Honduras Photos #3, Feb. 2012, La Esperanza

Thanks to my patient readers for bearing with me. Starting now to get the hang of this, though my computer photo files are kind of jumbled, so it's sometimes hard to remember just what has already been posted, as we don't see the final product until we press "publish post," only a bunch of letters and symbols kind of like those you get when an e-mail message bounces. This batch is of La Esperanza, walking around town with Luis's 8-year-old daughter Alexandra, including one photo with my former landlady and aspiring mayoral candidate Norma. Another shows Alex with brother Elian in their patio. Dona Chunga's grandkids hold up expanded Magic Towels, something I always bring. Chunga, a widow with 13 children, is shown at her market shop, at home cooking, and under a portrait of her as a newlywed with her late husband (a gunshot victim). This is easier than posting each photo and caption separately, so I hope it works for readers and viewers. Here goes again. Let's see what turns out this time.

Honduras Photos 2012, #2 at the Honduras Maya with Sandy

Well, after uploading the first photos, I see that the first ones posted end up at the bottom and the most recent ones at the top, so will keep that in mind. I left out one photo of Jorge last time, so it is included here. Also, I failed to explain where the "no guns" sign last time appeared--it was at the entrance to a pharmacy. This time, we are mostly at the Honduras Maya Hotel with its casino and reproductions of Mayan statues and its hotel pool and hot tub, where my friend Sandy, a former nurse and former PC volunteer who spends several months per year in Honduras, hangs out after seeing to her clubfoot patients.

Honduras Photos Feb. 2012, #1 Southern Honduras

OK, folks, trying something new here. Let's see what happens. These are the first photos of my trip, where I started out, all in Choluteca and southern Honduras, including Guasaule and El Triunfo. What are you seeing here (I hope)? The mother and two Castro daughters, including one about to give birth, the Choluteca rehab center with kids doing exercises including a 4-year-old boy born with only one arm (wish I had found out where he got his prostheses), Bessy with her mother and her new wheelchair, Marciel (with facial burn scars)expecting her first child, myself being embraced by village health volunteer and midwife Leah in Matapalos, twin girls with their babies with Blanca my other faithful health volunteer in Rio Grande #1, the ubiquitous representation of the Last Supper found in hispanic households both in the US and abroad, elderly sisters Mariana and Mercedes keeping their distance from each other (after 90 years together, they are tired of seeing each other), Dona Reina and Solei hugging her, Jorge without a shirt because it's hot. I'm going to hit "Publish Post" now and if it comes out half-way decent, will continue on with the rest.

Honduras Trip, Purple Strategies, Occupiers, Indiana U. Honduras Program Cancelled, DR, Cuba

Dear readers, as usual during February, I will be away in Honduras most of the month with my usual volunteer projects, the International Health Service of Minnesota medical brigade in villages around La Esperanza, visits to the blind school in Tegucigalpa and the Teleton rehab center in Choluteca, assistance to my scholarship students, a pat on the back for my village health promoters, and others, so please stand by for a report in March. A few items to mention before I leave.

Last night, on the way to meeting a friend for dinner, I happened across a big party featuring formally-dressed guests, valet parking, and purple strobe lights taking place in the north hall of our neighborhood’s venerable Eastern Market. Fortunately, it was an unseasonably warm evening with clear skies, facilitating functioning of the outdoor cooking in tents set up in the alley behind the market. So what was the occasion? A party celebrating the newly formed Purple Strategies bipartisan lobbying firm, one that caters to issues and their supporters across party lines, hence the purple blending of red and blue. Certainly such issues exist and many citizens are frankly tired of the extremes of partisanship now hobbling the political process. It will be interesting to see what issues this organization undertakes.

Riding by downtown DC, I saw the Occupy tents in Freedom Plaza, looking orderly, but placed very close together and filling up all the space, leaving no room for anyone else to enjoy the park. Supposedly, the National Park Service, which is in charge of the area, prohibits sleeping there. However, that’s been said for quite a while now, but the prohibition has not been enforced so far. A judge has apparently ruled against some of the Park Service’s attempts to prohibit sleeping.

In another blow against Honduras, Indiana University has cancelled a 10-year exchange program with the Honduran National Autonomous University over security concerns.

An article entitled “Stateless” in The Economist (Dec. 31, 2011), points out that Dominican-born individuals of Haitian ancestry are not considered Dominican nor does Haiti claim them, hence are considered stateless. They cannot get birth certificates or passports and, as consequence, often cannot enroll in school, get married or have a driver’s license, or travel outside the country.

Here is a recent statement from Amnesty International, where I swerve as volunteer coordinator for the Caribbean for AI-USA:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT 27 January 2012

AI Index: AMR 19/002/2012

Brazilian Government must defend the rights of Yoani Sánchez, Cuban blogger and all other dissidents, journalists and human rights activists
The news that Brazil has issued a visa for Yoani Sánchez, the Cuban blogger
and human rights activist, to visit the country for a film festival is an important
step in recognising her right to freedom of movement. The Cuban authorities
must now grant her permission to travel to Brazil to attend the screening of a
documentary by Brazilian documentary-maker Dado Galvão in Jequié, Bahia
State, on 10 February. The film features the story of Yoani Sánchez and other
bloggers.

Amnesty International is calling on the Brazilian government to intervene with
the Cuban authorities so that Yoani Sanchez is given permission to travel freely
to and from Cuba. On 20 January 2012 Amnesty International wrote to Brazil’s
Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota, calling on the Brazilian government to
intervene in this case and to discuss human rights violations in Cuba. (see
letter http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR19/001/2012/pt)

President Dilma Rousseff will be visiting Cuba on 31 January 2012. Amnesty International urges her to raise Yoeni Sánchez’ case with the Cuban authorities as well as the issue of freedom of expression, association, assembly andmovement which is of serious concern. The case of Yoani Sánchez and her
visit to Brazil gives the Brazilian authorities an opportunity to engage on those
issues with the Cuban government.

The Cuban authorities continue to severely restrict the freedom of expression,
assembly, and association of political dissidents, journalists and human rights
activists. Dissidents, journalists and human rights activists are subject to
arbitrary house arrest and other restrictions to prevent them from carrying out
legitimate and peaceful activities. In addition, the Cuban government is using
the denial of exit permits as a punitive measure against government critics and
dissidents.

Amnesty International trusts that President Rousseff will use her upcoming
visit to Cuba to reinforce Brazil’s increasing global influence in the promotion
and protection of human rights.

