Meeting the Deputy Mayor – November 14

On Wednesday we found all three sizes of screen needed to get the sand ready for a water filter. The first store had all three sizes but when we asked about them, they only sold by the roll. Well, we only needed a metre of each size so that was out. Luckily, the next store sold each by the metre and we were on our way.

One of the strange things that is part of trying to business in another country is finding offices empty and closed one day and bustling the next. We went to see the people who have developed the curriculum we are going to use in our program. We are trying to get our hands on a digital copy so that we don’t have to go to the work of typing up twelve textbooks. The real problem is finding the pictures to go with the text. I ramble. The office was closed and locked. We checked with the woman who knows the most – the owner/operator of the canteen at the bottom of the stairway leading to the office. She wasn’t sure where they were but knew they were out for a couple of days. Sigh. The school year ends at the end of the month so offices and officials are busy going hear and there.

We had better luck at the Deputy Mayor’s office yesterday. She was in, along with her interpreter, Oscar. We had a long meeting discussing our program and how it would fit into their education system. She seemed very positive and took the time to arrange a meeting with the “Principal” of the district program. The Principal, evidently, is good friends with the Minister of Education and the Deputy Mayor is hopeful that with his help, pressure can be put on the Ministry to move with our funding. The connections are so fascinating. Later in the morning as we walked up to the town square, the Mayor stopped his truck and got out to chat with us. He is busy campaigning for re-election and so is rarely in the office. However, seeing a gringo with his friend, Chepe, was enough to stop and find out what we were doing. Good news, he said he would be at the meeting on Monday as well.

The most interesting fact that came out of the meeting was given to us by the Deputy Mayor. She pointed to the Primary School outside the window at the bottom of the hill. At the beginning of the year, there were 1500 students registered. Because of the incidental costs of schooling like scribblers, pencils, etc., the number of students is now down to 750. That means that half of the students at this school are sitting doing nothing ... or worse. A program like ours where there are no extra costs, no need for extra materials and texts means that it is open to a much broader spectrum of the population. As well, many adults can access the education they need to obtain jobs in the factories in the district.

That means, of course, more tax money for the Mayor’s office. That in itself is a good incentive to help us succeed. Oscar, the interpreter, says that salaries for office workers are generally ten to fifteen days late.

Had supper with Oscar and his little girl, Giselle. He is left caring for his girl as his wife went to the U.S. to find work and some sort of money. He hasn’t heard if she made it safely – two months. He is trying to find a way he can get himself and his daughter to Canada to live and work. Half a million Hondurans are working in the U.S. – legally, illegally and children born in the U.S. When you think of similar numbers from each of the other Latin American countries, the number of slave/near slave labourers in the U.S. is staggering. What is even more amazing, to me, is that, despite this vast pool of economic slaves, the U.S. is still in financial difficulty.

Bryan