Tuesday

Jairo gave me another update today on the way to the church.  He said that he was saving yesterday's newspaper to show me because it has all of the most dangerous neighborhoods highlighted on a map and the murder rates there.  Guess what?  Los Pinos and the neighborhood where I love to shop at the bottom of the hill from the church are on the list.  We have noticed the army has a lot of people on the streets between those two neighborhoods lately.  We are not sure why.

Also, the narco traffickers have implemented their own curfew in certain neighborhoods.  That was in the newspaper as well.  Basically if you go outside in those neighborhoods after a certain hour you are guaranteed to be shot.  I asked Jairo if the narcos are making their own curfews so they can move around freely at night without being seen.  He said he thinks it's more about exercising and demonstrating control.  He said they want to show the people who is the boss.

Some of the boys from Pinares went shopping with Walter today to buy Valentines Day presents for their girlfriends.  One of the boys has been saving for months and spent a lot of money on gifts. He has the night planned out in stages, with a gifts at a movie, gifts in the car when his sister picks him up after the movie, gifts at dinner, gifts in the car when his brother picks him up after dinner.  I sure hope the girl appreciates him!  The boys are young teens, so they are funny about the whole thing, embarrassed to talk to their parents about it.  So cute!

Jairo said he thought a man was supposed to bring a Honda CRV to the church today for us to look at for me, but once again nobody showed up.  Jairo said maybe he was mistaken and the man is supposed to come tomorrow.  I am hoping to see my "new" (used) car tomorrow!  But I am not counting on it.

I told Jairo I would like to celebrate my one year anniversary in Honduras.  He asked what the date of the anniversary will be.  Then we talked about the day I got here when we left the airport and went straight to dig groceries out of the garbage for the church.  Yuck.  That was so disgusting.  I admitted for the first time that I never knew what we were doing, where we were going, or how long we'd be gone for the first few months.  I told him I was embarrassed to ask, but they would make plans in Spanish and I didn't understand.  I told him it is nice to know what's going on now.  We talked about how my luggage was lost for the first 8 days and we thought it was permanently lost.  Looking back, I can't believe that didn't freak me out.  I was so calm about it.  I think I could use more of that tranquility and peace now.  I think I used to be better about rolling with the punches.  Something to work on.