Volveremos volveremos, volveremos volveremos a celebrar juntos…!!

Un Saludo a todos los aficionados al futbol y la copa del mundo desde aqui en Nueva Zelanda estoy siguiendo los partidos y con muchas sorpresas pues tanto Mexico como Inglaterra casi se los chupa la bruja…jaja  aver si me animo a escribir mas saludes a todos y ojala que volvamos a celebrar juntos el Miercoles  Honduras vs Chile. Yo ya tengo mi bandera lista y voy yo solito a ver el partido contra una banda de chilenos ojala que nuestra seleccion nos haga orgullosos jugando con valor y entusiasmo.

Extrano mucho a mis amigos en Honduras especialmente es mas divertido “celebrando juntos” no solo son las birrias pero la amistad y communidad que comparten la alegrias y tristesas pues en el futbol todo puede pasar como ese gol de los gringos en los ultimos segundos que le rompio el corazon a los ticos y nos trajo alegria a nosotros.

Saludos

Porque nos llaman Catrachos?

El 13 de junio de 1855 llegó al puerto nicaragüense de Realejo el bergantín “Vesta” con cincuenta y ocho soldados de fortuna (Piratas) bien armados al mando de William Walker.

Walker había llegado a Nicaragua a pedimento del Lic. Francisco Castellón para luchar contra el presidente Frutos Chamorro.

La invasión se había iniciado nuevamente, pero los gobiernos constituidos de la Patria Grande, en un gesto de solidaridad y de civismo, unieron sus ejércitos para luchar contra la amenaza a su soberanía.

Honduras envió 600 hombres al mando del General Florencio Xatruch, y el 6 de enero de 1857 fue nombrado Jefe del Ejército aliado Centroamericano, estableciendo su cuartel general en San Jorge el 27 de febrero de 1857.

A los hondureños al mando de Xatruch empezaron a llamarles xatruches, pero poco a poco la palabra fue degenerando en catrachos.
Desde aquel entonces se nos llama catrachos para distinguirnos de los otros habitantes de América Central.

Fue gobernante de facto de Honduras del 26 de marzo al 17 de mayo de 1871.

Hombre culto y aguerrido, su padre se llamó Pedro Xatruch de origen catalán y su madre fue doña Eugenia Villagra, dueña de minas y de alta sociedad de Choluteca.

(Tomado de Cronología de la Patria, curiosidades y reseñas históricas de Honduras, Luis Roberto Castellanos y Ramiro Colindres Ortega, Graficentro Editores, Tegucigalpa, 1998)

By Mario Secoff

Así hablamos los catrachos

My 5 things to share with you all

It is not that hard to think about 5 things to share with you all but the hard part is what things can I share with you, so here we go.

1. When I was around 5 or 6 years old I remember finding out that Santa (San Nicolas) did not exist, it happens that one christmas I was looking forward to meet Santa so I pretended to be sleep while I was waiting for Santa to show up and all the sudden my uncle appeared next to the tree placing the presents around the tree. It was so upsetting that next day I went and told every one of my friends that was all a lie.

2. When I reached the 18 years old I was finally ready to reach my dream of becoming a pilot so I went to join the Honduran Air Force and to my surprise they did not wanted me to volunteer in the grounds of being too short for the air force requirements.

3. I was a show off kid when I was little and got me many time into trouble for instance one day one of my friends said I bid non here have balls to go and tease that bull that was quietly eating on the field, following the statement there was me running towards the bull and pulled his tail to my surprise the bull ran so fast that was catching me up and I had to dive through a spiky wire (alambre the puas) leaving me with some good scratches and a lesson to not mess with bulls.

4. Since I was a kid I wanted to go overseas and despite coming from a not so flash background I mean in $$ and wealth I manage to go and see a little bit of the world and now live in beautiful New Zealand, not because I was lucky but because I took every opportunity I had.

5. I like singing and specially playing to make people laugh and enjoy themselves and dream sometime of playing a band that plays well and different. I enjoy getting up in the morning with some nice music, it is in my family with three generations of musicians. Now I have my favorite fan my beautiful daughter that enjoys me playing the guitar for her.

March against corruption or Freak show?

I was browsing the HondurasThisWeek online newspaper when I came across an article with the title ‘Anti-corruption march a success but not entirely un-corrupt’. In the article was stated that a ‘Great Anti-corruption March took place in boulevard Suyapa a week a go and that apeared to be a great success’ but it turns out that was more of a freak show rather than a anti-corruption march. They ‘dressed-up’ domestic animals to attract attention and according to the article activists were paid to attend by the Liberal political party. In my opinion this apears to be just another one of those distractions that politicians used to distract people from the real problems; the article actually stated that ‘However, despite the fact that the march was supposed to have no political interests involved, it has emerged that the Liberal Party breached this by spending thousands of lempiras to pay activists to attend. Furthermore ‘The National Council of Anticorruption (CNA) has demanded that the Liberal Party explains these actions, which are ironically being described as being inherently ‘corrupt’.

Instead of spending thousands of lempiras on ‘mordidas’(bribes) they could it use it to invest in things that the population needs for instance education, primary health care to name a few but of course they rather invest the money on things that will benefit their agendas.

No other place like home!

Hello there my name is Luis Cruz I’m a honduran currently living in New Zealand in the beautiful city of wellington where I live and study, I’m starting this new blog as a way of expressing ideas about honduras and travel, I’m also would like to blog about inequality and corruption in the world using Honduras as my point of departure and maybe i can put the pieces of the puzzle together on what is really going on in Honduras in the big picture. I’m interested on issues of poverty and the role of overseas people on helping hondurans to get out of poverty.

Now getting back to the title of this post I was thinking today of what things make me homesick every once and a while and there are actually various things starting with language, dispite me been able to communicate in english without any problems I still miss the beautifull and musical sounds of my native spanish language and the good sense of humour that comes with growing up in Honduras. The other thing a really really miss is the food, some of you may think that is because i’m a guy but really it is more than just the flavours and the amounts of course; food in Honduras is for some a time to socialise and share thoughts with friends and family, but for others no so much a time to indulge but survive while living day by day in a country where poverty is what many experience. But for me good Honduran food is like a door that leads me to those memories that i considere special, moments shared with family and friends that are priceless. and finally i miss the nice weather, no ofence to the Kiwis but I prefer sunny weather most days, it reminds me of how much time i used to spent in the outdoors.

Even though i have adjusted to the Kiwi lifestyle and weather and enjoy living in this beautiful nation that has great things that i wish I could transfer to Honduras. I still every once and a while get homesick specially in christmas time. before concluding this post i would like to share couple of my first experiences in New Zealand that were quite different for instance when Kiwis say be there at 7pm they actually mean be there ten to 7pm but of course for me as a good honduran it means leave your house at 7pm, but of course there are some similarities too for instance when you go to the toilet in New Zealand it has two flushing options on the left is half flush and next to it is full flush, it make perfect sense like in Honduras small bucket or big bucket for flushing the toilet.