I got back from a morning run to find my host family wide-eyed and listening to the car radio at full blast. The occasion? The power was out and the president had been whisked away from his mansion in his pajamas by the army. “There has been a coup,” my host mom said, smiling as she does whenever she delivers news, good or terrible.
Like many of you, I have never been in a small isolated community in a developing country when a military coup is taking place. There is a cloud of confusion, and an ever-increasing tangle of rumors.
Ever since the now-exiled president announced his plans for the “cuarta urna,” this confusion has predominated. The streets were abuzz with opinions, but few people here could actually explain what a “cuarta urna” was. Many thought it literally meant the extension of presidential term-limits, when in reality it referred to a proposed formation of a general assembly which would have the power to change the constitution and possibly increase presidential term-limits. It was the president's unpopular push for the "cuarta urna" that eventually led to his removal from the country. BBC news has a good explanation of these events if you're really interested.
Other than a lot of interesting conversation (among the supporters of the different sides) and a slight feel of anxiety, my little community remains unaffected by the current political situation. We are all simply hoping that in the coming days events occur peacefully.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Peace Corps and Glimpse Announce Winners of Global Food Crisis Story and Photo Contest
Click on the title above for a link to information on the contest.
I was one of the finalists in this story contest. Click here for my submission.
I was one of the finalists in this story contest. Click here for my submission.
Monday, March 09, 2009
The Road Less Traveled
Giant oaks all dressed up in red and green epiphytes hover over a graveyard of their ancestors in various stages of decay. Everything in the cloud forest is green and slippery with different species of moss. Young vines stretch up out of the ground, seeking a host. Mushrooms poke their vulnerable heads out of a blanket of damp leaves. This is a comfortable forest; you could bed down on some sphagnum moss for a nap.
Never before have my arms ached after a hike. That’s what happens when you set off up a steep trail-less mountain led by a former soldier, and a handful of fit farmers and park rangers. We ventured into the Erapuca Wildlife Refuge, first winding through pastureland, then young regenerating forest, and dodging hidden holes and scaling steep mucky slopes in the older cloud forest. We wound through the “midget forest” where you have to crouch to get through the maze of lichen-draped trees, stopping a few times to motivate those in our party who didn’t want to go on. We finally emerged above the clouds to a view of the whole valley and a lunch of veggies and pasta that tasted like pure bliss in Tupperware. Then we monkeyed our way down, swinging on the reliable trunks and slipping on the misleading terrain back to the truck. I’m left with good memories, complaining muscles, a pound of forest mud in my clothes, a bottle-full of mountain spring water, an urge to sleep for three days, and a bottomless hunger. This is my first trip to this wildlife refuge, and many who are working to manage it have never entered. It is nice to know what we’re trying to protect.
Never before have my arms ached after a hike. That’s what happens when you set off up a steep trail-less mountain led by a former soldier, and a handful of fit farmers and park rangers. We ventured into the Erapuca Wildlife Refuge, first winding through pastureland, then young regenerating forest, and dodging hidden holes and scaling steep mucky slopes in the older cloud forest. We wound through the “midget forest” where you have to crouch to get through the maze of lichen-draped trees, stopping a few times to motivate those in our party who didn’t want to go on. We finally emerged above the clouds to a view of the whole valley and a lunch of veggies and pasta that tasted like pure bliss in Tupperware. Then we monkeyed our way down, swinging on the reliable trunks and slipping on the misleading terrain back to the truck. I’m left with good memories, complaining muscles, a pound of forest mud in my clothes, a bottle-full of mountain spring water, an urge to sleep for three days, and a bottomless hunger. This is my first trip to this wildlife refuge, and many who are working to manage it have never entered. It is nice to know what we’re trying to protect.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Ranchera Mornings
It’s another bouncing ranchera music morning in my kitchen, complete with sugary coffee and pale tortillas streaked with black patterns from being warmed on the crackling fire. It’s another morning of gathering the machetes, the donkey and the hoes to be taken out to the farm. It’s my host mother sternly, lovingly calling people in from morning chores to take their turns fueling up for the day’s work.
It’s her low “let’s just keep this between you and me” voice, confiding in me about worries with her family, health troubles, the latest news on the disappearance of the town’s token insane woman.
It’s my gentle old host father and his brother unraveling the secrets of the coffee farms and Honduran politics for me, celebrating the outcome of yesterday’s soccer game, reminding me proudly that Spanish has at least three different words for every object. It’s my host brother and his son hauling in red buckets of milk to be turned into four different types of cream and cheese. It’s the 2-year-old, seeing me with my backpack, asking me if I’m going off to kindergarten.
Through it all it’s the classic old-timey Mexican ranchera soundtrack on the radio which seems to have been written to accompany just this type of morning.
The World Needs More Weird People
Let’s take a putrid-smelling liquid from cow intestines and mix it into some perfectly good milk. Let’s take some ripe-looking berries, remove the fruit from the seed, dry them, pound them to remove the remaining skin, roast them, grind them up, boil them in water, and, after all that, throw them away. Let’s take some sedimentary rocks and chuck them in the pot with the dry corn to boil. Thanks to some weirdos a long time ago, we now have cheese, coffee, and tortilla flour. So if you get the urge to stir hair clippings into your oatmeal, or fry up your toothpaste with seeds of baby African-Violets, I say go for it! I’m sure when someone suggested grinding up horse bones and adding sugar, the last thing his friends were expecting was to be served Jell-o. We need to encourage creativity. Creativity, and the acquisition of very gullible sidekicks who will ingest or slather on your products.
If your invention doesn’t end up being appealing enough to make it in mainstream Western society, there’s always a market for witch-doctor potions, as long as they are backed up with a couple of convincing anecdotes. “That woman you saw walk out was here just last week with a similar rash, but after 12 bowls of this oatmeal (only $13.95 each) they disappeared in a flash! Of course she had to come back for a special follow-up hairball treatment, but doesn’t her skin just shine?” You can also demand livestock for payment if you like—you will seem more authentic. And if your cures don’t work, of course you can just shake your head and say you’re onto the person, and he’d best leave and never come back or you’ll tell his neighbors the truth about him (he’s a witch).
That was just a little bit of advice inspired by being involved in the bizarre processes that produce my food in Honduras, and witch-doctor mentality I encountered in Tanzania.
It’s her low “let’s just keep this between you and me” voice, confiding in me about worries with her family, health troubles, the latest news on the disappearance of the town’s token insane woman.
It’s my gentle old host father and his brother unraveling the secrets of the coffee farms and Honduran politics for me, celebrating the outcome of yesterday’s soccer game, reminding me proudly that Spanish has at least three different words for every object. It’s my host brother and his son hauling in red buckets of milk to be turned into four different types of cream and cheese. It’s the 2-year-old, seeing me with my backpack, asking me if I’m going off to kindergarten.
Through it all it’s the classic old-timey Mexican ranchera soundtrack on the radio which seems to have been written to accompany just this type of morning.
The World Needs More Weird People
Let’s take a putrid-smelling liquid from cow intestines and mix it into some perfectly good milk. Let’s take some ripe-looking berries, remove the fruit from the seed, dry them, pound them to remove the remaining skin, roast them, grind them up, boil them in water, and, after all that, throw them away. Let’s take some sedimentary rocks and chuck them in the pot with the dry corn to boil. Thanks to some weirdos a long time ago, we now have cheese, coffee, and tortilla flour. So if you get the urge to stir hair clippings into your oatmeal, or fry up your toothpaste with seeds of baby African-Violets, I say go for it! I’m sure when someone suggested grinding up horse bones and adding sugar, the last thing his friends were expecting was to be served Jell-o. We need to encourage creativity. Creativity, and the acquisition of very gullible sidekicks who will ingest or slather on your products.
If your invention doesn’t end up being appealing enough to make it in mainstream Western society, there’s always a market for witch-doctor potions, as long as they are backed up with a couple of convincing anecdotes. “That woman you saw walk out was here just last week with a similar rash, but after 12 bowls of this oatmeal (only $13.95 each) they disappeared in a flash! Of course she had to come back for a special follow-up hairball treatment, but doesn’t her skin just shine?” You can also demand livestock for payment if you like—you will seem more authentic. And if your cures don’t work, of course you can just shake your head and say you’re onto the person, and he’d best leave and never come back or you’ll tell his neighbors the truth about him (he’s a witch).
That was just a little bit of advice inspired by being involved in the bizarre processes that produce my food in Honduras, and witch-doctor mentality I encountered in Tanzania.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Honduran History: The Untold Story
Honduras is the little rumpled-underwear-shaped country in Central America with El Salvador and Guatemala sticking out the western leg-hole, and the fat thigh of Nicaragua stuffed in the other.
The piece of land that is Honduras and Nicaragua didn’t finish swinging into its current place until 22 million years ago—pretty recently. While the continents were bumping around the globe, getting acquainted at the geological party known as Pangea, Honduras wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. While the dinosaurs were roaming around, the pre-Honduras chunk of land was hanging out in southern Mexico (can you blame it?), and slowly broke away and rotated into place, all the while acquiring some sedimentary deposits that would come in very handy later on. It’s these deposits that make Honduras the proud owner of cement, ice cream, sheet rock, tortillas, pesticides and caves. Let me explain.
