Sickness and CAFTA

Well I had my first experience at a Honduran hospital today. I picked up a little something and had been pretty sick all weekend. A lot of the students from our group have been getting pretty sick, there has been about one person gone per day from class. It might be some sort of flu/virus going around. There are not usually this many students sick, the last two years no one had stayed home from class at all. We got rid of that record nice and quick. I spent my Saturday laying on my bed trying not to move, and making frequent trips to the bathroom. Lovely day. Sunday was a little better, but I woke up this morning quite dizzy and without energy. I decided I should probably go see the doctor. Hondurans love to go to the doctor, they are usually there the first day they show symptoms. The doctor I saw was the doctor that the Calvin students try to see when they are sick. He speaks excellent English, which is great since the last thing I want to do when describing my symptoms is try to translate in my sub-par Spanish. He concluded that I was quite dehydrated, so I got an IV drip. All in all it was pretty easy. I am hoping that this will be my last visit to the hospital as a patient. It all ended up costing about $30. A lot less paperwork than I am used to as well. I am feeling better, and should be able to go to school tomorrow. Ironically enough we will be going to visit a hospital.

Since I was bedridden all weekend I do not have anything incredibly interesting to report on that. On Friday night some of the students were craving American pizza, so I went to Pizza Hut with the girls from my neighborhood and a few of their host sisters. That was fun, but might have been the cause of my sickness. Who knows. Regardless, I don’t think I will be returning to Pizza Hut anytime soon.

I think I had mentioned in a previous blog post how I was surprised at how many American goods were being sold in the stores, as well as how many American food chains, tv channels, etc. there are in Honduras. I found out that most of this is a direct result of the Central America Free Trade Agreement. This agreement, passed in 2005, allowed free trade between The United States and Central America, with the exception of Costa Rica, who did join. The US wanted to open CA up to US services, especially banking, insurance, and telecommunications. Under CAFTA these formerly Honduran companies can be totally owned by US companies. For example, the grocery store I shop at, Pais, is owned by Wal-Mart. I could not for the life of me figure out why this store had the Wal-Mart brand items there, but I have now solved that puzzle. Under this agreement, the US will also receive more intellectual property rights, agriculture, and equal treatment to US companies. The Honduran government wanted to sell more textiles and agriculture to the US, and wanted a decrease in subsidies for US farmers. The US have benefitted greatly off of this agreement, getting everything they wanted, thus basically the same selection of candy, gum, and magazines at the checkout counters of my grocery store as I would find at any Meijer. Honduras has not quite benefitted so much from this agreement. They do export textiles to the US, but it is a bit more expensive than getting the clothes from somewhere in Asia, so a lot of the time their clothes orders come when the US needs clothing quickly. It has raised GDP here in Honduras by about .6%, but then some argue that that money is just going to the few elite here in Honduras. I don’t really know where I stand on all of this. To be honest I was only vaguely away that CAFTA even existed before now.

Well off to work on homework!

Odds and Ends

So today marks two weeks that I have been in Honduras, it’s pretty crazy. I feel like this semester will be gone in the blink of an eye. I think the setup of my days really make them fly. I leave home at 7:45 and usually get home around 5. Combined with the fact that I go to bed around 10, the days go by so fast. My classes have been going very well; we have had some interesting speakers in the last few weeks. Earlier this week we had a speaker come from the World Bank to talk about the Honduran economy, and last week the second to the US Ambassador in Honduras came to talk to our class about the Coup. It is great hearing about the things we are studying from several different perspectives. On an unrelated note I have gotten pretty used to the weather, and am enjoying it quite a bit. Today it was fairly cool, in the 70’s and probably into the 60’s tonight. I am really enjoying the food. My host mama is a great cook, I haven’t disliked anything she has made yet. My body also didn’t react negatively to the change in food, which was good. I usually buy my lunch from the school cafeteria, which is basically four different food stands with similar foods. Everything I have had has been delicious. Deep friend and unhealthy I am sure, but delicious. I usually spend around 20 lempiras for lunch, which is about a dollar. Many times I will just get a fruit salad for about 75 cents. The melon here is in season right now, and quite wonderful.

Today was great; we went to see an organization called Mujeres Valientes, a support group in Nueva Suyapa for women who have been victims of domestic abuse. We heard the stories of a few different women, and then went on a tour of Nueva Suyapa to see some of their houses, and hear more from them in smaller groups. Many of these women had incredibly sad stories, and for them to open up to us was very touching. We could tell that there was still a lot of hurting there, but the group has helped a lot. Mujeres Valientes works mainly by word of mouth. Women will seek out other women when they think that they may be victims of domestic abuse. They have individual counseling, group meetings, and support for other issues, such as cancer. Related to Mujeres Valientes is a microcredit program run by women in Nueva Suyapa. Somewhere around 70-80% of the households in this community are run by women, and this microcredit program is now reaching hundreds of households. I mentioned something about this in an earlier post, but usually financial things will go through the women in the household as they tend to spend the money more wisely, usually on their children rather than alcohol as many men do.

