Happy Thanksgiving and a few other thoughts

We had a very nice Día de Acción de Gracias. It is, of course, not a holiday here, since the Pilgrims landed elsewhere, so you don´t have to worry about buying last minute things that you need any time of day on Thursday. We had an excellent turkey dinner with several other PCV´s and a Honduran friend. It was an amazingly successful effort to recreate a pretty traditional Thanksgiving dinner, with most of the same things, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetable caseroles, cranberries, pies and more, that we would have had at home. It did seem a little odd that the rest of the community was paying no attention to the event, but we felt very thankful nonetheless.

Please don´t worry about whether or not John was able to see a couple of football games for the holiday, including the Texas victory over the forces of darkness. Santa Rosa has a very extensive cable tv system, with more than 100 channels, including networks from Honduras, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Germany and the U.S. Included among the U.S. networks are a couple of ESPN channels and Fox Sports. Most of them are in Spanish, but one of the ESPN networks and one of the CNN networks are in English and several of the movie channels show a mix of movies in English. This was something that we did not expect in our Peace Corps experience.

Another thing that we did not expect to find was decent Chinese food, as it usually does not translate well in most of the Spanish speaking places that we have visited previously. But Santa Rosa has a good Chinese place that we like. There is also another one that is supposed to be pretty good which also has motorcyle home delivery which we will have to try soon. So far we have not gotten any menus under our door, but perhaps that will be coming soon. There is also a Cuban resturant here that we like and we celebrated our recent anniversary there with a very good meal.

Thanks to Peace Corp, I have now read War and Peace, which I might not have gotten through back home. It offers quite a lot of insight on many topics and a huge story. While I can´t be as quite effusive as many, and may not call it the single greatest novel of all time, it is certainly worth reading the next time you have time for about 1400 pages.

This is the election weekend, with the voting for President, Congressional deputies and mayors on Sunday. We are hopeful that this will provide an opportunity to end some of the on-going political problems. We do not sense much tension in our area, but there are concerns that there may be some actions elsewhere in the country. We have been directed to stay near our homes this weekend, not to travel on the highways and to be prepared for possible curfews again. It does not seem likely that the elections will really be disrupted, but there may be some sporadic violence or demonstrations. Former President Zelaya, who has been living in the Brazilian Embasy for more that two months now, would seem likely to do something before too long, as well. The candidates were all selected long before the change in government last summer, have seemed to run pretty unimpeded campaigns with very heavy tv advertising, and seem likely to get a pretty good turn out. We don´t expect much to happen, but we are becoming more accustomed to the unexpected, the longer we are here. We will let you know what occurred soon.

Carrera de las Cintas

We had an interesting experience over a recent weekend. We went to the Festival de Maiz held in a small town about an hour away from here, at the invitation of a PC volunteer located there. Entering the town, we found a number of the streets leading into the central plaza decorated with garlands of elaborate dolls and figures made from corn husks. The women of the town had spent weeks making all of these decorations hanging across the streets. The parade was just starting when we arrived. For those of you familar with Bisbee parades, it looked very familiar. There were a dozen or so pickups and a few ox carts decorated with corn themes and with corn queens and princesses on the back. There were a couple of marching bands --not clear whether this is an economic thing or a cultural preference, but the bands generally lack horns and wind instruments, have a lot of drums and engage in intricate marching formations. The only unusual thing about the parade was the fact that at this event, only a month before the elections, there was not a single politician riding in the parade or campaigning in the crowd. The population of this town of several thousand had more than tripled for this event. There were a lot of food booths, music and a small town gathering feeling.

The most interesting event was the carrera de las cintas (race of the ribbons). In this event, the guys with the good horses - not the ones that you usually see carrying wood or milk on a daily basis - line up on a dirt street about 100 yards from where a rope, about ten feet high, has been hung across the street. Attached to the rope are little ribbons (or velcro strips) with metal rings, about an inch in diameter, attached to each one. The riders head toward the ribbons at full speed, one after another, and attempt to put something like a pencil through the hole of the ring as they ride by. When they catch a ring, it pulls off of the rope and they wave it over their heads. It is pretty difficult to do this, so there are a lot of attempts before most everyone finally gets it done. The fast horses and the crowd and the general lack of any reasonable safety precautions make it an exciting event. When a rider does get a ring, he is awarded a red scarf and gets a kiss from a young girl. I think that there is an entry fee, so it also works as a fund raiser for the festival.

Back on the political front here, things seem sort of like this type of contest. It is hard to get an accord through a small ring, at full speed. Careful readers will recall that last week we wondered how the unity government would really be structured. It appears that we were not the only one who thought that there might be some confusion with this point. The two sides had very different interpretations of this provision. Mel Zelaya, the former president, thought that this meant that he would be restored to power by Thursday, apparently. We did not read it this way, but our Spanish is suspect. But neither did the current administration, who just forwarded a list of recommended names to participate in a unity government. Zelaya responded by stating that the deal was off and the accord was broken. It appears from press reports that the U.S and other foreign powers really want the election to continue to go forward now, even if the former president does not at this point, so we will see what happens next. The ballots are already being sent out to the voting sites in preparation for the Nov. 29th election date.

We have had a relatively dry fall until this week. By mid week we were getting weather caused by a Class 1 hurrican, Ida, that hit the coast of Nicaragua and caused some damage there. Honduras missed the winds, but got a lot of rain, which has continued through the weekend. Here in our city, we are just damp, but life and travel are more difficult out in the rural areas. It looks like this storm may strengthen and will be a late tropical storm or hurrican on the gulf coast in a couple of days. We will be connected with you in having shared that one.

All is well here.