I have finally arrived in Honduras, safe & sound and speaking as much Spanish as my brain can handle right now. I have been up since 5:00 a.m. this morning, which means that I have a hard enough time speaking English at this point. The trip was mostly uneventful, although an incident that occurred in the airport in San Salvador provoked a certain degree of anger por mi parte.
With about 10 minutes before the plane was going to start boarding, I noticed out of the corner of my eye two plain-clothes individuals with badges around their necks that said "CBP." These two men began scanning the crowd for a few moments and then abruptly began pointing at certain individuals who had a distinctly indigenous appearance to them. They started walking through the crowded gate, pausing in front of certain individuals to flash their badges and demand documents. The individuals who were asked to show their documents were obviously targeted for their indigenous appearance, and although most seemed okay with the practice, one gentleman in particular looked like he had seen a ghost when he was approached. I watched the situation closely to see what would happen when he was asked for his "papeles," but he was given the okay after about 2 minutes of interrogation. When the CBP officers had spoken with nearly a dozen men, they moved on to another gate, leaving me extremely curious... Why the profiling? And why the need for such drastic, humiliating measures?
I need to put some comida in my estomago. It looks like the hotel restaurant is about the only dining establishment still in operation this evening, so I am going over there ahora mismo!
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