Remittance

Yesterday during training, we had a session facilitated by a representative from the US State Department in Honduras regarding the economic situation in Honduras. It was the first time since arriving that I felt like I had concrete information regarding Honduras not regarding culture, food, or climate. The speaker was amazing; his information was straight to the point and his dry humor was very much appreciated by the group as a whole. So in thinking about the statistics we were given, for example the fact the 20% of Honduras’ GDP is made up of remittance money from the United States, I wanted to reflect on what I have seen here and how I have seen some of this statistical data in its real world setting during my first weeks here.

In Honduras, everyone knows someone who is either in the U.S. working or has been deported from the U.S. or who is planning on spending the 7,000 US dollars it takes to pay a coyote to take you there. When you walk around even some of the poorest and toughest rural neighborhoods there are often a few houses that are a little bit bigger and have most of the modern conveniences, grand tile, televisions, glass windows, etc. Most of these homes are owned by either people who have family in the U.S. or people who have returned to Honduras from the U.S. The importance of remittance money as a hindrance to extreme poverty is astounding. The effect of 1 in 7 Hondurans living the US is affecting not only the economic structure of Honduras but also the social structure of families and communities. There are really too many affects for me to enumerated but just walking around some communities the lack of working age men is evident. It’s hard to judge someone for leaving their homes and trying to survive by finding something better in the U.S. There are a lot of arguments about what would happen if people either invested the funds sent from the U.S. or took the 7,000 dollars and instead of leaving Honduras invested it in something here. In all to me, it seems to be a mess that needs some serious attention and I am becoming more convinced that if you are willing to take 7,000 US dollars( 140,000 Limpira) to get to there, a wall might not stop you.

Okay that officially ends my rant and rave for the day. In the future, I want to continue to think about how all the information from yesterday’s presentation really can be seen while I am here in Honduras. Issues of education, remittance funds, charity and aid are really only a few. But I might save that for the journal!