Before I left, I was talking to someone about my impending trip to
Honduras. They told me that I had a very
laissez-fair attitude about my trip. It might
have been Carrie Hanbury but I’m not sure.
Whoever it was, that’s a pretty accurate description. I wasn’t always a laissez-faire traveler and
I’m not sure when that changed. But it’s
totally the best way to travel.
I never know what’s going to happen next. To a certain extent, I do it to myself. Like when I go with the girl that doesn’t
speak English to the Cafeteria, where they don’t speak English, to get my
lunch. I know a few words and just kind
of guess at what the rest means. The
food couldn't possibly be worse than what I was eating in The Gambia so I’m not
that worried about it. Plus, if I don’t
like it, I can just go to Ruby Tuesdays or Little Caesars just up the
street. Of course, just getting every
couple words and guessing at the rest doesn’t always work. Like last week when the people in the lab were
talking about hamburgers. I thought they
were just saying that American’s eat a lot of hamburgers. Somewhere in the conversation they tried to
tell me that they were going to get me a hamburger from Burger King. I didn't understand that so I ended up with 2
lunches that day. But now, I won’t
forget the grammatical structure they were using.
Sometimes, I don’t know what’s happening because I’m given the wrong
information. Like a few weekends ago, I
was told I was going to get a tour of Picacho (like Christo Redentor in Rio)
with one of the girls (Karina) in the office where I work and the CEO of the
Center (Dra. Duarte). We were supposed
to go after work on Saturday. As noon
approached, Karina (she doesn't speak English) left. I was told that I was going to go somewhere
with the CEO then meet up with Karina downtown.
I would later learn that was not the real plan. I went looking for Dra.Duarte and asked where
we were going. She wanted to take me to
the birthday party of an 80 year old friend of hers. OK.
I’m game. So we jump in a leather
seated SUV with another friend of the Dra. and head to Valle De Angeles. The house is on approximately an acre of land;
the grounds and house were very beautifully kept. There were some doctors from the hospital at
the party and one of the woman’s sons who is running for the office of Deputy
Mayor. After eating a ridiculous amount
of food, we left; I thought to meet the girl from the Cancer Center where I
work. I was wrong. We went with one of the people from the party
to what is probably the nicest house I’ve ever been seen. There were 6 or 7 bedroom suites, a separate guest
house, a separate building for a theater, and well over an acre of land all
very well kept. The house also had the
biggest TV I’ve ever seen outside of a professional sports stadium. After that, we returned to the city where, I
still didn’t meet up with Karina. On
Monday it was explained to me that our trip to Picacho was postponed so I could
go to Valle de Angeles.
My friend Pam asked me once why I like to travel. Of course I answered with the usual response
of “helping those in need”. There is a
little bit of that. But really, it’s more
about the crazy. It’s really fun to not know
what’s coming next. You just have to be
able to roll with the punches. Once you
learn how to do that, you can have a lot of fun.
