Then and now: The children of Angelitos find their dreams at Casita Copan

It will soon be four years since we first met the kids living in squalor, smell and deprivation at what was then the Angelitos Felices home for abandoned children in Copan Ruinas, Honduras. 

We were on our first Cuso International placement and needed a side project for our weekend hours. Once we made our first visit to Angelitos, we knew we'd found it. Friends and family back home did so much to help us make life better for the children during our two-plus years in Honduras. 

Together we raised $30,000 for a range of projects that included new tile floors, a vastly improved water system and renovated bathrooms, clothes, school uniforms and supplies, and weekly excursions to someplace fun for the 14 children for pretty much the whole two years we were there. (The regular visits to a local pool were the highlights, and all the kids learned to swim during our time with them.)

But everything comes to an end, and in April, 2014, we had to return to Canada. One of the great joys of my life was that within weeks of our sad goodbyes to the children, the Honduran government finally stepped in and removed the kids from Angelitos. They were put into the loving arms of the fledgling Casita Copan project and Emily Monroe, a young American who had been living in Honduras for a number of years at that point and putting in enormous effort to try to get the children moved into a better situation. She had already started a day care for impoverished single moms and their children in Copan, and within weeks of the news of Angelitos' impending closure, quickly opened three "casitas" in Copan that now house these children in family-sized groups with a permanent house mom. 

Emily's involvement has not only changed the lives and dreams of these children, but has meant my partner Paul and I can continue supporting them and watch them growing up. Hope you enjoy this series of then-and-now photos of the children, who are all doing great. I urge you to add Casita Copan to your Christmas giving plan! 

Beautiful Belkis is 15 and a young woman with hopes and ambitions - so far from the silent, timid girl she was when we first met her. I will never forget the wonder and joy on Belkis's face as she learned how to swim during our pool trips.

Eduardo is now 16 and living with his brother Naun and two other former Angelitos boys in his great new casita run by Juana, who knew all the children from her Angelitos days. The future of Eduardo worried us because vulnerable boys are at such huge risk of being drawn into gang activity. But he's well-supported now and doing great.

Sweet Elsy is eight now and living in a casita with her two younger sisters. With a developmental disability, Elsy not surprisingly had behavioural problems at the old home, but is now a happy girl growing up in a proper family.

Alba is the daughter of one of the impoverished women with few options who typically ended up working at Angelitos in exchange for a place to stay and some food. Mom Fanny now works at Casita Copan, and her three children - Alba, 8, Juan, 5, and baby Iker - are all with her and the family is thriving. While the 3 casitas are an important part of the work that Emily's organization does, what is arguably even more important is the terrific day care program and support/training for single mothers that Casita Copan also provides.

Angie Nicole (seen in the 'before' photo with Angelitos caregiver Juana, who is now a Casita Copan house mom) was such a sick little baby when we first saw her, the youngest of three siblings all living at Angelitos. Now she's a sparkling four-year-old and lives in a beautiful, clean home with her two older sisters.

Little Zoila was one of three sisters living at Angelitos, and was significantly behind in her development when we met her. Happily, not any more! She's five now and living with sisters Elsy and Angie Nicole at one of the casitas.

Jesus is nine now, and he and his sister Maria are the other brother-sister set living in the casita with siblings Estrella and Alex (and "big sister" Rosario). Small donations make a big difference in Honduras - $100 will cover the costs of primary school for a child, and $500 provides a year of medical care and any necessary medication for 30 children.

Ah, Juan Carlos, we won't soon forget your mischievous grin - and it's clear you've still got it! He's 10 now and living in a casita with Jose Manuel and the brothers Naun and Eduardo. His nickname was "Chino" because he had a vaguely Asian look to him, and he absolutely hated that nickname. We made sure to never call him that, but I sometimes wondered if the other kids even knew what his real name was. 

Sweet Jose Manuel basically didn't walk when we met him at age three, which the Angelitos people told us was because his blind mother carried him everywhere for fear of losing track of him up until she had to give him up. True or not, I don't know. His walking did improve, although his feet always seemed to give him trouble. He was the heartbreaker at Angelitos, so often left to sit neglected in a corner, quietly crying. Now he's six and full of life, just like every child should be!

Juan is five and the brother to Alba. The two children lived at Angelitos with their mom Fanny during some of our time there. As noted in Alba's writeup, Fanny now works at Casita Copan and the family is doing much better, as you can see by Juan's smiling face! Emily did a great campaign recently based on what the kids want to be when they grow up, and Juan wants to be a policeman so he can "get the bad guys."

This photo of Maria disturbed me to no end when I took it shortly after we got involved at Angelitos, as her raggedy-tag outfit, giant shoes and the filthy appearance of the upstairs area where the kids all slept spoke volumes about the conditions at the place. But look at her now! She's six now and living in a casita with her brother Alex and others.

Naun and Alex - shown here in the 'before' photo with little Jaidy, who is now in state care elsewhere in Honduras - were a couple of our favourites, notable for their spirited cartwheels and backflips (Alex) and complete excitement over any outing (Naun). Alex took his time learning to swim during our pool outings, but slow and steady got him there, and he was so proud. Naun is now 11, and Alex is 10.

