Rooting out government corruption

A couple of months ago I took an early morning bus to San Pedro Sula, this time as an undercover reporter in search of corruption. I was armed with a report put out by the organization Democracy Without Borders that listed every single check written by the Honduran government in the last six months from the community development fund. In theory, this fund is for members of Congress to use to build schools, pave roads, plant trees, house orphans, and fund all sorts of do-gooder projects. The reality is that it is essentially a government slush fund with few controls and almost no accounting that Congresspeople can use to buy favors, votes, or for to line their own pockets. What I found was shocking. In some cases the money arrived as it was supposed to, resulting in a few computers for a school, or a new roof on a community center. In many cases, a project began but was never finished, or the finished product was so insignificant I wondered how the project was ever approved. And in the most shocking cases, the money never even arrived, and no one seems to know where it is.

The result of the investigation has been published, along with the investigations of my Revistazo.com colleagues who found equally disturbing stories all over the country. The link to my article can be found here (Google translator version in Google English found here.) The rest of the articles can be found on the right-hand side of www.revistazo.com.

Here are a couple of the sad stories I happened across:

Colinas de Suiza

This photo is of an empty water tank in the community Colinas de Suiza (Hills of Switzerland) in Villanueva, Cortés. This community, perched on the very top of a deforested mountain with an amazing 360 degree view, has no water system. They rely on what falls from the sky. About five years ago, the community made contact with a professor from the Colorado School of Mines, who brought engineering students down to Honduras to carry out a study, and, ultimately, to build a water storage tank for the community that would provide everyone with running water.  

Many years and thousands of dollars later (including a mere $5,000 from the Honduran Congress) the big, steel tank is finished, sitting right beside the public school. Unfortunately, it is not hooked up to anything and is completely empty. 

According to the pastor from the local evangelical church (pictured...I can't find his name!), the community was in search for the rest of the money to hook up the pipes to a well at the bottom of the mountain when the city government decided to expropriate the tank using the eminent domain law. Since it was a public service, they argued, the government has the right and responsibility to run it. The city government promptly forgot about these responsibilities, however, and have made no indication that they will remember them any time soon.

For now, the community continues to suffer and fume that the work they did was for nothing.

Villa Florencia

This community in San Pedro Sula is 25 years old, and since it was built the city has done nothing to improve the dirt side roads and potholed main streets. According to the report by Democracy Without Borders, the Honduran Congress approved two separate checks for $25,000 each in 2006 to pave roads in this neighborhood. The neighborhood association, however, says that they have not been able to trace the whereabouts of the money. Furthermore, they only knew of one of the $25,000 checks. The second was news to them. The neighborhood association treasurer said they have gone back and forth between the Congresswoman who promised the money and the city government who was supposed to carry out the project to try and find the whereabouts of the money. Each "kicks the ball to the other," as he so eloquently stated. This is possible because the Congress makes no effort to check up on whether the projects were finished, or whether the money ever got to the community. In fact, the Congressperson can request that the check be written in his or her name so he or she can hand the money out personally.

San Manuel

The road leading out to the village of Santiago in the municipality of San Manuel is 4 kilometers of mostly muddy potholes (combined with beautiful views of a river and lots of parrots), except for the first 200 meters. The Honduran Congress approved $50,000 to pave this small, insignificant stretch of road, and it appears that the money arrived and was honestly spent (an engineer sent a breakdown of what he figured the costs were, and it was more than $50,000). But why, when there are urgent projects like the water tank in Colinas de Suiza left undone, would the Congress spend these precious, limited funds on 200 meters of a highway that few people use? The problem with this slush fund is that the Congresspeople can go around from town to town and hand out token amounts of money in exchange for their votes. There is no planning involved. It's all politics. It is an example of how the system is broken, and how the government sees the poor as pawns to be manipulated for their own power. This, to me, is the saddest part: an account called the community development fund continues to be used to steal what dignity the poor have left--with their own tax money.

February already??

I realize way too much time has passed since our last update. After such tragedy in Haiti and us being really preoccupied with that, it just felt trivial to write about our daily comings and goings here in La Flor… but some of our plans for the next couple of months have changed and we thought that you, our devoted family and friends and random strangers, should know about them.

