Dwindling services for sex workers tells grim story in the post-Pickton years

It's very nearly nine years to the day since I jumped out of my comfortable life as a journalist and took up a job heading a small grassroots organization for sex workers. Many things have changed since then, but PEERS Victoria is never far from my heart no matter what else is going on for me.
   I could write a book about the things that astonished me, informed me and bowled me over in those three years as executive director of PEERS. There was so much to learn, not the least of which was how to live with an unwieldy new performance-based contract with the province that had replaced the core funding that PEERS had received up to that point.
    The third generation of that contract is what has turned out to be PEERS' undoing. The organization announced this week that it just can't make a go of it anymore in its contract with the Ministry of Social Development, and is having to give up its daytime drop-in and its daily groups for sex workers seeking change in their lives.
    A sad development, yes. A terrible thing to happen for vulnerable, stigmatized people who often won't access other services because they're afraid of being judged. But as one of the many people who have tried to make various forms of that blasted provincial contract work over the past decade, the only thing that surprises me about this turn of events is that PEERS actually managed to make the contract work for as long as it did.
    In its first manifestation, during my time at PEERS, the contract was extremely difficult but still possible, especially given that the contract manager on the government side was willing to trust the organization and put a little stretch in the rules to accommodate the vast number of barriers that sex workers are facing when they first walk through the doors at PEERS.
     But my creativity was still tested to the max trying to make that contract work, because it was based on PEERS running a pre-employment training program when the reality was that the people we were working with were still trying to struggle out of serious addictions, critical mental-health issues, poverty, housing problems and violence. Under the contract, we had six months to get those people ship-shape and either into the "square" job market, taking further job training at another agency, or attending college or university. That simply wasn't possible.
    Still, we did manage to squeeze enough money out of the contract to offer a pretty good program. But in the second- and third generations of the contract, which came along after I left, the money got tougher and tougher to access for PEERS, and for any of the non-profits serving people with complex and multiple barriers.
    This last contract iteration, which came into effect in the spring of 2012, is a fee-for-service model that doesn't pay for anything unless it can be delivered as a billable service. So any interaction with clients either had to be reinterpreted as a billable service - a terrible fit with a peer-led organization that knows a slow and gradual approach is the only thing that works - or go unfunded. The contract also has complicated and heavy reporting requirements that eat up much (unfunded) administrative time.
     It pays poorly to boot, and required for the first time that PEERS give up being a direct provider and instead become a sub-contractor. That change has prohibited PEERS from having contact with government contract managers or doing any lobbying about the problems of the contract.
    Like I say, it was only a matter of time until everything went sideways. And now it has. Fortunately, PEERS continues to have other funding for its day and night outreach services, but the drop-in space that was such a vital support t is gone. So are the daytime programs, which not only served to help clients start working through their many challenges but also as a de facto detox for people who desperately needed a structured environment to be able to stop using drugs and alcohol.
    And so it's a sad day. One more service gone for marginalized, vulnerable people trying to get their lives together. One more service gone for sex workers, who have already lost PEERS Vancouver and other sex-worker-specific supports as a result of the provincial and federal governments' continuing withdrawal from community social services.
    PEERS will survive, of course. It always does. This time returning to its roots as an outreach service might even be good in a way. But who could have imagined in the hysteria of the Pickton trial just seven years ago that where it would take us would be to a time with even fewer services for sex workers? Who could imagine that not only would we ignore the recommendations of the Pickton inquiry, we would retreat even further from doing anything helpful for the women we seemingly only care about when they turn up dead?
   The following are just a few of the reactions from PEERS clients after learning that the drop-in and Elements are gone. And if there's anything you can do to change any of this, please do.
 
From the clients: 

The first few weeks at PEERS I was a closed-off and very detached person. I would freeze with anxiety just from being around people. As time went on I felt more and more safe and started to wake up every morning excited to go to class. I made friends. My life today is so much better and I have my children back and am free from drugs.

*********

When I learned the program was closing, at first I was in shock, then a little disturbed and upset and worried and wondering what I was going to do to keep myself in routine. Worried that my depression will set in without having some routine and friendship I have through PEERS. This is one of the best programs I have ever been to – and I have been to a lot. This program is a form of treatment that works!!!

*********

I am a person with mental illness. I am on permanent disability. PEERS is the only program that I actually fit in and am accepted in, as quirky and different as I am. I do not use drugs or really party. PEERS helps me find me. It also helps me learn. These are some things that I have personally learned at PEERS: Treat people the way you want to be treated; any behaviours that I have that need to be changed to better myself and I don’t change are insane behaviours. They taught me respect of myself and others. I learned communication skills and skills to express my feelings. I also learn about patterns and what I can do to change them. Identifying our problems is the key that allows us to change.

With [Elements] closing, how can I learn to change and grow when I do not fit in any other program? PEERS is a unique program that turns no one away, even when no one else wants you. These staff members are special and unique and deal with many people on a broad spectrum of issues, most having mental health issues.

********

Every time I have come [to this program] since before it has been closing, I been really sad. I feel different about PEERS. Also it was a good place to vent. It helped me with problems and finished my probation order to come here. I really sad that I won’t be able to come here for the great food and company. Plus it help me get my Wal-Mart cards to get food at the end of the month. Please think about not closing the Elements program.

********

I am [age removed to protect anonymity] years old and am strong and healthy. I have PEERS to thank for that. Three years ago ago as a vulnerable escort, I was a victim of domestic abuse, sexual violence and was doing sex work 70 hours a week. I was broken. Sent from Victim Services, I made an intake appointment to begin attending PEERS. I was so nervous, I was afraid of being judged. Then I met Sarah. She was the counsellor and intake worker. She was very comforting and reassuring. I applied for Elements. I was told it was a program to support me while I was in the sex trade as well as help me transition out of it. I was reassured that the women were very welcoming and that everything shared in Elements was confidential.

    The Elements program changed my life! Meeting other woman who had quit working in the sex trade really motivated me. The structure of coming to classes really helped me. Through work sheets, check-in and counsellor-led classes, I worked through my trauma and addiction. I found the group setting really helped me feel a part of something. Hearing women’s stories that were similar to mine, I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew my feelings were normal. Us girls in Elements became like a family. We consoled while maintaining healthy boundaries. PEERS taught me boundaries.

    In the past, I had been through lots of therapy. I found I didn’t get the same kind of healing. I couldn’t open up the same as being at PEERS. At PEERS, like the name, everyone is a peer. I knew that the counsellors and other women, clients or staff had “been there, done that.” It was the first time ever I had felt understood.

    PEERS helped me to recover from my post-traumatic stress disorder. The counsellors helped me work it out and walked me through the court process. They also came with me to court. When I was afraid to leave my home, a counsellor transported me to and from PEERS to keep me safe.

    PEERS not only helped me with my emotional needs, but also my physical. I was taught safety precautions to keep me free from STDs and unsafe clients. They provided me with a “black list” of all dangerous clients to avoid. They also provided me with a female doctor. Dr. Cunningham made STD tests and other checkups comfortable and thorough. She never rushed me, and I felt safe in the comfort of PEERS.

    PEERS always provided basic needs – a nutritious hot meal daily and when I didn’t have groceries or the money to buy them, PEERS would send me home with a care package.

