Logistics

The community was much shaken by the incident, and very intimidated by the threats. They felt that El Padrino and Pablo Morgan were capable of anything. They were also worried for me, since such direct accusations had been made to my name. In response to this event, they wrote a letter to Max and I in which they requested our support to begin the implementation of the project as soon as possible. They wanted this to be a written record that this project was all due to their will, and had nothing to do with us imposing projects on them for personal gain. Max and I responded by getting to work right way.

Of course, by a Honduran timeline, right away means it took us five months after this incident to take care of all the logistics for day one of construction.

We started with purchasing. There’s nothing like a Home Depot in La Ceiba, a one stop shop for all your hardware needs, so we had to go to many, many places finding pieces and bits of materials throughout the city. Add to that the fact that donor agencies want quotes from several vendors (at least three) for each item. To visit all these places we rode our bikes in 90+ degrees, 90% humidity weather since there was no logistics or management budget to pay for taxi rides (nobody ever wants to give money for that). None of the stores keep any kind of consistent inventory so even the most common nail was difficult to find and in the quantities we needed. Since most stores don’t specialize in anything, most people just kind of know where to go for what (you can buy woman’s dresses, plywood, and diapers on the same store), but Max and I didn’t even know where to start looking, and the people we asked were mostly wrong about their suggestions, so we ended up just having to go everywhere. We were also both teaching High School at the time. Once we purchased things, if the store didn’t deliver, we only had our bikes to transport materials. For big constructions in the city, people buy from San Pedro Sula, the closest industrial town to us, but even if we paid our own bus ride there we had no way of bringing the things back. Just like for that Halloween party we organized after only three months in La Ceiba, we had to mobilize everyone we knew to make this happen. We also ended up spending a lot of our own savings on this, since the stipend Peace Corps gave us didn’t cover anything over our basic survival needs.

Another step was to find a general contractor. We needed someone that knew how to read blueprints, that could lead the community to do all the labor, that had the patience of a teacher, that was willing to go live in this remote island for the duration of the construction, that knew carpentry, masonry and plumbing, and that was willing to do it all for a reasonably price. It is incredibly difficult to find someone with those characteristics in Ceiba, where everything works by word of mouth. There were no professional directories or yellow pages where we could start our search. We looked at several people and weren’t really excited about anyone. Luckily, our good friend and architect for the project had worked on a similar project previously and had a good experience with the contractor for that. His name is Julio Anchesta and we liked him since we met him. At the time he was busy in another project and we had no option but to wait for him to finish. We also had to pay him more than we had budgeted.

A third logistical complication was how we were going to get all the materials from La Ceiba to the Island. There’s no ferry that goes back and forth and no kind of regular transportation in and out of there. The Foundation offered to rent us their boats same as they do to reality TV shows. The price: $400 for a 26’ sized boat. We would need about 15 of those trips to transport all the materials we had. It costs the Foundation about $80 in gas to do the trip. Our entire transportation budget was $465, after Peace Corps cut it in half during the proposal approval process because they thought our request was astronomical. They also thought that since the Foundation claimed one of their goals is to improve the economic conditions of the people living in the protected area, it wasn’t right for them to charge so much for those trips. They shouldn’t be profiting from money donated to the communities. I couldn’t agree more, and it was incredibly frustrating to us that this organization that was our counterpart cared so little about the people they were supposed to protect. I could write pages and pages of all the obstacles they put in our way, but this one issue was the beginning of it all. It didn’t matter what arguments we tried, they weren’t bulging. In the end, it saddens me deeply to see how Honduran’s screw each other. They talk a lot about how the rich countries have kept them down, and how development agencies in general hurt more than help (a lot of which I agree with), but their biggest problem is how they put each other down. Here was this Honduran owned and run organization, with the resources to do something to help, but without the will. Things will not improve for this country until this one thing changes.

