A Report of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production

(Full text at http://www.ncifap.org/bin/e/j/PCIFAPFin.pdf, I have just copied the conclusions of the report. It´s worth reading. And note, it has absolutely nothing to do with radical anti-meat activists.)

Conclusion: Toward Sustainable Animal Agriculture

On behalf of the Commission by Fred Kirschenmann, PhD, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University, and North Dakota rancher

Sustainability is a futuristic concept. Webster’s dictionary defines the verb “sustain” as “to maintain,” “to keep in existence,” “to keep going.” By definition, then, sustainability is a journey, an ongoing process, not a prescription or a set of instructions. So when we ask, “How do we sustain animal agriculture?” we are asking how to manage animal agriculture so that it can be maintained indefinitely and what changes are necessary to accomplish that goal.

Sustainable animal agriculture requires that we envision the challenges and changes the future will bring. In his extensive studies of past civilizations, Jared Diamond has observed that civilizations that correctly assessed their current situations, anticipated changes, and started preparing for those changes were the ones that thrived—they were sustainable. Civilizations that failed in these efforts were the ones that collapsed—they were not sustainable (Diamond, 1999; Diamond, 2005).

What is true for civilizations is likely also true for business enterprises. So this report would not be complete without an assessment of some of the changes likely to emerge in the decades ahead and recommendations to address those changes.

To begin, it is important to recognize that our food production system today operates in the general framework of the industrial economy, which begins from the assumptions that natural resources and other inputs to fuel economic activities are unlimited and that nature provides unlimited sinks to absorb the wastes thrown off by that economic activity. Our modern food system, including industrial animal agriculture, is part of that economy.

Herman E. Daly has warned for some time that this economy is not sustainable, that we must recognize that human economies are subsystems of larger ecosystems and must adapt to function within ecosystem constraints (Daly, 1999).6 Because the natural resources that have fueled our food and agriculture systems are now in a state of depletion and nature’s sinks are saturated, Daly’s prediction may soon be realized.

This insight is not new, however. As early as 1945, Aldo Leopold recognized both the attractiveness and vulnerability of industrial agriculture (Leopold, 1999):

It was inevitable and no doubt desirable that the tremendous momentum of industrialization should have spread to farm life. It is clear to me, however, that it has overshot the mark, in the sense that it is generating new insecurities, economic and ecological, in place of those it was meant to abolish. In its extreme form, it is humanly desolate and economically unstable. These extremes will some day die of their own too-much, not because they are bad for wildlife, but because they are bad for the farmers.

In these early years of the 21st century, the insecurities Leopold perceived are beginning to manifest themselves and compel us to reevaluate current crop and animal production methods.

Among the many changes likely in the next 50 years, we believe the following three will be especially challenging to the US industrial food and agriculture system: the depletion of stored energy and water resources, and changing climate. These changes will be especially challenging because America’s successful industrial economy of the past century was based on the availability of cheap energy, a relatively stable climate, and abundant fresh water, and current methods have assumed the continued availability of these resources.

The end of cheap energy may well be the first limited resource to force change in industrial food animal production as ifap systems are almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels. The nitrogen used for fertilizer to produce animal feed is derived from natural gas. Phosphorus and potash are mined, processed, and transported to farms with petroleum energy. Pesticides are manufactured from petroleum resources. Farm equipment is manufactured and operated with petroleum energy. Feed is produced and trucked to concentrated animal operations with fossil fuels. Manure is collected and hauled to distant locations with fossil fuels.

When fossil fuels were cheap, these inputs to the process of agricultural production were available at very low cost. But independent scholars agree that oil production either already has peaked or will shortly do so (Heinberg, 2004; Roberts, 2004).

Of course, there are alternatives to fossil fuel energy— wind, solar, and geothermal energy as well as biofuels—so it’s possible that oil and natural gas could be replaced with alternative sources of energy to keep industrial animal agriculture viable. But the US industrial economy was created on a platform of stored, concentrated energy that produced a very favorable energy profit ratio (the amount of energy yield less the amount of energy expended to make it available). Alternative energies, on the other hand, are based on current, dispersed energy, which has a much lower energy profit ratio. Consequently, economies that depend on cheap energy are not likely to fare well in the future. This is why the depletion of fossil fuel resources will require that America transition not only to alternative fuels to produce food but to a new energy system.

