Honduras is open for business

May 9, 2011

Another win for the bus. Today I spent most of the bus ride talking with a local guy who had been to the US. He is my age and was on the bus with his pregnant girlfriend or wife (the were a very cute couple). We started off talking about whether I like Honduras and how the weather compares to Texas and North Carolina - he lived in Dallas and Raleigh – but I wanted to know more about current events from a his perspective

I have been reading the news paper, and there as been a lot of press about a recent international business forum in Honduras titled “Honduras is open for business”. The press coverage made the forum sound perfect. They dropped words like sustainability and went on about supporting small business. They tossed around jokes about reelections (a touchy subject after the coup), and put up a spectacular show of security to demonstrate to investors that their investment will be safe here. It really looks perfect in the news papers, but my googling makes it sound a little less magical. It seems like the nay saying stems from post-coup issues and a history of parasitic foreign banana plantation investors (the US). I wanted to know if locals think it will be as good as the news papers say. He seemed optimistic and thinks it is a good step forward, but I was surprised to hear that he thinks many Hondurans aren’t interested. He said they think, “I don’t need that. I’ll just go to the US.”

Then he shared with me what that experience was like for him. He estimated that 25% of those who try to go survive. Not that 25% make it there, that 25% survive. Sounds a little steep, but either way, I think it conveys the point. I wasn’t surprised by his story after reading... or skimming... Enrique's Journey, but there is something much more heart wrenching about hearing it directly from the source. He said people talk about going to the US like it’s easy and just around the corner. He spoke heatedly out how they needed to understand that it’s a dangerous and terrifying journey. He’d never do it again.

He told me a little about the jobs he had in the US and his nephews who are in school there. Then he asked me why the police who are Latino were harder on him that the gringos. He said he was surprised that the guys who didn’t speak his language where better to him than the ones who did. I took a guess but said I really couldn’t say since I’m not them. It was a difficult question. I helped him practice a little English and encouraged him to keep trying.

I still don't know what I think about the forum.