Mountains to Climb & People to Visit

Monday, December 10, 2007

Today the plan was to go bright and early to the mountain to see Don Mario's coffee plantation(s). We were told to be ready to go at 5:00am. This was quite unexpected, and I, having learned the time of the Hondurans, assumed that they would be at least a half hour late, so I was not too worried about waking up at a particularly early time. Monica on the other hand was. She woke us all up at 4:10 the first time, and when none of us made great movements to rise, she came a second time, and a third time. 5:00 arrived, and we ate breakfast. They, just as was predicted, did not show up. This went on for a time until 6:30 came along and they FINALLY drove up. During that time we had eaten breakfast, Tobias and I had done breakfast clean-up, and we had worship. Needless to say, those who had been awoken at such an unearthly hour were not overly happy with the whole affair, but unfortunately the weather had impeded their arrival since it was raining very hard apparantly and they could only go at a very slow speed, especially since it was dark. Anyway, we set off on our merry way, for the couple hour truck drive up this mountain. There were about 10 of us in the back of the pick-up truck, and the road was absolutely horrendous. The drive was long, and painful, but enjoyable in a sense nonetheless. We arrived at the top and then had a couple hour walk ahead of us. Anyway to make that story a little shorter, we walked for a while and arrived at the first plantation, walked further and arrived at the next one where he has a house, and we stayed there for a time resting and ate lunch, and following lunch we were taken to pick some coffee beans and then proceeded to learn the method of how they process it. It was kind of interesting although a little pointless other than for learning what they do here. Anyway, then it began to rain and so off we set to return back, this time taking a shortcut, which was good because it was hard going, both on the way there and on the way back. The paths are tiny and turned to slick mud – so we experienced mud skiing for the first time. It was difficult to go on these paths becaues you were constantly in danger of crashing down because it was so utterly slippery. I must say though I was thankful for the rain because it made the heat much more bearable. Oh yes and on the way there we had the pleasure of eating oranges straight from the tree – we all agreed they were the best oranges we have ever had! Anyway, we returned and started our descent in the truck, which was fun although a few times it felt like we were going to roll over because one tire would go down and the other one would be way up...but it was still fun. Once we got down and back to Buenavista we ate supper which was really good; some kind of a pasta dish, and then a group of us girls and Danny went to the Prophecy church because we had promised that we would come tonight. We arrived a little late, and it turned out they were having some kind of a church meeting or something of the like, so we stayed for a short while then decided to vacate that scenario because it didn't involve us at all. We decided to go check out another church, Mission to the Nations, but it had no worship service either, so we turned about to go back home. On the way we met up with Johannes who was talking to a group of guys outside the store. We stopped to talk to him and found out about other churches that might have service this night, but there were none, so our original group carried on home. A very short way down the road, Elissa and I decided that we didn't want to go back right away, so we turned around and went back to where Johannes had been. He seemed to have vanished, but I was in need of a washroom facility anyway, so we stopped there first and then when we came back from there, he had reappeared. We talked to him and soon a large group of boys gathered around to talk/listen/look at/with us – but once again it started to rain so after some time that group broke up and we were invited into this one house where we continued talking to them, but with only Dani and Noel and some older people. It was very nice to be able to do something different and to visit with other people rather than just hiding away at Buenavista, and I really appreciated the opportunity.

My battery is low once again, so that will have to be it – kind of the short version of the day.