![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
He is so cute! Also, WE ARE DONE WITH OUR CREDIT CARD DEBT! Woo hoo! Now to get pre-approved for a mortgage.
Whoa, the news is on right now and things are INTENSE in Honduras. Right now they are showing a line of trucks blocking the runways at the airport to keep Zelaya from landing; it looks like civil war might be imminent. Selvin just said "un Hondureno mojado en Honduras." less than 2 weeks ago we were talking about going for a visit, but now Tulio is saying he doesn't know if we'll ever go back.
Incidentally, some of the media sources I've read today are framing this as a right-wing military overthrow of a democratic left-leaning populist government; while I'm a yellow-dog liberal, I have to say that I'm not convinced that that is an accurate take on the situation. I'm not saying it's not, either; just that, like everything else in life, it's more complex than all that.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNew
Now in all honesty I have to say that I don't entirely agree with her assessment of Father Tamayo -- I have met the man on several occasions, in fact, I met him when I was newly arrived in Olancho and I hoped we could collaborate, seeing as how I was there to work in agriculture and environmental health. He was not interested. I found him to be kinda abrasive, in fact -- he lectured me about vegetarianism (even though I've been a vegetarian since I was 13) and then proceeded to eat some chicken. I think my biggest disagreement with him is over his tactics -- he doesn't encourage his parishioners to take personal ownership for the environment, instead placing blame squarely on the government and the logging companies. If you read the transcript, you know that this blame is not misplaced, but it disregards the fact that much environmental degradation is caused by improper farming practices (such as slash and burn) and that the largest cause of deforestation in Honduras is not due to logging, it is due to people cutting down trees for firewood. He also promotes really dangerous and confrontational tactics -- at one point Tulio went on a march he led out into the forest where they stood off against armed foresters and tore apart the machinery they were using to cut down the trees. Catholic organizations such as Caritas have done a lot of work in watershed management and promoting improved farming practices and more efficient stoves, so I guess it is part of a multi-faceted approach. At any rate, I did participate (in defiance of Peace Corps rules) in the Marcha por la vida of 2003, and I do admire him -- whatever disagreements I have with his tactics, he is genuinely putting his life on the line, and for a country that is not even his own -- he is from El Salvador.
I wanted to share a couple pictures of him, in fact. The first ones are of him baptizing my godson in the church in el Carbonal, and the last one is of him getting into his truck, surrounded by the armed guards that accompany him at all times. (The big heap of rocks is because they are about to rebuild the church).
( click here to see them )
Did you know that my BIL almost died in Mitch? Probably not, it's not terribly interesting to anyone outside of the family, I imagine.
Anyway, hurricane Mitch did not hit Olancho (the area where Tulio is from) as badly as it affected the rest of the country, but there were still heavy rains, flooding, and landslides. My parents-in-law had recently moved into a larger and nicer house (adobe, but plastered over with cement), but still had their old house ( a 2 room adobe house) in their backyard for whichever of their children wanted to use it. As Mitch pummeled them, a flow of water ran through the old house, threatening to knock it over. Tulio and his father Juan* were working outside of the house, digging a trench to direct the water away, and Dimas was in the house digging another trench so the water could flow through it. Then the house fell on him. Tulio and Juan dug him out but he was really badly injured. The found a car to take him to Juticalpa so he could go to the hospital, but the road had washed out so they had to care for him at home as best as they could, and fortunately he survived, but he has a big scar across his face as a result.
Dimas, incidentally, is the most accident-prone of that whole family -- his entire chest is a mass of scar tissue from a homemade kerosene lamp that exploded. I am a remarkably accident-prone person myself, I'm grateful to have grown up in a safer environment.
PS I should have mentioned this but tend to assume everyone knows, but Mitch hit Honduras in 1996. Dimas is fine now -- I think he has PTSD, but is fine outside of that -- and recently got married and had a baby. But this is why we get anxious when hurricanes head towards Honduras. Which they tend to do. A lot.
* My father in law's name is Juan Bautista, or John the Baptist. It's pretty awesome.
Something like 10% of the Honduran people still have PTSD as a result of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and the country still has not recovered economically or in terms of infrastructure, so they really don't need another disaster right now.
And if that's not enough, Tulio's youngest sister was hospitalized last night and had to have blood transfusions (she has pernicious anemia).
So any good thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
"The Government of Honduras has a very limited presence in Northern Olancho, Colon and Gracias a Dios Departments, which are well known for lumber and narcotics smuggling and violence. Travelers in those areas should use extra caution. See the description of highways/areas to be avoided in the Traffic Safety and Road Conditions section below for details.
Incidents of crime, including carjacking and kidnapping , along roads in Honduras are common. There have been frequent incidents of highway robbery on a number of roads including Limones to La Union, Olancho (route 41) via Salama and northward to Esquipulas Del Norte. For more information, please see the section below on Traffic Safety and Road Conditions."
