There was a power cut on the first night I arrived in Honduras. It did not come as a complete surprise, because as I travelled through the sprawling capital of Tegucigalpa I was immediately struck by the power lines. In England where there would be a single cable here there are at least five tangled, knotted wires hanging perilously from one post.
On the drive from Tegucigalpa to Santa Lucia I passed Land Rover garages, Pizza Huts, Wendys’ and I am struck by the location of these multinational businesses, for example the Land Rover garage is literally next door to a collection of tiny houses. Like many countries in Central America, Honduran culture appears to be a clash between poverty and rapid urbanisation. Honduras is the second poorest country in Central America and inequality is prevalent throughout all of society. Fifty four percent of the population live in rural areas yet they only receive two percent of the national budget. The rural areas of the country are especially poor, with six out of ten households living in extreme poverty.
There is a strong Western influence here, as evidenced by the repainted American school buses, which make up the public transport system and by, when I arrive in Santa Lucia, Pitbull blaring out from a pair of mismatched speakers in the park. I learn to gauge people’s wealth based on the amount of dogs they own - this seems to be in part a status symbol, but mostly for security purposes: Honduras suffers from rampant crime and the perpetrators are rarely brought to justice.
The first week of the placement was dedicated to developing the language skills of both the UK and Honduran volunteers. We spent four hours a day either in Spanish or English classes, with evenings dedicated to activities of cultural education and exchange. An attempt to learn the Punta (a traditional Honduran dance) deteriorated into a Western electronic dance music rave, with no prompting from the UK volunteers. The chaos concluded with the unexpected discovery that, whilst Hondurans can breakdance, the British simply break.
As I write, it is the second week of the placement, and I am sharing a small house in the rural colonial town of Gracias with the other UK volunteers. Our house is modest and we spend the majority of each day without running water as a result of a shortage in Honduras. It is humbling to see how much we struggle in comparison to the locals. Each day has been spent working on different projects and in total throughout the placement we will help eight communities; activities vary from planting coffee trees to teaching student about waste management. Waste disposal is a huge problem here due to a lack of education and government waste disposal services - in one school we visited the children’s playground couples as a landfill.
On that first night, when the power cut out, I was eating tea. The darkness hit and there was a collective sigh before my host family gathered candles and I utilized my smartphone’s flashlight. Although this cut only lasted around half an hour, I awoke the next day to the crowing of cockerels and another loss of electricity, this time due to ‘unplanned maintenance’. This lasted the whole day, and so when I walked back from my Spanish lesson I passed big houses, tiny houses, and the park, which was silent.
Written by ICS volunteer Oisin Power
