An afterthought.

(Speaking of poverty, if any of you want to help to improve the situations for the families I work with, consider donating to the scholarship program at Andrew's school. I work with a wonderful, inspiring mom right now whose family only needs about $30 more a month in her scholarship fund to ensure that both kids can take advantage of the awesome education that the school provides. Her husband just lost his job, and they have no income, but she still offered to bring lunch for me at our English classes every day. Anyway, if you ever feel inspired, you can always email me about contributing to the scholarship fund.)

La Pobreza

Several people have told Andrew and me that they really enjoy reading our blog posts, that we are hilarious and intriguing and genius (well, maybe nobody has mentioned those exact three words), and that they want more. More posts! More posts!

Now, I don't want to disappoint our giant fan base (i.e. my lovely sister in-law, Karen), but here's the thing: There's one topic that I always want to address, but I don't know how to do it in a way that will be funny and witty. And that's because it's not. 

The topic I'm referring to is poverty. And poverty, well, it pretty much just sucks. 

There are certain things I do to try to fit in here: 

-I try to speak the language.

-I try to respect the fact that no wives/mothers work or do anything at all outside of the home (I get bonus points for this one, because I'm practically one of these wives, without the whole having kids part.)

-I don't punch men in the face when they whistle at me. 

-When the electricity goes out, or the water turns off when I'm all soapy in the shower, or the bus that was supposed to pick me up doesn't come, or there are no beans or veggies or milk at the store, I try not to complain. 

-LASTLY, and most importantly for this blog post, I earn around Honduran minimum wage. Andrew, on the other hand, earns a bit more than that and is generous enough to share it with the ol' ball and chain, but for the purposes of this topic, let's focus on my salary. 

So, reflecting on that last point: I earn a Honduran wage because I choose to. If my goal was to earn money, I could probably find a higher paying job here in Honduras in an area that I'm not passionate about. Even more, I could go back to the US (which I presumably will do at some point) and earn much, much more. And, because of my earning potential, I will never, ever, ever be able to completely identify with my students. 

Oh, I know what you're thinking. "It's an economic crisis!", "There ARE no jobs in the US!", "Things are BAD here!" 

But this is the truth: For as bad a state as the US economy might be in, it's the US. The land of opportunity. While I would argue that it's definitely not the land of equal opportunity, it does have a few perks. If you're hungry, there are food stamps. If you're homeless, there are shelters. If you want your kid to have better opportunities than you did, it's possible to find a public school that can prepare him/her for college. And then, if you don't make a lot of money, your kids can get grants and can take out loans to pay for college. Now, I'm not arguing that being in a situation that requires you to utilize food stamps and homeless shelters is ideal- it's not. I'm not saying that college doesn't lead you to violently weep while looking at your loan payment bills for spending four years earning a degree that sends potential employers running (read- Women's Studies)- it does. And I'm not saying that people aren't suffering in the US. They are. But that's for another post (or rather, millions of books on the subject). 

My point is that, here in Honduras, over half of the population lives below the poverty line and around 40% lives in "extreme poverty" (according to the World Bank). When there's no food in the family, nobody eats. When there's no housing, your house is a ditch on the side of the highway. My students, who are mothers, would never ask me for anything, but they tell me their stories. Stories of living with their 10 family members in one room under a tin roof, of running out of food for themselves by the time they've fed their families, of knowing that they can't support another child even though their husbands control when they have sex and don't want them to use birth control. 

I could go on and on with the heart-wrenching stories I've heard, but I won't. There's probably a 99.9% chance that I'll never live in poverty- real poverty. And that's what separates me from my students. Poverty.