Just Give Me Water!!!

The wedding was a blast.  It turned out to be a great October day and the thing went off without a hitch….well except for the two that got hitched.  Having to be in a tux most of the evening, I was pretty happy it was a nice cool day.  The reception was great as we watched these crazy people from Charles and Mindy’s family dance.  It was pretty entertaining.  But my best friend is now married, which is a little weird.  I’ve actually known him longer than I’ve known my sister and she’s only like 3 and a half years younger than I am.  I’ve known Charles a long time and I’m glad that he is happy.  He really did marry a great girl and I wish them the best.  He just better get ready to wait to be my best man because this guy isn’t getting married anytime soon!

I spent some time with family and friends while I was home which was great.  It had only been 3 weeks since I had been there but it’s still a long time to be away from the ones you love.  When I left at the beginning of October we all knew I would be back in just over 3 weeks.  This time it was a little different though since I’m not sure when I’ll be back, makes it a little harder to leave.  I guess that just means they’ll have to come visit me next.

I didn’t get to leave though without bringing back a souvenir from the States.  I got a cold or something while I was there and it is sticking to me like glue.  I can’t seem to shake the thing.  Over a week now and this thing has my head wanting to explode.  If the medicine won’t make it go away I bet the Honduran water will make my head the least of my worries haha. 

Oh and I have a truck now!  I knew the truck that I wanted/needed but was quite a bit short on being able to buy it.  Money was given last week so that I could buy it!  I was pretty stoked and at the time I was told my head hurt so bad that I couldn’t think of anything to say except Thank You.  Sometimes when a blessing like that comes your way, you know that words can’t really express how thankful you are and this was one of those times.  It didn’t matter what I said, it wouldn’t have expressed how thankful I really was and am.  Before funds were given for this truck I had debated on whether I should just get a 2 wheel drive truck instead of a 4x4 to try to cut the cost down a little and boy am I glad I didn’t do that.  Sunday night I was backing out of a driveway right after it had rained and slid into the small ditch on the other side of the road.  It wasn’t anything bad but it was just muddy enough to make the tires spin.  I actually said out loud, “4 wheel drive, ENGAGE” and with the turn of a button she pulled herself right out of that ditch.  Then just to test her, I got her stuck in ruts in the road trying to turn around in Mololoa Monday and once again she proved that she’s up for the challenge.  A 2 wheel drive truck and I’d have been enlisting some people to help push.  I’ve just about learned my way around the city too.  Well, except for the occasional wrong turn or the “wait where am I again”.  Those are getting fewer and fewer. 

The daycare repairs are looking great.  The exterior walls are nearly done that are going to allow for better drainage and extra support for the existing wall.  I’m still interested to see exactly how they are going to make it work but the walls definitely look good.  I’m sure it’ll all come together and work like they are planning.  The big hole that we dug inside this summer looks like a kiddie pool compared the one they’ve dug in the last week.  Like half of the building is now on big hole.  Everything is still on schedule since the rains have held off so hopefully by the beginning of December it will be finished.  I know the ladies are getting a little excited that they’ll be able to work up at the actual daycare again.  Things at the kitchen are still going great.  We were planning to have a 7 year anniversary party, to celebrate the kitchen being open for 7 years, a few weeks ago but since everyone was sick we decided to wait until everyone could go.  So this Saturday we are going up to the Jesus Statue for a picnic style lunch, which will be a lot of fun.  I think the ladies will all enjoy it. 

My Spanish still sucks but it is getting a little better.  I’ve been staying at my apartment since I got back last Thursday.  Those of you who have been here know that you have to buy water to drink, like in the big 5 gallon jugs.  Well everything you buy at the store you just go, pick it up, put it in the buggy, go to the cashier, she rings it up and you pay.  It’s that simple, you don’t really even have to talk to anyone.  Well to get jugs of water you have to know what you are doing because they are separate from everything else.  You ask for them, pay for them, then they get them for you.  They ask if you are buying bottles or refilling bottles.   If you are buying then they tell you that you can bring your old bottles back and they’ll refill them to keep you from buying new bottles.  It’s not just as simple as picking it up and taking it to the counter.  So I’ve been watching how other people go about this for 5 days, I’ve learned this formula of questions they ask and in what order so that I know how to respond.   But I’ve been buying small bottles of water to keep from having to endure the confusion that I was going to create by asking to buy water.  Earlier today at Walmart I gave it a try.  The guy said something back to me about his manager and then pointed to the other side of the store and I was like no just forget it, you aren’t sticking to my formula of success for this!  Then he said something and I said no again and then there was an awkward pause and he said ok and gave me my receipt for the things I had bought and I left.  BUT tonight I was going to eat pasta and when I got home I realized I was completely out of little bottles of water and thought, “It’s go time”.  Operation ‘get water’, take 2.  So I went to another store to avoid the guy at Walmart.  I went to La Colonia and I don’t know how it happened, I really have no idea what this lady was saying but I ended up leaving with two 5 gallon jugs of water!  I just kept saying Si, 2 bottles and it somehow worked. HAHA, well I understood a little of what she was saying because she stuck to the formula that I had seen other people do.  It was great.  For like ten minutes my head didn’t seem to hurt anymore and I had this smile on my face.  Guess who’s looking at their two new 5 gallon jugs of water right now, this guy!  This really is sad though…..but it’s a win for me nonetheless.

