Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2011
Edit Blog Post
SNUBA
I look kinda awkward in this picture, but I guess I look awkward a lot of the time.... I’m back at school today after having a great 5-day weekend. On Thursday I went SNUBA diving, thanks to a friend who runs a SNUBA company on the Island and offered to take me and 2 other friends out. It was really fun, and also motivated me to get my SCUBA certification. As soon as I have some free time to do it, I’ll definitely get certified (and hope that my ears cooperate with me).
The island was really crowded this weekend, because there was a big fishing tournament going on. There were a ton of tourists and fishermen (or is it more PC to say fisherpeople? That sounds weird. Like I’m talking about some aquatic breed of human. Sorry. Focusing back on the blog now.), and the town of West End was filled with food tents every night. It was fun going out and seeing everything that was going on, since the town is usually much more quiet.
Two highlights of the weekend nights:
1. Seeing a reality show (basically a Honduran version of “The Bachelor”) being filmed at one of the bars in West End. A lot of it was definitely staged, and I’m sure it
March for Justice
On the street in Coxen Hole will make for some thoroughly awful TV, but it was absolutely hilarious to watch in action.
2. Going to see an Australian self-proclaimed Gypsy Pirate Band called 8 Foot Felix. We had actually seen members of this band walking around the town a few nights before we went to see them play, and knew we had to go watch just because of their outfits- kilts, marching-band-esque red jackets (some with shirts on underneath, some not), and top hats. The band was thoroughly quirky, but their music was actually really enjoyable. It was gypsy-type dance music, but the best part for me was the instrumentation. After living on an island for 2 months and hearing nothing but reggae and very basic (guitar, drums, bass) cover bands, I finally got to hear live music with violin, French horn, piano, and trumpet, as well as vocals and drums. I didn’t realize how much I missed real instruments until I had heard them again, so I really enjoyed listening to them. I just found this article
if you want to see some pictures/ read about/ hear some clips of the night that they played. You should check out the pictures to see the Justicia en Roatan
Some of the crowd while marching to the courthouse costumes. It’s pretty great.
The band had borrowed a keyboard from the school (the keyboard from MY room, thankyouverymuch) and so after the concert I, along with some other teachers, went up to talk to them. They were really nice, and after some not-so-subtle hints from some of us they agreed to come play for the school… which brings me to today, when we had the gypsies come give a concert to our kids. I love teaching at a hippie school. It was really fun and the kids really enjoyed it (and I loved the fact that all my little kids were excitedly pointing out all the instruments that the band was playing and correctly identifying them!).
On a more serious note, I participated in a March for Justice on Monday. About a month ago, a man was shot in West End (the town I go into frequently) by another man who had a grudge against him. This past Monday was the day that officials would decide if the shooter was going to go to trial or not. For more detailed information about the incident, see this article from the Roatan New Times:
. A bunch of people got together for the march, and went to the courthouse to encourage the officials that a trial was necessary- if they decided to not go to trial, the man would be set free, even though there is no doubt that he shot the other man point-blank in the back for no good reason. The end result is that they did decide to have a trial, which is good, so we’ll see what happens with that. For a little more information about the march, see this article:
. It was somewhat eye-opening to be in the march and see the few counter-protesters, who were mostly islanders. While our group (mostly gringos) was marching for justice in Roatan, and trying to make the island safer, these people were using ad-hominid arguments against us- holding up signs about sending “illegal workers” back “where you came from” and talking about how their families had been on the island since the 1880’s. (Note: 100 years ago, the island was ruled by pirates. And not the good kind that play gypsy music.) I knew that some islanders felt animosity towards the gringos on the island, but it was still a little shocking to see it in person. I also didn’t really understand it, because the gringos have really helped the island with the tourism industry and are bringing it out of poverty, and have also brought in all kinds of education and charitable programs.
To add to the scary stories, the day that we were marching we found out that a restaurant owner had been held up at gunpoint outside of his house as he was coming home from his restaurant with the profits from the weekend. Luckily he had a gun and shot at the men (he killed one, but the other got away) so he was alright, but a bullet grazed his wife’s head, who was with them, and it’s only luck that she’s not seriously injured or dead. Unfortunately the police don’t do very much to protect people here and justice is often served by individuals with guns- if someone threatens you, or is on your property, you can basically shoot them without any repercussions. It’s scary what can happen here, so I feel like it’s important to support positive change when I can.
Whew, this turned out to be a long post. If you made it to the end, congratulations- and thanks for caring enough to read this whole thing. I'm going to go eat the avocado that just dropped onto my porch now.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.121s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0499s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Andi
non-member comment
Experiences
It\'s so wonderful that you are having all these new experiences! I think your snuba picture is cute, not awkward! The band is...unusual, but, yes, nice for you to hear some \"real\" instruments. Neat that they came and played at the school. It\'s the least they could do since they borrowed your keyboard. Interesting about the march. How does it feel to be a minority?