Shallow seas covered the pre-Honduras piece of land during the Cretaceous up until about 90 million years ago, very conveniently depositing evaporites like gypsum and limestone. Gypsum is added to ice cream for texture or something like that, and is the main ingredient in everyone’s favorite building material, gypsum board.
Lime is used for everything here: throw it in with corn and it dissolves the outer bran (so it can be used for tortillas), it’s painted on the bases of trees to prevent certain pests, and sprinkled on your farm it raises the pH of your soil. Limestone also dissolves readily in water which results in some awesome caves.
Throughout history, there has been a lot of pushing and shoving of different plates in Central America, which continues today. And this type of tension tends to produce faults and volcanoes. Honduras doesn’t currently have any active volcanoes, but it’s not jealous of its neighbors and their smoking mountain-tops because it has a bunch of mountains, a lake and some hot springs. But holy cow, 19 million years ago there was all kinds of volcanic action in Honduras which covered the eastern part with ash. This is responsible for the abundance of exfoliation-stones that make this great country what it is today. The most dramatic part of the national anthem brags about a volcano, but I think it just fits in the song better than the word lake.
Stay tuned for more exciting installments of Honduran history, the untold story…
The piece of land that is Honduras and Nicaragua didn’t finish swinging into its current place until 22 million years ago—pretty recently. While the continents were bumping around the globe, getting acquainted at the geological party known as Pangea, Honduras wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. While the dinosaurs were roaming around, the pre-Honduras chunk of land was hanging out in southern Mexico (can you blame it?), and slowly broke away and rotated into place, all the while acquiring some sedimentary deposits that would come in very handy later on. It’s these deposits that make Honduras the proud owner of cement, ice cream, sheet rock, tortillas, pesticides and caves. Let me explain.
Shallow seas covered the pre-Honduras piece of land during the Cretaceous up until about 90 million years ago, very conveniently depositing evaporites like gypsum and limestone. Gypsum is added to ice cream for texture or something like that, and is the main ingredient in everyone’s favorite building material, gypsum board.
Lime is used for everything here: throw it in with corn and it dissolves the outer bran (so it can be used for tortillas), it’s painted on the bases of trees to prevent certain pests, and sprinkled on your farm it raises the pH of your soil. Limestone also dissolves readily in water which results in some awesome caves.
Throughout history, there has been a lot of pushing and shoving of different plates in Central America, which continues today. And this type of tension tends to produce faults and volcanoes. Honduras doesn’t currently have any active volcanoes, but it’s not jealous of its neighbors and their smoking mountain-tops because it has a bunch of mountains, a lake and some hot springs. But holy cow, 19 million years ago there was all kinds of volcanic action in Honduras which covered the eastern part with ash. This is responsible for the abundance of exfoliation-stones that make this great country what it is today. The most dramatic part of the national anthem brags about a volcano, but I think it just fits in the song better than the word lake.
Stay tuned for more exciting installments of Honduran history, the untold story…
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
If You've Never Lived ina Hot, Humid Climate . . .
There are a few things you should know.
1. You may think you are eating alone, but really, hoards of ants are watching every bite you take. If you leave so much as a morsel of food or a molecule of sugar lying around, they and all their buddies will arrive on scene immediately, having activated the same mysterious system that makes sure your entire college campus knows the instant someone even thinks about throwing a kegger. I guess the Alaskan insects are uncoordinated and stingy by comparison… I grew up leaving cereal and cracker boxes open; if an ant ever did find them, he’d probably feel like he’d won the lottery. But he wouldn’t share, and he’d probably eat just enough to get a tummy-ache.
2. Your clothes and shoes are harboring a tiny odor-causing ecosystem, ready to wreak havoc on your nostrils when the temperature rises. A pair of shoes that you wore running only at -40 degrees, fooling you into thinking it was harmless, suddenly blossoms into a stunner of a stink-bomb with the 120F degree difference.
3. The people who live in these humid climates have magical sweat glands that they can close, much like their eyelids, on special occasions for which one is not supposed to sweat (conferences, festivals, TV appearances and dances). If you have not grown up here, chances are you haven’t mastered sweat-gland-control techniques. This could earn you some unpleasant nicknames.
