And now for the "Big News"...

Apparently I have been very reckless with my writing. I forgot a lesson learned (not just once, or twice, or three times even...) which is this: when you are young and married, you should never speak of "news" or "changes to come" or even, yes, "excitement".... unless you are pregnant. Which, sorry to disappoint, I am not. I foolishly wrote about upcoming changes in my last blog without remembering this important fact, and unfortunately caused more than one person to think our lives were about to get a lot more interesting than they actually are!

We're actually just planning a move: from San Pedro to the capital city Tegucigalpa. We are taking up two other positions with MCC while scaling back what we do as Connecting People coordinators; Andrew will be doing communications writing for an organization called ASJ (Association for a more Just Society) and I'll be working for a community library called Flor de Saber (Flower of Knowledge). Despite some sadness about leaving the church community and friends here in San Pedro, I'm pretty excited about this move and the changes it will bring. We won't be traveling nearly as much, but we'll be able to settle into a community and have Honduran co-workers and speak Spanish all day - all great things. The biggest unknown at this point is what neighborhood we'll live in - unfortunately our jobs are at opposite ends of the city so commuting will be tricky for at least one of us, and Tegucigalpa is renowned for its bad rush-hour traffic. We're planning a house-scouting trip after Christmas and will keep you all updated.

Christmas greetings and blessings to you all!

Thanksgiving and Christmas all wrapped up in one

Merry Christmas everyone! We are looking forward to our second Christmas here in Honduras, and anticipating a lot of changes to come in the next year. We'll write more about that in the next few weeks.... for now I wanted to add a few pictures and wish everyone a happy new year!

My mom and her friend Hugh came to visit during the last few weeks of November... we had a lot of fun showing them around and trying to give them a little taste of our Honduran life. Of course most of our collective highlights were food related: a Thanksgiving feast courtesy of MCC friends Josh and Maria (they also invited about 40 other community members and co-workers - an impressive feat), a fried tilapia lunch at Lago Yojoa, and an amazing pincho (shish-kabobs) lunch at our friends Mario and Melba's house. We spent time at the beach in Tela and then at the ruins in Copan. Good times were had by all, although I think our guests were more than happy that they didn't need to spend one more night in our small apartment, with less than hot water.


Maria gave a nice "this is why we're having an enormous lunch in the middle of a Thursday" explanation of Thanksgiving for friends and neighbors at the farm.

Mom and Hugh in the central park of San Pedro.

Mom and Marcos (in the middle with his cute granddaughter Paola on his lap) have the same birthday so we invited ourselves over to celebrate with some chocolate cake. The Flores family is maybe the most photogenic family I've ever met.

The delicious spread we had at Mario and Melba's house - chicken, sausage and beef pinchos, refried beans, encortido (hot pickled veggies), queso secco, and tortillas. Yum.


Friends Melba, Marcela, and Mario.

Hugh and Andrew doing a little balcony birding while we waited for our fried tilapia, which was delicious. Andrew is fast becoming a major bird enthusiast.

Mom and I at our hotel in Tela.

Our anniversary fell on Thanksgiving this year. That's right. 4 years.

I feel that an update is in order...
Andrew and I just got back from a great trip to Tegucigalpa. We met with several organizations that we're hoping to place one-year SALT volunteers with next year, two of which will be new placements.

It has been relatively dry for a while after the heavy rains of a few weeks ago. Shortly after the worst of the rains and mudslides we traveled with some Menno. church leaders from western Honduras to see some of the damaged areas and also to visit several temporary shelters where families whose communities were destroyed by the hurricanes were staying. The churches from that area wanted to get an idea of how many families were affected and what their short and long term needs were, and also just be a visiting presence. They came up with a count of around 120 families living in shelters. We spent some time talking with them and it was very sobering to think about the losses that they'd sustained - staying in schools and churches with no idea how long they'd be receiving emergency relief, not enough blankets and sleeping mats to go around, no idea of what the future holds for them. And it was cold up there! Rainy and windy the entire time. I was inspired by the local pastors' desire to love and care for their neighbors in need. They decided that the immediate needs could be met with blankets, soap, towels, rice and beans and some other staple foods, all put in buckets that could serve several purposes. They requested money for these resources from Mennonite Central Committee, which we took back to our MCC representatives. Unable to sleep easy, I also sent a few emails to my parents and others asking if they thought they or their churches would want to help... my mom got super on the ball and raised a bunch of money from her church and siblings, which will all go to MCC for the emergency relief buckets.

The whole experience was another reminder of what it means to be a person of privilege in this world. It's always the poor who are most affected by turbulent times and climate. Every night I go to bed in a dry place with a full belly. Sometimes Andrew and I can get worked up worrying about global warming or the economic crisis (will we ever find jobs when we go back? What's going to happen if bark beetles eat up all the trees in the West? What happens if crazy people in Nevada keep building hotels with fountains?? And golf courses!) But I have never gone to sleep with the same kinds of worries or uncertainties that many people face daily. I passed a kid sleeping on the sidewalk by himself yesterday that couldn't have been older than 7 or 8. Then I got to the office and read about AIG executives spending gross amounts of money that was given to them by our government. Where's the justice?

Graffiti in Gracias

Some graffiti at a construction site in Gracias, Lempira: The ancient voices tell us that we are children of the earth, and that mother (earth) can be neither sold nor rented.

Still raining!

It's still raining! Last night the rain started again with intensity... MCC friends who live an hour away were coming in to the city and the normally 1.5 hour bus ride stretched to 2.5 hours - the bus had to go around the flooded river and cross at a different point. One major river south of San Pedro, Rio Ulua, has flooded. Schools have been canceled, and everyone is waiting to see if the river closest to San Pedro, Rio Chamelecon, will also flood it's banks. If it does flood many colonias on the outskirts of the city will be inundated with water. However frustrating it may be, it seems like the only thing to do is watch and wait to see what happens... people seem prepared for this as everyone has dealt with flooding before. You can follow this link to read about the damage to other parts of the country.