The real energy transition will have to be from an energy input system to an energy exchange system, and this transition is likely to entail significant system changes in the US production of crops and livestock. For example, future agricultural production systems are less likely to be specialized monocultures and more likely to be based on biological diversity, organized so that each organism exchanges energy with other organisms, forming a web of synchronous relationships, instead of relying on energy intensive inputs.

A second natural resource that has been essential to industrial agriculture is a relatively stable climate. We often mistakenly attribute the yield-producing success of the past century entirely to the development of new production technologies. But those robust yields were due at least as much to unusually favorable climate conditions as they were to technology.

A National Academy of Sciences (nas) Panel on Climatic Variation reported in 1975 that “our present [stable] climate is in fact highly abnormal” and that “the earth’s climate has always been changing, and the magnitude of … the changes can be catastrophic” (emphasis added). The report went on to suggest that climate change might be exacerbated by “our own activities” and concluded that “the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century” (emphasis added) (nas, 1975). In other words, according to the nas, it is this combination of “normal” climate variation plus the changes caused by industrial economies (greenhouse gas emissions) that could have a significant impact on future agricultural productivity.

While most climatologists acknowledge that it is impossible to predict exactly how climate change will affect agricultural production in the near term, they agree that greater climate fluctuations—“extremes of precipitation, both droughts and floods”—are likely. Such instability can be especially devastating for the highly specialized, genetically uniform, monoculture systems characteristic of current industrial crop and livestock production.

A third natural resource that may challenge our current agricultural production system is water. Lester Brown points out that although each human needs only four liters of water a day, the US industrial agriculture system consumes 2,000 liters per day to meet US daily food requirements (Brown, 2006). A significant amount of that water is consumed by production agriculture: over 70% of global fresh water resources is used for irrigation.

As discussed earlier in this report, the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies water for one of every five irrigated acres in the United States, is now half depleted and is being overdrawn at the rate of 3.1 trillion gallons per year,7 according to some reports (Soule and Piper, 1992). Furthermore, a recent Des Moines Register article reported that the production of biofuels is putting significant additional pressure on US water resources, and that climate change is likely to further stress these resources (Beeman, 2007). According to the Wall Street Journal, “Kansas is threatening to sue neighboring Nebraska for consuming more than its share of the Republican River” as farmers consume more water for irrigation 8 (that suit has since been filed); Kansas had previously sued Colorado over Arkansas River water diverted in Colorado, in part, for agriculture irrigation and use by the city of Denver.

Reduced snowpacks in mountainous regions due to climate change will decrease spring runoff, a primary source of irrigation water in many parts of the world, further intensifying water shortages.

These early indications of stress indicate that energy, water, and climate changes will intersect and affect each other in many ways and will make industrial production systems increasingly vulnerable.

But new soil management methods can make major contributions to the sustainability of future US farming systems. Research and on-farm experience have shown that the management of soils in accordance with closed recycling systems that build soil organic matter significantly enhances the soil’s capacity to absorb and retain moisture, reducing the need for irrigation. Onfarm experience (as well as nature’s own elasticity) also indicates that: (1) diverse systems are more resilient than monocultures in the face of adverse climate conditions; (2) energy inputs can be dramatically reduced when recycling systems replace input / output systems; and (3) management of soil health based on recycling systems requires more mixed crop / livestock systems. Furthermore, new insights from studies in modern ecology and evolutionary biology applied to nutrient recycling and humus-based soil management could provide additional information that can help in the design of postindustrial farming systems.

Scientists have recognized for some time that the single-tactic, specialized, energy-intensive approach of industrial agriculture which relies on technology to intervene in a system to solve a specific problem, such as eliminating a single pest species, is not sustainable. Joe Lewis and his colleagues, for example, wrote that, while it may seem that an optimal corrective action for an undesired entity is to use a pesticide to eliminate the pest, in fact “such interventionist actions never produce sustainable desired effects. Rather, the attempted solution becomes the problem.” The alternative, they propose, is “an understanding and shoring up of the full composite of inherent plant defenses, plant mixtures, soil, natural enemies, and other components of the system. These natural ‘built in’ regulators are linked in a web of feedback loops and are renewable and sustainable” (Lewis et al., 1997). Unfortunately, ifap is built on the so-called single tactic model, which seeks to maximize production and simplify management needed to get there.

