The Roller Coaster Ride

Life can sometimes be like a roller coaster out here. The highs are so high, but the lows are so low. At first a lot of our ups and downs came with the living situation, but now we have control of that in our own comfortable house away from host families…the ride mostly has to do with work. (Who knows what else will be affected in the future.) We were in for a bumpy one this past week. Sometimes it can be SO FRUSTRATING here, where all can seem in vain and you wonder why you have left a good home to be here. Then there are times where you are connecting with people, ideas are flowing and you feel like some good is coming about from your being here. Phew……

I went to a meeting on Thursday here in Comayagua promoting the first year of the Millennium Challenge project in Honduras. The Millennium Challenge is one of many poverty reduction strategies of the UN, in Honduras focusing on training and education for farmers to help stimulate economic growth. My project director asked me to go (I wasn’t quite sure why while I was there) but I guess it was good to have a Peace Corps representative. The president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, was there, and so was the US Ambassador to Honduras. If nothing else, it was very interesting to see the interaction between the Ambassador and the President and to see Mel speak. They were pushing lots of hoopla about how many farmers had been helped by the project, and there was lots of media attention and smiling politicians. Below is a picture I took (a bad one, sorry about that) of the ambassador and the president at the event. They are the guys in the black suits.

Now as a personal source of those numbers for such reports (we write how many people we “helped” in our 6 month reports we send to Washington), I wonder about those projections of results. It is hard to quantify results and “development” (as far as I’ve seen in my experience) is a pain staking slow process, requiring extreme patience. There are SO many international aid organizations here in Honduras, governmental and NGOs, with their signs and banners displayed all over buildings, flyers and programs in every corner of the country. Many of us volunteers have wondered….what would happen if they (and we) all just pulled out one day? What would Honduras and Hondurans do to make their country a better place? Would it inspire them to do it themselves and finally see some real results? Or would a country already on the brink suffer even more?

We ended this work week on a good note, after a few ups and downs on the roller coaster. This week we had a run in with people flaking out on us and people not owing up to the promises they made. Break downs in communications were a problem. Also - extreme procrastination and (dare I say it?) laziness. Things that we can take for granted at home, things that make things WORK and get things DONE.

Where does the complicated root of the problem lie? Why is this country (and so many others) so poor? Wow, that is a question I am not qualified to answer. Some that come to mind.....Hunger and poor nutrition, lack of access to education, disease, dirty water (or no water access at all), corruption, lack of capital, inept government, violence, general feeling of helplessness, centuries of exploitation by foreign countries, crumbling infrastructure, emigration…the list goes on and on.

Small successes are our personal goals as volunteers. We are each one person and can only make small (very small) impacts. Mostly these come with the few individuals that we make connections with at work. We can impart some of the skills and habits we have acquired simply from being American and coming from an educated and privileged background. Organizational skills, planning, and idea generation help, not to mention a free, college educated worker to help get things done in financially strapped organizations. And we are getting experience too. Not only all the organizing and planning skills I just mentioned, but exposure to new areas we are asked to lead and projects where we are asked to come up with ideas. Some of the projects we are asked to work on, we have absolutely no experience in and have no idea where to start, but we are the best they’ve got to get something done, and we give them the all we’ve got.

Now are you starting to understand the roller coaster????…..