The Election

The long-awaited election went remarkable smoothly and with very little controversy. Despite the various warnings that we had gotten from the PC and other sources about the potential for some forms of political disturbance, almost nothing seemed to happen. It was a bright, sunny day with a lot of people standing patiently in line and notable only for how quite everything was. The turnout seemed good, although perhaps not as high as the initial sources suggested. They seem to be having trouble figuring out how to account for the approximately 1 million eligible voters who now live in the U.S and don´t show up at the polls, even though there were five locations in the U.S. where they could have voted. The news coverage was thorough and there did not seem to be any indication that the results were not legitimate. The results came in a little more slowly than promised, but seem reliable. Almost everyone that we have spoken with seems pleased with the process, even if they may not have particularly liked the results, and generally characterize it as having been a uniquely open and transparent election. The National Party, which is the pro-business party and more conservative, won handily on a campaign that proposed unspecified changes while highlighting the fact that they were not at all linked with either Hugo Chavez or Mel Zelaya. The Liberal Party, which holds a majority, was divided by the current controversy and hurt by the fact that Zelaya is a Liberal. The results have been generally interpreted here as a rejection of Zelaya´s efforts to forge more of a link with Chavez and his political allies, who are the dominant force in Latin American politics in many areas right now.

In a related development this week, the National Congress considered the possible restitution of Zelaya, as it was required to do under the accords that were brokered by the U.S. about a month ago. Restitution was soundly rejected, by a vote of 111-14. Again Zelaya seems to have badly misjudged his level of support,as it was he who had pushed for having Congress decide this point and his party, the Liberals, still hold a majority in Congress. (With the recent election, it seems clear that the National Party will have a majority in the next term, although with the very complex form of proportional allocation of seats that is used, the exact results of that allocation still have not been finally determined.) The international community is apparently disappointed that the coup was not undone, but Honduras seems to be getting used to going its own way these days.

We found all of this to be very interesting and hope that it is not too esoteric for you all. The World Cup draw for Honduras looks very difficult, but much more favorable for the U.S. This topic will now replace politics in public discussions somewhat, I suspect. We are well.

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.

End of the Crisis

There were political developments in Honduras this week. After negotiations had broken down last week, several high level U.S. officials, including the Asst. Sec. for the Western Hemisphere, flew in and helped to encourage the parties to regroup and to structure a deal. The U.S had apparently been trying to avoid taking the lead role in this process, but is getting some credit for having helped to make this finally happen.

The deal is more of a framework than a clear indication of what will really happen next. There will be a ¨government of unity and reconcilation¨designated by both sides next week and it will be interesting to see what that actually means. The Honduran Congress will ultimately decide whether or not former president Zelaya will return to office and under what conditions, although there is no specific time table for this decision and they may wait until after the election. There will also be a Committee of Verification to enforce the terms of the deal and a Truth Committee to determine what actually happened before and after June 28th, the date of the change of government (and the date that we left home.) This latter group, however, will not start to work until next January, when the new government is in place. The most important points are that 1) the elections scheduled for the end of November will go forward and will be recognized internationally and 2) both sides will ask that Honduras´relations with the rest of the world be normalized and the aid programs be restored. It does not appear that anyone really expects profound change from any of the candidates who are likely to win (all of whom were chosen by their respective parties long before the current crisis and most of whom have avoided saying much of anything about the change in government during this campaign and negotiation process), but most people we talk to seem to agree that having the election will be the best way to put all of this trouble behind and to move forward in some manner.

More personally, we spent a good part of the first few days of this week looking for a house or apartment. It went better than we expected and was an interesting way to learn more about the town, walking through neighborhoods looking for ¨for rent¨signs. There are a large number of small rooms without kitchens for rent. These are intended for the numerous students who live here and attend one of the three universities or who have moved here from a smaller community to go to high school. Several of these young people also eat with the same family that we are living with now and pay for food on a monthly basis, which is common for students. We will continue searching and are still optomistic that we can find a suitable place.

