It must be easy to win an election when....

you just buy the votes. We are within one week of the election day which is Sunday. Between the endless anthems of political music and large parades of cars going by life is almost normal. Now in politics it is no hidden fact that corruption does take place. You see it in the United States as well as any other country. Today I saw our current mayor of La Union driving around to different houses. Now this in itself is not wrong it is when you begin to buy the identification cards of the people in the city so you control the vote that it becomes a bit sketchy in my opinion. Now the people here act like it is all just part of the political process. Also by the way I wasn't actually in the house when this happened the people of this town have just told me over and over again that this is a normal happening. Living in a place like this always shocks me because the people are so poor an uneducated that they just allow this to happen. They don't see how the road is basically one big pothole and there is trash everywhere. They just see this as normal and go on with their lives. Sometimes I don't really know how to make this situation better it just makes me sad that it happens. So in this election its not about earning the votes because buying them is just so much easier.

Pepe Lobo

So today I woke up to the sound of campaign music. This in itself is not extremely unusual but the amount of it coming from all parts of the city was. Today was the visitation of Presidential Candidate Pepe Lobo. He is from the Liberal Party so flags were flying all over the place that were blue with a single white star. Normally important people don't visit our town so it was kind of a big deal. Our kids kept running in and out of the classroom to see if he was arriving. Then during recess a helicopter flew overhead and landed on the soccer field in the middle of time. This means he is here so our kids and teachers as well were going crazy. Little things like this make La Union the interesting place that it is.

Tonight we have an American Thanksgiving party. We have all of the teachers coming to my house and I am cooking for them a turkey with stuffing mashed potatoes and vegetables. Then we are going to have apple pie for dessert. They are all really excited because no one here other then me has had a Thanksgiving meal before so it should be a fun night with a lot of preparation of food ahead of time. Also Laura and Renske are making some nice homemade bread so hopefully it turns out because it sounds quite wonderful. Only about a month till the United States time sure flies.

Sitting on my couch....

Well I am officially sitting on my couch and I have the internet. Who would know that I would be sitting in the middle of nowhere in some third world country with a laptop in my house with the internet. I am not saying its crazy fast but its fast enough and its pretty reasonable as far as internet prices go. Now that my television is gone I have a new way to waste time.

Currently in the politics an accord has been signed between the two parties that says Manuel Zelaya would come back into power. Now this accord has really fizzled once again and Micheletti has been able to stall politically for an extremely long time. Now Zelaya has been calling for his supporters to boycott the elections. Continue to keep Honduras in your prayers especially as the election nears. Nothing dangerous has come out of it so far but like always there is some potential for it.

We'll chalk it up to cultural differences

So in school this week I had what if it happened in the United States a scary experience. So on Wednesday I had a student come to school and during the first hour I had a student take out of his backpack a switchblade in the middle of class. He started playing with it so I did what any good teacher would do and walk over to him and politely ask for his knife and he gave it to me. Now in the states this would never be even a relatively normal situation. So I proceeded to tell the principal and instead of freaking out he laughed at me and started joking that I thought the student was going to hurt me with this knife. He basically said you have nothing to worry about he probably was just going to use it to peal an orange or something. Now I wasn't really worried because kids bring machetes to schools here and on buses so that is pretty normal. It just sorta caught me off guard because it was a switchblade but then again this is La Union and life is different here. To end my story he met with the student and I think he did give him demerits but I think it was more for the fact that he wasn't paying attention in class then it was for the knife.

Today I just finished with my parent teacher conferences and I must say they went just fine. I had almost 30 different conferences and they don't even give me a translator anymore. So I guess I should feel proud but really I just talk for only a minute or two with each one then send them on their way. Half of the parents I felt like couldn't even read the report card so they just stared at me and nodded with what I said so I don't really even know if they will help their students but at least I gave it a go. Other then that even though I had the most parents I was the first one done not because I am some great teacher but because I really couldn't actually express what I wanted to say so instead of both of us feeling awkward at the conference we just avoided awkwardness and made things short. It is almost Thanksgiving here and I will be making a big 17 pound turkey for the teachers so for most of the teachers here it will be their first Thanksgiving so it should be great fun. Pero por hoy, no quiero escribir mas. Dios Bendiga