Honduras, Belize and Guatemala in 2 weeks

The last two weeks of February my cousin Greg was visiting from Minnesota. Given his interest in archeological ruins, and my desire to see something new, we planned a route though Honduras, Belize and Guatemala that would bring us past the Mayan ruins of Tikal and Copan. Greg arrived to San Pedro Sula, and we spent two nights in the Honduran beach town of Omoa. From Puerto Cortez, a larger port town near Omoa, we left on a 3-hour ferry for Placencia a beach town in Belize. We spent two nights there and took 4 busses across Belize and into Guatemala to arrive at El Remate, near the ruins of Tikal. We spent two nights there, taking in the ruins one morning, and left on an 8-hour overnight bus to Guatemala City. After a day of taking in the sights of the city and a Saturday night out on the town, we left for Antigua, the former colonial capital of Central America, and a popular tourist destination. We spent one night in Antigua and then headed to Lake Atitlan farther west in the Guatemalan highlands. From Atitlan, we returned to Honduras, spending two nights in Copan Ruinas and then heading for the airport again in San Pedro Sula. The trip involved a lot of hours on the bus, and not too many days in one spot, but allowed us to see quite a nice chunk of Central America. Below are some photos and descriptions of the places we went:

Bajamar, Honduras

One day when we were staying in Omoa, Honduras, we took the bus to a sleepy Garifuna beach town called Bajamar. The Garifuna are a coastal ethnicity who migrated from the island of Saint Vincent and are a mix of esaped slaves and indigenous South Americans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garifuna). Because Bajamar was deserted, long and relatively clean, it was the most appealing beach I have seen in Honduras. We seemed to be the only visitors, but the locals were friendly, especially the ones spending their Sunday afternoon drinking Gifiti, a “medicinal” concoction of herbs steeped in cheap hard liquor.

Placencia, Belize

Traveling to Belize feels like leaving Central America for a Caribbean island colonized by the British. The locals speak either English or a thick Creole derived from English that is impossible for me to understand. The country, due to its English language and reputation for relative safety–although some people have told me that reputation is ill-deserved–seemed to have a lot more cautious American vacationers and retirees than Honduras or Guatemala. Everything is more expensive, and the average citizen seemed to enjoy a higher quality of life. Perhaps it helps that there are only about 320,000 people in the country compared to 7.5 million in Honduras and 7 million in El Salvador.

Placencia, the beach town we stayed in for 2 nights, seemed to be a growing vacation destination. Apparently much of the beachfront part of town was actually created artificially by filling in mangrove swamps to make land. The only affordable accommodation we could find was Miss Leslie’s Travel Inn with a double room for $15 U.S. a night. The general degradation of the place, the cracks in the wooden walls, the peeling linoleum floor, the particleboard shower and the mini-doors you had to duck to get through made it a bit uncomfortable, but we saw no signs of insect infestation.

The beach in Placencia, which we later found out was man-made.

A couple of the many expensive-looking catamarans presumably available for charter.

Our rustic, but relatively bug-free accomodations at Miss Leslie´s Travel Inn

The local Chinese restraunt / General store / Outdoor saloon

A snorkelling trip we took to a nearby cay that is a national park.

Tikal, Guatemala

After a bus ride across Belize and into Guatemala, we arrived at El Remate, a town outside the Tikal Ruins. We found a cheap hotel / hostel called Sak Luc, where we also ran into a guide named Juan who convinced us to take his tour of the Ruins the next day.

Our double room / hut at the Sak Luk

We got up the next day for the 5:30 am departure to the ruins. I’m not much of an archeology buff, but found the ruins quite impressive, both because of the in-depth and well-researched history lesson we were given by our guide Juan and because of the shear size and beauty of the ruins.

