Life on the Carretera Panamericana

I arrived in Honduras Monday and was thankful see two familiar faces, along with a group of Hondurans employed by the organization, at the airport waiting for me. I was exhausted when I got in, but we went right to work, running errands while we were already in Tegucigalpa. 

Tegucigalpa is about two hours north of where I'm staying, and the weather was great, in the 70s when I arrived. The great temperatures, however, got my hopes up a little too high...In Pespire, temperatures are right at around 100 degrees during the day. When the sun goes down, it cools down to the 80s, but I'm still unbelievably thankful to sleep in an airconditioned room. 

The absolute essentials: sunscreen, bug spray, hand sanitizer, and water.

For the next few months, I am living with the two local coordinators for the organization who really seem to hold it all together. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, I've spent weeks at a time living in some pretty modest (i.e. no running water) areas in Central America, which makes my current home stand out like a luxury hotel, complete with a hammock on the front porch. We live right alongside the Panamerican Highway, which somehow is slightly comforting in that it connects me to so many places I've lived or visited in the last few years.

I have three new Honduran brothers, two dogs, two dozen pet turtles, and have been thrown into life with security guards and drivers, not to mention the 5 staff members of the restaurant next door that also take care of cleaning the house. Having a restaurant attached to the house is pretty awesome-- especially since the staff is very mindful in how they prep food so my stomach doesn't reject all Honduran food (at this point I'm unwilling to eat street food, I don't need that kind of a flashback to Mexico). And it still blows my mind how much better, fresher, and more natural food tastes outside of the US.

It's already become pretty obvious that things happen slowly here and that rules or plans will change with no rhyme or reason. Laws change, things fall through. You may have to show up at someone's office with small gifts to encourage necessary paperwork to get pushed through the bureaucracies of inefficient State processes. I had to go to three different cell phone stores until I could find someone who would cut a chip for me to use in my US phone. 

Key lesson this week: flexibility.