    Some of my fondest memories are of Beauty Day. I always looked forward to Friday, Beauty Day. We girls were pampered, making us feel beautiful and helping our self-esteem. We would receive haircuts, manicures and massages. All of these were done by professionals. I was also welcome to help myself to the clothing room. To this day, most of my closet consists of clothing from that clothing room.

    Today I think of all the skills and abilities I have learned and taken from PEERS, and they help me each day. At PEERS I attended poetry classes, where my poems were published in two books. It helped my self-esteem enormously. I also learned yoga and knitting, which will help me for the rest of my life. They help me get through the tough times.

    To whoever reads this, I hope you have a better understanding of the importance of PEERS. PEERS has saved my life. I am distraught that my safe haven is being taken from me. I need PEERS. The love, support, safety and resource is a necessity for Victoria.

On the road again: Scenes from a car window

 

I've been searching for a way to describe the swervy, teeth-rattling experience of travelling on a typical rural road in Honduras, but it's one of those things that you really have to feel for yourself.
    But yesterday on the drive back from Las Flores, where my co-workers did a workshop on making organic fertilizer, it dawned on me that if I just stuck the video camera out the window, I might be able to convey at least some of the experience. The jouncing, the sharp turns, the speed bumps as we pass through little towns - a hand-held video shot catches all of that.
     So click here for a five-minute video snapshot of that 45-minute ride back toward Copan Ruinas, starting with the crazy drive right through the flood plain of the Rio Negro - which, of course, is impassable anytime the rains are heavy.
    As I watched the video, I also saw that it serves the purpose of getting past the pretty pictures I've been posting and showing a little grittier, realistic view of this country where we've been living for the past year and a half. Hope you like it. 

We can sing a rainbow

 

 I'm in that giddy state that comes after something you've been dreading is over, and it turned out not nearly as bad as you'd thought. In this case the anxiety-inducing event was a devotional I did this morning for my co-workers on gay tolerance - a subject that is rarely talked about here, and most definitely not in the context of the weekly prayer meeting at our office.
   But for a while now I've been thinking that my co-workers are splendid, loving people, and that perhaps they really just needed a gentle push to reconsider some of the kneejerk prejudices against homosexuality that exist in Honduras. I knew I couldn't go at them with a forceful presentation on how wrong it is to deny people the basic right of loving who they choose, but I figured I might be able to just plant a seed or two that might start them thinking differently.
   As it turned out, several of them had already been thinking differently. And while I noticed some people shifting uncomfortably in their seats once they heard what the subject of the devotional was, the lively conversation that grew out of the little PowerPoint I did went on for almost two hours and had everybody talking and sharing their thoughts. There was a lot of laughter, too, a great relief for a presenter bracing herself for stony faces and silence.
   Honduras is heavily religious - still predominantly Catholic, but increasingly evangelical. My co-workers tend to interpret the Bible very conservatively, and there are at least a couple passages in the Bible that are pretty ferocious when it comes to condemning same-sex relations.
   So while the Pope's recent comments about accepting homosexuals has given Honduras something to think about, it's not like people who have spent a lifetime believing that homosexuality is an abomination can just switch off their feelings and move on. I tried to make my points gently, and stressed from the start that I wasn't there to argue with them about their own beliefs (although by gully, that turned out to be quite a challenge at times).
   The best discussion came when I broke them into pairs and gave them five "moral dilemmas" to ponder:

• Your son/daughter or other close family member acknowledges being gay; 
• You discover your child's favourite teacher is a lesbian; 
• You become aware that children are bullying a boy because they think he's gay; 
• Your organization finds out that two people in a community are being blocked from participating in a project because neighbours think they are homosexual; 
• It's election day and you have the choice of voting for an honest candidate who's gay or a corrupt politician who's heterosexual. (That last one got quite a laugh, seeing as it's basically a real-life example from the coming Honduran election.)

    Those around the table who struggle the most with accepting homosexuality had the same kind of responses you can still hear in Canada and the U.S.: The Bible says it's a sin and that's that; the homosexuals want to influence my child's sexual orientation; we ought to have the right to our own beliefs even if thinking is changing elsewhere in the world. It's OK to be gay, just don't act on it.
    But even the diehards admitted they'd never push a loved one away, never stand by and watch intolerance or violence happen to someone. One fellow, given the "what if it was someone in your family" dilemma, said he realized he wasn't at all prepared for such a development, and saw that he needed to reflect on that more.
   Others were downright supportive. One young woman said she'd met a rural family with three gay children, and realized in that instant that it had to be in the biology of people. Several talked about the woman who dresses as a man in one of the villages up the road from our office (and believe me, you have to be some brave in Honduras to do that) who has a female partner and has been completely accepted by the other villagers. One said she'd learned a lot from witnessing that acceptance.
   And I think we almost had a consensus that if the better political candidate was gay or lesbian, he or she would get their vote.
    I'm well aware of how ugly the talk can get when the subject is tolerance of homosexuality; my years as an adult have pretty much paralleled the decades of heated debates over gay rights. But ultimately, I trust good-hearted people to see that it's just love we're talking about here. My Honduran co-workers are nothing if not loving, and I am honoured that they gave me the opportunity to say things they didn't want to hear. 

Come walk with me

 

The ever-changing field near the river.

 I have a 15-minute walk to work every morning. Today's was particularly interesting, what with me stepping out the door and immediately getting into a discussion with a neighbour about the swollen vulva of the wandering young dog sleeping on our patio, which he told me meant she was in heat and thus in need of one of the mystery injections they give dogs down here to stop pregnancy. But every day's walk is interesting in its own way.
    I make a point to say good morning to everyone I pass, having come to see that gringos are in general not nearly friendly enough for this extroverted and amiable culture. Shop owners getting ready for the day, women out sweeping the street outside their houses, cantina workers, street drunks - all of us exchange greetings, and at times get into spirited conversations about one thing or another.
    I walk the dirt road below our house, a favourite haunt of the handful of local men who drink themselves into oblivion at least a couple times a week. They're always in one of two states: Cheerily intoxicated or stone-cold passed out on the ground, looking for all the world like they're dead. One time I stood over a fellow for a long time trying to verify that he was breathing, but he was.
    The dirt road gives way to Cantina Row at the edge of town, where the sex workers pass their time in teeny-tiny bars dancing and flirting with drunk men. There appears to be some irregularly enforced rule about the cantinas not being allowed to open until 4 p.m., and today I noticed that one of the women has opened a small pulperia - a corner store - in her little house next to the bar where she works, perhaps to generate some daytime revenue.

