MTSU Honduras Project

MTSU Honduras Project

April 29, 2006

The passengers cheered as our plane arrived yesterday in the mountainous surroundings of Tegucigalpa. Jenny, Nuria, Ronny, and Kyle arrived as the pre-tour group to prepare for the rest of the group that is arriving on Monday. We were surprised to be met by Clementina and Rene (the treasurer of Clementina’s foundation and a relative.) at the airport while we were picking up our van, but it was a great reunion. Though Clementina is a very small woman, you can tell that she is a woman with a great heart and committed passion for her people; She and Nuria talked continually and even sang songs as we drove over the mountains later on.
We stopped at the university in Tegucigalpa to find some information on José trinidad Reyes who was the man who founded the very university that we were in; his statue also stood over the parking lot in front of the library. Reyes helped bring theatre to Central America, and Jenny has been doing some preliminary research about him to see how the Honduran people view him, to see if he is a hero in their eyes or not. We were helped by quite a few people in our search and talked to several people about Reyes. Jenny got some good insight into how the people feel about him.
After we left the university, we followed Rene as he guided us over the mountains to Comayagua. The view on the way was spectacular. As we left Tegucigalpa, we could see the transition from mountainous landscape covered with the intriguing, compact Honduran houses, to forests sparsely dotted with a few homes some of which have a very neat local architectural look, and then back to the look of a city at Comayagua. There Rene bought all of us and Clementina dinner at an attractive restaurant where we were well fed with splendid local foods.
Then we arrived at Enlaces in Comayauga which is a huge recreation center for young people. There was music pumping through the complex as kids were everywhere playing basketball, soccer, video games, fuzzball, and ping-pong; and they were also able to use the internet. Sandy Burgess, the woman who runs Enlaces, was very enjoyable and gave us rooms which we took advantage of immediately because we were exhausted.
End of day 1.