Coup d' what?

*My take on what is happening in Honduras, based on my limited access to news and my limited understanding of what people around us are talking about in Spanish, haha. 

Well, as you may or may not know, life in Honduras has gotten a little more interesting lately.  Over the past week, there have been some political conflicts, which I’ll admit I don’t understand completely, but I’m going to try to explain some of the basics which I do know. 

The biggest news is that early on Sunday morning, the President of Honduras, Mel Zelaya was detained by the Honduran military and taken by airplane to Costa Rica… in his pajamas. (Not really an important detail to the story, but one I find quite amusing.) So I guess this is what you call a coup d’état… or here, a golpe de estado. What did Mel do you ask? Well, he was trying to change the Honduran Constitution in order to be able to re-run for President after his term of service is finished this November. Few people were actually in favor of this plan, and Mel hasn’t really lived up to expectations as President thus far so not many want him sticking around for extra terms. Sunday there was supposed to be a vote or poll of the people to see who was in support of this change to the Constitution and who was not. The Congress of Honduras actually ruled this vote to be illegal, but Mel insisted on carrying out the vote, had to go with a group of his supporters to pick up the ballots for the vote, because the military refused to distribute them for this “illegal vote.” We’d been hearing bits and pieces about this proposal by Mel and the impending vote for a couple months now, but it wasn’t until earlier this week that we would here people in town talking about it more. We'd asked people if they were planning on voting, but most said no, and that it was best to just stay home and not vote, because to vote either way would be a bad decision. They didn’t want to vote “yes” because they didn't want the Constitution changed and didn’t want the President to be able to be in office indefinitely, and they didn’t want to vote “no” because a "no" vote could be traced back to you based on information found on the ballot. I was a bit worried by this reasoning, because it meant that only the people who were in favor of the President’s plan to change the Constitution would be going out to vote, and the proposals would pass, but as it turns out, the vote never happened. Sunday morning we were carrying on our business as normal, going to deliver Communion to the sick with the ladies from church at 8, and then to mass at 9. The morning chit-chat was a bit different from normal, as the conversation was all a bit hushed and about the President and his plans, but otherwise things seemed normal. Negrita, a neighbor of ours and the woman I typically go on the visits with has family in the military, so she had some inside information and was talking about they were put on alert and told to have their uniforms and equipment ready for whatever reason.  The power had been out since shortly after 7, but that wasn’t unusual either because we have been losing power at least for a little while on a daily basis now since the rains have started again. Around mass time though, we heard a rumor that the President had been arrested and taken to Costa Rica, but at the time we weren’t sure how valid that was. It wasn’t until after church that I began to wonder if our lack of power wasn’t just a coincidence. Those suspicions ended up being true, because after talking to Profe, a friend and neighbor of ours, we discovered that power and phone lines had been cut across the country. He advised us to go buy candles and food because we had no idea how long the power would be out, and then to stay in the house the rest of the day. This wasn’t the greatest news, because we know how unreliable power is in this country, even when it’s not intentionally cut, and we know that our house turns into an oven during the day, with temperatures inside normally running around 98- and that’s when we have power and all the fans on. It was a bit worrisome though, because we really had no valid information on what was happening in Honduras without radio, internet or TV, and we knew that very little info was probably circulating without phone lines either. Luckily though, our cell phones worked, so we were able to call home to have family and friends look information up on the Internet… at least the limited things that had been posted thus far. And sometime around noon, we were lucky again to have power restored, and that’s always a relief. As news started circulating more, we went to our friend Chico’s house to watch on his TV what was playing out… and the US vs. Brazil soccer match between the news breaks. J But, by 3 I believe, the Congress had already met and decided to name a different guy, Micheletti, as President. He’s actually the Head of Congress (the Vice President had stepped down earlier in the year because he wanted to run for President and that’s a written into the law here) and he’s a part of the same party as Mel so we didn't figure there should be any conflict there. It seemed as if everyone was in agreement, because all had agreed that Mel was breaking the law by trying to change the Constitution and stay in power, and I thought this was a surprisingly quick and peaceful solution. We were relieved that Honduras had only gone a few hours without a President, and life in Talanga seemed otherwise normal. But, on Monday we hear that most of the Americas, the US included, are refusing to acknowledge Micheletti as the President of Honduras, and are insisting that Mel be reinstated or else Honduras won’t be recognized as a country nor given any outside assistance. This is now an interesting predicament, considering very few people here approve of Mel, but at the same time, assistance from other countries like the US, is crucial to the survival of Honduras and its people. At the time I’m writing this on Monday night, this is really all I know, but things change by the day. I’m not really sure how a compromise can be reached, considering the majority of Hondurans don’t want Mel Zelaya as their President anymore, but the rest of the World is insisting that he should be. For now, we’re staying close to home in Talanga, abiding by the 9pm curfew issued by the government and keeping an eye on how things play out.