The view from my porch

This is an introductory assignment I wrote for one of my grad school classes... thought it was quite appropriate for the blog, and I hadn´t posted in quite a while!  Enjoy!

The view from my front porch in Honduras doesn´t get very far—almost all the houses here have large perimeter walls topped with barbed wire, so my view ends up smacking up against a bleak cinderblock wall across the street.  This is a pervasive aspect of Honduran life, along with the crime that spurs it, and I have blogged about it (subsequently republished here: http://www.hondurasweekly.com/our-walled-in-life-201107033833/).   I have been in Honduras teaching high school science at a private bilingual school for two and a half years now, and still the issues of crime, fear, and security are never far from my mind. 

Our wall has a metal grate on it, so we can see out into the street, and those in the street can look in to see our beautiful, bright magenta-flowered Napoleon tree (also known as bougainville).  Also looking out from my porch I can see my potted rosemary plant, a few lime seeds I planted in hopes they would be trees someday, and some orchids that never seem to bloom.  Dotting my yard is a local variety of cilantro that looks more like dandelion leaves, but my husband´s aunt loves picking it when she comes over and taking it home to throw in her bean and egg soup.

While I can´t say I exactly have a view, I do appreciate watching the world go by, especially the people who walk by selling various items like ice cream, furniture covers, and on a good day, homemade chicken and pork tamales.  Because our yard is open (via grate) to the street, and our street is unpaved, we do get plenty of dust blowing in from the street.  Comayagua´s dry climate and intermittently-supplied water make the environmental issue of water one of the most important in my opinion.   I have also blogged about water use and availability in our city in my (also intermittently-updated) personal blog, here (http://dianainhonduras.blogspot.com/2011/10/happy-water-day.html)

By far, the best part of this view is around 5:30 pm, when, just over the top of that cinderblock wall across the street, I can make out the sunset streaming over the peaks of mountains that surround this dry valley.  I love sitting on the porch and watching the light flow in rays, filtering through the clouds.  It is one of the most peaceful moments of my day.

Happy Water Day!

Today, October 2nd, is National Water Day here in Honduras.  Our school principal encouraged the science teachers to decorate and raise awareness, and it came at an opportune time in our 10th grade curriculum when we had a couple of lessons on the properties of water and its biological importance.  Unfortunately, at the staff meeting, I thought our principal said "International Water Day" instead of National Water Day, so the 10th graders did a lovely job decorating their classroom door with some slightly incorrect information.  Oops!

Perhaps Honduras doesn´t celebrate World Water Day (March 22nd) with everyone else because it usually falls in what Hondurans consider to be their "summer" (March-April) during the hottest and driest months in the country.  The irony of celebrating water during national drought is not lost on many local journalists...

See:
http://www.latribuna.hn/2010/03/22/honduras-festeja-%E2%80%9Cdia-mundial-del-agua%E2%80%9D-en-plena-sequia/

However, all this talk about water has caused me to reflect on the ways in which water is used and delivered here in Honduras as opposed to in the States.  I feel like I save more water here in Honduras but it is not necessarily of my own volition.  Let´s compare the houses in the States with some of the living situations I have encountered here in Honduras.  Where I lived previously in the States, houses have hot water tanks, 99-100% reliable water delivery (unless they are repairing a pipe in the street), and drinkable--even tasty--tap water.  Washing machines are included in any house/rental, as hand-washing clothes is truly a thing of the past.  You are only considered to be at a disadvantage if your house doesn´t come with a clothes dryer. 

When I first lived in the teacher housing that my school provides, I had an electric shower head for "hot" water, a cistern backup storage tank, and an electric pump to provide the house with water.  Although it is a common practice to dump a little household bleach in the cistern to keep it mildly sanitary, it is still not exactly potable, so everyone must buy large 5-gallon drums of purified water to drink.  We also had a (sigh! the luxury!) washing machine.  In June 2010, I moved into a tiny apartment closer to my husband´s (then-fiancee´s) family´s house.  There was no washing machine, no hot water, but at least there was a cistern and pump.  This weekend, I moved into a larger house where there is a set-up for hot water shower heads (but we haven´t bought them yet), no washing machine, and as far as we can tell, no cistern/pump.   That means we have to rely on city water which only is available for about half the day every day until we figure something out.  Because of the unreliability of the delivery of city water, every house in Honduras has a pila, or basically a big wash basin with a built-in washboard that you can fill and use for washing clothes, dishes, or anything else (like hauling buckets of water over to the bathroom to flush the toilet).  However, if your pila is empty and the water goes out, you are basically screwed.  Most city-water houses also keep a large barrel of water in the bathroom for "bucket baths" and for flushing the toilet without having to go out to the pila.

