Bringing a dog home from Honduras: Hard lessons learned

 

  Maybe one day you’re going to find yourself somewhere in Honduras thinking, hey, here I am in a country with way too many sick, underfed dogs, and I’d like to find at least one of them a great new home in Canada.

    And with that one little thought, the grand and costly adventure will have begun.

    I must admit, bringing White Dog home seemed destined. We've been feeding a variety of dogs during our two-plus years in Copan Ruinas, but White Dog appeared out of nowhere for the first time a couple of days before one of my daughters and her husband arrived for a visit in January, and the three of them instantly hit it off. Unlike a lot of the other street dogs here, who really love their wandering lives, White Dog seemed done with the entire business and eager to shift into a more domesticated life. Why not, we all said.

   So I went on-line and started looking for information on airline web sites. United is the airline we’ve used the most for flights back and forth to Canada since we came here, and information on the United site about the company’s PetSafe program seemed pretty thorough. It looked like the rate for a dog of White Dog’s size in the (giant) kennel required by the airline would be around $289 – pricey, I thought, but not impossible. United also got back to my email requests for more information, unlike Delta and American Airlines.

   United’s initial information was wrong, mind you, and I would eventually come to see that what was on their site wasn't even remotely thorough and in fact was downright misleading. But in those halcyon days of January when I did not yet know just how little I knew, choosing United seemed logical.

   I quickly learned that while there was quite a bit of information about PetSafe on the site, getting particulars for booking a specific dog on a specific plane was like pulling teeth. I didn’t really get why it was going so badly until I got in touch with a Facebook acquaintance who’d been through the experience of shipping a dog from Honduras to Canada, who told me Honduras requires the use of animal brokers. He sent me a contact for Rex Internacional, which United uses.

   In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to the teeny notice on the United PetSafe rate page that says “Note: Additional fees may apply in countries that require the use of animal brokers.” But isn’t that just always the way with hindsight? At any rate, never in my wildest imaginings would a passing aside about “additional fees” lead me to think that it would increase the rate quoted on the United site by 140%.

   But I’m getting ahead of myself. While waiting for more information on how to ship White Dog, I got started on the veterinary processes. We live in Copan Ruinas, which has no veterinarian, so the first step was an eight-hour return bus ride for me and White Dog to San Pedro Sula to visit a vet who knew all the steps to meet airline requirements. Canada’s requirements turned out to be surprisingly simple - a current rabies vaccination – but the airline needed things like a health certificate dated within 10 days of your flight and an export permit (really?) from the Honduran government.

   Price for vet services, export permit, and one month of antibiotic treatment for a tick disease we discovered White Dog had: $250. Add another $28 for the round trip bus ride to and from San Pedro, as I had to buy White Dog her own bus ticket. But hey, I was still thinking that the airfare was $289, so I remained calm.

   Now, the kennel. The airline wants the dog to be comfortable, so you need to pick a kennel according to a set of measurements based on the dog’s size. I thought we could save $200 for a new kennel by having my youngest daughter bring a used kennel with her when she came to visit us this month, not fully understanding just how big and awkward a Kennel 500 can be. We could have gotten away with the smaller Kennel 400, as it turned out, but at least White Dog now has a doggie condo to relax in for her flight.

   As things went, that too was a much more hassle-filled endeavor than I had anticipated, and Houston airport actually threatened my daughter with having to pay $200 to ship the kennel here because it was oversize (a kinder agent stepped in and resolved the crisis). I make a point of not saying “You would think” anymore, because that’s a very clear sign that a person is not adjusting to Honduran culture, but really, wouldn’t you think United might consider renting the damn kennels?

   Anyway. So early March comes and I'd now been in email correspondence for six weeks with the Rex Internacional and United folk, and had had the dog vaccinated, treated for her tick disease, organized the kennel journey and booked our own flights back to Canada. I send another email to Rex Internacional confirming that all is a go, and they finally tell me the total price: $805. It is not overly dramatic to say that I thought I was going to throw up. I mean, not only is that way, way higher than my daughter or I were planning for, it is a truly embarrassing amount for two volunteers to pay to bring a dog home from an impoverished country where $805 is many people’s annual income. It is almost $200 more than our own tickets cost us.
   Not only that, but they would only fly her to Vancouver, not Victoria. So we would now be arriving at midnight in Vancouver with a dog, unable to use our tickets to Victoria and with no transport to get the three of us to Victoria. 

