Las Palabritas

The last couple of weeks here have been kind of crazy. Honduras has been undergoing some serious political issues. In case Michael Jackson has taken priority over Honduras in your news, I’ll recap.

Former president Mel Zelaya had been pushing a public inquiry to open the constitution to change in a way many suspected would be similar to Venezuelan Hugo Chavez’ recent changes (highly left-wing, but also with a clause to allow him to run for president again). On the day that the inquiry was to happen, Honduran military took Zelaya to Costa Rica and Roberto Micheletti (presidential candidate in recent caucus) was put into power by Congress. Zelaya and Chavez threw threats of war around for a couple of days then settled to push Zelaya’s reinstatement through the Organization of American States (OEA). Zelaya also went to the UN, where he found support. From what it looked like on the TV, protests for and against the new government were raging in the biggest cities around the country. Lastimosamente, one or two protesters were killed by police when Zelaya tried to fly in to Tegucigalpa last week. Since then, aid money to Honduras has been delayed and there have been vague threats of trade/oil embargos which do a fairly good job of striking fear into rural people. Zelaya has said that he is going to appear in Honduras sometime soon.

Though life goes on as usual, it has been a pretty frightening experience out here in La Campa. I think that’s mostly because being so far away from all the action and straining all day to hear reports of anything on the radio really gets your imagination going. I went to San Pedro Sula over one weekend that looked a little dicey, but the 10pm to 6am curfew made sleeping downtown feel like La Campa, minus the roosters.

Zelaya was taken out on a Sunday. Similar to Amanda and Andrew’s experience, church that day was very good to me. A guest speaker preached an uplifting message of hope and faith because as Christians, our citizenship is of heaven, not of any country, and we know that God is with us. During the church service, I couldn’t stop looking at the plump, smiling, wide-eyed babies all around me. It weighs on my heart that this event is and will continue to provoke a massive uncertainty for the future of those babies. What does this mean for their education? For their life opportunities, slim as they may be? Will they be like the children of Baghdad, six years old and unaware of an empowered life, always subject to the whim of a random bomb or rocket attack?

Thankfully, protests have not become seriously violent. As always, we are reminded to pray for the future and these children. The national (and global) divide between the ultra-rich and the rest as well as their grip on politics and the economy continue to grow. All of this leaves room for plenty of incertidumbre, a good, awkward word to describe feelings of unsureness.

As I prepare to leave, I find myself looking into the eyes of my Honduran friends and trying to push away that shadowy, persistent demon of incertidumbre. And then we talk and the bond of life, joy, friendship, love, and hope starts shining and brightening between us.

Gente Digital

Hey! I haven't been able to post pictures in months, and now that I am able to, I only have a few to post. :/ They are from a camp training session I went to for counselors, we will be hosting close to 1000 youth in over 30 camps/trainings in the region in the next two months. They are a good crew and I'm looking forward to it :)

The point of the camps is to train youth to be future community leaders. There is a focus on developing critical thinking skills, an idea of gender equality, and skills to organize and develop community.

Fotos

I have not yet made progress on talking with church leaders, but its definitely in my mind. Currently I am in San Pedro Sula at the MCC office with Liz, Caleb, and Bikemovent gurus Jon Spicher and Lars Akerson (americas.bikemovement.org). They just made chocolate icing to use on our banans in a bit. It'll be wonderful :) A special shout-out thanks goes to Jenny Hostetler, who sent Jon a bar of wonderful dark chocolate.

¡La Feria del Fuego!

This last week my parents have been visiting me. Their visit coincided with the annually occuring biggest event in La Campa, the Feria. People had told me for months that the Feria is crazy, that thousands of people (tens of thousands by recent estimate), people from San Pedro Sula, Tegucigalpa, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador, descend on the 500 person town of La Campa. Food, candy, and clothing vendors had been throwing tarp over wooden frames and displaying their goods on tables for weeks in anticipation, catching diminishing hours of sleep as the people flooded in. Because of the impossible logistics of providing shelter and sanitation services for 40 times a town`s normal population, Feria pilgrims slept under their own small sheets of plastic, under their trucks, on the street, or they didn`t sleep at all. A large hole had been dug across the river for defecation, but since it was a few minutes walk from the party and one would likely have at least a couple of simultaneously squatting neighbors, many instead opted for unoccupied patches of grass or dirt around town.

