Earthquake

Friday morning I arrived at the school where I volunteer, and everybody was talking about the earthquake. “Did you feel the earthquake?”, were the words I was greeted with as I walked in. Everyone was talking about how strong and long it had been. “I almost fell down”, “I thought I was dizzy but then realized everything else was moving too”, “The windows and doors were shaking violently”, were some of the comments I heard. I knew there had been an earthquake, because I heard it on the radio on the way to the school, but I was surprised it had been so strong since I did not feel it myself. Probably being in a moving car while it happened prevented me from feeling it. I was disappointed I had missed out!! In the school we all wanted to know where it had been and how big on the scale, so we tuned to the radio news station and listened. People were calling from all over the north coast and the Islands saying they had felt it, and someone said they thought the epicenter had been in Belize. I thought it must have been a really big earthquake if it happened in Belize and it was felt so strongly in so many places in Honduras, but that was all speculation and the Honduran government had not communicated any official version. No one seemed to know what really happened.

Meanwhile…

Max had a cold all week, and Friday morning decided to stay in bed a little longer to rest it off. He says that in his sleep he felt a weird shaking of things that woke him up for a few minutes. He looked around, noticed that everything was fine and went back to sleep. He wasn’t sure if there had been an earthquake or if he had imagined the whole thing. About an hour latter, while all of Honduras was still trying to figure out what had happened and where, Max received a phone call. An urgent, loud voice said from the other side of the phone:

- “Max, Max… is everything ok?” “Are you and Lynnette alright?”
- “Yeah, who is this?”, said Max in his sleepy voice.
- “Miguel, from Peace Corps. I am the duty officer this week and I am calling to make sure nothing happened to you guys during the earthquake.”, replied Miguel with his still urgent
sounding voice.
- “Oh, yeah, we are fine. The earthquake was really mild, it only lasted a few seconds”
- “Are you sure you’re alright? Have you heard from anyone else on the north coast?”
- “Yeah, I’m fine, I barely noticed it, and no I haven’t talked to anyone else.”
- “Well, I just wanted to make sure that you were alright and to let you know that the earthquake happened exactly at 13:48:29 UTC, and was of a 5.8 magnitude. The epicenter was 90km off the coast of La Ceiba. It was actually quite shallow, 10 feet…
no, wait a second, 10km deep.”
- “Oh, cool.”
- “I just want you to know that Peace Corps is here to support you in anything you need, especially if you need counseling or something. Don’t worry about frequent earthquakes, I’ve only experienced 3 in my life here in Honduras, they are not that frequent.”
- “Heh, OK…”, said Max still yawning and more confused than
ever.
- “Adios”
- “Adios”

Max hung up the phone and went back to sleep.

That afternoon…

I returned home still not knowing any more information about the earthquake, neither did anybody else in Honduras. I asked Max if he had felt it and he said yes and told me everything about the phone call.

- “Amazing”, I said, almost laughing, “No one in Honduras knows what happened and you almost immediately got a call from Peace Corps giving you all the details and offering counseling”.

And we went on with our afternoon, amused and perplexed. The next day Hondurans were still speculating the epicenter had been in Belize.

Figuring Things Out

The first few weeks of our assignment were primarily focused on settling into our jobs and housing arrangements. What this really meant was that we had a lot of spare time. I have spent long hours playing dominoes on-line, and Max playing GameBoy. This wasn’t really our choice. We were both dying to get out there and work with people, but since our work is in aldeas hours away from were we live, we needed to wait for our counterpart agencies to take us around. It wasn’t all wasted time, since we’ve managed to make a lot of friends here in La Ceiba, and we even feel a little guilty of how much we’ve been partying. Luckily things have been improving, and Max and I are starting to figure things out… for better or for worse.

About Garífuna Communities on the North Coast
The last few weeks, I’ve been involved with the Garífunas in a lot of meetings. Since there are restrictions to fishing near these villages, I am working on helping them find sources of income other than fishing. I am working on researching the possibility of creating fish farms with one group, a pig farm with another and a network of tour operators that would be legally incorporated for all of the communities. I have spent many hours in meetings with the community members, and talking to people that have worked with them on the past.

I’ve learned that there have been institutions working with Garífunas for many years now, and they have had a lot of money donated to them. They have received a lot of training on several topics (community leadership, customer service, etc.) There have been hundreds of micro-enterprises formed before like the ones I am trying to form now, however the communities continue to be poor. BUT WHY? Paternalism… years and years of receiving money in exchange for nothing. Why work to make a small business work when some other NGO will surely give us more money sometime soon? I’ve already heard about new NGOs being formed to “help” these communities.

