"你去哪儿都会get attached，但你还是得keep moving."
~ mi mami
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
(more) lessons learned in Intibucá
The days keep ticking down... In just three weeks my mom will be here, and five days after that I'll be back in the States. "For good." Still hard to imagine saying all of the goodbyes--to my beloved coworkers, cooks, vigilantes, bus drivers and ayudantes, etc. etc. People who I can't just facebook, or email, or text/call when I want--who I literally don't know if or when I'll ever see them again.
I'm also beginning to realize just how little time I have left to finish all that I want to accomplish. We're looking to hire a local education coordinator to direct our education initiatives here, and in that search I've been exposed to a whole new can of worms. That, combined with a few meetings with the local mayor and various conversations with Conce coworkers, have helped me understand just a tiny bit more about the complicated political situation in this tiny little pueblo, and how much everyone--even unknowingly--is embroiled in it all. There are the Nacionalistas, and then there are the Liberales. There is the Resistencia. There are the powerful people from Conce, and then the powerful people who live in but aren't from Conce. There's always a backstory and an old grudge somewhere, but somehow everyone maintains smiling, hand-shaking relations with everyone else. And they do it well enough to deceive us naive gringos, who thinks that everyone just...gets along.
Last week I got to ride Antonio's motorcycle around the campo. It was a trip...meaning, I fell on my ass. Twice. Afterwards, we ended up platicando about my (read: my parents') beloved Maxima, and somehow that turned into them going to the States--how going "mojado" was what Antonio and Edgar aspired to in the future. It definitely wasn't the first time I've heard the idea mentioned; I've heard time and again how hard it is to find a stable job here, how money from America multiplies even if the job is in something like landscaping or construction, how it's a huge risk but often worth it, etc. etc.
But to hear it from these boys--people I work with, who already have jobs, who I know to be relatively well-educated and intelligent, and have seem to have made a place and life for themselves here... Somehow it was so, so different. I just didn't know that there was so much more to the picture. That even beyond the expenses of a higher education, even beyond the scarcity of jobs here, there are still always the obstacle of politics: party politics, but also familial politics. That if you don't align yourself with the right people, your CV can all of a sudden go missing, or your job can be taken away for no reason. To hear that Shoulder to Shoulder is the only organization around here that hires purely on ability rather than connections or politics... I guess I could have felt pride, but instead I just felt sick.
Coming from America, and from a Chinese background, I believe SO strongly that if you work hard enough, with skills, perseverance, and a dash of luck, you can achieve practically anything. The thought that even if someone were smart and worked his/her ass off, it still wouldn't be enough, or that there is absolutely no guarantee that hard work will be rewarded, that keeping your nose clean and out of politics can actually hurt you, or that it's so hard that people here are willing to give up their vocations as teachers, promoters, lo que sea, to become undocumented restaurant and construction workers because that really IS the "better life"... I mean shit, what would you do?
Now I'm on the other side of it all, reviewing applications and CVs to decide who gets a job. Now that word's got out that we're hiring, everyone and their mom is submitting an application to be considered. Chepe told me today that it's "game over"--anyone with the tiniest bit of experience or even interest in education will be coming to find me. And of course, every recommendation I get is that person's friend/relative...
My own little taste of Conce politics. Fantastic.
I'm also beginning to realize just how little time I have left to finish all that I want to accomplish. We're looking to hire a local education coordinator to direct our education initiatives here, and in that search I've been exposed to a whole new can of worms. That, combined with a few meetings with the local mayor and various conversations with Conce coworkers, have helped me understand just a tiny bit more about the complicated political situation in this tiny little pueblo, and how much everyone--even unknowingly--is embroiled in it all. There are the Nacionalistas, and then there are the Liberales. There is the Resistencia. There are the powerful people from Conce, and then the powerful people who live in but aren't from Conce. There's always a backstory and an old grudge somewhere, but somehow everyone maintains smiling, hand-shaking relations with everyone else. And they do it well enough to deceive us naive gringos, who thinks that everyone just...gets along.
Last week I got to ride Antonio's motorcycle around the campo. It was a trip...meaning, I fell on my ass. Twice. Afterwards, we ended up platicando about my (read: my parents') beloved Maxima, and somehow that turned into them going to the States--how going "mojado" was what Antonio and Edgar aspired to in the future. It definitely wasn't the first time I've heard the idea mentioned; I've heard time and again how hard it is to find a stable job here, how money from America multiplies even if the job is in something like landscaping or construction, how it's a huge risk but often worth it, etc. etc.
