Dia Del Ninos

     Pinatas! Candy! Singing! Dancing! Food! What do all these things have in common?  Children's Day in Honduras! Children's day (Or Dia Del Niños) is celebrated every year in Honduras on September 10 and internationally on the 20th. It is a day specifically set aside to honor the children and partake in joyful festivities. As a volunteer for ProTECTOR it is also the perfect time for turtle education. When else do you get throngs of swarming children listening to your every beck and call? As this was a party and thus necessitated a piñata, we decided to make our piñata turtle shaped and talk about turtle ecology before the kids started tearing the pinata apart (Still unsure if pulverizing a model turtle is the best way of promoting their conservation? Hoping the people won't view this as burning an effigy or something). For the icing on the cake I got the dubious pleasure of donning a giant turtle costume complete with fuzzy shell, feet, and head. Needless to say I looked utterly ridiculous in the costume but it was totally worth the discomfort and embarrassment to see the looks on the kids' faces. After they got over the shock factor of a giant tortuga, they started smiling, laughing, and pointing. When I took the turtle head off, all fear was soon gone and lots of little hands started pulling at the shell or holding my hand. Pretty soon Noemi started talking about turtle ecology had the kids illustrate how a turtle buries its nest. Figuring if I was going to wear this ridiculous costume I might as well make a fool of myself, I joined the kids on the ground, swiping my gigantic gloves through the dirt and making generally ridiculous turtle-like (Or what I thought were turtle-like) motions. After explaining to the kids how the turtles laid their eggs which were then brought to the hatchery for safekeeping, Noemi brought out the turtle pinata. For the last several days Noemi and I  (But primarily Noemi as I have not a single artistic bone in my body) had been working on the pinata and it looked beautiful. We created the frame from wire, used flour and water to make the body, and glued paper máché along the outside to give it the proper color. A pair of googly eyes and a drawn on smile completed our turtle, and what a turtle it was! We attached the pinata to a rope, tossed the rope over a tree branch, found a stick, and began the piñating (Which is totally a word I just made up, but I don't really care). The kids went absolutely nuts over the pinata, and when I say nuts I don't simply mean mildly excited or slightly enthused I mean raving crazy. Kids were literally diving on top of each other to get the candy that gushed from the poor battered tortuga. It was in one sense rather hard to watch. These kids who rarely got enough to eat and often suffered from malnourishment and mistreatment were practically ravenous for the candy. The parents too eagerly eyed the candy that spilled from the pinata and urged their children onward to be the first to the prize. I was somewhat surprised that no one was injured from the experience. Despite the bitterness and violence so evident around me there was also much joy. I saw children's faces light up like I had never seen before, little feet dancing to the rhythm of life, little eyes gazing in wonder at my turtle suit. Needless to say it was a very good day.

(Pictures courtesy of Noemi and Taji)

 Me and the tortuga piñata

        

One of the niñas up to bat

 Lots of digging turtles

Me and some of the children

Christian the sea turtle and two beautiful niñas

  

El Muerte de Las Tortuginas

     Today I have but one sad tale to tell you. Today we (That is Noemi and I) went out to check on one of the turtle nests that was close to hatching. It was a beautiful day (As is almost every day in Honduras) with the sun shining overhead, the tide far out, and the magnificent frigate birds flying overhead. As we walked to Santiago's hatchery little did we know the tragedy in store for us. Upon arriving at the hatchery we dug up the dirt overlying the nest (Olive Ridleys bury their eggs in a 30-40 cm hole) and carefully removed a few of the eggs for inspection. Alas every egg we brought up was drowned! For the two previous nights it had rained quite heavily utterly soaking the loose ground in our nest and drowning the baby turtles within (Tortuginas). With heavy hearts we broke open a few of the eggs to see the damage. Embryonic fluids and water spilled from the eggs onto the sand.The poor infants were almost fully developed when their little lives were snatched away by the storm.The dead eyes of one little guy stared at me pleadingly; the look of those dead eyes will haunt we for some time.  None of the eighty two eggs in the nest (As far as know) survived. We went away today mourning the loss of our baby turtles and hoping that the other nests had not suffered a similar state.
     I put this story in my blog not merely to despair of the brevity of life or the looming proximity of death, but simply to related a sobering incident that will be with me for some time. I will eventually put up a picture when I figure out how to get them off my camera.

