If I were a gambling kind of girl, I'd totally play the lottery with my luck

Kismet. A word of Turkish/Arabic descent meaning fate or destiny. Today was a series of events that to me almost seem too incredible to have all fit together in the perfect way that they did. Maybe God is smiling down on me and using this as a small way to let me know that He is in control and that I am in exactly the place I am meant to be at the exact time that I am meant to be here.

The "coolness" of some of these events you will just have to take my word for because try as I may, I will probably not be able to completely capture this in a way that will bring any sort of justice to the situation, but I will try.

First, I went downtown with another teacher to look for a couple of classroom supplies that I was pretty much certain that I would not be able to find since they weren't exactly common place, and it is Honduras. There is no such thing as easy shopping, and there is never ever a guarantee that even if you find a product that you are looking for that it will even be there the next day or ever again. So, I was looking for sticky tack for my walls and watercolors for my kids (both pretty random items not easily found even office supply stores) and my friend was looking for plastic trays that students could put their papers in to be graded. Even at the remote possibility of finding children's watercolor paint sets, I was certain that they'd be expensive because any kind of item not easily come by usually is. My friend finds her baskets (pretty amazing without having to go to a million places), and in the next store I find the watercolors for about $.70 each, and literally next to it was sticky tack. I was pretty amazed at that. Within 2 stores, two people were able to find the exact items they were looking for at the exact time. I wish I could explain the phenomenon that just occured here, but I suppose the only thing close would be as if you went to a thrift store and saw a dress that you had seen 2 years earlier in a department store in a different state and wanted. On top of that, it was your size, still had the tags on it, and was half price for that day only. Wouldn't you call that kismet? I would venture to guess that the same sort of odds were at work here. This may sound like a ridiculous exaggeration, but you will not understand it until you ever have to look for a specific item in a third world country.

Next set of freaky coincidences: My friend Jorge called as I walked into the house this afternoon and asked if I'd be in El Centro today. I said yes, but that I was on a mission and I'd need all the time that I could spare to be able to look for these items, especially because I couldn't get down into the city until 4 o'clock and all the stores close around 5 or 5:30. Oh yeah, by the way, my friend and I also got a free ride down the mountain with someone from the school who never drives down into the city after school. I forgot about that....yet another thing to add to my kismet day.

So, Jorge said he was going to hitch a ride back into the city from his tiny little village about an hour and a half away. He said to look for him at this coffee shop at 4:30, but I'm thinking that the only way this would all work out would be if he hitched a ride that moment with someone who was heading into Tegucigalpa and traveling on a road with nothing but tiny little villages and farms. Let's just say its not a highly traveled road. My friend and I peeked into the coffee shop, didn't see him there (at 4:45) so we left without even waiting because I figured the chance of that working out was slim to none. Shortly thereafter is when I found my bounty, and my friend and I wanted to celebrate by going to have dinner at a place where we never go because its pretty expensive when compared to all of the local fare.....Subway. I figured it would be worth the $4 because I was rejoicing over my cheap watercolors I was able to find at a random hardware store. Go figure. Joy and I were sitting there at Subway for a little while, and I feel this hand on my shoulder, and its Jorge! He went to the coffee shop, didn't see us there, and while walking down a different road to catch a taxi home, happened to look in the window of this Subway and see us there. Subway isn't even one of the two main roads in El Centro either. Once again, this is weird and totally cool at the same time.

For me, some days are good Spanish days and some days are bad. This day was neither. It was an amazing Spanish day. I was able to sit and talk to Jorge completely in Spanish and it just flowed so naturally that I didn't even need to hesitate much in order to buy some more thinking/translating time. After Subway, I was heading over to the movie theatre to meet some friends for half price Tuesdays and to watch Deja Vu. If you haven't seen this yet, please check your local Blockbuster to look for it because it was amazing! The premise of this movie deals not too far from the idea of fate and destiny (even more of a coincidence I think) and after the movie we girls stopped into the bathroom only to find no toilet paper (very common) and as I look into my bag to try and find something to use, I pull out a package of baby wipes that happened to make their way into there from my classroom. Did I put those in my bag on purpose?....of course not! They just appeared.

Walking out of the movie theatre it was 8:45, and the last busito up the mountain usually leaves at 8:30, but I figured we could walk down the same route as the busito would go in case we happened to catch the last one, and if we didn't there was also a punto de taxis (sort of like a taxi stop) along the way. We walk all the way to the punto without seeing a busito (not surprised) and asked this guy how much for my area of town, and he says 200 lempiras, which is like $10. Pretty excessive, but to be expected when 4 white girls walk up to you and ask you to take them to a nice part of the city. Usually when we take a taxi at this time, we will have one of our Honduran guy friends hail it for us for half that price, and I tell the taxi driver (in once again great Spanish) that we always get the taxi for 100 lemps. He was hesitent, I offered 120 (which is totally impressive for a white girl to get a taxi up the mountain for that much at night) and just as the guy was saying yes, I see out of the corner of my eye the last busito flying by. I run out, flag it down, and we all hop on to sit down in seats! Now, to explain this miracle to you, the busitos (which by the translates into 'little bus') start their route at a park, and won't even pull away from the park until all of the seats are full. Then, they will continue along their route picking up as many people that can anatomically fit into the space, so its pretty much impossible to catch a busito along its route and find seats. We all found seats together in the same row, and payed $.30 for our ride up the mountain instead of $5. Had I looked the other way at that exact second, I would not have seen the busito, and had I been wrong and ran out into the street after a busito that didn't happen to go to my section of town (which by the way not many go to) I would have had to face the taxi drivers who would have been laughing at me and would have accepted nothing less than 200 lemps because they knew I had no other way to get home.

While this all may seem so trivial and nothing more than just a good day, I was so excited about it that I came home to write about it right away even though it is my bedtime. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was luck, but I think it is more than that. I think it is confirmation from God that I am not here by mistake or by ambitious dreams of youth, but that I am part of that intricate weaving of people and circumstances that are all part of God's plan. I look at something like this and I am amazed by the way situations fit together like fingers interwoven in folded hands, and this doesn't even begin to reflect on God and his control over all our lives. Nothing we do is by chance, and God doesn't have a plan B. While we are so concentrated on the things before us and the 2 or 3 moves we are going to make in the future, God sees everything from the beginning of time until the place where time stops and eternity begins. Isn't it amazing to relinquish that kind of control and worry over our future?