Blogging on Books

So you are off on an international adventure, off to spend some time in the developing world. You will likely find that you have more time on your hands than you expected. Of course, you should spend as much time as possible getting to know the community in which you are living, but on those rainy days when you can’t leave the house or just need a break from all the stress of your own “otherness” and want to read something in the language of home, it’s good to have some books around to read.

I’m not a fan of reading stories set in places like those I’ve travelled to get away from. I’m a big fan of using books to expand my consciousness rather than escape from it. And, no, exotic romance novels set in historical or far away locales don’t count (not because the writers weren’t accurate in their research, but because the use of the romance genre plot undoes the whole idea of breaking out of mental limitations and social roles.) Now, of course there are a number of non-fiction volumes one can read on development, education, policy, travel, etc. And I will eventually cover some of my biggest recommendations of such volumes, but first I want to start a list I’d like to call “Narratives for the Non-Resident,” namely novels.

Fiction? But that just screams escapism, doesn’t it? As a matter of fact, it doesn’t have to, and it can be a great way to both relax and at the same time open up your mind and your experience to new perceptions. [And I am assuming that this is why most people leave their comfortable first world existences to experience life in developing nations. If you are going in order to place your perspectives upon the people there…well, I doubt you are reading my blog, anyway, but if you are, I beg you to reconsider your motives.]

Now, of course your best bet is to pick up some narratives from the region or nation to which you are travelling. I am going to put most biographies with fiction as well, not because they are untrue but because they fall into the same narrative mode of story-telling in which the reader can lose themselves (if the book is well written, of course.) So, for example, anyone travelling to Honduras should read Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, which is the story of one campesino woman, Elvia Alvarado, as told to and translated by Medea Benjamin. Going to Guatemala? I, Rigoberta Menchu, now a contested classic of autobiography, should definitely be on your list. When I travelled in Chile, I found that Isabella Allende’s The House of the Spirits really helped me identify with Chilean culture and history.













But there are many books that make excellent reading abroad in any developing locale (or just to read and reflect on such travel.) I’ll start the list in just a moment but first a quick note about what to do with books once you are done reading them. If you are still abroad, especially if you are in a non-English speaking nation, ask around to find out if a hotel, hostel, restaurant, volunteer organization, tourism board, or other group has a foreign language book exchange. You can usually find one somewhere in a large town or city, and you will really enrich another person’s travels by sharing your literary gold with them!

So, with no further adieu…(drumroll, please)…I present the debut of:

Novels & Narratives for the Non-Resident

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The story of the daughters and wife of a Baptist preacher who leave the US for a mission in the Congo is the 1960s. They encounter a world unlike any they have ever known, filled with challenges, sorrows, and joys they’d never expected. I read this novel while in Honduras and it was an excellent companion, like having a friend with whom I could discuss the difficulties and wonders that one experiences working and living in the developing world.



The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy
For me, this novel opened up a new perspective on the colonization of histories, the enriching and maddening realities of diversity, and the importance of considering children’s perspectives as rich and nuanced realities. Roy writes beautifully of a well-to-do Indian family straddling their own colonized realities. Written from the perspective of fraternal twins as they face the many experiences life can bring and must decide what to accept and how to move past the pain of cultural shames and ambiguities.


The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Buck’s story of life in a small Chinese village is a classic, a well-written and engaging story that reminds us how universal the human experience really is. For a beautiful discussion of the Chinese perspective on this novel, go to
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125682489.




White Teeth by Zadie Smith
This story is set in England (and I read it while living in London) but it is a wonderful, humorous and humble account of two cross-cultural families trying to make their marginalized identities work while living in the metropole of London. The struggles and foibles of both the first-generation and second-generation characters had me in stitches at the same time that I was thinking about and laughing at my own self as a foreigner abroad.



Did I miss something?
Obviously this is a short list, just the beginning of a returning feature, I hope. If there is a biography or novel you think should be added to this list, please leave a comment below for others to see. Make sure you give the book’s title and author and a brief description of the story line and why it fits with the theme of “reading to expand” rather than “reading to escape.”