The newspapers are calling this rain "El fantasma de Mitch", or "the ghost of Mitch", the major hurricane that destroyed much of Honduras' infrastructure in 1998. Hondurans seem to go by a pre-Mitch and post-Mitch calendar, referring to major events or contruction according to whether something happened before or after the devastating hurricane. We feel very fortunate to live on the second floor of a strong cinderblock structure. How strange it feels to stand on the balcony overlooking the street filled with rushing water, imagining the people living along the banks of the rivers who are no doubt fearing for their homes and maybe where they will end up sleeping tonight.

On a personal note, the flooding delayed my first day of teaching English at the Kid's Land Preschool and School, run by La Liga de Lactacion Materna (yes, that is exactly what it sounds like). After several months of hoping to find an organization to volunteer with during weeks when we are not hosting groups or traveling, I found out about this bilingual school looking for a volunteer to help with English classes. It is quite flexible and will work with my schedule and so I'm pretty excited to get started. They are wrapping up their school year soon so, so I'll mainly be reviewing what grades 2 - 7 (I'll meet with each class for about 45 minutes) should have learned this year.

This country is soaked

Rain has fallen without ceasing in San Pedro Sula since early last night. According to many locals more rain has fallen this month than in Octobers past, though I can't verify this information. No matter what, the country is soaked and the land is falling. This is particularly frightening for those who live in the poorest communities in the country, as they are the most vulnerable to mud slides.

As if that were not enough, Tropical Depression 16 is making its way across the north coast, dropping loads of rain in its path. Tomorrow it is supposed to hit San Pedro, and will dump at least 2 inches of rain with winds of 45 mph. This may not sound so bad, but with the earth already saturated this could be disastrous for many communities. San Pedro will be fine; it's those in and near the mountains and those in low-lying areas that will have the problems. Many homes flood with less than one inch. We'll keep you updated.

Is that the air??

A week ago last Thursday Andrew and I flew back to San Pedro after spending over two weeks in the states visiting friends and family... we spent a short day and a half in Albuquerque before driving to Hesston, KS with my dad and his wife Brenda to celebrate my gram's 95th birthday. This was the main reason for our trip and was definitely worth the effort. During the three-day birthday bash we caught up with the Linds, ate a lot of my aunt Marilyn's good food and, along with all my relatives, bid on Gram's quilts and other homemade quilty things... we were all given baggies with 50 dried beans for the auction. Gram wanted to see her treasures doled out to loved ones and wanted to have some fun while she was at it. There were minimal tears and I think we're all still friends.

We took Amtrak from Newton to Goshen (in my opinion the train is THE WAY to travel) and spent a good bit of time there staying with Andrew's parents and remembering what it's like to have a really active social life. We even made it to the MCC relief sale in Goshen where I was able to get my fill of apple fritters, sausages, and egg rolls. I savoured biking everywhere I needed to go (even at night!!!) and still feeling safe. It was a really great trip.

On the flight back "home" to San Pedro I was thinking about things that struck me as odd or notable about being in the states for a while. I felt inundated by politics and the fear of economic disaster... I probably shouldn't have watched so much news. I also saw the towns I call home in a new light - the streets looked cleaner and wider for one thing. After being accustomed to being among a gringo minority among the generally mestizo Honduras, I was struck by the incredible diversity of Chicago during our 3 hour train layover downtown. And then struck by the whiteness of my Goshen community, especially at the MCC relief sale. Despite a good trip it did feel good to get back here. As we stood and stretched with the other passengers aboard our TACA airlines plane at the end of our flight, the back door of the plane was opened, letting in a wall of hot, humid air that engulfed us all. The loud woman behind us was coming to Honduras for the first time to visit her Honduran in-laws with her husband and kids exclaimed loudly, ¨What is that smell?? Is that the air??!! Oh [explitive]! We're going to sweat our [different explitive] off here!"
Home sweet home.

Some photos of the birthday lady and one of her (4) identical cakes:

Más fútbol

Honduras continues its march towards the World Cup, having beat both Canada and Jamaica this week. From my understanding, one more win will guarantee a spot in the next round of World Cup qualifying matches.  Ramon Nunez (jumping, screaming) has caught fire, scoring three of the last four goals for the catracho (that's what they call Honduras) team.

...and I say hello

(From left: Liz Goering, Michael "Shakazulu" Wiebe-Johnson, Rachel Reed)

MCC recently welcomed three new SALTers to the growing Honduras team. So far, Liz, Michael, and Rachel have settled in nicely, and after next week's team meeting will begin one year of service in their placements.

Liz will be working as a teacher near Tegucigalpa at the Montana de Luz orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS.

Michael will be in La Campa with the Mennonite Social Action Commission, working as an environmental educator/eco-tourism specialist.
Rachel will work in the Nueva Suyapa neighborhood of Tegucigalpa with Stewardship of Christian Ministries as a micro-loan specialist.

Mapping our world

For any map geeks out there...

I've started a Google map with some important San Pedro Sula landmarks for MCCers and others who are interested. My eventual goal is to map out as many bus routes as possible, but that is a work in progress.

So, if you're curious, check out the interactive map below. (The only frustrating thing is that on the hybrid view, the streets do not line up.) You can also check out the larger map by clicking on the link below the map.


Ver mapa más grande

Honduras vs. Mexico

Honduras faced off against Mexico Wednesday in the next round of playoff games in the march towards qualifying for the World Cup. (I blogged about this once before here.) We happened to be in La Ceiba for the match, and were eager to watch the game in a crowd of Honduran fans. Our first stop was the popular and unfortunately named sports bar, Expatriates. It was too popular for us that night, so unsure of where else to go, we made our way over to the mall food court, where I knew there were at least a few TVs around. Turns out it was the place to be.

While soccer can make grown men cry, it can also make them pump their fists with joy. Below is a video taken after Honduras scored its only goal of the match.

They cheered just as loudly after every replay.

