Cops, Soldiers, Bribes, and a Ditch of Doom

I was finished filming in Trojes, Honduras. I had survived irregular electricity, work, water and sleep. In fact, the only regular constant was my regular diarrhea.

The plan was to reward my leaking self with some R&R in Guatemala.

We pulled into Guatemala city. Before taking a shuttle to the city of Antigua, I had just enough time to visit the bottomless sink hole in the city. The sink hole had instantly opened up during a recent huge tropical storm.

I hailed a taxi.
"Can you take me to the sink hole?" Which, by the way, sounds like a great name for a new Guatemalan strip club.
"Yes, no problem, my friend."

During the taxi ride, I struck up some small talk, "Dude, in your life, how many dead bodies have you seen?"

I know we were near the sink hole because my new favorite taxi drive, with increasing speed, drove right under the clearly marked police caution tape. Please, please tell me we are going to try and jump over the massive sink hole.

I whispered, "big tip," in his fleshy ear as he removed both hands from the steering wheel to light another incense stick using two exposed electrical copper wires from under the dash.

We slalomed through an obstacle course of traffic cones that were incidentally directing us closer to the sink hole. My driver kept turning completely around to wink his gold tooth at me. If he was foolishly waiting for me to tell him to stop, then death was guaranteed. It was clear that we both suffer from danger blindness. His wedding ring seemed fake as I couldn't tell if the cold damp air I smelt was from the sink hole or from our impending doom.

With our current velocity, soldiers with no option waved us through. For no reason, I cinched my belt. But, my big dream of doom was dashed as we were confronted with a small crude stone wall that had been built across the road. Before the car came to anywhere near a complete stop, I was already out of the car and sliding my uninsured belly under a metal fence to get closer to the sink hole.

And there she was. A huge, cold and treacherous hole as big as a city block with no visible bottom. I inched forward on unstable ground pretending to be confused by some overly-cautious soldier's furious hand gestures. I entertained myself by taking pictures of my taxi driver who was behind me as I walked backwards towards the vertical Chunnel. This, of course, sent the soldier into a frenzy. I heard the click of a safety being released on a large weapon. I could see my taxi driver mouthing the words, Yes, my friend, closer, yes.

I turned back to the sink hole to see double the amount of soldiers all mouthing the words, No, what are you doing, you danger-blind, dumbtard?

I tried to distract the local soldiers in the only effective way possible in a Latin American country.
"Yes, hey there! Who do you want to win the World Cup this year?"
Trigger fingers slacked as the captain of the squad frustratingly watched his crack team of now-disarmed soldiers instantly start to argue among themselves.
"Argentina!"
"Espana!"
"Mexico!"
"Germany!"
I nudged closer to stupidity as the captain tried to restore order while also trying to determine which dishonorable soldier dared to hope that a non-Latin American country could win the sacred World Cup.

The soldiers were still confused about which law trumps in this situation, continue to passionately talk about the World Cup or to do their job.

As I was still counting the echos bouncing around in the sink hole from my original question, I stepped closer to my own very deep grave. I glanced back to my taxi driver who was encouraging me forward with one hand while collecting bets with his other hand.

An official agreement had been reached. Soldiers could continue to whisper to themselves their favorite World Cup team if they pointed their loaded guns at the absent-of-logic lobe in my skull. In my shoes, I outreached my toes to try and get just that much closer to the edge.

From the sink hole came a vapid cold existential wind that clearly stated the name Grandma Melba. And the sink hole was correct. If I jeopardized my life at this point, I would not be alive to return to the United States to make fun of my Grandma Melba.

I dangled my foot over the sink hole effectively casting a shadow somewhere in Mongolia. The entire World-Cup-whispering soldier choir looked at their leader for how to handle the situation. My taxi driver nodded indicating he was satisfied with our earnings. I was free to retreat.

"Do you think we can get on top of that house there?"
My taxi driver looked at the house hanging over the sink hole, calculated the new betting odds and then walked us over to the cops on the opposite side of the hole from the soldiers.
I prepped myself. Craig, deliver this with equal part American confidence and arrogance. Think posture.

