Whoa crazy travel for workness!

Whoa crazy travel for workness!

Ok, so this past week I traveled quite a bit, and it was for work. Now, ahead of time I was told that the trip was three days (or at least I think someone told me this, maybe I assumed), and would be in one town. It turns out we are there for five days and travelling all over the place for this training. Here is the story:

We leave town late (who would guess that?) and then proceed to head around Tegucigalpa about five times. Why? I don’t know. Then we head up to this one town, getting there as the sun sets. One thing I should mention, a common theme for this trip was me being tired. We get there, and instead of going out to eat, they went and bought food to cook. Normally this is good, except for when you send out two Honduran men and then come back with beef and frozen chicken. Well, I didn’t see the bag with the other stuff, so I was like, “really, only meat for dinner?!” They did forget a bunch of stuff, and yep, it was meat for dinner. I was so tired that by time they got it cooked, I was sleeping on the sofa.

I travelled with a group of 8 people. Six men, and two women. The other woman and I had the option of where to stay, and we chose the place with beds, which was another person’s house, so I got woken up to go there. Very comfy bed by the way. The next day was the first day of the training, which is not actually in that town, but a town 40 minutes away. Beautiful drive though, so I am not complaining, and keep track of times and places here. This place is called Jesus de Otoro. It is incredibly hot for being in the mountains.

I’m going to spare you on the details of the meeting and continue with travel. After the meeting we go back to the first place, Siguatepeque, and instead of sleeping in the comfy bed, I go sleep in the first place. Have I mentioned that place was a funeral parlor? My counterpart’s friend owns the place, and it was free to stay there. I slept on what is essentially a sleeping mat.

The next day we return to Jesus de Otoro, and learn we are doing a practice lesson to a group of people who live 1.5 hours in the opposite direction of Siguatepeque. So, naturally we decide to go one our in that direction to sleep; at another funeral parlor. There were never any dead people around, so it was fine. This town, is one of the coldest places in Honduras. I slept on an even thinner mat, and was just generally uncomfortable all night.

We go do the lesson in a town that is actually 40 minutes further west of La Esperanza, the town with the second funeral parlor. While there, we realize we are only 40 minutes away from a really cool town. My counterparts are like, lets go, why not? This is why I like these people, they are my kind of people. We don’t ask why you should do something, we ask why not? We hit up the hot springs there before heading back to La Esperanza.

The next day we are heading home and someone points out we are a half hour from the lake. Well, most Hondurans, especially those in the economic range of the people I was travelling with, don’t travel. So, we go to the lake to eat brunch (it was too early to call it lunch). Then we hit major traffic so the half hour becomes more like an hour.

We are heading home and I realize the time, so I get dropped off in the city nearby to spend the night. We had a superbowl party, and I didn’t have time to go home, drop off my stuff, then head back. More on this later. That was my trip though, I finally made it home the following day.

So, the thing about the hot springs was that no one even imagined we would be going there, so no one had anything to swim in. We didn’t even decide on this the night before, so we couldn’t just bring clothes we packed with us. Therefore, we hit up a person selling Salvation Army clothes on the side of the road. It worked though, we all had a good time.

An interesting thing on the ride back to my area. Hondurans are very used to riding in the back of a pick-up, and our guys made an effort to make it comfortable. We were bringing back a thin mattress that needed to be returned to its owner, so using bags to make a base, they folded the mattress in an “L” shape and had a couch to sit on for the ride back. I can’t say as I blamed them, including the stop for lunch, they were back there for 11 hours.

Pranks. I do like pranks, they are a lot of fun. The second night in La Esperanza, the other woman and I were alone in the funeral parlor preparing to go to bed. The guys had left in two groups, which left us alone. So, we were talking about how we could be more comfortable in the night, and I got a great idea. What about pulling a prank on the guys? She loved the idea. The question was, what prank? We were kind of at a loss because we didn’t want something to make them mad and figured it would be obvious for the to figure out who did it since only the two of us were there. In the end we decided to take an item (or two in some cases) and just place it in a different bag. We were trying to go for something they wouldn’t see until morning, but with small bags, that was difficult.

The guys noticed right away that there was stuff missing and extra stuff that didn’t belong to them. They decide to blame the owner of the house. This guy was 1.5 hours away! We met up with the owner the next day and they were like, “it was you, right?” The poor guy was so confused he just switched the subject and they all took it as a sign of guilt. No one was mad, they realized it was a small prank. To this day they do not know who pulled the prank on them. Makes me want to try my hand at another prank!

Next subject: sayings and idioms. This was odd. So, the last night on the road, well the last night on the road with my coworkers, I woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache. For those of you who don’t know, I normally sleep like the dead, so for something to wake me up, it’s got to be big. I did go back to bed but woke up with a stomach ache still. While driving home, someone asked me: “Did you touch a cab driver?” That’s right people, touching a cab driver will make you sick. I thought it was an interesting saying.

One good thing about this trip was all the talking I did. Everyone knows I am not the biggest talker, but this trip I had a lot of really good conversations. I had several debates and talked girl talk with the other woman. I came back with a much better feeling for my Spanish. Side note: true fluency comes after years, so yes, I am still working on my Spanish.

Superbowl: GO SAINTS! I can’t say I paid all that much attention to the game, but there was a superbowl party. We somehow managed to have 4 types of dips. My goodness I do love dip! We had homemade salsa, guacamole, a jalapeno cheese dip, and hummus. Then, to vary things a little, we ordered pizza. The end of the game was very dramatic and I was very happy with the winners.

That’s all for now, I am headed to a bbq, but more on that for the next update!

PS- How is your Jill inspired New Year’s Resolution going?