Honduras.

A friend recently asked me to give him a little insight into what is going on in Honduras. Apparently the media is not reporting a lot on the issue back home, but the little information that does get through tends to portray a misleading scenario of military juntas, dictatorship, mass protests, repression, encroachment on social liberties etc. etc.  Of course, many of these have elements of truth in them, but the way they are being reported is having a harmful effect on how Honduras in viewed in the world and consequently making it look like a lawless country that has regressed back to dark and primitive days.

Many have taken to liking the situation to the military coups that plagued Central America during the 80's, but the reality is nothing like that. The army's role was to remove Zelaya from office, as the Courts had decreed. Since then their involvement hasn't gone beyond law enforcement. Of course we can argue about the rights and wrongs of doing so, but the point is that he wasn't removed in order to place a "dictator" in his place. Although many like to call the interim president just that, Micheletti's official role was to step into the role of president until the elections take place in November. This doesn't make him a dictator, and even less a military dictator. 

It is true that propaganda is rife, that there was a brief ban on radio stations, newspapers and TV channels that incited violence against the current government, that the government has banned gatherings of 20+persons, that during the early days and after Zelaya's return the population had to endure meaningless and annoying curfews, that the current government doesn't come across as truthful and their motives are probably not as legitimate as they like to preach, all these are serious issues that need to be addressed, but the whole affair is miles away from the "military junta" scenario that is being portrayed out there and this needs to be told. 

From my experience, and from the experience of all the other travellers that I have met during my time in Central America, "Post-Coup Honduras" is not a lawless and dangerous place to visit. Myself and Oisin arrived in Honduras a few days before Zelaya's return to the country. His return was met with enforced curfews on the whole population. First the ban lasted one whole day, and from then on it was gradually reduced until it was completely abandoned two weeks later. Military and police checks were everywhere. If you got on a bus, you'd be guaranteed three or four police and army checks where you had to get off the bus, men would be checked for weapons by male officers, and if there was a woman then the women would be checked also. Everyone had to show ID. Yes all this happened, but never once did we feel threatened by it. The police and army were always professional, friendly and just doing their job, never once did I see evidence of abuse of power. Ok, maybe the situation would have been different if they found a Zelaya supporter armed with explosives on his way to the capital... but quite frankly, from having spoken to a few of them, I don't think Zelaya's supporters care enough to try anything extreme. 

Most people, whether in favour or against Zelaya's ousting, wanted things to return to normal. They want the tourists back in their country. They want the world to know that while their political leaders are playing games with each other, that life goes on for them, and that it is safe to visit their country. 

Sometimes I wish I was a boy.

An article I read today, by Linda Ellerbee, got me thinking about my time in Mexico thus far. After reading it, I quickly realised that all the concerns I had before crossing the border, bred by the enormous amount of scaremongering that goes on the media abroad (by that I mean, Europe and the US), had vanished almost by the end of my first day in the country. The drug war, illegal immigration and collateral damages, pick-pocketing, rapes, bribing, crazy drivers and whatnot –oh, and since last week also the swine flu, or is it the Mexican flu?, sorry I think the term I'm looking for is Class A N1H1– are images that instinctively pop up in the mind of all those who haven't set foot in this country yet. In a sense, it's only natural if that's all people hear about Mexico in the media. 

These things are a reality, they do happen in Mexico, but the sad thing is that they are becoming the definition of Mexico. Mexico has a lot of problems at the moment, especially all along the northern border with the USA. Thousands of people are losing their lives be it because they are trying to cross the border into the US in search of a better life, or because they are involved in the drugs trade in some shape or form. It would be wrong to belittle this, but the reality is that these problems are highly localised.  Mexico is a very big country. (For the Irish out there: it's like when people used to think that the whole of Ireland was an IRA killing field.) During my first three weeks here –yes, three weeks might not be enough to make a statement, however– I haven't felt in danger once. 