But to hear it from these boys--people I work with, who already have jobs, who I know to be relatively well-educated and intelligent, and have seem to have made a place and life for themselves here... Somehow it was so, so different. I just didn't know that there was so much more to the picture. That even beyond the expenses of a higher education, even beyond the scarcity of jobs here, there are still always the obstacle of politics: party politics, but also familial politics. That if you don't align yourself with the right people, your CV can all of a sudden go missing, or your job can be taken away for no reason. To hear that Shoulder to Shoulder is the only organization around here that hires purely on ability rather than connections or politics... I guess I could have felt pride, but instead I just felt sick.
Coming from America, and from a Chinese background, I believe SO strongly that if you work hard enough, with skills, perseverance, and a dash of luck, you can achieve practically anything. The thought that even if someone were smart and worked his/her ass off, it still wouldn't be enough, or that there is absolutely no guarantee that hard work will be rewarded, that keeping your nose clean and out of politics can actually hurt you, or that it's so hard that people here are willing to give up their vocations as teachers, promoters, lo que sea, to become undocumented restaurant and construction workers because that really IS the "better life"... I mean shit, what would you do?
Now I'm on the other side of it all, reviewing applications and CVs to decide who gets a job. Now that word's got out that we're hiring, everyone and their mom is submitting an application to be considered. Chepe told me today that it's "game over"--anyone with the tiniest bit of experience or even interest in education will be coming to find me. And of course, every recommendation I get is that person's friend/relative...
My own little taste of Conce politics. Fantastic.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
thoughts & reflections from 4/7
Sitting on the ferry in Roatán, about to head back to La Ceiba. Then San Pedro, then La Esperanza, and then, hopefully, "home" - Concepción, Intibucá.
It's been a whirlwind of a trip so far, in a new and completely different way from the last. Traveling with Matt, Steve, John Ray, and Helen is always an adventure, and every person adds a new flavor to the group. That, plus the novelty of seeing every place from an "outsider's" fresh eyes: the roads, the trees, the fields, the Pepsi/Coke signs, the children playing, the mountains... It's hard for me not to compare all of it with where I've lived for the past 8 months--"it's better/worse/different/nonexistent in Conce"--and just to see it as it is from the perspective of someone fresh off the plane from the US of A.
Just being with these guys has been like a breath of fresh air in a lot of ways; they are full of life, energy, curiosity, everything genuine and nothing contained. Others feel it, too, and we've made a few friends already: we charmed our chef-turned-housemate in Tela, who stayed up to drink whiskey and play ukelele with us under the stars; we befriended our jungle river guides-turned-husband in La Ceiba; and I can only imagine what new adventures we'll have and what new characters we'll meet in the next few days.
On my part, the time away has me reflecting (again) on my time here, and what it means for me now, next year, five years from now, etc. etc. I've gone back and forth about extending my stay more times than I can count, and each time I think of another reason to go one way or the other. Last time I went on vacation I realized all the reasons I was excited to leave--to move forward, to have opportunities to meet new people in new places, to have new adventures, to see patients and connect with them as a medical provider rather than a mere liaison or interpreter. This time, I realized how much I've gotten out of my time here, and how much of it I will miss--the opportunity to do and learn things completely different from my career path, to come and go as I please, to meet and bond with people over a bus ride and trust them when they invite me over for coffee, or dinner, or offer a job, the freedom and relaxed pace of both personal and, to a lesser extent, professional life, and the people I've come to love and respect along the way.
More than anything though, I've come to appreciate the road I took to get here, and how different everything--I--would have been if I hadn't taken it. As excited as I am for med school, I worry that the fast-paced, go-go-go lifestyle and mentality will make me lose what I've come to appreciate here. Respect for honest, hard labor, which never used to be quite as respectable as ambition and education--things that I've seen become twisted and manipulated here. A better understanding of how to consider the big picture, looking at not just one person at a specific period in time, but the larger community over a longer timespan. The knowledge that what I think is best, what others think is best, and what we collectively think is best is often different--and often wrong. The difference between what I want to accomplish, and what I can actually accomplish. The realization that we have much more to offer than just our ambition, education, and career, and respect for the turns and forks that are different from the Yale/American/Chinese-dictated "upward" path. Appreciation for working as hard as possible for what I want, but remembering how different it is from what I need.