   But by this time, almost 2 months had passed since White Dog started hanging around. We had moved into full-on domestication. This dog was a pet, pure and simple. I couldn't have lived with myself if we’d just abandoned her to her Copan fate at that point. We were totally over a barrel.

   I did my best, sending Rex Internacional a note that made it very clear that we were devastated and angry. I CC’d high-ups in United. It helped a little: Rex acknowledged they’d made an error of $110 by charging us for 2 dogs in the kennel (even though I’d filled out a form stating there was only one). But United didn’t budge. I sulked for a few days, but then confirmed with my daughter that we were all still committed, and booked the flight for $695. Which is still more than our own tickets.

   Add it all up and we’re basically at $1,000. The kennel ended up costing $40 for my daughter to bring as a second piece of baggage. Plus it got cracked somewhere along the way, so add in maybe another $30 to fix it. And then there will be the cost of private transport for getting the dog and her condo-kennel to San Pedro, as not even the most tender-hearted bus driver is going to let us lug that huge thing onto a crowded local bus. I’m not even sure it would fit through the door.

   Call me suspicious, but I have a strong feeling that the costs aren't fully tallied yet. I've been joking with my daughter that we should rename the new family member Golden Dog. Thanks to Facebook, though, we do now have transport to Victoria after a kind-hearted person who I don't even know that well said she was going to be in Vancouver on April 2 and would come pick us up. 

    But it’s all just money, isn’t it? White Dog only has to make that little extended-paw gesture of hers that always makes me smile, and all is forgiven. As for Rex Internacional and United Airlines – well, that might take a little longer.  

The wheels on the bus go round and round: Tips for a better Honduran bus experience

   

Spend enough hours on a Honduran long-distance bus and you will end up boarding them with the seasoned eye of a veteran seat-assessor, able to take in the available options at a glance and make the best choice with barely a moment of additional anxiety to the passengers jamming in behind you. Having been up, down and around this country on all manner of public transportation, here are my recommendations for how it's done:

1. Do I have control of the window? Unless you're on a first-class, air-conditioned bus - in which case none of this matters, because you'll have an assigned seat - this is perhaps the most important issue for your comfort. Without control of the window, you forfeit your right to get a little cool air in your face during a hot time of year or stop the passing storm from pouring in on you in more inclement times of year. Plus you're not going to be able to buy snacks and drinks from the vendors who come rushing up whenever the bus stops if you're not near a window that opens.

2. Is this seat back in good shape? There are a lot of busted seat backs in the lower classes of Honduran buses, and if you don't check this out you could find yourself slowly sinking into a reclining position no matter how many times you try to get the damn seat to stay straight up and down.

3. Did I just pick a seat over the wheel well? Classic error - you see the empty seat at the back, you rush to grab it, only to discover that the wheel well is right below your feet and you will now have to sit with your knees at your chin for several hours.

4. Did somebody spill something on this part of the floor? Unless you want your shoes lightly stuck to the floor and making that strange ripping noise every time you adjust them, stay away from any seat that appears to have borne the consequences of a sugary drink having been spilled two seats further up and then spread through a thousand or so stops and starts of the bus.

5. Am I sitting near anyone who gets motion sick? I don't know about you, but being too close to someone who is barfing makes me want to barf, too. Sniff the air. Look for evidence of someone clutching a small plastic bag and looking embarrassed. Pay attention to who takes up the bus guy's offer of plastic bags and move seats accordingly.

6. Is my seatmate a Honduran male? It could be that any male seatmate is a problem on this front. Men sit like it's their right to take up as much space as their body feels it needs, and never mind that you are crouching on the edge of your seat trying to avoid having your legs touch as the guy inevitably lets his knees swing open as wide as he likes and claims not just the arm rest but three more inches beyond it. Women, on the other hand, seem much more aware of sharing the common space fairly.

7. Does this mom with her baby in fact have 3 more children in a seat behind her? Children have zero rights on a Honduran bus, which means that if Mom has planted her kids in another seat and the time comes that the seat is needed for another adult passenger, those kids will now have no option but to stand in the tiny slip of space between the mom and the next seat. If you happen to be sitting next to her, count on having a child standing in front of you, too.