We made our exit before the game was over and upon arrival to our hotel we heard that Mexico had scored two goals within two minutes soon after we left. The final score was a depressing 2-1. According to my source (the guy at the front desk of the Hotel Canadien) Honduras must with 3 of the next 5 games to advance to the next round of the World Cup qualifiers . If not, we may find ourselves in a country of weeping macho men.

Honduras food issues on NPR

As a couple of people commented on the last blog entry, NPR is doing a series on food issues in Honduras. You can see and hear the most recent article here.

An interesting story behind this series: You may notice that the photos that appear on the site were taking by none other than MCC's very own Joshua Eley-McClain, who works on a tilapia farm owned by the MAMA project. Dan Charles, an NPR reporter and Mennonite from Washington, D.C., contacted MCC after his on-the-ground contact canceled on him at the last minute. Josh traveled around with him for a week Dan interviewed government officials, Monsanto big wigs and subsistence farmers.

One of the interesting things in this story for me is the bit about worms, and how they destroy crops that have not been genetically modified, but leave the corn with the worm-killing crops untouched. I have no doubt that yields have been substantially higher with genetically modified crops, but this is only a short-term solution. My understanding of basic evolutionary biology is that as the disease-resistant strains of corn get stronger, so do the worms. Like computer security, in which the good guys try to stay one step ahead of the hackers, modern-day farming is a continuous battle between nature and humans playing God. Eventually, the worms will win, and then there will be no harvest. Heirloom varieties of crops have been around forever, and developed naturally as the hardiest and most disease resistant. As genetically modified crop strains intermingle with heirloom varieties, or as industrial farming companies buy up heirloom strains (which they call "competitors"), crop biodiversity falls, leaving us with one strain to pin our hopes on.

When talking to a poor Honduran farmer, however, who is thinking of nothing but subsistence, these arguments are hard to make.

I want to make it clear that I'm neither a scientist, nor an agriculturalist, so I should probably tread lightly when writing about my take on these issues. I understand it is part of a larger, more complex conversation, and am just adding my two cents to the fray.

The miracle that is food

Food has been in the headlines recently, with food crises coming to a head in more than 40 different countries. Honduras, like every other developing country, has been effected dramatically by the increasing food costs. Many of the basics that Hondurans live on -- rice, beans, cooking oil -- have almost doubled in price from a year ago. Back then, people were stretching every last lempira. Now, many of the poorest are hardly getting by.

Haiti and Ethiopia seem to be two of the poorest hit countries, and we haven't personally seen scenes as tragic as families being forced to eat mudcakes, or drought-ravaged families having absolutely nothing. But the poor of Honduras are getting poorer, and somehow oil companies and food corporations, such as Monsanto, are just getting richer. (Don't be fooled by their sustainability pledge. It's a public relations scheme to offset their poor public image.)

There have been several excellent articles written that get to the heart of what is behind this current crisis, including this one from Sojourner's. Increased oil prices and climate-change reduced supply have been major players in the most recent increase, but the issue goes much deeper than that. For the last number of years, trade liberalization policies --pro-globalization policies -- have caused many countries to import much of the food the previously grew for themselves. Haiti, for example, used to be able to feed most of its people on native crops, such as ground nuts. Thanks to globalization, Haitians were able to buy food from the global buffet, as they were inundated with cheap staples from the US and other developed nations, where farm subsidies kept the prices artificially low. Now, as the price has gone up, Haitians not only can't afford the imported food, but they quit growing their own because it didn't make them any money. Now, they are hungry and without options.

True food security, which I consider one of the top issues arising so far this century, means a country can feed it's own people without the need to trade with other countries. Governments need to worry about feeding their own people and investing in small farmers and locally based agriculture. Many of the projects that MCC Honduras supports are centered on local, individual agriculture -- family gardens that can mean the difference between sustenance and famine.

Food security is an individual thing as well, and by growing as much of our own food as possible, we can increase the global food supply. The food supply is currently controlled by corporations who do not value biological diversity, environmental sustainability, or good taste. It's all about profits, and as many have written lately (such as in the book "The End of Food" by Thomas Pawlick), the current food system hangs dangerously on the edge of a cliff that is caving in. Food is a miracle, but it is a miracle that requires careful management before it is too late.

There is hope for a better future, but it comes with sacrifice. I have been inspired recently by the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," by Barbara Kingsolver. The book, which recounts Kingsolver's year of eating locally, Kingsolver challenged herself to grow all of her family's food for a year in her own yard. That which she did not grow, mostly meat, was purchased locally. It took work, but in the end she proved that she personally could grow all of their food for a year on a fourth of the land that it takes to grow food for the average processed-food eating American. That's good news for a globe that will someday have to feed 9 billion mouths. But this means that we don't support the overuse of fossil fuels in filling our plates. No more bananas, kiwis, pineapples, Alaskan salmon (unless you live in Alaska) -- fuel prices will continue to increase, the cost to the environment are just too high, and it supports the global corporate food machine. I have been forced to reevaluate my consumer food habits. But in the end, it's not that much of a sacrifice. Local food is fresher, tastier, and it supports farmers in the local economy. I wish I could go down to the Goshen farmer's market right now! I guess I'll just eat a banana instead.

You say goodbye....

It was two days ago now that Andrew and I drove two other MCC service workers to the airport to see them off, along with a few others who went along for the ride. It was a sad goodbye. Adam and Sarah were here a year, arriving just a few weeks before we did. Our team of 9 volunteers plus two small kids is now down to 7, although we'll soon be welcoming some newcomers this August. I guess this is the nature of doing service work in another country - you make as many local connections and friends as possible, but there is a certain comfort in the small community of other extanjeros that are going through the same experience of being a foreigner; living and working within a different cultural context. And the community by nature is ever changing as new people come and other people finish their terms and leave.

