A Faculty Development Experience that was...Life Changing

Let’s face it, faculty development jaunts can be invigorating, engaging and professionally developmental…or not. At my academic peak, interviewing Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and New York Times editor Frank Rich were cause for celebration and back-patting, but those were the exceptions. But Honduras?

Big hit out of the ball park!

Since 2010, I have grown arabica coffee plants from seeds I possibly (illegally) sneaked into my backpack, accidentally…or maybe on purpose?! I somehow replaced French-roasted aromatic roasted coffee beans - purchased in a small, quart-size touristy burlap bag in Honduras, with parchment...green coffee seed ready to plant. But customs never even looked in my carry on.

Before long, over two hundred seed quickly germinated into tropical coffee plants which, over a ten year period, grew to over eight feet tall requiring a double-wide, trailer-sized green house here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia.

CNN, CBS, Atlanta Magazine, Telemundo, and Univision and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles later confirmed success: the seemingly impossible notion of a mini-coffee plantation in Georgia can in fact flourish, if nursed properly, and can produce a lot of Central American café, as it’s known in Spanish. But then, this story is not about growing coffee here in the United States, but it was my initial exposure to Santa Rosa, Honduras. This story is about my unlikely Young Harris College faculty development experience and these young guys…

Eduardo, Carlo, Jesus, Bryan, and a second Eduardo and what they taught me about professional faculty development ideas and concepts. And that is truly captivating.

That handsome young man, or el Guapo, as one says in Spanish, on the title graphic above is Eduardo Jorge Alfaro. Eduardo met me after he dropped out of school because he could not see to read his books or even the caulk board in front of the classroom. He is both near and far-sighted. But the deciding factor came during his first days of high school in Santa Rosa, Honduras when he realized that having 21 decayed teeth limited his social relationships. So, why bother with something like school? After all, he’d been offered a full-time job working in coffee fields near his home, stripping coffee cherries from plants ready for harvest. The 10 hours of daily work left Eduardo with bloody fingers and hands that never had time to heal. Of course, the $1 per hour he earned gave him more money than he’d ever made before, fifty or sixty US dollars a week. That was amazing to Eduardo. At the end of January 2020, after a bout of COVID-19 that knocked him off his feet, and out of work the final weeks of harvest, we met. His hands looked like a man of fifty who’d spent a lifetime in the fields. It is a gruesome occupation, and sadly, tens of thousands of young people 12-22 years old, as well as ninety-year-old Hondurans do the work two or three months every year, often for life.

My faculty development grant was to send me to the Mayan Ruins, near Santa Rosa, March 2020. I was to meet with family coffee growers from Copan at a conference center literally across the street from the Ruins and discuss ways to generate education dollars (lempiras) to help find a method to bring middle and high school education to children 12 and older who might live 2 to 4 hours away from any school.

It was a chance meeting of Eduardo and me, thanks to some local youth volleyball players (in photo above) who had been searching for a sponsor for their nationally ranked youth volleyball team. Carlo and Jesus, team leaders told me about Eduardo, whom they had known since they were all about 10 years old. They said Eduardo was very smart and kind, but had been bullied by many of their friends. Eduardo told me he wanted to attend high school, but he could not see very well. He wanted to apply for a job with a veterinarian, but was afraid his eyesight issue might limit his ability to obtain the job. Jesus agreed to tell Eduardo’s story on the internet via a short slide show, and we began by thinking "What If?", as a possible Go Fund Me video. After I returned home, Jesus emailed me the photography, and my students at Young Harris College learned of Eduardo’s story, as well.

They agreed to watch several possible ideas using the photography and suggested an idea that might move people to help Eduardo. We added sound, captions, and a poignant message. The video was uploaded, and within days, the Go Fund Me video had raised over $1,000 US dollars, enough to get Eduardo an eye exam, purchase new glasses (Progressive brand for his complex eye issue) and enough money to repair 3 teeth a month until all 21 teeth were good as new. He got the job working for the veterinarian immediately after receiving his new glasses. And after the front (upper and lower) teeth were repaired by a dentist, he was back in school. It has been almost a year since the last teeth were repaired and Eduardo has now been in school and made up two full years he missed. He should graduate in December 2023, or soon after.     

German professional sailor Johannes Erdmann, a friend of mine since he became the first German teenager to sail alone in a small sailboat from Northern Germany to the United States/North America, recently purchased Eduardo a new smart phone. Friends of Young Harris College have bought Eduardo a new Dell Computer, and a veterinarian from Gainesville, Georgia - Dr. Fred Ingles, read about Eduardo’s story on-line and began the quest to get the youngster a new motorcycle, necessary in a culture where many families have only a bicycle…or feet for transportation - but live far away from town.

“I am going to make it. I never thought I would, honestly. I can speak and write English now and I am grateful to people from Young Harris College. Maybe I will play soccer there, when I graduate next year. My life has changed greatly. And my hands have healed.” 

Eduardo Alfaro

Carlo, Jesus and Bryan just graduated from high school and all are in their first year of university, which is free to any student who can get accepted: a lesson on economics we in America should learn.

During that first Faculty Development trip to Santa Rosa, when COVID-19 shut down the community gymnasium so it could be used as a COVID treatment center, Jesus Munoz told me about his own dream to own a sidewalk pizza kiosk. He wanted sell pizza and donuts in a nearby town (Gracias, Honduras) which had no pizza or donut shops. His idea was to use pizza purchased from Pizza Hut and donuts from ‘Dunkin Donuts located in the center of Santa Rosa. His idea was to design a welded, professional kiosk fully loaded with everything: refrigerator for drinks, heated glass pizza displays, professional donut cases, and super HD photography he would photograph himself. His dream came true on my second Faculty Development visit a year ago, once COVID-19 was in the past. His dream of using the profits from Pizza House Kiosk in Gracias, Honduras to pay for university has now materialized.

And Carlo? Carlo was abandoned in Santa Rosa at age 10, by parents who simply packed up and left town, leaving him alone on the streets. Carlo flourished, but not before eating most meals from garbage cans, for years, located behind the many restaurants in Santa Rosa…and sleeping in alley ways. On his own, Carlo stayed in school keeping his miserable life a secret, except from his friend Jesus Munoz who knew the ongoing story. Last year, as a senior, Carlo Urrutia was elected President of the Student Body at Santo Domingo High School. His goals that year? Plant fruit trees around the campus so students with little resources could pick fresh fruit when they came to school hungry. He also helped save a teacher’s 16-year-old son, who was dying from a ruptured appendix; the town surgeon and hospital would not operate and/or treat the boy without full payment in advance: $3000 USD. Carlo single-handedly walked the streets until he raised every penny and the youngster's life was saved. Carlo, a chemistry student who excelled in Central American high school competitions, is a freshman at one of the local universities. Young Harris College friends have recently bought Carlo a 2008 Ford Focus, an unheard of extravagance for a nineteen-year-old, unless you were brought up on the streets in Honduras and know how to work miracles for others. In that case, someone just walks up to you one day with keys and says, "Need a car?"

 My third Faculty Development experience to Honduras is May 2023. I can’t wait to see what these youthful educators teach me in my latest travel there. It is amazing to be enlightened and to learn what I do not know - every time I see them.

Journalist Richard D. Stafford, Ph.D. Young Harris College. Additional Photos and Eduardo Alfaro's Letter in English to Dr. Fred Ingles: