A Variety of Events

Bedtime Buddies

Alright, so not long after Jen left to go on her "vacation," I was snuggling up to my covers for a good nights rest when it happened.... "Plop!" I don't know if you've experienced something "plopping" right down on your covers next to you, but it's not a good feeling. And I"m not talking about a little "dink" or anything, I'm talking about an all out 2 lbs. object coming down on your bed. Keep in mind I'm halfway asleep, the lights are off, and Mike not too long before had brought in a HUGE spider that was in their kitchen. Therefore, when I felt something weighing down the comforter, I was pretty quick to hop right up out of bed. I'm expecting this massive spider that will freak me out and put me in an institution for the rest of my life, but that's not what I found. When I go back toward the bed, a small frog jumped off of it and into the corner of the room. So, that wasn't so bad. I got it out of my room, and even though it was making its way toward the kitchen, I was ok with that because it was out of my room. :)

But the excitement didn't end there that night, oh no. After I get over the fact that something could apparently fall from heaven onto my bed with me, I fell asleep and all was well... until about 4:30. During one of my many points of waking up in the middle of the night (I'm not a solid sleeper), I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. About the time I was good to go back to sleep, I felt something. At first, I thought it was just like a little breeze or maybe even the hairs on my arm coming back up after being matted down from the previous position. NOPE! I soon realized that there was indeed something crawling up my arm, toward my head mind you. Well, now THAT is something that will also jolt you up. So I shake my arm like it's on fire to get the bug off, look to make sure that it's off of me, and then head to turn on the lights so that I can see what it is that just violated my personal space. And that's where the problem is. I DON'T KNOW! In the few steps that I had taken to turn on the light and come back to the bed, the bug was gone! I looked for it (machete in hand) for a little bit, but to no avail. So, that being the second "friend" I made that night trying to go to sleep, I gave up on that and went to sleep on the couch in Karen and Jen's apartment. Call me a pansy if you wish, but having extra bodies in bed with you twice in one night would make anyway a little iffy about going back to sleeping there.

Container Craziness

Ok, so the container FINALLY got here on Tuesday. I say finally because it was expected to get here over a week before then. There was apparently quite the issue with getting it in and out of Teguc. Something about a paper needing signed and stuff like that. Blah blah blah. So, we finally got to pick it up on Tuesday. Well, by pick it up, I mean that we drove in front of the semi carrying the container. Pretty uneventful trip out to Santa Ana. Slow. So we finally get to Santa Ana where I figure the truck will like park on the main road and we'll use the trucks to get stuff from the truck to Casa. Nope. Karen and the driver go down the dirt road for like 10 minutes while I wait in the van behind the truck making sure no one decides that they would like to see what's inside the truck. Though I'm sure many would have liked to know, no one tried to see. Anyway, Karen and the driver come back up the dirt road and the driver gets in the truck. I didn't know what took them so long, but they were back, so whatever. Then the unexpected happened... HE TURNED THE 18 WHEELER DOWN THE DIRT ROAD! Now, if you've not seen this dirt road before, it's basically about a lane and a half of a normal road, very bumpy, and NOT straight at all. And the whole "not a straight road" thing wouldn't have really been that big of a deal had those houses not been so close to the road. At one point, the trailer potentially hit the corner of the roofs on one of the houses and bent it. But hey... it bent back almost to its normal shape. So the truck gets down to the "intersection" where the even smaller road to Casa turns. Don't worry, he didn't try to take the truck down THAT road. But when I got down there (I was following the truck from behind), I see that there are two flatbed trucks with people in them. Apparently the portion of Mark Connell's group that didn't go to Roatan (and I don't know why you wouldn't) had already built a house that day but were willing to help up unload the container. Nice, aren't they? However, they had already apparently been waiting for about an hour or so by the time we got there. So, we felt bad about that. But the fun part is that we still couldn't open the container yet. "Well that's odd," you might say, and you'd be right. Apparently, there was some number missing on the paperwork that required an inspector to actually be present when we opened the container and watch us unload it. And guess what? He wasn't there. He was supposedly about 15 minutes behind us. However, 30 minutes later, we were starting to wonder if he got lost or something. So, after several calls to Gina Larios, the head container guy, and many attempts to call the inspector directly (this was a long as frustrating process since he didn't answer his phone), everything finally worked out about 20 minutes later and the unloading process began. It was going just fine with all the help and having a team unloading the truck and then another unloading the flatbed trucks into Casa. Then it happened. We really shouldn't have been that surprised I guess. But, what season is it? Yep.. RAIN! So about halfway through unloading, it really starts to come down. Luckily (for the owners of the articles onboard), a lot of the things were wrapped in plastic and weren't ruined. We used wrapped mattresses to cover up the cardboard boxes. So, after the wet, muddy trip in, the stuff was really starting to gather in the playroom and in the eating area. So, then the boys room was filled, and then the hallways. We had to resort to putting a few things in the girls room, where Nicole is sleeping. But, it wasn't much. Needless to say, there was A LOT of stuff on that container, and the sad part is that about 80% or so was Mike and Janet's... who just decided to move back to the States. So, Mike had to come back to sort through EVERYTHING to decide what he wants to ship back to the States and what will just stay here. And this leads me to my next story....