"Hello. I am the press correspondence for Agua Claro Para Feliz."
Strategically from my shirt-breast pocket, I whipped out my Agua Claro work badge.
Craig, focus on looking like a photographer who has seen things...things that you can't talk about. Now hold that look.


And, yes! We now had a police escort and permission to get on the roof of a house hanging over the edge of a sink hole. Watching our police escort, the soldiers on the other side of the sink hole were utterly confused but quickly returned to arguing over who they thought the sink hole would root for in the World Cup.

The police chief was honored to be escorting international press. A door was knocked on, a head emerged, a cop's hand was rested on a pistol, and we were cheerfully invited in. The cooperative owner pointed us across the roof of two other houses. This path would lead us to the roof of the house that was acting like a plank hanging over the sink hole.

As we cat burglared over a rickety roof, my taxi driver, worrying about the bet, cautioned, "Be careful!"
I was amused.

We reached the precarious vantage point. I was not convinced that I couldn't feel the house teetering on the sink hole's edge. I was amused when the police chief gave me a boost to climb even higher up on the roof. They declined to follow me. Logic and dirt was crumbling away as I moved closer so I could hang my camera over the sink hole.

From what I could see, it was clear that if I fell in, I would starve to death before I died from impacting the theoretical bottom of the sink hole.

I was happy with my brush with death. So, we headed back down.
I pulled my taxi escort aside, "How much should I give our cooperative police chief?"
Not wanting to cut into our betting profits, "Nada...just water--a small bottle."

Knowing that my taxi driver and I shared the sacred personality characteristics of being cheap and possessing an illogical disregard for danger made our departing handshake feel that much more timeless.

On Being Asked to Leave the Country

In my farm penthouse, deep in the jungles of Honduras, the electricity was still out but now I had water. Well, more like fast moving mud dripping from the faucets. I asked Lupi, my landlord, about the mudslide oozing from the pipes but Lupi had a plan.
¨Gustavo, the water would be cleaner with one of the filters you install with Agua Claro.¨

Lupi was back to playing hardball. I was sure that in her part of the house she was soaking herself with a perfect mixture of medical grade saline solution and imported Fiji artisan water.

"Lupi, it's not safe for me to wash my dishes with this filthy water."
"Sure it is, Gustavo. First you just use the dirty water from the tap, then rinse your dishes with bottled water from the store."
"With this logic, Lupi, I could easily just wash my dishes with my own dehydrated brown-syrup urine as long as I then rinsed my dishes with bottled water."

The truth was that I had been having some personal Oprah time with myself about what I needed to do. And, after digging ditches for 70 hours a week, I discovered that I actually didn´t like digging ditches for 70 hours a week. I set up some time with my immediate boss in Trojes.
"Gerson, I wanted to talk about the documentary that I am here to make."

My regional coordinators were coming to visit in a week. We agreed to start and finish the film before they arrived. The only break I took during the manic filming was when I explained to my local team that I have three nipples.
"Really, all Gringos have three nipples?"
"Yes, but best not to touch mine."


While filming, I enjoyed the easy task of getting perfect audio for an interview on a farm with constant sounds from ducks, donkeys, cows, cats, roosters, dogs, pigs being slaughtered, and finally my diarrhea belly.

When interviewing the regional doctor, I wasn't surprised when after finally setting up the movie lights, we were cast into complete darkness in her office after the town electricity went out. The doctor and I played games as we waited for the lights to come back on.
"Marco?"
"Polo!"

As I was filming all day and editing all night, I decided to move my bed to our office to increase my efficiency.


We finished the video in time to show it to the visiting Agua Claro team as they arrived in our tiny dirt town eight hours from civilization.

"Oscar, are you humming the theme song to The A-Team?" I inquired.
Understanding how isolating Trojes was, he proudly confirmed, "Why, yes, I am, Gustavo."
"Oh, Oscar, you are a cruel, cruel man. I hope you don´t find a hair in your meal--like ever."
"I also had two Wendy´s Frosties before I left the capital city today."
I don´t think he knew how close I came to pouncing on him to hum the Airwolf theme song while I sniffed his finger tips for the sweet, sweet smell of recent Wi-Fi use.