The ruins of Tikal sticking out of the jungle

Juan, our very knowledgeable guide

The very steep steps up a very tall and steep tower

Greg on the edge of the very steep tall slope

Me looking scared at the top

Guatemala City

We debated some as to whether it was worth spending a night in Guatemala City, especially since most tourists seemed to avoid it due to safety concerns. In the end we figured it would be worth the day and night to see the largest city in Central America. We found a double room in Xamatec hostel in Zone 10, a nicer part of town, for $45 a night. The room was a bit pricey but worth it for the safety. They also let us check in at 6:00 am, right off the overnight bus from Tikal, so we could sleep a couple extra hours without paying for the extra night.

Compared to Tegucigalpa, Guatemala City feels larger and quite a bit more developed. The highway system is much more complex, with more freeways and overpasses. The Central plaza was much larger than Tegucigalpa’s.

A fancy plaza near our hotel.

Greg downtown

The central plaza with a government building in the background.

The central plaza with the cathedral in the background.

Antigua, Guatemala

About 45 minutes from Guatemala City, Antigua seems to be the city with the most concentrated tourism in Guatemala. Antigua was at one time the seat of Spain’s Colonial Government in Central America, so there are a lot of old historical buildings. The area has been hit be several earthquakes in the last few centuries, so many of the historical buildings are in ruins or have been rebuilt.

Antigua´s very well decorated fleet of buses I can only hope they put as much work into the mechanics of the buses as they do into the aesthetics.

One of the many old buildings in Antigua

El Palacio de Generales, the building that was once the seat of the Spanish colonial government in Central America

Greg under the arch of the Palacio de Generales

The Cathedral, or the part of it that´s been rebuilt

Traditional Catholicism is apparently alive and well in Guatemala. This sign reads:

“Requirements to receive the plenary indulgence:

-Confess

-Attend mass

-Take comunion

-Pray for the Pope

One can get indulgences for a deaceased person. One indulgence per day.

June 28th, 2008 to June 29th, 2009

San José Cathedral, Antigua, Guatemala¨

Volcán Pacaya

After arriving in Antigua, we immediately took off for an afternoon / night trip up Volcán Pacaya, an active volcano near Antigua. As the tour bus pulled up the trailhead we were bombarded by small children carrying wooden poles and yelling “estiik!, estiik!” They were renting walking sticks for the trip up the volcano. It was somewhat cute and comical, but also sad to see that the kids were dirty from all the dust around and looked pretty poor. A lot had un-wiped runny noses, a chronic problem I imagine due to the chilly climate. They were also fighting an uphill battle, since there were almost more stick vendors than tourists and only half the tourists wanted sticks anyway. Whether these kids actually supplemented their families’ incomes with their work, or whether they were using it to buy treats for themselves, I don’t know.

The sticks seemed entirely unnecessary to me, and perhaps being hardened by spending too much time near pushy vendors in Honduras, I didn’t really consider buying one. But when a 2-for-1 deal was offered-2 sticks for 5 Quetzals (65 US cents)-Greg convinced me we should get a couple. In retrospect, I was being a tightwad to not want to give up 32 cents to a cute kid renting a walking stick. As we made the business transaction, I asked our stick vendor whether this was a contract for purchase or a contract for rental. He informed me that the sticks were strictly on lease. “I will be here waiting when you arrive from the hike,” he said in Spanish. “Hand the sticks over to me. My name is Josue. Do not hand the sticks over to any other child.” Just after we made the deal with Josue, another child came forward, assuring us that the thin sticks Josue had just sold us would break during the journey. For the same price he offered us more robust sticks. We decided to chance it using Josue’s sticks.

For some reason, I suspected we would be hiking up to the tippy top of the volcano, but that the hike would be quite easy. As it turned out, we only hiked about halfway up the side of the volcano, to a point near a slow stream of lava oozing out the side of the volcano. The trail was far from impossible, but more difficult than I had imagined. The sticks definitely came in handy, especially on the last rocky and windy part. We got close enough to the lava flow to be able to feel the heat rising up from below us. We could also see red-hot boulders rolling down the side of the volcano in front of us.

