10 Years In Honduras

My good friend Jessiel Rivera reminded me the other day that it was 10 years ago this month that I arrived here in La Ceiba. I remember my arrival here from Costa Rica fairly vividly. I had been getting teary-eyed on the plane from a combination of sleep deprivation, my longing to remain with my friends in beautiful San Jose and some sad indie music on my iPod. It was a hot and terribly humid Sunday afternoon when I landed in the La Ceiba airport and when I stepped off the 10-seater hotbox of an airplane onto the tarmac I was sweaty, bleary-eyed and disheveled. I looked like a typical gringo backpacker except for my mountain of luggage that I had in tow. Two members of the Central Mennonite Church picked me up in their car; how they knew I was the Gringo they were supposed to collect was beyond me but they got it right. I remember them remarking on the number of suitcases I had brought (3) and their heaviness (maximum weight allowance); and the resulting weight of embarrassment I felt at having had made such an awkward and sweaty first impression on these leaders in the church. So much so that I set about explaining to them that I was so un-presentable and wet because the plane over from San Pedro Sula didn't have air conditioning but rather the pilot simply opened up his cockpit windows and let the hot air waft back through the cabin and that I by nature ran a little hot anyways. Also, I explained that I had brought so much luggage because I was planning on staying for 2 whole years and I would most not likely not be heading back to the U.S. in the interim. This information they took as a legitimate excuse for my otherwise wanton materialism and unseemly appearance but they also seemed genuinely surprised that I would be staying for that long. They had assumed it would be a quick 6-7 months of service work but expressed their delight that I would be here for much longer. I remember thinking it odd that these two, leaders both in a local Mennonite church and one of whom would end up being my boss at the Peace & Justice Project, didn't know any actual details about my term of service with the local Mennonites; but I kept these reservations to myself. As we drove from the airport towards the center of town I remember thinking that La Ceiba was much uglier than I remembered from when I had visited in 2006 and decided right there in that hot car-ride with these two strangers whose accent and vocabulary I could barely understand, that I would not be staying any longer than my initial 2-year contract.

10 years later I am no longer a missionary, no longer attending that particular Mennonite church and soon to be married to my best friend whom I met at a local bilingual high school where I've been teaching for the past 5 years. Much has changed in this little sprint of a decade; there's much I wish I could go back and do over again, people I wish were still integral to my life, roles I wish I still played. There's much though that I am grateful for and when I look back I suppose I would not be where I am now if it were not for the totality of experiences  and decisions, good and bad, wise and foolish, that led me to this point. I've decided then to take the next month or so and highlight things and people in my life here that have both changed and remained constant. If you've been reading this blog all along, or if you're William Nickols who simply likes to read my old blog posts for fun, you may find this little jaunt down memory lane interesting. I'll begin my posting of memories tomorrow but in the meantime here are a few photos of me in the Central Mennonite Church 2 weeks after my arrival. They threw a special, Sunday-evening welcoming service where they both blessed and prayed for me and made fun of, among other things, my many suitcases and funny Costa Rican Spanish.

Juanjo Chinchilla

He now looks like this: