Week 1 debrief

You may have heard that the political situation here in Honduras is a bit rocky... It is very difficult to get a clear view of what is going on, as the media depict two completely different and contradicting stories.

President Zelaya was taken out of the country (to Costa Rica) by the military early on Sunday morning. He also signed a resignation before exiting, and a new provisional government is now in place, led by the new President, Micheletti. Zelaya, supported by other politicians, has sworn to return to Honduras. The most likely scenario is for him to get arrested as soon as he get through the border.

I am now at last on the island of Utila since Monday evening, after a very tiring trip. I had to take a plane from London to Madrid, then Madrid to San Jose (Costa Rica), and from then to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, before taking another small plane (or as it turned out three of them) to Utila. Needless to say I arrived exhausted, after several problems (first the suitcase, then canceled flight, and finally related to the whole political unrest as I was stuck in San Pedro Sula for two nights).

Since my arrival on Utila, however, everything's been running smoothly and apart from the curfew imposed (10pm), there are no signs of any problems whatsoever. Most the other volunteers are about 21-22 years old and we all get along great, it's been a lot of fun. The plan for tomorrow (day off) is renting some carts and exploring the island, which sounds pretty fun. We've also had all our marine ecology lessons this week, together with training dives, in fish, benthic, lobster and conch ID, as well as survey techniques. My Spanish lessons are very good too, I've already learned a lot.

We have a fish ID test on Monday,we have to be able to recognize all the stages (juvenile, initial and terminal) of the parrotfish, surgeonfish, groupers and snappers, which is actually not an easy job a they can change colors... I'd better get some revision done before dinnertime.

Bis bald
Virginia.