Returning to the subject of boats and transportation, we again had to rely on word of mouth and multiple trials and errors to find an option. The boats in the communities (including the communities on the coast) are small and don’t leave from La Ceiba, so we would have had to spend a lot of money to transport the materials to these communities and then out to the islands. In the end, we found a guy that was a captain of a boat and was allowed to use it in downtime for personal jobs. The boat was really slow, but it could hold 3 or 4 times the amount of cargo the Foundation boats could, and he only charged us $200 for the round trip. Check!! That was one problem solved. Of course it wasn’t all that easy. The day of the trip, when all the community was ready and waiting for the boat to unload it, the guy didn’t show up. Max started calling him before six in the morning and left multiple voice messages on his phone. We didn’t hear from him until about 11 that morning, saying that something came up and he couldn’t do the trip that day. Since we had absolutely no other options, we had to suck it up and sit around and wait until he was available to try it again.

Throughout this process I quickly realized the $9,300 we had for this project was only enough to do about half of it (meaning half of the first half since we had already cut our vision by removing the restaurant because we couldn’t get more than $10,000). I started writing proposals to other organizations (TNC, WWF, AVINA, WW2BW, USAID, etc). In total I wrote to nine different organizations, each proposal about 25 pages long and took about a week to collect all the information they requested and write the proposals. I spent over two months doing this and wrote over 250 pages. It would be another year before I saw the meager results of all that work.

After all this, imagine how excited Max and I were the day we finally loaded the first boat with materials and made the trip. It was a beautiful sunny day; crisp air, deep blue sky and the islands looked gorgeous. Max worked so hard carrying materials and even the kids helped unload stuff. I was so proud to be working next to this man who was my husband, as only he understood how much it had taken to get to that point. I remember closing my eyes and wishing for it all to work out in the end. Of course it was all wishful thinking, I also knew by now that’s not how things worked.

Thinks He’s the Godfather, but He’s Nothing but a Thug

In retrospect, I am amazed to realize what different perspectives El Padrino and I brought into that meeting. I arrived believing that, once explaining the situation, nobody could possible say no to supporting the community with a project that meant so much to them. I was convinced that no one would willingly want to take away the opportunity for families, for women, men and children to change their lives and improve their living conditions. There can not possible be such bad people in the world.

He, on the other hand, was convinced, even before he met me, that nobody in the whole wide world would be willing to work on something like that project without any hidden interest at heart. That I was a hypocrite and that he only needed to push my buttons until it all showed.

I believed humans are good, giving, and generous by nature. He believed we are greedy, sleazy, and only interested in our own individual interests. I thought I could convince him to help, he thought he could corrupt me into stop helping.

The Wednesday after our meeting, I called El Padrino’s home number to confirm we were still scheduled for the joint trip to Cayos the next day. I had held my side of the bargain, restraining from visiting the community after the meeting and by phone only mentioning the meeting and that we would visit them to share the details. His wife answered the phone. When I asked for El, she said he had left to the Cayos the day before and wasn’t scheduled to return until Friday (the day after our trip). He had not mentioned anything about the trip with me. I thanked her and hung up the phone.

My head was racing. In that very instant I realized what I should have known from the beginning, that it had all been a farce. The guy had lied to me to keep me from talking to the community before he talked to them. I guess he had been right. At least some humans are selfish, sleazy, and only interested in themselves.

I called the community and someone traveled to the mainland to tell me what happened while he visited the island. El Padrino and Pablo Morgan arrived in the community’s property; both armed, and threatened them to stop the project immediately. They never pulled the guns, but made sure they were well visible while they talked to the community, in the same forceful tone he had initially used with me. El Padrino told them I had arrived at his house, uninvited, imposing the project on him. He said I confessed to doing the project as a business for myself and that my intention was to use the community to work in the construction of my cabins for free and to later use them as employees and pay them close to nothing while I kept all the profits for myself. He said he knew what kind of woman I was and that he never wanted to see me step a foot on that island again. When a dog approached them barking, one of them pulled out the gun and shot at the floor, in front of everybody, including the kids.

Of course, he wasn’t counting with the fact that the people of East End know me well and really appreciate me. That our relationship is more than professional, and that we really are friends. He was trying to discredit me in front of my friends, but they didn’t believe a word he said.

