Remember+Solidarity

I sometimes worry when I write these posts that I’m being too positive, or too optimistic. I’ve written about good and bad things that have happened here in Honduras, but most of the time it’s not too hard to find the silver lining.

This past Sunday I realized that I only have 50 days left in Honduras. It was a sad realization, and while 50 days is still a substantial amount (more than ¼ of my total time here) time is only passing faster and faster than before. I’ve started to obsess about how to make the most of my time here, while at the same time think about what I will do when I go back home, how I will readjust my life, prepare for my service in the Peace Corps, etc. These are things that I am even starting to stress over.

I’ve come to really love Honduras, and a piece of my heart is always going to remain here. It has been my home away from home. I can confidently say that I’ve become very comfortable here over time, I’ve grown accustomed, gotten acclimated. It has been a time filled with so many memories, moments I will never possibly forget.

But in the last hour I had a really big reality check.

Some women I have come to know through my work with CASM came by to visit the office today. We shared cups of coffee and cookies together, catching up with how things were going. We discussed the current coffee harvesting that is happening, the bad weather, how the women’s microbusinesses were functioning…And it was there that one of the woman told me that unfortunately the microbusiness wasn’t doing so well, and that she hadn’t been able to participate much in it recently because her son had died. “I am so very sorry for your loss,” I tell her.

 “They killed him.”

That’s when I realize that despite all of the beauty, all of the amazing people, all of the wonderful things I have come to learn and to know in this country – there is still this harsh reality. I don’t know how or in what circumstances her son was killed, I didn’t press for details. But I am overwhelmed by how terribly casual this conversation was…albeit tragic, it is not unusual. In fact, this Sunday, on the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) I spent the afternoon in the cemetery, and there a man told me that he was visiting a friend who had been killed. 

But that is not to say at all that this mother didn’t feel less what any mother feels when a child is taken from her. I am certain that she is carrying an unimaginable pain and loss in her heart right now. I am also amazed by her strength, and her determination to offer the best she can for her three orphaned grandchildren she is now caring for full-time. And likewise, I am sure that that man is still mourning the loss of his friend a year ago. The higher probability of violence and death  doesn't mean people feel any less the hurt it causes them. The pain isn't dulled because it's felt more frequently, if anything, it's even more raw and more painful with each blow.

And then I started to think about all of the violence happening in our world right now, which hardly crosses my mind most days. The fighting and bloodshed in the Middle East, for instance. I’m embarrassed to say that I had never heard anything about ISIS until a friend mentioned it to me in an online message one day last month. But geez, with so much shit going down in the world, it’s easier to just block it all out, right?

Tell that to the people living in it.

I could say that the silverlining to all this is that at least there are awesome organizations like CASM and CWS and NCP and tons of other ONG’s like them doing good work, combatting the darkness in our world. Of course I believe this, and it does give me hope for the future.

Today was the second time I’ve cried since I arrived in Honduras (the first was my second weekend here, the expected homesickness finally kicking in).  I think this conversation just tipped the glass of emotions I have been filling and tucking away, because it’s hard to feel so much every day. I am blown away by how insignificant my problems are, how many my blessings, how much I have to be thankful for, and how little I actually give thanks for it. I am reminded that I need to pray less that God would help me figure out how I can best help people (aka Dear God, please send your best career and future life advice…thanks a million, Father!) and pray more for the people themselves I want to help and for peace itself. I also think I should try feeling more for these people, opening myself up to their pain even if it drains me emotionally too. Because frankly, that’s solidarity.

In other words, even when we are doing good work, let’s not forget the reality that there is still so much left to be done at the end of the day. People are killed. People are hungry. People are hurting. If I really want to be the change I want to see in the world, I need to keep reminding myself what state the world really is in. It’s just so easy to get complacent. To check my Facebook feed before the world news. To focus on these development projects before seriously reflecting upon the reality that makes them necessary in the first place. As well as how that reality came to be, and how I, as an individual with the power to make decisions every second of my life, can contribute to the continuation or the transformation of that reality.

I need to remember the people and their struggles.

I need to remember my human connection to those people and see their struggles as our struggles.

Because if I don’t remember, I’ll just forget. And nothing will change.

In Solidarity,

Malinda