Beauty and the Coup

To all my faithful blog followers, I apologize for not writing in the past couple days. Things have been busy and computers have been inaccessible. I'll try to summarize the last three days the best I can in one entry. All is well here in Honduras. Nobody has become sick, most nerves have been quelled, and the little time we have left here is beginning to show signs of a bittersweet kind of feeling as we wrap up what has been a great trip for everyone!

Friday we made a lot of headway on our second house. The house at the first site where Karsten, Stephen Kelly, Jeff, and Cary were working was finished! The man who will move into it, named Alejandro, has been living in a tin shack (really, it's just a tin roof with some palm leaves as walls) for the past twenty-four years. He will experience four walls, a new tin roof, and electricity for the first time! It was an exciting time for him! The second house began slowly rising from the ground as we worked double time on stacking cinder blocks and filling gaps with mortar. I think some of the kids strangely fear their new skills as they are afraid their parents may exploit them upon their return! After a delectable PB&J lunch in the town hall with ice cold bottles of Coke and Pepsi, we set out for Tres Piedres with some of the kids from Armenia. This is the swimming hole that the kids love to play in. I told a couple people that despite how hard life is for so many of the kids of Armenia, they do have some perks, such as Tres Piedres swimming hole:) Most of the kids here have to fulfill the roles of absent adults in their lives and some are even the bread-winners for their family. Anyway, we all had fun swimming and jumping off giant bolders, some of us risking expensive cameras, carrying them across the river on our heads to get a few good shots.

Saturday was our free day, and we got up bright and early to head out to Cayos Cochinos for some snorkling. Our group was split in two as we headed out in outboard motor boats for a 45 minute ride in the ocean to some islands off the coast. It was a beautiful ride as the coastal mountains of Honduras loomed behind us on the horizon and the small islands ahead of us seemingly emerged from the ocean around us. It was a breathtaking view as we approached the islands. The water was so clear, you could see straight below you for thirty feet. When we hit a patch of smooth water, it felt like you were gliding across a pane of glass. We got a tour of serveral islands, were dropped off at one to swim for a bit, then we snorkled for about an hour in a barrier reef. The reef where we snorkled is the second biggest in the world next the the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and it was everything you would picture in tropical water--coral, bright fish, schools of even brighter fish, crystal clear water. It genuinely felt like we had stepped into a postcard. After snorkling, we headed off to another island for lunch under a thatch-roofed hut. Most of us had fried fish (the entire fish!), plantain chips, and rice and beans. It was great. By then we were exhausted, so we headed back to the mainland and some of us were entertained by others falling asleep on the boat and trying to stay awake simultaneously. Quite a sight.

Moving on to today...the president of Honduras was arrested and deported this morning. Hmm. Evidently, he has been calling for some unconstitutional ammendments to the constitution and has finally suffered the effects of his attempts. The military showed up to his front door this morning, guns blazing, and ousted him. So...the US Embassy sent out a warning to all Americans in Honduras to stay indoors in the case of riots or protests. Seeing as how the president's approval rating is at an amazing high of 30%, nothing happened. We had plans to attend a church service in Armenia, but that was obviously cancelled. We did, however, have "gringo" church at the Pettengills where Ben Noble, Katie, and I led music. That went well. The rest of the evening has been spent hanging around the house. I got a Benedryl from Samantha who promised me it would have no side effects, but she didn't hold true to her word, so I was out for a couple hours. I should have read the label. It was a well-deserved nap, though. Thanks Samantha!

Tomorrow we head out for our last day in Honduras! Hard to believe. I'm sure we'll split the day between work and saying our goodbyes and taking pictures with the people we've gotten to know. This may be my last entry as I'm sure we'll be pretty occupied with packing up tomorrow night for the long day ahead of us on Tuesday. Thanks for following the Honduras blog! You can be looking forward to getting some nice pictures and great stories from everyone when we return. A dios!

Mateo