If you are unfamiliar with my blog, or my life, you should know before reading this blog that my landlord in Honduras was a gangster. Not self-proclaimed, however he wasn't fooling anyone.
So the story goes...
The landlord was building a beach-front dance club and invited us to go to the grand opening. My 3 other roommates were out of town so it was just me and Cherry, my 50 something year old fellow volunteer. So we figured what the hell lets check it out.
We rode to the club with Landlord and wife who was dolled like the stereotypical latino trophy wife. We had some drinks, ate some free food, watched some "shows" which consisted of 5 scantily clad El Salvadoran women shaking their bon bons. And they were paid a hefty sum to do so. The locals were lovin it. Let me tell you that Tela is not a big tourist destination but with this club (which upstairs will be a strip club and casino when its finished) is supposed to revolutionize Tela (Or so my landlord hopes).
After a couple hours we find ourselves sitting at a booth with Landlord and his wife watching everyone dance. Landlord makes a joke and sets his best friend, his gun, in Cherry's lap saying "Here, hold this." She of course is like ummmm no thanks...and thank god because not 3 minutes later we realize the place is swarming with police officers. At least 12 of them, blocking the exits and wearing bulletproof vests and ski masks. SKI MASKS. The DJ stopped and the lights went on. They corralled everyone out onto the dance floor and separated the women from men. All I could picture was them shooting up the place and mass assassinating everyone right then and there. I was freakin out.
Knowing what I know about my landlord and Honduran culture, I could only imagine what exactly they were here in search of. They proceed to grope the hell out of everyone, lifting up t-shirts looking for tattoos, and pointing a gun at you all the while. They asked you for your papers and those without ID were sent to the other side of the room to line up. After it was all over they made them stand arms length apart, put their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them, and then they walked them all out into a big van. They all went to the police station...including my landlord for his gun possession apparently.
Cherry and I couldn't WAIT to get the hell out of there. Unfortunately because of all the chaos it was impossible to get a cab so we went back into the club to wait for a short while thinking we'd get out of there in no time. How could we go back to drinking and dancing after all that!? Well we couldn't, but everyone else in the place did. They carried on til about 230am as if nothing was wrong. They even brought out the strippers to do a little pole dance for the brave souls still partying it up inside.
We got in a cab at our first opportunity and hauled ass out of there.
Needless to say, that is the last time I ever said yes when my landlord asked me to go anywhere. (and I didn't even take the garbage out without having my ID on me).
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