Via San José

This is not going to be a post about rock climbing.  Or bikes. I’m sitting in a random chair at a random gate in National Airport, head resting against the wall, eyes unfocused on the ceiling.  This chair jumped out and rescued me from the CNBC store (WHY?!) and the agony of Michelle Obama mugs (too political?), cherry blossom t-shirts (too kitchy?), cherry blossom mouse pads (too ugly?), and I (heart) DC keychains (too trinkety?).  I think I’ve gotten something for everybody, including the three Costa Rican colleagues who I completely forgot about yesterday as I searched frantically for gifts for Honduran friends.  My eyes feel like they’re full of TV static, and I just remembered the morning I left Honduras.  I was carrying a lot of gifts then too.

That morning, my eyes were itchy and dry, which I blamed on the fact that I hadn’t gotten more than 4 hours of sleep a night in 3 weeks.  Then as now, I had been rendered insomniac by the anxious reality that every day was one day closer to leaving.  When I got to the airport, I lugged two full suitcases, a backpack, and a couple of shopping bags to the check-in counter, hoping.  Then too, I had frantically shopped for the heavy, fragile, inconveniently-shaped artisanry that filled my bags as Christmas gifts.  I had not spent enough time taking care of basic life tasks, like getting rid of the stuff I’d accumulated over two years.  As I hauled bag after bag onto the scale, the ticket agent’s eyes widened.  He said flatly, in Spanish, “You have too many bags,” and all I could do was stare at him blankly.  It was the “I have no solution to this problem” approach to problem solving.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered pitifully.  “I’m moving home after two years, and I did everything I could to make them smaller, left most of my stuff here; I don’t know what to do!” I almost cried.  This would have been much less dramatic without the sleep deprivation.

My Peace Corps site mate, Eli, stepped in from the left:  “Do you have any of those big bags, so we can try to consolidate?”  The ticket agent pointed his index finger up, stooped behind the counter, and produced two huge, quasi-disposable blue duffel bags with the American Airlines emblem on the side.

As Eli helped me repack my stuff into the new bags, the ticket agent busied himself at his computer.  A few minutes later, he peered over the counter at me: “Wait wait wait–I can help you!  There is an empty seat in first-class.  I can upgrade you, and then you have no bag limit.”  I looked up and saw yet another guardian angel; Honduras had been full of those.

“Really?” I muttered.  “Oh, that would be great. Wow, really?”  Never underestimate the no-solution solution.

When I got on the plane, my eyes felt both chalky and gooey.  Gooey seemed inappropriate in first class.  The flight attendant brought out a hot hand towel at the beginning of the flight, and I had to spy out of the corner of my eye to figure out what to do with it.  I drank the first glass of half-decent white wine I’d had in months.  But mostly I stretched out my legs, sank into my huge leather chair, and let my mushy brain relax.

Scrolling through the photos from last night’s opening of the Nacimiento, I smiled at the one with Kique wearing his Alabama sweatshirt.  I tried to forget about Mario’s searing note and his watery eyes.  I wrote a reminder on my hand to email Carla for her recipe for chuletas ahumadas a la Coca-Cola.

My eyes got gooeyer and itchier the closer I got to home, and they didn’t get better until two days later, when I woke up in the morning to an empty house.  I wandered around looking for my family and, finding nobody, collapsed in the stairwell and burst into tears, washing the goo out.

That was two years ago, and now I’m finally on my way back to Honduras (via San José).  There’s been a coup and a new government elected; my friend Osiris and host brother Carlos both have new babies.  Doña Ada, who made my favorite rosquillas, passed away of cancer, and Professor Vega, who built the Nacimiento, was killed while walking to his school one morning.  They paved the road to my host mother Nena´s house.

Even though there´s a new mayor, Sobeyda still works at the Municipality, where I shared an office with her for two years.  I´m hoping that when I walk into Navidad and Marcela´s kitchen, they´ll hug me like they used to, and perhaps, if my timing is right, they´ll send me home with rosquillas that nobody at home will eat except for me.