One of the other things we checked out while in Nueva Suyapa was pilas. These pilas are basically concrete structures where families can keep their water. The water only comes on about once a month in these neighborhoods, so the time of the month where the water is turned on, everyone drops what they are doing to fill of their coke bottles, barrels, etc. This water is for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, etc. and has to last a month. The pilas allow families to simply fill up these concrete structures, and have a larger amount of water in one place, instead of filling up 30 or so coke bottles. The pilas were constructed a few years ago, actually with the help of a Calvin group. They were able to build 16, and these went to some of the poorest families, chosen with the help of some of the leaders from Mujeres Valientes.

Last weekend I went to the Mayoreo, which is basically a giant open air market that happens every weekend in downtown Tegus. Countless people come in from the rural areas to sell their agricultural products, as well as everything from clothing to pirated dvds. It was one of the busiest places I have ever been, but it was definitely an experience. On Sunday I went to a family get together with my host family, that was a lot of fun. I also went to dinner with my host family and a Calvin grad who lived with my families several years ago, and her parents who were here for the weekend. She is not living in Honduras and teaching a few hours away from Tegus. It was nice to talk to her. Well it is almost 10 o’clock- way past my bedtime. I think this is where I will end today.

Retreat and Global Village Project

Well I had a very interesting weekend. It was our retreat/a little bit of rural research. For our retreat we went up to Siguatepeque, a really beautiful little city way up in the mountains. It was a newer camp that looked like it hosts similar groups. They had a high ropes course that we did as groups, which basically entailed us trying to do all these different ropes course activities while 50 feet off the ground, harnessed in of course. It was quite a bit of fun once we realized we would not be falling to our deaths. My group was naturally the one that fell the most, and we have the cuts and bruises to show for it. The next day we went to Los Pinos, a place even higher in the mountains. The road up there was like nothing I have ever been on, I almost had to stop looking out the window and just trust that the driver was not going to let us tumble off the mountains. He is a great drive though, and we did not die. He has been driving for Calvin students for the past 5 years, and it a very nice guy. Los Pinos was easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The view was something out of a calendar or travel catalog. They had many great hiking trails, and we went on some at dusk and then a few of us went again before breakfast. It was breathtaking. The area we stayed at is clearly being developed in hopes of increasing tourism, but the difficulty getting there can be a challenge. You can hire people to take you up there. Also, while Honduras has never been dependent on tourism, the coup last summer has really kept a lot of tourists out of the country.

Today we traveled to the rural areas to see some of the projects going on there(Warning: this might be a little long-winded, I learned a lot today, haha). I group leaders are really involved with things in the rural areas, one of the focuses of Association for a Just Society is to get families in rural areas their land titles. Most of these people do not hold the deeds to their land, and usually several parties, including the government, claim to own the land and require payment. This can get very, very expensive. So they have helped tens of thousands of people get ownership of their land.

I have been told that to see the real Honduras you must get off the main roads. So that is what we did, and it was really great. First we went to La Oficina Proyecto de Desarrollo Yure, an organization that is working on HIV/AIDS prevention with youth. They work with young adults, as well as the workers who work far from home (one of the big spreaders of HIV/AIDS), as well as sex workers. AIDS is a big problem in Honduras, something I did not know. While there are only 66,000 people reported to have HIV/AIDS, this is only the information coming from the state institutions, and the numbers are probably closer to 200-300,000. This, in a population of 7 million, makes it the Central American country with the highest HIV/AIDS rate. The government will pay for anti retroviral drugs to treat HIV, but the problem is that they have so few drugs that the state will only give it to them after they have started showing signs for being infected with AIDS, a point where it is almost too late. The drugs cost more than 5 times the average Honduran salary, so buying them yourself is almost not an option. One interesting fact relating to this- the US has a military base in Honduras which is the largest military base in Central America. Honduran law stipulates that no other country can have a permanent military base in the country, so the US changes all their personnel here every six months, making it temporary. They have been doing this for over 15 years. Anyways, Hondurans blame this military base on the HIV/AIDS problem in Honduras. The area surrounding the base does have the highest HIV/AIDS rates, but I don’t know if that has been proven or not. It is the accepted belief though.

After this we visited a health clinic. This clinic operates mostly thanks to various American agencies. Their funds and supplies are all donated. It focuses on children, and helps quite a few people. Honduras is one of the best countries when it comes to vaccinations. They have virtually no polio or measles because of this. The clinic has helped the area reach almost no infant deaths in the last few years. They are doing great things with pregnant women too, especially women infected with HIV/ AIDS. Each visit costs only 10 lempiras, which is about 50 cents. Those who cannot pay will still receive treatment.

