Political Situation Update

We are still fine. We have received many inquiries into our safety and well being and we are not in any immediate danger. Peace Corps keeps us updated (especially Shannon since she is Emergency Zone Coordinator and responsible for passing on messages to the other volunteers) and does not feel that there is any need to evacuate us. Peace Corps has gone through much worse things than this and we are confident that they have our best interests in mind. Things are pretty calm here. We are far away from the chaos and protests. There was a pro-Zelaya (the ousted president) protest here Monday and then the protesters took 10 buses to Tegucigalpa to join the protests there. On the way they were stopped at a military checkpoint and the tires of the buses were shot out so they were not able to continue. (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/03/honduras.video/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular#cnnSTCVideo) A couple of days ago protesters threw molotov cocktails at the antennas at the Radio America station as it is not a pro-Zelaya station. We don't think that anything really came of it and we aren't even sure where that station is located. We were not able to work all week as all public schools and the university were closed. It is kind of like a vacation only we are not really allowed to travel. We did have our first couch surfers, a french couple who are now living in Mexico but left due to the swine flu. They arrived here Wednesday and left early this morning hoping to go to Nicaragua if the borders are open. They were very nice and it was good for us to practice our Spanish as they spoke Spanish better than English. We took them to the caves and they made us a great french meal! We also finally got rid of the mother cat, Cornflake (Cornflay as they say here). We took her to Calixto, a man that Kevin works with in the mountains who wanted a cat to get rid of the mice. She behaved very well on the hour long bus ride there but ran away as soon as they let her out at their house. Hopefully she came back. Now we only have two cats and that is much better than the six we had at one time. Otherwise things are pretty quiet around here. We are glad to have internet as the news on T.V. here is very biased as many stations are not allowed to transmit and the ones that do are partially owned by the current president. We really only see pro-Micheletti protests on T.V. now. We are allowed to travel in our departments today for Fourth of July so we are having an Olancho party at our house and making lots of desserts, chili, and who knows what else. It should be a great time, especially since most of the volunteers have been cooped up in their small sites with nothing to do for the past week. We will continue to post updates as the political situation unravels. Zelaya says he will return to Honduras tomorrow (Sunday) but we will see what happens.