futile attempt to return home

Mel Zelaya was planning his return to Honduras this afternoon, but once they arrived at Toncontin, the airport in the capital city, the runway was occupied by military vehicles and soldiers. The military was given orders to not allow any plane to land anywhere in the country, which might be carrying the ousted President, Mel Zelaya.

Before Mel’s arrival to the skies of Tegucigalpa, thousands of his supporters gathered around Toncontin to welcome him back. Unfortunately, things got a bit out of hand – supporters breaking down barricades and climbing fences. One young person, 19 year old, was shot in the head and died en route to the hospital. I have read reports of many other being injured. In an attempt to manage the crowds, troops in riot gear used tear gas on the crowds. CNN reports 3 dead after Zelaya supporters began to break through barricades in an attempt to remove the obstacles from the runway.

I have just read one of the Honduran newspapers online, and there it states that Zelaya’a plane was rerouted Managua, Nicaragua for a brief stop, and then continued on to San Salvador, El Salvador, our close neighbor, where the president hopes to meet with representatives of the Honduran Supreme Court.

Micheletti, the new president (depending on who you talk to), today made a statement saying that there are Nicaraguan troops moving towards the border of Honduras. However, the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, has denied that this is true. In a statement he said "Brothers - Honduran soldiers, Honduran officials, I would like to assure you, I can swear to you before God that Nicaragua is not dispatching troops towards Honduran territory, and that we are not preparing any type of attack." That is slightly reassuring.

The new government has been putting into effect curfews nearly every night for the past week. For the next 2 days, the curfew is 6:30pm - 5:00am.

At this point, I haven’t heard anything reliable as to what happens from here. More to come tomorrow, I’m sure.

Please continue to pray for peace for this country…

Tomorrow's Return...

Mel Zelaya is planning his return to Honduras tomorrow, alongside the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador. Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez has asked him to not return to the country, in order to prevent conflicts across the country.

From what I'm hearing from outside the Ranch, the country over the past week has become quite divided - those backing Mel, and those supporting Micheletti, Congress and the military. There have been several demonstrations over the past couple days - some peaceful, and others not so peaceful.

If Mel does indeed return to Honduras tomorrow, I do not expect that things will be pretty. Military and police officers have taken the streets in the cities.

well I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow. Please pray for peace and justice in this country....

Oh, and happy Independence Day at home.

Secretary General of the Organization of American States arrives to Honduras

Jose Miguel Insulza, the Secretary General of the OAS arrived to Honduras today, to begin talks with those responsible for the ousting of Honduran President Mel Zelaya last Sunday morning.

So far, they have come to an agreement that Presidential elections may be moved up before the scheduled November date, however it does not sound like Micheletti is going to allow Zelaya to be reinstated as President. He is still saying there is a warrant for Zelaya's arrest if he steps foot in Honduras.

As reported on cnn.com, as of yesterday the US has decided to suspend some of its aid programs to the country. They have also postponed planned military activities with the Honduran army until order has been restored in the country.

The 72 hour deadline given by the OAS expires tomorrow, and the country was expecting the return of Mel the same day. However, I just got word that Mel is now planning to return Sunday. I guess we'll see...

I just saw an article on cnn.com as well about the Honduran military shooting the tires of school buses supposedly driving people to a pro-Zelaya demonstration in Olancho, the President's home state.

I just came across a blog with some nice photos of the demonstrations/marches in Tegucigalpa and around the country. The photos taken from the demonstrations in Tegucigalpa are in the city's central park, for those of you who have been here. It's an interesting read - and on the side of the military and government. ( http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/ )

So, not much new - we're all just hoping democracy and peaces gets restored to the country soon.

local unbiased news sources hard to come by

Seems as though I need to make a correction/comment to that last post - I talked to another friend of mine that lives in Teguc, whose sister is studying medicine in one of the public hospitals that I mentioned in the previous post. She says that the hospital was not taken over by the military, but that that doctors were going on strike to show their support for the return of Mel Zelaya to power.

It's a bit difficult to know who and what to believe. We are continuing to see a lot of biases in the local newspapers here. Just the other day there was a short article in one of them informing the citizens of Honduras that the world is behind the ousting of Mel Zelaya. Funny because everything I'm reading online is saying just the opposite - that the UN and OAS are calling this a military coup and in no way are they supporting what happened. It's too bad the Honduran people aren't even being informed as to what's going on - but are only being fed lies so the military and Congress can gain support in what happened.