Maintaining Your Inner Activist

I have meant to write on this subject for quite a while. It is a subject that comes up regularly when I am speaking with someone not in the international development field. How can you keep your awareness of world realities alive when buffeted by and enveloped in the daily life of a wealthy, technologically-advanced nation?

You tend to forget. We all do. Maybe you travelled abroad or travelled domestically or even just read something that awakened in you an awareness of an issue about which you had deep feelings and intentions to help. Maybe someone tells you about a charity or social cause and you may look into it once or give a couple of donations, but then a week of the daily grind pushes it from your mind.

I won’t say don’t feel bad, because you need to feel a little bad about it. Instead, don’t feel too bad. What you need to feel is just bad enough. Just enough to cause you to make a positive change and start making room for the cause or issue or issues you care about. You need to feel just bad enough to motivate you.

Now I know the first thing you’ll say. It’s what I hear in those conversations I find myself having all the time. You think you have no time. I assure you that you do. Here are a few things you can do the keep current on and active in your favorite causes:

1. Use the internet. You can set up a Google News page with headings for your particular interests. My Google News page has sections for World News, US News, DC News, Honduras, Cuba, Venezuela, Education, and Brain Science, just to name a few. I can scan the top headlines and see the first couple lines of a story. I may not get to spend time reading articles in depth, but events are far less likely to occur completely unbeknownst to me. The same thing is possible with a Google Reader, letting you see the most recent postings to your favorite blogs and online periodicals.
Bookmark a few websites that you can look at while waiting for a large file to download or for a document to print. Especially useful are the news pages on websites for your favorite activist organizations or websites for the networks of those interested in a particular cause.
Finally, sign up for email newsletters. Receiving a newsletter once a month or once a week really isn’t such a big deal, right, and they can be chalk full of unexpected informational tidbits and opportunities to become involved in a cause close to your heart.

2. Go old school, too. Read print materials. Subscribe to a magazine or newletter that focuses on the issue you want to be involved in. Read books on the subject. Especially great are coffee table books that will become conversation pieces with visitors so that you can help spread the word about your cause. My favorite activist print material, besides the newsletter, is the calendar. You look at it every day. You keep your cause in your mind that way. And you usually make a small donation in order to get it.

3. Make it a social experience. Find group volunteering or informational activities that you can do with friends and family. Or take part in such activities on your own to make new friends with whom you share this particular cause. Activism means engaging with your community, so you can’t just stay in and read about it. Make sure you get out there and do, even if just once every six months. Getting out of your own head and opinions so that you are listening and witnessing the lived realities of a cause keep it present in your life.

4. Use your particular talents and skills. Do what you do well, do it for free, and do it to advance the cause about which you care. This might be the ability to write grants, bake bread, to file papers, to babysit children, to construct flower beds, or to hold the hand of someone who is struggling. It doesn’t matter. Every little bit helps. In the end, no one effort is more important or valuable than any other.

5. Donate. Don’t deny the fact that your money can go a long way. You don’t have to give a lot, just what you are capable of. $5 $50 $500 It is up to us all to do what we can. You are more than your bank account, so prove it by giving up a little of it to help someone in need.

6. Talk! Tell people what you are interested in and working on and how they can help. Listen and ask questions. Start conversations about your cause. Keep it present for more than just yourself. We often process our knowledge and expand upon it by talking about it with others, especially those we might at first meeting think would have no interest in our subject. Those are often the people who can bring the most insight and the most chance for you to make your own insights, all at the same time that you are spreading the word about your particular cause!

The point I’m really trying to make here is to not give up, to not say, “We’re all just cogs in the wheel anyway.” We don’t have to be. And breaking out of that habit isn’t a matter of grand gestures or overwhelming change. Do what you can and don’t berate yourself that it isn’t enough, because that just shuts you off from the good that you do. Ask yourself if you are really doing all that you can, and if the answer is no, then think about some ways you could do more. Hopefully some of the ideas I presented here will be helpful.

Jungle Schooling

I changed the name of this blog a while back. I hadn’t thought about it really. It was an act of instinct. I was no longer writing from the perspective of a volunteer abroad, so “Diario de una Voluntaria” no longer seemed apt.