As a gift to my coworker Fredy for being such a sport while filming, I gave him a free photo shoot of him on his motorcycle.


If you find yourself in Trojes, Honduras, consider yourself pregnant.

Anyway, Fredy and I had so much fun that I decided I wanted a photo shoot too. So, with a stroke of pure genius, I had my photo shoot at the nasty dengue and vulture infested landfill thinking the relative location would make me look much more attractive.


The next day after reviewing our video, the Agua Claro team and I had a quick conference. I started the meeting with a lucrative NGO fund-generating idea.
"See, we have these hot-ass girls on an Agua Claro calendar. No, wait! They could be topless, see, as they hold cups of water over their pink parts. They could be, you know, totally panting with thirst. And, get this, the tag line would be Don´t these girls deserve to drink sanitary water? They could be the...let's see, yes, the Agua Claro Thirsty Girls!"
They promptly finished the meeting with, "Craig, we liked the video. How do you feel about going to Haiti?"

Incontinence Happens

After a long day of digging ditches in Trojes, Honduras, I awoke the next day from a dream where I had named my future kid Carpe Suburbia thinking it sounded top shelf.

Groggy, I stepped out from my bedroom and greeted Lupi, my landlord, with our now regular daily salutation, "Is there water today?"
"No, no water today, Gustavo."

Lupi then got bold, "So, you install filters with Agua Claro, right?"
"Ironically..."
"You know, we need a filter here."
"Oh, like an air filter?" I was entertaining myself.
She let it sink in that she thought I was a complete idiot before looking both ways and then confiding, "No...like a water filter. You know, like the ones you install everyday."
"Ah, the cows would like that."
Huddling up, "No, for us, Gustavo..."

Wait for it. Simmer that dramatic pause, Craig. And...yes...a little longer--now, now, now, deliver!

"Lupi don´t we need to have water first before we have a water filter?"
She was befuddled.
I was late for work.

I arrived in the work office and we all exchanged greetings.
"Gustavo is there water in your house?"
"No, no water today."

We then got down to business.
"Gustavo do you see that man in the green shirt? Wait! Don´t look at him!"
"Like directly in his eyes?" I questioned.
"No. Like don´t look at him at all."
"Oh."
"He´s been sent by the town´s conservative mayor."
"Oh, to help us work?"
"No. He told us to not work today or their might be trouble."
I immediately stopped watering my cows on my facebook farm and promptly typed a message in a CIA secure email form explaining that there was dramatic tension in this hotbed political region of Trojes. I can provide names.

My coworkers had a less logical reaction, "We are going wait it out here for a while."
I decided to celebrate my patriotic act by getting breakfast.
"No, Gustavo...it is safer here in the office."

I left the office and greeted the leader of the one person picket line, "Is there water in your house?"
He went for his pocket.
I kept walking.

Breakfast in Trojes was always a simple affair. Did I want beans and rice...or rice and beans? Well, today was a pleasant surprise. Seems like I had been patronizing the restaurant long enough that I got the upgrade option: Beans, rice and a long ass hair. This hair was so long it snaked itself through every possible bite of my meal. It seriously could have been used for a suspension foot bridge.


"Gustavo how was your meal?"
"Great except I found a huge hair in my meal."
The office cheered, "That's good luck!!"
I decided to immediately test this curious logic, "Oh, and...I also found blood in my stool today."
The cheering ceased and a consensus of concern was expressed by my not sarcastic coworkers.
"Whatever...it´s good luck back home." I explained.

Later we decided that my streak of good fortune, the combination of my good luck hair and lucky stool blood, still wasn´t quite enough protection to risk working this morning with an armed man pacing in front of our work truck. We arranged to regroup that afternoon.

I returned to my farm to try and figure out what was going on with my evasive water. It took me two minutes of walking around the back of the farm house to discover the problem. My house was suffering from incontinence.

