Today we took the bus 30 minutes into the mountains to Nueva San Ysidro, the community where we'll be working for the next week. I was only here for one day last time, and I didn't get to learn that much about the village. This time, I got to hear the introduction given to the group by the community's leader, Cristiano.There are 27 families and about 115 people, all Maya-Chorti. Like most other indigenous groups in Honduras, they used to work on other people's land, living in abject poverty and ignored by the government. In the late 90s, these families got together and decided to try and get their own land to live and work on. Under the Honduran Constitution, indigenous groups have certain land ownership rights, and that's how this group was able to found Nueva San Ysidro. It took them awhile, though, because the government tends to be reluctant about this kind of stuff. And, old land owners tend to actively oppose land reclamation projects. Three of the leaders of Nueva San Ysidro were targeted to be killed by their old employers, who didn't want them to own their own land. Today, the community owns all of the land they farm and live on.
See past posts ("Another village", "Soap box sidebar", "More village pics") for more photos and text from Nueva San Ysidro.
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