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It’s been two weeks now since I was thrown in at the deep end as a volunteer and by now I have three jobs, at least a hundred sons and daughters, and a treasury of experiences.

During my first week I felt deeply distressed, overwhelmingly affected by the misery, the poverty and the desperate harshness of this society. It’s so overpowering that you cannot possibly get away from it, except by jumping into a plane and heading back home.

Tossing and turning in my bed, trying to find answers, frustrated with the wealthier locals, some of whom deliberately turn away from a street child holding his hands out, powerless because I lack the resources and the love to staunch the unbearable suffering, enraged by the lack of interest of the arrogant, decadent West. Many a time, I bit a hole in my pillow to hold back the tears.

By now the crying is done, though in fact hardly tears enough: a crying fit lasting barely forty five minutes, requiring only little over half a roll of toilet paper.

I am once again capable of feeling the joy that is also present every day, but I cannot say I am unreservedly happy here. Sometimes I am despondent at the end of a tough day, sometimes too exhausted to get up in the morning. Usually though, things go better and I bike to work, humming a tune. I invite a street kid to come along for some food and enjoy the love and attention the children offer me.

Rhythm comes into play now. In the morning the heaviest task awaits me: the nutrition center. Over a third of Honduran children suffer severe malnourishment but nevertheless parents want large families because they represent the only guarantee for their old age. Pensions, insurance, allowance, are all unheard of; one reproduces with zeal, in the hope that the offspring will take care of their parents until death. Unfortunately, due to a lack of money, many of these parents are incapable of feeding their children, and some of them are still youths themselves, who have had a little ‘accident’ and cannot bear responsibility for a baby.

Every day I am stained with turds and dirt and pee and often when I walk out of the center I vow to myself that I’ll never return but whenever I walk back in, a chorus of 22 little mouths starts repeating a rhythmic ‘papa, papa, papa’ refrain and within seconds I have melted and am re-conquered. Only women are employed in the place and everything that even remotely smells and behaves like men is relentlessly harassed.

As soon as I sink down in the play area, I am literally attacked by a cluster of tiny creatures. There are, among others, the sisters Yuliza and Jessica, five and four years old respectively. Despite their young age these little girls are, stunningly, grotesque with an almost laughable ugliness. Inevitably, whenever I look at them, I am flabbergasted that such an immense ugliness can accumulate in so small a face. Little Yuliza and the 70 year old shriveled ladies in Grozny, Chechnya, that one can sometimes see on TV when the Russians have dropped another bomb, are like two peas in a pod and smaller sister Jessica remarkably resembles a random hungry homeless grandmother in a Bosnian refugee camp. Yuliza has decided that I am her father and as a consequence she invariably tries to crawl on top of me, enthusiastically putting to use her latest discovery that she can stay there longest when she stretches her whole body all over my knees, jamming my left side between her legs while having my right side in a hold with her shoulders. Just consider that simultaneously some twelve other toddlers try the same trick and you can imagine that I’m regularly in wrestling matches to extricate myself from the pack of young creatures.

The majority are still in the diaper phase and because we lack the resources to purchase a range of sizes, all we can offer is a cheap imitation of the medium disposable, so that half of the kids are wrapped in too small, and the other half in too large a nappy.

Those having a tight fit must strain harshly, and, once they have managed, an impressive stream of faeces escapes via thighs and lower back. Those having a loose fit are leading a more airy life and in their case the afore-mentioned stool-stream can freely flow all over the baby’s body. Salient detail is the fact that due to severe food shortage, belly parasites, and, in some cases, typhoid, without exception the children suffer heavy diarrhoea. Give them an hour and the entire play area is tainted, me included, however hard I struggle to keep out of range.

For ten days I managed to escape the unpleasant task of diaper changing, sneakily jumping at the dishwashing when the time was right, a job infinitely more enticing than cleaning 22 pairs of soiled bottoms, but then Katja, the Belgian volunteer, merrily asked if I was ready to dedicate myself to this core business of baby care. I could not possibly refuse, so I courageously decided to be a modern man and take on all the formerly female duties. With brisk determination I entered the nursery. Every one who is a mother, father, aunt, uncle or who has ever changed a diaper in whatever function, knows how intense an odour babies can bring forth out of those miniscule bodies. Well, in our nursery twenty-two of these bodies, all having nutritional trouble, get together to make their contribution.

Panic.I simply had a panic attack.so the ladies have now given me diaper dispensation and full of enthusiastic gratitude I wrestle myself through an enormous pile of dishes while less than ten yards from me the most scary scenes take place. Those who are clean totter towards me and as a fully-qualified father, diaper fear included, I carry the freshly smelling toddler to his bed, sing Father Jacob – in Dutch, which they understand just the same – tickle tummies, and put my mouth on bellies to make rude raspberry noises. Until recently the raspberry game was unknown in Honduras but it has soon risen to the status of the most popular play fight before bedtime, so I find myself blowing raspberries on twenty-two bodies a day, twice each, before my chores are over.