The management of pests, weeds, or animal diseases from such an ecological perspective involves a web of relationships that require more biologically diverse systems. “For example, problems with soil erosion have resulted in major thrusts in use of winter cover crops and conservation tillage. Preliminary studies indicate that cover crops also serve as bridge / refugia to stabilize natural enemy / pest balances and relay these balances into the crop season” (Lewis et al., 1997). In short, natural system management can revitalize soil health, reduce weed and other pest pressures, eliminate the need for pesticides, and support the transition from an energy-intensive industrial farming operation to a self-regulating, self-renewing one. A diversified crop / animal system enhances the possibilities for establishing a self-regulating system.

Other benefits, such as greater water conservation, follow from the improved soil health that results from closed recycling systems. As research conducted by John Reganold and his colleagues has demonstrated, soil managed by such recycling methods develops richer top soil, more than twice the organic matter, more biological activity, and far greater moisture absorption and holding capacity (Reganold et al., 1987; Reganold et al., 2001).

Such soil management methods illustrate the path to an energy system that operates on the basis of energy exchange instead of energy input. But more innovation is needed. Nature, for example, is a very efficient energy manager; all of its energy comes from sunlight, which is processed into carbon through photosynthesis and becomes available to various organisms that exchange energy through a web of relationships. Bison on the prairie obtain their energy from the grass, which gets its energy from the soil. Bison deposit their excrement on the grass and thus provide energy for insects and other organisms, which, in turn, convert it to energy that enriches the soil to produce more grass. These are the energy exchange systems that must be explored and adapted for use in postindustrial farming systems. But very little research is currently devoted to exploring such energy exchanges for farms.

Fortunately, a few farmers have already developed energy exchange systems and appear to be quite successful in managing their operations with very little fossil fuel input (Kirschenmann, 2007). But converting farms to this new energy model on a national scale will require a major transformation. The highly specialized, energy-intensive monocultures will need to convert to complex, highly diversified operations that function on energy exchange. Research has established the practicality and multiple benefits of such integrated crop-livestock operations, but further research is needed to explore how to adapt this new model of farming to various climates and ecosystems (Russelle et al., 2007).

In the meantime, current intensive confined animal feeding operations, can take steps to begin transitioning to a more sustainable future. In our visits to many such operations, we saw innovative adaptations of some of these principles. For example, a large feedlot we visited, which holds 90,000 head of cattle in confinement, composts all of its manure and sells it in a thriving compost market, thus improving its bottom line. As fertilizer costs go up due to increased energy costs, more farmers may turn to such sources of fertilizer to reduce their costs. The Commission visited an integrated producer of  90,000 dozen eggs a day, that composts its manure, mixing it with wood chips from ground-up wooden pallets, and sells the compost as garden and  landscaping mulch, again generating additional income for the company. A 4,500- cow confinement dairy operation recycles its bedding sand and plastic baling wire. Both the dairy and the feedlot also cover their silage piles to reduce pollution.

Farmers in many parts of the world are adopting deep-bedded hoop barn technologies for raising their animals in confinement. As explained earlier in this report, hoop barns are much less expensive to construct, have demonstrated production efficiencies comparable to those of nonbedded confinement systems, and are more welfare-friendly for animals (Lay Jr. et al., 2000). The deep-bedded systems allow animals to exercise more of their natural functions, absorb urine and manure for composting and building soil quality on nearby land, and provide warmth for the animals in cold weather. Such hoop structures are used in hog, beef, dairy, and some poultry operations and have demonstrated reduced environmental impact and risk.

Tweaking the current monoculture confinement operations with such methods will be very useful in the short term, but as energy, water, and climate resources undergo dramatic changes, it is the Commission’s judgment that US agricultural production will need to transition to much more biologically diverse systems, organized into biological synergies that exchange energy, improve soil quality, and conserve water and other resources. As Herman Daly said, long-term sustainability will require a transformation from an industrial economy to an ecological economy.

Alex is an extraordinarily cheerful, open, and smart guy. The first time I visited him at his home, we were going through his meticulously kept financial records of the town’s water council’s activity for the past two years. Near the end of our meeting he pulled out a well-worn piece of paper that he kept filed next to his well-worn copy of Honduran Water Law (dated 1992). It was a list of 10 suggestions on how to live a happy, good life. He had been given it while at the hospital in the capital with a family member who had just been in a terrible accident. Alex says he reads it almost every day.

Unfolding the paper he proceeded to read through each bullet out loud, pausing to clarify points when he thought necessary, or simply look up at grin (dutifully following bullet point #1, a smile is one of the best gifts you can give). Finishing all ten, he laughed, folded back up the paper, and sent us on our way with a giant bag of fruit and homemade candy his wife had packed for us.