But today I realized that I did not pick the new title out of the air, or if I did so, it was a lucky pick for I am getting a “Jungle Schooling” of sorts. My senses and intellectual perceptions are beginning to sense past the projected structures we take for granted, allowing me to examine the foundations on which those structures are built.

I can hear the fairly conservative voices of my upbringing whispering “radical” as if it was a dirty word, but I urge readers to shrug off the qualitative label factory that has been installed in our brains. Think as you read this blog, think as you read my sources for yourself, and most importantly think for yourself. And try to find the intellectual freedom to think of things in themselves.

I hope that you will find that we are all “radical” in our own vibrant ways, for if I had to choose be3tween living in a manicured garden or a slightly wild meadow, I would have to choose the meadow hands down. It might be a bit chaotic, yes, but knowing what is going to bloom where would be utterly boring and, in fact, stifling. Even Sir Issac Newton acknowledged nature’s tendency toward entropy.

In the future…
I do not so much have concrete plans for this space, but I do hope some regular features will soon begin to take shape. These will hopefully include return reflections to my sojourns abroad and reading suggestions (novels as well as non-fiction) for those traveling, working, or just thinking in development contexts.

I cannot promise how often I will post. I prefer to let the chaos of inspiration decide. That said, it will be more regular than in the past. I am on a journey of discovery, and I want to send postcards of my travels.

To whom am I speaking?
I say here, now, clearly, that I do not intend to preach but to engage in a discussion, or at least my side thereof (the rest is up to you, readers.) I do not want only readers and comments that agree with me (but devil’s advocates, please keep in constructive!) I want to help us all, including myself, think more than we have about things I happen to think are worth thinking about.

Cuba #3, Los Cubanos

It has been impossible to post since we left for the provinces on Tuesday, and we have been so busy and so consumed with the interchange of ideas and philosophies that there has been little time to write and reflect. I expect to be slowly processing this trip for some time and will write about my experiences as the opportunity arises, even after I get back to the States on Saturday night.

I do not want to leave. I often feel this way about returning home but this time it is especially strong. I have been presented with so much to think about and to take in and it seems unjust and incongruous that I will be processing much of it outside of its context. I have learned here in Cuba that context is vital to the truth of everything.

That is not to say that truth is relative, only that each truth can be lived differently by different people without sacrificing the fidelity to that truth. Freedom, what it means to be liberated and free, is one that is perhaps most apt to the Cuba/U.S. dichotomy. The Cubans I have met openly acknowledge many of the difficulties that they face and many of the contradictions of their society, but they embrace these not as handicaps but as challenges. I have never witnessed people so ready and willing and capable of working together for a common goal. My new friends are joyous and engaged in life.

I do not say this wearing rose colored glasses. Nor do the Cubans portray themselves through an idealized light. In fact, this is the only place I have ever been in Latin America, maybe anywhere in the world, where I have witnessed profound humility and honesty rather than a strong dose of hubris and bravado. The system here is not perfect, but they seem dedicated to working towards a perfection bit by bit as best they know how. I am inspired by much of what I have seen and although I readily acknowledge that it would not be applicable to the United States, that does not negate its ability to be applicable to my own self.

One Cuban professor who participated in this conference worded it so well..."We Cubans are a people who love peace...We are living as we have chosen...We do not have more than we need. What we do have we are willing to share with the world."

As I said today in a presentation to my fellow conference participants, one of the greatest things I take away from this experience is a deeper understanding, an understanding as a result of actively doing, of my own ability to see and live beyond the black and white paradigms we establish in our minds when faced with difference. Establishing and truly embracing the context of any event or idea does not make it less applicable but rather encourages appropriate and effective applications in other contexts. Ultimately, as a result of this conference, I think I have connected with a basic human love for learning and for engaging in a social learning process, and I have done so in a context unlike any other I could have found.

And here I have also found colleagues with whom I expect to work again in the future, among both the U.S. and the Cuban delegations. I have found other students, scholars, and policy makers who are following the same life of questions as I am, who readily share their research and finding with me, and who encourage my interests and my identity as an individual in a diverse world.

