No bon bons will be shaken in Honduras

I am betraying my half-assed blogging track record and writing my second entry in four days because, well, I’m pissed. While eating panqueques in Santa Rosa the other morning and leafing through La Prensa, I came upon an article about everyone’s favorite Boricua, Ricky Martin, which left me absolutely steaming. Here’s the deal: Representatives of the Catholic and Evangelical churches here have solicited to the Minister of Interior and Population, Africa Madrid (aka the same loon that forbid ‘the satanic celebration of Halloween’ in Honduras last year), that Martin not be allowed to enter the country for his scheduled show in Tegucigalpa on October 16 because ‘he is not a good example of the construction of a nuclear family that Honduran laws and Honduran society want to construct and promote in the young people and the rest of the population’. In other words, because he is gay. They’re saying that by denying him entrance into the country and cancelling his show, they will be ‘safeguarding the moral and ethical principles of Honduran society’. Where do I even begin to go literarily ape shit on this move of Honduran authorities?

For starters, the general sense of homophobia that permeates every part of this society is probably the one thing that makes me most want to... I don’t even know. Scream? Cry? Leave? Uppercut every single person that drops ‘maricón’, ‘marica’ or ‘culero’- which all essentially mean faggot- in my presence? If I had a centavo for every single time that I asked someone PLEASE not to say that word around me and explained to them that it really bothers me, well, I’d have around six seven bathtubs full of centavos. And if you’ve been to Honduras you’d know that (a) bathtubs do not exist and (b) no one EVER uses centavos (if pulperías owe you change they usually just give you candy instead). So in other words, I’d be nowhere. People usually respond with something along the lines of, ‘No me importa, es que me caen mal’ (‘I don’t care, I just don’t like them’), providing no sensible explanation whatsoever to why they harbor such hatred for a group of people they know absolutely nothing about. Some bring up the church and the fact that ‘homosexuality is a sin’ and blah blah blah. Last time I checked, one of the foremost tenets of Christianity is showing kindness and love to your fellow man. I didn’t just make that up, did I? Call me crazy but regardless of the number of angles from which I look at the way(s) that so many religious people (I’ll be fair… nonreligious people too) discriminate against gays, I still can’t see how this behavior is compatible with the ideas behind Christianity. No matter how they respond, my counter responses always end up fizzling out and dying because I now see it’s a fight that I will never win; they’ve had these ideas shoved down their throats since they were young children, be it in the form of those aforementioned bus preachers howling in their tiny faces that homosexuality is a sin or parents snatching dolls out of their three year old son’s hands and exclaiming that ‘solo los maricas juegan con muñecas!’ (‘only faggots play with dolls!’). So what do I do? Usually absolutely nothing aside from bite my tongue until it bleeds, and revel in the fact that I wasn’t born in such an intolerant place.

Part number two that pisses me off is just the utter hypocrisy that lies within everything they’re saying. Ricky Martin isn’t a good example of the nuclear family that Honduran society seeks to promote? Nuclear family!?!? This is coming from people in a country where countless families are lacking a father figure (sometimes even a mother figure, as is the case with the family whose house I live in, whose mother left behind three children to work in Barcelona) because they are either in some other country that actually has job opportunities that allow them to send remittances back home to their families, or they bounced as soon as they found out that somehow, after having unprotected sex with this random woman, she ended up pregnant (the latter of which has a lot to do with the Catholic Church’s stance on condom use). And what are these representatives of the Catholic and Evangelical churches doing to change the tides and assure that family becomes a strong and supportive unit once again? Bitching about a Ricky Martin concert.

And as for this bit on ‘safeguarding the moral and ethical principles of Honduran society’…why aren’t they trying to prohibit the entrance of those dudes that sing Como Se Mata El Gusano into the country? You know, the ones notorious for selecting attractive girls somewhere around sixteen years old from the crowd, bringing them on stage, bending them over a chair and proceeding to thrust/dry hump them from behind for the entire duration of the song while the crowd cheers them on. Why isn’t anyone questioning what kind of implications encouraging the sexualization of young girls like this is having on Hondurans’ moral and ethical principles?

