At the Finca I got a bit of nostalgic for rainy season.  If you’re a normal person rainy season isn’t particularly fun.  You’re wet all the time, clothes never dry hanging on the line, mud and mold become a normal part of your life.  But as a Finca volunteer it’s also a time of relief from the hot sun, you get to make daring rescues of trucks stuck in mud, electicity goes out and prompts candle lit dinners, water systems break prompting bucket showers, rivers rise and you see t he true power of nature and feel it’s effects in ways that just aren’t possible for most of us city dwellers.  So while I didn’t like getting soaking wet walking back from getting a beer with the vols, I certainly appreciated the chance to remember those times at the Finca with fond memories.  

As I took the bus back to Tegucigalpa on Monday I began to see the picture with a broader lens.  As we continued on I noticed more and more fields flooded, more rivers raging and more landlides being cleared from the highway.  I picked up a newspaper and began to read of the effects of 10 d ays of rain across the country.  knew that when I got to the office on Tuesday that likely we would be responding to an emergency.

So what happened?  Essentially we had about two weeks straight of rain which caused widespread damage across the country.  It just got to the point where the ground was so saturated that there was nowhere for the water to go and mudslides and flash floods were the result.  About 75% of the roads were damaged to some extent with 72 bridges or river crossings destroyed and another 169 damaged.  34 people were killed mostly when rivers rose and destroyed their homes (2,200 homes destroyed and double that many damaged. Thousands fled their homes for shelters and 250,000 acres of crops were destroyed.

COPECO (the government agency responsible for emergencies) coordinated both the national and international response and at least from my point of few had a decent handle on the situation.  As I had suspected I was busy at work on CRS’s response to the emergency.  We work entirely through local partners and in emergencies the partner with whom we work the most are the local Catholic dioceses.  My role during  the emergency was to take all the information funneled to me and turn it into money.  The dioceses would communicate with us and give us an assessment of the situation an our team here in the office would evaluate where, what and how much we needed to get into the field.  Within the first 24 hours we got out a situation report to our headquarters and another 6 hours after that we were working on drafts of the emergency proposals.  In all I wrote three proposals for things like blankets, mattresses, water, cooking kits, hygeine kits and medicine.  We were able to get the proposals approved pretty quickly and get the materials needed into the hands of the dioceses so they could respond to those in need.  

So worry not, I certainly wasn’t slogging through rain choked streets (the photos here are from the newspaper).  And while I spent most of the time in the office writing it was certainly an interesting experience.  We’re just hoping for no more rain any time soon.

All of that changed last week as the town held a grand celebration to open the spigots for the first time.  With dancing and speeches (lots and lots of speeches) we celebrated a project that is bringing running water to twelve villages for the first time.  A Bi-national project between Honduras and El Salvador (we were about 20 miles from the Salvador border) built the main distribution line to bring water 12 miles from the river to a main distribution point.  From there CRS and our partner Caritas then built the local water distribution system in San Juan. 

Two more villages are on tap for CRS next year and other NGOs have built or are building distribution systems for the remaining villages.  It’s startling to think what a difference it would be to wake up one morning and have running water for the first time in your life. 

Click here for pictures from the trip.  Also up are videos of the traditional dance the school children did and video of what it’s like to ride in a Toyota Hi-Lux in the back roads of Honduras.  

I like thinking about that conversation because it is a touchstone for a series of reflections I have been having as we prepare to move to Honduras in July.  What does it mean to be a “development professional”?  This reflection encompasses both the huge, daunting, intimidating question of “How do we end poverty?” and the equally daunting “How do we live as people while working toward that goal?” 

In February at our final interview for the CRS job I sort of leaned over toward my friend Marc and whispered, “I don’t know, these jobs sound kind of hard.”  It got a chuckle, but the weight of that statement hung in the room for me.  These are difficult questions for serious people, there isn’t a “right” answer and we’re not playing with monopoly money anymore.  Realities like the Burma cyclone, the recent rebel attacks on Khartoum, or rising food prices around the world drive home the fact that at the heart of development programs are people who are suffering. 

