In Honduras today, I saw a man riding his horse down the street, talking on his cell phone, and I found myself wondering: is that legal? In Washington, we have laws about talking on the phone while in transit. Either you have a hands-free device, or you leave the talking to your co-pilot. The horseman clearly had no hands-free device. Copilot? Thankfully, his scrawny beast was only burdened with one human. But do you think anything in Washington’s legal code allows for...autopilot? The technology hasn’t arrived on US streets, but I would say the horse knew exactly where it was going, and was fully capable of averting obstacles without instructions from its master. Horse autopilot therefore poses very little risk of accident. There’s an idea to consider if you like to chat while commuting.
The juxtaposition of old and new economies is all over Copán: men drive gas-powered trucks out to the forest to cut firewood with hand tools. The wood fuels stoves in households where families do have electricity, but find it more useful to power their televisions. Local carpenters and tortilla-makers, who used to have a lock on the local market, are just now facing competition from industrial, manufactured versions of their products.
In this world of two economies, those who are first to join the new one reap the most benefits. Felipe, the owner and sole technician of the largest internet supplier in town, has 250 customers paying the equivalent of $40 per month for his service. By Honduran standards, he is bringing in a small fortune of $120,000 annually. I do not know what his overhead looks like, but his profit potential is certainly much greater than that of someone who hauls a dozen bundles of wood into town each day to be sold for 10 Lempiras (about $0.55) apiece.
Felipe did not receive a formal technical education. He was lucky to be able to spend a few months in the US (I’m not sure if he came legally or not, as visas are extremely difficult to acquire when coming from Honduras), and he was doubly lucky to have a relative in Miami who works with computer networks. With this brief experience, Felipe was able to launch his start-up a few years ago.
Not everyone in Honduras is as lucky as Felipe. The two paths to join the new economy of technology and international trade, connections to rich countries and education, both favor individuals from families that are already wealthy. Immigration to the US is a difficult, expensive process. Staying in school beyond sixth grade is tough when your family needs you to work, and schooling is only free until ninth grade. Upper-level education is focused around Honduras’s two big cities, San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, which are dangerous, expensive places to live.
While Honduras is benefiting from its integration into the new economy, the advantages are favoring some people more than others. To share the wealth more efficiently and evenly, Honduras needs to expand its educational system and provide incentives for young people to stay in school and learn the trades that will make them better contributors to society.
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4 comments:
Hey Graham! It's your cousin, Erin, here...I have one request/question and one comment.
First, the request/question: Do you feel qualified to comment on the idea that the disparities between the rich and the poor you describe, with examples of an internet-providing entrepreneur and a stick-toting peasant, could be microcosms of the gap between the rich and the poor here in the U.S., especially if one thinks back a few decades to the start of globalization? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
The comment: I know you mentioned in your first blog entry that your students in rural Arkansas hardly seem poor in comparison to the vast majority of Copan's residents, but...Is there something to be said for differentiating between the twenty-first century material wealth of ipods and flat screen TVs and other, less tangible riches, such as the possibility of having a local economy that provides the necessities (which it sounds like went amiss in Arkansas, but is still hanging on (by a bare thread) in Copan) or allows families to stay together and help one another? I'm trying to be mindful of not over-idealizing the simplicities of poverty, because I realize that a whole other host of problems often accompanies a life of scarce resources.
I think about this all the time in working with homeless teenagers here in San Francisco. I wonder what it is that our clients really need? Food, clothing, shelter...a gift card to Circuit City from time to time...a birthday cake...a new pair of Nikes...a feeling that other people care...the chance to learn how to play the guitar, or to cook... It's frustrating to think about the ways in which it sounds like the global economy has, in fact, helped the town of Copan (bringing internet access and therefore possibly the opportunity for broader education), but also the ways it's hurt Copan (the necessity to work outside the home in order to feed the family). In many ways, it seems to me that the overarching problem is not all that different than the double-edged sword here in San Francisco--albeit a less extreme version exists here in the U.S. True, if one needs a doctor, insurance or not, one can usually get to a hospital and deal with the finances later here. But need a home-cooked meal, with friends and loved-ones sitting around the table? Good luck...
