![Presentación de PowerPoint - [Building Better Biliterates] 26082013 094825 a.m.](https://cbctutor.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/presentacic3b3n-de-powerpoint-building-better-biliterates-26082013-094825-a-m.jpg?w=600)
A friend of ours asked me – Are you sure you wanna go Honduras?- I answered “Of course I do!” He continued to tease me- You never know you just might end up selling oranges on the side of the road and washing clothes in the river! With a toss of my hair, I shrugged off his comments and like any newly wed bride I was in-love and excited to start my new adventure with my Honduran husband.
We started our adventure with a little stop-off in Miami on Feb. 20th to go to the Peru vs Honduras Gold Cup game- a game I would never forget- the historic game turned into a riot – I remember protecting a little girl with my body as I tried to wrap myself around her in efforts to shield her from flying bottles and stadium seats that were being flung into the arena by angry patrons.
It was my first impression of my soon-to-be new people. OMG! Anyways we got out mostly unscathed with the exception of a few bruises from ducking in between seats and dodging missiles. Then we were off to San Pedro Sula on the 22nd of February 2000.
From his years living and working abroad my husband had built our house and it was suppose to be just ten minutes from the airport. The sight of the majestic Merendon mountain range filled me with nostalgia because the scenery was not very different to my own little island paradise.
We made our way to San Manuel. Cortés and to a small neighbourhood located along the La Sabana roadway. As we approached our new neighbourhood, I was startled by the sight of women washing clothes in a small river that we needed to cross over.
Immediately, my mind flashed back to my hubby’s friend and his taunts-Nahhhh! I said and shook myself back to reality. I tried to convince myself that I would not be washing in any river soon. Just as we were crossing a bridge along came a man on a bicycle with a box-styled basket welded to the front part of this bike, filled to the top with oranges for sale- with that image I burst out laughing. Honduras was definitely going to be can adventure.
I had so many plans- I was going to take a break and enjoy being at home until I could set up a new business- I wanted to have my own Reading Café with internet and international newspapers and books from authors around the world, an occasional reading circle would be great too! I was excited, but my husband just laughed at what he considered my naivety! He said that the business model would not work as people were more interested in surviving rather than pay to read books- reading for him was a luxury a rich man’s hobby.
I tried not no show my disappoint determined to explore my ideas all the same. Upon arriving at our little 2 bedroom home- it was charming! A small flats with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and living room and 2 bathrooms. It was enough for us.
Living my new adventure was cut short for me when I got to my new home and realized that there was no internet. I came from a 24/7 internet and cable supply to ZERO service. I had underestimated the power of connectivity and began to show signs of withdrawal like a drug addict.
After couple of days, I was ready to go out and look for a job. We got out the newspapers, and I went to town seeking gainful employment. By the end of the day I had set up 3 job interviews. My husband took me for the interviews the next day and we got lost!
What is it about men and their inability to ask for directions??? We drove around Colonia Zeron for a while until I got tired and told him to forget about it let’s go to the second option. When I arrived at this place I feel in-love with the building- a mixture of wooden and glass fixtures put together to accommodate the large cannon ball trees that filled the court yard.
It was almost three hours later that they let me out with a signed contract and a full card of 12 hours worth of teaching both at the company and in some industrial parks. Little did I know that while I was being grilled on the idiosyncrasies of the English language my better half was having his own adventure with the local authorities! Apparently where he had parked was a no parking zone (suffice it to say there were no signs to that effect either) and when he was not looking the pickup was wheel-clamped!
He had to get a taxi, go to City Hall to pay the fines then wait for them to return and set our pick-up free. By the time I came out from the interview with job in hand the poor thing had had quite a busy morning dealing with “chepos” (local term for police- somewhat disrespectful and mostly used when angry at them), red tape , hot weather and haggling with local taxi drivers.
Three months into living in Honduras and listening to Cantinflas on channel 14 whenever I was at home, our pick-up was stolen from in front of our home and a new adventure of public transport was initiated. We had to get up at 5:00am to get the first bus out as I had to be in my first class at 7:00a.m. and I was and still am a stickler for punctuality and my dear spouse accompanied me on my travels. It was quite a sight to see me decked out in stockings, high heels, business suit with my laptop case sometimes standing room only or if we were early enough we might score a seat. My partner in life would stand protectively over me to avoid me getting crushed by the overcrowding in the buses.
We travelled on public transport for about three months more until one of my students recommended a place for us to purchase a second-hand vehicle that would fit our budget and the miracle in this was that she would also vouch for us for the credit as she believed in me as her teacher! My Honduran family was stunned they could not believe that a stranger would do that for anyone in Honduras but for me it was one of the many blessings I have had in my adventures in this beautiful green country.