The lovely Rosario, who was always the one who I thought could be anything she wanted if she could just get out of Angelitos. She was the only true orphan of the group. And now she's an 11-year-old princess, finally in a place to be able to realize her dreams and put her significant intelligence and drive to work.

First to learn to swim, street-smart like you couldn't believe from his time as a seven-year-old living on the streets of La Entrada - Arnold must be 13 now, and has gone back to his family. I am choosing to believe he is well and happy. Here he is pictured during our time in Honduras, enjoying his new bunk bed built by a wonderful group of Louisiana men who came to Copan specifically to build beds for the kids at Angelitos. Up until then, they were mostly sleeping on filthy foam mattresses on the concrete floor, and some just slept directly on the floor. 

Fernando had gone back to his family before Angelitos closed, but ended up abandoned again. Happily, he has now been adopted by a woman who works for Children's International and is in a happy, stable home about 40 minutes away from Copan Ruinas. He's 5 now.

Jairo has gone back to his family and is living with his sister and grandmother. Casita Copan does whatever it can to help abandoned children return to their families, and when that isn't possible, it supports family visits so the kids can continue to maintain a relationship with their families.

These 3 sisters - Johana, Noelia and Janine (seen here with Angie Nicole) - were returned to their family in La Entrada very suddenly one day when we were still in Honduras. We never got a chance to say goodbye. They were from a very troubled family, but their dad regularly showed up at Angelitos to visit them and they often tried to sneak in cellphone calls to their wandering mother (Daisy, the woman who operated Angelitos, didn't like the kids to have contact with their parents). We will have to hope that they, too, are doing well. They would be 11, 16 and 17 now.

Nicaraguans can grow their own food, but not without land

     Who has the right to own land?

     In countries like Canada, we decided some time ago that it’s either government, aboriginals or people with enough money to buy a piece of tierra firma, and many of us get along just fine without owning land. While almost 70 per cent of Canadians own their own homes, it’s not a prerequisite to happiness.

     But the issue is more complex in countries like Nicaragua, where owning land can make the difference between being able to feed your family and going hungry.

     Subsistence farmers in Nicaragua can survive on the most minimal incomes if they own enough land to grow their food. Their basic diets of corn and beans may be monotonous and not diverse enough to guarantee good nutrition, but at least the calories are sufficient to keep a family going. 

     But that breaks down when a poor family doesn't own land or can't plant on someone else's land.

     If you have to buy your beans and corn at the local market, you’re going to need money – something that’s in scarce supply in much of rural Nicaragua. If you have to rent land to grow your food, every harvest has to be sufficiently productive that you don’t find yourself in the hole at the end of the day. With little access to affordable credit for land purchases and climate change wreaking havoc with production cycles in Nicaragua, these are difficult days for small-scale farmers. 

     Land ownership is a critical concern for the 2,200 women farmers that belong to the organization I work for here in Managua, a federation of women’s farming cooperatives that goes by the acronym FEMUPROCAN. Much of the organization’s advocacy efforts these days are focused on one section of an agricultural reform law that promises credit to women farmers so they can buy their own land, but has never been enacted.

     Only eight to 12 per cent of the country’s private lands are owned by women.  That places them at a huge disadvantage, not only in their ability to feed their families but to be able to participate in the country’s economic development. They’re up against the culture as well; even when a farming family does own land, more times than not the title is in the name of the husband only. In the event of his death, it’s not uncommon to see that title pass to his brother or other male member of the family, leaving the wife with neither land nor recourse.

     Without land of her own or her name on title, a woman in Nicaragua also struggles to qualify for credit – vital for small farmers given that they have to borrow against tomorrow’s harvest to be able to afford the seed today. Bank interest rates are brutal, upwards of 30 per cent.

     This year has been particularly harsh for FEMUPROCAN’s members in the parts of Nicaragua hit hard by drought, where some farmers who rent their lands are so afraid to lose what little they have that they didn’t even plant at the start of the second growing season in September.

     In Somoto, a particularly dry region, a woman farmer told me that with land renting for around 2,700 cordobas ($120 Cdn) per hectare, poor farmers risk ending up worse off financially than if they’d never planted at all if the rains don’t come on time. The owners of those lands expect to be paid regardless of how the growing season turns out.

     And with no additional money to buy more seed if the rains start late and the first crop dies in the field – as has happened this year in the country’s “dry corridor” – farmers are in some cases choosing to scrap the whole season and wait until next May to plant, hoping that the drought will be over by then.

     That means at least one member of the family will have to find day labour somewhere between now and then, because otherwise there’s no money for food. But day labour is in short supply as well, seeing as most of that work involves earning money by helping land-owning farmers with their own harvests. With the drought now in its second year, this is a tough time to be a small-scale farmer in Nicaragua.
     The solution is simple enough: Find ways to help women buy farm land. FEMUPROCAN's members have said over and over again that they don't expect to get anything for free, but they're going to need realistic interest rates, a generous amount of time to pay back their loans, and at least a little understanding that in a year when the weather doesn't cooperate, they're going to be strapped and might need a break. 
     It's all doable. Unfortunately, nobody's doing it, and probably won't be until Nicaragua works out the whole other complicated issue of a largely non-functional land registry system.