As dusk was falling and we started the hike down, Greg and I realized that flashlights might have been a good idea. The tour group was so large, and no mention of flashlights had been made when we reserved our spots, so we hadn’t even thought of them. Luckily, about 60% of the tour group had thought of flashlights, and our guide kept us close together. Using the ambient light from the other flashlights, and our ever-useful sticks as prods in front of us, we were able to shuffle down the trail without falling.

As we approached the trailhead, we were again bombarded by the same kids, who had hiked partway up the trail to reclaim their sticks. A small girl, maybe about 7 years old, wanted Greg and me to give our sticks to her. She said she didn’t have any sticks. We felt bad but told her that these were Josue’s sticks. A little farther down a kid who looked remarkably like Josue came up to us and asked us to handover the sticks. When I asked, he said he was Josue, so we handed over the sticks. Greg even took a picture with “Josue” our trusty stick vendor. As we arrived at the trailhead, we encountered the real Josue. He snatched one of the sticks from the imposter and when we left it remained unclear who would end up with the second.

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

We spent our last two nights in Guatemala in Santa Cruz, a small village on Lake Atitlan, reputably the most beautiful lake in the world. Lake Atitlan, in a highland climate and surrounded by 3 volcanoes, was quite beautiful. We stayed in a double room in a hostel called the Iguana Perdida (Lost Iguana). The hostel, so highly recommended by the guidebook that we figured the author must be a part owner, was a backpacker’s Mecca. Everyone we met spoke English, and many were there for their second time. Some people were there working as volunteer labor, serving as bartender or cashier for a couple weeks in exchange for room, board, and half-price drinks.

Every night there was a large buffet dinner, to which all guests were invited, where everyone sat talking at a long table. The Monday and Tuesday nights we were there this dinner transitioned into some beer drinking and, for about half of the guests who were more fun than Greg and I, a long night of partying. We met a lot of interesting people, traveling for various lengths of time and various reasons.

Aside taking place in Guatemala, life in the Iguana Perdida didn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with life in the rest of Guatemala. It was a great time for a couple days, but I don’t think I’d much enjoy 2 weeks there.

The boats that the locals and tourists use as public transportation to get around the lake.

In Guatemala, there are two obvious ways for tourists without out their own cars to travel: normal bus (dubbed “chicken bus” by the backpackers) or direct shuttle. The normal buses are old U.S. school buses, with crazy drivers, and traveling on them often requires making a few connections. The shuttles are 15-passenger vans that usually go directly from one tourist location to another and have drivers who are probably equally as crazy.

Cost-wise, I think the options come out about the same, especially if you have to pay for a taxi to get from one normal bus terminal to another. Comfort-wise, surprisingly, I think the normal “chicken” buses win hands down. There’s also something to be said about riding transportation with real, live Guatemalans while you’re visiting their country. Safety-wise, the shuttle companies claim to win. I assume they say they’re safer because there are rarely any Guatemalans on the shuttle buses, you don’t have to get on an off in any sketchy bus terminals and they might be presumed to be better-maintained and have better drivers (maybe). But given the large size of the normal busses and the fact that tourist shuttles are sometimes held up because crimanals know there are tourists with money on-board, my gut feeling is that safety is a toss-up. Time-wise and simplicity-wise, though, the transfer-free shuttle ride wins.

Because it was a long way from Lake Atitlan to Copan Ruinas, Honduras, we opted for a $13 U.S., 7-hour, cramped, butt-numbing ride on a shuttle.

Copan Ruins, Honduras

We arrived in Copan Ruinas at about 7:00 pm, found a cheap hotel and started the last leg of our trip. Once again we were in Honduras and familiar territory for me.

