the peaceful and calm caribbean...

Can't say I've gotten anything stuck lately, but I did cruise around on a dirt bike for the day with a wannabe professional motorcycle rider. When I asked for a helmet, they just laughed and shook their heads. That is about as exciting as it gets. I think I have examined maybe 50 pig projects since I have gotten here now. The latest email is below...


Thursday I returned from 2.5 days in the field. It was a very refreshing trip compared to the trip I took the week before, both literally and metaphorically. Last week, I was visiting an NGO that works with an afro-Antillean population called the Garifuna that lives along the North coast of Honduras and a couple of stray communities in Guatemala and Belize. This ethnic group has a very interesting history as it is composed of escaped slaves, Venezuelan indigenous, and some Carribbean indigenous. For its first hundred years, they lived on some Carribbean Island, but then were forced to the Honduran coast in the late 18th century. Google "Garifuna" and I am sure you can find a better description. Anyways, the main point though is that they are "poor", losing their unique culture, and Trickle UP with its partner is trying to help them generate other sources of income.

Unfortunately, the NGO on the ground Trickle Up is working through isn't doing such a great job. The NGO is focused on promoting and protecting the territorial and human rights of the Garifuna, so the Trickle Up seed capital project wasn't necessarily their specialty nor receiving much attention or resources. That was obvious when I went to visit. The groups organized to receive the funds hadn't been trained at all, didn't know how much money they were supposed to be receiving, and in one group, more than half didn't show up to the meeting. It is common that members of groups don't show up to meetings, but when they have recently just received cash in hand, it is rare that they don't show from my experience on this trip. 1. They usually want to show their appreciation; and 2. they want to know if there is more cash from where it came from. There is a bit of an organizational culture clash one might say between TUP and the Garifuna NGO; US NGO which is very transparent, time oriented, and procedural versus the laid back and non-transparent culture of the Garifuna run NGO.

The towns we visited are located on an undeveloped swath of beach on the Caribbean which was beautiful. Once the electricity arrives (only 20km away), I give it 5-years before the ex-pats arrive and purchase the majority of the land. The interesting part was that there were some beautiful houses in all of the towns owned by some Garifuna with significant amounts of money, while their next door neighbors lived in dirt floor wooden or adobe shacks waiting to be blown over in the next storm. Of course you have the Wall Street banker passing the bum in the street in NY and have the same disparity in wealth, but not usually living next to each other. I paid $4 for my "room", which wasn't much, but have a bucket shower and its own toilet. I was hoping to eat some great seafood with coco, but was only served fried chicken and bananas. The coconut trees were infected with some virus and recently all died. Thus, they have had to adapt their diet and bring in a new species of coco from the Pacific side of Mexico that is supposedly resistant to the virus. I was able to see how the women process the local variety of cassava or yucca. It takes them two days to do it by hand, which many still do. The result is a disc "bread" made from the processed cassava flour which tastes like the host at church or a very grainy, thin pita.

At the end, a very interesting cultural experience, but organizationally and work wise depressing and not worthwhile. This week's organization though was exceptional and should probably be studied in the US. Central Cultural Hibueras is the name of the organization and they work in the region surrounding the town of Santa Barbara. A beautiful town which I am surprised hasn't been over run by ex-pats yet as it is identical to Boquete in Panama, a town now known world wide as a place to retire. The field trip took us about 2 hours away, up to about 4500 feet and to the base of a large mountain which is a national park. There wasn't electricity, so I was returned to my Peace Corps days of early to bed and early to rise. Coffee in the morning was mixed with direct from the cow milk, which was a treat. Fresh un-pasteurized milk is something that everyone should have at least once in their life.


Back to work though… Central Cultural Hinbueras focused the Trickle Up seed capital in 5 neighboring communities and had dedicated substantial time and resources to training and selecting the recipients. Many recipients had chosen pigs to fatten as that is what they are most familiar with, so I visited probably 15 different sets of pigs. I am now familiar with all of the different breeds of pigs in the area and possible combinations of food to fatten them. Surprisingly, no one names their pigs. I did visit one participant with 6 school aged daughters that all lived in a two room "shack" (in every sense of the word) measuring 10ft by 20ft with one large poster of some beer girl scantily clad that dominated one wall. The participant though had built a small pig pen (about a quarter the size of her "shack") for her two pigs, cleaned it daily, and provided the pigs with fresh straw to sleep on each night. The daughters probably sleep very similar to how the pigs sleep, on mats on the dirt floor in the "living room" of their "shack".

When I visit a group or an individual with their business, there is a certain series of questions that I go through, I want to see the business, and if possible, sample product. No pigs were ready for slaughter, so I wasn't able to sample pork chops or chicharrones, but I was able to sample one lady's chilies. They were very small chilies that she sells to a large Tabasco sauce producer. Being the adventurous Gringo, I bit right into one to prove my manliness in front of my counterparts and to sample the product. The sample was plenty fiery and I ended up crying and dripping snot for the next 5 minutes to the amusement of everyone. Even though the chile lady is offering employment through picking the chilies in an area with scarce income opportunities, she can't find any labor to help her harvest because people are afraid that they will become incapacitated for life by harvesting chilies. Other small businesses started included a small bread making operation, vegetable wholesaler, a lady selling women's delicates door-to-door, and plenty of small plantings of potatoes, beans, and corn.

After hours, I found Honduras to be a soccer mad country. The sports pages have 90% of their sports copy dedicated to soccer and the rest to all the other sports. I laced up my hiking boots for a game at the village and unlike in Peace Corps where I was one of the better players, found myself being dribbled around by 50-year olds. I did score a goal which saved some face and respect for the Gringo and US soccer in their eyes, but it was a humbling experience. It was my first time playing in a couple months per doctor's orders, thus I lump some of my poor showing on just starting my recovery, and my lack of cleats of course (always blame faulty equipment, right?).

Other non-work activities did include going to mass two Sundays in a row. I was pleased to find a priest who still was dedicated to some form of Liberation Theology. The Catholic Church in Honduras doesn't seem to have lost as much ground to the Evangelicals like in Guatemala and Panama. I was told this is mostly because they are much more active socially and organizing the people to fight for justice and equality, which I have found to be true. The priest in his homily did rail against the mining companies which are polluting the land, but also had an environmental component for the congregation that they should be working their land in a sustainable manner too. Much more the poor man's church in Honduras versus the wealthy's church it seems to be in the other Latin American countries.

Only ten more days and then it is back to the US. All of the traveling has been great, but also tiring having to constantly move. I am looking forward to being in one spot for a while.