This is the bright side, but as in any picture, this one too has a dark facet. Eleven women work here by turns, an average five per day, and each of them is busy doing the laundry, cooking, do the beds, change diapers and so on.

No one, and that means really no one, has time to give these children a handful of love or attention and it is exactly that what is so badly needed for a bit of baby happiness. Katja has been volunteering eight hours a day for four months and I feel deep respect for her. This barely twenty year old, persevering girl toils on and on, whereas myself I am exhausted after two hours and blissfully happy when I leave the center. She, and for a short time we, are the only ones to play with them, lift them up, and caress them. Even the five year olds cannot speak or distinguish colors, have never held a pencil in their hands and don’t know what parental love is all about.

If there are parents, they are asked to volunteer and attend to their child but very few actually do so. Fathers are much too macho, mothers are too busy caring for their other twelve kids, can’t afford the quarter for the bus ride, or feel too ashamed about having given up their child, so in fact we only tend to orphans. There is no education, few games, too little of anything. No one has his own clothes, there is this big pile we randomly pick from. No one has his own bed, first come, first served. Not a single one of these children has something that truly belongs to him or her, not even a real mother.

Alfredo, five years old, is infatuated with me and clings to me from the moment I enter until I leave. He clasps his hands around my wrist and refuses to let go. Each day we practice to pronounce his name and we are now at Aaaaaaallllllll—-fffffrrrreeeeee. If he does well, I let him ride on my shoulders and I am sure he will soon say Alfredo as well as I do, because he’s a star so he’ll manage.

The center was built with a 100.000 $ (90.000 €) gift from an American church, a very large sum for this part of the world, and therefore one of the most sophisticated in the country. Unfortunately a 2.000 $ (1.800 €) monthly donation from a kind of mini foster-parents program lapsed only a week ago. Why? Because their board changed and the new directors have decided that from now on the donors have the right to nominally ‘adopt’ a child. The donated money then goes to that particular toddler.

Not every child will be ‘adopted’ and as a consequence some children will hardly eat from now on whereas others will be fed royally, up to five meals a day with caviar and get dressed in well branded clothes. Also, each month a photo would have to be taken and sent to the concerned ‘parents’, with a letter from ‘their’ child. These children are not even capable of pronouncing their own name, how can they ever write letters to unknown people in a foreign language? The people of our nutrition centre have relentlessly tried to explain that we cannot work like that, that every child deserves equal treatment and that we cannot possibly cook roast-beef for one and feed another dry rice, that there is neither time nor money to take photos and write letters.

Sometimes the problem with these donors is that they forget that the child does not know them, has not written the letter, does not even speak their language – nor even his own for that matter – and that due to this system, basic necessities are possibly withheld from other children.

Moreover, on the day the ‘parents’ decide to stop fostering, the child’s privileges will be withdrawn.

To help develop a community it is necessary to assist that community as a whole and not only a few individuals for a limited period of time and at an unaffordable cost to the rest of the group. As Ana rightly says, “it is like teaching a child fire safety drills, while leaving him to live in a fire trap”. In the long run a system like that is more likely to be harmful than beneficial. The nutrition centre and the new board could not agree on this subject and instead of giving in to their conditions in order to keep the flow of money going and enjoy the short term benefit, the centre has decided to leave the foster parent program and continue to treat all the children equally, while starting the search for new funds. I am so impressed with Ana’s capability to accept each situation the way it comes and to remain faithful to her convictions. As a newly involved beginner I am frustrated about this financial drain, Ana remains calm and trusts that a solution will be found.

Note: The nutrition center is not part of the Proniño project. It belongs to another charity program in El Progreso.

My landlord has left for Tegucigalpa, the capital, to spend the weekend, and his staff resolutely refuse to hand over the keys for my apartment, so I shall begin my Honduran adventure as a homeless drifter. Ana, the lady who takes care of me here, tries to put my mind at rest, proposing that I spend the night in her friends’ garden house but that doesn’t reassure me in the least. Well aware that the average housing here consists of a wooden framework topped with a corrugated tin roof, I can hardly imagine what a garden house is supposed to look like.

Evidently my jaw drops when we arrive in the outskirts of El Progreso, where I will spend my first night. A hasty honk is enough to open an impressive fencing, giving access to a large driveway, the end of which is occupied by a fat BMW, a large car of American make and a blinded four-wheel drive. A house-servant shows me in and I find myself in the home of an illustrious Palestinian family.

