On this past week’s Semana Santa trip to Nicaragua, one of the first questions my friends and I were asked, of course, was “Where are you from?” Typically, we replied, “We’re from the States, but we live in Honduras.” Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and Nicaraguans alike immediately wondered, “Isn’t it dangerous there?” or, at best, “That’s an interesting choice.” While it’s completely justifiable for people to respond in that way, considering the quantity of negative stories about Honduras in the news recently, it almost felt like I was being personally insulted. Although I obviously can’t argue with the extremely high murder rates, the notable gang presence, or the consistently increasing number of people immigrating to the States, I felt the need to defend the country I’ve been living in for the past two years, to tell the story of the other, beautiful, friendly, caring Honduras.
The people who are involved in the violence and the crime, while presenting an extremely complex challenge to the governments of the Central American countries and the U.S, are not the majority. I believe that most of the people that we interact with working here on a daily basis are the ones who represent the majority, the good people just going about their lives here in Honduras, working hard, loving and supporting their families, and unfortunately suffering under a lot of deeply ingrained corruption and oppression. Theirs are the stories that need to be told. So here’s what’s not in the news about the people of Honduras…
-The mothers of our students who bring us medicine when we’re sick
-First graders who share their snack every single day with those who don’t have food
-Parents who consistently ask how their students are behaving in class and progressing academically
-An 86-year-old woman raising a second grader who’s not even related to her by blood
-A father who spends half his day driving a truck full of students to and from school
-The doctors that have given us free consults because we’re volunteers
-The family members who clean classrooms or cut the grass every week so their children can go to bilingual school
-Students who have dreams of becoming doctors, teachers, pilots, artists, bankers, or firefighters
-The nuns who donate their funds to families in need of food or medical services
-The teachers who give up their planning periods to dedicate more time to helping their students succeed
-The families that feed us more food than we can eat when we visit their modest homes
This story of kindness in Honduras doesn’t stop at one country. I found myself thinking almost every day of our trip about how many kind people you cross paths with.
-Multiple taxi drivers offering to bring us both ways of a trip or a long distance (and endure our enthusiastic singing to Backstreet Boys), even if one of them did have a horn that sounded like a cat call
-All the people on the street that gave us (questionable) directions to buses or attractions
-Our hostel making us sandwiches to bring on our volcano hike since we’d be missing the complementary breakfast
-Strangers on buses and boats giving up their seats or holding our bags for us
I could probably go on forever citing examples of the overwhelming amount of positive interactions we experience every day in a variety of places. My point is, I’m not saying we should ignore what’s in the news. The violence is a horrifying problem in Honduras and other Central American countries, and the U.S. is certainly not helping it decrease. However, it’s a shame that that is frequently the only view of the amazing country I have come to call a second home. Ideally, there will come a day when there will be a more optimistic response to “I live in Honduras” than “Isn’t it dangerous there?”
