Bienvenidos a Honduras

It’s been almost two years since I had last been to Honduras, yet as soon as I land in the San Pedro Sula airport every little detail floods my brain. I remember where to buy a baleada (a Honduran style burrito), where to transfer my dollars into Lempira’s, and the familiar feeling of transporting village to village in a yellow school bus that blasts reggaeton music, with an armed security guard standing at the front. There are only two highways we use, and each turn to your right or left shows a dirt road. It is a mountainous country. No matter which way you look up you are staring at lush green mountains that parallel the 80 degree weather beautifully. There are times when you stop and stare and almost believe you are in a paradise. The rice and beans are delicious, the weather is perfect, and the romantic bachata music is playing loud from people’s homes at all hours of the day. When I am here I feel a particular kind of happiness. Ironically, I am saying this about a place where you cannot flush toilet paper because the plumbing system is too weak for it, where my stomach becomes my own worst enemy for my first days upon arriving and again when I return home; and where you need to brush your teeth with bottled water. My roommates and I couldn’t figure out how to make our shower hot until day four, and the fashion to sport seems to be monstrous bug bites taking over your extremities with dirt to connect the dots. Nevertheless, there is beauty in Honduras. It is a country with beautiful, kind people who are more hospitable than a Hilton.
The Washington Post reported this winter how San Pedro Sula (a nearby city from our work) has the highest homicide rate per capita in the world, and the Peace Corps recently withdrew all 150 of their volunteers from Honduras. With so much negative press, I have had friends and family look at me as if I am insane for making a return trip there. I think it is important to be honest of the challenges that are occurring around the world, but in being honest I have a lot of good things to say about this country, and all the good that is happening there. I am so thankful for the love I get to experience when I am in this remarkable country, and this trip certainly was not my last. Tonight I will share with you a few of the moments that changed me, as travel of any kind always does.

I’m here to build a school in a village called La Primavera. The school I am working on serves 300 children currently with just 3 classrooms. The overflow of students study outside, but when a Central American rain storm rolls in, class is cancelled. Attendance drops significantly when it rains. When you have the ability to read and write, your potential for learning is immeasurable, and has no limit. This being said, I believe there is real importance in being there and working on this project. There is no child on earth that does not deserve an education, and a universal primary education is one very important step in breaking cycles of poverty, feelings of helplessness, and the trend of resorting to terrorism and gangs for security.

(the site of three future classrooms).



It is Monday morning. Construction in Honduras is specific. We don’t wait for the cement truck to roll in and dump it over our site. We make the cement ourselves. After it is mixed we shovel the cement into buckets where we then move them over to the site for brick laying. I have been working for less than 10 minutes and the sweat is dripping down my back. The buckets are heavy, it is hot outside, and no cardio class at the gym could prepare me for this type of muscle soreness. Just when I think I need to sit down and sip some water; a child no older than 10 years old grabs my bucket from me, and runs it to the men standing by the bricks. He stares at me, and tells me to "move faster!" with a smile on his face. “I’m pathetic” I think to myself, while catching my breath. Like this boy, the children show up throughout the day to help. They are not wearing work gloves like us volunteers are, and most aren’t wearing shoes. Barefoot, they are running buckets back and forth and taking shovels to assist in moving the piles of sand. The unprompted dedication to having an environment conducive to learning is admirable. They want a school, and most of them probably figure they'll have to build it themselves based on my shortness of breath. When the children out-did me in work, I liked to hold my hand up like a typical American and say "dame cinco!" or, "gimme 5!". Cheesy, perhaps, but the kids would smack my hand and smile and that made me feel for a moment that we spoke the same language.
Finally, a breeze rolls through. I am standing at the top of a sand pile. I drop my shovel, look up to the sky and close my eyes to take it in. “ah” I say, “breeze”.

................“Ahhh... breeze!” I hear. I open my eyes and look to my right. I have a child by my side. He is ten years old and his name is Jason. He is now too looking towards the sky, eyes closed, taking in the breeze. He copies my English words, and we share a laugh over it. Although Jason won all of the volunteers hearts this week, he didn't earn too many points when he called me "abuelita" (grandmother) after finding out I was 26 years old. I suppose it was a subconscious decision of mine when I returned home to NY that I purchased my first anti wrinkle cream ever. Later that day Jason helped me lay bricks, but we stopped frequently in order to have pretend sword fights with our cement tools. Jasons home is adjacent to the school site, his backyard lining up with the wall that surrounds the school. Every morning when we arrived at the work site, Jason would be standing on his roof waiting for our arrival. "Jessss-i-caaaa!" he yelled (with big hand waves). "Hola!" myself and the other volunteers would yell back. Once he knew we were there, he would hop down and run over to the site. There wasn't one volunteer who didn't smile big because of Jason at least once. When we left each afternoon, he gave each and every one of us a giant hug, squeezing me so tight I felt the need to tell him I loved him in Spanish. He is loved, and when you're loved you should know it.


(jason and me).