Since I have gotten used to cold or lukewarm showers in Honduras, I have definitely saved not only water, but also energy.  In the States, I was the kind of person who would turn the water up as hot as it could go, and just stand under it for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth before I would start washing my hair, etc.  Here, I have become accustomed to taking "sailor showers," or turning on the water just to get myself wet, then turning it off to shampoo, scrub up, then turning it on once again to rinse.  Almost no one has hot water tanks in Honduras because of the expense to buy one, the expense to operate one, and the fact that the coldest water here is nowhere near as cold as it is in the States in winter.  Electric shower heads are the cheap and space-saving solution, although they break easily and either don´t warm the water up very much or they give you fun (mild!) electric shocks... hence the nickname, "suicide showers."  Without hot water to strip away your skin´s oils and in a hot climate where you sweat a lot, your face always feels a little greasy... just another thing you get used to.

I still enjoy looking at sustainability and "ecological footprint" websites and I like raising awareness when I teach about human impact on the environment, but those websites are geared towards usage in the States.  The fact that water is not reliably delivered by local governments forces Hondurans to save water, plan ahead, and use it wisely or do without.  The fact that there is no real winter and no need to heat anything means that water and energy use in the tropics is much less than in the States.    What I described in this blog entry is my experience living in a Honduran mid-sized city.  As you can imagine, in rural areas of Honduras, people rely on wells and creeks, or have to haul buckets of water long distances to be able to use it at home.  Life is just that much harder for them because of it.  There are many charities focused on bringing water to people around the world so that they can spend some of their time and energy on something besides just basic survival.  If you are at all interested in development work or in making a difference in the lives of people around the world, please consider donating to a water project.

http://water.org/
http://www.justadrop.org/
http://www.hydraid.org/act/donate.html  <-- has affordable water filter projects in Honduras

If you know of any other great water charities that people should know about, please leave them in the comments section!

No matter where we live, fresh drinking water is a precious resource and should be conserved.  I encourage everyone to think of ways you can be less wasteful with water today, Honduran National Water Day, and again on the real World Water Day on March 22nd.   Thanks for reading!

The Honduran "Pita Chip"

Miss you, Stacy´s !!

Ok, so is it just me, or does casabe, the Honduran/Garifuna food taste like pita chips? 

Stacked casabe rounds

(For more info on what casabe is and on who the Garifuna are, click here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/arts/honduras/discovery_eng/customs/casave/index.html )

I don´t know how this can possibly be the case, being that casabe is made from yuca flour and pita chips are baked or fried wheat flatbreads.  Every time I try casabe, especially the variety with garlic and margarine on it, the texture, flavor, and slight saltiness reminds me of pita chips, which are (as far as I can tell) unavailable in Honduras. I miss them so much!  Now, if only I could get some hummus for my Honduran "pita chips"...  :) 

Independence

Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence. --David Ben-Gurion

Once a week, I share a (hopefully inspirational) quote with my students and ask them to share their thoughts, opinions, reactions, and reflections. Last week, because of the Honduran Independence Day holiday, I chose the above quote to get students to reflect. I asked students what they were celebrating Independence from, and they, of course, said Spain. I asked them if Honduras was independent today. The immediate answer from a couple of boys was, "Yes, of course!" but a girl in the front said quietly, "No." Then more people spoke up and we talked about how Honduras depends on international aid, among other things. Then we talked about what national independence really meant to them.

To my students, as teenagers, moral independence meant not going along with the crowd, or doing what you know is best for you. Intellectual indepence meant not discriminating against lower income people just because of the reputation of the school or university they attended. To them, it meant making objective, unbiased decisions.

To me, moral independence means standing up to corruption, in or outside of positions of power. It means being responsible for good parenting decisions and not perpetuating cycles of abuse and neglect just because it is common. Intellectual independence to me means preventing "brain drain" as Hondurans decide to study in Mexico, Spain, or the United States and stay there because of better opportunities. It means a greater focus on education for Hondurans at all levels in order to have a prosperous, responsible, and conscientious nation. It also means coming up with solutions to Honduras´s problems that work for and are tailored to the Honduran people... not just trying to be a carbon copy of other countries.

In the end, we focused on how they as the future leaders of Honduras could work on making this country a better place, starting with themselves.

Mes de la Patria

September 1st here in Honduras kicked off la Mes de la Patria, or "Patriotic Month." Throughout September and into the beginning of October, there are several national and civic holidays including Flag Day (Sept 1st), Children´s Day (Sept 10th), Independence Day (Sept 15th), Teacher´s Day (September 17th), Independence Scrolls Day (September 28th), and Francisco Morazan Day (October 3rd--commemorating a national hero). We have assemblies or events for all of these days (and there are probably a few that I am missing) and it is the busiest time of year for the Honduran social studies teachers. Here are some photos from the happenings of the first few days of September.

