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The Poshdeluxe Honduras Correspondent

(Note: I wish I could take credit for the preceding picture, but unfortunately, a friend of mine took it.)

You know the world is flat when this blog’s Asia correspondent is an Irishman living in Austin and the Honduras correspondent is a Chinese guy from Dallas. This is Sarah’s friend Winston, and I recently returned from a trip to Honduras. Sarah asked me to give you all the witty and insightful observations you’ve come to expect from this fine establishment. Unfortunately, I was a biochemistry major.

Honduras is poor. Really poor. Someone once told me that Honduras literally means “depths”, and after riding in the back of a pick-up truck for three hours (not being culturally insensitive…I really was in the back of a pick-up truck), I started to understand why that name is appropriate. In many developing countries, the wealthy exploit natural resources at the expense of the poor. In Honduras, almost everyone is impoverished because the unforgiving, rocky topography allows for minimal farmable land.

You can tell that Honduras is slightly poorer than its neighbors just by looking at the people sitting next to you on the plane. The flight to San Salvador, El Salvador consists of a mix of tourists and folks going to see their families. The flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras is dominated by medical and religious brigades (picture groups of people all wearing the same shirts and all checking in bins that weigh exactly 50 pounds).

I’ve been going to Honduras for several years now with an organization called Shoulder to Shoulder. It’s a non-governmental organization (or NGO for the global fancy pants), seeking to maximize short-term medical volunteerism by involving participants in sustainable projects and partnering with community advocates (I was trying to see how many public health buzzwords I could fit into one sentence). In other words, we try hard not to tell communities what to do (they already know that they need clean water and more education). I wish I could tell you that I saved lives, delivered babies, and restored the sight of children, but to be honest, I didn’t do shit. This last stint happened to be a strategic planning trip, which meant less interaction with Hondurans and more strategery. Besides, the communities do the majority of the heavy lifting for our projects. We’re just along for the ride.

Though I did not have any earth shattering stories from this trip, I wanted to share this story from last year’s trip (full disclosure: this story is plagiarized from my now abandoned blog):

I just got back from a week-long trip to Honduras. We were seeing patients and taking samples from water filters distributed to families 6 months ago. Was a great time, and definitely a humbling experience. While assessing the water filters, we hiked through farmlands and back roads. Returning to our accomodations on the second day of our 2-day backcountry hike, we were guided by 3 children who happened to be on their way to the clinic that same day. Iris (age 12), Wilmer (age 7), and girl whose name I cannot remember (GWNICR) (age 11) patiently led us up the mountain that separated us from our clinic, our beds, and water that was free from bacteria and parasites.

They asked us whether we wanted to take the longer, flatter route or the more direct, steeper route. We told them that we would take the route they would normally take (which happened to be the latter). Big mistake…because it turned out to be one of the most rigorous physical tests of my life. During the hike, I could not help but notice the striking differences between us and them.

us: sturdy hiking boots and backpacking gear worth hundreds of dollars.
them: plastic sandals.

us: several liters of water and multiple powerbars per person.
them: zero bottles of water and zero powerbars per person.

This physical challenge was just another day in the life of a child in rural Honduras. My life expectancy is probably 1.5 times theirs. Yet during the hike, “survival of the fittest” came to mind. The journey was typical of most of our patients at the clinic – a several hour hike through peaks and valleys just for 10 minutes of our time and a bar of soap. humbling indeed.

LINKS

I do not know how to end poverty, but this dude does. Apparently, asphalt is key.

This is also a great book about Central America. It’s written by a journalist and chronicles a kid’s journey to the United States. Best read with a dose of Prozac.

This is another solid public health book. The book’s main character is a public health rock star and sex symbol (is that even possible?) even though he’s a skinny, pale white guy.

This has nothing to do with public health, but it is awesome.

© 2009 Poshdeluxe.