Things heating up....

Wow, the 4 days of calm are definitely turning into an aberration, not the norm. Today started by going to the warehouse to help Dr. Mario get a couple boxes that had been set aside for him. I then headed to San Miguel to meet Melvin and Oneyda and do some grocery shopping. They are two youngest children among a family of six that my family contributes to so that we are sure they have food to eat. Their father died just after the youngest, Melvin, was born and their mother passed away four years ago. Since then they have been on their own. So we do the shopping and bring the food to the house and they asked me if they could come with me to the house to see Lori. I said sure and we headed out. As we entered the exit ramp of Boulevard Suyapa we ran into a little traffic. As we got near the top of the ramp it became apparent we were not going that way. A group of protesters had put rocks and tires across the road so we jumped the median (got to love driving a landcruiser) and headed for the next exit. We were able to get off there and it leads back to Suyapa, but quite a bit further down. As we got there and looked up the road, we could see that there was a large crowd of people and a line of police.

We got to the house and were visiting when I decided to put on one of the local news channels and there it was. Here is what happened as I understand it. A group of students (reports are saying 3000) from the Fuerza Universitaria Revolucionaria had decided to light some tires in an attempt to block Boulevard Suyapa. It is a very common form of civil disobedience here in Honduras and we see it often. The authorities announced last week that this was not going to be allowed any more so the police came to break it up. The students all somehow ended up at the entrance to UNAH (a university) which is right there near the roadblock. The students were throwing rocks at the police. The police were using tear gas and a bis water truck (like a firehose) in an effort to stop the students and reopen the road and school. The students throwing rocks (not sure where they came from) forced the police back and eventually the students were marching down the road. As they marched they began throwing rocks and bottles and whatever else they could find at the local businesses along the road. Some of these included a Burger King, Camperos, Dunkin Donuts, and Pizza Hut. This was at lunch time and there were customers in all of these restaurants.

As we were sitting there I was asking the kids what they thought and all they could say was "tanto y loco" (stupid and crazy). All they know is that they have missed nearly a month of classes as most of the schools are still not open or are only open a couple days a week. A couple hours later, I needed to take the kids home and, of course, we had to go in that direction. There were a couple places we could turn off before the University (and I was prepared to do that), but it turned out that the demonstrators and the police had all cleared out of the area. We were able to see the damage done as we drove past the restaurants. Most of their windows had been smashed. It was quite a grisly scene.

The other thing that happened today was that my friend Jonathan's sister, Mercedes, did go to school this morning. A couple hours after school started, Jonathan's mom, Estelvina, got a call telling her to come get Mercedes. Apparently, the teacher's union had sent representatives to close that school for the day. They had a group of people coming that were going to "enforce" this and the teacher wanted all the children to leave. Jonathan said Mercedes, who is 7, along with all the other students were scared as there were police there by the time Jonathan and estelvina could arrive to get her.

Here is a link to a blog that has some other news from the week you might not have read anywhere. La Gringa

Keep praying...