Hurricanes, Mud, and Floods

This past week has been a crazy one. Late last week Honduras had a tropical storm from the Pacific side headed right for it. It hit Honduras late thursday night and into Friday. By the time it went over San Marcos it had become a category one Hurricane. The intern house is seperated from the rest of the ranch by a stream, when heavy rains hit, however, the stream turns into a raging river and nobody is able to cross either way. Because of this we were trapped in our house most of the day friday until late friday night when the river went down enough. During the Rains a TACA (the name of the airline) plane tried to land in tegus and was not able to stop in time, which caused it to run off the end of the runway and into the middle of an intersection. The rains are not, however, totally at fault for this crash. The airport in Tegus is the shortest in the world that major airliners land at. The combination of the storm and the runway are the reason that this tragic accident, which claimed the lives of five, occurred. The Honduran Government has said that they are going to close the airport in Tegus indefinitely, so it will be interesting to see what will come of that.
This past week has been a fun one for me. On Sunday Dr. Lytle, the Dean of the College of Business Administration at ACU, flew in to visit Jarred, but because of the Airport problems in Tegus, he flew into Managua Nicaragua. Jarred asked me and one other intern who is in COBA, to come down with him to pick up Dr. Lytle. This allowed me to visit Nicaragua and to meat Dr. Lytle who I have not met before. During this week I feel like I have really become more aware of the way of life in Honduras. Getting stuck in the mud or trapped behind a river and having to walk back to your destination have become daily activities. I cannot imagine what it would be like to live down here, and to have to deal with these circumstances year round.
David