Share+Solidarity

These past two weeks I have had the opportunity to be involved in CASM’s women’s project. Essentially we are trying to organize women in each community we work with, train them in issues such as human rights and local development, and ultimately empower them to be leaders and a voice for positive change in their communities. CASM is working in partnership with the OMM (Women’s Municipal Office), and the idea is that although CASM does not have funds to support development projects for these women, we can offer training/organization assistance, which will empower women to be able to better petition for and access the funds allotted to them by the municipality (most communities do not even know that these funds exist for their benefit).

Organizational meeting with the women of Trascerros

A committee of women from the community of Trascerros (where our CASM regional office is located), has already been formed and they have volunteered to visit the surrounding communities. These women are the true strength behind this project. Last Wednesday I accompanied a team of the Trascerros women to make house visits and speak with women in the community of Zapotales. The purpose of these visits was to motivate the women to participate in the proposed organized women’s group, and to invite them to participate in the first meeting the following week. If possible, we also sought to speak speak with the women about the topic of autoestima, or self-esteem. 

Self-esteem may seem like a basic idea and perhaps not the most pressing or important one to raise with the women (at least, this was my first reaction to the plan). But in further discussing with Dinora (the CASM technical staff coordinating this project) it appears that the majority of women in these communities have very low self-esteem.

How would you define self-esteem?

At CASM we consider self-esteem as something more than just an opinion about ourselves. Self-esteem is a vital force that allows us to develop the capacity to appreciate ourselves and our self-worth, to have self-respect, to protect ourselves, and defend our rights. It is manifest in all spaces and spheres of our life, allowing us to accept who we are, what we do and feel, motivating certain behaviors, determining our relationships with others, and influencing our appreciation of life in general. So you see self-esteem is more than what we see in the mirror (which actually seems somewhat of a commodity in Honduras…I have noticed that many bathrooms here do not have mirrors). Our self-esteem is not just our appearance, but also our self-perception of our abilities, and how that makes us feel about ourselves in general. But we don’t always have as much control over self-esteem as we may like to think, due to outside influences. Self-esteem also encompasses what value society gives us according to our social class, ethnicity, culture, age, sexual orientation, and gender. It is the worth that our family gives us since our birth and throughout our childhood and adolescence. It is evident in the relationships that we establish with others and in the possibilities that we have available to develop our abilities and potential as human beings.

Talking about self-esteem and feminine identity is an entry point for countering the machismo (aggressive/exaggerated display of masculinity) evident in these communities and Honduran society. During several house visits, women responded to our organized group proposal by saying that they would need to ask their husbands for permission first! Many women are at the beck and call of their spouse, with minimal, if any, autonomy. It is a harsh reality to encounter as a person who grew up with so many strong, independent female mentors.

There were also a couple houses in which we met with the husbands, and had a discussion with both man and woman present. In these cases, I found the discussion with the husband to be very positive…he was supportive of the women’s group idea, agreed with the idea of self-esteem, and happy for his spouse to participate. Yet what I found concerning in these situations was that as unmachismo the husband may have seemed, during these conversations the woman remained completely silent. Later, I asked the Trascerros women what they made of that situation, and their response was that some men have already received training regarding machismo/women’s rights. However, just because a man has been trained, does not mean that a woman has as well, which makes these organized women groups all the more important! Admittedly, I found it very disappointing that a man’s training in this area would not subsequently empower his spouse...doesn’t seem like a very effective result, right? But I must also consider that I am only just scraping the surface of what these domestic relationships are like, and how cultural tradition and historical power structures have reinforced those relationships – in short, there is still a lot for me to learn and to understand! For now I am finding that the current task at hand is to first simply create a space for women to share with one another about themselves and their experiences. To give them the opportunity to reflect and to have an opinion…and eventually act as a result!

Share+Solidarity is the theme for this post. Along with the women in these communities, I too am learning to share more about myself. This sharing is an important part of solidarity work, because it opens up our minds to new possibilities, of different ways of viewing the world. For instance, in addition to my work with the women this past week, I have encountered another gender inequality issue…that of homophobia. If you can imagine how difficult it is for a woman here because of machismo, you can imagine how difficult it would be for someone who is homosexual, being completely countercultural to machismo. There have been a couple instances recently where I have had the opportunity to share with others in Honduras my thoughts on homosexuality, and I think my liberal perspective has been somewhat of a shocker to others at times. While fighting for LGBQT rights is not my purpose for being here, I hope that simply being able to share a different mindset (just as I would in the United States) will contribute to the overall progress being made for human equality. As a wise friend of mine recently advised, progress takes a long time, and may never even be realized in our lifetime. Whether with women’s empowerment, gay rights, poverty, or any other social problem, we can’t judge our success by the problems that remain, but rather by the people who we know we’ve touched. While I know that the results of my current work may not be visible until much later (and this will continue to frustrate me nonetheless!), I look forward to the small daily triumphs during my time here that I will be able to look back on and say, YES, I did make a difference.

Enjoying the beach in Tela with my adopted family

In turn, I cannot express enough how much others have shared with me since my arrival in Honduras! I am continually amazed and grateful for the warmth and hospitality of the people in the communities and my counterparts at CASM. Most memorable was my second weekend in the country, when I visited Tela with Delmis, and met her extended family. It was a wonderful weekend, getting to know the grandmother, brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends of the family.  We played soccer, spent the day at the beach, ate delicious food, talked about movies, swapped stories….it was such an honor to be able to share in their family life. On the other hand, so many things I experienced with them paralleled with what I could easily have been doing in the United States with my own family. So this was also a bittersweet experience, making me homesick and longing for the family trips, the reunions, and the life events that I would be missing while away. Sometimes by sharing we discover not only our differences, but also how similar we really are at the core!

So far I have not been very good at remembering stories to share with you all, and I promise I will try to do better in the future! For now, I’ll leave you with a short story my counterpart Orfelina shared with me this morning.

Alberto with his old biodigestor (bottom left)

First, some background information - The other day, my coworker Orfelina and I went to the home of a man named Alberto where we were going to install a new biodigestor (he was having problems with his old one). While there, I was served coffee and cooked plantain, which I enjoyed while we chatted with Alberto family. Unfortunately, we were not able to install the biodigestor that day, as it seems that the plastic nylon that had been cut for the project was too short (this was the largest biodigestor I had seen so far…approximately 11 meters).

While disappointed that our visit was in vain, we simply agreed to return another day to install it, and Alberto wasn’t fazed one bit by the delay (this patience is something I am definitely going to miss when I return to the States!!). However, last week I was unable to return to the site for installation, due to other commitments with the women’s project.

This morning, before our Monday devotional, Orfelina told me that Alberto had missed me when she returned to install the biodigestor. When I asked her why, she said that he was so pleased when I had accepted and eaten all that his family had offered, as apparently they had received visitors before who had declined such gifts. At the time I didn’t realize it, but finishing that cup of coffee and plantain meant a lot to Alberto and his family that day. The ability to give, especially despite poverty, is a great source of happiness.

Sometimes, it is in the simplest things that we share that make the biggest impressions, and demonstrate the most solidarity. Day by day, I am learning to notice and appreciate these things more, and I hope you will too!

In Solidarity,

Malinda