     But as I’ve come to expect from Central American farmers after almost four years of working here, they carry on. The Somoto woman I spoke to said all of 2015 has been a disaster, from the drought that disrupted both of the year’s two growing seasons to the community well that ran dry. But then she smiled, shrugged, and added that the women of FEMUPROCAN will just keep fighting the good fight. “That’s what we do,” she said. 

Thanks for supporting our work in Central America with a donation to Cuso International! Here's our fundraising site. 

On going viral and feeling hope: My letter to the prime minister

Update Nov. 10: My Facebook post has now been shared 9,879 times and garnered 13,577 likes. My son's original post was shared 285 times, and a separate post of my post on the wall of Meanwhile in Canada got 7,331 shares and 7,751. Wow.

I have a Facebook post that is in the midst of going viral. You know, like that '70s commercial for Breck shampoo, where one woman tells two friends, and they tell two friends, and next thing you know the TV screen is full-up with people telling each other about shampoo.

I have often fantasized of going viral for some of my posts around sex work, but this wasn't one of them. This was a post in which I shared my son's post about his feelings as a federal fisheries biologist at the news from his supervisors on Thursday that he was now free to talk to the media or anyone else, because the muzzle order silencing Canada's scientists that the Harper government had imposed had just been lifted.

His post made me feel warm and fuzzy, so I shared it thinking that my own Facebook friends would like a chance to feel warm and fuzzy, too. And then everything went crazy.

I knew something very strange was going on when, within the first hour of posting it, it had been shared 400 times. The left bottom corner of my screen was flickering and flickering with one notification after another of the post being shared and liked. (It kind of felt like the time I ate a piece of marijuana-butter cake and started feeling the effects within 15 minutes, which is really fast. My initial thoughts of "Hey, cool!" quickly shifted to "Oh, shit..." as the implications of where things would be going from there sunk in.)

As I write this, it's been 23 hours since I wrote the post, and it has now been shared 4,823 times. Four different media outlets have contacted me trying to track down my son. The Toronto Star even managed to find his home phone number, and never mind that even his own mother doesn't know the damn number.

What I have come to see through the popularity of that post is just how oppressed, bitter and sorrowful Canadians had become under the Harper government, and how hungry they were for optimism and hope again. I wonder if we even knew how dejected we felt until the day of the election, when even apolitical types like me felt our hearts lift at the prospect that maybe, just maybe, the Dark Lord had been vanquished and hope was possible again.

The events of the day inspired me to do another thing I'd never done: Write a letter to the prime minister. It just seemed like the right thing to do, to let him know that a simple post about a fisheries biologist being able to talk again about what he knew had struck such a chord that thousands of Canadians felt moved to share the joyful news. In its own small way, it was like the fall of our own little Berlin Wall. I could practically feel everyone running into the streets and calling from the rooftops: "The scientists are unmuzzled! We're free! We're free!" If I were the prime minister, I would want to know that something my government had done had triggered such an outpouring of relief and giddy emotion.

Here's the letter I wrote. The number of shares/likes has grown exponentially since I wrote it last night; in the 20 minutes it has taken for me to write this post, in fact, the number of shares has increased to 4,967, and the likes are at 6,591. People, we were so desperate for change.

Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you, Canadians, for turning out to the polls and voting against a repressive, authoritarian, anti-democratic, fear-mongering and just plain awful government. So good to remember what hope feels like.

Hi, Mr. Prime Minister. I thought I'd share this little story from my day today as heartening evidence of just how happy Canadians are to feel the winds of change blowing across our country. 

I'm an old journalist turned communications consultant, and I've got around 1,900 Facebook friends. I generally set Public as my privacy settings for my posts because it seems to me that information wants to be free. While I am accustomed to a decent number of Facebook "likes" and shares, on a really good day with the cutest photo of my new granddaughter, I would still only expect maybe 200 likes.

But today, that all changed. Today, I shared the post of my son, a federal fisheries biologist, and added a few comments of my own. Here's what I posted:

My son is a fisheries biologist with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Here's his spirit-lifting post from yesterday. "It is official. At an all staff meeting today with some of the best scientists in the world, certainly the ones who know our coast better than anyone (and I am lucky enough to work for some of them), we were told that it's ok to talk to the media or anyone about what we do without permission. That's how surreal it was. That's how things changed over night."
I feel like I'm in one of those post-apocalyptic movies where there's nothing but darkness and sorrow and hard times, and then right at the end of the movie there's a scene of the sun rising over a new world and it's like everything just might turn out OK. People, we must never again let our government plunge us into such a fearful, secretive, divisive state.

And the Facebook world went crazy. I posted that 10 hours ago, and it has been shared 2,568 times. It has 2,984 likes. People are completely ecstatic about that post, and I have come to see that the unmuzzling of scientists is like a metaphor for the dark days ending for so many of us. Thank you for that. 

I'm sure there will be many tough days to come, and days after the honeymoon is over and everyone is crabbing at you. But I will remember this day, and that I realized for the first time today just how deeply my fellow Canadians and I had sunk into despair and hopelessness after 10 years of an oppressive, fear-mongering, arrogant and hateful government. 

