Our plane left Nashville at 6:15 for a two hour flight to Miami. Then we got to spend four hours at the Miami airport! Of course there were no sit down restaurants like at the small Nashville airport, so we had to eat nasty food court pizza. I feel like we had already left the country when we were in Miami – the flight info was all in English and Spanish.
Here’s where all the fun started – we landed in San Pedro Sula at 2:30. We had to arrive early to avoid driving at night. San Pedro is three hours away from La Providencia in Siguatepeque so we had a bit of an interesting drive. Cole, Trey, Bake, and I rode with Jorge, our host, so we could get groceries. We never ended up getting them, so we just got Burger King (my 1st whopper ever [pronounced whop-pear there]) and headed to Siguatepeque.
The cultural shock is immediate – Hondurans drive like madmen. Everyone honks – it’s as if it’s not even rude. People walk inbetween cars at the stoplights selling fruit, car adapters (?), etc. Some people even travel by horse and buggy in Honduras! I love it! There’s so many motorcyclists/bikers too. Everyone uses the road and let me just say – pedestrians DO NOT, by any means, have the right of way.
When I travel lately, something big always seems to happen. Last July, there was a bomb threat at LAX just after we missed our rental car shuttle, forcing us to flee down Sepulveda Blvd. with what seemed like everyone else in the world. In May, the driver of the Fly Away shuttle I was on sideswiped another car, causing major delays and racial tension between the drivers. Today, the big thing that happened was very surreal – something I’ve never been forced to witness. We were driving in heavy traffic through San Pedro Sula and noticed a bunch of policia cars and a huge crowd of onlookers at a crime scene. A lady had been shot in the chest. Usually in the states (every time I’ve been around something like this), all bodies are concealed under a blanket on a stretcher. This poor lady was just lying there. I’ve never seen a dead body before so unfortunately the first had to be a murder victim. However, this opened my eyes to the corruption in this world and reminded me that I am down here to work and help those in need – to help construct a safehaven for innocent orphans away from the gang violence that seems to corrupt this country and therefore establish no sense of trust between citizens (hence the barbed wire protecting every house). We were nervous about putting baggage in the back and having it stolen.
Off to Siguatepeque.
Honduras is beautiful! Very green. Lots of mountains. Unfortunately, it’s hot. It was 97˚ when we landed in San Pedro. Thankfully, La Providencia is in the mountains and a bit cooler. Again, the road was filled with bikers and pedestrians as we drove through villages. Jorge is such a cool guy. He’s 23, a native Honduran, studying biology in Tegucigalpa (the capitol), and hosting families coming to La Providencia the next three months. His English is impeccable. There’s absolutely no trace of Spanish descent when he speaks.
Driving for three hours got a little interesting since a 7.1 degree earthquake just struck San pedro a few weeks ago! That’s worse than the earthquake off of Sri Lanka a few years ago. Jorge said there was a huge fear of tsunamis since sometimes they don’t come till 8 hours after an earthquake hits. Bridges fell and chunks of the road had fallen off so the drive got real dangerous at times.
We’re staying in a rented house with room for all 30 of us. It’s surrounded by a huge wall with barbed wire so we’re definitely safe. I’m in a room with Cole and Wally. So far we’re having a blast!
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