With our respective work programs, we are starting to do some legal work in preparing summaries of a couple of laws. We can read law, even if we cannot speak about it very well. The Honduran Ley de Municipalidades is only a little bit shorter than Title 9 of ARS and preparing a summary of key points will be a task that we will confront in the coming weeks. We also helped with the Habitat fund raising dinner this week which was a nice event with an impressive marimba band. Eliza is now very skilled at making lovely paper flowers from dyed papel higiénico.

We had our first intestinal problems this week, but have recovered and are doing pretty well now. All the best.

Honduras goes to the Mundial

Last week we experienced a very dramatic event in the history of Honduras. After the U.S. beat Honduras in soccer over the weekend, Honduras had to beat El Salvador, in San Salvador, and the U.S. had to beat or tie Costa Rica in order for Honduras to be one of the 32 teams that will participate in the World Cup in South Africa next summer. We watched the Honduras game on a big screen tv in a lively bar here in Santa Rosa. The U.S. game was also on a separate tv in typical sports bar set-up. When the U.S. gave up two early goals and fell behind, the atmosphere got pretty subdued. But Honduras played well enough and held on to a 1-0 lead. When the U.S. started playing better in the second half, things picked up considerably. The U.S. finally scored at about the 60 minute mark and then kept putting on the pressure. Finally in the last few seconds of the last minute of extra time, the U.S. scored the tying goal and things went abosulutely crazy. In the bar, everyone was jumping and screaming and throwing beer for about thirty minutes. That we had beaten Honduras and hurt their chances four days earlier was completely forgotten. All gringos were now very warmly embraced by everyone there for having made this miracle possible. For the first time in 28 years, and the seond time ever, Honduras was going to get to play in the largest sporting event in the world.

When we went outside, the celebration was just getting starting. Every car and truck in town was soon stuck in a massive traffic jam around the centro, full of cheering, happy people. For better than two hours, in this town on the far edge of the country, people yelled, honked and thanked us exuberantly. This same kind of response, or more so, apparently occurred everywhere in the country. The current president declared a national day of celebration for the next day, although no one seemed to take advantage of it except in Tegus, where they welcomed back the players. Everyone else seemed eager to go to work so they could talk about what had happened. It is still the main story in the newspapers, at least in the sports section, everyday.

Several days ago the Honduran educational channel asked a tele-poll question about what was the most important news event of the year. Winning the right to go to the World Cup beat the removal and ouster of the president by about 82% to 18% as the most significant event of the year thus far. That this political event, where the president was removed from the presidential residence in his pajamas and flown to Costa Rica by the military, and which has cost the country billions in frozen foreign assistance, resulted in the cancellation of all visas to the U.S. and other places, and ostracized Honduras from the world community, is a distant second to a football game only helps to explain the importance of football here. People are still quite happy about this event.

On the political front, it does not appear from the public news reports that the talks between the current admistration and the representatives of the former president are making much progress. There have been a few sporadic actions recently, such as the destruction of a large electric transmission tower in San Pedro Sula and a bomb in a bathroom at a Tegus mall (which is now off-limits for Peace Corps volunteers, although our group of newbies is still not permitted to travel overnight anyway). We still do not sense much overt tension in our location, but more people have recently been expressing some of their underlying apprehension. So far the campaigns are still going forward for the national election scheduled for the end of next month and everyone is waiting to see how that will come out.

We continue to meet people and to get some introductions into the programs that we will likely be working with and we have gotten some opportunities to take some interesting day trips in this area. Although our limited Spanish still makes much of our efforts feel like we are participating in take-your-child-to-work day, our counterparts seem to have more patience than we do and continue to accept the fact that we will need much more time before we are able to really do much that is productive in any professional manner. So it goes.

Santa Rosa de Copán - first impressions

We are starting to settle into our new lifestyle here in Santa Rosa. This is a very comfortable, vibrant community that is much more urban than Bisbee. Much of the town, including the parts that we live and work in, is located on a hilltop. The streets are narrow, cobblestoned, and frequently steep. The houses and buildings are generally close to the edge of the street or sidewalk, and mostly of an indeterminate age, within the past hundred years or so. Santa Rosa does not have especially grand colonial architecture, but it is all interesting and there is some form of historic district regulation which keeps a similar tone to things in the business district. We are still enjoying just walking around and discovering new and unexpected things - little grocery stores or pulperias on every block, several larger grocery stores, stores selling plasma tvs and motorcyles, small resturants tucked away here and there, montones of places with internet access and more. But when they are closed up, there are very few signs on the building fronts and the streets, so it can be very difficult to find a location that you thought that you remembered after hours, as all the building fronts still seem very similar to us.

