FLAT TIRE

Well I had my first flat tire in my new car. Oh joy! The highway here...well first it isn't like the highway you would imagine.....it is a curvy road through the mountain with many potholes! There are several potholes on both sides of the road between Comayagua and the base. Annette and Lance lead the praise and worship team at the base chapel. Alysha who is here for 6 months has been singing with them at the base. While they are gone to the U.S., she is still singing with the others from the base on the worship team. Well they have practice on Wed. nights. So I have been taking her out there at 7:00 for practice. Here is it dark by about 6:00 or 6:30. And my wonderful tinted windows on my car make it very difficult to see out of the city at night time. Well I had managed to avoid most of the potholes....until we were leaving the base....

oh yea, and they canceled practice Wed. but didn't have her phone number to tell her so we didn't even need to go there....but on with my tire story....

So I pulled out of the base and hit the big mother of all potholes! One of our teachers, Paty had gotten a flat tire in the same hole a few weeks ago, and that night there was a car on the side of the road changing their tire which I am sure was caused by the same hole. Well I hit it and then heard the wonderful sound of a flat flopping tire.

Now if you have never been her, let me try and draw a picture of this scene for you. It is a two lane "highway" that people try to make into a 3 to 4 lane "highway", there is not hardly any shoulder on either side of the road, and nothing around you but empty fields, and forest, and random wandering cows. Not the place for two gringo girls with a flat tire! I knew that I was going to continue driving until we got to a place where I felt we could pull safely off the road then I would call someone to make a plan for help. But I had to get us off this road.

We drove a little way and there is a factory of some sort, so I pulled onto their dirt/rock driveway so that we could get off the highway.

When I had seen Porter on Tuesday he told me that he was heading back to Jemalagela (can't even say it I sure can't spell it!), on Wed. to the orphanage, but I called him just to see if maybe he was in Comayagua, and yep he was! So he ran to the soccer field and picked up Gabby and the two of them came to help us.

In the mean time we had both of the security guards out to our car, and then people coming out on their bikes riding by just to look....we are not Martians! Finally we had a couple of guys who work in the plant who came out and wanted to help us. I told them best I could that friends (amigos the masculine friend) was coming from Comayagua to help us, but they wanted to help, so they started trying to jack up the car which didn't get very far, I called Porter back to see how close he was as more people were coming outside to see what was going on....they were just minutes away from us, and once they pulled in all the "helpers" disbursed! We were not in danger, but just an uncomfortable situation, being ladies, on a dark road, a group of men, a disabled vehicle and communication problems!

Porter went with me the next day to help me get some new tires. The one that went flat was not repairable, it had a big hole in the side of it. So I bought two new tires....Now to avoid all potholes! That is the difficult thing!

On our way to Tegucigalpa earlier in the week I told Porter driving on the highway is like playing a driving video game...trying to avoid oncoming vehicles, children running the road, and potholes! Life is an adventure!!!!