Public Hospitals Taken over by Military

Well, here's the latest update - while I was uploading that last post, the nurse I mentioned walked past and told me that indeed the consults have been canceled for tomorrow. And well, I guess the subject of this email says it all. The public hospitals have been taken over by the military, and the doctors are not working.

What madness has come over this country?

Update on the happenings in Honduras

It’s difficult to get a feel for exactly what is happening in the city – you’ll hear one thing from one person and something different from others. Around noon yesterday I spoke with one friend in Tegucigalpa, who said things were calm for the most part. Late last night I spoke with another friend who told me things are quite “feo” – pretty ugly – in the city. He said people have been going crazy in the streets – riots and protests all over the place. Then I spoke with a long-term visitor here at NPH who was just in the city today, and he said he wouldn’t have known anything was going on just based on what he saw in the city. So, I guess the intensity of it all just depends on where you are and when.

We are all still fine here on the Ranch, but we are beginning to feel the burden of what is taking place in the city. Our office has been closed since Friday. All child care workers that live in Teguc that had the weekend off remain in Teguc, as all public transportation has stopped running. Our bus from the orphanage is not running either. This also means the teachers from our school are not coming out from the city, so our kids aren’t in classes. The child care workers are getting anxious to get a break, and get back home to see their families. And well, some of us are running low on supplies and it would be fantastic to be able to get in the city to go to the store. Especially since we have/had a nice 4th of July part planned for this weekend. Happy Independence Day, huh??

One of the nurses from our clinic that has been in Teguc since Friday showed up this afternoon to organize charts to take a bunch of our children into the city tomorrow for specialist consults. She has been in the public hospital in the city for the past two days, taking care of one of our young children who had a small operation yesterday. She said that when she was getting ready to leave the hospital yesterday afternoon, she ran into complete chaos in the streets. She said the HSBC bank just across the street had all of its windows shattered, and the protesters in the streets had gone crazy – throwing rocks and who knows what else at the other surrounding businesses. She said the door of the Dunkin’ Donuts just across the street had been shattered – and an armed guard was trying to prevent people from rushing in. Why Dunkin’ Donuts???

She said as she was walking through the hospital preparing to leave, there were protesters running in off the streets from every corner– with bandanas on their faces and Che Guevara t-shirts on. The idea was to run into the hospital because they thought the police wouldn’t be able to take them that way. Let me tell you…that certainly didn’t slow the police down. She said the emergency room was overflowing with injured rioters and police officers. The doctors of course are on the side of the protesters, therefore denied attention to the police and only took care of the injured protesters. I can only imagine what a mess that was. Well, the nurse decided to stay a couple of extra hours in the hospital until things calmed down a bit.

I suggested to the nurse that maybe we just cancel our appointments in the city tomorrow, especially after hearing the stories of what was going on there today. Luckily she was able to get a hold of the doctors and got the consults postponed until a later date.

So – news. Mel’s plan is to return to Honduras on Thursday along with the leader of the Organization of American States. However, the new foreign minister has warned that there is a warrant for the arrest of Mel Zelaya if he returns to Honduras. The UN is backing the president, and is not recognizing the newly formed government, under the “control” of Micheletti. They are calling for the reinstatement of Zelaya as President of Honduras. Zelaya has made a pledge that once he is put back into power, he will not attempt to run for a second term in office as President, as he had previously hoped.

In response to the illegal removal of President Zelaya, several countries have removed their ambassadors from the country. Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador have all agreed to close off commercial transportation across the border of Honduras. This supposedly will last 48 hours. From what I hear, it is just that – commercial transport. All private travel and tour buses are still passing – as of this afternoon.

From what I have heard, international aid also is being cut off until Zelaya is put back into power.

That’s about it for now. I’ll do my best to keep you posted. Our electricity is pretty hit and miss, which means internet isn’t always working. But, I’ll do my best.

Thanks for all the continued support. The Honduran people are getting pretty down about their country these days…

Political Unrest in Honduras

For those of you who have not heard about the military overthrowing Manuel Zelaya, president of Honduras, yesterday morning, consider yourself informed. Sunday morning at dawn the Honduran military (between 200 – 300 troops) took the president from his home and flew him to Costa Rica. This was all in response to Zelaya’s plan to hold a national vote the same day, where the country would be asked their opinion if a referendum should be held to change the constitution. Polls were to open just an hour after he was taken into the hands of the military.

