Jens sits at our dining room table, our only table, in La Esperanza, as Laura and I explain to him the particular water challenges we face here in Intibucá. Jens, a 17 year old, US born citizen of German heritage, living in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is visiting with us over the next few days. His older brother Jan, Jan’s friend Aeden, and Mario, a friend of both families and the driver/chaperon for the trip, are all visiting us in our small and modest home. Aeden is home from college in Prague where he studies cinematography. Jan is interested in the same career, but studies at Emory University in Georgia. Shoulder to Shoulder has contracted with Aeden to produce three videos: two will be short ones on brigades and Shoulder to Shoulder in general, and the third will be a documentary on the bilingual school. Presently, we’re trying to arrange a fold out coach and three mattresses on our limited floor space so everyone can sleep. Jens continues to incredulously question us on the water, unwilling to conceive that water runs only every other day. “But, what do you do about that ‘take a shower every day’ rule?” We then introduce Jens to the concept of a bucket shower, a concept he’ll become familiar with over the next three days.
The rural, isolated, poor, frontier region of Intibucá is very unfamiliar to our four guests from Tegucigalpa. You might say that it presents as more foreign to them than it would have even to us when we first arrived. But they have all come with a spirit of openness, acceptance, and generosity. They capture on video the commitment to service in Pinares where Virginia Commonwealth University and Fairfax Family Practice Centers are holding their two week medical brigade. After a morning and afternoon of videotaping there, we drive south toward Concepcion where our guests will stay with us in our home there. It is clear that Mario doesn’t believe me when I tell him that three minutes after leaving Pinares we’ll run out of pavement. When we begin bumping up and down, navigating the trenches where rain has eroded the road, he asks how far to Concepcion. “Maybe ten miles, but it will take us about an hour.” Mario works with the Central American Bank. The Central American Bank subsidized the paving of this road. According to their records, it’s been paved all the way to Camasca. He will register an official complaint report. But our going is slow, not only because of the road, but also because every five minutes or so, Aeden and Jan yell to stop the car. They grab their equipment and jump out of the car. They take beautiful shots of the expansive terrain, the majestic mountains, and the awe it inspires. I take this road too often. I no longer recognize the breathtaking views or the bumpy drive.
In Concepcion we all settle into our home. There is a lot more space and rooms, but we’re short a mattress. Mario disappears for a short time, and, unbeknownst to us, borrows a mattress from our neighbors. We tell the boys there is always water at night, but we often lose it for a few hours in the morning. They take no heed to our warning. In the morning, as they take their bucket showers, Laura and I are holding back our laughter as we watch them throwing cold water from our pila onto their bodies. So energetic and enthusiastic, so bright and ready to take on the world. With the medium of video, they will make art, their free expression to inspire.
We head to Camasca and the bilingual school. Here, they are recording a view of hope. The parents send their children to our school with a great hope of something new, of achievement, of a better day. I can’t help think about those expansive, limitless views of the mountains from yesterday. Ironic, here where boundless beauty is so easily witnessed in nature, the constraints of poverty are so clear. Poverty limits experience, limits the horizon. Aeden films Juan Carlos and Keilyn, two cousins who live two-hundred meters below the town proper. They don’t have much, but they do have a climb up a great hill every morning. It’s a rugged climb and I feel some shame for my self pity that the road I travel is not paved. The path Juan Carlos and Keilyn take is one with carved footholds into a slate, rock face. They climb, we climb, we film, we record, and this is hope. It springs upon us when we reach the summit, an opening appears. Then we’re at the school.
Some of us have been given much, some of us, little. But all of us have rutted roads to travel, and all of us can gaze upon the expansive beauty of our world. Can not all of us then pattern hope? We can remember and record. We can share. It is not so important from where we start our journeys, but the integrity of the journey is the clear testament of hope.
A Child's Valuable Lesson
His name is Valentino (yes just like the bygone, heart throb, movie idol). These days, he’s hanging out with the second graders at the Good Shepherd Bilingual School. He’s only six and the other children in the second grade classroom are seven or eight. But he’s tall for his age, his English is excellent, and so in many ways he fits right in. He’s energetic, very outgoing, and makes friends easily, both among his peers and adults. He’s at ease in this environment, even though it is not the one in which he was born and raised. He’s from Ohio and he’s only been in Honduras for three to four months. He gives pause to any adult looking on because he sticks out like a sore thumb. His fair hair and eyes, his Mohawk haircut, his height, and other subtle characteristics give him away as not from here. But he doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He likes it here. The other children flock around him. Perhaps we might want to think he has a magnetic personality. He does, I think, but the reason he attracts playmates and friends has little to do with his personality. He’s different, and as much as he wants to learn about them, they want to learn about him. Every day is a new adventure of discovery and fun.