This is a much more tranquil and safer community than the larger cities in Honduras. There are generally a lot of people out walking on the narrow sidewalks, with a density of pedestrians that you would have to go to a large eastern city to find in the states. There are also a ton of NGO´s from all over the world here. A couple have pulled out due to the political situation and posturing back at home, but there are people working here from Japan, Germany, Ireland, Colombia and the U.S. Because it a nice, comfortable town, it has been an attractive site in which to locate NGO´s and service workers, including Peace Corps. This is not the image of Peace Corps life that we expected, but on the other hand, it seems like a comfortable place to live and work and nothing about Peace Corps so far has really been what we expected.

We are still just settling in with work. We spent our first week mostly in offices here, getting acquainted with the programs. We did make one trip to a small town about three hours away - much of the distance and about half of the time was on paved roads, and the rest on a pretty tough dirt track. This gave us a little more appreciation for where we are not living right now, but we expect to be doing more in similar areas. The country is beautiful and very rugged. We also participated with a Habitat building project yesterday and got a good start on digging a foundation for a new home.

Lack of Spanish continues to be our largest frustration, but we are making slow progress. It was a tough night here last night when the U.S. beat Honduras in a World Cup qualifying match, although it was a very good game. The importance of soccer here cannot be exaggerated. Honduras must win on Wednesday to qualify for South Africa. (The U.S. qualified last night.) There are some signs that the political discussions fostered by the OAS are making some progress and they are continuing. It would be a good thing if there is at least enough progress so that the elections at the end of November can be recognized and they can try for a new start from that point. But everything is peaceful here and we are in good health.

We have rented a post office box here and would love to receive a postcard or two! Apdo. Postal 1779, Santa Rosa de Copán, C.P. 040101, Honduras, Central America.

Finally PCVs

After being held over in Miami, traveling to the Dominican Republic for three weeks, going back to Miami for a week, finally reaching Honduras and our training site in Cantarranas, and then being held up again for another week while we waited for things to settle down in Tegus, we are now officially Peace Corps Volunteers. For the first time since we left home on June 28th, the same day the Honduran government changed, we were not impacted by Mr. Zelaya this week. We´ve had a couple of toques de queda during the evening hours, but there seem to be serious negotiations headed by the OAS going on now and there´s hope that something might be worked out. In any event, there is no sign of political unrest on the streets right now.

We all went to the U.S Embassy on Wednesday, only about a block from the Brazillian Embassy where Mr. Zelaya is still located, and had a very nice swearing-in ceremony. The U.S.Embassy has a typical fortress-like appearance on the outside, but also has a very verdant courtyard with a fountain, trees and lush plants behind the walls. We were hosted by the Ambassador and had a very moving ceremony, with several inspirational speeches about what lies ahead. We were joined by our respective counterparts, from towns and programs all over the country. Earlier that morning was our first opportunity to meet them and to get some preliminary ideas about what we might really be doing.

This was a graduation-like experience with the same feeling that we are now going to another stage. We are all ready to move on, finally, but there was also the bittersweet feeling of leaving people with whom you had experienced a lot of strong emotions over the past few months. Here are a few pictures of the event and of our fellow PCV´s -- all of Honduras 15 with the ambassador, the two of us, and our Municipal Development group. There is also a photo of Santa Lucia, a little town near the Peace Corps training center.

Thursday morning we drove to Santa Rosa de Copán with two of the people from one of our programs. It was a beautiful drive of about 8 hours, through a lot of very green mountains. We were very fortunate to have had a ride and to have avoided the nightmare of trying to put all of our stuff, which is even more massive now with all of our training materials, on several different public buses. We are happy to be here. It is an attractive, vibrant community with lots more commerce than we are used to in Southern Arizona. More to follow.