Having said that, this shouldn't imply that my trip has been completely void of anything unpleasant. The act of traveling to a different culture will inevitably be accompanied by a time, and a process, of  acclimatisation. Acclimatising to a different language, customs, and culture can sometimes be a difficult time, particularly if you are not into the type of tourism that tries to smooth out differences between cultures so that the tourist feels more at home. What follows is a little description that illustrates an area where I have found it hard to acclimatise. 

During my last two weeks in Tecapán (the little fishing village near Escuinapa, Sinaloa, we are staying in), I have experienced the inevitable cultural shock that comes from different gender dynamics. Here, and I will limit my analisys to the village of Teacapán for fear of generalising, I feel very conscious of what I am: a woman. Men and women move in separate public spheres. Women are very often seen outside their homes cleaning, burning rubbish, keeping an eye on the children, or just chatting with the next door neighbour. They also contribute to the family income: they run small businesses from their homes, they are the faces behind the shop counters, and many work in the local restaurants. Men are mainly fishermen, farmers, or construction workers, but they also hang out a lot together. Whereas women gather outside their homes, men are the ones that congregate in public spaces. Be it at the port, the local plaza, in restaurants: men hang out. If I cycle into town I am guaranteed to pass a dozen or more pickup trucks full of lads parading themselves through town. You will never see girls mixing with these guys. 

My uneasiness with the whole thing comes from the fact that, unless I am cycling with my boyfriend, I can guarantee that I will be shouted, whistled, and honked at by every single truck that passes me by, I will be stared at like a bad smell if I cycle down the port road. Every time I've gone to the beach for a swim on my own I have been shouted at by men passing by in boats. The cherry on top of the cake came yesterday when I went down to the beach for a quick dip. About fifteen lads in a boat got out of their way to sail down to the very shore, where I was getting out of the water and quickly wrapping my towel around me, shouting names (and asking me to go for a ride with them) as they unleashed their male bravado on me. Although I feel really intimidated by the whole thing, I don't believe that it is meant with harmful intentions. 

As an outsider to this town, the only places I can really access are the public ones. It would take me time (which I don't have) to access the private sphere of this town, and consequently to be in a place where I would feel comfortable, amongst the women. Even though I understand that I am not at risk, it doesn't make me feel less uncomfortable about cycling into town, or going to the beach, on my own... but at the same time, I am not liking the idea of having to wait around for my boyfriend anytime I want to do something in the "public sphere". I understand that this is a clash of cultural dynamics, nevertheless sometimes I wish I was a boy :). 

Time will tell if I will be affected by the "bigger" problems that affect Mexico. In the mean time, I will enjoy my own personal process of acclimatisation. 

From Crisis to Suspicions

Another translation from the Mexican media. The internal conflicts are starting to emerge. A translation of Ángel Vivero's De la emergencia al sospechismo:

From Crisis to Suspicions – by Ángel Viveros .

La Crónica de hoy. 30th of April 2009

From a health crisis we've moved onto being swine suspicious. The messy reporting of the number of suspected, probable, or accurate cases of swine flu has generated distrust amongst the population. Although WHO raised the alert level to 5 out of 6, there seems to be no political agreement on the number of deaths that have actually occurred due to the virus. First it was 150, then the numbers that had lost their lives specifically due to the swine virus went down to 28, but then it turned out that it was really only 7 cases. There is also no agreement on where the source of the outbreak is, is it in the Perote farm or in Texas?

More suspicions. The emergence of the virus is highly worrying, on one hand because of its lethal and real existence, but on the other hand because it has had the power to change the face of the national and international media. Even the films and photographs that were going to be released about the Bush administration's permission to torture Guantanamo prisoners have been forgotten. In Mexico, we have lost track of the US$47 billion granted by the International Monetary Fund to help us deal with the economic crisis. The 8% fall in economic growth in the first three months of the year announced by the Banco de Mexico seems to have gone unnoticed. Congress is passing laws on security almost by the minute. Even the polls –this however is justifiable– carried out by the Interior Ministry and other companies on the present electoral scenario have been dispersed or hushed down.

