Expected and Unexpected Adventure
So, it's been a while since I've posted anything, and I've had lots of thoughts just no decision to write it down...know what I mean? Well now there's reason to write:
So I had the chance to be a part of mission team to Honduras over the last week. We returned to the states on Saturday afternoon, and if you've been watching the news, it was about 12 hours before things went really south. We got word that there was a potential coup in the works, and none of what we heard sounded good. So within a couple of hours of getting word it could get bad, we left Gualaco for Tegucigalpa, heading into the hornets nest. In the village where we were people couldn't care less. But we had to leave that area to get back to the capital, so that we wouldn't be caught if the roads were shut down...So after 4+ hours of driving through rain, dirt roads, and on back country roads we roll into Tegucigalpa, a city of over 2 million. We passed a total of 12 cars on the way to hotel. 12 CARS. . .THAT'S IT! That made everyone a little nervous, you know how it is when people in a car just get quiet...eerily quiet. We get to the hotel without any events and no protests or problems. We spent the next 36 hours waiting for a plane. Now in the process we got to relax at a 4* hotel, sit in the hot tub, swim a little, eat great food, and do a little souvenir shopping...you know the suffering part of the mission trip!
But on Saturday morning we left the country and once we cleared Honduran airspace there seemed to be a general sigh from everyone on the plane...And then on Sunday everything broke loose. They arrested the President, swore in a new one, and flew the former president to Costa Rica...Was he getting a free vacation? Because within hours he was on international tv, in a nice suit, telling the world how abusive and terrible his arrest was...hmmm, I'm confused. I thought coups, and overthrows were violent, people died, especially leaders at the epicenter of the problems. In a suit, in Costa Rica, on International tv? Wow, someone please come arrest me!!!
Who really knows what's going on in Honduras? Who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys...I don't know. I'm pretty sure I don't like anything that smacks of Hugo Chavez and his antics, and this is the same path that Zelaya is headed down. Maybe, just maybe the international community isn't really saying what it seems to be saying...put a Chavez-like president back in power? Seriously, he tried to legalize the sale and distribution of narcotics, Cocaine, and Marijuana, saying that they could educate the people on how to manage them, and then he tried to sale the people on the idea of rehab for addicts... Really? Really?? Is that what we want, another trash talking, small army having, drug distributing Napolean in Central America? Let's hope not!
I'll tell about the real mission trip in my next post.
Until then,
Adios -- Mateo
