the fact that we are not an officially registered school, we somehow got roped into marching anyway. So Monday and Tuesday afternoon found my fellow teachers marching on the soccer field while I sat in the office, recovering from the flu. Thank you flu.

Sadly this was not enough to get me out of the actual parade, which was more like a forced death trudge than a festive march. From start to finish we were marching for FIVE HOURS without a break in the Honduran sun. I’m just glad I remembered to put on sunscreen…mostly. I neglected to put any on my chest, thinking it wouldn’t be necessary as I had every intention of keeping my shirt on during our trudge through town. However about an hour in I undid the top button of my shirt in an attempt not to pass out from heat exhaustion. I now sport a bright red arrow just below my neck pointing toward my navel.

Thursday we finally began our vacation. Myself, Jeff, Lacey, and Maki had decided to head to the North coast of Honduras to spend a long weekend in the Bay Islands drinking, eating, and scuba diving. But getting to our island paradise was going to prove challenging. You see there are two ways to get to the coast from Juticalpa. One is to get a nice Greyhound style coach to Tegucigalpa and from there another one up to La Ceiba, the main city on the North coast. This is rather expensive though (all be it comfortable). The other, much cheaper option, is to take what is commonly referred to as a “chicken bus” direct from Juticalpa to La Ceiba. The rout is much shorter, and goes right through the heart of the rural Honduran mountains.

We opted to be cheap, and got what we paid for.

There were some spectacular scenes along the way, but these were detracted from by the sheer agony of riding an old rejected US school bus for twelve hours on a winding mountain road full of holes (the road, not the bus…for the most part). Have I mentioned that potholes are a national pastime in Honduras? The journey would have been cut in half if we didn’t have to spend so much time weaving from side to side dodging holes and other vehicles. The only escape from the heat is to open the windows, and the only escape from the clouds of dust is to close them. How is a rainy season so dusty? The icing on the proverbial cake was the crazy Honduran preacher who got up and began ranting in Spanish at us for an hour (I timed it). Initially I didn’t mind, but the more he went on the more I was reminded of the guest speakers at KKK rallies on TV. My mind was quickly filled with horrifying scenarios in which I and my compatriots were lynched in the backwoods of Honduras by a mob of crazed, machete wielding locals.

Later, Maki informed me that this chap was making about as good an impression on the other passengers as he was on me. Apparently it was blatantly obvious that he couldn’t read, and that he did not know the Bible very well. He confessed to being in Honduran prison for 7 years, and US prison for 10. This was before God cured him of both a drug addiction, cancer, and AIDS, and then sent him forth to preach the good word. He also claimed to speak English and that he was going to preach to the gringos what he spoke to the Hondurans. If what he said to us was anything like what he said to the Hondurans, I am amazed they didn’t throw him from the moving bus. He knew two lines in English, which he shouted at as even though we were only two seats in front of him. The first was “dis is di Bibblé” and the other “Jisus lub yu” (I have made an attempt to represent the words phonetically). He repeated both sentences ad nauseum  until there was nothing left to add, and I was feeling the nauseum.

We made it to the ferry in the nick of time, and we finally reached the beautiful island of Utila. Utila caters to scuba divers like myself, and I managed to get in four amazing dives on the coral reefs. My fellow tourists did not dive, but did manage to find a beach with white sands and palm trees. We got to eat meat (I miss you meat), sleep in air conditioning (the bus ride was worth it just to wake up NOT covered in sweat), and have a drink in a bar without fear of being mugged or spotted by our students. Friday night we finished our stay on the island with a bar crawl in which we had an amazing talk with a native islander called Evelyn, the owner of Evelyn’s Barbeque, and make of the best cocktails on the island. She is not lying on this point. If you ever go to Utila you must go have a piña colada with Evelyn and have her tell you about the islands. Her grandmother lived on the island before it even had power or pluming, and the way she talks you would think she had been there herself. History, legend, and tall tale all blend together in the most dazzling stories you have ever heard! There are pirates, ghosts, wars, romances, voodoo and intrigue. I want to go back to Utila at the end of my stay in Honduras just to listen to more of Evelyn’s stories.

All too soon we were back on the chicken bus and back in Juticalpa (no crazy preacher this time, but Jeff and I did get checked for guns at a military check point!). The week flew by in a daze, with me melting down again on Wednesday and giving myself a massive migraine. Really it was the kids that gave me the migraine…and the kids outside playing in the street that perpetuated it after I got home. But somehow everything felt better by Friday. I think it’s because this was the first real week of school we have had, and now we really seem to be in the rhythm of things. I’m settled in at the house, I actually have lesson plans now, and my friends here are now family.

Looks like I really did get the adventure I wanted.