Our team

I wanted to share a picture of our research team. I named our organization "Proyecto Para El Desarrollo Communitario."

From left to right we have:
Selvin, Yuny, Luis, Mario, Jessica, Nahun, Santiago and I, and Carlos.

I am so proud of the work they are doing conducting surveys and gathering information for me about the communities. I could not do this work without them.

Random Act of Kindness

Today, as Santiago and I were out on a walk to pick up trash as we do about once a week, a young couple approached us and began to ask us some questions. They were visiting from Teguc. enjoying the river in La Divina. Their questions were the usual demographic and why are you here-type questions.

Then the woman surprised me. She said, "You know we were talking about how you are an example to the rest of the community. You, a foreigner, are willing to do something that the community itself is not willing to do. Your picking up trash makes people reflect on what they do with their garbage and why."

I was taken aback for a moment. I indeed did want the community to stop throwing trash on the ground and had hoped that if they saw a clean path, perhaps they would refrain from the practice. However, I didn't realize that my position as a foreigner reiterated the point.

I am glad to pick up garbage (at least for now) as it gives me a chance to chat with Santiago, it gets me outside, and we are doing something positive for the world however small and perhaps unsuccessful (in terms of long-term change) it might be. In fact, the activity gives me a sense of peace and joy. No, it is not breaking down structures of inequality or the matrix of domination that maintains suffering, but, damn it, it is something concrete that on our walk tomorrow I can smile about.

I guess I am finding that I need to have a little bit of both--critiquing practices of injustice while also offering solutions AND doing small random acts of kindness.

Wage Inequality

Local wages in Honduras 2009

Minimum wage: About $1.75 an hour (though it only specifies a wage total per month)

Housecleaning wage: About $1 an hour not including travel time (1.5-2 hours each way) or expense (about $2)

Housecleaning wage with the above included: About $.65 an hour

Manual labor wage: About $9 a day or $1 an hour

In many local markets or street stalls, vendors have trouble breaking a 100 Lempira bill that is equal to about $5.50.

Elizabeth pays a local adolescent girl about $1.50-2 an hour to sweep and mop our floors twice a week.

I pay my assistant twice her previous salary as a Catholic Church social worker. She receives a "generous" wage of $2 an hour to help me with data collection. I was told by a number of NGO workers not to overpay those helping me as it may lead to: dependency of the individual on a foreigner; jealousy among other community members; it changes power dynamics in the family and society; etc. Although I do not believe all of these are reason enough to underpay someone, I do believe there is some validity in being cautious. In consulation with other Honduran friends, I decided upon the above number.

Lunch including drink can cost anywhere from $3 to $5 per person in the community. Dinner tonight cost Elizabeth and I about $4.50 for us both. I took two Spaniards, who work for a major development NGO in Honduras, out to lunch a couple of weeks ago in Teguc and mistakenly allowed them to decide where we were to eat. It cost me upwards of $45…a valuable but expensive lesson.

What the hell am I doing here? Honduras update 6

"Ever have a moment when you wonder 'How did I get here?'"

Recently this happened to me while standing on the side of a highway waiting for the second of two buses to bring me home. The bus stop is a dirt patch at the confluence of a major highway and a road leading up into the mountains. About a half dozen chickens meander around my feet, looking for scraps of nutrition among the grass patches. All too often one ventures too close to the road and is quickly run off squawking by a roaring bus or car followed by a plume of smoke. It is an amusing sight. In addition, cattle are occasionally herded across the highway to find better pastures. Today a boy on a horse, maybe 11 years old, shuffles his dozen or so cows forcing traffic to stop impatiently. A couple of men and women gather near me and on the other side of the road also waiting for different buses. They take solace in the shade of a road sign knowing the wait will be near an hour. But I have hope that today will be different and if I look hard enough perhaps I can will the bus to come sooner.

As I stood there in the hot sun after a long day of interviews and ethnographic data collection, I wonder about all the small decisions that brought me to this place in this moment. I think of all the people who enabled me to advance academically and all of those supported along the way. I also smile thinking of all the places I could be in the world with all of the privileges I have. Yet, I have chosen to stand on a dusty corner in a forgotten part of the world sweating profusely, avoiding wandering bulls and listening to clucking chickens. Indeed, there is nowhere else I would rather be.

Life continues to be good in "La Divina." Santiago has recently learned to crawl and his mobility has created more work for us. He is also beginning to babble often saying "Dadadadada" and everybody in the community loves him especially the girls. As for Elizabeth, she will soon offer a class on pregnancy and early mothering for the women in the community. She also took a number of great photos which you can check out at the link below. Finally, my work is going well and I have enjoyed chatting, working, walking, eating, praying, and playing soccer with community members, NGO directors, religious leaders, and kids.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=181871468703%3A676527322

 

New pictures from Honduras

click here to see some new pics from Honduras.

