More than just a curfew

The ¨toque de queda¨ is a military term. When this term is in use, the people know that whatever the President says goes, no questions asked.

It´s illegal to go out into the streets between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m, and that´s just fine as most people sleep between those hours. But what most people haven´t been told is that the toque also means that between 10 p.m. and 6 p.m. all constitutional rights are suspended

Even in the sleepy town of San Isidro, the military can knock down your door between 10 and 6 and arrest you for supposed subversive activity and hold you indefinitely without a right to a lawyer.

As Honduras hovers in a state of international condemnation and internal dispute, the current ¨President¨ has decided that the only way to assert his power is to implement martial law.

And supporters of Zelaya are furious. Teachers and other niche workers are on strike until he returns, which could be never, meaning that classes have been indefinitely cancelled.

Here in San Isidro, the children are going to the fields with their fathers and helping around the house while school is indefinitely out. But as three gringos are unlikely to demand a raise from the current government in the form of violent street protests against the golpe, we´re allowed to unlock the school doors and hold classes ourselves—but we can´t do that for every school in the country.

The golpe affects the lives of everyday people here so much more than CNN can really describe. While two self-entitled politicians fight tooth and nail for control of Latin America´s poorest country, the consequences are more severe than a few cans of tear gas in the streets of Tegucigalpa.

Most people in the formal job sector aren´t working, children who can barely afford an education are being denied it, and NGOs are trembling in their shoes as they try to prepare for a suspension of international aid.

If the negotiations between the two political factions don´t succeed and Michelletti remains President, international aid will be cut off indefinitely. Consequently, the NGO with which I´m volunteering this summer will lose its funding, thus hemorrhaging hundreds of jobs and suspending the work that helps thousands of Honduran campesinos feed their families and educate their children.

Daysie, a 25 year-old mother of three, goes to free classes facilitated by my NGO for agricultural workers who didn´t complete primary school. She sacrifices time in the field and time with her children in order to learn, bringing to class her almost 2 year-old son, Omar, whom she nurses in one arm while taking notes with the other.

If this NGO loses its funding, deserving people like Daysie will lose their right to an education, campesinos will lose the opportunity to learn about new and better seed varieties to improve their profitability and their families´ nutrition, and the forests of Honduras will lose a strong advocate for organic biodiversity and reforestation.

As the people shut their doors at ten p.m., they complain quietly amongst themselves.

¨No es justo¨or ¨it´s not fair,¨they say. But at the end of a tired argument, ¨asi es la vida¨ or ¨that´s just life,¨are their final words.

A toque de queda is more than just a curfew.