8. Am I better off with the seat big enough for 2.5 people that will end up holding 3, or the one big enough for 1.5 people that will end up holding 2? You're on your own for this one. I ask myself the same question every time I get on the refitted school buses that have this seat arrangement, and I've yet to figure out the right answer. I suspect there isn't one. 

Crack down on crime where it counts

  This morning's paper brought news of a tiny baby found abandoned at the foot of a tree in a village not far from the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.  Next to him was a bag full of baby products - a bottle of milk, diapers, talcum powder, a bib - and a note asking whoever found the baby to look after him well. A neighbour saw the news about the foundling and called in to report the young mother who had abandoned the baby, and now she's going to prison.
    Oh, come on. In the same paper, there were stories about 14 people who had been fatally shot in Honduras the day before, including two in wheelchairs. Another story listed details of four massacres that had happened since November in which 17 people had been killed.
    With the exception of one of the massacres, there are no suspects in any of the murders. And if things go the way they usually seem to go here, there never will be.
     Elsewhere in the morning paper, the Ministry of Social Security reported a theft of 23 million lempiras (about $1.2 million) resulting from "ghost" companies billing for non-existent services. Meanwhile, an editorial noted that the number of women murdered in Honduras - which has the highest homicide rate in the world - has increased by more than 18 per cent in the last two years.
   And the new president's "firm hand" is coming down on desperate, impoverished moms who don't have the resources to look after one more child?
    I don't want to knock President Juan Orlando Hernandez for trying to get a handle on crime in the country. But what I've seen so far is a lot of busy-work at police road stops - cars pulled over, buses stopped and passengers ordered to disembark for inspections - while the fundamental problems continue unchecked.

    Honduras doesn't just have a lot of murders, it has an unbelievable number of assassinations - murders for pay. It's not just random violence happening here, it's executions. While the Direccion de Estadistica Policia Nacional has no data available for 55 per cent of the 7,500 or so murders committed in the country in a typical year (quite an appalling problem all on its own), at least 30 per cent of those that have been classified are listed as "retribution killings by hit men." (http://latam-threads.blogspot.com/2012/01/violence-in-honduras.html). 

    One of the most horrendous of the massacres on that list in today's paper was one such killing, and it happened just five kilometres away from our town of Copan Ruinas two weeks ago. Two young men chopped up five members of a family with machetes, reportedly in retribution for a murder a year ago. Two of those killed were children, one age six and the other a mere 11 months old. 

    What did Juan Orlando have to say about that? Nothing. He did give a speech yesterday in which he mentioned that the level of insecurity in the country is intolerable, but neither he nor any other political leader - or police chief, or church leader, or anyone beyond some poor, sobbing relative - ever comments on specific murders, or proposes something more substantial than an increase in police roadside checks and a few more heavily armed military guys standing around here and there.

    It's not just the murders that are weighing this country down. I chatted with my taxi driver in San Pedro Sula this morning about "war taxes," the money the gangs extort from small businesses in exchange for not killing them. The gangs operate at every spot where the taxis queue up for passengers - outside the malls, at the bus terminal, at designated areas in the city centre. A typical San Pedro taxi pays the equivalent of $90 a month in war tax, my driver told me.

    A bus driver on one of the long-distance routes told me his company pays $50 a week for every bus in its fleet, all of it due and payable every Monday at the San Pedro main terminal. All in, some $27 million a year is extorted solely from the transportation sector. The driver says all the stores working out of the bus terminal also have to pay the gangs. The gangs are a bitter fact of life for tens of thousands of hard-working, honest people trying to scratch out a living. 

    So yes, Mr. President, spread a little of that firm hand around. Your citizenry urgently needs the help. But get real. Get focused. And as for mothers too poor to raise their own children, how about you give those ones a hand up?

