Mistake? What would I have made a huge mistake about?

OK, I am back at the blog and apologize for the long delay between entries. I am sure that all seven of you who read this look to it on a weekly basis to lighten your loads and fill you with mirth and I am sorry for holding out so long. As you may have noticed the blog delay was accompanied by an email delay of greater length and there really is no good reason either happened. I had some unexpected trips into Tegucigalpa here and there over the past couple of months and each time I had not spent the proper time either answering emails or updating the blog here on my laptop so when I arrived there was nothing for me to send. But enough about that…
The last blog entry was towards the end of the first week in March and the reason I was in Yoro in the first place was to buy some ingredients for a baseball team dinner that Gen and I hosted for our guys and girls the night before the regional tournament (devotees will recall that the torneo was originally scheduled for March 8). The dinner with the players and their parents was a hit and then that night, for the first time in over a week, it started to rain. It rained all night and we woke the next morning and got the call from the tournament organizer that it had been postponed. Everyone was geared up and ready to go and then nothing; it was very disappointing.

So that was that. The next few weeks were kind of a blur of me continuing to teach computer classes and throwing in some aldea visits on my non-teaching days but the only big thing happened the week before Easter, or Semana Santa here. As it turned out that was the week of my birthday, too, and I want to thank all of you guys for your care packages, emails, and phone calls—you are an all-star group!! That is a week where no one works and things basically shut down country-wide. Most people flock to the beaches here but I joined a group of about ten volunteers and we went to hike La Picucha, which is the highest peak in the department of Olancho. It was an excellent trip and I will throw in some pictures here:

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We entered the bosque on a Wednesday and hiked out on Saturday and in between there were lots of peanut butter sandwiches, the occasional can of sardines (w/ chili sauce, of course), granola bars, stream water with iodine tablets, small tents and rain. The rain actually came the night before we reached the summit and lasted for a good twenty hours or so, well into our descent. That wasn’t too bad but it did mean that at the top we were in a cloud and could not see anything. But the trip was a great way to hang out with some people I had not seen since September or longer. That first meal after finishing, the first meal in four days that was cooked, was so good—I almost overdosed on peanut butter during the hike.

I had some water project trips postponed because of rain so the next couple of weeks were just me in Victoria teaching a couple days a week and visiting some new aldeas on the other days. Around Final Four time I decided I had missed out on enough major sporting events (World Series, Super Bowl, etc.) so I went to stay with a buddy in the south of Honduras who has a nice cable setup. There was a small group of us volunteers there watching some disappointing semifinal games and an amazing championship game. I still cant believe how good that Memphis/Kansas final was—and it came down to free throws after all!! Rock. Chalk. Jayhawk.

The last two work weeks I have been out of Victoria doing water stuff. Two weeks ago I went with an engineer friend of mine and we did a topo study in an aldea about two hours from here. Not much to tell about this one: I had been in the aldea a week or two before to visit a water source of a nearby town and it was super-dry, the roads nothing but dirt and rock and dust…naturally, the week my friend and I were up there it was raining and extremely muddy. It delayed us a bit but not too much and I was able to spend Friday of that week getting our baseball team’s jerseys for the big regional tournament the next day, Saturday.
Ok, so heres a big sports buildup for really a very small time event…but here goes nothing. Three teams in this mini torneo, one spot for a trip to the nationals in Tegucigalpa in June. The teams: Victoria, San Luis, and the host team, Minas de Oro. Minas de Oro has represented our region in the national tournament as long as anyone here can remember and with beat our humble Victoria squad last year by a score of 15-2, I believe. That Victoria team was coached by Gen and, though they did not win a game, did get an alternates spot in the nationals by virtue of having scored a lot of runs. We play San Luis first and the winner takes a break while the loser plays Minas in the next game. First game and our big pitcher, who is often as wild as Mitch Williams during practice, is on the mark and is striking batters out like it’s his job. San Luis’ pitcher also throws hard but is a little off the mark and actually walks in two runs for us in the first, 2-0. These games are only an hour long or five innings, whichever comes first, and the next few innings are tense but very even with no runs scored.

Another unexpected trip to Yoro so I´ll paste what I have and leave you in suspense about the results of the tournament. More to come very soon...