In that moment I decided I would have nothing to do with those people. I would not respond to any phone calls and I would not talk to them personally. The community was in their legal right to move forward with the project and these people had no right to do what they were doing. Unfortunately, in Honduras I couldn’t go to the court and sue for defamation and I couldn’t put a restraining order against them for myself or the community. So we would confront them in the only way we could. We would begin the project immediately.

El Padrino, ‘Great Benefactor’ of the Garífuna

His squinty blue eyes looked at me with piercing intensity. He probably wasn’t squinting, but that’s how my memory recorded the moment. I had arrived at his house, and El Padrino was greeting me and introducing me to his wife and son...

Earlier that morning I had arrived at Diego Manzanero’s office as agreed. I felt a little anxious about meeting El Padrino, especially since people didn’t have great things to say about him when I inquired. “Dealing with him is like dealing with mafia” someone said. “You should be careful, that man is dangerous”. Of course I knew there is a lot of urban legend in La Ceiba, and I had no basis to believe any of the things that were said about him. Even if Pablo Morgan’s claim that the land where the community is located is his was true, then El Padrino would be able to present evidence and we could act accordingly. Diego Manzanero, the lawyer, had been polite enough on our previous meeting. I had no reason to be worried. Yet I still fell anxious.

My anxiety did not diminish when I met Manzanero in his office and he said we would drive to El Padrino’s house for the meeting. He asked my how I arrived at his office.

“I rode my bike.” I said
“Then leave your bike here and we’ll take my car”

Red lights flashed in my head. He was asking me to go on his car, alone with him, to El Padrino’s house for a meeting. Something didn’t seem right. I should have said I’d rather wait for a time when we can all meet in a more professional environment; instead I just agreed to get in the car and go. I still don’t know why. Perhaps I did not want to start the day with a confrontation. Perhaps I was just too focused on getting this done.

The ride there wasn’t long, about 15 minutes, but I was alert the entire time. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being taken to a dark alley, but I was taken straight to our destination. On the way, Manzanero was incredibly polite, even friendly, and seemed less guarded that he had seemed during our previous meeting. He actually offered his advice on how to deal with El Padrino.

“He is convinced the Garífuna do not own the land in the Cayos. Do not confront him on this issue. As long as you acknowledge that, you might be able to discuss the project.”

His advice was a good reminder that my goal there was to ensure we could proceed with the project peacefully and not to argue about the ownership of the land. It was up to Pablo Morgan, El Padrino and Diego Manzanero to contest with the government the legitimacy of the title the community had.

As far as my understanding goes, El Padrino is Canadian from Italian descent. He shook my hand firmly, even a little too hard. My first impression was to notice that their house has central air conditioning. It is the only house I’ve been in Honduras equipped with that, though, of course, that is not much to say for a poor Peace Corps volunteer. I was invited to sit in the living room, the only section of the house I got to see, and Manzanero sat on the couch next to me. El Padrino sat across from me in an arm char and his wife to his left in another chair. Without much introduction, El Padrino proceeded to reiterate, in a very cut, dry and unfriendly way, his opinion that the land where the community is located belongs to him and not the community members. His tone was harsh and a little forceful and it was very obvious that he was looking for a confrontation. At that very moment he started to loose the battle. The more forceful he behaved, the more relax and confident I felt. I still can not explain why.

“I have a document” – he continued “that grants me the rights to that land. The only reason why the Garífuna are allowed to remain on my property is due to my kindness and generosity. All these years, I have been their benefactor. You have absolutely no right to question the fact that such land is mine.” I noted that he was speaking on his behalf and not on that of his client, Pablo Morgan. According to El Padrino, the land was is his and no one else’s. I also noted how he failed to present a copy of any such document. This went on for what felt like 15 or 20 minutes. I sat there and nodded, not in agreement, but to demonstrate that I was listening to what he was saying. My facial expression was engaged, but I was also wearing the smile that means I think your behavior and everything you’re saying is pathetic. I couldn’t help it. The madder he seemed, the more I felt like smiling. He wanted to argue and I wasn’t going to. Without me having said much, he had already lost that part of the battle.

And so he tried to get personal. He asked me to explain the hierarchy of the Peace Corps and where I stood in it. I explained that we have a Country Director and Project Managers underneath that supervise the volunteers that work on the different projects.