Waking up in Copan, we hit up the ruins in the morning. I had seen the ruins twice before, both times with a guide, and thought that the extra $10 each for a guide was worth it. When we arrived, the guides were either trying to price-gouge us or didn’t look too great, so we opted to go without. As it turned out, this gave us more flexibility, and a chance to see the nooks and crannies of the ruins that I had not seen on the guided tours. Anyway, from Juan in Tikal we had already heard a better explanation of the Mayan empire than any guide in Copan would probably be able to give us. At the hieroglyphic staircase, probably Copan’s most famous ruin, we ran into a Japanese documentary film crew taking panning video of the staircase with a cameral on a large boom. It was interesting and somewhat comical to watch the process: artistic Japanese film maker speaking to translator, who translated to Honduran manipulating camera. The whole thing looked a bit like overkill to me, but I’m sure the nature of the task is more complex than it looked to my untrained eye.

The last night of our trip we had a nice dinner courtesy of $25 my mom had sent with Greg. Afterward we visited a bar called the Red Frog. I’d been there a couple times before, but this night we really got to hear Dan, the young owner’s, story. He’s from California. A few years ago, he had never been to Honduras before, had never tended bar, but bought the place on a whim. He’s been there for ever since and seems to be having the time of his life. His local bar has turned into the place to be for foreigners in Copan, at least the less-classy half of those foreigners. For the last hour or so we were there, the only other customers at the bar were Pat and Alice, an elderly couple that was anything but your typical elderly couple.

From their nearly unintelligible accents, I assume Pat and Alice were from some part of the British Empire, perhaps Scotland or Ireland. When I asked where they were from, Pat said they were from all over. They’d been in Honduras for quite some time, and had also enjoyed multiple extended periods in Bulgaria. Pat treated us each to a half-shot each of some Bulgarian moonshine Dan was keeping for him in his fridge. Pat said the stuff was home-made from cherries, and for clear hard liquor it was surprisingly not horrible.

From all of his tattoos, I can only imagine that Pat might have been some sort of a seaman. He now sat smoking, coughing and drinking beer at the end of the table, telling of his recent late-night escapades in Puerto Cortez, one of Honduras’ more shady cities, and remembering last Christmas when Dan and he apparently let off a ridiculously-illegal quantity of large bottle rockets. One of the bottle rockets even found its way into the bar, nearly hitting Alice in the head.

For the couple of hours we were at the Red Frog, Alice sat quietly next to us reading a book and nursing the same beer, which had a foam insulator around it. She looked over at me a couple times and quietly whispered some words to me, smiling and giggling, but the words were completely lost on me. She seemed to have some sort of mental disorder or uniqueness. Pat and Dan told of one night when she was reading a book quite quickly and Pat came up to her and looked at it. “This book’s in German Alice!” he said. “You don’t speak German.”

Pat and Alice must not have the most conventional, safe, or recommendable retirement, bouncing around Honduran and Bulgarian bars. But the two both seemed remarkably happy, so if it works for them I can hardly knock it.

The Dilema of Development Work: How much to do?

The work we are doing in this project can be summed up by one buzzword: “Capacity-Building”. Superficially, this capacity-building is happening at two levels. Cornell University and we volunteers are building the capacity of Agua para el Pueblo (APP) personnel to design and build water treatment plants and put them into operation. APP personnel, in turn, are building the capacity of community water boards and local operators to successfully operate these water treatment plants. All development work should be about capacity-building: teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish.

I say that this description of the capacity-building process is superficial because the learning is really happening in both directions. I am certain that I have learned much more from APP employees than they have learned from me. I’ve learned a language, a culture, and a line of work, while I’ve only taught them a little about the technical side of building and operating water treatment plants. Even with the technical issues, we are usually learning side by side, as this is new to all of us. Likewise, APP employees surely learn from the communities and water boards they work with. Each project is a new experience that provides knowledge that will help with the next project. This reverse capacity-building can almost always be reversed yet again. All that I learn from the Hondurans I work with will help me to be a more effective in teaching or working with other Hondurans in the future. All that we learn from the communities will help us to better serve other communities in the future.

