Winding down
Trip Start
Mar 28, 2003
1
18
20
Trip End
Jul 23, 2003
Tegucigalpa,
Honduras
Friday, July 18, 2003
fisherman bringing in their day's catch and the children who rushed to the boats to get their fish. It was wonderful to swim in the warm water--especially since the only Pacific Ocean I know is in California and it is VERY cold water! We found a little old woman who killed a chicken for us--serving it with the typical rice, beans, and tortillas. I have come to absolutely love my simple little meals of refried beans, cream, and homemade corn tortillas
Alan singing me a going away Mariachi song
. In true Honduran style (they do that trick where they buy just enough gas at a time to get them to where they need to go--yeah, I know we've all down this at least once in our lives!), our boat back to the mainland ran out of gas midway there. There was only one oar aboard and so everyone had to start paddling. Eventually, another boat saw us and was kind enough to tow us in. On the way home we stopped in San Lorenzo to get the famous papaya liquado sprinkled with cinnamon.
I ended up only having to work on Tuesday. It consisted of a lovely trip to the Tegus morgue. Us interns have been working on a cable regarding the number of murders in Honduras and looking at trends and how numbers change according to a group's political agenda. The morgue was absolutely horrific. It's still a "temporary" morgue that they built after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. It consists of one room for autopsies and one large freezer to store the bodies in. I saw my first ever real "live" dead body up close. A man was there who had been shot in the head and the stomach. Just as we
guessed, the forensic doctors told us that violent deaths were on the rise and that they just don't have the facilities necessary to accomodate all of the bodies they receive. Interesting as well, is that since in the cities they are cracking down on gangs...the gangs are moving out into secondary cities and the countryside. Thus, they are seeing more bodies come from outlying areas due to gang violence.
Alright, enough of that. Alan and I took a trip back to Valle de Los Angeles on Wednesday so that I could fulfill some Lenca pottery orders I received from people. I'm not sure what we'll do this weekend, but I'm having a great time just relaxing.