Honduras Update Number 4—Two Friends

In order to illustrate who we spend time with I will describe the life situations of two of our friends —Felipe and Julio.

On the one hand, Felipe is a thirty-four year old dark-skinned "watchyman" or guard of the area where we are staying. He is a skinny but strong man with striking facial features; if you look him in the eye you know he is not one to cross. Deep wrinkles and sun damage also highlight his personal story--a narrative of struggle, of working in the fields, of survival.

He has lived his entire life, except for a two-year undocumented stint in the U.S., in the Valle de Amarateca in a town called Rio Frio. His family consists of four kids (though the oldest lives with his first wife in another town), is married to a twenty-three year old women from the same town and works a full-time 12 hours a day seven day a week job as the guard and picks up occasional work making shovel handles from pine branches. In this second job he receives a total of nine dollars for eight hours of work.

Felipe spends his free time playing soccer with his friends and relatives in Rio Frio, attending an evangelical church, raising his kids and caring for his wife. He almost never leaves the Valle as it costs too much and perhaps does not have a reason to do so. Although he does own a house made of brick and mud, he has little savings and when his youngest son was recently ill the family had to go without their normal luxury of soda and the dog had to scrounge around the community as there were not the usual scraps of food to feed him.

Although not well-educated, I believe he has a sixth grade education, Felipe is very aware of the current political situation and has no problem explaining the details of the state of affairs with unusual clarity. He is also absolutely un-intimated by me and my education or by Elizabeth and her occupation as a nurse. Recently, we had a friendly argument about the causes of poverty in Honduras and though I know he respects my opinion, he was utterly unconvinced by my comments. In addition, when his son was sick and Elizabeth was offering Felipe and his wife some advice, he interrupted her and explained to her what he knew to be the problem.

 

On the other hand, Julio is a thirty-four year old lighter-skinned engineer who works for the NGO that built the community. He is a bit overweight with an omnipresent smile and a joke or two at the ready. He is always well-dressed with ironed pants and collared shirts and a clean short haircut. University-educated and the son of a nurse and topographer, his time in the fields has consisted of managing the work others.

Julio is from Tegucigalpa, has traveled throughout Central America, and commutes in his Toyota 4-Runner. He is married to Ceidy, a thirty-year-old dentist from Otoro, and they have been trying for five years to get pregnant (and now are!). Although he leaves his house around 8am, he usually arrives at work around 9:30am due to traffic, leaves around 4 and arrives home around 6pm. He does not work on the weekends but takes English classes and is extremely involved the Catholic Church where he was married.

Julio and Ceidy own a two-story house in a good part of Tegucigalpa and have recently purchased a second car. They spend almost all of their free time either with family or friends from the church and Julio is an avid soccer player and fan. Almost every Sunday he organizes a 4-on-4 soccer game with friends at a local university where they rent a field for about $15 an hour. Money is much less of an issue for him than for Felipe.

Julio is also very politically involved and can argue his point with the best of them. We often discuss numerous social issues and come to a general agreement about the way the world is. His viewpoint is often based in fact and hard evidence and when in doubt we check our facts using reliable sources on the internet.

So it is. I enjoy spending time (in conversation and on the soccer field) with both men and have learned much from each.

Honduras Update 5—A heavy heart

I write this to you on a quiet Wednesday as I break from work and overlook the beauty that is Honduras. Corn tufts sway in the wind and the clouds curl slowly over the mountain tops. Rain will come soon, as it does about four times a week, to replenish the forests and crops while at the same time cleaning the streets and sidewalks of human debris.

Last week in Tegucigalpa I ran into one of my old students Miguel from the orphanage. I had worked with him and another student, Orlando, for more than a year on the reading, writing and math skills so they could keep up with their grade level. I grew found of them both and loved and treated them like little brothers.

Miguel had grown significantly since I had said goodbye seven years ago. Now twenty, he was good-looking, mature, and strong from cutting weeds with a machete six days a week. This day he was wearing an old U.S. used (Goodwill) t-shirt, jeans that had flakes of mud at the cuffs and old brown shoes. His smile was the same with straight white teeth which contrasted against his dark complexion and black hair. His personality—distracted from undiagnosed ADHD, good humored but with a less than average intellect--remained the same.

He began to share his story with me of the last few years. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to tell. He ran away from the orphanage with his sister to Tegucigalpa about a year or two after I left. He has been living with her ever since taking part time work when possible, hanging out at the mall when not. He has returned to school since he left the orphanage and has little desire to continue doing something he consistently failed at. His life is led a day at a time with no plans for the future and no current preoccupations. It was good to see him and catch up.

