Mom called me this week and said that the Dallas Morning News (I think?) had an article stating that Mel Zelaya is returning to power. This is definitely a premature claim, considering there is going to be a vote about it this week. I have a long list of jaded comments I could make, but I'll just leave it at "we'll see what happens." In any event, I'll do my best to catch y'all up on the current goings-on.



We left off last time with Mel covertly re-entering the country and holing up in the Brazilian embassy. The country was essentially on lockdown for several days, but things began to normalize (in most of the country, at least...I hear the capital, Tegucigalpa, has been a pretty crazy place since the end of June) and rumors of talks between Zelaya and Micheletti began to fly. (As a quick side note- a talk between these two has been "in the works" since shortly after Mel was flown out of the country. Micheletti refuses any compromise that includes Mel returning to power, while Mel refuses any compromise not including it...so there has been a bit of a gridlock.) The day the curfew was lifted, the headlines read something along the lines of "Plans to Compromise Being Discussed". But that same headline, or at least one similar, was on the front page everyday for a week before they finally realized that it wasn't really news. It really looked like there was going to be no progress made on that front for a long time. With national elections just around the corner, things were looking pretty bleak. (If you didn't read the other post about this...unless Mel is reinstated, the newly elected leader will not be recognized by other world leaders. That was the threat, at least.)

Finally something changed. People from both parties met with a group of American negociators headed up by Thomas Shannon. The result of this meeting is the Guaymuras Accord, aka the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord. This basically gives the Honduran Congress (with approval from their Supreme Court) the final say in what happens next. Ironically, this is exactly where the country was at the end of June. Way to go, USA. Thanks for all of your help.

Congress will be voting this week to determine when, if, and how Zelaya should be reinstated. According to Mr. Shannon, Honduras will be backed by the US, regardless of the outcome of the vote. Based on Mel's reaction (during a radio interview, he said that this signifies his return to power and peace to Honduras) and things that I have been reading, it seems that the USA is fairly confident that Mel is going to be returned to presidency. It makes me wonder if the USA will back Honduras no matter what...unless they don't vote the way they are "supposed" to. We will soon find out...Congress will be holding their vote later this week at the earliest. There is no deadline for their decision, so who knows when they will reach their decision.

Honduran elections are coming up at the end of this month, and I have an exciting opportunity for you! :) The Tribunal Supremo Electoral (an independent entity that is in charge of the elections) is asking for international volunteers to witness the upcoming election. They are hoping to show the rest of the world that they truly are a democratic nation. It is over Thanksgiving weekend, so I know that most people won't be able to come down and help. But if you think you know someone who might be interested, please pass this information along!

Volunteers will need to get here no earlier than the (early) morning of Friday, November 27 for training. I am including a link with regulations and a letter from the Alliance for Peace and Democracy, as well as the application if you are interested in coming down. Prayers are good, too. And I guess you don't have to come down for that. :) Thanks!!!

Those of you who know me well know my passion for food. Particularly garlic and cheese. I never thought there would be a day that I would try a cheese I didn't like. Well, brace yourself for something dreadful: that day has come.






Here it is. Quajada and I are still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship at this point. As I opened the bag it was enclosed in, a pungent odor attacked my nostrils. Plenty of delicious cheese is stinky, I told myself as those blasphemous words from the blog bubbled to the surface of my consciousness. Plus, this cheese is wrapped in a banana leaf. That's awesome! It's gotta be awesome. In order to fully experience this cheese, I decided the first bite should be the cheese flying solo. Just pure, unadulterated quajada. Not the dumbest decision I have made, but pretty close. Before I had even closed my mouth, I regretted not only eating the cheese by itself, but purchasing it in the first place. The most foul tasting case of buyer's remorse I have ever experienced. You know that scene in The Princess Bride when the old lady is yelling at Buttercup and calling her names? The queen of filth...garbage...putrescence...I believe that Rob Reiner gave that lady some quesillo as inspiration for that scene. There are not enough words in the history of language to describe the nastiness of that cheese.

Do not succomb to the same foolish errors as I. I didn't trust the lady's blog because I didn't know her. But you know me. And you know my love for cheese. And therefore you know I am not lying when I say to you: THIS IS THE GROSSEST, NASTIEST, MOST DISGUSTINGLY FOUL CHEESE EVER MADE! It probably wouldn't even be worth eating if your life depended on it.

And that brings an end to this week's edition of The Crazy Honduran Food of the Week. Stay tuned for future (hopefully tastier) installments. over and out.

I am currently grading my first round of end-of-quarter exams. Fellow teachers...why did you not tell me that grading finals was one of the most depressing events of your life? Or do you eventually become numb to the pain? Regardless. Grading triggered a chain of thoughts in my mind, and I began to think of some of the culture differences I have encountered since moving here. Some of them are pretty funny, which alleviated my mood, and I thought I would take a break from grading and share them with you. Avoidance, anyone?