Adam and Sarah will be missed by us, but also by the host families that they spent the entire year with, the organizations they worked for and the churches they attended. This experience continues to teach me the value of community... sometimes I still feel isolated here, but am always grateful for the small MCC community here, as well the slowly deepening feeling of community we have with our local church and friends here in San Pedro. We are social animals! We all need a herd! But more than just "being" around people, community is sharing food, ideas, concerns and hardships, questions, struggles, how we experience the divine, and of course the occasional random chat.

Maria and Sarah at Sarah and Adam's farewell pizza dinner... their "despedida".


Sarah and Adam with all their stuff packed and ready to head to the airport. Adam holding up fairly well despite the fact that he had dengue fever at this point and was advised not to travel.


Andrew and I with our friend Julia from Tegucigalpa (capitol city of Honduras). She spent a week with us while she was on vacation from school: fun for us, perhaps a tad boring for her as we go to bed a little earlier than the average university student.

¿Y la tercera?

Sometimes I feel as if my landlady comes around just to find something to yell at me about, usually involving my inability to correctly lock the huge gate that guards our apartment.

Recently, when I was leaving in the middle of the day, she was parked right outside the door and watched me as I double locked the gate. I said hello, she she stared at me like I was an idiot and simply said, "Y la tercera?" And the third lock? So I stuck my key in and turned it once more for a good solid triply bolted lock.

Then, last evening, she was parked inside the gate talking to the young man who guards the apartment complex at night. We were helping some friends move their suitcases from their car to our house, and since she was standing right by the door with the guy who is responsible for locking up, I simply closed the gate without bothering to lock it. I figured she was about to leave. But, no; she beckoned me back.

"Do you know why you have to lock this door?" she asked.

"Ummm...yes. Because someone could get in."

"Right. So why didn't you lock it?"

"Because you were ready to leave and I figured David would lock up after me," I replied, though it probably sounded more like, "The locking might have taken place upon the departure you might have been making in the near future by the watchmen who has the name of David."

"He'll just forget," she said about poor David. And then, even more condescendingly, "Show me how you lock it."

I could hardly believe my ears. Is this third grade? I guess I do talk like a third grader around her, since she makes me so nervous. But seriously. Show her how I lock it?

Never mind the fact that in our same yard, in front of the apartments being built, anyone could hop over the fence in a matter of seconds.

Anyway, I was so mad I decided to complain for a while about the ceiling fan in our bedroom thatshe still hasn't fixed. She just told me she doesn't have time and doesn't want to buy one. At least I wasted twenty minutes of her time babbling.

So, I realized, my landlady makes me feel like a moron, and refuses to fix things: Is this just a glimpse of the life of a Latino renter in Goshen?

In and around the apartment

The sunset behind the Merendón mounatin range on the outskirts of San Pedro.

Amanda and my morning ritual...coffee straight from the mountain.

Two of the construction workers working on a building in our complex.

San Pedro Sula, 5 a.m.

This morning we said goodbye to Jen and Miriam, with only a small mishap. The taxi we had confirmed last night failed to show up, and when I called the dispatcher he was unable to locate any taxis. So we jumped in the car and raced to the terminal to catch their 6 a.m. bus. And in my haste to leave I didn't realize that the door was locked, stranding poor Amanda on the balcony. At least she had the hammock.

It's been a while since I'd been up this early, but it's well worth it. This is the east-facing view off of our balcony.

A few images

Miriam Miller, Peter Moyer, Amanda, and Jen Eberly in front of the waterfall at Pulhapanzak Falls.

A lizard, hanging out on a rock by the falls.

A restaurant in the food court at the bus terminal in San Pedro. My question is, What is that weird green thing with it's arm around the Mexican dude?

The ceiling in one of the city busses we take into the office. This refurbished school bus may have taken little Andrew to middle school once upon a time.

A nice mural

Jen Eberly, our vistior and friend from Goshen, in front of one of the murals in the cathedral in San Pedro Sula.

Fútbol (Soccer)

There really is no US equivalent to a Central American soccer game. Hondurans are nuts for their World Cup team -- La Selección -- which has the best chance of qualifying for the World Cup since the 80's. Last night I had the privilege of freezing my butt off watching the first qualifying match between Honduras and Puerto Rico. Fun, but miserable.

The rain began about 5:30, as I and two other men from the church were entering the stadium, and it didn't stop for the entire five hours we spent standing in the back of the bleachers. The game was supposed to begin at 7:30, but they waited until 8:30 to see if field conditions would improve. They didn't; the field was just an hour soggier, but they gave it a go anyway. It was ugly, with the players slipping and sliding all over the muddy pitch, but Honduras pressed on victorious, 4-0. The fans got what they wanted. All I wanted was for them to cancel the game.

What is it about people -- let's be honest -- about men that makes them sit out for hours in pelting rain to watch a bunch of other men kick around a ball for a while?

¡Viva la Selección!

Street kids and photos

Over the last few months I have become accustomed, and almost calloused, to the presence of very young children living in the streets. I was reminded of this when we were traveling around last week with some Mennonite church leaders from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. (You can see some photos of the trip here.) One of the participants, Nelly Rivera, commented on a little girl standing in the middle of a dirt road near Choloma. She said that if this were Puerto Rico, she would have called child protective services. I remember having those same thoughts about six months ago, when we passed a little boy in only a diaper playing with a hammer and nails that were left out on the front stoop of a house. I assume that boy's parents were around somewhere, but this little kid was in a dangerous situation, and no one took any notice.

Just yesterday we were walking to church when we caught up to a young boy -- probably 9 or 10 -- limping down the sidewalk. We stopped and asked him what happened to his foot, and he showed me where a piece of glass had imbedded itself in the middle of his foot. He had no shoes, and his ratty shorts and shirt were about falling off. Where did he come from? Where are his parents? Sadly, chances are he will look for a home, and will find it in one of the many street gangs.

I feel overwhelmed by poverty, and particularly when vulnerable small children are left on the streets to fend for themselves. I don't have any answers for this troubling reality of life in Central America. But I pray that I don't let these images of poverty harden me any more than they already have.

