A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

One of the workshops at the Conference on Honduras last week was on cultural differences, a subject I have much interest in now that I live here. It gave me lots to think about, including if there are times when a country really ought to consider whether certain aspects of its culture are hindering progress. That probably sounds like a very colonial thing to say. History is littered with countries scarred by invasive cultures that arrived uninvited and proceeded to try to change everything. I´m not endorsing that practice. But surely there´s no harm in a population checking in with its culture from time to time to see if it´s still serving the country well. Understanding the less obvious aspects of Honduras culture is still a work in progress for me. I´ve found the country to be surprisingly welcoming and warm to a foreigner who´s only now getting a grip on the language. But I can´t say as I´ve warmed to everything about life in Honduras. What I heard at the workshop reinf...

I've spent most of the last three days at the Conference On Honduras, an annual event that has grown into something of a Copan institution after relocating here from Washington, DC a decade ago. It was a heartening reminder of what people can accomplish when they care. The conferences are  put together by a volunteer board headed up by Marco Caceres, editor of the on-line English-language newspaper Honduras Weekly . The yearly event started out as a way to showcase the many groups and individuals working at the grassroots level to tackle the complex problems of the country, but it works equally well as a forum for sharing stories, miseries and miracles from the front lines. What brings people to a developing country to try to make a difference? Every person working abroad would have a story for how that came about in their own life,. But I'd guess from the stories I heard at the conference that a striking number involve people who come to Honduras not expecting to stay and...

This one's for my mom, who at this moment is at home in Victoria crying after they delayed her hip-replacement surgery for two more months this morning because of her low iron count. I'm sure it seemed like a perfectly logical decision in the mind of hematologist Dr. X, who has never met my mother. And it probably made sense to Dr. Y as well,  the orthopedic surgeon who has also never met my mother. Unfortunately for her, the news was completely devastating. She was supposed to be having her surgery next week, and on Sunday we'd joked about how she only had 11 more sleeps. I'm a guilt-ridden daughter at this distance when my 87-year-old  mother has a setback like this and the best I can do is buy more Claro minutes to make sure I can call her regularly. I have to take that into account when reflecting on how angry I am about how things are playing out for my mother, because it could just be that what's really troubling me is that I'm far away and can't...

The tortilla masters: Carina and Sofia Yesterday I climbed up to the smoky little half-kitchen that's tucked into an attic-size space at the Copan guardaria  to help a couple of the girls make tortillas. I'd had visions of everyone being fed and ready for a fast visit to the playground when I first arrived, seeing as I needed to get back to work. But it was soon obvious that wasn't going to happen. I don't much like the tortilla room, as there's always smoke hanging heavy in the air from the little "eco-friendly" wood stove that I'm sure would be great if it only had a chimney. But it seemed anti-social to say no when invited along. The girls whipped my butt with their tortilla skills. One, age 10, has been making tortillas for more than six years. She smacked the corn dough quickly between her palms and made perfect, smooth-sided circles every time. The other, 15, is already assuming a motherly role at the children's home, as do all the o...

Three of my work buddies from the Comision de Accion Social Menonita   just came back from the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin - their first trip to the United States. As you might expect, the trip blew them away. Like all good travellers, they took a ton of photos, and it was great to share their experiences yesterday as they flipped through the large collection of classic tourist shots they took on their journey. Several of them were of rest stops along the highway. I have to admit, it's been a long time since I've given much consideration to the glory of American rest stops, but the guys were captivated by them and I get that. "Look at this! They have these all along the roads," exclaimed one of them as he pointed to a particularly clean and tidy example somewhere between Spooner and Madison. "Nobody works there, and anyone can just pull in and use them!" They'd gone on the trip with the encouragement of a Spooner veterinarian, Dr. A...