Missed Call

So this past week I had 3 month IST, basically a conference where we got to present out community and talk about what we want to do the next year. It was located in the moutains about an hour outside of Santiago. It went really well, but as always even getting there was an adventure...

So my Dona/ project partner and I woke up Monday the 3rd at 4:30am to catch the early guagua at 5am (The project partners came for the first couple of days). So we got ready and waited in the galeria (front porch)...and waited. 5 o'clock came and went. Then 5:30. So my Dona started to get a little worried so she started asking a couple of people to go ask around about the driver. The people never found outwhere the guagua was and the guagua never came. So thankfully about 6am a crappy double-cabbed truck came by that was headed for Santiago. So we jumped in and got to Santiago about 8:30. We had to go to a bus stop that neither of us had been to before, but thankfully the driver knew where it was. The place didn't take to long to find, and I'll always know how to identify it now. It was loco!

First, we turned on to a street that had more bags of onions than people at a UT football game. There were so many onions, it smelled like onions. Then we got to the next intersection and there were tons of fruit and vegetable shops littering the sidewalks. With guaguas in the middle of the intersections begging for people to get on their guagua. Everyone was shouting and honking their horns. Complete chaos.

So we jumped out of the truck and found one to take us to the center. It was the same type of truck and just as bad as the one we'd rode to Santiago in which wasn't too exciting but not surprising either. We got in and ate some breakfast (apple juice and crackers) and waited for the guagua to fill up with people so we could go. Finally, half an hour later we finally got enough people to go. So I threw I bag in the back, climbed in the back, and off we went...

But we didn't leave town straight away; no, of course not. First we had to go around town to find more people to come with us. Usually when a driver (or choffeur) does this, they go around and honk their horns to see if anyone is interested in coming. This hombre did that, but his horn sounded more like a dog's squeaky toy than the usual mad dog barking. I couldn't help but laugh.

So we collected a few more people, smushed together in the back seat, and traveled up the mountain in our squeky toy horned, double cab, falling apart truck. It took about an hour and even after all of that we still showed up first at 10am, when the conference started at noon.

We got out of the guagua and headed the 50 meters on foot to the offices. When we got inside, I looked for my phone which I had put in the side pocket of my backpack, but it was not there. Either someone had taken out my cell phone or it had fallen out in the back of the guagua! I told my Dona and a girl who worked there. The girl said that she knew the driver so she would ask him about it and see if he found it.

So the next day came (Tuesday), and I hadn't heard anything from her so I went and asked her. She said that she forgot and would ask that day. Later, she came up to me and said that my phone had "Gone with God" basically I would never see it again. So I was a little upset that I would have to go to the capitol and get a new phone. Plus we are only allowed to get one free phone and I would have to use it so early in my service.

However, the next day (Wednesday) she brought me my phone!!!! I was so excited; she said that he had found it after all. So I turned it on and there was a voicemail from my friend Alanna, from the other group saying that she was returning my phone call from the day before and sorry she missed my call.

I was like "What?" I didn't have my phone yesterday. So I checked my dialed calls and whoever had my phone had made 11 phone calls including Alanna and Whereabouts (a system we have to call when we leave our sites) and then 9 other Dominican numbers. Well whoever had used up all of my minutes on the phone. But at least I got the phone back in the end.