Max the Revolutionary

Here’s the translated transcript of a conversation we had with a Pech Indian in the mountains of Central Honduras where we work with MaderaVerde. His name is Carlos, and he is the “vigilante” (security guard) at the local school where we were staying.

- “Hello, I am Carlos, who are you?”
- “Oh, hello. I am Lynnette and I am a Peace Corps volunteer working with MaderaVerde in town”
- “And who are you?” asked Carlos, looking at Max
- “I am Max” replied Max in his monosyllabic Spanish
- “Joe Max?” asked Carlos. He understood Max’s yo soy (I am) as Joe
- “No, my name is Max. Just Max”
- “Ohh that is a great name!!! A strong name, Marx, like Carlos Marx, the Cuban revolutionary. It is great to meet you. I play music with a folk Pech group. Let me know when and we’ll play for you. I have to go now, but hope to see you soon!!”
And so he left. Max and I looked at each other confused for a few seconds and then laughed. He thought Max was named after Karl Marx, the German philosopher, but to him it was Carlos Marx, the Cuban. To be honest I was impressed that a guy that lives in a community without running water or power knew about Marx, but more so I was happy that Max’s name got us invited to listen to a live Pech folk group.

Lost at Sea

Let me introduce you to Don Angel Puerto. He is about 5’2’’, has mustache, and his quiet, almost shy behavior might make you not notice him much in a group. He is in his forties and works as a fisherman. He has the arms and shoulders of a hard working man, the skin of someone that works long hours under the sun. He looks just like most Hondurans, dark hair and eyes, brown skin, but in his town he is a minority. You see, he is a ladino (a person of Spanish descent) who lives in a Garífuna community. In a town where everybody is black, he is white. He has lived with the Garífuna for decades, raised his family, worked, lived, and breathed like them. Today, behind his quiet personality he is a respected member of his community.

Don Angel has worked as a fisherman off the coast of Honduras for years. The ocean is his office; his rod, his work instrument. Early in the mornings, when the sun hasn’t really risen yet, he heads out to open sea to earn a living. His boat is small and old, its engine weak. His equipment is old and in bad shape, but it is all he’s got and he does the best he can with it. He goes out to sea, for days in a row, hoping luck is on his side and his catch will be plentiful. But things haven’t been good lately, the area around the reef has been over-fished, and it is hard to make a good catch these days. That doesn’t deter him and he keeps going out. Life is hard, and there’s no time to waste complaining.

I met Don Angel during a community meeting organized by the foundation I work with. I was excited to meet everybody and listen to their ideas of how I could help as a Peace Corps volunteer. While most people made it a point to say something, anything, (very common during community meetings here) Don Angel kept to himself, listening rather than talking. I was curious about him… what motivates a guy move to a place so different than his own? Why choose fishing as a profession when you are certainly from another part of the country? Why was he in that meeting? How can I help him? In a brief conversation at the end of the meeting I learned that he was interested in farming fish and selling it, that he had done some research on how to do it, and that he needed my advice on how to start the business. We agreed that I would travel to his town at a later time where we could discuss the project in more detail.

The day before the agreed upon meeting, I called to confirm our appointment. It is a three hour bus ride to Rio Esteban, where he lives, and I do not want to make the trip in vain. Since he doesn’t have a phone, I call someone else in the community and ask for him or his wife Doña Rosa, and say I will call the same number in 15 minutes. The person that gets the call then sends a kid to Don Angel’s house with the message. When I call back his wife answers the phone.
- “Hello Doña Rosa, I am calling to confirm our meeting tomorrow about the fish farming business”
- “Well, Angel went fishing a few days ago and he hasn’t come back yet, he was supposed to be here yesterday. He knew about the meeting, because I reminded him before he left. I don’t know what’s keeping him.”
- “Oh! That’s strange. Lets do this: I will call tomorrow afternoon again, and if he’s back we’ll do the meeting the day after”
- “That sounds good!”
- “Talk to you tomorrow then.”

The next day (a Tuesday) I called and he had not returned, his wife was now really worried.
- “This isn’t like him. He never leaves for so long without letting me know. I am so sorry about the meeting.”
- “Don’t worry about it; let’s give him a couple of days. I will call again on Saturday and we’ll take it from there”

On Saturday I talked to Doña Rosa again and he had not returned. She was really worried about him now, and so was I. This didn’t seem like Don Angel. He wouldn’t just disappear like that unless something bad happened.

A couple of days latter I called again and talked to Doña Rosa again. Don Angel had finally returned, he had been lost at sea for about 7 days and was not too sick to come to the phone and talk. He will need a couple of weeks before he’s able to meet.

When I finally saw him several weeks latter he seemed smaller, but still had the same clean, well put dignity he carries. I wanted to know everything about being lost at sea and he explained that his engine had broken while he was fishing. He had drifted for four days until a boat going to Roatán (one of the islands off the north coast of Honduras) had found him. They offered to take him and his boat to Roatán and he took the lift. He spent a couple of days in Roatán fixing his engine, and once done, headed back to sea for the 30 mile ride home. On the way back the engine broke again and he spent another 3 days lost, until he drifted near the city of Trujillo, about 165km east of La Ceiba. He eventually made it home… dehydrated, sick, his skin burned from the direct sunlight.