We’ll see if shopping for a shower head tomorrow to replace the one that fell off the pipe a few minutes ago is as exciting as getting water.  That thing was pretty rusty. 

Thursday, two elders from Palmetto will be here.  They are staying until Monday to see how things here are going.  It should be a fun time especially since one of them is coming here for the first time.  Forget bus rides, he gets to ride with me!!  I’ll give him all the Honduras road experience he wants….Actually he might be reading this so what I meant was that it’s all going to be just like it would be if we were in the States haha.  No worries.  But it will be good, I know they are looking forward to coming and I am too.

A busy, busy week

Rebel storm troopers do not exist.  I should have known that.  This is a story that just keeps getting better though.  We went to meet James Brown so that he could try to get my license back.  Turns out he just fed us a line of crap.  We made it to the main station where you pay fines.  He supposedly went in for about 30 minutes and then we saw him smoking and drinking coffee as he was wandering around the parking lot talking to just about everyone.  He told us that he can’t get my license because apparently in Honduras you only have 3 days to pay your ticket or else you get another ticket for paying late.  So when/if I ever go get it I will have to pay an additional fine for being late.  But that was why he couldn’t get it.  He also said that I was registered in the computer system and he can’t get a license back after I’m in the system.  His plan was to talk to them before I was entered into the system and that didn’t happen.  We also found out later that only captains have the right to request a ticket be dropped or to pick up a license and James Brown definitely isn’t a captain.  The line was pretty long and James said it would take a couple of hours to pay the fine so we just decided to go back another day.  I think he just used us for a ride to the main station so he could shoot the breeze with a few friends.  The reason I think that is because we went back to the police station yesterday, the 23^rd, so I could pay the fine.  We walk in and present the ticket to the people and they start to look for my license.  For like 30 minutes we waited as they hunted for it.   They came back and said that it had never been turned into to them.  They printed out a sheet with all of the people who got a ticket on the day I got mine and I wasn’t even listed on the sheet.  So they then called the officer that gave me the ticket to come to the station.   He said,” yea yea I turned it in but I turned it in at another station.  They should have it.”  So we went with a Captain in the police force to the other station.  We get there and the lady that we need to see is on lunch break.  So we wait for 30ish minutes for her to tell us that she never saw my license or had any paperwork for it so it must be at the station we just came from….. BUT, the Captain did make one mistake.  He said, “Since it is a foreign license we will not put you into our computer system.  You still have to pay the fine, we may or may not find your license but you aren’t in the system”.  That’s all I needed to hear.  I said thank you, we left and went to breakfast and I’m just counting that license as a lost cause.   So James Brown never even tried to get my license because he told me I was in the computer system which is one reason he couldn’t get it when in reality I wasn’t, I even saw the sheet where my name should’ve been and it wasn’t.  So I’m home free.  I figure that they lost my license and it’s going to cost $25 to replace plus $5 for the taxi between stations and the ticket was $30, so we’re even.  I won’t even charge them for the waste of time haha.  So hopefully that story is over.

Last week we did have a medical clinic.  Wednesday-Friday and again on Monday.  The clinic was open to all the kids in the feeding center.  Dr. Jorge Aguilera has opened a clinic not too far from Mololoa to provide healthcare to low income families.  He wants to provide healthcare services to the people of Mololoa.  He created a health chart for each child, which will be the beginning of health records for each child.  He provided medicine for those that needed meds to fix whatever problems they had.  A nutritionist also came with him to view the Feeding Program and to look at our menu to gauge the nutritional value of it.  151 children were seen over the 4 day period which is awesome.  His clinic has 3 employees, a doctor and two assistants.  It is going to be a huge asset for me to use if any of the ladies at the daycare or kitchen are sick or if any of the kids get sick or hurt themselves.  Jorge and I have talked a lot over the last week and we are shooting for the stars as far as what we believe we can do in Mololoa and other communities over the next several years.  We want our vision to be great so that God can do great things.  If your vision is very narrow and small then you aren’t allowing God to use your potential because you are focusing on small things.   But if you are open to everything and plan for big things, then you allow God to work great things through you because you are open to big things.  Or maybe I’m just crazy.  The clinic was a huge success and I believe great things are going to happen through it.