It's complicated...In the words of Art Alexakis: "I hate those people who love to tell you, 'Money is the root of all that kills.' They have never been poor; they have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas."
And just one more note of irony: I currently have a 17 year old Honduran student at Larkin Street, who has now come to the U.S. a total of four times, and has been deported three times. I don't know what his journeys have been like, but I can only imagine...I'm really curious about what is going on down there that makes life on the streets up here SO much more attractive for this young person that he's willing to risk his life over and over to come up. Thoughts?
One more question (sorry!): Do you think that it's possible that, in the long run, instead of asking, "How can we help these poor people," we should be thinking, "How can we change our lifestyles so that we act in ways that aren't to the detriment of others?"
Obviously this is a complicated question, and begs the even more complex idea of making reparations for harm already done... And even if we should be asking the latter of the questions, it would require EVERYONE to have the time, energy, inclination, and resources to ask the question of themselves, and ultimately to act in concert, which would be no easy feat to organize.
Erin,
I think you are absolutely right, that the gap between the rich and the poor in Honduras mirrors gaps between rich and poor in the US, and many other such gaps worldwide. Those who have more are often barely cognizant of how little other people have. I think another key similarity is that the poorest people here are the ones who are most tied down. In the US, disenfranchised groups are frequently in the same place for generations and generations (Indian Reservations, the rural Mississippi Delta, and urban ghettos), and in Honduras, the poorest people live in the hills, miles from the closest paved road or running water. Many are believed to be descendants of the Mayans, who used to inhabit the area. That shows how long they've been around.
A couple of things do distinguish Honduran poverty, though. First, there is the shocking juxtaposition of a society that mixes pre-industrial woodstoves with wireless communication technology. In the US, everyone had indoor plumbing and electricity before the first person got internet or cable TV.
I think this extremely rapid pace with which some of Honduras is developing leaves even more potential for socio-economic divisions along financial lines. The "haves" have even that much more than the "have nots."
One additional problem that results from this is that the social services still lag behind at a pre-industrial level. While a homeless child in the US can probably find government-supplied food, education, and housing, a Honduran in a similar situation is at the mercy of private citizens to find support. This society has no handouts.
As for the things without monetary value, like a good home-cooked meal with friends, my experience is that many people living with financial poverty are wealthy in family ties and close bonds of mutual support with friends. On the other hand, if you are financially and socially poor, life is just that much harder.
Your Honduran student is an interesting story. He is persistent enough that it seems like he would be able to accomplish something, if he would just stay in one place for long enough. Here's the wage comparison: a laborer here makes about 100 Lempiras per day (about $5). In the US, a laborer can easily make $7-10 an hour. In a few years in the US, a Honduran can make a lifetime's worth of wages. And many do: there are 8 million Hondurans in the world, and about 1 million of them live in the United States. It's a pretty ridiculous number. All of the wealthiest families I know here have (legal or illegal) ties to the United States.
There's more that you mention that I would love to talk about more. Can you clarify, though, what you mean by reparations for harm done? If it is what I think it is, you may be opening a large can of worms...
Graham, Great to hear from you again! Wow. You really are in another world down there.
Thanks for explicitly illustrating the juxtaposition of old, old cooking stoves alongside fancy twenty-first century technology in Copan. It's true, indeed, that the vast majority in the U.S. can gain access to clean plumbing and electricity. It's a curious thing, this technological infiltration throughout the world: many of my homeless students have ipods...but no computer with which to charge them, let alone a roof under which to keep even an old-fashioned wood stove. In many ways, the homeless students with whom I work are not as disadvantaged financially as they are spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and as far as employable skills go. That's not to say they are not poor, with little material wealth but the clothes they wear, but, as you point out, there are handouts everywhere. There is really no reason to go more than three hours without a hot meal, and a clean place to sleep can be found almost any night in San Francisco (which has, admittedly, far superior social services than most cities in the U.S.).