Thank you for doing what you said you'd do. Thank you for your gender-equal cabinet, and your respect for smart people who care deeply about Canada. Thank you as well for reconsidering Bill C-36, another issue I feel so passionate about. Thank you for giving us back hope that we no longer have to be ashamed to be Canadians - ashamed to have a government that had descended to the depths of hatred to try to stay elected. It's like we have been living our own version of being behind the Berlin Wall, and it feels so good to see that ugly, divisive wall falling. 

#Rolls4Strolls: Let's put an RV back on Victoria's sex-work strolls

Fundraising was never my thing in my journalist years, and I felt very awkward about it back in 2004 when I realized that as the new executive director of Peers Victoria, fundraising was going to be one of the most important parts of my job.

But there quickly came a point in those early fundraising days where I realized that I didn't mind asking people for money, because I knew just how important that money was to achieving whatever it was we were trying to do. It wasn't long before I was making dozens of speeches a year calculated at attracting new supporters for Peers, and got involved in the crazy-making work of organizing a musical talent show for three years running (Victoria Idol) just so we could keep those desperately needed dollars flowing in.

Since starting to work in Central American for Cuso International in 2012, I've gone on to raise money for impoverished children and their families in Honduras, and for Cuso International as well. With 11 years of community fundraising under my belt, I am now just fine with putting my hand out and asking anyone for a donation when it's for a cause I care about.

One of my first fundraising campaigns for Peers in 2005 was to buy a used RV that our late-night outreach team could use on the outdoor sex-work "strolls" in Victoria as a mobile drop-in. I had no idea how we were going to do it (raising money for sex workers, so profoundly stigmatized and misunderstood, is just about as tough a fundraising pitch as you'll ever have to make, trust me), but then a local businessman appeared out of nowhere with $10,000 in his hand and poof, it was done.

Ten years passed, and the outreach team and outdoor sex workers loved that RV right into the ground, and a second one as well. The team has been using a little passenger van for the last two years after the last RV gave up the ghost, but it's just not the same.

There's no kitchen for boiling water for soup, hot chocolate and coffee. No room for loading up donated coats, scarves and such to bring down to the stroll. No warm, welcoming indoor space where people can just take a break from their work and have a few laughs. No private place for a sex worker in crisis to pull an outreach worker aside for a few moments.

So here I am again, back helping Peers find the money for another RV. Not living in Canada right now does make it more challenging to help with fundraising, but I can still help in the background with things like crowdfunding, tweets, and other communication strategies. I can, for instance, write this blog post, and hope that someone reads it and thinks, "Hey, that's a good idea. I want to be part of that."

Maybe that person will be you. And if it is, just glance over there on the right-hand side of my blog and see that GoFundMe link for #Rolls4Strolls. Click on it and give whatever you can.

I know, I know, there are a thousand people like me clamoring for your money, and we've all got causes that in our opinions are the most in need of your support. I won't try to tell you that $5 is barely more than what you pay the barista for a cup of coffee, because that line's probably wearing thin.

But if you've got $5 to give, please do. There are 140 or so outdoor sex workers working off and on along the cold, dark streets around Government and Rock Bay. They've never stopped talking about how much they loved the days when Peers had an RV.

Donate to #Rolls4Strolls and help Peers get another RV out there. Whatever the size of your donation, it matters. And it will go a long way to demonstrating to an extremely marginalized group of workers that they matter, too.

Walking in Managua: Pedestrian tips from the front line

 My walk to work is quite a bit longer this time in Managua, about an hour each way. It gives me more time to reflect on all the ways I could be killed in traffic. 

     Managua certainly doesn’t have the craziest traffic I’ve ever had to walk through; I have, after all, lived to tell the tale of crossing the streets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. But fresh from a summer wandering along the coddled streets of Victoria, Managua is quite enough crazy for me at the moment.

    So herewith, a few words of advice for those who would be pedestrians in a busy Central American city:

Cars rule. Never assume that any driver is going to slow down for you to cross the road. Never assume that they even see you at all, even if they appear to be looking right at you. Yes, every now and then you are going to spot a crosswalk, but you’d be out of your mind to think it means anything at all. 

Do way more than simply looking both ways. Approach every road crossing as if you were a CIA agent anticipating an assassin coming at you from an unknown direction. 
    Sure, the nice little green man is signalling that you can walk, but don’t trust him. Sure, the guy in the lane closest to you is smiling at you and giving you a friendly go-ahead wave. But what about the guy in the lane next to him? Or the motorcycle that is almost certainly coming straight up the middle of the two lanes? Or the guy turning left against the lights? Or the guy turning right from the street down the way – the one who’s gunning it to clear the intersection you're crossing before the light changes? 

    Think of it this way: If there’s a car anywhere in sight, it just might run you down. Act accordingly.

Always look behind you. This is probably my most common error. I look both ways, step into a side street to cross it, and boom, a car comes hurtling from behind me doing a high-speed left-hand turn to sneak through a big line of traffic travelling in the opposite direction.

    Equally deadly are the cars coming up from behind that are turning right into some parking lot or gas station whose entrance you are walking past. Back in Canada, such cars dutifully wait until you’re safely out of their way before turning in. Not in Managua.

Never assume that being on a sidewalk means you’re safe. Aside from major pedestrian hazards like cracked cement, giant open storm drains, tree roots, dangling electrical wires, dog poo and wildly uneven surfaces, it’s not unusual to encounter a motorcycle driving along the sidewalk toward you. A couple days ago, I had to jump out of the way of a small car making its way along. Do not allow yourself to grow comfortable.

