A car story

My parents were here all week, and they just left this weekend. What a joy it was to have them here, and to be able to share all my experiences with them, and what I´ve been experiencing for the past year.

When I first saw them in the airport, they both came running up to me to give me a big hug, and my mom almost started crying. I was so excited to see them, and even more excited that I was about to share my new life with them. I was so excited to get up the mountain the next morning, I had to keep myself from yelling at my dad to go up the hill faster (they rented a car).

Well, lucky us, while we were inching up the awful road up to my site, the car all of a sudden stopped working. It started just fine, but wouldn´t accelerate. I looked back at my mom, and for the first time in the trip, she had a look of sheer horror on her face. We were in the middle of the mountain, with no houses anywhere near us, and no people in sight. Luckily, they had me. I quickly got out my phone, and called a friend of mine from my town who knows quite a bit about cars, and asked him what to do. He told me I had to go on foot to the next town (about a 45 minute walk) and find a mechanic.

So I did. I headed off alone, and left my parents to guard the car. Alone and helpless, not able to speak a word of spanish. I raced in to look for a mechanic, and after a lot of walking, waiting, and arguing with the mechanic after finally finding him (he was hesitant to come help), I finally got in his car and drove with him out towards where I had left my parents. When we got to the main road, and were about to turn down to go find them, we ran into them right there. Apparantly, just as suddenly as it had stopped, the car started working again while I was gone. I asked the mechanic to look over the car just in case, and thanked him for his help and asked him if we owed him anything. With a little wink, he said to me ¨just your number.¨ Kind of smooth, and more impressive than most Honduran men. But I politely refused anyway.

After this little dilemma, we got to my town later than I had hoped, but still with plenty of energy and joy because we were all together! More stories later to come.....