Unlike the U.S., the World Cup, or Mundial, is huge in Honduras. Soccer is the main sport played here and everyone plays it. When Honduras qualified for the World Cup everyone went crazy celebrating and the next day was declared a holiday! This is the first time in 28 years that they have qualified and it meant a lot to the people. Everyone kept asking us if the people in the U.S. were excited that the U.S. had also qualified and were shocked when we said that a lot of people probably had no idea. That is just crazy to them since it is such a big deal here. That said, it was an awesome experience to be here for the World Cup. In the months leading up to the event, there were signs, banners, store windows painted, and World Cup paraphernalia everywhere. Even the movie theaters participated with World Cup trivia on the screen before the movie.
The first game Honduras played in the World Cup against Chile started at 5:30 A.M. but that didn’t deter anyone from watching. We were in Tegucigalpa and got absolutely no sleep because there was a party outside of our room and they were playing the World Cup songs (you may not know this but there are two World Cup songs, one by Shakira and the other by K’nann and David Bisbal) and a Honduran artist Polache over and over again. We finally got up at 3:00 A.M., put our Honduras jerseys on and headed to T.G.I.F. with a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers to watch the game. Fridays stayed open all night and when we got there at 4:30 there were quite a few people. By the time the game started it was full and they were bringing out more chairs. Needless to say, Honduras lost and everyone was sad but they still cheered. It was a great experience because everyone was so into the game.
For the second Honduras game against Spain, we were staying with a friend in a small town. We went to his host family’s house for lunch and to watch the game. It was a bad game and super hot and Shannon fell asleep after eating lunch. The Honduran men present gave her a yellow card for sleeping during the game. Needless to say, Honduras lost again but it was another good experience watching the game at someone’s house and talking about it with them.
We watched the third game against Switzerland at our site-mate’s house since we no longer have cable (Kev actually goes over there for every game even the ones at 5:30 A.M.). Honduras finally played a lot better in that game but was still unable to score a goal and ended up tying 0-0. Honduras controlled the game and had plenty of scoring opportunities but was just not able to put the ball in the back of the net. We could hear shouts from the neighboring houses when a bad call was made and when the power went out for a few seconds.
So Honduras left the World Cup without having scored a goal but they left proud to have made it that far. People still wear their Honduras jerseys and they wear them proudly knowing that they proved to the world that they are a force to be reckoned with and vowing that they will be back in four years and this time will score lots of goals!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
stuff
So it has been a little while since we have written. Kev’s parents came to visit for a week and we showed them the exciting sites of Catacamas and went to Tela, on the north coast, where we all got sunburned snorkeling (Shannon’s first sunburn in years, she was sad). We got to see some monkeys at a natural reserve and lots of plants at botanical gardens. Our almost site-mate Josh’s parents came right after Kevin’s parents so we got to meet them and spend some time with them as well. They accompanied Shannon and Josh to their English class and the teachers were super confused by their South African accents. It was good for them to hear something besides U.S.A. accents.
Shannon marched in a caminata pacífica (peaceful walk) last week with her counterparts. It was the second annual parade in which 10 schools and 5 high schools from the prevention program they do participated. It was a lot bigger than last year and was a lot of fun and of course Shannon is famous now because she was on TV.
We both attended the inauguration ceremony for the veterinary school that will be starting next year at the university where Kevin works. It was a huge event and people came from other countries as well as various ambassadors and diplomats. This will be the first veterinary school in Honduras so it is really exciting. The closest schools right now are in Nicaragua and Guatemala so having one in Honduras will be a great advantage for all of the young students who wish to study veterinary medicine. There is also much need here as many people treat their “pets” terribly and have no idea how to take care of them. It is very uncommon to spay and especially neuter animals (hence the millions of stray dogs and cats that run wild) so hopefully the school will focus on educating people about the advantages of this as well.
We celebrated biodiversity day a couple of weeks ago. The university hosted a big program put on by GTZ, a German organization, and we went on a trip to a town a couple of hours away to learn about biodiversity. We participated in a bird and plant count (Shannon almost died of boredom) where the vice mayor of the town was one of the guides and was extremely knowledgeable about birds. He impressed us by being able to identify all different types of birds just by listening to their calls. He also knew their names in English, Spanish, and their scientific names. We also got to see an endangered tree, Teocinte, which is endemic to the area and nowhere else in Honduras or the world. The Maya used it a lot during their reign and it the agency is trying to get people to protect and preserve it. We went to a local town pretty far into the campo (we had to ford a couple good sized rivers to get there) and saw the pine trees they planted as part of a reforestation project. It was a long day but we learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people. Go biodiversity!