What struck me most was the way he told the story, in the most casual of ways, like if nothing eventful had happened. I guess after all life is hard and there’s no time to waste complaining.

It’s Not Good Business if you Loose Money

Before we say anything let us say this, MaderaVerde is one of the best NGOs we’ve seen in Honduras, and we’ve seen a lot. Like any business, thought, they’ve had their challenges during these growth years and here is where Max and I can help. For example, although Honduras’ inflation rate is estimated at 7% every year, the prices of the furniture they sell has not been updated in over three years. The cost of wood and other materials has increased significantly, and the artisans say they loose money on some of the furniture they make. MaderaVerde has a great staff of people working for the foundation, but most of their resources are currently focused on creating management plans for the woods, leaving very little time and money to spend on production and sales issues. It is not that they do not want to focus on that, they just haven’t had the resources or even the knowledge to do it. Currently, you can buy a beautiful hand-made chair, made out of semi-precious tropical woods cheaper than an ugly chair made in China. Such precious work is the cheap option in town.

Also, when you place an order from MaderaVerde, you might have to wait 6 to 8 months before you get your furniture delivered, since at the time of your order they start processing the permit to cut down the tree that will eventually be your chair. Getting the permit, cutting the tree, drying the wood, making the chair are all lengthy steps in the production process. If you are a potential client and you do not have a dinning table, you are not happy with waiting 6 months to get your order.

Artisans would love to have a stock of dried wood to make the furniture faster but they don’t have enough money to stock up. Since they even loose money on furniture, they barely even have money to buy wood for the small orders they get, having to borrow money from the foundation almost every time they buy wood. The situation is aggravated by the fact that none of them keep books of their costs or sales, so they have no idea how much they spend on each item. They have even less of an idea of how much time it takes them to make each piece.

There’s also the fact that they have a catalogue of more than 100 products, each of which can be made one of or a combination of about six different woods. Some woods are harder to work with, or valued higher at the market, but today you will pay the same price for any of the woods.

Each artisan owns their own shop, and they are divided in 6 communities, which make consistency in the products an issue. These communities are hours (some days) away from each other, most with very little or no means of communications other than radio or a message sent by bus. The artisans all love what they do, but not all know how to keep their quality high. Often times the foundation has to reject products due to their poor quality, and the artisans are not inclined to keep their tools in optimal shape. They just don’t understand why that is important.

With all these challenges there’s a lot for Max and I to do. We’ve met with the artisans and there are a lot of ideas floating in the air. For the next few weeks we are focusing on doing a time and cost study that will help us define appropriate prices for the furniture. Sounds like a simple task, but when you have to travel for hours, if not days, and there’s no car available or it is raining so much that a few bridges between here and there are broken, all of the sudden it becomes a task as hard as moving a mountain. Again we want to get moving quickly and start solving problems but there’s a million things preventing us. Also, you can not just show up at a place and start working. It has to be a trip of several days during which you spend at least the first day socializing and getting to know people. They will only open up to you and let you help them after they feel comfortable around you.

This is all an exciting challenge to us. We really see great prospects for the artisans and their organization and we really hope they start seeing the fruit of their hard work soon. We feel the same way about our work with Garifunas on the coast, but that's a whole other story...

The Coolest Job in the World

During Peace Corps training we were told that our first two months should be dedicated to community entry. That getting setup and earning people’s trust should be considered a project on its own and that we should expect it to take us about 6 to 8 weeks. Of course when I heard that I thought it was crazy to spend so much time getting settled, I was ready to get things going, get people moving. Two years is not really that much time after all. Like so many times before during this whole process I was proven wrong.

Perhaps more subconsciously than not we spent our first two months trying everything and not committing to much. Trying meant attending meetings, visiting the towns we work with, meeting people, making contacts, listening to ideas, figuring things out. Things here really work differently, the pace is different, and the rules are different. We are not here to change or even judge these rules, we’re here to help people figure out how to improve their lives playing by these rules. It is ironic that we are the “experts” in a scenario that is so foreign to us, and yet we’ve experienced people’s warmth and respect to us as authorities in something (we still wonder in what). Anyway, enough rhetoric, this entry is about what the heck we have been doing so far.

There are three major things: Guarantee the sustainability of a local vocational center, improve MaderaVerde’s production process and pricing structure; and work with the Garífuna communities on the north coast in grass roots efforts to improve their standard of living. We took Frank’s (RPCV Honduras 96-98, who left a note in our blog) advice by heart and agreed to work on things that would not get done if we were not here; combined with what we thought would be a lot of fun. We are just recently getting neck deep into our own work, but between working with the wood-cutters and artisans up the mountains and having a meeting by the sea with a group of motivated Garífunas, this certainly feels like the coolest job in the world.

Let us tell you more…