Many a Latin-American nation offered land to foreign families at the beginning of the past century, hoping in that way to find assistance in building a thriving economy. Lots of Germans and Italians ended up in Argentina, the Swiss were enticed to Brazil and the Japanese were charmed by the Peruvians. At the time, Honduras had placed it’s hopes in Palestinian Christians and today many children from Bethlehem and Jerusalem have grown up to be native Hondurans. Later I learn that eight of these families have developed into the true rulers of this country, consistently marrying the local leaders and securing a firm position through breeding within a closed circle. But when walking into this place behind the housemaid I wasn’t aware of that yet and I staggered from one stunning room into another. A room 20 by 30 feet, containing the biggest television I have ever seen, a sort of private cinema. Then I was led into another living area, better described as a ballroom. Chandeliers adorn the ceiling and while the air-conditioning is buzzing softly, Beethoven’s fifth is playing in this temple of acoustics. The European bourgeoisie’s refined Beethoven in this land of lunacy. A feeling of paradox takes possession of me.

In Europe I have seen a few mansions, but those are all reduced to tiny sheds in comparison to the castle I am wandering through right now. I have long ago stopped worrying about my garden house and indeed, it is twice the size of my own tiny home in France. It has a bathroom with a warm water shower, a rare luxury in these parts, a true garden house with air-conditioning, a sitting area, and I haven’t even entered yet when a charming young lady starts making up my bed.

Now I always feel kind of awkward when underpaid personnel works to the bone for me, so I sanctimoniously try to get hold of a slip of sheets to assist in the chore, but my action is not accepted with gratitude. This girl has a job and that is more than her friends can say. She does not intend to give it up to some guilty feeling white man and after a short struggle that I intentionally lose, I back off with a simulated look of dismay, until another young lady enters the room, bringing in a carafe of mineral water and a dish of fruits, in case the Mister develops a small appetite after his nightly pee.

When I open the folding doors of my ample garden house, I overlook a splendid swimming pool and I cannot refrain from asking Miranda, the owner of the premises, if she will perhaps allow me to test whether the water is the correct temperature. Two finger snaps suffice to make the water bathe magically in underwater lightning, floodlights play on the surrounding palm trees, the purification plant is turned on and Mister Wiersma may make use of the pool. Husband Juan comes by to check if everything is as it should be and casually mentions that he is some kind of Central-American king of tyres, master of the Honduran tyre monopoly. Besides that he is a close friend of the president and a “back-up” senator of another man, because contrary to my own quiet country, political murder is normal practice here, so each senator has a substitute. Nice job. Nevertheless it feels comfortable to know an influential person here in case I get into trouble. By the way, Juan and Miranda are not part of the eight rulers so I am curious to see how they live.

The next day Ricardo, my landlord, has come back from the capital and my apartment is like good things that come in small packages. By Honduran standards, it is a royal abode with a kitchenette, a bathroom – nope, no hot water – and a bedroom
Ricardo is a scion of this town’s founders and as such he belongs to the tiny and wealthy elite. After eight years of medical education in Miami, two years in Paris and a number of peregrinations throughout Europe, India and the USA, he has started a practice in his hometown of El Progreso.

Eagerly I jump at his invitation to a party he is throwing in that night for the Miami Herald editor, because I am looking forward to permeate further into this bizarre world of extravagant richness and gaining some contacts in this strange and far away place won’t do me any harm. It’s another fabulous house, smaller, but with a far more tasteful interior.

The editor, a former inhabitant of our little city, has done Ricardo a good turn and needs to be welcomed in befitting style, now that she is back in the homeland for a visit. All notables are present and as a cherry on the cake, the ex-president’s sister comes to pay her respects, accompanied by her son. He too is a decent guy and meanwhile I have spent a day with both mommy and sonny at the Caribbean beaches, the whole thing, with villa, tinted car windows and palm trees included!

Well, that is how I incidentally ran into the country’s wealthiest social echelons and I go about with more millionaires than I have ever met back in Europe. Part of the well-to-do do not seem to be particularly preoccupied with their poorer fellow countrymen’s fate, others though take responsibility and assist where they can. There are Jorge and Elizabeth Mealer, who decided on their own to set up a project to offer a dignified future to street children. Or what about Ana Tower, an American lady who seemingly ended up here accidentally and who guides me on my first steps in the convoluted universe of the volunteers. She governs an orphanage and a center for malnourished infants. When I asked her whether she would stay for a long time, the light in her eyes glowed brightly: ‘Bas, at the moment I drove into this town for the first time, I knew I was going to die here; I shall stay until the end because this is where I belong.’

In the next chapters, I will tell some tales of malnourished toddlers in a nutrition center, of Monchichis in an orphanage, who have never seen the insides of a cinema or a swimming pool and who have never tasted the sweet flavor of a mars bar, and of children wandering the streets, sniffing their lungs full of glue to hide the pains of their daily misery in the hazardous haze of drugs. The other extreme, which makes me regularly bite my lip to withhold the tears in front of the children, the suffering of which gnaws at me so violently that it makes me sick to the stomach some days. Fortunately some tears of ardent happiness as well, because all these fabulous small creatures overrun me with love and I feel quite privileged. That is why I send some love from poor Honduras to the rich West, which sometimes suffers from a severe lack of it.