No, I do not want to leave, at least not yet, but now I know that I will most certainly return.

Cuba #2 La Habana, First Impressions

I am back in Latin America, but it is so different, too. It feels so natural to be here, and yet not at the same time. I can not integrate into daily life here, and there are certain parts of reality that I can only glimpse.

The jet took off from Miami. About a half hour late. That didn't bother me; I already felt like I was in Latin America. Time had started to become ephemeral again. I forgot how much I missed that. And then it dawned on me...the jet is off the ground, it's really off the ground, and this is really happening!

Walking through Old Havana isn't like stepping back in time. Realities are still present. The old 1950s cars drive past the old Soviet cars driving past the newer buses from China. I passed by the Hotel Ambos Mundos where Hemingway so often stayed. The bar there was playing a latin pop song I recognized.

As we flew over the brief but expansive waters of the Florida Strait, I kept thinking I was seeing a man in a skiff being dragged by a marlin, but just when I thought I'd seen them, they would disappear into the horizon again. Ironic, huh?

I stopped to play ball in the street with a few boys. I hitched a ride in the side car of an old motorcycle. I saw castle walls that have stood for centuries and old men and women stooped with age and hard work.

And then we were over the island's coast and I was looking down at agricultural fields. Fields were laid out in orderly, right-angled plots of land. What appeared to be a hay harvest had taken place in several of those plots, but I could see no sign of a single important crop. Here and there a few trash or brush piles were burning, but everything seemed well laid out and orderly.

I sense immense differences here from my experiences in Honduras. People of all colors mingle. A man takes a break from fishing off the seawall to write something down. The few time I am asked for money, it is done with a certain grace. I glimpse well cared for homes inside the run-down exteriors. I watch parents playing and laughing with their children.

When the airplane's wheels touched down my heart skipped a beat. I nursed my cough all the way through immigration and into backage claim with constant cough drops. The nurse in a classic, white uniform took my flu symptom checklist (which I had dutifully marked “no” to every symptom” and must have confused my strained look for fear rather than a strained resistance to a deeply needed coughing fit. She smiled warmly at me and said, “Pase, amor.” I forgot how much I love being called Amor by old ladies. I waited for my bag to come out on the conveyor. They must have checked it thoroughly but there was no X on the tag, so customs lets me right through. At the airport to greet us was not only transportation directly to our hotel but a small contingent of some of the highest representatives of the Cuban Teacher's Association, the group hosting us. They welcomed us so warmly and were so genuinely glad to have us there.

They have bookstores here...whole stores devoted to nothing but the sail of books! I always miss bookstores when I am in Honduras. I found an original copy of the Great Campaign for Literacy's manual for teachers and a book on Che Guevara's thoughts on pedagogy. I've never seen some of the photos of Che I see everywhere. He's incredibly handsome. I wonder how many young Cuban girls secretly dream of Che. Papa Smurf looked good too. No wonder the Revolution succeeded.

I've met the US and most of the Cuban participants. We met this morning to register and go over the schedule. Our Cuban coordinators have gone to great strides to involve as many of the top thinkers in the fields of our individual interests. Tomorrow morning I will be visiting the Institute for Pedagogical Research and in the afternoon we are all going to visit the Medical College.

Things are clean but nothing is fancy. In most places the paint is chipping but the basic structure seems sound. Just from the graffiti I can see that art is taught in the schools. Kids ride down the blocks long Paseo de Marti on hand-crafted scooters and two sisters share a pair of skates, each wearing just one. It strikes me that, at least for some, the joi de vive isn't “in spite” of the Revolution but is part of it, perhaps. No one's life is markedly better than that of anyone else. No one is seems to be suffering so that the life of someone else can be unjustly easy. The people I see are literate, articulate, and in decent health.

There are two worlds here and I can feel it when I pass by Cubans on the street. Two realities that slide past each other silently and push tentatively back against each other, too. I use the Convertible Pesos or “kooks,” which are roughly valued at 1 to 1 against the US dollar, but Cubans use Moneda Nacional, the non-convertible pesos, which value at something more like 20 to 1. My dinner tonight cost 20 “kooks.” That is what most Cubans make in a month.

