True Riches

After about five minutes of tugging on this goat’s udders, I finally figured out the rhythm necessary to consistently get milk. I felt bad for her that it took me so long, but she was a good sport and I think she enjoyed it, despite her many attempts to kick me and get away.

Is it really February already? First of all, I would like to apologize to all four of my devout readers for the absence of last week’s post while I was in Honduras. I got back to Punta Gorda last night after a couple smooth bus rides and a not-so-smooth boat ride from Guatemala that left my tail bone bruised and the skin on my face stinging from the pelting rain. Kevin’s apartment and 13-inch TV served as our private super bowl party – I felt so American. Perhaps the greatest part about this was that my stomach finally was feeling solid enough to digest most things again, after a five-day bout with what was informally self-diagnosed as amoebas. Maybe it came from drinking goat’s milk straight from the udder or maybe it was something else completely unrelated. I make no speculation on the cause, but the effect was undeniable.

Central Park of San Pedro Sula, taken from the steps of a beautiful church. I loved the mountains behind it with the clouds settling in for the evening. Honestly, it was about the only part of the city that I thought was beautiful.

Anyway, after returning from Honduras, I felt very refreshed and recharged, with vast new information, stories, and lessons. I was able to spend a couple days in Subirana with a wonderful group of volunteers from the states learning about dairy goats and building the new goats a shelter. Prior to my time there, goats actually freaked me out a little bit, but after jumping in to milk one and play with all the rest, I have actually come to like them quite a bit. Amazing what a little open minded experience can do for someone, huh? After a couple days with my new bearded, horned friends, Justin, the S.H.I. field program director, was nice enough to let me tag along with him for a couple days to check in on projects throughout the Yoro area. This gave me a chance to see mostly newer participants in FUCOHSO’s (S.H.I. – Honduras) program, which mainly consisted of family gardens and sometimes the beginning of small commercialization for profit. Also, there were a number of rural community banks set up by S.H.I. to help groups of farmers and families build capital through microfinancing. I am a very critical person and I tend to pursue all the information I can get my hands on when learning about things, so naturally I had my criticisms, but all in all I was very impressed with the projects. FUCOHSO is the oldest and best developed of all of S.H.I’s Central American affiliates, so it was really great for me to learn from them and see their organizational approach. I am very grateful to each and every one of the staff that so generously gave of their time, energy, and expertise to help me out.

A FUCOHSO participant picking some green leaf lettuce for Justin and I to take with us. His garden was beautiful and also was growing cabbage, red leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, onions, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, and sweet potatoes, of course all organic. By the end of the week I had memorized how to say about 20 vegetables in Spanish; it’s a good start at least.

Another great part of the trip was spending the last full day of the trip with the volunteer group at Pico Bonito National Park. It took us just four short hours to make the journey of 97 miles, as the crow flies. There were so many adventures there: riding across a river 50 feet above the water in a self-propelled basket bridge, some beautiful hikes, and, of course, an afternoon siesta in the hammock. Without a doubt, my favorite activity there was an afternoon of playing in Rio Cangrejal. This river was so beautiful – rushing blue and white water, relentlessly maneuvering its way through giant, scattered boulders, all set in a lush valley between San Judas and Nombre De Dios mountain ranges. My favorite part about the afternoon was playing with the kids from the village. They were kids in the truest sense of the word – no inhibitions and no end to their energy or laughter – and they were thrilled to let us join them in sliding on smashed 3 liter plastic bottles down a huge rock into the river. I wish you all could have seen big, goofy, gringo me trying to stay on top of the bottle as I slid down the rock, being chased by at least three very adept Honduran kids each time.

Rio Cangrejal at dusk. The boulders in this river were so impressive to me due to their size and their variety. I know they don’t look big, but trust me they are huge, and the one in the back on the left bank of the river is the one we slid down.

That afternoon of playing with and observing the kids sunk a lesson into me in a much more profound way than ever before. “True wealth is not material.” “The best things in life are free.” “Money can’t buy happiness.” I know these are often stated, admittedly even by me, but I wonder how often they are truly understood and experienced. I believe that we are all constantly experiencing these principles, but that, in our society, we are almost always obstructed from true understanding and consequent application. The point of this lesson, besides obvious personal application, is its employment in the arena of relief and development in developing areas of the world. I have always wondered how much culture, climate, and desires of individuals were taken into account when development projects were created and implemented. Along with a need to understand the programs themselves that we will be supporting in the future, this was the main purpose of my journey. If we apply our own understanding of the world and our standards based on our society, then nearly everyone is in need of relief and development because they don’t live the same as we do. Most of us probably consider a family that lives in a small mud house without electricity or running water, has only a couple outfits each, and farms manually for their food and limited monetary profit to be very poor and in need of development assistance. We may indeed be quite right, but we will never know by looking only at their external circumstances or even by analyzing their country’s GDP. We can only know by getting to know them, their culture, their desires and abilities, and what resources they have at their disposal. I am realizing more and more how the word “sustainable” does not apply simply to agriculture, but in fact to every aspect of human life, and it is much more complex in each of those aspects than I am qualified to discuss at this point. What I can be sure of is that a great many people, myself included, would be much happier living the life I just described than the lives of many Western millionaires. If I was forced between the two, I would much rather live life with a full heart and mind than a full wallet and bank account. This all goes to say that it is vital that organizations for relief and development have a foundational element of personal relationships with their participants, and I would like everyone to be confident that ERace Poverty will partner only with such organizations.

Some Volunteers hanging on for dear life on their way to Cooperativa Juan Pablo II. We went across this basket bridge to get to the sewing co-op. The adventure of getting there and the products they made were both well worth the trip.