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Letters from the FieldAugust, 2004 - Central America Dear Friends, Greetings to you as I fly over California starting a long 2-day journey to South Africa and Botswana. It is now well over a month since my trip to Honduras and Nicaragua, but I am writing this at the prompting of different friends who have asked that I share what is going on in Central America. Often we think that everything is fine when there is no news in our papers or media, by contrast to years ago when there was daily reporting on the region. As Capacitar we are deeply committed to returning each year to friends and communities in Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador) with whom we have walked in solidarity since the mid 1980s and early 1990s. These countries have suffered greatly through the wars of the 80s, our US foreign policy and the impact of NAFTA and globalization. Capacitar really started as a heartfelt response to the Contra war in Nicaragua that greatly traumatized the region. People saw that the simple energy practices that we were teaching helped them to live with peace as they daily confronted the violence and poverty. As Capacitar we wanted to bring arms of love and healing rather than arms of destruction. Never could we have imagined that this simple desire and outreach could have grown to now be a movement touching the lives of many people on 5 continents and 25 countries. The first stop on my journey was Honduras. Because of lack of funding we have not been able to get back there for the last two years. The current reality in Honduras is very precarious—reflected in the way you arrive in the country. The Tegucigalpa airport is an adventure and a challenge to the most seasoned of pilots and passengers. Landing involves about ten minutes of terror—curving through mountains and clouds, then skimming the city at a very low altitude to quickly touch down with a bang and screech to a fast stop on a very short runway! Usually everyone applauds the pilot at touchdown. I vacillate between holding all the acupressure points and fingers I teach for managing fear and panic, or I imagine myself on a rollercoaster enjoying the terror and thrill of it all! My host and dear friend, Gladys Lanza, Director of Centro Visitación Padilla, was at the airport with smiles and tears to meet me. Gladys is a remarkable woman of deep faith and charisma who has worked for the rights of the poor all of her life. During the 1980s Gladys was the highest-ranking union leader in Central America and head of the popular movements of Honduras. I remember when I first met Gladys in the late 80s I was afraid of her—this was one fierce powerful woman! I again met Gladys in 1994 after the political powers had destroyed her union, firebombed her home, and held her in a torture chamber for several days She was battered in spirit, without a job, working as a volunteer with the women's movement of Visitación Padilla. She had come to my first Capacitar training in Tegucigalpa and quickly discovered that she had great healing energy in her hands. My favorite image for Gladys is that of Quan Yin, the fierce Compassionate One of China. A group of women had just lost their jobs, so Gladys went to the bank to demand severance pay for the women, and at the same time she was consoling a woman who had fainted with massage on the floor of the bank. As Gladys and I departed the airport, we saw that many streets were barricaded with military and police on guard with shields, water cannons and tear gas canisters. Thousands of teachers' were demonstrating demanding the return of their few benefits that were being taken from them. On the news later that evening we saw images of thousands of teachers walking in from the countryside to the capital to be part of this demonstration. Glady's daughter, Diosana, is a teacher at the University. When I asked her about salaries she laughed. Even the most credentialed teacher makes only about $125 a month. The benefits that were being take away amounted to a $25 pay raise after 5 or 10 years in the profession. Besides the teachers' strike, medical professionals and doctors were also on strike for similar reasons. And a large environmental demonstration was going on with tens of thousands of rural people walking into the capital demanding the change in policies that were quickly destroying the environment. Vast sections of forest have been cut down by multinationals. Mining companies and manufacturers continuously dump toxins into the rivers so that many more people are suffering from skin cancers and other debilitating illnesses. Currently Honduras is considered to be the poorest and most corrupt country in the region (outside of Haiti). At the same time Honduras is very rich in minerals and natural resources. Honduras has both plutonium and undeveloped oil reserves. The plutonium is extracted by a US corporation and shipped to America (under top security), And the oil deposits were just inspected by Jeb Bush the week before I arrived. Interestingly there are four US military bases in Honduras. Two years ago when I was in Bogota, Colombia, the director of an aid organization showed me a map of the region and made the comment. If you place the map of the regions of violence over the map of natural resources you will understand why the conflict zones around the drug trade are where they are. I think you could imagine the same for Honduras in a generalized way. Currently there are very conflictive violent areas where families