4. If you have never lived in such a climate, you may reach a temperature in which you are no longer able to function coherently. You may become disgusted by the thought of interacting with people, even really attractive ones. People won’t take pity on you, or even understand you when you tell them that you’ve been denatured. They will look at your sweaty hair in disgust and tell you to get back to work. Worst of all they will remember everything you say as if it were said by a sane, sober person. Best to hide in your house until night-time.
5. People will tell you that you shouldn’t do certain temperature-related things, like get caught in the rain, drink cold things in the morning, or take a shower after exercising. You will scoff at them, and then promptly come down with whatever disease they said you would get. It may be karma, or it may be science.
6. Alaska has no snakes, but hot places generally do. And because indoor and outdoor temperature is the same, wildlife likes to waltz in like it owns the place. This is fine when it’s something cute and cuddly, or inherently cool, like a frog, but when a snake is doing the waltzing it’s not so great. People are supposed to have an innate fear of snakes, which makes them react even to something long and coiled that only remotely resembles the shape of a snake. You may have lost some of this reaction due to lack of use, which could be dangerous. Try having a friend place some shoelaces or hoses in different places around your house and practice shrieking with fright every time you see them.
In summary, in order to fit in when you find yourselves in steamy weather, you should probably practice obsessive cleaning, refrain from showering after exercising, keep your shoes in the freezer, and hide in your house while learning to blink your sweat-glands and screaming at your shoelaces. Otherwise people will think you are a freak.
Dear Every Sixth Man on the Street,
I know I’ve been playing hard to get, but I finally want to tell you how it touches me every time you shout sweet nothings at me as I walk by. It must have been love at first sight. How do I know? Well, it could have been the way our eyes met. Or it could have been the way you called out “I love you, little gringa” from 50 meters away from the back of a pickup that was pulling away on that first encounter. I wasn’t totally convinced, until, after calling my attention with a sound that doubles as a dog-shooing command, you said “what a beautiful little thing you are.” The originality of it just gets me you know? Every time. I know that every time you toss a “Beautiful little doll!” my direction, what you’re really saying is “I respect you for your mind.” And when you told me I looked pretty, well, that’s probably the moment I began to suspect we were meant for each other. I’ve got to say I was a bit confused at first as to who you were in love with, because you said “Hello babies” and “My loves” a few times when I was walking with my friends, but I knew you really just meant me. And of course I was SO impressed that you said it in English… I never imagined you knew English! By the way I’m sure your wife really doesn’t suspect anything when you make those kissing noises and call “Come here, my precious!” at me from your doorway while she’s washing your clothes. I have to say it wasn’t until the day you pulled up your shirt and inserted your ring-finger right into your belly-button that I knew I was smitten. And that thing with the eyebrows? Others might call it creepy, but I think it’s really one of your best attributes.
I know others probably don’t understand the depth of our complicated relationship, or might argue that you’re old enough to be my grandfather/use 2 pounds too much hair grease/view me as an object, but please just let me know how we can take it to the next level.
Love always,
Gringita preciosa
*Note: The majority of Honduran men I actually know are wonderful, bright, respectful people who are disgusted or at least amused by the actions of their peers.
1. You may think you are eating alone, but really, hoards of ants are watching every bite you take. If you leave so much as a morsel of food or a molecule of sugar lying around, they and all their buddies will arrive on scene immediately, having activated the same mysterious system that makes sure your entire college campus knows the instant someone even thinks about throwing a kegger. I guess the Alaskan insects are uncoordinated and stingy by comparison… I grew up leaving cereal and cracker boxes open; if an ant ever did find them, he’d probably feel like he’d won the lottery. But he wouldn’t share, and he’d probably eat just enough to get a tummy-ache.
2. Your clothes and shoes are harboring a tiny odor-causing ecosystem, ready to wreak havoc on your nostrils when the temperature rises. A pair of shoes that you wore running only at -40 degrees, fooling you into thinking it was harmless, suddenly blossoms into a stunner of a stink-bomb with the 120F degree difference.
3. The people who live in these humid climates have magical sweat glands that they can close, much like their eyelids, on special occasions for which one is not supposed to sweat (conferences, festivals, TV appearances and dances). If you have not grown up here, chances are you haven’t mastered sweat-gland-control techniques. This could earn you some unpleasant nicknames.
4. If you have never lived in such a climate, you may reach a temperature in which you are no longer able to function coherently. You may become disgusted by the thought of interacting with people, even really attractive ones. People won’t take pity on you, or even understand you when you tell them that you’ve been denatured. They will look at your sweaty hair in disgust and tell you to get back to work. Worst of all they will remember everything you say as if it were said by a sane, sober person. Best to hide in your house until night-time.
