Regresando

I'm almost back! Right now I am sitting at a table in the Caracas airport, waiting for my flight that is scheduled to leave at 5pm. I arrived here at 11 this morning from Miami, and have spent the afternoon skyping friends and carousing facebook (the airport has free wifi, awesome). I realized that right now I'm the guy we see in the airport in Minneapolis, or at the Mall of America, who is talking on the phone speaking another language and we have no idea what he is saying. I haven't had a problem getting back into the swing of things with speaking Spanish, however, because I just had a nice warm-up week in Honduras. The week was one of the best I've had there. Surgery-center wise, my spanish has never been better and I felt like I did a very good job translating. There were a lot of students on the trip, some of whom I knew already from past trips and some I did not, which was a lot of fun. The combination of being able to communicate so easily with the kids on the ranch and the fact that after so many trips there so many of them know me was a great feeling. Some of them commented on my being able to speak spanish so much better than in the past which was cool. I got to spend lots of good time with the kids on the ranch, made some new friends and got to hang out with many old ones, and was able to be a part of completing 65 surgeries and tending to 300+ non-surgical patients.

Instead of flying home to Minnesota like everyone else, (or Boston or Chicago or New Mexico, where some were heading home or going straight to school), my mom and I got on a flight to Miami and stayed there last night. Neither of us had been to Miami before so during our 12 hour layover we took a taxi to South Beach. Our taxi driver's ex-wife called him during the ride to tell him about a friend's child being abducted in a mall. He mentioned to us that the mall was in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. I mentioned that I'm living across the river from there and go to that mall frequently. SMALL WORLD. His ex-wife is from an hour away from there, and he has been to the city I'm living in. Craziness. Miami Beach was very cool, we got a nice dinner and wandered up and down the beachfront drive. A nice night with my momma.

This morning we got to the airport early, got through security and then went our separate ways. She should be almost home by now after a plane change in New York, and I am now in country number 3 in 21 hours. I have three different currencies in my pocket right now. I am excited to get to San Felix, I have been away for a month and a half. I won't be getting to my house until after 7, so I'm not sure if I'll see any of my Venezuelan friends tonight, but I do know that I will be seeing an American friend. Michael Daly, whose family is responsible for the trips to Honduras, is in the seminary at the University of St. Thomas and has spent the past few weeks here in Venezuela, living directly below my bedroom in the house. I'm excited to see him, we overlap for 4 or 5 days before he heads back to Minnesota. There is also a separate group from UST, but I'm not sure exactly what their status is, I think they may be in the Gran Sabana right now.

I'm so excited to be back, I have missed the people here dearly.

airport pic for ya