The Capital City

Well, folks, I am on my way to becoming a permanent resident of Honduras. This just means that I can leave the country and not have to pay big fines because my tourist visa runs out soon. Of course, this came after the big adventure of having to go to Tegucigalpa to get everything processed.

First, Sor Mirna (the director here) and I left at 5.30 in the morning to go to the bus station, which is, incidentally, the best way to get around the country. When you buy a ticket for the bus, it´s like a general admission ticket, and they always sell more tickets than there are seats, so you have to push your way to the front of the line so you don´t end up having to stand in the aisle for the whole trip. Luckily, we both got seats. Along the way, the driver randomly pulled over to let people on and off. He also let on vendors who would get on at one stop and get off at the next, where a vendor selling something different would get on. We met people selling toothbrushes, mangos, t-shirts, everything you can think of. Since we had to go to San Pedro Sula first, which is really out of the way, the whole trip took about 7 and a half hours. There´s no direct bus to Teguc (what they call Tegucigalpa here), so it was a pretty long trip. The landscape is really pretty though, and there´s always something exciting, like getting pulled over by the police, or waiting for a tow truck to pull an 18-wheeler back onto the road after it slipped off in the rain, so it went by pretty fast...

But the real adventure began when we finally got to Teguc. To get to the provincial house, where we were staying, we had to take a taxi. When we got off the bus, there was a huge line of taxis, so we walked up to a driver and asked him to take us to the provincial house. He said of course he would take us, and helped us get inside. Then he left. So we were sitting in the back seat, with all our stuff, and no driver. Then, when we tried to get out, we couldn´t open either of the back doors. The locks were broken off and the handles for the windows were removed, so we got really nervous. The taxi itself looked like it had been through a war, and I think the motor was the only part that actually worked. So there we were, and Sor Mirna (she´s a worrier) started freaking out, which freaked me out too. We were both desperately trying to get out of the taxi when the driver came back, talking on his cellphone and not noticing the panicked passengers in his backseat. But we took off anyway, and boy did we fly. Do you remember that video game in the arcade at the bowling alley, Crazy Taxi? Well, I got to live it. Despite the rush hour traffic, he sped down every street and would brake at the last second. Back seat seatbelts don´t exist here, so we crashed into the front seat every time he stopped. At one point, he got so frustrated with a line of traffic that he just drove on the other side of the road until the oncoming traffic forced him to edge his way back into the right direction. Of course, he´s not the only driver like that either. There are no rules, and sometimes streets are one way and sometimes they´re two-way, just depending on who´s driving on it. Everyone drives with reckless abandon, and I´m surprised that I didn´t really see any accidents. The streets are like San Francisco, and everyone drives standard, so there were times when we had to wait for a car to slide back down a hill and get a running start before we could go up the hill after it. And the whole time, he would either talk on his cell phone or turn around in his seat and ask me how to say things in English. Anyway, we finally made it one piece to the house, and from there, went to the migracíon office, courtesy of the house driver.

At immigration, I really didn´t have as many problems as I thought I would, and the only thing I didn´t have was a letter from the archbishop of Tegucigalpa saying that I really was here to work in a school. So we had to leave the office and go ask the bishop if he would write me a letter. But the bishop is in Rome right now, meeting with the Pope, so we had his secretary forge us a note. By then, the immigration office was already closed, so we went back to the house. The provincial house happens to be across the street from a discotec, so I got a good taste of what the nightlife is like here, just by listening to the music. Somebody named Yohnny Be Good was performing, and he was singing Frank Sinatra songs in Spanish, with just the chorus in (very bad) English. This went on for hours, right outside my bedroom window, and unfortunately, I was not in a sound-proof room. I sure hope he was good-looking or that the partiers had a lot to drink to endure it.

But after the sleepless night, we got up the next day and went back to immigration, and got everything worked out. Since we had to go back again, we missed the bus back to Santa Rosa, so we had to stay another day, which was fine with me, because I hadn´t really gotten the chance to see much of the city. So one of the sisters there took me out on the town for a tour. We went to a bunch of nun-type places, like the cathedral, a basilica for the patroness of Honduras, things like that. The city itself actually isn´t a very pretty city; it´s pretty industrial. We went by the airport too, which is still closed, and if it ever reopens, it will have a much longer runway (thank goodness).

Then, we ended up at the house for the aspirantes (I don´t remember how you say it in English, but this is the place where the girls who want to be nuns live). Talk about dropping a hint, and it wasn´t very subtle either. Anyway, we went in and I got to meet all the girls, who were actually very sweet, and were around my age. They kept joking about how they lived in a nun factory, and I spent about an hour there talking with them, we ate, I went to a music class with them, the works. They were really trying to sell it to me. It must have been disappointing when they found out that I don´t actually want to be nun... Nice girls, though, and pretty good food.

After that, we went back to the provincial house, and spent another wonderful night of bad singing next door. This time it was karaoke. Oy. Anyway, we got up in the pre-dawn hours again this morning, and started the adventure all over, heading to the bus station in a crazy cab, fighting our way onto another bus, and fending off vendors for 8 hours. But we made it in one piece, still alive, just a little tired, and the best part is we get to do it again in two months, when I have to go back the immigration office to pick up my residency card. But like they say here, this is how it is, and they wouldn´t have it any other way.

Hope you´re having a good summer! And send me an email with your address if you want me to send you a postcard from here!

PS -There are more pictures in my albums. Unfortunately, it´s taking me awhile to upload photos, so these are a bit old, but I´m attempting to get caught up. Here are the links:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2458686&l=a44ef&id=7911406 and
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2470491&l=b1f2e&id=7911406