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Coup d'état in Honduras: off to the Dominican Republic
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If you haven't already heard, on Sunday morning, the president of Honduras was arrested by the Honduran Military, taken from the presidential palace in his pajamas and deported to Costa Rica. Since I'm not in Honduras yet, I can't comment on the situation on the ground. For that, you can check out BBC News' Americas section.
However, I am able to comment on the current status of Honduras 15, the Peace Corps group with which I will be serving in Honduras. Staging will still be held tomorrow in Miami, as scheduled. The big change of plans is where we will be going after staging. Instead of heading straight to Honduras to begin the first part of training, we will be heading off to the Dominican Republic in order to start our language training. While we are there, the Peace Corps will monitor and asses the political situation in Honduras. There is not a date in which we will leave for Honduras, but the Peace Corps office estimates that we will spend around three weeks in the DR at a location that has not been announced as of Monday afternoon. As of this time, the Peace Corps office has stated that they fully expect Honduras 15 to serve in Honduras.
I will be sure to let everyone know as much as I can after staging tomorrow, when I am given more information. For now I will be looking over some information on the DR and making final preparations to leave the country for over two years. I hope that the situation in Honduras works itself out peacefully. While I am extremely excited to be able to see another country and spend a good amount of time there, I am anxious to get to Honduras and learn about my new home. I suppose this is one of the reasons why the Peace Corps states that volunteers should be as flexible as possible, because you never know when a coup d'état on Sunday will send you to the Dominican Republic on Wednesday.
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About Me
- John D
- For the time being I have decided to live in a place that has captured my imagination for the past 5 years. In the meantime, I will be the one trying to capture my imagination and put it into words.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing and good luck in the DR. I was a pcv in el salvador duirng the 1979 coup and eventually ended up in Honduras when PC pulled out of ES in 1980. I hope things settle down in Honduras.
Consider yourself fortunate. You get to go to two countries for the price of one! And don't sweat the coup (or whatever they're calling it). I was in Honduras with the PC in Tegucigalpa from 1976 to the end of 1979, which puts me there during the last coup: Woke up one morning to martial music on the radio, walked downtown and saw a tank and some heavily armed soldiers standing around the principal streets. I decided not to go to work. A day or two later the soldiers were gone, there was a new "president" (another General), and life went on as before. Unlike some other CA countries, hardcore political violence doesn't seem part of the Honduran scene.
I eventually married into a Honduran family and have maintained very close physical and emotionally ties with the country. In all that time I have never witnessed any government in Honduras affecting peoples lives in positive ways. I also haven't seen much of deliberate brutality by Honduras governments either. Just a lot of incompetence and indifference.
So, be open to individual relationships to make your time meaningful. You'll meet your fair share of scoundrels, but you'll also find that the great majority of Hondurans--your neighbors, people you'll work with, people you'll meet along the way--are no different in their dreams and aspirations then anyone else in the world, and are a whole lot warmer and friendlier than most Americans.
Hey John! Hope all is going well with you and your new "assignment." How was the trip to Italia?
Teresa
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