Gotta Love the Way Things Work

So, I had left Honduras last year not expecting to be a returning, 2nd year teacher at EIS. So when I left last June, I handed in my cell phone, my keys, and my residency card to the HR department. Upon my re-arrival here in September, I was told that my case is "unique" and that I'll need to register again with Immigration just like a first year teacher would.

Approximately two weeks ago, I received a knock on my classroom door. It was Alex, telling me that he could cover my class, but I had to head down to the library and get fingerprinted in order to get my renewal residency card, since my old one, the one that I had turned in, was expiring soon. The HR department called me a week later, requesting my residency card, since they needed it to give to Immigration for the renewal card to be processed. I told them that I don't have it, I turned it in, in June. Ok, they would look around for it.

Today, I got the joyous honor of going to the police station to report my residency card stolen. Since the HR department lost my card, Immigration can't issue me a new one without first collecting the old one. And since HR doesn't have my old one to give to Immigration, I had to report it stolen, in order to get the police report to give to Immigration to get my renewal residency card. Yes this is how the system works. You can't just "lose" something here. There are five to six steps for everything. To add excitement to this wonderful event, I had the guy who drives us to school every day, Arturo, as my trusty translator and helper in the police station. This becomes a problem since Arturo doesn't speak any English, sometimes I don't think he's speaking Spanish. Now the problem with reporting it stolen, is that I had to say that it was stolen yesterday, because all thefts have to be reported within 24 hours. So if it actually had gotten stolen way back in July, and someone had been using it for the past three months (highly unlikely), there could potentially be a problem. However, this is Honduras. They won't even look for the "theif." Needless to say, I had a wonderful morning hanging out around the police station with a guy who I really can't understand, nor who could actually help me say anything to the police officer.

On another note, last night, three other wonderful ladies and myself went out to dinner; a ladies out on the town for dinner and cocktails kind of evening; when we started commenting on how it doesn't seem like crazy things are happening to us, like they did last year. Last year had the crazy episodes of my shoe getting stolen in the movie theater, Caitlin losing her sandals in the flooded market, Jesse getting two door knobs put on his door so he was required to use both hands to open his door, and other such nonsense. That's when it dawned on us; its not that the crazy things aren't happening, its just that we're so used to them that they don't seem crazy anymore. Our faucet getting completely broken off by the maid, and neither one of us really noticing or caring; Jesse drawing a picture of where we live for the cable company since there are no addresses; getting our fingerprints taken again because fingerprints change from year to year; getting pedicures at a salon/ tatoo parlor; the potholes in the road getting filled in with sand during the rainy season; and etc. Its just Honduras, and it doesn't seem all that strange anymore.