Adan and Ethel were my gallant hosts and intrepid guides on my visit to Intibucá. They constitute the small but stalwart Adelante office in La Esperanza. Both were exceptionally friendly and eager to help. They are also both soft-spoken and kind, and yet confident, effusive, and gregarious when working with clients of Adelante at the Asambleas. The two were strangers before they began working with Adelante, but now they seem to be close friends. They obviously get along really well, and enjoy working together and helping each other out. They seemed to share some silent understanding, and worked fluidly and amiably together.
Adan is originally from a town called Camasca, which, he tells me with a slightly impish grin, is the prettiest town in the region. Camasca is about two hours from La Esperanza, and he travels home most weekends to visit his family. He’s the youngest in a family of six children – three boys and three girls.
Adan has big dimples and a shy smile – one he tends to tuck away with the tilt of his head when a smile
surprises him. He told me he started working for the Fundación Adelante back in May 2006. Unfortunately, a year later his mother fell ill. He left Adelante to move back home, so he could help his family through her illness. Happily, within the year, his mother’s health improved.
He told me that he had been disappointed to leave Adelante, and kept in touch with the friends he had made in the organization. A year later, he heard through one of those friends – Oscar, now Director of Operations, another Adelante superstar I’ll have to blog about later – that a spot had opened up for a credit officer in La Esperanza. Adan applied, and in March of this year, he was once again working for Fundación Adelante.
Ethel is originally from La Paz – the department that borders Intibucá (Adelante has some Asambleas in that department that are Adan’s responsibility). She moved with her family to La Esperanza seven years ago; her dad had been working in La Esperanza for a few years, and the family moved to join him.
Nowadays, her dad works for a small bank that gives loans in rural areas. I smiled when she told me that: it looks like Ethel is not the only one in the family working in rural finance!
Last year a friend told her about Fundación Adelante, and that they were looking for a credit officer. She applied for the job, and in September 2007 she started work. She went to La Ceiba for two weeks for training (Adan trained in Tocoa – a town east of Ceiba – for two months). It was her first time in Ceiba, and although the training was helpful and interesting, she didn’t like the big city. She adjusted a bit more the second week, but was happy to return to the verdant, cool hills and calmer streets of Intibucá.
Ethel lives in La Esperanza with her family; her parents, three of her siblings, and Ethel’s two children – a seven year old girl, and a three year old boy – all share the house. She has another sister who lives with her husband beside the Adelante office.
The Adelante office in La Esperanza is one small room on one of the town’s dirt streets, near the centre. Inside, there are a couple desks, a computer, and some filing cabinets.
Adan and Ethel don’t spend much time in the little Adelante office; most days are spent out on their motorbikes, climbing the hills and valleys of Intibucá, to visit Asambleas and participants.
They both told me they really enjoyed their work. Adan said he likes giving fair credit to the women of Intibucá and La Paz, as well as facilitating training opportunities. He believes that you can facilitate greater, more profound change by changing people’s attitudes, rather than constructing a building, or providing some project.
One of the aspects that Ethel most enjoys about the job is learning from the women that they work with. She said she has learned a lot from these women; they’ve shown her determination and responsibility, hard work and discipline.
Ethel laughed openly when she told me another thing she has enjoyed about the job: learning to drive a motorbike. Adan taught her (after some previous failed lessons with other friends), and now she is a confident and proud moto driver! Driving on these steep gravel roads on a bike is not easy, even more so with the added weight and balance-shift that comes with a passenger, but Ethel drove me to Asamblea meetings with the ease of someone who has been driving for years.
Visiting Intibucá – with its beautiful surroundings, friendly people, and cooler climate – is a pleasure, and Adan and Ethel make the trip even more enjoyable.
