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Copán Ruinas, a beautiful town
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Copán
Ruinas is the name a town located in the mountainous West of Honduras,
about 10 miles from the border with Guatemala. The streets are cobble
stoned and most houses are built in the typical colonial style from
the time the Spanish had conquered the country. The one-story buildings
have thick walls made of adobe (a sort of unbaked brick made of
mud). The windows are covered with metal grills. The whitewashed
walls, the deep red roof tiles and the almost always blue sky make
the town look like a happy place to live.
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In the town of Copán
Ruinas live about 7,000 people. More than half of them are children
under 12 years old. In the whole municipality live about 30,000
people. So most people live in one of the 88 small villages around
Copán Ruinas. Some villages are so small, they only exist
of just a few houses. Some villages are easy accessible, because
they re located close to the roads. Others are very hard
to get to, especially in the rainy season when tiny creeks convert
in wild rivers.
The green dots on the map are villages where the indigenous Maya
Chortí people live.
The red dots stand
for villages where latino people live, in other words, people
of mixed indigenous and Spanish blood. The whole municipality
is only about 40 miles long, from North to South, but the roads
are so bad, the trip takes about four hours by car!
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Copán
Ruinas is a very poor municipality
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Copán
Ruinas is one of the poorest municipalities of Honduras. You wouldn'
t say so when you walk around this town, because it looks really nice.
There are many restaurants, hotels and souvenir stores. That s because
Copán Ruinas has one main advantage over other towns in Honduras:
It's a tourist destination! Not so much the town itself, but the ancient
Maya ruins located less than a mile from the centre of town. Every
year, thousands of tourists from all over the world visit the archaeological
park of Copán.
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So how
come Copán Ruinas is still one of the poorest municipalities
in the country? Well, good question...
Unfortunately in many Latin American countries, most of the land
is owned by a very small group of very rich people while the majority
of the people in Honduras are very poor and have to work hard to
make enough money for the basic necessities. The rich people make
a lot of money with the crops they grow on their land. The result
is that the poor become poorer every day,and the rich become richer!
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The
indigenous Maya Chortí people
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You
have probably heard about the maya indians. Most maya peoples live
in Guatemala and Mexico. In Copán there's a group of maya
people called the maya chortí. These maya chortí belong
to the poorest inhabitants of Copán. That is because for
many years they were looked down upon because the were "just
indians". They worked as cheap labourers on the coffee plantations
for the rich landowners.
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These
days, the Maya Chortí feel no longer ashamed to be an indigenous
people. They're even proud to be Maya. Little by little they are
recovering their traditions and customs that were lost because they
hadn't practiced them for many years. The biggest problem of the
Maya Chortí is that they have not enough land to grow their
crops. That's a bit strange, if you think of the fact that it is
the heritage of their ancestors, the famous ruins of Copán,
that now bring so much money into town.
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The
government finally agrees and after years of struggle, land occupations
and demonstrations by the Chortí, the government is now buying
land for the Chortí.
So the Chortí are happy and satisfied? Not quite, because
the process of getting titles to the land takes a long, long time
and often the pieces of land are not very good to grow crops or
are located in forested areas that are protected. But at least the
government recognizes the rights of the indigenous people.
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Time to go to school!
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Every
child has the right to go to school. In Honduras too. Every child
is obliged to attend six years of primary education, followed by
three years of high school. But does that happen? No. In the town
of Copán Ruinas, the situation is not too bad. There are
three elementary schools in town. The biggest one, the public school,
has so many students that the children no longer fit in the building.
That's why they go to school in shifts: The first shift is from
7.00am till noon, the second one from noon till 5.00pm.
Every grade counts about forty students. There are not many supplies.
The government supplies the building, books, desks and chairs. Anything
else, the children have to bring themselves. Even brooms to sweep
the classroom!
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In
the small villages around Copán Ruinas, the situation is
far worse. Often there's only one teacher for up to sixty students,
divided over six grades! Imagine to sit with you classmates in
a dark classroom without electricity, sharing a small desk between
three of your friends! No games, no art supplies, no science or
craft corner and much less a computer or television! Often, the
children don't even have a backpack or notebook! And could you
imagine yourself attending class for five hours straight with
an empty stomach because there was no food at home to make breakfast?
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Favourite Food in Copán
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Honduran
food is probably very different from what you eat in your country.
You might not be used to having a hot lunch. Or tortillas???
For most Hondurans, maize is the most important nutrient. Made into
small pancakes or tortillas, it fills the stomach and also
functions at cutlery! You take the tortilla in your right
hand and scoop up some of the rest of your meal!
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for Hondurans is mostly tortillas with beans and a scrambled
eggs. Lunch is the most important meal of the day. It sometimes includes
fried plantains, some meat, rice, beans again and of course tortillas.
