A Gringa No Brasil

Tomorrow and Friday I had planned a workshop for the high school teachers. I’ve been talking about this idea with my counterpart, the high school principal, since October, and we started planning it in early February. It seemed straight forward enough – we would do a two-day workshop for all of the 11^th grade teachers on Project Citizen, a program that teaches the students about public policy and helps them become more active citizens.

Last year, I taught Project Citizen with one of the 11^th grade teachers, but one of the big problems I had with her was scheduling. Every few weeks, the school changes modules so I regularly changed what day and time I showed up to co-teach the class with her. Because of strikes, we lost a lot of class time, and when classes resumed, the modules had changed again; the teacher I was working with no longer had class scheduled with the Project Citizen students so I was forced to attempt to teach it on my own during occasional recess periods. Needless to say, this made the kids resent me even more, and the project eventually bombed because of all of the scheduling difficulties.

This year, to avoid all of that mess, I wanted to hold the workshop so that all of the 11^th grade teachers would be on the same page. That way, if they don’t finish the project before the end of a certain module, another teacher can pick up where they left off. I met with the principal, and we figured out which days would work best. I also called my Peace Corps supervisors so that they could come to present at the workshop along with a representative from an NGO that also works with Project Citizen. We planned to hold the workshop at the end of March, which is a little over a month after classes began for the year. Even though the Project Citizen curriculum should only take about three months to complete, I wanted to get the workshop done early so they could begin as soon as possible. Teacher strikes happen every year, but usually later in the school year. I was hoping to get everything rolling before strikes could interfere.

But alas, the strikes have already begun, and the workshop that was planned for tomorrow and Friday has now been indefinitely postponed. The teachers are striking because the government wants to change how the educational system is run. Right now it’s all managed at the national level, but they want to make it the responsibility of the municipal governments. As a Municipal Development Volunteer, I’m supposed to be supporting local government, but I can see why the teachers would be upset about this change. Local governments are typically very political party oriented. Whichever candidate wins the mayoral election, all of the other municipal employees are typically from the same party, regardless of whether or not they are actually qualified. In some municipalities, this means that if the party changes, so does every single staff member in the town hall. The teachers are afraid that if the educational system becomes “municipalized”, they’ll be looking for a new job every four years (after every election). Congress will be voting on the decentralization law in April. Also, apparently some of them haven’t been paid since last year.

Teachers, students, and Zelayistas (the people that are against the current government because of the coup that happened against Mel Zelaya in June 2009, also known as “The Resistance”) have all been gathering in Tegucigalpa and other major cities. They’ve set up road blocks on several main highways and roads throughout the country. People participating in protests and marches are often seen carrying sticks, shovels, rocks, etc. They’ve damaged lots of cars and several fast food restaurants - the fast food chains are usually targeted because they are all from the U.S., and the U.S. government backs the current Honduran government. Yesterday it got even more violent when people started throwing Molotov cocktails. Riot police have intervened on several occasions with tear gas. A team of people was selected to mediate talks with the heads of the teachers’ unions, but it doesn’t seem as if this situation is going to be resolved any time soon.

The Peace Corps Safety and Security Coordinator has been great about keeping us updated through text messages, and there are updates every day in the news. Here in Cantarranas, life continues as normal, with the exception that classes have been canceled until who knows when. Most of the teachers from the high school actually live in Teguz, so they’ve been protesting there rather than here. Needless to say, I haven’t been visiting Teguz lately.