In respect to the sensitivity of the subject, I pulled my landlord aside and discreetly mentioned, in Spanish, that the house had peed its pants. For some reason, she was confused. So, I had to show her.
"I´ll bring in a plumbing expert." She announced.
I couldn´t wait.

Fredy called and said he was coming over to pick me up for work.
"Fredy is it safe to work right now?"
"See you in 10 minutes."

Normally, Fredy and I work with coffee farmers. So, all day we are served and wash back coffee like it´s contraband. Which is no biggie for although we push the legal blood caffeine level limit, the coffee energizes us to work harder.

Later we returned home fully caffeinated with humming bird heart rates, chatting away, sometimes even chatting away with each other, grinding are teeth and trying not to be too regular as I was proudly yelling phrases in the future verb tense to passing pedestrians.

"Help me! I´m going to vomit!"

When I arrived back at my farm, I was excited to see that Lupi had already called the plumbing expert--her college daughter. Laying around them, they had more tubes than a bad ass hamster fort.

After a while, they ran out of ideas of how to fix the water problem. I thought I´d take the opportunity to inspire them back into action with some PVC didgeridoo serenades.

The contractor and her plumbing expert sprung back into action and fixed the solution. I then had water. I was very excited about having water as I don´t think I´d honestly showered since I flew out of the Houston airport 2 months prior.

Lupi and her daughter didn´t stick around for hugs or the shower celebration. So, I rolled off my greasy clothes and bounced into the shower alone. In complete darkness, I was, of course, overwhelmed with amusement when I turned on the long awaited water and the house electricity immediately went out.

I Said, 'Show Me Your Teeth!!!'

So, it seems that people in Trojes have a problem getting access to safe drinking water.

“Lupi, there’s no water in my house!” I politely yelled to the landlord of my farm.
“Oh, sorry. We had to wash the cows.”

First off, I’ve never heard of anyone washing cows that basically stand in around in their own shit all day. So, I immediately called a house meeting to discuss the hierarchy of evolution and to threatened to have my landlord smell my ‘don’t scratch and sniff' salty perineum that was growing a stalactite due to the infrequency of my bathing.

She got my discreet point and promised to refill my water tank above my room. I was off to a hard day of work, which might include the following games.

Ignoring Treachery,


Truck Surfing,

Albino vs. Latino on the Ledge of Doom,


and playing with cute turtles.

Generally, when we work we construct latrines and install water filters. My back has requested that I do not go into the details involving digging 8-foot deep latrine ditches or carrying 250-pound cement filters through the jungle.

I can tell you that after using the old style latrines I can understand why we have a waiting list for our new latrines. The old latrines are a stinky hole in the ground. They basically look like the farm has its own asshole that’s right there between your feet.

Hello, innocent stinky shit well. I’m going to drain my dehydrated bladder in you. Yep.

Easy enough. But, what every single person failed to inform this innocent first worlder was that open latrines seem to make great homes for wasps.

Oh, hello. What have we here?

Mid-stream, I was nervously watching a cyclone of black pissed on and pissed off wasps making a beeline for my tender and exposed parts. I was latched into a latrine, my romantic parts are vulnerable and there are more wasps than I have bug bites. I thoroughly soaked that old latrine with urine as I spun around trying to defend myself.

I decided I’d stay away from the latrines and stick to lying to kids. For example, I have a real soft spot for the look on kids' faces when I explain to them that on their birthday our filters will produce an ice cream topped with a brand new soccer ball personally filled with Messi’s own Argentinian breath. But, it’s not the look on their face as they want to believe that it's true. NO, no, no...it’s the little drop of drool that always forms on their lower lip.


I should also confess that at the time I hadn’t yet learned the word for smile. So, instead, I’d ask the kids to show me their teeth. Not the best solution but look how happy these kids are going to look on our Agua Claro Para Feliz informational brochure.






In general, I’ve been working out here for about three weeks now. It’s funny how you start to take on your surroundings. For example, look closely to the right in the picture below and you’ll be surprised to see that it is actually me.



Look, just trust me--it's me. You can tell by my badunkadunk calf muscles.