FAMILY LIFE
Beginning with the most obvious, and perhaps the most stereotypical...families here are huge and started early. And if you don't have kids, there is probably something wrong with you. Most of the casual conversations I have been in with strangers have gone along these lines (after they've asked me what country I am from and tell me that I have pretty eyes):
THEM: So...do you live with your babies?
ME: No, I don't have any babies. I am here alone.
THEM: Oh, so you must miss your babies in the states.
ME: No. I don't have any babies.
THEM: Oh. (insert look of caution. They don't know if I'm barren, and they don't want to offend me) So do you live here with your husband?
ME: I don't have a husband. It is just me here.
THEM: (insert look and tone of confusion) Do you have a husband in the states?
ME: No. I don't have a husband.
THEM: (change look from confusion to incredulity) Boyfriend?
ME: No.
THEM: (insert look of concern) How old are you?
ME: 26
THEM: (increase the amount of concern) oh.
The concern shown by these people- sometimes strangers, sometimes neighbors or students- is neither masked nor subtle. It's a little funny. At this point in the conversation, I have encountered three different responses:
1- The Homophobe- Things get really awkward. You can almost hear the inner dialogue: "Is this tall white girl a lesbian? Why else would you not be married and a mother by age 26? She is from the states...they're a lot more liberal about these sorts of things. She isn't even a catholic!" At this point they take advantage of my limited Spanish to excuse themselves from the conversation. Any children with them are scooted along with them as well.
2- The Matchmaker- Things get really awkward. They immediately want to know why there are no children, husbands, or boyfriends. And then they want to help you out. They have brothers, cousins, and friends, all who are very nice, and all who will (probably) bemore than willing to help me make some babies. At this point I take advantage of my limited Spanish to excuse myself from the conversation.
3- The Skeezy Latino Man- Things get really awkward. They reiterate that I have pretty eyes. Then they concede that really in general I am pretty. Plus I am American. That makes up for how old I am. Then they propose. This response has come from literally every unmarried Honduran I have met with a Y chromosome.

FINE DINING
There is a ridiculous number of American restaurants down here. Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Popeyes, KFC, Little Caesar's, Pizza Hut, McDonald's...the list goes on and on. In every major city, the local Applebee's is listed as the number one place to go for your special night out. You can almost feel the magic in the air. I have had many special nights here, but none of them the right amount of special to warrent a trip to Crapplebee's.

One of the young girls from the street cleans my apartment and cooks for me every now and then. She is really sweet (and she has a brother who thinks I'm pretty and would love to help me make babies). When my parents came down to visit, she asked if she could cook dinner for them. I thought that was a great idea, but I didn't really have anything in particular in mind. Yuri said, "You want it to be something really special for them, right?" Of course! I was very excited about them coming to visit. After a couple days, when little progress had been made on the decision making front, Yuri reiterated, "You want it to be something special for them," but then she added, "maybe you should order pizza." I choked back a laugh, and I'm glad I did, because she was being serious. I never even thought about how a food as mundane as pizza would be a huge treat for a poor family down here. Yuri ended up making Honduran style spaghetti and corn tortillas. oh yeah.

DAILY DINING
As many of you know, I can never work someplace that doesn't feed me well. The food down here is amazing (and not just the pizza!) and I have had a lot of fun eating my way around. While there are many food items that are very exotic, a huge part of the diet down here is...you guessed it: beans and tortillas. Almost everything you eat down here comes with a side of beans a couple tortillas. And fried plantain chips. They love the starches here. I am a fan of the beans, but not so much a fan of daily bean consumption. Yuri does not understand this. When she first started cooking for me, she made a HUGE pot of beans, but she wouldn't take any with her. Even if I begged her to do so. A large family would have struggled to get through that pot of beans in a week, but I did the best I could. When it was finally done, I asked Yuri to not make that amount of beans at once again. So I began to come home everyday to a pot of cooked beans on the stove. Again, she never took any home with her. I told her I don't eat beans everyday, and I didn't want them to go to waste. She nodded her head, said ok, and then made another pot of beans the next day. That cycle repeated itself a couple times. Then I took my container of beans to school and hid it in my desk.

DRIVING
Driving is an amazing experience here. At first it seems like there are no traffic laws at all. I discovered this is not the case when I got pulled over the other day for turning left when I didn't have an arrow. Even though there were no signs forbidding this, it is apparently illegal. Subsequently, this led to my first (and thus far only) successful experience bribing a police officer down here, because he definitely wanted to take me to jail. All of this to say...there are traffic laws down here...who knew?

Driving is a liberating, albeit somewhat nervewracking, experience down here. Despite the loosely applied and interpreted traffic laws, or perhaps because of them, you are basically in a no-holds-barred fight for access to your lane. Lane lines, curbs, other cars...these mean nothing to a Honduran driver if they want to get around you. It's amazing. Also...I think that it some sort of a law that you can only have one working headlight on your car. While other traffic laws may fall to the wayside, this law is adhered to with utmost reverence.

