Running Around in Tegucigalpa...

Sandi and I left Comayagua around 7:30am to head into Tegucigalpa. We had several places to go to and knew that with all the construction on the highway and with the main bridge into town being down (literally), we'd have to be quick at each place in order to get everything done.

You guessed it: we didn't get everything done.

Our first stop was Migraciones, where I was seeking a 30-day renewal of my visa and Sandi needed to renew her carnet. We both got our initial paperwork started, then got in line for the bank so that we could pay our respective fees. Interestingly, my fee for a 30-day visa renewal was the same as Sandi's one-year renewal of her carnet. Well, we stood in the bank line for almost an hour. Right before we had arrived at Migraciones, so had 5 or so Mormon missionaries, to get some of their paperwork done. Unfortunately, they got in the bank line about 4 people in front of us. Once at the window, the main Mormon missionary pulled out a stack of at least 20 - 25 passports and papers to pay for. You have got to be kidding me!!

After standing in line for way longer than either of us wanted to, Sandi and I were both finally able to pay our fees and get back in our respective lines. At my window for the visa renewal, things were going quite well, much faster than usual. The woman at the window made all the appropriate stamps in my passport and told me to take a seat and she'd have the boss sign my passport.

Sandi wasn't quite as fortunate. She was told that she'd need more paperwork from her bank. "But this is the same thing I've been bringing for years." "Yes, I know. But the laws have changed and now you need to bring different papers."

A few minutes later I was called back up to the window. "The boss just left for lunch and can't sign your passport yet. You may wait or come back later this afternoon." "When will the boss be back?" "Around 1:00pm." It was 11:15. We decided to leave and try to run more errands in the interim.

We made it in and out of PriceSmart in record time. I got my permanent membership card and Sandi picked up just a few things for the school. The only thing that I bought was a slice of pizza and a Diet Coke. It wasn't quite as good as the pizza at Costco. Plus, Glenda wasn't there to enjoy a slice with. :-)

Back at Migraciones, I got my signed passport and we were back on the road. Hopefully, that was the last time I will need to renew my visa. We have been assured that the government is going to start approving residency carnets within the month. Since I'll be in the States at the end of September, I'll get a fresh 90-day visa when I return. THAT should be plenty long enough for me to get my carnet.

From Migraciones we made our way over to the School of Tomorrow offices to pick up some PACEs for the school. There were only 4 boxes of them and we thought we'd be in and out pretty quickly. Nope. Our wait for the materials to be brought to us seemed very long. Very. Then, when it was time to start checking all the materials against the order list, the woman helping us was slower than slow. Sandi and I kind of took over that process as tactfully as we could. We wrapped the boxes of books into a tarp in the probably case of rain, and tried to get out of Teguc as quickly as possible.

We wanted to avoid the workers' demonstration that was happening. It could have been teachers, doctors, nurses, we're not sure, but we didn't want to get caught up in the middle of it. We were successful in that.

Since the main bridge into town collapsed about a month ago, the 'usual' detour takes you in a very long and round about way into town. Sandi knew of another way in and tried it out two weeks ago when picking up some people at the airport. That's the way we went. It made things much faster. Next time I go into Tegucigalpa, I want to take my camera and get some pictures. There are some scenes of the beauty of the mountains contrasted with the poverty of some of the barrios on that particular route that are etched into my mind.

We never did make it to Imapro to get medals and trophies that are needed. Sandi has to go back to Migraciones again ~ with different bank papers ~ to renew her carnet. But we made it back to Comayagua without incident.