two updates in one week!

Hello again folks.

Last night I went back to the 50th celebration. This was a little racier than in past nights. There were a lot of dancers who performed on the stage and it seemed that the requirements were: skirt may not cover all of your butt, tight tops, and most of the time little enthusiasm. At one point it was great though, it was like a Honduran Jerry Springer. The students had set up a talk show style performance where these five women (one was actually a boy in drag) who all were supposedly involved with this man. I think the point was to point out the problems with sleeping around, etc., but it was funny.

Ok, I am watching a tv program, and it is on the only maximum security prison in Alaska. Sorry Kelsey, but I guess I had never pictured Alaska as needing a max security prison, let alone a prison. I guess they have their problems like everyone else. It turns out they got some pretty crazy people up there in the frozen tundra.

Whoa, just had my first fun time in the bank. Apparently you have to carefully sign your checks here. I gave my Mom a check for the rent, and when she went to the bank, she had problems. My signature wasn’t the exact same as my paperwork for the bank. So, I go, wait in the line and the guy was just like the signature is bad. I was like, ok, I get that, but I really need that money since my Mom now wanted cash. But, he just said my signature was bad. So, I ask if I can write myself a check to get the cash, and I stared at the signature on the screen for a while to get the exact right one. It seemed like afterwards, the one thing I didn’t bring was my ATM card, which might have been a good thing there. Hopefully in the future my Mom will accept checks from me so I don’t have to carry around a lot of cash. It’s only a two minute walk from the bank to my house, but still, it’s the principle, a check would be a lot easier for me. Later I talked with her a little and its not a big deal to her. There was a lot of jokes about how picky the banks are here, and I let her know that I never had a problem in the states, so, situation resolved, its now just another learning experience.

So, apparently there was an article in the teguc paper about the swearing in ceremony and I even made to get my pic in the paper. So, if you have extra time in front of a computer, type in Honduras Peace Corps and something like Tegucigalpa or embassy, or the newspaper name is la tribuna. See if you can find a link. I haven’t seen a pic, but someone else in my group grabbed an extra paper the day after swearing in and told me about it, so hopefully I can get my hands on a copy.

Now, speaking of papers, I will take you through a typical Honduras newspaper. In front of me I have the paper for Wednesday June 3.
• Front page:
o Newspaper writer found God during his time as a hostage.
o Sports announcement, the Honduran soccer team will not show fear to the Americans in their upcoming game.
o In the OEA meeting (meeting in Honduras right now that Hilary Clinton attended for a day, meeting of a bunch of north, central and south American countries)
National section:
Money needed for fall elections, teachers not getting paid, 80% of the country prefers democracy of tyrannies and dictators, power is of in a part of the country, there is a major bill coming up for vote soon and so there is a lot about that, we have our first case of human rabies, some arrests were made, more arrests were made, some people wee killed, new cases of the swine flu in Honduras (just to let you know, there is a large system of people looking after the spread of this for us, I am in safe hands, the peace corps is not lying when they say our safety is their top priority). There is an article on reforestation, and how the kids in the city have been taking part in trying to grow more trees in the city. Big article on why the hospital in one town is one of the best in the country. President of Ecuador visited Honduras, there is an international agriculture school here and 200 students from Ecuador attend the school, so he came to say hi. Then several pages on the international conference here.

Entertainment
Announcement of who will represent Honduras in the miss universe competition, lots of crazy pics, announcement for a play

Sports
So, Saturday, Honduras is playing the US in world cup early action. So, there is a lot on this subject, many pages of full color. We take our soccer very seriously down here. Also, a good bit of European soccer league news. Seriously, if you are truly a fan of soccer, you need to learn Spanish, because their newspapers here have way more soccer news than any in the states that I have ever seen.

Society (that’s right, we have a society section)
There is a huge picture of the queen of Spain, with a story of how the Queen travels quite cheaply, like any other person. We have a Miley Cyrus article, small but cute. Little blurb describing an Anne Hathaway video on youtube. A little celeb gossip, even Guy Ritchie can’t escape the Honduran press. Then, lots of pics from around Honduras, wedding announcements, birthday stories complete with several pics, for example Karim Navarro celebrates four years old. Small story with five pics. Bapstism story of one little girl makes the paper too. Memorial announcements make it too, just like in the states.

Classified section (always a winner)
General government announcements, just like in the states. Then comes a section where you can find a house, land, a restaurant, a dog (anyone want a poodle?), jobs section, and then cars for sale.

Advertisements (my favorite part)
So, full page, full color ads are the most expensive in the states, but the papers here are full of them, so here are a few:
1. Appliance store is having a “MEGA” sale with 30, 40, and 50% off
2. Digicel is offering some of their deals (cell phone company)
3. Sears is selling computers, and a $500 laptop when you use your sears card
4. Tigo is offering their deals (another cell phone company)
5. New apartment complex is now renting (by the way, I am only on page 13 right now)
6. VISA/local bank are offering deal that gives you miles, and flying to Miami is only 12,500 points
7. Grocery store is showing off their prices
8. Citibank has credit card deal with miles going on
9. Other miles card plan
10. HSBS is saying they are a safe bank
11. Basking Robins offers a cone for only 19 lempiras (they are also proud to support the Honduras soccer team)
12. ValueCenter is having a tenth anniversary sale
13. Visit Roatan complete with prices for transport and hotel
14. Furniture store is having a sale
15. Tigo is offering a free blackberry for a month if you sign up for their plan
16. Construction company is hiring
17. Some company is advertising some kind of international network, not sure what they do
18. More Digicel
19. Bank is offering discount of credit cards (?)
20. Fast food joint is showing what they got for only 19 lempiras
21. Burger King has a similar add
22. More Digicel
23. Three companies combined to show their support for the Honduran team and to put their name in print
24. The company in the first add has another full page add
25. Another grocery store ad, but apparently there is aunt jemima syrup here, I gotta get me some of that!
26. Finished off with Tigo

Ok, apparently I should have cut myself off at some point. But, count how many full page color ads your Wednesday newspaper has.

Friday (sorry again Brit, but its more food stories)
My stomach right now is very happy. My family made me sandwiches for lunch. A few days ago I asked if I could live her for longer than the two months that are required, and my family asked that I tell them what I do and do not like to eat so that they can prepare things I liked. When they asked me what I ate a lot in the states, I said sandwiches because they are the greatest food on earth. So, we talked a little more about them, and for the last few days they have been very excited to tell me we were going to have sandwiches for lunch today. There was all kinds of worry as to whether we had enough tomatoes and onions. So, today we had them and they were pretty good, way too much sauce (think big mac special sauce) but other than that, not bad. My stomach is like, I recognize this taste, and my tongue is oh so happy right now. I have definitely been lucky to have three great host families during my time here in Honduras.