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.