To my dear US American Friends:

[I was about to write a post on the Honduran elections and realised I have written but never posted this one.  Since I don't really have much time to write today I'll leave you with this somewhat unhappy post for now.  More on the elections later.]

To my dear US American Friends:

Surely it can’t be a good thing for the US if potential visitors re-route long haul trips to avoid your country? Do you really want to have a reputation for having one of the strictest and inflexible immigration policies in the world? One that views a 54-year old New Zealand grandmother on vacation as a potential terrorist or illegal immigrant?

Is it fair that after the trauma of the theft of a handbag and passport, she should be subjected to an exhausting 48 hour journey, and considerable extra financial cost to get home in order to avoid the USA because she doesn’t have a week to sit in Honduras and wait for a visa?

If all has seemed quiet on this blog lately it is because I have just had a couple of weeks off  while my parents were visiting us here in Honduras. This should have been a relaxed and fun opportunity to show them a little of their son-in-law’s country, but unfortunately Honduran crime and US immigration conspired to turn it into somewhat of a nightmare.

My mothers handbag, with passport inside, was stolen at lunch on their first day in Tegucigalpa. Their introduction to Honduras was a very friendly but heavily armed truck full of police officers who escorted us to the station in Comayaguala to make a report, a process which somewhat surprisingly for Honduras, only took a couple of hours. Then followed a couple of days of phone calls and emails to sort out how to get NZ emergency travel documentation in Honduras, and a couple of trips to Tegucigalpa to get documents copied, photos taken, bank payments made and the application shipped to the closet NZ Embassy, in Mexico City. I still can’t work out why it would take 2-3 days for DHL to get documents from Tegucigalpa to Mexico, but nevertheless, the Emergency Travel Document (ETD) arrived in time for my mothers booked flight home to New Zealand.

Except there was a problem. The most painful part of the process, and what caused the delay in thier travel plans, was not the Honduran crime, nor the NZ documentation issues but US immigration. My parents ticket routed them through the US, and under normal circumstances, on a New Zealand passport, they would have been able to travel on the visa waiver scheme. However  the ETD is not a fully machine readable passport and new regulations, introduced only a few months ago, require a visa if the passport is not machine readable.  This is apparently a non-negotiable and inflexible requirement, but luckily the NZ Embassy informed us before the ETD arrived so we began to make arrangements for the visa.

We paid $13.50 for a pin number just to be able to access the US embassy call centre, and at the same time had to pay US$135 for the appointment.  We called the embassy. No, not possible to make an appointment until the document was in our hands.  So we waited another day until we had the document.  Good news, she was eligible for a expedited appointment, so we wouldn’t have to wait 2-6 weeks.  Bad news, even an expedited appointment would take 3 days, and then another 3-4 working days for the visa to be issued.

By now my parents were well ready to leave Honduras.  Both Mum and Dad had jobs to return to. After much discussions and a flurry of emails to their insurer and travel agent they decided against waiting, and booked the earliest flight home that they could – via Mexico City and Vancouver, thereby completely avoiding the US.

I have long been mystified by the paranoia and suspicion of the US immigration service, and find going through US border protection a tense and generally unpleasant experience, but this is really too much.  Between Honduran crime and US immigration rules my parents holiday was ruined.  My daughter was not able to enjoy the time with her grandparents as they were stressed and tired, and we missed out on showing them many of the really wonderful things here in Honduras as we were tied to Tegucigalpa, and generally to to tired or busy to do much sightseeing.

Again, dear US American friends, how can this kind of thing be good for your country?  We non- US Americans have no power to change your immigration rules but perhaps if some of you started asking your representatives why the border agency of your country, one built on immigrants, is no longer interested in welcoming visitors then one day, maybe the rest of us will be happier about visiting you in the future.

Filed under: Honduras, family, travel , US immigration, USA

Curfews and conferences in Copan Ruinas

By now much of the world will be aware that there is chaos in Honduras right now. Exiled President Manuel Zelaya has found his way back to Tegucigalpa and is holed up at the Brazilian Embassy.  The interim / defacto / golpista government has responded with what seems to be to be alarming overkill, breaking up protests, shutting airports and borders and putting the entire country under a 24 hour curfew.  While this is supposedly for the protection of the citizens, those same citizens are suffering as people can’t work and can’t get food. Businesses are suffering.

News reports are conflicting.  TV and radio stations have been intermittently shut down leaving those without internet access to get news (propganda?) from those supportive of the current government. Depending on the news source, there have either been no deaths or hundreds; the violence is the result of the raging protesters, or the provocation of the police and army; the vandalism is the work of the pro-Mel groups or a set-up by the golpistas.  Who knows.  I suspect the truth is in the middle somewhere but it is very hard to get an honest report here.  What I do know is that the whole situation is causing significant suffering for the ordinary people here, and the longer the power-hungry leaders in Tegucigalpa continue to refuse to negotiate properly, the more they will suffer and that breaks my heart.

Personally, the situation is causing some difficulties.  I am supposed to be at the conference on Honduras starting tomorrow, and I will, but it has been shortened and will be small as conferees may not be able to get here.  Luckily we came early, before the return of Zelaya, as my sister was visiting and we wanted to chow her Copan.  However it wasn’t so lucky for her as she arrived in San Pedro Sula to catch her flight home just as all airports were closed.  She is still in SPS, holed up in a guesthouse and waiting for the first plane out.