“I am a volunteer, so you could say I am at the bottom of that ladder” – I said.
“Do you understand who I am?” – he asked.
“I know exactly who you are.”
“Then why are YOU here meeting with me and not the country director? Why has the Peace Corps not sent someone more important?”
“Because I am the person who has supported this project all along and it is me you should talk to about it. That’s how the Peace Corps works.”

Eventually he must have realized I wasn’t there to get in a fight and he asked me exactly what was I there for. I repeated what I had explained to his lawyer before, that my only interest was the development of the community, and that any concerns he had about the title must be taken to the proper authorities. I said that given his stated kindness and generosity he must agree that the community needs a lot of help. He then proceeded to recount how every year he spends hundreds of dollars on medications for members of the community. How his wife insisted that they buy medicine every year to bring out to that island. I would have loved to hear more details from her, but every time she tried to contribute to the conversation she was asked by her husband to stay quiet and that she didn’t have anything to say about what was being discussed. Later, when she got up and walked away from the living room he yelled at her to return and sit down, she had not yet been dismissed. All very telling of the kind of person El Padrino really is.

He then asked for more details about me, the Peace Corps and the project. I explained that we are an organization of volunteers sent by the government of the United States at the request of the local governments of the countries we serve. I clarified that our role as volunteers is to support our communities in their development by accompanying them in the implementation of activities such as education, youth, health and business and tourism just like the tourism project in question. I even told him about some of the work I’d done so far teaching computers and helping people improve their business practices with things such as how to calculate the costs of their businesses so they could price at a profitable margin. I saw his wife’s face light up when I shared some of the stories, and I directed a lot of my conversation toward her. I seized the opportunity to explain that I was there to see how we could work together, in good faith, to better the economic situation of the community.

By the end of the meeting, his tone had changed significantly. He congratulated me for doing such good work with the community, and clarified that his arguments were not personal (yeah, right). He then proceeded to make a proposal, of which he asked me to take notes. This is the entry on my agenda for that day:

1. He was to allow the construction of the project for the community in a location designated by him.
2. 
   The community members would do the work of construction under the supervision of a contractor approved by him.
3. 
   Peace Corps was to provide accounting support to keep track of how the money of the project was spent during implementation and of the revenues of the project in the future. There would also be record on what the community is spending the money generated by the project (i.e. improvement of the school, a health clinic, etc.)
4. 
   He asked that I not visit the community until we could go together and explain the conversation and his proposal. The reason for such request was so that we do not create confusion in the community conveying different messages of our conversation.

I explained that since the community was the owner and leader of this project, it was up to them to decide whether those conditions were acceptable. I agreed to visit the community with him and asked that a representative from HCRF (the Foundation) be present as well. We set the tentative date of Thursday, September 14th 2006 for the trip (about a week from that day). He asked that I call the day before to confirm he would still be available.

Leaving his house I did not necessarily agree with his conditions for the project (or with the fact that he could impose any conditions at all), but I felt good that he was at least willing to discuss the situation with the community and hoped the dialog would lead to a resolution. I don’t remember his eyes squinting anymore; his intense expression was replaced by something that resembled politeness. I even remember a smile somewhere. I was sure I had won him over. I had been polite, confident, and professional. He had attacked me and I had kept my cool. He had apologized and admitted to being impressed by me and by the project. I was so proud I had not allowed my passion for the project to control my behavior. As I walked out of that house I felt a surge of hope, I knew things could only get better from there.

I was so wrong!

I am 29!!

Yesterday was my 29th b-day, the last of my 20s. I never sat down to wonder what I would like to be, or what I would like to be doing by age 29. I can’t complain though, my life is good. Here are some photos with Max and Calder and some friends for dinner. This post is for me, I want to be able to remember how fortunate and happy I actually am.

