Today I learned there is a mission team who came from the US to serve in Los Pinos. The older sister of my high school classmate is on the team.
I am shocked to hear they are bringing a team of people from outside into Los Pinos. It's been hard for my Honduran friends and missionary friends who live here to enter Los Pinos safely. I am praying for the safety of this team, and wisdom for its leaders. Especially in the days to come as news will have spread that they are there with their cell phones and whatever else they are carrying.
Yesterday I was locked out of the house until dinner time. Fany realized the lock wasn't working well. She said I should have pushed harder. But the security guard and I tried for a half an hour. We couldn't get the lock to budge.
The lock on the garage door has been broken for over a year. I'm hoping maybe both locks will be fixed. But the Honduran way is to keep trying to repair something until it's completely dead. If some oil can fix the lock for now, it will probably take a few more times of us being locked out before the lock is replaced.
Today is the day my coworker will talk to my boss about getting help for Erika and her house. I was hoping my boss would be in a more jovial mood when that conversation took place, but she was stressed out.
We had an interesting meeting with monitoreo (our in house auditors). They review our work and let us know how we are doing. It's a very in-depth process, but necessary since we are a non-profit organization who strives toward transparency and excellence.
There are now 10 different program operating under the umbrella of the place where I serve. I hate writing the name here because four of the 10 programs are fighting for justice, which puts us all in harm's way. Honduras is not used to justice or consequences. Some people are not happy with the work my coworkers do.
The good news is, they are getting a lot done. They are improving the education system. Only three years ago kids were lucky to get 100 days of school each year. On top of that, the kids only have a half day of class and schools only go to 11th grade, so it's an uphill battle. Over the past three years they fixed the payroll so only the teachers who actually teach are paid. They also increased the school year from 100 days to a goal of 215 in 2016. The school year ends in a couple of weeks. I think they will achieve their goal.
The organization I work for also helped clean up the health system by going into clinics and public hospitals and figuring out how the resources are being used. People who were stealing and selling medication were prosecuted, even when they were discovered to be high up in the government. That was a first in Honduras.
In the past year they have been working toward cleaning out the police, prosecuting dirty cops and educating new police who take their place. This will be a long and involved process, as the roots of corruption run deep. It is shocking to people to see the heads of the police force taken down, and not only removed from their jobs but also prosecuted. In the past corruption has not brought any consequences. That is changing.
People believe that the increase in robberies as of late is because the police are arresting more gang members. In the past, gangs paid off the police. Now that there are fewer corrupt cops on the police force, the gangs' hands are tied. They can't bring in all of the money they used to. Unfortunately, this is causing them to act out in more small-time robberies, like what happened to me. While the country is taking positive steps, it is a huge process. I hope what we are experiencing right now is the worst and that it will soon get better. In the meantime I am concerned for that team of North Americans in Los Pinos.
It's all a delicate and intricate system, which is hard for even the people who live in the midst of it to understand. What I do know is that in the past two weeks, three of my friends and I have been robbed at gunpoint. One friend was robbed twice! Two friends were Honduran, one is a missionary. None of us have ever been robbed with a weapon before. To me, that seems proof that random crime is increasing. People are talking. Many are anxious. We agree - something is going on. The outcome is yet to be seen.