I have learned SO much in the past eight months, and can't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to leave in a mere six weeks. I've come to love so much here: riding on tops of buses or the beds of trucks on bumpy dirt roads, the sounds of cows and/or roosters at any hour of the day/night, meeting new people only to find out they are so-and-so's sister/uncle/cousin/father-in-law, making tortillas/pupusas/tamalitos with our cooks while joking around in the kitchen, "Spanish lessons" with my Honduran coworkers and counterparts, meeting and working with some of the most passionate and dedicated people I will probably ever know... The list goes on. All of it has left an incredible impression, and I am both nervous and excited to see where the next few weeks take me.
Let's hope these lessons stick :)
It's been a whirlwind of a trip so far, in a new and completely different way from the last. Traveling with Matt, Steve, John Ray, and Helen is always an adventure, and every person adds a new flavor to the group. That, plus the novelty of seeing every place from an "outsider's" fresh eyes: the roads, the trees, the fields, the Pepsi/Coke signs, the children playing, the mountains... It's hard for me not to compare all of it with where I've lived for the past 8 months--"it's better/worse/different/nonexistent in Conce"--and just to see it as it is from the perspective of someone fresh off the plane from the US of A.
Just being with these guys has been like a breath of fresh air in a lot of ways; they are full of life, energy, curiosity, everything genuine and nothing contained. Others feel it, too, and we've made a few friends already: we charmed our chef-turned-housemate in Tela, who stayed up to drink whiskey and play ukelele with us under the stars; we befriended our jungle river guides-turned-husband in La Ceiba; and I can only imagine what new adventures we'll have and what new characters we'll meet in the next few days.
On my part, the time away has me reflecting (again) on my time here, and what it means for me now, next year, five years from now, etc. etc. I've gone back and forth about extending my stay more times than I can count, and each time I think of another reason to go one way or the other. Last time I went on vacation I realized all the reasons I was excited to leave--to move forward, to have opportunities to meet new people in new places, to have new adventures, to see patients and connect with them as a medical provider rather than a mere liaison or interpreter. This time, I realized how much I've gotten out of my time here, and how much of it I will miss--the opportunity to do and learn things completely different from my career path, to come and go as I please, to meet and bond with people over a bus ride and trust them when they invite me over for coffee, or dinner, or offer a job, the freedom and relaxed pace of both personal and, to a lesser extent, professional life, and the people I've come to love and respect along the way.
More than anything though, I've come to appreciate the road I took to get here, and how different everything--I--would have been if I hadn't taken it. As excited as I am for med school, I worry that the fast-paced, go-go-go lifestyle and mentality will make me lose what I've come to appreciate here. Respect for honest, hard labor, which never used to be quite as respectable as ambition and education--things that I've seen become twisted and manipulated here. A better understanding of how to consider the big picture, looking at not just one person at a specific period in time, but the larger community over a longer timespan. The knowledge that what I think is best, what others think is best, and what we collectively think is best is often different--and often wrong. The difference between what I want to accomplish, and what I can actually accomplish. The realization that we have much more to offer than just our ambition, education, and career, and respect for the turns and forks that are different from the Yale/American/Chinese-dictated "upward" path. Appreciation for working as hard as possible for what I want, but remembering how different it is from what I need.
I have learned SO much in the past eight months, and can't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to leave in a mere six weeks. I've come to love so much here: riding on tops of buses or the beds of trucks on bumpy dirt roads, the sounds of cows and/or roosters at any hour of the day/night, meeting new people only to find out they are so-and-so's sister/uncle/cousin/father-in-law, making tortillas/pupusas/tamalitos with our cooks while joking around in the kitchen, "Spanish lessons" with my Honduran coworkers and counterparts, meeting and working with some of the most passionate and dedicated people I will probably ever know... The list goes on. All of it has left an incredible impression, and I am both nervous and excited to see where the next few weeks take me.
Let's hope these lessons stick :)
Monday, February 7, 2011
life on the frontera
So I spend a lot of time talking about my work life here. Patients. Reports. Health fairs. Brigades.
But I've realized recently that my favorite part about being here... is being here. Taking time to just talk and get to know people, to spend a day in real, rural Honduras rather than being cooped up in our little Westernized world of luxuries--of internet, English, and circular debates about the nature of our work. In light of this, I've been making a much more concerted effort to experience "Honduras" more, to really get to know the area and the people, not just my coworkers but also my neighbors and fellow community members.