However, he had more to tell me about Orlando. Orlando had left the orphanage as well and returned to his "home" of Santa Rosa de Copan. I note home in quotation marks as he only lived there a few years before arriving at Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos orphanage. Miguel then took his thumb and made a horizontal arc across his neck—Orlando had been murdered only two months ago.

It brings me great sadness to think about Orlando as a ten-year-old boy, bright eyed and excited about coming to my class. Many, many people gave much of themselves to offer this kid, who had a terribly hard life to begin with, an opportunity, a chance to make something of himself. And that was taken away with his life at age eighteen; all of that work, his generous spirit, his love of soccer, everything.

Currently, Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world. To put it in perspective, Honduras had about 58 murders for every 100,000 people in 2008, the United States had about six, and Mexico had about eleven. This in a country that never had a civil war like its neighbors, that has been the closest ally to the United States over the last century, has had more Peace Corp volunteers than any other country in the world, and is wealthy in natural resources. It makes me wonder whether I should move from studying post-disaster community development to crime reduction strategies, especially among young people.

Often I try to find the bright side in every situation but I do not really see one right now. It just sucks to have a friend, a little brother who I did my best to love and support, no longer have a future.

 

Hey everyone,
First, I have received more than a few concerned emails about our safety under the current political situation. We are safe and content in our little community about 35 kilometers from the capital. The political problems do not really affect us other than the concerns I mentioned already (although there was a recent decree passed that if 5 or more people were meeting and discussing politics they could be arrested even in your own home). Yet, the two governments are finally starting to dialogue--a good sign for the country. Please do not worry about us...I will keep you updated as we have internet access.

Second, all is well here. We are visited by kids on average four times a day for any number of reasons: to see Santi, to take a walk with Elizabeth, to pick fruit from our trees, to ask us to speak english, and to ask me to play soccer. It has been fun but at times a little too much. As part of our noise and privacy reduction program, we are moving from the center of the community to one of the outskirts (about four hundred yards). It was a building originally built for religious congregations and had been the home of a small group of nuns who ran the daycare and some workshops. It has a beautiful view and is super tranquilo. I will send photos next time.

Third, our family. Santiago now has his first tooth, is sitting up on his own and loves to take baths. He has also earned the name Bam-Bam from some of our friends due to his high energy and love of making noise.

Elizabeth is doing well and is excited about the move. She has made a number of friends, especially other mothers, with whom she is learning to cook Honduran style. She is also thinking about how to volunteer at the clinic.

As for me, I am playing 4-aside soccer almost everyday, working on putting on a tournament with the help of The Futbol Project, and enjoying taking an hour long walk with Santiago every morning. My research is also going very well--indeed, I have been so successful at gaining access that I will adding a third community into my study.

In addition, two days ago I gave a presentation to the Fundacion Cristo del Picacho, my primary sponsoring organization in Honduras. They were so excited about my project that they have offered to let us stay as long as we want and have given their full support of what I am doing. As of now I am tempted to stay longer but that is a family decision to be made next spring.

Un fuerte abazo (a big hug),
The Alaniz Family

Honduras Political Situation

I thought I should keep you updated on the dramatic turn of events in Honduran politics. Yesterday the ousted president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya of the Liberal party, returned early in the morning under threat of arrest. He is now staying at the Brazilian embassy as he tries to re-gain his former position. Micheletti, the current de facto president, upon learning of his return had all of the phone lines and TV stations shut down for a number of hours to avoid Mel supporters from overrunning the capitol, Tegucigalpa. In addition, Micheletti placed a curfew on the entire country announcing that everyone must stay in their homes from 4pm on Monday until 6pm today (Wednesday) or be arrested. The military and police are currently carrying out this mandate in the major cities though, as far as I can tell, not in the rural areas. All flights have been cancelled and the highways are shut down.

Here is an up-to-date news article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8269073.stm

As for us, all is tranquilo in Divina Providencia. People are out and about and perhaps for the only day there are no buses honking. We were recently introduced at the community mass and at a community meeting so people now know us and say hello. Santiago is doing great, just recovered from his first cold, and Elizabeth is beginning to make some friends. I got my butt kicked on the soccer field last night for being out of shape and work is going really well. The political situation really does not affect our family and unless things get really really bad, we will continue on our merry way. Plus, as a Fulbrighter, we have the support of the U.S. state department and embassy.

Let us hope that this situation is resolved in the best way possible for Honduras.

