The north coast

The north coast of Honduras lies on the Carribean Sea and offers a totally different culture. There´s great scuba diving, it´s a bit touristy, pretty richy in parts. There are a couple volunteers up there, a sort of luxury Peace Corps if you ask me (bleh, Tania if you read this). The north coast is home to the Garifuna people, also known as the Black Caribs. They are a population of mixed origin, including indigenous Caribbean groups and populations of African origin. They have a different culture than the latinos of Honduras, they speak a language which is a blend of English, African, well I´m not sure. See I just tried to look up more info on the Garifuna, but I didn´t find anything to interesting that I wanted to take up blog space with it, but I´m open to comments. This is what I know of them from my own experience. The traditional dance of the Garifuna is the Punta, which incorporates some serious ass-shaking (yes I´ve definately busted it out) Accordng to another volunteer, their culture permits them to talk openly and graphically about sex. They do have a very high incidence of HIV/AIDS. They´re traditional food is fried fish, fried platanos, beans and rice made with coconut. I know their livelyhood is based a lot off of coconuts, whatever products you can derive from coconuts. In this photo they´re walking along the beach selling coconut bread, which you´ll eat a lot of if you go. I was in Tela for a few days and I couldn´t get over how much I loved the colegio´s marching band. They would just cruz around the streets at all hours practicing, cranking out these great beats that just made you want to break into some sort of funky move...then you remember your a gringo.