Hunger and its causes

Melon meditation: A visit to southern Honduras

by Marion Meyer

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras
Imagine the greenest field you have ever seen. If it is a melon field so much the better.

Now imagine the driest looking hills you have ever seen.

Surround the field with the hills.

Let's go for a walk, you and I, down the dusty, sand road that flanks this field and many more like it.

See the people in this field, the women weeding and the men working without shirts because of the heat. Watch the men as they spray insecticide without protective gear. They look tired. No wonder: Many of them got up at 4 this morning to be carted in company trucks for the three-hour ride to work.

We pass the packing plant and see that familiar logo of the blue circular sticker with the yellow drawing of a woman. We see that red circle with the sun, too, that comes on cans of pineapple.

There is no shade and we have been walking in the hot, prickly sun for an hour now. It is so hot that our sweat does not have time to bead on our skin before it evaporates. We cross what looks like it should be a river, but it is dry, dry, dry.

Finally we get to our destination. Salomé greets us and offers us a drink, which we gratefully accept. Then his wife gives us lunch accompanied by a stack of tortillas which it would take us gringos a week to eat! All the neighbours, children and adults alike, have gathered round; it is rare that a "chele" (fair-skinned, blonde-haired person) comes to visit their settlement.

We talk with Jose, a 16-year-old. He is planning to go to the United States illegally to try to work.

"What hope is there for me here?" he asks. "We have lost two harvests running. There is no work for me. I do not want to work in the melon fields. I saw a man die in minutes once when a canister of pesticide accidentally opened. I know that it is risky to go to the U.S. without papers but rather that than be paid almost nothing for doing a job that can kill me anyway."

Another farmer, Nelson, says to us, "All we want to do is farm our land. It is not much, but we have always harvested something. Our little corn and our little beans feed our families for the year. You should see our 'milpas' (fields), though. The dried-out plants that yielded nothing are still there. We have seen drought before, and we have always had to be creative when it comes to water. This year the stream and our wells have dried up earlier than ever.

"It is true that there are fewer trees than before, and this probably increases how frequent the droughts are. We blame the cattle farmers for that. Our wells are dry, though, because of those melon farmers. They are damming up the rivers and keeping all the water for themselves. And to think that most of those melons aren't even eaten in Honduras!"

We walk to those fields, you and I. We cross more dry river beds. We see the dry stalks of corn and sorghum, the shriveled beans.

If we are to get back to where we came from before the day draws to a close we should leave now. We make a few jokes, say our good-byes and promise that we will return.

Our conversation on the journey home is filled with admiration for the people we've met. It is also filled with worry for José and others like him. We ask many questions of ourselves. Is it enough to give these people "something to eat"? Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-46 that we offering food to the poor is a way of serving him, and that we will be rewarded for that.

If we support this community in its strategies to find water, will that be a sustainable solution? What about the plummeting water table because of deforestation, export cattle farming, El Niño and the actions of melon multi-nationals?

We discuss what it means to "do away with the yoke of oppression," which is called a "true fast" in Isaiah 58. Should we encourage the Honduran government to legislate access-to-water rights? Or should we encourage a boycott of imported melons among MCC supporters in the United States and Canada? How do we "act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God" in southern Honduras?

Author note: Marion Meyer is Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) emergency response coordinator in Central America and Mexico. She writes: "This meditation, the dialogue and the questions about the roles of MCC worker have grown out of various trips to the southern zone of Honduras, which is in the throes of severe drought. It is a conglomeration of sights, stories and conversations with peasant farmers and their families."