Caught in the Cross-Fire

Last night I wanted a “licuado” or smoothie for dinner. There’s a licuado shop about two blocks from our house. Max and I walked there together. I was feeling adventurous and had the orange mango instead of the strawberry, orange, banana that I always have. Max had the usual lime and soda. On our way out we heard screeching tires and the sound of a car hitting something. We looked to our right and saw that an SUV had hit a guy on a bike, some 500 yards down the road from where we were standing. The cyclist was on the floor, and people close to him came to his aid. The guy took a few long seconds to gather himself, and it looked like he had a broken leg. As soon as the driver of the SUV saw the guy wasn’t dead, he ran for it, driving in our direction, and leaving the guy on the bike hurt on the street. I was so enraged; I wanted to hurt the guy on the SUV. Apparently so did one of the rescuers. He took his gun out and shot a bullet. I was convinced he shot in the direction of the car, which at the moment had been driving right past us. I still feel the sound of the gun shot pounding on my chest. Max says he shot the bullet up to the sky and not towards us. We hid behind a small three to make sure there wasn’t going to be another gun shot, and saw a few cars run after the SUV. I hope they caught him.

This is the second time something like this has happened near us in the last few months. (The other one involved a car hitting a motorbike in front of the video store we were at. Two guns were pulled out, a young woman was screaming, and the manager of the store intervened to prevent them from killing each other. We watched everything from the window of the video store, about five yards away.) Unlike the last time, last night I slept like a baby.

I know this kind of thing happens all over the world. They just seem to happen a little too often in Honduras.

Meeting El Padrino

A saga of intrigue, defiance, and good faith

“Aló?” I answered my cell phone. The caller id displayed a number I did not recognize. I was sure someone had dialed the wrong number, like so many other times, but it is always amusing to try in vain to make a Honduran understand that Paco or Liliana does not live here and that this is my phone number.

“Good morning” said the voice in the other end of the phone. It was a young male Honduran voice. “May I speak with Lynnette Acosta?”

I did not recognize the voice either. This was definitely someone I had not met before. But he knew my name and he knew my number. This wouldn’t be the first time someone knew me that I hadn’t met. Ceiba is a small town and people are interested in a young couple of foreigners, like Max and I, living in the city.

“This is Lynnette speaking” I replied. “Who are you?”

“My name is Diego Manzanero and I am a lawyer. I would like to meet with you about the tourism project in East End, when are you available?”

“You are a lawyer?” The veins in my temples started pulsing, something here didn’t seem right. “And who do you represent?”

“I represent Pablo Morgan, the owner of the island where the community of East End is located. We would like to meet about the tourism project. How does Thursday morning sound?”

Not only did he know my name and my phone number, he also knew what I was working on. I have to admit I’ve never figured out how they learned this information. It could have been the community who told them, or a friend of ours talking to a friend of them during a casual conversation. I pondered for a few seconds. We are not doing anything wrong here, just a project to help the community. I have not violated any law in the process, and the community presented us with a title to their land. I shouldn’t worry about this meeting; they probably just want more information. Since, after all, they are neighbors.

“Thursday morning sound good” I replied. “Your office, or the Foundation’s?

“Let’s leave the Foundation out of this. This is between you and me. Let’s meet in my office, 10am.”

After he explained where to find his office, we ended the conversation. He had not been impolite, and yet this phone call made me very anxious. Max and I had never met Pablo Morgan, but we had certainly heard about him, all kinds of things. People in Ceiba say he’s descendent of pirates, somehow his family ended up settling in Cayos Cochinos. For years his father and the Garífuna lived there together in harmony, but there were many stories of confrontations between him and the communities. I decided I shouldn’t go alone to this meeting, that I should invite Max and the director of the Foundation to accompany me. I recognized the lawyer asked me not to involve the Foundation, but we were volunteers here per their request. Issues of this matter should be handled by the Foundation and not by us alone.

Prior to the meeting, we decided we would be completely open about the project. We had nothing to hide, and it was best to work on good faith. Perhaps they didn’t appreciate not being included in the process from the beginning, perhaps they wanted to ensure the building would not be outside the confinements of the community’s property. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be anything that a rational conversation could not resolve.

