Manuel

Manuel: Our first contact in Honduras, the director of our language school, father of David (pronounced Da-veed), and the opposite of dependable.

Saturday morning we called Manuel for the first time. He arranged for David to pick us up from the hotel and we planned an excursion to the neighboring islands for Sunday at 8am.

It is Central America, but still by 8:45am we began to worry a little so we called Manuel. He claimed he was already there and the trip was full, but he would send someone to pick us up. Just after 10am some guys showed up in a jeep. We didn’t really know who they were, or where they were going, so we hopped in the jeep with them. During our attempt to figure out the situation one of the guys asked us in English, “What condition was Manuel in when he told you that?” He added, “He drinks a lot on the weekends.”

The next day we had a brief tour of the city before classes began. Manuel took us to a very nice hotel on the beach. He told us that he had an arrangement with the hotel for his students to come and visit the hotel and drink at the bar whenever they would like. Later we learned that he made this possible because the hotel bar was open to the public.

David drove us home from school, and we made plans to have dinner with him that night. For some reason later that afternoon Manuel called us and changed our dinner time from 6:30pm to 7:00pm. He liked to be involved in things. We waited at home all evening and no one every showed up. The next morning Manuel explained that he wasn’t able to make it because he had someone that he had to pick up at the airport.

One night at the bar I recognized some of the other students from school and I went and sat with them for a bit. We ended up exchanging Manuel stories. We began with the people newest to the school and worked our way up. I learned of stories that included: Manuel driving without a license, driving while inebriated, and stopping the car and asking a student to drive in order to get through a sobriety checkpoint. He had a reputation.

On our last day of class Manuel approached us about the cost of staying an extra night with our homestay. I was happy to pay for the additional night, but I wanted to pay her directly without giving any more money to the school. I ended up getting into a pretty heated argument with me bringing up the point that we paid for two separate bedrooms, but shared a single room all week. Apparently, it is the same price. I finally agreed to pay, but mentioned we did not have American dollars so he I asked for the price in Limpiras. I had trouble understanding his answers in Spanish. We had a conversation that went something like this:

“How much in Limpiras?”
“230”
“What was that?” (said as we were taking out our money)
“I’ll make it easy for you and you can just give me an even 500,” (as he took the 500 from us).

That same day he cornered Gio and asked him what we were doing Saturday during the day. Gio answered that we were going to Cayos Cochinos, and we ended up booking the trip with Manuel (again). He joked with us, “Don’t worry. I’m not picking up anyone from the airport tomorrow.”

It was a fantastic day and at the end of it on our way home I asked our guide what he thought of Manuel. He responded something equivalent to “no comment.”

We laughed.

I added, “Estoy de acuerdo.” (I agree.)

We laughed again.