Hondurans love Bob Marley

May 25, 2011

Guess what the rainy season does for a solar panel... Nothing. Most importantly, it does not charge it. On Wednesday, as I tentatively rejoiced in the FB’s full recovery, the solar panel battery began to beep. The only thing worse than the incessant beeping was when the beeping flat-lined, and the battery shut off. I struggled with the manual for a while turning things off and on at random. Regino poked his head into the battery room, and I explained that the battery wasn’t working. He looked completely unsurprised and said Spanish the equivalent of, “Yeah, we haven’t had any sun.”

It had been an exciting day, so I decided I would write about it on paper, as my computer hadn’t charged after the previous night’s use. I would be posting what I wrote that night, but I intelligently left the journal in Las Mercedes thinking, “My computer will be charged. I won’t need to write in this.” So here we go from memory.

Baltazar’s friend, Jaime, drove out to Las Mercedes Wednesday morning. I learned where the carburetor and the “regulator of the accelerator” are (I assume there is a better English word for this but I don’t know it). With the regulator of the accelerator adjusted, FB fired up and reliably stayed … lit? What’s the English word… eh… you get the picture. 

Jaime holding the carburetor and rocking out to Bob Marley. (Note Jamie's bike behind FB. Come back to that for the next post)

From there we moved on to the problem of the gas leak. Jaime took the carburetor apart and showed me the floaty things and abuja (I have no idea how to translate that but it looks like a thick pin and works like a valve). The gas comes into the carburetor, and the floaty things rise. When the gas gets to a certain level the abuja, which is attached to the floaty things, closes the valve (at least that’s what I got out of the conversation). Apparently the abuja wasn’t closing and gas would just continue flowing in until it came out the manguera (literally “hose,” but this one lets air in). Jaime tried adjusting things for about half an hour before deciding it would be best to just drive back to La Esperanza and replace the abuja. When we got to La Esperanza FB wasn’t leaking gas any more! But you never know with FB so we looked around for a new abuja anyway.

This inadvertently led to a shouting match with the lady I bought the bike from. She had lots of complaints about how I had dealt with the multitude of problems I’ve been having with the bike (it’s under warranty), and Baltazar doesn’t seem to trust her (probably because she was willing to sell me the bike in the first place J). In the end, I tried to smooth things over, and we decided to just head back to Las Mercedes, as FB appeared to be cured anyway.

I was so pumped that I was actually going to get to do my survey the next day that I really wasn’t that upset about the electricity and am willing to overlook the fact that I am putting entirely too much trust in the lady that sold me this bike.

PS. The “La Gringa’s Blogicito” link is awesome. It has everything you ever wanted to know about what’s up in Honduras, particularly if you were lost about what I said about the OEA (OAS in English I think) and the coup.

Spanish words for the day (this one’s for you Charlotte):

“Que pedo?” Honduran for “how are you?” alternately: “What’s the problem?” (I’m not sure I’m gutsy enough to use this since I know pedo means fart, but I was assured it’s what they say…)