Deep breaths. This is what I know: first of all, that I have unparalleled amounts of respect for my gay Peace Corps friends whose selflessness and drive to make a meaningful difference here somehow outweighs their desire to scream/cry/leave/uppercut Hondurans...I really don’t think I could swing it. And secondly, that all my gays back home should be damn grateful they were born in the U S of A, where, sure, you still can’t get married but where, fortunately, there is a growing movement of supporters who recognize that we’re all human beings and deserve to be treated accordingly. Ya.

*All (absurd) quotations taken/translated from: http://www.laprensa.hn/Secciones-Principales/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/Iglesias-opuestas-a-concierto-de-Ricky-Martin
*Except Halloween quote which is from: http://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com/2010/10/official-no-to-halloween.html

the one where I talk about boobs...

Once upon a time, I went on an Alaskan Carnival cruise with none other than the target clientele of an Alaskan Carnival Cruise- my grandparents. During the flight there, I remember little else aside from my older brother barfing in the airplane bathroom the whole entire time, and a boy around the age of eight bellyaching and screaming his face off as he violently kicked my seat. Now I wouldn’t consider myself an especially physically abusive twelve-year old, and Dexter wouldn’t be cooked up for at least another seven years, yet here I sat plotting the ways I could do in this child using the few resources I had left after TSA had swooped my lighter and 2+ ounce bottle of shampoo. And then, eight-year old boy’s mother- who was breastfeeding a much, much younger son- suddenly realized that her every attempt to appease him had failed and resorted to the final possible course of action. Much younger son was thrust into daddy’s arms and the newly vacant nipple thrust in a very similar manner into eight-year old son’s mouth, successfully bringing an end to the uproar.

This entry was inspired by a four day Family Health Workshop led by fellow Volunteers that I just attended, in which we spent a good amount of time discussing amamantando (breastfeeding). At one point, one of the facilitators asked the women in the audience who were mothers for how long they breastfed their kids. A few women said six months, another said nine, other responses were thrown out. Then Doña Eladia, an adorable, spunky Lenca woman missing several front teeth and measuring in at about 4’8”, proudly proclaimed, “siete años y medio” (seven and a half years). In addition to giving my ribs a good tickle, it provoked a flashback to a plane ride I took over a decade ago and had forgotten about until this moment. Who would’ve thought that my very first taste of everyday life in Honduras would be in American Airlines vessel, hovering somewhere around 37,000 feet, eleven years earlier?

In Honduras, as you may have imagined, babies run (/crawl) rampant. This is due to many factors, among them the machismo attitude that ties impregnating a woman to ‘being a man’, the high Catholic population teamed with the absolutely silly standpoint of the Catholic Church on condom use, the lack of a sexual education program in schools, and the fact that there isn’t much else to do in a town of 4,000 odd people aside from play soccer, watch novelas, and engage in the action(s) that can sometimes end in the creation of a baby. Moving on. Lots of babies mean lots of hungry babies. When women breastfeed here, contrary to the situation in the United States, there is no ducking out into the nearest restroom to do the deed, no pulling out a bottle of freshly pumped breast milk or formula you prepared knowing that your child would need to eat while you were in the presence of other human beings, not even a blanket tossed over her head while she dines. Instead, the mother pulls down her shirt (most likely some misspelled rip off of Hollister) and baby goes to town; be it in the middle of a training, front row at a cabildo abierto (town meeting), on a bus, waiting in line at the bank- you name it. Yet for some reason, when these breasts are out and about for any and all to see, those men who in any other moment would be tirando piropos (catcalling) and asking said woman which juguetería (toy store) she came from instead avert their eyes and say nothing. It is an anomaly I doubt I will ever understand. And finally, since many women here seem to be perpetually pregnant and pumping out babies, it is not uncommon to see a child who is capable of walking, talking and reciting the Periodic Table of Elements off the top of his head still tomando el chichi, much like that little monster from the plane.

