The price of music

Vicente Fernández is coming to Tegus this Wednesday which is exciting but unfortunately the price of the tickets are a bit expensive for my tastes. The cheapest ticket is $31 and the middle price range is $90. I had thought I was living in the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. Apparently music does not factor into this.

Needlessly to say I wont be going. There is a possibility that I will go to another concert this weekend, Cafe Tacvba, but no firm plans yet.

This is the second time I have noticed the price of concert tickets are so high. It is odd that I can buy his last 5 Cd's on one disc on the side of the street for a bit over a dollar but to go see him is live is so expensive! Perhaps they are making up for all the lost revenue from burnt Cd's

Here is a link to my favorite song of Vicente Fernández

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs-zfJJC1Kg enjoy!

The end of the green mangos

Green mangos are in season, they sell them on the street with salt and chili, making them sour and spicy all in one. I eat them 10 leimpiras at a time. There is a lady at the corner that sells them all day long, which is really handy. I did discover there is a probable downside to green mango consumption-I got intestinal worms. Esposo seems to be convinced that the mangos are the culprit and as much as I love green mangos, the worms just are not worth it. I think my only option now is to start making them myself, clean water and all.

My dear home in Olancho, and a new language

We have moved (again ) to a wonderful little house in town. It is small but perfect. We have a mango tree in the yard that already has a million little green mangos slowly growing. The house is adobe which means the walls are about a foot and half thick... I am told no bullet can pass through these (a big concern of mine) but it does keep the house cold which will be really nice in about a month. I will add pictures as soon as I remember...
So a few weeks ago Esposo and I were outside infront of the store speaking english and two little boys pass by, but then one stops. He looks up at me and says ¨usted hablo gringo?¨ (you speak gringo?) After laughing a while I explained that gringo infact is not a language, but I did speak english. The boy still seemed a bit confused that gringos dont speak gringo, but he went his way. So next time I get asked how many languages I know I can add gringo to list.

Dia de Amor y Amistad

February 14th has passed, a holiday in the states that is a bit over-rated, but here I enjoy it. In Honduras it is the day of love and friendship. Hondurans greet their friends with a congratulations and occasionally a gift. The congratulations is a bit odd to say, but I think that it is a wonderful tradition. So felicidades! (a bit late...)

The expired people

Not implying they are expired but they take the expired food off of the shelf. They come once, twice a month taking a few things, but this month they noticed me with wine in a cart. Using their keen sense of expired food, they thought it was expired so they began asking me questions. When does wine expire, and how come it does not have an expiration date? So after a very long, long exhausting talk are trying to convince the expiration people that, no wine does not have an expiration date… they called their boss- their boss called a doctor and they concluded that wine has to have an expiration date… Esposo then talked to them, and again tried to tell them, that no in fact wine does not have an expiration date… They said they would research it and get make to us. This week they came back and told that any alcohol over 10% does not need an expiration date. I should e-mail the French, I am sure they will be relived to know that the Honduran expired people concurred and wine does not need an expiration date.

The Veggie Stand Mystery

Juticalpa is not a city full of culinary wonders, neither is much of Honduras. The Vegetable stand in town because of this is pretty straight forward, they have the basics, about as extravagant as they get is grapes. But there is one thing they have that I cannot make sense of, eggplant. I have yet to see a Honduran cook with it, and only am aware of one restaurant in town that uses it… so why do they have it and who buys it?

The Options

So as we all know Democracy is the solution for every country. Honduras has seemed to grasp this concept very well, in fact they even grasped the two party system as well, the US should be awfully proud.

So the two nominees for president are Pepe and Elvin! A little background about the candidates (admittedly bias, and lacking large amounts of information)

Pepe is a communist, ran for president last election and barely lost, and from Olancho, (same as the current president)

Elvin is the current vice president, running for president illegally (Honduran law prohibits the vice president to run for president while currently in office), and the current president is generally

highly disliked.

As you can see, two outstanding candidates, now who would you vote for? Photo above is of PEPE