Egel, the dog that walks to work with me a lot

    The highway between Copan Ruinas and the Guatemala border takes a strange swing right through this area, so there's one part of my walk where I'm often fighting for road space with semi-trucks trying to make a near-impossible 90-degree turn. If I'm walking with the neighbour dog that often accompanies me, I know he'll inevitably detour into one of the tire shops along that part of the road, where he will perform a ritual with the big husky-cross tied up there that involves the two of them standing side-by-side and looking like they're going to fight, although they never do. Giant semi trucks carrying vast flats of  Coca-Cola products are always unloading at a warehouse in this area; whoever else might be struggling in Honduras, Coca-Cola is not one of them.
    Then it's on to another dirt road, this one past the Hedman Alas bus station and the newly opened hotel that never looks very busy. The previous owner was murdered and the place was closed down when we arrived, but it's back in business under new ownership and trying its best in difficult times. Just past the hotel there's a field that has an ever-changing array of vegetables growing in it - beans for a couple months, then chili peppers, then corn. Today the workers were assembling little tents over the newly tilled field that producers use here to keep away bugs, so I'm guessing that tomatoes will be the next crop.
    The people I run into the most in this stretch of the walk are Maya Chorti, who are distinct among Hondurans for their brightly coloured homemade clothes, their slim builds, and their reserve. Sometimes I really have to work at it to catch somebody's eye for a greeting. I sense they don't have much time for gringos, especially those who aren't buying their corn-husk dolls. Some will have walked for two hours or more by the time we pass on the bridge across the Copan River, as they're all making their way on foot from some hillside village to town to sell their various wares: chickens; eggs; tortillas; local fruits.
    Every day I pass at least one stooped old man with a load of firewood on his back. It looks like the hardest work imaginable, and it always seems to be the oldest, most infirm looking men who end up doing it. I guess there's no other work for them, and certainly no comfortable retirement pensions.

Oh, the things you see when you look

   The final hill to my office takes me past some of the richer homes of the area, including one surrounded by a rock wall so high and huge that last year a team of 20 men worked on it every day for almost 10 months. We grew familiar with each other after 10 months of daily "Buenas dias," and now we say hello when I see them at other work sites around town.
  And then I arrive, to my desk in what was probably a garage at some point, where the big door is wide open and it's practically like I'm working outside. Today I hear the sound of saws; one of the wealthy people down below must be getting a new or improved house. Later this afternoon, I expect I'll hear the music and drums of a school band practising in some distant field, as Independence Day is coming up in less than a month and there will be many, many marching bands in the streets.
    Come Monday, I'll do it all over again, and it will be the same but different. If life is in the details, I am living.
    

Back home to the happy faces and sad stories

 

 
   My heart is breaking for neighbours of ours here in Copan Ruinas, whose teenage son was kidnapped 21 days ago while Paul and I were holidaying in Canada and the U.S. The family has yet to receive any ransom demand, one of those things that likely signal the worst for the poor boy.
   Coincidentally, he drove me to work one morning a few days before we left on vacation. He was a brand-new mototaxi driver and I was his first paying customer. He seemed like a friendly and social guy ready to begin a new life as an adult.
    Now I fear he's just another of the thousands of young Honduran men who are gone from this world for reasons that are never talked about, at the hands of criminals who are rarely prosecuted. All his family knows is that people saw him get into a non-descript grey car without licence plates on the dirt road that I walk to work on every morning, and he hasn't been seen since. It is not an unusual scenario here.
   Having just heard the story of his disappearance, I arrived at work this morning to learn that the brother of the woman who cleans our offices was also one of the 800 sad souls who were ripped off in a fraud in July perpetrated against Hondurans with dreams of finding work in Canada.
   With visions of making decent money picking fruit in Canada for a few months, the impoverished Hondurans had scrounged up $500 each to be able to meet the requirements. That's a small fortune for most Hondurans, and some of them had to sell their houses just to be able to raise the money. Alas, the whole thing was a carefully orchestrated sham, and they have all lost their money.
    It's hard to imagine how devastating a loss like that is on the life of a rural Honduran, but the cleaning woman helped me get some perspective on it. In her tiny village of San Rafael, just a few kilometres outside of Copan Ruinas, more than 70 people lost virtually everything they had.
     They sold their bean and corn crops that would have fed their families through the non-harvest months coming up. They sold their tools. They took out loans, in some cases from the kind of people you do NOT want to be indebted to, in other cases from family members who have now been plunged into a desperate financial situation as well.
    Five of the villagers from San Rafael have already left their families behind to look for work in other parts of Honduras. This woman's brother, a single dad of two young children, expects he'll have to leave his village too. That same scenario is doubtlessly playing out in every village where impoverished farmers were tricked by clever predators who felt no shame at robbing from the poorest of the poor.
    In light of all this, in light of all the things that go wrong every day for Hondurans, what always astounds me about coming back to Copan after time away is how friendly the people are here. I'm quite sure I've exchanged more friendly greetings with Hondurans since arriving bleary-eyed and exhausted yesterday afternoon than I did in all of my two weeks of travelling in Canada and the U.S. I don't know how people maintain their optimism and cheer in this struggling country, but the difference between here and there is striking.
   I reject that "poor but happy" business, having talked to far too many Hondurans who have the same dreams as anyone for a better life for their children. Hondurans are definitely not happy about being poor, nor are they happy with the crime they experience as a regular part of life, with the absence of justice, with their indifferent and selfish government leaders.
    But they sure know how to keep a smile on their face while they wait and hope for better days. I've really missed that easy friendliness you see here: the genuine curiosity about passersby; the eye contact; the willingness to stop and chat to anyone who's smiling back. A stranger arrived at the office looking for someone who wasn't in, and greeted me with a hug just for telling her that. Even when the stories are sad, the sheer eagerness to engage is uplifting.
    Back in Canada, people barely look at each other anymore as they pass on the street, and sometimes the vibe is just this side of hostile. How can it be that people with so little can always make time for human kindness, and people with everything can't be bothered?

Just because you saw it on Facebook doesn't make it true

    I love almost everything about Facebook, from the photo-sharing and the cute-animal videos to the free emoticons you can use in your chats. But God help us if Facebook ends up being a news source for people in a post-newspaper world.

    The potential power of a medium like Facebook can’t be overstated in this viral age. Anything I write on my page can be shared in a heartbeat by any of my 1,522 Facebook friends, whose own friends (and their friends’ friends, and their friends’ friends’ friends) can then spread the word even farther afield in a nano-second.

    No harm done if we’re talking about an inspirational saying, an anecdote about our day or an amusing/heartwarming/heartbreaking video about babies, cancer, birth, death, or animals demonstrating human-like behaviour (a very popular category).  Even rude stuff doesn’t rile me up, seeing as that just reflects on the reputation of the person who posted it.

    But what passes for news on Facebook really scares me. And I wonder if any of us have even considered our role in promulgating lies, misunderstanding and even hatred through the simple act of clicking “Share.”

    A recent example from today’s Facebook postings: Photos that purportedly show an unidentified Mexican water taxi in Cabo San Lucas luring seals closer to the boat by holding a puppy over the railing. There’s one photo of a tourist holding a puppy on board the boat, with a black bar across her eyes to hide her identity, and another of a puppy in someone’s hand near the railing as a seal swims up.

     Maybe it happened that way, maybe it didn’t. I’m using it here solely as an example of how quickly a story like that is swept into the Facebook universe and becomes “truth,” regardless of whether it is.

In less than 24 hours, the post has been shared 83 times from the original site and netted 87 furious comments. Who knows how many additional shares and comments came after that as more and more people posted it to their own Facebook pages?  

    The commentators write that they are shocked, saddened, sickened, disgusted and otherwise outraged. Some are slagging Mexicans for abusing animals. Some are Mexicans pushing back with comments about Americans and Canadians trying to make a big deal out of something small when there are much bigger animal-welfare issues to worry about, like factory farming and dog fights. There is a vaguely racist tone through some of the exchanges.

