A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

The road that convinced me to get out and walk Before we left Canada in January, Cuso International asked us to watch a 90-minute video presentation on health concerns put together by Dr. Mark Wise, Cuso's doctor in residence. He listed what seemed like a hundred different health problems to watch out for in our international placements, from malaria and dengue fever to chagas and rabid dogs. He ended it with a humorous little lecture noting that even if we couldn't be bothered to wear mosquito repellent - even if we insisted on patting stray dogs -  at the very least we should always use a seatbelt when riding in a vehicle, because car accidents are by far the most common bad things to happen to Cuso volunteers. I think back on his advice with a rueful smile whenever I'm jouncing along any of the truly terrible roads in Honduras. If only it were that easy, Dr. Wise. Sure, I do up my seatbelt if I happen to be sitting in the front seat of somebody's vehicle. B...

My new best friends: Nelson Rodriguez, right, the man doing the work at Angelitos; and Ovidio Mayorga of Casa Constructor, where I just bought $2500 worth of materials Sometimes you just have to sit back and wonder how the heck you got yourself into something. I had one such moment at about 8 p.m. last night, shortly after a halting phone conversation in Spanish with a plumbing contractor trying to sort out how and when I would be paying for the materials he needed to build new bathrooms and replace the water system at a rundown children's home here in Copan. I've lived a fine, long life without ever feeling the need to do home renovations. I know nothing about plumbing, water systems, urinal sturdiness or bombas , the mysterious and apparently pricey pumps that shoot water from cistern to holding tank to bathroom in countries like this one. I've never considered what kind of ceramic tile I like in a bathroom, or whether the grout should be white or black. Up until f...

I'm saying goodbye to a dear old friend tonight, who died in the early hours of the morning in Victoria.  I went looking just now for some photos of Dyhan from the summer of 2007, the year a group of us had a magical four-day camping trip at Cowichan Lake, and was instantly reminded of why I liked her so much. We met in the mid-2000s, when I first started to get to know some of the people living in the margins in Victoria. We stayed in touch right up until I left for Honduras in January - not in any kind of organized fashion, but bumping into each other at least three or four times a year for long enough to do a quick catch-up and share some  laughs.  Dyhan was what you'd call "larger than life." The photos from Cowichan Lake show her lounging by the campfire in an evening gown, a scene I remember from that summer with much fondness. Such style -  perched on a log in her gown and her heels, flicking her boa at the smoke. Man, that was a good camping trip. I...

A Tegucigalpa activist at a protest against the rising number of murders of Honduran women. Photo: Reuters Almost 2,300 women have been murdered in Honduras in the last eight years, a fairly clear signal that the country has a problem. But the statistics from the last four years are the most alarming. Murders of women skyrocketed in 2008, from 176 the year before to 569. Up until that point, roughly 200 Honduran women were murdered every year. But ever since that jump four years ago, the annual rates have doubled to around 400. What’s going on? As with so many other things in Honduras, it’s impossible to tell. Murder is disturbingly common in the country – just to put the femicide rate into perspective, the murder rates for men in Honduras are more than 18 times higher. But with 90 per cent of the murders are unsolved, so there’s no way to draw any conclusion other than that the country really needs to get a grip. Nor is there sufficient public information to help a worrie...

Classroom windows at Copan's largest school Want a project? I've got a thousand of them. Something about being a gringa in a country for whom gringo-ness summons images of money just seems to bring people running with ideas for how you can help. And they're great ideas. I visited Escuela Juan Ramon Cueva in Copan Ruinas the other day and had to agree with the teacher that the place really could use a little gringo attention. A thousand students attend the school every day, and all that wear and tear is taking its toll. The roof is falling in on a couple of classrooms, and the big tin techo that shelters the courtyard where the kids play is riddled with holes and broken bits. It would cost about $1,500 to put a new roof over the courtyard. That's nothing for a visiting group of Americans or Canadians looking to do a good deed, which is how much of the school got built in the first place. (A Rotary Club plaque hangs outside the bathrooms.) Not long before this ...

A Czech proverb: You live a new life for every new language you speak.  Now that I'm finally getting a handle on this business of learning Spanish, I couldn't agree more. Cuso International really took a chance on me when they brought me to Honduras with what can only be described as seriously rudimentary Spanish skills. And for that I will always be in their debt. Of all the things I appreciate about this interesting new life, what I love the most is the worlds that are opening up to me because I'm learning another language. It hasn't been easy. Despite being immersed in an all-Spanish environment for the last six months, I still need a Spanish-English dictionary close at hand at all times. I have to spend at least 10 minutes a day reading out loud from the San Pedro newspaper or a Spanish novel to sharpen my ear and my pronunciation.  I still flip through the absolutely essential Barron's 501 Spanish Verbs daily, checking up on some of the trickier conj...

One of the things I don’t expect to get used to about life in a poor country is witnessing suffering without being able to do much about it. No country is free of suffering, of course. Abuse, isolation, cruelty, hunger – there’s nowhere in the world that gets a free pass on such things. But at least in countries like Canada and the U.S., there’s some organization or government body that you can protest to, some cage to rattle on behalf of whatever suffering person or animal has got your attention. Not here. Yesterday morning, for instance, I came across a bony, sick horse while on one of my bird rambles in the hills. She had several festering sores on her back that were covered in flies, which she couldn’t even brush away because her tail was snarled around a big thorny stick she’d picked up while wandering through the bushes. Back in the city where I came from, I can think of five or six different groups I could phone to do something about a sick, abandoned horse. Victoria...