This is a tough blog post to write.
Two days ago all PCVs in Honduras received a bomb-shell email
from our Regional Director, our boss in charge of all Peace Corps
programs in Latin America and the Pacific island countries. He told us that the
decision was made to suspend Peace Corps Honduras and that all volunteers are
being sent back to the US for at least
30 days on “Administrative Hold” while the future of the program is deliberated
in Washington. That is bureaucratic code for “Honduras is being shut down.” It was a decision that we had feared might be
coming for months now, but one that I had hoped wouldn’t actually happen.
It has been a rough year for volunteers in this country. San
Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, is statistically one of the two
or three most dangerous cities in the world. Tegucigalpa, the capital of
Honduras, is not far behind. In essence, gang warfare and narco-trafficking in
the country are out of hand and very little is being done to effectively put a
stop to it. This has been a reality that all PCVs in the country have come to
understand and was a major focus of our 3 months of training. For the most part
we are very careful about travelling in the country and generally try to keep a
low profile. Even though it has been a precarious situation for a while now – considering
that volunteers were still getting robbed at gunpoint and having their houses
broken in to etc – major crimes still
had not been directed at PCVs. That is, until this year.
We PCVs here are definitely a family and we pride ourselves
on the mutual support we give each other professionally and personally; we’re all
in this together, kinda thing. So, when something like this happens to a fellow
volunteer, we all feel it, we all get shaken. But earlier this year, two female
volunteers were raped within a month’s time. I can only imagine how something
so ugly will change their lives forever and it makes me sick to think that
there are people out there so messed up they’d do something like that, no
matter what country they’re from. Naturally, the US government is ultimately
held responsible and actions must be taken.
Combine this new reality in Honduras with major budget cuts to
Peace Corps worldwide and you get the level of change that has hit our program
here this year. Policies were shifted, six projects were cut down to four,
staff and volunteer numbers were reduced, more places became off-limits for
PCVs and, they announced the cancellation of the arrival of the new training group scheduled for this coming February. Amongst this whirlwind of changes, our Safety and Security Officer
(SSO) resigned. I stopped by his office before he left to thank him for his
hard work despite his tough job and he told me how much the events of this year
had deeply affected him and, basically, that he couldn’t take another month of
his job.
Reading all this as I write it makes it sound like a bad
dream that keeps getting worse. A few weeks after our SSO left, our Safety and
Security staff aid personnel was also let go as part of the earlier-mentioned office
cutbacks. Then, as our Country Director was in Panama for a conference, the
last straw finally broke the camel’s back: a female volunteer was shot in the
leg in an armed robbery gone bad, as she travelled back to her site from San
Pedro Sula (see La Prensa article, Spanish). It was a classic case of “being in the wrong place at the wrong
time,” as an official in our office put it in his email, and it could have
happened to any of us. Thank goodness, she is alive and recovering, but that
did it.
I’m not happy with all this, obviously. The last five months
of my service, perhaps the most important part, have been robbed. My projects,
which were counting on another combined nine months of PC volunteer support,
are now having the rug pulled out from under them, putting their continued
wellbeing at risk. For example, my major Health Center project is put on hold,
and the help my community was expecting won’t be coming now. How do you think
an incident like this will affect our tourism project? Additionally, I have to
say goodbye to my friends and work partners here all of a sudden, just like
that, after almost two years of living here. Essentially, the criminals of the
big cities in Honduras are making the innocent rural communities lose out.
On a personal level too, we are being picked up and dropped
into a very different life, most suddenly. I do not know if I will be ready to go
back to the United States, considering the rapid cultural change that
represents. It is safe to say that the majority of volunteers in my training
group, who still had another five months here, do not have jobs lined up yet,
places to live, or money to support ourselves! We were counting on that crucial
time to get our futures straightened out.
When I told members of my co-op what was happening, the
president of the board of directors wept as he apologized on behalf of his
country. They all felt awful that a volunteer had been hurt and furious that Honduras
is in such a bad place right now, that nothing is being done by their
government to fix the situation. I told them that even though I feel very safe
and comfortable here in San Luis Planes and that our work together was great,
that I have no choice in the matter. I will always remember my time spent here positively
and think of them warmly. Maybe I will be able to return some day.
In the mean time, those of you reading this, please know that I am healthy and safe. Please do not send mail because it probably will not get here before I leave.
To be fair and consistent, here is the official statement from PC Washingon:
http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1932