The repairs to the daycare are coming along nicely too.  Thankfully there hasn’t been much rain at all during the day to set progress back.  I’m still hoping that by the beginning of December it will be ready to go. 

There is so much going on, so many moving parts, things in motion that have taken a lot of work over the last three weeks.  As plans come together I’ll definitely be keeping everyone updated.

Right now I’m on my way back to the States.  When I left I knew that I was coming back on October 24 for my best friends wedding.  He gets married on this Saturday and told me that if I missed it he would literally kill me.  Since I’m his best man I figured I better be there haha.  The plan when I left October 1 was to do 4 things: Get and apartment, a truck, bank account set up (which has been more of a pain than you would think), and get the repairs on the daycare started.  I’ve had three weeks to get settled in and I’ve gotten 3 of those things done.  The truck still eludes me!  There has actually only been one truck I’ve looked at that has had everything in good working order.  Every truck except for one has had some issue like you turn the radio on and the lights go off or you turn the windshield wipers on and the dash lights go off, or maybe you turn the radio on and then the dash lights come on but otherwise they wont…. It’s almost like you have to pick your poison…or wait it out until you find one that has everything that works which is what I’ve done so far.  So I was almost able to do everything I wanted during my first three weeks.  I’ll be in the States for a week, for the wedding but also to try to raise a little more support.  Things are a little more expensive than I was anticipating, including a truck.  My apartment is almost set up and ready to go.  I bought a bed yesterday, which means as soon as I get back next week I can sleep in my own place!! I’m pretty excited about that. 

The ladies are all doing well.  We seem to be getting more comfortable with each other every day.  They are learning really quickly that when a mouse comes into the kitchen and we can’t find it, to expect to be pranked in some way.  I got them good a few days ago as they were bent over looking under the table for the mouse.  A quick pinch on their sides and a loud scare will make them jump to the moon.  We eventually got the little critter though, well one of them. 

When Jen told Evelyn that I was going back to the States she started yelling, “No, no no he only gave it three weeks.  He has to give it more time.  He can’t leave yet.”  Then Jen calmed her down and explained that I’d only be gone a week.   We had a good laugh when Jen told me about that. 

Things have been great, a few hiccups but nothing that has caused problems.  I’m already looking forward to going back and I just left.

I need a spare key...

A long, long time ago…In a galaxy far, far away.  There lived a boy on Naboo.  Lets call him, John.  Now John decided that he wanted to move to another planet.  So he did.  He moved to a planet where he didn’t know many people but there was a married couple that he was friends with and they let him stay with them for a little while.  The husband had a sand cruiser that he let John borrow when John had to go into town.  So John would take the sand cruiser and go with the wife, we’ll call her Jen….I mean…umm….Jane, yea Jane.  John and Jane would go into town to try to get John settled into an apartment and find a sand cruiser of his own plus there was a lot of work to be done and they were able to do all of their work in town.  The second day that John was on his new planet he locked the keys inside the sand cruiser.  It wasn’t a big deal and they all had a good laugh about it. Well exactly one week later while at the La Colonia supermarket….I mean the El Mos Eisley supermarket, Jane got out to go inside to buy groceries while John stayed out by the sand cruiser to watch the items in the back.  When John walked around for a minute he decided to get back in the sand cruiser and realized that he had once again locked the keys in the sand cruiser.  YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME, was the only thought going through his mind.  A local of this planet that John had moved to, who was in a wheelchair, came up and asked what the problem was and John told him.  The local went to find a thin piece of metal to use to unlock the door and when he returned a frantic struggle began to unlock the door so Jane would not find out.  Unfortunately when Jane returned there was John along with 2 local vendors who were selling rebel gear, a storm trooper, and the guy in the wheelchair all trying to get into the sand cruiser.  Jane said the same thing John had recently thought but she said it out loud, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!  It didn’t take long though, one of the rebel vendors managed to get the door open and John and Jane were on their way home.  However, they had to stop for space fuel on the way home.  After getting the fuel they were turning back onto the road and a storm trooper stop was up ahead on the road.  One of the storm troopers motioned for them to pull over so John pulled the sand cruiser over to the side of the road.  When the storm trooper asked John for his license, all John could do was give him this little piece of paper explaining why his license had been confiscated earlier in the day.  You see, earlier in the day John and Jane needed to get to Burger King…I mean Tatoine’s Finest Burgers, which was on the opposite side of the road and there was a median.  So John went to an intersection and did a U turn.  The only problem was that there were two storm troopers that watched him do it.  They stopped him and asked for his license and explained why the U turn was illegal at this intersection.  Jane said, “it isn’t illegal because there is no sign posted saying it’s illegal and there has to be a sign posted saying you can’t do a U turn”.  The storm trooper replied with, “well there used to be a sign, I’m giving you a ticket”….. The Empire won this battle but they didn’t find the droids…wait…what?.  So John got a ticket and had his license confiscated which is why he had to show the storm trooper the little piece of paper the second time he was pulled over that day.  The second storm trooper just looked at the paper and said ok and let them go. 