So people have tried giving them work instruments instead of the money… that hasn’t worked either. Let me tell you one of the stories I’ve heard. A few years ago the Japanese government donated boats, motors, and all sort of advanced fishing equipment such as sonar to one of the communities. The idea was to equip the fishermen with the tools needed to fish out in open sea where fish are abundant. They could then sell what they caught in a local market. What did the community members do? They sold all the equipment and used the money to eat, drink, and party.

About Pech Wood Artisans in the Mountains
Max has been working with a foundation that trains artisans to build hand made furniture out of alternative woods. Their goal is to protect endangered species of trees in the forests while providing legal sources of income to the communities that live near them. They have been working for years on training the artisans. They have monetary help to help the artisan get started. They have built quality control mechanisms into the process and designed really beautiful furniture to sell in the market. However, if you are a customer odds are you will have to wait five (5), six (6), or even seven (7) months before you receive what you ordered. The fact that you paid 50% deposit will not make things any better. Why are they having such big problems? There are multiple reasons: a lot of the artisans they train have left to the states “mojados” (illegally) so they keep running out of qualified workers. The ones that do remain do not necessarily pay attention to quality and detail; they do not understand why that is so important. It is not something engrained in their culture.

Max’s job is primarily to market the products they make, so he has been talking to some of their current customers. He’s found people that like the furniture a lot but have been waiting 5 or 6 months for what they ordered. They really like supporting these groups but are hesitant to buy from them again because of the looooong waits.

About Education
The vocational school I am working with does not have a library, it does not have handicap ramps, it does not have first aid kits, it does not have safety equipment for the students, it does not have enough teachers, and it does not have money. The center is one of a series of vocational centers built by USAID (they provide the infrastructure and the technical equipment) that uses a special curriculum design by a Honduran government organization. It is technically a private institution, but it does not charge the students for their education. It is the job of the administration of the school to find funds to sustain the operations. This is a very exhausting task for the people running these schools, who are usually academics, and not business people or fund raisers.

In my school the “Spanish Corporation” (a Spanish NGO) has been offering to donate money for projects for months. All they are asking for is the director of the school to write a pitch with his vision for the center and the needs. Easy enough? Not really, the director says he doesn’t know how to do that. I’ve offered to help teach him, but he’d rather I do it. I try to explain that I am here to transfer the skills necessary to keep things working after I am gone. They listen and nothing happens.

Recently I’ve been helping with a process of accreditation the center is going trough. It is supposed to take about a year to get to the point where a school is ready to be accredited. The school will be inspected next week, and they only started working on it when I got here. They are not going to pass. At first hand the problem might seem like no one has the time to work on this kind of stuff, but when you look closely it seems more like they do not have the drive.

To illustrate what I mean, let me tell you this story. As part of the accreditation process the center is required to have a committee of community members (ex-alumni, professionals on the fields they teach, parents of current students) that work as a force to help raise funds, help place students after they graduate, suggest practice projects, etc. We decided we would organize a meeting for potential members, pitch the idea, and ask them to become members. I thought this committee could alleviate a lot of the burden on the staff and that we should work on putting it together as soon as possible. I even created the pitch and the invitations, against my better judgment, and offered to arrange for refreshments. All the staff had to do was distribute the invitations and show up. The meeting was supposed to happen two weeks ago…

Disillusionment?
During Peace Corps training they say that after a few months in site things might start getting harder. All the novelty wears off and you are left with a reality that might be more challenging than expected. We’ve both been wondering how much can we really do? How can we change paternalism when there will certainly be NGOs giving away money always? How can we prevent people from moving to the states after they have been capacitated for a job here? How can we motivate people that do not want to be motivated? It is hard to imagine how we can make a difference where so many others have failed.

During Peace Corps training they also said, hang in there, things will get better. You will find someone worthwhile working with. You will find something you will love working on. So here we are… hanging on…

Happiness Is Not Having Burger King in Your Town

So yeah, Max and I were the lucky ones. We’re the ones that got to live in Honduras’ third largest city. We have a Mall in our town, two universities, all kinds of fast food restaurants, and all other amenities. Almost every day we hear one of our Peace Corps friends day… Dude, you guys are so lucky, you have Burger King in your town. And so, there is a general thought among Peace Corps volunteers that people in bigger cities like La Ceiba have it easy. In many ways they are right. We do have running water in our house. We do have steady electric power. We do not need to travel a day to the nearest phone to call our families. There is also a lot we do not have.

