Waiting for the Ministry – Again ... Still

Warm, humid days with plenty of thunderstorms continue to make things green and, at times, change schedules. Generally, because the rains last less than an hour, everyone stops where they are and waits for a stoppage before venturing on. Consequently, meetings and appointments go on hold when a thunderstorm hits. Of course, this sometimes goes awry as there are, occasionally, rains that last for several hours. I still haven’t acquired the ability to tell the difference so, as a result, have, several times, gotten a good soaking for nothing. I may have to take the bold step of buying an umbrella – another thing to lose and, unfortunately, not really all that useful in a major downpour, especially if the rain is slanting at all.

Last Thursday or Friday was scheduled to meet with the Vice Minister of Education here in Santa Cruz. By Thursday afternoon it was obvious that that was not to be the case. A late afternoon phone call assured us that: a. The meeting was not on Friday. b. The meeting would be the following Thursday. Well, today, we got another phone call. The Minister has taken a trip outside of the country and, consequently, the meeting is postponed again. Understandably, having the Vice Minister of Education 200 kilometres away from her desk at such a time could be disastrous for the Ministry should a national emergency (a shortage of pencils, a case of discoloured uniforms or ... the prospects are simply too horrifying) arrive. Sigh.

The good news for us is that we are able to organize more and more of the materials we have and some of the new things we are gaining. In the last week we have found two digitalized “libraries” of sorts. We are now going through them and finding what books are there, what level they are and how we might use them in our program. It is very exciting to have at least some books to begin with. Hopefully, by week’s end, we will have a list from the first “library” and can then get on with loading them for our students to read. It will be such a huge step for them to be able to read stories for, in reality, the first time in their lives.

World Cup soccer is over for another four years and, as the Honduran soccer league has not begun it second half of the season, thousands of Honduran soccer fans are bereft of their fixes. Soccer Fans Anonymous is setting up free drop-in centres to help us out. Even worse news, the team I cheer for, Reál España, is changing their stadium to a city a further twenty kilometres away. My hopes for the odd game are, I fear, gone up in the smoke of political firestorms. As their line-up has had no substantial changes from the first half of the season, this may not be as devastating a blow as first glance would suggest.

On Saturday, I was invited, along with the music group, to a birthday party for a pair of twins turning eight. Obviously I missed a considerable amount in the translation as only two of us from the group showed up. The party was, I was told, to start at 1:00 p.m. That was going to allow me to play in a soccer game at 3:00 p.m. and a rehearsal at 6:00 p.m. Well, you can stop laughing because you already know what happened. I left the party early at 4:00, went home and then was stranded by two hours of rain. The upside was a chance to meet a couple who had studied English and French a bit so were aware of a few words in English, and, more importantly, aware of how to translate my Spanish into Spanish. We had a lovely visit.

The satellite centres (where we have one or more computers in a village) are doing well and we are getting more students all the time. They are progressing fairly well and we will see how they do on exams. One centre came in today with marks and they are reasonable. I suspect that we will find the marks a little lower but, possibly, more realistic of what we can expect. When students study here, they have access to help and that skews their results.

On Friday, I went in to San Pedro Sula to look at a truck that is being prepared for me. It is exciting to think of having wheels to haul seedlings, sand, people, computers, etc. It will save a great deal of time. It remains to be seen what it will do to the budget though. I may be using the public transport for many things because of cost savings. What having a vehicle will do for the most part is allow me to work on things in the late afternoon without fear of missing the last bus home. That means that I can work in the office until two or three and then accomplish something else for a few hours. Working at four in the afternoon is so much cooler than at twelve noon.

As with many countries, Honduras participates in the Insurance Write-off market. When a car is in an accident in Canada or the U.S., it is, often, written off because of the high cost of repair in comparison to the value of the car. These cars are put up for auction on the internet. Over 1000 vehicles per day (according to my source) are sold this way. They are then shipped to the country of purchase, repaired and sold there.

The vehicle I am looking at is such a vehicle. It was in a minor accident in Florida and the box and tailgate were damaged. It runs well and the rest of the vehicle is in reasonable shape. By week’s end, the dents will be repaired, the body repainted, the interior cleaned, etc. I should, I hope, by next week be able to drive it out and about. The price is much cheaper than any other vehicle I can get so that is also a bonus.

As is so often the case, finding the people to accomplish this takes time, fortune and relationships. This was easy. The step-brother of a girl I taught in San Pedro Sula who, incidentally, runs a layer operation, (the step-brother that is) has a brother-in-law who imports cars as an aside to selling car stereos, fancy add ons and so forth. The brother-in-law’s wife speaks English and, as long as it concerns makes and models of cars and trucks, so does he. How much easier does it need to be? Only took a couple of years of relationships to find that out.

Time to run.

TTYL
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