After our work days are over it is customary to partake in a game of soccer with the community. While my enthusiasm for maintaining a "when in rome" mentality is strong, one cannot deny the fact that my soccer abilities are novice. On Tuesday evening all of the volunteers are taken to a cage soccer field where we spend the evening playing each other. I am terrified to even walk onto the field, but my peers pull the ultimate pressure and convince me to play in a practice round. Somehow, I managed to score three goals in a practice round when locals were on the field with us. For a moment I actually stopped and thought my reluctance to embrace a religion of some sort was trying to make me insert my foot in my mouth, although I still do not feel me having a proud soccer moment is actually on Gods priority list. Perhaps it was Karma, but the beauty of doing something that scares you can be defined with a moment like this one. Three goals. And Honduran locals screaming "pass to Yessica!" on the field. Although that beauty only lasted about 20 minutes. With my confidence now a little too high for reality, I played in the first real game against other female volunteers from different states (who I had not met before this evening). As soon as I saw their cleats I knew I was in trouble. Who brings cleats to Honduras? Only women who definitely know what they are doing! I lasted about six minutes before shin/knee slamming into a woman who I will say, is a phenomenal player. I would love to build a school with her, maybe have a coffee with her, but never ever again do I wish to challenge her in soccer. Lady who I never got to formally meet, my hats off to you! I iced my leg for the remainder of the game, but such is life when you are truly living in the moment.


(cage soccer team, and my fellow volunteers; some of the best darn kids I know).

It's midday and we are sitting in an empty classroom for a lunch break. A woman comes in with pastillas, a homemade pastry stuffed with chicken. Being a vegetarian I passed on this snack, but everyone else was raving about them. Our group leader comes into the room. “Hey guys, I was just told that Doris who made these, she loves you guys so much that she made these extra in her home for you.” ….everyone starts to chew slower and a few of us start to laugh. We had toured the village the day before, we had passed the homes of almost all the women who were now cooking our lunch each day. We had seen on the front lawns...the chickens. “Well, she was so happy with our work that she gave us one of her chickens to make these”.
The gesture was so kind. But I don’t think Americans are used to knowing so specifically where their food comes from, or better yet, meeting it the day before. Everyone laughs and eyebrows are raised over the cultural experience, but it didn’t stop anyone from eating. Besides, you couldn't have gotten a chicken that was anymore local or organic as this. On this day, our volunteer group with the help of many local children moved 400 bricks in an assembly line style to the school site. The work was done, the food was great; what more could we possibly want on this beautiful sunny day in Primavera?


One day we split into smaller groups to have lunch with families in the village, in their home. The family who hosts me this day consists of a mother, father, and four children. The youngest, a 3 year old boy greets us at the gate to his home but soon after is climbing the tree that stands over our lunch table, hiding from us in the tree tops. "Tu eres mi novio, si?" I yell up to him. (You are my boyfriend, yes?). The parents laugh hard, but the kid looks at me as if to say have you had your cooties shot yet? Girls are gross, after all; especially the gringas. (A term for well, white people).
We eat a lunch that is fresh, homemade, and insanely delicious. My favorite food to indulge in here are the avocados. They are so costly in New York, but plentiful and affordable in Honduras. The main dish is the baleada, a tortilla with refried beans, scrambled eggs, and other fillings of your choice such as avocados. Over lunch, we chat. A common conversation that is had with adults in Honduras is one of gratitude for volunteers. Visiting a country that has been receiving such negative press is not a foreign subject to the locals here. A teacher, and friend of mine over this lunch tells us "I admire you for coming and doing what you want, despite what the news says. ". On a separate occasion, Julio, one of our construction managers says "Thank you for sharing with us, the vision of a better Honduras." Of all the conversations to have with the locals, these are the ones that stop me in my tracks. This is, in my opinion, what it's all about. The vision that we share. Who says a New Yorker and a Honduran can't sit around eating plantains, as friends, discussing global affairs and favorite songs? This is exactly what happens though, when I am here.

(enjoying time with the littlest one at lunch).

The reality of Honduras is that those who are living in this geographical paradise for longer periods than my short stay face challenges that many of us have never had to think of. Abuse, drugs, neglect, poverty, rape, unsafe drinking water, gangs, and no access to a primary education are a few of the challenges children in Honduras are born into. With no education and a life in poverty, many children turn to gangs for security. These challenges also lead to a large number of orphaned children in Honduras, and as a result they are sent to overcrowded state run orphanages.

The founder of the organization I traveled with, Shin Fujiyama, is reversing the course for hundreds of children in Honduras. Every child should be born with the equal opportunity to lead a happy, healthy life. It is the right of the child, and as adults I believe it is our role to step in when (and where) we can. Shin says he will not leave Honduras until 1,000 schools are built. I have no doubt in my mind or heart that this is true. I feel that my role in this organization has been easy. After all, I just show up, pick up a shovel and do what I am told. Shin on the other hand: he isn’t just helping in the change, he is creating it. That is what I admire the most about him and this organization. Change takes courage, and I am grateful for the opportunities that lie ahead for Honduras thanks to a little bit of courage.


(myself, in villa soleada, with some little ladies I know from my first visit in 2010).