Oh man, so much to write about! Well, times are interesting here in Honduras. The elections are this weekend. For anyone unfamiliar with the political situation here, there was a military coup in June to oust the then-president Mel Zelaya. Since June, there have been riots, parades, demonstrations, and curfews. When Zelaya came back into the country, school was cancelled for two days because the de facto president, Micheletti, imposed a national curfew. My friends and I were tear gassed in San Pedro Sula. It's been quite an interesting couple of months, and now the time to elect a new president has come.
Unfortunately, the elections fall on the same weekend as Thanksgiving. The school offered us a really generous Thanksgiving weekend, and I have been really excited about it. They offered to drive us to the capital, put us up in a hotel, and pay for our meals for the weekend. I've been out of college for a year and a half, but I still usually follow my collegiate instincts, which tell me to go where the free food is! However, I couldn't shake the little feeling of nervousness that it might not be a great idea to travel to the capital city during election weekend. Especially after I received an email from the US Embassy saying not to travel to Tegucigalpa. And then most of the Hondurans I talked to confirmed that it would be dangerous. And the organization in England that's associated with our school explicitly forbade its volunteers from traveling to the capital this weekend. And bombs have been going off in various places around the city.
So at the very last minute, me and three of my fellow teachers decided to opt out of the weekend. It kind of sucks-- I had really been looking forward to this weekend, and anyone who knows me knows that I don't turn down free food lightly. At the same time, however, I think we will have a really relaxing five days at home. We are planning to have a big thanksgiving meal with all of our neighbors (I think that should be pretty funny, actually...between my broken Spanish and their tortillas, it should be a colorful meal!), and we're considering staying in a hotel with wireless internet (just to treat ourselves to wireless in bed) and maybe traveling to a nearby city to get a change of scenery and some iced coffee. I am disappointed to be missing out, but I also feel like I made a responsible decision by staying home.
The other thing I'm trying to figure out is my crazy Christmas show. My little students are trying so hard, but we've only gotten through 50 seconds of our ridiculous hodunk country song. I have some serious misgivings about this Christmas show and the way our school is going about running the program. Seeing as this is a public blog, though, I'll just save the details for the people who want to know enough to ask. Suffice it to say that I miss the days of a good old fashioned Christmas pageant with "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger," where costumes are cheap, choreography is minimal, and the glitz and glam of a materialistic Christmas is nonexistent.
I'll post this weekend about my first Honduran Thanksgiving. I think it will be really fun.
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