And anyway, a lot of the sidewalks just end. And just like that, you don’t have so much as a gravel shoulder to walk along. All of a sudden you go from being a relatively happy pedestrian on a sidewalk to someone who’s scrambling to get out of the way of fast-moving buses that are pulling in to pick up passengers, or inching your way around a higgle-piggle of strangely angled parked cars, food vendors, and clamorous hordes of tired Nicaraguans trying to get home on those buses.

The safest place to cross is between stopped cars, not in front of them. Let’s say you’ve got a choice of crossing the street at a controlled intersection, or walking a few metres further up and weaving your way between the cars that are stopped waiting for the light. 

      Pick the weaving option. There’s just way less risk when you can pick and choose which stopped cars to walk in front of, and more chance of escaping unscathed if the line of traffic suddenly starts moving.

      But remember to watch for those motorcycles coming up between the lanes of traffic. Walk. Stop. Peek. Walk. Repeat.

Embrace medians. What lovely things they are, turning impossible four-lane highways into manageable two-lane chunks. And they’re great for standing on while you take a photo of all the traffic coming at you.

Get yourself a good pair of shoes. You do NOT want to be doing all this bobbing and weaving in shoes that are slippery, high-heeled, dainty, or otherwise unsuitable for a last-minute dash when all goes wrong. Never mind what the Nicaraguans are wearing – they’re experts at all of this. Get yourself a sturdy pair of runners and don’t worry about fashion faux pas.

Save the “empowered pedestrian” crap for when you’re back in Canada. You know what I’m talking about: Waving an angry fist in the air at a driver who came close to hitting you; thumping on the hood of a car as you walk past to signal your annoyance that he’s protruding so far into the intersection; fixing the driver with a steely, disapproving gaze to convey Just How Mad You Are; crossing the street at the speed of a tortoise just to prove the point that you’re the one in control.

     It’s hard enough to take empowered pedestrians back in my own land. Down here, they’d just be run right over. Come to think of it, that might be the one endearing feature of Managua traffic. 

Early intervention changes everything for children with disabilities, health challenges

Tytan Beckford's family had to make the horrific decision
to ampute part of Tytan's feet when he was born without
fibula in his legs.

  Gotta admit, it was kind of fun being back in reporter mode this summer as my partner Paul and I worked up a four-page newspaper supplement for Children's Health Foundation of Vancouver Island.

     The stories of families of children with disabilities can be hard to listen to, because nobody likes having to think of children experiencing the pain, surgeries, life limitations, and whirl of therapies that the kids we wrote about have had to face. Our own granddaughter was born right in the middle of the period when we were doing this work, and we couldn't help but imagine her in a similar situation with each and every heartbreaking interview.

Twins Nolan and Asher Trousdell on their way into Grade 1
this fall. Read the family blog at http://www.traceytrousdell.com/

 Yet the hope and determination of the families are what will stay with me. They get knocked down, but they get up again. They endure unbelievable amounts of stress, sadness, and wholesale disruption of their lives and dreams, yet they stand alongside their children and together, they make it work.

    I have new admiration for the dedicated people who work in the field of children's health and development, and new appreciation for the worth of these services - not only for the children whose lives are literally being turned around through early intervention, but for society as a whole. There's something magical about the ability of a brain of a young child to adapt to limitations and challenges, but making use of that magic is all about the right interventions in those early years from birth to age five.

     Early intervention not only changes the course of a child's life, it dramatically improves the chances that children can reach their potential in school, work, and life overall. Early intervention ensures we have active, healthy, and engaged citizens ready to build an even stronger future of British Columbia.

    The supplement is in today's Times Colonist, and you can read it here on the foundation's web site.

Hannah Harris, whose family spent a total of 115 nights
at Jeneece Place after Hannah and her twin sister Hailey
were born premature and with a long list of health
challenges. Read more about the Courtenay twins
on their mom Bonnie's blog at
http://b-hannahhailey.blogspot.com/p/hannah.html

Nicaragua: Developed but unequal

  It’s a typical Saturday afternoon at the flashy Metro Centro mall in Managua, Nicaragua, and the joint is jumping. As I watch a young barista crank out $4 iced cappuccinos at the Casa de Café kiosk, I find myself reflecting yet again on the mysterious phrase “developing country.”

  To those who don’t know this part of the world, the phrase suggests poverty and deprivation - chicken buses spilling over with skinny peasants making slow progress along dirt roads; neighbourhoods of rickety houses built from bamboo and banana leaves; poor people with seven or eight children scratching out meagre livings in tiny villages.

  Paul and I are just beginning our third posting as Cuso International volunteers in Central America. I suspect more than a few of our acquaintances back home imagine us living in just such a country. They assume that working with non-profit organizations in countries like Nicaragua and Honduras means giving up the good life.

  Yet the reality of life in a modern-day Central American city looks a lot like life in Canada in many ways. And the more time I spend in the south, the more my confusion grows over what we mean when we talk about development.

  All the stuff of “developed” countries like Canada exists here in Nicaragua, from beautifully maintained highways to fancy malls, big universities, well-equipped hospitals, 60-inch televisions, pricey iced-coffee makers, and luxury cars. The view from where I’m sitting as I write this is of attractive pink-plaster houses with immaculate gardens as far as the eye can see.

