Who Deserves the Better Home?

As you know, La Ceiba and the rest of Honduras, is a third world country with appalling rates of poverty, a severe lack of basic services like potable water and decent housing and gaping holes in the education (and availability thereof) system.

There is also an increasing level of visible and active organized religions, primarily Catholic but increasingly there are various Evangelical groups. I am grossly uneducated regarding just how many religions there are, their specific names and how they function but at the same time, I’ll just state my basic philosophy regarding organized religion. Bluntly.

I am a casually practising Pagan, with a basic belief in the Mother Earth and my immediate connection with Her. Mutual respect is my primary ethic and because of this I expect myself to respect other people’s religious and spiritual choices. I honestly believe that each person’s choice of personal belief is based on the premise of providing themselves with a form of assistance, comfort and support through either private rituals or group practises. I also regard this as a primarily positive endeavour on the part of the individual.

There are times that I find myself highly frustrated with the fact that though religion may be a great theory, it is only as good as the individuals involved.

Colonia Miramar is one of the poorer barrios in La Ceiba, located at the west end of the beach area.

Barrio Ingles is equally poor though somewhat more centrally located, on the beach and bordered by a sewage canal. Both neighbourhoods are near to where I live and I frequently walk through the streets and am a witness to the varying levels of housing that people survive, and only occasionally thrive, in.

The poorest homes are small, with marginal security and appear to be not terribly weather proof, to put it mildly. I take a lot of photographs during my “walking adventures” yet at the same time find myself unwilling to intrude or impose myself on the local people. Yes, I feel marginally shamed by the fact that I am (technically) a rich gringa and also regard it as incredibly rude to snap pictures of living conditions thus embarrassing or exposing the people living in same. That said, I still manage to acquire a broad spectrum of real photographs.

I recently strolled down a new road for me, in the impoverished Miramar barrio and discovered a huge, newly constructed, highly secure and well maintained “iglesia” (church) for a local religious group.

I am completely incensed when I think of the money involved in this structure and its grounds, for the comfort and ease of its membership when I think of all of the men, women and children, in this very same barrio, who would honestly benefit from clean drinking water, proper tin roofs, real doors and even windows in their own small homes!

This is something that I cannot respect, regardless of my ethics and even though it happens all over the world, for numerous self absolving reasons, I actively resent being a witness to such a misplaced waste of time, energy and money. All I can think of is the good that could be accomplished if these same people actually went into their own (or adopted) community and physically practised what they profess to believe.

I also acknowledge that there are many religious people in this country who do actively practise what they preach, and I do respect them and thank them for their efforts. So I’m not completely on a rip and tear rant here folks, just blunt like I said I would be.