Also thanks also for making the distinction that if one is financially and socially poor, life is extra rough in Copan. That's an important point, in contrast to the U.S., given that in many developed countries resources at least exist to help one dig oneself out financially, if not socially. I find that at my work, the most difficult kids to work with are the ones who most express feeling alone in the world. We provide an incredibly youth-friendly atmosphere, plenty of time and space for conversation and positive interaction and social activities, therapy and a whole slough of mental health services, but there are some that still, over and over, express how lonely they feel. I don't know as much as I should about the complex psychological processes that take place when one experiences abandonment from one's family, especially at a young age, but I can only imagine what it would be like in a place with no social supports OR financial/logistical resources.
As for the can of worms...I almost didn't post that comment, because I was afraid of opening...said...can...o'...worms! I'm not exactly sure what I mean by "reparations for harm done." I don't mean it explicitly...I'm thinking more...well, the majority of people in the U.S. could certainly make minor or large changes to their lifestyles that could positively impact poor people everywhere. It's widely believed that global warming, for example (on a large scale), impacts the poorest people of the world to a greater extent than the richest due to scarcity of disaster-relief resources, pre-existing living conditions and locations (such as in Nicaragua, New Orleans, SE Asia, etc.) making the poor more susceptible to live in an area threatened by natural disasters, a proclivity to unsustainable use of resources (such as cutting rainforests, burning scarce wood for fuel, etc.), etc. People in the U.S. and other developed countries could drive less, compost, reuse rather than throw out, build using sustainable materials (or make use of recycled ones) and make a whole host of other amendments. Arguably, on a large scale, such changes could have positive consequences for places in the "hot zone" for global warming-induced disasters and therefore poverty. This is the less-direct approach I mentioned--live simply so that others may simply live--to borrow a cheesy bumper sticker phrase. But would that excuse us from addressing the difficulties already ensuing around the world as a result of first world lifestyles and business practices?
Alternatively, first world countries could send money, manpower, and resources to places negatively impacted by not only global warming, the easiest target for first-world detriment of the third world, but other messier first world runoffs such as globalization and the spread of technology (though as you and Sachs point out, its debatable how and to what extent globalization is a problem, a solution, or a simple fact of life), unethical pharmaceutical testing/practices, the replacement of local food varietals with GM food, and others. In many ways, you and Therese are engaging in this type of action to some extent, by teaching children in Copan.
(It's possible that someone has already written a tome debating the merits of direct aid versus indirect/passive methods of addressing the problem...If so, I'd love to know the title.)
I guess, to sum up the last two paragraphs and to try and address the can of worms, I'm wondering, "What is the best way to respond from my armchair here in San Francisco, as I type away on my new apple MacBook?" What are some of the ways the U.S. government can/should respond to poverty the world over? How about large corporations? Small businesses? How much of the poverty being lived in other countries can be attributed to lifestyles here in the U.S.? What responsibility do we have to act, whether or not we are the direct cause of disparities? What are some ways we can help without causing further damage or complications (I'm explicitly thinking about the thoughtless import of technology with this one. Not that technology should not be available, but the unintended consequences can be vast.)
Oh man....the can of worms is overflowing! I think about these issues often while lamenting my tiny studio apartment that costs an arm and a leg and from which I will certainly be evicted if I get laid off from my job (again), waking up too early and thinking about my student who was jumped last night and the other who was raped a few days ago, walking past the homeless guy who sleeps on top of the sewer grate down the street because warm air flows up from below the street. And then I remember that I am sipping tea and eating homemade zucchini bread and I will be able to go to the doctor next week if I have to, and even if I lose my job and am evicted I have a fantastic family that has the resources to help me. I fear that I have completely oversimplified such a large, complex issue. And thus, look forward to future dialogue! Thanks so much, again, Graham, for starting this blog and contributing such insightful, rich information and perspectives.
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