Meals are beautiful but limited. Butter and hard cheese are sliced thinly and served frugally. One nurse drives an illegal taxi to make ends meet. But people seem proud of who they are, rather than ashamed of what they are not. There is meaning to say, “Soy cubano,” that I have never heard in the phrase “Soy hondureno.” Cubano means flamenco dancing and breathtaking art and salsa music and baseball prowess and beautiful poetry and scientific research standards.

The propaganda posters really don't feel so strange to me. They really feel no different from the advertisements that blanket our senses in the U.S., and I respect their forthright honesty, at least in comparison to the ads, which I frankly do not miss.

Cuba #1 - Fatwas from Camp MIA

Dong dong. The. current. local. time. is. twelve. o'clock. am.

I can't decide whether the 15 minute reminders of earth's rotation are making time go faster or slower here in Camp MIA.




Camp MIA was originally the the row of chairs that Tiesha, my equally frugal classmate who also refuses to pay for a hotel room, and I had commandeered in Concourse G of the Miami International Airport. With a blanket kindly but unknowingly donated by American Airlines, I formed a bit of a bed for myself with my feet propped up on the seat of a chair and my head resting on a lumpily comfortable carry-on bag, I was good to go for at least the first portion of my FIFTEEN hour layover.

Yes. 15. Hours. (said in the always chipper voice of the time lady). That is what happens when one is expected to start checking in at 8am for a 1pm flight. A one hour flight across a fairly small strip of water takes 5 hours to check-in apparently. I'll let you know more about that tomorrow.

After an hour and a trip to the far away ladies' room, I discovered an even better location for Camp MIA, so Tiesha and I went M*A*S*H (Mobile Articulate Smart Hotties.) We now have upholstered benches upon which to lounge.




I am enjoying the airport's nightlife. We are hardly the only people here for the evening. Airport staff, security, a number of other travelers. The old dude who drives the mini-zamboni back and forth to polish the floor taps out a great rhythm to go along the jazzy elevator music that intersperses the many safety reminders and “Nombre apellido, venga a un telefono blanco de cortesia, por favor.” I have seen a couple of stylish camoflauge outfits (but distinctly not military camo...think ooh-I-wish-I-was-as-tough-as-this-stylish-black-and-white-camo-outfit-makes-me-look styles.) Dunkin Donuts is open 24 hours and they start putting out fresh donuts at 4am. Currency exchange opens at 5am. TerminalDR (yes there is a doctor's office in the terminal) opens at 7am. I've found the free wireless network and nearby outlets to charge my electronics. Now that I'm not trying to relax on the cold floor, Camp MIA is darn good for the price of NADA.

I am enjoying where my mind wanders to at these late, sinus-congested hours. Nothing is sacred, I'm afraid. I might start telling people I have a frontal lobe disorder that has damaged my ability to inhibit saying my thoughts aloud. It's pretty much at that point.

As I've indicated, I'm still getting over my head cold from earlier this week. It is on the exceedingly gross “evacuation” stage. Several people have made an exceedingly wide berth of me when I've been coughing. Given that swine flu jokes are definitely off limits (don't want to jinx myself...a news article said that Cuban immigration was quarantining people with swine flu symptoms) I've settled for drug resistant TB jokes instead.

Then there's the actually Cuba related thoughts. My mp3 player has provided some good fuel for my cerebrum. “Children of the Revolution” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack takes on new meaning. And when the Muppets song “Manamana” comes on I like to imagine that it is Fidel and Jose Marti singing back up with Che (in his signature beret) being the beat-nick dude in the middle who wants to improvise on the song.

The current fatwas coming from Camp MIA are:
- “Al Queda is ruining my life.” --Tiesha (This is a long story having to do with how the airport is not as convenient as the bus terminal in an old movie where Madonna went to jail.)
- Fidel's code name for the rest of this trip will be Papa Smurf, or PS. --Kate
- 4am donuts will be written off as educational expenses on this years taxes, and calories from tax write offs don't count. --Kate

Off to a benadryl induced slumber now.

Dong dong. The. current. local. time. is. one. fifteen. am.

Me 'n Che, man! We're tight!