We joined the Peace Corps with the idea of learning to live a different life. We wanted to live with less. We won’t really get to do that. We were looking forward to knowing everybody in town and to the kids running to greet us with hugs and kisses after we returned from a trip. That will not happen in La Ceiba. We wanted our next door neighbor to be like our mother, looking out for us, maybe even inviting us to dinner every now and then. That we won’t get to experience. We wanted to live, eat, dress, breath like most Hondurans, but here life, food, clothing looks more like it was back home. Our assignment is more like a job oversees than life in the Peace Corps.

Peace Corps training prepared us for the “worst”. After training we expected to go on a really difficult assignment, in a small town with very little amenities. Peace Corps training did not prepare us for life in a big city. We were never warned of the risk of being so comfortable at home that you might not feel motivated to leave for work. We never discussed that you could be completely anonymous in your town during service. Only in our wildest dreams did we think we would be able to buy peanut butter, wine, or French bread. We never thought we wouldn’t have to eat like Hondurans every day.

Living in La Ceiba (and a lot other cities in the world, I am sure) is a very different kind of Peace Corps experience. It is not harder than other experiences, but it is definitely not easier. It is just different. After all, who ever said that happiness was having Burger King in your town?

Garífuna

Garífunas are one of Honduras’ ethnic groups. “They are AfroCaribbean people of mixed Amerindian and African descent. They are a resilient people who suffered many historical injustices from the slave trade to exile, and who fiercely resisted 150 years of European imperialism. They are a migratory people who live across the world today. Most of all, the Garinagu are a people with a rich ancestral culture who are fighting to maintain their traditional practices, beliefs, and artistic expressions.” (Excerpt from www.stanford.edu I really recomend reading their articles about Garífunas which include photos and music. Click here to visit the site.) Of course I had heard all that during Peace Corps training and was looking forward to meeting them and forging my own opinions.

The first community we visited lives in Cayor Mayor (the biggest of all keys) in a community called East End but they pronounce “Eestem”. Eestem inhabitants are a group of about 8 or 10 fishermen and their families. To most of them, this is only a seasonal residency and they usually have another residence in a village on the coast. Like in any Honduran community Eestem has is good share of “bolos” (alcoholic in Honduran slang). When we arrived we were greeted by the “bolos” and one of them, Lionel, followed us all morning while we visited the other families. Max and I had met Lionel before while we visited one of the aldeas on the coast. When we asked what he was doing there he told us he was there for the carnival. We pointed out that the carnival was over about a week ago and he laughed and said… “Exactly, and I am still here drinking and dancing. Tell my friends from Eestem I am still drunk”. This whole conversation happened at nine in the morning. Lionel might be a bolo, but he’s also a really funny guy and I enjoy his company.

Cayo Mayor is the greenest of all the keys, and it is really neat to see all the vegetation right on the beach. You will find anything from palm trees and mangrove to plantain, banana, and lemon trees (the last three introduced by the inhabitants). You will also see chickens roaming the island and a dog or two sitting in the shade. The houses are all on the beach, fairly close to each other and made of mud and/or wood. Houses are mostly a place for sleep since people spend their day outside in a hammock talking to the neighbors or playing with the kids. There is no power on the island but the women have battery powered radios they use to listen to music and a radio soap opera called “Los Anscestros Nuncan Mueren” (Our Ancestors Never Die). It was really interesting that, even though no one had a watch, they all knew what time to turn the radio on and listen to the soap. When it was time for the soap, Anabel and I had to stop the conversations and listen, too. The soap was about very modern topics such as HIV and emigration to the states. In Eestem, I met a 12 year old boy that makes sea shell necklaces and bracelets and who made one for me. I’ve been wearing it since. I specially remember his family because his mom also showed us a card she had received from a medical organization that showed she had been tested negative for HIV and also showed us the card of a family member who had tested positive. She used the moment to remind his 12 year old kid that he needs to use a condom if he doesn’t want to get infected. That is definitely a much more liberal approach than the typical Honduran. With the community of Eestem I might be working on developing tourism by building cabins for tourists and helping market it. This would be a community project and portions of the proceeds would go to the school in the Island where about 30 of the kids from the keys attend elementary school.