      Other commentators are throwing around names of tour businesses that might be the culprits, based on somebody’s vague recollection that the boat where this happened had an orange canopy.

“I work in a job where I see hundreds of tourists each week and make many recommendations,” writes one angry commentator. “Believe me, I will show them this and let’s hope eventually [the water-taxi operator] goes out of business.”

For now, let’s not get into whether holding a puppy near a boat railing is animal cruelty. The point is, nobody in the entire comment thread verifies any specifics of the incident, and the photos could be of virtually any blonde person with a puppy anywhere in the world. The photo of the puppy at the railing could have been manipulated. We just don’t know.

Yet just by clicking Share, people verify the “truth” of the story to their Facebook friends.  The ripples can be felt literally all over the world. It’s like Richter-scale gossip, with the potential in the case at hand to damage the reputation of virtually every water-taxi business in Cabo San Lucas, cast a shadow over Mexicans in general as animal abusers, and ruin the business of some poor sod who just happens to have an orange canopy on his boat.

And that’s just one small example. Every time I see people sharing one of those all-too-common threads that purports to be identifying someone who is a criminal, an animal abuser, a pedophile or an otherwise horrible human being, I wonder how long it will be before somebody winds up dead at the hands of a vigilante because a person saw something on Facebook and presumed it to be true.

We’re all going to have to do our part here. I’m not suggesting that news via the mainstream media was ever a guarantee of truth and impartiality, but I can tell you that none of them would ever publish a vague story about a puppy that may or may not have been dangled near a seal somewhere in the world.

We’re entering into completely uncharted territory now that anyone with a computer is a news source. Each of us needs to think hard about how we’ll judge our sources of news and uncover any hidden agendas. We are all citizen journalists now, and we have to think about the potential to really hurt somebody – to foment hatred, racism and ignorance – every time we share something without a second thought as to whether it’s true.

Just because somebody’s your Facebook friend doesn’t mean they can be trusted as your news source. Next time you’re hovering over that Share button, think before you click.

Five minutes of research could have spared us this uninformed prattle on InSite

   It almost felt good to experience the righteous rage rising in me this morning when I read that uninformed column by Licia Corbella in the Calgary Herald trying to draw a link between the overdose death of actor Cory Monteith and Vancouver's supervised injection site. I'd forgotten how much I love to hate lazy, ignorant commentary, so deliciously wide open to being torn apart by anyone with the slightest understanding of the issue at hand.
    How long would it have taken for Corbella to have gone to the Insite web site and learned more about the services, the clients, the lives saved - five minutes, maybe? Ah, but she didn't want facts. She wanted to make her very strange case that Cory Monteith overdosed because he was in Vancouver, at a hotel close to the "cancerous lesion" that is the Downtown Eastside, and that he might still be alive today if he'd had the good sense to visit a different Canadian city.
    Reasoning that the Glee actor surely wouldn't have brought drugs across the border, Corbella writes that he either bought them in Vancouver or "had a gofer do it for him by visiting InSite..." Can she possibly believe that a project as controversial as one that helps people with heroin addictions inject safely would risk it all by selling heroin to anyone, let alone a celebrity's "gofer?"
   "Proponents of safe injection sites argue that such harm-reduction strategies save lives and that’s inarguably true. After all, if an injection drug user overdoses in the safe injection site, then a nurse is on hand to offer assistance and call an ambulance. This has happened numerous times," writes Corbella. (True, Licia - 1,418 times to be precise. But then, you would have known that if you'd visited InSite's web site.)
  "But no one ever asks how many people have died of drug overdoses who use the safe injection site as a legally safe place to procure drugs," she goes on to say.
    Well, Licia, that's because you can't buy drugs at InSite, legally or otherwise. And while I hate to belabour a point, you would have known that had you bothered to do one damn bit of research into any of this.
    Sometime in the 1990s, it appears that Corbella met a sex worker in Toronto who was unable to find heroin one night. Corbella has concluded from this incident that this must mean drugs are very difficult to buy in any city other than Vancouver.
    "Would Cory Monteith still be alive had he been visiting Halifax, Toronto or Calgary instead of Vancouver? In my view, it’s highly likely," she writes.

    That is such a profoundly weird thing to say that in fairness, we should probably just presume Corbella was feeling the pressure to pad out her scant column and threw that thought in at the last minute just to bump up the word count.

     But if she truly believes that all of Canada's drug use is concentrated solely in one city in one province, perhaps she should browse through the RCMP report on illicit drug use and note that in fact, it's fairly evenly distributed from coast to coast. 

    As for heroin specifically, port cities like Vancouver have traditionally had more access to it, but that hasn't stopped the proliferation of heroin substitutes being widely available in other cities. One Toronto hospital says it sees 300 overdose deaths a year from oxycontin alone, the prescription drug known as "hillbilly heroin." I suspect poor Cory Monteith could have found what he was looking for regardless of where he was that night.
    Were Licia Corbella just some wacky blogger throwing her wildly uninformed opinions around, no big deal. There are a million of them out there. We're all going to have to be much more careful about where we get our information from, because we're falling headfirst into a scandal-sheet world where anyone with an internet connection can represent themselves as a "news source."
    But Corbella is the editorial page editor for the Calgary Herald. I stand on guard for freedom of expression, but that's not what we're talking about here. This is about a disturbing level of factual error. It scares me to think that the editorial page editor for a major daily newspaper wrote something so careless, sloppy and inaccurate, and scares me even more that her bosses just stepped out of the way and let it run.
    As for the Downtown Eastside being a "cancerous lesion," I was there in April at the Army and Navy sale and was struck by how much better the neighbourhood looked. May Corbella and her family never have to experience the poverty, addiction, disability and trauma that have created the DTES, but in the meantime she'd do well to open up those half-shut eyes of hers and see the cheery, resilient community that exists against all odds on those tough streets. 

A hot day for democracy

   

The Honduran Congreso Nacional came to town yesterday, part of a mobile-meeting plan for the legislative branch of government that gets the politicians out of the capital once in a while to hear from "the people." Apparently President Porfirio Lobo was here, too, but all I know of that is I heard a helicopter coming in for a landing around 2 p.m., such a rare event in Copan Ruinas that it had to mean something big.
    Congress met in the municipal hall near Parque Central, so I wandered down to the park yesterday morning to see what I could see. Not much, as it turns out. They'd set up a giant screen in the square so people could see what was going on inside, but you couldn't actually get into the room without an invitation. Let me tell you, sitting in the scorching sun watching a giant screen is less fun than you'd think, so after about an hour and a half I packed it in.
    Even without the big screen, any observant Copaneco would have recognized that something was up in the square yesterday. Way more military presence, for one thing. But I thought the bigger giveaway was the Honduran man in shorts and sports sandals that wandered in and out of the meeting. A Honduran in an outfit like that in Copan Ruinas - well, it just doesn't happen. A man dressed like that is making a pretty clear statement that he's not from around here.
    Overall, the men inside the room were notable for their white guayaberas - the popular cotton dress shirts that men of higher ranking wear in Latin America - their good haircuts and an overall healthy glow. The men outside the room - sitting in the square with me, watching that big-screen TV intently in hopes of hearing something that might bring better roads, more jobs, help for their ailing coffee crops - were notable for their well-worn jeans, shellacked cowboy hats and sinewy skinniness.