Annual Honduras Trip Pending, More on Peace Corps Honduras Departure, Our Nigerian Amnesty Prisoner, Son Back in College, Cuban Hunger Striker Dies

Hello folks, I will be leaving soon for my annual trip to Honduras, but will try to post another letter beforehand,

Just heard that Honduras has raised its fees for tourists, which does not seem like such a wise move, given the country’s unfortunate fame as a dangerous place with the highest murder rate in the hemisphere. Instead of just an exit fee of $37, now there is an entrance fee of $23 and an exit fee of $54, so they get us coming and going.

Our DC local Spanish-language press has an article about the departure of Peace Corps from Honduras. I have wondered since if PC might not have overreacted in the Honduras matter. Of course, since a volunteer was shot, even though she is now recovering, that is very serious and PC would not want to chance any such further incidents. But it's also true that PC service has never been entirely safe, although the murder, suicide, and rape stats are fairly comparable to those on US college campuses, which, unless murder is involved, rarely come to media attention and colleges like to keep it that way. I couldn't help thinking that after almost 50 years, throughout CA's civil wars, through hurricanes and Zelaya's ouster and return, through other incidents of gunshot wounds, rapes, and robberies, PCVs have remained in Honduras. At what point do you pull the plug and take preventive action? Certainly, no one wants a PCV to be killed or seriously injured. But I couldn't help wondering if the fact that the Honduras country director involved in this decision had never been a volunteer or PC employee before might have played a role? It's regrettable that the country has become more violent and that volunteers may be in greater danger, but it's also a tragedy that volunteers are leaving Honduras and may soon leave neighboring countries.

In an op ed in the LA Times, (Jan. 16, 2012), a current Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala, commenting on all the recent negative publicity about the dangers faced by volunteers in Central America, assures his mother and readers, that “Guatemala is not Afghanistan. Not even close.” For the full article, go to http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-metzker-peace-corps-in-central-america-20120116,0,5317022.story.

For more on the Peace Corps departure from Honduras in The Miami Herald see article below.

On a more positive note, an article (“Hong Kong in Honduras”) appearing in the December 10, 2011 issue of The Economist discusses President Porfirio Lobo’s plan to establish semi-autonomous “charter cities” with their own security and rules, along the lines advocated by New York university economics professor Paul Romer. The first such city may be developed in the area of Trujillo, on the northern Caribbean coast.

Members of our local Amnesty International group got this good news about the the letters we have bee sending to Patrick, our Nigerian prisoner:

We have spoken to Patrick's brother. He told us that at the end of last year, Patrick received over 1,000 cards and letters from Amnesty International activists, which he was pleased about. The solidarity cards and letters have made huge positive impact on his situation in prison. He feels proud among his fellow inmates. He's regarded as "the big man" in the yard. The cards and letters he receives from Amnesty members globally have led to him being given special treatment by the prison warders. He's not maltreated and his condition in the prison has improved positively since the start of his campaign. Patrick's brother told us that the solidarity cards made him feel human again and he feels special knowing that there are people all over the world showing concern for his life and safety.

My son Jonathan, now in his 30s and living in Honolulu, has gone back to college full-time. He was adopted from Colombia at age 1 and I have told him that if he learns passable Spanish, we’ll take a trip back his birth country together. We last were there in 1985 when he was 11. Now he tells me that his Spanish teacher in his first semester of Spanish is from Japan, which doesn't sound too promising. I hope she has the right accent, because members of the Japanese Peace Corps I knew in Honduras had a heck of time pronouncing Spanish. Well, at least he will get the grammar. I'm sorry my kids resisted learning Spanish when they were young, when it would have been so much easier. My daughters are also in college part-time, adding to previous coursework, but not studying Spanish.

The Boston Globe reports that Joe Kennedy III, a 31-year-old prosecutor and son of former Rep. Joe Kennedy, might run for the Democratic nomination of the redrawn Barney Frank district seat. Kennedy, a Harvard Law School graduate, was in the DR as a Peace Corps volunteer. If he runs and wins, he would be the fifth former volunteer in Congress. He would also be the first in the fourth generation of Kennedys to thrust himself into electoral politics. And he is the only one of the Kennedy/Shriver clan to have joined the Peace Corps.

Forgot to mention last time that The Washington Post, on its editorial page on New Year’s Day, reminded readers that a local resident, Alan Gross, was starting his 3rd year in prison for having brought electronic equipment into Cuba, equipment cleared by Cuban customs, which charged him duty on the items, For that, he was sentenced to 15 years. Of course, he was arrested precisely to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of the Cuban Five, four of whom are still in prison in the US and one is out on a three-year parole, but not allowed to leave the country during that time.

Meanwhile, a dissident hunger striker has died in Cuba. Arrested in November after a peaceful protest in the eastern town of Contramaestre, he was 31-year-old Wilman Villar Mendoza, a human rights activist whose wife belonged to the Ladies in White. He was given a four-year sentence for refusal to obey an officer, resistance, and assault, and began a hunger strike in prison, where, it was alleged, he was treated as a common criminal, thrown naked into a humid punishment cell, deprived of food and water, and refused medical assistance until he was near death. He died on January 18, 2012 in a hospital surrounded by military guards and his widow was reportedly denied access to his body. Local dissidents’ homes were also surrounded. Amnesty International has protested Mendoza’s arrest and death. On January 20, three Cubans designated as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty were released.

As a Catholic, I’m not particularly gloating, in fact, am uneasy, about the
Episcopal parishes that are moving wholesale to Catholicism. They are allowed to have married priests, but we “born” Catholics are not. It’s high time, in my opinion, that married priests be allowed across-the-board and also women priests. Pedophilia would be less common and the priest shortage would be alleviated, not to mention that it would be a fairer system, more in line with present-day realities.

Not satisfied with the mandate to teach creationism in public schools, some evangelicals are now pushing for the teaching of climate change denial. Come on folks, do we have to perpetuate ignorance from one generation to the next? What’s the point of having scientific inquiry?

As the political campaign season continues, I am struck by how easily manipulated voters and the public are, by rumors, sound bites, and appeals to emotion. It’s not only dictators who manipulate the common man.

