Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:

“To be great is to be misunderstood”

Honduras is a great country and we are being misunderstood.

If you wish to understand our great country, you have to see us with a different set of eyes ,or to the degree of just going blind. Then you will see and feel the real Honduras. Yes, it is difficult, especially with all the media giving us bad press and stating how undemocratic and brutal the process has been. But, if you try harder, you will be able to see, how great we are and why: what happened, happened. It may take you so much effort, that you will give up, as a result the only way to fully understand what is happening, is to live Honduras [as "La Gringa from Ceiba" did].

We are not experienced as many countries of the world, especially in the topics of democratic and international affairs. The fact of the matter is, we’re still a young democratic state, but we are growing. As a result of our inexperience, [I guess] every four year we [the people of Honduras] make a mistake by electing individuals to mange our country. Many of these individuals are not the best for that job and is why they can only stay four years. As a result, we hope that we can move on from our mistake (and maybe by chance), find somebody mediocre enough to do a couple of good things and keep us floating. This way, “we can hold the fort” until we are enough to fight back and not depend on a government and foreign help. Enough to organically fix what many think is unfixable, with one eye to the present and another to the future, while starting to move forward. Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was one of those mistakes and he wanted to stay, indefinably and suck up the life out of our country and turn it into a narco state. All this, with the help of his homologous from Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

By 2006, we were almost on the right course, our debt was becoming less of a burden, inflation was stable and public expenses were controlled. Also, we had recovered from the banking crisis from some years ago, to put it simply: the future looked a bit brighter than usual. Fast forward to 2009 and we went back 10 years, congruent to the days after Hurricane Mitch. Not because of what happened on the mourning of the 28th of June, but because Zelaya refocused to stay in power indefinitely. In the process he was using any resource available of Honduras, to achieve his goal. In his change of focus, a transformation occured: from being a parasite (organism that takes resources from the host, without the host receiving nothing) to a parasitoid (same as parasite, but eventually kills the host in the process). Zelaya staying in power, will eventually mean: death to Honduras, as we know it and as democracy.

The treatment that Zelaya received was not the best and was more a result of panic and inexperience. I will not like to be treated that way, however I’m NOT Zelaya and Zelaya is not me: because every human being is unique. Still, we tend to mirror the actions of those that are around us, and Zelaya made ties with people, that also became parasitoids in their countries, thus becoming one himself. There is a saying in Spanish:

dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres

Translation: tell me who you hang out with and I will tell you who you are. Well, to see who Zelaya really is, just look around him.

Source: El Heraldo

Again, we are an inexperienced country in many political and international affairs, but we are not dumb. Eventually we had enough with Zelaya and yes we made some mistakes on how we handle the situation, but our intentions are good. We want to turn the ship and stop it from sinking. Even if the process is a bit messy and still make more mistakes, gives us time, because who else will do it? Everybody is already busy with their problems, that is why the international community and media is just talk (and talk is cheap). At the end of the day “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” and as you can see, Honduras is becoming stronger everyday, to the dislike of many.

Source: La Prensa

To the International Community  and the Media.

Leaders of the International Community, that condemn the actions toward Zelaya and don’t accept the current government as valid.

Has your country has never made a mistake, even when others warn you? Remember the days when you where scrutinized, for every word and action by the international community? Or remember when you felt alone and misunderstood?

To the media, that only shows sensationalist images ad ask “Why” to everything, instead researching: WHY this really happened. So, now I ask:

WHY your interest is to criticize and sell, when your duty is to inform? WHY don’t you stop pointing and screaming, and start listening to what we have say? Why mold the news to your advantage? Why don’t you look with other eyes, instead of judging us?

As the bible says: “Let he without sin, throw the first rock”

A demand

We are inexperienced, we made mistakes and that is why we need and demand more time. We ask for the same treatment you will like and had, when in a crisis. We are misunderstood because we did something unusual. We figured out that the real face of democracy is not in a figure called president, is not in a book called the constitution full of blind spots, or neither in the “leader of the free world”. The real face of democracy is when the majority of a country come together to have one voice.

and we just have spoken, please listen.

In Tegucigalpa (Honduras) you will find individuals in the stop lights try to make a living by selling you some sort of product or service. In other occasions you will find kids asking for one Lempira* or any kind help. Its common to find kids offering to clean your windshield in exchange for some change.

