6/28/14: Day 118: Cow Obstacles!

Woke up at 4:00 A.M. and Clifton and I left at 4:30 to get Luz a Maria. We had told her to be ready at 5:00 but we were hoping she would be ready. She came out the door with her grandmother who looked to be in her 70s at 4:40. She insisted that her grandmother was going to go with us and I didn’t know enough Spanish to argue. I dropped Clifton, Luz a Maria, and her grandmother off at the bus stop where Hector was to meet them at 5:30. I got to Shucutitan at 5:00 and went straight to Yaritza’s house to help her with the food. I met Sarita and her sister Natalia there and then we went to Javiar’s house. The five of us made it back to the bus stop at 5:20. Hector showed up right on time and Clifton got in the car to make 6 passengers while Luz a Maria and her grandmother rode with Hector. I followed him down the mountain to Carlos’ house to try to get his van (my old van) to crank. It started with the jumper cables and the 6 of us continued on to Quezaltepeque. Hector got lost on the way and had to ask several people for help. We also encountered about 20 cows walking down the road taking up both lanes of traffic. We all ate breakfast after we arrived. Then we sat through two sermons with a short activity in between. Yaritza served our group lunch and then we had free time for two hours. I met a group from San Salvador that wanted us to come and spend a month working in their congregation to motivate their youth. It sounded like a great opportunity but I don’t see how we can swing it any time soon. We were hoping that the bus would take Luz a Maria and her grandmother back home but the bus was only going as far as Ahuachapán. So all 8 of us piled into the car and we weighed so much that my bumper got stuck on the curb. The bumper about came off before I could do anything so I went back and beat on it with my hand till it went back into place.  We made the mistake of thinking that we could navigate home with the phone and made a wrong turn. The scenic / obstacle route added an extra hour to our drive home. On our way we encountered another larger herd of cows and over 50 speed bumps. Most of the speed bumps were practically invisible so I hit some pretty hard with my 8 passengers. As we were approaching Santa Ana we started seeing that there were many manholes in the road with no cover. I missed many of them only by the grace of God. They were nearly impossible to see and they probably would have totaled the car if I had hit a single one. Then we got randomly pulled over but thankfully the officer didn’t care that that there were 8 people in a 5 passenger car. We finally got back to Ataco and I dropped off Clifton, Luz a Maria and her grandmother. Then I took the rest of the teens back home to Shucutitan. When I got home Clifton said that they insisted on walking instead of waiting for a taxi. But thankfully they found one on their way because it was probably a mile or so. Then Clifton said as the taxi was turning around it fell off the road into a ditch. So he and the taxi driver had to lift the taxi out of the ditch to top the day off. It has been a super long day. 

Start dumb van

Cows in the road

More cows in the road

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