On a cheerier note, here are some more pictures of our trip with our most recent visitor, LaRita Craft. She just finished her master's in piano at University of Missouri at Kansas City, and celebrated with a trip around Honduras.

A Catch-up List...

The highs and lows of our first Honduran summer so far:

Highs:
1. We've been traveling a lot for work lately - we made it to the beautiful little town of La Campa to check out where one of the new short-term MCCers will live and work next year with an organization called CASM (Mennonite Social Action Commission). We bumped around in the back of a truck for two days visiting some very small mountain communities, made it to a ribbon-cutting ceremony of sorts (one community we visited was celebrating the completion of many small metal silos that they will use to store their corn crops), and hiked up to a waterfall in protected rain forest. Click Here to view some pictures.

2. We had an MCC team meeting in Tegucigalpa for a few days - it was great to spend a few days with everyone AND we made it to a Guillermo Anderson concert in San Juancito. I am officially a fan.

3. During a day trip for some meetings in La Ceiba, a woman I'd met during our first few months here complimented me on my improvement in Spanish. This was a pretty big deal for me. I treated myself to an ice cream afterwards.

4. Andrew's birthday was the first weekend of this month and there was much celebration. We made vegetarian groundnut stew for MCC friends, enjoyed some air-conditioning at the mall with some Honduran friends, and spent almost 3 hours trying to figure out a few chords with the church choir. And then we had cake.

5. Our Goshen friend LaRita finished up grad school in Kansas City this month and decided to celebrate by spending a week with us! We spent some time with MCC friends Josh and Maria at their farm, went on an early morning birding trip at Lago Yojoa, and got in some good beach time so she could show off her early summer Honduran tan when she gets back home.

6. There has recently been an energized movement for peace in San Pedro. We see bumper stickers distributed by the local paper, La Prensa, that read "Recuperemos La Paz" (Let's restore the peace) all over the city, and there was recently a large peace march that went through the center of the city. After my last post on the violence that is so prevalent in the media and in the minds of people here it's been really refreshing to experience the excitement around peaceful change.

7. When LaRita came she brought us dark chocolate, a french press coffee maker, and new flip flops that I'd ordered. Awesome.

Lows:
1. It is just pretty darn hot and hazy around here. The temperature doesn't let up much at night and I am sweating more than I ever thought possible. The dry season is stretching on longer than normal, and the skies have been hazy for weeks as farmers have been burning last year's crops to get ready to plant. We took a hike up the mountains on the edge of the city and from there we could barely see the city through the haze. First people said the rains should come around the 15th, which has come and gone. Farmers in La Campa told us that the rains used to start like clockwork right around the 3rd of May... this knowledge of the changing climate did not help Andrew's and my global warming paranoia.

2. We've both been sick a bit on and off - I blame the heat and also that mysterious salad I ate at the bus terminal a few weeks ago.

As you can see, the highs are outweighing the lows so things are pretty good in general. I am "casually" looking for a second volunteer-type position to help keep myself busy when we are not traveling with groups or planning for groups. We will be meeting a group of church leaders from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic tomorrow at the Nicaraguan border to lead a learning tour of Honduran Mennonite organizations this next week. Seven whole days of nothing but Spanish! Andrew put together some favorite Honduran pictures on our Picasa site. Click here to view them (some might be repeats).

Life and Death in San Pedro

In some ways yesterday was just an average day in San Pedro... Andrew and I went about our daily routine in the hot and bustling city center; keeping relatively cool and removed in the MCC office. The following two events shook me up and caused me to reflect on what exactly IS an ordinary day in San Pedro, and reminded me once again that I'm not in Indiana anymore.

1. After over a month of not being able to meet up with my Spanish teacher, Veronica, we finally had a class yesterday afternoon. Because of my frequent traveling for work and her jam-packed schedule, it is rare that we are able to have class at all - hence my original purchase of 30 hours of classes stretching out over the span of 5 months now. I entered the school to find everything changed - new secretarial staff and the furniture rearranged. When Veronica arrived 10 minutes later I found out the reasons behind the changes and also why we hadn't been able to meet for so long. She told me that a month ago, during our usual class time and on a day when our class had been canceled because she had been unable to come, the school had been robbed and the owner of the school had been stabbed and killed at her desk. I had remained clueless to this tragic event mainly because I had left San Pedro for two weeks and hadn't read the papers. Sometimes I don't read the paper here just because it's often depressingly filled with news of tragic events that happen so often. This opens my eyes yet again not only to the violence that has become so commonplace, but also to the undercurrent of fear that people live with here. This is why most businesses have armed guards and why our apartment is surrounded by a huge wall topped with razor wire. Violence seems to go uninvestigated by the underpaid city police force.

Rumors are circulating that this seemingly random act of violence was not random after all, and actually instigated by someone connected with the school - some kind of personal vendetta. If so, is this kind of violence the Central American counterpart to the sue-happy culture of the U.S.? Maybe so, in a culture where the legal and political systems cannot be counted upon.

On a lighter note...
2. Later in the afternoon Andrew and I took the Ruta 7 bus to try and figure out where the route goes. We went past the Texaco station, one of the Universities, some fancy neighborhoods and some desolate looking ones. While stopped at a red light I saw a horse tied up to a fence next to a ditch - a familiar sight. The horse was licking what appeared to be a very new and very wet colt. My eyes traveled beyond the young one and saw long strands of afterbirth and red guck still hanging from the new mama's back end. This was not such a familiar sight for this city-born girl, and I stood up to watch the nature-show-worthy scene, along with the other right-side sitting passengers of the Ruta 7. Here we were, sitting and sweating it out on the dusty hot intersection and a scene of gross natural beauty was right there among the bustling traffic. I couldn't help feeling sad for this horse, having to give birth tied to a fence post in the San Pedro heat with no shade in sight. And more than a little worried that the newborn would eventually wander into oncoming traffic... but I guess these things have a way of working themselves out. I so often feel bad for animals around here, but life is just kind of rough. For everyone. Dogs and horses and chickens included.