Thursday morning arrived and I dressed in my business casual clothes. I wanted to make a good first impression. A.O., the director of the Foundation, drove us to the lawyer’s office. We arrived at 10am, sharp, and there were other people in the office waiting ahead of us. The office was a relatively small room, with white walls and fluorescent lights. There was a couch and other chairs in the waiting area and a coffee table in the middle stacked with local newspapers. The secretary’s desk was in front of us. She was an attractive lady in her early thirties, if slightly overweight. When she saw us she raised her glance from her desk and politely greeted us. She explained the lawyer was not in the office but that we were in his agenda so he would see us, and returned to the phone conversation she’d been having. We sat and waited, staring at each other’s faces and pretending to read the newspapers. All I could do was wonder why they really wanted to see us and if this would be an amicable meeting. I tried not to stare at the people sitting across from us. A high-class looking lady, dressed in all back, with a ‘campesino’ man, clad in a worn out white long-sleeved shirt, jeans and cowboy hat. By their conversations it seemed like they were there to read a dead man’s will. Diego arrived about 30 minutes later. Like I guessed from the phone conversations, he was a young Honduran guy probably in his early thirties. He was still wearing his sunglasses and looked very fashionable wearing his slacks and tie. He saw the other clients first. I wondered if he made us wait in an effort to assert his power or if it was just one more case of being late, an engrained custom in Honduran culture. He didn’t seem intimidating, but I was happy not to be there alone.

Another half an hour later we were asked to step into the lawyer’s office. It had all the characteristics you would expect in a young Honduran lawyer’s office. The big leather chair, nautical motifs, black accents. Diego started the meeting reiterating that he represents Pablo Morgan, and then proceeded to assert that his client is the owner of the land upon which the community sits, and therefore is the owner of the land where the community plans to build their project. Pablo Morgan sent the expressed message that the land is his and the community must recognize such fact. The lawyer’s tone was polite, even apologetic at times, but his boss’ message was firm. This was for us a worse case scenario, the meeting was more than just curiosity; they wanted the project stopped.

The director of the Foundation and I clarified that we had proceeded with the project based on the title issued to the community of East End by the government of Honduras and that our interest is to support the economic development and well being of the inhabitants of East End. The lawyer said his client is prepared to challenge the government of Honduras on their right to issue the title to the community. We asked that the message be sent to Pablo Morgan that, independent of any legal action he might be taking against the government of Honduras, we understood he cared about the well-being of the community (truth be told we weren’t convinced he cared at all, but maybe the pressure to seem like he cared could help us achieve what we wanted). That the community would benefit greatly if we continued with the implementation of the project. We also asked to convey the message that we are willing to collaborate together in helping the community and that, without any intention of confrontation, we would continue the project in recognition of the government issued right to the community to use their land. The lawyer agreed to convey the message and to communicate any response to us.

I wasn’t feeling particularly good at the end of this meeting. They said they were prepared to sue the government of Honduras, and I wondered what were they prepared to do to us? If you know me well, you know I am the kind of person that worries about things, and this situation was making me really worried. Everybody had worked so hard on this project so far. Would we be able to execute it? I was lucky to have Max remind me that there wasn’t much I could do at this point, and that the best thing to do was to wait for their call.

At this point we had received the money from Peace Corps to start the construction but, to avoid confrontation, I decided to put the project on hold until we heard back from Pablo Morgan or his lawyer, Diego Manzanero.

I didn’t have to wait long. A couple of days later, I received another call. This time I recognized the number. It was Manzanero, the lawyer, again. He explained that “El Padrino”, who had Pablo Morgan’s power of attorney, would like to meet me. He explained “El Padrino” wanted to learn more about how the Peace Corps supports the community and the specifics of the project. He again asked that I go alone, without the Foundation. Trying to promote better relations between the community and these people, and work in good faith, I agreed to meet in Manzanero’s office on September 8^th, 2006. I would finally be meeting “El Padrino” and this time, I decided, I would do it alone.

To be continued in “El Padrino, ‘Great Benefactor’ of the Garífuna”

Carnaval - 2007

The town we live in, La Ceiba, is home to Latin America's second largest carnaval (after Rio). Last year we saw the parade from a balcony on a second floor. This year we took it to the streets.

Here's some of our photos from this year's carnaval.