Business as usual for passing vendors

    As for what they were talking about inside that room, I saw a lot of well-groomed Copanecos talking politely about the state of the roads, plans to reawaken the moribund tourism industry, the impact of the coffee-rust fungus on local crops. And I saw members of Congress politely thanking the presenters and quickly moving onto the next item of business.  I went to a public cabinet meeting of the B.C. government a few years back when they were really enthusiastic about doing such things, and yesterday's event looked about the same.
     Was democracy served? Hard to say, but you have to appreciate the effort. I won't be holding my breath for results, but there's something to be said for just showing up.
    And if nothing else, it brought the insecticide trucks out the night before to blast away the bug population (and anyone foolish enough to have opened their front door to see what all the hissing commotion was about). When the Congreso Nacional shows up in town, the cockroaches better run. 

The Sound of Sangre: Let's help these guys tell a good story

 
If you like documentary film, folk music of a very original kind, or Latin America, this project to find a mysterious Honduran band that plays narcocorrido music is worth checking out.
    The two U.S. men spearheading the project, Chris Valdes and Ted Griswold, taught in the Olancho region of Honduras and kept hearing talk of Los Plebes de Olancho, one of the bands in the country that does the very tricky work of sitting down with narcotraficantes working in the cocaine industry and documenting their hair-raising, dangerous stories in songs.
    The bands keep a pretty low profile, but Chris and Ted hope they'll be able to track down Los Plebes and tell the band's own story if they can scratch up the $38,000 they need to make their documentary. They've raised almost $9,000 in a matter of days, so are off to a good start, but they're trying to reach their goal within a month and head back to Honduras in October to start the hunt for Los Plebes. Get your pledge in before the Aug. 16 deadline.
    The result won't be your typical rockumentary - the men hope to use the film to explore the theme of violence in Honduras, and whether narcocorridos glorify the tremendous violence in the cocaine industry or in fact just document what it's like to work in one of the world's most dangerous businesses.
    I'm fascinated by the whole narcotrafico thing now that I'm living in a country where the business is a fact of life and probably an important economic driver if people were being honest about it. So I'm hoping the guys get their documentary off the ground just so I can learn more, seeing as it's one of those things that's kind of hard to quiz people about.
    Copan Ruinas is located a mere 10 kilometres from the Guatemala border, and thus a key point for those who move cocaine for a living. I'm pretty sure the money from that business funds fancy truck purchases and repairs, real estate investment, big dinners at high-end restaurants, hotel getaways, a whole lot of construction in town, and private-school tuition for the kids.
   The industry is completely integrated into "normal" life here. Nobody likes to talk about it, but you'd have to be blind not to see the impact it has on the local economy. It's just not possible to draw the line where legitimate income sources stop and drug money begins - in Honduras or anywhere that illegal drug production and distribution takes place. (Like in my home province of B.C., where marijuana production and sales generate a reported $6 billion a year.)
   Good luck, Chris and Ted. Hope you find the money, find the band, and tell a story that's overdue to be told.
     Here's a link to the promotional video for The Sound of Sangre. And check out Los Plebes de Olancho on YouTube.

Feeding the fire in the most dangerous country in the world

   No one in the world is at greater risk of violent death than a Honduran.

   Every 73 minutes, a Honduran is murdered in this country. That breathtaking fact not only signifies a tremendous loss of men in their prime economic years, who account for 92 per cent of the victims, but a life turned upside down for the thousands of women and children those dead men leave behind.

   Those of us who live in Honduras hear the murder rate so often that it starts to become meaningless: 85.5 violent deaths per 100,000. But you need only take a look at violent-death statistics in war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Iraq to get a sense of just how over-the-top that homicide rate really is.

   In Afghanistan in 2011, for instance, 3,021 civilians died violently. In Honduras in that same year, more than twice that number died violently – 6,239. Last year in Iraq, 4,753 civilians died violently. Last year in Honduras, there were 7,172 homicides.  In any given 18-month period, Honduras records more violent deaths than the total number of Afghanistan military and police forces killed in a decade of war.

   How can this be? Where is the global outrage? Everybody’s quick with the scary travel advisories, but those do little but add economic woes to the plight of Hondurans who are living in a country devastated by murder. How might the world react if, say, 20 citizens of London, England (which has about the same population as Honduras) were dying violently every single day?

   Violence in Latin America tends to be a subject that gets a shrug from the developed world, as if the tired stereotype of hot-blooded Latins is enough to explain the insanity going on in Honduras. We shake our heads, put on our sad faces and lament a “violent” culture.

   Ah, but the developed world is so complicit in the violence. We of the enviably low homicide rates are the profiteers who sell the guns to Honduras, and the buyers of the 200 metric tonnes of cocaine that pass through the country every year on its way to markets in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. They do the killing, but it’s our money and our arms that make it possible.

   It's striking to see just how many peace-loving countries make big money from manufacturing and exporting guns. The U.S. leads the world with $845 million or so in gun exports every year, followed by Italy, Germany and Brazil. Canada, Finland, the UK, Spain and Japan are all “Tier 3” countries that have had annual exports of $100 million at various times over the last decade.

   An argument could be made that a country experiencing as much violence as Honduras would find a way to kill people regardless of whether guns were readily available. But the fact that they are certainly makes things easier. Almost 85 per cent of the violent deaths in Honduras are the result of firearms.

The country imported more than $13 million in small arms in 2011. Mexico considers Honduras one of its best customers for small arms, as does the Philippines. An AK-47 here sells for a mere $200, compared to $500 in the U.S.

   As someone who has lived here for a year and a half without fearing for my life, I want to stress that the violence in Honduras is almost exclusively focused on Hondurans. Even though there are virtually no statistics kept that might clarify who is most at risk, I feel confident in saying that those who work in the cocaine-distribution business, associate with anyone in that line of work, are gang members or live in gang-controlled barrios in the big cities are disproportionately affected by the violence.

   But given that you really can get away with murder in Honduras – the result of an overwhelmed and compromised justice system – there are also those who kill as a way to settle scores or retaliate for real or imagined crimes against them or someone in their family. Virtually everyone I’ve met here has at least one friend or family member who was murdered in recent years. In the last five years, murder has somehow become “normal” in this deeply Christian country.

   The problems require a much bigger global response than just more development aid. Funds to help rural Hondurans grow more food, prepare for the next flood or understand domestic violence are all good things, but they’re not going to resolve mass murder. You can come on down to put a new roof on a school or distribute eyeglasses to grateful campesinos, but they’re still going to be living in the most dangerous country in the world.

   Hondurans aren’t killing each other because they’re poor, hungry and uneducated (although those are all justifiable worries in their own way). They’re killing each other because the entire country is neck-deep in an illegal industry that countries like mine and yours fund, and armed to the teeth with guns that we sell them.

   What can be done? First, take responsibility. If we’re buying the drugs and selling the guns, then this terrible violence belongs to all of us. The developed countries of the world have an ethical responsibility to stand shoulder to shoulder with Hondurans in resolving this crisis.