Peace Corps pullout a new blow to Honduras
By FREDDY CUEVAS and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

The Miami Herald, Jan. 18, 2012
All 158 Peace Corps volunteers in Honduras left the country on Monday, weeks after the United States announced that it would pull them out for safety reasons.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- The U.S. government's decision to pull out all its Peace Corps volunteers from Honduras for safety reasons is yet another blow to a nation still battered by a coup and recently labeled the world's most deadly country. Neither U.S. nor Honduran officials have said what specifically prompted them to withdraw the 158 Peace Corps volunteers, which the U.S. State Department said was one of the largest missions in the world last year.

It is the first time Peace Corps missions have been withdrawn from Central America since civil wars swept the region in the 1970s and 1980s. The Corps closed operations in Nicaragua from 1979 to 1991 and in El Salvador from 1980 to 1993 for safety and security reasons, but has since returned to both countries. But the wave of violence and drug cartel-related crime hitting the Central American country had affected volunteers working on HIV prevention, water sanitation and youth projects, President Porfirio Lobo acknowledged.

On Wednesday, Lobo met with senior U.S. officials to speak about security. The U.S. agreed to send a team of experts to help the Honduras government with "citizen security issues," said a State Department news statement. The U.S. Embassy in Honduras did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Monday's pullout also comes less than two months after U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, a California Democrat, asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to reconsider sending police and military aid to Honduras as a response to human rights abuses. "It's a welcome step toward the United States recognizing that they have a disastrous situation in Honduras," said Dana Frank, a University of California Santa Cruz history professor who has researched and traveled in Honduras.

The decision to pull out the entire delegation came after a Peace Corps volunteer was shot in the leg during an armed robbery on Dec. 3 aboard a bus in the violence-torn city of San Pedro Sula.

Hugo Velasquez, a spokesman for the country's National Police, said 27-year-old Lauren Robert was wounded along with two other people. One of the three alleged robbers was killed by a bus passenger, Velasquez said. The daily La Prensa said Robert is from Texas. Most areas of San Pedro Sula, like other specially violent parts of Honduras, had been declared "banned or highly discouraged for volunteers," according to the June 2011 edition of the Corps' "Welcome Book." Also banned were "all beaches at night" and a large part of the country's Atlantic coast.

Also, on Jan. 24, 2011, a Peace Corps volunteer was robbed and raped near the village of Duyure in southern Honduras. Three men were found guilty of rape and robbery in that case, according to an employee of the regional court in the southern city of Choluteca who was not authorized to be quoted by name. Sentencing is scheduled for February; the three men face up to 26 years in prison. The volunteer was apparently assaulted while hiking in a remote area.

The U.S. also announced it had suspended some training for new volunteers in El Salvador and Guatemala, though they kept open the possibility of sending new teams of volunteers once a review of security conditions is finished. El Salvador has 113 volunteers, and there are 215 in Guatemala, where the head of the Peace Corps pledged the program would continue. The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala said in a statement the suspension only applied to the January Peace Corps class. Further reviews will determine future training in that nation.

The three countries make up the so-called northern triangle of Central America, a region plagued by drug trafficking and gang violence. El Salvador has the second highest homicide rate with 66 killings per 100,000 inhabitants, the U.N. has said. Numerous non-governmental aid groups work in the region and the Peace Corps decision has raised concerns that they could also be affected.

"This is not a good moment for Honduran NGOs," said Oscar Anibal Puerto, director of the Honduran Institute for Rural Development, which works on school construction and water projects, often with Spanish financing and sometimes in informal cooperation with Peace Corps volunteers. He said financing from Spain has begun to dry up because of that country's debt crisis, and while the Peace Corps withdrawal "has not significantly affected us," he said he worried it could set an example for other donor countries to pull out.

But Puerto said he could understand the U.S. decision. "Their concerns are justified, until the security situation in Honduras improves," he said. "Human values have been lost. Crime is the order of the day."

Honduras joins Kazakhstan and Niger as countries that have recently had their volunteers pulled out. The Kazakhstan decision followed reports of sexual assaults against volunteers. In Niger, volunteers were evacuated after the kidnapping and murder of two French citizens claimed by an al-Qaida affiliate.
A U.N. report, released in October 2011, said Honduras had the highest homicide rate in the world with 6,200 killings, or 82.1 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010. "Violence affects all Hondurans. It wouldn't be surprising if Peace Corps members, too," said Jose Rolando Bu, president of a group that represents non-governmental agencies.

Sarah Smith, a 25-year-old health volunteer who lived in the town of Taulabe, said she was once robbed and knew a friend got her computer stolen at gunpoint. "Just about everyone had something happened to them at some level," she said Wednesday.
Smith said she also received an email regarding the pullout and, although the bus attack was not cited as the reason, "it was in the back of our minds," said Smith, back in Cincinnati after a nearly two-year mission.

Between June 2010 and June 2011, nine U.S. citizens were killed in Honduras, most in San Pedro Sula or northern coastal areas.

The Peace Corps had sent volunteers to Honduras since 1962, and around 1982 it was the largest mission in the world, according to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. sent more people to help after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. It was not clear what effect the volunteers' departure would have on the Corps' efforts; no other aid agency immediately announced any pullout based on security concerns.

Peace Corps volunteer Claire Krebs, an engineer from Houston, Texas, described her work in the mid-sized city of Choluteca on the Peace Corps Journals blog site. Krebs wrote that she surveyed, planned and designed water systems for rural Honduran villages, which involved visits to rural areas in the country's somewhat more tranquil southern region, where there were few apparent security problems.
Berman said in the Nov. 28, 2011, letter to Clinton that he worried that some murders in Honduras appeared to be politically motivated because high-profile victims included people related to or investigating abuses by police and security forces, or to the June 28, 2009, ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. The coup lead to the temporary diplomatic isolation of Honduras.

On Tuesday, a Honduran lawyer who had reported torture and human rights violations by police officers was killed by gunmen, authorities said.

Three men stormed into the office of Ricardo Rosales, 42, shot him dead and escaped, said Hector Turcios, the police chief of Tela, a city 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of the capital. Rosales had told local press that officers had tortured jail inmates in his city.

Family New Year’s Celebration, Reconnecting with Nicaragua, More on Honduras, Republican Primary, Haitian-Domincans

On December 30, when my daughter Melanie was arriving from Virginia Beach to spend New Year’s weekend with me and her daughter and grandson, the furnace in my house went out, so we all decamped to a hotel. That seemed easier that all sitting around in a cold house waiting all day for a furnace repairman possibly to show up. Fortunately, it was not cold enough for pipes to freeze or indoor plants to suffer. Melanie was able at the last minute to find us a room at a top-notch hotel (Hyatt near Dulles Airport) for low-price bid. I never knew before that you could do that, but apparently it’s a way for hotels to fill a vacant room—better something than nothing. So we all enjoyed the heated pool and hot tub, especially my 4-year-old great grandson De’Andre. Hope you all had an equally memorable New Year’s celebration. (Will try to post the photos.)

