Happy Father's Day!

So, this past Saturday was Father's Day here in Honduras and I thought I'd share some pictures of our little celebration.  We had a special lunch on Friday at the office followed by a giant cake!  I was in charge of buying the cake so that was fun.  The only hitch was that I didn't realize we were only expecting ten people and the cake I picked out was supposed to feed 25-30 people.  Needless to say, we ate a LOT of cake that day and there was still leftovers to take home. 

Father's Day in Honduras isn't nearly as big as Mother's Day (which is celebrated in May, just like in Canada).  However, this holiday is still an important celebration for families in the community.  In many homes fathers are either uninvolved with their children or totally absent.  Unfortunately incidences of domestic violence, child abuse and alcoholism are pretty common.  It is really a privilege if a family has a stable and loving father-figure in their home.  At church, some women came forward to give heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful fathers and role models in the community.  It really made me think about their influence on the father's of the next generation and about the future of the typical Honduran household.  It also made me miss my own dad so, of course, I gave him a call later on Sunday afternoon!

Diaconía's Microcredit Program

So far, my favourite part of my work here in Honduras has been assisting with the microcredit program.  Microcredit is a way of fighting poverty by providing small loans to people in the community so that they can build their small-scale business activities. Pioneered by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh under the direction of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the microcredit model emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Microcredit programs proved that people living in poverty could make good use of credit and other financial services which until then, they had rarely been able to access. As the concept of microcredit spread, organizations adapted it to fit the needs of other regions, economic climates, and populations -- urban and rural, literate and illiterate, male and female.

This program interests me because it targets women and helps them to organize and support each other.  Training individuals as part of a micro-credit initiative involves more than just dispensing loans: it empowers and strengthens the community.  Diaconía works within the neighbourhood to improve business strategies, build self-esteem and accountability, foster valuable family relationships, and develop household management skills.  I have had many opportunities to visit with loan recipients and I have seen their flourishing businesses.  I believe that this approach to development has the potential to truly transform a community through the empowerment of individuals and by nurturing a strong network of support.

At this point, I am still learning the loan process so I’ve been assisting the other team members.  Together we’ve gone to communities around Catacamas visiting potential clients and businesses.  Since the credit program involves investing a lot of time and effort into training and supporting its clients, Diaconía prefers to start with a few preliminary visits to get to know one another.  The priority is always to foster a strong relationship between the organization and its participants. 

This past week I just finished working on a pamphlet and PowerPoint presentation to help us better communicate to our clients their rights, responsibilities and benefits within the program.  We’ve really tried to simplify our message and emphasize the characteristics of a great relationship so we named it “La Receta del Éxito – The Recipe of Success”!  Hopefully this will aid our individual borrowers and loan groups to understand that DN is ready to support them but that they ultimately hold the key to opening or closing the door to this opportunity. 

Our most successful participants are those that take this cooperative relationship very seriously and also take great pride in their businesses.   They realize that we are not loan-sharks out to take advantage and make an enormous profit.  And yet our loans are not charity either because our clients know they have to invest wisely and work hard to pay it back. 

In addition to working on pamphlets and presentations, I have been filling out loan application forms with our potential borrowers and sending the documents to Diaconía Nacional’s head office in Tegucigalpa.  Not everyone can read and write very well so we have to sit down with each applicant – which also helps with my Spanish skills too!  My other tasks include all that fun office work like making photocopies, sending emails, answering the phone and of course filing, filing and more filing.  It seems like almost every job I’ve had involves a mountain of papers that need to be organized. 

All in all it keeps me busy - which is great - and I find the whole program very intriguing.  It also looks like I’ll have a break from the office work starting next week as we are expecting a work group from a church in British Columbia March 23^nd.  I bet I’ll be ready for more filing after a week of digging and mixing cement! 

My Roatan Vacation

So I just got back home to Catacamas yesterday afternoon from Roatan, one of the Bay Islands on the north coast of Honduras.  I left here on Saturday Feb 19th and took a 5-hr bus trip to Tegucigalpa.  I was so happy to spend the night at Dilia's house because the next day was an 8-hr bus trip to La Ceiba on the coast and then an hour and a half ferry ride to Roatan.  Honduras isn't a very big country but even domestic travel can be quite an ordeal.  My parents and my sister flew into Roatan from Houston on Feb 20th and I met up with them at our hotel later that evening.  It was really nice seeing my family again but it also wasn't some kind of gushy reunion either.  After all, it's only been six weeks!  It was strange saying good-bye yesterday though, since we won't see each other until Christmas- wow!

After spending a few days on the beach in Roatan, my parents were ready for a taste of the 'real Honduras'.  Of course Julie was just here in May for the King's Water Project so she already knew that the tropical vistas of Roatan didn't capture what it's really like to live in Honduras.  My family wasn't really interested in the 8-hr bus ride to Tegucigalpa so we flew instead.  Not to worry, the 5-hr trip to Catacamas following the flight was enough for them to get acquainted with the bumpy Honduran highways! 

We spent two nights in my house and my mom was very excited to do dishes in the pila – which was totally fine with me because that meant I didn’t have to do them! We only had time for one full day in Catacamas so we started off with a little tour of the Diaconía office.  Isaí made a valiant effort to give us a little presentation in English about DN’s work in Olancho.  It was great being able to share a bit more about my work here.  Now my family will have a better idea of what/who I’m talking about in my emails and phone calls. 

Next we went to the famous Cuevas de Talgua near Catacamas.  There was a bit of a hike up to the caves up it was totally worth it.  There are actually a lot of great caves in this area but Talgua is the only one that’s developed for visitors.  The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging around in hammocks, sipping cool drinks and eating this awesome hot bean dip with tortillas.   We left at 7am the next morning and instead of taking the bus again, Dilia was nice enough to take us in her truck.  In the end it was a lot of travelling for just one day in Catacamas but I think it was important for my family to see all of it.

I’d like to say that I spent all of last week lounging on the beaches of Roatan but I was sooooo sick.  I went to the clinic at least 5 or 6 times for tests, IV’s and prescriptions and I think my parents spent more on cab fare than my food for a week.  At first the doctors were pretty sure it was classic Dengue Fever or Malaria (both of which are spread by insects) but the blood tests were negative.  After about 5 days of antibiotics things seemed a little better so it must have been a bacterial infection.  I’m not 100% recovered yet but at this point I don’t really care what it was.  All in all, I spent more time in bed than in the sun but it was nice to have family around through it all.  I just hope I wasn’t too much of a bummer to ruin their vacation.  Fortunately I was feeling alright on our last full day in Roatan so I got to go horseback riding as little treat- yay!

So now I have to get back into my Catacamas routine.  Vacation time is over – time to get back to work!  I think I’m only in the office for another week and a half and then there is a work group coming from a CRC church in BC.  I’ll be joining them in El Coyolar as they construct latrines, pilas and concrete floors.  I think Diaconía has a North American work group lined up for each month until July so there’s a lot of work to be done in preparation!