Palm fruit in supermarket looting

Everything seems to have calmed down in Honduras. Not that I experienced what tv images have shown you a few days ago (rather the sight of an empty street next to the hotel), but the uproar in the capital has its consequences on life here.

The 2 full days of curfew last week were followed by a break on Wednesday. Between 10am and 5pm people got out on the streets again. Protests and clashes with police you'd think? Well, not really, rather a rush to supermarkets and gas stations, possibly some arguments with fellow shoppers... The sight of a supermarket flooded with people looking for the last condiments in all but empty racks is quite impressive. You couldn't imagine how long the lines were for check-out.

From Thursday to yesterday (Tuesday) the curfew was installed again, but only at night time. As anything after dark here is considered night time, this meant starting at 6pm. It was one of the first Friday night's at home in a long time. And I hope it will be one of the last one's as well...

I'm enjoying this back-to-more-or-less-normal week. There are only 2,5 weeks left to finish the strategic plan for the palm oil company and its producing cooperatives, and still quite some work to do. The project is a completely different world than what I was used to just a few weeks ago... Not easier though. Francisco, my other colleague on this project, is now visiting all the cooperatives to get an idea about their living conditions. Questions as "Can you read and write?", "Which material is the roof of your house made of?" and "Do you save any money?". It gives an idea about the goals of this project. We try to improve their living conditions by helping them in the planning process of the next months and years of palm fruit harvesting and finding funding for necessary investments in fertilizers and drainage systems. Also the strategic plan for the palm oil processing plant (where the cooperatives are delivering to) is part of the project. And that strategic plan is, well, not such a different world after all... PowerPoint presentations, executive summaries and the pyramid principle seem to work as well here as anywhere in the world.

By the way, for those who wonder what palm fruit looks like, this is an image of a palm fruit bunch. The crude oil that comes out of the fruit itself is sterilized, refined (removal of impurities, color and odor) and fractionated to become vegetal oil, to be used to... fry Belgian fries for example!?

Empty streets at night

It was quite different last weekend, but the streets tonight are totally empty in Tocoa.

The ousted president, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya somehow got back into Honduras after some 80 days of circling the country. He's now residing at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, with thousands of supporters in front of the embassy. The de facto government first denied that he was in the country, but shortly after his appearance in public, they installed a night-time curfew from 4pm to 7am for fears of protests.

For those that have no clue of what has been happening: 3 months ago, then-president Zelaya wanted to hold a nonbinding referendum that could be a first step to allow him to be re-elected. But re-election is currently forbidden in the Honduran constitution. Both the legislative power, the Congress, and the judicial power, the supreme court, ruled the referendum illegal.

What happened next is that Mel's opponents entered his house with some court order in the early morning of June 28th, and put him on an air plane to Costa Rica. His opponents call it a legal change of power (because they insist no other way to change presidents is possible in Honduran law), his backers a coup.

Whatever it may be, the reasons behind the coup are clear. There is a fear amongst those who own private businesses, some of whom believe that Zelaya is influenced by Castro, Chavez and the likes, that their businesses will be nationalized.

Now Zelaya is back in the country. He drove trough the mountains, avoiding the police check-points on his way to a small bit of Brazilian territory in Tegucigalpa.

The past days I spoke to quite a few locals about the political situation. The majority of the people seem to be in favor of Micheletti (the de facto president), but what is quite interesting here is that everyone has his opinion about what's happening. And more importantly, is happy to openly tell which side they're on. Nobody is afraid to tell his point of view. Quite different from what we (last year engineering students) experienced in Cuba 2,5 years ago - those fortunated enough to hear the police officer's speech at the Cienfuegos police station after a few hours of detention will know exactly what I'm talking about...

Back to Honduras.
Besides being something entirely new to me, a curfew is actually quite a pain. No restaurants, shops or bars are officially open, meaning you have to beg your way into the kitchen of some restaurant where you see people inside to get some dinner. And because the hotel's restaurant was entirely closed tonight, I had to go out on the streets, which is illegal (but quite adventurous ;-).

Hmm, I just heard on tv that the curfew is extended to tomorrow night 6pm. An entire day in the hotel... Will probably have time to tell you more then.

First days in Honduras

Imagine the setting: small, rather dark hotel room, 35°C, palm trees when you look out the window and intermittent heavy rain storms. Welcome to Sabá, a small town on the road from El Ceiba to Trujillo that hardly made it to Google maps, my shelter for tonight.

Tomorrow we, my new boss Beatriz and myself, head out to the field and visit the cooperative palm oil processing plant that will take the first month of my time here in Honduras to review. During the past 2 months the local TechnoServe team has done a review of the cooperatives supplying the plant (that the cooperatives own) and found ample opportunities of improving the dire financial situation the cooperatives are in. In the coming month it is our task to find out what is going wrong within the plant itself.
By the way, meet Beatriz, a tiny Ecuadorian agronomist (1.5m) with a great heart for her work and the people we are helping. Witty and very knowledgeable on the economy of tiny producers.

But I haven't told you how I got here.
Last Thursday morning, after my first (and last) full night at the office - returning the consultant toys, drafting the goodbye memo, even taking a shower (yes, you can practically live at Avenue Louise 480 ;-) before hopping in the cab to the airport - I left for a new personal and professional adventure. This time in the not-for-profit sector, working 5 months as volunteer consultant for TechnoServe Honduras. Not-for-profit is actually an interesting terminology, you shouldn't think that we aren't trying to maximize profits at our clients... It is about how TechnoServe is operating. TechnoServe itself isn't making profits, it is living on project funding from USAID, the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation, the Clinton Foundation, USDA etc.

The long trip from Brussels to San Pedro Sula - count in Brussels-Frankfurt, 2 hours waiting, Frankfurt-Miami, 6 hours waiting, Miami-San Pedro Sula, 1 hour waiting at Honduran immigration, in total about 34 hours of travel - was pretty rewarding after the arrival. Gabriel, another new colleague of mine, was awaiting me at the airport and immediately took me for dinner in the city. Baleadas, typical Honduran food, in a kind of American style coffee bar, together with another new colleague, Carolina and 3 friends of theirs.
Pretty amazing hospitality, of the kind you wouldn't expect to receive as new foreign employee entering a Belgian company... I knew I would learn to put things in perspective here.

Enter my new apartment, very well located, with a bedroom view on the mountain range bordering the city of San Pedro. With all the amenities it has and the space available, it is way beyond what I expected. The only thing it still needs is a decent housewarming. I will keep you party-animals posted!

The colleagues invited me for lunches - dinners - shopping - sightseeing during the weekend, you name it... The one thing I pulled off myself was running up the hill right next to my apartment on Sunday morning. There is a large Coca-Cola sign at about 5 km distance (of which 4.5 pretty steep uphill), which seemed a perfect turn-around point. I immediately noticed that climbing up that hill is 1 - quite a social event (hundreds of locals were walking or biking, no one was running though...) and 2 - extremely challenging (probably the reason why no one was running that morning), it is already sweltering hot early in the morning and the sign was a bit further than I initially thought it would be. I didn't make it to the sign, but already know what to aim for next weekend!

Tomorrow is Día de la Independencia here in Honduras. Pretty interesting concept in a state that just had a coup and is currently governed by a disputed president.

I wonder what will happen...

Will keep you posted! Hasta luego!