November 9, 2007 - Miami - Honduras

Time for update number 3!

I am now writing from Honduras, in the area of Tegucigalpa from a mission station. Last story included that of hoping we would get on the 10:15am plane from Newark to Miami...Well we did, or at least most of us. There were the five of us, and they called every single one of us except for Eli – who had signed in last, in case such a thing would happen. So that was a little on the unfortunate side because we were hoping he would have been able to join us as well, but it may have been for the best because he and Patrick had just been making friends with some Jewish guys that were also waiting for their plane, and so he most likely engaged in some interesting conversations during that time.

Anyway, moving along with the rest of the story.

The four of us got on the plane much to our delight – and off we went on the 2 hour and 25 minute flight from Newark to Miami. Once we arrived, we set off to attempt to find out when the next flight was. We looked at the Arrivals/Departures screens and lo and behold we found that the flight we were supposed to be on had been delayed and was leaving in about half an hour from that time. Off we went to try to get on the flight. Unfortunately we couldn't find the place we were supposed to go to, so we asked a couple people on our way, but they told us to go elsewhere. Finally we went back to the Arrival/Departure screens, and found that we had been looking at the Arrival side, so there really was no flight going out to San Pedro Sula. This meant we had to move on to plan B of finding when the next flight would be going out, hoping it would not be too late. We started walking about again hoping to find someone working with American Airlines inside so we would not have to leave the secure area and go through that again. We did after some time, and they were very nice and understanding and informed us of the next flight which was going to be around 4:30pm, which was only a couple hours away. This news was quite delightful, and we proceeded to inquire as to when the next flight from Newark was coming in, to see when Eli would get there. The next scheduled flight was set to arrive at 4:30pm as well, just when we would be leaving, so there was no hope for him to get on unless the flight was delayed for a long time for no good reason. Unfortunately this was not the case, so off we went again on the next flight. It was an incredibly empty plane with only about 40 people on it so there were many free spaces giving us the option of stretching out and being a little more comfortable than previous flights. Patrick and I were seated together and Kestas and Marylin were seated together, although we were all in the same basic place. During this time Patrick and I had some good conversations, and also played some games of Tic Tac Toe, and one other one that he taught me, whose name I do not know. All things considered it was a nice flight and a couple of hours later we arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The airport was small, but not as small as the Belize airport is. It was very easy to navigate through, and none of us encountered any problems. The group that had come through earlier (the other 9) were still there waiting for us because we had informed them that we would be coming through within a couple of hours, and since the drive takes about 4 hours they decided to just wait for us. We were warmly welcomed by them and by Jose who is a former EBS student and is who has been helping us to organize/arrange things on the Honduras end.

From there we embarked onto leg 5 of our journey which was the 4 hour bus ride going to Tegucigalpa, where we currently are now. The roads were quite nice and so was the bus so the trip was fairly decent although we were all so tired (being 7 hours behind Norway time) that we mostly ended up falling asleep in various uncomfortable conditions, waking up every now and then.

Along the way at the beginning of the trip there was much mayhem experienced by the paranoid hypochondriacs who were constantly yelling “CLOSE THE DOOR AND THE WINDOWS AND TURN OFF THE LIGHTS OR ELSE WE'LL ALL GET MALARIA!!” because of the lovely population of mosquitoes that were entering the warmth of the bus to attempt to bite this one and that one whenever was possible. Then there was me who is generally considered the paranoid hypochondriac, quite at ease, not taking the time to bother about the concept of mosquitoes and the potential harm they would cause...how quickly the tables turn.

Anyway, we arrove about 4 hours later at the mission station where we are spending the weekend. We unloaded our baggage and went to the house (casa en espanol) and went to bed shortly thereafter. Once the morning had come along, we (the girls who were staying upstairs) awoke to the sight of the floor being slightly flooded, where all of our bags had been lying. This was most unpleasant and some time later we discovered it was coming from the toilet which seems to have a problem of a leak which causes incessant dripping, which caused the bathroom to ooze its water out onto our floor, causing a great number of our belongings to become rather soggy, which was not very nice. And even to this point they hang in the window, still not dry due to the humidity of the air.

On the weather topic, it has been kind of chilly for us since we have been here. It was about 22 degrees today, but the sunshine was mostly covered by clouds therefore hindering the warmth factor quite severely, and plus with the humidity added on to that it only causes us to feel even colder than it is; now that we are used to the dry air of Norway.

Then today we had breakfast consisting of Tortillas and beans, which was excellent and we all enjoyed it thoroughly. Following worship and breakfast we had some free time which we spent doing what we needed or just chilling until 11:30 whereupon a bus (school bus no less) came to pick us up and take us to the mall in the city so we could do whatever shopping we needed to do which was nice. My main goal was to find a Spanish-English dictionary, or a nice book to help me learn my Espaol a little better, but unfortunately I could not find one, so I shall hopefully get another chance to find one in the near future.

After our town trip, we returned here and consumed some comestibles and had another worship to open the Sabbath, and following that within a short time everyone went to bed, despite the fact that it was only 7:30pm but then again in Norway it is most definitely not only 7:30.
Now it is 8:51pm and I am feeling the results of lack of sleep and jet lag, so with this rather long entry, I bade you all a beunas noches.