First of all, rather than returning to the states in June as originally planned, we’ve decided to head back in March. This came about for a number of reasons, the biggest of which being our Bean is due in May and we’d like to be home with family for his big arrival.

So! All of a sudden we have just three weeks left of our work here in Tegucigalpa, after which we’ll pack up and head to San Pedro and spend two weeks there winding up our work with MCC. We plan to fly out of San Pedro on March 15th, and then spend the next several weeks visiting Andrew’s family in Goshen and PA, spending time with friends, going to a few weddings, hoping to get to Albuquerque where we plan to live with my dad for a few months before eventually getting our own place. Bean will be born, we will be parents, life will be oh-so-very-different than it is now.

How are we feeling? So many things – excited, overwhelmed, pre-maturely nostalgic – mostly excited though. The past two and a half years have been an amazing experience that I’m sure we’ll be processing for awhile. Words fail me. But it definitely feels like time to get back home to family and friends. Some goals for the next weeks: finish up our work well, soak in the sights and sounds and people of La Flor del Campo, take all the pictures we’ve been meaning to take all year, eat more pineapple while we can, try to convince our young neighbor to stop playing on his roof (he already feel twice), preach one more time at church (Andrew), and learn a few more Honduran slang words (Amanda). Here are a few pictures we selected from the last couple of months to give an idea of what we've been up to. Like I said, we’ve been slacking in the picture department, but plan on making up for it shortly.

Dependency on the United States

I was looking around at some data on DataGov and came across some statistics that astounded me, so I decided to share. The chart below shows remittances by country as a percentage of that country's GDP. In other words, What percentage of Honduras's GDP  is money that was sent home by immigrants working abroad? Take a look at the charts below.

Remittances as percent of GDP

In 1979 the percent of GDP that remittances represented was .05%. In 2008, it's 20%. The data is similar for El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Nicaragua. As a whole, 6.53% of Latin America's GDP was generated by workers outside of their home countries.

This suggests to me that the last 30 years of neoliberal economic policy, structural adjustments, and free trade agreements have had the dual effect of a.) encouraging Latinos to emigrate to the United States, and b.) increasing Latin American dependency on the US to very unhealthy levels. It is true that during this same time these economies did improve. But what does it mean when a large chunk of that growth is due to economic activity that is physically risky, destroys the social fabric of home communites, and breaks the receiving country's laws?

But I'm no economist. Other thoughts on how to interpret this data?

Article on the MCC webiste

This article was posted on the MCC news page about Haiti on Tuesday: http://mcc.org/stories/news/compassion-more-widespread-violence-haiti

I found it to be a welcome change from the news coming from the international media, which seems to mainly be focusing on violence and looting.

Our good friends and fellow Honduras MCC team members Kathy and Virgil Troyer arrived in Haiti last Saturday. They're working as the regional disaster response coordinators for Latin America. Yesterday we were forwarded an email from them reporting that they are doing okay; busy with daily struggles to help support the MCC team there (practical things like getting food together, filtering water for many people, trying to change U.S. currency in order to buy gas and other supplies, etc). I am really in awe of the work they and other Haitian and international MCC workers are doing... here, we just keep praying for the people in Haiti. What else can you do?

Thoughts on Haiti

I can't help but imagine myself in the same situation as my MCC counterparts in Haiti. The thought that grips me is that the earthquake the struck Honduras last year was the same magnitude, yet Honduras was essentially left unharmed. Seeing the pictures of Port-au-Prince reminds me of Tegucigalpa: shacks perched precariously on hillsides, shoddy construction, flimsy infrastructure. This could have been Teguc.

Imagine. The earthquake rocked Haiti before 5 p.m. I would have still been at work on the other side of the city. Streets are blocked, traffic stopped. Night falls soon after. I can imagine myself sprinting through the dark to Flor del Campo, my mouth dry, eyes filled with concrete dust, unable to make phone contact with my pregnant wife. Four hours by bus from the MCC office. Hungry, thirsty, frightened. It's too much for my small brain to comprehend.

