Politics...

Written June 2nd

As Peace Corps volunteers, we are not supposed to talk about politics while here in Honduras. We are supposed to remain neutral and politely tell people that we can’t discuss it, when the subject is brought up, which it almost always is. How can the subject not be brought up - five days ago the ex-president came back to Honduras after being gone for almost two years. For those of you who don’t know, there was a coup two years ago, which caused the ex-president to flee. Of course, I probably shouldn’t talk much about what happened, but you can easily find the information online - even on Wiki.

The day of the ex-president’s arrival my host dad made the seven-hour drive to Tegucigalpa to witness the historic event - he is a supporter. That night, my host mom explained to me what happened here in Honduras and why the ex-pres had to flee, and why he is now coming back. She also explained why that president was so much better than the current and how the life of Hondurans are now worse for the ware with the current president. My host family fully hopes that the ex-president will be elected once again under his newly created political party.

Last night my host mom also explained to me about the “rights of the people” here in Honduras. My host mom is quite the activist. Today she went to a meeting about the rights of Hondurans - especially poor Hondurans. I don’t consider my host family to be poor. They seem to be quite well off for Honduran Standards, but they certainly are active in the fight for the rights of the campasinos (poor farm workers). The meeting that Sonia went to today was about the privatization of education and health here in Honduras. According to my host mom, if health and education is fully privatized than none of the poor Hondurans will be able to go to school or to a health center. Many people are worried about what will happen if the privatization passes. Apparently there have been a lot of meetings held - some with the current president, and many promises made by the president, but no action has actually been taken. This was the reason for today’s meeting. These representatives of the people are starting to get fed up with the lack of action being taken by the president, and want to try and organize a protest.

There are a lot of things I could say about all this - things that my host mom told me about, but I don’t want it to sound as though I am talking about my ideas about the politics and policies of Honduras, because I don’t want to get in trouble by the Peace Corps.

On a non-prohibited note, I was really happy that I could understand these two political/difficult conversations I had with my host mom. She talked to me for quite a long time - I didn’t say much in response. I just smiled and nodded, so she knew I understood and was listening. But, the fact that I was able to understand most of it made me very happy. In my opinion, my Spanish is really coming along. I felt bad for not really having an actual conversation with my host mom about these matters - just nodding and smiling seems kind of disrespectful, but I didn’t want to get too deep into a political discussion. One, because I really don’t have that much to say about the politics here in Honduras or in the United States, two, because I don’t have the Spanish I would need to say what I would want to say, and three because it is prohibited by the Peace Corps.

We’ll see what plays out over the next two years that I am here in Honduras, though. What is going to happen during the next election? What will happen with education and health care? What will happen to the campasinos? There are a lot of variables. At this point - we are just going to have to wait and see.