News and events

I wanted to tell you about the trek to the SAT project, Isabe (another volunteer) and I went on. The village that Nabil took us to is called 'Miramar del Nombre di Dios'. Right now they are teaching the basics of chicken rearing. The people who live there make it up the mountain in about an hour to an hour and a half, but we took three. We passed a huge waterfall, perhaps a couple of hundred metres tall, and a beautiful river with clear water and huge rocks and limpid pools surrounded by banana trees and all kinds of other tropical flora. We saw quite a few wonderful butterflies, the best was a bright, turquoise blue and black one the size of my hand! We walked in huge, winding gulleys that were carved by the rain through sandy soils or at times, through bright orange clay.  We passed people carrying things up and down the mountain, often with the help of mules. The community is not accessible by road. Many of the older people had their teeth 'outlined' in gold with little gold pictures on them such as a star or a circle. Apparently this is a beautifying custom which dentists still carry out on people that want it. Two-thirds of the way up, someone who had passed us on the way arranged for two mules to be waiting for us (I guess they thought we looked like we needed it) so we got to go some of the way on mule-back, which was a fun experience. A little 6-year-old boy, the grandson of the man who provided the mules, helped steer our 'steeds' up the mountain. We had some coffee in a little shack that had been grown and picked and roasted over a traditional stove by the woman who sold us the coffee. At the top of the mountain, after we had passed through all this tropical cloud-forest, we found ...two small football pitches and two school buildings made of breeze blocks, filled with schoolchildren of all ages, who had walked up to an hour to be there (this is probably quite a long, steep way). We went and looked at the chicken shack they had been building for their project and they asked our view to discuss what they could change or do better etc. I learned that the students buy SAT course books for 60 lempiras each  (about #1.80), and they use about 4 different course book on various subjects each term of three months. The students and parents raise the money to buy the textbooks themselves. They were using maths to work out how big the shack should be according to how many chickens the were going to raise, and were looking at growth curves over time for the chickens, and working out conversion ratios etc. I think that all the maths they learn through SAT is as applied to their agricultural projects. After they have raised their chickens, the students sell them as part of the practical aspect of their course. It was funny to see how much like  teenagers everywhere the students were, even though they lived on to of a mountain in such a remote place. There was one who knew all the answers, and some who just looked like they didn't care, some who were really shy and just, I don't know, very adolescent!  At the school, they gave us a lunch of maize tortillas, refried beans, quajada (a fresh curd cheese) and mantequilla (runny sour cream/ cheese hybrid thing)...it was good, but there's only so much quajadata I can eat, it tastes quite strongly of cow, somehow, and after a while I find I don't want any more....Then we ran down the mountain (it's so steep that it can be easier to kind of run and stop, run and stop, than to walk). It was quite an experience and I'm so glad I had the chance to go.

 

I have nearly come to the end of my time at the Hogar.  The experience has passed all too rapidly.

 

Before spending some precious last weeks at the Hogar and then returning to England I have taken a small break to explore some of El Salvador and Guatemala.  And so I find myself with some time on the idyllic island of 4Montecristo4, lying in a hammock with time to reflect and write another article on life at the Hogar.

 

While making my way from San Antonio, Honduras to the El Salvadoran border I was reading my way through a Honduran daily paper 4El Heraldo4.  The Honduran newspapers have been running a series of stories on recent violence and problems within Honduran society.  The latest headline strikes out: 36 deaths this weekend from violence on the streets .

 

This moved me to feel how lucky the children are to be at the Hogar.  The chance to use it as a home away from the dangers of the streets.  A place of safety.  The contrary scenario is unnerving to think of; poverty, sleeping rough, perhaps even being in one of the graphic photographs that accompanies the article.  It is amazing how the photographers seem to arrive at the scene before the police.

 

Recently the children have returned to school.  Many may not have this opportunity if they lived away from the Hogar.  The younger ones make the short daily walk to the Hogar managed 4escuela4 and the older ones make the slightly longer trips to one of the nearby 4collegios4.  The experiences and joy of the vacations are fresh in the memory but seem so distinct.  The vacation classes of art, reading, sport and mathematics.  The happiness during the Christmas festivities.  The dancing and fireworks that created a unique New Years Eve.  But that it is in the past and now all the excitement and anticipation is with the fresh prospects of the new academic year.  An opportunity is present.

 

My role amongst the business and panic and combination of emotions of the opening weeks has been as the helper for Casa 2, the older boys house.  Being the only male volunteer has meant that I am around from the early morning sunrise until the final light of the day has vanished behind the hills of Comayagua.  This has allowed me to witness the routine in the boys house to a more intimate level and develop my relationship with Casa 2.