Zelaya’s presidential term is up in January 2010. He would like to run for a second term, that which is not allowed under current Honduran law, which is why he was pushing for a change in the constitution. The national vote had been ruled unconstitutional by Congress and the Supreme Court, and was not backed by the military. In response to the lack of support from the military in organizing the vote, Zelaya canned the head of the armed forces, who was later reinstated by the Supreme Court. Since Zelaya was going to push forward with the vote, Congress and the military took drastic measures, and took him out of power.

Michelleti, the leader of Congress, was sworn in as interim president until January, just hours after Mel was ousted. Presidential elections are scheduled for November. One of the first things Michelleti did was imposed a 9pm – 6am curfew in the city for Sunday and Monday. Supposedly a fake resignation letter, “written” by Mel Zelaya, was presented to Congress. Mel refuses that he resigned from his position as Honduran President, and in the eyes of Congress, Michelleti is now president.

Today Zelaya met with other leftist leaders from Latin America to discuss the happenings, where much support has been shown for Zelaya. There has been talk of Venezuela invading Honduras if Mel is not put back into the presidential position. The problem is that there is a lot of talk, and nobody really is quite sure what is going on.

The coup has had little effect on us here at the Ranch. We have been affected in small ways - our travel this weekend has been restricted, as travel across the country has been strongly discouraged due to possible protests and riots. Yesterday all morning the country was without power, all lines of communication had been cut (cell phones weren’t working, and apparently all news programs had been cut from the air). I initially thought it was due to the weather, since during the rainy season it is not uncommon to have frequent power outages. However, others were saying differently.

I have heard from friends that live in Tegucigalpa, the capital city, that overall things are “calm” in the city. However, there is heavy military presence, especially around the presidential palace and other governmental buildings. The military has blocked off several roads, and there are occasional protests and riots. Tear gas has been used on protesters, who have taken to throwing rocks at military, burning piles of tires in the streets, etc.

Well, I think this is enough information for now. I’ll do my best to keep my blog updated. But for the most recent information check either CNN or BBC.

I assure you that for now we are all fine here at NPH. Thank you to those of you who have emailed or call to make sure we’re all safe!

Much love,

annie

The "Advance Team" has landed

Thursday morning we heard on the news of the 7.1 earthquake that shook Honduras, Guatemala and Belize, along with warnings of a tsunami that was soon to follow. This just the day before taking off for our medical brigade to Honduras. Due to the concerns of the team, we elected to send the "advance team" to scope out the situation. The "Advance Team" was made up of our fearless leader Dr. Patrick Mason, in-country team leader Annie (myself), and our moral and spiritual leader Dino Tintin.

After another thrilling landing on the shortest runway in the world, the advance team was deployed on our mission. We quickly scoped out the situation, and decided to do some recon at the nearest Espresso Americano with a Mochacino in hand. Following an uneventful trip to NPH we determined that our immediate surroundings were safe. We received advance word from the priests up in Olanchito that the brigade sites up north were safe and uneffected by the earthquake. The only obstacle was one bridge that had been taken out by the quake.

After carb-loading with pasta the evening before, on Saturday morning we headed out on our first mission to Comayagua for a hearty Dunkin' Donuts breakfast - which consisted of a bagel sandwich and multiple cups of coffee. We then continued on our way to Hogar Tierra Santa (the Holy Land) - an orphanage near Comayagua. At the orphanage we met a team from the University of Minnesota and decided to join forces to evaluate the 130 children at the home.

We set up clinic in the school run by teachers that are employed by the orphanage. We had to be creative and utilize the facilities available to set up a make shift clinic. The outdoor hallways were used for signing in and pre-clinic, and 3 classrooms were used for the physical assessments. Our examination tables were a teacher's desk in one room, and in the other two rooms 3 student's desks were pushed together.


(Photo - Pat and I standing in the main street in town to get to the orphanage)

Over the next two days we were able to see over 80 of the children providing the first complete physical examination many of them had ever had. We helped to develop the first medical record system for the home. It was a great privilege to work with several global studies students from the University of Minnesota that organized the trip and helped to care for the children in the home. Overall, it was a great trip, and hopefully will lead to an ongoing relationship.

Having completed our mission, we returned to our home base at Hotel Honduras Maya for some margarita refreshments (Christine - no worries. Pat says "I did not partake in ANY of the margarita celebration")

Monday being the traditional day of rest for medical brigades in Honduras (that may or may not be true), we decided that day 3 of our trip should consist of intense brigade planning poolside in the morning (when Annie managed to get severely burned in the 10am sun...). This was followed by tracking down our medications we ordered from Germany which were stuck in customs, and then arranging the pickup from the office near Casa Angeles. While there we visited children in the special needs home.