Here in Copan the streets are quiet, but the curfew has not been enforced so we are able to get out and about (and I am able to do my work and blogging from a sun-drenched rooftop cafe!).  I am enjoying the relaxed pace here, and the personal and cheerful service from businesses who are so grateful for my custom, but I would far rather things returned to normal as quickly as possible.  Honduras, and Hondurans, can’t afford this shut-down.

Filed under: Honduras, family, life, phd , conference on Honduras, Copan Ruinas, Honduras coup, Honduras crisis, Zelaya

Mille feuille

My academic supervisor just suggested my latest theoretical analogy reminded her of mille feuille. Apart from the fact that it makes me really want to eat something sweet and custardy (and I’m highly unlikely to find anything like that around here), I think the idea of envisaging theoretical ideas as food is great.  It means I can combine two of my favourite things – theorising and eating.

Actually that is probably something I do really well already.  My recent research trip to the North Coast and Roatan was characterised both by very interesting interviews and discussions, and by great food – fresh fried fish and tajadas, chorizo, many many baleadas and yummy tropical fruit.  Some of my best research conversations have happened over food, both in restaurants and homes. I’m not sure what it is about sharing food that encourages good discussions (I wonder if anyone has research that yet – now that would be fun research to do!), but it does seem to work that way.   It doesn’t take much of a step from there to start making theory from the mix of food and ideas.

The trip wasn’t all work and eating.  I managed to have a lovely mini-holiday on the beach in Roatan with my family.  While there we were able to stay a little more up-market than we normally would, the political crisis and travel advisories have succeeded in significantly reducing the number of tourists arriving, and hotel prices have been slashed as a result.  Not good for business (and I do feel for the hoteliers) but nice for us.  We swam, watched dolphin shows and lay in the hammock and just relaxed.

Now I am back at my desk with a pile of notes and a voice recorder full of interesting interviews.  But this time I’m not the only one who was at ’school’ – my little big girl is now a big school girl.  Well, almost, she’s a big pre-k (preschool) girl, and today was her first day.  She loved it.

All round, life is going well.  The research is progressing.  I am enjoying living here, and my family is happy.  All I need now is a slice of mille feuille and all will be perfect.

Filed under: Honduras, family, life, phd , food, Mille feuille, phd, Roatan

We made it to La Ceiba!

This is a long planned research trip which had been delayed due to the ongoing political crisis.  Given that things had been more or less normal and I needed to get on and get some research work done, we decided earlier this week to just go.  Of course, as soon as I had made the plans, booked accomodation and scheduled interview appointments we were warned that the unions and pro-Zalaya faction were organising strikes and roadblocks for later in the week. After a very late night on Tuesday revewing our plans we finally decided to go Wednesday and attempt to get all the way to La Ceiba before the strikes started on Thursday, a decision helped by a changed interview date in the SPS area (we had planned to stop there for a night or two en route).

It proved to be a good decision – we made it and did avoid some disruption on Thursday – but also a bad one, it was a looong trip with a small child and very tiring – it took us 9 hours of driving, 100km of road works, one forced detour through the countryside, 2 broken bridges, 2.5 meal breaks and 5 toilet stops before we finally made it to La Ceiba. But it was good to get the North Coast, and get started on the business of this trip, gathering data for my research.

Of course it’s not all work.  Today we took a drive to Sambo Creek, where we ate seafood, and my daughter was able to have her first splash in the Caribbean.  She as convinced it would be cold (and that there might be sharks!) but it didn’t take her long to realise it was not a kiwi beach… it was nice and warm and only a light shade of brown (lots of rain here yesterday). In the next few days we’ll be sailing over that water to Roatan, where she and her Dad can spend all the time they want in clear blue water, while I keep working (ok, yes I’m sure I’ll have a few swims myself!).

We are of course watching the political situation carefully.  At the moment all the action is near the Nicaraguan border at Las Manos, ironically not too far from our little casa on the hillside but far away from where we are now.  I think we made the right decision after all.

Filed under: Honduras, family, life, phd , fieldwork, Honduras crisis, La Ceiba, phd

Ummm… we’re home

And have been for nearly a month.  As you can probably guess from the quiet on this blog it’s been a busy month.

It has been a month of celebration- my Honduran got his NZ citizenship and became a Kiwi, we celebrated 7 years of marriage and I had a birthday.

It has also been a month of hard work.  Starting to transcribe the interviews from Honduras, writing and presenting a paper at a national conference and trying to re-write the literature reviews and proposal for my confirmation in February (at my university all PhDs are only provisionally registered for the first year and must complete a set amount of work and presnt a confirmation seminar before being given full candidate status).   Luckily my daughter has settled well back at her childcare centre and my lovely Kiwi-Honduran husband is able to take on much of the rest of the weekday care.  This of course I am often feel hugely guilty but also immensly grateful for.

So onwards to Christmas.  The tree is up, we have been to one Christmas party, and missed one party already, have another two parties this week and I have to work out how to stretch an insanely small amount of money out for the Christmas shopping.  I’m not quite sure how I’m going to fit Christmas into the budget or my workload but we have a very excited 3-year old and I don’t think we’ll get away with having a quiet one!

Filed under: Honduras, New Zealand, family, parenting, phd , Christmas