So I felt like I should write something since I just went down to Honduras and everything, but I don't think that I have much more to write about than what Jen already has. However, I could give a brief sum up I suppose. First of all, I have to say that I have found it ironic that a spiritual trip like the one we were on usually helps to make you appreciate what you have and find contentment could make me feel so discontent about coming back to work and being here. Interesting. So I'll break this up into sections so it's not so overwhelmingly enormous. And so I don't have to type for 4 hours straight.
So we get there the first day and we are greeted by some faces that I have been missing for a while now. Jen and Karen had brought the boys, (minus Antonio but plus Fernando, whom I hadn't met) Saul, Eduardo, and Carlos to the airport to greet us. That was a very welcome feeling to hear "Papi!" screamed across the terminal and see Francisco running up to me along with Marvin, Mario, and Fernando. I then soon realized just how darn hot it was there once I was holding Francisco in one arm, my carry-on on one shoulder, and a laptop on my other shoulder. But hey... totally worth the instant sweat. So then we got to take them back to the mission house with us for the night. The first night is always our "pack the food bags" night, and it went just about as smoothly as it normally does. Of course there were way more bags of rice and beans than of anything else, but we made it work. So after a fun night of travel and food bags, it was time for bed. Thankfully, Karen had taken care of getting Francisco ready for bed by showering him up and brushing his teeth... something he doesn't so much enjoy for some reason. So anyway, that all gets done and we are down for the night. Since Francisco is only 3, it's a good idea to wake him up and let him use the bathroom sometime during the night. Well, this guy gets up at 4 and wakes him up and asks him if he needs to use the bathroom. He said no... so I went back to sleep. Hey, I was tired. Well sure enough, about an hour later, I woke up and the back of my shirt is drenched. At first I think to myself "Maybe I just sweat a lot for some reason." I was not so lucky for that to be the truth. Nono, I put my hand on the mattress, and sure enough... it's soaked. AWESOME! So basically I take that shirt off and sleep around the perimeter of what I will call "the wet zone" for the remainder of the night.... also known as an hour and a half til I needed to get up.
So day 2 found us building our first two houses of the trip. Yeah, we like to start off with a bang. Anyway, my team had the site where we got to tear down the old house before building the new one. I'm not going to lie, from what I've torn down before, this one was.... spacious? However, the fact that there were many, MANY softball sized holes and larger throughout a lot of the structure was not such a plus. And do you remember the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom movie? Ok, the part where they are going through that secret passageway and there are ALL those bugs that climb all over the woman and freak her out. Yeah, that was about what was living around and inside the area of this house. I didn't even know roaches got that big. So, as we began to tear the old house apart and at the same time play exterminator, I thought it would be a good idea to apply sunscreen to my arms and shoulders since they ALWAYS seem to burn when I'm in Honduras. I'm so smart, right? Wrong. If you said yes, and I imagine abuot 99% didn't, then you didn't think of my neck or face. Oh yes.... the hat I was wearing may have covered the top of my head and forehead, but not the back of my neck and my face beneath my nose. So since I'm always on the roof, I had some really good face time with the tin and the sun.... and it was very apparent when we got back to the mission house and I saw myself in the mirror. Basically, the area from the neckline of my shirt to the area that my hat covered was RED. Carlos even thought it would be fun to call me "Tomate" because of it. The best part being the fact that I had a permanent halo around my head. I mean, I'd like to think that I should have one around my head all the time, but it would seem that the only one that I could manage was this one.