So my hope is to sort of kick off a series of occassional posts that seeks to reflect on some of these questions.  The posts will likely span the summer and focus on both the personal and professional questions.  I hope to reflect on how I hope to live as an individual (and we as a family) in the developing world.  Is this move the same as the last time we moved to Honduras?  How is it the same?  Different?  Motivations?  Methods?  Vision?  Definitions of success?  Scale?  Lifestyle?  Sustainability?  Work-life balance?  Erika and I have been having some great conversations lately about these very questions and I’m hoping to try and synthesize some of the thinking.  I will also tackle some more technical questions about the business of “ending poverty.”  Reflections on some of the things I’ve learned in grad school and what it means to me to be a “development professional.”

Sunds interesting?  Stay tuned.  Sound boring?  Worry not it’s only an occasional series and I’ll try and intersperse it with more interesting fare!

[To see all of the posts in this series in one place click on the Summer 2008 Reflections category.]

So while I will be heading to Honduras, Marc is off to Bosnia in Eastern Europe and Michelle will be posted to West Bank/Gaza in the Middle East.  Marc and his wife Chrissy were Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova and were hoping to move back to Eastern Europe.  Michelle’s background is in gender and conflict (she spent last summer in Darfur, Sudan) and she has some Arabic skills so West Bank/Gaza is a great placement for her.  We were all pretty excited about our postings because CRS matched us pretty well with where/what we will be doing.   

The best part for me is that Marc and Michelle are two of the people that I work with and hang out with the most at Fletcher.  As we went through the interview process it was great to be interviewing with people who I would hire or, more importantly, I would want to work for.  Marc and Michelle are two of the most talented people I know and it will be great to have them working in the same agency. 

That excitement doesn’t just extend to those working with CRS.  Jobs are starting to trickle in for my classmates as we realize that we are in fact employable.  Sarah’s going to work for USAID, Rashad and Chris are working for the State Department, Hai is going to be a consultant with Booz, Allen, Hamilton, Saba is going to work for the Federal Reserve in NYC.  It’s a fun time of year as jobs start to materialize for second years and internships firm up for first years.  It’s a good reminder that while school is important, it’s ultimately a preparation for the work we will be doing after school and that the connections we have made with each other here will continue long after we have left Fletcher.

It is with great joy that Erika and I announce that we will be moving back to Honduras this August. I have accepted a position with Catholic Relief Services as an International Development Fellow.

The fellowship is a 1-year posting that will provide me with a variety of experiences that will serve as a foundation for my career with CRS. While my work will mostly focus on water and sanitation, anti-human trafficking and anti-child labor projects I will also have the opportunity to bounce around the rest of the country office to get experience in strategic planning, finance and administration. I’ll be in this position for a year and then likely move to a program manager position for a 2-5 year posting likely in another country and possibly in another region.

While we will be returning to Honduras it will be very different from our last stint in Honduras at the Farm of the Child. Rather than living 30 minutes outside of the small town of Trujillo, we will be living in Tegucigalpa (the capital) a city of 1 million people about 9 hours by bus from Trujillo. We will still be close enough to visit the Farm occasionally while being almost a world away. Tegucigalpa also has the added bonus of being just a 2-hour flight from Miami.

We have a busy few months ahead of us as we prepare to head back south. I graduate in May and then we’ll be in South Bend May 23-June 27 and in Florida June 27-July 20 before heading to Baltimore for training. We hope to see many of you in that time.

Love,

Michael-John, Erika, Michael, Jacob, and Maggie

According to Byrne, recovery from Hurricane Mitch has been uneven in Honduras. The country’s economy is growing 5 percent annually, and mini-cities have been built in safe zones, but some sections of the nation’s infrastructure have not been repaired. That’s why projects concerning water and sanitation are of special significance to CRS and its donors. Miguel Flores, water and sanitation project director for CRS, developed a model in the 1970s and 1980s that gives local water boards ownership of projects, dealing with maintenance and sustainability. The goal is to make all water potable for families. Byrne said, “Different systems for water and irrigation greatly impact communities.”

CRS’s largest efforts in health and education focus on maternal child health to decrease infant mortality and respond to obstetric emergencies. In one region in which CRS works, there are 554 infant deaths per 100,000 births. Nationally in Honduras, the rate is 108 infant deaths per 100,000 births. “That number has been reduced in half, to about 248 infant deaths per 100,000 births,” said Byrne.

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