To celebrate our success in getting our box of medications out of customs, we decided to make our cab driver swing by Espresso Americano so we could get our fix of Mochacinos. After stopping at the first one, we received the devastating news that their granita machine was out 0f order. Our advance team put our heads together, and found another Espresso Americano where we were successful in finding our delightful frozen goodness.

Fully satisfied, we returned to our base at Hotel Honduras Maya to continue our brigade planning.

Overall we feel our mission was successful. We found no significant earthquake damage, but did find numerous moccacinos which has kept us going strong until now. We are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of the main force to complete our brigade in Olanchito. The team arrives tomorrow, and we take off on Wednesday for our site up in the mountains of northern Honduras.

Advance Team here signing out for now. More brigade details to follow.

This blog was composed by Advance Team leader (Pat) and In-Country leader (Annie)

P.S. Wanted to send a shout out to my "little sister" in Maryland (Pat's daughter) Casey and all her friends who follow my blog.

Some random stories from Peru...

1. The food at NPH Peru for the most part was pretty good. Breakfast was usually a couple rolls - sometimes it would have a slice of ham inside, or stuffed with grapes or olives. Lunch typically was rice, occasionally some type of meat, lettuce and tomato salad, potatoes, and some type of fruit juice. I found it interesting that they don't eat tortillas there, but potatoes instead, as that is one of the most abundant crops of the country, or so I was told. Dinners were always soup or something similar (breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday were also some type of soup). One typical desert of Peru, which is what we had my first night there as dinner, is called "mazamorra", and is made of purple corn. The easiest way of describing the consistency is the following. When I worked at ChildServe (an intermediate care facility for mentally retarded children) during college, there were several children that couldn't have normal liquids, since they didn't have a proper swallow reflex. So, we would add thickener to their drinks so they could swallow it easier. This dinner reminded me of drinking thickened juice - not really a pleasant experience.
   
2. At lunch one of my first days at the home, a kid comes up to me with a bowl of of something that looked like squished tomatoes and some other various things, and asked if I wanted any. I asked what it was, and I could have sworn he said something like "we call this Ecuador". I asked him what he said, but he had already turned his back and was on his way to the next table. I called him back to ask again, and sure enough he said "This is Ecuador. We're sick of talking about chile." That's what they call hot sauce. Haha, funny kid!
3. Another day during lunch, a herd of unknown men wandered into the dining room carrying huge sacks of shrimp. I asked the kids I was eating with what was going on, and they told me that every week these men come to donate shrimp. The next time I looked up, a man snuck around the corner, video camera in hand, and began documenting the event. He was the most animated cameraman I think I've ever seen in my life. Since the kids told me this happens there every week, I started to just ignore what was going on, and concentrated on finishing my lunch. I had just stuffed my mouth with rice, I look up, and sure enough, there's the camera. Just inches from my face. Due to the lack of filming etiquete and obvious lack of asking permission to video somebody, the man immediately started drilling me with questions - where am I from, what am I doing at NPH, asked me about the kids, asked if I liked shrimp, my full name, etc. He's lucky I didn't spit my rice on the camera while trying to answer his questions. We later heard that this actually aired on the tv. I'm pretty sure though that the only thing anybody saw was my nose, since he was filming SO close to my face. The kids I was eating with thought it was absolutely hilarious. Come to find out, this does NOT happen every week, and apparently it was a big deal that this crew came to the house.
4. Related to #2 - when we were eating our "dish of marinated raw fish" after visiting the construction site for the new home, I noticed a sign that said there was a ban on eating shrimp from the month of January to the end of April, in order to allow the shrimp to reproduce. I then asked the director how it was that we were eating shrimp in the home, if it was supposedly banned. He told me that the authorities go to restaurants to "bust" those that are not obeying this law. If somebody is caught with shrimp, it is taken away, and this is how the shrimp arrived to our home and into our bellies the following day. Nothing better than eating "illegal" shrimp.
5. There is a 14-yr-old boy in the home that has three chicken he raises on his own. They call him "pollito" - little chicken. He doesn't appreciate it too much when everybody is constantly asking him when they get to eat his chicken.
   