The end

   

The pool swim with the Angelitos kids this past weekend had a certain poignancy about it. I expect there will be one more and then we'll be gone, back to Canada to start whatever the next adventure will be.
    We always knew there would be an end to our time with the orphans. I imagine it kept the relationship at something of an arm's length from the beginning, knowing that there was no future together that we were building toward. A little detachment has proven to be a good thing already, what with six of the kids having vanished from our lives during these two years, whisked off to what we will have to hope are better lives with no hint to us (or them, I suspect) that the next time we came to the hogar, they would be gone.
     Still, it's a strange thing to walk away from children after all this time. Just because I say I have guarded my heart doesn't mean I actually have. It's not love that we have between us - really, it would be irresponsible and unethical to seek love from children when you know from the start that there's a time limit. But they have come to count on us, and we have come to feel responsible for them. And that's its own kind of love.
    I think we may have changed each other's lives through all of this. By my rough calculations we have spent 300 hours together, mostly at the pool but also shopping for clothes, kicking the ball around in that empty dirt lot above Angelitos, buying sno-cones in the park. We spent one memorable afternoon at a little carnival last year, sweltering in the heat and surrounded by crowds of other children from poor families who saw the gringos buying kids fair rides and drew close in hopes that some tickets might come their way, too.
    They have learned to swim. I have learned to child-wrangle in two languages. In the early weeks, I cried for them, but time passed and I saw that they didn't see themselves as deprived. They are, of course: stunted from inadequate nutrition; behind in school; virtually no medical care; no champions in their lives to step in when things get rough. But that describes so many of the impoverished children in Honduras that I guess the Angelitos kids just feel like everybody else.
    I have seen no obvious signs of abuse at the orphanage, although I suspect that some of the impatient, frazzled staff - most of them broken single moms with no place else to go and slim hopes of getting paid for their work - do hit the kids sometimes. Certainly one broken mom is not sufficient for 14 robust children, especially the crazy little boys who find all kinds of trouble to get up to in their boredom. Dona Daisy, the woman who owns the orphanage, always talks about the need to find "Christian people" who will take that round-the-clock job out of the goodness of their hearts, but I stand inside that dark place with all its bad smells and endless heaps of dirty laundry and think, Who could ever be good enough to stay here for any longer than they had to?
     We've tried to make the children's home better in our time here. There's a water system now, a better floor, a wood stove that doesn't poison the air with its smoke, beds and mattresses and sheets for all. But with its hopeless and haphazard management and the complete lack of transparency in how donor dollars are used, Angelitos will always be something of a disaster. My long-term hopes are all pinned on Emily, the young American whose Casita Copan will one day be a replacement for Angelitos. Her dream is big enough for the 14 Angelitos kids, too, although she'd be in for the fight of her life.
     I don't expect the younger children to remember me for long. I've seen for myself how quickly they forget others who were once in their lives, the price of having grown up with a string of well-meaning but ultimately transient foreigners passing through your doors with their gifts and their cuddles and their tearful goodbyes. They hug easily, these children, but I fear it's because they know to get it while the getting's good, and that nothing lasts.
     The older ones, though - they'll remember. I've already talked to Rosario, the 9-year-old who I feel the most attachment to, about the little box that I'm going to buy her, and how I'll put my email inside it for the day when she wants to find me again. Hide it under your mattress, I told her, knowing how rapidly treasured things go missing in that place. When you're ready to come looking, I'll be there.
     If she could be tucked inside a kennel and whisked off to Canada as easily as the street dog we're bringing home for one of my daughters, I think I would be tempted. But of course, adopting from Honduras is nothing so easy as that, and in fact I'm already seven years past the age cutoff in the country anyway. She's the most independent minded (and stylish) of the Angelitos gang, and I am choosing to take that as a sign that she will be OK.
     "But who will take us to the pool when you're gone?" asked one of the girls, long gone now, when I first mentioned last year that our positions in Honduras weren't permanent. I think that will be the question on most of their minds when we do our final outing at the end of this month.
      I don't know, kids. Let's hope for other travellers with $30 jangling around in their pockets who want to make some children very, very happy. Let's hope that some of the wealthier Copan families wake up to the fact of all these poor kids right in their own community, and make a decision to bring some along next time they head to the pool.
    Let's just hope for the best. For all my little friends at Angelitos Felices, that's all I can do. 

Reconsidering Canada's prostitution laws: An opportunity to do so much better

We have until March 17 to give the federal government our opinion on laws around sex work, as the 3 major laws affecting adult, consenting sex workers were struck down in December as unconstitutional. 

