I'm REALLY Here!

Hello everybody! I’m so excited to share with you via this blog what’s going on in my life in Honduras this year. I can’t guarantee how often I’ll be able to post, but I’ll try my best! Internet isn’t as accessible or fast here, which is hard to get used to. I would appreciate your prayers SO much for this year. Thanks for taking the time (and having the patience) to read my blog!
This day begins my journey for the next year of teaching in Honduras. Julia spent the night last night at my house so I got to meet her for the first time and she’s great! We chatted about our expectations and questions we had and shared all the info we knew with each other.Once we finally got to the airport, we had to park and get out all of our luggage from the Yukon which was 3 bags for me and 2 for Julia, but they were heavy and that doesn’t include carry-ons.

We found our terminal and began the process of checking in baggage, which took a while. Julia only had 2 bags, but one of them was really heavy and the older man helping us was like “Are you sure you don’t want to move some things?” He was really trying to be helpful so he didn’t have to charge Julia the extra $100 for the extra weight. The security line was next, so while we waited for that, my parents prayed for us and said goodbye. Neither of them cried, although my mom may have been teary-eyed a little bit. I’m not a crier for the most part, especially in the moment of goodbye. The emotions tend to hit me after my experience has sunk in a little bit and isn’t as new and exciting as in the beginning. So I was sad to say bye, but for now, while I miss people, I’m not REALLY missing them yet. I think after a month or so it will hit me that I’m in Honduras for a year and won’t see the people I love near as much as I’m used to.
After security, which went well, we headed to our plane and met Jacki and Stan. Jacki is a sweet girl as well; very laid back and personable. Stan is older, in his 50s, but he seems pretty cool; he’ll be like the dad/uncle to our group until he goes to La Union to teach and we go to Gracias. The flight to FL was uneventful and went well. We landed, got some lunch in the airport, talked about our expectations/questions/ideas for the whole trip, and then boarded our plane to Honduras! I originally thought I would have a freak out moment in FL, but I really didn’t (that happened more when I actually got to Honduras and realized ‘I’m in another freaking country, not for vacation, but for a while!’). The flight to Honduras was more interesting.

First Jacki and I switched seats with a couple because they were in the emergency row and one of them couldn’t speak English and that’s not allowed; Jacki and I switched and got the benefit of extra leg room too! J But there was this middle-aged man sitting in the row in front of us and he made the trip SO interesting to say the least. As we were taxi-ing on the runway ready to take off, he pressed the flight attendant button wanting to know why his seat didn’t recline and he wanted a seat that reclined. The flight attendant firmly told him it’s because he was in front of the emergency exit and so it’s not allowed. Well he was pissed about that. Then when we were in the air he moved to another seat without the permission of the flight attendants and so they had to firmly tell him again to return to his seat. He was getting all huffy saying he wanted a complaint form and such. By this time, I realized either he’s crazy or something else was wrong; and the something wrong was he was drunk…seriously. I could smell it. The craziest thing was on his way back from the bathroom he stops and looks at me and says, “So when are you gonna marry me?” right out of the blue! I was so taken aback that I didn’t know what to say so I was like, “Not for a long time.” He kept talking to me a little bit and I tried to be polite, but not friendly, trying to give him the hint to leave me alone. There was a guy across the aisle making hand gestures like “He’s crazy!” and I was like yeah! Well this guy continued to make a scene, harass the flight attendants, and shout loudly, along with the occasional “Are you sure you don’t wanna marry me?” to me as well. I about had it and was SO glad when we finally landed in San Pedro Sula. He ended up having to talk to the pilot about his behavior; he was clueless when he got into the airport, too. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time.
We proceeded through customs with no problems, got our baggage (it all made it!), and found Jake and Vicente (our contacts in Honduras) in the terminal with all of our stuff. Jake is the guy from the States who taught here last year and Vicente is an administrator for the school in Tegucigalpa (the capital). We packed all our bags like a puzzle into this van and left the airport just as it started to rain. We unloaded and relaxed for a little while, and then Jacki left to go with the guys to pick up Sarah, whose plane came in later than ours. Oh we all met Kirsty, another US teacher, at the airport because her plane had come in earlier that evening. While we waited for Sarah to come, Kirsty, Julia and I got to know each other: why we came, past relationships, family, school, etc. Kirsty’s cool and very nice. Sarah arrived and she is a hoot! So animated and fun. We spent the night in San Pedro at a nice hotel because we were leaving in the morning for Tegucigalpa. We are going to spend a few days there to do some paperwork, get a bank account, cell phone, exchange money, and other things like that.