That's right! I've been granted permission by the US government to do research in Cuba! So, for eight days, over the week of the arguably capitalist holiday of Thanksgiving, I will be observing and researching teaching practices in one of the last Marxist strongholds. It's been an iffy process at times, getting all the documents put through, but its all finally approved and tickets have been purchased.

My research is going to center around how Cuban teachers choose to teach students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Cuba has the highest achieving primary level students in Latin America, and I want to know more about why this is when they have faced so many material disadvantages.

I've chosen to travel through Miami, FL, even though I could have gone through somewhere even warmer (like Cancun, Mexico) but I want to document what it is like to go through the US Customs and Border Control directly before and after being in our estranged neighbor nation.

I'm busy researching socialism, socialist education, children's cognitive development, compensatory teaching methods, etc. A big issue will be how to define disadvantage...material, health, intellectual, cultural, lingual, nutritional, etc. etc. Hopefully this research will be able to be combined with research in Honduras (and maybe Brazil?) and DC Public Schools to become my Masters thesis.


I promise to keep you all apprised and to post pictures and impressions of a land so many North Americans aren't allowed to visit.

Keepin’ on keepin’ on…

Due to popular demand (about 3 people), I will be continuing to write here at “Diario de una Voluntaria” while I am in graduate school. It makes sense really, given that my work in International Education, founded experientially in my work in Honduras, is still going on, at least on an intellectual level.

Honduras, Jungle School, and HHK continue to be an enormous part of my everyday life. Keeping in touch with volunteers, sending out appeals for donations, and even the occasional call from one of the families in La Herradura. Even here is DC, so far from the jungle, I feel connected to the community in a very strong way. And it is essential, I think, to have this anchor in a locale while studying themes and topics on the macro level. When I feel like I am swimming in a mire of confusing ideas, I can return to my mental home and refresh my perspective.

People like to say that the world is getting smaller, but I challenge that. I fear the idea leaves the world too susceptible to the spread of monocultures. It makes crossing cultural boundaries sound like an easy thing to do, as if it just takes a short airplane flight or a tour of Google News. And then, poof, you are a world citizen. I have learned, much to my own chagrin, that the process is not so easy. I still fall far short of the goal. The danger in feeling that another culture is not distant is that you fail see it’s intricacies and differences, not to mention the ensuing assumption that the people of the other culture should be able to understand you just as easily. No, culturally the world isn’t small at all, nor would we want it to be. Instead, I challenge the human being to grow bigger. It is time for us to evolve and develop the ability to exist on both the local and global levels.

I work in education and I work in development. We take these words for granted but they are loaded and complex. These days, I am taking the time to look at just want they mean and for whom they mean it. Education is learning. But that isn’t enough. Each individual person does that naturally and often without outside direction. If it is the direction of learning in a systematic way then I start to wonder about the goals of the education and whose goals they are, and why they choose a particular system of instruction and organization of the ideas taught.

Development is harder to wrap my mind around. I like the idea that it is the unfolding of potential (not my own idea but that of scholars Fagerlind and Saha.) But when it is something we are actively involved in, it is the direction of potential in a systemic way. Who is directing the process? Does each person get to choose how to develop their own potential? There is no one system that would work for everyone’s potential, so do some people’s potentials get damaged or quashed in the process of developing everyone else’s potentials? What happens to those who are quashed? If they aren’t able to develop, then maybe the process of Development isn’t really taking place, is it?

Education is involved in Development then if it is the systematic direction of learning in order to unfold the potentials of people. And I am left with a great many questions…Whose potential is developed and whose is either damaged or ignored?...What constitutes developed potentials and who gets to set this goal?...What is the reward for the successful people? And what of the failures?
As always more questions than answers, more of a landscape with relationships between ideas than hard knowledge or cardinal directions on an intellectual map…so I just keep on keepin’ on…

The Slingshot Effect

I am packed and ready to go. As per Honduran style, my arrangements to spend the night in San Pedro Sula fell through at the last minute, but being prepared for the (inevitable) eventualities is part of living here. So instead, I have my ticket for the butt-crack-of-dawn bus that will get me to the airport in time for my noon departure. All is settled.

