Honduras, Birthdays and... Iguana Soup?

Hola friends!  I hope you had a blessed week and that this post finds you happy and healthy.  

In my last post I mentioned I would be traveling to San Salvador to partake in the Monsenor Romero commemoration (which sounds peaceful, but is actually a gigantic, all-day, all-night epic frenzy), but I decided to skip it this time.  Considering I would have to take several buses all day just to get there, and then probably get stuck in traffic for another half a day, and not having a place to stay, I decided to park my butt in Santa Marta and commemorate from there.  It was quiet and peaceful, and we watched a movie about him outside in the plaza before it started raining.  This all turned out for the best, because the next day I was able to go to Honduras!  Again, this was an all-day ride (this time standing up in the back of a truck) and I was exhausted by the end of it, but it gave me three interesting experiences.  On the ride there, I experienced my first official police shake-down.  Coming from America, where cops usually just tote holstered handguns, I am still unused to and unnerved by policemen here carrying fully automatic machine guns, shotguns, and any other intimidating weapon short of a samurai sword.  The men I was traveling with had to line up on the side of the road and lift up there shirts, while another policeman/soldier searched through the bags of the women.  The policemen/soldiers were actually quite nice about it...as nice as you can be while holding a loaded M-16.  But soon we were on our way and were not stopped by scary policemen again.

El Salvador on the left, Honduras on the right

We landed in a small town across the Honduran border, where, during the war, 7,000 Salvadorians made camp for a year before finally moved to Mesa Grande (ultimately over 11,000 refugees would live here for years).  You may not be able to tell from the picture, but let me tell you - this place is really small.  I can’t imagine 300 people living here in tents, let alone 7,000.  Oh, and the water from the river was contaminated, so they had nothing to drink.  

This valley contained the camp

Then I saw the president of Honduras but I was waaaaaaay too claustrophobic to listen to what he was saying.  I was concentrating on not going mental, because the plaza was so packed that at least 8 people were touching me the whole time.  Of course this political rally was held in the afternoon when it was 200 degrees in the shade.... But I digress.

Tuesday was my birthday and it was one I will never forget.  First of all, I ate IGUANA. Secondly, I didn’t die from salmonella poisoning from eating IGUANA, so that’s a pretty good birthday right there.  That night the family threw a birthday party for me which included birthday wishes, cake, smearing my face with cake, and Tito the agronomist (I have no idea why he was there, but I rolled with it...).  

I'm pretty sure we're looking at two legs and a tail... but it's hard to tell

The family and Tito

Unfortunately, the women’s organization has had nothing for me to work on so I may make my way back to the green houses.  I miss working outside in the dirt - so much as to brave the rumors.  We’ll see what happens.  Please pray that I will be given some direction and that I can be of more use here.  I have too much time on my hands.  Plus I’m running out of books...