La Violencia

This may or may not come as a shock to some of you, but Honduras can be a dangerous place. Check out the following stats that we received in an email today:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) world average is 8.8 deaths due to violence per 100,000 habitants.
The American continent average is 19.3 per 100,000 habitants. (stats from 2000)This first semester Honduras registered 23.1 deaths per 100, 000 habitants or 8.4 every day (a person dies every 3 hours due to violence in Honduras)
A projection from this study indicates that if current criminal tendencies continue, Honduras may have 46 deaths for every 100,000 habitants at the end of the year.
As a comparison (I could be wrong about this figure) but if I recall correct, Washington DC, has the heights crime rate in the USA, which is 11 deaths per 100 thousand habitants.

Like most areas of the world that are undergoing development, Honduras is experiencing a rapid urbanization process. People leave the countryside in search of work in the city, but lack the basic means to support themselves as the search for work in this highly competitive environment. This naturally leads to the creation of slums, and a rise in crime as people try to satisfy their needs and wants. Sadly, this has recently taken the form of gangs, which informal speculation in Honduras has reported as somewhere between six and ten times larger than the police force in terms of members. As a result, Honduras has two of the top five most dangerous cities in Central America.


Now before the greater Western Wisconsin/ Minneapolis Metro area comes down here with wedges of cheese and hockey sticks to protect us, allow me to qualify these statistics and information. These violent crimes are found predominantly in the cities, predominantly at night, and usually in areas that we have never seen due to their reputations. Random violence does happen, but we have been pretty lucky to have had only one minor incident thus far, involving a knife fight between a guy driving our taxi and some random guy. Living in a rural city insulates us greatly from these problems, as well as common sense when we are going into the city for business or pleasure. We fortunately have the options to avoid these areas if we choose, but there are many people who don’t have that choice and it sadly becomes their reality. Despite the many problems facing this country, the lack of security in Honduras is perhaps the biggest obstacle that they face in terms of reaching their goal of being a safe and productive society.

This is just another example in a long list of reasons that I´m starting to appreciate the United States more in terms of a place to live and grow up. I still feel that our culture can be obnoxious and trite, our public can be uninterested and passive to issues that affect their lives, our chosen leaders can be disconnected to realities and centered in self interest. But we have basic security, a positive outlook towards the future and the unknown, relative equality and opportunity, and the ever present appreciation of creativity and ingenuity. There is still some allure left in the American Dream.