5. People will tell you that you shouldn’t do certain temperature-related things, like get caught in the rain, drink cold things in the morning, or take a shower after exercising. You will scoff at them, and then promptly come down with whatever disease they said you would get. It may be karma, or it may be science.
6. Alaska has no snakes, but hot places generally do. And because indoor and outdoor temperature is the same, wildlife likes to waltz in like it owns the place. This is fine when it’s something cute and cuddly, or inherently cool, like a frog, but when a snake is doing the waltzing it’s not so great. People are supposed to have an innate fear of snakes, which makes them react even to something long and coiled that only remotely resembles the shape of a snake. You may have lost some of this reaction due to lack of use, which could be dangerous. Try having a friend place some shoelaces or hoses in different places around your house and practice shrieking with fright every time you see them.
In summary, in order to fit in when you find yourselves in steamy weather, you should probably practice obsessive cleaning, refrain from showering after exercising, keep your shoes in the freezer, and hide in your house while learning to blink your sweat-glands and screaming at your shoelaces. Otherwise people will think you are a freak.
Dear Every Sixth Man on the Street,
I know I’ve been playing hard to get, but I finally want to tell you how it touches me every time you shout sweet nothings at me as I walk by. It must have been love at first sight. How do I know? Well, it could have been the way our eyes met. Or it could have been the way you called out “I love you, little gringa” from 50 meters away from the back of a pickup that was pulling away on that first encounter. I wasn’t totally convinced, until, after calling my attention with a sound that doubles as a dog-shooing command, you said “what a beautiful little thing you are.” The originality of it just gets me you know? Every time. I know that every time you toss a “Beautiful little doll!” my direction, what you’re really saying is “I respect you for your mind.” And when you told me I looked pretty, well, that’s probably the moment I began to suspect we were meant for each other. I’ve got to say I was a bit confused at first as to who you were in love with, because you said “Hello babies” and “My loves” a few times when I was walking with my friends, but I knew you really just meant me. And of course I was SO impressed that you said it in English… I never imagined you knew English! By the way I’m sure your wife really doesn’t suspect anything when you make those kissing noises and call “Come here, my precious!” at me from your doorway while she’s washing your clothes. I have to say it wasn’t until the day you pulled up your shirt and inserted your ring-finger right into your belly-button that I knew I was smitten. And that thing with the eyebrows? Others might call it creepy, but I think it’s really one of your best attributes.
I know others probably don’t understand the depth of our complicated relationship, or might argue that you’re old enough to be my grandfather/use 2 pounds too much hair grease/view me as an object, but please just let me know how we can take it to the next level.
Love always,
Gringita preciosa
*Note: The majority of Honduran men I actually know are wonderful, bright, respectful people who are disgusted or at least amused by the actions of their peers.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Lessons I Missed
I kind of skipped kindergarten. But from what I'm told, they teach you that "sharing is caring". Hondurans are catching me up with what I missed.
Almost every day, a kid will come up to me and hand me a piece of candy, or an old man waiting for the bus will give me some bubble-gum. A neighbor will come over to give me some cucumbers or tomatoes, or a stranger will offer to pay for my internet time.
It's nice. I'm getting into the habit. But don't expect me to keep it up once I'm back in the States.
Almost every day, a kid will come up to me and hand me a piece of candy, or an old man waiting for the bus will give me some bubble-gum. A neighbor will come over to give me some cucumbers or tomatoes, or a stranger will offer to pay for my internet time.
It's nice. I'm getting into the habit. But don't expect me to keep it up once I'm back in the States.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Cage of Gold
The itch must be terrible. Every day Central Americans are bombarded with the same message from the media and their peers, "The US is a paradise. Money flutters around; if you can just get there, it will fall into your hands." I imagine the idea seeps into their subconscious. It's tough to think of anything but the United Moneybags of America. Central America starts to look like some form of hell compared to the shiny pictures in their heads.
A shaggy man in a cube-truck gives me a ride and explains his plans to go to America. This job pays the bills, but to him it's not enough. He's going as a mojado, he says, using a term for illegal immigrants referring to being wet from crossing the Rio Grande. He knows the dangers; he's been to the states before. He has relatives there who are earning far more than they could in Honduras. I ask: will he go with a coyote? These are the people who will take a large chunk of your savings in exchange for smuggling you all or part of the way north. He crinkles his nose and shakes his head; he's just going to ride trains. I swallow.
