Long Days

The last few days have been long ones ... not so much in time but in the way they are passing. One expects days like these, especially in a setting outside of one's own culture.

Last night, a friend came over to search for Canadian jobs on line. I helped him with the odd translation but, for the most part, his English allowed him to look through the postings unassisted. About thirty minutes into the search, there were several gunshots heard. Manuel began talking briefly about how Santa Cruz was changing. A week ago, a woman across the street from where he lives was killed in a 6 a.m. robbery. The shots we heard were, to him, not so unusual and simply meant someone else had been killed.

The statistics are not encouraging in Honduras. The country leads the Americas in violent deaths per capita. The primary cause of the violence is drug related. The offshoots of the vast quantity of drugs heading to the United States are many and varied.

Often, now, mules are paid in drugs rather than cash. One can easily see where that leads. Another odd sprout hit us this week. In a project in Santa Rita, there are many trees. In Santa Rita, there are many young men who have a drug habit of one sort or another. They support this by fanning out from the town each day to forage for firewood which they sell in order to buy drugs. One or two were in the property this week and, quite likely, were smoking dope. They dropped a cigarette and it started a fire. We lost a number of trees but, thankfully, not as many as we could have. In a week, the rains should be here and then the fire hazard will drop dramatically.

As you can well imagine, the deforestation around towns is an enormous problem. I have seen well over 40 young men heading up the road on some mornings. If each cuts two or three trees each day ... you do the math. The only saving grace for Honduras is that trees come back rapidly after cutting and so can be 'harvested' on an annual or bi-annual basis. But, each year the treed areas get pushed back a little further.

On Sunday I visited a couple who are living in a village only ten kilometres away but off the grid. We talked about their experiences in their new home. They told of the various neighbours and the problems being faced in the community. A thirteen year old girl who is now 'married'. The mother not able to say anything because she can't afford to feed the girl should she be at home. Of course, in the long run, she will likely be having to find food for two more rather than one.

I wonder if the huge disposable slave trade which draws thousands of young men especially to the United States (and has done so for many, many years) doesn't also have huge ramifications. There seems to be no 'elder' culture available to guide and discipline the burgeoning younger generations. So many young people are growing up in a virtual vacuum without knowledge, without education and without cultural values and mores. I have seen a similar problem in Africa (and, with AIDS it is a growing problem). Our current Canadian emphasis on putting our elders out of sight and out of circulation may be setting our own culture up for implosion.

We talked about possibly finding a way to empower the elders in the community to have a vision and the self respect needed to share that vision in a meaningful way with their grandchildren.  A cycle of cultural powerlessness is very difficult to break. Anything that can be done to help people look outside of that cycle is a valuable effort.

Yesterday, we had a visit from a woman who works with a program helping wards of the state. She took our program with her so that several of the young people they work with can continue studying. We need to find the materials for Grades 1-6 so that more of their charges can be helped. As I have mentioned before, the living conditions that these children must be in before becoming wards of the state are awful beyond telling.

Wednesday I took some edible plants to an orphanage nearby. Fortunately, a young fellow who enjoys gardening was around to take charge of them. Hopefully they will survive the journey and the transplanting. The orphanage is overwhelmed with abandoned children. Many have relatives of some sort but are unwanted. It is so difficult for the staff to look at long term planning for these children.

Yesterday, a nearby plot of land was being cleared. They cut down a number of bananas and plantains. Fortunately, I noticed them and Santiago and I rescued the stems and leaves for our worm bins (Santiago do much more of the rescue work than I to tell the whole truth). They bins are now piled high with the stems. For some reason, compost worms go bananas over the stems (sorry). We shall see how fast the pile sinks.

Will stop. I had hoped if I talked long enough the internet would come back on and I could post this right away. Alas. No such luck.

TTYL

BB