Luck of the Gringo

Well, I arrived in El Porvenir last night. Now that I’ve arrived I’m safe. And I’m as sound as I was when I left the States, for what that’s worth. But this time the getting here was an exercise in redefining “luck.”

At the airport in DC, I arrived with adequate time to make my flight. Except that the airline had apparently scheduled more early morning flights than it was willing to supply to staff to check in. You see, as the airport doesn’t open until a certain hour, there is only so much arriving early that actually helps. You arrive too early, and there is no one to check you in. You arrive on time, as did everyone else, and there aren’t enough people to check you in. Bad luck! Thankfully, a nice TSA officer passed me forward in the security line (with the required lecture of being earlier next time…sigh!) and I had a decent layover in Miami to let my baggage catch up. Good luck!

I arrived in San Pedro Sula with my 100 pounds of luggage (almost all of it supplies for the PASA workshops) and discovered that the bus company has changed its schedule and the bus to the central bus depot had already left and there wouldn’t be another one leaving the airport until the evening. Bad luck! But, I had plenty of time to take a taxi to the central bus depot and get on the afternoon bus to Ceiba. Good luck!

So, off I go in the taxi. And we are about half way there and I start to send a text message to folks back home that I’ve arrived safely when, BAM! We get into a fender bender. Bad luck! I delete the message, decide to wait to send any news until I make it to El Porvenir, and just not tempt fate. As for the fender bender, the traffic in front of us was stopped due to a police checkpoint in the road. Our driver thought to pull to the right, avoiding it being a head-on collision, and thankfully there was no traffic in the lane to our right. We walked away without a scratch on our bodies and minimal damage to the vehicles. Good luck!

I made it onto the bus for Ceiba and proceeded to watch the movie they were showing, which wasn’t anything amazing or riveting. Bad luck! But it takes place on a tropical island and there were lots of young men in swim trunks to look at. Good luck!

As we neared Ceiba, we found ourselves in the hours of traffic back up after a four car collision on the bridge over the Rio Danto west of town. I couldn’t figure out where I packed the number for my friends who were picking me up to let them know what is happening, and when I arrived, they weren’t there. Bad luck! However, I flagged down the last taxi in the parking lot before it pulled away and it turned out to be Cesar, a taxista I know from El Pino, just the other side of El Porvenir! He gave me a ride into Porvenir and had a numbers for the folks there so I could call to let them know I was coming. We arrived safely, and 18 hours after my adventure started I finally finished it. Good luck!

I guess, when the bad luck gets balanced out by the good luck, you know the universe wants you to be exactly where you are.