Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Curfew in Honduras

The political crisis continues here in Tela.    Tuesday was an interesting day as the curfew went all day until 6pm.  We've never seen the streets so quiet, only an occasional taxi and a few people on bikes passed by.   It was quite eery, not even any loud music.   Our school was closed so we had a day's rest which we didn't really want.   We saw one ute drive up the street with several policemen standing up in the back with their rifles, just making sure that everyone was doing the right thing.

At 2pm we ventured out on our bikes for a 20 minute ride to the nearest ATM.   It was nice having the whole road to ourselves, even the horse and carts had stopped work for the day.   Many of the bike riders on the street greeted us, it was a friendly trip.   Even the boys were obeying the law and not playing soccer, we saw a group of them huddled under some trees next to the playing field while a few others ventured  into the centre with their kites.  

We decided not to go swimming on the beach as we thought we might be targets for attack with very few people around.   Altogether it was quite a boring day but I spent a lot of time reading Spanish newspapers on line which of course was good for building up my vocabulary and Glenn wrote up some lesson plans for school.



Cows in the Street
We were entertained when these cows took advantage of the curfew and the empty streets and chewed at the hisbiscus hedge along our fence and continued their way down the highway. 

At 7pm when it had cooled down, soccer had resumed in the field next door.   The sounds of the cheering etc made a welcome change to the silence of the day.

Wednesday, this morning the curfew still continued because a crowd of Zelayist supporters created havoc in the shops in Tegucigalpa last night, looting supermarkets and petrol stations, and throwing stones in the streets.    However, at 11 am the curfew was stopped again so that people could stock up at the supermarkets and draw money out of the banks.     A local bus drove past our door with the driver blasting the horn to let everyone know he was back in action.    We had a phone call from Vanessa to let us know the school would still be closed even though the curfew was over, in case there were any more problems in Teguc.




                                                              The road to the beach.

We  made the most of the rest of the day by going for a 20 minute ride on our bikes along a very rough road for a swim at a  new beach we'd discovered last weekend. The water was only 28`C, in case anyone was wondering about the temperature.   Glenn and I were the only swimmers in the water apart from one young boy in the water and no-one on the beach.   It was so nice!  


                                                                    Grissy's Hotel

After the swim, we called in at Grissy's hotel just off from the beach and had a very interesting time talking to a delightful family of African- Jamaican, Hondurans from New York.   The grandfather had lived in New York for 33 years and had only returned to Honduras last year to set up the hotel.   His daughter and son-in-law had their wedding at the hotel last Sunday which they'd celebrated with 50 family and friends, mostly from New York.   When we arrived, they were waiting around for the airports to open again before they could fly back to New York.     We  will certainly return to that beach and Grissy's Hotel next weekend.

It now looks as though tomorrow we'll be back to normal and off to school again while the rest of the world tries to solve the problems of the Honduran political crisis.    But one ever knows, things could change completely overnight!









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