Take a seat....

On Friday, the students had a half day while many of the teachers had to prepare to move their classroom to a new school. Fortunately for some of us there is not enough room at the school and therefore we don't have to move. Technically we should have stayed to help the other teachers which we found out later, and I apologize for not helping, but the opportunity presented itself to go back to El Salvador. Kate, Jenna, and myself boarded a bus and began our adventure towards El Salvador. Along the way, we run into a truck that has been "decapitated" from its trailer. The trailer is laying in the middle of the road making it impossible for either side to pass. With an efficiency that we had never before seen in Honduras the trailer was moved upright and vehicles were again able to move through. This process only took about 45 minutes! Which is ludicrous speed for Hondurans. We continued on our way and couldn't believe our luck that when we got to the border town  we had a taxi offer to take us all the way to La Palma. The only problem was crossing the border.....On the Honduran side they had pulled out a slip of paper which is crucial to pass into El Salvador. We arrived at the El Salvadoran immigration where they examined our passports over and over, took them to their bosses, and then we were pulled into a room where they offered us plastic chairs and told us to "Take a seat" My heart was racing at this point and I was unsure what was going to happen. We are finally informed that we have to go back to the Honduran Immigration and ask for that slip of paper back.  The Hondurans tell us we need to bring the paper back but the El Salvadorans tell us they can't take this piece of paper, we had no idea who to believe but in the interest of time we did not return these papers. We got to La Palma and found a nice little hotel with a TV including HBO family, all in Spanish of course, but who doesn't love Scooby doo no matter what language. We spent Saturday meandering around, enjoying their coffees, licuados, and yummy food. There might have even been some more Spanish TV and a nap thrown in there. Needless to say it was a relaxing vacation with a nice change of scenery. Sunday arrived  all too soon and we had to head to back to Gracias. The trip started off a little rocky....the first bus passing was so crammed full of people that they were hanging out of the doors....and then came border crossing yet again. Apparently they don't get many gringas passing through because the man immediately recognized us and began hounding us and asking why we hadn't brought our papers back. I try to respond but he continues lecturing us and finally I become heated and had probably my first argument in Spanish. We go back and forth for a while and we unwillingly hand him our slips of paper and they finally give us a new one. It felt much like a troll who will not let people pass through his bridge. We finally continuefd on and had smooth sailing all the way back to Gracias. Never a dull a moment....