Another Interesting Week In Honduras!

Water and diesel don't mix! But in Honduras, the gas stations sometimes try to mix the two in order to make more money. We pay a huge amount of money for diesel and then it is laced with water. My FORD has died several times this week, because I got some bad fuel. So when it dies and a certain light comes on the dashboard, I have to climb out of the truck, lift the hood, climb up on the "mata burro", (Spanish for kill the burro) (In English I think it is called a brush guard or something like that.) put my feet on the battery and stick my head back as far as I can and turn a yellow thing 90 degrees and then the car pees (excuse me) the car evacuates the water. The I have to climb down off of the "mata burro" and check to make sure when the car stops peeing (excuse me) and then I have to climb up again and close the yellow thing-a-ma-jiggy.


Plus, I blew out another tire! These Honduran roads are terrible!

I was on my way to rescue Jose, but because it is not safe for me to drive alone I called one of Jose's friends to go with me and because we were going to be gone way after dark in a not so safe area on dirt roads, I added 2 more men to the truck to go for a ride.


About 45 minutes into the trip, the right front tire blew out. Dirt road in the middle of no where, no lights, no telephone service, no one that had ever changed a tire, except for me. I worked on it instructing the 3 Honduran men, WHAT A MISTAKE. All three were really "macho" and no one would listen to me. Finally 3 strangers who knew how to change a tire stopped to help.


So, I and 6 Honduran men changed the tire. It took "us" about 70 minutes to change the tire. I went along with the "group decision" culture thing, since I really didn't want to get dirty. I think if I had done it myself it might have taken 30 minutes if I could have lifted the tire.


Jose wasn't with me, he had called me to go and tow the Mazda, because he was stuck 2 hours into Coray on a dirt road. I stopped by the hardware store and bought some tow rope, since Jose had decided to clean out my car and decided that the tow rope which I always carry with me was unnecessary. When he called me to drop everything and go help him, he said that he "didn't understand" why the Mazda wouldn't start. When I arrived and asked a million questions in order to get to the bottom of the problem, I found out that he tried to drive through a creek behind another car and the car "died".

I towed the car about 20 miles on a dirt road and then when we got close to the police post in the small town of San Francisco de Coray, Jose stepped on the brakes in the Mazda to make me stop. I was in the Ford F350 and I was clueless that he was going to slam on the brakes, so HE broke the tow rope. There is of course a logical explanation. He didn't have any more minutes on his mobile telephone and the horn on the Mazda didn't work. Honduran MALE thinking!

I thought I was "finished raisin' kids" but it seems like the Lord has other plans. Jose is a good young man, the problem is that he thinks cars are like horses. He thinks they can go anywhere you are willing to go.

Tim says I have to take off the distributor cap and dry out something or another and see if that will work. If not then I have to buy something or another and install it and see if that will work. He is going to give me a lesson today when he arrives, to see if I can get the MAZDA on the road again.

Someone had just sent a gift to the ministry and so I am purchasing 2 NEW TIRES tomorrow morning. This morning when I went to the garage to get the FORD out to go pick up some things from the store, the FORD wouldn't start. I don't know what is wrong, but Tim will be here soon to check it out.