He knows the danger. Train-top riders risk amputation from falls, discovery by officials who take all they have and/or send them home, violent gang-members who beat them and take their belongings and leave them to die, starvation and dehydration. The journey can take months, and require you to stop and earn money for survival. Just riding the trains is treacherous, clinging to the tops of the trains despite exhaustion, anticipating branches and thugs and la migra, migration police. Many are jailed in Mexico until their families can raise the money to get them out.
In training I helped some workers on a farm stringing up tomatoes. Soon after, they decided to try and make it to the states, but called from a Mexican jail.
I've heard so many stories of people whose family members are in the States. A few are building the lives they dreamed of, but many who made it are still struggling in a strange place. So many promise their wives or kids they will be back in a year or two, once they've made enough money, but end up stuck in a cycle of earning and spending that never lets them get ahead. Julieta Venegas has a catchy song about a family of illegal Mexican immigrants in the US in which she declares that golden bars don't mean it's not a prison.
The stories that stick in my mind are of those who failed. The truck-driver remembers the stories of glory and riches. It rings of the prospectors in my hometown, Fairbanks Alaska, during the gold rush. Just a few success stories are enough to keep the people flowing.
I can understand poor urban-dwellers who own no land and see no hope of getting a good job when they are allured by the promise of the US. But the driver of the cube truck is doing well for himself; he has a lot to lose. I ask if he has any kids. A boy, he says. I try to convince him that being there for his kid is much more important now than sending him money.
I feel the familiar ache of guilt, simply for being from circumstances most of the rest of the world envies. The ride ends and I wave 20 lempiras his way, about $1, but he won't accept it. I thank him, wish him good luck, and swing down out of his rig. I just hope on his trip people will be this generous to him.
Another man who pulls his tired trap to the side of the road to offer me a ride turns out to be a (self-proclaimed) legend. He is a coyote. According to him, he is a hero in his community for the money he has donated, all of which he has made from this lucrative secretive business. He's enigmatic; he seems almost benevolent but not quite, almost slimy but not quite. I restrain myself to keep from asking the hundred questions swirling through my mind. I want to know how he smuggles people, how much it costs, how many people he takes each year, how did he get into the business, just how dark is this business, what's his success rate, etc. Instead I nervously answer questions about the fiancé I have just invented. As I clamber out of the beater, I thank him and hope out loud we shall meet again, and hope inwardly I'll get to grill him with all my questions next time.
A shaggy man in a cube-truck gives me a ride and explains his plans to go to America. This job pays the bills, but to him it's not enough. He's going as a mojado, he says, using a term for illegal immigrants referring to being wet from crossing the Rio Grande. He knows the dangers; he's been to the states before. He has relatives there who are earning far more than they could in Honduras. I ask: will he go with a coyote? These are the people who will take a large chunk of your savings in exchange for smuggling you all or part of the way north. He crinkles his nose and shakes his head; he's just going to ride trains. I swallow.
He knows the danger. Train-top riders risk amputation from falls, discovery by officials who take all they have and/or send them home, violent gang-members who beat them and take their belongings and leave them to die, starvation and dehydration. The journey can take months, and require you to stop and earn money for survival. Just riding the trains is treacherous, clinging to the tops of the trains despite exhaustion, anticipating branches and thugs and la migra, migration police. Many are jailed in Mexico until their families can raise the money to get them out.
In training I helped some workers on a farm stringing up tomatoes. Soon after, they decided to try and make it to the states, but called from a Mexican jail.
I've heard so many stories of people whose family members are in the States. A few are building the lives they dreamed of, but many who made it are still struggling in a strange place. So many promise their wives or kids they will be back in a year or two, once they've made enough money, but end up stuck in a cycle of earning and spending that never lets them get ahead. Julieta Venegas has a catchy song about a family of illegal Mexican immigrants in the US in which she declares that golden bars don't mean it's not a prison.
The stories that stick in my mind are of those who failed. The truck-driver remembers the stories of glory and riches. It rings of the prospectors in my hometown, Fairbanks Alaska, during the gold rush. Just a few success stories are enough to keep the people flowing.
I can understand poor urban-dwellers who own no land and see no hope of getting a good job when they are allured by the promise of the US. But the driver of the cube truck is doing well for himself; he has a lot to lose. I ask if he has any kids. A boy, he says. I try to convince him that being there for his kid is much more important now than sending him money.
I feel the familiar ache of guilt, simply for being from circumstances most of the rest of the world envies. The ride ends and I wave 20 lempiras his way, about $1, but he won't accept it. I thank him, wish him good luck, and swing down out of his rig. I just hope on his trip people will be this generous to him.