For the last leg of the journey we visited many houses with the Global Village Project. This is a really interesting thing. What they do is basically start off with giving one family a certain number of chickens, pigs, turkeys, or fish. They don’t pay for them, but what they do is give the same number of animals to another family in the village once their animals start reproducing. This is basically how they pay the debt for the animals, instead of cash. Then the next year the second family will give animals to the third, etc. until they arrive back at the first family. Many times the families will voluntarily keep the circle going after they own their animals. They then start the process in another community. Many times the families can make good wages off of selling the eggs or fish or whatever. We probably went to 5 different houses to see these people and their little farms, and they were all great people who benefitted from this a lot. Oh, also, one interesting thing is that the titles for these farms are always in the women’s name. This has to do with several factors. The men can be a bit irresponsible sometimes. Many men are alcoholics, and might sell off the animals for alcohol, or gamble them away. They also give them to the women because this project is meant for poor families, and not usually single men. It was really great seeing these people, I think they enjoyed having 20 “gringas” get overly excited about pigs and chickens. It was really fun.

Tomorrow I am starting my development class, which should be great. We are going to start learning about the coup soon, and we have a lot of insiders coming to speak to our class, which should be great. Very little is actually known about what happened during the coup still. It is great having leaders of this semester who are permanently here, they have so many connections and can help with almost any problem that arises.

I have arrived!

Here is my attempt at a blog. I don’t know if I will update it regularly or not as my internet access is a little bit spotty, but I thought I would give it a chance. This is my third day here, and I am enjoying it a lot. The trip here was quite long, but we got here and that is what matters. I started my Spanish class today at La Universidad Pedagógica, a teacher’s school. Apparently anyone who wants to teach middle or high school in Honduras needs to attend. It is a beautiful campus. Calvin has a permanent residence there, with an office and a classroom. My Spanish class is on Latin American culture, I think it will be great. A lot of work probably, but it should be very interesting. My development class will start next week.

I live in the farthest neighborhood away from the school, about a 40 minute walk each way. I enjoy the walk, and can use the exercise after all the great food I am eating here. It is safe; I just have to watch out for a few random giant holes that it is likely I will fall into at some point, that and the myriad cars everywhere. The traffic here is quite insane. People have been moving into Tegucigalpa from the rural areas in hope of finding jobs, which has led to too many people and too many cars in a small space. You will never catch me driving here.

I live in Las Lomas, one of the smaller neighborhoods in the area. It is quiet, and I have been told that it is very safe, only one or so break-ins. It also has a stunning view of the city. Two other girls from Calvin live there with me, and one of the girls is my next door neighbor. I walk to and from school with them. They are in the same Spanish class so it works out perfectly. I have a great room, as well as my own bathroom which is quite a blessing. My family is great. I have a mom, dad, and two brothers, who are 20 and 15, and a sister who is 18. They have done this many times before, so they are very patient. They only speak Spanish with me, which can be a challenge, but I can already tell my Spanish is improving, and they help me a lot. I never actually spoke Spanish that much in any of my classes, so I can read and write much better than I can speak.

Tegucigalpa itself is very interesting. The entire country is gorgeous, beautiful mountains and everything is green. When our flight got in we had a 5 hour car ride from San Pedro Sula to Tegus, but the view the whole drive was so pretty I don’t think anyone minded. The weather has been gorgeous. It is in the 80’s during the day, and gets much cooler at night. It’s great. I already have a bit of a burn; my skin isn’t used to all this sun. The people here are very kind and helpful. Today we went exploded “El Centro”, which is kind of the downtown. We went in groups of three and had a scavenger hunt. My group had to get a key copied. We got on the right bus, but got off on the wrong bus stop. We then ended up not where we meant to be, but eventually found our way to a bus. We didn’t know which to take, but a nice man showed us which bus to take and it all worked out. The buses are interesting, apparently a lot of foreigners as well as Hondurans will not take them as they can be dangerous, but they seemed fine. Overcrowded and loud, but fine. We went to see Kurt and Jo Ann Ver Beek’s non profit, Association for a Just Society, and learn what they are doing in Honduras. One of the things that surprised me a lot was how many Western stores there are here. On my way to school I pass a McDonalds, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Popeyes. At night we usually watch shows like The Simpsons or Spongebob in Spanish. It is interesting.

Tomorrow we are going to Siguatepeque, and will be there all weekend as well as Monday to explore some in the rural areas. It should be fun. I feel like I wrote too much, so I will end. I haven’t taken too many pictures since most of the places I have been it has not been safe to bring a camera. I’ll post some whenever I take them.