Sunday, December 28, 2008

First Day!

Well it's almost 10:30 and the day is wrapping up. Last night the flight arrived uneventfully to an airport filled with reggae-styled American Christmas tunes and the constant smell of this area of Honduras- burning trash. When everyone got through Customs (there were several of us on the flight) we headed out to the parking lot to load up the car and head to El Progreso. Unfortunately, one of the tires was completely flat. After about 45 minutes of jacking up the car and figuring out the method of removing the spare tire from underneath (secret to a Honda Pilot- there's a winch to release the tire. It's operated by the lug wrench), we discovered that the spare provided with the used car was made for a Toyota, and wouldn't fit on the 5 pronged Honda wheel. We all learned a vital lesson about purchasing a used car, especially in Honduras- check the spare tire! About 45 minutes later we were finally rescued, the car abandoned until we could find an appropriate wheel (it got fixed today). I got to the apartment at about 11:30, ate some pizza, and completely failed at falling asleep- the adrenaline of arriving was far too much.

Today I was incorporated as part of the "staff", or the group of returners and long term volunteers that shepherds around the rest of the trip members. All of the staff members (I'm kind of an -ish member) are living in the apartment. There's about seven of us here, but each of us has our own room, which is really nice. I actually have my own room and bathroom (for now). Tomorrow I will start with the medical team. I had a chance to talk with the leader and the doctor tonight just to start getting a little headway on the effort.

The day started at 5:15am with a shower and an attempt to write on here. Unfortunately, my computer restarted in the middle and lost what I had been writing. The staff had an early planning meeting at 6:30, after which we went to Hotel La Cascada where the entire trip (15 people plus the ~15 person medical team) is staying. After breakfast, we did orientation, then went to the market for a scavenger hunt of sorts. I won't reveal the details here, in case we do it again when the WM team comes down, but it was a lot of fun. We then went to Siete de Abril (the squatter village that SHH works with) and learned how to make tortillas. Then, it was off to lunch and a long set of soccer games with the residents of Siete and the girls of Copprome. The evening was composed of dinner and a lot of group meetings and icebreakers.

This will probably be my longest and most boring post (good job if you've made it through). It's just to give you an idea of how packed every part of the day is going to be. It might not look like much written out like this, but every minute there's something to be doing- normally planning the next move.

I'm exhausted and have to be up way early tomorrow as well. This is totally cutting it short, but I'll probably post a short (hopefully more amusing) tale tomorrow at about this time.

PS Tomorrow I'm getting a Honduran cell phone!

2 comments:

  1. Well apparently my comment got deleted. Bah.

    I'm glad you got to Honduras safely, love.

    And it was still a pretty exciting post to me.

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  2. I definitely have to agree with the sentiments expressed in the previous comment. I still found the post exciting. Perhaps, it's just the fact that you don't get to do these normal things such as changing tires in a foreign country that often. This blog has made me think of keeping a blog when I am in Bangladesh this summer.

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