“Mr. Silvera goes to Tegucigalpa”
August 24, 2002
Dear Family and Friends,
After one year of service I finally had my tooth pulled, a bridge in place and, with only a minimal amount of pain, I was able to chew on the left side of my mouth again. This happened back in Update Letter #2! After three weeks of blissful eating (I’ve discovered a new pleasure in tasting food on both sides of my mouth) a molar on the other side of my mouth started to give way and part of the filling fell out. So, a special trip to the capitol was scheduled, and last Monday I set out on a magnificent adventure…
The adventure started at 1:30 AM Monday morning when I woke up. My original plan was to get up at 2:00 AM since the bus leaves at 2:30 AM, but my neighbor, who was leaving on the same bus, thoroughly convinced me that, even though I have taken the 2:30 bus four or five times in the past, the bus always leaves at 2:00 AM and we should get up earlier. Since he doesn’t own an alarm clock it was my job to yell across the patio to his bedroom and make sure he was up. Being the good neighbor I am I woke up, did my “alarm clock” duty, prepared for my excursion, and went up to the bus stop around 2:20 AM (since I can hear the bus leave from my house there was no need to go up there any earlier). The bus arrived about 20 minutes later. I should have known I would have had time for that second cup of coffee.
After a six hour bus ride I arrived in Tegucigalpa where I caught a cab to the Peace Corps Office. My dental appointment was at 10:00 AM, allowing about an hour to start the long list of errands Jennifer gave me before I left. In the Peace Corps office I made photocopies for a project, greeted friends, and checked in with the assistant country director, who informed me that I had won a photo contest. Last January, I had taken some photos at a local orphanage for another Peace Corps couple who had invited us to help with a special kid’s day project. They entered me in the contest and I won first place in the category of “Volunteer Experiences” for which I received 500 lempiras (about $29.00). This was the grand prize to take Jennifer out for dinner the next time we come to the city. Trying to keep on schedule I headed out to catch another cab to the dentist’s office. Seeing that I had a little extra time, and knowing that the dentist is always late on Mondays, I headed to the bank where a guy with a gun and a hand-held metal detector told me to leave my backpack outside and waved his magic wand over my body looking for bazookas or some other implement of death I might use for robbing the bank. All I wanted was a copy of our monthly bank statement, which we usually receive every third month if we are patient enough to wait for it by mail.
After the bank, without delay, I went to the dentist who told me my filling was bad and needed to be replaced. Novocain injected, filling replaced; and I even got to watch 45 minutes of CNN on the T.V. the dentist had installed on his ceiling; only the best for us Peace Corps Volunteers.
At 11:00 AM I caught another cab to the bus terminal in hopes of making it to Choluteca to do some shopping and catch the last bus back to Concepción in one day; a feat never attempted or accomplished in the past by any previous volunteer in our site (at least that I know of). Jennifer wasn’t expecting me to be home until Tuesday afternoon.
The bus to Choluteca was very crowded and I was thankful that I arrived about 20 minutes before it departed as there were about 15 people who had to stand in the aisle for the three hour ride back to Choluteca. With time to squander, I read a little, played games on my palm pilot and daydreamed some of the minutes away. Once in Choluteca it was back on track with a cab to the photo developer’s shop to get some reprints made as gifts for our high school computer class whom we were having a party for on Friday. This was the one assignment Jennifer wanted completed. The students rarely have pictures taken of themselves so this was meant to be a special present. I pleaded with a wink and smile to the woman behind the counter and received a promise that the photos would be done in half an hour.
Another cab ride and I was at the grocery store; a man on a mission. With a list of items, drawn up by my detail-oriented wife, I cruised through the aisles and filled a shopping cart full of groceries in about 16 minutes. It then took 10 minutes to pack it all into three backpacks (a large one, a medium sized one, and a small one that is insulated for cold items). Another cab ride back to the photo developer’s shop and a couple of gracious "thank yous" for all the wonderful people who got my photos done in record time, and I was out the door walking down the street (fully loaded like a pack mule) five blocks to the only place in town that we know of that sells good cheese slightly resembling mozzarella.
Cheese in hand (well in the backpack anyway) and I was off to the bus which, after a dusty, bumpy ride would deliver me to the heart of Concepción de Maria at 7:20 PM, just in time to surprise Jennifer.
Total Bus Time: 12 hours
Total Number of Taxis: 7
Total Number of Meals: 0
Kilometers Traveled: 600 (Approx)
Liters of water consumed: 2
All that just to get my tooth filled! And of course so I wouldn’t have to spend a night away from my lovely bride!
Hoping you are having an efficient week with as few errands to run as possible!
Yours truly,
Shawn-Miguel