January 17, 2008

Today we went back to San Pedro Sula (not all the way into the heart of the city) to get some items for our house. Cindy is trying to make it be “our” home. A place where we can relax in our own environment. Probably a good idea. We went to a store to pick up basic household stuff – laundry basket to take clothes back and forth to the clotheslines, towels, a pillow, sheets for the bed, etc. The shopping carts they have in the store are very small (the pillow basically filled up one cart) so we wound up with three carts and two girls (who work on commission) very willing to help us. They were very nice and very helpful and very willing to work with our lack of Spanish. (We know we keep bring up our lack of Spanish but it’s an everyday challenge to get anything done trying to communicate when you can’t speak the language) We can’t wait to go to language school so we can talk with people and get to know them. We also purchased a couch which presented a problem because it would not fit in our truck. How do you ask someone if they can deliver to your house when about all you know how to say is “How are you” and “My name is”? With sign language, pointing, our every trusty English to Spanish dictionary and one of the young ladies knowing just a few more words in English than we know in Spanish we finally understood they could deliver to where we live. Yeppiee!

While Brad had been wondering through the store Cindy had somehow managed to ask the head salesperson if we could get a discount because we were buying so much (so much is relative here). They agreed to give us a ~10% discount on everything we bought. Great. So here we go to the cashier with Cindy pushing a cart and each of the two girls pushing a cart. We get to the cashier and the two girls begin to unload our carts for us and are explaining something to the cashier. They ring up everything in our carts and we pay with our debit card. No problem so far.

Because the couch will be delivered they must ring it up separately. They do and then Brad gives them the debit card along with his ID again. There seems to be a problem because now they call an older lady/manager (older simply meaning older than the three young girls that are helping us) over and all of them begin talking amongst themselves. All we know is there seems to be a problem with our debit card and there have now been two transactions on our card for this one purchase. Now this could be a problem. She shows us both credit card receipts and begins explaining to us what happened. The only problem is she speaking Spanish – we are confused. Our best guess is that our bank denied the second charge because we were over our daily limit (not sure what our limit is) or because it’s back to back charges from a different country. Now what?

As we are discussing how we might be able to come up with the money the manager hands us a credit card receipt to sign and everything is ok. We are still not sure exactly what happened. The hurdles are not over yet. We have to give them directions to our house which is located on the grounds of an orphanage which is on a dirt/gravel road with no name. The landmark to turn is “turn across the street from the chicken farm billboard.” Our teammates the Smiths (thank goodness for them) have given us one of their cards with directions printed on the back. This appears to be working until they start asking questions. We are lost again. Cindy takes a piece of paper and draws a map which solves the problem for now. It literally took us thirty minutes to checkout. Once again by the time we were done it’s like we had made two new friends with the young ladies that were helping us. They were so nice.

After this we went shopping to see if we can buy here some of the supplies they need for the medical team coming in February. Brad and Saul also spent time working on arranging translators for the medical team. Scott Strouse is leading the medical team in February and after all this work we were doing for him today he sends us a nasty email about our blog not being updated so how can he be sure we are really working. Amazing.

On the serious side, Brad is spending more time with Saul. They are getting to know each other. What makes each other tick. Where each one’s heart is. They are developing a relationship that will hopefully grow stronger and stronger.

Cindy’s medical practice is growing and she is making daily trips to visit the kids she has seen for various things. Gracie (her first patient) now runs to Cindy when she sees her. Cindy always tells the kids “See ya, Bye” when she leaves (that is what our granddaughter says). Today when Cindy was getting ready to leave Gracie said “See ya.” It was nice.