Yes...Inspired!!!

Being born and raised in Tegucigalpa might not seem that different than being born and raised in San Pedro Sula, Gracias, Santa Rosa or Ocotepeque, of course all of these cities have their particular way of life but in the end they share more similarities than differences. But, the real question here is, What about life in the towns and communities that are not as big or as known as the ones I mentioned before? The reality in these places is very different. The program SOURCES-FUENTES has given me the chance of visiting and sharing with small communities of the western part of Honduras, communities that I’ve never heard of before. I must emphasize that is HONDURAS that I’m talking about, my Country! So far my visits have been to Camapara; a beautiful community in Lempira where I was able to appreciate the importance of water (walking for 3 hours uphill required nothing more than the good old H20!), Belen Gualcho; a place where you can actually smell pine trees instead of the Lysol or Glade scents that I’m used to smell in many places in Tegucigalpa where they’re trying to bring the “woods” or “real nature” into their homes or cars, and San Rafael a small community with beautiful “movie-like” landscapes.

Life in this towns is very different than life in the big cities, yes, you might think that I will start complaining about the fact that there’s no five-star hotel or restaurant to go to, or that it’s sad to see little kids playing with rocks in the central park (btw not sad at all, many ingenious games are being invented) or how I much mud I had in me after visiting a watershed, but No. Those are not reasons to complain about, but I will complain about one thing: In school we’re taught to feel bad about these small communities and how extreme poverty is challenge hard to overcome, but I must say that after visiting communities like these more than feeling bad for them or feeling sad I felt inspired!! Yes, inspired because these communities are offering much more than what textbooks are stating! No, there’s no fancy restaurant in Belen Gualcho, yet they’re producing the best vegetables for the whole western zone of Honduras. No, there’s no government institution managing water in Camapara, but there is a “Junta de Agua” or water association made up of local leaders looking over the watershed and making sure that the water is given to 17 communities in Lempira. So yes, Inspired is what I am!

During this visits I was also able to meet very interesting people like, Juan Carlos Vasquez a participant of the program YLA that is taking place in Belen Gualcho. He and his group are starting a “microempresa” which is a small scale enterprise that is being run by local youth. I was amazed by the amount of effort they’re putting into this project, these are people who are facing many difficulties but are still trying their best to achieve their goal. I also met Janeth in San Rafael a 5 month pregnant women who didn´t consider her pregnancy an obstacle and walk with our group to the main watershed in the community.

It’s actually a sad thing when I think back about my old textbooks and I remember looking at pictures that portrayed images of pity towards the campesinos and the contrast between the pictures of successful politicians that served as a role model in life. I really do hope that those textbooks are not being used anymore!

This new program has given me the chance to learn so much about water, its consumption and management and a lot more, but more than that it has also given me the opportunity to have true role models, forget the big successful lawyer, I admire the Junta de Agua that has to fight many legal battles in order to keep their water source, forget the author of a best seller I admire the person who barely finished 6^th grade but was named the secretary for the local youth group, forget the inventor of GPS I admire the man who can give a tour of the watershed with his eyes closed because that’s the path he has to walk everyday in order to get clean and fresh water.

Many times I heard teachers say that we as students should make our own research, that we shouldn’t just take their words for granted, well now I realize that it’s true! There’s much more to learn and discover outside classrooms and books. And so, I invite you to do the same, let’s all discover the Belen Gualchos and Janeths of the world, let’s start doing our own research in order to create our very own textbooks.