At night there's beans again, tortillas, some white cheese and cream. |
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Presenting:
Alberto!
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Children
are children. All over the world you'll see children play hide and
seek or kids who don't feel like doing their homework. What makes
children in Honduras so different? Truth is, the children aren't any
different, it's just the way they live that is different from yours.
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Look at Alberto. He's
eight years old and lives with his family in a small village just
outside of Copán Ruinas, called La Pintada. From his house,
high up a mountain, he has a gorgeous view over the ruins of Copán.
Alberto's home is hardly a house. It's made of sticks, covered
with mud and straw. The roof is made of palm leaves and it leaks
when it rains very hard. Crawly creatures like giant spiders and
scorpions like to make their nests in the palm leaves too. There
are no real beds in this house. Alberto's father has made some
frames of wood with banana leaves woven in between. In one bed
his parents sleep with the two babies. In the other bed sleeps
Alberto with his older brother and younger sister.
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Alberto wakes
up
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When
Alberto wakes up at 5.30am, his mom has been up for a while. She
has already been to the creek to haul water and now she's grinding
maize to make tortillas. Alberto puts on his only pair of pants
and shirt and leaves his home to pee in the bush. When he comes
back, his mom asks him to haul more water for coffee. Alberto sighs,
but he has no choice. "And do clean your ears when you're down
at the creek!" his mom yells after him. Alberto picks up a
plastic jug and goes down the steep path leading to the creek. This
chore really isn't too bad, he thinks. It is so beautiful here,
this early in the morning. A mist hangs over the valley, birds sing
and a few rabbits start running when they see Alberto coming.
When he gets to the creek, Alberto fills the jug and washes his
face. He should take off all his clothes and give himself a good
scrub, as his mom always tells him, but it is quite chilly this
morning and Alberto feels a bit lazy. So he splashes some water
on his hair and walks back up the path, as slowly as he can, so
his mom will think he had a thorough bath.
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Alberto's mom has lit
the fire in the hut and pours water from the jug in a big pot hanging
over the fire. She then pours some coffee, sugar and then she starts
making tortillas by turning little balls of maize dough in small
pancakes. She then toasts the tortillas over the fire, turning them
every once in a while. Then the coffee is ready. Alberto finds a
plate, serves himself two tortillas with beans and a mug
of steamy, sweet coffee. Delicious!
It's time to go to school. Alberto looks for his notebook and chewed
up pencil. He's a bit worried, because his notebook is almost full
and there isn't any money to buy a new one. He hasn't asked yet,
but yesterday he mentioned that the teacher had scolded him for
not wearing shoes, because the ones he has are way too small. His
mom had said that he would have to wait until the end of the month.
"That is", she said, "if your father finds work..."
Alberto sighs and leaves for school. To him it hardly matters. He
can play soccer even better without shoes and he's planning on winning
a game today!
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Development work
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Because many poor countries
face serious difficulties, they are often helped out by richer,
more developed countries. This is called development work and as
the word says, the idea is that the country develops. In a country
with hunger you can feed a thousand people, but as soon as the food
is finished, the problem starts all over again. It is important
to solve the cause of the problem, not just the symptoms, and also
that people learn how to help themselves. In stead of giving a person
a fish for dinner, you can better teach that person to fish. That
way he can arrange for his dinner himself, every day.
Such a project would have much more result on the long term and
that's why we call it sustainable development work. Of course, if
a disaster happens such as an earthquake or hurricane, people need
medicine and food immediately. But in the end, sustainable development
work is much more successful.
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The
organization Arte Acción does a very special kind
of development work. Arte Acción organizes all kinds
of fun activities for kids, such as art classes, photo workshops,
theatre presentations and video productions made by and for children.
It s true: an art class doesn't make you less hungry and practicing
acrobatics for a few hours doesn't help you to get rid of parasites.
But it does make you happy! Most children in Honduras have a lot
of responsibilities at home. They help looking after their brothers
ands sisters; they look for firewood in the forest; sell tortillas
in the streets or work in the field. At Arte Acción
they can be kids for a few hours and enjoy real kids things. Children
in Honduras usually don't have a lot of self esteem. They're poor,
have hardly any clothes to wear and some have trouble reading and
writing. So they feel less capable than other kids. But in the arts,
all that doesn't matter! Anyone can make a beautiful drawing or
sing a song! You don't have to be rich to do so! And by having fun
in the arts, the children also become more secure and confident.
At the same time, the children learn to look at the world in a different
way. In the arts there is no limit and nothing is just black and
white. Painting and acting helps to grow children's imagination,
and that is what you need in order to dream. Because without dreams,
there is no hope for the future!!!
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