Question: do I have more compassion for animals than people? I am reminded of a recent David Sedaris story in the New Yorker to the effect that similar sentiments are quite common - after Hurricane Katrina a lot of people sent money to help save trapped animals, not people. More questions to follow as this is getting obnoxiously long.

Health care

A week ago today I woke up with an annoying little tickle in my throat. Over the weekend, it turned in to a full-fledged something, and Sunday I woke up with a fever of about 101.3 F. I haven't had a fever like that in a while, but I may call it the most miserable fever of my life, considering that the temperature in our room was not much less than it was in my head. Between Saturday evening and most of Monday my temperature hovered between 100 and 101.
So, on Monday I decided it was time to go to the doctor. Marcos Flores, the Honduran office assistant, took me to a diagnostic clinic first, where they took blood and urine samples. At 3:30, once the results were ready, I picked them up and headed to Heber Flores's health clinic. Heber, Marcos's nephew, attends the Mennonite Church here in San Pedro and operates a sliding scale health clinic.

Anyway, the tests were normal, so had me hop up onto the exam table, where he quickly deduced the beginnings of a throat infection. "Strep?" I asked. "We'd have to do a test, and the results won't be available for a few days," he said. "We better just give you antibiotics. Do you prefer pills or injections?"

Easy.

"Pills."

"Really? The injections work much faster." It was a direct attack on my manhood.

I agreed to the injection.

"So drop your pants."

I hadn't agreed to this. But before I knew it, he was shoving a needle right into my left butt-cheek.

"There, much better," he said. "Now just come back tomorrow for the second one."

So, two soar butt cheeks later my throat infection is miraculously cured.

Also, on a health-care related note, while I was in Azacualpa last weekend I accompanied an injured Adam Lawrence, one of the SALT volunteers, to the sobador, the gentleman who rubs and cracks soar joints. It was fascinating -- he was a shirtless older gentleman with a cowboy hat, and an eternal smile on his face. He sat Adam down on a ratty old chair and his family gathered around as he took a glob of Icy Hot, and slowly started massaging the ankle that Adam turned while playing soccer. After numbing it up, he cracked it multiple times. Adam seemed to feel a little better

Before we arrived I had considered having him look at the joint where my leg meets my hip that was bothering me after the previous night's soccer game. After watching him smear icy hot all over Adam's leg, and imagining him massaging close to my crotch, I decided against it. My leg felt better instantly.

A note on melons

As you have probably heard, cantaloupes exported from Honduras have been accused of causing a salmonella outbreak that has affected 50 people. The FDA has essentially banned cantaloupe import, at least from the company responsible, which has major ramifications for the cantaloupe export industry. The Honduran government has responded to this crisis in various ways: earlier this week, Honduran president Mel Zelaya was interviewed on CNN and broke open a melon, cut a slice, and proceeded to feast on it without fear; yesterday, three top Honduran officials traveled to Washington to fight the ban.

So while North Americans are fearing death by melon, some Honduran workers are fearing death by starvation. Ok, that's a little dramatic, but according to yesterday's newspaper, 1,800 employees have already been laid off. In a country whose major economic activity is exporting, one anomaly in the market can be almost catastrophic, at least for the people who are absolutely dependent on the foreign market for their livelihood.

Perhaps this warrants a comment on export in general. In February, Amanda and I had the opportunity to visit the largest shipping port in Central America, just up the road from San Pedro Sula in Puerto Cortez. As I said before, Honduras is an export country. It ships coffee, bananas, pineapples, watermelons, cantaloupes, clothing, mangoes, car harnesses, papayas, grapefruit, plantains, and much more all over North America and Europe.

Environmentally, those are a lot of miles of shipping.

Economically, Honduras is absolutely dependent on the markets in other countries.

If the coffee market is flooded with cheap coffee from Asia, Honduran farmers make nothing. If the banana crop is wiped out by a hurricane, the country takes a major economic blow. What does it mean, as a North American, to be tied to Central America in this way? Our tastes and whims have such a direct effect on families in Honduras being able to eat, yet we don't know much about where our food and consumer products actually comes from -- the faces behind those who sew our shirts and pick our mangoes. When you meat a struggling coffee farmer who pleads with you to buy fairly traded coffee, it demands a new sense of urgency. By choosing to not buy fairly traded coffee, I'm essentially telling him that his life is not worth the few dollars more per pound I would have to pay. All of our consumer choices have a direct effect on actual people, and this realization has been haunting me, and will continue to haunt me as I begin to rethink my consumer choices now and in the future.

Hondurans in New Orleans

There is a nice article on the MCC news website about a group of Hondurans and Guatemalans who spent two weeks in New Orleans volunteering for Mennonite Disaster Service, helping to construct homes and sharing common experiences of hope after a hurricane. Click here to read the article.

The Canadians came and went

Our first big learning tour is over and we are still in the "well, what do we do now?" stage of our recovery. The whole trip went well; we had a great group of participants from the Canadian Food Grains Bank, and I think Andrew and I learned more in a little over two weeks than in the last few months. The focus of the trip was on food security and was advertised as a "food, faith and justice" tour. Some highlights:

