Thanksgiving and Elections

I left my site for Thanksgiving and travelled to a volunteer married couple´s house in Olancho, the eastern part of the country. No one celebrates Thankgiving here, and not that I am a holiday fanatic, but it was going to be quite lonely if I was stuck eating the same beans and corn tortillas. So, it was really nice that they had about 14 of us over to their house. They live in big city, so they have a bigger house, complete with kitchen, running water, refridgerator, electricity, tv, shower.. it blew my mind. I think my favorite part was the shower, HOT shower. Bucket baths just don´t really make a person feel clean. (Picture, mop bucket filled with cold water from the garden hose. Next use small tupperware to pour water from the old bucket over one´s body to wet. Apply shampoo soap etc. Rinse using the same tupperware/mop bucket method) And, now that the weather has cooled off the frigid water from the mountains in the mornings is almost unbearable, so the hot shower was absolutely fantastic.

Oh, and by the way, I heard Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Whats the scoop with that? For what? and when?

Honduras had the highly anticipated elections yesterday.. the blue Nationalista party won the presidency as well as most of the lesser positions. I believe they owe part of their victory to the colossal botch that was the coup detat in June (of which both parties.. the deposed president as well as the interim replacement were red Liberales). A lot of people were expecting lots of violence, especially because many Liberales refuse to acknowledge the elections, presumably because there was still a ¨coup¨ government in place until yesterday. But, I have heard very little about demonstrations in Teguc or San Pedro. Obviously, quiet little La Laguna was tranquil. People were definitely nervous about the turnout and there was general excited electricity in the air, but no blood. I went to San Marcos to see their voting center, much bigger than little Laguna´s single classroom school yard. The government had sent some army and policemen with guns, but again, no serious altercations. Vaguely remembering this from Poli Sci classes, but all voting centers have to be open to public observation if the voting is to be considered fair and just, right? Ruth, Caroline, Morgan?
So, anyways, Ashley and I sort of said we were international observers and they let me snap a few pics. In truth, I think the guy at the door was more interested in getting the white girls digits than anything about international electoral litigation.

Other than that, some dick stole my debit card number in October and charged a bunch of stuff in New York. Trying to sort that out from here is kind of a pain because of the international calls, faxes, etc that the bank wants. Mom is an angel helping me, but because she does not have my power of attorney (SO stupid of me not to do that before I left) there is only so much she can do. I am in Guaimaca at the moment to try to fax the bank my signature, but the whole country is closed to celebrate the elections yesterday. Lame. P.S. When mom told me the charges, she said H&M was one. I laughed for an hour thinking it was S&M. Stupid, but for a moment I thought it was at least for a humorous cause.