While capacity is clearly being built in both directions, I will focus here on the direction I mentioned initially. After all, that direction is the main objective of the project. Donors contribute money for APP to build a plant so that in the end communities will end up with good treatment plants and know how to operate them, not so that APP employees get smarter. The donor probably is also interested in the APP employee getting smarter, but they care about that mainly because it will allow the employee to serve and train communities even more effectively in the future. Likewise, I’m mainly here to train Hondurans, not to train myself. I’ll surely get trained in the process, but that’s not the main reason they’re paying my salary. To simplify this even more, I’ll call the capacity-builder the trainer and the person who is having their capacity built the learner.

The dilemma of capacity-building is knowing how much to do. There are two extremes that the trainer must avoid. If the trainer does too much for the learner, the learner will never learn to fend for him or herself and will feel patronized or belittled. On the other hand, if the trainer does absolutely nothing other than give orders and instructions, the trainer will look like a lazy bum and will not gain the respect of the learner. It is also very easy for the trainer to lose touch with what is really going on with the project if he or she is not involved enough at the ground level. The trick is for the trainer to do enough of the nitty-gritty to show solidarity and remain aware of what is going on while not doing so much that initiative or agency is taken away from the learner.

Every day of work here is for me a balancing act between doing too much and doing too little. Today presents a prime example. In the construction of the Cuatro Comunidades plant, we are at the point of putting together a bunch of modules made out of transparent plastic roofing sheets (see photo below). This is a long, tedious job that also requires a little bit of experience, care in measurement, and a lot of patience. The materials in each of the modules cost about $60 and a day’s work for one of the community members working costs about $10 or less, so it’s worth it for the workers to take their time and make sure not to waste or ruin materials.

Antonio, the technician we work with, already has quite a bit of experience with putting together these modules, since he participated in the construction of the Ojojona plant and of the Tamara plant. However, the modules in this plant are put together a bit differently and are of a different size. We made a sample module when the Cornell students were here, and yesterday I printed off a detailed drawing of the module. With his experience, and these guides, Antonio was completely prepared to do the job with a couple of the potential plant operators (community members) helping him. However Tamar and I were planning to stay and help today as well. This would give Tamar a chance to see the process since she hadn’t built modules before. We would also be there to give Antonio any help or advice he might need, and to see the process first-hand in hopes of coming up with ideas to improve it.

When Antonio and his two helpers got down to work this morning, we realized they pretty much had the process under control. We were able to help him with a couple small problems, though. He was making some cumulative measurement errors in the cutting of the roofing sheets, which we helped him correct. Tamar also suggested he use charcoal to mark the sheets for cutting instead of permanent marker, which left a lasting mark in the panels which she feared might be toxic and leach into the water. After making these adjustments, in order to let Antonio take charge, and to advance in other work, Tamar and I took off with Wil, the engineer we work with, for the office.

As we left, I felt a bit like we were abandoning Antonio and his helpers. In the Tamara plant, Carol and I had done quite a bit of cutting, hole-drilling and pounding to help put the modules together. Perhaps today Antonio would think that I now thought I was too good to do that work. Perhaps the community members helping him would think, “These gringos have a great life, they just show up for a couple hours, give us a few orders about how to make the measurements better, and then take off for the air-conditioned office.” Despite, these concerns, I think we made the right decision. To have two engineers and a technician supervising a simple assembly project is overkill, and it is important that the community members see Antonio as capable of working without our help. Nevertheless, these decisions aren’t always easy to make.

APP personnel face these same decisions. One day Antonio said that Wil (the Honduran engineer on our team) had suggested during a meeting with Jacobo and Arturo (the bosses at APP) that Antonio, Carol and I were doing too much work for the local operators. Reportedly, he said we were climbing around in the tanks and hosing them down, while we should be supervising the operators while they did this. While I wasn’t at this meeting, given Wil’s style of work and Antonio’s style of work, it doesn’t surprise me that Wil made these observations. Antonio enjoys getting his hands dirty, showing off his manual skills, while Wil would normally prefer to supervise the physical labor of others. Both of these styles have advantages. Perhaps Antonio and Wil make a good team because of their differences. Antonio shows solidarity with the community, while Wil makes sure we don’t waste too much time in the nitty-gritty.