  But were I to walk a few blocks to the eight-lane highway that cuts through this part of town, I’d see a different view.

   I’d see wooden shacks with thin curls of smoke coming out from wood cooking fires inside. I’d see skinny dogs sleeping on dirt floors and families in worn hand-me-down clothes shipped in bales from the U.S., sitting in cheap plastic chairs in scrubby dirt yards. Employment is scarce and notoriously low-paid for families in those kinds of neighbourhoods.

  So the real problem is not a lack of modern conveniences, it’s that so many people who live here can’t access them. The problem is not a lack of development, but of inequality – both in terms of income and in having the political clout to be able to change that reality. The World Bank rates Nicaragua as the second-poorest nation in Latin America and the Caribbean, but that poverty definitely isn’t shared equally among the country’s six million citizens.

  The bad roads, rickety houses, and impoverished families that come to mind for those who haven’t been to Central America do still prevail in many rural areas. Rural development efforts tend to concentrate along three lines: Helping people improve food security through better agricultural practices and diversity; encouraging people to engage more effectively with their governments; and helping communities organize themselves better to prevent or respond to emergencies such as floods, mud slides, drought and other natural disasters. (I haven’t seen much development work focused on the needs of the urban poor.)

  It’s important work, of course.

  Better and more diverse agricultural yields can mean the difference between life and death for subsistence farmers, as can better logging practices that stop the deforestation that turn a regular rain storm into a devastating flood or slide. Democracy is still a fragile concept in Central America, and building a more informed and engaged citizenry is an integral part of sustaining that. Development work that improves the lives of women and girls is fundamental to improving a country’s economic performance.

  But can those efforts change the structural inequalities, cultural habits, and harmful government policies that feed the growing gap between rich and poor around the world? I don’t know. Like so any other global problems, it’s complicated, and there are many competing interests at stake – most notably, the interests of consumers in wealthy countries like my own.

  For instance, Central American farmers wouldn’t be nearly so poor if they got paid more for their crops. (The price people pay for the coffee beans in their iced cappuccino is about 100 times more than what the farmer got for growing them.)

  Workers in the giant maquilas that make clothing, auto parts, and electronics for the world would benefit immensely from higher wages. The countries that host those maquilas would have more money for infrastructure, education, health care, and social programs if the multinationals that owned the factories paid taxes, like they would have to do if the factories were located in wealthier countries.

  But in the global market, consumers demand low prices. Were the government of Nicaragua to take a stand on behalf of factory workers and farmers, corporations doing business here would instantly start scoping out even poorer countries where they could set up shop. The resulting loss of jobs and markets would be disastrous for the country.

  And consumers around the world would barely blink, because it’s our buying habits (which in turn are fuelled by our own falling purchasing power as the income gap grows in our own countries) that have led to this situation.

  What to do? Pay attention. Reject easy labels that hide what the real problems are. Come see for yourself. No country’s problems are ever as simple as they appear from a distance, nor are any of us as different from each other as we might believe.

Thanks for supporting our work in Central America with a donation to Cuso International! Here's our fundraising site. 

The life of an urban nomad

   