Ha ha, that (northern olancho, along the highway of death -- seriously, that's what it's called) is where I lived.
I am bad ass.
http://nirethak.livejournal.com/3307.ht
but was thwarted by technical difficulties.
In the meantime, Tulio has become computer literate, and re-uploaded the pics and posted them on our blog we have to share pictures with family and friends alla. So, finally, at long last, I present to you, Tulio's pictures of Honduras!
http://www.katitulio.blogspot.com/
the majority were taken in el Carbonal, where I served in Peace Corps. from the top we have my compa Chente and my godson Luisito, schoolkids, friends, soccer, and so on. further down are photos of Tulio and his brother Walter in the national stadium in Tegucigalpa. ok, he did not post the pictures in any logical order whatsover, so forget any attempt at a narrative. the people in the house with blue walls are my in-laws, then there's the same pic of my compadres 3 times, and then my friend Marcela holding a really cute baby (who's baby is that anyway!? I will have to ask Tulio),soccer, my father in law on a horse, "judios" for semana santa, and 8 million photos of Dimas holding Fredi's baby. OK, maybe Tulio's computer literacy is not at 100% yet, but after all, he grew up in a town that doesn't even have electricity! The next post begins with Tulio's brother Selvin's kids in Tegucigalpa (poor Sofi has chicken pox) and Selvin on the phone holding a giant fish. OK, that's an awesome picture. The rest are pictures of Tulio's family in el Carbonal.
I'm going to stop now because these pictures are making me nostalgic.
1. Tell me about how you & Tulio met. I mean, I know you were in Honduras and stuff, but i'm more interested in the Romantic Story of it all.
Well. Tulio's mom was one of my first friends in el Carbonal, from the very start she would drag me over to her house and give me coffee, and she helped me a LOT with getting people organized, cause she has dirt on everyone in town. So I was already spending a fair bit of time at their house. Tulio was not really on my radar screen at first because he was something of a lush and wasn't very interested in community projects. But then a hurricane washed out a big chunk of the road. In fact, let me elaborate because this is kinda cool. There was a portion of the road where a little seasonal creek flowed across the road. It had eroded away a giant bite-shaped chunk of the road. So rather than actually FIX the damn road, someone had cut down a giant log and placed it across the gap in the road. So when the bus passed this portion of the road, it had 2 tires on the remaining side of the road, and the other 2 tires on this fucking LOG. It was a truly remarkable situation.
Anyhow, hurricane came (Ivan maybe? I don't remember. It did a lot of damage and knocked down a lot of trees in Georgia too, though) and washed out what remained of the road, so there was no bus traffic into the area at all. No traffic at all, in fact, not even a 4 wheel drive vehicle could have passed over that giant gorge. so no new products coming into the stores, no way to leave to make a phone call, go to the bank, go to the doctor....
So I said, we need to do something about this. and the mayor (who was a big fat liar and never did anything he said he would do, so I don't know why anyone ever believed him, AND got drunk on his birthday and shot his finger off) promised to do something. but didn't. and I got a little edgy, because I knew that if anyone from Peace Corps found out I was stranded without transportation, they would make me leave the site immediately. They have very strict safety rules. So a miracle happened and my community counterpart and I managed to organize a 60 man (and 2 women) work crew, and the mayor and the bus driver donated bags of cement, and we went to this gorge, filled it in with rocks, built a cement retaining wall to keep it from washing out again, and packed the whole thing in with dirt. Anyhow, what does this have to do with Tulio? well, we went up this hill with a pry-bar and pried up boulders, and rolled and hauled them down to the road. I have no idea why, but for some reason hauling rocks in the hot sun made sparks fly and I started to think he was cute... but he got on my nerves because he kept taking rocks away from me, and he yelled "Cuidado Kati!" every time we loosened a boulder, and was basically overprotective. yet cute.
Shortly after this (like the next day) he showed up very drunk at my house and informed me "Me caes demasiado bien!" so I ran him off, but he returned the next night (drunk again; he's very shy). this repeated several times and I kept running him off because I really didn't want a Honduran boyfriend (I'd had *gasp* TWO by that point and they'd both sucked and i had given up on Honduran men). But then one day I was hanging out with his mom and he showed up with a VERY ugly haircut, and I told him I didn't like it, and he said "You don't like it? I'll shave it all off then!" and I thought he was joking but he showed up at my house that night bald (and sober) and I was very touched, and it all happened from there.
whew, that was a long story, I'll answer the rest of the questions later!
2. What's your favorite guilty pleasure?
3. what's something you're really scared of?
4. do you get along with your family?
5. Favorite Peace Corps moment(s)?
post the answers in your journal, & don't forget to offer to interview others.