Here are my answers, and I urge you to submit your own responses here,

Please don't make the mistake of thinking you don't know enough to respond. Just imagine that it's your sister, your mom, your little brother who is working in the industry, making a free choice as an adult (because nobody's talking about changing any laws that prevent violence, coercion, human trafficking or child exploitation - this consultation is strictly about the sale of sex between consenting adults). What would you want for them if this was their work? 

A group of sex workers and supporters have put together some guidelines for responding. I'd be happy to forward them to anyone who's interested. The group would also love to have copies of people's responses. But with or without guidelines, just give these questions to your head and heart to mull over and see what comes out. 

Do you think that purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

I support decriminalizing the purchase of sexual services from a consenting adult. I am a committed 57-year-old Canadian feminist and journalist who has come to this conclusion after many years of working with and getting to know adult sex workers, whose life experiences with Canada’s criminalized system have shown me that such laws not only do not reduce the demand for sexual services, but inadvertently make the work considerably more dangerous for the people that the law is supposedly trying to protect.

Better minds than mine could write a treatise on the nature of the human sex drive, but after so many failed efforts in so many countries over so many generations to stop sex work through criminalization, it ought to be clear that criminalization does not work as a deterrent to stop the buying of sexual services. What it does is push this work even deeper into the shadows – into the dark places where no one goes, into a stigmatized, misunderstood world that is practically custom-made to cover up the crimes of the predators who end up there in search of victims.

I have learned from my sex-work acquaintances that the majority of the people who buy sex are not horrible,sick predators looking to cause harm. But because they have to work in shadowy isolation, the conditions are perfect for predators who do hunt among the workers not for sexual services, but for vulnerable, stigmatized people to rape, beat and murder.

Were the purchase and sale of adult,consensual sexual services decriminalized, workers would finally be protected by all the systems Canada has in place to keep us safe from predators: Well-lit work areas; police support; the safety of having other people working nearby; the right to report crimes or suspicious behaviour without being judged, mistreated, ignored and shunned. Decriminalization need not mean that we condone the purchase of sex, just that Canadians accept the reality that criminal measures merely increase risk and misery for those who work in the industry. Even among those who are exploited, victimized and coerced into sex work, the criminalization of this work just adds more suffering. It fixes nothing while causing immense harm. That is bad law.

Do you think that selling sexual services by an adult shouldbe a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.

I support decriminalizing the sale of sexual services between consenting adults. In Canada we seem to want to view sex workers as both victims and criminals, putting them forward in the public eye as vulnerable, desperate people who need our help to flee the horrors of the industry (whether they want to or not), while at the same time targeting them for criminal charges should they dare to resist our need to “save” them.

Many of the same comments I made in the previous question apply to this one as well. Criminalizing the sale of sexual services increases the danger and the stigma for those who work in the industry. It pushes workers into dark places to avoid being criminally charged.They avoid calling police when they do encounter predatory clients, because police might just as easily decide to charge the worker once they arrive at the scene. It lends a strong air of “well, they deserved it” in the event that violence is committed against them, a moral attitude that dramatically affects sex workers when they seek help at the hospital, try to find housing, look for mainstream work. Society sits in severe judgment of sex workers, and I strongly believe that criminalization feeds this judgment while at the same time doingnothing to improve the situation for anybody – the sex workers, theneighbourhoods where outdoor sex takes place, the exploited children who desperately need targeted, wise services to turn their lives in a different direction.

For me, this is also an issue of workers’ rights. The sale of sex is legal in Canada. It’s the marketing, location and income from sex work that is illegal. This criminalization shuts a whole class of Canadian workers out of all the normal workplace protections. They are denied the same level of police protection (or would at least perceive it that way); they cannot access our court system for a dispute over a contract or to bring a case for sexual harassment. There are no employment standards that apply to them. Decriminalization will not fix every problem in the sexindustry, but it will at least open the door for people to pursue the same courses for legal action and seek the same level of rights protection that other Canadian workers enjoy.

If you support allowing the sale or purchase of sexual services, what limitationsshould there be, if any, on where or how this can be conducted? Please explain.

I support the creation of legal workplaces for consenting adult sex workers. These sites should be treated like any other business and regulated municipally through zoning bylaws in terms of location, and subject to the same employment standards that any Canadian workplace is subject to. For the safety of the workers, these sites should not be banished to industrial parks or “red light districts” where they are out of sight of mainstream society, but rather mixed in to commercial areas and regulated in ways that ensure low public profile. This is the way that many of Canada’s brothels operate now, in truth, as the clients of this business also prefer a low profile.

