3-July to today

3-Jul-06

 

            Last Friday we were sitting in one of our project classes with a current volunteer.   A few days before he showed up with bandages on his elbow and a few cuts on his hand, that afternoon he told us how it happened.  While traveling on a bus in Tegus he was trying to get off at a stop, when he finally got the driver to stop he stepped out and the bus driver slammed on the gas.   I'm sure you can all see where this is going. 

            Saturday morning at 7 AM a few of us met in front of a fellow 'aspirantes' casa and we were going to walk down to the triangle, which is where the road to Santa Lucia meets the main highway and this is also where we needed to catch a bus to get to San Juancito.   The six of us walked down there, about 2 km, and met up with another trainee.  As we got there a bus pulled up, luckily for me, there were a few of us who spoke much better Spanish so we got on that bus so we wouldn't have to wait an hour for another one.   This bus was only going to take us to Valles de Los Angels so we would have to wait for another one to get to Juancito.  Either way we all got on the bus that was blasting reggaeton at 8 AM in the morning.  It took maybe 30 minutes or so for us to get right outside of Los Angels.  We saw a sign for San Juancito that said 12km and it looked like the bus driver was going to take us but this local Honduran that had been helping us talk to the driver said we should just get off here, at a stop in front of a pulperia.   In fear of being stuck on the bus as the driver slammed on his gas I kind of ran down the steps and missed the last one and landed knee first on a rock.

            The bus left and I stood up and blood starting pouring out of my leg.   Luckily we were still very close to Los Angles and the local guy got off the bus with us.  So Cathie and Ramon (I think, but we could never get it straight) went off to a pulperia to get some supplies while the rest of us tried to stop the blood.   They came back with hydrogen peroxide and gauze and tape.  One of the girls that had worked at a vet clinic cleaned out my wound and even pulled back the flap of skin that was left to make sure there weren't any rocks inside it.   Again, lucky for me, my knee was complexly numb.  One of the guys with us had an ace bandage, so we wrapped my knee up after we put on the gauze and headed back into town for a café.

            We caught the next bus around 9:30, same reggaeton and everything.   We got to San Juancito within 15 minutes or so and started for the road to the National Park, La Tigra.  The entrance to the park is straight up a dirt road.   Three hours later we made it to the entrance.  A few minutes into the walk our friend showed back up that helped us get there or just hang out (I'm not really sure), apparently his mom called while he was on the bus and told him she wasn't home and he had no keys to get in.   He was only 20, very nice and grew up with cuerpo de paz voluntarios.  Anyway so he decided to take the hike with us.

            We talked the guy into giving us the national deal for the entrance fee, usually it is $10 which is about 200 limperias; we only had to pay 20 limps.   We decided to take the shorter hike to the waterfalls so we didn't miss the last bus out of town at 5:30.  We left for the hike and the forest was absolutely amazing.   We heard a couple of birds but didn't see any.  There were some semi-wild horses eating on the trail we took, but that was about it.   La Tigra, hundreds of years ago was a mining town, after the government declared it a national park the mines were closed but some of the structures remained, like the entrance to one of the mines and old houses.   One of the main trails is actually the old mining road.

            After more uphill hiking, we made it to an amazing waterfall inside a cloud.   It was completely surreal.  It was misty, raining too but that didn't matter.  The temperature had dropped significantly as well.   We ate our lunch at the out look by the waterfall and then headed back for the park entrance.  My mom gave me a bunch of tiny bananas to chare with my friends and I made two hamon (which is not exactly ham) and queso sandwiches, one of which I gave to our new friend.  

The downhill part was much easier and went by much faster.  Included in the trail, I forgot to mention, were several bridges that went over other smaller waterfalls that turned into small rivers.   The trail and the park in general had a lot of character.  Also in the welcome center are rooms for rent, it all made sense when we got there why all of our host moms thought we were staying over.

            We ended up getting off the mountain around 4 so we had an hour and a half or so to kill so we went to a café and rested for a little while then we started back up another hill to get to the bus stop we needed.   Luckily, again, our Honduran friend was with us because we would have never found it, we had to walk through another part of San Juancito and down a highway to this little overhang.   After a while our friend's bus arrived, but ours still hadn't.  I think it finally showed up around 6 so we loaded and headed back for Santa Lucia.   This bus dropped us back off at the triangle and we still had another 2km to walk back to where our houses were.  By then my knee had finally started hurting so we decided to wait for the Santa Lucia bus that would take us back to el Centro, where most of our houses were.  That bus finally arrived from Tegus completely packed and other people waiting at the stop got on.  This little kid, who must have been the son of the guy who was either driving the bus or collecting money, or maybe just a nice kid saw that I was limping and opened the back door of the bus for me.   My friends helped me and one other friend on, so I wouldn't have to be alone, and they walked.  Not really knowing where the bus route ended we got off at the entrance to town and right behind us were the rest us our group, someone had stopped and given them a ride.

