Women are better than men at...

I just played two awesome games of  co-ed volleyball and soccer with a group of visiting highschool students from the island of Utila, here at a the Hacienda El Jaral hotel/resort where I am enjoying an overnight stay.  I am  participating in a  2 day workshop on citizen participation and influencing decision makers ( "learning to lobby" doesn't quite translate to "incidencia politica" but that is a close approximation without the negative associations...).  The workshop is interesting, but the two games of competitive rec sports, in bare feet, on lush green grass really made my day.   Adding to my entertainment were the fellow players'  unique accents: a really interesting mix of Carribean English, with a few Spanish words thrown in for good measure. When they needed me to understand what they were saying they'd switch over to an American-ish accent for my benefit.  Great all round entertainment!

The co-ed nature of ths game was pretty special too, as that is really rare here.  It's almost always boys or men playing, and girls watching or texting on their cell phones on the side.  Gender considerations are big here.  All of my current/future projects have gender as a transversal theme and last week I had the opportunity to observe and assist with half-day gender and empowerment workshop in a nearby pueblo (small town/village).  My employers have some baseline data for these areas on attitudes and knowledge about health, sanitation, nutrition and food security.  One finding is that 65% of the women have to ask for permission from their husbands if they want to see a doctor. Most of them have to ask permission to visit a female friend. Most of them always eat last, and save the protein for their husbands and children (in that order), even if they are doing agricultural labour, are pregnant and are breastfeeding...all at once.  Consequently, gender equity is recognized as an important part of the Honduran development landscape.

I have translated one of the exercises from the gender workshop below.  We answered 20 true and false questions.*.  I invite you to take the test!   Not surprisingly, this Canadian girl with  university courses in the anthropology of gender under her feminist belt scored way high on the gender equity side of things. I admit, I did answer that  women are better at taking care of small babies, but I thought that milk filled breasts really give us the upper hand at this one.  My high equity score gave the facilitator a chance to contrast my upbringing, and my societal learnings, with those of rural Honduras.  "You are born with a penis or a vulva, but your gender is a learned thing, and a role you take on." (direct translation...don't get on my case about M/F not being the only sexes...I know, I know, but rural Honduras just ain't ready for that yet!).

Here you go, True or False?

The Advantages of Milking By Hand

A brahma/jersey cross.  Big floppy ears disperse heat and increase 'adorable' by a factor of 5.

The first, and only, time I considered becoming a vegan was the day I walked into a Canadian dairy barn and saw the cows chained in their tie stalls. One of two types of dairy barns in Canada, the tie stall allots each cow a small space to eat, stand, and lie down, atop wood shavings or staw.  They are all chained in, and can not walk around at will.  If there is no dangerous ice and snow or mud to slip around on, they may receive an hour or two of daily liberation in an outside corral. I am a meat loving ominivore, raised around beef farming and horses.  If I were ever to wear an outfit in the streets made soley out of lettuce, it would be for the pure shocking joy of it, not because I am a card carrying member of PETA.  But, when I saw that set up,  when I saw the cows living their whole lives that way, I nearly crossed the floor.  Eventually I got used to it.  I saw that the animals were well cared for and mostly comfortable, but always, it made me uneasy at some level, knowing that this was where my milk and cheese was coming from.

Contrast this to my recent stay on a mixed farm in Honduras, near my new city of residence, Santa Rosa de Copán.  When I first got here four months ago, Jesús Alvarado invited me to visit his family farm. This weekend I took him up on his offer and was not disappointed.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it´s off to work I go!

Click here to see a photo record of my walk to work today. It´s the kind of stuff I get to see (and smell) everyday on my Honduran adventure.

Where's the library?

Nearly four months into this journey, and now the more subtle differences between ¨home¨ (Canada) and here (Honduras) are becoming a little more obvious to me.

At first it´s all the not-so-subtle differences that hit you like a 2x4.  Noise at all hours, armed guards at the grocery stores, rough dirt roads in the middle of town that will require kicking it into 4-high if it rains, litter everywhere, greeting EVERYONE  you meet at the office with a kiss on the cheek upon arrival Monday morning, weekly staff meetings that are actually prayer and devotional sessions...the list goes on.  I´m finding all these things and more, are normalizing for me now.  I hardly notice all the razor wire surrounding the residences and  I kiss everyone´s cheeks like an old pro, uttering pleasantries as I do so (the trick is actually just to brush.your cheek against their cheek and make a kissy noisy simultaneously.  I´ve found that only men who are hitting on me actually full-on kiss my cheek, and usually utter something about the beautiful gringita.< I inwardly grin or groan, depending on who it is>).

Day 1 at the Ranch: Prayers and Curses.

Today I´ve invited a special guest blogger to Southern Evolution, only, it´s not really a guest blogger, it´s me, in a different time and place.  I´ve been embracing my creative side more and more lately.  Ever since I dropped out of grade 9 art class in favour of taking another science course, I´ve repressed my inner artist.  Art was risky and flaky.  Science was reliable and responsible.  This dicotomy hasn´t been serving as of late so,  I´m allowing my inner artist out of the arts supply closet.

All this repression of the Artist has resulted in some procrastination.  I´ve had a few ideas, and I´ve had not much follow-through.  After an extraordinary 3 week stay on a horse ranch in Southern Alberta last spring, I had big plans to write a series of short stories out of it.  So far, I´ve only completed this one. It was a birthday gift for a friend.  I wanted to share it here, and give myself an extra public push to finish the rest of them.  Time on that ranch was truly an experience of a lifetime.

Let the colours flow.

Day 1 at the Ranch: Prayers and Curses

In late March 2010, I arrived at Sid and Marge’s ranch near Nanton , Alberta with some trepidation. After attending a colt-starting clinic with Sid in 2008 and following that with an exhilerating day  with him and my friend Jen in December riding on the open range, I had basically invited myself to their ranch for three weeks for an intensive working “vacation” riding horses and sponging as much as I could from them about horse training and cattle ranching, and they had agreed. Catching Sid for a brief conversation at the Ray Hunt Memorial event in Texas, in February, I had had to remind him that I was going to be at his house under his direction and mercy in less than a month’s time.