The lack of trust in the government due to the inconsistent nature of the information released is being seized by some as an opportunity to speculate, sensationalise, and relive past events that other governments have tried to conceal. For example, as the north American writer William Bloom tells us in his book Matando la Esperanza (Killing hope), in 1971 the CIA infiltrated an African swine flu virus into Cuba which forced them to slaughter half a million pigs in the hope that it would induce the need to purchase from outside the country. Or, as other journalists in the US, such as the radio host Ralph Schoenman, have reported, the existence of military laboratories throughout their country that are working on biological weapons using the swine flu virus.

Beyond the distrust that this health crisis has brought about, it has also revealed the poor budget set aside for the health of Mexicans. In 2009 Mexico will set aside 134 billion pesos (around US$9 billion ) for health, while in the US Obama created a US$634 billion 10 year fund. The Treasury Department has just barely released enough funds to start the investigations, through Conacyt, into this virus and the long bureaucratic process that will accompany it. First there will be a call for proposals, then the presentations of these proposals, and only after UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) scientists, the technical institutes and other organisations have agreed on how to proceed with the investigations into this virus will there be another requests for funds. But to this day they have even been denied the pathological samples. On the other hand Barack Obama will ask for US$500 million to deal with the health crisis, and his predecessor, George W.Bush, requested US$600 million from Congress to tackle the avian flu, although he only spent US$80 million of that.

The way events are unfolding you would think we are living Herbert George Well's war of the worlds, or a horror story. But what really sounds like fiction is the long road Treasury has decided to take to investigate the outbreak of swine flu, or perhaps this is just the screen behind which the multinational pharmaceutical business companies, who have the drugs and vaccines, force government to replenish stocks.

It would be a criminal offense to cash in, politically as well as economically, on this health crisis. However, the PAN and the PRD* are already inside the fighting ring. We already know that for the former everything goes, all strategies are equally valid in order to steal votes from their opponents, and this flu, which has affected Mexico City's population the most, is the perfect scenario to win one over the PRD, who currently governs the state. It would seem that PRI* is the only consistent party. Then again, the spokesperson for the tricolour party at the Chamber of Deputies announced a special package, for the grand total of five billion pesos (about US$360 million), to deal with the health crisis in the whole country.

• Words in italics are my own clarifications.

     * The PAN, PRD, PRI are the three main political parties in Mexico.

Stinky Mexico

A new day, a new opinion. Today's translated opinion article delves into the fear of Mexico's alienation from the rest of the world, as well as the animosity towards infected people that is emerging within its borders. Salvador García Soto is the director of the national newspaper Crónica, and has been a politics critic through his column Serpientes y escaleras (Snakes and ladders) in El Universal for the past ten years. Here is what he had to say:

Stinky Mexico - by Salvador García Soto.

El Universal, 29th of April 2009.

The same thing that is happening to people and whole families infected by the swine virus here, who on top of the disease are becoming victims of rejection, segregation and social discrimination, is happening to our country in the world.

The creature that has caused what now is being talked about as a global pandemic, is damaging Mexico's image abroad, and we will have to pay a high price for it.

The travel restrictions and flight cancellations to Mexican territory, including the vetoes by major tourist operators to our main tourist destinations, are only a small example of the ramifications that this illness, now associated with everything Mexican, will have on our country.

The "Mexican" flu, the name that has now flooded the internet, will have extremely damaging effects; internally because of the regrettable loss of human lives, the effects on the social psyche, and the millions in financial losses that we are already starting to experience. The external damages will require months and millions worth of investments in media campaigns to rebuild the country's image and appeal, both in the tourist sector and amongst investors. 