Flash forward to 2017, our eighteenth anniversary in Honduras is coming up, as well as our 18th wedding anniversary and my heart breaks to see the destruction taking place because of the political unarrest, never before now have I ever felt that I was in the most violent country in the world. Family, friends and neighbours divided by political ideologies and the thirst for vengeance and justice for corruption both past and present.
In my seventeen years I have seen a country move from charging L500.00 lempiras for a three minute call to my country to having wide-spread internet access and connectivity with almost every corner of Honduras. A new level of prosperity has started yet most of the population is unaware of the opportunities before them.
When I first arrived one of the more coveted jobs was working in a “maquila” or manufacturing plant- the maquilas represented stability and provided a comfortable salary with legal benefits. The newly emerging middle-class in Honduras are the children of hard-working maquila labourers who sacrificed for their children to be educated. Today in 2017, those children are now sacrificing tosen their children to bilingual schools, under the current regime bilingual education was made available to all students yet the value of this opportunity is only appreciated by few.
Today, young graduating bilinguals can get a startup job in a BPO- Business Process Outsourcing company commonly referred to as Call centers here. Instead of working in hot manufacturing plants with little or no options to grow, they now can work and study simultaneously with opportunities to grow in the enterprise. The buildings are climate controlled, with smart elevators and hi-tech equipment in many cases. Their options are different and Honduras expects to attract more investors because it is working hard to create a bilingual labor force.
For the first time there is a generation being encouraged to become entrepreneurs with projects designed to help them form and market their ideas and products. NOW not all citizens take advantage of these opportunities because they are most times uninformed or incapable of meeting basic project standards i.e. set up a business plan, have their financial information in order, get the documents necessary to establish themselves as a legitimate business. But that in itself is a learning opportunity to help prepare them for the next round of competition.
I work with professionals who want to move ahead, who are willing to sacrifice their time and money to study, to improve themselves, to take risks- not everyone is willing to do this because they have a false sense of it being easy; sometimes the general public watches a person’s success and they think it is because of corruption rather than recognizing the hours, days, weeks, months, even years invested in trying before this singular moment where they finally open their own office doors, named after their children or themselves, inspired by motivational stories in order to change their living conditions.
When a country has a history of being told you are third-world class the people begin to believe that it impedes them from becoming better or growing into first-class citizens- this mentality is a TREMENDOUS MENTAL OBSTACLE in Honduras.
If your mental attitude is weak then you are defeated even before you start! If you think you cannot or are a victim of others then you will never see yourself as a hero capable of saving others and yourself. You will never comprehend that you have a power of determination deep within yourself to overcome any circumstances.
My husband is a brilliant Honduran professional who has worked diligently for all the years we have been here to take care of his family and employees. He is a natural leader who cultivates the leadership in his team by insisting they study and work- of a team of almost 15 auditors we have seen at least 4 of them graduate and become Licenciados (a term of respect used for a university graduate) and several others who have started and are in the process of becoming graduates.
Is there poverty in Honduras? Yes, there is, but there is also opportunity to take risks- it is not easy but it involves long hours studying when everyone else is sleeping, it involves getting up early to be punctual at work without excuses and it means discipling yourself to have a culture of savings in order to invest in changing your future.
I work at cultivating these values- I teach my students that they are future change agents of Honduras. I help them believe in themselves that they can make a difference in not only their lives but their community’s as well. Honduras is not the destitute place that the opposition is making it out to be- it is a land of opportunities and I think the men in power know that and they wish to have those opportunities for their own interests. We need political stability to invite investors to bring new business models to Honduras. Honduras is a land of so much potential I truly wish every Honduran could see the opportunities they have.
In case you may read this and wonder what is this person going on about here is a list of working opportunities in Honduras: Agriculture ( you need to clean out a lot of rocks but there is fertile soil waiting to be tended); Coffee farming; Aquaponics- tilapia farming, Aviculture- layers or breeders (Hondurans consume a lot of chicken); Domestic Cleaning Services (very difficult to find good help), Firework industry ( needs licences & regulations), Gardening & Landscaping, Service Businesses, Food Industry, pastries, Animal grooming, Tutoring, Business schools (technical skills formation), sell snacks (topogigios, candies etc), Sewing Clothes, Tailoring, Plumbers are disappearing etc
Obviously all the options listed above requires time and dedication- these are the qualities of a true patriot, anyone can burn down a building, but it takes a special citizen to get up every day and go to work to put food on their table for their kids, save for repairs or to open a small business.
There is no liberty in anarchy!
Building Better Biliterates with CBC CODEBREAKER! 