   Does the country need a truth commission? An international intervention? A revolution? An end to the destructive, stupid belief that we can “just say no” and drug use will go away?

   Perhaps all of the above. But first and foremost, we the privileged need to step up and take ownership of this tragedy that we have wrought. We got Hondurans into this. They need our help to get out.

The fine line between culture and stagnation

   

Where is the line between cultural differences and bad practices? That question has weighed on me the most in my time in Honduras.

    A foreigner rightly needs to come into a new country prepared to respect the culture of the place. The world doesn’t need any more people who show up dragging all their developed-world baggage behind them and expecting everything to be just like it is back home.

    But just because something is part of the culture doesn’t automatically mean it’s good. We’ve all worked in places – or perhaps grown up in families – where the culture was a problem and needed to be changed. That’s true in Honduras, too, but it’s much more challenging for me as a cultural outsider to identify what’s a “negative” and what’s just different from what I’m used to.

    The workplace, for instance. Part of the culture, at least here in Copan Ruinas, is to have long lunch hours and many more social encounters over the course of the day than would ever be tolerated in a Canadian work environment. The manager in me thinks a lot of time gets wasted as a result of that, but I’ve also come to see that socializing and family time are such a part of Honduran life that you can’t really judge those long, chatty coffee breaks by the same standards I use to define workplace efficiency.

    So we’ll chalk that one up to cultural differences, and I’ll just have to adapt. But there are other work practices that I think are actually holding the organization back: Disorganized and pointless meetings; poor hiring practices; a manana mentality that jams up project flow; no processes for identifying and resolving problems within the team; a rigid hierarchy that stops grassroots creativity and innovation. They are problems common to my particular office, the organization overall and – from what I’ve seen – many other Honduran workplaces.

    Just to be clear, my role here in Honduras as a Cuso International volunteer is to help a small Honduran NGO get better at communications. Full stop. I have not been sent here to analyse the organization and report back on their management practices.

     But being a manager changes your perspective forever, and I can’t stop myself from seeing the problems. More and more I’m looking for opportunities to talk to my co-workers about such things – practices that would reduce frustration, staff turnover, and general office malaise, strategies for moving the organization toward better salaries and longer-term contracts for more stability.

     Sometimes I fear I’m fomenting rebellion and pushing my own cultural values as “better.” But ultimately, I think I’m right. Unless Honduras wants to be a developing country forever, it’s going to need to adapt its work culture to follow the lead of developed countries in creating efficient, effective workplaces that can hold their own in a global market. And that includes little NGOs, too, because trying to get your hands on scarce international development dollars is a competitive business.

    Then there’s education. For all kinds of reasons, education is not a cultural priority in Honduras. Partly it’s because nothing about getting an education is easy here – it’s expensive, logistically difficult, often unavailable, a low priority for a hungry family, and notoriously poor quality to boot.  But I suspect it’s also because parents who have had little formal schooling themselves simply can’t understand the importance of a good education.

    On the one hand, Hondurans have all sorts of life skills and abilities that have developed in the absence of formal education. Most of them have no choice but to get down to the business of life at age 12 or even younger, while Canadians will often be in their mid-20s or even their 30s before they finish up school and enter the workplace permanently. As a result, most of the young Hondurans I’ve met are much more responsible and competent than people of the same age back in Canada, and the whole country is unbelievably resilient.

    On the other, the undervaluing of education (and the underfunding of it) is a cultural practice that has to go if Honduras ever hopes to get past this crushing poverty and endless lurching from one crisis to another. It’s not just about knowing how to read, write and work with numbers, it’s about all the things that a good general education gets you: an informed world view; exposure to new ways of doing things and different ways of thinking; an appreciation and desire for a functional society and how one goes about creating that.

    I could go on. Tortillas, beans and Coca-Cola: Endearing cultural practice or nutritional suicide? Children essentially raising themselves: A living example of that maxim about how it takes a village to raise a child, or bad parenting? Indifference and neglect of animals: The hallmark of a culture where domestic animals exist for work rather than pleasure, or just plain cruelty?

    You get the gist. I need to adapt, but so does Honduras. “It is a bad plan that admits of no modification," said Syrian writer Publilius Syrus way back in the 1^st century. (Never heard of him, but his quote suits my argument.) Here’s to cultural diversity, and to knowing when it’s getting in your way. 

Gay rights is part of a development plan too

   

   As crazy as this sounds now, I didn’t think about the existence of gay people until I was 24. My high school class at school had a couple of really great teachers who we all knew had been “roommates” for decades, and perhaps I had a few thoughts about such things at that time. But it wasn’t until I walked into a Courtenay bar in 1981 with a very pretty male friend of mine that it sunk in, what with all the male attention he got. |

   It was one of those, “Wow, really?” moments that changes your world view in an instant. I had to rethink everything I thought I knew.  But from the get-go it never occurred to me to judge anyone solely based on the gender of who they choose to love. So after that first jolt of understanding, I never considered it a big deal - or anyone's business - that someone was gay, let alone an excuse for denying people basic rights.

   As a Canadian, I’m very proud to hail from a country that now recognizes that working up a sweat about sexual orientation is not only pointless, but harmful and offensive. I got to thinking about Canada last week while writing a blog for July 1, and realized that the country’s efforts on behalf of gay rights is one of the things that makes me feel proudest about being Canadian.

   But now I live in Honduras, where you’d have to be one brave soul to step out of the closet.  It’s like stepping back into 1950s North America, all repression and denial. While nobody talks about any of it, my impression is that marriages of convenience and extremely low-profile trips to secret gay-friendly enclaves are about as good as it gets for people here, and all of it undertaken at huge personal risk.

   Maybe a month ago at my work, a big stack of 2013 datebooks arrived that had been put together by one of my organization’s major funders, a European NGO. All the big European funders have got it going on around gay rights, so the datebook included a sweet story out of South America about a lesbian couple whose farm was thriving thanks to help from one of the projects the funder supported.

   Well. My co-workers, who are generally lovely, caring people, were completely scandalized by that story. They are very, very Christian, and conservative in their thinking. For that reason I usually steer clear of subjects that I know we’re going to disagree on. I couldn’t let this one go, of course, but I could tell they were just gritting their teeth through my rant and waiting to get back to feeling shocked and disgusted.

  Why, why, would anyone want to make a big deal about something that’s essentially about love? I have no idea. Yet living here has reminded me of just how much hatred and misunderstanding still exist in so many countries. I appreciate the sensitive language that international funders put into their contracts in Honduras to try to bring home the idea of equal treatment for all, but this place needs a lot more than that to get past its deep prejudices on this issue.

   Send down the gay-awareness squad and let's get this thing done. 

O Canada, you'll always be my girl

Dear Canada:

It’s been a year and a half since we parted, and I know I said some mean things in those emotional days toward the end. But I’ve been thinking about you a lot today. I saw a photo of you on Facebook, with that bright blue sky and sharp sunlight that I remember so well from the days when everything was going right. And suddenly I was lost in a thousand memories of the good times we had together.

   Putting some distance between us has been good for me. There were times when I loved your temperate spirit and tidy habits, but I hated that 1000-yard stare you’d get in your eyes when the talk turned to politics. There’s so much about you that’s amazing and good, but sometimes I wonder if you even notice how time has changed you, hardened your heart.