Yet this is the apocalyptic reality for the Haitian people living in Port-au-Prince. Women are giving birth on the streets. Children are weeping, homeless and hungry. People are contracting tropical diseases and have no comfortable place to lay down.

I have inserted links to the blogs of MCCers in Haiti on the right-hand side. Not all are updated, but I'm sure they will be soon. Consider donating to MCC's relief efforts. I can vouch for the organization: www.mcc.org.

2 lists

I, too, and a bit worried about elections. And so to turn my mind to other thoughts, I am compiling a list of Things That Are Ridiculous About the United States of America that I have thought of after 2 + years on the outside:

1. Zoning laws 1. Here, if you have a big pile of bricks and some sand, you got yourself an extra room, or maybe an apartment behind your house. Whatever works.

2. Zoning laws 2. Thanks to my friend Ben, I just found out that it is ILLEGAL to keep chickens in your yard in Goshen. Seriously! What are we afraid of? Fresh eggs, pleasant clucking sounds; I don't see a bad side. I don't think my neighbors here would understand the concept of chicken illegality.

3. Nursing homes. I have a new appreciation for inter-generational living. So much so that Andrew and I are going to give it a go for awhile when we get back.

4. Anxiety, sometimes even fear, of women breastfeeding in public. I think this might stem from our overall fear of anything that connects us with the animal kingdom. I have gotten completely nipple de-sensitized... breastfeeding is everywhere. It happens everyday. It's natural. I promise. Nobody gets hurt.

5. Lack of good, cheap, inter-state public transportation. We can get from San Pedro to Tegucigalpa, a five hour bus ride, for less than $5. Or you can spring for air-conditioning, really comfy seat, movies, and a white bread/mystery meat spread sandwich plus a coke for $15, with no stops along the way. Why can't we do this in the states? Greyhound is tired and sad and drooping and super-inconvenient, not to mention strangely expensive.

6. Disposable diapers. Seriously. If Honduran women can get up at 5am to wash their cloth diapers by hand, we can take the time to throw ours into a washing machine. And save the planet a little.

7. The Buffet. Luke-warm, bad tasting, sneezed upon and handled food in massive quantities. Although this does not apply to Indian buffets, which are pretty much awesome and should be encouraged.

8. Absolutely enormous houses for small families. The houses that have rooms that nobody really goes into most of the time, but are still furnished, and of course, heated and cooled depending on the outside temperature. This particular beef relates to ridiculous thing number 3.

9. Lawns. Grass? Unless you're playing soccer or frisbee on it I'm really not sure what it's for. We should have gardens, and eat stuff from them. Or more trees. Shrubs at least.

10. Dryers. Sun, anyone? This also relates to beef numbers 1 & 2, as Ben also told me that in some places it is ILLEGAL to hang your laundry outside.

Wait! Just in case you are thinking that I have no love for my homeland, here is a quick list of things I totally love and miss and can't wait to get back to:

1. Sidewalks.

2. Bike paths.

3. Pedestrian right-of-way.

4. Diversity.

5. My bike.

6. Swimming pool access.

7. Gender equality.

8. Our constitution, which is old and easy to understand. I'm pretty sure a military coup would not fly under our constitution.

9. Trees in the cities. And birds.

10. Amazing variety of food.

Elections

This Sunday's elections have been hailed by the United States and the de facto Honduran government as the only exit to the political crisis that has further impoverished this already struggling country. The United States has been clear that they will recognize the results of the elections, despite the fact that Zelaya was not returned to the presidency. Most Latin American countries say they will not recognize the new government, but only time will tell whether the elections will put the situation to rest.

Some fear violence on election day. Many (most?) are apathetic. I have not talked to one person who will be voting on Sunday. My sense is that Hondurans are so fed up with the political corruption and impunity that to vote on Sunday is to legitimize a system that is deeply broken.

If you are interested, here is a blog entry that summarizes the militarization surrounding these "free" elections. The most troubling reality to me is that the military has sent a letter to all mayors asking them to provide names and telephone numbers of all of the people in their communities who belong to the resistance movement. The fact that the armed forces can so openly root out people it considers to be political dissidents proves to me that this was, indeed, a military coup.