Honduras description 1

Hola a todos,

Community—Ciudad Divina Providencia

Drive north from Tegucigalpa on the highway for about 35 minutes and soon you will descend into a beautiful and mountainous valley called the Valle de Amarateca. You will notice thousands of pine trees, green scrub brush, and pockets of identical houses scattered about the valley. Billows of smoke rise from the Café Indo coffee processing plant on the right and the Café Maya plant on the left. The smell is inviting on a calm day. Soon you are in the lowest part of the valley where streaks of brown illustrate the dirt roads that wind their way up into the mountains well worn by foot, tire, and hoof. Take the last road on the left--the one before you head up the mountain on the other side of the valley. That’s it. Remember to hold onto the seat in front of you to avoid hitting your head on the roof due to the dips and bumps. Climb around the cow pastures, honk on the corners so that oncoming traffic knows you are there, and follow the sign up the hill to Divina Providencia. There, workers cutting grass will stop and wave or nod wondering who is entering their community. If they know you they will shout with a raised hand “compa” or “tio” endearing names that remind you of the friendship you maintain. Be careful of the skinny dogs and roaming cattle on the road and as you enter the community you will notice a microcosm of the glory and sadness that is Honduras. People laughing alongside burning trash, kids playing barefoot with a flat soccer ball on a dirt field, abandoned cars alongside beautiful gardens, and gentle smiles that turn into growls when talking about politics. In this country, the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere by some standards, life is both simpler and more complicated than in the U.S.

As you enter the center of town just past the central park, notice the Catholic Church on the right. It is the biggest building in town by far but is simply built with a red roof and about a dozen trees surrounding the cement structure. Now look left—the brick building, the length of two cars is the old pre-school that was run by Capuchin nuns. They left about two years ago and the place has been closed, to the great dismay of the community, ever since. Holler at the gate so that we can let you in. Would you like some coffee? It happens to be out nicest amenity alongside our refrigerator and stove. However, both only work when there is electricity which is most of the time—just like our water. No, I am not complaining, just noting how life is here. No, that sound is not a train—it is the bus. The drivers believe that laying on the horn will bring more customers. Though good for them, it tends to wake up the babies in the community including our own Santiago. Now relax. You are in the company of friends, out of the heat of the sun, tasting some sweet bread and laughing at our stories.

The maps below highlight both where the orphanage is (the black star) and where we will be staying (black star in a red bubble on the far left). Please ignore the red box on bigger map as well as the misspelling of Central.

Long-term Development in Post Disaster Communities

This is my current Dissertation research project

In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch swept out of the north and smashed directly into Honduras. Torrential rains deforested hills and caused landslides that buried villages. Two dams exploded, filling the capital Tegucigalpa’s downtown with eighteen feet of mud. The immediate human toll was immense: 5,273 dead, 11,085 missing, and 427,138 people in shelters. The international community responded to President Carlos Flores’s “SOS” with a large relief effort involving substantial long-term development programs. Ten years later, these programs present fascinating evidence of successful and unsuccessful development projects.
Two communities in particular, Ciudad Divina Providencia (CDP) and Ciudad España (CE), offer a strategic opportunity for a comparative analysis of community development, given their similarities immediately after the hurricane in contrast to their dramatically different situations today. In response to Hurricane Mitch, NGOs built CDP and CE to accommodate citizens from different parts of Tegucigalpa who had lost their homes. Members of each community maintained comparable working and lower-middle class socio-economic statuses and racial homogeneity, and their communities had similar local infrastructure. Both CDP and CE were resettled in the Amarateca Valley, eighteen miles northwest of the capital.
But re-settlement in the communities has been remarkably different. CDP thrives economically, sustains a low crime rate, and maintains high civic participation. There is a general sense of well-being and safety for vulnerable populations such as women and children. In contrast, gang problems, crime, and other social ills such as drug and alcohol abuse plague CE. This “natural experiment” of two similar communities beginning anew but experiencing drastically different outcomes offers a unique occasion for advancing understanding of community development and the mechanisms that shape developmental trajectories.
This research will address two theoretical and practical questions. First, why did each community experience such different trajectories? More specifically, how did each community mobilize resources, internal and external, to rebuild? Second, what role did external agencies play in each community’s development outcome, and how did these facilitate or inhibit effective community development? Within this second question I will pay particular attention to the efforts of the two NGOs involved, Fundación Cristo de El Picacho, which developed CDP, and the Red Cross, which developed CE, and examine how development philosophies and practices within each organization shaped the rebuilding process.
Theoretically, my study will speak to debates in the development and political and economic sociology literatures concerning how communities mobilize resources in processes of long-term development against a backdrop of community and organizational philosophies. Moreover, the research contributes to cross-disciplinary debates about the effectiveness of organizational development philosophies (Fundación’s focus on building community versus the Red Cross’ greater emphasis on individual self-improvement). Practically, my research will be relevant to policy makers, NGOs, and community leaders interested in long-term development.