Another man who pulls his tired trap to the side of the road to offer me a ride turns out to be a (self-proclaimed) legend. He is a coyote. According to him, he is a hero in his community for the money he has donated, all of which he has made from this lucrative secretive business. He's enigmatic; he seems almost benevolent but not quite, almost slimy but not quite. I restrain myself to keep from asking the hundred questions swirling through my mind. I want to know how he smuggles people, how much it costs, how many people he takes each year, how did he get into the business, just how dark is this business, what's his success rate, etc. Instead I nervously answer questions about the fiancé I have just invented. As I clamber out of the beater, I thank him and hope out loud we shall meet again, and hope inwardly I'll get to grill him with all my questions next time.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Creepy, Sketchy, Slimy, Cute: Thoughts on a Visit to America
- Would you spend money on nothing? It is normal in America for people to spend money onnothing, or less than nothing. I think most of the world’s other 6.7 billion inhabitants would think it’s crazy to pay someone to help them lose something. But we spend money on diets, personal trainers, diet pills, liposuction and magic foods that trick your body into thinking its ingesting more than it actually is. My friends in Tanzania would beg me to tell them how they could get fat. They don’t see any point in expending energy on something that’s not purely entertaining or doesn’t benefit their survival. Forcing yourself to do an activity that will land you in the same place you started without having acquired something seems an act of insanity. On my daily runs, people would ask me “what are you running from?” I might point to some cows or goats in the distance, and they’d laugh, still confused. Maybe, in order to fit in with the rest of the world, we’d be better off paying someone to convince us that it’s okay not to be skinny.
- Creepy, sketchy, slimy, menace, hilarious, holy cow, freak and cute are wonderful words in English that just don’t quite translate into Swahili or Spanish. I’m really enjoying using them.
- Americans tend to think they should be able to eat whatever they want whenever they want (but I think this is changing), and it should be seedless and boneless. There’s not much thought put into what is in season (at least in Alaska, but right now in Alaska it’s snow season, so maybe we’re excused). If a recipe calls for leeks, we don’t try and figure out if it’s leek season (in fact, we don’t even really need to know what a leek is), we just go to the store. Expiration dates seem like distant threats due to refrigeration. Grapes naturally have seeds, chickens have bones, but we don’t have time to pick those things out, so we buy previously de-boned poultry and fruits bred not to produce seeds. We don’t expect that there are plants that naturally produce non-fertile ovaries or boneless chickens flopping around somewhere, but we don’t associate our food much with the real world. In contrast, most people of developing countries eat fresh corn when it’s ready or avocados when they’re in season, and they acquire it in small amounts or preserve it so that refrigeration is unnecessary. They’d look skeptically at any food that was too blue or too perfectly round, wondering how it was made and if it was truly edible.
- Hot showers are pure rapture. In both Tanzania and Honduras, only senior citizens indulge in hot water, and youth are expected to chatter through freezing baths.
- Some Americans do Tai Chi, some play the jaw harp, some practice Voodoo, some collect antique spittoons, some run ultra-marathons, some hate road salt, some knit, some read Kafka, some break-dance… in short there is so much diversity of tastes, and it seems most Americans are relatively open to new experiences. My family here loves ugali from Tanzania, Honduras-style tortillas, and Canadian music (I’m still working on broadening their musical tastes).
- Americans tend to rely on a cocoon of complicated things they have no hope of understanding or controlling. In Tanzania there wasn’t a thing in my house that I didn’t understand, and most things could be fixed with some cement or bricks. Village households are their own simple self-sufficient entities, built from the ground up by their owners. In my parents’ house in Alaska, the number of objects I couldn’t fix if they broke is probably a 3 digit number. In the winter in Alaska, power-outages are a matter of survival for many people. People don’t understand their plumbing, televisions, electrical wiring, cars and sewage tanks and must freak out when they break. If the experts or companies in these areas all disappeared or decided they hated you, you would be in deep yoghurt (as my Dad would say). If I am ever one of the few survivors from a monster-virus that wipes out 90% of the world, I’m headed to rural Tanzania, where life won’t be that different.
- Freedom of the press is a wonderful thing. I’ve been enjoying SNL and Capitol Steps skits which shamelessly mock even our most mavericky political leaders. Sure this freedom is relative, but comedians in other countries must sit on their hands even when someone with the misunderestimated speech-making skills of G W Bush rises to power. Imagine that.