    But today, I’m missing you. I am remembering you on the last July 1 we had together, when I sat on the shores of Esquimalt Lagoon in the familiar chilled sunshine of early summer on the West Coast looking out at all the red and white shirts, umbrellas, flags and beach paraphernalia that people had brought to celebrate your birthday. I couldn’t have loved you more that day. The truth is, I was already thinking about leaving you, but that was the day I knew there were parts of me that would always be yours.

   I’m living with someone else now, as you’ve probably heard. I couldn’t have picked someone less like you if I’d tried. There you are with your squeaky-clean parks, safe roads and campaigns to stop teens from using tanning beds, and he’s chucking his garbage out the window and running around with guns and drugs. You’re stressing out over the FSA scores of your well-educated young people in their fully equipped, competent schools, and my new guy is shoving 90 kids into a dishevelled classroom with an untrained teacher and counting it as a major win if they make it through Grade 6.

    I admit, I do like a bad boy. There’s something thrilling about being with someone who feels a bit dangerous, about finding yourself in situations that are right on the edge of uncomfortable yet at the same time, leave you feeling completely alive. Today, though, I’m missing your moderate ways, and how I always knew where I stood with you. Yes, your predictability and need to control drove me completely mad sometimes, but I knew you’d be there if I needed you.

    This new guy – not so much. I saw a bad bus accident last week and understood in a flash that if I were ever in an accident like that, he’d ditch me in a heartbeat. He’d wish me luck and then throw me bleeding into the back of a passing pickup truck headed toward the nearest broken-down, unfunded public hospital, and that would be the last time I’d cross his mind. It shames me to admit this, Canada, but I’d come limping home to you.

     It’s exhilarating to ride down scary roads in the dark in the back of a truck, with no idea what might happen next. But standing in your ample wilderness, unafraid that the guy coming toward me is eyeing up my camera or that I’m about to stumble upon an illegal dump or cocaine drop zone – well, that’s its own kind of exhilaration.

    Your political correctness got to me sometimes, it’s true. But your heart is just and good, and I love that you were out there with gay rights even while so much of the world continues to drag its feet on such a fundamental fairness. I’ve overheard my new man making homophobic comments, and I know I could never last with someone like that, even if he does embrace life with a vigour and sense of fun that I rarely saw in you.

    O Canada, I wish I could lie down in your cool, green lap right now, enjoying all the silence that coast-to-coast noise bylaws and dedicated parkland can buy. I wish I was sitting down to one of your multicultural buffets, loading my plate with sushi, salt and pepper squid, lasagne, baklava, pho, perogies, blintzes and French pastries.

     My bad boy eats beans and tortillas pretty much every day.  I admire his ability to get by on the things he can actually grow. But today I am dreaming of your wildly ethnic palate and generous food-import budget.

    I’m a wanderer, Canada. I think you always knew that. I don’t imagine you were that surprised when I left, what with the problems we’d been starting to have. There’s part of me that wishes I could tell you that I’m done with my dallying and ready to come home to you, but there’s another part of me that has never felt more alive since I put you behind me.

    But you are in my soul forever. I had to get away from you to appreciate your sheer functionality and all the green, clean spaces and mannered cities you have wrought with your ordered ways. When I think of “civil society,” I think of you. I love your banks, your hospitals, your 7-day return policies. Your internet speeds are amazing.

    Happy birthday, dear one. This new life is changing me, and I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to being a couple again the way we once were. But I’ll always sleep easiest in your arms.  

How good deeds get done

The Louisiana gang, from left: Ronny Sanders, Carl Glover,
Gordon Holley, Jerry Houston, James Davis,
Jeff Hardel and Casey Fair.

The kids at Angelitos Felices children's home will be sleeping comfy tonight on the new beds and mattresses they've now got thanks to some amazing support from a group of Louisiana men.
     Connections are made in strange ways in Honduras, and the connection that brought these men to Angelitos and to me is no exception. The way it came together reminds me that even though I'm a skeptic about stars aligning and God having a plan, some things really do seem to be fated.
    The men belong to the Calvary Baptist Church in Ruston, Louisiana. One of them, Gordon Holley, has been doing projects in Honduras for many years as part of his university work. He came across my blog last year, saw a post I'd written about our work at Angelitos, and sent me an email asking if I'd take him and fellow congregation member James Davis to the home when they visited in December.
     It was James' first visit to Honduras. There's nothing quite like an orphanage in a developing country to open a person's eyes, and he was clearly moved by the rough conditions that the kids lived in. The men had arrived with suitcases full of clothes for the children, but James - a cabinet maker - said he'd be coming back soon to do more.

Jesus, Juan Carlos and Alex moving mattresses

    I figured he meant it at the time, but that wasn't to say he'd actually be back. But sure enough, he sent me an email a couple of months later with a blueprint for beautiful, sturdy bunk beds with cabinets, and asked me to put him in touch with a construction company in Copan so he could organize materials. A couple weeks ago, Gordon and James arrived with five other congregation members and set about building those beds.
     I was away in the Moskitia doing work when they came, so was no help at all for most of the project. But my spouse Paul stepped up to help out with a few roadblocks (like figuring out how to pay the electric bill at Angelitos so that power and water would be reinstated and the men would be
able to use their power tools). The group also drew on support from old friends at Macaw Mountain Bird Park here in Copan to help source and transport more materials after they bought out everything that Copan Ruinas had.
     I returned from my travels in time to meet them for a final breakfast before they headed home to Louisiana last weekend, and to assure them that when the mattresses arrived this week, I'd get them up to Angelitos and onto those beds. The 24 mattresses came in yesterday. My boss Merlin and I hustled them up to the hogar today using a truck from work.

At last - a bed of their own!

   Most of the bigger kids were away at school when we arrived, but three of the younger boys - ages 5, 6 and 8 - rushed out to help us. They diligently dragged one mattress after another upstairs to the sleeping area, and were waiting to help us again when we came back with the second load.
     The mattresses are beauties - six inches thick, covered in plastic to protect them from turning into stinking, filthy things like the bits of worn foam and weary military mattresses that the children have been sleeping on lately. I wouldn't have expected little kids to be quite so excited about a bed, but let me tell you, these guys are pumped. I wish you could see their beaming faces when I ask which bed is theirs and they proudly lead me to their bunk.

    They've never had that before at Angelitos - a bed of their own. A private place for their clothes and personal items, the few that they have. One spot in this impersonal world that is just for them. It's a huge step forward for child dignity.
     So that's how miracles work. It took flesh-and-blood humans to raise the money, build the beds and make this project happen, but there's still something of the divine about how it all came together. Whatever you want to call it, it feels like hope. 

Black, white and the many shades in between

 

  At the risk of starting too many posts with "One thing I've learned from this Cuso volunteer experience...," I have something new to add to the growing list.

    The latest learning is that this work tests your core values, in ways that get right past the pretty words and down to what you can actually live with. What's right? What's wrong? For possibly the first time in my life, I feel like I'm really being tested on the fundamentals of my deep-down self.

   An easy example to start: Child labour. For all my life up until 18 months ago, I was opposed to child labour. I thought it was a good thing to buy more expensive coffee if it meant it had been picked by adults and not little children. 