In any scenario, a guy like Alex would be a rare find. He’s jolly, humble, a good father, caring, hardworking, studious; an all around excellent human being. And while it shouldn’t be so surprising to find such a guy here, I think it’s worth it to describe Alex’s situation.

Alex lives on the edge of the mountainous protected area in southern Honduras, the same region that provides 60% of Choluteca’s potable water supply. He lives under a canopy of fruiting trees in the last of three 3-4 room humble stucco houses (belonging to his wife and her relatives), a brisk 20 min walk from the nearest bus-transited dirt road. The path to his doorstep crosses several seasonal streams, winding through a dense forest of trees, some the diameter of an 18 wheeler tire and easily four stories high. Most of the fruit trees are unknown in typical American supermarkets. (Jocote, mammon, nance, star fruit, and a wide variety of mangos and bananas). People say that there are still even monkeys in the forests… for a while Alex had a picture on his phone of a monkey that a neighbor had captured. He thinks it’s a shame there isn’t more education available about protecting the region’s vanishing wildlife.

For Alex, it is too expensive to take his youngest son to the clinic, even after the 2-year old spent five days with a ranking cough and little appetite. He owns no land besides that of his house, and is currently renting a small fraction of an acre on which to grow corn and beans… without the benefit of fertilizers. (Rumor has it his wife supports the political party that isn’t in power at the mayor’s office. And whispers of a rumor are enough to bump you off the mayor’s free fertilizer list.) When you ask Alex, he’ll tell you it’s a tossup whether it is even worth renting and working the land, but then he’ll grin; “At least it keeps me busy!” He’s always looking for some sort of employment, seeing as without the income he’ll have no way to make the unavoidable payments to send his two kids to school, and buy the few things the family needs. He recently was rejected from a potential job opportunity because he had no computer skills… small surprise as the house has no electricity.

I have never asked Alex how old he is, nor how much formal education he has had. Judging from the clues, I would say he’s late twenties, early thirties, with between a sixth and ninth grade education level. But while if pressed, Alex would admit his circumstances don’t allow the best opportunities for himself or his family, you will never hear him whine of poverty. Alex is a can-do man. His agile mind, genuine personality (and excellent penmanship) ranks him as one of the best people I know.

We said good bye to Alex that day and made the journey home. This day, we had learned more from Alex than he had from us.

Any joking aside (although it is true that I can hear mass from the comfort of my backyard, and that most probably so can the clientele of the sketchy apartments several blocks away), the more I think about it, the more of point they seem to have. Maybe you do need an overpowered amplifier, air horn, and church choir to get God to lend half an ear. Where else would the saying, “Squeaky wheel gets the grease”, come from?

Because looking around Honduras, any higher power that may be does seem pretty deaf. Millions of rural Honduran families living from pound of beans to pound of beans, not necessarily suffering in the moment, but lacking what most of us consider basic human rights: clean water, sanitation, medicine and doctor’s facilities, basic education. More than anything, they lack a safety net and the opportunities and capabilities to change their position in life.

These two things, in my mind, are the most important. You won’t ever see a ‘sad, poverty- and hunger- STRICKEN’ family in rural Honduras. The idea of ‘stricken’ sends the message that all of a sudden, people became poor and that they are on the verge of dying, and that if rapid measures aren’t taken, all hope will be lost. While this transitional poverty does exist (especially as a result of natural disasters), it’s a lot different from endemic poverty: the lack of a safety net, and opportunities/capabilities. And endemic poverty is what Honduras suffers from.

Endemic poverty is the tougher root to kill. It’s not sexy, and often overlooked because there is no dramatic event or change from the normal, because it is the normal by definition. For this reason, all international poverty is advertised more as transitional poverty; because if you dramatize the situation and imply that it is time sensitive and novel, people are more likely to act and donate. Funding agencies know a lot about how to manipulate human psychology. (Not as much as advertising agencies, but that’s for another day.)

This is not to say that I don’t think money should be spent working to rid endemic poverty. On the contrary, I argue that it is just as important, or more so, than transitional poverty. But the trouble with endemic poverty, is that these impoverished families don’t often realize that their situation could be any different. They don’t shout, hey, it’s wrong that I can’t provide basic education to my kids because the teacher refuses to show up. Or, hey, I shouldn’t have to work 12 hour shifts carrying 100 pound bags on my back for less than even Honduran minimum wage. Or, hey, my health security plan shouldn’t rely on me or my family members riding public buses with a doctor’s note of my medical condition, asking passengers to donate 5 or 10 American cents towards my bills. (This is a situation which happens almost every time I get on a bus; I used to not give because my American upbringing, in the words of a friend, screams “Get a job!”, but now, a year later, I realize that just isn’t possible.)

