Traveling two days to Tegucigalpa

On Thursday, I left at 4:30 am for a trip to Tegucigalpa with two leaders of the El Zapote coffee growers association and a lawyer from Caritas. They were going to see what steps were needed to obtain official status.

We arrived at the government office about 11:45 am and the lawyer went to see when they could have time to work on the status. She returned about 40 minutes later after the government official advised her that the group needed to make some changes. Instead of signing up as a cooperative, he advised them to form themselves as a mutual aid association or business.

It was a little disappointing but the government official was very helpful and stayed even during lunch hour.

But since it was too late to try to drive back home, we decided to stay overnight.

We looked for a place for a late lunch. The first place, recommended by the hotel, was overpriced. We, instead, went downtown to the central plaza and ate pupusas in a food court.

Then we walked around downtown.

We saw a tent where a few people were fasting against corruption and calling for an international council against corruption in Honduras.

I noted a few women walking around in groups; I judgmentally wondered if they were women of the street. Then I noted a few young boys, including one with a beer can in a paper bag. One little boy was shoeless. I wondered if these were some of the many street children in Honduras.

We went into the cathedral and, as I had when I visited before, I was filled with sadness at all the gold in the altarpiece.

Women and children in the street; people fasting and calling for an end of corruption; a church filled with gold, much of it probably mined by poor and native peoples during the Conquest.

I arrived home tired, but glad to be back in Plan Grande.