A smattering of pictures

     For those of you who are so visually inclined here is a collection of photos from my time in Honduras. I likely won't be posting a ton more pictures as I inadvertently destroyed my already malfunctioning camera by failing to remove it from my pocket when I entered the water. The video card, fortunately has been salvaged but my poor camera bought my sophomore (Or junior year, I can't really remember) has gone the way of the dodo. From now on any pictures I post here will either be from my phone (Terrible quality) or from someone else's camera. Anyway here are a few pictures in no particular order to liven up your day. Enjoy.

 Storm over the Bay of Fonseca

 The house where I stayed (And yes those are cows in the front lawn)

 Beautiful tropical flower favored by hummingbirds

 Beautiful bracts of a tropical flower

 People lining up for a medical group visiting Punta Raton

 Dolphin Sculptures in San Lorenzo

 Restaurant in San Lorenzo

 The colloquial iquanas

 Sunset with fishing boat

 A man and his bike in San Lorenzo

 Little girl in Punta Raton

 Sunset over La Isle de Tigre

 Magnificent Frigate Bird

 

Turtle swimming off to the mountain (And yes I realize the horizon isn't straight)

A man in the mud

     I have mentioned in my previous posts about the exquisite beauty of Honduras and its people, but have relayed only in passing some of the great pain present in this place. This post is a wake up call for anyone thinking that Honduras is a tropical getaway of palm trees, beautiful trees, and spotless beaches. Yes there is much beauty in this place and much to praise God for, but all that is good in Honduras is set against the backdrop of an exceptionally harsh and cruel world. My goal with this post is not to be despairing or pessimistic, which those of you know me know I could never be, but to to simply present from my own experience and limited knowledge, the plight of the Honduran people. I might also add that my primary purpose in this post is not to elicit guilty charity or forced empathy, which often lead to poor action and false hope, but to simply encourage my readers to see the cares of another people, loved and cherished by God.

     Honduran society is first and foremost one of profound inequality with a very few people on top holding most of the money and the vast majority living in abject poverty beneath them. Poverty as I use the term here is not simply an indication of monetary value. Poverty in Honduras is not the struggling college senior working desperately to pay off their college loans, or the young couple attempting to find a house. No, poverty in Honduras is the uneducated farmer working in the blazing sun everyday, struggling to get enough money to feed his family. It is the 5 year old boy playing barefoot in the cracked and trash ridden streets, stomach extended from malnutrition and body wracked with a prolonged fever; his name is Tamar and I have held him in my arms. Poverty here is the scores of aching people that will wait hours, even days, to see a doctor only to be turned away for lacking money to pay for surgery supplies. It is the mother of Alex the fisherman , beaten with a stick by her nephew and forced to go three hours by bus on a bumpy road to a hospital. It is the beggar by the gas station washing his mud-caked clothes in a puddle because he has nowhere else to go. He calls after me as I board the bus, pleading for a bite to eat or a bag of water. In Honduras poverty is every man. 