Couple of weeks ago  some teens where doing some tricks with fire and other kids where cleaning the windshields. One of the last ones offered his services and gave him “one lempira” and told him the front was clean. He responded that he will clean the back and I told him not to worry. The interesting part was that he insisted to clean the back window, even when traffic advanced and stop 30 meters from the starting point. So, I agreed and proudly he clean the back.

What made this event stick to my head and ponder on the convection of the kid to not receive money for free, but do some work in exchange. In contrast when you buy a service or product from companies today, they tend to not be so eager to make your money worth. Once they see the money, they just relax while the customer stress up because its not receiving what it paid for.

More interesting is that a kid in the streets thought  me two things: something about business and that everybody has something to teach you.

*Lempira is the currency of Honduras

Currently I’m looking to buy a new laptop, the one I have right now works fine, the challenge is that is 17 inch. It’s becoming a hassle to carry it from one place to another, especially when studying a master abroad. In Honduras you will find many places where you can buy a new laptop, especially if its a DELL (I want a XPS m1330). I’ve been looking for places where to buy one with the specs I desire and it has been tough, especially because I want a video card and LED screen with mine. But this is not a post about a laptop, instead is of a remark:

“Honduras is the only place in the world (not sure but it feels like) where the customer has to chace the seller and not the other way around”

Customer service here sucks, and companies and business that provide a good one, tend to be successful. People say they will call you, send you an email with the price, availability, etc. but they never do. It reminds me of “games” some girls like to play here and even some guys. If you think about it, this is a cultural thing, your word here its worth nothing. Thinking more about it, I feel sad, knowing that people who run this country lack commitment to their word or don’t think before they speak out or promise stuff. And trust me, its so easy to get caught up in this “habit” of Chasing people around that should be chasing you around, its easy to just make our word, our promises… worthless. Why? Well somebody said once (can’t find the author):

“the person makes the habit, then the habit makes the person”

This is a nice presentation (and point of view) on how to make (and run) profitable business. The nice thing is that it goes “retro” where gives arguments on that the revenue model of putting a price on a product/service, still works and that its really better that trying to be the next youtube, facebook, etc.

The reason I find it so interesting is because in Honduras, that is the way you start business and run them. You don’t look for VC money, go on the web and offer things free or go IPO. What is really done is start it with your own capital or take a loan and work [hard]. And those who do this are doing OK, the challenge that the middle class (which have the minimum resources to start a business) is very thin.

Small business are the fuel of a country economy and when this is not big enough the countries economy suffers and becomes very fragile and sensitive to world events and shifts. At the end of the day that is why David Heinemeier Hansson stats, is the best thing to do, especially for third world countries. The big challenge (again) is having enough people with enough resources to do so.

Note: I’m not stating that Honduras problems and third world status are a result of the middle class disappearing or being to small, although this a more complicated matter, still I think that middle class is the reflection of that overall status of a country.

Honduras is a very entrepreneurial country. People have to be that way if they want to survive. In the streets we will sell you everything, from cell phone and car accessories, to cell phone prepaid cards, entertainment (people playing with fire or doing tricks with a mice), those DVDs of movies that are still in the theaters. Stores will open (and close when failing) at malls and any place possible. Food it’s another common way to get an income or make a living. Tacos, “carnitas”, “baleadas”, everything will be sold, especially when clubs close for the night.

In High tech or ICT, there isn’t much going on. Yes we have programmers, web developer and designers doing from web pages and portals to accounting programs. But most of the it people are hired and don’t have the time or energy to start a veture on the side. Also any company works locally and nothing will spill over to the world as facebook, skype, and many other ventures had done. You will not find  vetures worth millions, especially when market is so small; our Internet penetrations is close to 5% (of 7.5 million).

So I was very happy when a friend showed me this post in CNET, about a social site call TuBabel. Tubabel is a social dictionary of “slang words” in Spanish. You see, Spanish unlike English has a lot of “slang” words in every country that is spoken. So it may be hard for a Mexican to understand a Colombian or a Argentinean to understand a Honduran. We just express ourselves in such a unique way, that yes we speak Spanish but our cultures are so unique that we transmit that through our language.

Honduras has its web 2.0 company generating some buzz and that is catracho cool.