A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

A street market at its most basic - one guy and a few vegetables Perhaps it's the human condition to seek routine. I've spent much of my life on the run from routines I felt stuck in, yet at the same time I settle quickly and comfortably into new ones. We've been in Copan for 10 weeks now, not nearly long enough to know much about this complex country. But certain things are at least a little familiar now, and I'm welcoming the small routines that allow the days to pass in slightly more predictable ways rather than as relentless blasts of new and baffling developments. I have two regular lunch-time "bird walks" now, for instance, and know that one leads to the trio of magnificent crested jays near the Hacienda San Lucas while the other takes me to the arid fields and grosbeaks around the water reservoir for La Laguna. When a shadow passes over me as I walk, I know that it's almost certainly a vulture - possibly a turkey vulture, more likely a black....

The issues of Canada have drifted from my mind strikingly fast now that I'm in Honduras, but it all came rushing back to me this morning when I read the judgment handed down by the Court of Appeal in Ontario on Canada's sex work laws. Here's the link  to the decision if you want to read it in full, but I've put the meat of the ruling down below for those who prefer a summary. You can't go around declaring victory too quickly when it comes to court rulings, because this judgment is certainly going to end up in front of the Supreme Court of Canada given the federal government's position on this issue to date. Still, each new court ruling adds weight to the argument for decriminalization, and reminds Canadians again and again that it is against our own Constitution to treat sex workers so disgracefully. That communication for the purposes of prostitution remains illegal is unfortunate, as that means that it's still illegal for sex workers to advertise their ...

As I've griped probably one too many times (in Spanish, the verb is quejarse), learning about your workplace when nobody speaks the same language as you is really difficult. That's why I like field trips so much - hopping into a vehicle with one of my co-workers with nary a clue as to where we're going or what we'll do when we get there. I just say yes to every opportunity and figure it will all add up to knowledge. Yesterday, the task was to deliver 25 giant sacks of chicken manure to campesinos in a little pueblo called San Geronimo. There are several dozen little pueblos in the hills around Copan Ruinas, often along roads that you or I would likely consider  rough hiking trails through the bush were we to encounter one in Canada. The road to San Geronimo was definitely in that category, requiring us to drive through a river, negotiate narrow little climbs that almost stalled out a 4x4, and steer around obstacles that included tire-eating ruts, scary dropoffs and ...

I don't think I can call this a crisis of faith that I'm having today, because I've never really been one for faith. Maybe there are religious journalists out there somewhere, but for me years of learning about the bad things that happen to good people (and vice versa) shook the faith right out of me. Still, I have a great appreciation for the good work done by people of faith, and up until today have not felt the urge to cry out, "Oh, come ON!" at the Monday-morning devotionals at my new workplace. In a country this religious, I feel  like I'm participating in the culture by attending the devotionals, and I usually find them quite sweet sessions that bond my co-workers in a much more meaningful way than a garden-variety staff meeting ever could. But today, something got to me. The topic was harmless enough - a reflection on God as artist - but I found myself squirming at the heartfelt statements of my co-workers as they talked about their faith. Perhaps ...

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime. So goes the adage. Spend any time with producers in Honduras, however, and you soon see that if the lesson doesn’t also include helping the guy get his fish to market, he’s still got a big problem.   Honduras is an agricultural economy. Like farmers everywhere, the average Honduran trying to scratch a living from the earth is beset by all the usual trials and tribulations of farm life:  Not enough rain; too much of it; a hot year; a cold year; insects; tired soil.  But listening to the 20 or so producers at the two-day workshop we went to this week in Siguatepeque, it became pretty clear that Hondurans also face tremendous problems getting their goods to market. Not only are they unable to afford the costs of moving their goods, there often isn’t a distribution network anyway, let alone a co-ordinated plan for finding markets. In my past days as a traveller on a two-wee...