Attending a workshop with a group of maquila workers that want to become a union, they make our universities shirt/sweater tags.
Category Archives: Honduras
The women at work
Traveling in Honduras
For the past week and a half I have been traveling non-stop trying to find workers to interview, many appear to be shy and scared. It was hard but I found a couple people in Santa Barbara and Tegucigalpa that were willing to be interviewed, because of the low amount of interviews I will have to travel back to those places, when we have more communication with workers. While traveling it became apparent that Tegucigalpa the capital of Honduras has a completely different environment than San Pedro Sula and Santa Barbara, the reason I say this is because there is such a high crime rate, even the locals are scared to walk down the capital’s streets. The whole time I was in Tegucigalpa I was escorted by at least one worker. The streets are extremely crowded and “it’s very easy and likely that you will be robbed”-Taybo (CGT organizer). Hearing all of the advice that people had given me before I left and while I was there made me a little paranoid, I can’t emphasize how frighten I was the walking down the street. I will return to Tegucigalpa again but not as scared as I was the first time, because I have a better sense of the surroundings and at least know secure hotels and taxi drivers. I don’t mean to make Tegucigalpa sound scary at all I think it was my host family’s way of trying to protect me by making sure I understood how different regions in Honduras can be. I do have to say that the weather in Tegucigalpa was amazing it was warm with a nice breeze; it was a nice change of climate from the hot humid weather of San Pedro where there is rarely breeze. So I am looking forward to the cool weather.
Pre-Departure
I really know very little about the Honduran culture other than what I have read from the prepared binder that WOU has given me. I do not like to base the culture off articles or magazines. I do expect to have a difficult time understanding Honduran Spanish. I know that people from other Latin American countries also speak faster Spanish than I am used to. I think that I will see a lot of impoverishment around workers’ homes. I think that I will quickly adjust to the lifestyle. I have been one other time out of the country and know what difficulties I will have to face. I am pretty excited but a little sad that I will leave my family and friends for two weeks, but I am doing this because I feel that this internship will help a lot of families and change the lives of others. Joanna