La Sarca

The people here in Olancho have different ways of approaching me, or referring to me. The most obvious one of course is the gringa, or gringita. I do occasionally get asked if I am Honduran, which I think more because the accent of my Spanish- not so much the grammar.
The one that always gets a good laugh out of my husbands family and the employees here at the store is when people call me sarca. Sarca translates to clear eyes, mostly referring albinos. There is a lady that always comes by and when she leaves, she calls out to me "adios, sarca!" the employees always chuckle at her. By calling me sarca she is saying I am Honduran, the idea is just plain silly to them. I just smile back "adios!"

Collecting the Loot

Here at the store we have a fenced off area of the parking lot that is the designated garbage area. This area fills up in about a week and a half with the help of the market owners, and the neighbors. The men at the store have the wonderful task of loading up this garbage and taking it to the dump out of town. As you can imagine this is not a pleasant task.
So yesterday as normal they took the garbage to the every so pleasant smelling dump- but this time they came back with stuff. It seems that someone had dumped perfectly good things at the dump. They brought back wall clocks, calculators, and a few toys.
Let me take a quick side trip...
In Honduras people will buy pretty much anything, I have sold toys that are more that just broken, people sell clothes with holes in them, buckets that are broken- It is only sold for a few lempiras, but still it sells.
The stuff the employees brought back was good. The calculators were in the little boxes, and worked, the wall clock were not broken, and worked the toy even had a battery and worked! I was confused, almost as much as they were. The stuff was not from the store, so they did not steal it, but why would someone throw away good stuff?

My husband thought about it, and the only thing he could come up with that made sense- the Zelayist. When the people for Zelaya and broke into all those stores and stole everything, well we think they dumped the stuff they did not want, or did not want to be caught with at the dump outside of Juticalpa. Just a guess, but lets be honest here- who throws away anything that is not really garbage in Honduras?

Protest for Mel

In Juticalpa today we had a pro- Zelaya protest today. While the march was not overall impressive it did different in one distinct way. There were people WALKING!! The people walking may not seem such a big deal, but all the previous protest have just involved people in only cars going up the street honking their horns with the red liberal flags (Mel's political party) waiving. To me this represented people that are most likely going to loose a lot if Mel comes back, they have cars and money, and seem the most upset about the situation. They are feeding out of Mel's proverbial trough. This time around though people were walking- which concerned me, do they really think Mel is for the people? I am not sure if they were really there to protest, or if they were being paid to be there but they were there.
The protest was overall pretty calm- they say they wont destroy things here in Juticalpa, because here everyone knows everyone. We shall see, and hope this is the case.
Public school here still has not started up, the people that Mel supposedly supports are missing school and falling behind.

The country of Honduras

There is a curfew again in Honduras.
I find it discouraging that everything seems to lie on party lines.
I wish to talk to people of the world, not as a republican, not as a democrat but as a person living in Honduras. This country lives and breathes corruption, as with most poor countries, but lets not assume that there is no limit. The people here tolerate the corruption, because people understand here more than many places that this corruption, as with most things, it will pass.
The corruption that the people will not stand for is blatant corruption, a complete disregard for the law.
I speak to you as a foreigner, a gringa. The people in Honduras are fighting for their freedom, a fight tragically that has turned into party lines.
The former president Manuel Zelaya broke a constitutional law and as noted in the Honduran constitution and he was removed from office.
He was asking permission to change the constitution. Manuel Zelaya had organized voting centers, rationed money for the publicity of the election. The supreme court of Honduras told Manuel Zelaya that he could not hold the election, it was unconstitutional, but he continued. Sunday June 28th the day of the election they took Mel out of the country-out of office.
He was asking for permission to change the constitution, no specifics. I ask you, would you allow this? Just let your president to do what he wants to your constitution?

The whole world, minus two countries has asked for Manuel Zelaya to be put back in office.
Honduras is a poor Central American country, they don’t care about other countries party lines, they care about how they are going to feed their family.
So people of world, ask your country to support Honduras, not Manuel Zelaya.

Here is a petition for President Obama

Congrats?

In Honduras there is the day of the child, the day of the young, mothers day, fathers day, workers day, and the day of friendship and love. On these day it is always customary to tell people on the day that applies to them, congratulations. So if you are a child, every congratulates you on child's day. I have gotten use to that, although telling your friend on friendship day still seems a bit odd to me. The one I still think is just plain weird is that they tell my husband on fathers day congratulations, I ask him if has something to tell me... The reason is though is that because he will be a father in the future. I am not pregnant, but because he is of a suitable age, and as far as we know he can reproduce he gets congratulations. I think that might be one of the easiest congrats to fulfill of all time.

The price of love

...or lust depending on how you look at it, but what ever you want to call it it only costs seven limperas. Yup! seven, while the original condoms are fifteen.
The difference? Well nothing, besides the price. You see the German government subsidised the amor condoms, so they are cheaper. What a simple way for to bring contraceptives to the people. So while I am sure some people will say German as a country is going to hell, I would like to praise Germany for doing something that really does make a difference. So next time you purchase condoms remember, thank the German government and buy amor, condoms that is.

"Behind the Honduran Mutiny" Olancho check

Okay I think this is a personal record for posts in one day but after reading an article from the Wall Street Journal "Behind the Honduran Mutiny" I had to write something.The complete article can be found here online. But here is a quote:

"Mr. Zelaya is a product of Olancho, a violent, macho state in central Honduras that is dominated by pistol-packing landowners who run huge estates. His family, involved in logging and ranching, has been one of the dominant forces in Olancho for decades... Jose Manuel, was put on trial for helping army officers torture and murder 14 rural activists, including two priests. Convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison, Mr. Zelaya's father served little more than a year before being freed in a general amnesty"

Let me clear up a few things Okay violent, yeah- as with the rest of the country.
Dominated by landowners who run huge estates? Ehh really? All the rich families I know have a business and with that money they might have a farm, for something to do. The families with money generally speaking are not ranchers. The families with huge estates at one point possibly had money but now they are generally trying to sell that land to get money.
The last one that usually gets the best looks when I ask Hondurans if the Zelayas have been a dominant force in Olancho. This is a big fat NO the Zelayas have not been a dominant force. The truth of it is if the Zelayas had been a dominate force in Olancho Zelayas dad would not have served one day in jail, heck the police would have not have not found who killed the people, because the police would be to afraid to arrest him.
I am just saying if you are doing an article lets try to stop scaring your audience into thinking that Honduras/Olancho is a big bad scary place. I am glad they did report about Mels dad killing the priests, but lets stop exaggerating.