Finally Some News

September 29th 2009 9:15am

Due to my lack of any sort of consistent internet access with my computer at the apartment, I may be resigned to only updating on days that I am in the office.

This weekend was a bit of a mixture of things.

Saturday

I met Luis Felipe and on our way to the office he told me about his dislike for both Mel and Michelleti. He expressed his discontent with both sides for their poor handling of the situation as well as his frustrations with the election system, which is apparently anything but fair.

When we got to the Seminary, the talks went pretty well. I tried one of Professor Walt Turner´s journaling exercises that I liked, where we write for a while on a topic without stopping. If you think you don´t have anything to write, you write "blah blah blah blah" until you come up with something.

Some of the classes liked it more than others. I find it odd that even though I read literally the same exact words to three different classes, that they all react very differently each week. And it is not as though class number 1 is always participating, and class number 2 isn´t. It always changes, and I am frequently surprised by the answers given by the students.

For example, when I asked them the question "Why are you here?" and let them discuss and share various responses to the broad question, almost every student in almost every class said that they felt that they came to school to better serve Honduras. I don´t think that there is a single student that I have gone to school with in America who would tell you that they went to Sycamore High School to serve America, or Bethany College in order to better their country.

Afterwards, Marisela picked me up with the promise to go and get a phone...but the store was closed. I have been here almost a month, and I am beginning to think that cell phones are fictional here. We ate lunch at a local Honduran restaurant, and I had some kabab´s. They were pretty good, and I was very full after eating them.

That night was supposed to be the typical Honduran night at the church, but due to the political situation, it was postponed. I spent the evening in, and enjoyed some nice home cooked food for dinner.


Sunday

I woke up to the phone ringing and Freddy telling me that I was going to be picked up about 30 minutes earlier for church...which made me very late. I rushed to get ready, and made it out the door just in time. We stopped to pick up Yasmine and some flowers on our way to church. The service was a little long, and I´m still adjusting to the songs about Jesus´blood. The church installed a new pastor, and it made me think of Tylersville. I wonder how things are going with Troy. I pray that all is well with him and his family, and that he is finding Tylersville to be the wonderful and loving home that I found it to be. Change is hard, but very necessary, and I wonder how Tylersville will transition and continue to transform.

After church, I went back to my apartment, picked up some money, and headed to Plaza to buy some food for lunch/dinner. I got back to my apartment, and began watching some of the football games that came in on Fox Sports here. After the first game, I was amazed to see that they aired the Bengals-Steelers game.

What a game! I´m sure my neighbors below me as well as to either side were not thrilled with my frustrations and excitements throughout the game, but I didn´t really care. Wow! Go Bengals!

After the game, I tried to log onto my computer, but after five minutes, it just shut down.


Monday

Yesterday was a day of new experiences for me. I woke up and turned on CNN, and much to my surprise, I saw Plaza and the University near my apartment in the background. There were hundreds of protesters, and even more police/military. Marisela called just as I was getting up and warned me not to go out because the government had made protesting illegal, and things would probably be pretty dangerous.

I stayed inside and watched the news for most of the morning, but CNN didn´t show anything else about the situation. Around 12:30, I heard the protesters from my apartment, and watched them parade onto the highway. I figured that it was probably safe enough to go out, so I walked up to Plaza to see what I could see.

Plaza was closed, which wasn´t good because I didn´t have much to drink back in my apartment, but I did see the CNN news crew and actually talked with the announcer for a while. I thanked him for covering the situation, because I knew that what was going on in Honduras wasn´t so much a concern in other parts of the world. We talked for a little bit about how there aren´t enough events like these that are being covered around the world, but my announcer friend assured me that he would do his best.

His presence made his words less empty, though I´m skeptical as to the depth of them.

I watched as military men streamed out of Plaza with their arms full of food and 3 liters of Coke, and the cameras were all focused on the military trucks.

I went back to my apartment, and took a nap before practicing some more of my Spanish and preparing dinner for myself. I then watched the Cowboys beat the Panthers, and knew that my dad would be happy.

Today is my cousin Jennifer´s birthday...Happy Birthday Jen! Jeremy is great!