Children simply don’t have the inhibitions that adults suffer. Even though we think it natural to stiffen when confronted with the unfamiliar, it’s really simply learned behavior. A new language, a new environment and culture, new ways of thinking, feeling, and relating, are not really burdens or obstacles to be overcome, but rather opportunities for enrichment. Children know this innately, and we adults can learn a great deal in watching them. We’d probably have a lot fewer wars, and build a lot fewer walls, physically as well as in our minds and hearts, if only we would heed the lesson Valentino has to teach us. Fear is a learned response. It has its place. It can protect us. But it is not our natural response. Our natural response, our instinct if you will, is to connect. Something it seems that Valentino and his playmates at the Good Shepherd Bilingual School achieve with ease and grace.
Valentino’s background, his family influence, also has something to do with his disinhibition to be sure. His mother, Jessica Lynn Lemus-Donahue, has been volunteering at our bilingual school since March. She met her husband, Edman, originally from Camasca, Intibucá many years ago in Ohio and were married in 2011. They brought Valentino into the world, followed by Penelope, now age 2.” Jessica had been working, and continues to work part-time via the internet, as a paralegal dealing with immigration law. That is where she learned her flawless Spanish. She told us that she had never been to a Latin American country except for one visit in which she brought the two-year old Valentino to visit her mother-in-law in Honduras. It’s a little difficult for me to believe this as she seems to fit in so seamlessly here. Just like her son, the children at the bilingual school flock around her. They usually try to speak Spanish with her, but she gently responds in English, and solicits them kindly to converse in English. She’s been a great asset to the school, mostly with our kindergarten class where she spends most of her time. She has that rare gift found among teachers of excellent quality. Her approving smile is always present, never judging or critical, but always calling forth the best from her students. She initiated a behavioral, color-coded chart for each student. On the day we visited the kindergarten class, each child presented her with their chart. She told them their color for the day. Most got green, meaning their behavior was excellent. With pride they colored in their day, readied to take them home, show their parents, get their signature, and bring them back on the next school day.
We were so impressed with the children’s acceptance of Jessica, and Jessica’s acceptance of them. For Valentino, it seems the apple has not fallen so far from the tree. After class, we enjoyed a brief lunch with Jessica. The family’s trip to Honduras, and their stay with relatives in Camasca, is in order for Edman to obtain his legal immigration status in the US. In as much as they are married, there is little doubt that Edman will obtain legal status. Still, Honduras loves bureaucratic procedures and it is unclear as to when all the mountains of paperwork will be processed. Perhaps with luck, all will be complete in the Fall. For Shoulder to Shoulder and the school, we wish the couple every success, but we are equally happy that Jessica is able to volunteer through the end of the school year in November.
In planning their trip, Jessica knew she wanted to do something meaningful here in Honduras. She searched the internet and found Shoulder to Shoulder. Not surprising really, as we are one of only a very few charitable organizations here in the Frontera. Besides her work at the school, Jessica has started a Pilates exercise and workout class for the local women in Camasca. It gives the woman a moment of healthy time away from the demands of the household. She seems pleased to be doing something of meaning and purpose while she’s here. The kids seem to love her, and she is certainly dedicated to the children and their families. More than anything, we are grateful for her generosity and commitment.
We are always looking for native English-speaking volunteers at Good Shepherd School. On the face of it, it is simply a great asset to have native English speakers in the classroom with the kids. To hear English spoken well and to converse goes such a long way towards helping our children achieve a bilingual competence. This will be of great asset to them, providing them with opportunities they would otherwise not have had. Still, Valentino and his mom show us that the value of their presence among us is so much more than simple linguistic competence. It’s really about making connections. Connections yield understanding. Understanding brings about just relationships. Just relationships secure peace. The children at Good Shepherd Bilingual School, Shoulder to Shoulder, and the people of Camasca are enriched for the presence of Jessica, Edman, Valentino, and Penelope. Thank you for making your home among us.
It Was the Best of Times….
