A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Here's a little video of the scene in the Copan Ruinas cemetery yesterday, Dia de Los Difuntos. This is my favourite Honduran celebration, as it's wonderful to see the graves all painted and decorated, and everyone in such a festive mood as they remember their loved ones. Nothing sombre about Day of the Departed.

    I for one will be very glad when this Rob Ford business is over. He has been an embarrassing and poorly considered choice for Toronto mayor on all kinds of fronts, and whether he did or didn't smoke crack on video is really just one small detail in the long Ford story.     What to do with morally errant politicians? We're all over the map on that one, but for me it mostly comes down to putting the various specifics in context and deciding if the picture of the person who emerges is the kind of person you want running your town, province or country.     For instance, politicians cheating on their spouses. All kinds of factors have to be considered before a voter can conclude there's cause for alarm.     If it's a garden-variety cheat, I'm probably going to be OK with it. Sure, I dream of a world where garden-variety cheating is unnecessary because we're all so happy in our relationships, but for now, I don't think it indicates anything a...

Copan kids heading into the coffee fields at harvest time When I stand in my Canadian shoes, I am an ardent supporter of fair trade – comercio justo as it’s known here in Honduras. Count me in for any practices that try to help small producers in under-developed countries make a decent living from their coffee crops and such. But when I look at fair trade from the perspective of Hondurans, things get a little muddy. That’s especially true around the question of prohibiting child labour. Taking steps to stop children from being forced to work to produce goods for the developed world is, understandably, one of the most fundamental principles of fair trade. Back home in Canada, I took pride in paying more for fair-trade coffee, believing that the extra cost was worth it if it ensured that some struggling family somewhere in the world earned a bit more for their coffee crop and didn't have to send their children into the field like tiny slaves. But like I say, it all just ...

    First morning back in Copan Ruinas after more than 2 weeks in the Moskitia. I'm happy to be home, but going through the 44 gigabytes of video footage I brought back from the region has certainly reminded me of how lucky I've been to be able to explore this gorgeous part of Honduras.     I'll be making at least three short videos from the trip - one that highlights the projects in the region of my organization, the Comision de Accion Social Menonita , a second that ties into another CASM project to try to attract tourists and investors to the area, and this 5-minute glimpse of the region that I made this morning to share with my readers and Facebook friends. Hope it whets your appetite for more, because underneath all that astounding beauty there are a lot of problems that the region needs help with.  

    Sunrise at Palacios This place, this place. With each passing day I am astonished by its beauty a little more, and a little more worried for its future. What will ever become of the fabulous and vulnerable Moskitia?     In another life, the Moskitia would be a world-renowned destination sought out by adventure travellers who crave that thing that’s so hard to find in this modern world of ours: An authentic experience. Whether the travel fantasy is vast stretches of empty Caribbean beaches, thriving indigenous cultures, or a world of lagoons, rivers and wildlife to explore, the Moskitia delivers. Monkeys, toucans, orchids, herons, fish dinners straight from the sea – all here.     But this is not another life. And the overwhelming presence of narco-trafico in the region – while not nearly the danger to tourists that it is to those working directly in the business – pretty much guarantees that the Moskitia isn’t going to be seeing a lot of new ...