Finally a sense of accomplishment

Today I gave my first charla (presentation) on the benefits of starting a small business to the women's network in my site and with it came my first real sense of having done something here in Honduras. Despite heavy rain - generally things come to a stop on rainy days as people have to walk everywhere - 18 women showed up for the meeting and they decided to start a bakery (with training to come from the NGO Food for the Poor). It won't be easy, but the market is there as the pulperia owners (people who sell basic goods out of their houses) buy their bread from the big city Santa Rosa to sell here. By starting their own bakery they can ensure that money stays in San Agustin and provide jobs here. It will be an uphill battle as people fall into a trap of thinking that locally produced goods are inferior but we are determined to challenge that perception. The upside is that it will provide a source of income for people who need it and with that hey can then lift themselves and their families out of poverty. They will definitely have to create a superior product at reasonable prices and get the community involved (by getting them to support the local business). It won't be easy, but nothing worthwhile is. The work is pretty much cut out for them - all they need to do is work hard. Even that is not a guarantee of success but I am optimistic of what we can accomplish.

On a side note, I definitely feel that women are the key to development. They provide the most stability in the household - especially in a machismo country such as Honduras. A lot of men in my site don't really think of the future, preferring to live in the moment and squandering their hard earned cash on frivolities such as drinking (even though my site is a dry site) and womanizing. This has a negative impact as you see lots of unwed mothers struggling to provide for their children. This is compounded by the fact that the women are usually more educated. As the boys reach a working age they usually forgo education to work in the fields. At my school the higher grades have a higher ratio of girls to boys. When they become pregnant, they usually have to put their education and possible futures on hold to raise the children. Some of them do have families they go back to to help with child rearing but unless they want to leave their children to look for other employment opportunities outside the town what more can they do? Also, with limited education the jobs they encounter are limited to working at restaurants or as maids in other houses. Its not like in the movie 'Boyz n tha Hood' where Tre's mom leaves him with his father to pursue a successful career. And to have a father figure like Furious, someone who teaches Tre what it is to be a man? Almost non-existent here from what I have seen. The problems that I see here in the developing countries is the same that Americans see in tha hood. People see the glamorous life people are living on the telenovelas and want to live that life. The problem is that television never shows the hard work it takes to reach that point - it doesn't make for entertaining T.V. They go for the quick fix - drug trafficking is a big problem in Honduras. My host dad has a brother-in-law in prison in Nicaragua for transporting drugs. My host mom's take on it? "He was very ambitious." The people with the ambition to work hard are the ones that go to work illegally in other countries. The men leave their families behind to work several years in America. Minnesota seems to be a big place for people in my town and the neighboring towns - my house that I'm renting was built with the money the owner saved up in the states to come back to when he returns. This again goes back to the problem of the mother of bearing the sole responsibility of running the house and the lack of strong father figures.

Hopefully that is why I'm here and why I think women are the key to development - to help show them step by step how to develop their own businesses. Will they see themselves living the glamorous life in the big city? Unlikely. But hopefully with a steady job they can provide the opportunities for their children. It seems appropriate that Mother's day just passed. Here is to all the women that struggle in a man's world to survive - as Tupac best said, keep ya head up.