Highlights of the past few weeks:
- Horseback riding, where I actually got to gallop as fast as I wanted up and down the mountain on a horse named Bandido (Bandit). So much, in fact, that we only got back five hours later, with sore buttocks, sunburnt faces, and the grins of two giddy five-year-olds.
- Sorting coffee beans (green to red to brown to dried!) with five-year-old Fernando, who wore galoshes too big for him and a ratty t-shirt riddled with holes. Sitting with him for an hour as we waited at his house for his grandparents, neither of whom we knew, and knowing that as creepy this would be in the States, it was perfectly normal and in fact the only way to meet them.
- Riding on top of a bus on the way back, enjoying beautiful scenery, the occasional catcall, and fresh fruit (ocote) from the side of the road. Hanging onto the side rails as we turn and swerve around the winding mountain roads. Lying down on a bunch of boxes, only to realize that my head was resting on a bunch of chickens.
- Playing (or trying to play) soccer with the local boys, doing my best to remember which were on my team and which I had to avoid. And then learning their nicknames, which included "Chicas" (girls) and "Pavo" (turkey).
- Horseback riding, again, this time bucked off by the very same horse, simply because he was jealous of another horse getting too close to "his" mare. Apparently love triangles know no bounds, even those between species...
- Traveling to the airport and back (an 8-hour venture on shitty roads--6 on a good day), making friends with the various bus drivers and ayudantes. Talking to them about America, China, and good music. Good music that is not solely limited to 80s rock ballads. Or at least, not solely limited to the same five 80s rock ballads.
- Making a stop at a local microbrewery, run by an American expat and frequented by primarily European backpackers. Jealous of all of their crazy travels all over the world, yet now realizing the vast difference between that type of time abroad and extended time in one place. Wondering if now I could ever be satisfied with just spending a day or two in a new place.
- Riding, and then learning to drive "mototaxis": motortrikes with makeshift carriages that traverse back and forth between Santa Lucía and Magdalena. Only to find that our bus was coming up from behind, about to pass us, at which point our driver (or my mototaxi teacher) points and yells at us to get off, swatting our money, and us, away.
- Working in the computer lab for a day as the only gringa in the room. Laughing and joking with health promoters, data entry staff, and our area manager, all of whom teach me various colloquial Honduran phrases. Speaking only Spanish for almost the entire day, by the end of which I can not only express myself better, but also be sarcastic and crack jokes--so that they could understand me! Small victories :)
- Spending hours and hours in the kitchen over the weekend. Doing my best to cook up pineapple fried rice (thanks Mike!) for Chinese New Year, despite lacking half of the ingredients. Then helping to make a "Superbowl dinner," complete with Skyline dip and two types of chili. Learning how to make tortillas, then frying them to make homemade tortilla chips.
These are some of my favorite parts about being here--experiences that remind me how much I love living here and how much I love the people here. After about four months here, I get both frustrated with and protective of the Honduran campo that I'm still only beginning to know. Looking at Fernando, I wanted both to take him far, far away where he could eat better food and wear better clothes, but also keep him just where he was, left alone and protected from gringos and Western influence, too much technology, and cynicism. Not that it matters, since I can't do either one...
Anyway, just wanted to share! Paz :)
But I've realized recently that my favorite part about being here... is being here. Taking time to just talk and get to know people, to spend a day in real, rural Honduras rather than being cooped up in our little Westernized world of luxuries--of internet, English, and circular debates about the nature of our work. In light of this, I've been making a much more concerted effort to experience "Honduras" more, to really get to know the area and the people, not just my coworkers but also my neighbors and fellow community members.
Highlights of the past few weeks:
- Horseback riding, where I actually got to gallop as fast as I wanted up and down the mountain on a horse named Bandido (Bandit). So much, in fact, that we only got back five hours later, with sore buttocks, sunburnt faces, and the grins of two giddy five-year-olds.
- Sorting coffee beans (green to red to brown to dried!) with five-year-old Fernando, who wore galoshes too big for him and a ratty t-shirt riddled with holes. Sitting with him for an hour as we waited at his house for his grandparents, neither of whom we knew, and knowing that as creepy this would be in the States, it was perfectly normal and in fact the only way to meet them.
- Riding on top of a bus on the way back, enjoying beautiful scenery, the occasional catcall, and fresh fruit (ocote) from the side of the road. Hanging onto the side rails as we turn and swerve around the winding mountain roads. Lying down on a bunch of boxes, only to realize that my head was resting on a bunch of chickens.