Facebook is quite an invention. I just heard via Facebook from Edward Schoures, who, when I last saw him in 2003, was living with his parents in a rural extended family compound outside Managua, Nicaragua (as described in my book). Of course, I haven’t gotten any older since then, but Edward, who was about 18 at the time, must be in his mid 20s by now. I’m waiting to hear what he is up to and how his folks are doing. Since he would not have e-mail access in his home, I’ll have to wait until he next visits an internet center to get the answer.
* * * * * * * * * *
Well, I heard back from Edward, who is now married, with 2 kids and another on the way. He’s been busy since I last saw him in 2003! He says that his father, Larry, has had a stroke. I don’t know how serious. Larry is mentioned in the chapter in my book about visiting Nicaragua.

A message received from Martin Rivera, long-time water-and-san director for Peace Corps Honduras, a very dedicated guy now out of a job, says that there have been at least 6,000 volunteers in Honduras.

Article below more about drug trade in Honduras. I don't know what the answer is. Some people think we should legalize drugs--that it's like alcohol prohibition, cut out the illegal vendors, control it. But alcohol still takes a terrible toll. Maybe marijuana should be legalized--it's already sort of legal in some places, but not very well controlled. "Just say 'No'," as Nancy Reagan advocated, hasn't worked either.

One of my correspondents, herself in AA for an alcohol problem, says:
I’ve believed for a long time in legalizing drugs. Not just putting them on the open market, like candy bars or something, but regulated similarly to alcohol and tobacco sales. For one thing, it would make them less accessible to children and teenagers. Right now, they use drugs in part because drugs are easier to get than alcohol. It’s a way of regulating things like cleanliness and potency as well as the most important thing, to my thinking, who buys the drugs. They would also be considerably cheaper which should have some effect on the crime rate.

When I go to Honduras in Feb. will have to land in a city, but will try to get out of there ASAP. The countryside is usually much safer.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Grim toll as cocaine trade expands in HondurasBy Nick Miroff, December 26, 2011, The Washington Post

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — In the most murderous part of the most murderous country in the world, the families of murdered sons and husbands and sisters meet each month in a concrete building next to the Nuestra Senora de Guada¬lupe church. They sit in plastic chairs, leaning forward to speak, and the anguish pours out. There is the dread of birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas. Or knowing who the killer is, and that he will not be arrested, and the perversity of that. The group had 10 families when it started three years ago. Today it has 60, and all but one of their cases remain unsolved.

“We are living in constant fear,” said Blanca Alvarez, wearing a pin bearing a portrait of her dead son, Jason, shot in a carjacking in 2006. “We have had marches for peace, wearing white, releasing white balloons into the air. Nothing is going to change here. Nothing.”

Honduras had 82.1 homicides per 100,000 residents last year, the highest per-capita rate in the world, according to a global homicide report published by the United Nations in October that included estimates for Iraq and Afghanistan. Security concerns prompted the U.S. Peace Corps to announce last week that it would pull all 158 volunteers out of Honduras.

As in Guatemala and El Salvador, Honduras’s neighbors in the Northern Triangle region of Central America, the homicide problem goes back decades. But as Mexico’s billionaire drug mafias expand their smuggling networks deeper into Central America to evade stiffer enforcement in Mexico and the Caribbean, violence has exploded, as if the cocaine were gasoline tossed on a fire. Honduras’s grim tally reached 6,239 killings in 2010, compared with 2,417 in 2005, and researchers say the count will be even higher this year. The largest number of homicides occurred here around San Pedro Sula, a once-booming manufacturing center that is fast becoming the Ciudad Juarez of Central America.

That troubled city on the U.S.-Mexico border and San Pedro Sula share more than a reputation for low-wage assembly plants and fratricidal violence. They are at opposite ends of the billion-dollar smuggling chain that extends from the north coast of Honduras to the United States.

It starts on the isolated beaches and jungle airstrips of Honduras’s Mosquitia region, where 95 percent of the suspected drug flights from South America to Central America land, according to U.S. narcotics agents. U.S. radar detected 90 such flights into Honduras last year, compared with 24 in 2008, marking a major shift in trafficking patterns that indicates a strong preference for the country’s rugged geography and feeble institutions.

In March, authorities raided a cocaine processing lab in the mountains near San Pedro Sula. The facility was the first of its kind in Central America, capable of churning out a ton of powder each month by combining imported coca paste with hydrochloric acid and other chemicals.

Then, in July, a semi-submersible “narco submarine” with $180 million worth of cocaine was caught by the U.S. Coast Guard in international waters off Honduras, the first such craft detected in the Caribbean. Since then, three more have been busted.

Honduran lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last month to deploy the country’s military against drug traffickers, adopting the security strategy charted by Mexican President Felipe Calderon with mixed results. Overall, U.S. officials estimate that 25 to 30 tons of cocaine arrive in Honduras each month by air and sea — one-third of the world’s total volume — before continuing north into Mexico through Guatemala and Belize on fast boats, fishing vessels or cargo trucks.

“Honduras is by far the world’s largest primary transshipment point for cocaine,” said a U.S. official working here who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing security protocols. Shepherding the precious merchandise is a dangerous but lucrative occupation, as the payoff to local smugglers for receiving an average-size planeload of 500 kilograms and delivering it to Guatemala can be $1 million. Honduran police commanders say smugglers are also increasingly paying their contacts in raw product rather than cash, driving up local drug-dealing and the lethal violence that accompanies it.

‘Total impunity’
Researchers caution that the surge in killings here cannot be attributed entirely to narcotics trafficking. As in Ciudad Juarez, drug-fueled violence appears to have fostered an overall climate of impunity, in which bullets settle the slightest dispute and anyone can literally get away with murder.

Journalists, labor activists and gays also are apparently being killed at elevated rates, and political violence has flared since the 2009 coup that deposed leftist President Manuel Zelaya. Then there are the thousands of other Hondurans who seemingly have nothing to do with the drug trade who have been slain in carjackings, muggings and hotheaded feuds.

