A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

    I would expect some pretty big fallout if someone in a Canadian workplace routinely called a co-worker “Fatty.” Or nicknamed them Chino because they had a bit of an Asian look to their features.     But for the most part, such things don’t seem to rile the average Honduran. I mentioned to one of my co-workers this week that if she ever came to Canada, it was probably best not to call anybody “Fatty” – Gordito – as she had just done while summoning a chubby co-worker. She and the so-called Gordito both looked surprised to hear that such a nickname could be construed as offensive. Gordito himself noted that sure, a nickname like that might cause offence if said the wrong way. But if said in a friendly voice – hey, what was the big deal?     It got me thinking yet again about cultural differences. A good part of what I see around me in the workplace would be interpreted as harassment in Canada, or at least as “unacceptable practices.” Yet if the ...

    Long, slow drives to distant communities are opportunities for interesting conversations with my co-workers, as there’s often just me and one of the guys in the truck. We've talked about workers’ rights, Canadian salaries, time management, trades training, attitudes toward homosexuality – you name it.     “Why do so many people in Canada and the U.S. use drugs?” asked a co-worker last week during one such conversation. Hoo-boy, I thought to myself. Tough question.     Making a living in the illegal-drug business is something a significant number of Hondurans are intimately familiar with, but there’s not much of a culture (yet) of using drugs and alcohol. Could be the lack of money, could be the Christianity. But it also strikes me that Hondurans just don’t have the drive to experience an altered state in the same way that those of us from privileged countries do.     I speculated that people in my country just seemed a little more ...

    Oh, we talk a lot about the importance of organic agriculture back home, but would we climb up a 75-degree slope into a beautiful but buggy mountain forest and dig around in the dead leaves for a couple of hours looking for flecks of white fungus?     That's how a couple of my favourite Copan coffee producers passed a big part of their day last week, collecting the microorganismo de montana  that is used by organic growers in Honduras to make a special fertilizer known for helping plants of all kinds arm themselves against diseases and infestations.     The fruits of the men's labour are now tucked away tightly in a 45-gallon barrel. The microorganisms will be dining on molasses and rice semolina for the next 15 days, and multiplying like crazy in an anaerobic environment.     When the mix is uncapped later this month, the result will be a barrelful of natural microorganisms ready to enrich the soil around the producers' coffee plants...

Find the newsletter at  http://www.peers. bc.ca/images/PEERS_Newsletter_0913.pdf         I can’t think of many former employers that I would happily continue to work for without pay. But PEERS Victoria is clearly one of them, seeing as it’s been six years since I finished my time there as executive director and yet I still threw my hand up with genuine enthusiasm last month when asked to put together  PEERS’ latest newsletter .    What is it about the place that has caused this permanent attachment?      Part of it is the passion I feel for doing something that gets us thinking about how we judge and marginalize sex workers.  Another big part is the amazing, resilient and loving people I have met over the years because of my association with PEERS and sex work – both the people come for services and those who come to work or volunteer there. A lot of us appear to be bonded to the place for life.    But t...

    There are days when the frustrations of a new work culture pile up on me. And then there are days like the one I had this week, when it’s all just a total blast.     The occasion was a workshop in a neighbouring community to demonstrate how to make two kinds of organic fertilizers. I like the hands-on workshops anyway – always interesting, loads of picture-taking opportunities – but looked forward to this one in particular because a couple of campesinos I always enjoy talking with were going to be there.     Workshop days virtually always start with having to load heavy things into the truck and then drive around looking for some piece of equipment or fertilizer ingredient that we don’t have. The slow starts used to drive me crazy, but as time passes I've grown to like them. Instead of sitting tensely in the truck waiting for my workmate to return from his or her chores, I do a little wandering, maybe shoot a little video (my current obsession...

It's very nearly nine years to the day since I jumped out of my comfortable life as a journalist and took up a job heading a small grassroots organization for sex workers. Many things have changed since then, but  PEERS Victoria  is never far from my heart no matter what else is going on for me.    I could write a book about the things that astonished me, informed me and bowled me over in those three years as executive director of PEERS. There was so much to learn, not the least of which was how to live with an unwieldy new performance-based contract with the province that had replaced the core funding that PEERS had received up to that point.     The third generation of that contract is what has turned out to be PEERS' undoing. The organization announced this week that it just can't make a go of it anymore in its contract with the Ministry of Social Development, and is having to give up its daytime drop-in and its daily groups for sex workers seeking c...