implicated in the drug trade are being massacred. Interestingly these are also areas where the resources are the greatest and people are driven off their lands. The violence seems to continuously escalate. With very high unemployment and the cost of living ever increasing, people live without basic good and are desperate. So their one way of surviving and earning is through the trafficking or selling of drugs. A powerful new movie that I highly recommend is "Maria Full of Grace". It is the story of Maria who becomes a "mule"—carries capsules of heroin in her stomach from Colombia to America to earn money to get her out of the desperate life of her small village. This could be the story of thousands of Marias in the countries where we are working who have no other options but selling drugs or their sexuality. In the midst of all this reality, the spirit of the Honduran people continues to inspire me. One of the workshops I facilitated was for a group of barrio women who are being trained by center Visitacion Padilla to work with domestic violence. The women have worked out ways to support the women and children suffering from abuse in their communities. Another workshop was with the "abuelas", the grandmothers. Most of these women had worked hard all their live and had been dismissed from their jobs. Gladys has been their angel, getting them retirement, helping them have a sense of self worth, helping them to organize as a community of older women. The grandmothers were actually just a couple of years older than me ranging in age from 65 to 90 and all had remarkably strong spirits. They had all lived hard lives, so they suffered from poor health, depression and many chronic illnesses. They loved moving, and laughing and singing. So we had a wonderful time! At this workshop was a whole family—the mother Reina who is part of the staff of Visitacion Padilla, and her four daughters (ages 12 to 18). They all do Tai Chi together and the different Capacitar practices and have grown in so much love and respect as a family. One of the great problems currently facing Honduras is AIDS. Honduras has the highest HIV rate in the region with about 57,000 persons with AIDS (2001 statistic). Efforts are now being made in prevention, to education people and to begin testing. As Capacitar we are looking for funding to begin the kinds of trainings we are doing in Africa with AIDS groups and we hope to start these trainings in July 2005 with a Spanish version of our AIDS manual. We will train a team of trainers who will then multiply our methods with many local communities. My second stop on this trip was Nicaragua, where Capacitar began. It is always wonderful to be with Anabel Torres, Director of CANTERA, and Mary Hartman, who is the person who inspired me to work in Nicaragua. I always tease Mary that she is to blame for Capacitar. Mary, who just turned 75, is a wonderful Sister of St. Agnes who has dedicated all of her life to the poor of Central America. Like Honduras Nicaragua struggles with great poverty, violence and all the social ills endemic in Latin American societies who were under control of dictators and then passed through bloody wars. Yet the Nicaraguan spirit is strong and vibrant. Our workshops were with popular educations centers who are committed to empowering the people. CANTERA began when Capacitar began, so we think of ourselves as sister organizations. Using a popular education methodology, CANTERA is committed to empowering rural and urban poor communities, to learn the skills they need to lead and be light in their areas. Our CANTERA workshop focused on work with "shadow". My good friend and colleague, Lynn Kapitan, Ph.D. is president of the Art Therapy Association in the US. Yearly we design courses that integrate Capacitar energy practices and art therapy around a theme and theory that will be relevant to the people. Last year's course was on reconciliation and forgiveness. This year's course was a continuation with a look at owning and empowering the shadow (the light and darkness of our persons, as well as our societies) a la Jungian psychology. There is incredible hunger for these trainings in what we call Spirituality and Leadership—so 90 people enrolled in this course. We have many great friends in Nicaragua who are using the work of Capacitar. Martha Cabrera, Director of Centro Antonio Valdivieso has received funds for another publication of the Spanish version of my book Trauma Healing and Transformation. A British foundation funded the last publication there, and now a Canadian foundation will support this version. We are basing this publication on the version developed by American Friends Service Committee AFSC in Bogota, Colombia who published a Latin American version of my book there. So it's great to see this book and the stories of many people getting to different countries and communities. Well my flight to London is preparing for boarding, so I will close for now. PS. Our first US Capacitar Gathering in San Diego California was truly wonderful. We had 48 women and 1 man from 10 states and Mexico attending. Almost half of the group was Spanish speaking, so we did the conference bi-lingually. Coming together were Capacitar multipliers and teams from the US Mexican border communities, Appalachia, Midwestern communities. A true celebration of the global spirit of Capacitar. PS2. Be sure to log onto our new Capacitar website: www.capacitar.org. More photos will soon be added to this wonderful new site!
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