            We all went to our respected houses to get ready for the dance the town/high school was having that night.   Every year the local high school elects a king and queen, usually seniors, for a fundraising and parade event (at least this is what I got out of it).   The dance that the town was having was in some way connected to that.  So once I got home and roughly translated what happened to my knee I showered and cleaned my knee again I went up the hill to the "club social" to check out the dance.   Basically it was a lot of 16/17 year olds asking us to dance.  It was a good time hanging out with the group but I was pretty beat from the extremely long day.   So I asked two of the guys to walk me home because there were a lot of bolos out in the street. 

The next morning I woke up and checked out my knee, I think it had been bleeding the whole night, or I just tore it back open from dancing and whatnot, but my host my called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and she said I had to go to the emergency room in Tegus, so I waited around for a driver to take me and Heidi, my neighbor whose host family is related to mine.   We got the ER pretty quick, and the driver walked in with us and told them I was a cuerpo do paz volunteer and they immediately took me into a room.   The place was very clean and the doctor spoke English, but the nurse did not and the last thing I wanted to do then was speak Spanish to someone.  The doctor told me I needed stitches, but it was past 24 hours so it was a no go.   He cleaned it out, gave me pain and antibiotic meds and sent me on my way to clean it again every day. 

After we left I asked the driver if he would mind stopping to get ice cream and he said that was a wonderful question.   So we stopped at a Texaco and there was a Wendy's inside!  So I got all three of us a frosty, I've never had a frosty that tasted that good.  When I got home I called my mom and explained all of it to her, so sorry mom, here is everything in detail.  And then I watched Rush Hour 2 in English with Spanish subtitles, for studying of course.   That is one thing about these Hondurans, they LOVE their movies.

Monday, Miguel, my driver from Sunday, picked me up because I was supposed to take a week off, which we all know was NEVER going to happen.   On the way we ended up picking up a bunch of other aspirantes, so everyone was really excited about the rides in the mornings.  By Wednesday though my leg was kind of green and mentioned something to someone and the next thing I knew I had to go back to Tegus to get it looked at in the PC (Peace Corps) medical office.   So off I went and had to get it cleaned again, but I got to check out the headquarters and its pretty sweet with free internet and a huge outdoor stage thing.   The doctor there said it was a little infected but it was healing ok I just kept reopening it when I was walking on it, so again she told me to take it easy, which is very hard to do on cobble stone streets and hills.   Anyway it's forming a scab but like the doctor in the ER told me, I did do an enchilada on my knee.

Happy be-lated fourth to everyone.  Ours was kind of tame, but for lunch at CHP (that's the name of the training site) we had Honduran hamburgers and hotdogs with baked beans, not quite like the ones my dad makes but they were fun.   The staff also got us two piñatas that we got to take turns at, so much fun and a lot harder than I've ever seen before – someone holds the ropes and moves it and everyone around shouts at you where to swing.   After class we went home and had our respected dinners (well most of us did some might have gone right after class) and then met up at this bar for a 'dance party.'   One of the local restaurant owners had a big room connected to the main outdoor covered part and played music for us all there and gave us a deal on beers.  I was still on my medication so it was a very tame night for me and I headed home fairly early, but late for what time I've been going to bed here every night, around 11.

I forgot to mention also, when I got home on the 4^th my host mom was very busy coordinating something and I found out later that someone in our community daughter died in a motorcycle-drug related accident in Tegus and her father who lives in Santa Lucia is very poor so Maribel was trying to find money to buy a casket; she's on the town's city council.   Anyway they were all dealing with that and I was told we might be having some sort of thing at our house because the father also did not own a house.   So when I got home from the party there were candles lit on the floor and all over.  I thought I was going to walk into some mourning ritual, but my host mom and her friend were sitting in the kitchen and they told me we didn't have electricity.   That's what I get for assuming.  The electricity went back on before I went to bed.

Tomorrow my Spanish class in going into Tegus to go to a market for a lesson, well it's more like a learning activity.   We have to take a bus into the city and then get a taxis to a location where a teacher will be meeting us.  There are six people in my group and three groups going tomorrow, everyone that went the rest of the week said it's not so bad.   But after my trip last weekend I feel like this will be a piece of cake!  After the market we go back over to the PC office and wait for everyone to meet up so hopefully I can send this out and post my pictures.

On the way home I think we're stopping at Wendy's again, I asked Miguel today and he said yes.   He really is a nice guy, very helpful and enthusiastic!  But if not, it's ok because all of the food has been awesome anyway.  On Saturday I am going back to Tegus with my family to go to a different bigger market to get food for the week and then on Sunday I am going to a family friend's finka (farm) to check out his crops and whatnot.  

Sorry this is soooo long, I'll try and recap the weekend by Monday and have that sent out but like I've been saying, the internet is not a sure thing, so we'll see.   This following weekend we have volunteer visits so as soon as I know more about where I'll be visiting I'll keep y'all posted too!

If you made it this far, thanks.  Love you all so much.   Take care.

 

PC Amor-

Bridget

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Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084