SOCCER- THE REAL FOOTBALL
Although I knew a lot of people who played soccer, I was never a huge soccer fan. And then I moved down here. These people take passion to a whole new level. It is really amazing. With all of this intensity going on around you, it is hard not to get caught up in the game. So now I am a big soccer fan. For an American. I don't ever think I will be able to match the Hondurans...they recently qualified for the 2010 World Cup. It was exciting. It was emotional. Some people cried. Some people celebrated. The president declared a national holiday. Wait, what? Yes, you heard right. They didn't even win the World Cup. Or a game at the World Cup. They just qualified to go to South Africa. And it was a holiday. The US also qualified for the World Cup. Sorry you suckers didn't manage to rustle a holiday out of that win. :)

Wait, what? It doesn't snow in Honduras! You're right. However, since Monday afternoon, the entire country has been on a curfew. Originally the curfew was to go from Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning, but it has since been extended several times. Right now it is lifting tomorrow (Thursday) morning. Everything has been closed/canceled because we are not supposed to leave our homes. So we have all the freedom you get when you don't have to go to school during the week with none of the fun stuff to do. To help pass the time Monday night, Gabrielle and I made some piña coup-ladas and played dominos with one of our neighbors for hours. Today I have been boning up on Honduran politics. Many of you have asked me about the current political situation, so here is a brief overview of the political happenings in this country leading up to today:

As many of you may know (or remember) Latin America was not exactly the poster child of politcal stability for a long time. In the midst of bloody coups and violent revolutions, Honduras managed to keep its nose clean. For the past twenty years, they were the most politically stable country in Central America. In the 1980s, Honduras became a democratic nation (again, I think). The constitution passed approval in 1982, and is the same constitution in effect today. Article 4 of the Honduran constitution states "The alternation in office of the President of the Republic is required. Violation of this rule constitutes the crime of treason." Article 237 states that a Honduran president is allowed to serve one four-year term.

Fast forward to November 2005. Mel Zelaya is elected president. He was a pretty popular guy, but not overwhelmingly so...he won the vote by 4%, which was the smallest margin in the country's history. He was a member of the Liberal Party of Honduras, and he took office in January of 2006. His popularity began to drop shortly after taking office. Earlier this year, Mel proposed some amendments to the constitution. There were several changes he wanted to make, but the one that has received the most attention is one that would allow a president to be re-elected for an indefinite number of terms. If you look back to Article 4 of the constitution, you will see that this constitutes treason. So Congress, the Supreme Court, and the military all told Zelaya they would not back him if he continued with the vote.

Mel continued with his plan for the proposition. Since Congress would not hold a vote for it, he decided to hold a Constituents Assembly on June 28th. A couple days before the vote, the ballots were flown in to the capitol where the military siezed them and destroyed most of them. Mel managed to snuggle some out and was planning on moving forward with the vote. The Honduran constitution is very long, and I was unable to find a copy in English, so I haven't read all of it yet. According to many of the people here that I have spoken to, this is the part where Mel ceased to be the president of Honduras. Apparently the Honduran Constitution does not allow for an impeachment process. Congress and the Supreme Court held emergency sessions, determined that according to Constitution Mel Zelaya was no longer the president, voted Micheleti in as interim president, and decided the safest course of action would be to fly Mel out of the country.

This is what you read about in the papers as the wild and crazy military coup. Although in real life, the military was only following orders from what they believe to be their true authority. I don't remember what the article number is, but the Constitution does state that no Honduran citizen can be exiled or something along those lines. arg, I wish I could find it. So forcing Mel out of the country was an unconstitutional act as well.

After a couple months of shenanigans, Mel is back. This past Monday, Mel somehow made it back in the country and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. The country has pretty much been on lockdown, and I don't know anything more recent than that, really.

The current government is not recognized as legitimate by many (or really any?) other world leaders. As a result of their refusal to reinstate Mel, Honduras has been removed from the OAS and has been denied aid from the US and Europe. This year is an election year (Mel's term would have been over January 6, 2010), and apparently the newly appointed official is not going to be considered legitimate either, as a result of this craziness. Now, I am clearly not an expert on politics in general, much less Honduran politics. But in my opinion, Mel Zelaya was removed from power according to the Honduran constitution. And although he was removed from the country, which I think was an unconstitutional act, I don't think that means he should be reinstated. I also think it's quite a load of crap for foreign governments, namely the US, to say that Mel Zelaya needs to be reinstated in order for democracy to be upheld, but then say that they will not recognize any new president elected after the new regime. Sadly, I don't think this is about democracy anymore. But I will say that even if it means I am labeled as a golpista, I support Honduras. My two cents.

Gabrielle (my neighbor/coworker) and I went to Tela a couple weekends ago. Tela is a small town a couple hours east-ish (I think?) from San Pedro Sula, and it is right on the beach which is the large basis for its appeal. :)

Technical difficulties have prevented me from communicating in any sort of consistent manner with many of you, and I am so sorry for that. Things have been sorted, and I am back. SO...if you called or emailed and I haven't responded, please bear with me. I promise I am not ignoring you!! In my break from technology I've done some fun stuff around here that I will catch you up on as well very soon. I love you guys, and you have no idea how incredibly excited I am to be able to talk to you again!!