Sometimes I think this is a pretty ironic job. Tamar and I are here with the objective of putting ourselves out of work. When Honduran technicians and engineers can plan, design, build, and supervise the AguaClara plants without any support from us, we will have succeeded. In the meantime, we can measure our progress by how little work we do. If we’re not doing much, and Antonio and Wil are doing a lot, then we’re doing great. One week I could just show up to the office, sit on my butt every day, and claim to be making tremendous progress. Of course everyone would think I was a jerk. As you can see, this way of thinking can be both tempting and dangerous.

In my 18 months here, there has definitely been a trend towards doing less and less hands-on work. The first 6 months in Ojojona, Carol, Antonio and I spent more time at the treatment plant than the operators did. We dug ditches, glued pipes and even did some masonry work. This clearly took some responsibility away from the operators, but also allowed us to learn more about the plant and give the operators more detailed training.

Antonio digging a ditch at the plant in Ojojona back when we were involved there in a very hands-on way.

In the construction of the Tamara plant, I spent more time at the construction site than Wil, the engineer in charge. I hauled and glued pipe, tied re-bar and drilled holes. One day I even tried my hand at chiseling through hardened concrete. I sweated profusely and ruined clothes. I must have done some of these things in an attempt to prove myself, because my physical efforts surely didn’t do much to speed up the project. I don’t think I impressed any of the Hondurans with my physical abilities, but maybe I amused them. I did gain knowledge about and appreciation for the practical side of the construction process. Since it was Wil’s first plant and he was often busy ordering materials and drawing plans, my presence at the plant probably did help the construction process run more smoothly.

In the Cuatro Comunidades plant, Tamar and I haven’t gotten our hands too dirty. We go the construction site less frequently than Wil. While I might not feel as macho as I did when I was carrying pipes up the hill in Tamara, I think this trend is an improvement.

Luckily, as our involvement in the nitty-gritty wanes, there is a plethora of more office-related work to fill our time. In the last 6 months Tamar and I have spent most of our time editing drawings, analyzing budgets, writing e-mails, writing proposals and planning and giving presentations to prospective communities. Sometimes I fear that we are doing too much of the administrative work for APP. I wonder if we are almost administrating the treatment plant projects for APP. This doesn’t worry me too much, because I think we are involved in the administrative aspect not because the administrators at APP can’t do it, but simply because they don’t have enough time. Regardless, we will eventually need to hand the budgeting, fundraising and proposal writing (even when it’s in English) over to APP.

As volunteers / interns here, our roles in this project are quite undefined. Tamar and I are very much in charge of deciding what our involvement in the project is. Many times, I make this decision by looking for what needs to be done and doing it, be the job drilling holes, supervising construction, making drawings, or writing budgets. But in development work, I think it’s important to step back every once in awhile and evaluate your involvement. You must be involved enough to be aware and show solidarity, but not so involved that you steal the show or make yourself a permanent fixture.

A Multicultural Success

There are many things about the United States that I am not proud of, but every once in awhile I am reminded that we do get a few things right. When I received my absentee ballot in October for the elections, I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that for the three highest offices on the ballot I would be voting for a Muslim (U.S. Representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota’s 5th District), a Jew (Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken), and an African American (Obama). Best of all, these weren’t obscure candidates. In fact all three were favorites. Ellison and Obama won, and Franken is still embroiled in a war of attrition in court over the Senate seat. I didn’t hesitate to brag to my Honduran co-workers, some of whom had told me months before that the United States would never elect a black man president, about the multi-cultural nature of my ballot.