1. Playing soccer with the youth group from the Mennonite church in Tegucigalpa - kind of an embaressing show from us gringos, but fun - I've been wanting to play soccer since we got here.
2. A visit to AFE - Amor, Fe y Esperanza (love, faith, and hope) - this is the school started for children living in the dump which Andrew wrote about before. There is something very special about this place of hope in the midst of so much despair. We got in some more good soccer with the kids there that afternoon and the visit was a highlight for many of the participants.
3. A lecture on the geo-political history of Honduras by a rivetting professor of history from Tegucigalpa, Don Mario. He hosted us on his back porch and wowed us for a good hour and a half until we were thoroughly late for dinner.
4. Visiting rural coffee farms up in the mountains near Guatemala during the harvest. A Honduran organization called CASM (Mennonite Social Action Committee) is working with farmers to help them diversify their farms and use innovative technologies such as vermiculture (worm composting) and biodigesters in order to move towards sustainability and organic production. Very cool. We stayed in a little "eco-hotel" for 3 nights (they should call it an eco-cabin really), I hardly got any sleep, but it was worth it to get up into the fresh air and take a 5-hour horseback ride that skirted the Guatemalan border and made my rump sore for two days.
5. Nightly reflection, discussion, singing (in English!), and prayer with this group of thoughtful young people, all from different faith traditions and walks of life. We were challenged by our visits and speakers to consider our role as North Americans in the issues of globalization, corporate farming, free trade and cheap labor, and poverty. This has left me still feeling unsettled and questioning our own role here, but I suppose that is a good thing.
6. We got in some good game playing and I'm going to go ahead and take some credit for spreading the Dutch Blitz love further North, including "The Rock".

Some questions:
1. How can someone not like beans?
2. Why did I never learn Canadian geography as a child?
3. Can a two week, intensive cultural learning experience change life-long decisions and habits? Going along with our speaker Kurt ver Beek (we have a link to his website and work on long-term affects of short-terms missions under "related links") and assuming a big "No" to that question, how can we move towards meaningful and lasting change?

I have many more questions, which all add to my unsettled feelings these days. On a personal note, I'm also hoping to find a good place where I can volunteer my afternoons or mornings that fits in with our sporatic travel schedule. When we are busy we are really really busy, and when we're not, we're just not.

Semana Santa is around the corner! We're looking forward to hosting travelers from my home church in Portland, painting the office, and celebrating Easter and fellow MCCer Adam's birthday with an Easter Feaster extravaganza. Pictures of our travels with Canadians and Easter Feaster to come at a later date.

Photos, photos, photos

It's been a busy couple of months here in San Pedro. We are preparing for our first major learning tour, comprised of youth from the Canadian Food Grains Bank who will be spending two weeks studying food security issues in Honduras. We'll take them all over the country, from Tegucigalpa; to El Cajón near Lago Yojoa; to Azacualpa, Santa Barbara; and, finally, San Pedro Sula. We'll visit a clothing factory, the world's largest Tilapia exporter, farm projects in the mountains, a women's rights organization, the Canadian International Development Agency office, and much more. We'll also probably be incomunicado for a while.

Here are two photo albums of some highlights from the last month:

Click here for pictures of our good friends Joel Cano and Vanessa Flores at their wedding on the beach.

Here are some pictures of our first work and learn team, five folks from First Mennonite Church of Bluffton. We spent most of the week assisting with various building projects at the Mennonite Church in La Lopez Arellano, just north of San Pedro Sula.

Searching for food and dignity

In the mountains outside of Tegucigalpa there is a community that lives among the rats, cows, dogs, gang members, drug addicts, alcoholics, and glue sniffers in the municipal dump. Every day hundreds of trucks dump waste from all corners of the city, and children fight the buzzards for scraps of food, and each other for bits of metal or plastic to recycle for a few lempiras. The scene is almost unimaginable. A man approached us and opened his shirt to show how cancer had eaten away part of his chest; an 8-year-old girl in a camouflage hat was the dirtiest human being I have ever encountered; a young man with a few teeth hanging on giddily played for me the harmonica he just found in the piles of trash.

No human being should ever have to be subjected to this sort of undignified existence.

The hope in the midst of this chaos is a school called Amor, Fe, y Vida -- Love, Faith, and Life. For seven years, Jeony, a mild-mannered Methodist pastor with a huge heart and a head full of dreams, has developed a school for the children who live in and around the dump with hopes of sending them on to something better. The hope is that they will at least graduate from sixth grade, the mandatory level of schooling for Honduran youth. At least a few have graduated from high school and have gone on to technical schools. Jeony hopes many will go on to university and come back to help teach others who call the dump their home. Above all, however, they hope to teach the kids that they are loved by and are dignified through God

There is no way to sum up what we saw today in a few paragraphs. But swirling around in my mind is the haunting call to action Joeny left us with. He said that his years working at the dump have taught him that there is a difference between pity and compassion. Pity means you get back in your car, go home to your warm house and forget what you saw, or consider it a hopeless cause. Compassion means you ask every day, "What more can I do?" If nothing else, there is always prayer. He said that before he started with the people at the dump he didn't have anything to pray for after 15 minutes or so of devotions. Now he has over 1,000 reasons to pray -- all the people who call the dump their home.

Joeny's project is documented here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWn4zkND0mc

Help take a bite out of crime

In the last two weeks I have had two run-ins with the Honduran police, a jumpy bunch, if I do say so myself. First, early last week after dropping off a group from Bluffton, Ohio, at their hotel, I was pulled over less than half a block from our apartment after apparently stopping at an intersection where there was no stop sign. Guilty as charged, I'll admit, if that is a crime. Actually, it was more of a rolling stop in fear that the car speeding towards me on the cross street was not going to observe his stop sign. Anyway, four young motorcycle cops (one of them 20 -- I asked him, much to Amanda's chagrin) with machine guns stopped me and asked me in quiet, quick Spanish for my license, which I handed over. And my passport, which I did not have on me. Apparently this is a worthy crime in Honduras, and, as one of the cops reminded me, if a Honduran in the states was caught without a passport he would be deported immediately. So we waited in silence. And waited. Stared at the sky. Waited. After fifteen minutes, with a few failed attempts at small talk, they said the were going to forgive me this time. They let me drive the half a block to my house, watched as we pulled in to the gate, and sped off to catch other criminals.

