New Chaos

Things here in Honduras at least in La Union have gone back to pretty much normal everyday life. You wouldn't even know that anything is going on here in Honduras here but on the news it is still all over. Currently but the president has just taken away some free speech rights so he has been getting a lot of flack for that. He has shut down a television station or two and a radio station. I think however, that due to the pressure from the international community and even his own people he is going to take back this decree. So currently we are in this time of "tranquility" where the president is still locked in the Brazilian Embassy and there are protests happening everyday but somehow life just goes on as usual.

Now the new chaos is seeming to take place at school. We have one teacher who just had surgery, another who is in Tegucigalpa for another sickness and another teacher is leaving for personal reasons. By next week we could be down 3 teachers. In a school of our size that is a lot of teachers. Plus we are working on this big festival and I have to help plan with parents all in spanish plus today I had to present in front of like 60 parents all in spanish. It isn't exactly my favorite thing in the world to do. However, God is good we have what we need to continue and life will go on. Keep Honduras in your prayers. God Bless

Zelaya

School has officially been in session for over a month now or at least that is according to recess watch schedule. I am not exactly sure if that is right or not. Today there was a large development in the difficult political situation that has been happening. For anyone who doesn’t know what is going on exactly a few months ago the president Mel Zelaya, was shipped to Costa Rica because he was trying to change the constitution. So he was no longer the president and a new man named Micheletti came in. Well the international community has strongly condemned this “coup”. So over the last few months there has been a political battle between Zelaya trying to gain international support for his return to presidency and Micheletti trying to tell the world what they did was fully constitutional. Well today Zelaya suddenly reappeared back into Honduras for the first time since his removal on June 28. This reignited this already divided country at least in the big cities. Essentially now there are two presidents of Honduras. The one the international community says is the president which is Zelaya and the one according to the current Honduran government which is Micheletti. Currently we are under curfew due to this until tomorrow. This has the potential to create a large amount of turmoil in especially the large cities. Things like large demonstrations and riots. Of course there is the possibility of violence but to this point that has not been the case and the government is calling for a peaceful resolution to this crazy situation. This so called resolution however, as I can tell is very far from figured out. I ask for those of you who read this blog to keep Honduras in your prayers and that everything stays peaceful and that this be something that is figured out soon. I will keep you all updated. God Bless

Since I wrote this blog I will give you an update. We have been under curfew for the last 2 days. Fortunately we are outside of the capital city so things are a little bit more slack however, there has been rioting taking place all through the capital city. It isn't looking real good currently. I haven't taught classes for 2 days due to the curfews. So it has been kinda boring and the country is kind of on edge but fortunately nothing too bad has happened. Please keep this country in your prayers that the leaders act wisely and don't do anything foolish. God Bless

Books

We received our new books today for our classes. I have 30 students in my eighth grade math class. I received 2 books. For 7th Grade I was given 0. For 5th Grade very few as well. It should be a fun year....

Flag Day and Christmas

Today is officially Flag Day here in Honduras. It is a day when we all go out to the flag pole and raise the flag and talk about the importance of loving your country. The principal stood up and made a very nice speech about how it is the youth who need to develop into the leaders that this country needs. I think that it is quite true. What is really sad is that at this point I feel like I know the Honduran National Anthem better then my own. That is what happens when you repeat the national anthem here over and over again. Hopefully today we should be receiving new textbooks for the school which makes me happy because currently I am teaching out of old textbooks and in some of my classes with no textbooks at all. So we shall see exactly what arrives today. I just bought my plane tickets back home as well. So I will be arriving back in for Christmas on December 18 assuming the weather holds firm. I am looking forward to spending Christmas with my family once again and seeing the snow fly. Then hopefully making it out to the west coast to enjoy some snowboarding. Of course this is all weather dependent but it is looking quite likely that this is all going to happen. Well it is time to go teach some math class.