In the first half of January, when the annual group of Cornell AguaClara students came down to visit the Honduran end of the project, I was once again proud of my country. I was not sure this would be the case. The thought of 25 gringos traipsing through Honduras on a hurried two-week tour, snapping photos of water treatment plants, does not necessarily bring pretty pictures to mind. It would be easy for such a large group of English-speakers to become a self-sufficient island and not interact all that much with the Hondurans around them. It would even be easy to alienate the Hondurans traveling with the group, such as our co-worker Antonio, or Jorge, a Honduran friend of Monroe’s contracted to drive one of the minibuses the group traveled in. It would also be easy for the group of college students on vacation to party hard amongst themselves every night, even if the surrounding Honduran environment is not conducive to or accepting of doing such things every night.

Thankfully, there were few if any of the above-mentioned problems. It helped that the majority of the group was proficient enough in Spanish to effectively communicate with the Hondurans we met. Even those who came with absolutely no Spanish made sincere efforts to pick up and use important phrases. But, aside from not causing problems, this group also set a valuable example of diversity. When I think of universities and diversity, promotional brochures come to mind. I picture an African-American student, an Asian student, a Latino student and a white student sitting smiling together under the sun on a grassy lawn in front of typical academic buildings. As cliché and contrived as they seem, this group of 18 AguaClara students was a real-life version of one of those brochures.

Leopoldo, the Honduran translator with us, made a big deal of the multicultural nature of the group, to the point of exaggerating. In Las Cuatro Comunidades, when he was riding around with a megaphone promoting a health fair that took place in the community while the students were there, he advertised all of the different races of Cornell students that would be present. It was as if he was inviting the community members to come witness the multi-cultural circus that Cornell had sent to Honduras. When visiting a pottery workshop in Ojojona, Leopoldo told the artisan who was giving us a demonstration that one student was from Ghana, even though she is a U.S.-born African American. He said that another girl of Eastern European descent but born in upstate New York, was from Russia.

Leopoldo’s exaggerations not withstanding, the group was pretty diverse. Just look at the backgrounds of a few of the 18 students:

-Bolivian immigrant to the United States, first language was Spanish

-Taiwanese doctoral student

-Exchange student from Spain

-Grad student from mainland China

-Daughter of a German and a Chinese person

-Daughter of a Japanese and Caucasian person

-African-American

-Two Chinese-Americans

-A girl born in upstate New York but with parents who immigrated from Eastern Europe

Add to that 8 run-of-the-mill gringos from all over the United States, a professor with his wife and son, a 40-year old water treatment plant operator, a Honduran driver, a Honduran translator, and a Honduran water technician and you can see we had quite a smattering of backgrounds packed into our two minibuses.

(my apologies if I got anybody’s ethnic background wrong)

A photo of the group.

To watch such a diverse group of people get along so well on a trip and fit in well to Honduran culture was a pleasure. I first realized what a blessing this was when Lalo, the exchange student from Spain, mentioned that in Spain it would be hard to find such a diverse group of students all united and getting along together. I realized that in Honduras as well, this is not a very common sight. There are Hondurans of Chinese descent, but they don´t seem to be too integrated into the rest of the population. Many Hondurans regard them as shrewd business-people who toss mice into the Chop-Suey that they sell in their abundant Chinese restaurants. There are also Arabs, classified as “Turkos” by non-Arab Hondurans. The Arabs seem more integrated into the rest of society, especially high society, but are also commonly regarded as shrewd capitalists, perhaps justifiably so since they own a great many of the large businesses in Honduras. Honduras has its share of African Americans, but most of this population is on the coast and some Ladinos (mix of Spanish and indigenous background) still regard them with a certain amount of descrimination.

Clearly, we are far from racial integration and harmony in the United States. Maybe it´s still one of our weaknesses rather than one of our strengths. In fact, we might be in even worse shape than Honduras in this regard. However, the fact that a sample of 18 students from a U.S. university yields such a diverse and harmonious group, united to use its engineering skills to improve life in a developing country, ought to bode well for the future.