What´s the longest you´ve ever Jaloned?

A current Volunteer and I were recently discussing another Volunteer of little words. It was said that this volunteer of little words once asked the most profound statement What’s the longest you’ve ever Jaloned? To Jalon (pronounced ha – lon), is more commonly know in English as hitchhiking. The art of which I will probably be exploring throughout my service so I just wanted to explain the import term now. Obviously, being female my choice of Jalon will be limited and consist mostly of jalons in my site or with groups. Once coming back from Santa Barbara, in the pouring rain with a group of people from my town, about twelve people piled into the back of our truck to Jalon back to El Nispero. Did I mention it is pouring rain? So, this one woman hands us off her baby. A baby, baby. Maybe less than a year old. She just hands him to us three girls sitting in the back of the truck while she rides in the back. I saw her on the bus yesterday, and her baby still seems to be doing well regardless of the mother’s handing her off to strangers. But by far the most interesting story of a jalon actually occurred during my site visit three weeks ago in Santa Barbara. I can into Santa Barbara to travel back to Tegucigalpa to finish training with a group from my town. We arrived early and ahead of Jessica (who I would be traveling back with) and so after showing me where the bus was already parked, we went into a café for a breakfast baleada. Jessica called me about twenty minutes later and told me that she was now walking towards the bus. As I came out of the cafe, I said my departing words to my compatriots and turned the corner to the bus. Amazingly, bus not there! I am wearing my huge backpack and decide just t walk towards where the bus WAS sitting and investigate. I make it about a half a blok when a truck pulls up and a guy yells out the window to me, “Tegucigapla?” After some discussion I found out the bus had moved to avoid parade traffic and that the guy was in fact offering me a jalon to the bus and not all the way to Tegucigalpa (I could just imagine Juan Carlos our head of security’s face if I jaloned in the back of a truck of three hours on the major freeway). So I am in the back of this truck and the adrenaline is pumping, as I am praying we make it to the bus before it leaves. Additionally, I call Jessica, “So, I am in the back of a truck, seems the bus has moved from where it normally leaves from, save me a seat.” I would love to say that this will probably be the last time such a thing will happen but it seems that in Honduras you just need to roll with things as they come. It’s the Peace Corps’s favorite buzz word, FLEXIBILITY.