I am in Tegucigalpa for a couple nights visiting with a friend Gustavo, who I met through Larry. Last night, I went with Gustavo to drop off some bananas to a friend of his, and he turned out to be my old p.e. teacher Ben Benitez, from elementary school at Acadamia Los Pinares. He remembered me well and my whole family. He said he used to pick me up when i used to be small. It was crazy, then he pulled out an old year book and sure enough there i was in several picture (more than i’ve ever been in in any school in the states). I also saw pictures of many of my old friends which he still presently knows, notably Juan, who wasn’t really my friend, but he was the fastest other kid in my class, and we would often have foot races during recess. It was kinda a show down between the gringos and the hondurans and the races were always close, but id like to think i won more often. Since this coincidental encounter, i have felt strangely content in this loud, sprawling, polluted two-thirds world city.

my two weeks with Rob was amazing. It was awesome to have such a good friend come visit of so long. it seemed that he was learning a lot, seeing a lot of strange stuff, especially how so many aspects of american culture are so strange when viewed through a different lens. Our trip culminated in a visit to the Copan Ruins, an ancient Mayan city that was long ago deserted. It was really inspiring and beautiful. we had a fully functioning tour guide who was also schizophrenic, and whenever he wasn’t in our immediate presence he was talking to himself very intensely. he said that he worked for the us air force in the 70s and that they (the US military) “have custody”of him which means they use some special technology to send messages straight to his brain via some sort of sonar energy. poor guy. but he still gave a great tour. After the tour rob and i really embraced doing sketches in liu of taking photos. we both came out with some good drawings. it was good to sketch, and i wondered to myself why i didn’t more often, after all i did major in art in college. i miss rob but i hope he comes back soon and brings friends.

tomorrow i go to Managua, Nicaragua, and then to Liberia, Costa Rica and then to Balgeces to visit and a friend from middle school that i reconnected with on facebook, who is studying monkeys and to renew my tourist visa, as they only last 3 months. so three months down 5 more to go.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 2:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.