Anyway, after a hard day of lying to kids, I was looking forward to a hearty meal in my house. I arrived to hear the good news.
“Gustavo, we replaced the water in your tank!”
This was of course some of that world-famous Honduran sarcasm as there was no water in my house. So, I enjoyed some dry crunchy ramen noodles with the plan of using the empty styrofoam cup as part of my new rain collection system.

Fruit of My Loins and I Don't Think I Am a Baby Smuggler

Before work, I just happened to peek in my manties to discover a protective spider and a sac of spider eggs. I wondered how long I had been brooding this little family. My fertility device was grateful that I adverted this genital disaster.


Later that day, I was taking more photos of one of our orientations in a remote community. My team was talking in Spanish about hygiene. So, yeah, neither the Spanish nor the subject of hygiene made any sense to me. Though I did notice when my boss mentioned my name at the end of the presentation.

I waved and greeted the community, “Yep, I’m Gustavo. Hey, folks.”

That’s weird. It looks like you want me to come up front.

I pretended to keep taking pictures.

And there it is again. That signal that you want me to come and talk in front of this group of farmers that pull out their own teeth for dice. Really, is this necessary to use me as an example of how not to be hygienic?

I was introduced again, “Yes, a few words from our volunteer…”
That’s funny, see, no joke, I actually only know a few words in Spanish. What the hell do you want me to say about hygiene?

“Okay, um, look…it’s best to cook with clean water. For example, ah, oh right, once I ate some dirty Chinese food in Nicaragua…”
The farmers confirmed, “Chinese Food in Nicaragua!”
Then the hee-hawing started.

Oh, they loved this. It was like I had missed out on a local colloquial cliché that everyone was using. For example, one could say, that movie was totally Chinese food in Nicaragua.

Oh, wait--duh. Obviously, the adventures of my blog had already spread to these rural UNICEF subsidized communities.

My story of how the tainted Chinese food caused me to produce more vomit than I actually weighed seemed to bring the community together. I watched feuding farmers slapping each other's knees listening to my story while they finished their enemy’s sentence with glee.
“He ate Chinese Food—“
“—in Nicaragua! I know! I know!”

I ignored the chuckling commotion and went on…

“So, like I was saying, clean water is way important and we like sell subsidized filters that totally aren’t Chinese food in Nicaragua.”

“Good work, Gustavo.”
With that, we jumped into the work truck to head home.



Of course, on the way back, the ocean fell from the sky. We had questionable visibility, steep inclines that made your ears pop, and cliffs on either side of a sloppy clay road where if we lost control I’d fall back into Nicaragua.

But, regardless of the conditions, the music in the truck was always sacred. Because Freddy the driver was busy text messaging, I was obviously in charge of the music. And, to be fair, DJ Caucasian would alternate MP3 players. It was an international musical exchange program between Freddy’s Amor Muzak and my cultural presentation of the The Locusts.

The really exciting part was the copper wire Freddy had fashioned to connect an MP3 player to the car radio. The cord almost worked. You had to hold the wire in just the right way. 98% percent of the time I was composing Sonic Youth ballads with the loud short in the copper cord. But, there were these rare moments where through the buzz, hiss and static of the bad cord, we heard real music.

It was glorious. I’d never heard jams from a single left speaker with a cardboard woofer sound so good. At the exact moment when I wiggled the wire in just the right way seducing music to play, I would go catatonic and actualize all that I once read about biofeedback to try and hold the sweet little copper wire in place.

Whenever music came out of the paper towel tube speaker, we were transformed. We’d forget the dangers surrounding us, all my bug bites would stop itching, and Freddy would actually stop texting to beam a smile as he drove just a little faster.

With the elevating changing bumps in the road, I was a human gyroscope keeping the precious copper wire in place. Freddy and I would both start belly-yelling the lyrics regardless if it were Freddy’s Latin passion beats or my favorite Lightning Bolt song.
“Yar, yar, yar, racka, racka, kah!!”
“Cemento, cemento…amorlolo, te, vida me donde suenos!!!”
Neither of us were singing the correct lyrics and neither of us cared.


