La Huelga!!!

Yesterday and today have been some of the most interesting days that we have had since being here. There is a strike going on here in Tegucigalpa over the high price of gas. It started yesterday around noon and the cab and bus drivers have blocked off all of the main roads in our part of town. Everyone that had been on the roads at that time were stuck on the road from around noon until 10 at night when the cab drivers went home. Today they started again only now they are protesting the higher prices of goods due to gas prices too. I am not really sure when the strike will end but today school was cancelled and they are predicting that it will be cancelled tomorrow too. As for Brad and I, we along with around 10 of the students from the school and the high school principal were stuck at the church complex until 6 o´clock yesterday night. We ride to school everyday with the principal, Luis, and yesterday after school we tried to get back to our house but to no avail.....the protesting is right in our neighborhood! We tried to go in Luis´truck by a few alternative routes through some of the more dangerous neighborhoods but ALL of the roads entering the main road near our house were blocked off. So, we had to walk home at around 7 last night.....all in all it was an interesting experience. Brad and I were talking about how strange the whole situation is to us and were trying to decide if something like this would ever happen in the U.S. We know it is possible and it does happen in the U.S. but we never really saw anything like this in good old E.L. It seems amazing that something like this could halt commerce, education, pretty much everything in our area of town. It is also amazing that this country is so linked to our economy in the U.S., that a disaster like Katrina can cause unrest even here! Since the government here sets the price of gasoline, the cab drivers are asking that the government lower the price back down to what it was before Katrina (it went up 17 lempiras). We´ll keep you posted on what happens.



I also wanted to include some photos of our trip to Valle de Angeles, which we took on the 2nd day we were here in Honduras. It is a beautiful place and we had a wonderful time! One is a picture of Brad and I outside an old restaurant there....I think it was built in the 1800s, and the other is a picture of a band that was playing in a park in the center of the pueblo. Incidentally, the guy in the white suit in that picture was apparently drunk and as we walked by him he used his pole or whatever it was to smack my butt! We were with Carlos Diaz and his family at the time and we all laughed about it for quite a while.


This picture if of me on the roof of our apartment right after a big thunderstorm we had. You can´t tell by the picture but there was actually a double rainbow that night. It was beautiful!


This last picture is of the kitchen in our little apartment. I love the stove because it is miniature compared to what we are used to in the U.S.! However, it is WAY nicer that our old green machine that we had a parkside. And the nice part about this stove is that the smoke doesn´t start rolling off the burners the minute we turn it on!