A Working Vacation Reveals a Different Side to Honduras

Editors note: Gary and Natalie Boorman are from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Gary is a graduate of Clearbrook High School and former resident of Leonard. The article was sent to the Leader-Record for publication.

Honduras is a Central American country that is almost exactly ½ the size of Minnesota, 43,278 square miles compared to Minnesota’s 86,943 square miles. It borders the Caribbean Sea on the north and Nicaragua and El Salvador on the south.  Honduras is just beginning to be recognized by tourists with the world’s second largest coral reef, pristine waters along the bay islands, cloud forests, spectacular Maya ceremonial city at COPÁN, hundreds of national parks and small towns with old Spanish architecture.  Our “vacation” plans were to work helping others but the time turned out to be more rewarding than our other recent vacations.

The United Church of Chapel Hill (UCCH) has a Hispanic congregation headed by Reverend David Mateo, a UCCH minister that is originally from Honduras.  In a trip to the capital city of Tegucigalpa last year to visit his family, he also visited an AIDS shelter, “Casa Renacer” (Rebirth Center) and saw that the shelter had many needs.  Colectivo Violeta (Website https://www.hivos.org/partner/asociacion-colectivo-violeta) is a non-profit organization that helps manage Casa Renacer, a shelter for 16 children aged from 6 – 16 who have AIDS or are LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender).  During Reverend Mateo’s visit last year he noted that the running water did not work, the roof leaked and the shelter was in need of painting and general upkeep.  Colectivo Violeta also manages a day center for LGBT youths and felt that educational information about AIDS, AIDS transmission and how to be safe would be very useful.

Reverend Mateo contacted eleven individuals; about half were fluent in Spanish, many native speakers.  Natalie and I were probably the most challenged with the language.  We organized a fund raising effort, met monthly to establish goals and determine materials needed.  We shipped several boxes of supplies including many of our own tools to Colectivo Violeta in Honduras who helped manage our trip.  We were fortunate to have a fellow in our group originally from Nicaragua who works as a building contractor in the States and was our site manager for the construction project.

After months of planning we all arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on a Sunday in August which is supposed to be the rainy season but the sun was shinning and the weather balmy.  We had a lunch at a local restaurant that featured fried plantains, beans, rice and chicken. We were careful to avoid fresh greens such as lettuce, drank bottled water and were soon on the way to the shelter.   

Casa Renacer is located in a poor neighborhood in the center of Tegucigalpa, a capital city of over 800,000 people and is surrounded by a 12-foot wall and a large steel gate because LGBT is a dangerous lifestyle in Honduras.  We drove through the gate into the shelter courtyard and gate was locked behind us.  The shelter is a cement block building with a large kitchen, a large central room, offices and multiple small bedrooms.  For the last four years buckets of water have been carried in for washing, meal preparation and for flushing toilets.  Plumbing pipes were obviously broken.  Because of good planning and lots of donations from local folks, doors, roof material, plumbing material, gallons of paint, brushes and our tools were waiting for us.  The children in the shelter had been moved to one of the volunteer’s homes for the week but Christopher, a six-year old boy was waiting to see us.  He acquired AIDS when born and both parents had died.  He was very excited to see us as he had met some of the group the previous year.

Reverend Mateo arranged for us to stay in Santa Lucia, a Spanish mining town about 30 minutes away.  Silver was found there in the 1500’s but the silver ran out and now it is a very quiet town of 2,200 inhabitants and importantly at 5,000 feet has cool evenings and clean air.  We stayed at a resort where we each had a cottage.  A nice central open air dining area was perfect for breakfast and for planning each day.  Our days at started at 7 with a quick breakfast and then off to work by 7:30 to avoid the worst of the traffic.  Tegucigalpa is at about 1,000 feet in a valley and the surface of the city is uneven with few traffic lights.  We had a van and a local driver who knew the rules with passing both up and down hills and around curves.  Intersections were often a free for all but there appeared to be some unwritten rules where we could move into traffic even when it did not seem possible.

Columbus landed in Honduras in 1502 on his last voyage and Honduras became a Spanish colony. Lempira, a war chieftain of the Lencas, led resistance to Spain’s attempts to conquer the region. The local currency, Lempira is named after this chief but we found we often could pay with either Lempiras or dollars.  About 85% of the population of 8 million are mestizos or of mixed Spanish and American descent.  Of the eight major ethnic groups the Lencas are the largest.

Colectivo Violeta has a day center for the LGBT community and several members of our group who had worked in counseling or with the LGBT community in the states went to the day center daily to provide workshops for the mostly young LGBT men.  If you are found to be LGBT or have AIDS in Honduras you are likely to end up on the street without support from family, government or the church.

Those from our group providing educational services helped at the shelter in the mornings while the rest of us spent the whole day.  Days at Casa Renacer were spent painting, cleaning, we (Hugo, our experienced contractor) got the pipes fixed only to see that the pump did not work but eventually we had running water.  The roof was a challenge as it was a concrete/fiber composition with plants growing in one area on the roof.  We had replacement panels of similar material and fixed the roof as well as installing two flush toilets, two sinks, two showers and even a clothes washer.  The clothes washer was put into use within hours of installation.  Painting cement block walls was a challenge but with nearly a dozen people painting we completely painted the interior.  A Casa Renacer manager made excellent Honduran coffee that gave us time to relax and reflect on progress.  Evenings were spent at local restaurants, reflecting on the day and planning for the next.

After a few days there was a press conference with several TV stations and a newspaper.  This created a certain amount of negative reaction on TV websites.  When we worked later in the evenings at Casa Renacer, the police often showed up to provide support as we left the site.  Part of this was due to misinformation by some of the TV news sources.  We did end up in a newspaper article http://www.latribuna.hn/2015/09/07/quien-ayuda-a-enfermos-de-vih-sida/.

We had some break time in Valle de Angeles a colonial mountain village only 5 miles from Santa Lucia where we stayed.  The town has numerous restaurants; handicraft stores selling Lenca pottery, pedestrian only streets and a central plaza and church.

Members and volunteers of non-profit Colectivo Violeta prepared a meal for us on our last night in appreciation of our work at Casa Renacer and to celebrate 30 years of service by Colectivo Violeta.  Colectivo Violeta was founded by a LGBT hairdresser in Tegucigalpa who when found to be transgender was threatened and forced to leave.  She now lives in Miami and continues to support the center.  Many of the folks who worked with us have been volunteers at the center for years.  It is nice to know that 6-year old Christopher’s life is somewhat easier with a home that has been much improved.

We found this vacation to be very meaningful, we made many friends both within our group and at Colectivo Violeta, we saw a different side of life in Honduras and were moved by volunteers who contribute so much to help those less fortunate and often with few resources.  It was also educational to work with Hispanics from five different countries in our group and learn the many differences between the South and Central American countries.  We hope we gave as much to the people at Colectivo Violeta as we gained from them.  We will have more permanent memories of this vacation than many others we have taken in the past.