New Talents

It was just last week that elder Browne and I decided that we would travel outside of the city limits and visit some families out there.  We took with us our favorite Filipino buddy and off we went on the bus.  Now the place is not too far, maybe only 30 minutes by bus.  But of course, you have to add in the walking time from the bus stop to the final destination.  Neither Elder Browne nor I know where these people live, just Ednel, the Filipino. We started this trip thinking we would spend about 2 hours round trip... it took a lot longer than that.  Anyway, we get off the bus at mile 8 and then start the long and very hot hot walk in a direction that Ednel picks.  We are walking for 10 minutes when Ednel says he is not sure where we are, but he assures us that we should just continue walking and hopefully we will get there.  We agree and walk for another 20 minutes.  But the further we walk the further we get to the middle of nowhere.  We see something ahead that looks like a bus stop so we set our course for it.  When we get there we find out that it is a Pirate stop.  A very dingy little rest stop for people waiting for illegal taxis and buses.  At this point we know that we are not going in the right direction so we sit and wait for a Pirate.  20 minutes pass and there is no Pirate, the flies are swarming this trash dump of a stop, and I am thirsty!  We cut our losses and start walking back.  It’s even hotter than the way there.  Finally I had enough and I flag down a card and politely asked for a ride.  This would be the beginning of my very long and successful streak of hitchhiking.  I don’t want to brag but I am very good at this particular skill, there is something magical about my hands.  On this day alone we would have to hitchhike a total of 5 times to get to our final destination.  But this is not all, one of those five rides happens to be a semi truck, yes, I that is right, I was able to flag down a semi truck and get a ride... for free.  Well, after 3 hours of trying to find this place we finally got to the "gated" community.  When I say gated I mean, people sitting at the head of the road trying to get money from white guys.  At this point we are tired and angry so we leave a message with the "security" and then go home.  We will never do that again, it was miserable. Moral of the story, even in a crappy situation you can learn new talents, like hitchhiking.