- Playing (or trying to play) soccer with the local boys, doing my best to remember which were on my team and which I had to avoid. And then learning their nicknames, which included "Chicas" (girls) and "Pavo" (turkey).
- Horseback riding, again, this time bucked off by the very same horse, simply because he was jealous of another horse getting too close to "his" mare. Apparently love triangles know no bounds, even those between species...
- Traveling to the airport and back (an 8-hour venture on shitty roads--6 on a good day), making friends with the various bus drivers and ayudantes. Talking to them about America, China, and good music. Good music that is not solely limited to 80s rock ballads. Or at least, not solely limited to the same five 80s rock ballads.
- Making a stop at a local microbrewery, run by an American expat and frequented by primarily European backpackers. Jealous of all of their crazy travels all over the world, yet now realizing the vast difference between that type of time abroad and extended time in one place. Wondering if now I could ever be satisfied with just spending a day or two in a new place.
- Riding, and then learning to drive "mototaxis": motortrikes with makeshift carriages that traverse back and forth between Santa Lucía and Magdalena. Only to find that our bus was coming up from behind, about to pass us, at which point our driver (or my mototaxi teacher) points and yells at us to get off, swatting our money, and us, away.
- Working in the computer lab for a day as the only gringa in the room. Laughing and joking with health promoters, data entry staff, and our area manager, all of whom teach me various colloquial Honduran phrases. Speaking only Spanish for almost the entire day, by the end of which I can not only express myself better, but also be sarcastic and crack jokes--so that they could understand me! Small victories :)
- Spending hours and hours in the kitchen over the weekend. Doing my best to cook up pineapple fried rice (thanks Mike!) for Chinese New Year, despite lacking half of the ingredients. Then helping to make a "Superbowl dinner," complete with Skyline dip and two types of chili. Learning how to make tortillas, then frying them to make homemade tortilla chips.
These are some of my favorite parts about being here--experiences that remind me how much I love living here and how much I love the people here. After about four months here, I get both frustrated with and protective of the Honduran campo that I'm still only beginning to know. Looking at Fernando, I wanted both to take him far, far away where he could eat better food and wear better clothes, but also keep him just where he was, left alone and protected from gringos and Western influence, too much technology, and cynicism. Not that it matters, since I can't do either one...
Anyway, just wanted to share! Paz :)
Sunday, January 23, 2011
from 1/19
So. It's been over a month since I wrote last. Since then, I've gone home, flown across the country, had a college reunion (weird to say that!), finished interviews, and come back, and assisted my first brigade!
As always, time moves both incredibly slowly and quickly at the same time. The pace of daily life seems agonizingly slow sometimes, even though there's always a ton to do, and so much has already happened in the mere week or so I've been back. Most of us (Ashley, Karla, Jess, Kaitlin, and I) came in from the airport with 2 brigades--"mine," a one-week undergrad group from UDayton, and another brigade of nursing students from Minnesota.
The brigade over here in Santa Lucía was great--super low-key, friendly, and eager to help. I took them on the sunrise hike (beautiful), answered as many of their questions as I could, and tried to calm some of their frustrations about their limited abilities to help in the short time they had. It was a great experience, in that I got to better understand how StoS looks from the "outside," or at least from a brigade member's perspective. The kids were super enthusiastic, and it was nice to have a couple fresh, friendly faces around the clinic. At the end of the week, I took them out to the airport, a long 9-hour bus ride that left my butt sore and my entire body covered with dust.
Besides the brigade, we also have a few extras floating/running around here. Dra. Rosbinda's family is here, which means we are often entertained by her hilarious husband and their three precious kids, who normally live in Tegucigalpa, the capital city several hours away. They are a handful, chasing/hitting/screaming at each other, but they are increeedibly adorable. The little ones are constantly tugging on me to play soccer or watch a movie ("Los Cuatros Fantásticos!"), while the oldest (naturally the most responsible) always says hello and waves when he sees me, sometimes trying to say a phrase in English. In particular, their precociousness and avid curiosity are in stark contrast with the kids who live/work around here, who tend to be more quiet and, sadly, are used to being left alone, so they ask very little of the people around them. We also have Treván, who is a third-year med student here for a clinical rotation, and it has been great getting to know her. She is always positive, reminds us of what we sometimes take for granted, and is phenomenal about going out and trying to become familiar with SL and its locals.