Driving over truck-warranty-invalidating bumps, I was ignoring my horribly itching eye. I was hesitant to scratch my itchy eye lest I jam a digit in the logical node of my brain. While pondering my options, the rosemary hanging from the rear-view mirror, manically kept whipping my other functioning eye. Still, overall I was quite proud of how effective I was balancing death and zen while keeping the sacred cooper wire steady. What could possible make this challenge any harder?

Of course, at this moment the truck then pulled over. Freddy rolled down his window. The truck immediately filled up with 3-inches of rainwater as Freddy, without a word, handed me a sleeping baby.

Freddy put the truck back in gear and I understood that I had just been upgraded to a new level in this 3rd world amazing race challenge. Though, that’s where my understanding of what was going on stopped. Freddy and I both obviously knew what was more important between this stowaway baby and our theme song jams. But, before we got pulled over, I had some questions about the newest and weakest link in our karaoke trio.

Was this baby a gift?
Did Freddy visit this community 9 months ago?
Were we baby smuggling?

Though I have to admit, it was a relief to finally meet some who I spoke more Spanish than.

I was trying to figure out how I would explain to the farm help kids that this baby was not dinner, when we finally arrived back in Trojes. The truck window was rolled down and Freddy handed my baby away.

Confidently, I nodded back to Freddy as if I knew exactly what had just happened.

I Am an Insectophile

I now live on a farm. Let me tell you about it.



After kicking back a hat trick of Wendy’s Frostys in Tegu, my coworker Oscar and I departed for Trojes. Because it was an 8-hour drive, I had lots of time to grill Oscar about new future hometown of Trojes.

"So, when does that hot-ass damaged and ready for a rebound Peace Corps volunteer arrive in Trojes?"
"Oh, yeah. The Peace Corps decided that Trojes is so remote that it's unsafe for their volunteers to be there."
"Well, that's just weird."
"Yeah, and they don't even know about the political situation we are having there either."
I gave my bottle of malaria pills that I was or was not taking a little rattle for good luck.

We later arrived in Trojes. What's the population of Trojes? It's 6,000. What's the current gringo population in Trojes? It's 1/6000 the population of Trojes.



I met my local Spanish-only work team before being dropped off at my new place. Oscar had kept mentioning how nice my place was. And really it was. It was quite a nice farm. That night, I enjoyed unpacking to the sounds of gunshots, way-early roosters and random hissing. I tried not to think about how much I was already missing the smell of Lady Foot Locker back home.

I was pooped so I retired early. Though, turning off my room light was the signal for the disco next to my finca to initiate the cochlea-rattling music to obviously celebrate the arrival of the town gringo.

I lay awake respecting this significant moment in musical history. I appreciated that I was the first outsider to ever experience this undiscovered musical genre. Far from slumber, I passed the evening on my back blinking to the beat of this original fusion of Latin Muzak and the animal cacophony outside my window.

Adding up the aggregate time of blinking all night, I figured I slept for 7 minutes.
"Gustavo!" The finca owner was calling me from her porch.
"Yepper!"
"Did you tell the farm help kids that you are a vegetarian?"
"Proudly!"
"But that you sometime like the rich taste of children’s non-dominant arms?"
"That doesn't sound like me at all..."
"Well, I don't think they realized that you were joking as none of them showed up for work today."
I figured this was a good time for me to head to work.

For my first day of work, I was to take photos of our health orientation in a local community. And when I say local, I mean three hours into the jungle.


The first thirty minutes was fun. The other 150 minutes on the back of the motorcycle reshaped my prostate.


After discussing the importance of the filters we were offering, we celebrated with a massive feast of food and drink prepared without our filters by this rural to the rural community. While I was pondering our marketing sequence, my coworker reminded me to wash me hands before eating.




After work, I walked home to my farm enjoying a little game I like to play called 'what bit me today?"