Except my mind. Or my heart. Upon leaving last time, I could see the differences I had made. I had contributed to my kids’ intellects and had found some paths for resolving a few day to day issues in their lives. After 4 months here I felt at home and full of purpose.

The past five weeks have not been the same. We covered one unit of math in my class and when it came time to take the test most of the children failed rather miserably. Five weeks wasn’t enough time for them to intake subtraction with borrowing (2nd grade) or basic multiplication (3rd grade.) Faced with their life obstacles both physical (living far way, being hungry or sick) and mental (low self esteem, poor motivation, and inadequate self-discipline or parental support,) the basics continue to elude them. A child might have a good day, but for the most in need of educational support they are few and far between.

I am not built to be a band-aid. It simply isn’t enough for me. I cannot say with comfort that I did what I could. That is the bandaid I have to put over my own heart, knowing that I will be back, and that I am returning to States to get the education I need to come back and make a real difference. Some may be able to come for a month or two and leave feeling like they have done enough, and that is okay. But I am not one of them.

The time has proved very useful, and my influence has been positive for many other here, I know. For the development workers who are always here, who are faced with the endless stream of problems and tears, we who are here for short times can bring great energy and renewal with us. We bring fresh eyes and minds to the problems. We bring the patience and hope that have begun to dwindle in the face of daily difficulties.

I did help to collect, organize, and compile growth and nutrition data on almost 600 children from the Cuenca Cangrejal for Dr. Black’s malnutrition study. A few children are significantly more advanced in their Spanish, Math, Health and English abilities after my time here. Most interesting was the observation I made that in all my conversations with Hondurans about the development of their own country, they almost unanimously (but independently of each other) described their culture as selfish and unconcerned with helping others. I have been able to network with a number of other people in the world of volunteering and development, as well as continue to uphold the friendships I began over the winter and spring when I was here before. And being here during the “coup” has brought me truly first-hand knowledge of just how little we can understand the world through the pinhole cameras of the mass media. I know this was not a waste of time.

As usual, I am left with more questions than answers, more anecdotes than measurements, and more philosophy than faith.

I find my mind going towards questions of the efficacy of foreign volunteers in the education field. Who are we? Why do we come here? What backgrounds do we bring with us? What impact do we have on the children and their community? Do we really help? If so, how so? What do we do that is harmful? What styles of volunteer programs work best? What kind of training do we need to be most effective? Perhaps there is a Master’s thesis in there somewhere…

As always, my mind and heart are open, looking for the path that is for me. It is here somewhere, the special thing that I can do to make the most good out of my energies and abilities…

And for now I will continue to research and investigate and learn. How do you motivate children to learn? Especially when the family cannot motivate them? How do you awaken that part of the soul in them that wants to engage and face their challenges and responsibilities? How do you help them grow to be giving, caring, responsible adults that can make a positive change in their self-described selfish, self-destructive, corrupt culture?

WHERE THE CHICKENS ROOST IN TREES AND THE STARS COME DOWN TO DANCE AT NIGHT

I spent a lovely evening and morning with one of the families from the Jungle School this past Friday. And although I have a cold and a case of laryngitis as souvenirs, I am immensely glad I went.

The Castro family has a finca, what we would call a small ranch, high in the mountains. It is a two hour walk to reach the nearest road that is passable by car. There are six children (3 boys and 3 girls, ages 15 to 1), seven cows (including the bulls and the newest calf), 3 sheep (including the newest lamb), 2 burros, 3 dogs, and the usual uncountable population of chickens.


They are growing a little corn right now, mostly for feed I think, and right behind the house are a number of fruit trees, including recognizable things like coffee and oranges as well as distinctly Central American fruits like wild apples, patronas, and nances.

The house is very simple, with a pounded dirt floor and wooden walls. The main room is partitioned into two bedrooms, one with two double beds and a hammock and the other with one double bed and one single bed. Luz, the oldest, kindly gave up her bed for me and crawled in with her sisters for the night in the other room. It seems that Jose, the father, and Fermin, the baby, vie for rights to the hammock, as it is the preferred sleeping spot for both. (Many babies here sleep in small “baby hammocks” in which they can be gently rocked to sleep.) There are shelves on which to store clothes (mostly in bags and boxes to keep out critters.) The windows and doors all have tight shutters to keep out the rain and cold night air.

