Hot and hotter! Home sweet home

This will be a short posting, with a few items I'd meant to include last time when Blogspot just stopped. So go back to the previous posting for the full report of my June Honduras farewell trip, as well as a review of other trips to Honduras. 

Sunday July 21, 2024, was reportedly the hottest day overall ever recorded on planet earth, then on July 22, it was hotter still!  

• The weather right here in Washington, DC, has also been breaking records. Previous July temperatures usually have ranged between 69°F and 89°F. But on July 14, the thermometer registered a high of 101°F, then 102 on July 15, then 104 on July 16! and 101 again on July 17. Around here, we all were sweating, almost melting, just sipping on cold drinks while sitting close to an electric fan with a wet washcloth on our head. Even A/C was not enough. When our local temperature rose to 104° F, that was probably the hottest day I've ever experienced here in DC, and it was also very humid. And after a brief respite, it looks like hot and humid is coming back again. I should have stayed in Honduras! 
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• Sometimes I imagine the lives and personal histories of my DC neighbors as being calmer and more conventional than my own, though that may not actually be the case. Beyond our polite greetings and chitchat, we really don't know each other intimately. Like me, others may have undergone unusual and dramatic life experiences. Folks who don't know me well may just regard me as your average middle class American lady of a certain age, unaware of my back story and current worldwide connections. Likewise, if I knew my neighbors better, I might learn some surprising things about them. I suspect that some folks write novels to avoid publicly revealing all they have witnessed and experienced. As for me, I've made humanitarian missions to some 39 countries by myself, never as just a tourist, and have also written a couple of books about my experiences, but, of course, that's not the whole story.
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• Here I was out with friends who used to live here, now just back visiting.

This message came in from a friend in Bhutan:

Hi aunty,

 We are good, my kids are doing well, today was the results day in school for my youngest daughter, she is in 10th grade. On the way did groceries shopping and now reached home. My eldest daughter is in Australia doing her master in nursing. My middle son is in hostel, he is little addicted on home so couldn’t handle at home. 

It’s a sunny day in Thimphu.

Nice to hear from u aunty

I just sent this message to someone in Honduras, referring to Xiomara Castro, the woman president of Honduras, once hailed by Kamala Harris on a visit there, whose husband, a former president, actually calls the shots. My message was "Con Nicaragua y Cuba, veo que Xiomara apoya la 'victoria' electoral de Maduro en Venezuela." (Along with Nicaragua and Cuba, I see that Xiomara supports Maduro's electoral "victory" in Venezuela.)  My friend immediately replied, "Lastimosamente asi es, no sabemos que nos espera con esta señora, es muy autoritaria y claramente se ve que quiere seguir los pasos de Maduro."  (Unfortunately that's the case; we don't know what to expect from that woman, she is so authoritarian and clearly wants to follow Maduro's lead.) 

• Like so many other Americans, yes, I'd voted for Joe Biden in our last election and would have done so again if he had remained on the presidential ballot. But I'm very glad he dropped out as he definitely has been slipping lately and was facing a likely Trump election victory. Still, it must have been a pretty tough call for Biden, as politics has been his lifelong ambition and occupation. 

Joe Biden has never been a brilliant orator. In his farewell speech about why he is retiring, he slurred or mumbled some words even when reading from a teleprompter. At 86, only a few years older, I myself reluctantly gave up my late life career as a Spanish interpreter at the start of the pandemic, so can empathize with how hard it must have been for Biden to give up the presidency. Sometimes we still have the will to go on, but not the stamina or actual ability to do so.

No doubt wife Jill's sage advice influenced Biden's final decision. If he had gone ahead with his reelection bid and lost--a near certainty--his legacy would have been tarnished and he would have taken other Democrats down with him. And he might not even have survived 4 more years in office, having already passed the US average male life expectancy. Now with Kamala Harris reinvigorating the Democratic party and stirring renewed excitement, Democrats have a fighting chance against Donald Trump and other Republicans. "You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?" a remark attributed to Harris's late mother, has been trending now, becoming a campaign meme, although Harris has yet to secure the nomination. Still, she got over one million TikTok followers in just 6 hours. 

Trump is furious over this sudden turn of events, even eclipsing the attack that injured his ear. Now he is the old guy. 

Among photos about my own life's journey that simply refused to post last time is this next one. In Coral Gables for a book reading of my Confessions book, I was flanked there by 3 former Cuban political prisoners, all featured in that book, left to right, Jorge Valls, Basilio Guzmán, and Ernesto Díaz. Only Ernesto is still with us.  