Following my avocado and watermelon dinner, I retired to my quarters. After spending the first hour practicing Spanish curse words as I flicked beetles off my face, I decided to see my room situation in a more positive perspective. I decided to see my room as an entomologist's ideal room. I mean, you could see cockroaches in three different sizes: mutant sized, eats mutant sized and 'could be mistake for an armadillo' size. There were also a cute variety of mosquitoes that strangely liked to taunt me by collecting on my anti-malaria pill bottle. In my room, I also had never-discovered lymph-node-drinking beetles. There were also enough fireflies that allowed the spiders to cast shadows over my bed. Of course, there was also some playful creature on my roof showering me with terracotta dandruff. Though, I noticed that the plague-resistant fleas and ticks in my bed didn't seem to mind this falling dander. And for the hell of it, I couldn't figure out why some cicada kept trying to spoon me--dude, really I'm a top!




I finally feel asleep dreaming that I'd created a new teen perfume called Bedazzled Food Court. Sadly, before getting to apply my product on supple bodies, I was awoken. It seems that a cow decided to give birth right under my window in the middle of the night. It was disturbing--especially how erotic it sounded. Yep, I live on a farm.

International Coup in My Belly!

I spent my last day in Granada scaring off croc's at the local lagoon with my offensively white belly.


I then basked in one last afternoon snapping photos around town.






As it was my last night in Granada, like any good teetotaler, I spent the evening teaching kids how to slam water in shot glasses.



Later that night, I decided to finish my straight-edge binge with some Chinese food. Three hours later, I was watching the history of my meals for the last 24 hours pass from my mouth. Chinese food in Nicaragua? What the hell was I thinking?

I slept off most of the nausea and woke feeling much better. I decided to celebrate finally getting sick and surviving by ordering a morning serving of French toast, which only had a few seconds to quickly give my stomach a high-five before being hurled out the way it came. I wasn’t having much luck with international meals it seems. Regardless, I was leaving that day to be in Tegu, Honduras. After my failed attempt at breakfast, I went back to pack all my gear that was at my host family’s house. As they were leaving for a day trip, we said our goodbyes.
“Thanks. You are the greatest Spanish foster parents ever.”
“Gustavo, you look really sick.”

After they left, I tried to take a nap on their couch but couldn’t get over the nausea. My belly felt like it was pushing around a bloated zip-lock bag of rancid vegetable soup. Feeling a reverse in my digestive system, I made a dash for the toilet and removed the left over cleaning brush before spoiling someone’s cleaning job.

My bags were backed and the hell if I was going to walk to the bus station feeling like this so I hailed a 50-cent cab. It’s normal here for taxis to coop their rides with other passengers, so I wasn’t surprised to see a whole family in the car already when the taxi pulled over. After I squeezed in my bags and my distended belly, the taxi driver started some small talk,
“How are you?”
Funny you should ask.
“Not bad for eating Chinese food in Nicaragua.”
The family scooted away a little.

I was celebrating small wins as the taxi arrived at the bus station without an in-flight digestive disaster. I continued to hold my digestive system in check and boarded the bus for Managua.

Oh, Managua. If poop could have an asshole, it wouldn’t be that much different than Managua. I arrived in this dodgy, dirty and, proud to be dangerous city. I found a taxi to take me to my hotel for the night. The taxi driver was a little sketchy but I discovered that mentioning that I had spent the night vomiting out bad Chinese food seemed to make me less of an attractive target for crime and it effectively disarmed the situation.




The taxi driver, quicker than most, dropped me off at my hotel. The hotel staff unlocked a series of gates and locks allowing me to drop off my backpacks. I then left and walked half a block down to the Tica bus station that would connect me to Tegu, Honduras the next day.
“Be here at 4am?”
“Yes.”
“But the bus doesn’t leave until 5am. How about 4:30am?”
“4:15am”
“Deal.”

On the way back to my hotel some thugs followed me asking for my bottle of water. It didn’t seem good that thugs were willing to rob you for a half empty bottle of water. Thankfully my hotel was only a half block from the Tica bus station. I arrived and a series of paranoid, but might be justified, locks were unlocked and I was let back into safety.
“So, I’ve got a to be at the Tica station by 4:15am.”
“No problem.”
“Really?”
“Yes, no problem.”
“Great, thanks!”
And with this I dared to eat a solitary chip but poured cold water on my belly as an offering.

