UN Happenings and Parking Lot Mishaps

September 26th 2009 7:30pm

The workers at the CCD still have not been paid for what is now over a months worth of work, and most of them are borrowing money from friends and family to try and get to work. Yesterday was the first day that I saw Patty in almost two weeks.

I really enjoy when Patty is at work, because she encourages me to speak in Spanish signicantly more than anyone else. At the same time, because she speaks English, she can help me when I get caught up on words. I spent a good portion of my morning catching up with Patty, which turned into a very lengthy conversation. She let me know about how her family was doing, what she did during the curfew, and also that her birthday is coming up in October, and that she hopes to be able to have a small party and invite some of the people from the office.

I spent the rest of my morning revising my plans for the Faith and Values talks, and printing them off so that Marisela could help me with the translations. After lunch, I was able to sit down with Marisela and go over the plans. It is very frustrating to me when I think that I have a good solid three pages in Spanish, only to see it marked up and changed because of my constant errors.

Yesterday was also a day for action for the CCD, which was very nice to see. In the morning, some of la resistencia supporting Mel outside of the Brazilian Embassy were surprised by a helicopter dumping chemicals on them. Their skin became irritated, formed rashes, and then the people began vomiting up blood. Michelleti has publicly stated that this did not happen.

The CCD is a fairly old organization and has contacts in a lot of places, so we knew for sure that this did happen, and we were also able to send an email to the UN building in Honduras. Later in the day, we were notified that the email that we sent informing the UN of the human rights violations was forwarded immediately to the Security Counsel. That was pretty cool.

After work, I came home for a very little bit before heading over to Freddy's for a Bible study that his mother had invited me to. Sedoc leads the Bible study, and Freddy told me that it consisted of roughly 10 people our age. When I got to Freddy's house, neither he nor Sedoc were there due to heavy traffic, and the first half of the Bible study was a little awkward. Eventually Sedoc and Freddy got there, and after the Bible study, we decided to watch a movie in Freddy's apartment.

Sedoc and I went out to go get some food, while Freddy picked out a movie. Sedoc and I drove around the corner to a local store, but when we tried to pull into a parking place, a drunk driver backed into us. He wasn't going very fast, and there ended up being no real damage to either car, but the whole experience was very different to me.

The guy got out of the car and almost tried to fight Sedoc, who was trying to get some of the guys contact information. I don't think that insurance information was ever shared (if it was had in the first place) and a police officer was there, but spent his whole time talking with me about la resistencia. He didn't file any reports, do any paper work, or anything...just watched.

After a little while, and an exchanging of numbers, we went on our way back to Freddy's. We ended up watching Wicker Park, which is a Josh Harnett movie. I mentioned one time that I liked Josh Harnett in some movie with Harrison Ford, so Freddy decided to rent Wicker Park.

I'm noticing more and more that these kind of things happen a lot here. If I mention that I enjoy a type of food, Marisela is quick to try and cook it for me, or see if I want to go out to the restaurant that serves it. If I mention that I like a band, it is usually the next CD in Freddy's car. I very much appreciate the courtesies put forth by my new friends, but what I'm realizing is that I need to be careful in what I ask for.