Today, Tuesday, our team engaged in the three activities that brought us to Honduras: working, learning, and playing. During our evening reflection, we wondered: What values do we share as a group? What groups are like ours? To whom are we connected? To whom do we WANT to be connected? Are we many, divided peoples or are we one, global community? Liz here to report on our day's activities and how we are striving to find answers to some of these questions.
The morning began with work projects. One team continued to paint the final bits of green and purple on the walls of the arts building. Attention to detail was necessary for putting the white on the trim and door frames. The transformation is impressive, though not yet complete, as the floor calls for color. Another team finished the destruction of a concrete railing outside the main office building, making space for the construction of a library. Again, the change is significant and immediately visible. (Apparently, that project's change is also palpable as that team reports sore muscles from swinging the sledge hammer.)
Lunch of rice, meatballs, and salad was quickly consumed before we set out to meet with another group, The Micah Project. This is an NGO that has done street ministry for over a decade in the city of Tegu, building relationships with young people (mostly but not all male) who live on the street, huff glue, and hunger for food and love. The youth find that community with each other and also with two of the amazing street workers we saw in action, Hector and Olvin. Over time and with commitment, the street workers have built trust and connection with young people (some as young as nine, some old enough to be raising their own toddlers) who due to abuse, or abandonment, or choice have found the street community to be more welcoming than their own families. Olvin described the numbness that comes from huffing glue as a relief from the loneliness and feelings of anger and grief that come with the loss of relationships with relatives. While our team had meaningful conversations with the street workers and played with one teen (who was a varsity-level champion of the hand slap game), we had discomfort and confusion about our own roles. What did it mean to be observers in this dynamic of poverty and addiction? What complicity, if any, do we have in the situation as people from Estados Unidos? The complications of this became more pointed as we watched a Honduran taking pictures of our group observing and photographing teens and families living on the street.
As we continued to wonder about these questions, we piled back into the van to travel north to El Hogar's Technical School, which provides academic classes and vocational skills to middle and hug school boys. On the way, we heard a remarkable story from our driver. About a year and a half ago, an unusual storm blew into the hills around Tegu. Winds from across the desert blew in sand that made the skies hazy for months, so much so that there were days when flights to the airport had to be cancelled. The winds also blew in a species of beetle that attacked the pine trees, like termites, killing thousands of trees. Efrain pointed out the huge trucks carrying loads of timber and the empty hillsides, saying they had previously been forests full of pine trees. In eight months, from April to December 2015, the landscape around Tegu was dramatically and devastatingly changed. Again, some of us wondered: what role, if any, did we have in this transformed landscape? Was it related to climate change? Was there a warning of sorts in this biblical-style set of plagues?
After a forty minute drive, we arrived at the oasis of the Tech School. Clean air, white buildings and green grass greeted us. About 80 boys in blue uniform shirts, crisp haircuts, and bright smiles added to the welcome. We gathered for a short orientation under a huge mural of the risen Christ in the church sanctuary, with our group of ten visitors facing rows and rows of curious boys. After a brief description of our purpose in being there (to get to know the boys and the school) and point of origin (Boston in the house!), there were some successful attempts by the boys to learn the names of everyone in our group and some humorous attempts by people in our group to repeat the names of all 80 boys (Megan killed it by naming almost all the students in the first three rows).
Dinner of plantains, sausage, and tortillas was followed for the boys by an hour of academic study and for our team by an hour of learning from Lazaro, the director of the school, about the history of El Hogar. He has worked for the organization since the first seven boys began 38 years ago in one building in Tegu. His own dedication and commitment and love is a major factor in the success and expansion of the organization, now educating 250 students on four campuses.
Finally, thanks to the generosity of the teachers in shortening homework time by 15 minutes, we were ready for the play that transcends differences of language and age. Soccer balls were pumped up, nerf footballs squeezed, orgami paper grabbed and we were off! Sandy and Franklin played soccer on the grass with younger boys with Kiana cheering them on; Bella, Jeremy, and Megan got schooled and scraped playing intense, fast soccer on the fenced-in area of the basketball court; and Kemarah led boys and Kate, Liz, and Betsy in making aerodynamic paper airplanes and orgami cranes (the 36-step paper lion attempted by Liz was less successful...). Cheers from the games and looks of concentration from the paper-folding indicated that fun and challenge and accomplishments were being shared by all.
This evolution of two groups becoming one was clear when we came together for the evening prayer and singing that is a regular ritual for the boys. Now, instead of facing each other across empty space as our team sat on altar steps and the students sat in rows of chairs, we were all sitting together, shoulders touching shoulders, on stairs. Laughter and chatting that is the sign of real relationships had to be quieted down. Then, one of the teachers gave a short reflection on the verses in Romans (5:1-5) that say "suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope." It is not a question of whether the glass is half empty or half full, he concluded. It is having gratitude for there being something in the glass at all. This struck many of the folks in our group, as we imagined how it may have resonated with the boys.
Later, as we gathered around the (literal) reflecting pool for our evening reflection, we were moved and left with questions from the day. The work projects done as a team in the morning had bonded us still further to each other and to some of the older teens who painted and rubbled alongside us. The learning and observations with The Micah Project raised questions for us about our role and motivations in global development and mission work. With what groups do we share values and with whom do we want to align? The playing, laughing, and singing with the boys of the Tech School offered some answers and solace, as we found ourselves part of a group and an effort bigger and more long-lasting than our own efforts. Out of many, one.
For me, I can't help but put what we are seeing and doing into a larger context. Since arriving in Honduras, I have been reading Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario (all credit to my son's teacher Mr. Valenzuela, who assigned it to his 7th grade Humanities students at Boston Latin Academy). Enrique's dangerous trek took him on the tops of freight cars, through deserts and rivers, from Honduras to the United States to reunite with his mother. She had left Tegu when Enrique was five years old so that she could get the employment and wages needed to raise her family. While she sent money back home, Enrique found himself suffering the loss and confusion that comes from missing his mom. He turned to glue to dull the hunger of poverty and sadness of loneliness; he feared and aligned himself (for safety) with the gangs that run parts of Tegu. And then he traveled with the approximately 75,000 Central American (including Honduran) unaccompanied children who every year make the treacherous journey to the perceived opportunities, love, and wholeness offered in the USA. Knowing I still have much more to learn about the ways global trade and US foreign policy have helped create these circumstances, what I can see is that El Hogar is offering--right now and in Honduras-- much of what Enrique and his mom both sought. El Hogar provides the education and job training, safety and freedom for play, and the love of and connection with family that answers the longings and needs of children like Enrique, teens in the plaza of Tegu, students at the Technical Institute, and adults like me all have. E pluribus unum.
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