One of the many lessons I learned while in Honduras was about poverty. One of the many lessons I learned when I returned back from Honduras is how people think they understand poverty. I don't think anyone truly understands it. If they did, I don't think it would exist because people would work hard to prevent it, stop it, and reverse it. Here's my experience with it:
My team and I traveled to La Acequia, Honduras, which is about an hour and a half bus ride from San Pedro Sula. It is in the middle of a flat, dry valley of fields and is surrounded by some of the most gorgeous mountains I have ever seen - very lush and perhaps even more beautiful than those in Whistler or Banff or even Austria. La Acequia itself is pretty flat and dry, too. As we drove from San Pedro out to La Acequia, I saw loads of homes shoved into any available space by the road. Homes, I should mention, consisted usually of about a 10 or 12 foot square edifice, usually with a little bit of a covered porch area, all roofed with tin. Some of the homes had poured concrete walls. Many had walls made of additional pieces of tin tied together, or whatever other materials had been fortunately gathered. Most homes had a curtain for a door. A few homes had a window or maybe two.
La Acequia itself is filled with these homes, probably about 300 of them. Within this community there is a range of wealth, which is an incredibly strange thing. It is strange because even the "rich" people...are not at all rich. Even the rich families pretty much have just enough to get by when they're lucky. The longer I stayed there, the easier it was for me to adapt to this jaded view of wealth. It seemed like there were some pretty well-to-do families there. They could usually buy bottled water, they had food, they had few leaks in their roofs, their clothes had few holes or stains. And somehow this became the picture of "wealth." ...What then, of people who could afford to ride on airplanes and had clean clothing every day and brought along digital cameras and had air conditioning and wore shoes? Extravagance.
Two interesting things happened one day that snapped me back to the reality of the situation. I had spent the week in La Acequia and had not experienced any other areas of Honduras. On Saturday we took a day trip to San Pedro Sula to buy some additional supplies and check email. On the bus ride back (P.S. the "bus ride" means sitting and/or standing on an old school bus that drives along unpaved roads) we rode through Naco. La Acequia is kind of a suburb of Naco, Naco being probably about five times its size. Naco had many markets and other symbols of slightly more wealth. However, as I gazed out the window, I realized that people here still wore entirely donated clothing. You can tell because there are all sorts t-shirts that say something about so-and-so's high school spring dance or the 8th annual Bingo tournament...all in English and with American cities. Even with this "wealth"...the people could not afford their own clothing. The second interesting thing that really stabbed me in the heart was that as we paused in Naco to pick up some more passengers, Phil Collins' voice came out of the speakers of the radio, "Oh, think twice. It's just another day for you and me in paradise."
I just about bawled.
I realized that the poverty I saw was not just in La Acequia. It wasn't that we had stumbled upon a tiny, secluded, poor rural village. We were in the middle of an ENTIRE COUNTRY that was poor. It was kind of strange to think that I could travel for days and not get to ANYWHERE that was even near rich.
It's a bleak picture, poverty. And yet there is a lot of good, even in desperate situations. People enjoy their families. People enjoy each other. People laugh. Children play. There are celebrations. Life is more basic, which in my opinion can be good - although quite admittedly a lot more work. For example, every day our hosts would bake tortillas. First they needed to find firewood and then build up the fire. Then make the tortilla dough, and finally form the tortillas and bake each one on the stovetop. And every day they made probably 100 tortillas for the household to eat. I learned how to make them, and I made about 5. One I dropped in the dirt when I tried to form it. In all, making 5 took me about 15 minutes. I was told that one tortilla could be sold for 1 lempira, and 19 lempira are one US dollar. I would not be making very good money if I were selling tortillas in Honduras... The point, however, is that there is a lot of work needed to meet the basic needs of everyday life. It's a lot more eco-friendly that way, as far as energy use goes.
What has bothered me the most now that I am back in the States is what I hear so many people saying when I tell them about the poverty. Time after time after time I hear them say - no, rather ASK, as if they're seeking a confirmation from me, seeking someone to reassure them in their apathy - "They're poor, but they are still happy even though they don't have much, right?" I think what they mean is that the poor people are not entirely hopeless, that people still tell jokes and have fun. Well, sure. And in a lot of way I think they are more content than all of us complainy rich people who always need more more more, newer newer newer, faster faster faster. These US folks nod in a satisfied manner when I admit it, and then they go on their merry lives feeling good about themselves and not having to worry about the poor people because poor people still can be happy. So the US folks will just continue being content sending a few dollars here and there to poor people (and at the same time donating thousands to research aimed at stopping diseases that kill only a small fraction of the people who are dying in the world...) and thinking they're really doing their part by providing so much.
But that's not really what makes someone...filled. Smiling now and then, having money...neither of these can make anyone joyful. That's exactly what the US folks are pointing out with their rude question: even though the poor folks don't have money, they're still finding some happiness. But what they fail to also recognize is that, just like money, felicity does not complete a person. A person can laugh and joke and party as much as they'd like, but that is not what fulfills them.
One lesson I learned about the complex problem of poverty while I was in Honduras is that true poverty is when people have no purpose or ability. The friends I made in La Acequia...they have dreams. They want to do something. They are intelligent, they desire to learn, they want to fix some of the problems with the natural resources in their town, they want to impact their community and maybe even world. But the tragedy is that they CAN NOT. The resources are not there, the ability to carry out their purpose is not available. This is a separate tragedy than a similar phenomenon observed in wealthy nations -- where people who can do whatever they want to simply DO NOT. This is, in my opinion, self-inflicted poverty. There's not a whole lot I can do to help that. But there is a LOT I can do to help people who have the desire but not the resources. In that way, I - and everyone - can make a difference in the problem of poverty. It won't solve the problem, but it will make a difference.
