Chapter 8: I Tawt I Taw My Lord Jesus
The van was a bit of a tight squeeze. There were six kids and ten teens and adults. Also, I had two suitcases with stuff for the boys (darn bulky soccer balls). I was expecting to have the bigger suitcase on my lap, but they wouldn't hear of it. Two of the mothers took them leaving me comfortable but feeling very ungallant . The one nice thing is that the main roads in Honduras are actually pretty good. No bouncing over potholes or anything like that. The drive was quite pleasant and I chatted with Miriam while enjoying the view. There is a conspiracy by the cell phone company Tiga to take over the country as evidenced by the numerous houses painted electric blue with the Tiga logo covering one wall. We had found out last time that they offer to paint people's houses for free if they agree to becoming a free billboard - hey, as long as you don't mind blue, why not? But if you gave directions, there would be no point saying "My house is the blue one with the Tiga sign on it" - your guest would be hopelessly lost.
In case you are wondering about my title, on this drive I saw the weirdest piece of religious art I have ever seen in my life. It was on the back of a bus; a drawing of Wiley E Coyote asking Tweety Bird, "Do You Know Jesus?" This raises all sorts of questions but also answers some. The fact that the coyote knows Jesus explains how he is able to survive falls off of cliffs and numerous catastrophic failures by various products of the Acme Company. I'm not at all sure that he's an ideal evangelist given his homicidal tendencies nor why he has chosen Tweety Bird to try and convert. Mind you, given Tweety's close calls escaping becoming cat food, he might already know Jesus. My biggest regret on the whole trip was that I was unable to get a photo of this provocative piece of artwork, but both the van and the bus were moving. Alas.
Last year, there was an earthquake in Honduras. Nothing like the one in Haiti, but at the time, I had read that the bridge crossing the river into El Progresso had fallen. I had worried at the time; particularly for Axel's family as their house is on the side of the mountain, but apparently there was not much damage beyond the broken bridge. I decided to play dumb tourist and get my picture taken on the edge of the fallen bridge. The first house we reached was Jon's - they live on the outskirts of El Progresso so we were able to unload three people and get everyone a lot more comfortable. They had been sitting in front and Carlos took advantage of them getting out to come and claim the seat next to me. He pulled my arm over his shoulder and snuggled up to me in a way that was most touching as we drove up the rutted, mountain road to Axel's house. Getting there, we all got out and went to see him. I found him sitting in the front portion of their house with his arm in a sling. I could tell he was very disappointed at having missed the adventure and I could hardly blame him. I sat with him for a bit, chatting through the translator letting him know how much I'd missed him and then I started to give him the various presents I had brought. I always start with the clothes first; that is what they are going to be the least excited over, so build up to the good stuff. He really liked the soccer ball, but his eyes totally lit up at the ball and bat. So did Wilson's - I'm sure between the two of them it will get a lot of use, though poor Axel will have to wait for his arm to heal.
They told me that the dog they had had last year (Pimpa) had gone to the great beyond which was hardly surprising given that the poor thing had looked to be on its last legs. They had a new puppy called Champion and I was struck by the oddness of the fact that my sponsored kids all have dogs with English names while my dog has a Central American Indian name (Cocoa). We hung around for a bit, but I could tell that we needed to get the show on the road, so I said goodbye to Axel and promised him I'd come again soon and that we'd make sure he got to go along on the next adventure.
1 comment:
I don't believe that Pimpa is the same sickly creature that we met last February. Wilson wrote several months after that to tell me he had a "new" pet named Pimpa. In a later letter, he confirmed that yes, Pimpa was a dog and that she had given birth to a litter of puppies. I'm afraid that Pimpa was probably the SECOND canine casualty of last year!
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