“You always imagine that your parent will die of old age, not murder,” said Claudia Castillo, whose father, who drove a grocery delivery truck, was killed last December in San Pedro Sula for falling behind on extortion payments, which gang members here call the impuesto de guerra (“war tax”). He had been mugged, assaulted or shot at on at least eight other occasions, Castillo said, including an incident a few months before his death in which teenage gangsters ordered him to dance and fired at his feet.
“We begged him to quit, but he said he had to pay for us to go to college,” Castillo said. After burying him, her family moved to another neighborhood after receiving new threats from the gang.

At nearly every business here, from Burger King to the smallest mini-market, armed men with 12-gauge shotguns stand guard. Those who can afford it barricade their families behind razor wire, 10-foot walls and electrified fencing.

“If a person kills someone and the next day they’re sitting in a restaurant drinking coffee as if nothing happened, then that person feels they have permission to kill anyone they want,” said Jose Antonio Canales, a priest who works with the support group for victims’ families. “There is total impunity.”

Gang warfare
For much of the 20th century, Canales said, the north coast of Honduras was a place of opportunity, drawing workers to the vast banana plantations owned by U.S. fruit companies. In the 1980s, as civil wars raged in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, Honduras and especially the San Pedro Sula area were held up as a model of export-driven development, attracting waves of workers to the assembly plants known as maquilas.

“People came from all over, but when they didn’t find opportunity, the pockets of misery formed,” Canales said. “Then a lot of kids were raised by a single mom or a grandmother because their parents were in the United States.”

The transnational gangs MS-13 and 18th Street took root in the city’s slums and have been warring ever since, reinforced by deported criminals from Los Angeles street gangs and U.S. prisons. The United States has been drawn deep into Honduras’s counter-drug fight, spending at least $50 million on security assistance since 2008, according to U.S. officials. “This is a poor country where 65 percent of the people live in poverty and the government’s law enforcement budget cannot begin to compare to the funds that drug trafficking organizations have,” U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kubiske said in an interview here. “It’s clear the country needs help.”

Armed American drug agents are on the front lines of anti-narcotics operations, launching helicopter raids into the jungles of Mosquitia from the Soto Cano air base, where the United States has a large military presence. U.S. advisers are teaching police how to gather evidence and are helping modernize Honduras’s ghoulish prison system. The United States has provided armored vehicles to protect judges from assassination and sophisticated mobile X-ray equipment that can scan vehicle cargo at checkpoints and border crossings.

But setbacks have undercut recent security improvements. On Dec. 7, former security minister Alfredo Landaverde — an outspoken critic of growing police corruption tied to organized crime — was gunned down in his car, a day after assassins pumped 37 bullets into the vehicle of radio journalist Luz Marina Paz Villalobos. Since then, Honduras’s Congress has banned all motorcycle drivers from carrying passengers, because both victims were slain by hit men riding on the backs of motorbikes.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a good or a bad person here, or if you’re someone with a future,” said Irwin Santos, whose brother Deybis — a university student — was killed in 2008 in San Pedro Sula. “In the end, you become just another statistic.”
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Oh, dear, such a sorry roster of candidates for the Republican primaries. Of course, everyone is mortal and has human faults, including yours truly and President Obama, but from my perspective, the Republican candidates are across-the-board dishonest, thoughtless, and singularly lacking in abilities and basic smarts. They do have tremendous ambition and money at their disposal, that’s about all.

They all have lots of chutzpah too and each obviously has a fair number of followers. How so many ever got this far is beyond me, but, then, I admit to being biased. It’s really scary to think one of them might actually become president. Of course, most of the electorate is ignorant and biased, so that’s the obvious answer. A large proportion of the electorate does not believe in evolution or that human-impacted climate change exists, many still think Obama was born in Kenya and is a Muslim, others see 9/11 as a US government conspiracy, and people flock to see images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast. Presidential candidates pander to them, reinforcing their beliefs. It’s enough to make you lose faith in democracy and voting. Money seems to be the main political driver and the incentive for people wanting to be elected president of the USA. Even candidates with no chance of winning probably remain in the race because of the money involved and the ego-boost of having people cheer on and support them.

And now, in the Arab Spring countries, well-organized Muslim groups seem poised to set back the clock on women’s rights and those of religious minorities. A voting majority probably propelled Hugo Chavez into office for the first time, from whence he solidified his power. Massive crowds cheered Fidel Castro’s victory over Batista. Same with the Iranian revolution. So are elections really worth it?

The man-on-the-street seems to be unable to anticipate future developments, only to react after-the-fact, often after the damage has already been done. Think not only of the entrenchment of dictators, but how the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush vs. Gore led our country into an ill-fated, mistaken Iraq war, with all the unnecessary ensuing deaths, injuries, and financial cost, as well as into the lack of financial oversight that helped sink us into recession. So what’s the Republican answer to get us out of recession? Even less regulation and government oversight! The problem is, what’s the alternative to voting and representative government? We can’t go back to hereditary monarchies. Is a voting system simply the lesser of evils? ------------------------------------------------------------------

A diatribe was sent to me on Christmas Day in response to a posting I had made some time ago on an Amnesty International Spanish-language human rights blog, Aliados, about the rights of people of Haitian descent living in the DR. For those unfamiliar with Spanish, let me just say that the writer sounds like the equivalent of some rabid anti-immigrant folks here in the US, using a lot of capital letters and exclamation marks to make her point. Among other complaints, she calls Haitians a “rock in the shoe” and “monkeys.” A Colombian colleague in my Caribbean action network who helps me with Haiti posted a calm, beautiful reply.

Holiday Greetings, PC Leaves Honduras!, NED Honors Laura Pollán, Dangerous Crossing, “American Muslim,” Interpretation Frustrations

Seasons’ greetings. Hope everyone is spending some down time with family and friends. My interpretation agencies no longer hold office parties, rather, they just send out an electronic greeting instead, which is what I am doing here. Happy New Year, Feliz Ano Nuevo.

Terrible news. Peace Corps is pulling out its volunteers out of Honduras , so I’ve been told by Luis Knight, my former colleague in the Esperanza regional office. I'm brokenhearted about Peace Corps leaving Honduras after almost 50years. Honduras was never a tranquil country, but US drug appetites have deformed it, as happened in Colombia, Mexico, and other parts of Central America and the Caribbean. Now Honduras is considered too insecure for volunteers, but I'm still planning to go back there in Feb. for medical brigades and my other projects there.