Some English guy, Dickies, or Dicksburg, I guess it was Dickens, wrote this book that I read in High School. In high school, most of us were stupefied by the oxymoronic opening line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,…” It is cruel to expect a high school student to appreciate the wisdom contained in the classic phrase. For them, it is simply inane to describe anything as both the best and the worst. Only with lived experience does the inherent ambiguity of life become clear (or perhaps more completely muddled). With time and memory, failures are redefined successes, disappointment becomes hope, and life itself is elusive and mysterious. To gain wisdom is to be humbled. Wisdom is perhaps simply knowing that neither our intention nor expectation determines outcome. For all of our planning, our critical considerations, our need to control all variables, our intentional designs, outcomes are always a surprise. Some might call this Karma, or God, or simply mysterious principles of the universe. It is the worst: an unanticipated outcome for which we now must take responsibility. It is the best: something far beyond our limited design.
This aura of best and worst engulfed us this past week. Our board president, Attorney Wayne Waite, and the board secretary, Mr. Dwight Armstrong, arrived in Honduras on April 13. They were stretched this way and that in high powered meetings with Honduran government officials, US embassy representatives, university deans, local mayors, humanitarian organizations, Shoulder to Shoulder staff and supporters, and so many others. Draining as it must have been, they did find moments to refresh their spirits. The children at the Good Shepherd Bilingual School greeted them with the exuberance of youth. Dwight, a man of the earth, had the chance to breath in the rejuvenating air of a Camasca farm. Both of them had a moment to relax in our humble home in Concepcion where we listened attentively to their life stories and witnessed their admirable commitment to Shoulder to Shoulder. More meetings and visits followed them on their trek back to Tegucigalpa. Dreams and anxieties, the beauty of mission and the challenge of execution, the satisfaction of achievement and the weight of planning for the future, traveled with them, filling their heads and hearts in preparation for the board meeting.
On Saturday morning, the Hombro a Hombro Board (the board for our Honduran NGO) began its deliberations. Laura and I were asked to attend. We believed we would be there for Saturday and leave on Sunday. But we were asked to stay on first until Monday, and then again until Tuesday. We hadn’t brought enough clothes and ended up washing them in the sink. The discussions were inspiring and animated. There are such great opportunities present to Shoulder to Shoulder in its mission of empowerment with the people of Intibucá. Our work in education is bringing hope to children. The potential in agricultural development and food security promises a path to prosperity in the Frontera. Our collaborative work with brigade partners and our expansion in new service areas bring well-being and health to the isolated and forgotten. The value of our present service and these golden opportunities for future service enliven us. But lest our euphoria swell our egos, serious challenges also confront us. Like any charitable organization, our slim and stretched resources threaten our goals. We also see our faults. We could be better organizers. We could be better communicators. Simply, I suppose, we could be better. On top of all this there is the stickiness of working collaboratively. The others, our partners, always have designs different than our own. Why can’t they just recognize that we are right and stop inserting their own thoughts? (It’s a joke)
So we have the best, and so we have the worst: our hearts exploding with joy and our minds crippled with angst. It would be so nice if our deliberations followed a clear and linear path. But rather our deliberations are circular, popping from one theme to the next, always elusive and exhausting. What should be our response? Should we follow our hearts? Should we follow our heads? These questions forever elude any answer.
Monday afternoon I’m soaping up and rinsing out my few articles of clothing in the hotel room’s sink, feeling very sorry for myself. I despise doing laundry, even more so when I have to do it by hand which is more often the case than not here in Honduras. The questions weigh on my head and heart. Again feeling sorry for myself, I ask, “Why does it need to be so hard?” The answer I receive humbles me. It is hard because it is important. Ease is not the goal. Purpose, meaning, justice, and connection, these are the goals. These are not easy. I realize that anything in my life that has lasting value is difficult. It is only in recognizing and accepting the challenges, standing in the storm if you will, when dreams are dreamt and missions exercised. This interplay between the best and the worst is how we realize the integrity of service and justice. More mundanely, I feel some shame knowing that most Hondurans wash their clothes by hand without complaint. My petty ego needs to get out of the way.
Shoulder to Shoulder is doing incredible things to empower the people of Intibucá. Shoulder to Shoulder will invest in even more meaningful missions, deepening relationships of trust and commitment with the people and associations in Intibucá and Honduras. It is the best of times. None of it happens without facing strong head winds. We will design and plan, consider and decide, and seek out donors and partners to share our mission shoulder to shoulder. This, as necessary as it is, will not yield success. It is not the keenness of our minds, nor the professional quality of our planning, nor the wealth of our endowment, that secures the rightness of our mission. It is the integrity of the heart. If we maintain the integrity of our hearts, our dreams will wake. The results will not appear as we had envisioned. They will be so much better than the limits of our minds. They will flood our hearts with joy.
Indeed, these are the best of times, these are the worst of times… And the story continues…