I've lived and worked in Honduras for 10 years both as a missionary, serving the very poorest of society and now as teacher, where I give philosophy and history classes to the children of the very wealthiest. I don't pretend to be an expert on Honduran society and I certainly cannot claim to have many answers with respect to issues of immigration. The whole topic strikes me as far more complex and nuanced than what many voices on either the Right or the Left make it out to be. Nevertheless, I know the milieu in which I live, I know why many poor Hondurans choose to emigrate illegally, I know why many wealthy Hondurans fly to Miami or Atlanta to give birth to their children and I know that all else remaining constant, this current caravan is only the beginning. A poor Honduran lives his life with little to no hope of ever achieving anything approaching financial stability. The people I know make their livings off of garbage collecting, selling unripened bananas and day-laborin...
Here we are on the 1st of March and I noticed this morning that I haven't posted since last Tuesday... which is strange for me I know, to be honest I haven't had much desire to write about anything. A 16 year old boy from the community here was violently killed early last Thursday morning and I've been feeling it a lot more than I thought I would or in some way even think that I should. Let me first allay fears and say that Los Laureles is not a violent or dangerous place - Rolan was mixed up in some unpleasant activites and was hunted down by some very powerful men from outside the community. Funny that I mention his name like that, Rolan; I never even knew it until I had to help his brother Blas plan the funeral arrangements. For these past two years I've simply known him by the nickname that everyone else used, Sida. SIDA, by-the-bye, is the Spanish acronym for AIDS; not that Sida had SIDA but that should give you an idea of his social class within the garabge dump c...
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