This state of affairs is just the way life is in the rural area. And if one didn’t have kids, and didn’t have a spouse, you could probably live pretty well, without worrying about how to provide for anyone else but yourself. I would say most volunteers agree that living on a tiny farm without running water and sporadic or no electricity wouldn’t be half that bad… unless you were responsible for the health and safety of another life.

Trust me, I’ve thought hard about what it would be like to raise a family in Central America. Obviously millions do it, but without the luxury of that safety net in times of sickness, and opportunities for their children. And while even in the States, these things aren’t guaranteed, from what I’ve seen, the endemic poverty here easily eclipses endemic poverty in the States.

So is God slightly sore of hearing? If he is, it would explain a lot of endemic poverty in families that don’t realize how badly they have it to make any fuss. If so, I say, bring on the air horns.

More than anything from the workshop I learned that I miss math in the classroom setting. Yes, about 50% of my job is designing or teaching the design of water systems, but the magic of learning something new, and problems that only have one solution is a difficult combination to resist.

One of the lecturers did have an interesting metaphor to share with us today. Imagine a bottle with one bacteria in it, but a bacteria that divides each minute. So at minute 1 we have 2, minute 2 we have 4, etc, doubling until finally, at midnight, one hour later, the bottle is filled and the population reaches the limits of its resources and fails.

The thought experiment is as follows. If the bottle is filled at midnight, when is the bottle half filled? How much time does the bacteria colony have to live?

Now, what if at this moment, when the bottle is half filled, the bacteria population suddenly discover the existence of three more, identical bottles to fill. How much time, from the half-filled moment, do the bacteria have before they completely fill all four bottles?

Compared to the span of the whole colony’s history, the bacteria have scant minutes to fix the situation once it becomes critical. And even if they are able to find what may seem like a miracle solution, it only serves to postpone the end a few more moments.

The lecturer used this as an analogy for the strain we have been putting on our environment, be it climate change, overpopulation, or over-exploitation of natural resources.

(Warning: Peace Corps soapboxing below)

Obviously, we are not as simple to model as the bacteria colony; we don’t duplicate every minute, nor are we unable to alter our behavior. That being said, we are growing as a species at an alarming pace, in the finite volume that is the Earth. And for all of our ingenuity and adaptability, from what I know of developed and undeveloped countries and human behavior, unfortunately I can only see a violent end to our unrestrained growth.

As I see it, the question that remains is how dramatic the crash, and how far we fall. This depends on how we, individually and collectively, change our behavior to mitigate and adapt to a changing world with less resources and less diversity, as that which awaits us.

Note 1: A good number of Honduras are prejudiced against frogs and toads; there is at least one species of dinner-plate sized toad that secrets a vemonous milky fluid when angry. However, there is a big lack of understanding that the vast majority of toads are friendly, wonderful creatures that at most croak loudly or urinate when picked up. There also exists a lack of understanding of the lifecycle of a toad (egg -> tadpole -> tadpole with legs -> toad).

Now I had gotten about 15 in the bag when my friend, apprehensive at the beginning, really started to get excited and wanted to catch tadpoles with his barehands as well.

Note 2: Sticking your hands into dirty ditch water goes against everything every small Honduran child is taught. And with good reason too, because puddles are much more likely to cause violent diarrhea here than in the States. Not touching a puddle here could save you quite a few uncomfortable trips to the bathroom.

But he was super excited and in a short time proved better than me at catching tadpoles. We went home with 30, weirded out the lettuce lady by asking for two of her wilted lettuce leaves (no wonder the gringita is so skinny), and now they’re being taken care of by my friend, since I am currently at a renewable energy workshop for the week. And supposedly tonight, the largest have just started forming leg buds! I am super excited.

And this time around, I live in the center of the mango growing region… The protected region of Cerro Guanacure is home to pico de pajaro mangos and algodon mangos (yellow football sized mangos shaped like parrot beaks or with a stringy texture of cotton). A small town halfway between Teguz and Cholu gives its name to the Pespire mango, a tiny but super sweet treat the size of a baby’s fist. And let’s not forget what I’ve christened the garrobo mango, mangos the size of your head, which grow in the majority of Cholutecan backyards.

Now I’m such a fan of all mangos big or small, as long as they are sweet and juicy, but this season I’d like to minimize my interaction with the garrobo mango.