Now just 2 days later on Friday, John and Jane were leaving the Mos Eisley market where they were helping a friend shop.  A storm trooper in his sand cruiser was staring at them as they walked by so Jane said hello and the storm trooper replied with, “Hello, is there anything I can help you with”.  Now this shocked John and Jane because storm troopers usually don’t say things like this or even speak in perfect English!!  So Jane said, “well you can help me with a ticket I have”.  The storm trooper said, “yea I can help you, no problem.  My name is James Brown, here’s my phone number so you can call me and I’ll take care of that ticket.”  Jane and John knew that this storm troopers name couldn’t be James Brown but Mr. James Brown got his license out to prove that was his name.  John and Jane went to the storm trooper post and talked with James Brown for a little while.  James asked John how long he had lived here and John said less than 2 weeks so James gave him his phone number and email and even said we could come visit his parents with him in Roatan when he goes.  He said, “I don’t know if you have many friends here, but now you have at least one, me”.  So John and Jane are going to meet James Monday morning at the storm trooper headquarters to see if James can pull a few strings and get Johns license back.  When Jane told James that she was surprised when he replied to her the first time in English James said, “When you see someone else that speaks English you have to speak to them.  It’s like the English is calling out from within you and you have to do it.  You just can’t not do it.” Well said James, well said.  So this battle isn’t over.  John hasn’t yet admitted defeat to the Empire and paid his fine because now he might have a rebel storm trooper on the inside.  

John also found an apartment this week….I mean Tyler did…I mean me, ME! I found an apartment this week!!!  It’s in a great location and it is the best apartment for the price that we have looked at.  You know you have those moments when you see something and you just know it’s right.  That’s how this place was, I just knew immediately that it was the place.  Next week I’ll be signing a contract and after that I can move in!  I still haven’t had much luck finding a sand cruiser…I mean a truck.  They are pretty stinking pricey.  They all say, “ Oh pick me, pick me, PICK ME! But none of them have stood out and said in a James Earl Jones’ voice, “I AM THE ONE, LOOK NO FURTHER”!  So I’m still looking. 

Things at the Kitchen have gone great, working with the ladies has been a lot of fun.  For those of you who have been wondering when the daycare building will be fixed, repairs start Monday!  I met a couple of times this week with the guys who are doing the work and we are finally ready to start.  I think worst case scenario we are looking at being back open by the beginning of next year!  I’ve spent a lot of time with Evelyn trying to learn how she handles all of the finances and everything else so that I’ll be able to help her as much as I can from this point forward.  A lot of problems we’ve had are beginning to be fixed. 

I do ask that you keep one of the ladies who work part-time at the feeding center in your prayers.  Sonia lived in a house at the top of the mountain, way up high.  I’m told it’s higher than any gringo has ever ventured.  I just learned today that she had been renting a house made out of mud, almost solely out of mud.  Her rent was 500 Lempiras a month, which is like $30.  Wednesday we had some heavy rain and her house actually fell in on her and hurt her.  She waited until Friday morning to go to the doctor because she had been hurting but what they found was that she actually had kidney stones.  They did emergency surgery on her Friday morning at hospital Escuela to fix that.  Reyna has been at the hospital with her today and as far as I know she is still doing ok but now she doesn’t have a house anymore.  She was renting that mud house because that’s all she could afford since she currently only fills in at the kitchen when another lady is out for a day.  It’s not like we can just raise money to build her a Torch house because she doesn’t own any land to build a house on.  Something will happen though.  God will provide.  Just keep her in your prayers because she is definitely not having a good week.