Phase Two: A Rocky Start

Last night our friends Sam, Michelle, and Christian left us to go back to the United States. We had a lot of fun here with them, and we hope they can survive the torpor that returning to life in such a blessedly boring country must be. The going-away party was cut short by the curfew, and actually we left a little after the 10pm toque de queda had started. I remember us being not-so-mildly inebriated and jogging through the dark the "block" or so to our hotel slanging around what we thought at the time was convincing military operational lingo. We were not to intoxicated to not feel the compunction that the SHH trio was not there to provide covering fire (and in the case of Rodrigo, that Michelle would not be taking up positions at his flank these nights). Safe trip, guys.

Today we spent ten hours at the school getting dirty. Our friend Moises came to help us weld iron bars on the doors (will sunglasses will really keep him from burning out a retina?) and bolt down cages to house the computers. We put our two machines on his ghetto-looking customized tables and ran the alarm system wiring through plastic tubing we had to drill into the cinder block walls. When it comes to collapsing to sleep on sacks of UN food aid, corn is definitely the best. (Red beans are too hard, rice too soft). After all the labor was done, the alarm system keypad stopped responding, and neither Rodrigo nor Tian could reprogram it. It was about to get dark, we were alone in the school, and we were all exhausted. There was really only one thing that could make things better.

We got stoned.

What do you expect from five college students in one of the world's most active international drug pipelines? We panicked when the first rock banged off the tin roof, and ran to lock the doors and gather our equipment when the second came through the window. Fortunately it was only some school-age punks emulating their probably riotous parents (we found out only as we tentatively stepped out of the gate) and not a gang coming to steal the Alvaro Contreras computer lab the day it was installed.

So it was a bit of a rocky start. But I am prepared to believe that it is all part of some beautiful divine plan to have the ribbon-cutting on July 4th. God bless America. Though down here, sometimes, one is sorely tempted to conclude He had precious little left over. Remember Honduras in your prayers this weekend, too.

P.S.: I will link an article from today's NYT that is the best journalism I have seen thus far about the ongoing crisis. Unfortunately I can't find the worst, a story in the today's La Prensa (the national daily) titled "The People Love Their Armed Forces".