If amongst us we are already getting reports like the one where the family of a twenty-six year old young man, who died of pneumonia in a hospital last week, are being isolated and vilified by their neighbours, it is to be expected that the Mexican identity, and Mexicans, will suffer similar situations abroad.

It happened to the players of the Guadalajara football team, who yesterday described how they were the recipients of mockery, contempt and even derogatory comments when they took a walk around the Viña del Mar shopping centre in Chile, where they had travelled to play a match, as well as having been subjected to strict inspections by the authorities on their entry to the country.

This is an illustrative example of the damage that Mexico's image will suffer abroad, and of all the time, costs and diplomatic efforts that will have to go into making up for it. The financial cost will be felt straightaway, and the decline in investments and tourism will intensify the recession and decrease in unemployment that the country is currently experiencing, but it will also reemerge as a painful hangover once the emergency has passed.

Sickly Mexico

I have been out of Ireland for more than two months now. After spending 7 weeks in the US (6 of them in New York City and 1 traveling to the Mexican border by bus) I find myself right in the middle of Mexico's fear epidemic. Not even a week ago the first reports of swine-flu deaths started coming from Mexico City, by the start of this week the world-wide media is telling us about the possibility of a global pandemic. 

Although in Mexico, I am living this story from the little cocooned apartment the we have rented for two weeks in a remote fishing village of Sinaloa, on the Pacific coast. The idea was to spend these two weeks catching up on pending work projects. However, the swine-drama is keeping me quite distracted and I've been spending many hours reading and comparing how this story is being reported in Europe, the US and Mexico. The area that has really caught my interest are the opinion pieces in Mexican newspapers. They offer a judgement of the situation that you won't find in European or other foreign newspapers. As a translator I feel compelled to provide a little insight into what these journalists are saying to all those who might not have access to Mexican newspapers.  The article that caught my eye today in El Universal newspaper by Ricardo Rocha, one of Mexico's most respected journalists, bares the headline Mexico enfermo. Here is the translation:

Sickly Mexico – by Ricardo Rocha. 

El Universal, 28th of April 2009.

This stubborn swine-flu, that has become psychotic and has revealed the sheer size of our fears, is not the only illness Mexico is suffering. There are many more chronic diseases that have been around for a long time.

If we compare the country to a human body we could say that it has quite a serious bone condition: internal structures that haven't been reinforced because we are always dealing with superficialities. That's why the big pending issues still remain to be tackled: a reform of the State that –amongst other things– restabilises the counterweights between the three powers of the Union, and one that puts an end to outrageous affairs such as having an attorney-general that is the president's humble servant; the design and implementation of an economical model that redistributes income, one that lessens the gap between the many who have little and the few who have much; and a revolution in the education system that is consistent with the age of global knowledge and in line with our own scientific and technological challenges. 

These, among other things, we need so as to avoid embarrassing situations such as having Mr Carstens begging for 200,000 dollars to buy labs that will detect the deadly virus that is now after us. 

Of course, the possible outcome is serious, but it becomes even more so because of our ineffective internal structures, because of our multiple sclerosis and the deep wounds, such as '88 and 2006, that still haven't healed. As a result the impact of the influenza is even bigger. Hence the confused eyes behind the surgical masks that have become part of the landscape in our half-empty cities. 

Even more so if we are threatened to become isolated from the rest of the world now that Mexico has been identified as the source of the virus that has put the US, China, Sweden, Brazil and New Zealand on the same alert. That's the last thing we need. To be declared in quarantine by the World Health Organisation, isolating us, diseased, from the rest of the planet would be the last straw. 

By the way, we have the right to ask the questions: Why Mexico? Is it true that immunology experts raised the alarm on time and no one paid attention? Are there no officials who hold responsibility?

In the mean time, the invisible murderer will keep killing Mexicans across the country. There is no one who can stop it. A fourth plague to be added to the financial, economic and social crisis that we are still suffering. A trial by fire for our governments. An epidemic of devastating consequences, especially for the poor. The truth is that this country has been sick for a long time. 