 

So when does the first sign of life rise at the Hogar?  With the sound of the roosters, first movements are made at 4am.  The boys are all awake by 5am, the older ones earlier in order to wash, dress and eat before the first bus to Comayagua at 5.30am.  Slowly the others follow.  Breakfast is prepared by one of the boys the favourite undoubtedly being 4tortillas de harina4 with hot chocolate.  Chores completed and homework checked, more than half make their way to the 4escuela4 for the 7am start.  The ones who have school in the afternoon tidy the kitchen, put away the plates and then at 8am begin the study classes to complete homework and revise classroom work.

 

It is almost useless in many ways placing times on activities.  A daily timetable exists but this is Honduras.  Latin American culture dictates a laid back nature to the structure of time and deadlines.  This is one of the many frustrations for a western volunteer arriving at the Hogar.  No clock exists at Casa 2.  Only one at the Hogar itself and when asking the time, they will look up at the sky, examine the position of the sun, take some moments of careful consideration and reply with conviction that it is precisely 9:45am.  I don t have the heart to tell them that when I left the volunteers house it was 11:45am!

 

Although not submitting to a clockwork regime, things seem to be completed eventually.  And the day continues in a loose but repeated fashion.  Lunch is served around noon, the intersection of boys coming from school and those that will go in the afternoon.  After a delicious meal from the culinary skills of Dona Nelly, chores are completed and the afternoon is spent doing the homework set in the morning and maybe even playing a game of the immensely popular and competitive marbles, before at 3 o clock, drifting to 4 o clock, all the boys leave in a congregated mass to the 4terreno4.  This is the land owned by the Hogar and the boys complete daily tasks such as watering the crops, cleaning the pigpens, feeding the fish in the lake and cutting the long grass in which the snakes live.

 

I have been most impressed by four of the college boys.  They all have the chance to attend a more reputable institution than the others but this demands a more stringent routine.  Their day starts earlier and after a quick breakfast they catch the 5.30am bus to Comayagua.  They won t eat again until after a full morning of classes, on arriving back at 2pm.  They barely have chance to appreciate the food due to the necessity of completing their own chores and homework before going with the others to the 4terreno4.  They don t avoid doing any of the responsibilities that the others have to do.

 

On returning from the 4terreno4 at around 5pm they have dinner and then more homework.  I m sure I never received this much homework.  And moreover, all four boys are involved to different levels with activities within the Hogar itself such as the dance group 4Ya!4, organising and partaking in events, playing in the basketball team or having the responsibility for holding the key to the gate.  Their persistence and ambition has provoked a deep feeling of admiration towards them and inspired me to make the most of any opportunity I have in life.

 

I hope that this is not just the initial sensations of enthusiasm that race through the body on undertaking a new routine, and that it will persist with them through the school year and in their lives.

 

A frustration is that the younger children don t share in this dedication to learn and study.  Often moans ensue at the shout of 4homework time4.  But then I forget how much I only wanted to play and have fun when I was there age.  And there is sometimes more that can be learnt than from a history textbook.

 

And groans sometimes ensue about the chores.  These are purely natural for kids and in general there exists a consistent understanding that everyday, every 4varon4 has his own chore that contributes to the daily running of the house.  This maturity was illustrated last week when spontaneously when the children who were at home in the morning decided that it was time for a spring clean and promptly set about cleaning the cabinets, each morsel of china, under the sofas and all their clothes.

 

The commitment and routine is replicated in other areas of the Hogar.  And the desire to absorb knowledge that was not immediately visible in the younger boys of Casa 2 is positively vibrant in their contemporise at Casa 1 where the younger boys reside.  This has been evident when I have helped out at their morning homework classes during the quiet times at Casa 2.

 

Santiago knows the importance of instilling responsibility into all the children this is established, exemplified by the routine of everyday life.  He also knows the importance of education as a means of securing a better future then was previously available to them before entering the Hogar, especially for the girls.  For me this is the area that can be developed.  Developing and increasing the resources of learning would allow the children to learn and feed the mind.  This need was illustrated by the necessity to search for a Spanish dictionary for an hour over the whole Hogar (only 2 exist at present)  and children not being able to attend school the first few days from the lack of stationary or uniform*.  And how exciting would it be to provide the use of the internet to every child an almost limitless expanse of learning?

 

Back on my chicken bus journey heading to El Salvador I turn the page of the newspaper.  More details on the poverty with in San Pedro and Tegucigalpa.  Two disturbing fresh pictures of bodies lying still in a puddle of blood.  My mind turns to the happy smiley faces of the children at the Hogar.  It s impossible for to imagine them without smiles, on the streets, dirty faces with torn clothes, condemned to a life unliveable.  Its easily forgettable the history they have suffered and the future that could await them.  But the opportunity to escape is present.  The Hogar has can provide that.  I hope that every child uses it.

 

 

* A note should be added about the initiative of one boy, Nahin, an immensely well-known figure of the Hogar life who has lived there for many years.  Completely from his own thoughts he has been collecting aluminium drink cans the last 2 weeks and last week sold them for 33 lempiras.  He wants to use the money towards buying a school uniform or stationary.  This really impressed me, especially because of the acute learning difficulties that he has.