Nuff Ting Gwon: Photography, Film & Adventure: Machine Guns & Cute Kids

Machine Guns & Cute Kids

0 Comments Published by Ster on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 at 5:54 AM.

Cool shot I took on a beach

Hello again everyone. It’s been a couple of months since my last entry so I thought I’d throw up another posting. I just read that only 50% of people who set up a blog continue to post after 6 months. I don’t want to become a statistic. Here we go.

This time I’d like to write about a recent trip Samantha and I took to Honduras to visit her mom who just bought a beautiful piece of island property there and has been living there on her sail boat for the last half year or so. I had emailed some of you a while ago, but since then I have got new pictures developed so I’ll post up my new pictures.

We visited the Bay Island Area just off the coast of the mainland. This region possesses beauty beyond belief. However, it also has many of Central America’s worst problems. For starters, Honduras is the poorest country in Central America. It is plagued with an awful AIDS outbreak and in many parts it has an excessive crime rate. There is a strong weapons culture there and many people carry around guns and machetes. When disputes break out (even minor disputes) they are often settled with violence. People coming from developed countries are strongly urged to exercise caution at all times. There are a long list of rules, most of which we didn’t abide by, for foreigners to follow. Foreigners are not to take economy buses as they are sometimes run off the road by criminals and the victims robbed. There have also been numerous shootings and stabbings on these busses. When you take a taxi you need to ensure you’re driver locks all doors and agrees not pick up any other passengers while you’re in the cab. While at stop lights in busy intersections it’s not uncommon to be robbed. Even in the bay islands, although the crime rate is lower, theft, kidnapping, murder and pirating still take place. This is due, in large part, to poor infrastructure, government and police corruption. Unfortunately, most violent acts go unpunished, which in turn keeps criminals on the street and crime rates high. The police have even instituted a special police force to protect foreigners as they are often the target of many of the nations crimes. They have also instituted another leg of policing where men which machine guns patrol the streets to help the police deter violent behavior. Here is a shot I took while we were driving through a city called Coxen Hole, a place the US Department of State says to avoid at all cost after sundown.

Here is another picture in Coxen Hole of a small girl pulling a boy on a bike. While we were there, I notice countless kids roaming the streets by themselves. In fact, seeing anyone over the age of 40 was rare.

Here are some more pictures of kids that I took while we were on our adventures.

I feel strongly that a large part of traveling should be about self education, especially when traveling to less developed countries. Too often, foreign travelers construct and artificially boundary between themselves and the locals. Often this is done of fear and it may seem like safe rational behavior at the time. However, you are giving up on such a life altering opportunity to see how other people really live. Likewise, I don’t feel that you’re that much safer if you’ve alienated yourself from locals. Feelings of criminal bitterness and resentment, coupled with hunger make you an easy target. It’s not easy to get involved in the local community especially if you can only speak English, but its worth it’s worth a try. Samantha and I were fortunate enough to have met a great family while we were in a city called French harbor. This family consisted of a single mother and 6 children. The husband was an alcoholic and left the family to fend for themselves. Samantha and I brought money and toys for from Canada for this family. They are in a remote part of a remote island and there is no way that international aid reaches such ghettos.

This family was squatting on a property near the bottom of the harbor. In fact, the area we docked our boat in was all squatters. People construct their own houses and don’t pay rent. In this case, this family lived underneath one of the houses on dirt floor. Considering the circumstances it was a very clean place. However, you can’t help but realize that there is no sewage system and these people are literally living amongst their own sewage.

I didn’t get too many picture of this neighborhood as my video camera is worth more than 3 years salary for some of these people. We were already drawing too many looks and comments. I just remember it being a sight that will not leave my memory for the rest of my life. Here is a shot of the street that leads to the house of the kids above. You can see where they live below the house at the end of this street.

After our visit with this family, two of the young boys came back to the boat and we took them snorkeling. After hanging out for a bit over food and juice we and asked how we can send them money to help pay for their education. Unfortunately, in this case, it wasn’t possible. They are squatters and don’t have an address or a bank account. Sending money is virtually impossible. Here is a picture of us gearing up to go snorkeling.

During the first nights of our stay, I was being kept awake at night because I could hear gun shots, sometimes machine gun fire and other noises, which I’ll be honest, scared the wits out of me. We were in the middle of nowhere, hanging out with squatters, and there we’re no other tourists around. We were neglecting every point made on the US Department of State website regarding safe travel in the area. After, the first few days, I started feeling much more comfortable. Even the gunshots stopped bothering me (I found out that it’s common for people get drunk and shot their gun off in the water or air).

My princess on the deck of the boat at night & me discovering how cool night vision is!

Below is a picture at sunset of a monstrous shipwrecked boat that had crashed into the mainland. Just the skeleton of the boat is left, You can get a feel for how huge this wreck is by counting the floors of the ship.