Its been like this for a long time. Saint Matthew, the patron saint of the local colonial church, has been performing miracles for a long time too, the lore of which (and the photo-wall in the church!) attract people far and wide by the horse, truck, bus, and big truck-load. I participated in the march of Saint Matthew around town, where all of La Campa`s old women get together and carry half-meter wooden Saint Matthew on a litter all around the town, singing repetative, enchanting songs about him. The procession follows a ways back, regularly complemented by a home-made rocket flying crazily from a mortar then two pockets of gunpowder ricocheting sucessive blasts off the canyon wall. The walk is only 600 meters long, but walking reverently up and down the mountain at the pace of old women weighed down with San Matias keeps us going for about an hour.

Later on, once my parents had arrived, there were guancascos, when catholic and indigenous customs meet. I found myself being passed by one of these processions one day, headed up by an intimidating-looking masked dancer holding a stick with a wooden lizard hanging from it. At night, these masked dancers and their lizards met the toro del fuego (bull of fire) in the area in front of the church. A volley of the same unpredictable home-made rockets and several more elaborate fireworks announced the meeting as they were launched from the hands of a group of young men on the church roof. The toro del fuego was a guy with a long tent-shaped thing on his head who jumped around the meeting place with the masked lizard-dancers while more fireworks were sent off. A few minutes later the fireworks from the church roof had stopped, but the toro del fuego was dropping military-sized firecrackers behind him and daring them to blast him as he performed his frenzied dance around their burning wicks. Soon a sparkler lit up on the side of the toro and, to my parents` and my shock, proceeded to launch several rounds of rockets from the top of the toro into the starry night sky. The combination of extremes made it the most exciting fireworks show I have ever seen.

The next day, a Honduran cowoker let me know that during celebrations in her village, the children love making their own toro del fuego. Apparently its great, but I was told that they have to be careful, because it can be dangerous! Who knew?

Public Fruit

I just posted some pictures too; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001279&l=fd945&id=1161480074

One thing that I really love about being back in the tropics is great access to fresh, local fruit. Fruit is often public here. There are guayaba trees ripe with fruit that line the road in places, just waiting for a traveler to take a bite. Behind the guayaba trees are fences or walls which attempt to hide lush ayote (squash) vines, corn stalks, banana, orange, lemon, and mango trees. Basically everyone in rural areas produces their own food either right next to their house or somewhere nearby.

Yesterday I went paseando (a favorite past time involving walking to friends houses to sit, talk, and enjoy some coffee with bread) with Cristina, the jefa of CASM, La Campa. We hitched a ride up the hill to her cousin`s house. After briefly catching up, Cristina asked about their land, so we went to take a tour. We saw the chickens, the orange, mandarin, and lemon trees, and Cristina asked for an ayote. My culture would consider that rude, but here produce is given freely. So we were given a 10kg (22lbs) squash, which we took with us paseando back down the hill. On the way down, we took a side road and repeated this surprisingly quick (less than 15 minutes?) paseando ritual with a green pepper farmer. This time, Cristina bought 7 for a 20 Lempiras ($1). The farmer walked around among thousands finding 6 quickly, then spending a few minutes searching for the 7^th and once he finally had it, he carefully placed two extra smaller ones in the bag. The seven that were being bought had to be of the highest quality, the two extra were separate from the purchase.

Siguiendo, Cristina showed me a beautiful piece of land that they are hoping to buy. She dreams of producing public fruit to give away to people who are paseando, having different animals, and occupying her children with things other than TV. She wants to have trees that will attract birds, so their shockingly bright feathers become familiar.

The culture of gifted produce is not confined to local people. I go paseando myself pretty often now and I am always offered coffee and bread. Generally before I leave I am gifted something else too, like a Christmas nacatamale (tamale with meat), oranges, lemons, or bananas. While I was visiting my co-worker Dago, his neighbor gave me a bag of bananas, to which Dago added lemons. Two days later, I am paseando again and the same neighbor invites me in for some coffee and bread, plus (surprise!) 5 more bananas! Her daughter jokes about going mojada (wet or illegally) to the US so that she can get a higher paid job. I try to explain that things are different in the US and among a host of wonderful Honduran things, we don`t know what paseando is. She seems doubtful.

That seems to be the attitude. Plenty of people want to go to the US, probably because American TV displays the ludicrous, normally unattainable wealth with which capitalism tempts. I find myself often telling Hondurans about how beautiful, fresh, sweet, and wonderful their country is. Then again, I don`t really understand where they are coming from, I know nothing of their struggles.