    Deep down, I remain philosophically opposed to putting children to work. But now I see the issue from a whole other perspective, in which a family could very likely go hungry if their kids aren't allowed to pick coffee during the two-month harvest. What the "fair trade" practice of banning child labour looks like from the point of view of an impoverished coffee-producing country is a system of punishment stacked against the poorest producers, one that forces children to be left at home alone because their parents can no longer take them along when they go out picking coffee. 

   The issue of faith has been a whole other test for me. I've had a complicated relationship for decades with faith, but in Honduras it's something that's so present in my life that I now have no choice but to reflect on what it means to me. 

   The Monday-morning devotionals at my workplace have been a real challenge, early on because I barely understood a word of what was being said and now, because I do. I try to hold my tongue out of respect, but I just couldn't keep my silence when talk turned today to obeying God and ultimately leaving difficult things in His hands to sort out. 

     So what are we to believe, then, in a country where so many unbelievably bad things happen to people all the time - that God has made a decision to really slam it to Honduras? What this country needs is anger, not soothing words about accepting God's plans. I won't pretend to know the ways of God, but I'm pretty sure a person could wait a long time for change if everything was left up to faith.

    But on the same subject, I've also had my secular belief system challenged by seeing just how much good work gets done down here by people motivated by faith. Time and again, the faith community shows up to make things happen in Honduras: Bunk beds for orphans; digging holes and assembling bricks for new water systema; testing children's eyes; providing veterinary care; building schools. As a secular person I want to believe that "doing good" is a universal concept, but what I have seen demonstrated in Honduras is that when push comes to shove, it's mostly the faith community that gets things done.

    Murder. Now there's a topic that I wouldn't have thought I had wiggle room on. But when you live in a country that effectively has no meaningful police or justice system, everything just gets a little greyer. 

    Not that killing another person against their will can ever be justified. But spend time here and you start to see how things might go in a place where there's so little chance that the "bad guy" will ever be arrested, let alone convicted. On a fundamental level I still believe that people taking justice into their own hands is a recipe for disaster. But in the real world I now live in, I get how that could happen. 

    Then there's corruption, a word that you hear virtually every day in Honduras as a way of explaining everything that's wrong with the place. But how do you define "corruption" for the purposes of rooting it out? What are the logical explanations for why it exists, and the logical strategies for dealing with it? How do you get past using it as the catch-all explanation for far more complex problems - a catch-all excuse for why nothing ever changes for the better?

      I'm not even confident you can single out corruption as a bad behaviour in a country where it exists in so many shades of grey (my new colour). Hiring your unqualified cousin for a good job you're fairly certain he can't do, renting the wrong kind of office space for your organization as a favour to your sister's husband - really, doesn't the work have to start there? Or is that just me trying to impose my cultural standards on another country?

    Anyway. All I'm saying is that if you've ever wanted to really test your beliefs and feel out your limits, living and working in a new culture just might be the ticket. I thought I had all the big stuff sorted before I came to Honduras. The longer I stay, the less I'm sure of that. 

     

Scary travel warnings are hurting Honduras

 

One of the papers ran a big feature this week on tourism in Copan Ruinas and what strategies might kickstart the flagging industry. Somebody mentioned that one problem might be that the marketing approach had become too boring.
   Maybe. But I have a feeling that the terrifying travel warnings about Honduras issued by virtually every developed country might be the bigger problem.
   The U.S. State Department issued its scariest warning yet yesterday, raising the spectre of kidnappings, carjackings, "disappearances," rape, and even the possibility that the Honduran police will kill you. The advisory listed 10 of the country's 18 departments as particularly homicide-prone (sorry, Copan, you made the list), but added that no place in the country can be considered safe. If I hadn't been living here long enough to know better, I'd have concluded from the warning that only a reckless, death-wish kind of traveller would ever consider a trip here.
   The advisory is admittedly more extreme than those from other countries, but not by much. Aided by Google Translate, I searched out travel warnings from governments in Germany, Holland, Canada, Britain and Spain, and found a similar alarmed tone running through all of them.
   The German government paints a picture of a country overrun by gangs, crazed drug-using criminals and feuding families, all with "low inhibitions in the use of firearms." Attacks on strangers have been especially notable on the route from San Pedro Sula to Copan Ruinas, notes the advisory, which also inexplicably cautions women travelling alone to be sure to have someone accompany them at security checkpoints.
   Holland concedes that it's still safe to travel to Honduras, but "not without being extra cautious." Tourists are targeted for theft and robbery because Hondurans "see foreigners as millionaires, who have too much money." The advisory lists the top tourist spots of Honduras - Tela, La Ceiba and Roatan - as dangerous for travellers.
   France cautions that bands of young, armed men target people, "even in groups," in low-traffic areas such as beaches. And watch out for the coast overall, where aggressive boaters, pirates and drug traffickers are waiting to get you.
   The Spanish government makes a rather sweeping statement about all public transportation in the cities being unsafe, and advises that it's best if either your family members or a hotel shuttle takes you to and from any airport. Man, that would break the hearts of the many decent, honest, hard-working taxi drivers I've ridden with in my time here.
    Spain recommends daylight road travel only and warns that organized gangs sometimes attack private vehicles. The government also gives some very specific warnings about certain city neighbourhoods and areas that are best to just skip entirely. Unfortunately for my acquaintances in the local tourism business, one of them is the Department of Copan.
   The Canadian government cautions travellers bound for any of the key tourism sites as well, and adds to the scare factor with a warning about people trying to drug your drinks or give you drug-tainted cigarettes or gum so they can rape you.
   "A large percentage of the population is armed," it adds. "Guns and weapons such as machetes are frequently used in robberies. Perpetrators often use violence if the person resists." (OK, you do want to pay attention to that last part  - you'd be crazy to resist if someone tries to rob you here.)

   Britain's advisory is the calmest of the bunch. Yes, Honduras has high levels of crime, it notes. However, "most serious crime doesn't affect tourists, but attacks on foreigners including armed robbery and sexual assaults do sometimes occur." Best to stay off the beaches at night. 

   I found Britain's comparatively mild-mannered warning the only one of the bunch that was fair to this maligned country that has been our home for the last year and a half. 

   Sure, there's probably at least one real-life story to back up each of the warnings in the other countries' travel advisories. Horrible things happen everywhere in the world. But putting together a string of one-offs in the absence of context is just plain irresponsible.

    I take particular exception to the U.S. State Department's declaration that "crimes are committed against expatriates at levels similar to those committed against locals." The statement is intended to convey that U.S. citizens aren't being targeted and that a traveller is at no more risk than the locals, but that is such a load of hooey. Honduras does indeed have a problem with violence, but overwhelmingly the victims are Honduran, at rates that can't even be compared to the occasional robbery or very rare murder of a foreigner. 

   What can I say? We live here. We work here. We travel around the country, and have even been known to hail cabs in the street. We exercise caution, but then again we always have - in our own country or any other. 

   Yes, there's crime in Honduras, and a murder rate that somebody had best get a handle on before the travel advisories get any more inflamed. But still and all, it's a lovely, gentle, beautiful country, full of good-hearted people who want nothing more than to hear that a visitor likes the place. 

   So take those warnings with a cup of salt and come on down. The country needs you.