 This new "homeless" life that my partner Paul and I now live is marked by many moves during our times back in Canada, when we shuffle like urban nomads from one housesit to another. Since returning to Vancouver Island five months ago, we have relocated 10 times.
     It stressed me out when we first started doing it last spring after returning from two years in Honduras. But do anything for long enough and a routine seemingly always starts to emerge. We've now grown quite adept at constant relocation.
      We've been doing Cuso International volunteer work in Central America for most of the last three years, first in Honduras and now for shorter postings in Nicaragua. While we still have a small storage locker here in Victoria, we've mostly given up all our stuff so that we're free to go wherever a posting or a whim takes us.
     The periods in the south are relatively stable in terms of housing; we rent a place to live while we're there and stay put for the duration. It's the periods when we're back on the Island that are the most nomadic, as housesitting for people on summer vacation generally means stays of no more than two to four weeks in any one place.
     When we make our big moves between Canada and Central America - which we're set to do again in mid-September - we have two gigantic suitcases and two large backpacks to hold our worldly belongings. But we try to keep things tighter for the "local" moves, using only the backpacks and whatever else we can stuff in the car. (We've figured out how to live without permanent housing, but not without a car.)
      What I've most noticed about the new life is the need for a flexible wardrobe. Gone are the days when I would stand in front of a roomy closet contemplating which fashionable outfit to put on that day. I need clothes that will stuff into a backpack and come out looking not too disastrously wrinkled, and that serve me equally well for schlubbing through an ordinary day and on the rare occasions when I have to look professional or fancy. I need simple shoes that go with anything, because the bottom compartment of my backpack holds only three or four pair.
      While housesits are typically all-inclusives in terms of household goods like cutlery, bedding, pots and pans and such, there are still a remarkable number of things that the modern nomad needs to bring along.
      I have a small backpack filled with nothing but electronics chargers, battery chargers, and specialized cords for all our cameras, phones, e-books, and music players, for instance. We also pack a big blue tote full of basic items like peanut butter, olive oil, breakfast cereal and various other goods that can't be fully consumed in the course of a single housesit, and quite an alarming number of personal-grooming products.
     Then there are the books we're reading, the notebooks we're currently using for work (and the three or four others that you might need because you took notes in them for previous work); the random collection of "important papers"; at least a little jewelry, although it sure is prone to getting tangled and lost in this new lifestyle; the laptops, iPads and external hard drives; and whatever else didn't fit in our backpacks. We've also got two bicycles, but I'm in the habit of riding mine over to wherever we're headed just to relieve some of the packing pressure.
      Our rule is that whatever we're taking can't be more than one carload, and must require no more than two trips out to the car to carry it all into the new place. Otherwise, I think you could go quite mad just from the process of moving house so often.
     This new life has taught me a great deal about what really matters to me in terms of my living situation. Should a time come when we settle down in one place again, I will shop out housing options with much more insight into what makes me happy.
     For example, I now know I have a strong preference for houses that face southwest and have light flooding in through many windows. I need an outside space - not big, but sunny and private, with at least a few flower pots to tend.
      I need to be in a neighbourhood that has a decent grocery store within walking distance and an assortment of recreational options - pleasant roads leading off in all directions for cycling, maybe a beach, nice walks, birding options - close at hand. I need a decent internet connection and a comfortable place to play my accordion, ideally in a closed-off room where I don't have to feel self-conscious about interrupting other people's peaceful reveries.
     I need my own music playing on a decent sound system, which is why the little Bose bluetooth speaker we bought last summer has become one of our most precious possessions. And for at least some part of every year, I need my house to be located not too far from wherever my children and grandchildren are, because being able to hang out with them definitely makes me happy. (I also need my almost-90-year-old mother to continue welcoming two disruptive house guests who arrive regularly on her doorstep to seek shelter in gaps between housesits.)
     When those conditions are met, I'm happy.
     I thought I would miss having my own art on the walls. But I don't. I wondered if it would drive me crazy to have to do a wild search through every unfamiliar kitchen drawer whenever I needed a spoon or a whisk or a bottle opener. But I've gotten used to it. I wouldn't have imagined I could handle having all my clothes in a messy pile on top of my backpack due to the absence of closet space and empty dressers in other people's houses. But now I barely notice.
     "Flexible and adaptable" - the motto of the Cuso volunteer, and now the watchwords of our lives. Most days it's a pretty good life.

Thanks for supporting our work in Central America with a donation to Cuso International! Here's our fundraising site. 

Cue the triumphal chorus: Amnesty International passes policy supporting decriminalization of sex work

    This is an amazing day for the sex workers' rights movement with the news that Amnesty International has approved its draft policy supporting decriminalization of adult sex work.
     "What will it all mean?" asked one of my friends. I admit to not being sure what it will change in the immediate future. But as a symbol, it's significant when the world's most recognized human rights organization acknowledges that criminalizing sex work violates the rights (and threatens the lives) of sex workers.
    I've had the good fortune of getting to know a lot of sex workers over the last two decades, so for me it hasn't been a stretch to understand that criminalizing sex work increases the dangers, the sense of isolation and the stigma for those who work in the industry. It sorts sex workers into a different category of human - one who lives and works alongside the rest of us every day, providing us with services that we want, yet is denied the most basic rights that all of us enjoy.
    If this was a question of a particular race or economic class being discriminated against in our own countries, we'd have been all over it decades ago. But it's about sex workers, and that subject apparently really weirds us out. So we have shamefully let this disgrace continue much longer than a civilized society ought to permit.
    Criminalizing sex work shuts workers out of civil measures like employment tribunals and contract law. It relegates them to work in the shadows by denying them safe, legal places to work. It leaves them to the whims of police, who will be free to use their own discretion in deciding whether to treat the workers with respect or as lower life forms who they can feel free to abuse.
     In many countries, including Canada, criminalization denies sex workers the right to work together, and never mind that there's a mountain of evidence and a whole lot of logical thinking to tell us that isolating people in their work puts them at greater risk for all kinds of bad things.
     Around the world, major organizations like the World Health Organization and the United Nations have already endorsed decriminalization after their own careful investigations. Some might even argue that Amnesty International was late to the game, given all the research and reports that have stated over and over again that nothing is improved for sex workers or society by criminalizing the industry.
     Yet we were almost sidetracked by an open letter signed by anti-sex-work supporters in the runup to the Amnesty International vote, accusing the organization of betraying its principles and siding with "pimps." We were almost sidetracked by movie stars like Meryl Streep and Lena Dunham, who signed that petition and significantly added to the level of media hype and misinformation that followed.
     People actually gave credence to the uninformed musings of celebrities over two years of thoughtful investigation by Amnesty in drafting its policy. (Here's a great video from Amnesty on how that public battle all shook down, and that highlights the many ways that opponents used misinformation to try to create a backlash against Amnesty.)
    As the British might say,  I was gob-smacked by that turn of events. But I suppose I am grateful for it, too, because it reinforced that those who oppose sex work as morally wrong are fully prepared to sacrifice sex workers' safety and rights if that's what it takes to make their case.
      They believe that their need to hate sex work trumps workers' needs for safer workplaces, fair treatment by police and courts, and the basic human right to live equal among us. I've suspected that's what they believed for a while now, but their hysterical misinformation campaign against Amnesty was the confirmation.
      Will any of them rethink their positions now that one more respected organization has done its homework around sex work? I don't understand their way of thinking at all, so can't predict. There's something about the issue that seems to blind otherwise thoughtful people to common sense.
     And those who are still on the fence are legion. Many excuse themselves for not taking a position because the issue is "just too complex" and they don't have time to think about it. (What, people should die and suffer because you can't be bothered to learn enough to form an opinion?)
     But increasingly I am feeling the power of a global movement pushing for change. Maybe Amnesty's support will be a defining moment for busting through the general population's apathy on this issue.
     Anyway. My biggest hug to Amnesty. Stay strong, you guys. You're on the side of the angels on this one.

