Travel, Residency and Strikes

The news came about two weeks ago that our paperwork for becoming residents of Honduras was ready for the next step. I had not been responsible for any of the previous steps, but this one required me (and my fellow yearlings) to travel to the immigration office in Tegucigalpa last week. I thought of my two previous trips to Tegucigalpa, and hoped this trip would only be nine hours like the second trip, and not 20 like the first. Luckily, all the buses were running, and there were no accidents along the way.

I was warmly welcomed to Tegucigalpa by a number of MCCers, who fed me comfort food (cream of tomato soup, baking powder biscuits, and salad full of fresh, unsalted vegetables – what more could I want?)!

On Wednesday we set out for the immigration office, hoping we could negotiate Honduran beaurocracy and that we had everything we needed. It turned out that we were each missing two passport/visa sized photos. So after they s-l-o-w-l-y processed us as far as they could, we set out to get some photos taken. We were successful at the second mall we tried. We made it back to immigration, where they processed us with surprising speed! So, at about 2pm, after 5.5 hours of waiting at immigration and running around for pictures, we became Honduran residents! I now have a temporary paper declaring me a resident of Honduras. The official residency card should come in about a month, I hope.

I spent a couple of extra days in the city, visiting my MCC colleagues, their host families, and their workplaces. It was great to be able to do this. I returned from the city on Sunday in one bus, two rapiditos (16-20 person vans), two pick-up trucks, and one motorcycle. I had arrived in Gracias after the last bus had left for La Campa, so the pick-ups and motorcycle got me the rest of the way home, safe and sound.

My time in Tegucigalpa was complicated by the teachers who are on strike, and who have gathered in the city to protest. Before going anywhere, we tried to confirm where the protests were taking place, so as not to run into them, which could potentially be dangerous. We took more taxis, instead of using buses, to be safer. Now back in La Campa, I went to the school yesterday to see if I would be teaching English to my grade 4 class. Most of the kids were there, but it was only to sweep the schoolyard, get their daily glass of milk, and get more homework. The teachers taught most of last week, despite the strike, but are not teaching for at least the beginning of this week. From my observations, they are handling this quite well. They are holding regular meetings with parents, and are trying to put the students first. But since I could not teach class yesterday or today, does that mean I am striking as well…?