Traffic Terrors

When Mike and Jen came back on Thursday, we had quite the crazy (yet short) story happen. On the way back from Teguc, I was driving oh so safely, but the pickup truck behind me decided that he was too good for that. So, on a blind turn, he decided that he would pass me and the guy in front of me on this turn. Well, these roads aren't always meant to handle a 3-wide traffic pattern, and ESPECIALLY not on turns. So we're all coming around this corner, and what do you know, someone else in the world decided that they wanted to be heading toward Teguc at that particular moment and was coming around the corner toward us. If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that we missed having front row seats to a VERY bad accident by about... ohhhh..... 3 inches, MAYBE. That was by far the closest I have ever seen to an accident yet down here. We couldn't believe that those trucks didn't hit. It was certainly a "hold your breath" kind of thing for a second or two. Then Mike turns and says "you should put that in your blog."

Another REALLY "fun" traffic adventure was not so fun. When we left the Kluge's one night to head back to Santa Ana (while Jen and Mike were gone), we got stopped at a police stop right after we got on the Choluteca road that takes you to Santa Ana. This really isn't THAT big of a deal usually, but tonight, since I was driving, you KNOW that it just had to be an issue. So he comes up to the window and asks for my license and and car registration. That was fine because I can drive on my American license here. But, then he asked about our fire extinguisher. Here, you are required to have one along with safety triangles and flares or something. Anyway, we didn't have one, but I didn't know what he was asking and Karen was playing dumb like she didn't know what he was talking about. However, I didn't know that we were suppose to be playing stupid.... I was just doing it naturally. But, then I just HAD to figure out what he was talking about and say "Oh, the extinguisher!" like an idiot. So then Karen had to say that we didn't have one and that's not good. He then informed us that it's like a 900 lps fine and that he was going to like keep my license until I paid it. Then he told Karen that she needed to get out of the car to sign something. Yeah... that's not a good idea here for a girl to get out of the car with the police... especially at night. So, Karen said "no." Not exactly the best thing to do to say "no" to a police officer, but in this situation, it was definitely better than her getting out of the car. So, after some awkward moments, he just gave me my license back and told me to go. Yeah, I don't know why... but I wasn't about to stick around and ask. I said "thank you" and got right on out of there. So, that was an interesting way to end the night.

Driveway Disasters

Gosh, this blog is getting so long now, I'm thinking about shortening these last few stories. Well, after the flatbed trucks had been in and out of the muddy driveway with all the items from the container, it was pretty darn rutted (if that's a word). Well, those flatbed trucks have that nice thing called 4-wheel drive. Gracie, on the other hand, does not. So, when we were leaving to head to the Kluge's on the fateful night that included the police incident, Gracie got a little hung up in the mud. In fact, she was diggin herself a grave. So after several attempts by Pablo (the night guard) the push the car while I tried to gas it that came out to nothing, he decided to open the back trunk door and stand on the back of the car to give it weight on the rear wheels for traction. And this did help, but it wasn't enough... so I had Nicole get back there too with Pablo. With them jumping on the back of the van like they were on a pogo stick, I rocked that van out of that rut eventually... leaving behind a fishing pond. I also had an issue again the other day, but I eventually got it out without any additional weight on the back. So the moral of this story... Gracie is NOT made for any terrain other than flat pavement.

Hospital Horror

Ok, so in the States it's like this nice thing to take a girl and her baby to the hospital if the baby's sick, right? Well, we thought so too when we took this girl, her baby, two other younger girls, and one 2 year old to Teguc to the hospital. We dropped them off RIGHT in front of the hospital at about noon. Then we went to go do some stuff and then go get Jen and Mike from the airport, assuming that they would just catch the bus back to Santa Ana. Well, at about 9:30 that night, the mother comes to Casa saying that her daughter never came home. And what's more, they were under 21, and in Honduras you have to be 21 before you can do anything without permission... and they didn't have permission to go to the hospital. Yeah, that's not good. So Jen and Karen call Fabiola who has a friend that works at Hospital Escuela (where we took them). She went and looked for them at the hospital and at the Ronald McDonald House next door where a lot of people that go to the hospital stay apparently. But, not only did they not find them, but they found that the baby hadn't even been checked in! They never went in! So, that wasn't a good thing. After quite a long time, Fabiola said that there really wasn't anything left to do that night and we would just have to wait. I don't think that the mom was a big fan of that plan, but there really wasn't anything more anyone could do. But don't fret, Karen got called yesterday (we took them two days ago) and the kids had made it back safe and sound to Santa Ana. But boy, that was a whole lot of drama. Jen said that if that was ever her in that situation, that I would come and look for her instead of just sitting here and being angry. I told her I'd think about it. :)

Kluge Cookies

This is just a nice little story about the best cookies EVER. For anyone who has gone to the Kluge's for some dessert, you know that Melissa knows how to make some GOOOOOOOD desserts. One of these new delicacies was experienced the other night (yeah, the same one with all that other stuff... it was quite the night) were two small chocolate chip cookies with icing in between them. Oh my... now, I'm not really a huge sugar/dessert eater or anything, but these things were awesome. She had some with white icing and some with chocolate icing. Goodness, talk about over-indulging. I potentially had four of them... and a piece of cake.... and just a regular chocolate chip cookie. Too much? haha. But yeah, that was a really fine dessert that I just had to let everyone know about because they were just THAT good.