Of freelance and soccer

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Yep, I'm still here. Three and a half weeks and counting.

My internship has already started and I've been filing stories for both the Nica Times and Tico Times, the latter I interned for in 2007. It's been fun reporting from here, but sometimes aggravating because it's one of those experiences that reminds me just how young I am and how much more I have to learn in this profession.

I spent all day yesterday at the Clarion Hotel where negotiations are going on between the Zelaya and Micheletti camps. They agree on everything except Zelaya's return to power and the way that might happen. It's painfully obvious that Zelaya's return to the presidency is the last thing Micheletti's people want, and the offers they've made for who gets to decide Zelaya's return (either the Supreme Court that ordered his arrest or Micheletti himself) have only infuriated the former president's already testy delegation of negotiators.

I set up my laptop in the hotel bar and filed stories from there while waiting for negotiators to come down to the lobby. As it got later in the afternoon and into the evening some of the maybe 50 other journalists trickled into the bar as well and started getting beers, vodka tonics, rum and cokes, etc. Bars are like candy shops for journalists, even more so when they're on the clock. All of a sudden a line of four journalists at the bar sat up straight and turned their heads as nervously as meerkats toward the lobby, where the rest of our herd was out of their seats and running for the conference room where it was just announced Micheletti's people would be speaking in a few minutes. I wound up getting near the front because one of Micheletti's negotiators walked slowly on his cell phone while journalists piled on top of each other behind him to try and get an exclusive. I slipped past them all and got in line behind the row of TV cameras already set up, my digital recorder and notepad pressed together between my fingers while I used my right hand to take notes. When the negotiators began talking a lot of the Honduran journalists wouldn't shut up, shouting commands at the people speaking "like Look here! Turn the volume up!" until suddenly all the journalists were shouting at each other to shut up.

Living with the herd is a vastly different experience from being a reporter in Anniston, where the circus sideshow act they call amayor and city council will call a "press conference" even though they know the only reporter who will show up is the one who is forced to cover them. That would be Megan Nichols, god bless her, who ought to be working for The New York Times.

It's definitely an experience that toughens me up though. Normally a story hangs on my ability to get someone on the phone at the right time, now it's an honest to Buddha strength and endurance test. Two hours later Zelaya's people showed up to reject the new offer by Micheletti's people, and a similar "running of the journalists" went down.

Barring any big developments in the negotiations, which Zelaya's top guy says are in a state of "obstruction" until Micheletti makes an honest proposal, I should be in Granada by this weekend. I've made money on this freelance venture, but in all I think I'll barely break even, or be slightly in the red, when it comes to money spent vs. money earned in Honduras. But hey, I didn't plan on making any money in Nicaragua either. It's all about the experience.

I also got to be here for when Honduras' soccer team qualified for the World Cup. It's been more than 20 years since they've qualified for the World Cup, and Micheletti decided it was so huge that he made the following day a national holiday. That night, like when one dog howls and more jump in, the honks from cars and trucks and buses full of gleeful Hondurans rose and rose into the night air along with bottle rocket bursts and gun shots. The USA qualified for the World Cup a few days before that, and from what I read there's no evidence of a similar celebration.

I went down to the street and stood outside with Cesar, one of the desk clerks at the Hotel Granada who has become all too familiar with their resident gringo journalist of nearly four weeks, and soaked up the atmosphere. Huge waves of people with their flags up and shirts off came rolling down the street shouting and clapping for joy. Honduras qualified after beating El Salvador that night 1-0 and by the U.S. not losing to Costa Rica in a 2-2 tie the same night. One group of teenagers was running by me when one guy pointed and said "Hey! United States! Gracias! Usa! Usa!" (Usa [oo-sa] in case you didn't get it, is the Spanish pronunciation of U.S.A. when you combine the letters as a word.)

So that's my story. It's dinner time in Tegucigalpa, there's a cold front moving through so it actually feels like fall in the South right now, and I feel like going for a walk. Take care chavos.