Not Dreaming Anymore

Ten years is a long time to wait for something you want. Fortunately, there's nothing wrong with having a little patience.

Western highlands of Honduras:
the view from the walk to the school where I'll be working

When I was a high school freshman, I wished I could understand the Spanish language. (If you want to know the story behind that, just ask.) Then, after four years of formal classes, I was amazingly nowhere near my goal.

I remember finishing undergrad and realizing that probably the only way to become fluent in Spanish would be immersion - living in a country where I'd be surrounded by the language for at least a year.

Fast forward to the summer of 2014.
On July 19th, I boarded a plane in Nashville with two suitcases and two carry-ons, flew to Miami to wait there for about 15 hours, and then completed the journey to my new home of Honduras, Central America.

Read on for highlights from the trip.

• My greatest delight was the live string quintet that greeted my ears at the bus station not far from the airport in Honduras. Live strings are one of my favorite things on earth! Not sure why this ensemble was performing in the bus station (while being recorded by some sort of film crew) because once I got off the plane, the Honduran transportation workers who communicated with me didn't offer a single word of English.

• My greatest adventure involved arriving at the bus station in my town at 6pm to find that my contact was nowhere to be found...despite the fact that the bus station would only be open for another half hour. Keep in mind I don't speak the language, and I had nothing more than a first name for the guy who was supposed to pick me up (Alexis) and a first name for the lady whose family I was supposed to be staying with (Celea). This is where small town living saves the day. A cab driver with barely more English than my Spanish proceeded to load up my things and drive to a home where some ladies sat outside chatting. The driver had understood when I explained to him that I was a new teacher at the bilingual school, and he understood that another school employee named Alexis never showed up to meet me at the bus station. So, without leaving the taxi, the driver leaned out the window and spoke with the front porch ladies for a minute. Then, we were off again to another curb and a new group of people spending time outdoors. This time, the cabby spoke with a woman who listened for a while and then looked at me in the back of the taxi. "Teacher?" she smiled. I smiled back, "Yes! Do you speak English?" She answered no but then pointed to a young boy on the sidewalk. This kid turned out to be the solution to my problem (and also one of my future students) as he listened to my story, pulled out his cell phone, and said, "I call Alexis now." Minutes later, Alexis pulled up in a car with his family and explained that he had been given the wrong rendezvous time for picking me up at the bus station. He and his family must've arrived at the station just after my taxi left, a couple minutes prior to 6:30.

• My greatest lesson... well, I'll put it this way: when moving to a faraway land - even if you know you'll have no cell phone service upon arrival, be sure to have phone info ready for your contact in case something goes haywire at the point where you're supposed to be picked up! Holy cow.

After all the excitement, Alexis dropped me off at the host family home that had been arranged for my first few weeks in town. Celea, the host family wife, and her two daughters welcomed, fed, and entertained me. The trip that started the day before in Nashville was finally over, and I was ready to retire to my room. Once alone in there, I learned that the first order of business would be the fight of my life against the largest spider imaginable. He lost.