Cofradia the Town

  Cofradia, Honduras
Sunday, January 7, 2007

From Copan, we caught the local bus to the town of Cofradia, about 18kms outside Honduras' 2nd biggest city, San Pedro Sula. This place is going to be our "home" for the next month.

Cofradia!
When you put Cofradia into a google search.... you get asked if you want to see the results for "Cofradia tequila"... and by golly that's the stuff you need to have when you are in the town of Cofradia, Honduras. The place barely exists on maps, even though there is close on 60,000 people living in and around the area. The town has 2, yes that's TWO, "paved" roads... both with massive craters in each! All the other "roads" are just dirt tracks. There is a central parque with a few shops around it and numerous pool halls. The town is basically a satellite town for all the factory workers in San Pedro Sula. It is in this "lovely" place that we are going to live for a while. There are absolutely NO tourists here simply because there is nothing at all to see here. The only foreigners in the town are the volunteer teachers. Therefore walking around the place is entertaining as everybody has something to say to you... even if it is "Bye Bye" or "I Love You"

05 Us Volunteers wait for the bus..comfortably!

We are living in a big house in the centre of the town. The place used to be owned by the towns drug baron... just foir the record he doesn't live there anymore! There's an 8ft wall topped with razor wire surrounding the house. The place is a palace compared to any of the other houses around and therefore sticks out like a big shiny castle in the town and there are kids constantly playing run away knock. We share the gaff with 3 others, Eric (Americaner), Eva (Czech) and Danielle (Dutchie). We have a room and toilet to ourselves, which is nice, and everything else is shared... well... the kitchen, living room and dusty terrace. We have no hot water, no oven, no kettle, no radio, no television and the electricity does disappear on occasion. Tis a grand ole abode indeed!!!!!

When we arrived there was 2 other volunteers in the house... two Canadians girlies. They had arrived the week before and were getting ready to save the world!!! They bought a gorgeous set of speakers for their Ipods, they bought a coffee maker for all the coffee they were going to be drinking in their 6 month stay and also bought a good set of kitchen knives to assist them prepare all their food. In addition to all this they managed to pack loads of toys and some books for the kids. The reason we're saying this is that they left the first day of school...after 4 days in Cofradia they couldn't hack it and got a taxi at 7pm at night, loaded up their big suitcases and drove off out of the place!!! We think that they had the idea that they were going to be in Austria on the set of The Sound of Music... saving all the children or something!!!

07 Boredom kicks in, in the house

On our third day here we had great drama! We accidentally locked ourselves out of our room. Eric, who is a rock climber, decided to show off his skills and acrobatically scale the wall to get into the upstairs of the house to try and get into the room. What he forgot about was that the door upstairs was locked from the inside, so as he began his descent... didn't he just go and slice his knee off the razor wire!!!! The wound looked like a fatty piece of bacon with a big slice in the middle... about 2 inches long and at least an inch deep. We didn't see the accident happen and when we saw him lying on the ground we thought that he was showing the people around him some kind of yoga move!! He was carted off to the hospital in an old Russian van... and after getting himself some stitches he's up and running again. It was a good start to our time here.

There is absolutely NOTHING to do in the town... NOTHING!!! You can catch a bus into the city, but depending on the bus you catch it can take up to an hour just to get there. You can go for a walk but that will only last about an hour or so as it can be a dangerous activity for women, due to the fact that every single guy you pass will start blowing kisses at you and making remarks... the men here look at women as just objects... not even baby making machines... just objects, it is really revolting and really scary! We were not surprised when we were told that Honduras has the highest crime against women in Central America.

After school our time is just spent chatting with the other volunteers about the days activities and in the evening we seem to be just drinking beer and promoting the Irish image abroad!!!