The Return Of Mel

It has been highly publicized that Mel Zelaya, the former president of Honduras, was returning on May 28.  Not knowing what to expect, the country prepared for the need for armed forces.  Some prepared for festivities of all sorts.  It was pretty much guaranteed the area around the airport would be a zoo.

I headed south yesterday to get some things for the store.  If I was going somewhere, that was probably a wise choice.

Some people began waiting for Mel's return around 6:00 p.m on Saturday.  And others began to show up for the 11:00 a.m. arrival around 9:00 a.m.  It was reported by one source that buses of people from all over the country came for this grand event and that one million people were there for Mel's arrival.  Observers at the scene somewhere between two thousand and four thousand was a far better estimate.  If a million people came from all over the country, I would have surely seen far more bus and car traffic heading north as I headed south.  Northbound traffic was quite light.

I did not have the success that I expected and was not gone long.  My employees that have to ride the bus were wanting off early because there were not many buses running.  And some of those employees were anxious about the situation.  I told them they could leave early.  Only one lives on the other side of the airport.  That caused a bit more anxiety among all employees.  They were telling me tales of strikes and dangerous things happening in Tegucigalpa.  I wasn't sure what to do.  I certainly did not want to send an employee into a dangerous situation.

I called Luis for his perspective.  He told me it was really crazy around the airport.  I told him why I was asking and he told me if I came to town to stay away from the airport and told me a route to take to get my employee home.  It was the same route I had already mapped out in my mind.  I told everyone I would take them home, putting all minds at ease.

We have friends visiting and I asked one of the guys to go with me.  I didn't think anything would happen, but I didn't want to be a gringa by myself in case something did. 

I drove a route that missed the craziness of the airport, but was not all that terribly far from the airport.  Again, if there had been a million people at this grand event, I would not have able to even get that close.

Later, as we read reports, we found out that Mel did not arrive until several hours after the stated time of 11:00. 

I got my employee home and, in order to take the alternate route, I had to get nearer to the airport than I would have liked.  There was not a tremendous amount of traffic except pedestrians.  We thought the event must be over because there were hundreds of people, walking away from the airport.  And when we got to Loarque, there were several dressed in red walking through there.  Loarque is not a long ways from the airport. 

We went to Tegucigalpa and returned without incident.  Praise God.  But, as I read the reports and the timeline, we realized all those people were walking away from the airport before Mel's speech even began.  I know, by all reports, there was still a large crowd for the long-awaited speech, but I guess many just got tired of waiting.

Most of the tv stations left before the speech and had returned to regular programming. 

Who knows what will happen next in this never-ending saga, but I am very thankful there was no violence yesterday.

Terri