What's up now in Honduras and in my life

The Honduran government has set very strict guidelines. Now you can circulate in the streets and in vehicles only once every two weeks, depending on the last number of your identity card.

The most recent change is that it is now obligatory to wear a face mask in public – with actual fines.

 Last Wednesday was my day to circulate and I went to Dulce Nombre and Santa Rosa – to check in with the pastor, to get food and supplies, to fill up the tank of my pick up, and go to the bank.

There were stops by the authorities at several places: before entering Santa Rosa and most notably at the turn off to Dulce Nombre from the international highway, where they took down my name and ID number as well as the license plate number – both when leaving the Dulce Nombre area and returning. They disinfected the car – and in a few places the soles of my shoes and my pants.

To enter a public building, we had to stay two meters apart and wear face masks. Our temperature was taken and we walked our shoes in a disinfectant tray.

Last week I got to Mass for the first time since March, for a Mass on the first anniversary of the death of a man whom I knew, as I mentioned in my last blog post.

The streets of Pan Grande are not as busy as usual. But life goes on, yet people are not taking precautionary measures as seriously as I think they should. Almost nobody in Plan Grande goes around with a face mask, only some folks on motorcycles or in cars. This is another question which I may address later.

The situation in the cities is much more serious than here in the countryside. Most of the cases have been in the major cities of San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa as well as on the north coast. In some of these areas there are more restrictions on movement.

Many people in the cities are part of the informal economy – selling on the streets. Many others would have worked in small shops. Small stores, called tiendas or pulperías, which are like what might be called small mom and pop stores or corner grocery stores in the US, can operate for several hours. But the markets are closed as well as restaurants and most businesses. There are many people who have no source of income.

The government is doing some distribution of basic food and hygiene products. There have been two so far in our municipality (Concepción, Copán) and I’ve accompanied them. From what I’ve seen they generally try to respond to the neediest and, at least in our municipality, are not encumbered by politicization or efforts to aid only those who support the party in power.

There have been complaints in other parts of the country that the neediest are not getting what they need and that the aid is politicized. There have been some protests – which have put down by army and police forces.

In some areas of the country, especially in the large cities, it seems as if the military and police have had a role in the distribution, something which I don’t think is healthy.

But there are always some who will slip through the cracks. I think especially of the workers who have come in from Guatemala to work on the coffee fields. I don’t think they are eligible for Honduran government aid. I know of one family and arranged for them to get some food and supplies from a donation that came to the parish from a Santa Rosa grocery store. When I gave it to the father of the family he told me that they had not eaten the day before.

There are a lot of other questions about the distribution of food stuffs as well as the effect of the curfews on the poorest. This worries me.

But I thought I’d share some of what I see going on, in rural areas, despite the restrictions.

People are connecting a lot less than usual. But they are still going out to work in the fields, working in some construction projects, and more.

The two times I went out with the municipal workers to give out food, I noted people working on making bricks, baking bread, or drying tobacco.

I even saw one young man, studying his first year of high school in the alternative Maestro en Casa project in his area, working on tasks in his home – on the computer. First of all, I was surprised to see someone with a computer at home.

 Another surprise is the prevalence of smart phones here. I never knew what you could do on one until I decided to get a cell phone plan several months ago. I’m guessing that some distance learning might not extremely difficult, though my guess is that not many teachers or students really know how to use smartphone technology efficiently. I may be wrong. I still don’t know how to answer a phone call on my smartphone.

The rainy season is beginning and we have had several severe afternoon storms – usually after a day where the temperatures had risen to close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

As I mentioned, people are going out to prepare fields to plant corn and beans.

In some areas of the parish there are abundant bananas and plantains. People would often sell these outside their communities, but without transportation that is not possible. So one community gave bananas to us who were distributing the aid packages.

This is also the season when the izote trees flower. People here like the flowers and often eat them with eggs. At times they are a little too bitter for my taste, but I am told that the bitterness is due to the way they are prepared.

Just outside my house is a small “grove” of izote trees. Every year there are a few blooms but they have not always been harvested, since they are at the top of the trees, three to five meters above the ground. But kids and young guys often climb – as I look on with some trepidation. This year the grove by the house has had 20 flowers. Only three are left after some neighbor kids cut five about ten days ago; then I cut three last week and a young guy cut about ten the day the pastor came for Mass. He took them to share in Dulce Nombre.

I feel very blessed that I am not lacking for tomatoes. A local young man and his cousin have a project that grows large “beefsteak” tomatoes in green houses. The first tomatoes came a few weeks before the shutdown. A major problem they now have is marketing, since transportation is difficult. But I have bought from them three or four times, and even made and froze spaghetti sauce. I hope that the farmers can survive this.

I am baking bread, making soup, and cooking a bit more than usual. I have more than enough – including a reserve of brown rice. I was going to buy coffee last week but a friend who works with the association exporting coffee to Iowa gave me two bags of ground coffee from his farm.

The association is going strong, though I think the quality of its coffee may have suffered from the high temperatures and close to drought conditions mid-year. But they will be sending close to 7000 pounds of green coffee to Iowa shortly. They are working with a Santa Rosa beneficio which processes and ships coffee to Houston. The coffee is now in San Pedro Sula being processed. I pray that this goes well.

One last set of commentaries on my life.

Outside of a bi-weekly trip to Dulce Nombre and Santa Rosa, I’m staying in a lot and only going out to but bottled water and necessities from local pulperías. I am reading a lot and praying a bit more than usual.

This may change a little. There are about 20 couples in the parish who were preparing for the sacrament of matrimony before the curfews and travel restrictions. One of the ways I serve in the parish is to do the last interview with them and two witnesses, which is mostly to see if they know what they are getting into and that there are no impediments to a sacramental marriage. I normally did these at the parish. But now, since we can only go out on certain days depending on our ID numbers, it is almost impossible to have five people get together on the same day. I’ll be trying to get to the villages to do the interviews there. If I can get a salvoconducto from the mayor that enables me to circulate in my care, I’ll try to begin the interviews in a few weeks.

Though I’m reading a lot – novels, theology, and more – I want to try to use this time to find ways to improve my ministry.

I have written a paper on my thoughts which I will try to publish in a few week or so.

Yet I've felt a need for some intellectual input. So last week I decided to find other ways to use my time.

I found a Honduran Spanish language school that does classes by internet. I’ve already taken four hours of classes and will be taking six more. The woman teacher is really good, helping me with some details.

I also found out about a diplomado, a short course, on abuse in the family run by a center at the Mexican Pontifical University that also is working on the prevention of abuse of minors and the vulnerable in the church. It’s four weeks long – and I’m hoping it will help with my ministry, since domestic violence and sexual abuse are serious problems here in Honduras.

Over all, I’m feeling very much at peace – in the midst of all this.

God is good.

And weird things happened. After I had finished a draft of this blog post, I heard a noise and went out and saw that a car had fallen into a drainage ditch on the road beside my house. They finally got it out - but I have no idea how he got that stuck.