I've realized that it's way too easy to get comfortable here--we settle into our small slice of "American/upper-class" life complete with our internet, movies, and English... Sometimes I almost forget where we are. Besides the occasional venture into town for errands or--go figure--a Coke, I hardly ever interact with people outside of the clinic. It's easy to forget that we live in rural Honduras, out in the campo with campesinos who survive by going out into the fields at the crack of dawn, who often don't send their children to school for the mere fact that they can't afford the basic expenses of food and travel, much less actual costs of school like books and writing utensils.
But just as I began to get comfortable again this time around, something happened to jar me awake, reminding me that our microcosm of English and comforts is not at all representative of this poor, rural town. A few nights ago, Ashley, who'd been working in the clinic at the time, ran up to ask Ben about sending a patient on the ambulance. A woman had been carried into the clinic on a "bamboolancia," a mattress tied to a bamboo stick on either side, by 5 policemen from Santa Rita. She was in her mid-thirties, had a husband in the States, and two children at home. After a man had been continually harassing her, she reported him to the police, who told her nothing could be done. In retaliation for trying to report him, the man came back to her house, this time with a machete, and gashed her from head to toe. She had 5 cuts on her head alone, one of which caused a skull fracture and another that left her scalp practically hanging off. Another cut so deep into her hip that her bone marrow was visible. Two doctors spent a few hours just suturing as many wounds as they could before sending her off on the long road to the nearest hospital in La Esperanza (usually a 5-hour bus ride on rocky dirty roads; around 3 hours in our makeshift pickup-truck-turned-ambulance).
This patient touches on so many different aspects of life here... She reminds us of what people here are up against, and how people can be resigned to their situation, no matter how hard it is or how much it could be improved. What do you do when you can't depend on the authorities, who are supposed to enforce the law and protect you from harm? Or when you're used to hearing promises that are never kept? Or when the elected mayor is himself a violent drunkard who is known to engage in domestic violence? After what kind of abuse would women come together to fight back, or even just assert themselves in their own households? Under what circumstances would people come together in order to try again, to try to fight a battle they've lost again and again, or try to be heard when they've been ignored time and again?
Afterward, we heard rumors that the woman hadn't made it. And that the man who had done it had escaped to El Salvador, where he would be safe from the authorities because of extradition laws. My first gut reaction was to try to check it up--I'm so used to checking the news and Wikipedia that my fingers were practically already typing before I thought... Where would I find that information? There are no newspapers here, and we are so far from any city that their newspapers wouldn't even receive this information. We would have to get in touch with the hospital and hope that we spoke to someone familiar with this patient; was she even still there? How would her family members find out? There are no tragic headlines to be found anywhere; if they didn't try, it'd be very possible they wouldn't find out at all. Everything is via word-of-mouth; the distinction between truth and rumor becomes pretty blurred.
In the face of all this, it becomes incredibly easy to doubt what we're doing. I am looking to improve our girls' empowerment program, but in what way can we empower people who have little to aspire to, whose adult examples are primarily soft-spoken, submissive, and essentially expected to cook, clean, and produce offspring without ever wanting anything for themselves? More generally, how do we try to encourage development in a community that we are only beginning to understand, in which we will always be outsiders? Not only do we look, dress, and talk differently, but we come from a background and a mentality where people believe that each person has the ability to determine his/her future, to work hard for what he/she wants in hopes of attaining it, and continually strive for improvement. And in turn, we hope and even expect this from people here. We come in with the aim to "help," which naturally implies that we would know better. But... Well.
But.
As always, time moves both incredibly slowly and quickly at the same time. The pace of daily life seems agonizingly slow sometimes, even though there's always a ton to do, and so much has already happened in the mere week or so I've been back. Most of us (Ashley, Karla, Jess, Kaitlin, and I) came in from the airport with 2 brigades--"mine," a one-week undergrad group from UDayton, and another brigade of nursing students from Minnesota.
The brigade over here in Santa Lucía was great--super low-key, friendly, and eager to help. I took them on the sunrise hike (beautiful), answered as many of their questions as I could, and tried to calm some of their frustrations about their limited abilities to help in the short time they had. It was a great experience, in that I got to better understand how StoS looks from the "outside," or at least from a brigade member's perspective. The kids were super enthusiastic, and it was nice to have a couple fresh, friendly faces around the clinic. At the end of the week, I took them out to the airport, a long 9-hour bus ride that left my butt sore and my entire body covered with dust.