A former Honduras PC volunteer sent us this message, which expresses our grief so well: A silent tear shed out of the spot light for a tiny country out of the way of ‘important’ world issues. Shed by the more than 5,000 thousand who have left a piece of their heart in Honduras at some point in the last 50 years. For the school teacher who invited an unknown ‘gringo’ off the street to have a drink of water on a hot day; For the grounds keeper at the zoo who stood and watched the young foreigners try to make gas using an inner tube and animal waste; For the young mother who listened to broken Spanish from a blond health worker telling her how to keep her child from dying from diarrhea. Tears shed by engineers who designed water systems, by foresters who helped develop the national parks, by musicians who taught violin. Honduras has stumbled into an abyss of violence where gangs collect ‘war taxes’ and civil society is a distant dream; Where they have earned the unfortunate distinction of having the highest homicide rate per capita in the world; Where Peace Corps considers it unsafe for volunteers.

Honduras, a tropical paradise being plowed under by shortsighted self interest. The tears of thousands, who have been touched by the heart and soul of the Honduran people, are shed for those who have changed our lives. We are who we are, in part, for our experiences there. Honduras, mi pais adoptado, we shed a tear and say a prayer for you. We hope that Peace Corps will not be long absent from your shores.


NY Times, December 21, 2011
Peace Corps to Scale Back in Central AmericaBy RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

MEXICO CITY — The increasing drug and organized-crime violence in Central America has led the Peace Corps to pull out of Honduras and stop sending new volunteers to Guatemala and El Salvador, the organization announced Wednesday.
Peace Corps officials said they had taken stock of the worsening conditions and decided to withdraw their 158 volunteers from Honduras in January and scuttle plans to send 29 recruits to complete their training.

“We are going to conduct a full review of the program,” Aaron S. Williams, the director of the Peace Corps, said in a statement.

In Guatemala and El Salvador, officials decided to keep the 335 volunteers already in those countries but not to send the 76 recruits who were to begin training there next month. The trainees will be sent to other countries, the corps said.

Kristina Edmunson, a Peace Corps spokeswoman in Washington, said the moves stemmed from “comprehensive safety and security concerns” rather than any specific threat or incident. However, Peace Corps Journals, an online portal for blogs by Peace Corps volunteers, has an entry referring to a volunteer’s being shot in an armed robbery.

There was no immediate reaction from the governments. All three countries have endured a rash of violence primarily related to drug traffickers using Central America as a staging point to ship cocaine to the United States from South America.

A wave of violence has struck particularly hard in Honduras, whose institutions are still recovering from a coup in 2009. It has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world — the highest by some measures — and this month, Alfredo Landaverde, the country’s former antidrug and security adviser who often denounced corruption, was shot to death.

Ms. Edmunson said that from time to time, the corps withdraws or restricts work in the 75 countries in which it has volunteers.

I never actually met Laura Pollán, leader of the Women in White, Damas de Blanco, as she was not active when I was visiting Cuba. But I feel as though I know her since she and I appeared in the same documentary and I've met other members now in exile. Not previously a leader, she proved to be a relentless and fearless spokesperson for political prisoners after her husband was arrested in 2003 in a Cuban government crackdown known as “Black Spring.” Pollán declared recently, “The government states that there's a lot of freedom in Cuba, that it's a paradise. I'd invite those people who believe that Cuba is free to come and live here; to come and live here like a regular citizen, without bringing dollars; to come to work, and make what a regular worker makes; to come and live in a humble house, buy their food with a ration book, and express themselves here as much as they do in their own countries against their governments and other individuals, so that they see what the outcome is in Cuba.”

Sadly, Pollán died of a reported heart attack on October 14, 2011 while hospitalized with hemorrhagic dengue, soon after her engineer husband's release after spending eight years in prison. Pollán herself had been severely beaten by government-assembled mobs on September 24. Understandably, after her death and another recent hospital death of a dissident beaten by security forces, Cuba opposition figures have vowed to avoid hospitals at all costs. Pollán’s close associates have questioned the official cause of her death because, although she was diabetic, she had it under control. Those in the opposition believe that her condition was either induced or aggravated by the authorities. Her body was reportedly cremated two hours after her death, making it impossible to re-examine the cause. Such immediate cremations have been common after questionable dissident hospital deaths. Friends believe that the Cuban government moved quickly to avoid an international outcry like that following the death of hunger striker Orlando Zapata in 2010.

A recent Cuban exile, who once occupied an important position in the government hierarchy, has commented, “My gut feeling tells me it was murder because the Cuban totalitarian state did not know how to respond to her efforts to spread the women’s protests around the country. But if it was murder, it was very well planned and carried out meticulously, leaving no proof behind. Let's face it, the Cuban G2 is a very professional and unscrupulous organization, trained by the NKVD. The NKVD is reported to have developed chemical substances producing heart attacks that are rapidly eliminated from the body to avoid their discovery during autopsy. We will just have to wait until the secret files of the Cuban Interior Ministry or Party Politburo are opened to verify whether she was murdered. Whatever threat this movement held for the Cuban government, it was, in my opinion, successfully eliminated by the skillful assassination of Laura Pollán, which leaves the Damas de Blanco without a charismatic leader and terrified because they are now aware of the Interior Ministry’s utter lack of scruples and the length it is willing to go to suppress opposition activities.”

He continued, “This whole affair should make quite clear the risks that dissenters take in Cuba when they protest in public. That is why I favor anonymous methods to get the message out to the general Cuban population, rather than having these brave people go out and face repression that could even lead to death. It is not only a quantitative matter of a loss of lives. It is that those activists willing to sacrifice themselves are the qualitative acme of the Cuban people, the cream of our crop, so it is a very high a price for our nation to pay. Of course, liberty is priceless, but when these people are gone, who will be left to lead Cuba? Only the bottom of the barrel, the opportunists and yes-men who run no risks and arrive at the last minute to gather the fruit off low hanging branches.”

A dissident named José Angel Luque, hospitalized after being beaten for wearing a T-shirt bearing the word “change,” reportedly said when he was released on Oct. 20 that a state security officer warned him, “We killed Laura and can do the same to you—nothing happens” (Letter to the editor, Wall St. Journal, Oct. 31, 2011). Independent journalist Carlos Ríos Otero’s hint that Laura may have been murdered resulted in his arrest by Cuban authorities (Babalu Blog, October 17, 2011). Journalists and bloggers outside Cuba beIieve Laura was deliberately killed, perhaps by lethal injection, but, of course, in the absence of proof, that remains only speculation.

