Work update

Hey everyone,
Things here are progressing, I am not sure if the progression of things will lead to any tangible results, but they are progressing…and that is a good thing.

We recently took a trip with an hombre from a NGO called Vecinos Mundiales (World Neighbors) that works here in Honduras. We made this contact earlier on a trip with another guy from Vecinos, I think we blogged about that trip already. Anyhow, it seemed to be a quite successful trip, and we have tentatively planned to stay around 5-7 days a month in the community we visited working on a number of things from beginning to start to think about the potential of a water system, and working with some agricultural producers to giving talks at the schools about self esteem and things of that nature. Vecinos seems excited to have Annie available to work in the health sector as they do not have a health worker in the zone right now, but are doing a lot of health education there.

We left on Monday at about 2:30 and after 3 river crossings on a dirt road big enough for one vehicle and 3 hours in a pickup (I was in the back covered by a tarp to keep dry while Annie was crammed into the single cab with 2 workers from Vecinos) we arrived at the community. It is pretty high up in the mountains, 1,300 meters, and was actually pretty chilly, although to us 75 F is chilly. We talked with some people and found a place to stay. Vecinos is building an office and once it is finished hopefully we can stay there when we are working in the community. Right now they’re using a part of a family’s house as their office where have several desks and a couple of cots to sleep on when they’re in town. We stayed at the house of the lady who makes food for the Vecinos employees while they’re there. The food is “típico” but excellent – rice, beans, cheese, tortillas, eggs, fried plantains, and of course sugared coffee.

The zone is dominated by coffee production and is pretty rough, steep, wet country. Deforestation is taking its toll, but fortunately hasn’t yet left the place an eroded desert. There are 2 small communities that don’t have potable water systems and I am going to attempt to find out how much interest there is in these 2 communities to build a system. I am looking forward to the opportunity to work there as the communities right now don’t have anyone working with them on the water system so I will get to start from almost the beginning and ‘si Dios quiere’ in 2 years some progress will be made towards a potable water system, and maybe they will even have a functioning system. The barriers at this point to the communities getting a functioning system seem almost endless, but you have to start somewhere.

The place we stayed was nice. The outdoor showers in the morning were a little chilly with no hot water (Annie says she could see her breathe while she was showering). When we go to the campo people are usually very hospitable and this time they even moved stuff around so we could have the “master” bedroom. Mostly because they thought I was too gigantic to fit on any of their smaller beds. It is very nice of them to go so far out of there way for us, but sometimes it just makes me feel like more of an intruder…I really can sleep wherever (please no rats if possible)…and I get the feeling that since we’re gringos they think we’re pretty soft. And in comparison we are pretty soft, but I would appreciate a chance to prove that I am not a total pansy ass and can sleep on the floor just fine.

I will try and post a blog sometime soon on all of the things that starting these waters project is going to entail…….once I figure out what that is.

So things are going well for us here, thanks to all who have kept in touch and kept us in your thoughts and prayers.

Hasta luego,
Luke


A couple of additions to the campo trip that Luke blogged about. On Monday night when we got there, the sun quickly set (the sun still sets here around 6 pm…Honduras didn’t do Daylight Savings Time) and the temperature quickly dropped. I was chilly the entire time we were in the campo except for during the day from 9 to 5. The first night it started to rain during dinner and kept raining hard all night. I was convinced that the whole mountain was going to slide away, taking us and the house with it. Luke told me not to worry but in the morning told me that he too worries about mudslides even though he knows it would takes days of hard rain to wet the earth deep enough to make a mountain slide away. Anyway, I woke up the next morning knowing I would have to take a cold shower outdoors while the rain continued to poor down. Sure is a good way to wake up! To give you an idea of how “cold” it is…I was wearing my jeans, boots with socks, a long sleeve shirt and my rain jacket and was wishing I had a sweatshirt and a stocking cap. It’s supposedly “winter” here now that the rains of started but even with the rains it hasn’t been exactly chilly in Danlí so the fresco of the mountains surprised me.

Luke and I both complained about the sugared coffee when we first got to Honduras but now we both enjoy it when we’re in the campo. It seems to fit with the “plato típico” and gives you a bit of something sweet that you otherwise wouldn’t get.

Quick update on the “house hunt:” WE FOUND A HOUSE! Some of you have heard our good news by email but to let everyone know, it’s official! We signed the contract today (Sunday) and paid the first month’s rent. It’s a really nice house only 2 houses down the street from where we live now. We’re happy with the neighborhood (only a few blocks from the main plaza and plenty of neighbors that will “watch our for us”) and even happier with the house. We’ll have a bit of a yard and an 8 foot wall that gives us complete privacy! Now the task of finding furniture and other household items. We have to buy everything from a fridge to a bed to kitchen utensils and a couch. Bit by bit. We may be sleeping on “colchones” (small mattresses you put on the floor) and sitting on plastic furniture for awhile. But I’m not complaining…we have a house! We hope to be moving into it at the end of this week. -Annie