Business Internship?

When I applied for this internship, I thought I would be learning about business, small entrepreneurs, and the microfinance industry. Little did I know it would turn out to be an education in Political Science! As I wrote those last two sentences, I actually ran upstairs to the terrace to look at the main street of the Miraflores neighborhood (where I live) because I heard lots of honking. Turns out "Mel's" (President Manuel Zelaya) supporters were driving down the street yelling and honking in favor of "Cuarta Urna" (translated "Fourth Voting Booth").

Tomorrow is the non-binding "vote" which asks citizens if they would like to see another item on the ballot in November's presidential election: the option to change the Constitution. I took video of what I saw.
On paper, this seems like a good thing...let's ask the people if they want to change their own Constitution. But most people will tell you that the president is trying to change the constitution to let himself serve again because the current constitution only allows for one 4-year term. The situation is strikingly similar to what his good friend, Hugo Chavez did a few years ago to allow himself to stay in power indefinitely.

That being said, the biggest controversy over the vote tomorrow that it is illegal. The legislature and the Supreme Court have said that the non-binding, referendum vote on whether to add a vote to change the Constitution to the ballot in November is against the law. I'm not totally clear on all of the constitutional issues, but I know that the Supreme Court ruled that the President cannot have the vote tomorrow. When the court stated that Zelaya could not have the vote, he ignored the ruling and asked the military to do their duty and distribute the ballots. When the armed forces chief refused to do something illegal, the President fired him. Then on Thursday, Mel himself led a few thousand people into armed forces headquarters where they removed the boxes of the ballots. Now Zelaya's supporters will set up and run the booths.

Yesterday, the military chief (Vasquez) was reinstated by the Supreme Court and there is speculation that there will be a coup tomorrow by the military. So far, the majority of the demonstrations have been by Zelaya's supporters and non-violent, which makes me feel safer. I haven't spoken to anyone who is going to vote tomorrow because they worry about violence and they use it as a form of protest its illegality. That means, assuming there is no coup, that the referendum will pass in a landslide and the president will use that to argue that the people want a constitutional change.

As for me, I've been inside most of the day and I don't plan on going out tomorrow. I'm not worried about my safety, but I am worried about the future of Honduras and their government, so we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Here's one article on what's happening: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/27/AR2009062701962.html

Now I'll move back to the business part of my time here. On Thursday, I had the task of doing some Kiva Journals or follow-ups. I met with 5 or 6 people to ask about their businesses and how they've used the loans they received from Kiva. If you'd like to read a few, go to the slideshow on the left and click on the picture, you should be taken to a page where you can see all of the pictures from my time here. The first few pictures have links in the captions to where you can read the follow-ups I've written. When you open the link, the follow-ups are at the near the bottom of the page and are labeled "Journal Entry." Here is a video of a portion of an interview with Maura:

Thursday they closed the office early due to the political situation and on Friday we worked all day. I uploaded the journals to Kiva's site and after work went to eat at Ruby Tuesday's (which is much cooler here than the U.S.). Today we didn't work because of the political situation and we will hear word early Monday morning if the offices will be open.

Talk about an education!