Typical meeting in the campo- woman breastfeeding and another on her phone. Captured.

Let it be said that I am not hating on overtly breastfeeding in public spaces. As a matter of fact, it is one of the things that I like best about this culture. Why should you be embarrassed or self-conscious about what is perhaps the most natural mammalian act that exists? Whip out that nipple while you bag the vegetables I have yet to pay for, girl… if you like it, I love it. It’s just one of those things that never ever fails to remind me that I, Dorothy, am no longer in Kansas.

Mural of what appears to be a full grown adult breastfeeding in Copán Ruinas...how appropriate

ya basta with the bad press...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/us/11corps.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

This article was recently brought to my attention by a good friend of mine, curious to hear the two cents of a current volunteer. Shortly thereafter, my parents brought it up- concerned, naturally, about my safety. After reading the article, I read each one of the two hundred something comments that followed at the time, the vast majority of which were posted by either current or Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Here are my thoughts…

The issue of sexual assault within our institution and Honduras has been a recurrent talking point for many of us, especially following ABC's 20/20 piece ran in January about several female volunteers who were sexually assaulted during their services (if you haven’t seen it, I recommend watching it… all three parts can be found on YouTube). The piece abruptly and, in my opinion, unfairly ends with one of those women asserting that she has young daughters herself, and that she would absolutely never allow them to apply to Peace Corps. While I recognize that what these women went through is inconceivably difficult, and even more so if you don’t have a receptive support system to go back to, I feel like the program showed an extremely biased, one-sided vision of how Peace Corps is. The fine folks over at ABC did absolutely nothing in the way of expressing admiration for the organization, its volunteers, and the experience they walk away with, which, according to countless individuals, is one of the most positive and enriching of their entire lives. They failed to mention the powerful relationships volunteers forge with their neighbors and community members, which undoubtedly do more to fortify the good name of Americans than other foreign ventures of The United States, and at a fraction of the price. This seems like an appropriate moment to mention that in its entire 50-year history, we have spent less money on the Peace Corps than one percent of the defense budget for just this year. How reassuring to see that our nation’s priorities are in the right place.

Several of those who left comments as well as the author herself mention a “blame the victim” culture that exists within Peace Corps as an institution. Countless fellow PCVs have informed me that our former Country Director, whom I had very minimal contact with as she was replaced only two months into my service, was no exception to this rule. When female volunteers came to her to report sexual assaults, she would inquire into and criticize what they were wearing at the time, or condemn them for being at that particular place in that moment. Obviously, this is deeply flawed not only due to the profound effects it will have on volunteers’ psyches, but also because they will inevitably feel dissuaded from reporting incidents in the future (not only sexual assaults but any security incidents). Peace Corps currently supports some 8,600 volunteers in 76 countries, and after seeing how much one volunteer’s life and work differs from another’s within the same country, I cannot begin to imagine the disparities, administrative ones included, that exist from country to country. Clearly, I can only speak from what has been my own experience. I feel like the staff here in Honduras- I speak primarily of our Safety and Security Coordinator and our new Country Director- are extremely approachable, receptive to our feedback and genuinely care about us as Volunteers. I am confident that they have done everything in their power to inform us and keep us informed of possible risks and how to avoid them (someone left a comment criticizing how our training places too much emphasis on preventive measures such as this, but what other option is there… tell us what we could have done after the fact??), place us in safe communities, and apprise us of the support systems that exist both within country and in Washington were something to happen to us. And the few people I know who, for whatever reasons, have had to turn to such networks have felt extremely supported. All I know is that I feel very safe here. And I support any legislation that is going to fortify the organization by making us safer and better seeing to the needs of those who have been subjected to such unimaginable acts. I just sincerely hope that all this bad press doesn’t eat away at and lead to (even more) funding cuts because Peace Corps is by leaps and bounds The United State's smartest investment in soft power, and we really are accomplishing wonderful things in our respective corners of the world.

That post was a little on the heavy side, I promise something más leve next time around. Over and out…