On December 13, 2011, a bipartisan group of U.S. Congress members nominated the Ladies in White for the Nobel Peace prize. On December 13 and 14, I was invited to speak at a series of meetings on Cuban human rights and Laura Pollán’s legacy sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). At the December 14 ceremony, taking place in an overflowing House office building meeting room, speakers from both parties and both houses of Congress praised Pollán’s contributions while her image flashed on an overhead screen and a musical tribute was played. The Damas’ trademark gladioli were passed around amid a few tears. A man who had spent decades as a Cuban political prisoner commented on how Laura’s death had brought both American political parties together. NED then presented its Democracy Service Medal to Laura Pollán posthumously, accepted on her behalf by another Dama, Yolanda Huerga Cedeño (also appearing in the documentary) whose husband was one of the first Black Spring prisoners to be released. Quite obviously in death, Pollán has become a symbol and a martyr. If she was indeed murdered to quiet her message, that effort has backfired.

Remarkably, these proceedings were carried out with the real-time long-distance participation via webcam of a group gathered in Havana, thanks to a hookup provided by the U.S. Interests Section there. Sitting at a table inside the Interests Section with its chief were the new Damas leader, a young Afro-Cuban woman named Berta Soler; Laura’s widower and recently released Amnesty prisoner of conscience, Héctor Maseda; and her daughter, Laurita Labrada. That they all managed to be present was a feat in itself, since state security often intercepts known dissidents en route to the Interests Section.

An article in this week's El Tiempo Latino says that at least 19 people have been hit and 15 killed this year, many by hit-and-run drivers like the one who hit me, crossing Viers Mill Rd. in the suburb of Wheaton, near the area where I was struck. That is a very dangerous pedestrian area because of the 6 lanes of fast traffic. I’m fortunate to have almost completely recovered, but now I am super-cautious about crossing any street, especially a busy one like that.

After Lowe’s pulled its ads from the new “American Muslim” show, remind me never to shop at Lowe’s. Not that I am a TV watcher anyway, not owning a TV set. It’s certainly true that much, perhaps a disproportionate share, of random violence and terrorism can be attributed to those who identify themselves as Muslims, so it is not racial profiling to recognize this. However, I feel that sure way to radicalize American Muslims is to treat them as pariahs and potential terrorists and by boycotting a show about Muslims. The show seems to be trying to serve as an example to Muslims about how to lead a peaceful American life while also being an observant Muslim, an endeavor we should all support. (I’m reminded of how Bill Cosby created a show to serve as an example of family life for African Americans, encouraging them to identify with it.) I doubt that most apparently mainstream American Muslims are secret jihadists or members of sleeper cells, rather, I suspect, they bend over backwards to assert their patriotism. Perhaps when the “American Muslim” is better established, it could dare to air an episode about a couple fearing that their adolescent son is becoming radicalized. Meanwhile, let’s encourage loyalty, not reject a show outright just because the protagonists are Muslim.

Just sounding off here about a recent interpreting assignment. For the first time in 7 years, I got a bad evaluation for a school interpretation. Without advance warning, it turned out to be a simultaneous interpretation for a meeting that a large group of parents had called to air grievances with the principal, who failed to show up, so things quickly became rather contentious. An Amharic interpreter was also present, but his people were fewer and quieter than the Spanish speaking mothers. First off, I was not given a machine, then I was given one with no batteries, and when finally that was fixed, I wasn't quite sure how to use it. I put it on my head with a wand coming down in front of my mouth, but was told that made it too loud, so moved it over to the side. I rarely do simultaneous interpreting for such a large group outfitted with ear pieces and was not familiar with that equipment. Anyway, my agency later said not to worry, as I've always gotten excellent reviews otherwise. Needless-to-say, I don't plan to return to that school ever, though I finally figured out how to use the equipment. When I had been there before, it was for an annual review of a special ed student’s progress with the mother and school staff.

World AIDS Day, Human Rights Day, Sonia Pierre Dies in the DR, Murder in Honduras, Bob Edwards Show, Et. Al

Dec. 1 was World AIDS Day, which we used to observe in Honduras with workshops by and for teenagers and a march around town with a big banner.

Human Rights Day was Dec. 10, but our Amnesty Group here in DC celebrated it on Fri. Dec. 9 at a Write-a-Thon held at the National Press Club, co-hosted with Reporters Without Borders. At a Write-a-Thon, participants sign letters and postcards already prepared for them about a number of Amnesty prisoners and actions, which we then mail out for them. One of our speakers was an Ethiopian former prisoner of conscience on whose behalf we had written at our 2009 Write-a-Thon, Birtukan Mideska, and there she was, in the flesh, actually speaking to us. Our letters had helped secure her release, for which she thanked us profoundly. That’s always a thrill. Another was Nada Alawadi, a Bahraini journalist who had been arrested, threatened, and silenced earlier this year and decided it was safest to leave the country while she still could. She said the reason we have not heard much any more about unrest in Bahrain is because of a news blackout, the arrest and torture of journalists (and local doctors treating wounded demonstrators), and the refusal of visa requests from foreign journalists. (See photo from that event.)

On the day before Human Rights Day, dozens of Cuban dissidents were preemptively arrested and members of the Damas de Blanco gathered outside the home of their recently deceased leader, Laura Pollan, were set upon by a government-organized mob calling them “mercenaries” and “ a nest of worms” (gusanera, a favorite insult), and shouting “¡Viva Fidel!” “¡Viva Raúl!”

On Human Rights Day itself, a boat from Florida approached Cuban waters and sent up fireworks into the air, causing the Cuban government to denounce violation of their air space. A number of opposition figures had been cleared out of the waterfront where the fireworks could be seen, reportedly including blogger Gorki Aguilar, author of the irreverent blog, Porno Para Ricardo. Foreign journalists trying to film the scene and unrest had their cameras knocked out of their hands.

Caricom and the Cuba leadership have both reinforced calls for the US to lift its longstanding trade embargo against Cuba. The calls came at the fourth Caricom-Cuba summit held at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain where Cuban President Raul Castro was the guest of honor.

A staunch defender of the rights of people of Haitian ancestry living in the DR, Sonia Pierre, died in Santo Domingo of heart attack at age 45, a real loss. Meanwhile, her death has aroused Dominicans of Haitian ancestry to demonstrate for their rights to obtain a birth certificate needed to attend school or get a job.

