Now is the winter of our discontent

I like observing things. Some of the things I have observed lately make me feel sad, uncomfortable or discontented:

It is so easy to identify the mayor’s house in La Campa. It’s the house with the swimming pool (the only one in La Campa) and three gigantic satellite dishes. Recently, the mayor inaugurated several projects, including a housing project. The houses in this project are made of the cheapest materials possible, lack pilas (outdoor water basin, used for everything by everybody) and showers, and seem designed to reduce self respect by the paint and prison numbering system.

I recently spent four days translating for a brigade that was handing out glasses. Through this group, I observed a lot:

• The group worked with evangelical pastors in the surrounding communities. They assumed that the pastors would contact the entire community. Instead, they only contacted their own church members. So anybody outside their church was excluded.

• It is challenging to be the bridge between two cultures. Before entering this four-day experience, I had assumed that being a translator simply meant translating words. But there is more to it than that. I’m not fully entrenched in the Honduran culture nor the US culture, but have rootlets in each. Each has its own perceptions about the other, some of which are spoken, and some of which are unspoken. And I was in between them, trying to bridge the language and cultural gaps, blushing in awkwardness at some of the activities of the gringos.

• I like see myself as different from groups of people who come to give things for two weeks. I’m here for nearly a year, working for a local organization, building up relationships, and recognizing the importance of learning. But really, I’m a gringa myself, in a foreign culture, making cultural mistakes, photographing, barely becoming accustomed to things and then leaving.
  

• However, I do feel offended when I watch fellow foreigners grabbing small children for a photo, just because they are cute. Ditto for grandmothers. They are beautiful people, but what is the point of taking children onto your lap, photographing them, and then releasing them without finding out their names, or becoming somewhat acquainted.
  

• Giving candy out indiscriminately does not help either. Yes, the children will enjoy the candy, but they come to see gringos only as people who hand things out for them to receive. And that makes things more challenging down the road.

I frequently listen to my supervisor talk about all the evils of corruption and backroom agreements that are here in Honduras. In fact, one of CASM’s projects supports transparency commissions, whose duty is to monitor and audit local governments to make sure the money goes where it should. But then I watch my supervisor use connections to get her son into university and to get her daughter a North American sponsor (through a child sponsor program), and use CASM vaccines for her family’s cows.

The president of Honduras, the US ambassador, the head of USAID Honduras, the president of congress, and others visited La Campa on Friday. They inaugurated a USAID project that will bring $82 million into the region over the next five years This short event highlighted many things:

• CASM La Campa wants some of that money, as it is specifically designated to food security, a main focus of our work. So my colleagues wrote a letter to each of the dignitaries, introducing CASM to them. Well and good. But they decided that my fellow international volunteer and I were the best ones to hand the letter to the US ambassador. My nationality didn’t matter; our whiteness did. I’m used to being stared at for being white. I get catcalls regularly. But this made me feel more uncomfortable than these events.

• The Hondurans in the audience stayed well back from the stage, except for when the president arrived. There was a brief surge forward to greet him, and then they all moved back. On the other hand, every white person who lives in the vicinity came and stood at the front, and interacted with the dignitaries. Smiling photos were taken of the Peace Corps volunteers with the US ambassador. I got to meet most of the dignitaries, except the president. There was a distinct white privilege here. Even when people were making speeches, they greeted and thanked the dignitaries first, the Peace Corps volunteers second, and the community members last. Once I realized the invisible barrier, I did my best to move back and stand with the Hondurans, and not with the expats.

I watch, and try to understand, and form conclusions. Who knows if I'm actually right with these observations? There could be things I don't understand. Take them with a grain of salt.