a dose of jibber jabber

I thought it might be time to talk about the level of development in Siguatepeque. I certainly do not live in the United States of America, but it is still 2008 everywhere and global development is occurring. I am no development professional and I also have not lived here all that long nor have I had the proper time or language abilities to delve into the issues involved with development here in Siguatepeque. But my eyes are open and I have extended knowledge of one other developing country and one very developed country to compare with.
Let me set my scene. I am sitting on my twin sized bed typing on a Toshiba Satellite laptop provided to the teachers by the school I am working for. Overhead is the roof, of course, which is tin on top and a layer of particle board or something inside. There is a gecko that lives in the layers of the roof and I can hear his chirp from time to time. The walls of my 5 month old room are smeared with a thin layer of crappy orange paint and there are already cracks in the plaster/cement of the walls. I am snacking on Snyder pretzels I bought at the store for $2.50 and some fancy mustard sent in a package from my dear friend Deirdre. A huge bag of freshly laundered clothes (washed and dried) sits at my side waiting for my attention.
Should I walk outside of my housing compound I would be greeted by the guards of the enormous mansion across the street (perhaps the might be power washing the cobblestones in front of their home) Or maybe by Georgette, the chicken that escapes from the coop next door all too frequently. Or maybe I would see a man heading a cart of oxen carrying dirt for sale. If I walk down the dirt road in less than a block I will be at the farm. The farm is the size of a normal backyard in the states but with just as many head of cattle, chickens and pigs as a large farm in Iowa. There I would see those hideous ducks, 1,000 little baby chicks, a handful of pigs and I might have to wait for a minute as the cattle leave or arrive from the pasture.
Let me describe this. The streets of Barrio Suyapita are often full of cows at dawn and dusk. At dawn we are leaving Siguatepeque for school and frequently we are stopped momentarily by a fleet of cows just walking down the road as if the road was made for them (which maybe it was…..). At dusk, I am not in the safety (ha) of the Yellow School Bus and there have been a handful of times that I have almost been trampled by these fleets. You might be asking yourself….if there are so many cows wandering around….there must be cowboys! And there are! They are skilled horsemen or little boys slapping the cows in the ass as they escort them to their final destination.
Modes of transportation are varied in Siguatepeque. It is just fine if you walk places (though the dust from the road might cause severe asthma later in life), or you can ride your bike, or your horse, or your friend’s bike while you carry your baby and the baby steers and your friend pedals. If you are a combination of patient, lazy and/or poor you can take the Colonial Mata bus which passes at its leisure for 25 cents. Or if you are a combination of semi rich, lazy and in a hurry you can take a taxi for $1. If you are really rich then you have your own car, which is probably a truck or SUV. On the road you also must beware of large trucks, small trucks, trucks filled to the brim with eggs, chicken trucks, ice cream trucks, milk trucks, trash trucks, trucks full of military men…..
It may seem like Siguatepeque is a rural place, but it’s not. There are lots of restaurants, movie theatres, schools, grocery stores, swimming pools. To walk from one end of the city to the other would take an hour. I guess it is a big little town. I can march into Supermercado Del Corral and walk out with all my favorites from the states. Like pesto ($3.50), red wine ($6.00), Pantene Shampoo ($3.00), 1 lb whole bean coffee ($2.00), and 1lb of steaks for the BBQ ($1.50). I can call my Mama in the states and talk for 30 minutes for just around a dollar. I can send flirty text messages to the cute guy at work via my fancy cellular telephone. I can even go to Wendy’s at the mall if I am in the mood for some fast food! I can send faxes, make photo copies, and buy brand new Adidas tennis shoes. I can watch the newest Grey’s Anatomy on TV or movies on HBO.
If I were to describe it all you could decide for yourself what the level of development is. Most everyone has water most of the time, if you pay your light bill you have electricity most of the time, people have educational opportunities for the most part. Now remember that I am tainted by the fact that my counterparts are educated Hondurans who went to, are sending their children to and/or are working at Bilingual schools. These people live in the Middle-Upper Middle Class as per Honduran standards.
This doesn’t mean that I have closed my eyes and can’t see poverty anymore; it just means I don’t have a lot of people in my life who have experience Honduran poverty first hand. I know it exists. I drive through the little town of La Mision everyday and see people waking up in their houses made of sticks, bricks, mud and cement. I know that a lot of the older generation of this country has no more than a 4th grade education. I know that the average age to have a baby is around 17. I know that the public education system is decently funded but is nothing compared to schools in the states (even after all the budget cuts). I know that if you send your cutest little kids to the highway to sell cokes and peanuts to travelers on the buses you make some money, but if you send them to school you loose some.
Life in rural Honduras makes my personal poverty seem like some sick joke. I don’t have any substantial amount of money in the bank. I make $300.00 each month. Should I try to take that back to the states with me I would need the building plan for these houses in La Mision just so I could have a roof over my head. I may not have money by the USA standard, but I am weathly beyond measure. I have a US passport, a US education, the ability to go back to the states and make as much money as I want. I can always decide to live forever in Honduras and live large off of my monthly income. We from the United States in general are not poor. On a global scale we are loaded and because of the strength of our dollar and the education in our brains. Poverty is real in the states too, but it exists like you might not ever thought possible in the developing world.
So Honduras is a developing country; one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. But because of the exporting of goods around the globe I can get the fancy things to remind me of home and I can still live the life of a frivolous American. I can live large in the poor house. And I can constantly use what is in my line of vision to remind me to always be thankful for what I have. I also can see that dinero does not make my world spin around and happiness for me comes from something much greater.
And so thank your lucky stars and stripes tonight my fellow statesmen, even if you feel financially fretful!
Peace and good will to all.