Honduran thoughts

The best food is cooked in people's homes, sold on the highways, or on the beach.  I recommend grilled corn on the cob with chile and lime, baleadas, which are fresh corn tortillas stuffed with beans and sometimes cheese or avocado or pork, any tamales, and of course seafood, most of all the conch ceviche (I did dare to eat it, in a small village), and the Garifuna seafood dishes and soups cooked in coconut milk.  Honduras is not known as a food country but that is because North American visitors take their meals in restaurants.

It is said that Honduras is too poor to afford its own oligarchy, and the infrastructure here is poor, even by Central American standards.  The rate of AIDS is supposed to be very high.

Natasha and I debated whether the upscale shopping mall in San Pedro Sula -- CityMall -- seemed so U.S.-American because a) Honduras is becoming so Americanized, or b) American shopping malls now attract so many Latinos; that discussion is ongoing.  We also seem to export gang criminality to Honduras, which is no longer a fully safe country.  Overall Honduras gets high marks on friendliness (especially if you aren't mugged; we weren't), and on capturing the old feel of Central America and the Caribbean, but there are few sights of the traditional kind.  The country is recommended for the experienced traveler looking for a change of pace, and luxury living at bargain prices, but most people should try Costa Rica or Panama first.

Tela was a lovely beach community, if you are on the north Honduran coast visit a Garifuna village and make sure you eat a home-cooked meal under the palm leaves.  Every journey has an emotional and narrative center at its core and that was it for us.  The way the kids play almost naked in the dirt you can see why the rate of dengue fever is so high.

Skipping through the blogosphere (when I could connect) I saw horrified reactions to my anthropological suggestion, especially from Felix Salmon and Kevin Drum plus many MR commentators.  Apparently I hit a nerve.  Contrary to their summaries, I am not saying that anthropology is required for good commentary, rather than commentary should disclose how much anthropology went into it.  Can that be so wrong?

And here's Michael Blowhard on Kindle.  Craig Newmark linked to this good post on the economics of the writer's strike, see also here.  Who knows what else I missed?