all about honduras

A friend asked me to tell him all about Honduras. This was a project that I knew would take me awhile. I can't just sum up Honduras, no matter how hard I try. When I told him that other people had been asking the same thing, he said that I was welcome to share with them my email to him. So, this is for you if you are wondering all about Honduras...

I live in Tegucigalpa, the capitol. Tegus is in the mountains and is basically like a bowl—the city is in the valley, but goes up the sides too. Apparently it’s the most dangerous airport in the world because there is such a quick descent and the plane needs to stop so fast. But no worries, only the best pilots are allowed to fly in and out of Tegus. The city is big with lots of people. It is never quiet and it’s very dirty. The traffic is terrible. Honduras borders both the Caribbean and the pacific. I haven’t been south, but I guess the beaches are dirty and have dark sand. But up north is like those picture-perfect beaches you see as computer desk tops. Those beaches really are as wonderful as they look. The water is perfectly clear. Even if you’re up to your shoulders, you can still see your feet on the bottom. And where I went, there weren’t even any fish, just jellyfish and sand dollars. I was in a little village called Cusuna. It is literally right on the ocean. The beach was basically outside their backdoors. Cusuna is a very poor village. The homes are literally made of mud, sticks, and straw, and they are only one room—probably the size of a dorm room or smaller. There is no electricity. I’m not sure about running water, but probably not. However, they were so hospitable. Despite the insane heat and dehydration and sunburn and exhaustion, we had a great time learning about the Garífuna culture, one ethnic group in Honduras, originally from Africa.

In Tegus, I live by myself with a host family. I have a mom, a dad, and 4 sisters—ages 21, 18, 18, and 11. They are great. Really. They are. They include me as a member of the family. It can be hard, though. The 11-year-old is mean to me, but I just try to ignore that. A lot of times I feel like I do things wrong or that I shouldn’t do, but I don’t actually think that’s the case, in talking to the other students. And if it is true, oh well. It’s fine. I’m doing the best I can. It is hard not having a roommate. I’ve always shared a room—my sister, Laura, fellow camp counselors… So it’s hard to be by myself. I’m glad that I’m not with any of my host sisters. It is nice to have my own space and a place to get away, but it’s still lonely. It’s hard to be alone. But even with my host family, I feel alone. There is a barrier. Not so much the language, but that is part of it. I don’t know exactly what it is. Maybe it’s the culture differences. Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t grow up in this family. My background is just different. And that’s okay. But through all of this lonesomeness, I’m learning a lot about trust and remembering that God is with me even when I don’t feel him. And that’s something that I have to learn hour by hour. I’m always learning this.

I go to one of the public universities in Tegucigalpa, but I only have other Calvin students in my classes. I do, however, have Honduran profs. That can be very frustrating. The grading system is very different and is against the students. In the class there are 100 points and the student can only lose points, so once you are at 90%, you can’t get any higher than that. It’s hard because we’ve never worked so hard and we’ve never received such bad grades. Yes, the grades will be changed to match our GPA, or so we’ve been told, but it’s still hard to see. I think that I’m okay with the bad grades. I really am doing my best and it’s in my second language, but the scholarship donors are not okay with it. And that is what I struggle with.

The bus system in Tegus is interesting. The buses are old school buses from the US. It only costs the equivalent of 15 cents to take the bus, so that’s really great, but you don’t ever know exactly where the bus stops are. There are no signs. The bus just stops where there are a lot of people. It also takes a long time on the bus. It’s just as long as walking, sometimes longer. And you don’t pay as soon as you get on like in Grand Rapids, but there’s a guy who comes by after the bus starts going again asking for the money. There are also people who are selling things like gum and candy and water and bread who get on the bus to try to sell them and then just gets off at the next stop to try another bus.

The gap between poverty and wealth is enormous in Honduras. There is incredible wealth for a few people, but there is unbelievable poverty for so many people. The thing is, a lot of times you see the million dollar homes next to the mud huts. Literally. Possibly the best example of this would be the huge banana plantations (Dole and Chiquita Banana are based in Honduras). These American companies have taken over this business and the people on the land or the workers are pushed off the land. The banana companies put up fences and these people live between the fences and the roads—in mud huts. How is this okay? It makes me angry. It makes me feel guilty. I didn’t actually do anything. I couldn’t do anything to be born in a middle class family in the US. It’s not my fault that they were born into these impoverished families. But I feel like I can’t do anything to change the situation and that makes me feel guilty, but I’m not sure that “guilty” is the right word. I think that all of my big thoughts and questions come down to this: injustice. I just feel so helpless because I can’t fix everything. I want to fix everything, but I know that that’s not going to happen and so I just want to help, but I don’t know how much of a difference I can make. Maybe it’s enough just to try.

I think that that just about covers it for now. Are there any other things you want to know about? Maybe I’ll think of more… I might have talked about some of this already, so sorry about that.