Then two nights ago, after a nice dinner with the same group in the swankier part of town, I was caught heading the wrong way down a dark street that suddenly became one-way. A truckload of policemen was right there, as if waiting for a confused gringo. Another young cop took my license and asked me to exit the car to talk with his supervisor, who explained to me that he was going to write me a ticket, like they do in the states. I accepted my fate and asked to clarify exactly the process. According to the Honduran book of traffic laws, if a driver is caught violating a traffic law, the police officer is to withhold the driver's license, and the lawbreaker must go to the bank to pay the fine to reclaim his license. This police officer, however, told me that it would be easier to just pay the fine on the spot so I don't have to stand in line at the bank. I told him that I would prefer to pay at the bank, as that is the proper way. He used a different tack. "Well maybe you'd like to help us pay for the gas for this truck." Again, I told him I'd prefer the bank option. Somehow I maintained my composure, and actually spoke fairly decent Spanish, while the young cop on my right was carelessly swinging his machine gun back and forth. After looking at my license a little longer he told me he would forgive without a ticket. I thanked them, stepped back into the car, took a few deep breaths, and took off towards the hotel.

Obviously, in each situation the police officers were hoping for a bribe, affectionately called a mordida -- literally a bite. People here live in fear of the police. My luck has been due largely to the fact that I'm a gringo, and the police and I both know that this entails certain leverage. An average Honduran does not have the luxury of reporting abuse to the most powerful embassy in the world. What would it do to your psyche to know that reporting a crime is useless, because many of the police have been paid off by the criminals? Corruption at this level contributes to what I would call anarchy -- lawlessness, caused by the fact that there is no one to turn to. In these instances I have merely tasted the fear immigrants in the states feel towards the police, not to mention the anxiety that Hondurans feel on a daily basis.

"Ese no es espaguetis" (This is not spaghetti)

I thought this story would be worth sharing...

The other evening we walked home from the office after a long day of orienting, translating (mostly Andrew), and traveling around the city with a group of folks visiting from a church in Ohio. We were pretty tired, didn't have much food in the fridge and so had decided to just eat out for a change. It wasn't until we'd already reached the large blue wall topped with razor wire surrounding our apartment that we noticed the family sitting inside their truck parked out front, waving and smiling at us. It was our new friends, Román and Delmy and two of their four small kids, Aby and Román (junior - otherwise known as Románcito - possibly the cutest kid ever). They live about 30 minutes away and had been parked out front for over an hour waiting for us to get home. We felt pretty honored - so far friend-making and hanging out with Hondurans has been slow to happen, besides the casual meeting people that happens at church. It's hard to know how to get to know people better when the formal inviting people over for dinner or out to do something doesn't seem to happen as much in this culture. So we'd finally been "dropped-in" on and we were pretty excited.

We rushed to invite them up to our apartment and do all the right things - including running out to the nearest pulperia to buy sodas since all we usually have around is water. I thought it would freak them out if Andrew were to help me cook so I knew it was up to me - what to make? My choices were beans and rice or pasta. I chose pasta, since making beans and rice for Hondurans is just too intimidating - surely they would not be impressed with my gringafying of their native cuisine. So I whipped up the usual veggie marinara sauce that I usually make and some bow-tie pasta, the only kind we had around. In the process I made the dire mistake of telling the kids, who were watching me with great interest, that I was making spaghetti.

Finally I had it all together, served in a bowl, Honduran-style with toast stacked on a little plate. Plastic chairs were pulled in from outside, small children were put on cushions so their chins were at least even with our awkwardly-tall table, when I noticed Románcito was sitting there looking pretty devastated. He whispered to his dad "pero ¿dónde está la comida?" (but where is the food?)

His father kindly tried to explain that the strange looking geometrical blobs covered in red stuff mixed with distateful vegetables was actually made out of the same thing as his beloved noodles. And that the sauce was actually not that different from ketchup. I couldn't help laughing as the poor little guy wrinkled up his face, examined a few bow-ties up close and almost broke out in tears. Actually everyone got a pretty big kick out of it (excluding Románcito - who eventually did eat toast and cheese, but only after his sister assured him that it was, in fact, real cheese), and despite making a small child cry with my cooking I felt really good about the evening. In a small way it felt like we'd finally arrived. And it made a last impression - his parents later told us that the next morning at breakfast little Román said, "Amanda no me dió espaguetis..." (Amanda didn't give me spaghetti)

San Pedro turned cold overnight on Tuesday. I´m sitting here in the MCC office actually wearing a sweater AND socks - it feels a little like Goshen in October.

I´m suffering from some post-friend, post-Christmas, post-beach blues. We had a really great Christmas, made special by an overnight visit from our friends Maria and Josh, and celebrating Christmas eve with Marcos and his family.

The infamous Tasara Redekopp, former roommate and Goshen College amiga, arrived on the 27th for our first official more-than-overnight friend visit. We had a fabulous time giving her a 5-day mini tour of Northern Honduras; spending a little time exploring San Pedro, bussing out to the beautiful beach in Tela for two nights, then heading south near Lago Yojoa to spend New Year´s Eve (and Maria´s birthday) with other MCCers Callie, Caleb, and Josh and Maria at their farm in El Cipres. Click here to see a few more pictures (we hope to add some of Tasara´s soon). We ate a lot of good food, Tasara soaked in some much needed vitamin D and even bought some art.

We decided to take a tour boat out to Punta Sal, a national park outside of Tela. The day-long trip included a big fried fish lunch, complete with tajadas and beans and rice (typical north-coast fare). When Andrew made reservations for us over the phone he thought to mention that Tasara is a vegetarian and wondered if they had vegetarian options. Alex, who we met later and turned out to be our tour-guide, paused over the phone and then said, "what they will do Andres, they will give you the plate, and take off the fish." Another highlight was when Tasara and I were having trouble getting back on to the boat in thigh-high water that was getting choppier by the minute, and Alex tried to heave Tasara log-throwing style onto the boat. Marvin, the boat capitan who was much blessed with impressive muscles, saved the day and literally swept us off our feet, and before we knew it we had both been deposited safely inside. There was much cheering. There was less chearing on the jarring boat ride back when Marvin continued to go top-speed through the choppy waves and I had to hang on for dear life.