Military Coup

I suppose somewhere in my educational history I have heard the term military coup, but I don’t think that I ever knew what it meant. Well, they say the best way to learn is first hand. I guess I am lucky to have that opportunity. I don’t think what has happened in Honduras is a true military coup, but I guess that is the closest word anyone can find to define what has happened. I first realized that something was up when I was in the city center and there were large groups of protestors and the newspapers were sporting big headlines that said the president wanted to end democracy. This was before the president disappeared and when he was trying to change the constitution. I think that the part about “ending democracy” was a little sensationalist, but I guess the president hasn’t been too popular in his term and changing the constitution would have allowed him to run for a second 4 year term, which doesn’t normally happen here as it does in the states.

The next time I was in the city center was the day the president was arrested and taken to Costa Rica. We were traveling back to the ranch from a weekend in La Tigra and didn’t have any choice but to go through the center. We had heard rumors of protests and mobs, but it was eerily silent and almost a ghost town when we walked through. This was a big difference from the usual bustling crowds, so there was definitely something up, just not what we had heard or expected. From that moment on, we have been prisoners on the ranch. They have advised everyone, Honduran and foreign, to stay where they are and they even have a curfew in the city. I have not left the ranch in 8 days and already I am getting cabin fever. It is also frustrating to be here, and so disconnected from what is going on in the outside world. We (the volunteers) have no TV or radio, so we are relying on what we can find on the internet and what we hear from family and friends. However, this was initially difficult considering “they” (no idea who “they” are) were shutting down the electricity, phones and internet for random periods of time throughout the day. That has stopped for now and hopefully forever. It is a little scary knowing that “they” can completely shut us off from the world whenever “they” want. Last week, there was no school because they didn’t think it was safe for the teachers to be traveling everyday to and from the ranch. I tried to do physical therapy with as many kids as I could in their hogars, but this was difficult considering I didn’t have any of my therapy resources and all of the other kids were running around or trying to participate. I spent most of the week “working” with the girls from my hogar. The best part was rolling out of bed around 9 each day to make it to hogar before 10. At 10, the girls had finished their chores and had to “chopear” in various parts of the ranch. Chopearing is cutting the grass with machetes. This was my first experience and, as I had been thinking, it was much more difficult than it looked. When the kids swing the machetes at the base of each blade of grass, there is a whirlwind of grass and weeds that swirls around them and the end result is a nice patch of trim grass. However, when I tried it, I clumsily swung the blade through the grass causing a nice breeze and ending with exactly what I started except maybe a fallen dandelion or two. Of course, my girls got a big kick out of watching me. They tried to instruct me, but I really didn’t improve at all during the week. All I managed to get out of it was a bunch of blisters on my hands and an arm that I couldn’t lift above 45 degrees (and this was only after 10-15 min of chopearing). Needless to say, we were all overjoyed to hear that classes would resume this week.

At this point, the president, is trying to get back into the country, but so far, he has been unsuccessful. Yesterday, the military covered the airport runway with vehicles so that he couldn’t land. The word today is that Obama has given him permission to land at a nearby US Military base. From what I have read and heard, the public opinion towards Americans has been declining throughout this ordeal due to the support that the US has been giving the unpopular president. I imagine that the opinion will plummet if he actually lands on the base. Here on the ranch everyone is very rational and nobody has expressed any anger towards us. However, some of the younger Pequenos that are in the city have not been so friendly or understanding. One of the volunteers, who has befriended some of the high school and university students, has been receiving some hate mail from them recently. None of it is violent, just requesting that we all return to where we came from. I really hope that it doesn’t come to that.

Adendum (8/16/09): I had my first close encounter with a violent mob on Wednesday. I was passing through the center of the city on my way back to the ranch from work and found a mob of people in the park protesting the government. I quickly changed my route to avoid the park and ran into a line of police and military in full riot gear. This was unsettling but better than the angry mob. I was trying to make my way around the center to get to the buses that would take me out of the city and had to avoid overturned news stands and broken glass that littered the streets from all of the store fronts that had been assulted with rocks. The streets were lined with curious people who were hiding in doorways and behind barred store fronts. All of a sudden everyone around me began running. I have no idea why or what we were running from, but I figured it was in my best interest to join the crowd and get away from whatever it was. Next to me was a woman running with an infant, crazy! I turned onto another street and was able to stop running and just watched curiously with the rest of the crowd. I was extremely worried that I was not going to be able to find transportation back to the bus stop to get back to the ranch, but thankfully, the minibuses were running and I got out of there as soon as possible. I am considering myself lucky for not having been there any earlier when all of the major violence happened. It was a good wake-up call for the actual political state that we are in and how fast dangerous things can happen.