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.

La Politica

I posted a few pictures of happy people yesterday, so make sure to check those out too

Politics here are more or less a joke. Everyone knows that the mayor is corrupt, apparent from “the Municipality’s” big new black Ford pickup, the police are corrupt, and the high government officials are corrupt. The presidential commercials often go to the point of showing a minute of nearly-naked women dancing then flashing a name and asking for the vote. Rallies are worse, they display hours of professional dancing mixed with concerts finished off by a little show of the candidate shaking hands and waving at people. Despite all this, the main form of advertisement is through stickers displaying a name, a picture, and a party color. They are pasted everywhere. Enlarged versions are on billboards or painted on walls.

Qué fue? Oh that’s right, you want to find out about what matters to each candidate so that we can decide which single person’s opinion we want to turn into a guiding force. Well my proud citizens of the United States, that knowledge is not really available here. But somehow plenty of people have been convinced that it does. At the camp training for counselors, intelligent NGO workers who had no idea what any government plans were still insisted that each candidate had presented a government plan to someone at sometime. They must have some plan or else they wouldn’t be running! Indeed.

I was surprised at first to find out that the main point of doing these camps all over our department is to encourage youth to be politically active. We analyzed the political commercials and talked a lot about how we could try to get youth to think critically about candidates and officials. But it doesn’t stop there. We’re also trying to turn them into locally active community leaders with a more complete understanding organizing and of gender equality. We’re attempting to equip youth with knowledge of their own people power.

As logical and good as that may seem to us, I think you North Americans could use a good bit of knowledge of your own people power too. The problem is that we are encouraged to make change by being passive, through voting for people to make our choices for us. The fact of the matter is that we can change our communities; it just has to be important enough for us to give it an honest effort, to make sacrifices.