6. The watering process in the home amazed me. Since the coastal region of Peru where the home is located, gets little rain, huge efforts must be made to keep the grass green. The way they "watered their lawn" was opening the water valve, and just letting it completely flood the lawn. The first night they did it while I was there, we had just come out of dinner, and I asked one of the caregivers what was happening with the water. It looked as though a water pipe had broken. She didn't seem concerned, and just told me they were watering. After the water rose a bit, all of the kids and caregivers went out with their buckets, and scooped water, and threw it into areas the water was unable to reach. It was really quite the experience.
7. And speaking of experiences - I went white water rafting down the Rio Lunahuana my first weekend there as well. It was absolutely amazing - the water was a bit more rough than we were expecting, but I only nearly fell out maybe once or twice. So, I was successful and really wanted to do it again before leaving, however never found the time. Hmm, next time!
8. Some of my favorite words they use in Peru - buenazo (really good), feazo (really ugly or really not cool), aquicito (right here), allacito (right there), etc. In general, they just add "azo" to anything to exagerate the word, which isn't done in Central America, but I really love it. There they would use "isimo" or "ote" at the end of the word.
9. I felt the earth shake for the first time in my life while I was in Peru. One day I was standing outside with the nurse talking, and we heard some rumbling in the distance. I immediately thought it was thunder of course, and then just a few seconds later the earth was trembling, and all the kids ran from their rooms. Turned out it was just a small earthquake and everything was fine.
10. In all of my travels, never once have I missed a connection, until my trip home from Peru. We left an hour and a half or so late from Lima, making me miss my connection in Miami. My flight out of Miami was again delayed by 2 hours, making me arrive at my gate in Chicago just after they closed the doors. I woke up at 3am that day. This was just after 10pm, therefore I got stranded in Chicago overnight, and flew first thing in the morning to Des Moines. I was then mis-directed by the agent as to where I needed to catch the shuttle to the hotel. Something like half an hour later, I finally figured out where I needed to be and was happily asleep by 11:30ish. I guess it was finally my turn to have some bad luck during my travels...and that wraps up my Peruvian experience.

Hola Ojos - "hello eyes"

This is how I was greeted once in a little shop in Canete, when I had gone in to use the internet one day. Yes, that's right - can you imagine a world where you have to travel at least an hour to get to reliable internet access? And, what's even better is that this drive can turn into much more than just sitting in an overcrowded van for an hour.

I had to go into town one day to check emails for work, and I was going to attempt the connection in Lunahuana, where our home is (which is only about a 5 minute drive in either a taxi or van). However, when I went out to catch the van, I happened to get into one that was going straight to Canete. I figured since they were heading right there, rather than stopping and waiting forever in Lunahuana, I would just go with them. This would "assure" me of good connection and limit my frustrations in trying to get the other place to work. Well, turns out that I made the wrong decision...

About half way to Canete, going up a pretty steep incline, in the middle of the desert, the van started shaking uncontrollably. Every time the driver stepped on the gas, we all would nearly get thrown into the seats in front of our own. Nearly everybody in the van (we had 19 people in a 15 passenger van - and mind you they were not all small people, and most of them came along with bags of who-knows-what that they needed to get from point A to point B) started shouting at the driver to let us out. He however, refused to give up on his van. He kept on trying and trying, until finally we were all nearly to the point of passing out from the gas fumes that were quickly filling the van. I was waiting for all of us to go up in flames at any minute. He finally pulled over, and everybody piled out - except for me of course. I got pinned when the driver got out and threw his seat backwards so he could get at the engine or whatever it was that was underneath there. His seat ended up in my lap, and to my immediate right was an elderly woman, and sitting next to her, facing the other direction, was another elderly man - both of which could hardly move. I finally couldn't stand the smell any more, and eventually crawled over the both of them and got to some fresh air.

A couple other modes of transport passed us after we had stopped, and most passengers piled in to other overcrowded van or overcrowded taxis (they would pile anywhere from 6-7 people in the taxis). Just as I was about to flag somebody down, the driver started up his van again, and assured us we would be able to go. So, I climbed back in, and hoped for the best.

The poor driver of our van - lost most of his passengers, therefore only made maybe 15 soles (about $5) for driving an hour. If he would have made it with a full van, he would have gotten maybe $17.

Once we got into town, things didn't get much better. He was FLYING (probably trying to make up lost time therefore lost money). He stepped hard on the brakes, nearly putting me on the floor since I was sitting in a seat right by the door, therefore there was nothing in front of me to stop me (and seatbelts are obviously unheard of down there...). We then felt a *thud*, and heard a yelp. Sure enough - looking through the back window I saw the poor dog was had just run over, thrashing along the side of the road. One of the women in the van started screaming as though it was HER that we had just run over. Oh, it was terrible...

After that, everybody in the van simultaneously did the sign of the cross as they tend to do before traveling, to protect their "viaje".

We eventually made it...