Bernie's Travels: Santa Lucia surprise

From Talanga I made a day trip to visit another Honduran family of mine that live in Santa Lucia, just a half hour outside the city climbing up into the mountains and pine forests. In Santa Lucia I had three months of training before becoming a Peace Corps volunteer. There I was paired up with a terrific host family that had the patience of Job. At this point I speak Spanish very well, but you should have seen me those first days. I was literally one of the bottom two Spanish speakers in my training group of 50. It was painful to get anything out, understand anything, and probably to listen to me spit and sputter my very broken Spanish. The upside of all of this is that I can appreciate the pain and progress of learning a new language. If I can do it, I am certain that almost everyone else can too!
_____________________________________________________________________________________

A funny story about Santa Lucia and not being able to speak Spanish: The second Sunday of training, the only day we had free, I traveled from Santa Lucia to Teguc. with another trainee who was an advanced Spanish speaker. Of course she naturally handled almost everything involving Spanish and I was left to practice my listening skills. We had a good time together and I'm sure I learned a few things, but the ease of letting her figure it all out didn't do much for my Spanish. The next Sunday morning I decided it was time to sink or swim, and I traveled and blundered my way to Tegucigalpa on my own.

To get there my two options were to take the bus which wasn't quite ready to leave, or to hitch-hike. I had yet to hitch-hike in the states, but here it seemed like the thing to do, and generally it is. To start off it was simple enough; I walk three minutes to edge of Santa Lucia in the direction of Tegucigalpa then stuck out my thumb at the turn. The first truck that came immediately pulled over and I went to knock on the window to see which direction they were going. I literally wanted to say “where are you going” and I simply couldn't think of how to say it, after two full weeks of Spanish class! As I had my knuckles almost to the glass and realized that I couldn't ask them where they were going I pulled my hand back and decided that they were going forward, which was good enough for moment. I jumped in the back and hoped they were actually going to Tegucigalpa.

Through the window I could see them having some sort of heated discussion, but they did turn the right direction and seemed to be going to Teguc. I was pleased and leaned back against the wheel well appreciating the beautiful Sunday morning and scenic pine forests in the open air. Then, without much warning they pulled off to the side of the road and both got out of the truck. Thankfully they spoke broken english and one of them said “Don't worry, we are still going to Teguc.” he continued with “My friend is drunk and he wants to fight.' so they proceeded to face off with each other behind the truck as I was sitting in the bed, comfortably leaning back. The took off each others glasses and were standing in the road jawing to each other. They were both piss drunk and not much happened beyond that. They made some sort of peace and came over to me in the back of the truck to celebrate their rekindled friendship. They asked if I wanted to go have a beer with them, and it wasn't even 10 o'clock on Sunday morning! Welcome to Honduras! Ha. I declined the offer and hitched another, this time sober, ride into town and she dropped me off right where I wanted to go. moral of the story, know enough Spanish to know if they are drunk before catching a ride!
____________________________________________________________________________________

To get to Santa Lucia, I hitch-hiked into Teguc, then took a couple of shared taxis to another road heading out of Teguc in the direction of Santa Lucia. The bus for Santa Lucia was still waiting for passenger so I moved on and hitched another ride to the turn off to Santa Lucia, then one more into town. Along the way we passed a political rally supporting one of the blue candidates. Unfortunately they also have a polarizing blue-red political separation that speaks nothing of various shades of purple that are more realistic. Politics is serious business in Honduras. The primary election campaigning is in full swing and it is hard to avoid the fray.

It was so great to be back in Santa Lucia to see my host family, although I almost gave Dona Eldamira a heart attack surprising her like that. On Sundays she runs a business selling the best soup in town. She is a terrific cook and I was fortunate to live with her for my few months in Santa Lucia. I surprised her as she was busy dishing up her delicious soup and when she turned around her face lit up. It was so great to her and the rest of the family helping her at the strand. Of course they served me up a bowl of soup and we had a good time catching up. In six years the oldest daughter had gotten married and the youngest daughter had a baby. When Dona Eldamira went up to the house I followed her said hello to Don Miguel, her husband. It was great to be back in the house again where I spent the first part of my time in Honduras. It looked exactly the same as it did eight years ago. Chickens flirted with idea of walking into the house, and more of the cooking was happening on the outside stove than the modern kitchen inside.

Back at the soup stand they were accompanied by live music. Right next door was a church group rocking out with hallelujahs mixed in here and there. I stepped out to take a look. It was great so see my Santa Lucia family again even though it was a short visit. To get back to Talanga that night I had to go back through the rat race of Teguc, then head back out of town again in a different direction. It was a lot of running around, but worth it to see them again.