Monday, December 15, 2008
You Might be Drinking Coffee I Picked
If, for some reason, you are ever forced to choose to do some sort of manual farm labor, I highly recommend coffee-picking. The fact that coffee farms (well, the good ones) are tucked under a mix of timber and fruit trees makes them pleasant to work on, especially for the wildlife that you won’t find in the typical farm field. Iridescent blue, orange, lime-green and yellow birds, whose names I only know in colloquial Spanish, flit overhead. The coffee itself is beautiful: bright yellow or crimson with dark green leaves. Typically in this season families go out to the farm together and pick the day away, building a fire at midday to heat their tortillas.
I was lucky enough to engage in very fulfilling intellectual conversations with my good 8 and 10-year-old-friends… “I say Gail in jail!”, “I say Nicolle in jail!”, “I say Veronica in jail, singing and dancing!” “I say Nicolle in jail, telling a joke!” and so on.
Most adults picked 3 or 3.5 buckets full of coffee. The kids picked a half or one bucket-full. I was a happy medium with 2 buckets-full. Each bucket picked will earn you $1. It’s not a great way to make a living (although I’ve heard of people who have been able to pick 20 buckets worth in a day), but it’s a nice way to pass the day if you have good company.
For me, it’s interesting to wonder who’ll end up drinking this coffee that I picked. Could he identify a coffee shrub in a line-up? Does he know where Honduras is?
The dreaded grocery-store synopsis
I’m finally going home for a visit, after 2 ½ years of Peace Corpsing. I am so excited I can’t sleep through the night. I think of all the friends and family I haven’t seen, and how incredible it will be to reconnect with them. Of course thoughts of eating bagels with salmon and going skiing bring a smile to my face as well. But I’m also filled with a dull sense of dread.
What I’m scared of isn’t the commercialism or the advances in technology or the development in my home town or my long-time friends who have joined cults or dinner clubs or become nudists or Republicans, although these things make me uneasy. I’m scared of the grocery-store.
I’m worried about all those people I’m going to run into in Fred Meyer who will ask me how “Africa” or “Tanzania” or “the Peace Corps” was. These people are asking the only appropriate thing there is to ask, fulfilling their curiosity and their duty to ask. But I’m sure they won’t realize that it would be easier for me to give a synopsis of War and Peace in 2 minutes (although I haven’t read it) than try to give a meaningful statement about my Peace Corps experience in the unspoken time limit. I’m scared of leaving these people with a generic or inarticulate or gushingly-positive or unnecessarily negative report. I think the only true thing I can say about it so far is that it has been incredibly . . . . . I’m sorry, just one sec, I should really get this. Hello? Right, just a minute. . . . I’m really sorry, that was my Mom, and she really needs me to go, we’ll catch up some other time, ok?
I was lucky enough to engage in very fulfilling intellectual conversations with my good 8 and 10-year-old-friends… “I say Gail in jail!”, “I say Nicolle in jail!”, “I say Veronica in jail, singing and dancing!” “I say Nicolle in jail, telling a joke!” and so on.
Most adults picked 3 or 3.5 buckets full of coffee. The kids picked a half or one bucket-full. I was a happy medium with 2 buckets-full. Each bucket picked will earn you $1. It’s not a great way to make a living (although I’ve heard of people who have been able to pick 20 buckets worth in a day), but it’s a nice way to pass the day if you have good company.
For me, it’s interesting to wonder who’ll end up drinking this coffee that I picked. Could he identify a coffee shrub in a line-up? Does he know where Honduras is?
The dreaded grocery-store synopsis
I’m finally going home for a visit, after 2 ½ years of Peace Corpsing. I am so excited I can’t sleep through the night. I think of all the friends and family I haven’t seen, and how incredible it will be to reconnect with them. Of course thoughts of eating bagels with salmon and going skiing bring a smile to my face as well. But I’m also filled with a dull sense of dread.
What I’m scared of isn’t the commercialism or the advances in technology or the development in my home town or my long-time friends who have joined cults or dinner clubs or become nudists or Republicans, although these things make me uneasy. I’m scared of the grocery-store.
I’m worried about all those people I’m going to run into in Fred Meyer who will ask me how “Africa” or “Tanzania” or “the Peace Corps” was. These people are asking the only appropriate thing there is to ask, fulfilling their curiosity and their duty to ask. But I’m sure they won’t realize that it would be easier for me to give a synopsis of War and Peace in 2 minutes (although I haven’t read it) than try to give a meaningful statement about my Peace Corps experience in the unspoken time limit. I’m scared of leaving these people with a generic or inarticulate or gushingly-positive or unnecessarily negative report. I think the only true thing I can say about it so far is that it has been incredibly . . . . . I’m sorry, just one sec, I should really get this. Hello? Right, just a minute. . . . I’m really sorry, that was my Mom, and she really needs me to go, we’ll catch up some other time, ok?
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