With a 4:15am wake up call, I, of course, had nightmares. I had this frightening nightmare that the voluntary project I was going to start the next day somewhere in rural Honduras was actually in this very Americanized city. It was a city only populated by highway franchise businesses. In my dream, I was driven past TGIF, Red Robin, and a Big Lots. I was utterly unaware that this was a nightmare. I was thoroughly confused how I hadn’t seen any of this in my pre-trip research. I was to stay in a post-college-dorms apartment complex with 1000 units where the leasing agent bragged about the small weight room and available carports. I’d be working in this NGO’s gift shop selling rugby shirts with our company’s logo on them, Pure Water for Peace. I was already counting down the weeks until the yearlong project was over.

I awoke in a confused bolt. The nightmare was interrupted when I thought I heard a knock at my door. In the darkness, I opened my hotel door. Nothing. Well, duh…I mean, it’s only 4:55am in the morning, Craig.
“Shit, it’s 4:55am!”

I was confused on confused. There was no wake up call. Note to self, this isn’t a good time, but later today after you miss your bus, confirm the Spanish word for wake up call.

You know what’s not good for a belly of ‘trying not to be digested’ Chinese food? Hauling ass. I grabbed my bags and slung my sick, sloshy, and prone to vomiting belly out my room. Staring at the padlocked gate, I made it as far as the front door of the hotel. I was locked in. In my moment of panic, I rattled the locked gate and yelled the closest thing I knew in Spanish to communicate what I wanted,
“Yo necessito mi libertad!”
I looked insane.

Someone stirred and unlocked the gate. I was so scared of missing my ‘departs in 3 minutes’ bus but I already saw the letter I was going to write this hotel in all caps about my feelings about them not waking me up until 4:56am.

I tore off running to the Tica bus. I left part of my stomach behind. I arrived at the bus station. I heard a bus idling. Please, please, be my bus waiting. I ran inside. I apologized but didn’t dare open my mouth too much, which might be the only obstacle I had to prevent the hot food lava that might erupt from my mouth. This would, understandably, be added to my Tica bus personal profile where I would permanently be charged a ‘prone to vomiting’ surcharge to my regular ticket fee.

I was allowed on the bus. I was happy. My stomach was not. Though, we were both instantly blessed with some powerful-ass in-bus air-conditioning. This was a first-class gray panther coach-style bus. Nice! Shit, honestly, I didn’t care if we just sat in the parking lot all day. I’d pay for this kind of air-conditioning.

So I didn’t actually have to be at the bus stop at 4:15am. Maybe my underachieving genius hotel staff knew it was cool to arrive at 4:56am. I erased my persnickety letter to them. Though, it would have been nice to have known I could have slept in until 4:55am before I had jostled my temperamental belly in a mad panic earlier.

Of course I didn’t sleep on the eight-hour bus ride to Tegu. Nope, I didn’t want to miss one wink of experiencing this succulent air-conditioning. I cradled my grumpy stomach and lapped at the air-conditioned air.

Later we arrived at the Nica’ Honduran border. The bus staff took our passports and then offered us all to the children beggars.
“No, no, but tomorrow at 10am I’ll be here with food for you.”
I told one kid beggar who ironically not only had food on his face, but probably had actually eaten more food than I had in the last 48 hours.

Before we re-boarded the bus, the Tica staff called roster by reading off the names from our passports.
“Reck?!”
“Yeah, it’s pronounced ‘Gustavo’”

I dared the wrath of my stomach by letting a cap of water dissolve in my mouth. I felt a small disagreement in my stomach but didn’t experience a digestive coup. Phew.

Four hours later, the Tica bus pulled into Tegu, Honduras. I looked for my handler from Pure Water for Peace.
“Craig?”
“Oscar?”
Great this was a good start.
“Craig, it’s great to meet you. We have to move fast today. But, while we are in town now, we need to buy you a cell phone, open a bank account so we can pay you and pick up a new motorcycle. Oh, can you drive a motorcycle?”
Truthfully, it was a big fat lie when my stomach said no but I said yes.