A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

We spent a lot of time talking about culture in the Cuso International training we took in Canada before moving to Honduras last year. The course facilitators cautioned us repeatedly that real cultural differences go much deeper than the clothing styles, language, food and general habits of a country that a foreigner first notices. They were right. It’s the “soft culture” stuff you have to watch out for – the things you tend not to see until they trip you up. For instance, I now recognize that I’m much too direct in my interactions with people here. I give people a quick hello and then bam, I'm on to whatever topic I'm there for. It wasn’t a problem in the early months when my Spanish skills were in their infancy, but it’s becoming more of an issue now that I can actually talk. Cuso did alert us to the cultural differences around conversation, blunt talkers not being the general rule in countries like Honduras. Still, it’s tough to curb that instinct. Hondurans w...

Spending every Sunday for more than a year now with a ragtag group of kids from deprived, troubled childhoods has turned out to be a surprisingly heartening experience. The kids at Angelitos Felices foster home were like little cyphers to me when I first started volunteering there last April. Their squeaky little voices were impossible for me to understand in those early days of learning Spanish, and I also found it hard to see past the overwhelming grimness of where they were living to even consider getting to know them as individuals and not just tragic cases of societal neglect. But time passes, and now we talk a lot: About painful teeth; how to use a tampon; why you can't wear your brother's shoes when he's got foot fungus; why you shouldn't toss garbage on the ground. We talk about all the things they want and need, from new shoes or a belt to hold up their pants to sno-cones, big wedge-soled flip flops just like mine, a bracelet, a wind-up car, a collared shi...

The latest stats are in around poverty in Honduras, and as profoundly discouraging as ever. Almost two million people - a quarter of the population - are living on the equivalent of a buck a day, and another 2.5 million aren't doing much better. Another 1.6 million are living in relative poverty Contrast that against the amount of aid that has poured into the country in the last decade, and you can't help but wonder what it all means. The U.S. alone has spent $836 million in grants and aid to Honduras since 2003, and hundreds of European and Asian organizations and governments have sent major money into the country as well. And yet here the country sits, dirt poor and falling in the international rankings even while other Latin American countries are on the way up. The situation is even more desperate in the rural areas, where as many as eight in 10 people are living in poverty.  We can't expect aid dollars to work miracles, of course. But the stats are certainly sug...

Just to reaffirm that old dogs can still learn new tricks, how's this news: I'm reading Ken Follett's latest book in Spanish. Yes, 16 months after landing in a Spanish-speaking country with Spanish-language skills that were not much more than tourist grade, I am now making my way through an epic set in the pre-war years as Hitler rises to power. And I'm understanding it (well, mostly). I've loved this time in Honduras for all kinds of reasons. But I think I might love it most for the opportunity it has given me to finally fulfill my dream to learn Spanish. Ever since my daughter Regan won a trip for two to Acapulco in 1993 and took me, I have wanted to be able to communicate in this beautiful language. Every time my spouse and I went back to Mexico for one holiday after another, I yearned for the day when I could just sit on a bus and understand the melodic conversations going on around me. OK, I'm not quite there yet - last night when I was travelling ...

Coffee beans drying on a cement patio in Copan Just when the smallest of bright lights appeared on the horizon for Honduras's coffee growers, a new problem has emerged - one that the government will understandably have little sympathy for. Losses have been devastating this year for the country's small coffee producers, whose crops have been hit hard by a coffee fungus that reduced this year's yields by as much as 70 per cent in some regions. Those losses are expected to worsen in the coming two years, as the affected coffee plants have had to be cut back hard or even pulled out entirely and won't be producing at normal levels again until the harvest of 2016-17. While slow to respond, the Honduras government is now offering 10-year loans at 10 per cent interest for producers who need to replant. Growers will be eligible for up to $1,500 in loans for each  manzana (about 1.8 acres) they replant up to a maximum of five, and there's an additional $1,000 per  man...