After our visit to Eestem we headed to another key... Chachauate. There’s about 60 or 70 people living on this one despite the fact that it is a tiny island. Like in Eestem the houses are built of mud and wood right on the beach, but Chachauate is not as green. The beach there is post card beautiful, with white sand and crystal clear waters. About half the inhabitants are below 13 years old and they really are “communal” children. I couldn’t really tell whose kids were whose and everybody took care of each other. The kids roam around the island naked, dancing to the beat of the drums being played by the adults. Garífunas dance “punta”, a rhythmic afro-dance in which you get on the tip of your toes and shake your body in a way I haven’t really figured out yet. Of course, they all insisted I dance, and I tried, but it was a little embarrassing to dance in front of the whole village watching. I promised I’d keep practicing. Everyone was really friendly, specially the kids who kept touching me calling me “amiga” (my friend). I even put two baby girls to sleep that afternoon… I wanted to take a few of them home with me.

Cayos Cochinos really sounds like paradise, and in many ways it is, but there’s also a lot of work to be done there. I met a 19 year old girl that has 3 kids already, the oldest looks about 4. They don’t have toilets or latrines and they poop in an outhouse that is situated directly over the water so that the waste falls directly into the sea. There’s no trash pick up and they dump most of their trash in the ocean, too. And these are only the few problems I noticed on my short visit there.

At night, back at the station, I hung out with the staff… they were all chilling in hammocks drinking beer. Far in the distance I could still hear the drums and the chanting from the Garífuna town and once again it hit me, how lucky I am to be working here in this wonderful place with this wonderful people…

A Trip to Cayos

My assignment with the Fundación Cayos Cochinos can best be described as me going to some of the most beautiful places in the country and helping people with one of the coolest cultures (at least in my limited experience): the Garífunas. So as any volunteer would do, that’s exactly what I’ve set out to do. Last week it meant going on an overnight trip to the Cayos Cochinos to meet its beauty and its people for the first time.

The plan was to leave out of Ceiba’s peer at 5:00am on Wednesday morning to make the trip while the ocean’s waters were still calm. There was also a group of British students coming back to town and we could take their boat back. By “we” I mean Annabel, who is in charge of community development for the foundation and with whom I will be working hand-in-hand over the next two years, and me. Waking up at 4 in the morning was not an easy task and Max was very sweet to wake up, help me get ready, and walk with me to the office where we would be meeting. He kissed me good bye and went back home… this would be our first night apart in many months.

I haven’t written much about the geography of La Ceiba, but in a nutshell I can say it lies on the coast with one of the highest mountains in the country lying just inland to the south of the city. Very frequently, as we’re walking down the street, Max and I notice how beautiful the sky is here as it crowns Pico Bonito (the mountain). Last Wednesday on my way to the keys I saw a beautiful orange sky during sunrise with the ocean on one side and Pico Bonito on the other. I wish I was a poet to think of the right words to describe its beauty. (Maybe I should start drinking wine before writing these posts). We made it to Cayo Menor, where the scientific station is located and where we started the operations of the day.

In Cayo Menor the foundation has its base of operations and scientists and other volunteers live there year round. Most of the staff is Honduran or Latin American (which I think is really cool) and they devote their effort mostly to the conservation of the natural resources on the islands. They also host international students that spend months (usually the summer) helping with research, learning to dive, and enjoying the keys in general. Working there is no easy task; the staff spends 22 days a month on Cayo Menor and get to go home for 8 days. With all the time they spend together, it really is like a big family living together in an otherwise deserted tropical island.

The station consists of a few labs (dry and wet labs for instance), offices, a cafeteria, and cabins where the staff and the guests stay. There’s also camping areas where the foundation pitches tents to accommodate more people. The entire island is powered by solar energy but there is no running water. For showers there are two blue plastic oil drums in front of every cabin full of water (I am not sure where the water comes from). Every bathroom is equipped with two 5 gallon buckets that you can use to get water from the plastic drums to bring inside and shower. I kind of like showering with a bucket, so that isn’t a problem for me. The problem was that I didn’t pack a towel (I guess I thought I was going to a five star resort or something) and I had to dry with the same sweaty t-shirt I had been wearing all day. It didn’t help that the shirt is the new Peace Corps shirt our training group had made and I hadn’t washed it before wearing it so it wasn’t very absorbent. The big plastic paint Peace Corps logo on the back of the shirt wasn’t too pleasant to the touch.

But on that Wednesday morning I met everybody on the station, had a good greasy Honduran breakfast (fried spam included) and headed out to what I was there to do: meet the Garífuna people.