The kitchen is attached, with a traditional wood stove and oven, shelves for storage, a few handmade stools, a small table, and a sink made from a piece of flat metal installed at an angle and with a hole for drainage. The family pipes in water from up the next mountain, another 15 minute walk away, but it is always fresh and abundant. There is an outdoor shower and an outhouse with a rather comfortable bench seat (no splinters in my bum!)


Only at night are the doors and windows all shut, so during the day there are regular visitors in the house…chickens and dogs mostly, but one burro was quite determined to join us for breakfast s well. He finally relented to go outside but only after taking a piece of cardboard that was leaning against the wall for a snack!


As the sun goes down, things do get dark, but the family has a couple of wind-up flashlights as well as a car battery they use to watch a small television. The flashlights explain a lot about why this family in particular are such good students…they can do their homework and read for pleasure after dark! Jose is quite taken with the idea of exhausting the kids by putting them to work on a bicycle driven generator…apparently I am not the first visitor to suggest such an idea. I got the kids (and I think the parents too) interested in a Spanish novel I am reading at the moment, which I read aloud while Luz (apt name at this moment) kept the flashlight wound up.


I looked out my window as night was falling and saw a most strange sight…there was a chicken in the tree! This was not something I had ever seen before. But, no, these are not special chickens that can fly or climb…they have a tree trunk leaned up into the branches which they climb to take refuge in their tree/chicken coop. The kids took me to the top of the mountain after dark so that I could see Ceiba and the sea in the distance. In addition, we got to watch a huge thunderstorm building over the ocean, which was quite spectacular to watch. And where it was so dark that you couldn’t see where the sky stopped and the tree line began, the fire flies made me think the stars were coming down to dance. During the day you can see Ceiba in the distance on one side and nothing but tree covered mountains on the other.

It may seem so simple and perhaps lacking in some ways, but I also witnessed a life rich in relationships, compassion, and self-knowledge. I cannot say that it struck me as any harder or easier than any life I’ve witnessed in more developed nations. Luz, her mom Lorena, and I passed the afternoon and most of the evening, learning to make pizza from scratch in their clay oven. The pizza recipe was new for them; the cooking apparatus was new for me. For my last day this Friday, Luz and Lorena are going to help me teach the other moms the recipe and make pizza for all of the kids for lunch! Jose asked me many questions about the US and was quite surprised when I said that I preferred life here in Honduras, where I am not constantly bombarded with the need to have more and achieve more for the sake of proving something to someone else. Luz wanted to know what kids are like in North America (she is being sponsored to study in a Canadian high school next year,) and I said that they were pretty much the same as here. The only negatives I could think of were that they are perhaps at times a little more selfish and sometimes surprisingly lacking in knowledge of what the rest of the world is like despite access to education and media.

As I said before, Luz is preparing to study in Canada after she graduates the sixth grade here in November. She is bright and kind and an all around amazing young woman. We have been reviewing some of the more difficult parts of English grammar together and also talking a bit about some of the cultural differences she’ll likely encounter. She is so excited, and rather scared (but refuses to admit it even to herself…she’s very emotionally strong!) I’ve promised to send her a pair of my flannel pajamas and my full length down coat, because her biggest fear is of the cold winter.

She asked me how long the trip was to Canada, and I said I didn’t know but that I live a little more than half way to Toronto and it takes me six hours to get home, plus whatever time I have between flights. (Her eyes got big.) How long would it take to drive, she asked. I said that with stops at night I figured it would take a little over a week, given that one has to get out of Honduras, through Guatemala and Mexico and the US. (Her eyes got even bigger.) I tried to explain that just in Texas, the state that I am from, to drive from the Mexican border to Oklahoma would be pretty much the whole day of daylight. She said she’d never imagined the whole world was that big. I laughed and hugged her and said, Luz, your world is going to get a whole lot bigger than you can probably imagine. I know mine sure did when I came to Honduras.