On the other hand, I do know is that in my culture nothing, not even fruit, is free, and farmers are anonymous. I was thinking about how so few things in the US are public, rarely do people take time to breathe, and there is so much forbidden fruit, unless you have money or can run fast. In contrast, this place looks like the Garden of Eden, where you can breathe deeply and walk slowly in the cool evening breeze loaded down with free fruit, so long as you are in good relationship with the people and land around you.

¡El Grito Lenca!

There is a scream that runs in the blood of many Hondurans, those of Lencan descent. It is a passionate, full-bodied, and jubilant call that reminds people of this area of their shared lineage. I was recently told of the Lencan scream and how it sounds. You really can´t do it without laughing! When I ask people at my office to do it, they pass it off on someone else, saying that the other person can do it better. It sounds like ¡Oh-ee! or ¡Ee-oh! and it often changes pitch between sylables. Some people start low and go high, others start high and go low (this kind souns really strange, but I love it, so its the kind I do). My host dad starts high and goes higher with the Oh-ee version. Its a sound that has so much culture tied to it, you can´t help but love it.

Now that I know what it sounds like, I hear it all the time. I was on my way to Gracias the other day and I saw a woman outside of her house. I gave el grito Lenga a go and much to my amazement and joy, she replied with her own. On my way back from Gracias a couple days ago, the truck I was in had some nice rollbars so I was standing the whole way (much more comfortable and fun, I think). I saw a couple people I knew along the way and I gave them my proud grito Lenca. My parents claim I don´t have any Lencan heritage, but when throw my voice into that scream, my blood begs to differ.

Transition Weeks

These next few weeks will be full of transition for me. Next week is my last at Camp Tecumseh, then I'm home for a week to get ready to go to Honduras. After that, I have a week of orientation with SALT and some other MCC volunteer programs in Akron, Pennsylvania, then I go to Honduras. And then who knows what! I've been thinking about it more recently since its pretty much on top of me now.

Camp has been a wonderful experience. Its really fatiguing sometimes, but then there are other times that it is completely awesome. This week was pretty much incredible. The guys were all well-mannered and got along great. They got to know each other right away and on Sunday evening they were already calling themselves brothers. Gumby likes to call the really awesome campers 'stand-up guys,' on our good weeks we've had maybe 3 of them, this week we had 10. Often the way they talked and the fun we had reminded me of college. Put those guys in a hall and you would have my freshman year of college, plus or minus a few. So now I only have one week of camp left and however it goes, this summer has been awesome with the campers and the counselors too. Depending on how much time I have back in the US next summer, I might come back and work a week of camp.

I'm really looking forward to the week at home too. Its always great when I get to hang out with my parents for any amount of time. It'll be great to see Elkhart people again. Well, I guess church people, I doubt I'll see too many other people I know. I want to have some more time to hang out at the Jubilee house too because I think spending some more time with them would really be good. There are some wonderful conversations there. As well as my hammock, I need to go lay in that a little too I think. Drink some yerba mate maybe. Sounds incredible. I'm so used to being insanely busy and doing ten different activities everyday where I have ten kids to watch, so it'll be nice to have some time to relax.

Then comes orientation. I'm thinking orientation is going to be like another week of staff training for camp (incredible) but probably a lot more fun. So pretty much, I can't wait. I've emailed another SALTer whos going to be in Honduras but thats only been a couple times. She seems really cool though and I'm sure the rest of the SALTers and the volunteers from other programs are nothing short of the coolest group of people I've ever met. Counselors currently hold that title, but we'll see.

Honduras next. There's a couple that I'm going to be in contact with in Honduras who's blog I found. It was a good blog, and Morgan told me they're cool, so I have some pretty high expectations. ;) They said they have a 7 person community of American/Canadian volunteers whom they get together with and I'm sure I'm going to be really glad for that. I think in the village I'm going to be the only American, so it'll be immersion and that volunteer community will be nice to hook up with every once in a while. I still really don't know at all what to expect. I feel like I'm dropping into Honduras blind and uneducated but I'm supposed to be educating the people there. Sounds audacious.

I see a lot of 'lost and found' clothes at camp and I've taken to looking at the tags on them. Even though I haven't been to Honduras yet I know there are a lot of the sweatshop variety of factory there. Whenever I see 'Hecho en Honduras' written on shirts, I feel a moment of connection with those people in Honduras whom I will soon know and work with. I'm sure I'll get to see plenty of that dark underbelly of global capitalism, aka the beast. Can't wait.