hn39.

alright, it's been somewhat of a crazy two weeks or so, and it's difficult for me to recount everything all at once, but i will do my best. i guess i can start with last week, when i had what i think to be dengue. now usually dengue lasts about 8 days, is a completely miserable fever type disease, and since there is no cure for it, one just has to tough it out. well, i found myself last saturday, or two saturdays ago, with a fever of 102, body aches like you wouldn't believe (that might be why people call it bone breaking disease), chills, and a general feeling of malaise: basically, i wanted to off myself and get it all over with. that lasted two days, after which everything kind of died down to something a little bit more manageable. now, that's what makes me think, maybe it wasn't dengue, but then again it's kind of exciting to come down with a crazy tropical disease, so if anyone asks, well...dengue it is. i spent about a week in bed, and only got up to get my worms. that's right, worms. they're finally here, eating all my coffee pulp, making fertilizer, having sex, and more or less partying at my expense. let's just hope they reproduce fast enough to make me what i planned within a month. otherwise, some collection agency might show up knocking at the cooperative's door.

and that brings me to the real story.

this week i had an experience, or actually a series of experiences, that made me reconsider how i view a little bit of everything. so i guess it all began on tuesday when i rode ruso into the mountains to a little town called petatillos. the village consists of 25 houses spread out over about 5 km, smack dab in the middle of the buffer zone of celaque, a national park. the people there have been living in such a secluded state for about 50 years, ever since one of the founders decided to buy some land in the mountains. i had been there once before to get to know some of the people, but this time i was coming to stay for a few days to begin research for the project that the community is interested in. now, for your knowledge, petatillos has neither electricity nor running water. so they came to me with hopes of getting a micro turbine project along with a water system done in the mountains, in order to get both at once. and of course, i jumped at the idea. how could i not. anyway, upon my arrival, i was led to the humble home of the pastor where we began to make our plans and set up a schedule of what we would be doing for the next three days. what followed were experience upon experience that left me somewhat speechless. let's make a list:

1. honduran farmer guys, regardless of their ages, are capable of scaling any cliff or mountain, in any direction, a thousand times better than i could ever even imagine. we spent half a day exploring the nearby water source and i think i almost died about 8 times. granted, i am in no shape to be running around a mountain with a machete in one hand and a GPS in the other, but it was definitely exciting. i fell about every 50 yards, sometimes ending up face down in some rainforest plant hoping that i had not split some vital part of me with my newly sharpened machete (which i never even used, dumbass). i slipped in the river, almost tumbled down a waterfall, and lost my pen twice. the hondurans, they just laughed and kept telling me to be careful.

2. really poor hondurans appreciate what they have more than anyone i know. and these people are definitely up there on the poor ladder. we're talking, 1 room houses for families of 8. diets that consist of beans, tortilla, and the occasional veggie (although the pastors wife did make me chicken soup for breakfast today when i left, which i think was probably the first time they had eaten chicken in weeks. i was blown away. yeah that's right, for breakfast). no heat, bathrooms, showers, or TV. these people live with almost nothing, and love every minute of it. we spent hours talking about the park, their mountain, what they have, and not once did anyone say that they didn't have enough. in fact, most of them said that they were blessed, and every day thanked god for what they had been given.

3. really poor hondurans are ready to give everything, time, money, effort, everything to improve the livelihoods of their children. if i had done the same survey that i did there in my town, the answers would have been so different. every single person told me they were ready to sacrifice everything for this project. and they meant it. i think.

4. its amazing what people can accomplish with the little resources they have. and although the poverty that these people live in is almost unimaginable, they manage to accomplish great feats every day. for example, even though most of the adults in the town are illiterate, they built a school for their children with their own hands, and now 25 little petatillians spend all day long reading and writing with a teacher who is paid out of the pockets of the parents. they also organized together and are currently building a brand new church (which i'm not sure i approve of since half the people still dont have latrines and have to shit in the woods, but still), and everyone who works on it is doing it for free.

5. the environmental awareness of illiterate poor hondurans is higher than that of more than half of the united states. even though these people, 30 years ago were cutting down the local forests, burning the soil, using extremely harsh agro-chemicals, and more or less destroying the park they were living in, now their attitudes are completely different. we spoke at length about their relationship with the environment and although they don't know how to write the word, they practice conservation with every step they take. only dry dead trees are used for firewood. no one bathes or brings their dead animals to the water source (yeah they used to do that). no one hunts or kills little birds for fun like they do in my town. they have figured out that if they fuck up where they live, they'll have nothing left, and now they are fighting to protect it.

6. ticks, mosquitoes, and other biting insects love white people. or maybe they love jews. or both. or maybe it has nothing to do with that and just has to do with the fact that i'm not from there. regardless, i got eaten, completely, and now am covered with more red bumps than...well, i don't know, make up your own comparison/simile/metaphor/whatever.

7. religion is an interesting thing. i have never like organized religion, nor do i believe in the creation stories that many religions have, but i still think that there still might be something up there. i have prayed, i have blamed "god" for things, and frankly, i could say i'm somewhat spiritual, or something like that. and honduras is having an impact on me in that respect, because well, everyone here is religious. and its hard to maintain a secular opinion when everyone around you is telling you to accept christ. well, dont worry guys, i haven't done that just yet. but i did spend many hours talking to the pastor about god, and whatnot, and i learned quite a bit. it seems that faith is a very powerful thing. and although i don't exactly believe in miracles, i do believe that a people united in their faith can accomplish extraordinary things. but i guess the point of this little factoid is a little different. my experience in petatillos was a novel one because they were more interested in my jew-ness than anything else that i said about religion. because as you may already know, jews are god's chosen people, and when everything goes to shit with the apocalypse, jerusalem will be saved along with all the jews in there. and the people of this town were totally obsessed with the fact that they had a jew among them, a jew who might provide them with water and light. the pastor even made a point of it during his sermon which he asked me to attend, when he spoke for about 30 minutes about jews, and the whole shebang. and the people thanked me. not for coming and working, yeah they thanked me for that at another time, no they thanked me for being a jew. weird huh?

8. going hand in hand with this religion thing, i learned that there is much in the bible that speaks of protection of the environment. maybe not directly, but definitely the topic is covered. and although i had somewhat known this before, i had never had quotes. and now i do. now i want to get more, and use this as a means to an end. if i talk to farmers who wash their pesticide bottles in the rivers, i can now use the bible to maybe make them reconsider their actions. how can you love your fellow man as you love yourself, if you're making him drink round-up? (i know thats not a direct quote but since i learned it in spanish, well...)

ok, for now that's it. i will add more, if i think of anything else.