Here is a photo of my husband´s nephew and I, posing with the Honduran flag he made for his school´s event on September 1st

The mural done by 9th grade for Flag Day on Sept 1st

Classroom window decorations in the preschool area.

Our elementary level traditional folkdance group, who recently won several national trophies at competitions in Santa Barbara and La Ceiba, and who did an encore performance of their dances at our acto civico (civic assembly) on Sept 1st.

Thinking about Socioeconomic Status

Here is another reflection from my grad school program in which we were asked to consider our socioeconomic status (SES) compared to that of our students, and how an outsider visitor would be able to tell the SES just by observing the school. Based on the reaction from one of my classmates, I thought it would be useful to share it in this setting. She was shocked at how few resources we have at our school when compared to even her low-income school in the United States. Read on...

I think that my socioeconomic status is in some cases the same as and in some cases lower than that of my students. As I have mentioned this week in my reflections, I identify solidly as middle class, but the material comforts that a middle class American is used to usually fall into the upper class category in Honduras. Home air conditioners, full-sized ovens, washing machines, and dishwashers are all a thing of the past for my life here in Honduras. Those families who have these items are considered in the upper tier here. I also don´t have a housekeeper like many of the families of my students.

I do not think that this difference affects the way I deliver my lessons, or my teaching style, but it does affect the way I approach certain topics. For example, in my biology classes we discuss the effects of consumerism on the environment by watching the Story of Stuff. The short film discusses the exploitation of “Third World” resources and labor for “First World” consumer goods. There are problems with those terms as well, but I ask students which lifestyle they most identify with, and how they can observe the effects in their own country. We also talk about the role of money and SES in topics like environmental destruction and health, and I try to emphasize that even though my students may not be in precarious situations, there are plenty of people around them who are.

If a visitor who had a familiarity with schools in Honduras were to visit our school, he would probably recognize that it was a school for higher income students. This would be based on the fact that our classrooms have air conditioning, an energy expense that is not feasible for most of the general population of Honduras. We also have an up-to-date computer lab, and by viewing the trophies on the wall there, the visitor would assume that we also had the money to travel to various technology competitions in order to win them. Although cell phones are technically not allowed at school, if a visitor were to see one of the students pull this contraband out, they would have a better guess at the SES of the student. Blackberries and iPhones are the norm, and one of my students last year had a cell phone that was worth more than I make in a month. I buy the cheapest cell phone possible, and based on this measure, a visitor might assume that my SES was lower than that of my students.

Compared to many schools in the United States, we do not have as many resources. There is no career center, no academic advising, no reading support, no special education, no sports fields, and the library does not serve the same function as it would in the US. I am in charge of the science lab, but our lab is very small and does not have basic safety considerations for handling chemicals, such as a fume hood, eye wash, etc. Our website, however, claims that it is “fully equipped,” a fact that the other science teachers and I often lament. There is only one television/DVD player, two “data show” projectors, and two sets of speakers for the whole school that we must all share. The school recently purchased one smart board (also to be shared) but it has not trained any of the staff on how to use it, nor opened it up for use, and it has been over a year! However, many schools in Honduras do not have even these materials, so compared to those around us, we are very fortunate.

Re-treeing Honduras

Over this summer I have attempted to get some things to grow (The jalapenos all got some kind of fungus, unfortunately), and among them, I planted a couple of guanacaste seeds just for the heck of it. I honestly thought they were a lost cause until last week when the seeds finally germinated and started shooting up.

After thinking to myself, ¨What the heck am I going to do with a tree in a pot on my paved-over patio?¨, I decided to give them away to a friend, Karen, who has a farm up on the mountain (El Volcan). Karen says in the 12 or so years she has lived up on the mountain, there has been quite a lot of deforestation due to illegal logging for lumber, and the fact that most folks use wood fires for cooking. I have noticed that even city folk cook over wood fires when they will be cooking something like beans (that requires hours over the stove) in order to save on electricity costs. Karen makes it very clear to her neighbors and any suspicious pickup trucks that no one will be touching any trees on her property. She also knows that since guanacastes have a beautiful broad canopy, they will be good for creating shade for her coffee plants. Karen also plants tons of seedlings of caoba, cedro, and other valuable tropical wood to plant on her property and to give away to reforestation projects of friends. I think my little seedlings will have a good home there :)

I have been interested recently in the work of several NGOs in promoting the use of solar ovens as a method of cooking to replace wood fires in ¨sun-rich¨ countries (which Honduras definitely is). It is one of my dreams/long-term goals to construct several working solar ovens in order to give demonstrations and workshops to folks whose families and communities would benefit from more sustainable methods of cooking. Hopefully with replanting and alternative cooking methods, we can all do our part to re-tree Honduras!