Maybe not...but it sure didn't seem like 4 days off. Friday we didn't end up going out to Valle, because we couldn't find a driver. So I spent the day reading books, talking on facebook, etc...at least until the power went out early in the afternoon. I still spent some time reading, but a physical book rather than an electronic book. Friday night some of the graduates ended up coming in from the city to go to the party for Brayan and Yefrey the next day, so there was a bit of work to come up with places for them to sleep (or rather mattresses...fortunately someone was in the city and not coming back until Sunday, and another was covering a house, so it worked out in the end). Saturday started with a soccer game (well, the game went from 10 to 12). I played goalie almost the whole time (didn't take them long to put me in that position on a semi-permanent basis). We won...which makes it a good day, right. After we all cleaned up, we went to the bodega for the party. It was fun, I got to get to know a few people I hadn't had much chance to speak with before. They kept the generators running just long enough to show the slide show of pictures of the guys on the projector, then they cut the generators, but it was light enough outside (and not raining) that the lack of electricity wasn't a problem. The generators kicked in around 5 again, so I spent a little more time online talking with people...and then real power came on some time before the generators normally cut out (I think it was restored some time around 7:30 or so...at least that's when all the power flickered, which usually is the sign that the "real" power is back on).
Sunday (which was yesterday, difficult as that is for me to believe) was something of an adventure. My church down here was celebrating Day of the Child, so we met in a park in the city, had a service outside, and brought in food afterwards (pupusas...they're really good!). The park we went to was the same one where I had gone when I was down here in 2006 and 2008 on brigades...so it was a little emotional for me as I was walking around and remembering conversations with people from those trips. I spent the first 10 minutes there just wandering around and mostly shutting people out...but I got over it in time. I called home (5 bars of signal in the park...and no real issues with mosquitoes). After church I also got a chance to call Robin, which was nice, because one of the stronger memories I had was when we were both there in 2006 and we found a tree that kind of looked like a pineapple (the trunk was stubby and scaly, with giant fronds coming out the top). The tree is still there...it's grown a bit, but it still somewhat resembled the pineapple...so I knew it was the right one.
After church we went shopping (typical), and then we spent a bit of time over at visitation. Visitation happens once a month, and it's a chance where family members of the kids living at the Ranch can come and see them. It's at a church in the city. I've never been there before. Some kids had people there, many kids were just running around playing with each other. By this point I think all the kids know my name...I know most of them. They all said hi to me, it was really cute. We stayed there for about 10 minutes, then swung by Brayan and Steve's apartment (and I got a chance to see it, it's pretty nice), and started driving back to the Ranch. I say started, because as we were nearing the turn off to the potholed road (off of the main road out of Teguc) the hose on the radiator loosened or burst or something...we lost all the fluid, regardless. Those of us in the back noticed the fact that we had lost a lot of fluid...so we relayed that information to the driver. He pulled over and he and Melody's father (her parents and best friend are here visiting for a week) tried to see if they could fix it. Scott tried calling people to let them know and ask for help. He didn't get a hold of anyone initially, but Carlos saw us as he was on his way back. He pulled over, and 6 of us jumped into his busito (and we brought the groceries too). I guess Jim brought some more passengers back (maybe all of them, I don't know, I was in Carlos' van). The busito we were in is still in the city, I believe. Oh, the adventures of driving in Honduras. For some reason, as we were coming back to the Ranch we started singing songs again...hymns, Sunday School songs, other praise and worship stuff. It was a lot of fun...I just hope we weren't too annoying. Basically it was Melody, her parents, her friend Sarah, Scott and me...Marielos joined in when she knew them. Overall, I guess looking back it was a full weekend...even though it seemed to fly by way too quickly. [It probably flew by because it was a full weekend, granted.]
It was interesting to see how God worked things out really well yesterday with the busito...because if we had stuck around too much longer at visitation, we probably would have been behind most of the ranch people returning from the city because we took that side trip to Brayan and Steve's apartment.
Today was back to school as usual. It's been gray and rainy all day. The power has held out so far, which is good, because it's our turn to host family night tonight...Melody's parents are helping with it. It should be fun!
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