Garrobo really is the name of the large iguana-like lizard native to Central America. It’s shades of grey, with spines running down its back and likes living in trees, or rooves, if it can’t find a forest. Its sharp teeth belie the fact that it is a generally skitish vegetarian, and endangered at that. (Country folk love garrobo soup, although it’s technically illegal)

Unfortunately, they’re considered somewhat of a pest in the city, as they go up into trees to feast, knocking down mangos. Now when the mango in question is a Pespire mango, the only damage is the lost fruit. But if it’s a garrobo mango, hold on to your hats and watch your heads, because that’s a recipe for a broken roof, or ni siquiera dios, a skull cracking!

In light of this, last season I volunteered to help my host family preemptively lower our garrobo mangos in order to avoid broken heads and homes. So on Saturday me and my host brother-in-law clambered upon the roof with a basket on the end of a 20ft pole. The idea is, if you position the basket correctly, and pull just right, you can pluck and catch your mango in one fell swoop and deliver it gracefully to the ground with no damage to yourself, mango, nor roof. In Theory. Well let’s just say, I really didn’t live up to my Rice engineering education because as soon as I took hold of that pole, I forgot eveything I ever learned about forces, levers, and moment arms, and the very first mango I plucked hit the basket so hard that I let the entire thing fall smack dab on the roof… and inadvertedly gifted my host family with a new window… in the celing! Needless to say, my host brother-in-law reallocated me to mango spotter, and I never touched the mango plucking pole again that season.

Including my ill-fated one, we did lower over two dozen mangos that day, which served for delicious mango juice and mango slices for a month afterward. But this summer, I think I’ll stick to letting others harvest mangos for me, and leave home-wrecking to garrobos!

Actually, according to our mission, writing IS working. We technically have three goals: 1) provide technical assistance to our host country; 2) promote understanding of Americans in Hondurans; 3) promote understanding of Hondurans in Americans. My official work is only in the first goal. The second goal is satisfied just by walking out of the house. The third could probably use some work. Hence, less guilt about taking a soft Monday in the office. (Hey, it’s supposed to be a holiday, but my office is working anyway! Silly peoples.)

First Goal

I know I’ve already written some about my work, but a recap never hurts. I officially entered Peace Corps Honduras as a Water and Sanitation Engineer. (Meaning, I graduated from a university with a degree in engineering, and people call me Ingeniera instead of Liscenciada) WatSan volunteers typically can work designing water systems, overseeing construction, training people to maintain water systems, teach environmental science. These are all water-related activities, but that’s one of the really neat things about Peace Corps; you may come in as one type of volunteer, but you can work on any project that your community feels is necessary.

Each volunteer is placed with two community partners; organizations that already work in the community with projects in your area. I officially work with SANAA, the federal water organization, and IHDER, a NGO which has projects in water. However, I also work with other organizations such as the UN, Agua Viva (NGO), and the Secretary of Agriculture. I get to pick and choose my partners.

I have replaced a long line of volunteers who have primarily worked designing water systems, but also teaching topographical surveying. Thanks to them, there are a quite a number of people in Southern Honduras who can do topographical studies in their sleep, but the design work has fallen to volunteers, engineers from the capital, or has been simply fabricated. So I have made my goal to teach the next step, engineering design.

To do this, I spent the first couple of months working with the other volunteers in the south, surveying and designing water systems. A typical survey-design job goes like this:

1. Hear about the project through a work partner, and with them go to visit the community in question, gather information about population, current water situation, general geography (with a GPS). Depending on the size of the community, it takes about half a day to a full day, first meeting with the community leaders, and then walking the whole area. It’s the easiest part for me, because you just have to put on your detective hat and know the right questions to ask. My favorite is asking the community governing board to draw a rough map of the community. You learn so much just observing how the people react. Who draws? What is included? What is left out? Does it include written labels? How is the paper and pencil/pen treated? And afterwards, everyone involved is so empowered. It astonishes me every time that such a simple exercise can be so powerful, but it is one of the most useful things that I get out of the first community visit.

2. After the community visit, there is typically information that the community needs to investigate before the survey. So generally a month passes between the visit and the survey. It also is a measure of how willing the community is to work for a system that eventually will be given to them mostly for free (their part is sweat equity).