This good read on Vice summarizes much of the Amnesty battle. 

A good Q&A with Amnesty about its decision, particularly useful for its clarity around difference between decrim and legalization, and that you can support decriminalizing adult, consensual sex work while still being vehemently opposed to sex trafficking and exploitation. 

And if you're all cool on this subject and want a good belly laugh, check out this parody of the moment that "sexwork exclusionary radical feminists" - SWERFs - learn of Amnesty's decision.
     

The day I interviewed to be a sex worker

   

One summer day when I was a young reporter in Kamloops, my bosses at the newspaper sent me off to pretend I wanted to get hired as a lingerie model.

    The advertising department at the paper had been running classified ads seeking young women interested in working as lingerie models. The paper wanted the advertising revenue, but was worried the real nature of the business was prostitution. So they sent me off to pretend to be a job applicant so I could report back to them, a task that I accepted without hesitation.

     The interview was in a hotel room at The Dome, a fairly popular place in mid-1980s Kamloops. I can’t remember what I wore. An average man of average age – 35, maybe, with the everyman feel of someone who, like myself, had known life in a B.C. resource town – invited me to sit down. A few minutes later, a woman of about the same age joined us.

    My managers back at the paper had sent me to the job interview in the company of a male reporter, who was to park outside and be ready to save me from whatever darkness might lie within. This made me laugh then and now, although I do appreciate that my bosses at least wanted somebody to witness me disappearing behind the door where unnamed depravity was possibly lurking.

    In fact, the job interview was notable for its complete ordinariness. The man didn’t seem concerned that I had never worked as a lingerie model, and talked about how my job would be to go to private parties - some of them in hotel rooms - where I would model lingerie to potential buyers and be paid a commission.

    We got to the point where we had said pretty much all there is to say about lingerie modelling, but the feeling of an elephant in the room just kept getting bigger. I saw that it was going to be up to me to cut to the chase. I asked if there was an opportunity to make additional money selling something more than lingerie.

    The man and woman who were interviewing me both let out these huge sighs of relief, and instantly relaxed into  much more personable, jokey versions of their previous selves.  Yes, yes, exactly, the man enthused to me – I was welcome to sell much more than lingerie. Once that door shut between me and the lingerie enthusiast and the big wide world, he said, the two of us were free to explore any opportunities we wanted.

    The interview went on for probably an hour, and got a lot more comfortable for all concerned once we got past the lingerie cover story. As we wrapped up, the man told me I would have to come back the next day and take my clothes off in front of the woman, who would verify that I had no "huge scars" or obvious disfigurement. The man reassured me that as far as he could tell, I almost certainly would get the job. I left the hotel room feeling strangely exhilarated.

     I never returned for the second interview, although I’ve always liked to think that if I had, I could have had that job. My bosses were waiting for me the second I got back to the office, and I'll never forget the riveted looks on their faces as I recounted my interview. They hung on every word. I came to see that verifying the legitimacy of a lingerie seller might not have been their only motive for sending me on the assignment.

    I never went undercover again in my journalism career. It’s a fairly dishonest way to land a story, and I frown on it other than for the rare stories that simply can’t be told without subterfuge. 

    I suppose that might be why the story of my sex-work interview has gone unwritten until now. Or perhaps I simply had to grow old enough not to care that I might hurt my former bosses' feelings by revealing that what was most striking to me about that notable day was the hungry looks on their faces as they listened to me. I think I learned something new about men that day. 

    I trust no reader will take this anecdote of mine to mean that I “know what it’s like to be a sex worker” or something insane like that. There is much more to sex work than a job interview. I will leave it to my many brilliant and fascinating friends who really do work in the industry to tell those stories.

    All I'm saying is that one time maybe 30 years ago now, I did a job interview with a couple of people trying to set up an escort agency in Kamloops. And I’m still pleased that I nailed it. 

Catch the video on sex workers' rights that I put together in conjunction with Peers Victoria for the June 13 Day of Solidarity for sex workers. 

Who you gonna call? Fact Checkers

The Washington Post is doing some great work these days with their Fact Checker feature, which is digging into all kinds of "statistics" being thrown around out there to see where the figures come from and whether there's any truth to them. Think of it as the rhetoric version of that TV show Mythbusters.

Today's myth-busting was around the "fact" that 300,000 U.S. children are at risk of sexual exploitation. Take a look at how they tested those figures and what they found out - fascinating stuff, and all of it underlining that we need to be very, very careful in deciding what to believe when topics are highly emotional and potentially divisive. That old adage about believing half of what you see and none of what you hear has never been truer.