Out of the Cold

Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.
-Annie Besant

Hello Reader-friend,

Not too much to say this week on the subject of traveling.  Next week, I should have more for you.  At this very moment, I am on a plane headed to San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  The guy next to me is researching how to say, “Hello, young ladies” in spanish and this makes me very, very nervous.

I visited Honduras some 7 years ago on a service learning trip in college.  We built houses and helped restore a church in the village in the southwest.  One of the clearest memories I have was standing in the bathroom over the wash basin one evening and splashing water on my face, when suddenly two geckos – so engrossed in their mating, they’d lost their footing – fell from the ceiling and on to my upturned forehead.  I fear not the gecko, but the shock of it led to one of the few times I have lost my composure and “made a scene”.  Not to say I am any stranger to drawing attention to myself, but at least my escapades are usually of the non blood curdling scream sort.

As an update, I’m now arrived in the airport, waiting on a bus.  There are two little boys playing around me, rolling a small plastic motorcycle back and forth between them.  For a little toy, it rides gracefully. Every now and then it slides past one of them and comes to me.  The first time this happens I catch it, and smiling, attempt to roll it back.  UNFORTUNATELY, it is their skill and not any balancing mechanism in the bike that keeps it upright and when I try to “roll” it back, I end up essentially chucking their toy at them, the bike overturning immediately after leaving my hand, skidding on it’s side down the length of the floor.  Lo siento, ninos.  They have a sense of humor though, and start missing it on purpose or sometimes just outright rolling it at me, giggling.  At one point, I pick it up for closer examination.  Upon noticing that the driver is missing a rather important uh, feature, I say, “Oh no!  What happened to his head?” and one of the boys makes the universal finger swipe across his neck for decapitation, his face reflecting the  inherent ickyness of such a prospect.  I take a moment to make a small and probably incoherent speech about the dangers of riding a motorcycle.

I’m excited about Honduras part deux, but I can’t say I have anything too outrageous on the agenda.  I have some loose plans and a list of things I want to accomplish, so it will be interesting (as ever) to see how all those play out.  I have brought the strangest combination of footwear you could imagine to cover everything.  Chiefly, I want to bask in the sun, snorkel, dance, write, and cogitate over my next weird life choice.  It would appear to be the rainy season here, so we’ll see about the basking.  Maybe I’ll just wear the flippers all day every day.