Tegucigalpa

Well I’m off for a quick weekend trip to Tegucigalpa. It?s been 10 years since I?ve been there last, so it will be interesting to see how it?s changed, and if I even remember it.

From what I hear, after Hurricane Mitch, the city grew frantically as people came in search of jobs and houses. I’ve heard stories of how bad it is now, but it’ll be interesting to see it with my own eyes.

I’ll let you know how it goes, and take some pics if I can get my camera working.

Coke

Today I was drinking a Coke, and one of the workers at the office started talking about it. He used to work at the Cerveceria, the place where they make Coke, Pepsi, all those sodas, as well as the country’s 4 beers- Salva Vida (sponsor of all Honduran soccer), Barena, Port Royal, and one other whose name escapes me (there is a lot less beer advertising here than in both the US and the DR). Suprising, it wasn?t a conflict of interest for an evangelical to make beer.

So he filled me in quickly on the history of Honduran Coke. It used to be made in Tegucigalpa, the capitol, but the water was too bad and the Coke had a bad flavor. They had to run it through 3 water filters. So of course, they take the production to San Pedro Sula, instead of trying to make the water supply better for everybody there.

I definitely feel better drinking soda here than in the US. The soda here actually has real sugar. For those of you who have been paying attention for awhile, last summer I tried giving up High Fructose Corn Syrup for a month. HFCS is the sweetener used in US soda, and I learned that it is terrible for you, and almost impossible to avoid. So I?m reveling in the sugar here. Plus, it tastes better.

I’m all for getting sugar back into our drinks in the US. So is this person.

Festival Junial

I hope that doesn’t translate to Junal Party…

Anyways, the Festival Junial is kind of like a month long celebration for the city of San Pedro Sula, since the day of San Pedro (Saint Peter) is near the end of June. So it’s full of parades, carnival type things, and probably general debauchery, but my host family has shielded me from this if it does indeed exist. It started a bit early this year, due to both Sampedrano futbol teams playing in the finals (read more here: España wins, España!!!)

So this week was the culmination of all of this, with roads blocked for juegos mechanicos (amusement park rides), and every kind of food stand and bootleg video place imaginable. And this doesn’t just happen in one place, it happens in several places throughout the city. The queen of all places, though, is Expocenter, where I ended up going today.

There were vendors from all over Latin America, selling Mexican sweets, Peruvian Pan Flute music by some guy named Tupac (not the rapper- I asked), and more. Lots of stores from Honduras, even hair cutting salons, temporary tattoos that last 15 days, and piercing parlors that claimed to be painfree. I will call that false advertising despite not testing the claim.

Of course, there was tons of food, which I felt safer not eating, and lots of rides, bumper cars, etc. (The last picture is of my host sister and her boyfriend on one of the rides).

Development and Immigration

Sorry for the long time without posting. I was at the MCC Mesoamerica Retreat, in Sambo Creek (near La Ceiba). It was great- we were at a decent hotel (i.e. hot showers and air conditioning!), right on the beach. It was a good time of meeting the other MCC workers, with daily workshops on the theme of immigration. Since most people at the retreat were development workers, this shaped the conversation on immigration in some interesting ways.

First of all, a developed community will encourage people not to immigrate. Also, immigration will slow development, as people with the potential to help better the situation leave behind a less hopeful situation. One exception: education (which is development, right?) will also cause immigration, in that there are not jobs for highly educated people in underdeveloped communities.

So therefore, if community development is the basis for action, people in underdeveloped communities should not be educated, in order that they do not leave the community, and so the community will eventually become developed.

Luckily, the basis for action is not (should not be) community development. The basis must be the goal of meeting the basic human rights. How to achieve that, however, is another question.

Olancho, the Wild West, the video

Here’s the video of the skit described in the previous post… I started filming as soon as I got my wits together and realized it probably wasn’t real.

Olancho, the Wild West

I ended my last post saying I was going out to Olancho. And go I did, indeed. We left Friday night at about 8:30, in a van that?s built for short public transportation, a rapidito. It can hold upwards of 20 people, at the sacrifice of any personal space and knee room. We were 11, so we could stretch out a little bit. Around midnight come the decision to head to our final location, “It’s just two more hours.” 10 minutes later we hit unpaved road, and I fell asleep. We ended up getting there at 4:30 AM, and I sacked out for the next three hours on a mattress in a friend’s house, in San Esteban. (the photo at left is the view from in front of their house)

The next day we watched a lot of soccer, and then around noon the youth retreat started. We played soccer (and got creamed) for most of the afternoon, and then I enjoyed my first warm shower since I arrived here in Honduras.

Then came the culto, the service. It started at 8PM (remember now how tired we are, from little sleep and a lot of soccer.) During the first song, a cop car pulled into the school where the retreat was being held, with lights flashing. 2 guys in camo and rifles jumped out, as well as a guy in police clothes with a hand gun. Suddenly there were flash fireworks going off like 10 feet from me, and the cops are up on stage with their guns pointed at the head of the bass player. They hauled him off, and someone came up to say… we don?t know what just happened, but we?ll keep you informed. He was back by the second song, and the moral came out later- Jesus is coming, like a thief in the night. “And wouldn’t it just be great if Jesus came back while we were in a church service?” I have a video I started recording as soon as I realized it was probably just a skit, which I’ll post as soon as YouTube approves it. Evidently putting “gun” in the description makes it take a little longer.

The service continued with lots of singing, bible contests, and skitsuntil 10:20, when they invited the speaker (second from left, next to me) to come up. He’s from a really rough barrio outside San Pedro Sula, and is doing some pretty interesting work getting gang members to leave gangs (Joining an evangelical church is one of the very few ways of leaving a gang with your life, supposedly). He talked until 11:20, when the altar call started. I was glad to get to bed at midnight.

Sunday, we drove home, and I was instantly glad that I hadn’t known how bad the road was coming in. I couldn’t imagine driving it in the dark. The downside of doing it in the dark on the way therewas missing some beautiful scenery, an indigenous village, and great pulperias with awesome hats. Once we hit pavement, it was a smooth ride back to San Pedro, except for an hour and a half stop to watch Honduras beat Mexico in the Gold Cup!!!

Honduras

“According to the UN, the population that lives
on less than a US dollar per day in Honduras has lowered from 37.8% in
1990 to 20.7% in 2004. The goal is that it lowers to 18.9% in 2015.”
Also, about 45% of people are self employed, and 11% live off of remesas, money coming from family who have immigrated, likely to the US.

This comes from a two page spread today in the newspaper, on Honduras’ progress with the United Nation’s Millenium Goals. It’s a nice overview of where the country is now, and it’s looking better, but still not good. Here’s the link in Spanish, for those of you so inclined, and a probably bad translation in English, and another shorter article in English.
I find it interesting that an article like this is published here, that the poverty is so readily acknowledged. Also, it has a definite leftist tone that seems unusual for political climate here.

Here are two quotes I thought particularly interesting:

• “What has happened is that the rich ones have
  always lived at the cost of the poor men, that is the truth.” -Juan Ramon Martinez, Analyst
• “The parties have always governed
  for the powerful classes of the country “. -Doris GutiÈrrez, Deputy UD

I think it’s great that these ideas are out there, and that people are aware of these issues. The article also talks about the gap between the rich and the poor, and shows the difference is salary that men and women says.
It’s a pretty thorough look at the current situation of Honduras.

This weekend, I’m headed out to Olancho, which I’m hoping reminds me of my campo home in the DR. (Just look at the mountains!)