     I share these pictures and stories, hard as they are, to illustrate a point; the suffering of the people of Honduras is very real and woefully ignored for the most part by the modern world. Poverty in Honduras is not a geographical phenomena of large cities or suburbs, or a deplorable condition one falls into by debt or unwise economics. No, in Honduras poverty is the common station of life for most of the population. Every physical or economical problem in a society, as any good sociologist or ecologist will tell you,does not exist in a void, but is intrinsically linked to a plethora of associated problems whether societal, governmental, environmental, mental, etc. This is particularly true in the case of Honduras. The fiscal problems Hondurans have are not merely the result of a lack of money to be spent (Though that surely is an issue), but root much deeper in the very way the entire society functions. Like many third-world countries Honduras is rife with corruption, trickling all the way down from government authority skimming money of his employees paycheck to the farmer bribing a guard to allow him to sell drugs. Such gross misuse and abuse of money leads inevitably to imbalance in where the money is going (i.e. fat cats and skinny mice) and how it is being used. Projects that would take a few months in a more stable society, the U.S. for example, may take years in Honduras. Simple infrastructure repair work is often left undone do to lack of funds or corruption along the lines. This lack of action or work in turn leads to greater apathy on the part of the people and less motivation to do work. In this atmosphere of lethargy and inability other problems arise. Depression is a major issue in Honduras followed by massive drug use and homicide levels. Only three years ago a man was murdered at Punta Raótn by a drunkard. The problems here are very livid and real. Every night when I go out to search for turtles I see underage boys smoking and drinking on the beach. Theirs' is a life of hardship. When they can't get a job or go to school, and see little promise for their future, can I really blame them for attempting to drown their sorrows in drugs and liquor?
     Another problem exacerbated by the corruption mentioned above and lack of working infrastructure is the sheer amount of trash littering their country. Note that this problem is not unique to Honduras but a growing concern for much of the modern world, even developed countries like the U.S.A. (No matter how hard we try to hide it behind fences or at sea). Everywhere you walk in Honduras you will find plastic. Water bottles, gas tanks, tubs, containers, chip bags, toothbrushes, shoes, anything. As garbage disposal and recycling are expensive and require substantial initial cost and continued cost they are virtually nonexistent in rural Honduras. Even in cities that do have a garbage disposal system recycling is at best rudimentary, consisting of a boy walking behind the truck and removing any plastic coke bottles as they throw them in the bed, and at worst nonexistent. For the majority of Honduras the primary method of trash removal is burning. Virtually every night all across Honduras you can smell smoke the delightful smell of burning plastic and toxic chemicals fill the sky with their aroma. I cannot simply blame the people here for their trash problem, for it is not solely their fault nor do they have any reliable way of addressing the issues. Much of the trash they feed to their fires has English scrawled across the front and large recycling symbols. The irony could not be more poignant. We, the "noble foreigners", in our attempt to aid the poor of Honduras, are polluting the very air they breathe with our plastics and their culture with our rampart materialism. Every Honduran I have met has a love for all things American. The things we wear, the color of our skin, the food we eat, and above all the money we so desperately cling to. Much of the cheap merchandise we throw away will inevitably end up the treasured possession of a Honduran, and eventually a discarded and forgot piece of trash on the beach.
     Fast food restaurants, considered the bottom of the totem pole in the U.S.A, are considered excellent cuisine in Honduras. Ornate landscaping surrounds the fully air conditioned, pristine, and shining Wendy's in Tegucigalpa, in sharp contrast to the surrounding slums choking in toxic air. Niño's and niñas wait in eager expectation for the special day that they get to have a junior bacon cheeseburger at Burger King. Little do they realize that just down the road a local street vendor is cooking food fit for a king; native Honduran food, delicious, healthy and direct from the environment that provides it. I will not spend any more time remarking on the problems that the U.S. and the rest of the modern world have inflected on this poor country. Suffice to say, we have done many good things to support the people of Honduras (i.e. charity, money, development programs) but in our attempts of kindness have also brought a wealth of misery on these poor people.
     The people of Honduras suffer, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, a plethora of problems and troubles springing from profound economic inequality and societal corruption at ever level. My brief and somewhat biased depiction of these problems, is by no means comprehensive and is sure to contain some errors of which I apologize most profusely. My goal here, to reiterate, is not to judge the Honduran people or anyone else, but to simply explain the plight of the Honduran people as I see it. If I can can see a broken man in the streets washing himself in the mud and not be moved with sorrow and compassion, what kind of Christian am I? Did not Christ die for people such as these?

A typical Honduran House