Rather than go in order, with the backlog I have, I'm just going to throw up the rest of yesterday's pics here and do a better job of recapping the past two weeks after this afternoon's meeting with the auxiliary nurses in resistance. I got distracted.

While in Tocoa the Liberal party continued its implosion/attempted destruction of the FNRP as an independent movement, I got to the Comayagüela station too early and had to wait an hour and a half for the next bus. Everyone gasps at the mention of Comayagüela, Tegucigalpa's low-lying sister city, the one that always floods. I get the sense that for many middle/upper middle class Tegucigalpans, the bridge over the Río Choluteca is something akin to the portal to hell. Before leaving I am told: Don't walk around! Stay in the bus station! (and the obligatory list of the possible specific things that could happen to me, in detail).

The bus station feels quite safe. In fact, I leave my bag with laptop and all on the chair and ask the 8-year-old sitting nearby to watch it. When his father dropped him off to wait there, he had lots of loving words of advice, telling the boy to say hello to his mother, to find nice things do do. He should go to church a lot, and take good care of himself.

I loved the skeleton of the old tv monitor next to the gun warnings:

The bus took 6 hours for a four-hour trip, mostly because the whole way up to Siguatepeque it would go 10 meters, shut down, start up again, go another 10 meters, shut down...at around 11:30 another bus stopped in front and half the people transferred to that one but I didn't make it in time. Once we got to the top of the hill, it was okay, but that's about when the heat hits, so there was that. In San Pedro, I got a ride to my favorite hotel (writing space! good wireless! cheap!) and set out across the park to the event in honor of the resistance martyrs at the museum, which I calculated would just be ending. I was struck by how much more vibrant the resistance spaces feel in San Pedro than in Tegucigalpa. The park is just non-stop resistance. Always with its sound system (at that moment playing a particularly beautiful version of casas de cartón), new banners, resistance merchants (one of whom was killed last week). New decorations, perhaps from the anniversary:

...and walking down to the museum, evidence that Hondurans are protecting themselves:

The La Fragua production was hilarious but quite powerful at the same time, with the actors on the left of the stage acting out the cadena nacional—emergency broadcast netwrok of the coup regime, while the other characters portrayed various minimally fictionalized coup-related figures.


(there's a banner for a Paolo Freire school in orange in the front, "educar para transformar")

After the production was over, I ran into some San Pedro friends, and accompanied the march to symbolically close the event by planting trees in the (Central) Parque La Libertad:

...and came across a billboard I've been meaning to take a picture of, with soccer star David Suazo advertising "everyone's water." This'll be worked into a longer piece (insha'alla) soon:

more march pictures:

Arriving at the plaza, the cop made me a little nervous, but he seemed to be interacting without any apparent hostility:

Lots of trees to plant. The next series of pictures were right into the sun, and I tried to do what I could with photoshop so they're not totally bleached out, because I think the content is pretty rad even if the quality isn't.

This banner in front of the cathedral (across the street) tells corrupt politicians "Your murderous bullets WILL NOT SHUT US UP" fron the Movimiento Amplio:

No to Pepe's Coup d'Etat:

Pictures of and poses by the FNRP plaque:

FNRP Zelaya plaque up close, quote from Carlos Marx:

Huge variety of resistant t-shirts, this one showing the importance of Salvadoran liberation struggle to Hondurans: "Sooner or later our people will win. The new society is coming and it is coming soon." - Monseñor Romero

Whirlygigs in resistance:

Pascuala, anciana en resistencia, was in militant attendance:

It was a fiesta atmosphere, again much more excitement than I felt in most of the Tegucigalpa actions over the past month. Free resistance tamales and horchata:

And then...they brought out the Mel. The Mell was taken out with great care. Apparently the Mel comes frequently, although I am told he is housed in a local radio station, where he is safe from the loving masses. It was pretty disney-esque. People took turns posing.

A drunk forced me to get up there and pose, and took a pic with my camera. Note the awkward grimace.

In case you're wondering, yes, the resistance is armed:

Garbage bag, sticks, and masking tape. Best gun ever.

On 3rd avenue:
OUT, ARAB INVADERS (FNRP)

Idiotize yourself already, read La Prensa:

...and a whole slew of graffiti in the park.

The drunk was hassling me outside my comfort zone, so I called Jonny and Jorge, who had driven up to San Pedro for pride weekend (I apparently missed the drag show extravaganza of a lifetime last night—monster tears), and were just starting the march. I went back to the museum to wait for them to show up and saw a number of other people obviously doing the same. A lot of people lining the streets did not at all set off my 'dar. Old people, young people, hetero couples, mostly excited about a parade (and definitely a more exciting than usual parade, see yesterday's pics). A couple young men were carrying out surveys of people standing around waiting, and giving out free condoms as a thank you. Bad romance blasted and a speaker competed with Lady Gaga, talking about the struggle against LGTfobia and pronouncing San Pedro the gay capital of Honduras.

This morning on the hotel lobby while I waited an eternity for them to fill out the receipt and get all the different proper stamps (quite sweet, actually), a Channel 10 call-in poll on the tv: Is the nation ready for gay marriage?

21% yes
79% no