A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

    I'm sure some people can share a house with people they don't know well. After four months of doing just that here in Managua, I'm now very certain that I'm not one of them.     I thought I'd already learned most of the important lessons about life in a foreign land from our Cuso International placement in Honduras during 2012-2014. But it turns out there was one really big one still to come.     I don't mean to suggest that the profound unpleasantness of this period of house-sharing is the fault of the two other Cuso volunteers who Paul and I share the house with. At this point, I'm quite sure they're as dismayed as I am at how it is that perfectly nice people can end up with a negative group energy that sends us all scrambling for our little hidey-holes when it all gets to be too much (which happens with increasing frequency as the Feb. 27 ends of our posts draw near).      As the mother and stepmother of five children and the ho...

     I’m still shaking my head after two and a half enlightening hours yesterday talking with the local sex workers’ organization here in Managua, RedTraSex (Red de Trabajadores Sexuales). I’m not sure whether to be delighted or shattered by how completely identical the issues are for sex workers in Nicaragua as they are back home in Canada.      Had it not been for us talking in Spanish, I could have easily been back in Victoria talking to my pals at Peers Victoria . I fear my new friends at RedTraSex were a little discouraged to hear that everything they identified as problems were also problems for sex workers in Canada – stigma, judgment and misunderstanding at the top of that list. The swag from my RedTraSex visit, including a key chain  designed to fit a condom.  Can't wait to  wear my  "I always use a condom" t-shirt.      Up until we met, the group believed that a country as developed as Canada w...

  My friend and fellow writer Anne Mullens has a very personal connection to this week's Supreme Court of Canada unanimous ruling allowing doctor-assisted suicide.     She wrote a series of articles over five years on Victoria woman Sue Rodriguez's long and brave court fight in the 1990s - ultimately lost - for the right to have a doctor assist her to die when the day came that she'd had enough of the slow and cruel deterioration brought on by amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Anne then went on to write a very difficult book about other Canadians' battles for a more dignified end to their own lives.      So when the court handed down its decision this week, Anne had a lot of herself invested in the issue. Here's her powerful blog post on what it felt like to hear the news, and her memories of some of the most traumatizing years of her life collecting the stories of ill people seeking the right to determine at what point they would draw the line in...

Day after Christmas at Las Penitas beach      Were it up to me to pick a project for Central America, it might be garbage.     In countries with per-capita GDPs somewhere around $4,000, sub-standard education systems and virtually zero social services, I admit that garbage is not the most pressing problem.     But it's the kind of project that is wide open to all ages and classes, in urban and rural areas alike. It provides instant gratification, and possibly economic stimulus as well if you pay attention to which types of garbage have value and set up side projects along the way. (I dream of bringing Vancouver's Ken Lyotier to the region to help the impoverished recyclers here improve their systems.)       It's a perfect project for involving young people, offering the potential for a major change in habits and a much-improved environment in only one generation. Once habits are changed, they stay changed, meaning it's also a pr...

   An acquaintance made a comment recently to me about what it was like for me living in "the Third World." I've struggled for years to understand that term as something other than a euphemism for dirt poor and uncivilized, but it definitely isn't a phrase I'd use to describe Central America whatever the interpretation.     Apparently the term was first used in the 1950s by people who grouped the world into countries that were leading the drive toward capitalism, those who believed in communism, and the "third world" that had not yet aligned with either side. But for most of my lifetime, it's merely been a way of summoning the image of a country with crushing poverty and little hope for a better day unless people from the other two worlds show up to save the day.     Which is basically a load of hooey in the case of Central America.     The countries in this little neck of land between north and south have definitely been shaped over the ce...

Wealthy nations depend on poor countries to produce cheap goods, in factories that enjoy tax-free status in the countries where they operate.      What actually works to "develop" a country? I think about that a lot in this work in Central America, but the answers remain elusive.      Let's start with the most obvious issue: Who defines "development"? Do the people who live in poor countries understand what we mean by it, and that the price to be paid for it is essentially a total overhaul of their culture?      At its essence, development is about an improved economy, both for the country and individual families. More buying power. Better health so you can stay active in the workforce longer. Improved conditions for women and other vulnerable populations. A bigger and better GDP.      But sometimes I wonder if the drive to make that happen in poor countries is more about those of us from rich nations presum...

Christmas Eve 2012, Utila, Honduras     Today is my birthday, my third one in a row celebrated outside Canada. I wouldn't dream of whining about the lack of good birthday cake in Central America when I'm sitting here on a balmy 32-degree day with a fan blowing on me to keep me cool, but I do want to note that living away does require the reinvention of how you celebrate.     Christmas, for instance. We've been gone from Canada and our families for the last three Christmases as well, and I admit to being piney sometimes for things like the family breakfast where I'd make cinnamon buns and we'd all drink champagne and orange juice, or the whirl of festive parties we'd go to at this time of year. We moved past the whole gift-giving insanity a while ago, but I still really liked the tradition of making up a stocking for family members.      But Paul and I have developed our own Christmas travelling tradition now, and I quite like it. In 2012 - my...