Besides the brigade, we also have a few extras floating/running around here. Dra. Rosbinda's family is here, which means we are often entertained by her hilarious husband and their three precious kids, who normally live in Tegucigalpa, the capital city several hours away. They are a handful, chasing/hitting/screaming at each other, but they are increeedibly adorable. The little ones are constantly tugging on me to play soccer or watch a movie ("Los Cuatros Fantásticos!"), while the oldest (naturally the most responsible) always says hello and waves when he sees me, sometimes trying to say a phrase in English. In particular, their precociousness and avid curiosity are in stark contrast with the kids who live/work around here, who tend to be more quiet and, sadly, are used to being left alone, so they ask very little of the people around them. We also have Treván, who is a third-year med student here for a clinical rotation, and it has been great getting to know her. She is always positive, reminds us of what we sometimes take for granted, and is phenomenal about going out and trying to become familiar with SL and its locals.
I've realized that it's way too easy to get comfortable here--we settle into our small slice of "American/upper-class" life complete with our internet, movies, and English... Sometimes I almost forget where we are. Besides the occasional venture into town for errands or--go figure--a Coke, I hardly ever interact with people outside of the clinic. It's easy to forget that we live in rural Honduras, out in the campo with campesinos who survive by going out into the fields at the crack of dawn, who often don't send their children to school for the mere fact that they can't afford the basic expenses of food and travel, much less actual costs of school like books and writing utensils.
But just as I began to get comfortable again this time around, something happened to jar me awake, reminding me that our microcosm of English and comforts is not at all representative of this poor, rural town. A few nights ago, Ashley, who'd been working in the clinic at the time, ran up to ask Ben about sending a patient on the ambulance. A woman had been carried into the clinic on a "bamboolancia," a mattress tied to a bamboo stick on either side, by 5 policemen from Santa Rita. She was in her mid-thirties, had a husband in the States, and two children at home. After a man had been continually harassing her, she reported him to the police, who told her nothing could be done. In retaliation for trying to report him, the man came back to her house, this time with a machete, and gashed her from head to toe. She had 5 cuts on her head alone, one of which caused a skull fracture and another that left her scalp practically hanging off. Another cut so deep into her hip that her bone marrow was visible. Two doctors spent a few hours just suturing as many wounds as they could before sending her off on the long road to the nearest hospital in La Esperanza (usually a 5-hour bus ride on rocky dirty roads; around 3 hours in our makeshift pickup-truck-turned-ambulance).
This patient touches on so many different aspects of life here... She reminds us of what people here are up against, and how people can be resigned to their situation, no matter how hard it is or how much it could be improved. What do you do when you can't depend on the authorities, who are supposed to enforce the law and protect you from harm? Or when you're used to hearing promises that are never kept? Or when the elected mayor is himself a violent drunkard who is known to engage in domestic violence? After what kind of abuse would women come together to fight back, or even just assert themselves in their own households? Under what circumstances would people come together in order to try again, to try to fight a battle they've lost again and again, or try to be heard when they've been ignored time and again?
Afterward, we heard rumors that the woman hadn't made it. And that the man who had done it had escaped to El Salvador, where he would be safe from the authorities because of extradition laws. My first gut reaction was to try to check it up--I'm so used to checking the news and Wikipedia that my fingers were practically already typing before I thought... Where would I find that information? There are no newspapers here, and we are so far from any city that their newspapers wouldn't even receive this information. We would have to get in touch with the hospital and hope that we spoke to someone familiar with this patient; was she even still there? How would her family members find out? There are no tragic headlines to be found anywhere; if they didn't try, it'd be very possible they wouldn't find out at all. Everything is via word-of-mouth; the distinction between truth and rumor becomes pretty blurred.
In the face of all this, it becomes incredibly easy to doubt what we're doing. I am looking to improve our girls' empowerment program, but in what way can we empower people who have little to aspire to, whose adult examples are primarily soft-spoken, submissive, and essentially expected to cook, clean, and produce offspring without ever wanting anything for themselves? More generally, how do we try to encourage development in a community that we are only beginning to understand, in which we will always be outsiders? Not only do we look, dress, and talk differently, but we come from a background and a mentality where people believe that each person has the ability to determine his/her future, to work hard for what he/she wants in hopes of attaining it, and continually strive for improvement. And in turn, we hope and even expect this from people here. We come in with the aim to "help," which naturally implies that we would know better. But... Well.
But.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)