My plane reservations for Honduras in February have already been made. And, thanks to Rev. Daniel’s help, I’ve been in e-mail communication with Jorge and Neris, my scholarship students. Daniel was back in Honduras from his new pastor’s position in his native Guatemala, picking up his kids to have them stay with him until school starts again in Feb. (His wife divorced him, as blog readers may remember, and she now wants him back after she broke up with her second husband, but Daniel is not buying it.) He said he had no gas to go looking for the kids for me, so I sent him $100 via Moneygram. I do rely on him and he will be back in early Feb. again to bring his kids back from Guatemala and may help me again then while I am in Honduras. Jorge, after I paid the first part his tuition at an IT school last year, told me now via e-mail that he had to drop out because of a serious stomach ailment so lost the whole year, ending up selling cookies and crackers out on the street. He claims to be better now and is wanting to start over. Jorge is the boy who lost two fingers to infection after surgery, as recounted in my book and on this blog. He also had an eye infection when I saw him last, for which I bought him medication. But he sounds now as though he wants persevere, despite health challenges. Neris has not had another baby, thank goodness, and she did finish high school and still wants to study nursing. Both kids are almost 18, if not 18 already.

Murder in Honduras. First an outspoken former anti-drug chief, Alfredo Landaverde, was murdered in the capital. The day before, female journalist, Luz Marina Paz Villalobos, was killed there, as per item below.

Journalist is shot and killed outside of her home in Honduras

Luz Marina Paz, a radio news host, was shot and killed outside of her home in Tegucigalpa, the AP reports. According to national police spokesman Luis Maradiaga, Paz and her driver were hit by dozens of bullets fired by men on two motorcycles.

Paz hosted a morning radio program called "Three in the News." The program addressed politics and narcotics trafficking; however, the article reports that she was not especially outspoken or well-known. Paz previously worked at Radio Globo, where she was critical of the coup that overthrew former President Manuel Zelaya in June of 2009.

Human rights advocates say that at least 23 journalists have been killed in Honduras since 2007.
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Bob Edwards Show, HD Radio, NPR, Tuesday, December 6, 2011

This year marks the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary and ever since President Kennedy issued the call to serve, young Americans have responded. But so have older Americans. Barbara Joe is 73-years-old and she was a health volunteer in Honduras from 1999 to 2003. Every February, she returns annually to Honduras to volunteer with a medical brigade, help kids with scholarships, check in with the community volunteers trained in Peace Corps, and assist a rehab center and a residential school for the blind.

Actually, I joined in 2000, not 1999, but stayed beyond the usual term to 3 1/2 years.

At a recent special education interpretation assignment, the mother expressed regret and upset that she had kept her son, now 19, in a private residential facility in the DR for 10 years, paying for his care from her modest income cleaning office buildings (she is a single parent and also has other kids). Supposedly, they were teaching him skills, but, instead, she found what skills he had possessed before had deteriorated and that he had also adopted institutionalized habits, such head banging from observing other residents. She finally managed to bring him here 18 months ago and was now lamenting that she had left him in that place so long. I was sitting next to her, of course, and said something like. "You did what you thought best and now he is here, better late than never.” I also translated what I had said for the school staff, but, strictly speaking, it was a remark that I had initiated, rather than something said by others at the meeting. I know interpreters are not supposed to become personally involved in the conversation and I will try to curb that in future, but it’s hard, as I’m a former social worker, after all.

It’s shocking that Virginia Tech, where my late father once headed up the architecture department, has again seen murder on campus.

Alabama has suffered economic setbacks because of its draconian anti-immigrant policies. Other towns around the country where immigrants have either been removed or have been frightened away, are facing similar problems. Such unintended consequences may come as a surprise to anti-immigrant lawmakers, but are totally predictable. These long-time residents, whether originally legal immigrants or not, have become integrated into the social-economic fabric. Not only are some types of jobs in Alabama going unfilled, especially in agriculture and construction, but businesses, apartments, and schools are being emptied out, and now legal foreign experts and students on temporary visas are avoiding that state. A Japanese Honda employee was arrested as a suspected illegal immigrant recently and Chinese entrepreneurs have felt unwelcome. The governor is now scrambling to reassure legal foreign residents, defending his support and approval of the anti-immigrant law.

Through the magic of Facebook, I have again found members of the Espaillat family living in Santo Domingo, and discovered that Ana, a psychiatric nurse who used to take me on her rounds is residing in an assisted living facility in suburban Maryland outside Washington, DC.

At Communitas, a small, progressive Catholic community, usually attracting about 30 worshippers on a given Sunday, we were surprised when two homeless men, very aromatic—evident smokers and drinkers—came in and sat down among us. We could not be so unchristian as to ask them to leave, but we felt a bit uncomfortable, especially those of us sitting nearest them. Then one, carrying a sack, while we were greeting each other midway through, slipped upstairs where we had laid out some potluck dishes for lunch afterward. Also, the building where we meet belongs to a gay Catholic group and we felt the need to protect their belongings. So, a couple of people went upstairs and gently persuaded him to come back down. We invited both men to join us at the luncheon afterwards, but they chose to leave. I wonder if they will be back and, if so, what should we do, if anything, if this becomes a habit? Maybe we should concern ourselves with their general wellbeing? How much can we undertake?

Cannot help commenting on Gingrich’s statement that there are no Palestinian people, an easy way to get rid of that problem. “No” turns out to be handy word, as two-year-olds and Tea Partiers have discovered. No evolution, no global warming, no new taxes, and now, no Palestinians. Of course, that’s an appeal not only to Jewish voters, of whom there are not so many, but to evangelicals, who also support the biblical Israel, and are much more numerous.

My ego got a little boost from a man from California who read my book who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile early on (Chile no longer has a Peace Corps program) and later was on staff on Colombia and Costa Rica. He also worked with USAID in Honduras for a number of years and is married to a Honduran. I won’t repeat his whole long message, just this excerpt:

While I have had many opportunities to interact with government officials at different levels during my work and years living in Honduras, I found your descriptions of the people with whom you lived ranging from the different landladies to young maids to health worker assistants to the Honduran men who were trying to capture your amorous attention to be incredibly vivid and accurate. Then there were your descriptions of the kids in rural Honduras with deformed and cleft lips and club feet who had been successfully operated on so that they could live better lives. Such descriptions of people’s suffering and opportunities to have their lives transformed are priceless and definitely speak to the greatness of Peace Corps and its dedicated volunteers like you!