Here's an even earlier photo of me with Cuban born friend Jose Varela at an art exhibit displaying some of his own works. I look annoyed, maybe about having my picture taken.

In June of this year, 2024, I gave a substantial US cash dollar donation to the Honduran Red Cross. The  entire staff had gathered around to cheer.

Here we were back in 2022, when I'd made a similar gift.

Again in June 2024, photos were taken at the Red Cross --but whatever happened this time when I handed over the envelope of cash?

Other photos that had refused posting last time included the following from June 2024 when

I spent a day in Choluteca with a sister of my friend Dr. Lesly Castro, who is now living and working as a physician assistant in NH.

 In 2024, I also visited the Choluteca outdoor market shop where 2 of Lesly's sisters were on duty.

Here I was again in Choluteca in June 2024 with a sister's 2 children.

Traveling around Honduras without a cell phone in 2024 was quite challenging, much more so than being without a cell phone here at home where I'm not moving from place to place and still have a landline and a computer. Yet that particular challenge led to some interesting experiences in Honduras, including during my unexpected stay at the Palmerola Hotel where I made friends with the staff and had to contend with a broken pipe leaking water all over the floor of my room. The daytime desk clerk, an attractive and personable lady, confided that now, at age 30, she was resigned to never marrying or even having a boyfriend, as Honduran women are so abundant and men so scarce, especially unattached men her age or older. 

The current fertility rate in Honduras is 2.01 children per woman, barely enough to maintain a steady population. In the past, it has been much higher. During my own lifetime, the Honduran population has surged exponentially from 1.5 million in 1950 to over 10 million today. 

At birth, the Honduran gender ratio is similar to that seen everywhere, 1.03 males for every female. But today in the population as a whole, there are only .95 males for every female. 

Slightly more males than females are born worldwide, but as their ages progress, women begin to predominate, as men die earlier from natural causes, accidents, and war. However, in China and India until recently, the deliberate aborting of female fetuses or the practice of female infanticide favored the survival of more male infants. 

As elsewhere, a slightly higher ratio of male to female births occurs naturally here in the US. That is,105 or 106 boys are born for every 100 girls. However, over time, females tend increasingly to predominate, so that by age 80 here in the US, there are only 6 males for every 10 females and by age 100, only one male for every 3 females. Older men who lose a woman partner usually find themselves becoming quite popular among single ladies. 

Although birthrates have been falling worldwide, a "child-free" life is not yet trending in Honduras or in other parts of Latin America, though still being adopted here in the US, also in parts of Europe. Yet without any more babies and children of either gender--a developmental stage we all necessarily went through--there would simply be no more people. Maintaining a steady national population would require American women to have an average of 2.1 children (allowing for minimal losses). But the de facto limit for many US women, if they have any children at all, is often simply 2. With 2, they feel they've done their duty to provide their first child with a sibling. Now via birth control or sterilization, they can stick to that limit without limiting sex, something never before possible. And many others have only one child or none. In 2023, the US birthrate dipped to its lowest point in decades, rebounding somewhat since, though not enough to make up for a continuing infant shortfall. The obvious alternative for the USA (and Europe) would be to welcome more immigrants, but how to do that without incentivizing even more remains a challenge.

Israel's Netanyahu visited DC recently, being accorded a rather lukewarm welcome, although he is still receiving US aid and still authorizing the killing of Palestinian civilians, including children. He simply dismisses those deaths as "collateral damage," arguing that militants hide among civilians. Militants are not actually hiding, as resistance to Israel and aspirations for a Palestinian state permeate all levels of Palestinian society. Israel seems to be trying to kill those aspirations once and for all by simply wiping out every Palestinian, regardless of age. Isn't that genocide? Should the US still be funding that effort? Readers already know my answer.

Over the years, the raw grief I first experienced right after my older son Andrew's untimely death, exacerbated by the subsequent death of Cuban foster son Alex, has become somewhat less acute. I no longer cry every day. I am now able to remember both of them quite fondly and to appreciate the time we had together. But not being the norm and quite contrary to usual parental expectations, it is still very hard for me to have lost them both so young, long before either had had a chance to experience a fulfilling personal life. I even feel that losing my brother, just one year younger, was not quite right, although he was 80 when he died. We readily accept our parents' deaths but don't expect younger people to go before us.