Week 13

Registering kids for VAP classes

On Sunday, many eligible Hondurans cast votes in order to elect a new president. For the past four years, Honduras has been under the rule of Juan Orlando Hernandez. Though many Hondurans believe that Juan Orlando has made a lot of great decisions in his time as president, there are more still who believe that he is a corrupt dictator. The two most popular candidates in this election were Juan Orlando of the Partido Nacional de Honduras (National Party of Honduras) and Salvador Nasralla of the Alianza coalition (a coalition made up of three of the country's more liberal parties). A lot of my friends here in El P believed that Juan Orlando would win the election. This wasn't because he would get a greater number of votes, but because his 'minions' were the ones in charge of counting the votes and could therefore easily change the numbers to help him take the lead.

The election took place on Sunday and, when Tuesday came around and the Honduran populace still didn't know who was going to be their new president, they started to get suspicious. News came out that the winner would be announced on Wednesday evening, and people continued to hold out hope that things might go the way they were supposed to -- that the votes hadn't been tinkered with. When Wednesday evening passed without a winner, and the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (the people who are in charge of tallying the votes) said that the counting had been messed up due to a country-wide power outage, Hondurans began to take to the streets.

The next day, during my shop in the corner grocery store, the owner stopped me and said that, due to the rioting across the country, he couldn't get any shipments. He advised us to stock up on food because no one knew how long this would go on. That evening, a few volunteers were walking between the two volunteer houses at 7:30pm, when a random man on a motorcycle stopped and told them it wasn't safe to be out then.

Blue is Juan Orlando support,
Orange is Nasralla support

Sitting securely in our HCA house in our safe little town, the volunteers have been reading articles and watching videos of the riots. People have been setting fire to tires and cars, a few people in the major cities have been killed by police, and no one can enter or leave anywhere. Starting on Friday evening, the government put in place a ten day curfew. This means that people must stay in their houses from 6pm to 6am. Anyone who is seen out and about during these hours can be arrested.

The U.S. Embassy has advised all its citizens living or travelling in Honduras to stay put and stay out of major cities. As scary as it all sounds, I'm not worried about myself, the other volunteers, or the neighborhood children. El Porvenir is very safe and, even if it weren't, people wouldn't be targeting us. We just have to keep in mind that travelling to La Ceiba may not be the best idea and that if we see anything out of the ordinary we should head home immediately. The part that worries me most is that we have no idea how long this will last. Riots could go on for a week, or for a year. I can only hope that it'll be safe for me to travel when the time comes for me to leave.

At this point, Juan Orlando is just barely ahead in the polls (though many believe that is due to tinkering) and both candidates have said that they won't accept defeat. The winner hasn't even been announced yet and already people have taken to the streets to protest.

All of this makes me think back to our election last November. I remember how devastated I was to learn that the candidate I had voted for, and had put my heart and soul into supporting, had lost in a way that felt unfair and unjust. The worst part was that the man she had lost to was not even half as qualified as her. The fact that my friends here knew even before the election that their candidate would most likely lose to someone who they believe to be a corrupt dictator, saddens me. However, the way in which they held out hope and are still doing so even with all the odds stacked against them, is deeply inspiring.

A drawing made by one of my favorite students
"Yamit, Layla (that's me!) and Magi (Maggie)"

On a lighter note, this week was our first week of Vacation Activities Program (VAP). Each week of VAP has a different theme and we began with Science Week. At every location we had a Physics day, a Biology day, and a Chemistry day. We taught the kids about food chains, solids, liquids and gases, pendulums, rainbows, and how to write a lab report, among many other things. Doing fun and simple experiments reminded me of my childhood. Each Thursday, my grandfather would come over to watch me and my brother. And each Thursday, without fail, he would bring some fun experiment for us to do, or something for us to solder or make. Science seemed to be a very polarizing subject among the volunteers here. Some loved these classes and some disliked them merely because doing science reminded them of struggling through science classes in school. While I would never call myself a science person, these experiments made me nostalgic for the past. Watching the kids enjoy experiments similar to those that I had done when I was their age always put a huge smile on my face.

Word of the week:
"Te toca a ti" literally means 'it touches you' (physically) however people use it to mean "It's your turn." This is a very helpful phrase to know considering how often we play Uno with the kids.

Yamit quote of the week:
"Is mustard, ketchup, and onion on bread a weird sandwich combination?"