Today we had some excitement when we went for a run at 5:30 in the morning. We got the to field where we normally run and saw special forces police officers everywhere crouching in bushes and surrounding about a block of houses. They were wearing bullet proof vests, helmets, and carrying semi-automatic weapons, something you don’t see everyday. A women who usually walks told us that they were trying to capture someone and that it was probably drug related so we should use the other entrance (on the side of the field away from them). We weren’t sure if it was safe to run but she assured us it was fine. Everyone else was going about their normal business, running, driving, and even walking through the mobs of police. So we ran as normal and after about 30 minutes they all stood up and it seemed like they were calling off the operation. It was weird. Later, our safety and security officer called to tell us that the DEA was running “operations” in Olancho this week. We assume this was part of it.
It rained a lot last weekend due to the storm Agatha. We heard that there were problems in Catacamas with flooding and bridges washing out and that the mayor had called a state of emergency. However, we didn’t see any of this and nobody could tell us where it was happening so we’re assuming everything was fine in most parts. Some other parts of the country were pretty hard hit so we were lucky we just had lots of rain (but don’t worry, if there had been an emergency Shannon recently went to the annual emergency zone coordinator meeting and is well prepared should there be an emergency). It tried to rain cats and dogs, but all it could muster up was a dead baby kitten on our patio. We’re still not sure where it came from, Kevin thinks that this evil stray cat that eats our cats’ food had babies but Shannon doesn’t think it was pregnant. A ver… Now we are just battling the terrible heat and humidity and trying not to melt (impossible).
Shannon marched in a caminata pacífica (peaceful walk) last week with her counterparts. It was the second annual parade in which 10 schools and 5 high schools from the prevention program they do participated. It was a lot bigger than last year and was a lot of fun and of course Shannon is famous now because she was on TV.
We both attended the inauguration ceremony for the veterinary school that will be starting next year at the university where Kevin works. It was a huge event and people came from other countries as well as various ambassadors and diplomats. This will be the first veterinary school in Honduras so it is really exciting. The closest schools right now are in Nicaragua and Guatemala so having one in Honduras will be a great advantage for all of the young students who wish to study veterinary medicine. There is also much need here as many people treat their “pets” terribly and have no idea how to take care of them. It is very uncommon to spay and especially neuter animals (hence the millions of stray dogs and cats that run wild) so hopefully the school will focus on educating people about the advantages of this as well.
We celebrated biodiversity day a couple of weeks ago. The university hosted a big program put on by GTZ, a German organization, and we went on a trip to a town a couple of hours away to learn about biodiversity. We participated in a bird and plant count (Shannon almost died of boredom) where the vice mayor of the town was one of the guides and was extremely knowledgeable about birds. He impressed us by being able to identify all different types of birds just by listening to their calls. He also knew their names in English, Spanish, and their scientific names. We also got to see an endangered tree, Teocinte, which is endemic to the area and nowhere else in Honduras or the world. The Maya used it a lot during their reign and it the agency is trying to get people to protect and preserve it. We went to a local town pretty far into the campo (we had to ford a couple good sized rivers to get there) and saw the pine trees they planted as part of a reforestation project. It was a long day but we learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people. Go biodiversity!
Today we had some excitement when we went for a run at 5:30 in the morning. We got the to field where we normally run and saw special forces police officers everywhere crouching in bushes and surrounding about a block of houses. They were wearing bullet proof vests, helmets, and carrying semi-automatic weapons, something you don’t see everyday. A women who usually walks told us that they were trying to capture someone and that it was probably drug related so we should use the other entrance (on the side of the field away from them). We weren’t sure if it was safe to run but she assured us it was fine. Everyone else was going about their normal business, running, driving, and even walking through the mobs of police. So we ran as normal and after about 30 minutes they all stood up and it seemed like they were calling off the operation. It was weird. Later, our safety and security officer called to tell us that the DEA was running “operations” in Olancho this week. We assume this was part of it.
It rained a lot last weekend due to the storm Agatha. We heard that there were problems in Catacamas with flooding and bridges washing out and that the mayor had called a state of emergency. However, we didn’t see any of this and nobody could tell us where it was happening so we’re assuming everything was fine in most parts. Some other parts of the country were pretty hard hit so we were lucky we just had lots of rain (but don’t worry, if there had been an emergency Shannon recently went to the annual emergency zone coordinator meeting and is well prepared should there be an emergency). It tried to rain cats and dogs, but all it could muster up was a dead baby kitten on our patio. We’re still not sure where it came from, Kevin thinks that this evil stray cat that eats our cats’ food had babies but Shannon doesn’t think it was pregnant. A ver… Now we are just battling the terrible heat and humidity and trying not to melt (impossible).
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