I don’t want to go on about the hardships of the island for too long, because in all fairness, more good happens then bad. And while poverty and inequality are everywhere, there is also a sense of community, sharing and resourcefulness that I’ve yet to see a developed country possess on the same level that exists on the island. Family bonds are tight, neighbors both know one another and help one another and people laugh and dance on the streets.

While we were in the country we had to change our style of living as well. For one, no more showering. All bathing needed to be done either in the rain, or the ocean as did all your laundry. Here is a picture of me showing in the rain while at the same time washing my shorts. You’ll notice in all my pictures I’m wearing the same clothes. That’s not because all pictures were all taken on the same day. I didn’t change. In fact, I gave all my clothes away to Patrick and his brothers. I was left with a sweater, a t-shirt, shoes and the cargo shorts you’ll see in all of the pictures. So this is how we shower and do the laundry at the same time (yes I'm using dish soap)…

We don’t have many pictures of us wearing much in terms of clothes. I just lived in shorts, Samantha wore her bathing suit and Sam’s mom, as usual… was naked quite often.

In terms of eating, we’d often catch our own food while we were sailing. Louis (Sam's moms boyfriend/ soulmate) and I would go lobster and crab fishing with either spears or try to catch them with our hands. Those days snorkeling with Louis amongst barracuda, tuna, blow fish and parrot fish were some are some of the most awe inspiring, breath taking views I’ve ever seen. Perfect visibility under water. Often, just snorkeling in about 10 feet of water, with the sun hitting our backs and casting great reflections through the crystal clear aqua ocean water, onto the white sand ocean floor. Pieces of coral would stick up and sometimes large formations would form for us to go and explore. It was just Lou and I out for a few hours at a time, swimming under water trying to hold our breath for as long as possible while looking for lobsters and hoping the barracuda to our left wouldn’t snatch our catch away before we get to the surface.

During our walks one sunny day, we found a place to go “jungle jumping”. Jungle jumping consists of a group of guys driving you up a mountain, then you jump from one part of the canopy to the next. It’s a pretty make shift operation as you can see with the tilted wood platform hanging off the tree. But it was fun, and everyone lived.

At the end of every night we’d always have a little party. Some nights if we were in the city we’d head down to a bar on the beach and hang out around a camp fire.

For the last few days of our trip Samantha and I went scuba diving twice a day. That’s a whole other story so I won’t get into it now but for those of you seeking a rush I highly recommend checking out scuba diving. Below is a picture of the kids we hung out while diving.

So that’s my very brief summery of my trip to Roatan, Honduras. I’m not going to end this post with the stock comments of “we are so fortunate to live in Canada”. I think that’s pretty obvious. I also want to say that much of what was said on the US governments website was a bit exagerated. There are many places within Honduras which are completely safe. The west end in Roatan is one of those places. It's actually an island paradise and I would highly consider living there myself.

However, what I do want to encourage is for those of you who are planning a trip to Central or South America to take the time and try to find families who need help. Contrary to popular belief, poverty more often then not, has a friendly face and you don’t need to endanger yourself to find people living in sub par conditions. I think Sam’s mom and Louis are setting a great example by helping families wherever they go. In Cuba they became close to a family with an expecting mother. They were all out of room in the current living situation so Sam’s mom came back to Canada, asked her friends for $20 each and helped the family build an attachment to their home. The whole thing cost $300 (Cubans are very resourceful). The last time my good friend Caroline went to Cuba she brought medicine, clothes and toys for less developed parts of the country. It’s too easy to flock to Havana or Veradero and drink cheap rum, hang out on white sand beaches. Such a vacation can often be accomplished by bringing a micky of Captain Morgan’s to the nearest beach on a sunny day. The ubiquitous travel template is ignorant, self indulgent and lacks a sense of creativity. If you want to see a great documentary about this issue see "Life and Debt" by Stephanie Black . It's a Jamaican travel documentary that captures the horrible effects that the unawareness of foreigners within the country has on the people. The travel industry in Jamaica herds its visitors like sheep in the hopes of not allowing their visitors to see that 99.9% of Jamaica is really like. Often the only Jamaican visitors they meet are the rare tourist industry worker with their Hawaiian shirt and smile on. You are given a gross misrepresentation of what Jamaica really is.

Now, I’m not calling for you rename your vacation to “humanitarian aid week where we have no fun” and I’m not asking for you to find your vacations on http://www.give-my-money-away-and-avoid-beaches-while-staying-in-the-shade.com/ . I enjoy having me feet in the sand, and getting a tan just as much as the next guy. I just think with the advent of global travel we must take it upon ourselves to make sure we are being fair to the residents of the places we are visiting.

Well, that turned into a preachy rant! Sorry about that. Let’s get back to the pictures. Here are some other pictures of various things that I took while we were there.