3. The topographical survey is the second visit. I go with a Honduran work partner, and sometimes another volunteer, with a theodolite (think survey equipment used by George Washington, just a little higher tech).We spend 2-3 days walking the community, measuring the change in elevation, direction, and length of pipe that would be needed for the water system. We are also accompanied by 5-6 community members, which are indispensible in knowing who lives where, where pipes can pass, how the roads change with the weather, where cows pass, and how high streams get. More detective work.

4. Then comes the most nitpicky work of the actual design. I spend anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months inputting the raw data into a design spreadsheet that previous volunteers have made. I finagle pipe diameters, tank sizes, calculate a budget, and polish it off with a summary, and beautify the final product.

5. Depending on who the organization is, I then turn it in directly to them, or hand the community a copy. This would be the final community visit, for me at least. The organization or community then looks for a source of funding to build the project. But as I’ve only been in site for five months, none of the projects I have worked on are near the point of construction.

So that is the engineering part of my job. But lately I have switched gears. I feel comfortable with the technical process of surveying and designing a water system, comfortable enough to start teaching. In September one of the technicians I trust in the SANAA office and I started working in one community, with the purpose that he would do the design. Since then, once or twice a week, we have been working together in that. It’s been difficult, especially with the language (how do I say, move the mouse over the cell until the pointer turns into a crosshair, then double click), but super rewarding because he is respectful and really wants to learn. And hopefully he will help me teach others too.

I’m also in the planning stages of a GIS training, which has been something SANAA has wanted. And by in the planning stages, I mean I’m almost ready to download the program onto my computer to learn it myself. I will admit to dragging my feet on that one!

So that’s my official job. I work a Monday-Friday 8-9 to 3:30-5 in one of two air conditioned offices, and when I’m not in the office, I work anywhere from a 6-7 to 5-6 in the field. And sometimes, when the mood strikes, I pull all-nighters to catch up on design work. It’s a varied life.

Second Goal

The second goal is to increase understanding of America and Americans in my Honduran friends. Like I said earlier, the bare minimum of this is accomplished just by getting out of bed each morning. But in reality, it’s what gets me through the day. I don’t know what I would do without my Honduran friends, neighbors and family. There is only so much support one can get calling or corresponding with the States. Even hanging out with other volunteers can get old, and you end up feeling the call to be back with your Hondurans.

In fact, how I feel at the end of the day is usually directly related to how much interaction I have had with Hondurans.

Most of the guys in the SANAA office aren’t as talkative, but I get a lot of support from the secretary, one of the technicians, the driver, and the janitor. The other office, IHDER, is staffed primarily by women, all of whom are wonderful, chatty, and sarcastic people. It is impossible for me to leave that office in a bad mood. And the majority of the other organizations I have worked with are staffed with excellent, interesting people.

Recently I have been developing in the relationships I have in my barrio. Not just in my host family, but after a frustrating or unproductive day, I can always look forward to the walk home. There is always someone on their front porch to greet, stop, chat with, share food, etc. Just tonight I made lemon cookies with a neighbor, daughter, and three grandkids. I had shared oatmeal raisin cookies with them this weekend. I also made chocolate pecan rum pie with another neighbor. Too bad pecans are so expensive!
Really, besides chatting, food is the vehicle I use to become part of the community here. Because who doesn’t love food? Especially since the majority of my friends are middle aged women, their lives are very food-centered. So we swap recipes, chat about ways to make hamburgers, and bond.

As for actually trading culture, whenever I chat with people, I do my best to dampen any preconceptions they have about Americans. I also don’t hide my opinions about the shitty lot Honduran women have, especially when I have a male ear!

Third Goal

The third goal is sharing with Americans the life Hondurans live here. It might be the hardest, because y’all are there, I’m here, and by this point, my life feels normal, right, and not blog-worthy. Así es!

So that’s the idea of Peace Corps. Not to simply give. We offer apoyo/support, not ayuda/help. Not to simply work. A platicar (to chat), trabajar (to work) y conocer (to get to know). But in the end, after all the talk of goals, I think that we are just being paid to be good community members… to be good community members here so that we can come back to the States and be good community members there. And you know, I don’t think I really mind!

One of my sitemates (Amria, another Peace Corps volunteer living in Choluteca) just finished her two years of service. So on Thursday, a group of us southern, non-leaving volunteers went to Teguz (the capital) to wish her off (una despedida). We crashed her hotel suite, played cards, and sent her packing well equipped with a good number of hugs. It’s going to be hard to replace her… she’d mock-hate to hear me say it, but for all of her feisty personality, she was like Mother Choluteca. Que le vaya muy bien!