Only 10 days now until I board the plane that will take me to New York, and from there to Mexico... Central America, South America, and, if I'm lucky enough to get there, Buenos Aires. 

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reading Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines; the book he wrote about Australian Aboriginals' Dreamtime songlines. These songs recount their ancestor's creational journeys through Australia. Through these journeys, their ancestors "sang the world into existence". Their mythology of creation, if you may; which I'm not going to delve any deeper into, as the subject is infinitely more complex and I'm still struggling to grasp it fully. 

Half way through the book, Bruce takes a break from recounting his journey through Australia and lists, one after the next, quotes, little experiences and thoughts that made him ponder on the philosophy of travelling. Here are some of the quotes the struck me the most:                                                                                     

1. " Pascal, in one of his gloomier pensées, gave it as his opinion that all our miseries stemmed from a single cause: our inability to remain quietly in a room.                                Why, he asked, must a man with sufficient to live on feel drawn to divert himself on long sea voyages? To dwell in another town? To go off in search of a peppercorn? Or go off to war and break skulls. Later, on further reflection, having discovered the cause of our misfortunes, he wished to understand the reason for them, he found one very good reason: namely, the natural unhappiness of our weak mortal condition; so unhappy that when we gave to it all our attention, nothing could console us.                                                   One thing alone could alleviate our despair, and that was 'distraction' (divertissement): yet this was the worst of our misfortunes, for in distraction we were prevented from thinking about ourselves and were gradually brought to ruin.                                                 Could it be, I wondered, that our need for distraction, our mania for the new, was, in essence, an instinctive migratory urge akin to that of birds in autumn?                                 All the Great Teachers have preached that Man, originally, was a 'wanderer in the scorching and barren wilderness of this world' – the words are those of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor– and that to rediscover his humanity, he must slough off attachements and take to the road."                                                                                                                         
2. Pascal, Pensées: "Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death."
3. Baudelaire, Journaux Intimes: "A study of the Great Malady; horror of home."
4. Bruce Chatwin: "On the night express from Moscow to Kiev, reading Donne's third Elegie: 'To live in one land, is captivity, To runne all countries, a wild roguery.'  " 
5. A Moorish proverb: "He who does not travel does not know the value of men"
6. Soren Kierkegaard, letter to Jette (1847): "Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of  well-being and walk away from every illness: I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it... but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill... Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right." 
7. Rimbaud, Une Saison en enfer: "For a long time I prided myself I would posses every possible country."               
8. Bruce Chatwin. Mauritania, on the road to Atar: " There were about fifty people on top of the truck, huddled against sacks of grain. We were half-way to Atar when a sandstorm hit. Next to me was a strong-smelling Senegalese. He said he was twenty-five. He was stocky and over-muscled, and his teeth were orange from chewing cola nuts. 'You are going to Atar?' he asked. 'You too?'  'No. I am going to France.'  'What for?' 'To continue my profession.' 'What is your profession?'  'Installation sanitaire.'  'You have a passport?'  'No.' He grinned. 'I have a paper.' He unfolded a soggy scrap of paper on which I read that Don Hernando So- and-so, master of the trawler such-and-such, had employed Amadou...  surname blank... etc, etc. 'I will go to Villa Cisneros,' he said. 'I will take a trip to Tenerife or Las Palmas in the Gran Canaria. There I will continue my profession.'  'As a sailor?' 'No, Monsieur. As an adventurer. I wish to see all the peoples and all the countries in the world.' "                                                                                                 
9. " 'Travel': same word as 'travail' – 'bodily or mental labour', 'toil, especially of a painful or oppressive nature', 'exertion', 'hardship', 'suffering', A 'journey'                                                 
10. Gautama Buddha: "You cannot travel on the path before you have become the Path itself. 
11. Meister Eckhart: " The Wayless Ways, where the Sons of God lose themselves and, at the same time, find themselves."