mjt's blog

Deep in the heart of Tegus is a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach I. The car has been garaged in the back corner of a hanger since about 1989. Someone stole the tires, so it has been up on blocks these many years. Someone who had wanted to buy it in 1988 couldn't for unexplained reasons and was hoping for the next year or so and had filled the engine with oil, which is till there - so it is hopefully o.k. internally. The car lacks original rims and tires, the hood appears stolen (or just off and misplaced), too, and the car has very mild damage (dent here, cracked light there, iffy door handle, etc.).

“The Turtle People”; DVD; c2007 (transfer from 16mm motion picture film; previously issued by B&C Films as both BETA and VHS, c1972?); field anthropologist, Brian Weiss; produced and directed by James Ward; Penn State Media; Catalog Stock #31891-D; 26 minutes; in English; $85.

The Games of These Divers: A Video Ethnography Exploring Lobster Divers on Corn Island, Nicaragua. DVD; c2005; directed and edited by Moez Solis and Clint Humphrey; A Wind-in-A-City and Homer's Boars Nest Production (Oakland, California); 54 minutes in English, Spanish and Miskitu – with English subtitles.

“Discover the Rio Platano Biosphere: In Search of Cuidad Blanco”; VHS or DVD; available in English or Spanish; c2003; written and directed by Tony Barrado & Ted Maschal (a.k.a, Ted Danger); produced by the Society for the Exploration and Preservation of Honduras (SEPH); 45 minutes; includes bonus footage; $20.

Wednesday was my 21-year-old stepson’s U.S. immigrant visa interview in Tegucigalpa. It was a fittingly bizarre end (not quite yet) to an already bizarre 14-month process. For perspective, this is 100x more bizarre than receiving a Honduran Tourist Visa in a Honduran passport (see

While most coup-related stories focus on alleged legal wrongs (hard to get straight given the crappy legal system) or alleged human rights violations (much of which is undocumented), etc., there is surprisingly little analysis of MONEY – except that an awful lot of outside dollars have been exchanged on the black market in the last 45 days. Though hardly a story in the country (papers have covered it but only indirectly in terms of having 12/09 reserves near 12/08 reserves levels), the Honduran Central Bank data indicates that International Reserves were slightly over $2b @ 8/1/09.

Across the street from the Police Station near Iglesia Delores in Tegucigalpa is an unnamed bar. It used to include a tiny wooden sign that read, "bar", but someone stole it; or, as locals like to say, it got lost. Inside is a regular (not me) bemoaning to some other regular (also not me) a news story he had read or heard about. His lament seemed to be the recent New York Daily News piece on the less-than-bloodless Honduran Coup. He thought the man should come to Tegus and write the real story. He, of course, would fill him in on the truth.

Judging from most news sources, there is no correspondent in Honduras.  Sure, CNN had a guy there when Zelaya tried to land at the airport.  Though outnumbered greatly elsewhere in the country, pro-Zelaya protesters were the only people he spoke to, so his analysis might be considered one-sided.  And, apparently, the novelty wore off and now CNN gets news bits from swimming-pool-sitting Embassy staffers down in Costa Rica.  Granted, the world is a big place, there is an emergency every 7 seconds, and lots of people die on a regular basis – and who would have predicted Elvis would have co

O.k., first off, the subject line was too good to pass up. And, as a bonus, “seven” and “solider” even start with the same letter - so it sounds even better when read aloud. Got to be honest: Technically, it might not be accurate and, legally speaking, it is a stretch. One, the land is likely in my wife's name so it ain't clearly, "my front lawn".

This post is per a question that occurs many places, not just here on this site (http://www.nicaliving.com/node/15165#comment-82793); it is what I hear as opposed to what I think - though I am somewhat sympathetic to select parts of it; it is too long to be a reply inside someone else's post so it is offered separately here.