What does this have to do with Honduran courtesy?

First of all, it is considered impolite to not greet people on the street. The degree of rudeness depends on how rural you are. If you are really rural (dirt road, so filled with potholes you can’t drive faster than 10 mph), you are expected to wave out of the window of your pickup truck as you drive by, even to complete strangers. I still have too much pena (embarrassment) to do this, but luckily I don’t andar (go, hang out) in the campo (rural areas) alone. I leave the other Hondurans in the pickup truck to do the waving.

If you are in Choluteca (100,000 people), you have a choice to saludar (greet) people, depending on whether you are in your barrio (usual haunt), and the gender and age of the person you are saludandoing. I love being able to walk to work, see the same cast of people, and say hello (to the women, more than anyone). Makes you feel like you belong.

The type of greeting is variable, as well. You can greet people by the time of day: Buenos días/ Good morning, Buenas tardes/ Good afternoon, Buenas noches/ Good night, or abbreviating to only include the buenos/as. It seems that this one is used with people you see more frequently, or if are greeting them before you are just about to be astride them.

Another greeting is actually adios. It’s used when you are already abreast of the person, and are just acknowledging their presence as you pass. I’ve also found it to be a great shutdown to men that have been gringa-blindsided and are about to confess their undying love (literally, I lobe you), ask you to take them back to the States (me lleve a los Estados), or tell you how beautiful you are (ai mi reina/cielo/amorcita, que guapa andas). These are piropos (catcalls), and right now there isn’t much more I hate, especially when they are in English. But a well-timed adios, with a drawn-out s, has put quite a number of young high school aged boys in their places.

But my favorite part of the adios is that it opens the door for my favorite saludo. Que le vaya muy bien. That is a phrase used here and throughout Central America that I will never cease to love hearing. It’s único, (unique), formal, and doesn’t exist in English. It’s a shortened version of Ojala que le vaya muy bien; an interesting gramatical and linguistical lesson in its own right. Literally it means, “I hope that you go very well (on your journey)”. Everytime someone gives me a “que le vaya muy bien”, I purr and feel wonderfully accepted. Even better because you never know when you’ll get one, and then you get to reciprocate! Gracias, igual. Purr.

I think it’s a reflection a part of Honduran culture that we as Americans could do well to absorb. Here you are expected to take time from your thoughts to acknowledge the humanity of your fellow paisano (countryman). Personal relationships are paramount. People sit on their front porches, just platicando (chatting) for hours. They will let you borrow a phone if you don’t have one, to call the friend you are trying to meet up in that strange city. They pull you into their houses to offer you food. If you are trying to visit a friend in a strange barrio, on a strange bus, unbidden, the bus driver will ask your friend’s name, and then start asking everyone else on the bus for how to get to her house. Or if you are just at the bus stop, waiting to catch the right one going to your destination, pretty soon everybody on the side of the road will be anxiously awaiting your bus, and biting their nails with you that it is 45 minutes late.

That’s something I would like to continue to practice; taking joy in my fellow man, in wishing her well, taking 30 seconds to help out as I can, and revel with him in his small successes. It costs me nothing, and I know that when I’m in need, someone eventually be there, wishing me, que le vaya muy bien.

Que le vaya muy bien, Amira!

Lauren and Beth came to Honduras during the first week of September. For three days they were at the one large lake in Honduras, Lago Yajoa, in the north-western part of the country. They did birdwatching, wandered up into small mountain towns, met some volunteers, ate Honduran food, climbed inside a waterfall. Then Beth left, Lauren came down to Choluteca, where we explored the city, accompanied an NGO assess the potential of water project just outside the city, and played Frisbee with my counterparts in the rain. And I’ve gotten word that they returned in one piece! Here are some pictures.

Beth took this one of the lake when they went bird watching. An old English birdwatching gentleman went with them, lent them binoculars, they probably saw over two dozen different types of birds.

I really like this other one that Lauren took here… afternoon rains are just an everyday part of life May-November. Lauren took this picture during a 7-bus trip across the country. Honduras really is a beautiful country, and the long bus trips you take to get places gives you ample time to reflect on the beauty. And especially in Choluteca, some of that beauty gets lost on me, because it’s so flat, and when you live somewhere, you forget to see some of the beauty. (Like our cathedral, turtle pond, bus terminal market place, the view over the bridge).

This third photo is not from their trip, but from a visit I took to Amapala. Nothing quite like watching the sunset with a belly filled with fried fish, plantain and Honduran beer.