Canada’s bawdyhouse laws and related court rulings over the years have basically defined “bawdyhouse” to be any location where sex is bought and sold. They have been a failure by any definition, asthey have not curbed the sale of sex and have created a very dangerous work situation for those in the industry. The only achievement of the country’s bawdyhouse laws was to deny sex workers even the most basic protections of a typical workplace: A clean and pleasant place to work; shelter from the weather, the company of co-workers, people around you to respond in the event of something bad happening.

The issue of outdoor sex work is more complicated, as some people working outdoors are there because their profound personal problems – addictions, mental health issues, disabilities – prevent them from being able to work in an indoor venue. They also work outdoors because there are customers who want to be able to buy sex that way; curbing that desire will require an entirely different strategy than anything Canada has ever tried. The percentage of sex workers who work outdoors is small –estimates are around 10 per cent – but the outdoor stroll is definitely the“face” of sex work that people react most strongly to.

Outdoor work is definitely much more of a pressure point for a community, and is almost always where the violence happens for sex workers as municipalities try to push the “stroll” out of sight. While I sincerely hope legal, safe workplaces are coming for consenting adult sex workers, I fear pressure might increase to criminalize all outdoor work, a development that would put the most vulnerable outdoor workers at even greater risk. As Canada moves forward into what I hope will be enlightened policy around adult sex work, I think the issues of outdoor sex work should be separated out for further exploration and understanding, as my experience has been that the issues for the small minority of sex workers who work outdoors are completely different than those of the large majority who work indoors. This exploration must include study into the psychology of clients who prefer to buy from outdoor workers, because there will always be sellers if there continues to be buyers.

Do you think that it should be a criminal offence for a person to benefit economically from the prostitution of an adult?

I believe that a law that makes it a criminal offence to benefit economically from prostitution is far too broad to be effective, and has a negative impact on people who in no way are acting in a predatory manner by taking money from a sex worker. Canada does need a carefully considered law that prevents predators from forcing people into sex work in order to benefit from their earnings, but criminalizing the income of sex workers is not the way to achieve that.

While rarely used in Canada, the former law around “living off the avails” put people at risk of criminal charges just for accepting payment of any kind from a sex worker. Not only does that unfairly affect all the people a sex worker might choose to employ – a driver, for instance – but also relegates anyone who lives with or loves a sex worker to the category of  “pimp” under the law just by splitting the rent, food costs or other expenses with the sex worker. To criminalize the income from legal work is both fundamentally wrong and totally ineffective as a means of curbing the sex trade.

As noted, the law has not been used much in Canada. But its existence alone opens the door for harassment of sex workers and the people in their lives, as even a private romantic relationship is now open to police scrutiny. It is also an impossible law to administer fairly. With what is likely tens of thousands of Canadians working in the sex trade in Canada – making mortgage payments, buying groceries, paying car loans, payingfor daycare services for their children, eating at restaurants, hiringrenovation crews to redo the kitchen – the sheer volume of people benefiting economically from prostitution is enormous. And yet the impact of the law is only ever felt by those closest to the sex worker. Once more, that is bad law.

Are there any other comments you wish to offer to inform thegovernment’s response to the Bedford decision?

Please do not let the high emotion of the debatearound this issue affect your decisions when considering new laws for thebuying and selling of sex among consenting adults. So many people havesuffered, even lost their lives, because of Canada’s former laws aroundprostitution. Please do not let this become an issue of agreeing or disagreeingwith the idea of selling sexual services.

The sale of sex is not inherently violent. It is our laws that have actually created much of the risks in this work. Yes, the fight must continue to prosecute those who are violent, predatory, exploitive and coercive, and to protect underage children from exploitation. But we must stop this senseless application of law as a tool of morality - an approach that has caused great harm to many, many good people and virtually guarantees a continuation of the damaging stigma that shuts sex workers out of mainstream society.

The reality is that rightly or wrongly, thisindustry exists. I don’t know if its existence is inevitable, but I do know that 147 years of trying to stop it through criminalization has not worked – not in Canada, not in any country.  Canadahas a chance to do itself proud yet again and create a regulatory framework that is thoughtful, realistic and humane.